Active vs. Passive Voice...In Game Mechanics

News & General Discussion
1

A thought that occurred to me last night on my “vacation” from gaming (I absolutely had to smoke a Skeever in Skyrim; in all fairness that Skeever and I have a history with killing each other, so it’s cool) was something brought up last week, but also by a coworker at the day job who used to be a journalist.

It all comes down to wording things “passively” versus “actively”; active words are easy to understand (the player shoots a fireball at the zombie!) while passive voices are a bit harder due to being either more convoluted in their expression, or just less clear in general (The player’s fireball was shot at the zombie!)

Based on my grand design question from last week - and, the whole ‘lasering asteroids to mine them’ thing - it occurred to me that some of the more boring elements of some other games I play including Skyrim can be traced back to this very thing.

Using the Skyrim example again, take wards - they’re defensive spells in the restoration school, that when channeled absorb certain types of damage. The problem with them is, they don’t actually help you, and you’re not really doing anything of use in the first place; they consume resources and provide neither power, nor benefit; they delay the inevitable. The only way they could conceivably be helpful is if you’ve got really good health regeneration and you just need to last a few more seconds to heal up enough to finish off a group of enemies.

A more ‘active’ expression of wards, while preserving the whole ‘ward’ concept, would be to make wards instead be a temporary enchantment on a friendly target, or if none is in your crosshairs, yourself; this would make supporting a companion or summoned minion a more viable strategy in the larger context of the game, because you could throw a shield on them, and use other abilities like Healing Touch to heal them up. This would make a ‘White Mage’ build in Skyrim actually viable, thus adding yet more replay value to an already replayable game.

Alternatively, if you want to prevent Wards from being used on companions, it might be easier to instead provide a tangible benefit to Warding - for instance, if you ward comes up within half of a second of a spell impacting it, the ward will deflect the spell back at the caster, causing the spell to deal a fraction of the original damage back. This turns Wards from being something you do to merely hold on into a sort of counter-play mechanic.

As revelations go, I bet this is a more obvious one, but I felt it worth bringing up, because I have a question - are there cases where a passive mechanic provides engaging gameplay? The example I’ve posed is an iffy one, because wards are widely considered one of the least-useful spell types in Skyrim - it’s possible I’m cherry-picking.

2 Likes
2

How about stealth? Turning yourself invisible (or nearly so) is just as passive a mechanic as wards, or so it seems to me… but can provide for some pretty engaging play as you sneak around trying to steal stuff from NPCs that could squash you flat (for example).

Or, what if there were prophylactic spells that could, for example, prevent you from being infected with vampirism? That would be something worth spending some mana on before you go vampire-hunting, and I bet you’d keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t wear off just before you take a bite. Again, passive yet engaging I would think.

And, really getting into the spirit of it now, what about water-breathing? Is that still “passive”? Because if so, I think it’s very engaging, allowing you to explore places and do things you couldn’t explore or do at all (or at best, get a quick peek at before you either die or have to come up for air). Of course this requires that the game actually have some interesting content that you can enjoy this way.

1 Like
3

Ignoring the potential landmine discussion of what makes games fun (A great topic, but I only have a couple minutes here)… which is basically what you’re getting at :slight_smile:

Wards do serve a purpose, unless I misremember how they work. The key from the design side is you have your damage output (DPS) and enemy DPS (We’ll call that eDPS). The maximum amount of damage you can inflict is equal to your DPS for as many seconds as it takes for enemy DPS to make your HP reach zero.

If a ward can make you survive 25% as long, your maximum damage before death is literally 25% higher.

Though I don’t recall Skyrim having it, other games make even further use of this by providing some kind of passive bonus when you are attacked. The more you can get attacked, the more benefit those abilities provide.

Are passive abilities inherently less fun? That depends :slight_smile: Usually they are, but not always.

4

I actually used a ward spell a lot with dragon fights. One of the lesser wards would suck up all of a dragon’s fire damage, so it was pretty easy to go a fight without even taking damage (albeit chugging magicka potions like a mother). Probably the only place it really made sense though.

Does anyone really like buffs or status effects? Either they cause difficulty to fall off a cliff like with sleep, or they are just a hassle keep active without significant gains.

I would say a lot of this is from not calling for (or creating) a difference of kind. A straightforward example being defense in a system where the only viable outcome is defeating the enemy. It’s not that defense can’t have a place, but in a situation where killing an enemy fast enough is the best defense, it doesn’t have one. The defend option in FF is a good example where it’s only in a small handful of times when the option actually is useful beyond passing a turn.

The asteroid mining case is curious. The X space series (X3: Terrain Conflict in particular) has the option to actively mine with a laser that breaks the asteroids apart, or a mining facility that you can put on a rock and build off of. For the most part, the best experience (although there is some other automated alternatives) is to pop a facility on a rock, and turn it into a managerial task. It basically falls under housekeeping, so that whenever you have a minute, you check in to make sure stocks/trades are alright. It doesn’t take up much time, so it never becomes an activity you are dedicated to.

5

That’s an interesting point. It reminds me of something my karate sensei was explaining last night. There are a bunch of techniques for responding to, say, a wrist grab to gain control of your assailant with a joint lock or whatever. But the situations where it makes sense to do that are pretty limited — maybe if you’re a prison guard or bouncer, for example, where you need to respond without doing too much damage. But if you’re just a regular guy on the street and somebody jumps out of an alley and grabs your wrist, you’re probably much better off breaking his face than trying to put a joint lock on him.

6

A lot of that is also because it’s lost it’s old context, but found a new one which changed it. Ground techniques these days are pretty much just for restraining and sport, but once upon a time they were for toppling the guy in 40+ pounds of armor so that someone could slam a crow’s beak (or effective regional equivalent) through the plate. Sport fencing vs. HEMA rapier is another case (and pretty much all of HEMA for that matter). Then there is also the issue/irony where you learn and practice techniques in a way so that you don’t hurt the other person, so when you should be trying to hurt someone, you’re not actually doing things right.

7

Would you class trophy/achievement hunting as a passive activity? Occasionally they will give you a buff but I think that, apart from where a platform owner will dictate that you must include achievements, a lot of games are using achievement & epic weapon hunting as the passive element.

As for skyrim, I tried using wards but by the time I got one set I’d taken a heap of damage & then attacked so that the enemy rarely ever triggered any of them or were affected by them. Maybe I just used brute force too much but it worked & even my wife, who plays stealth & range over brute force, never used them. They were likely there because defensive arts are always included in all epic fantasy/magic stuff but they didn’t really suit the actual battle arenas in the game.

For a more passive game, check out Prune. Yes you do stuff but you don’t really control where the tree grows, just try to nudge it towards where you want it to go.

8

How about incrementals? Adventure Capitalist is the pinnacle of passive gameplay. Passive also applies to energy systems (ie Candy Crush). As well as using time as a delaying tactic, seen in games like Clash of Clans/Boom Beach.

The wards from Skyrim are pre-battle preparation - often done BEFORE a major engagement. In this case, a lot of other elements would also apply, such as crafting systems, class leveling hierarchies, and anything you do on the outside of the game loop. Might even could argue that sight wards in League of Legends are passive.

@AndrewGrayGames - Love this topic. Thanks for sharing your insights.

Gigi

1 Like
9

Actually, I think you’re thinking of buffs like Oakskin/Ironskin - the Ward spells like Lesser Ward are channeled damage reducing spells. Lesser Ward, vs Oakflesh. In fact, Oakflesh is kind of interesting in a way, because you only skill it up, if an aware enemy is nearby. Thus, it can turn into a sort of early-warning system, which is probably one of the cooler consequences of how the game is set up.

Energy systems are passive, yes, but they seem like the point is to facilitate the player reaching an exit point - putting the game down for a few hours in that case, or purchasing a respite from that limit with real money. Auras are passive, and encourage being around another player. That said, some consider Auras an anti-pattern, because they are a mechanic that doesn’t specifically provide gameplay, and as a result its found have to be overpowered in order to be appreciated, or coupled with a more active mechanic in order to provide appreciable gameplay.

Still, and this goes well with the whole Active Voice vs. Passive Voice theme - when is passive voice good to use? For what reasons do we want to include a mechanic that does not require gameplay?

1 Like
10

The same reason you use a down beat instead of an up beat, at a change in tempo.

11

Active versus passive voice refers to a grammatical style, with active being preferred in most cases just for clarity reasons. I wouldn’t conflate that with the idea of active or passive gameplay; it’s not the same thing.

I think using the terms “gameplay” or “interaction” would be better.

Warren Spector posted an amusing article about whether games like The Walking Dead he even considers games, due to their extreme lack of meaningful interaction:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WarrenSpector/20150724/249470/Telltale_May_Not_Make_Games_But_They_Do_Make_Magic.php

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. The goal of any form of entertainment is ultimately about having an emotional experience, either through zero interaction drama, highly interactive abstract gameplay mechanics, or pretty much anything.

A well designed action adventure game will accommodate different types of players (or even different moods of the same player). For instance, it’s become a standard to be able to skip non-interactive cut scenes. Some players just do not care. They want to PLAY and barely even care about the most basic context of the fiction. On the flip side, the easiest difficulty level in The Witcher 3 is called “Just the Story.” For some, it’s almost entirely about the story and characters (which I don’t get - just read a book!).

There’s clearly no formula for what level of interaction is good or bad for any particular type of player. It’s a matter of knowing your audience, applying game design techniques to accommodate that audience, and play testing the crap out of it.

12

You’re correct; I may have taken the metaphor too far, to the point of conflation for overall gameplay. It seems to me that it’s less that a mechanic “is” passive or active, and more that there’s a continuum of activity in a particular mechanic. I’d propose waypoints on such a continuum to look like this:

  • True Passive / Team Auras in LoL
    An mechanic that exists entirely in the background, with zero interaction from the player at any point. A benefit is provided, but this benefit itself cannot be interacted with in any way. Janna’s movement speed bonus in LoL is the perfect example.
  • External Passive / Boss Auras in WoW
    A mechanic that benefits the enactor, but requires other entities to make a choice to effect the mechanic. To those non-enactor agents, this is actually an implicitly active mechanic. Back in the day, when Baron Rivendare was a tough boss, he had a Darkness Aura that dealt periodic damage over time. It made the Baron harder, but not due to the Baron’s AI choosing to act; it was merely a symptom of being in the same room as him. Choosing to benefit from a Paladin’s auras can be considered the same thing - the Retribution Paladin has a 2/2 spec’d Sanctity Aura up, which improves all damage I do by 3%. This other Paladin has Devotion Aura, which grants me 1670 Armor, or about 10% damage reduction from physical attacks. I get the benefit by being near them. Who do I close ranks with?
  • Implicit Passive / Ashe’s Frost Arrow in LoL
    A mechanic that the player can make a choice to invoke, but only modifies other choices that the player can make. There is usually an active component to an implicit passive, but it has only limited effects to the actions the player can take. I like to think of this sort of mechanic as a ‘Modifier,’ usually. FFXIV is rife with these for the magic classes.
  • Implicit Active / Lava in WoW Dungeons
    A mechanic that the player can choose to interact with, but not by their own power. If a player chooses to jump into lava, for instance, they will take damage until their HP is depleted, yet they can do this to reach a new area, or take damage intentionally to dispel certain debuffs. The player’s action does not cause these things, the lava already exists and causes the decision to need to be made, at least in part.
  • External Active / Quick-Time “Reaction” Events / “Counter-play” in general
    A mechanic caused by the player, but that another actor can choose to interact with to alter the end result of the interaction. When Morgana in LoL shoots the Dark Binding projectile, if a player does not move, they will be rooted; if the player dodges it, they can continue maneuvering. Both agents have a choice, but this is still somewhat passive because the enactor doesn’t have full agency over the outcome based on their choice alone.
  • True Active / Individual manual weapon swings
    A mechanic that the player has to fire every time if they want the choice to manifest in the game world. The player must consciously execute the action in a way that they know will cause it to manifest as they want. Such a mechanic is notable because, provided the player chooses to do the thing under the correct circumstance, the mechanic will consistently behave in a predictable way.

This is debatable, and fluid, and can likely be expanded, but such is the trade of game design; it resembles an art and requires artistic sense, but there are things that can be learned and classified and ordered, within that chaos.

I also notice, that trying to put words to the thought, that at the ends of the spectrum (“True” active/passive) that the results are most reliable; in the center of the spectrum, the results are typically at their least reliable. So, it turns into a balance of reliability versus triggerability; anything you can trigger may or may not work, but stuff that’s automated is automated such that it’s reliable.

Just some thoughts I had in reaction to your thought there.

While somewhat unrelated to the topic, I wanted to call special attention to this idea, a “non-gameplay” mode for games that have story, for players who just want the story. I think that’s a very clever idea for players who enjoy stories over action, if the project can pull it off without losing its meaning by doing that.

13

These are mostly just fortifications. For something more substantial, consider modes that really change things. No examples are coming to mind (I think torchlight has a few, maybe in II), but consider cases that actually come with a change in play style. Think about a super glass cannon mode that requires you to nuke everything in sight in an instant or suffer.

It’s also the difference between something that buffs stats by a few percents, and something that boosts stats by several x. One is game changing, while the other is just business as usual, just done more efficiently. A lot of this is also down to the fact that there aren’t consequences for most small buffs, so there is no reason why you don’t want it save for whatever hassle is involved to get it/keep it going.

14

Games with ‘story-mode’ difficulty are awesomely clever! The designers have reached a more sophisticated appreciation for an entire segment of their audience. It’s also a node to why people enjoy incrementals. Also games like EZRPG - sometimes, we’re not looking for a frustratingly difficult challenge - we just want progression.

PS - @AndrewGrayGames - I feel like the attempt to really expand the concept, might have led to an idea that has become sort of amorphous. It feels like it’s lost it’s impact. And, I was reminded of times in the past where I’d done that same exact thing - taking a rough concept and expanding it, before realizing that I’d ended up with a big mess of nothing. Nowadays, after I I’ve dived (is dived correct? dove? doven?) into the concept, ripped it apart, and dissected it, I try to work my way back up to something that is extremely simple. When I can do that, it’s usually because I’ve found “Truth” with a capital T.

Gigi

1 Like
15

Then, I’ll follow your example, and follow the idea to its conclusion.

Mechanics have to be evaluated with an eye to reliability, and to activity. Sometimes a mechanic needs to be reliable to help the player do what they want; sometimes mechanic feels better if it can fail. Sometimes a mechanic needs to be triggered whenever; others, maybe a player doesn’t need to trigger it for it to be useful.

So, I’ve come full circle. Passive vs. Active was only half of the truth.

1 Like
16

do we need to differentiate between active & passive mechanics & active & passive player action? By that I mean things like a power that the player doesn’t control (can’t turn off or on etc) but has an impact on gameplay like those damage auras mentioned above that do damage to enemies within the radius while the player doesn’t have to do anything more than stand still or move near the enemy, compared to buffs that do nothing until the player chooses to activate them at which point they are on & just apply buffs to any action the player takes?

As for active vs passive stories I personally think that the old arcade games used more of a passive voice due to the limitations of the times. You could put a lot of story in & not have enough memory left to run the game or you could provide the bare bones of a story & then sit back while the gameplay & players imagination combined to make the rest of the story. I’m thinking of things like missile command, space invaders & would probably include games that almost have a one sentence story & then step back out of the way so you can continue it (e.g. A bad guy steals the princess, you are a plumber in a land with weird pipes, pits & creatures & are the only one that can save her. Off you go…)
Active stories rely on only minor differences in the available endings where the story is actively pushed at you or a well rounded & consistent branching narrative that is technically supported by the mechanics for a story that is actively affected by your actions.

1 Like
17

Not really the best delineation. Passive stories are ones that are about context, this includes most modern games where the story is created by changing the context frequently. An active story is exploratory. The second of Spector’s gamasutra posts kind of gets into the idea.

1 Like
18

Interesting thread. A great example between active and passive mechanics that springs to mind is the barbarian versus the druid in Diablo II. As the druid you could make a build that didn’t actually need to do anything. You just summon a bunch of creatures and casually walk around as they sponged up experience for you. Many barbarian builds were at the opposite end of the spectrum. Every creature you wanted killed had to be done yourself. There were also interesting choices with the Palidin. You could have a aura set that gave you a passive bonus, or you could use an active skill. You couldn’t do both.

In an unrelated note, I played a healer in our local LARP last night. The healer is a very passive role. I had no weapons, no shield, and no armour to speak of. In a game where mobility is important, the healer has to stand still for 30 seconds to use there ability. Yet despite my lack of active engagement, it was one of the more intense battles I had participated in. Standing three feet behind a line of active combatants, and hoping that the line would hold for another ten seconds so you could get a knight back on his feet was intense. As was being the preferred target for every archer on the field.

The game was full of meaningful decisions, did I get close to the action and the wounded and risk dying if the line was overwhelmed? When did I run? How far did I run? Did I heal the heavily armoured knight first, who could then be my body guard, or did I take precious time to rescue a fallen healer, knowing that two healers could bring back twice as many men?

There were a couple of times I took an active role, at one point stepping forward past the battle line to heal a downed soldier, prompting my comrades to step forward to defend me, and thus inspiring holding a critical part of the line. But most of the time it was a far more passive role.

Anyway, the point of that rambling post was that passive mechanics, when done well, can be just as engaging as active mechanics. I’m not sure exactly how one would capture the same experience in a video game, but its worth thinking about.

2 Likes
19

A lot of this comes down to having a particular use case with limitations. Even if that role isn’t constantly active, it’s still of strategic and tactical importance. There are a fairly substantial amount of decisions, with consequences that can cascade.

2 Likes
20

What is the distinction? I like Ted Brown’s definition of a game, “Give them a clear goal, give them a simple way to achieve that goal, give them fantastic feedback, and stop there. It might be enough.” In my last workshop, I used this: “way to achieve that goal” to define Mechanic. And though imperfect, it syncs well with Flow, embodies simplicity, and is very practical.

With this in mind, I might offer that there’s no useful distinction between active/passive mechanics and active/passive actions - anything the player can use to accomplish their goals is a mechanic.

Gigi

2 Likes