How to design a game so that players figure things out rather than use a wiki?

I also think this signals a change in how games are played these days.

There are many players that don't want to be challenged or explore, they want to complete tasks and get rewards. Some of them don't really care that much about the actual gameplay, as long as there is a quick way to complete sets of tasks and get their rewards.

Some of my friends are like this, they blast through games without looking at anything but the tasks and rewards and they hate having to figure things out, explore, discover and other road blocks to their "task list". They move at break neck speed too, like their lives depend on it. It's really hard to keep up, becasue they never stop at look at anything, but just rush to the next marker to finish the next task.

I had to actually stop playing certain types of games with them, because it would completely ruin the game for me.

I like exploring and discovering and figuring things out. If everything has an easy hint, marker, or otherwise shortcut that takes that away or discourages it, i would enjoy games a lot less.

An external wiki/youtube etc. gives you that choice when you need it, but it's far enough away that you can still enjoy those parts without using it.

The problem is that two different systems collide (in the example of Terraria). Having an open world game and a learning curve for the things the user needs to understand to progress. Looking up informations in a wiki most often happens when the game gets boring or overly complex for the player to have fun (check Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory on that).

Games that do that well, such as Zelda (which does this very well) introduce new mechanics and scenarios in an very iterative way. By having a linear structure. Other games use AI to control the gameplay flow.

A linear level structure could look like this: A & B are different types of enemies

| A (new enemy) | A,A (more complex situation) | B (new enemy) | B,B (more complex situation) | A,B (new combination) | A,A,B,B (complex new combination) | ...

This method works with lots of systems, such as level design elements, enemies or construction of ingame elements. The problem is that procedural content generation and open worlds make it hard for the game designer to introduce the content to the player in this order.

interesting videos on this topic:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc (Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnt5zxb8W0Y (Director AI for Balancing In-Game Experiences)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw (Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?)

I really enjoyed it when ConcernedApe added a journal to stardew valley: per villager it keeps track of which gifts they enjoyed. Practically it's not all that different than looking that information up on a wiki, but the fact that it is in game and integrated made the experience way more pleasant. You still have to try out a ton of items, but at least you don't have to remember which ones worked for who.

It's the same thing with open world quest markers. Nowadays, a lot of open world games give the player the option to remove quest markers outright. It's great to have that choice. But compared to, for example Morrowind, it often turns out to be an exercise in frustration, because the quests and the world haven't been designed with that in mind ("Go south from Vivec and turn left at the third tree", followed by an internal dialogue about if you should count a stump as a tree and a four hour detour is one of my best memories).

There's also this middle ground: in Ghost of Tsushima you can summon the wind as a compass to guide you to your next quest marker. Mechanically it's the exact same thing as an arrow, or line to guide you. But the fact that it's so well integrated, and thematically fitting into the game, makes my brain experience it totally differently. Not needing it would be even better, but the way they implemented it is at least pleasant.

I wish more games had a journal to keep track of things :). Why do I need notepad open, or a wiki open when playing satisfactory? If I make the effort to calculate the exact amount of iron ore I need to perfectly match my iron rod production, it'd be great if I could keep track of that in game.

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I remember being very proud of winning BG1 without looking up hints. Now I find myself on the wiki. Why? I’m almost 50. I’ve got kids, businesses, life, etc… I can’t play a game for hours on end of immersion every night. I get to game in an hour here hour there slices through the week. If I spent 8 of those slices looking for some random nugget instead of moving the story forward there is no way I’d keep playing. I have no illusions that I’m “beating” the game organically but I’m having fun immersed in a fantasy world and having fun is the only point here.

PS - if you aren’t playing BG3 - this game is fantastic and a worthy heir to the BG 1/2 standard

Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other people have found, and a big part of my enjoyment comes from comparing my own solutions with those from others in the community.

In all of those examples I'm figuring things out myself and using a wiki and sometimes other community tools such as calculators etc.

I would be really amazed if this person makes a good game when their focus is make players do A rather than B instead of "how do I make this game as much fun to play as possible". It's also likely that the gameplay systems are really shallow if they feel they would be harmed by people searching for information in a wiki.

When it comes to games where learning/withholding information is an important element (so not platformers), I think there's two main design goals to consider if you want to avoid wikis:

* Give good in-game info. Players resort to wikis because they don't feel like they know what they're doing and there's nothing more awful than making a choice you aren't ready for. Roguelikes tend to be varying levels of this; Risk of Rain for example will absolutely give you the exact percentages for its items in the collection menu, but during a run you don't need those percentages to know what you should pick. The bad side of this is The Binding of Isaac, which just has items that do not work at all, for any player whatsoever. Isaac is a game where you open a wiki/cheatsheet just to make sure you aren't picking up a run-ending item. CRPGs are universally terrible at this, something only amplified by their dice roll system. Disco Elysium is the only CRPG I've played that made choices work without pulling up a wiki because it makes it very clear early on that most consequences are yours and it will not lie to you about how far your choices will reach.

* The Wiki Will Not Save You. This is for games like Nethack. Nethack has a wiki. Nethack also has so much depth that a single human will struggle to not just learn it, but might screw up even when they have all knowledge they need. Very difficult to design without alienating your players, but if it works, it's probably the best way to avoid wiki syndrome since there's so much info that most players will just end up mentally arranging the information they themselves need. (Noita I'd consider to be a partial success at this, where the wiki contains all valuable info for achievements without learning Swedish, but the actual spellcrafting and core loop is something with so much depth that every player I've seen try it ends up with their own preferred combos.)

For me, I run to wikis most often to get numbers. It's frustrating how far some games go to hide exactly how much faster an upgrade will make you, or what the fuck a status effect means. Dead by Daylight had this problem for a long time until they finally put numbers in perk descriptions. Risk of Rain 2 half implemented a good solution- tooltip style descriptions when you hover over items or terms, but it's not applied universally or more confusingly, not on the status effect icons that appear in a run.

> The reasoning for this is that the player experience is greatly hindered by searching up answers to problems found in a game.

This is an interesting statement to me, and I think the truth of it is debatable. It's certainly true if you're only looking at a specific sort of player experience, but there are other sorts of experiences some people want which is greatly enhanced by the use of reference material.

Why would a game designer want to reduce the appeal of their game to those sorts of players? Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki.

Surely, in the end, game designers want to make games that are fun and engaging, so if the use of a wiki makes a game more fun and engaging to some, why would a game designer object to that?

Does anyone remember the Horadric Cube from Diablo 2? Was there any mechanism in the game to discover all of the combinations? (I don’t think so). It was easy to work out a couple basic combos with gems and then you basically needed to look up the rest, which I always thought was a shame. Seems like it wouldn’t have been hard to make them all discoverable in-game without just guessing.

Minecraft is a good counterexample to what the author wants.

People look up recipes all the time on wiki and yet Minecraft is the #1 best selling game, so obviously it isn't an issue in the real world.

The game that does this best is Outer Wilds. All the information in this game is discoverable on your own, driven by curiosity.

Anecdotally, I'm often looking things up when it feels like I may incur a permanent penalty for experimenting.

An example of things done right would be Deus Ex (2000): While a given character build or approach may restrict you to certain paths forward, you almost always have the opportunity to backtrack, explore, and loot to the other routes later.

In contrast, if the routes became totally inaccessible or a scripted event cleared them of useful items, then I would be more likely to consult a guide about pros and cons of the different options.

The question feels wrong because it's out of place. First you have to ask "what game am I building, and for whom?".

Games with multiple levels of puzzles and meta gameplay wouldn't exist without an active community and wikis, and they are great partly because of that. Think Noita, Animal Well or even Binding of Isaac.

On the other hand, you don't need a wiki to play and enjoy Ori and the Blind Forest

This is a funny one. I am reminded of Elite Dangerous and how such an amazing game, concept and game loop (mostly) is top tier and exactly what I was looking for. The only way to play it properly or in any way usefully is to use third party tools.

For example, markets statistics to see live market information in game for trading, you have to use a user created website.

Want to see what components will get your ship in the configuration you want ? Third party tool.

Want to plan a nice scenic route somewhere with some interesting/valuable finds on the way ? Third party tool.

Want to go mining and be in anyway profitable, maybe looking for a particular resource, you guessed it, only through a third party tool.

On one hand this has brought the community much closer together as the tools for that in game don't exists. But it's ridiculous that core gameplay loops depend on user created tools.

I find myself looking up walkthroughs for two reasons:

1) I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go next. There have been lots of times when I've not know where to go next or seem trapped in an area with no enemies and had to go look up how to get out.

2) I want to make sure what I'm trying is even possible. I remember one game where a boss would come out of a room and attack. I tried a dozen times to shut the door to trap the boss before I looked it up and found out I was supposed to run away and you couldn't close the door.

Water runs downhill. Players will max out convenience. The only way is to make the ingame info easier to access, more convenient and complete than any 3rd party.

E.g to beat a youtube video that shows you how to complete a quest, you can have a ghost of your character frontrunning the player and doing exactly what needs to be done.

Most gamedesigners abhore even the thought of adding such a thing as they want players to explore and discover. And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do.

Randomize recipes etc, then put them in hints throughout the game

Been enjoying Zelda randomizers lately, it needs a bit of a wiki to understand mechanics etc. But a game designed for randomization could include difficulty curve & then have higher difficulty levels where that hand holding backs off like how many modern roguelites have difficulty level mechanics

I look at wiki when I'm faced with seemingly important decision.

I think Papers Please did a great job with their checkpoint system.

Basically each important decision creates a checkpoint you can start the game from right before that decision so you can check various scenarios yourself without extensive replaying of the same parts in the same way.

Video games used to have user manuals. Some were great and memorable! https://passo.uno/video-game-manuals-docs/

Does it matter if players self-document and share knowledge? Its ultimately up to the players if they use that documentation. The main thing is if the game loop is enjoyable.

I feel like you don’t try. You don’t own the audience. Make a game that rewards discovery and encourage that, but don’t try to lock out those who don’t want it.

Not what the original author wanted but with game like Cyberpunk I wish the wiki would be IG :).

Funny how the HN submission has more points than the original SE question.

The thing that strikes me about the question is the underlying desire to control the user. The creator wants people to figure things out rather than look them up. For a good game, make it the way you want. That's your choice. If someone solves the puzzles themselves, great! If they get stuck, or just want to blast through the game and use a wiki or guide, so what? That's their choice. As an author or creator you can choose how to make art. You do not get to control how people experience it. That would be creepy, though it doesn't seem to stop people from trying.

one game i can see that did it best is a way out.