#complexity creep

[askagamedev]

A common issue with ongoing live service games is that as time progresses, skill designs for new characters necessarily become more complex to differentiate from older characters or to incentivize players to buy them. This sometimes results in things like Fire Emblem Heroes where character skill sheets become page long monstrosities. What are things you can do to maintain the increased complexity without making it seem like a reading assignment?

In times like this, it's good to look back at other long-running games that still run today and how they solved (or at least pushed back on) complexity and power creep.

Magic: The Gathering has been the most popular collectible card game in the world for over three decades. In that time, the publishers have created many tens of thousands of different cards. As such, deck building complexity is potentially off the charts. However, Wizards of the Coast figured out early that keeping multiple game formats, and pushing their main format (standard) as a rotating format. This means that their standard decks are only legal if they are comprised of cards from the latest sets, rather than any card printed since 1993. This rotating format system proved extremely effective at maintaining a consistent power and complexity level for most players - so much so that other collectible card games have adopted a similar approach. Cards above rate on the power or complexity curve can still have their time in the spotlight, and then rotate out such that most players no longer have to deal with them.

World of Warcraft had a similar issue where power and complexity was building at an exponential rate with each expansion pack because every expansion needed to invalidate raid gear from the previous status quo in order to entice players to keep playing. However, since WOW must continue to support all content they've ever released forever, doing some kind of content rotation was not in the cards. Instead, World of Warcraft would introduce the concept of the "stat squish" where power and complexity curves would be flattened - a sort of global scaling down of power to keep the complexity and power of new content from getting too ridiculous. Since old content was, for the most part, only there for achievements and cosmetics and not for actual character progression, the amount of power those old items needed could be squished down with minimal player complaints.

These are two successful methods other long-running games have used to solve their complexity and power creep issues. These are obviously not the only ways to handle this - there is a pretty wide open design space to address this issue. I suspect that FEH will likely eventually need to take some steps to address the complexity and power creep, given the massive power differences between the release units and the current versions. What might some alternative options be for reducing power and complexity for legacy content?

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[djsherriff-responses]

Me realising that while we saw Pey’J get gunned down by Eden police officers while protecting other hybrids during the riot , Pey’J was never actually confirmed to have died from those bullets

Bullfrog was taken into custody before he could try helping Pey’J and Dolph was taken by Sarah into the wasteland. Meaning neither of them were there to see to Pey’J’s body, and that the two are assuming Pey’J is dead

Cody, Jade and Dolph all died because of the bombs inside their heads detonating. We also saw their bodies from the aftermath of that fact

Pey’J is the only one (besides Bullfrog) whose bomb didn’t detonate

We didn’t see what happened to Pey’J’s body

Shit

[ask-ganymede]

For Ganymede: if you could ask Zeus one thing in the whole universe what would it be

For Zeus: What’s your favorite thing about Ganymede?

Um… Probably… Probably to let me see my family again. 

I- I know it’s impossible- they’re probably long dead, but…

Hm. Difficult question. There is lots to like, but my favorite part of him ought to be his beauty. He is truly the fairest of all mortals. That is why I brought him here in the first place. His perfection would have worn away with age, wasted down on Earth.

[uncanny-tranny]

Maybe this is incoherent, but I think part of the reason people might idolize others to the point of being almost inhuman is this almost... self-destructive urge to separate yourself from anything good.

What I mean by this is I've seen so many people idolizing others they love in such a way that the people they're idolizing aren't... human anymore. This is typically applied to in a parasocial sense, but it's not restricted only to parasocial "relationships."

I remember being so enamored by a friend of mine that... I almost felt as though I wasn't worthy of anything as good as them. I idolized a lot of what they did to the point where they filled an archetype in my head, and I filled the worst archetype of them all.

It's almost this swan/ugly duckling complex where you are so convinced that you are just... irredeemable that you need to worship the idea of other people to make up for your lack of humanity. I started to realize that I wasn't viewing my friend as an autonomous person but as an archetype of the things I admired about them, the things I saw that I felt inferior and unworthy of seeing or receiving.

I think it's important to understand why you might idolize others. It's a common thing, but the urge to idolize can quickly become destructive - to the self or to others. When we start learning more about why we do the things we do, we can understand and empathize with ourselves in a fuller way.

[juminhandfs]

June's route season 1 spoilers under the cut!

I just remembered when Jumin was making fun of Zen claiming he had an imaginary friend as an adult, and then he said "I used to have an imaginary friend, when I was 7"

Now, in June's route it is revealed that Jumin's mother had June out of wedlock when Jumin was only 4, so Jumin and June are only 3 years apart.

Coincidentally the whole thing exploited when Jumin was 7 years old so if we take Jumin's words for truth and not just a joke, we have 2 possibilities:

1) One is that Jumin really had an imaginary friend, maybe as a way of coping with his mother's affair and learning he had a hidden brother (without mention all the time he spent locked in the basement)

2) And the other more fucked up is that Carolyn had Jumin and June meet frequently because she was too busy meeting her lover (who had to bring June along because he is dirty poor) and regarding June's existence to Jumin as a product of his imagination (and fucking up his psych more in the process). Like maybe Jumin saw June one of those times when he escaped from the basement, or maybe Carolyn was shameless enough to bring Jumin to her lover's house and Jumin saw June there. Maybe Jumin mentioned the boy he saw at dinner and Carolyn insisted he was an imaginary friend in front of the Chairman...

(damn! Maybe Jumin was the reason why the Chairman discovered Carolyn's affair! We learn that the blow of discovering Carolyn's affair was so big to the Chairman they abandoned the house where they lived with her. In one phone call Jumin mentions children going against their mother as something bad, so maybe there's something guilt from Jumin towards his mother there (totally misplaced I know, but kids tend to blame themselves for their parents splitting up, sadly it is very common).

And... We actually have a photo from both Jumin and June with Carolyn when Jumin was 7

At first I thought the Chairman left Carolyn after discovering what she did to Jumin (and Jumin's guilt coming from there) but it's revealed the reason for the divorce was indeed Carolyn's affair (and June). In the dlc it seemed the only measure Chairman took was to diminish Carolyn's influence on Jumin, send both to therapy (Jumin to the island too) and to treat Jumin more like a kid and less as a little businessman. His incursion on toys for kids seems to come from here, as well as the story Jumin tells about Christmas where the Chairman tried to maintain the fantasy of the existence of Santa Claus. You can see this change of approach in how to raise Jumin in his wardrobe:

What is missing between these photos (Jumin age 5 and Jumin age 7) is Jumin being sent to the island at 6 for a whole year! (A time Jumin remembers fondly) So I'm guessing it's between these pictures that the Chairman discovered something bad was going on with Jumin, and that his mother was the cause of it (thought how far he went in his finding is a mystery, the only clue we have is Jumin's doctor opinion of her)

Which... Btw the good doctor was replaced with Dr. Malpractice's father... So maybe the Chairman didn't want to keep listening... Maybe... Carolyn was behind the replacement (as she is a friend of this family) maybe...

Luckily he remains as Jumin's physician but Carolyn wants to replace him with Dr. Malpractice too...so...

[feartohate]

thinking abt anakin's childhood today it seems

[lausticzt]

conflict, anger, clashing *smacks table* - i love things getting heated. Violent. Emotional. I love conflict and confrontation. I love the heavy shit. I love muses being stuck in that too, unable to leave the scene, together whether they like it or not. It's just a mess, let them despise each other in those moments, hurtful shit. Let it have to slowly heal. Slow build of understanding.

[jerreeeeeee]

the thing is i very much understand the appeal of lupcretia narratively bc they are foils who betray each other and then forgive each other because the force of their grief and guilt brings them to an understanding and i also understand the appeal of blupcretia bc its a three person relationship who disagree on something major and split apart leaving one party feeling abandoned when the other two agree against her and what does that mean for the fact that the rest of their lives outside a horrible timeloop are supposed to start soon Because of that decision and disagreement like i get it narratively its interesting!! but here’s the thing: i just have an unshakeable belief that lup is straight

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

…. So Daedalus is a doctor and not only that, the head of the whole health bureau and also deeply involved in proxy research…. So it would be easy to imagine that he would have surgical skills yeah? And he was literally made to watch over Re-l soooo he very well may have gotten to cut her open at one point yes? Anyway yes I’m imagining it (or Real? Even better cause that’s when he’s no longer restraining his obsession)

[wanderingibon]

chewing on my crow!rook de riva brainworms by writing banter when i know very well i have work later and should be sleeping...

[enobariasteeth]

okay but nothing the DC writers have to say about Selina Kyle and Talia Al Ghul is canon. Only the things I make up in my head are canon.

[happygirl2oo2]

Tristan: "I’m asking you as someone who genuinely values your opinion, despite your wicked nature, your vicious temperament, and my better judgement." Callum: "Ooh, okay…I see you’re going for the virtues of simple honesty here, rather than the honeyed words of flattery."

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Cannot recommend finding a willing victim and explaining your ocs and their lore to them verbaly. Actually I'm so fucking sexy with my ideas and my character concepts and the themes I'm trying to show!!!! Actually many people really do find that depth and the dark topics broached interesting!! I'm so sexy and big brained and I love my ocs and the story's I'm telling with them!!

[space-coupe]

Enough, Way.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

both Agent and Archangel have one vote in the OC doodle poll now, so I'm going to draw them together. I love them both. also they're canonically fucking, so.

[haifischkivenchy]

not an old acquaintance telling me im faking my starvation and financial status 😭 the 1k i held on my hand to show you had to be fitted in one week for my family. the only reason i have access to the money is i am essentially the breadwinner of the house.

"wannabe starving artist" but that's what i actually am??? i am broke. what are you? wannabe cult leader? get off my back, creep.