The Relic is an example of ludonarrative dissonance

[Doom MD]

“Omg my mind is being taken over! I don’t have much time!” Is what the narrative is trying to convey. By contrast, the gameplay gives you absolutely no time limits and aggressively tried to distract you. If my brain were being eaten away by a mind virus I would probably not distract myself corralling a bunch of rogue AI cabs.

[Northwold]

What I *do* find strange is that people are noticing this point in Cyberpunk, specifically, when they do not notice in games that have the problem just as severely (and, indeed, people go on to claim that other games do not -- I am astonished at the number of people who have told me that Witcher 3 has no such issue, for example, because it was the very first thing I noticed when I started playing, but the writing in Witcher 3's base game is so extremely confused that perhaps it escaped people's notice).

I do think they could have saved themselves a lot of grief by rephrasing Vik's words as "you'll know when it's urgent, could be a month, could be a year, but when it happens you must act", with Embers serving as the trigger. But even so, this is no more severe a problem than pretty much any other open world game. Is it because the issue is one faced by the player character directly?

[Doom MD]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Weaver:

And? Have you never played a video game before?

In Fallout 4 someone kidnapped your baby and killed your spouse and you can still screw around for years completely ignoring the game plot.
Skyrim end of the world, Dragons, but you can screw around for years completely ignoring the game plot.
All the Farcry games ever.
And the list goes on for games that have the exact same "very short time window in narrative, forever in game play" dissonance going on.

And then there is about every game ever where you as the main character/characters can take any number of injuries and just slap a bandage on it, take an air hypo, and be just fine, but every other character during gameplay, and you during cut scenes can be knocked out or killed very easily, Jackie being the prime example in Cyberpunk. V can take an number of bullets to the face and shrug it off with a medical item or just slow healing, meanwhile Jackie takes a hit and bleeds out?

Absolutely nothing about this is new, or unusual, it's all part of video games, and entertainment in general, suspension of disbelief, and not thinking too hard about things.

Doom and Mario brothers are the most ludonarratively consistent games ever made.

[Princess Pilfer]

Początkowo opublikowane przez d¢:

If the game actually had a time limit, how many people would play it?

That's like having a permanent arrest feature in Grand Theft Auto, whereby if you escape too many wanted levels, then when the police finally catch you, you can't play the game anymore.

There actually are ways to address these issues.

It's a fundamental narrative design error that causes the characters motivations and the players motivations to fall out of synch. It's actually a very common problem in open world games.

But you can just...not write primary narratives that are urgent, and when side missions are urgent, have them *actually be* urgent. Or have a primary narrative that is urgent and have it actually be urgent.

Good examples of one or both approaches include: Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout New Vegas, Dead Rising (all except the most recent,) Outward, Pillars of Eternity 1 and (to a lesser extent) 2, Saints Row 2 and 3, Morrowind, and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

The needs of a well designed narrative in an open world game are just *different* than the needs of a well designed narrative in a more linear game, and too few studios actually understand that.

(PS: 'it's a game you can just stand there and it will wait for you' is not a valid argument. Obviously if you're *trying* to break the games narrative you can do so, you can do it just as easily with a book by reading everything out of order. That's not really what the discussion is about)

[Nanaki]

Don't let fun get in the way....

[Doom MD]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nanaki:

Don't let fun get in the way....

I would say it detracts from fun having to research If there is a hidden time limit in the game because the story keeps screaming at you that you’re dying of a terminal disease.

[Doom MD]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doom MD:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nanaki:

Don't let fun get in the way....

I would say it detracts from fun having to research If there is a hidden time limit in the game because the story keeps screaming at you that you’re dying of a terminal disease.

Speaking of which, it felt like rockstar did this really well with RDR2 on this front. TB is a good choice because it can takes years for someone to die of it, and many can go their entire lives having asymptomatic infections. You knew Arthur was likely going to die of TB but it was unclear when and in addition there was nothing he could do about it.

[shoopy]

Yes, it is a prime example.
Yes, a million other games do it.
Yes, all of those games bug me with it.

[82Angelfan]

This is a cool thread actually, I'll add my 2 cents. As a consumer, I want to get my full 59.99 dollars or whatever (I actually got it on sale at 30 dollars). I want to have the time to look at every single thing that the artists and DEVs put into the world. I stop to read the posters. If it was truly timed think of all the stuff you would miss. I have played a couple of timed games. Pathology comes to mind. While Pathology is semi open world, with a lot to see and do, it is really a linear game because of the realistic time limit. Where is the FUN in that?

[shoopy]

Simple, change the plot, not the game.

[Northwold]

OP you might mark your title with a spoiler warning, BTW.

Basically, Cyberpunk is trying to tell a story about death and the nature of the soul. How better to do that than to place the player at the centre of those questions. It then informs all the content of the game.

But with that are going, necessarily, to come some suspension of disbelief moments. You cannot tell that tale without urgency, it would have no stakes. "You'll die one day" is a universal truth. And I think the game would be a lot shi**ier if it were telling a story about evil corporations trying to take over the world,* rather than daring to broach the big, cyberpunk questions.

So I have never been more happy to suspend my disbelief in a game.

* Yes I know many people seem to think that is what the game is about.

[Arthursa]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doom MD:

Początkowo opublikowane przez d¢:

If the game actually had a time limit, how many people would play it?

That's like having a permanent arrest feature in Grand Theft Auto, whereby if you escape too many wanted levels, then when the police finally catch you, you can't play the game anymore.

The original fallout had it and it is one of the best games ever made from both a gameplay and narrative perspective. The problem is the story keeps telling V how little time he has, yet the gameplay is 100% diametrically opposed to this. To add further, there are many quests where the giver will say “let’s meet up tonight to take care of it” or whatever and you the player are free to mess about for weeks on end before showing up. The entire point is, why are you going to keep hammering the player about time when it doesn’t matter? The player’s response is to have their immersion reduced and to filter everything in terms of “gaminess”. Players become skeptical of what the game is presenting them when their suspension of disbelief is challenged.

The original Fallout also had to patch in an extended timer because the original was much too short for people to play the game, but people like to ignore that fact.

[Rabidnid]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doom MD:

“Omg my mind is being taken over! I don’t have much time!” Is what the narrative is trying to convey. By contrast, the gameplay gives you absolutely no time limits and aggressively tried to distract you. If my brain were being eaten away by a mind virus I would probably not distract myself corralling a bunch of rogue AI cabs.

literally every game ever does the same thing. It's a mechanism for creating tension that doesn't work but seems they can't stop using it.

[Doom MD]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Deklend:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doom MD:

The original fallout had it and it is one of the best games ever made from both a gameplay and narrative perspective. The problem is the story keeps telling V how little time he has, yet the gameplay is 100% diametrically opposed to this. To add further, there are many quests where the giver will say “let’s meet up tonight to take care of it” or whatever and you the player are free to mess about for weeks on end before showing up. The entire point is, why are you going to keep hammering the player about time when it doesn’t matter? The player’s response is to have their immersion reduced and to filter everything in terms of “gaminess”. Players become skeptical of what the game is presenting them when their suspension of disbelief is challenged.

The original Fallout also had to patch in an extended timer because the original was much too short for people to play the game, but people like to ignore that fact.

They caved. There was supposed to be a timer that started if you sent a water caravan to relieve the vault as this would draw the attention of the mutant army to its secret location. That this was the kind of stuff the devs were talking about really highlight how much thought they put into the game.

[Weaver]

The simple fix of course would be slight tweaks to the dialogue.

Such as having Vic say "weeks, months? Simply no way to know, you'd have to find an expert on the Relic". Currently when you don't ask for all the detes he actually gives you a much more vague answer that works better in the narrative.

When someone wants to meet up, just have them say "call at night and then I'll meet you at blah blah blah" instead if tonight, and so forth.

Small easy changes like this would resolve most of these sort of issues.

[Doom MD]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Rabidnid:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doom MD:

“Omg my mind is being taken over! I don’t have much time!” Is what the narrative is trying to convey. By contrast, the gameplay gives you absolutely no time limits and aggressively tried to distract you. If my brain were being eaten away by a mind virus I would probably not distract myself corralling a bunch of rogue AI cabs.

literally every game ever does the same thing. It's a mechanism for creating tension that doesn't work but seems they can't stop using it.

That’s not true at all. For example, Doom. The narrative of The original Doom is that Doom Guy wants to rip and tear. The gameplay is Doom Guy ripping and tearing. It’s perfect.