Leveling Up Progression Systems

progression systems are in just about everything these days they're in racing games they're in battle wheels and they're even in RTS like Starcraft over the last 10 or so years levels gear experience and character customization have burst out of RPGs okay now we found in virtually every major genre around today a game having some sort of progression system isn't really a selling point anymore these sorts of mechanics only expected power triple-a design nowadays and that got me thinking why why have progression systems seemingly become so ubiquitous what changed surely there's got to be a reason we're now getting inundated with the same boring gear mechanics and the same treadmill a leveling systems right for ages trying to write this script I was trying to figure out exactly that and it wasn't until later I realized I got it backwards now hear me out but I think progression systems in some form are a part of basically every game and they always have been the way they work hasn't changed it's gaming culture that shifted that's confusing let me explain I think progression systems are a manifestation of something that's caught of video games and basically all storytelling mediums the idea of change films progress forwards at a steady rate of 24 frames per second and books only advance when you turn the page but the pace of games is fundamentally dependent on the player therefore games need something to give them that same sense of full momentum in other words a progression system it could be something as simple as a linear series of levels who has complex as path of X our skill tree what matters is that it keeps the player moving forwards towards a goal and experiencing what the game has to offer along the way now it's very tempting when talking about progression systems to get all self-righteous and start comparing the crimes of EA to the crimes of the Nazis it's a gaming impulse I understand all too well but I'm gonna try and keep that to a minimum here because I think it's really important to understand how progression systems really work so that we can have a more productive conversation about making them better rather than just complaining like a bunch of spoiled babies what I want to do is to break down the strengths and weaknesses or some different kinds of progression systems and see if that helps us work out why these recent ones feel so boring there are three main progression system archetypes direct independent and customizable or dick for short did I contrive these names so that when they were made into an acronym spelt out something that sounded like dick yes these three categories aren't so much distinct types of regression systems they're just different approaches to the overall concept and a useful way to break down the many and varied ways progression systems do their job some games only fit into a single type and some games use all of them forager is a great example of a game I've been playing recently these is all three types the great effect so I'll use that to explain how they work but more on that later let's start with direct progression because it's probably the one that's most familiar to people direct progression systems involve advancing through a series of milestones each of which increase your power in predetermined ways in forager each tool or new bit of equipment you get is a strict upgrade on the previous one the bone sword does 50 percent more damage in the previous sword and the fiery pickaxe now says things on fire you get the picture the real strength of direct progression systems is that classic almost addictive feeling of getting more powerful in a Metroidvania whole Zelda game you'll start out with some very limited capabilities with my following the critical path and gathering up a bunch of cool upgrades you'll eventually get to feel like a badass demigod who can outright skip challenges that used to stop you in your tracks the promise of the next items possibilities all the new things they'll unlock keep you pushing forwards into the unknown and further into the game sneaky developers can even leverage this hero's journey to control what content you see and when much of Dark Souls two's world is effectively open immediately but good luck getting to the grave of saints without enough health to survive this fall or enough souls to buy a magic ring from this talking cat yeah alright Dark Souls is weird but this is actually a really clever move as these tricky underground areas are effectively locked off from new players you get sent to the tutorial starters owns instead bar for an interesting challenge two returning players who know how to skip ahead but it's not all good news because to break progression systems are so ubiquitous they sometimes get mixed in with mechanics that compromise that feeling of growth for example in the case of games with scaling difficulty in destiny to the same enemies to account the same damage and take about as long to kill at the start of the game as they do at max level and that's because they level up alongside you this leads to a win situation you don't feel like you've actually gotten any stronger despite everything the game and its progressively large numbers is telling you but scaling can be done well so long as there's at least some way to tell how far you've progressed says the star world of walk is fantastic at this early on in your venture the range of areas you can visit is pretty limited you're restricted to traveling slowly on foot then the more dangerous areas will just get you killed however a level 20 you gain access to a mount which are grades into a faster one a level 40 and a level 60 you get a flying mount a combination of tough enemies and the sheer scale of azeroth funnels new players it's a certain easy to navigate starter areas to stop them from becoming overwhelmed but as they master more and more of the game players have gradually left the leash to explore on their own slowly turning the world of Azeroth from a vast land of unexplored mysteries to somewhere smaller and more familiar that you know like the back of your hand even when Wow introduced the limited degree of enemy scaling this geographic progression remained untouched and so the lovely experience feels just as dynamic as it used to if co-rect progression systems are all about moving upwards then independent systems are all about going sideways in independent progression systems you won't actually get more powerful the more you play you'll just gradually unlock more and more stuff to mess around with as you gradually advance through the game like in forager where each new island you unlock doesn't really make you more powerful it just gives you new stuff to do like a dungeon or a puzzle or this guy who wants 500 units of poo for reasons in other words your power level is independent from how far you've progressed typically you'll find these sorts of systems in roguelikes like enter the gungeon when you first boot up dungeon you'll have access to a relatively small pool of guns that can appear randomly in-game but by playing more and more and completing various milestones you'll slowly but surely populate the gungeon with whackier and whackier weapons for you to use on subsequent runs like a honeycomb that caused you to poop out bees whenever you get hurt and the gun the fires more guns these new items don't make the game any easier than it was at the start they just offer new ways to play and that's important because in games where the regular play loop is kind of doing the same thing over and over again you need a bit of variety to keep it fresh the promise of unlocking a new thing can also encourage interesting play like in spelunky where unlocking the robot character the best and only one worth playing requires a trip into the deadly alien mothership even if the variety is just cosmetic like a new character two players or a cool new hat the key is to give players something to work towards in the short term keeping them engaged as they gradually approached a larger goal of mastering the game unfortunately this is kind of where the problem star because chasing that little endorphin hit of getting a new thing is often always keeping you playing moment-to-moment games with independent progression systems need to be really careful not to lose that momentum in don't starve a roguelike survival game dying after playing for a while usually gives enough experience to unlock a new character which is great unfortunately getting to any of the interesting content requires several endgame days of farming carrots collecting poop and fighting spiders asking you to commit at least an hour of game time immediately after losing all your progress is just a bit too steep I've not played nearly as much of don't stomp so I'd like to because of that microtransactions and loot boxes on the other hand are guilty of exactly the opposite because getting extra cards costumes and crafting materials is the progression system even when they don't affect gameplay companies have a massive vested interest in using some very sketchy psychological tricks to keep you spending money in order to get that same endorphin into progression much quicker than playing normally word an alternate and much more ethical way to fix the problem of player engagement is instead of relying on novelty to keep people playing you could instead let them decide what kind of fun they want to have of themselves enter customizable progression systems with the player is put in control of how they advance customizable progression systems often take the form of a skill or talent tree like foragers that allows you to specialise into industry capitalism magic or farming if you're boring with each skill unlocking new stuff and new strategies in Dishonored specializing in different skills can open up new ways of dispatching enemies ranging for the efficient to the downright ridiculous and a mall Santa hammers can give baddies like the odor dragon a lethal Boop to this note but the tail chopping power of great swords be much more useful against the wrath you the thing that sets customizable systems a part is that they turn advancement itself into a skill testing element to the game where direct systems take players on a mostly fixed journey and independent systems don't give them much control at all customizable progression models and their skill trees gear mechanics and perks not only put players in the driving seat but actually reward them for taking an interest in the game systems with yet more power in dicey dungeons a dungeon crawler built around rolling simply levelling up isn't enough to win most of your power actually comes from synergizing your characters abilities with the items you pick up along the way for example the rogue can generate a bunch of near useless one rolls every now and again but the poison needle which can be used up to five times a turn and only accepts low rolls turns them into a way to rack up a bunch of poison on enemies ready to be capsulized on with the detonator which does damage to an enemy for each level of poison they have customizable progression systems done well put absorbed players for hours on end giving them a selection platter of different experiences that choose from as well as keeping repeat playthroughs fresh by opening up new strategies your second time around the trick is to balance them properly in Deus Ex mankind divided the non combat abilities like hacking movement and magic brainwashing speech smells which are kind of mind control and don't make any sense whatsoever was so powerful that they felt almost mandatory this made me feel like I was being pushed in the direction of a sneaky indirect style of play even though I wanted to roleplay Jensen as a no-nonsense jaded Robocop who punches first and asks questions second direct progression systems keep players entertained with the promise of future power and a payoff when they reached the top independent systems drip-feed new toys to play with and offer smaller micro goals that ease the journey towards greater mastery and customizable systems keep engagement high by using advancement itself as a way to test the players skills remember about 1900 words ago when I was talking about how progress and systems aren't inherent power games hopefully now you can see what I mean not every game has experience points or a skill tree but all games have some sort of threat for you to pull on that gives you something to work towards in the short and long term a classic platformer like Mario uses a series of levels that is steadily increasing difficulty as you progress matching your increased skill at the game until you can prove you're a master plumber by defeating Bowser if that's not a direct progression system I don't know what is what about a management game like rim world the randomly generated terrain colonists and horrible disasters keep the core gameplay loop fresh as you slowly master how to overcome winter starvation and hordes of angry Turtles without actually making the game inherently any hotter or easier that is an independent progression system in action the reason why triple a progression systems feel so weird isn't because their Sun be different or have some sort of special policy it's the now more than ever before game trying to get you to play forever and that drastically limits the number of progression systems that actually work a good story is a fantastic direct progression system but they can't carry you through an infinite multiplayer game like overwatch which despite a fantastic setting has had virtually no actual plot or narrative depth for upwards of three years infinite level trap mills and complex skill systems are progression mechanics that can be scaled near indefinitely and so it's no surprise that they pop up again and again in games looking to justify massive production costs and also that they're the ones people are getting most sick of progression systems are supposed to add novelty or different approaches or unique and interesting directed experience to drive us forward and keep us playing but now we're kind of gained the same thing every time progression systems aren't getting worse they're more ruthlessly effective than ever we're just getting bored of seeing the same ones used to provide the same experiences over and over again they're also being made front and center when many progression systems like the ones I didn't realize for progression systems until about a week ago work better in the background the excellent God of War controversially added a bunch of RPG style progression mechanics to the formula but rather than bogging the game down like so many other titles the new skill trees and gear system played a supporting role accentuating dad and son of wars journey rather than stealing the limelight the transformation of progression systems from crucial game design tool to a dirty word the country's up images of tedious grinding and lazy design sucks because there are so many cool progression systems out there to add a unique flash different games fire emblem shakes up classic experience points and leveling by having there be a finite amount of experience in the whole game meaning you'll have to carefully push me out to your favorite fighters creating some excellent tension as you choose which ones to level up and which ones to leave behind all while avoiding permanent character death very few games can get you attached characters as fast as fire up can it's amazing drafting games like slay the spire let you collect extra cards after every fight and create cool synergies with your existing deck but the more cards you pick the more diluted your deck becomes making removing cards from your deck a really interesting series of progression choices that challenge our typical idea of bigger numbers equals better even all the mechanics people are getting sick off can be used well in the right game warframe is pretty much grinding the video game but that's underpinned by a fantastic combat system and a surprisingly compelling story to make the hours of farming argon crystals almost worth it so are we gonna see any sort of massive change in the way games handle progression anytime soon probably not and that's okay because without some sort of progression system in them or favorite games would be very different and probably a whole lot worse instead we need to celebrate games that use progression systems to provide fun interesting experiences we want to play more of rather than just using them to pad out playtime and micro transaction revenue metrics and the only way you're gonna get big studios to take a fresh look at the way they make games is to make your voice heard and maybe stop buying games with blatantly exploited ever and terrible progression systems and yes this is gonna mean we're gonna need to stop listening to Todd how it's sweet sweet lies it's for the best I promise hello and thanks for watching apologies for the delay on getting this one out this video was actually supposed to be about something completely different and then I decided to just start from scratch because it was rubbish so hopefully I made the right call there I wouldn't be able to make dumb videos without the support of my generous patrons who are Alex Dan launched a Saran oh no 94 Baxter heeled Brian Atari Ani Calvin Han Daniel matches Dirk Jam Karen bailed feats a lot Jessi Rhine Jonathan Kristensen whose name I think I've been pronouncing wrong for months and months and I'm incredibly sorry thanks mister key would be despite that Joshua binswanger elite - Lucas slack lucas mora lunar eagle 1996 mace window 54 patrick Romberg raised dad samuel Vander Plaats strategy in Ultima and ciao if you'd like to support the channel like these generous people please go ahead and sign up on patreon and if you don't that's fine too I'm just gonna I'm just going to like you're less so okay thanks for watching and bye

Channel: Adam Millard - The Architect of Games

Views: 530,388

Rating: 4.9281459 out of 5

Keywords: Games, Gaming, Video games, Video Gaming, PC Gaming, Forager, World of Warcraft, Destiny 2, Fallout 76, Enter The Gungeon, Monster Hunter: World, Deus Ex, Overwatch, Don't Starve, Dicey Dungeons, Adam Millard, Architect, Architect of Games, Review, Critique, Video Essay, Analysis

Id: gDQX3jk5xxc

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2019