Video Game Design and Discourse on the topic of Progression Systems

[xeroborn55]

This is going to be long so buckle in. I'll just say up front that this post is my opinion, someone who has spent far too much time playing and thinking about video games for 25+ years. If someone else has written about the idea I lay out here please let me know and I will properly credit them.

INTRODUCTION:

I'm interested in the way people talk about video games. Coming from a background in Film and Film Studies I have some knowledge of the common language of film and they way some of those terms have come to be part of the popular discourse. If I say the cinematography in a movie was well done, many people would know I what I meant.

The conversation around video games is not nearly as developed and I think its time we started considering the future of the medium and how we talk about games.

If you think this doesn't matter, you're wrong. Large publishers making AAA games give us what they think we want. If all we talk about is graphical fidelity, frame rates, and shooting mechanics the games that we have to choose from will prioritize these elements.

There is no agreed upon vocabulary to discuss the quality of games at anything beyond the most surface of levels. While this is the case, games will never be taken seriously – either by the people making them, the people buying them, or by the rest of society that largely still views them as toys for children.

PROGRESSION SYSTEMS:

The first topic I would like to discuss is 'Progression Systems'.

Specifically, the skill trees, the level-ups, the perks and the traits and the loot. More generally, progression systems are a way to make your own choices in the world of the game and have that affect the gameplay and/or story. These choices are the framework for your gameplay experience. Without them, you are playing the game the designer made for you. With them, you are molding the experience to suit your particular taste or preferred gameplay style. They also will oftentimes provide incentive for continuing to play a game whether that's in the form of item rewards or reaching the end of a particular skill tree and getting the Ultimate Ability. Progression systems are the players ability to exert their will on the gameplay systems provided within the game.

A well-made progression system can make a good game great (Diablo 2). A bad progression system can make a good game mediocre (Diablo 3).

I'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts of what makes a good progression system here. Instead, my point is nearly all games SHOULD HAVE a progression system. That the reason these systems have become so common is because games are dramatically improved when they are done well.

Its gotten to the point where if a game doesn't have a meaningful progression system, the gameplay better be on-point or I will probably end up dropping it after a few hours.

Why?

Raph Koster in 'A Theory of Fun in Game Design' posits that video games teach us real-life skills in a low-stakes environment. I believe this is true.

I can't be the only person who found some real-world lesson in perseverance from Dark Souls.

Progression systems in video games are similarly a low-stakes environment to work out our own ideas about progression in the real world.

Our lives are made up of progression systems from birth to death. Learning to speak and walk are progression systems. Math is one long progression system (basic operations to geometry to algebra to calculus). School from kindergarten to 12th grade is a progression system. Relationships are a progression system. Think about your first date with your partner and your 100th. They are very different. Starting a new job is a progression system. The tasks that make up my day at work are each individual, tiny progression systems.

They are everywhere and how we manage them is a huge part of our success and happiness in life.

Having a progression system in a game allows us to test our own ideas about how to manage and navigate progression systems before we have to go out in the real world and use these skills where they really matter.

PROGRESSION SYSTEMS IN GAMES:

Games should never be criticized for having a progression system. They can be criticized for having BAD progression systems but you would need to be specific in what makes that system bad. We need to focus on how progression systems can be used to make games better. What are the differences between good progression systems and bad? Does a progression system make a game more interesting to play or are the choices so banal as to be meaningless?

I think the main underlying goal of a video game progression system is to meaningfully integrate the player's choices into the gameplay, even better if they are integrated into the gameplay and the story.

Witcher 3 has a bad progression system because the main way to damage enemies is with sword swings. Giving me a choice in the skill tree of 2% melee damage or 2% melee attack speed is utterly pointless because swinging a sword is something I was already going to do.

Diablo 2 has a good progression system because the choices made when assigning points in the skill trees are tied directly to the choice of skills I have to use when engaging in combat within the game. Additionally, the skills have synergies with each other, allowing the player to make choices about the most effective way to build their character. Finally, there are no respecs. The player must live with their choices, but its still not as punishing as real life because if you make a mistake you can always roll a new character. Just as an aside, I like respecs in general. I'm talking specifically about how the lack of respecs in this game affects the progression system.

TLDR:

Our lives are made up of progression systems from birth to death (school, relationships, work as examples). Integrating these systems into games gives us a low-stakes places to test our theories on how to most effectively navigate these real world progressions. Games should never be criticized for having progression systems. Instead, we should focus on improving their quality and finding specific, meaningful ways to both design and critique progression systems.

What are your thoughts on progression systems in real life or video games?

 

[jon bones]

Great post, OP.

I was just ruminating on CCGs this weekend, as I was playing Runeterra and thinking about how much more well received it is compared to Artifact.

One of the most important factors is progression - in Runeterra, everyone has a weekly vault that builds as you play. On Sunday, it's Vault Day and everyone opens their respective vaults and gets a ton of cards & resources. This seems geared towards a few things - always feeling like you are building to something and a big communal achievement that everyone enjoys.

Compare this to Artifact, which launched with no progression at all and almost immediately died.

People need progression that feels good, and I agree wholeheartedly that it is a must have in all games today.

 

[werezompire]

A well-made progression system can make a good game great (Diablo 2). A bad progression system can make a good game mediocre (Diablo 3).

Click to shrink...

I'd argue that the progression system was one of the things that Diablo 3 did right (and I say this as someone who loves crazy complicated progression systems like PoE). Constantly unlocking new abilities & reworked versions of old abilities as you play through the game combined with being able to freely respec gives the player the freedom to learn the various abilities with low stakes while actually playing the game rather than having to plot out a build right from the beginning (which will inevitably be flawed the first time). Also being able to respec freely works well with the random nature of the game's loot system - getting an awesome piece of equipment and realizing that you're going to have to restart the game if you want to use it turns what could have been a fantastic moment into what feels like work. Finally, the class passives that you have to choose between tend to be big effects that can change your playstyle, rather than small incremental bonuses.

Diablo 2's progression system might be more fun to theorycraft, but Diablo 3's progression system is more fun to play.

 

[Nome]

OP, what you're generalizing as a progression system is more accurately described as an "arc"--a series of things (events, systems, etc) with a beginning and end. This is opposed to a "loop", which is self-contained system characterized by outputs that flow into inputs. To be more accurate, a progression system, by nature of its name, necessitates a forward momentum, which may not be the case with all arcs--so I wouldn't characterize most of what you'd encounter in life as a progression system, which encompasses the forward arc as well as the elements to motivate you forward. Learning would be considered a mastery arc, not a progression system. The hypothetical progression system here would be the entire school and standardized testing ecosystem.

In games, progression systems are mostly used to create contextual meaning for loops. Grinding for loot in Diablo isn't meaningful without the context of why it's useful (e.g. higher level numbers, Torment level, social peacocking, etc). I would disagree that games should not be criticized for having progression systems--because the progression system's arc sits higher on the overall motivational hierarchy than the gameplay loop, it changes motivational focus. That additional context can be harmful depending on what the designer intends to be sacred for the product.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

I feel like you need to be way more specific on what you are calling a "progression system" OP.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

So like, in general, most games do have some way of showing or contextualizing progression. But it seems like you're specifically talking about RPG style progression. Leveling up, filling bars, the avatar getting stronger, etc. If that's the case, then no, I don't agree with your premise. Not every game needs progression systems. There's many more ways to show progression (ie change over time and context for why the player is doing stuff) without requiring RPG-style systems. Changes in the world around the player, changes in the story, changes in the players own abilities, etc. In fact, 9 times out of 10 I'd prefer anything but rpg-style systems.

 

[SturokBGD]

Diablo 3 is a master lesson in spiking the dopamine. I don't understand what you mean.

 

[xeroborn55]

I feel like you need to be way more specific on what you are calling a "progression system" OP.

Click to shrink...

good point. i added this to the op:

Specifically, the skill trees, the level-ups, the perks and the traits and the loot. More generally, progression systems are a way to make your own choices in the world of the game and have that affect the gameplay and/or story. These choices are the framework for your gameplay experience. Without them, you are playing the game the designer made for you. With them, you are molding the experience to suit your particular taste or preferred gameplay style. They also will oftentimes provide incentive for continuing to play a game whether that's in the form of item rewards or reaching the end of a particular skill tree and getting the Ultimate Ability. Progression systems are the players ability to exert their will on the gameplay systems provided within the game.

 

[xeroborn55]

Diablo 3 is a master lesson in spiking the dopamine. I don't understand what you mean.

Click to shrink...

I couldn't disagree more with regards to diablo 3.

I think of Diablo 3's progression as a nearly horizontal line graph (character level # on the x-axis, character power level on the y). You are always gaining new skills but they are NOT better then the skills you already have. They are just different. At the end of the progression, when you get the item sets, you, the player, did not decide what your final end game build is, the DESIGNERS did. This system is just absurd to me. There is nothing satisfying about it. You don't make any meaningful decisions about your characters progression. It has all, from level 1 to endgame, been decided for you by the designers.

Contrast that with Diablo 2. Each skill point makes your chosen skills stronger. You generally chose your own synergy as your main abilities and as your progress through the levels the synergy is weak in the early game but by higher levels you can crush whole screens full of enemies. Viewed as a line graph character power level to level progression is much steeper than diablo 3. It is also more satisfying as the player to decide your characters path from level 1 to endgame then to have it already decided for you by the designers.

The fact that diablo iv will go back to diablo 2 style progression says it all pretty much.

 

[xeroborn55]

So like, in general, most games do have some way of showing or contextualizing progression. But it seems like you're specifically talking about RPG style progression. Leveling up, filling bars, the avatar getting stronger, etc. If that's the case, then no, I don't agree with your premise. Not every game needs progression systems. There's many more ways to show progression (ie change over time and context for why the player is doing stuff) without requiring RPG-style systems. Changes in the world around the player, changes in the story, changes in the players own abilities, etc. In fact, 9 times out of 10 I'd prefer anything but rpg-style systems.

Click to shrink...

The items i bolded in your post are all things that could result from a progression system. The benefit of putting them into a traditional rpg-style skill system is that the PLAYER makes the decisions. The one thing that games can do that movies and tv can't is provide the player with choices.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for designer or game writer mandated changes to the story, abilities, or the world that then affect the player. I'm saying it is better for games as a medium to allow the player to influence these decisions. It will provide a more meaningful, rewarding, lasting experience IF the player can exert their own influence over the world of the game as opposed to the opposite where they sit back and have no control over these elements.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

I liked the one in Reach because it was cosmetic. But you had many, many options.

Barring the credit cap of course. That was a load of bull.

 

[Deleted member 8860]

Games should never be criticized for having progression systems

Click to shrink...

Hard disagree. Fighting games are the most obvious counter-example, but progression systems are fundamentally at odds with any kind of skill-based gameplay.

 

[xeroborn55]

Hard disagree. Fighting games are the most obvious counter-example, but progression systems are fundamentally at odds with any kind of skill-based gameplay.

Click to shrink...

I agree progression systems that directly affect the in-match gameplay will not work. My experience with these games is more strategy focused (Starcraft 2/League of Legends).

I see 2 types of progression working here:

1. The way you earn RP in LoL is pretty awesome. Each match you gain a small number of Riot Points. You can then spend them on unlocking new characters. The player's progression is rewarded with a choice of character to unlock. What kind of gameplay the player wants is totally up to that person and which character they choose to unlock. This system gives the player the choice of how they want to play the game, while not directly impacting the in-match gameplay.

2. This idea is a little more radical but stay with me. Imagine a fighting game where you start at level 1 and have only basic abilities, this could be even the single player portion of the game. As you win fights and level up you gain new abilities and combos eventually ending at the last level when you have unlocked the full suite of abilities and can now go online and engage with other players having been introduced to all elements of a fighter's style. It could even work that some of the fights during the leveling process are against other, similarly leveled real people so you gain experience against humans as well. Of course, if you don't need that introduction you can skip it and just do online matchmaking from the start as well.

I wish there was a fighting game that worked like this.

 

[xeroborn55]

OP, what you're generalizing as a progression system is more accurately described as an "arc"--a series of things (events, systems, etc) with a beginning and end. This is opposed to a "loop", which is self-contained system characterized by outputs that flow into inputs. To be more accurate, a progression system, by nature of its name, necessitates a forward momentum, which may not be the case with all arcs--so I wouldn't characterize most of what you'd encounter in life as a progression system, which encompasses the forward arc as well as the elements to motivate you forward. Learning would be considered a mastery arc, not a progression system. The hypothetical progression system here would be the entire school and standardized testing ecosystem.

In games, progression systems are mostly used to create contextual meaning for loops. Grinding for loot in Diablo isn't meaningful without the context of why it's useful (e.g. higher level numbers, Torment level, social peacocking, etc). I would disagree that games should not be criticized for having progression systems--because the progression system's arc sits higher on the overall motivational hierarchy than the gameplay loop, it changes motivational focus. That additional context can be harmful depending on what the designer intends to be sacred for the product.

Click to shrink...

I'm curious what you mean by your last sentence. What is an example of a modern game where the loops are not contextualized? This thread is not about mobile games, which are their own weird thing. I guess my thoughts are focused more on AAA or AA indie games

I also think you said a little more eloquently what I was getting at - these systems provide context for a games choices. The power of a movie to make us feel anything is because we draw comparisons to our own lives. For a game to have any meaning to a person the choices must have context that can be abstracted to a person's life.

God of war last year immediately comes to mind. The game is brilliantly designed on every level, however the aspect that elevates it to a masterpiece is the father son dynamic. My wife was pregnant at the time I played the game and that experience really made me reflect on my impending fatherhood and what I would make of it.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

the skill trees, the level-ups, the perks and the traits and the loot. More generally, progression systems are a way to make your own choices in the world of the game and have that affect the gameplay and/or story. These choices are the framework for your gameplay experience. Without them, you are playing the game the designer made for you. With them, you are molding the experience to suit your particular taste or preferred gameplay style.

Click to shrink...

Well, I strongly disagree.

 

[badcrumble]

A common mistake is for games to turn progression into a matter of dumping points into buckets to make numbers go up and not much more besides that.

*Qualitative* upgrades are always fundamentally more interesting than *quantitative* upgrades, IMO; but smartly framed quantitative upgrades can *feel* quantitative (see, for example, Resident Evil 4's weapon upgrades to damage/fire rate/reload speed/clip; they're all fundamentally mostly just tweaks to your DPS but you *feel* them in different moments and that ends up feeling much more interesting than JUST damage upgrades would've been).

Upgrades should also feel instantaneously tangible, too; let's say, for example, that you can boost your damage output by 1% for 1000 ability points in a game. I'd much rather have to save up 5000 to boost it by 5%, JUST because that's an upgrade that you'd actually feel immediately.

I also think it's a good idea (in general) for good progression systems to have a bunch of different ladders you're climbing at the same time, and for the player to always be less than five minutes away from unlocking *something*.

I think an ideal progression system is also, very specifically, not just one that constantly gives you the short-term gratification "ping" of "yay! you leveled this thing up!" but also one that rewards focus.

What I mean, in this sense, is that although you might be leveling up 10 totally different meters (abilities, level, bonus level, obtaining new abilities, etc), you should be able to be making progress toward all of them simultaneously through the main thrust of the game.

What this means is that simply by playing more, you should also be unlocking/leveling more of everything (though obviously you should be playing correctly/intelligently/well). If you have to resort to a shitty (water barrel) minigame to level up one specific thing and ignore all of the other meters you're filling up, the game has failed. Subsystems should also be integrated with each other sufficiently that leveling up one thing kinda enables better progress toward leveling up something else.

 

[Nome]

I'm curious what you mean by your last sentence. What is an example of a modern game where the loops are not contextualized? This thread is not about mobile games, which are their own weird thing. I guess my thoughts are focused more on AAA or AA indie games

Click to shrink...

It's not about loops lacking context, it's rather that they provide an additional context that may not always be wanted.
To use Call of Duty's SBMM (skill-based matchmaking) as a relevant example, let's breakdown what's happening in a multiplayer match.
- The match itself is a self-contained arc with a beginning and an end.
- Each match fits in an overall progression arc as you earn XP for weapons and your player profile. You could also argue for a loop-arc hybrid model where match --> get XP --> get gun/upgrade --> use gun in match is the loop, and that loop is set in the overall progression arc.
- There's an internal mastery loop in which players may want to get better with each match.
- To support that, there's a matchmaking loop/system in which player performance feeds into how they're matched in the future (SBMM).

If the motivation for the match arc for some players is to "have fun" and "level weapons", these can come into conflict with the mastery loop and the matchmaking loop/system, as the two can conflict if mastery isn't a motivation for the match arc. This is why the COD community is so in arms about Modern Warfare's apparent implementation of SBMM.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

The items i bolded in your post are all things that could result from a progression system. The benefit of putting them into a traditional rpg-style skill system is that the PLAYER makes the decisions. The one thing that games can do that movies and tv can't is provide the player with choices.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for designer or game writer mandated changes to the story, abilities, or the world that then affect the player. I'm saying it is better for games as a medium to allow the player to influence these decisions. It will provide a more meaningful, rewarding, lasting experience IF the player can exert their own influence over the world of the game as opposed to the opposite where they sit back and have no control over these elements.

Click to shrink...

Players are always making decisions in games, and filling bars is one of the least interesting ways to accomplish this. It often leads to grinding, and generally diminishes individual rewards as the player grows numb to various aspects of it. And even if it doesn't it's just generally less interesting than other things because of it's abstract nature.

Giving players a feeling of freedom, accomplishment, ownership, etc. doesn't require the types of progression systems you seem to be talking about. So while I don't have an issue with them being in various games, I do think the whole premise of this thread, that they should be in pretty much all games, is wrong and a poorly thought out idea. I don't really have time to go into more detail at the moment, but if the discussion continues I may come back and explain my point further.