Emergent gameplay design(Food for thought)

[Sandpark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-p.../2300-6426981/

Quotes by Danny O'Dwyer from above video:

Emergent gameplay are engines of perpetual novelty.

Emergent gameplay: What happens when simple rules and mechanisms are combined together to perform unexpected results.

Two forms of emergent gameplay:

Intentional emergence: Set rules or mechanisms allows you to find creative means of utilizing them to complete an objective.

Unintentional emergence: When players find ways to do things developers did not intend.

The best intentional emergent gameplay is when developers actually create worlds that react to clever ideas.

Most games are about getting high scores, unlocking all the stuff, killing all the dudes, these games reward you for being skillful.
But emergent gameplay systems rewards you for being clever.

When you come up with a solution it feels far more satisfying than any test the game has exculsively given you. It feels like your moment and your solution and that is the power of emergent gameplay.

A decade ago many game designers said emergent gameplay was the future of game design. These kinds of games are hard to make. Not neccessarily in terms of cost, time or people power but in terms of thought.
Emergent systems are difficult to design which is why they require talented designers to create them. They take risk,care,and love to create, but when they work out they result in games we continue to talk about decades later.

These emerging systems aren't just about completing a task. These games encourage you to do task in the way you see fit. They reward experimentation and take your actions into consideration.

Compare emergent games to recent less popular open world games,Take Arkham knight, assassin's creed untiy, watch dogs, maybe even mad max. They are similiar due to the open world freedom they allow. Many of these games have excellent combat and large beautiful worlds. But ultimately everyone plays these games mission in the same linnear way. Or at least the type of variety they employ has become commonplace.

I mean when exactly is the last time AC required us to think on our feet.In fact of many of these non emergent games do alot of reminding you of how exactly to complete the mission than encouraging you to explore the gameplay yourself.

Now this doesn't make the non emergent games bad.Many of these games have great combat and interesting environments to explore.

But in a world with more emergent gameplay the standard non emergent games become less and less interesting.

I see thread after thread with unease about the direction of FFXIV. These range from the high grind and lockouts associated with endgame, repetitive endgame design, horizontal vs vertical progression debates, item bloat, skill bloat, dislike of jump rope/memory only in dungeons,methodically reused dungeons mechanics design,etc,etc.

The real want here is emergent gameplay systems. A system where players by performance can change the outcome of content by using provided tools to either progress faster, smarter, or smoother.

1.A lockout- There is no player input here to change that outcome other than not doing content.
2.High grind- This is an mmo by design. What the player wants is some way to make the progress more interesting, smoother, or faster via player input.
3.Repetitive endgame dungeons- Se can add branching paths or random enemies, but imo that still don't make it emergent only adds flavor. The solution imo is different types of unique endgame such as solo,duo,4man,8man,16man,24man open world, instanced, public, or mixed.
4.horizontal vs vertical, item bloat, skill bloat,memorized repeated fight mechanics-It's not about how many items or skills you have. The answer is how useful and how good/situational each item or skill is. Can I as the player use a tool to change the dynamics of a fight on a situation by situation basis.

Combat:
A healer can heal and increase defenses globally. But an emergent element would be a counter for a specific thing requiring a specific set of rules.
Example: Casting a barspell during the casting of an enemies elemental spell.

A DPS can deal damage and increase offenses globally. But an emergent element would be a certain skill being useful in the best possible time to counter an enemy.
Example: Stunning an enemy skill or a skill dealing extra damage depening on situautional enemy parameters.

A tank can tank and increase defenses globally. But an emergent elemen would be the ability to cast a skill at the most appropriate time to minimize a particular skill set of an enemy.

There could also be moments when things in the world are interactive such as:
Electrifying a body of water to do random stun or additional damage, casting fire on a gas to ignite enemies,etc.
I admit there is some of this to an extent but it needs to be explored further and not just in dungeons.

Thought on why global cooldown should die. It takes emergence out of gameplay.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3261005

Gathering:
Gathering got emergent gameplay down pat. The only problem is that with abilities costing so much and gp regening so slowly. You get to alter things the way you want then get resigned to waiting on slow GP regen.

I compared my 40blm to my 35 miner.

BLM regen: 1min from 0 to 2kmp.
MNR regen: 3min from 0 to 500GP.

Imagine if on blm your best crit spells cost 80% of your mp and the only way to cast again after depleting mp was to wait 3min on regen or pop a potion on a 4 min cooldown...
They should:
1.Raise GP returns on hits lvl1=5gp,lvl30=10gp,lvl60=15gp.
2.Raise GP regen rate higher than it is or closer to the rate of mp regen.

So If I decide not to buy gp fill potion. I am resigned to to non emergence for 4min whil trying to crit HQ.
Basically swinging with no ability input, it's like playing dps with only auto attack.