Multiple routes are also interesting because the create a fear of the unknown: Not all routes can be explored and thus remain as an open flank, a risk in the players mind (or a missed opportunity) – it makes the world feel more dangerous since you are not in complete control. There be dragons.

Key thing is: the player must not be able to fully survey all alternating routes, they must remain in the dark (even if this withholds content).

I don’t love being asked early on to pick a particular playstyle path when it means barring all others. At the same time, It’d probably be even worse to have everything available from the start. Perhaps others share some of this anxiety at some level, but I must admit my version of it is a bit nuts.

My anxiety when confronted with a bunch of non-intersecting skill trees has to do with my limited time and perhaps a fear that I might be “missing out” on something cool, and wanting to do things “the right way”.

Wanting to master a game can be a useful impulse to have in a competitive mp game or say, Robotron 2084, but it’s not necessarily the best way to approach other more sandboxy/RPG/games with lots of options.

Sometimes I just need to relax. It’s a game. Play it however you damn well want, crazy.

But in an actual RPG, still one of my favorite genres, your choices on level up are as much about building your story, defining who you are along with the other decisions that you make throughout the game. So they clearly need to be permanent. An exception to this might be Skyrim, since ES games allow you to go through all of the story content with almost no actual decision-making, so it’s hardly roleplaying, anyway. I appreciate that they added the ability to reset skills to zero and get your perk points back once they hit 100.

I’m not sure if I would call DX1 a proper RPG, but it is open and engaging enough that I actually wanted to go back through it trying different builds, and didn’t feel like I was just grinding through story content. Also, there is a lot of reactivity, so choosing to play one mission by just gunning everyone down can actually have consequences (though not major ones, really). Not surprisingly, Dishonored is pretty similar in that respect. I still plan to go back and try a more violent, brute force, playthrough. Same with DX: HR, for that matter.

I’m not sure what my point was….. Anyway, in the case of MGSV, with the sandbox, distinct missions, and (I assume?) linear story, being able to switch things up definitely sounds like the way to go. As more and more games incorporate character building elements, but don’t really mesh with the roleplaying part, it makes sense to let people pick and choose, for sure. And in games where multiple missions might be pretty similar in terms of layout or objectives, switching up builds is a way to keep it fresh for the player.

Personally, I want to be allowed to check it out Aug and how it works without having to roll up a new character.

Of course this is purely my own preference, and I realize it flies in the face of classic RPG design and what most people that aren’t me like most about those games.

Min/maxing and living with those decisions can be really cool, for example, the stakes of leveling and becoming more powerful are raised when the currency to do so is so precious. More unique experiences can be made possible when players are forced to “specialize”, and a feeling of “aren’t I clever for doing it this way” is perhaps more commonly engendered in the player. Tom’s Illusion only Skyrim Diary springs to mind. Any system that encourages that sort of this is definitely doing something right!

That said, one of my favorite types of “fun” in games is learning the systems at play and eventually, hopefully, developing some modicum of skill in using them. When I feel like I more or less “get” 1 system, and I’m looking over at a shiny new system that I’m not allowed to fuck around with at all, I get a bit edgy.

For me, MGSV’s approach more or less solves this “problem”. It allows some specialized builds (Sniper, Loud and Armored, Stealth CQC, Anti Vehicle) and disparate approaches to mission goals, but it lets me try them all out (eventually) without starting up a new game.

You slowly add more and more tools to your toolbox as you go, but are only allowed to carry a limited number of tools at any one time.

Of course, that you can repeat missions undercuts the narrative a bit I guess, but I don’t care, as it’s largely ridiculous anyway.

It effectively lets the player play different builds as they chose without having to start up a new game. It also encourages screwing around. Slop your way through a mission and fail some sub-goal? Who cares! Try again. No need to reload a save. There is zero lasting penalty for anything you might screw up.

Exhausted after stealthing your way though 19 consecutive missions? Slap on some body armor, grab an LMG, and hop on your minigun sporting robot. It’s ok. You can come back and play this one properly stealthy later.

For instance, I’m pretty sure you can complete all of DX1 (perhaps minus a few secrets) without ever using an Aug at all. All they do is allow for new strategies.

“How the fuck should I know which of these I want,” I’ll think to myself. “If you think I’m going to replay this game 17 times just to see everything, you’ve got another thing coming.” I’m anxious because I don’t want to “miss out” on content, and instead of feeling intrigued and empowered, I feel like I’m being suddenly forced to chose which set of hallways I will spend the rest of the game being forced down and which I’ll be sealing off forever.

I really love the MGSV way of doing things. Abilities are tied to the gear you chose to bring with you (or manage to scrounge during the mission itself). You’re theoretically able to unlock everything eventually but not overwhelmed by choices to start out with. You’re allowed and encouraged to repeat missions and try different approaches, even mid mission, by swapping out gear and buddies on the fly. The limit on what you can carry and the cost of replacing it doesn’t preclude changing your plans, but it does encourage some initial planning and experimenting to see if you can make the most of what you have at the moment.

Dunno if any of this might be applicable to Tom’s game.

Just wanted to say, I kind of hate when “choice” in games effectively does the opposite and restricts the players to certain types of play for the remainder of the game.

I think the size of the level really is a pretty big factor. HR felt so cramped. Like you guys mention, being set loose on a couple city blocks feels a lot different than being in a series of alley ways.

Other aspects tie in closely as well, like the general design of levels and just the pure size of them. When I think about this issue in HR, I always come back that early obstacle of getting into the club and my thought process after getting denied at the door. My immediate thought was “wait… is there a vent 5 feet away in this alley right next to this bouncer” and sure enough there was. That really broke things for me. Amazing how much little aspects affect how I felt about HR.

But yeah, when Tom mentioned methods, this struck me as the key to it, really. The player has a large toolset, and the environments are reactive in many ways, so one path doesn’t mean one method. There are countless ways to deal with most obstacles. Passing through a booby-trapped corridor, I could carefully go through and deactivate the mines, I could detonate them with my pistol or another LAM, I could hack the camera or just destroy it with a sniper round if I’ve maxed rifle skill, etc.

What works so well is that everything has a set of properties that govern how the rest of the world interacts with it, instead of just being a scripted entity that lets you use one skill on it. So for instance, a weak wall might let you punch through it using your strength aug in a little quicktime event, but a more interesting approach would be a gauge of the wall’s strength that lets it be destroyed by anything that can cause that much damage. Suddenly you have many more ways to interact with that one object, and that’s what gets my problem solving gears going, and results in a much richer world, overall.

DXHR, which I still love, has much more obvious Methods and routes. The Vent Route. The Front Door Guns Blazing Route. The Conversationy Route. They were generally always really good fun, but about 10 seconds into the level it was VERY clear what all those options were.

Basically, I think the main appeal of the game’s isn’t the “multiple routes” so much as the player just being able to do what comes naturally and the game being able to accommodate it. And its always more satisfying to feel like you’re doing something the devs didn’t necessarily intend you to (even if they actually did account for that edge case) when you’re traversing an environment than it is to just find a context sensitive area and run a canned animation because you have the skill that corresponds to it.