I’ve been wanting to write about optional content in games for a while, but couldn’t quite formulate anything. Having just finished 100%ing all three of the original Ratchet & Clank installments in their HD Collection, the ideas are a bit clearer in my head, which will hopefully carry over in writing.
Optional content is, ironically, one of the primary things I seem to seek when I’m looking to get into a new game. It adds longevity to the experience, fleshes out game mechanics to a degree not seen in the “main” parts, and just all-around deepens a game. Even in the most basic sense, optional content denotes that there’s more of the game there. Of course, in a modern game industry that sees increasing genre flexibility and open world gameplay, what exactly constitutes “optional” as compared to any other content can get nebulous. This is almost a whole post in and of itself, but the games I use as lenses through which to view my ideas here provide a fairly clear distinction, so I won’t get too far into it right now.
As it pertains to Ratchet & Clank, optional elements have always been around in the series, but the first two sequels enhanced their presence and offered more incentive to pursue them. They expanded on the original by implementing rudimentary RPG elements like experience-based upgradeable health and weapons as well as escalating enemy stats to match. De facto “level ups.” Also added were “arena” levels for pure combat challenges, sprawling “wasteland” environments with collectible treasures to sell to NPCs, and even more sidepaths offering helpful secondary gadgets as a reward for completion. All in all, these were pretty well-implemented. The arenas were so much fun that they’ve since become a staple of every main game in the franchise, and the RPG elements have arguably seen even more emphasis with time.
All these things add to the game, it’s true, but what if the additions aren’t good?
“But wait a minute, you dirty hypocrite,” I hear a heckler saying. “You just said they were well-implemented!” Well, yes. The optional content in R&C is, as a rule, much better-implemented compared to a lot of comparable stuff in other games. However, whenever you create sidequests, and especially whenever you install a system of experience-based player progression, you run the risk of also introducing poorly-tuned time and XP curves.
Take the second R&C game, for example. Each weapon can be leveled up to increase its damage output and give it extra effects. However, the required experience for each one to do so is rather off-balance. Where the Pulse Rifle mercifully upgrades in a very short time considering its small ammo capacity and limited usage, another weapon with comparable properties like the Synthenoid takes an obscene amount of time. Worse, “revisits” to a planet cause every enemy to give a fraction of the experience they originally did, making repeat runs for level-grinding even more tedious.
A similar phenomenon can seen in the grind for Bolts, the in-game currency, of which a few million are needed to buy everything in the game. But enemy bolt drops and bolt containers are also heavily reduced on level revisits. This and the curtailed XP gain are both probably measures put in place to prevent farming, but the big design problem here is that the XP curves and in-game economy necessitate farming to achieve 100% completion. In reducing its effectiveness, you don’t cause players not to do it, you just cause them to waste time doing it for longer. All you have done is make full completion more tedious.
The third game was actually a little better about the amount of grinding needed to achieve 100%. Even though there were twice as many upgrades for each weapon and even more escalation in their selling prices, XP and Bolt gain was faster, more standardized between weapons, and less nerfed during backtracks. You needed to farm enemies for much less time to obtain and fully upgrade every weapon. This became apparent during my recent playthrough, where the amount of time spent actually playing through all the content was longer, and the time spent farming was shorter. My congratulations to Insomniac for realizing somewhat that artificially inflating the amount of time it takes to reach 100% is bad design, and not to be ungrateful, but there was still an awful lot of grinding.
Grinding in video games is essentially – that is, at its core – the repetition of a simple action to increase the player’s stats or provide additional in-game resources. This should never be used as a way to add length to or substitute for challenge of the optional content of a game. For me at least, it’s just a little too close to real-life work for a paycheck or a school assignment (they’re both known as a “grind” for a reason). In fact, part of what makes grinding so undesirable in a game is that I’m trying to escape exactly that in real life. Rewards in games should be earned, true, but it should always be fun rather than actual work.
“Chillax bro,” the heckler might retort, “it’s all optional stuff you’re talking about anyway. It’s not like anyone is making you do it as part of the main game.” Well, sure. Optional content is by definition part of a game that will go unseen by many players. Because so much less attention is paid to it by the player, purely practical prioritization in designing the game means that much less attention should be paid to it by the developers as well, including things like tuning and iterations.
However, my contention nonetheless is that, as part of a game, it still has to be fun. I used the example of grinding to bring out my point because it’s just about the quintessential enemy of fun in my book, but make no mistake; the principle applies to poorly balanced difficulty, unpolished level design, and unstable programming just as much as it does to level grinding. The content’s status as optional should not mean that it’s equally optional for it to be enjoyable. Make it engaging. Build on concepts already established.
Design the game with the philosophy that “play” is the relevant verb.
Gems and Relics 