This aligns with my experience of a very particular kind of game designer. I worked with one who, in a casual conversation about games where someone said “there’s no wrong way to have fun,” they responded with “yes there is, and it’s my job to tell people what the right way is”.
This is not a systemic issue, at Ubisoft or anywhere else. It’s a particularity of a kind of person who is deeply drawn to games, but who also doesn’t see other people as, well, people. It’s a person who has made friends with games and game systems because they’re incapable of being friends with, well, sapient beings.
Video game studio projects tend to have multiple designers working on them, with the creative director (or just “director”) and lead designer working on large scale design things - genre, core loop, etc - and progressively less senior designers working on progressively smaller, progressively more soul crushing design work. Think things like item design and balance. Weirdly enough, the ones who think they’re the arbiter of fun don’t generally progress very high up this chain.
The OP isn’t wrong. Turn-based combat is falling out of favour with the majority of the new generation. Final Fantasy has dropped turn-based combat for the same reasons.
For several console generations now, all character expressions can be done in real-time. Actions such as ‘press the trigger and your character will shoot a gun’ and ‘press the button and your character will swing their sword’ can now be easily expressed without going through a command system.
It’s now common for gamers younger than me to love such games. As a result, it seems that it does not make sense to go through a command prompt, such as ‘Battle’, to make a decision during a battle.
It was always a design choice born from limitations. It’s not going to disappear, but it was destined to decline in use once those limitations disappeared.
CRPGs based on TT rulesets and classic JRPGs aren’t the same kinds of turn-based games. CRPGs have more in common with SRPGs and games like X-COM, the latter of which has been increasing in popularity when you look at all the games with turn-based tactical combat now compared to a decade ago.
There’s no way all turn-based games are dying out. Some types are more popular than ever, including Western CRPGs. If anything, it’s Realtime with Pause that’s getting less popular in that space.
They were never about hardware limitations. Limitations of imagination of the designers, maybe, but we’ve had action games for 35 years now.
Actions such as ‘press the trigger and your character will shoot a gun’ and ‘press the button and your character will swing their sword’ can now be easily expressed without going through a command system.
And yet we can’t purge ourselves of the awfulness that is quick-time events. I don’t buy the argument. It’s an attempt to handwave away trends without discussing real causes and effect. If the suggestion here were true, other similar mechanics, such as QTEs, would have been dead a long time ago, not be a core element of a huge number of triple-A titles.
Being confident in your answer doesn’t make you right.
More than one type of game exists. It is always a creative choice. Always has been. I could go into examples, but plenty of people have already provided those.
This aligns with my experience of a very particular kind of game designer. I worked with one who, in a casual conversation about games where someone said “there’s no wrong way to have fun,” they responded with “yes there is, and it’s my job to tell people what the right way is”.
This is not a systemic issue, at Ubisoft or anywhere else. It’s a particularity of a kind of person who is deeply drawn to games, but who also doesn’t see other people as, well, people. It’s a person who has made friends with games and game systems because they’re incapable of being friends with, well, sapient beings.
Video game studio projects tend to have multiple designers working on them, with the creative director (or just “director”) and lead designer working on large scale design things - genre, core loop, etc - and progressively less senior designers working on progressively smaller, progressively more soul crushing design work. Think things like item design and balance. Weirdly enough, the ones who think they’re the arbiter of fun don’t generally progress very high up this chain.
Not in team-based design environments, at least.
The OP isn’t wrong. Turn-based combat is falling out of favour with the majority of the new generation. Final Fantasy has dropped turn-based combat for the same reasons.
It was always a design choice born from limitations. It’s not going to disappear, but it was destined to decline in use once those limitations disappeared.
CRPGs based on TT rulesets and classic JRPGs aren’t the same kinds of turn-based games. CRPGs have more in common with SRPGs and games like X-COM, the latter of which has been increasing in popularity when you look at all the games with turn-based tactical combat now compared to a decade ago.
There’s no way all turn-based games are dying out. Some types are more popular than ever, including Western CRPGs. If anything, it’s Realtime with Pause that’s getting less popular in that space.
It’s a design choice born from I’m playing the game while eating, if I twitch for timing I’ll spill my drink
No it isn’t. We had action games on the NES. pitfall wasn’t turn based. It’s a design choice that allows greater tactical choices.
They were never about hardware limitations. Limitations of imagination of the designers, maybe, but we’ve had action games for 35 years now.
And yet we can’t purge ourselves of the awfulness that is quick-time events. I don’t buy the argument. It’s an attempt to handwave away trends without discussing real causes and effect. If the suggestion here were true, other similar mechanics, such as QTEs, would have been dead a long time ago, not be a core element of a huge number of triple-A titles.
Being confident in your answer doesn’t make you right.
More than one type of game exists. It is always a creative choice. Always has been. I could go into examples, but plenty of people have already provided those.
Fire emblem is super popular.