One of our primary design initiatives for Infinities: The Chaos Paradox has been to employ what we have internally called “narrative progression”—that is, a game system which allows the story and combat development of player characters to reflect decisions made during the course of the game. Like any other mechanic, there are pros and cons with this system that we must take into consideration. It is a shared challenge for our writing and design teams to ensure that the pros outweigh the cons and make this system a success in creating unique and enriching gameplay.
The way we are approaching narrative progression in The Chaos Paradox from a story perspective should be familiar to fans of series such as Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and KOTOR. During the course of the game, players will come to points where a character or multiple characters have an opportunity to make a decision about how to proceed. The options presented are generally positive, neutral, and negative based on the personality motivations of the characters, such as Charity, Duty, and Greed. A character’s choice will have an impact on the immediate future of gameplay as well as the distant future. An immediate consequence could be as simple as the amount of people the party can save from a villain scaling based on how your character decides, or as complicated as splitting the party into two paths for the remainder of an area. For a long-term example, a character may save a healer from a tribe and be granted a mysterious totem of warding. Later in the game, there may be an area with harmful spirits that the party must fight through challenging supernatural battles. However, if the player had earlier acquired that totem, a faint song is emitted by the item and causes the spirits to keep their distance from the party.
Another story component of the system is in option-gating. The personality motivation a character favors through his numerous decisions will gate future options. A character who generally takes the most evil path may not be afforded the option to take an action of benevolence for an important decision point, though he could still choose from neutral or evil. This is a way to ensure continuity in character development without completely painting them into a corner in the later stages of the game.
From the combat side, narrative progression serves as the primary method for a player to specialize each character in the party. We wanted a system that avoided the common routines of specialization that lack a sense of immersion, such as magic spheres/grids, talent trees, or skill points. To coincide with the branching decisions affecting the story, a player’s characters will gain brand new skills, skill boosts, equipment, and passive effects through their choices. For instance, the tough, ex-military character Ruo can fulfil the roles of melee striker or a defensive tank; his decisions will influence the role categorization of boosts, skills, and items appropriate to the types of motivations he follows. A player who has his Ruo make more aggressive, deceptive, or evil decisions will ultimately see that character serve as a damage type. On the other side, a player whose Ruo decisions are more influenced by teamwork, protecting those in need, or self-sacrifice will gain combat effects that allow Ruo to function as a tank for the party. Ultimately, we want the combat improvement of characters to reflect their personal story and main plotline contributions. The purpose of this reflection is to create a synergy between game mechanics and storytelling in The Chaos Paradox, whereas in other games those two might remain discrete halves.
A major challenge our writing and design teams are collaborating to overcome is the inherent opportunity of “gaming” of this progression system, i.e., those players who metagame to discover which choices grant what combat bonuses, forsaking story immersion to min-max the party into the most powerful characters possible. The choices themselves will have to first be written as compelling at heart and difficult to choose simply by merit of the associated reward. Decision options must make sense from a character development standpoint, as well as in the context of the main storyline. Moreover, rewarding players’ decisions with bonus story, side quests, world or character background, or a look behind the curtain goes a long way toward drawing them in to the true purpose of the narrative progression design. The more depth available to a player, the greater his or her chances are to stray from the metagame to dip a toe into the pool. When it comes to the design part of our team’s considerations, causing decisions to unravel into additional gameplay elements before handing out rewards rather than utilizing instant gratification is one tool we are using. A single decision might grant a powerful item if a player chooses option C instead of A or B, but s/he also may have to battle a more difficult boss or navigate a longer route to acquire the item. This is not a strict rule the team is designing by, but there is certainly a pattern of this phenomenon in The Chaos Paradox.
Looking at this system from a player’s point of view, the most glaring weakness in narrative progression is the fact that you may not like what your decisions have transformed the characters into either in a story or combat capacity. The discomforting sense of being locked into bad choices has driven players from games like Diablo 2 and Path of Exile in the past. Since The Chaos Paradox is a game in the Infinities setting—which is all about branching timelines and endless possibilities—you had better believe that we will be letting players explore every branch we can. This is where respecialization comes in via time travel. Unfortunately, that topic will need its own blog sometime in the future…
For now, we would love to hear feedback on this core design element in The Chaos Paradox. Leave a comment, drop us a line on our forum, or send us a tweet @VatalES!