Less being more, in the number of choices

 You limit the number of choices for the player to lower the amount of choice complexity and give a quicker path.

The less element could come from having a weapon that requires x amount of a stat as thus forcing the player to invest more in one build versus another.

For the RPGs this could be the different routing with equipment, teams, etc. For an RPG like Pokémon you have it where players are given a choice of 3 Pokémon, then a choice of two, then after that the choices slowly increase over time but even then the battle of the beginning area with one v one Pokémon battling with the wild creatures leads to people having to make a choice at the given moment to catch the creature or not versus throwing a whole bunch of creatures at the player at once.

So in other words; you have players get used to the choice complexity before you add more to their plate, giving little to no items at first is the same exact reason.

Even Dark Souls take this design approach with letting you choose one of three paths, going up to the bell tower, going to the lower area or going to the depths area with other paths from there but still giving you a simple amount of choices.

For social type games humans are social creatures so social choices are often the easy to choose element for them when it comes to their personality they're viewing it from.

Players will feel upset if given too many choices at first and not knowing the kind of choice to take for the given path. You could teach players to value the choices themselves but honestly who has time for that and even then would the player listen? This has yet to be seen or done yet.

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