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[Urist McScoopbeard]

I’m starting to think you just hate DR2 as a game, not just because of its time limits...

Any other games that come to mind bar have terrible timers?

I don't hate it, it's just pretty uninspired.

In the strict sense, I don't think there are many that are as blatant as DR2. However, I'm also quite peeved by any sort of food/water counters or countdown. BUT, Fable 3 towards the end, I know ye olde Pikmin had one, Majora' Mask (but that's actually a great game so...), and a slew of old platformers. Probably a couple I'm forgetting. There's also a bunch of smaller timers which usually don't bother me too much as they're either for mini games or very unobtrusive (like in that one mission from MW2... or 3?)

[Damiac]

I feel some games are improved by timers, either direct time countdown or limited resources. I enjoy some games with those features. I say that with complete honesty and candor. I'd say in some cases it's a piece of a subjectively good game design. Time pressure that keeps you from farming easy beginner content makes the game better, there's no need to choose between the boring but effective grinding vs the exciting but suboptimal constant moving forward.  And that sort of pressure makes it so much easier to keep an even challenge level, because you don't need to cater to players who decided to grind up to max level and players who rushed forward.

Some people like games other people don't like. That doesn't make them objectively bad, as the only things that really qualify for that label would have to be entirely unfit for their purpose.  I think some games would be better without their timers, but that's just like, my opinion, man.

[Egan_BW]

It's the developer's job to make sure that the most fun way to play the game is also the most successful way to play the game, because otherwise the play will likely play the game in an unfun way in order to improve their odds of success. Timers are just one tool that a developer can use to make it so that the player doesn't have to consider what's most fun in order to do what's most fun. It's a better experience when your decision making is exclusively in-game, trying to win, and doing so also happens to allow you to have fun, rather than also needing to make your own fun.

Not that a game about making your own fun will never work. A sandbox like DF can provide that sort of thing.

[Arcvasti]

The big point of timers is to address one of the fundemental issues with games:

If the most effective way to play the game is tedious, then people will play the game in a tedious way.

There are many many games that do this poorly and reward awful grinding. In Morrowind, for example, you can train your spell skills simply by repeatedly casting a low-mana spell on yourself. This lets you get your skills to a high level very early in the game, at the cost of the tedium of casting it over and over again. A timer of whatever sort reduces or eliminates this problem: If spending in-game weeks alternately resting and repeatedly clicking has some kind of drawback, then it no longer becomes the most effective way to play the game. This isn't that big a problem in Morrowind simply because the skill ceiling is so dang low: You don't need to play effectively in order to succeed.

But for more difficult games, especially permadeath ones, having a clock of some kind is vitally important. It really isn't fun knowing that by playing the game at a decent pace you're essentially handicapping yourself. Granted, a literal timer is probably the worst way to do this, since it still incentivizes the tedium of running the timer nearly to its end and then moving on. But its still an improvement over no timer at all.

FAKEEDIT:

I think that Egan_BW just said exactly what I did in fewer words. I, surprisingly, agree with them.

[Egan_BW]

It's okay, I just stole the idea from Mark Brown anyway. ;P

[bloop_bleep]

My question is why would the game devs want to stop people from grinding and doing other tedious things? Why would they use something that can negatively affect other elements of gameplay just to force people to play a certain way? If people want to spend hours slowly leveling up their skills, that's perfectly okay. If people want to do it the usual way, with leveling up just by doing normal things, that's also okay. This is in fact one of my own gaming pet peeves -- devs deciding to compromise important elements of gameplay just to make sure no one plays the game the ""wrong"" way. Who the hell cares how other people play?

[NullForceOmega]

A game dev trying to beat me over the head with their 'correct' gameplay methods is the absolute number one way to make me drop a product and all future products from said dev.  Once the game is out of their hands and into the players, their preferences can take a flying leap off a very high cliff, I play how I choose to, and trying to force me into their miserable goddamn box is not acceptable.

That said, I don't have a specific problem with timers, if I find a timer to be too much of a hassle I just won't play the game.

[milo christiansen]

This is in fact one of my own gaming pet peeves -- devs deciding to compromise important elements of gameplay just to make sure no one plays the game the ""wrong"" way. Who the hell cares how other people play?

I'll second that.

A horrible example of this forced play style is enforced "ironman" play in many games nowadays. Is it so wrong to allow multiple saves? Not everyone is an expert who wants to play your game over and over and over just to get to the middle, much less then end.

[scriver]

My question is why would the game devs want to stop people from grinding and doing other tedious things? Why would they use something that can negatively affect other elements of gameplay just to force people to play a certain way? If people want to spend hours slowly leveling up their skills, that's perfectly okay. If people want to do it the usual way, with leveling up just by doing normal things, that's also okay. This is in fact one of my own gaming pet peeves -- devs deciding to compromise important elements of gameplay just to make sure no one plays the game the ""wrong"" way. Who the hell cares how other people play?

They make the game. They literally have to decide how to play the game. If they don't, there is no game.

[AzyWng]

Game developers want to provide the player with an experience, right? (If they want to just make money then I’m not even going to honor those folks with a response any longer than “Go away”.)

If hey want to make an action game, they want the player to be powerful, but not so powerful that literally every enemy dies in seconds.

If they want to make a horror game, the player should be weak, right?

If the player isn’t restricted in the right way, then that clashes with the developers vision and results in the player experiencing something that the developers didn't intend to happen. And if the developers don’t intend for something to happen... they won’t prepare for it (usually). And if the developer doesn’t intend or know it will happen... how do they make sure the player will enjoy what happens as a result of what happens?

Things like killing plot-critical characters and somehow getting away with it, or removing a critical element like limited health or ammo or flashlight power would be an example of the sort of things I have in mind...

Or, for that matter, using Overwatch in every single turn because you don’t want to put your troops at risk...

Edit: Basic idea behind my argument also stolen from a Mark Brown of “Game Makers Toolkit”.

[Rolan7]

Pretty cool discussion!  I happened to be relistening to the Fallout 1 GDC retrospective just now, where the producer/programmer/designer talks about the game development process with benefit of hindsight.

He surprised me by saying naming the end-game timer as the one single thing he'd most like to have removed!  In fact they did patch it out almost immediately (though patching was different back then, heh).

I think he's wrong, though   Specifically, I enjoyed the game just fine...  With the much easier timer that they patched in (idk at what point, I played FO2 first).  It was generous enough to always be in mind, without actually requiring urgency.

The fact that sending a water caravan would extend the known timer while shortening a different, secret, timer by revealing your vault's location...  I like it in theory, though it does seem Sierra-unfair.  Though I think that second timer is the one they actually removed.

Star Control 2 did this all much better.  The doom of the galaxy is a looooong, increasingly obvious process.  And if you do manage to get to the final hour, certain objectives suddenly become very easy- so your save isn't screwed.  Just billions of poor aliens

[Urist McScoopbeard]

The big point of timers is to address one of the fundemental issues with games:

If the most effective way to play the game is tedious, then people will play the game in a tedious way.

There are many many games that do this poorly and reward awful grinding. In Morrowind, for example, you can train your spell skills simply by repeatedly casting a low-mana spell on yourself. This lets you get your skills to a high level very early in the game, at the cost of the tedium of casting it over and over again. A timer of whatever sort reduces or eliminates this problem: If spending in-game weeks alternately resting and repeatedly clicking has some kind of drawback, then it no longer becomes the most effective way to play the game. This isn't that big a problem in Morrowind simply because the skill ceiling is so dang low: You don't need to play effectively in order to succeed.

But for more difficult games, especially permadeath ones, having a clock of some kind is vitally important. It really isn't fun knowing that by playing the game at a decent pace you're essentially handicapping yourself. Granted, a literal timer is probably the worst way to do this, since it still incentivizes the tedium of running the timer nearly to its end and then moving on. But its still an improvement over no timer at all.

FAKEEDIT:

I think that Egan_BW just said exactly what I did in fewer words. I, surprisingly, agree with them.

I'd like to point out, AGAIN, that if the base game is tedious or players are playing in a manner which the developer did not want or expect, slapping a timer over it all to prevent that play style is literally NOT ADDRESSING the flawed mechanics in question and is just a lazy countermeasure. (Or they had this idea that just didn't come together how they hoped. I wouldn't accuse DR or DR2 of having their timers because of some last minute fix.)

[bloop_bleep]

My question is why would the game devs want to stop people from grinding and doing other tedious things? Why would they use something that can negatively affect other elements of gameplay just to force people to play a certain way? If people want to spend hours slowly leveling up their skills, that's perfectly okay. If people want to do it the usual way, with leveling up just by doing normal things, that's also okay. This is in fact one of my own gaming pet peeves -- devs deciding to compromise important elements of gameplay just to make sure no one plays the game the ""wrong"" way. Who the hell cares how other people play?

They make the game. They literally have to decide how to play the game. If they don't, there is no game.

Problem is, if they're cramping down on or damaging other gameplay that isn't even related to grinding (as in the case of the timer), solely for the purpose of preventing grinding, then that's probably a pretty bad design decision for very little actual gain. If the players feel that tediously grinding your skills is not a fun or fulfilling way to play the game, and if they want an "experience", then there's absolutely nothing stopping them from playing it without grinding. This idea that the devs somehow have to completely prohibit certain gameplay methods because apparently the players lack the willpower to choose how they want to play is simply patronizing.

[Wiles]

I don't think knowing your audience well enough to know that a large portion of players will take a certain path if given the opportunity is particularly patronizing. If letting a player play a certain way completely ruins the tone of a game then I admire devs who stick to their vision and don't change mechanics to cater to every opinionated gamer. Sometimes you have to challenge people to play a game differently. Maybe some players will be completely turned off because they don't like the mechanics, and that's fine, not every game needs to appeal to every gamer. Otherwise we'd have even more ultra generic games.

edit: I just realized the thread had progressed further than I thought it had and in my laziness I missed some posts. Sorry for just parroting what other people have already said.

[Damiac]

Yeah, some people HATED the fact that when they touched a goomba or koopa trooper in Super Mario Bros while they had firepower, they lost the fire power! What if their preferred game experience was that once you have fire power you never lose it?

Did you know in Super Mario Bros, you could kill the various bowsers by shooting him with the fireballs? And that each different bowser turned into a different thing when you killed it that way.  It was fun to find out what each bowser turned into. But sometimes when I played I'd get hit and lose my fire power before I got to shoot bowser! So I had to play the whole damn game again just to find out what bowser in level 5-4 turns into!

My point being, although the restriction in my power was annoying at the time, if that restriction didn't exist it wouldn't have improved the game for me, I would never have been interested enough to bother in the first place!

It also had level timers, which didn't really do much except sort of mercy kill you if you got stuck, and give you extra points at the end.  I don't think the game would really have suffered from losing the level timer, but I also don't think it made much difference.  The only exceptions I guess were the two maze castles, where you could run out of time before solving the level, but it's debatable whether those were really good things.

Now, maybe you don't like Super Mario Bros. It's a valid opinion, it's a very specific type of game, and if you're the type who likes to take their time and strategically plan your moves, maybe it was a terrible game for you.  But if you are going to tell me Super Mario Brothers was an objectively bad game, or that it had objectively bad design, I'm going to tell you to go look up the meaning of the word objectively.

Now, some might argue it would have been an objectively superior game if it let you play how you wanted.  So when a goomba walked into you, or you mistimed a jump and landed in a hole, perhaps even losing your last life, maybe some people think it would have been better for the game to give you the option "You have hit a goomba. Die?" "You have run out of time. Die?" "You have run out of lives. Game over?"  But I firmly believe that would have made the game worse, I know I would have selected "NO!" to all those options every time, and I would have gotten quite bored of Super Mario Brothers quite quickly.

Now, there's certainly valid discussion to be had in the case of any individual game feature whether that feature makes the game worse or better.  If you know what the developers intended, you can even make somewhat objective judgments whether individual features helped or hindered the game matching the developers intent. IE the devs of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup have stated they don't want the game to have "no-brainer" decisions that aren't really decisions, they don't want a tedious series of actions to be the most optimal choice in any situation. Essentially, they never want the player to choose between "Fun way to play" or "Best way to play to win".  They want those both to be the same thing.  They've implemented tons and tons of changes, each individual change can be compared to that simple goal, and one can make reasonably objective judgements on whether the impact of each change accomplishes that goal or not.