I’m right now doing a research paper on game improvement practices, needless to say, it’s been unbelievably challenging, up to 20 pages and most of it is unorganized gibber-gabber.
I need a focus so I wonder if the community can aid me on this one.
You are a designer for ArenaNet working together with the balance and design team.
- You are given the task to change every trait in the game that is underwhelming in performance (weak in damage or defense) and traits that are boring and don’t do much (Dealing X more damage with non-max endurance etc.)
- Revised traits MUST have some fun-factor.
- Revised traits MUST have ease of use.
- Revised traits MUST have a variety of uses.
- Revised traits MUST be useful in some form.
In other words, it’s your job to give high quality to the entire trait system.
I’ve already made a thread regarding improving something useless, but I quickly came to terms it’s significantly deeper than that.
As a designer for Guild Wars 2 with a job of improving most of the traits in Guild Wars 2, what do you do?
What do you determine is fun? What factors determines the quality? Is quality measured by personal taste? Experiences with others? Should it be up to a single person? Should there be numerous tests? Compare it to other games?
At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality?
Ok, ok, you used “gibber-gabber” so I may have to look the other way. 