The Lack Of Interactivity In Games Is A Big Problem

[Boss]

Before I begin, I should preface the following discussion by acknowledging that I may have missed quite a few games that highlight the features I'm about to discuss. Since the end of the PS3 gen, we have see a drastic decrease in interactivity in games especially in AAA games. During the PS4/XB1 generation, this was explained away by suggesting that the cpu's in the consoles were insufficient to pursue "interactivity in games".

I guess it is important to define interactivity so that we're all on the same page.

Gameplay Interactivity - The gameplay systems respond to the player actions. For example, if you were playing Fifa and when shooting, you constantly aimed at the bottom left corner. It would be nice if the AI would recognize that pattern and cause the goalie to "cheat" to the left forcing the user to adjust their tactics.

World Interactivity - I'd define this as giving the player the ability to permanently impact the game world. A good example of this is in GTA5. There's a mission where you pose as a life invader staff I believe to modify the unreleased phone. This phone then explodes killing the ceo of life invader. As a result, the stocks crash allowing the player to make a bunch of money in the stock market off the actions they caused in the game. Another interesting example of this is Watch dogs. The development team tried to make each npc feel like a real character with a backstory that you could interact with.... However, the execution was rather poor.

Physical Interactivity - The ability to destroy physical objects in the game, have world events that impact the objects in the game such as tornado's, floods, etc. There are many ways to define this but when discussing physical destruction, battlefield bad company 2 was a good example. It allowed the player to use destruction as a tool to accomplish their objective.

It is quite possible that many will define these in different ways. However, what can be said is that there have not been enough advancements in this area over the current generation. In many ways, all these forms of interactivity have suffered to various degrees. The genre type that offends the most is open world games. Many of this open world games are open world merely to pad the play time length through world traversal but the "open worlds" feel sterile. Even Cyberpunk, a game I thoroughly enjoyed is guilty of this "sterile game world" phenomenon. While there are some exceptions like Baldur's Gate 3, teardown, etc, it's certainly not enough.

This has seen resources deployed to improve visuals/performance and that is very much appreciated. However, the improvements have not been substantial leading to many claiming that the PS5/XSX is merely a continuation of last gen. While we're now seeing the death of cross gen, that argument still holds weight. Many of the games released are essentially better looking versions of old games with the same old and tired systems of the ps360 era. In many cases, there are games especially from Ubisoft which have worse systems that their ps4/xb1 and ps360 releases. Star wars outlaws, Skull & Bones are just some examples of games which aspects of their interactivity has regressed gen on gen. In many ways, as graphics and lighting improve, it becomes easier to see the glaring flaws in interactivity. For example, being able to walk through objects or npc.

I think it's time for more attention to be paid to these areas of the game. As it stands, I'd argue that improved graphics are no longer enough to keep players engaged and excited.

Do you agree or disagree and more importantly, please highlight some games that are taking steps to advance interactivity.

 

[Dominik D]

Gameplay Interactivity - The gameplay systems respond to the player actions. For example, if you were playing Fifa and when shooting, you constantly aimed at the bottom left corner. It would be nice if the AI would recognize that pattern and cause the goalie to "cheat" to the left forcing the user to adjust their tactics.

People who never wrote any AI tend to overvalue AI being smart. The reality is that AI, especially for twitchy games (action, sport) needs to be predictable first and foremost. Learning player's patterns and reacting to them long-term makes game feel unfair unless change in behavior is telegraphed by the AI. This is something you can do in action game (when you meet your arch-nemesis for the second time, you can't use the same strategy and he very much tells you that) but not in a football game. Unless it's Japanese and trash talking is gameplay mechanic.

Physical Interactivity - The ability to destroy physical objects in the game, have world events that impact the objects in the game such as tornado's, floods, etc. There are many ways to define this but when discussing physical destruction, battlefield bad company 2 was a good example. It allowed the player to use destruction as a tool to accomplish their objective.

It makes no sense to have destructive environment unless it's core to the gameplay. How would Assassin's Creed or Hellblade benefit from destruction level achieved by Bad Company? On one hand you recognize that perhaps chasing graphical fidelity isn't always necessary, on the other you're OK with a meaningless (gameplay-wise) physical interactivity?

This goes beyond destruction, of course. In principle it would be great to be able to pick up every object and interact with it. On the other: why would you spend time implementing it and optimizing game for this case if it's not core of the experience? It was a valid thing to do for HL: Alyx but it wouldn't improve Black Ops 6. You can poke holes in a fishtank in Phantom Fury and watch the water level drop. But it doesn't matter because minute to minute combat is boring. It's cool but this wasn't time well spent.

As for World Reactivity - yeah, it matters if replayability is your core pillar. Games that offer some sort of choices - either at character selection/creation or during gameplay - could get more mileage if world indicated that it cares about the decisions they make. That's why RoboCop: Rogue City is much better than it had any right to be. I'm hoping that more development studios are set up for this kind of development long term, but I'm not holding my breath. Financing is shit these days.

 

[davis.anthony]

World reactivity to me means more MGS2 than BFBC2.

 

[Dominik D]

World reactivity to me means more MGS2 than BFBC2.

BFBC2 is used as a physical reactivity example, not as a world reactivity one.

 

[cheapchips]

I think Indiana Jones is an interesting title for interactivity vs playability.

You can pick up lots of things to throw and improvise with during fighting. You can't pick or move furniture though. The world is static except for scripted destruction and yet it features fun sequences with deformation.

The AI is really bad at being able to detect you. Except this makes stealth much more fun and improvisational than more sophisticated enemies. It also means that when presented with a gun or frying pan, it's the frying pan you'll pick up every time.

 

[davis.anthony]

BFBC2 is used as a physical reactivity example, not as a world reactivity one.

MGS2 is also physically reactive, and I think a lot of games would benefit from BFBC2 levels of destruction, AC included.

 

[Dominik D]

I think a lot of games would benefit from BFBC2 levels of destruction, AC included.

How? How would this make game more enjoyable and sell more copies? It's a game about infiltration and killing with some additional busy work mechanics bolted on to each installment. Destructive environment is antithetical to the core fantasy of stealthy assassin. You could use explosion as a distraction once, maybe twice. But this is much better served as scripted event without the need for systemic approach.

 

[davis.anthony]

How? How would this make game more enjoyable and sell more copies? It's a game about infiltration and killing with some additional busy work mechanics bolted on to each installment. Destructive environment is antithetical to the core fantasy of stealthy assassin. You could use explosion as a distraction once, maybe twice. But this is much better served as scripted event without the need for systemic approach.

It would give new gameplay mechanics to a franchise that is stale.

Allowing the enemies to destroy things the player uses to scale up buildings would encourage the player to change how they play and also give the player the opportunity to trap and kill enemies in the same way.

Use your imagination.

 

[DavidGraham]

Peak for me in physics was Red Faction: Guerrilla, you could destory literally anything beside the rocks and mountains. I have never seen anything like it after it was released 15 years ago.

Max Payne 2 had awesome physics, glad the trend continued in Max Payne 3. Remedy continued the trend again in Alan Wake, Control and Alan Wake 2.

Hitman series has very good physics too, it continued well into the latest releases (Hitman 1/2/3).

Crysis 1's interaction was very good, you could destroy everything except terrain, but it took a hit with Crysis 2 and Crysis 3. Far Cry 1 through Far Cry 3 offered solid physics, but it took a hit with Far Cry 4 through Far Cry 6.

Battlefield suffered the same hit going from Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 tried to restore some glory, but it was a middling effort. Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V were ok, then the series went straight into bad territory with Battlefield 2142.

I really wish game franchises wouldn't regress like that, we need to build on what we have, and expand into more territory, It's sad to see us revert to less interactive experiences like that.

 

[Dominik D]

Use your imagination.

Don't be condescending. It's not a matter of imagination but systemic design. I can come up with tons of cool extensions to AC formula but that doesn't mean they are good additions. Each mechanic you add interacts with every system that's in place. Can destruction kill off a character? What if crucial NPC dies? What if your target becomes inaccessible? What about various challenges like, IDK, jumping into every haystack if your off point can be destroyed? These are problems you have to solve when you add something like destructive environments to AC. If any of the answers are to disallow destruction in some specific places, then good luck communicating that to players (and not angering them).

My point was and remains this: you can't "just" add something to a game to make it better. Especially not if it's one thing you want in many games. Not every game will benefit from destruction or, say, romance mechanics. Just because they are cool in general doesn't mean they are applicable to every or even most games. And on top of that there's multiplicative cost of adding them. Even if you solve all of the issues with destructive enviro in AC (and there are many more) there's still cost associated with adding them.

 

[davis.anthony]

Don't be condescending. It's not a matter of imagination but systemic design. I can come up with tons of cool extensions to AC formula but that doesn't mean they are good additions. Each mechanic you add interacts with every system that's in place. Can destruction kill off a character? What if crucial NPC dies? What if your target becomes inaccessible? What about various challenges like, IDK, jumping into every haystack if your off point can be destroyed? These are problems you have to solve when you add something like destructive environments to AC. If any of the answers are to disallow destruction in some specific places, then good luck communicating that to players (and not angering them).

My point was and remains this: you can't "just" add something to a game to make it better. Especially not if it's one thing you want in many games. Not every game will benefit from destruction or, say, romance mechanics. Just because they are cool in general doesn't mean they are applicable to every or even most games. And on top of that there's multiplicative cost of adding them. Even if you solve all of the issues with destructive enviro in AC (and there are many more) there's still cost associated with adding them.

I never said it would work as the games function now, it would indeed require tweaks to gameplay and AI, but it would certainly spice a stale franchise up and allow for gameplay mechanics simply not possible currently with the franchise.

And every game would benefit from some form of destruction.....

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Before I begin, I should preface the following discussion by acknowledging that I may have missed quite a few games that highlight the features I'm about to discuss. Since the end of the PS3 gen, we have see a drastic decrease in interactivity in games especially in AAA games. During the PS4/XB1 generation, this was explained away by suggesting that the cpu's in the consoles were insufficient to pursue "interactivity in games".

I guess it is important to define interactivity so that we're all on the same page.

Gameplay Interactivity - The gameplay systems respond to the player actions. For example, if you were playing Fifa and when shooting, you constantly aimed at the bottom left corner. It would be nice if the AI would recognize that pattern and cause the goalie to "cheat" to the left forcing the user to adjust their tactics.

World Interactivity - I'd define this as giving the player the ability to permanently impact the game world. A good example of this is in GTA5. There's a mission where you pose as a life invader staff I believe to modify the unreleased phone. This phone then explodes killing the ceo of life invader. As a result, the stocks crash allowing the player to make a bunch of money in the stock market off the actions they caused in the game. Another interesting example of this is Watch dogs. The development team tried to make each npc feel like a real character with a backstory that you could interact with.... However, the execution was rather poor.

Physical Interactivity - The ability to destroy physical objects in the game, have world events that impact the objects in the game such as tornado's, floods, etc. There are many ways to define this but when discussing physical destruction, battlefield bad company 2 was a good example. It allowed the player to use destruction as a tool to accomplish their objective.

It is quite possible that many will define these in different ways. However, what can be said is that there have not been enough advancements in this area over the current generation. In many ways, all these forms of interactivity have suffered to various degrees. The genre type that offends the most is open world games. Many of this open world games are open world merely to pad the play time length through world traversal but the "open worlds" feel sterile. Even Cyberpunk, a game I thoroughly enjoyed is guilty of this "sterile game world" phenomenon. While there are some exceptions like Baldur's Gate 3, teardown, etc, it's certainly not enough.

This has seen resources deployed to improve visuals/performance and that is very much appreciated. However, the improvements have not been substantial leading to many claiming that the PS5/XSX is merely a continuation of last gen. While we're now seeing the death of cross gen, that argument still holds weight. Many of the games released are essentially better looking versions of old games with the same old and tired systems of the ps360 era. In many cases, there are games especially from Ubisoft which have worse systems that their ps4/xb1 and ps360 releases. Star wars outlaws, Skull & Bones are just some examples of games which aspects of their interactivity has regressed gen on gen. In many ways, as graphics and lighting improve, it becomes easier to see the glaring flaws in interactivity. For example, being able to walk through objects or npc.

I think it's time for more attention to be paid to these areas of the game. As it stands, I'd argue that improved graphics are no longer enough to keep players engaged and excited.

Do you agree or disagree and more importantly, please highlight some games that are taking steps to advance interactivity.

It all comes down to cost and risk.

There are still games from the 70s that still have the same gameplay mechanics during those ages so the risk is low.

Cost is a big factor in development time for introducing those systems into a game and the game's budget gets blown up and still makes the same amount of money even if it didn't have that extra feature.

This is even more so of a thing this generation as I've never seen so many remakes, remasters, duplicates, etc.. in my life. I don't think it's going to change for what you want to see anytime soon. You might get 1 or 2 games that knock it out the park with something unique but those are too high risks to take for ALL the game companies.

 

[Riddlewire]

It makes no sense to have destructive environment unless it's core to the gameplay.

I'm not sure I agree with this specific point.
Cosmetic destruction can aid in the immersive sensation of a game world. As well as just looking cool.
It's an old game, but the PS2/Xbox FPS Black features a ton of destructible world material. Some of it is in the form of explosive devices, but plenty of other objects can be destroyed for no real purpose (the pseudo-sequel Bodycount also included this feature).

 

[VFX_Veteran]

I'm not sure I agree with this specific point.
Cosmetic destruction can aid in the immersive sensation of a game world. As well as just looking cool.
It's an old game, but the PS2/Xbox FPS Black features a ton of destructible world material. Some of it is in the form of explosive devices, but plenty of other objects can be destroyed for no real purpose (the pseudo-sequel Bodycount also included this feature).

Agree here. Destruction will add to immersion. But it doesn't have to be like Minecraft destruction to give immersion. I just think that kind of thing won't be enough to take a high risk on it. And it requires a lot of bandwidth that consoles/PCs don't have right now.

 

[Boss]

It all comes down to cost and risk.

There are still games from the 70s that still have the same gameplay mechanics during those ages so the risk is low.

Cost is a big factor in development time for introducing those systems into a game and the game's budget gets blown up and still makes the same amount of money even if it didn't have that extra feature.

This is even more so of a thing this generation as I've never seen so many remakes, remasters, duplicates, etc.. in my life. I don't think it's going to change for what you want to see anytime soon. You might get 1 or 2 games that knock it out the park with something unique but those are too high risks to take for ALL the game companies.

The remakes, remasters and sequels are beyond tiring. It’s gotten to the point where I simply will not purchase any remakes or remasters regardless of how well done it is.

As for cost, I do agree that cost has increased. However I think the 3 biggest factors are inflation, scope creep, and marketing budgets. Inflation is out of the control of the studio but scope creep is a huge problem. If you look at games, they’ve become bigger that their previous gen counterparts while feeling more empty and sterile. There’s also been a huge all or nothing attitude to game development that prioritizes hitting a home run immediately. It leads to excessive bloat in games.

Compare TLOU to its sequel. The latter is almost 2.5x longer while using the exact same mechanics as the old game. I’d argue that its increase in scope did nothing to make the game more enjoyable and actually made it worse. There are lots of games like this like old AC compared to Valhalla, origins, etc.

The marketing budgets have also gone out of control. Sometimes, the budget for marketing can almost be equivalent to the development costs which is frankly ridiculous.

The current trends in game development are unsustainable. For me, the only thing that can rectify this issue is a change in approach/philosophy. AI tools, etc, will only paper over the cracks.

 

[davis.anthony]

What I don't like is this push for photorealistic visuals we're striving for is just going to give us game worlds that look like real life, but don't act like real life.

 

[IQandHDR]

Unreal Tournament 3 tried that years ago:

But the anti-physics (PhysX) crowd won and hence game physics has been lignering for years.
Good thing RT is part of DirectX and Vulkan otherwise the "naysayers" might have won there too (and not for lack of effort in trying I might add too)

 

[Davros]

Whats anti-physics about physx ?
and I dont understand physx won, most physics is done on either cpu or compute shaders not physx so how did it win ?

 

[IQandHDR]

Whats anti-physics about physx ?
and I dont understand physx won, most physics is done on either cpu or compute shaders not physx so how did it win ?

I should have said PPU accelerated physcis lost, and we got stuck with no progresss in that field for almost a decade.

 

[tuna]

Compare TLOU to its sequel. The latter is almost 2.5x longer while using the exact same mechanics as the old game. I’d argue that its increase in scope did nothing to make the game more enjoyable and actually made it worse.

I would claim that TLOU2 plays very differently from TLOU1. The moveset, equipment and level design differ a lot which makes for very different (and better!) game mechanics.