Now I know this may not be on purpose as some people may just not have the skill level to produce some of these things but here are a top list of things that I find really poor game design with a lot of byond games.
1. too many variables, and using attribute points before I start: do i need to explain why i think this is bad? I havent even started playing and Im putting points into things that I'm very unsure about. And when we have too many variables when you have things like a "rage" or "mysticism" variable that you can boost. Well what the hell are those?
2. Lack of controls. Sadly this is a big problem in a lot. Your game needs proper keyed controls with a reasoning behind your control scheme. Do not have some side menu where you click verbs.
3. log training. this shouldnt be a norm get ride of it. You can copy enemies from sprite resources or something if you have too but please god put something in their besides punching a log(if only it was that its ussually right clicking a log). I get it if its a naruto role play game but do not make that the center focus of the leveling content.
4. Interface: its hard to get this one right, and i even probably will pray victim to a poor one as well. But please work on your interface. Slow down content if you have too. It will help new users feel more comfortable if everything is very easy, quick, precise. Games have turned me off solely for this.
5. lack of direction: many times on byond i start a game and have no idea where i go, who i go too, how i find out these things and the lack of finding a direction early on in the game, means I lack goals and just makes me stop playing before i even start.
ID:1797750
 Mar 1 2015, 6:36 pm
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ahhh your right. That's a tough one for the developer, as I've played my game I don't know how many times testing it and I see how its easy to make those mistakes. That's why you can always give it to a friend or even non gamers and see if they know what they are doing. If a non gamer can get the direction than you sure as heck know you are doing it right
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I think the fifth point you made is quite common due to the sandbox nature of games on BYOND, sometimes there isn't even a paved floor, so it can sometimes take ages for me to find the nearest P-bag and macro up.
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you can still add direction in sandbox games though. For example skyrim is sandbox but from the beggining I have a direction partly because of the easy interface that shows me places I haven't visted as well as the story and pointers to my possible objectives that navigates you through some of the world from the very start. These things are important. they dont even need to be well done as skyrim. It can just be some sign that says "level 1 monsters are here, level 2 is that way"
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DanteVFenris wrote:
1. too many variables, and using attribute points before I start: do i need to explain why i think this is bad? I havent even started playing and Im putting points into things that I'm very unsure about. And when we have too many variables when you have things like a "rage" or "mysticism" variable that you can boost. Well what the hell are those? "Hmm... I wonder what happens if I invest 10 stat points into Fushigomasonotsukirimosha? *enters game* Oh, absolutely nothing, yet" 3. log training. this shouldnt be a norm get ride of it. You can copy enemies from sprite resources or something if you have too but please god put something in their besides punching a log(if only it was that its ussually right clicking a log). I get it if its a naruto role play game but do not make that the center focus of the leveling content. Honestly, if a game does this, leave it. It's not going to change, I assure you, because usually the only BYOND games that do this have clique communities that treat the games like chatrooms instead of actual games. My main problem with most BYOND games is that they tend to over-estimate everyone's reception to their products. They relied so much on community interaction that they didn't bother making good content. | |
What do you think is good content? Is im a creator and would like to take note of some peoples opinions?
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If you had to ask...
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different things for different folks. In my opinion its more content. More dungeons, new enemies, new enviroments. As well as new mechanics here and there example a new interesting take on pvp or a new combat mechanic. But you may have different ideas.
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If you go around trying to please everyone instead of expressing yourself, it's going to be a disaster. Just give players more to do. Make a quest you think is awesome. Place little secrets around the map, whatever. Make what YOU think would be fun.
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Oh haha yea I know that. I think everyone when making a game should express themselves with it or else it'll become boring for you
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I think Dante is just asking around in case someone comes up with a good idea that really inspires him, also he seem like a very community oriented kinda guy.
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well i do like inspiration. I just saw i think the game "rice". And in those comment sections for his newest update there was mention of advance mechanics in combat(or at least something that made me think about it). And than that made me thinking what mine should be so now thats what im doing currently which currently is a mix between xenoverse's(teleport system) and dc univere online guard and break system. That is if i get it working the way i want.
Also yea having ideas passed around by some community members I enjoy and does inspire me. You are right on! | |
My dragon ball z game Chronicle Z uses the teleport system. I wish I could get the pre-alpha server up sooner so you guys could give it a try!
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log training. this shouldnt be a norm get ride of it. You can copy enemies from sprite resources or something if you have too but please god put something in their besides punching a log(if only it was that its ussually right clicking a log). I get it if its a naruto role play game but do not make that the center focus of the leveling content. I spent three days last year ripping apart one of the more popular zeta sources, optimizing and bugfixing it. By the end of my little project, I found that out of the original's ~7,000 lines of code, only ~3,000 lines of code remained. I then stopped to look at what was left of this "game", and actually found that there was nothing worth keeping. There was zero gameplay. The entire thing was a giant "win" button. I had planned to write an article about what you could learn by optimizing zeta and found out that I only had 2-3 posts worth of material. It was just literally the same mistakes copied and pasted hundreds of times. In the end, most of my material was regarding stuff that the codebase didn't do, than what it did wrong. It actually led me to the conclusion that most of these games were really just chatrooms where 80% of the players were bots or a stack of quarters sitting on a keyboard, while the remaining 20% of the actual living, breathing players hurled insults at one another. It actually made me very sad when I thought about that. | |
I've always wanted to grab a source like that and clean it up for a fun little self project, never had the time or real interest in it other than a passing high school day dream back then.
Still, I think you should have gone ahead with your little write up on the process and result, it'd have still been a nice piece to read. | |
haha Im trying to get mine to testing phases too, but than when i think im close i end up adding new things.
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haha i might have to do that to my own project one day. It isnt as terrible as that, but i don't have tons of time on my hands so i do rush through things sometimes. Somethings could be written better
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Still, I think you should have gone ahead with your little write up on the process and result, it'd have still been a nice piece to read. I think any piece I'd have written on the subject would have been me sputtering out curse words and beating a dead horse about how bad it was. I kind of pictured the top response being: "What did you expect? It was Zeta." | |
As for point #1. I don't think that it is because a game has too many variables, but more so that a game tells their players all of those variables, instead of just the ones that are key to the game play. However using points before understanding how to play the game is a huge problem. I think that this problem comes from the developers playing the game so much that they begin think that it is basic knowledge for everyone. I think point #5 also derives from this idea.