Content As Reward

I talk about using game content as a reward...and why you don't see that much.

Videos I reference:

[player_fanatic]

The most extreme example of this is Witcher 2 where the whole chapter plays differently in the middle of the game, based on a single choice. But on the other hand users that replay the game are greatly rewarded by getting the better context of the whole storyline and a lot of new content to play with on replay.

[player_fanatic]

I like how in Tyranny how you have completly different paths based on choices you make.
Or how in Alpha Protocol, story and levels are reshuffled giving completly unique experiences in different playthroughs.

[NILS]

When devs aren't afraid of the player potentially missing content, you know the world is richer for it.

[Jetsetbob]

What I enjoy the most is being rewarded for finding secret places or almost inaccessible parts of the game. Morrowind had some interesting places like that, like temples under the sea, cave entries between rocks, dead bodies with nice artifacts, ...

[gremlinclr]

This is why it's crazy to me Larian put so much content in BG3 the average player will never see. I am happy some studios are doing it though, makes replays so much better.

[mikeuniturtle]

one of my favorite example of procedural generation is the Spiderwebs for Toystory 4. Instead of hand making spiderwebs they created a program to replicate spiders making webs. now I wouldn't create a whole dungeon with procedural generation, but simulating the effects that living things have on the world like moss or vines growing on the walls, errosion effects. Those all are great things to use procedural generation for, generating a process not a world.

[rafaelramires]

Most Fromsoftware games rewards you with content like that way. Most players will not find some dungeons or paths on Elden Ring. The community has a factor on that "value" on hide content becouse the ones who find them are gonna be vocal about that.

[simonverrelst]

A game that does this well is Rimworld. Every colony I start in that game is completely different every time. The procedural gen in that game keeps it fun and varied because it is done so well. They also implement a procedural quest system and it is pretty cool but after 500 hours of play I do spot the repetition in their setup. To be fair its a rather long time of me playing the game tho.

[aNerdNamedJames]

Would be fascinated to know more about the cut companions of Outer Worlds, but 100% aware of a previous upload's statement that questions about Outer Worlds can't always fly right now due to the relevance with Outer Worlds 2.

What I *will* say is that out of the cut content the public already knows about, there's one case where I think we all know which NPC would've been funniest to take along, in that a few months ago Carrie Patel mentioned a cut resolution to the confrontation with Chairman Rockwell based in a now-cut email from Rockwell's terminal that showed how he had weekly dominatrix/dominator appointments with a Moon Man impersonator (meaning that if the player was wearing a moon helmet they could take advantage of knowing such), and I think we all know which shopkeeper would've added the most to that scene.

[Nvrwdntlso]

Cyberpunk is a good example because you are forced to do the bad endings if you don't do the major side quests. But if you do the side quests you get soooo much more content at the end of the game with all the different endings

[Kiyuja]

maybe this is wishful thinking, but I'd love to see the mid 2000 destructibles make a return. Having walls fall apart realistically via PhysX or Havok just makes the world more believeable. Modern GPUs should be crazy fast at this =(

[elsuperfish]

Hi Tim, I'd like to see you talk about how you decide to make information available to the player. By that I mean underlying system information, such as stats, bonuses, formulas, dicerolls, checks, outcomes and so on. A game that reveals too little information can make the player feel like they're unable to make informed gameplay choices, but on the other hand, games revealing too much information run the risk of "solving" themselves and encouraging players to over-optimize. Both of these have frustrated me in the past - sometimes both in the same game. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[UlissesSampaio]

Hey, Tim. Thanks for the video response. It does answer my question! At the end, the regular answer: money. I think procedural generation, especially now with generative AI, might become very good. It could also be used as a force multiplier for hand-made content: "computer, make me a quest like this" then edit and polish by hand on top of the AI-generated "skeleton".

Some praiseworthy hand-made content makers imho: Larian, have made a lot of edge cases in BG3. Elder Scrools games have a lot of content for evil characters (e.g. Dark Brotherhood & daedric quests), which I love considering most games will mostly remove content for playing evil.

Edit: adding content for failure would be a great remedy for the urge to savescum, though balooning content quantity.

[proydoha]

I know a place where content as a reward is alive and kicking.
I play a lot of Doom community made maps. The content is: player fighting demons. The pool of possible rewards is not that big: health items, armor items, ammo items, powerups. But sometimes you find a secret and a mapper put a secret fight inside of it alongside with other "item" rewards. Sometimes its even "gimmick" fight where some unusual thinking is required.
Content as a reward in its purest form: you fight demons, find a secret, get more demons to fight 🙂

On procedural generation:
it might seem like an easy way to pad the game and I feel like "modern games" use it just as that - easy padding. But as Tim said: good procedural generation is hard to achieve and will require much more time to develop (and test!!!) when compared to static content.

[LiraeNoir]

I also love the *idea* of it. That's one of the pillar of tabletop rpg, as players you write your own story and the gamemaster provide reality check, friction, and content. Unfortunately, computers can't do that yet to that level, so that's one very rare time when I both understand and agree with publishers: you have to maximize your production with your budget.

Especially, when major content is deliberately cut off as a consequence of a choice. Say red to the npc, content is open, say blue major content is cut forever. If done right (and that's a *huge* if, for example Wasteland 2 blundered that to no end) it can tickle the rpg-player in me, but it will sting the customer in me who paid a lot of money for that game. On top of that, even if done right... it's never *really* done "right": because on tabletop you have infinite freedom to try novel approaches, while on computer everything has to be programmed for. So there's a good chance as a player after a few minutes you'll find half a dozen thing that logically you could try or should work to bypass the gate on that content, but because it's a computer game and you can only do so much... you're forced to accept it. And let's not even talk about when content is cut-off because of bugs.

I much prefer major content stay open, but present itself differently. Maybe in new village/map everyone hates you, and will require lots of work to just open basic dialogues, maybe people there present to you topics or quests or clues that are very different based on previous choices, hell maybe everyone is dead and you have to dig into what's left. But at least there is "something".

Undiscovered content is something else entirely. The game doesn't cut it off based on choice, it's always there, but you have to find it. More of a grey area.

Indeed, procedural generation is one way to tackle that. It has a bad rep, mostly because players have seen or remember bad proc gen, often done on the cheap, sometimes done as a way to replace/save something that wasn't coming together after alpha.

But there is a brighter side to that coin: simulation. Instead of presenting it as proc gen, it could be developed and presented as a simulated world, simulated economy, simulated ecology, simulated wars, and so on. Now the work has to be done, world simulation isn't simple or cheap (albeit a *severely* under-served market), but it would allow for reactivity, agency, basically for free (or very cheap) once it's done. That's why to some rpg players, games likes X4 or Crusader Kings 3 or dwarf Fortress feel almost a better roleplay sandbox than a lot of crpg.

As a side note, replay-ability is often used as a pretext or excuse for cutting off content, I strongly disagree. The industry telemetry has shown the average completion rate for games is around 30% I believe? It's probably less than that for crpg, which are longer and more complex. And that's just completion (getting to the end credits), the % of people who replay the game is very very low. I'm not saying to ignore those, they are way to design and code quests and events, write dialogues, design narrative and characters, that is barely more expensive and allow for a better experience in replayability. And the road not taken has value in itself. But the extreme in either end of that spectrum is, imo, bad.

[mcashed]

I'm one of the players who never liked randomly generated loot, because to me it feels as cheap as fast food. I don't care if this sword does 5% more fire damage, let's me fly and spawns a sheep - give me unique stuff with weight in the world:)

Also, one of the reasons I never finished Mass Effect, is because I couldn't decide what content to cut, not just in that game, but through out the rest of the trilogy. Nice gimmick, but at least make the choice not as morally grey.

[dennislarsen]

I like the middle of the road solution of making maps look different for different classes or equipment choices. You did this in vampire with the nosferatu, loved that!
I don't remember the game, but i remember one game where, maps would be very different if you played a ranged character versus melee or sneaky, and the game then reused maps rather heavily, but it was cool because you would fight through it first, then it would become a "town" map, then maybe a stealth map etc. What was decorations during melee would become cover during stealth/ranged and really change the tactics and dynamics of the map.

[philipberick]

First I want to say that I really enjoy your videos in general. Thank you for this channel.

I want to add another perspective to the part about cost/benefit for the companies (when you mentioned 80% + 20% + 20% + 20% becoming excess cost).

For story-based games, especially high quality production ones from very big and business-centric studios, I feel that the the exact opposite is true.
They usually use this to cut costs, and to be able to sell the game as a much longer and bigger experience.

Most gamers nowadays value "game time" VS "actual quality and uniqueness". People judge a game's price by the playtime hours that it allegedly provides.

So the big studios spend just enough for 80+20+20+20 content (140%) but have it marketed and sold as 80+20 + 80+20 + 80+20, or in other words, 300%.. And a lot of players fall for it.
"You get THREE ADVENTURES". "It's like 3 games in one". "High replayability" and so on.
In reality players need to repeat/endure the very same game again and again only to be able to check out the small differences.

It is almost similar to watching some anime that abuse displaying too many "flashback scenes" every chapter, only to add a few minutes of fresh content in between. Cheaper to produce, "but you get a lot of chapters to watch".

What do you think? Especially for story-based games I feel that way.

[Xeit]

Hi Tim!
I just wanna mention best (imo) procedural generation:
Path of Exile

Maps, items and even content you encounter.
And you can affect what you will see! That's one of best systems I have ever encountered and I always recommend this game.

[theebulll]

Thanks for regularly being my morning commute and continued source of inspiration for trying to do this as a career. Even in this tough job market, people like you keep me trying. Thank you!