Creative vision and target audience

[Pizzicato]

I want to start by pointing out that the intent of this post is not to be inflammatory or disrespectful, but to try to articulate my current feelings about the direction of BoS and the (perceived) steps that have brought us to this point.

 

Just to provide a little context, I'm a Design Director at EA. I've been working as a designer in the games industry for over 16 years during which time I've worked on the Battlefield, Max Payne and Prototype franchises, so I like to think I have at least some reasonable understanding of game design, creative vision and product positioning.

 

With this in mind, I find the current state and direction of BoS extremely frustrating and schizophrenic.

 

The first issue that I perceive is the disconnect between the fidelity of aircraft modelling, the accuracy of the map and the structure and presentation of the SP campaign:

 

• When it comes to the aircraft, there's a huge emphasis on authenticity - prop pitch, mixture control, radiators, trim and all of the rest are modeled with great levels of realism. This speaks to a desire the satisfy the hardcore flight sim fans.
• When it comes to the map, there's been a huge emphasis on historical accuracy and recreating the battlefield as it was in late 1942. Once again, this speaks to the serious, historically invested player.
• When it comes to the campaign, however, the experience deviates massively from any attempt to immerse the player in the reality of that time - settling, instead, for extremely simplistic action/RPG tropes.

 

The end result is that it feels as though the SP campaign was designed and implemented by some third party with no understanding of what the rest of the team was looking to accomplish. The best analogy I can come up with is that it's like one half of the team building Gran Turismo cars while the other half of the team builds Mario Kart tracks for them to race on. Both approaches are entirely valid, but they can't live together cohesively in the same space. Creative vision demands that you pick one or the other and drive (no pun intended) in a clear direction.

 

In this regard, it seems to me that 777 don't have a clear picture of what they want the game to be and which audience they want to serve. As a result, the game ends up falling horribly between stools.

 

This lack of coherent creative vision also manifests itself in the bizarre requirement that MP players play through the SP campaign in order to unlock MP features. From a design perspective, there is literally zero reason to go this route outside of an arbitrary and ill-conceived determination that "We built this content, so you're damn well going to play it".

 

I've seen this kind of thing before at several studios and it's just really poor game design. Being a good game designer is about making the choices that deliver the best possible experience to the player - not willfully forcing your own preferences onto them.

 

This leads me to my final point - respect for the customer.

 

I think it's a reasonable assumption that the people that were willing to shell out nearly $100 for early access were the serious flight sim fans - the ones that were courted and catered to from the outset by the high-fidelity controls and accurate environment. Over the past year, everything about the various releases and communication through developer updates has suggested a reasonably simulation-centric approach. All of a sudden - mere weeks before release - it feels as though there's been a sudden "Surprise! It's a game!" unveiling of the final experience.

 

This, understandably, seems to have caused a great outpouring of frustration from the audience that bought into the promise of the project right from the outset. Rightly or wrongly, it feels like a bait-and-switch at the expense of the core audience. I've heard the developers explain it away as "Well, the audience has changed and no one wants to role-play real war anymore", but if that's the case, why bother with realistic aircraft and theatres? Why not just go full Ace Combat?

 

From my perspective, the game has gone horribly off the rails in its closing months, and it's a product of a complete lack of coherent creative vision. I'll be fascinated to see if 777 decide to do any course correcting as a result of the current negative feedback, but I'm not holding my breath.

Frankly, it's a crying shame, though. There are the seeds of real greatness in BoS, but it's currently a massive, soulless disappointment. So close and yet so very, very far...

 

 

 

 

[indiaciki]

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/11312-whats-your-age/

[Creepermoss]

I stopped taking you seriously at "EA employee". I'm sure you know a lot about poor game design, you guys do set the bar pretty high.

[III/JG11_Tiger]

I stopped taking you seriously at "EA employee". I'm sure you know a lot about poor game design, you guys do set the bar pretty high.

That's irrelevant the comments are well stated, it's hard to understand why a company would disenfranchise so many of it's paying customers by enforcing unlocks on those only interested in MP, although they were mentioned early on I doubt many early buyers thought they would be enforced on people that play only online.

 

I understand 777 needs to make a profit, I just don't see how removing choice in this area and in some of the configurations is going to achieve that?

[kaboki]

Dunno, but when I started reading this post, Sim Shitty popped up in my mind....

[Pizzicato]

I stopped taking you seriously at "EA employee". I'm sure you know a lot about poor game design, you guys do set the bar pretty high.

 

Perhaps the current state of BoS is karmic retribution on me.

 

In that case, I can only offer my most sincere apologies. :D

[Original_Uwe]

And the fanbois rally to protect the devs at any and all cost.

 

OP nailed it. I don't care of he's the proprietor of a lunch time strip club catering to c-section fetishists, he's on point.

Well stated and sums the situation up well for me anyway.

[indiaciki]

creative vision:

 

 

target audience:

 

[Gambit21]

And the fanbois rally to protect the devs at any and all cost.

Unnecessary and unproductive.

[Howdy]

Personally, I've been very (VERY) impressed with what the devs have accomplished with this sim overall and having now played through a few single player missions, while I understand where it's coming from, I find this post to be a bit overly critical.
 

I should say, I'm much more interested in the online component of the sim and where the community takes it from here (and I do believe many -most?- others feel the same way), I was surprised by how well they got everything to scale back and be playable to a non-sim enthusiast while all the meat and potatoes is going on underneath....and for this I think they did an extremely good job. I feel like I could now introduce this to a friend have them figure out the basics, get hooked and this could lead to building the community.
 

 

Both approaches are entirely valid, but they can't live together cohesively in the same space

 

 

When it comes to the campaign, however, the experience deviates massively from any attempt to immerse the player in the reality of that time - settling, instead, for extremely simplistic action/RPG tropes.

Not caring much about SP (but willing to play through it for unlocks) I think they live together just fine and somewhat impressively so. Seeing as this is the overall gripe, how exactly do simplistic action/RPG tropes pull you out of the campaign? As a game designer yourself what would you do instead to specifically immerse the player in the reality of the time?

Edited October 6, 2014 by pietropizzi

[kaboki]

And the fanbois rally to protect the devs at any and all cost.

 

 

 

Yep he has a point, but one doesn't have to be a "game designer" to see the obvious flaw in the unlock system....... And an EA guy talking about bad game design,,,oh well

[Afwastus]

Interesting original post and at least from the outside this seems to be something the developers are struggling with. Sometimes I do wonder though if this whole debacle isn't to some extent due to miscommunication.

 

A) The developers feel that they have from the start been clear that this a game and not a flight sim. Thus, the developers feel betrayed by the player response to unlocks and features one might attribute to modern games.

 

B) Many of the players (early access) feel that the game they were sold was a flight sim, but one that could also attract more mainstream gamers. Thus, the players feel betrayed when the developers suddenly start posting that flight simmers aren't a focus and that the game is not a flight sim and when they had features that directly impact the fun of flight simmers.

 

So now we have this weird disconnect, where the developers seem to have wanted to make a mainstream game that can attract a huge player population, but the people who invested in their game through early access expected something completely different.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Afwastus

[indiaciki]

Interesting original post and at least from the outside this seems to be something the developers are struggling with. Sometimes I do wonder though if this whole debacle isn't to some extent due to miscommunication.

 

A) The developers feel that they have from the start been clear that this a game and not a flight sim. Thus, the developers feel betrayed by the player response to unlocks and features one might attribute to modern games.

 

B) Many of the players (early access) feel that the game they were sold was a flight sim, but one that could also attract more mainstream gamers. Thus, the players feel betrayed when the developers suddenly start posting that flight simmers aren't a focus and that the game is not a flight sim and when they had features that directly impact the fun of flight simmers.

 

So now we have this weird disconnect, where the developers seem to have wanted to make a mainstream game that can attract a huge player population, but the people who invested in their game through early access expected something completely different.

 No mainstream gamer will ever care about radiator controls or engine managment... this is completely idiotic. I can land GA aviation twin aircraft and I'm practicing patterns in the 109...

[Howdy]

In thinking a bit more through this unlock issue specifically, while I'm quick to say that I'd be ok going through SP to do it myslef, when I think about it from the perspective of potentially losing / stunting the growth of the online community from those who are only interested in online play, squads, etc. this does kind of concern me. I really have hopes that the crowd still flying Il2:1946 makes there way over here on release and this could potentially prevent that in a real way. Hope the devs are listening in on the conversation....

[Feathered_IV]

Cheers Pizzicato. You've got some very successful titles on your resume there.

 

Sim developers really seem to struggle with the human aspect of their games. The fidelity of machines and accuracy in landscape require technicians, coders and meticulous effort. There are plenty if these to be found in a sim's dev team. Campaigns require artists and storytellers. Not to many of those get on the payroll

[FlatSpinMan]

The personal slurs on the OP will be followed up on shortly.

All the angst around here is bringing out some nasty behaviour. I do not like this.