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How much thought are you guys putting into your core combat mechanics?
How much thought are you guys putting into your core combat mechanics? When it comes to world mechanics, just based off of watching your kickstarter videos, i know you guys will do a great job there because you are attacking the problem with the right mindset, you guys are thinking critically about the problem, and are looking at it from a big picture stand point.
But I've seen little from you regarding your combat system.
I'd argue for you guys to make your combat system deep, with a high skill ceiling, not dependent on lvl or gear, but entirely on the players personal skill that they have developed. I think the process of achieving mastery in a complex system is more valuable and meaningful than simply grinding to make a number on your character bigger.
I understand the problem that comes when making a deep combat system, it comes in trying to also make a system that can appeal to the most amount of people, most people don't like hard things, its a fact of life. But i'd argue meaning and deep immersion comes from doing the hard things, not the easy things. I'd argue that risking having a smaller audience is worth it if that audience is far more dedicated and immersed into your world. Games with a deep combat system and a high skill ceiling like Dota are an example of this, i've met multiple people with upwards to 7k hours in games like Dota even though the game essentially consists of playing the same maps with the same characters. The reason why is due to how deep the system actually is. The people that play it, play it religiously, they get deeply immersed into the gameplay, because they are able to achieve a flow state.
I also want to reference this psychology wikipidea article to back up my argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
The first sentence on that wikipidea page is: 'In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.' With that said, i think this is the right direction we want to go in thinking about solving this problem. Because i would argue the above is exactly what we wish to achieve. here's an image of a graph on that page. On the graph you see a correlation between challenge level and skill level, the higher the challenge and the higher skill one can achieve, the more flow and immersion one can have in an activity. I think psychology is important here, because i'd argue that good games, are good, because they take advantage of human psychology
The first sentence on that wikipidea page is: 'In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.' With that said, i think this is the right direction we want to go in thinking about solving this problem. Because i would argue the above is exactly what we wish to achieve. here's an image of a graph on that page. On the graph you see a correlation between challenge level and skill level, the higher the challenge and the higher skill one can achieve, the more flow and immersion one can have in an activity. I think psychology is important here, because i'd argue that good games, are good, because they take advantage of human psychology
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