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[mambadragon]

My personal experience with modern game design with games like Bioshock Infinite, Halo 4, Last of Us, Metro LL, and many others is that the intended guided experience by the developors becomes an exercise of "I think the developor intends for me to do this...?" This leads to guessed trial and error on the part of the player. Games like the original Deus Ex encouraged finding one of multiple solutions to solve the problem, where modern games want us to figue out the single solution the designer has set forth to advance the story/plot.

I don't understand why modern games try so hard to funnel a player down the single "win" condition rather than providing multiple options for success. I would think as technology advanced, the number of possible solutions for the player would drastically increase... but instead it has just led for developers to further concentrate the player down a single path.

On the plus side for the CoD/Uncharted/Tomb Raider/etc. single player experiences... they sure are bombastic and pretty!

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

They do it because nobody likes to think.

 

[YianGaruga]

With most games today it's "follow the arrow until next cutscene". Not a lot of trial and error involved.

 

[Syril]

You think that's bad, try playing some old adventure games.

 

[1st Course]

My personal experience with modern game design with games like Bioshock Infinite, Halo 4, Last of Us, Metro LL, and many others is that the intended guided experience by the developors becomes an exercise of "I think the developor intends for me to do this...?" This leads to guessed trial and error on the part of the player. Games like the original Deus Ex encouraged finding one of multiple solutions to solve the problem, where modern games want us to figue out the single solution the designer has set forth to advance the story/plot.

I don't understand why modern games try so hard to funnel a player down the single "win" condition rather than providing multiple options for success. I would think as technology advanced, the number of possible solutions for the player would drastically increase... but instead it has just led for developers to further concentrate the player down a single path.

On the plus side for the CoD/Uncharted/Tomb Raider/etc. single player experiences... they sure are bombastic and pretty!

Thank you. This need to be posted in case some people don't understand what the OP is trying to say:

 

[sixteen-bit]

As development prices increase, so does risk. Hence samey games from publishers hoping for a "sure thing".

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

No room to implement multiple solutions in the budget, gotta save that cash for marketing.

 

[Neuromancer]

You think that's bad, try playing some old adventure games.

I was about to say.

Still though there are times in a lot of current big budget games where I get what the OP is saying. It often does come down to there being just one right thing to do to progress in the game, and it's not always clear and it doesn't always make rational sense. It's not that they're modern, its that they're poorly designed.

 

[nded]

I would think as technology advanced, the number of possible solutions for the player would drastically increase.

This is less a function of technology and more to do with how much time and effort devs can spare creating multiple gameplay paths and options for the player after blowing a big chunk of the budget and manpower on nice graphics and voice acting.

 

[injurai]

They do it because nobody likes to think.

Except in games with multiple approaches a couple of your hunches will end up correct, and you can either try and figure out the stealth approach or what have you. But you can just flounder around and end up getting through one of the ways. And when you do that it ends up feeling extremely natural and fluid as opposed to going through these ridged motions of approach.

 

[Toxi]

One of the problems with the sandbox style "You can solve any problem with any method" idea is that it reduces raw challenge most of the time. Designing an encounter that is difficult but still doable for four or five different strategies is hard. It also means that each way of solving the challenge might be a bit let deep than if there was only one planned path (Like in a linear platformer vs a more open platformer). I think the approach works for some games that encourage freedom, but it doesn't work for everything.

In my experience, a lot of players complain about the challenges in Demon's Souls requiring you to change your strategy to make things easier. "Why do I have to use magic weapons to make Flamelurker easier?" "Why do I need to use a bow to make the Shrine of Storms easier?" When fans point out that there would be no point to a challenge if it didn't encourage you to change your way of playing, those people who are stuck whine that they should be able to approach any situation with any weapon and not encounter resistance.

 

[chickdigger802]

designing a multipath game requires way more time and effort that could be put into making that explosion more awesome.

 

[injurai]

One of the problems with the sandbox style "You can solve any problem with any method" idea is that it reduces raw challenge most of the time. Designing an encounter that is difficult but still doable for four or five different strategies is hard. It also means that each way of solving the challenge might be a bit let deep than if there was only one planned path (Like in a linear platformer vs a more open platformer). I think the approach works for some games that encourage freedom, but it doesn't work for everything.

In my experience, a lot of players complain about the challenges in Demon's Souls requiring you to change your strategy to make things easier. "Why do I have to use magic weapons to make Flamelurker easier?" "Why do I need to use a bow to make the Shrine of Storms easier?" When fans point out that there would be no point to a challenge if it didn't encourage you to change your way of playing, those people who are stuck whine that they should be able to approach any situation with any weapon and not encounter resistance.

that's not inherent to sandbox. As seen in that deus ex flow chart above you can bisect the the chart with a line and every possible route the leads the end condition is only reachable by passing through that bisect. Just makes sure that no matter what route you take pits you against these challenges. It comes down to graph theory on how to layout these levels (which is pretty inherent in programming to learn about)

Bad game design is also giving you simple solutions like use fire against spiders to win quickly, without also pitting you against poisonous spiders right after you acquire say a flame spell. That way you get worn down quick. You need to always be changing the rules of engagement as you give players solutions and tactics against previous challenging encounters.

 

[narcosis219]

This isn't the sole factor, but development and testing time go way up when you do stuff like that. Costs have also gone way way up

 

[TheSpoiler]

You guys are playing the wrong modern games.

Way of the Samurai series is focused on giving people the option to deviate from the story. In fact, that's a big part of the game. Especially in the 4th game.

Say, there are some gang members with swords drawn.

Do you fight or run away?

Choose fight? You get to fight those guy and set up another story path.

Choose run? You get to an event where they capture you and put you on the train tracks.

The fight option,if you take it, leads you to over seven different endings and pathways through the game. In fact, most paths can dramatically alter what weapons you get and what people you meet.

The run option, if you want to entertain, nets you a more singular pathway to the game, but does not shut you off from some of the endings. Hell, if you pick the wrong options, you could end up train-kill.

More on the game side, players are provided with both strategy and limitations, in a way. This version has base stats, so your character is only as strong as his weapons. But there are many viable weapons, and using the right ones for the right situations can really help.

Sometimes you have to protect someone, and you might want to use a moveset that doesn't involve a wide swing. Sometimes you have to kill them quickly but you gotta juggle that with the weapon's break limit.

I hopefully explain it properly, but it's one of the most un-handholdly games so long as you don't make it.