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Brasas: ...
I don't go as far to say a game with both is always better than a game without one of them...
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Starmaker: I do. ... snip snip
I think I agree with you and good examples there.

But when you said you do as contrast to my "I don't", you meant about coherence vs dissonance right? Because what I meant was that I will not go so far to say that a coherent game is better than one where coherence is moot - ergo I can agree with you a coherent game is in some sense better than a dissonant one (in the sense of coherence obviously) but I would not say that coherent game is better than for example: Tetris where there is zero narrative and is almost pure ludo, or some of these new fangled virtual novels where there is hardly any ludo and are almost pure narrative. I might say VNs are not really games due to the lack of mechanics, but considering them videogames in the broader sense of computer screen entertainment media, they're not inherently worse, just different.

To continue with my movie analogy, I would not flat out say a silent movie is worse than a modern movie with sound? What I can say is the sound and music make it much easier to engage the viewer emotionally. But who says that's what the movie should try to do? :)
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tinyE: It figures; all the people who have English as a second language know what the hell this is about.

Myself on the other hand, who was an English major, am sitting here with a dictionary totally fucking lost. :P
I feel the same way minus the English major and English being my second language. :P
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evilnancyreagan: snip
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Brasas: Well, the most immediate answer is we segment the two? I mean there are people that care only about the story, and don't mind grinding like hell to get it. There are people that care only about the mechanics and skip all story.
Ludo-narrative dissonance isn't about story or gameplay being very different, or gameplay being grindy, but being those two elements being at odds with each other in such a way that it gives you pause.

This isn't a universally bad thing, but it can become very jarring. It depends on how severe this dissonance is. A lot of people claimed this term was meaningless because they loved Bioshock, and the term was coined in a critique of Bioshock 1.

The term has also been mistakenly attributed to things that are *not* game-narrative discord.
http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=543

Doesn't make it controversial, just means fanbois be fanbois.
Post edited March 15, 2016 by Atlantico
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Atlantico: Ludo-narrative dissonance isn't about story or gameplay being very different, or gameplay being grindy, but being those two elements being at odds with each other.
In this case, Final Fantasy VII is an even better example. I mentioned the CPR case, but there's an even bigger issue. One of the most famous spoilers in video game history is that a certain character dies, but this game has resurrection magic, and the characters don't even *try* to use it. (Final Fantasy 5 handled a similar situation much better; the characters actually *try* (and fail) to revive the dead character.)
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Atlantico: snip
I think you are agreeing with me. ;) I basically told nancy that most people care only about one of the two, therefore to them subjectively there is no dissonance, despite it being objectively present. I think that was their question, but I'm not 100% sure that's what they meant.
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Atlantico: This isn't a universally bad thing, but it can become very jarring. It depends on how severe this dissonance is. A lot of people claimed this term was meaningless because they loved Bioshock, and the term was coined in a critique of Bioshock 1.
Really? I had no idea. I never thought that was an issue since there weren't that many cutscenes and the audio tapes worked wonderfully but then again, I'm a sucker for in medias res story telling where almost all the focus bringing in the pieces of the past rather than focus on "current" times.
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Nirth: snip
Deeper that that. Consider narrative broader than just plot exposition devices. I believe the critique was that the game was mechanically oriented towards killing and destruction. But all of the narrative (worldbuilding, characterization, plot) were ins some way in opposition to that, therefore forming two somewhat dissonant halves. I might be wrong though, I don't remember that well.

If I am right, the contrast between the mechanical rewards for harvesting the little sisters and the meaning / message behind the true good ending were part of it.


Edit: This is a good example of what I meant higher: For story oriented players, the action gameplay in Bioshock, was perhaps a mechanism for "turning the pages" they did not actually engage with it deeply - therefore no dissonance experienced. For gameplay oriented players, the narrative was mostly irrelevant, just playground scenery which could be mostly abstracted - therefore also no dissonance experienced.
Post edited March 15, 2016 by Brasas
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Starmaker: I also tried Undertale, famous for its nonviolent path which launched a thousand thinkpieces. It actually starts with a very heavy-handed moralizing challenge: "ah, you think you're so high and mighty to try a pacifist playthrough, but when you keep repeatedly dying, your patience will eventually wear out and you'll go for the easy genocide solution, because you humans are all the same".

Now most videogames, even Undertale at its surface, have a more powerful pro-violence message than real life. Real life has no takebacksies; games do, and you can actually look at the mechanics and see which method of dealing with obstacles produces the best outcome. You won't ever know if your decision was really the best and if things could have turned out differently. But in the game, you know. You can reload, or retry, or refer to the communal experience, or look at the code. There's always the best solution, and the more "highbrow" the game is, the more it demands that you accept its best solution as true IRL.

So, in Undertale, most monsters try to kill you to death, lethally. Your character is 100% justified in trying to kill them. The game only works because it goes meta and save/load is part of the narrative: you the player are immortal and have the godlike power to kill or redeem monsters, only limited by your divine patience and benevolence... and, uh, reaction speed. Because there's a stupid fucking minigame to be played in between talking attempts. Learn your lesson, disabled people, you can never be heroes and peacemakers.
The way I see it, combat in Undertale is rather abstract; what happens gameplay-wise during the enemy turn isn't an accurate reflection of what's actually going on in the game world.

Incidentally, I get the impression that Undertale is likely playable one-handed, particularly if you have a way to map an action button to something near the arrow keys. I don't think there's ever a time when you actually *need* fast access to multiple buttons and the arrow keys at the same time. Also, most of the time, you have time to move your hand between entering your command and having to dodge enemy attacks.

Also, if you actually try the genocide route, most of the game will be easy, but there are two bosses in particular that are extremely difficult, to the point of being the hardest bosses in the entire game.

Incidentally, the accessibility of games to disabled gamers is an interesting topic in itself, but is unfortunately beyond the scope of this thread.
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Brasas: Deeper that that. Consider narrative broader than just plot exposition devices. I believe the critique was that the game was mechanically oriented towards killing and destruction. But all of the narrative (worldbuilding, characterization, plot) were ins some way in opposition to that, therefore forming two somewhat dissonant halves. I might be wrong though, I don't remember that well.
I understand but unfortunately it was hyped as an action-oriented game with a narrative, I don't think you can expect worldbuilding done through gameplay, at least I would never have such expectations given the nature of this industry.

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Brasas: This is a good example of what I meant higher: For story oriented players, the action gameplay in Bioshock, was perhaps a mechanism for "turning the pages" they did not actually engage with it deeply - therefore no dissonance experienced. For gameplay oriented players, the narrative was mostly irrelevant, just playground scenery which could be mostly abstracted - therefore also no dissonance experienced.
I still rather blame marketing (or more precisely, people who fall for it) than poor game design as Bioshock is a well made game if you play it for what it is (which is what one should always do IMO). In fact, the way you discribed what happened for people who either enjoy story or action could probably be applied to ANY modern action game that has at least a few millions as a budget as they tend to have some kind of loose narrative in the background with some higher message at the end which of course is shown too much during trailers prior to release.
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Nirth: snip
First a disclaimer. The article Atlantico links actually spells out the origin of the term by Clint Hocking and it's not as I described, it's even deeper. I think the term has been appropriated and drifted closer to the meanings I expressed, but I don't know... I'm not in ludological academia.

Then just to say worldbuilding through gameplay is not so rare - sandbox games, city builders, god games, 4x games, online RPGs with permanent changes to the world? Or literally what Bastion does for a completely different tack?

And also to say, I don't think I tried to blame anyone. If anything I tried to point out that designers that ignore either narrative or gameplay are choosing valid approaches. And yes, the kind of critique that points how incoherent many games are with their own internal narrative is very broad and does apply to whole genres.
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Brasas: First a disclaimer. The article Atlantico links actually spells out the origin of the term by Clint Hocking and it's not as I described, it's even deeper. I think the term has been appropriated and drifted closer to the meanings I expressed, but I don't know... I'm not in ludological academia.
I haven't read it yet but I saved it to Pocket.

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Brasas: Then just to say worldbuilding through gameplay is not so rare - sandbox games, city builders, god games, 4x games, online RPGs with permanent changes to the world? Or literally what Bastion does for a completely different tack?
True but was Bioshock marketed as any of those genres? I don't think so. It was what I expected (rail road action game with pretty graphics and a solid narrative).

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Brasas: And also to say, I don't think I tried to blame anyone. If anything I tried to point out that designers that ignore either narrative or gameplay are choosing valid approaches. And yes, the kind of critique that points how incoherent many games are with their own internal narrative is very broad and does apply to whole genres.
I didn't say I wanted to blame marketeers or people who fall for them as a criticism on your part, it was a general statement. I think marketing is the source of many if not most issues in the video game industry. For example, personally I happen to like games that tend to be popular but I don't like because of it nor do I follow popular trends or try to build up hype by reading tons of articles or whatever prior to release. Non-technical issues aside, most issues at Steam Discussions (obvious example because of how big Steam is) seem to be around stuff people shouldn't expect be it gameplay, narrative, price, length or whatever else. (excluding scam of course)

As for valid approaches when ignoring one aspect of gaming, I agree with you. How could there be invention without going against the very core most people assume to be defined as video games? It's somewhat interesting how so many people complain about clones yet clones is what they want (more of the good stuff), just not crappy clones.
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Nirth: snip
We are in agreement. :)

As tangent, what I recall of Bioshock when it was released was almost consensual critical praise of its worldbuilding and of its narrative ambitions. In terms of its FPS / action achievements, I think it was also well evaluated. As to the marketing, it was certainly often done in reference to it being the spiritual heir of System Shock of sorts.
Quick Time Events (and related):

EVERYONE hates them. EVERYONE recognizes they don't contribute positively to game play. Yet designers keep putting them into games as empty filler. They work okay in some games (the Walking Dead, for instance -- they're few and well-done compared to most, and are used to pace out the otherwise narrative game), but almost never.

Example:
Infamous Second Son.
There are "graffiti points" throughout the city. Get to one and the game stops, and you have to turn the PS4 controller sideways (gyro detection and whatever), "shake it" to mimic shaking a spray paint can, then move the controller all around to cover a stencil on screen. It's a new low in TACOs. (Totally arbitrary collectible objects.) In fact, it's how the game starts.

Example 2:
Take your pick of ANY NUMBER of games that have "mash button(s) fast(er) (sometimes done as "wiggle directional input") to do get out of something bad" or the like.

Example 3:
Final Fantasy XIII-2 (already a horrible game without this, but I saw it being done). The boss fights don't use the normal gameplay elements, but all devolve into QTEs "memorize this squence of inputs" to defeat them.
Post edited March 15, 2016 by mqstout
I find TRAUMA BASED MIND CONTROL to be a much better topic of research. Certainly more entertaining.

But I do have a two word answer to the issue of Ludonarrative Dissonance.

San Francisco.
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Atlantico: Ludo-narrative dissonance isn't about story or gameplay being very different, or gameplay being grindy, but being those two elements being at odds with each other in such a way that it gives you pause.
Indeed. One of the examples best coming to mind is the TombRaider (2013?) reboot where 3/4th's of the way in, Lara stumbles in to the cultists who are about to sacrifice her friend to appease a god. There's one of two actions she could have done that would have been correct. First she could have pulled out the shotgun and used the really thin tunnel as a choke point to keep people at bay. Second she could have not been all Pansy and shot more than 2 arrows clumsily while to that point she'd been taking out groups of the cultists at that point quite easily, more often with guns that had rapid fire. But considering it was a pre-rendered cutscene... *shrugs*

Then of course a conversation she had with her comrades in regard to killing people (who she'd never done to this point) she simply replied "it was easy actually", to which usually taking another person's life is a life altering event.


Now that I think about it, I really hated the scripting in the game...
Post edited March 15, 2016 by rtcvb32