Progression Systems - How Good Games Avoid Skinner Boxes - Extra Credits

Progression systems in games are far too often designed as Skinner boxes: psychological traps that feed us carefully measured rewards to create habit-forming activity loops. Skinner boxes are not rewarding in themselves, but progression systems can be, and they should be used to create a better game experience. Building in choices that allow the player to select their own build (and optimize it) lets the player think ahead and makes progression a part of the game experience in itself.
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM

♪ Outro Music: "Jet Squid Radio" by Dj CUTMAN

[gigglysamentz]

2:12 You also need a backtracking system to prevent spec anxiety, when people like me are afraid to spend any stat point before fully understanding what works best.

[jerome]

Actually a party consisting of a war hardened cynical and aggressive healer, and a young, idealistic, naive and well trained knight who never saw real combat though, and hence is reluctant to fight, THAT would make for a very interesting game I think.

[JonHerzogArtist]

A quick thing about WoW-styled talent-trees versus the linear progression of other RPGs:
The downside of using talent-based systems is that, while it creates more player choices, the community will inevitably find the most mathematically powerful combination of talents and proceed to call that package the one-true-combination. In the worst scenarios, this can lead to elitism and harassment of players who differ from this formula. A linear progression of talents, while carrying its own baggage, does avoid this issue.
It could be interested to hear a discussion about the merits of each!

[josephdodds]

energy systems are the worst gaming mechanic to have ever been invented.

[wolvie]

I feel Dark Souls has an incredibly rewarding progression system. When you start out you're pretty much pounded into the dirt by trashmobs but after bashing your head against that world for hours you reach a sort-of god level among the regular enemies, were you smack them around like they were toys.
The best feeling I had in that game was with my second character, I avoided the Capra Demon fight until very late in the game and came back all super-saiyan mode and breezed through it.

[pauliussip]

If you really want to be good in a MMO, you don't brainstorm, sadly. You just copy a optimal, universally agreed list from the web and roll with it. No decisions at all.

[scambroselauntrellus]

I love how the artists can even make a Warhammer 40k space marine look cute.

[Zedrinbot]

One of the best examples of good progression I feel is Monster Hunter. Getting access to new fights means new parts to craft new armors and weapons, which is exciting. The game revolves around progression--hell for what modest story there is, they even draw attention to that aspect.

New armor pieces mean you can formulate new armor sets that compliment your weapons and is, IMO, one of the funnest aspects to the game, right up there with actually using your sets to kick monster ass.

[extrahistory]

Level grind can be good game design, but not if you make it a chore. #ExtraCredits

[godsil]

have they covered binary morality systems yet? i would really like to hear there thoughts on the matter

[gmestanley]

>daniel says off
>does a OFF reference by putting the logo on-screen for a second

*damn you daniel you clever son of a mom*

[OOOOOOOKKKKKKK]

'' If the most efficient way to progress turns out to be the least interesting thing to do - ehh you don't want that ''
runescape players: Delet dis

[skysear]

I'd say the Fire Emblem series is a great example of using progression systems strategically over the course of the whole game. It's vital to make sure everyone chips in during a battle to make sure they all level up a bit, since you'll need everyone to be at the top of their game with every new chapter. This is especially true in the Conquest branch of the newest game, Fates, where the player can't simply grind "random encounters" over and over and instead has to make do with what little experience and gold they can get from each chronological chapter. You can't just pump all the experience and loot into the main character and try to solo everything (believe me, I tried) since the maps are designed in such a way that a balanced team is almost required to beat them without deaths.

On top of this, you have skills, supports and class changes to consider. You have to look at your different units and decide which ones would work well together as a pair in combat - Will they grant each other useful stats when paired up? Will they benefit from learning each other's classes? Will their eventual child inherit good stats, classes and skills, too? All these factors greatly affect the way you setup your army and place your units - the progression systems themselves influence your strategy in a major way in every level.

[TheSkyRender]

It really does keep coming back to that age-old problem in games: giving your player meaningful choices to make. If the player lacks agency (or at least the illusion of agency), they're not going to enjoy the experience in the same way. If you give the player too much agency right away, however, you'll scare many players off. The power of meaningful choices in a game is what allows games like Terraria to thrive (go anywhere, do anything!), and simultaneously is what becomes those very same games' biggest problems (where do I go, what do I do?).

[im_still_here]

I belive Dark Souls has an amazing Progression System, because I often find myself lost in strategy when leveling up. On top of that Dark Souls 3 allows complete respec

[ItsmeInternetStranger]

An interesting video, as always EC. But I feel you somewhat undersell the common JRPG system of awarding skills and level ups per level in an unchangeable fashion. I would argue those types of progression systems can be very engaging from an exploration perspective. I for one have a lot of fun trying out different pokemon because I'm excited to see what interesting moves each creature learns. Not knowing how our characters will develop as we level up makes getting the big rewards more awesome because we totally didn't see them coming.

That being said, most of this episode seemed focused on MMOs, not single player games, and I'd readily agree that a long-term skill tree system is better for those types of games, but you didn't really make the distinction in this episode so I felt like pointing it out.

[Danmarinja]

So... since it was added in the video...

Bacon and omelette, or Belgian Waffles?

[Malidictus]

Everything you listed can also have a nasty dark side to it. You describe the dictionary definition of min/maxing like an unambiguously good thing, it "allows players to plan ahead." No, it FORCES players to plan ahead, and some of us don't enjoy that. Indeed, this very aspect is why I stopped playing MMOs when City of Heroes closed down - I'm sick of not playing the actual game in order to mess with the meta-game.

Similarly, rewarding the most "efficient" way to play your game is a trap for those of us who aren't goal-oriented and don't want the most efficient path. Typically in games with a progression system, "the most efficient path" is playing on a higher difficulty, under the mistaken impression that all players want to be challenged. No, some of us don't. Some of us are all too happy to play on a middling difficulty for the power fantasy, and it's more than a little disheartening to be told that we're enjoying the game wrong.

There's a lot of good to be had with progression systems, yes, but this video seems to believe the MMO approach is it. I disagree.

[zerg]

I like the way that some Minecraft mods will redo survival minecraft to have better pacing through a progression system. Just seeing all the different ways that they achieve this is exciting because some mods will change crafting recipies, others will change or add mechanics, some even use maps to control what resources the player gets and when.

Some of my favorite progression systems in modded Minecraft are the Regrowth modpack from the FTB Launcher and the Better Than Wolves mod.

[sonicjms]

Idk if linear progression systems in jRPGs are a bad thing, I wouldn't want a skill tree for every character in Persona 3, I get just as much diversity by picking which party members come with me.