Agreed. This was one of the most eye opening lessons I learned when I was first getting into game development and design theory. An experienced friend of mine touched on same basic premise you mention.
I forget how he phrased it exactly, but the general idea as I took it is that mechanics and systems with that kind of abstraction are best utilized in cases where you cannot provide a workable apparatus for the player to simulate it through pure and direct input and actions.
IE, in games we've used numerical values for decades to represent how alive or close to death the player and NPC's are, and even before that tabletop RPG's did the same. And in a fair majority of cases, these values aren't even hidden under the hood. Nor are damage values. We do this because there are limits to how far we can simulate physical trauma to the human body in a live action game. Even if a game were to try to seriously go in-depth to simulate it, it's still going to have to put it into a calculable framework that is distinctly artificial in nature.
The same thing goes for how a lot of melee systems have employed different kinds of attacks, with different damage values. Trying to implement the strength of swings power based on direct player input is often not very practical. Granted, a few games have been able to attempt this with varying degrees of success (as well as calculations based on contact/impact point and velocity of the swing), but it's still an ideal example for how game developers often have to come up with different ways to simulate basic things, while taking player input into account.
I'm still not sure if I'll actually use stats or perks at all in the game I'm planning though. I actually was trying to go out of my way to conceive of ways to implement mechanics for things like repairing a power generator, without just resorting to "hit the x key to fix the thing". Instead I wanted to lay out the general concept for what would likely make such a thing "tick", and what kinds of sub-components might need fixing, different methods that could be employed to fix things, etc etc. Truth be told though, the further down such a rabbit hole you go, the faster you realize just how unfun and tedious such things would likely get in an actual game.
Sort of a sidebar to what you’re talking about here: I think the action RPG genre is actually obsolete. I tried playing some of the more popular entries over the last few years, and I ended up bored to tears every time. This confused me because I was a huge Diablo 2 junky back in the day. Why wasn’t I having fun in these very similar games? At some point I realized what the problem was: Dark Souls exists. I can play a third person action RPG with actual skill-based gameplay. Mindlessly clicking on enemies in fights that are essentially predetermined by our relative stat values just didn’t cut it anymore. Not when I can perform most of the “abstracted actions” of the action RPG manually.
I've experienced the same issues in a few games in recent years, and especially with ARPG's. It's also the same reason I could never really get into most MMORPG's. I need to feel like I'm actually interacting with the game's world and environment, with immediate and responsive feedback based on my movement and actions.
Another thing that's always bugged me is the frequent dependency on NPC level-numbers as a metric for measuring enemy or area difficulty. I want the reason an enemy is a legitimate and dangerous threat to be because it's actually smarter, faster, more accurate, and/or better armed. Or of course because they're more numerous. Where the combat actually has punch and substance to it, and every so often you'll experience fights that are distinct or unique in some way, specifically because of how the flow of the fight can unfold.
And there's absolutely ways to implement a feeling of an ever increasing challenge in a game without depending on level systems. Just look at STALKER as a perfect example. You don't have a bunch of idiotic bullet sponges at later stages to bore you to tears. You have mutants with psychokinetic abilities who will straight up yank your gun out of your hands and bash you over the head with it. Earlier game mutated beasts who can still manage to tear you up if you slip up at the worst moment. And the classic "cheeki breeki" bandit who might just manage to land a lucky shotgun blast to your face as you turn a corner.
Agreed. This was one of the most eye opening lessons I learned when I was first getting into game development and design theory. An experienced friend of mine touched on same basic premise you mention.
I forget how he phrased it exactly, but the general idea as I took it is that mechanics and systems with that kind of abstraction are best utilized in cases where you cannot provide a workable apparatus for the player to simulate it through pure and direct input and actions.
IE, in games we've used numerical values for decades to represent how alive or close to death the player and NPC's are, and even before that tabletop RPG's did the same. And in a fair majority of cases, these values aren't even hidden under the hood. Nor are damage values. We do this because there are limits to how far we can simulate physical trauma to the human body in a live action game. Even if a game were to try to seriously go in-depth to simulate it, it's still going to have to put it into a calculable framework that is distinctly artificial in nature.
The same thing goes for how a lot of melee systems have employed different kinds of attacks, with different damage values. Trying to implement the strength of swings power based on direct player input is often not very practical. Granted, a few games have been able to attempt this with varying degrees of success (as well as calculations based on contact/impact point and velocity of the swing), but it's still an ideal example for how game developers often have to come up with different ways to simulate basic things, while taking player input into account.
I'm still not sure if I'll actually use stats or perks at all in the game I'm planning though. I actually was trying to go out of my way to conceive of ways to implement mechanics for things like repairing a power generator, without just resorting to "hit the x key to fix the thing". Instead I wanted to lay out the general concept for what would likely make such a thing "tick", and what kinds of sub-components might need fixing, different methods that could be employed to fix things, etc etc. Truth be told though, the further down such a rabbit hole you go, the faster you realize just how unfun and tedious such things would likely get in an actual game.
Sort of a sidebar to what you’re talking about here: I think the action RPG genre is actually obsolete. I tried playing some of the more popular entries over the last few years, and I ended up bored to tears every time. This confused me because I was a huge Diablo 2 junky back in the day. Why wasn’t I having fun in these very similar games? At some point I realized what the problem was: Dark Souls exists. I can play a third person action RPG with actual skill-based gameplay. Mindlessly clicking on enemies in fights that are essentially predetermined by our relative stat values just didn’t cut it anymore. Not when I can perform most of the “abstracted actions” of the action RPG manually.
I've experienced the same issues in a few games in recent years, and especially with ARPG's. It's also the same reason I could never really get into most MMORPG's. I need to feel like I'm actually interacting with the game's world and environment, with immediate and responsive feedback based on my movement and actions.
Another thing that's always bugged me is the frequent dependency on NPC level-numbers as a metric for measuring enemy or area difficulty. I want the reason an enemy is a legitimate and dangerous threat to be because it's actually smarter, faster, more accurate, and/or better armed. Or of course because they're more numerous. Where the combat actually has punch and substance to it, and every so often you'll experience fights that are distinct or unique in some way, specifically because of how the flow of the fight can unfold.
And there's absolutely ways to implement a feeling of an ever increasing challenge in a game without depending on level systems. Just look at STALKER as a perfect example. You don't have a bunch of idiotic bullet sponges at later stages to bore you to tears. You have mutants with psychokinetic abilities who will straight up yank your gun out of your hands and bash you over the head with it. Earlier game mutated beasts who can still manage to tear you up if you slip up at the worst moment. And the classic "cheeki breeki" bandit who might just manage to land a lucky shotgun blast to your face as you turn a corner.