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开发者从实例入手分析游戏行业对复杂性的过分追求

发布时间:2021-01-22 09:09:21 Tags:,

开发者从实例入手分析游戏行业对复杂性的过分追求

原作者:Andreas Papathanasis 译者:Willow Wu

在90年代末,很多老练的《雷神之锤》玩家都知道如何用控制台指令移除纹理、特效和其它多余的视觉效果。这能够让他们排除干扰,看清楚游戏过程中到底发生了什么。20多年过去了,依然还有人这么做。

然而,自那时候开始,第一人称射击游戏就成为了展示最新3D画面效果&技术的工具。开发者持续埋头于愈发痛苦的工作中,为的就是给这些技术控玩家提供更好的解决方案,将他们昂贵的硬件优势显现出来。每个补丁只能够让他们满足个几周,直到下一个画面效果更好的游戏出现。

这种对视觉细节效果的痴迷(甚至影响到了对游戏玩法的关注)只是我们这个行业对复杂性过分追求的其中一种表现。这种畸形追求在3A游戏中表现得尤为明显,但肯定不仅限于这类游戏,而且也不限于视觉方面。

游戏行业对复杂性的迷恋

有很多很多的游戏——不管是大是小,成功或失败——在最初阶段都有一个高管/资深团队领导/单干开发者会这样想:“我们怎么才能把这个游戏做得比竞争对手,或者比我们之前的作品更复杂?我们怎么才能让终端用户觉得这个游戏烧脑、难玩?还有,我们要怎么让游戏制作过程变得更加繁杂,让大家不顾一切、夜以继日地工作,甚至是搞到某些员工神经崩溃?”

当然,话是不能这么说的。但现实中有些人是这么说的:

-“相比只是探索几个星球,如果把这个数字扩大到几百个呢?”(《质量效应:仙女座》)

-“想想看:一万名玩家在同一服务器上决战”/“从计算机性能角度来说,这很荒谬” (游戏邦注亚马逊高管)

brawl stars (from tencent games)

brawl stars (from tencent games)

- “……创造几千个角色同时在场的战斗场景,并且能够对这些部队实施百分百实时触控”(NaturalMotion)

- “关于在触控设备上运行多人联机游戏,目前确实没有任何引擎解决方案”(SuperEvilMegaCorp)

- 我们已经承诺玩家《星际公民》会有这样这样豪华的东西

这种对复杂性的着迷(不管初衷是多好)是这个行业很多问题的根源所在。焦点模糊、愿景不明确这通常都会被视为项目失败的原因,也是/或者是造成超高强度加班、员工压力过大的缘由所在。这与复杂性是有直接关系的。

但是没有人讨论我们的复杂性迷恋问题。

对复杂性的畸形追求

游戏开发者理所当然地认为有更逼真视觉效果、更多内容、更广阔的世界和更多特色的游戏就会卖得更多,不管他们是否对游戏的复杂性采取了任何措施。在一个不稳定的行业中,成功往往是难以实现和确定的,人们很自然地会得出像“多多益善”这样简单粗暴的结论。“多多益善”这种想法影响着每一个人,从没有任何游戏经验、唯一竞争优势就是资金充足的高管,到经验丰富、干劲满满的开发人员(加东西肯定比什么都不做的要好)。而且,隔壁的游戏公司也是这么做的,所以这个想法肯定是对的。

开发者们不仅在回避谈论过分追求复杂性这个话题,甚至他们之中的大部分人在直面这个问题时还无法意识到痛点所在。

@UltimaShadowX在推文中表示现在很多游戏公司都在宣传他们的下一代游戏用了哪些哪些强大的技术,然而当下大部分热门游戏都是走简易路线的(比如《糖豆人》和Among Us),这条推文被转发了很多次。

针对这样的观点,开发者们讨论得最热烈的是什么呢?

他们有没有反省一下自己习以为常的复杂性是否还有必要?他们是否深入探讨了哪些简单的游戏特色在很多用户看来是有价值的——包括易于观看理解的视觉效果、可以立即学会的机制以及强大的社交系统?

都没有。

一大堆人都在大大方方地展示自己的理解偏颇,他们认为这条推文就是不严谨、有害的,因为很明显,它可能会导致最终用户认为游戏制作是非常简单的。然后,讨论的方向就变成了“实际上,《糖豆人》是一款非常难制作的游戏”,实质上这是对说“我不需要PS5就能享受这些有趣的游戏”的人表示“闭嘴,我的工作真的很辛苦 ”。这一切中令我印象深刻的是有人认为Among Us是因为有知名主播玩才走红的,我想,如果我还在亚马逊致力于Crucible这个项目的话,看到这种言论应该会觉得很有意思。

做游戏很难这一事实应该促使我们更容易接受类似UltimaShadowX这样的观点,而不是反着来。当最终用户表明即使是在铁杆游戏迷最多的主机平台,大部分玩家其实并不需要/想要庞大的开发团队通过创造海量关卡或逼真的3D特效、过上数年地狱般的日子来实现游戏的复杂性,也许我们应该重新反思反思。

但即使有人想在一个大团队中谈论游戏的复杂性,他们也会很快发现自己正走在政治雷区上。业界提倡的深度专业化方式对很多游戏开发者来说就是如果想保住自己的饭碗、让自己的职业生涯有更好的发展,复杂性是至关重要的。一个灯光师肯定不会去探讨现实灯光模型的复杂性是否适合他们的游戏。一个画外音制作人并不想谈论或思考手头上的游戏与一个把声音完全留给想象力的游戏相比多了多少复杂性。自然而然就没剩下什么人愿意跟你探讨这个严肃的问题了。

游戏媒体/影响人士无视复杂性问题

一个星期六,我想看看这个月的PS会免是哪些游戏。我很快就开始下载《极品飞车:复仇》,一个包含了警匪追逐元素的赛车游戏。即使意识到3A游戏已经不再适合我了,但体验之后我还是被它极差的游戏性给惊到了。撇开过场动画在我15分钟的游戏时间里就占了大约20%(即使是按了跳过键)——有人可能会觉得视觉效果太赞了,还增加了很多环境噪音——而且在夜晚的关卡中,我完全看不清路在哪里。对于一个赛车游戏来说,能看清道路是非常关键的。

出于好奇,我去看了下有关游戏的评论。试了这个游戏觉得玩不下去的人不可能只有我一个吧。我也不确定自己在期待什么,但是可以肯定的是评论中并没有提到视觉效果对游戏上手的消极影响。就算有提到视觉特效,那也是夸赞的。其实这是说得通的:想象一下有评论说因为看不清道路所以他玩不下去了,或者是因为操作、游戏系统太复杂。这些人是存在的,但是人们在浏览评论的时候自然会把他们过滤掉。

玩游戏的人也无视了复杂性的问题

我想我们很多人都有某个亲戚或者熟人会说自己不是游戏玩家,但过会你就会看到他们拿出手机开始做《糖果传奇》的每日任务,或者其它什么简单的游戏。这些人多年以来都被告知说“真正的游戏”是不适合他们的,他们也就这么认为了。要不然他们要怎么解释用双摇杆去控制3D镜头的时候每次都会头晕,或者不明白这样的游戏体验是为了什么?显然,这样的操作和系统是为了能够理解其意义的“真玩家”而准备的。这些人已经接受了存在于广大游戏中的复杂性,所以游戏不适合他们,他们理解,不会抱怨,就是直接忽略掉游戏行业产出的绝大部分作品。

而其余“真正的玩家”可能会容忍甚至欢迎这种复杂性,将之视为荣誉勋章,从而形成一个断裂的反馈循环,让高管们认为他们是走在正确的道路上,继续保持或增加他们游戏的复杂性。

“更简单”的游戏并非只适合于有限制的平台

《荒野乱斗》是一款热门的手游,在媒体评价中,Polygon似乎更乐于指出这个游戏有多“简单”,而不是它是多么有趣。Polygon在评论中说这种“简单性”是很棒,但只适合移动玩家,其余的玩家可以去主机上玩《堡垒之夜》或《绝地求生》。这话表达出的意思是当你在主机上有其它更复杂的游戏时,没有人想用主机来玩《荒野乱斗》。

评测中没有任何地方提到《荒野乱斗》的某些特色虽然设计简单、易懂但却提供了极大的战术深度,比如草丛藏身机制或设计极好的角色特殊能力——这在组队时就提供了不小的深度。或许对于“肤浅”的游戏来说,肤浅的评测才是比较匹配的。

Polygon测评最有趣的地方,在于文章的最后一段,反映出了行业中很多人没有任何具体依据的先入之见:

“然而,这种简单性最终可能也会导致游戏的吸引力无法持续太久。《荒野乱斗》经过不断地调整优化后已经呈现出非常惊艳的效果,但即时玩法上几乎没有深度可言……

……我只是觉得游戏在战术方面没有足够的潜力来吸引人们费心投入其中。随着时间的推移,这种一成不变的简单性可能会让最初兴奋的玩家渐渐失去兴趣,选择其它更新鲜的手游。”

你或许会以为这款“简单”的手游是和主机玩家都熟知的这些大型复杂游戏一样受欢迎、长寿,尽管它们其中一些有在多平台上架,而且很多游戏在发行后玩家兴趣都没有出现大幅下降,这是可以理解的。

《荒野乱斗》团队认识到了手游平台的“限制”是一个可以利用的机会,提供一个视觉上连贯性极强而且非常容易上手的游戏,包含个性鲜明的角色、令人成就感满满的进阶系统和非常平衡的奖励系统,能够让玩家玩上好些年。再进一步讲,我认为,在任何平台上,这些“限制”都应该被大家看作是一种变相的优势——这是一个与巨大的行业压力相抗衡的机会,采取与“多多益善”相逆的做法,专注于玩家真正会长期重视的东西。

行业中的很多人并没有这样的思维。

Catalyst Black很明显就是把《荒野乱斗》作为灵感来源的,现在正处于测试发行阶段,最终计划是上架所有的主流平台。它的设计想法似乎就是更大型的/内容更多的《荒野乱斗》:

·对比《荒野乱斗》干练、易理解的视觉效果,Catalyst Black选择的是更真实化的3D画面,看起来非常混乱,很难分辨出哪些东西是会影响游戏玩法的,哪些不会。
·对比《荒野乱斗》非常合理的游戏模式——队友一般都不会超过两个,从而为团队战术制定提供了可观的深度,而Catalyst Black的队伍可以多达10多人,游戏模式混乱(你通常都无法影响结果)。
·对比《荒野乱斗》在绝佳的视觉反馈基础上所建立的极其简单而又有趣的掩护/隐藏系统,Catalyst Black所用的是一种复杂的raycasting系统(一种使用射线确定相交点的技术,常用于照明仿真,游戏邦注),应用的时候要非常注意细节,因为它与3D关卡的几何图形角度紧密关联。这是一个教科书般的反面教材——拥有优秀的机制,却画蛇添足地在技术方面的加以“提升”。
·对比《荒野乱斗》规模合理的地图,Catalyst Black提供的地图过于庞大,除了需要使用迷你地图,还要花时间寻路,因此很难搞清楚在对战过程中究竟发生了什么。
·对比《荒野乱斗》所刻画的个性鲜明的英雄角色,Catalyst Black的角色只是一些外表平平无奇的3D模型,游戏似乎从来就没怎么展示过他们的脸。

除非Catalyst Black有根本性的改变,否则它跟《荒野乱斗》相比实在是差得太多了——不管它日后会不会登上主机平台、拥有更多炫酷的视觉效果/游戏特色。

前几年我曾写过一篇文章,阐述为什么我认为《虚荣》手游无法像《皇室战争》那样获得成功。做这个预测并不难。但我没想到的是,《皇室战争》在PC平台也比《虚荣》成功,这就是归功于游戏的简单性,《皇室战争》就是一个比《虚荣》优秀的游戏。

并不是所有的主机游戏都适合移植到移动平台,反之亦然。《荒野乱斗》是双摇杆操控,相比移动平台,它实际上是更适合主机平台的。尽管很多人认为主机不适合玩这种“简单”的游戏,但我还是希望它能实现飞跃式的发展。如果那一天真的到来了,我相信我们就可以多一个实例,向很多游戏圈内的人(包括做游戏的人和玩游戏的人)证明做游戏还有更好的方法。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Back in the late 90’s, many competitive Quake players were very familiar with console commands to remove textures, effects and other superfluous visual details. This allowed them to see exactly what is happening in the game, without unneeded distractions. More than 20 years later, the practice remains.

Yet first person shooters since then became a showcase for the latest in 3D graphics and technology. Developers kept going through increasingly painful development, just to give tech-savvy, tech-obsessed players their next fix and justify their expensive hardware purchase. Each fix would last a few weeks, until the next slightly better looking shooter came along.

The obsession with visual details, to the point where they distract from gameplay, is just one manifestation of our industry’s detrimental obsession with complexity. This obsession takes its worst forms in AAA, but is certainly not limited to it. And it’s certainly not limited to the visuals, either.

The games industry is obsessed with complexity

A vast number of games big and small, successful or failed, begins with an executive, senior lead or lone developer asking: “How do we make our game more complex than the competition or our previous game? How do we make it harder for end users to understand and play? And, at the same time, how do we make our game harder for us to create, maximizing our chances for crunch, burnout, and even nervous breakdowns for some of our employees?”

Of course, it is never phrased like that. Here are some ways it’s actually phrased:

- “Instead of visiting just a few planets, what if you could explore hundreds?” [Mass Effect: Andromeda]

- “Think: 10,000 players duking it out on the same server” / “Computationally ridiculous” [Amazon executives]

- “… create battle scenes with thousands of characters on-screen at the same time, in real-time, with you having full real-time touch control over all of these troops” [NaturalMotion]

- “there really aren’t any existing engine solutions for running networked games on touch devices” [SuperEvilMegaCorp]

- Every extravagant thing that has been promised for Star Citizen [there’s many examples]

This common obsession with complexity (regardless how well intentioned it starts) is at the root of many problems in the industry. Lack of focus and vision is often cited as a reason for a project that failed, and/or caused significant crunch and stress to employees. It is directly associated with complexity.

Yet nobody is talking about our complexity problem.

Developers are not talking about complexity
Game developers usually take for granted that more lifelike visuals, more content, bigger worlds and more features will sell more of their game, regardless if they have any input on how complex their game will be. In a volatile industry where success is elusive and hard to pin down, it’s natural to try to reach simple conclusions, and “more is better” is as simple as it gets. “More is better” appeals to everyone, from executives with no games experience and whose only competitive advantage is a lot of disposable money, to experienced, motivated developers (adding stuff is definitely better than doing nothing). Besides, “more is better” is what the studio next door is doing, so it must be the right approach.

Not only are developers not talking about complexity, many of them do not understand it when they’re looking straight at it.

This tweet, offering a reasonable opinion, went viral:

What was the most popular discussion among developers around this opinion? Did they do any introspection about whether the usual complexity they’re so used to is even necessary? Did they dig down into what simple features are truly valued above all else for a massive chunk of their audience, including easy to read visuals, mechanics that can be grasped immediately, and robust social systems?

None of the above. In a spectacular display of missing the point, they framed the original tweet as careless and harmful, because apparently it may cause end users to think games are easy to make. Then the conversation turned into “Actually, Fall Guys is very hard to make”, essentially responding “Shut up, my job is really hard” to someone saying “I don’t need a PS5 to enjoy these fun games”. My big takeaway from all this was that Among Us only became popular because of big streamers, which I think would be interesting to read if I was at Amazon working on Crucible.

The fact that games are hard to make should make us more receptive to opinions such as this one, not less. When end users point out that, even on hardcore consoles, a big chunk of players do not really need or want the complexity of games with massive levels or lifelike 3D graphics that take hundreds of developers a number of grueling years to create, perhaps we should be doing some rethinking.

But even if someone was inclined to talk about complexity in a big team, they would quickly find themselves walking on a political minefield. The way the industry is promoting deep specialization, complexity has become vital for a very large number of game developers if they want to keep their jobs and advance their careers. A lighting artist will certainly not talk about whether the complexity of a realistic lighting model is the best fit for their game. A VO producer will not want to talk or think about how the vast added complexity compares to a version of the game where voices are left to the imagination. So we’re naturally left with nobody talking about a serious problem.

Games Press/Influencers are not talking about complexity

One Saturday I decided to see what’s the free game of the month on PlayStation Plus. I quickly started downloading Need for Speed Payback, based on some good cop chasing memories from 15 or so years ago. Even with the realization that AAA games are no longer for me, it was shocking to see how unplayable this game is. Putting aside the fact that cutscenes took about 20% of the 15 minutes I played (even with mashing the skip button), the visuals someone might describe as “impressive” added so much noise, especially on a night level, where it was completely impossible for me to see where the road is. For a racing game, that’s kind of important.

Out of curiosity, I went out to read reviews about the game. I simply cannot be the only person on the planet that tried this game and could not play it. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but sure enough there was no mention that visuals made the game inaccessible. When mentioned, the visuals were a point of praise. It makes sense: Imagine the reviewer that says a game is unplayable because they couldn’t see where the road was, or that they were overwhelmed by the controls or the amount of game systems. These people exist, they’re just naturally filtered out of the review industry.

People that play games are not talking about complexity

Many of us have a relative or acquaintance that will immediately say they’re not a gamer, then take their phone out of their pocket to finish their daily rewards on Candy Crush or another simple game. These people have been told for years that “real” games are not for them, so they believe it. After all, how else could they explain the fact that they can’t even control a 3D camera with dual sticks without getting dizzy or wondering what the point is? Obviously, those kinds of controls and systems are reserved for “real” gamers that get it. These people have accepted the vast complexity in games means those games are not for them, so they don’t complain about it. They simply ignore what most of what the games industry produces.

The remaining “real” gamers may tolerate or even welcome the complexity, seeing it as a badge of honor, creating a broken feedback loop that encourages executives to see they’re on the right path, and maintain or increase complexity in the games they produce.

It’s time to stop talking about “simpler” games as a necessity of platform limitations

Brawl Stars is a popular online game for mobile. In its review, Polygon almost seems more interested to point out how “simple” the game is, instead of how fun it is. This “simplicity” is great, according to Polygon, but just for mobile players — the rest of the players could play Fortnite or PUBG on their console. The explicit implication is that nobody would want to play Brawl Stars on a console when they have those other, more complex games.

Nowhere in the review is it mentioned that Brawl Stars has specific features that are dead simple and easy to understand but offer great tactical depth, such as the grass cover or the extremely well designed character special abilities which allow huge depth when building teams. But I guess for simple games, simple reviews are appropriate.

The most interesting paragraph from the Polygon review, however, comes right at the end. Mirroring preconceptions not based on anything concrete many in the industry share, it claims:

“That [simplicity] also could be what ultimately limits its long-term appeal, however. Brawl Stars has been streamlined to dramatic effect, but there’s little depth to the moment-to-moment gameplay…

…I just don’t see enough tactical potential here to yield something that people would bother to watch. In time, that same level of simplicity could make initially excited players peel away in favor of fresher mobile distractions.”

Let’s see how well Brawl Stars’ “simplicity” held over time over other massively more complex console online games, using (imperfect but indicative) google trend graphs:

Brawl Stars Vs Anthem:

Brawl Stars vs Apex Legends:

Brawl Stars vs PUBG:

You could be excused for thinking this “simple” mobile game is similarly popular and long living as many other massively complex games every console gamer knows about, despite some of those other games being on many more platforms, and without the huge decline in interest many of them have right after launch.

The Brawl Stars team understands that the “limitations” of the mobile platform are an opportunity to deliver a visually coherent game that is extremely easy to learn, with memorable characters oozing with personality, has satisfying progression and very well balanced rewards that keep players in the game for years. I would argue further that these “limitations” should be seen by everyone, on any platform, as a blessing in disguise — an opportunity to work against the massive industry pressure to cram as much detail and features in a game as possible, and focus on what players will really value long term.

Many in our industry do not see it like this.

Catalyst Black is a game clearly inspired by Brawl Stars, currently in mobile soft launch, aiming to launch on all major platforms eventually. Its design motivation seems to be: “Brawl Stars, but BIGGER/WITH MORE STUFF”:

·Instead of Brawl Stars’ sharp, clean, readable visuals and effects, Catalyst Black goes for a more realistic 3D look that looks extremely messy and makes it hard to separate objects that affect gameplay from those that don’t.
·Instead of Brawl Stars’ well thought-out game modes that very reasonably almost never exceed 2 teammates and help offer massive depth for team tactics, Catalyst Black has teams of 10+ and confusing game modes where you usually can’t affect the outcome.
·Instead of Brawl Stars’ dead simple and fun cover/hiding system built on excellent visual feedback, Catalyst Black implements a complicated raycasting system that is extremely finicky to use and predict because it relies on arbitrary 3D level geometry (this is a textbook example of ruining a great feature with unneeded technical “improvement”)
·Instead of Brawl Stars’ reasonably sized maps, Catalyst Black offers vast terrain maps that need a minimap and a lot of free time to navigate, making it very hard to know what’s actually happening during a match.
·Instead of Brawl Stars’ sharply rendered and memorable characters, Catalyst Black has some generic looking 3D models whose face is almost never seen close to the camera.

Unless it changes radically, Catalyst Black will always be far worse than Brawl Stars, regardless if it’s one day playable on a console and has way more impressive visuals and more features.

A few years ago I wrote about why I thought Vainglory would not do as well as Clash Royale on mobile. That was an easy and safe prediction. But what I didn’t imagine back then was that Clash Royale could also do better than Vainglory on a PC, because thanks to its simplicity, it is a better game than Vainglory, period.

Not all console games are suitable for mobile, and vice versa. But thanks to its twin stick controls, Brawl Stars is actually more suitable for a console than mobile. I hope it makes the jump, despite so many thinking consoles aren’t suitable for such “simple” games. If it does, it is my belief we’ll have one more example to prove to many in the industry, both those who make games and play games, that there’s a better way to do all this.

(source: gamasutra.com )


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