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Meaningful Gender Differences in a Game?
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Member UncommonPosts: 351
I have a predicament; I've designed a combat system in which character height gives a marked advantage (not a % boost or anything, just by way of having a better vantage point in battle and being able to hit shorter enemies from above). This inevitably begs the question of how character height is determined; it can't be just a slider like in most games, and it can't be flat for everyone. Thus, I've decided that height will be one of many physical attributes on which a player may spend points at character creation, so that choosing to increase height means you have less points to spend on other attributes. However, human sexual dimorphism presents an obstacle to this; if the game is to be realistic (and it is being designed as such), female base height should be less than that of male base height. I realize, of course that a) this would be unpopular among PC adherents and b) females must be given a different but equal starting bonus (right now I'm thinking of giving a bonus to dexterity, vision, regeneration, or maybe hunger/thirst bar depletion), to avoid monogenderism among the game's characters. The alternative would be to have equal starting attributes for both genders, as current MMORPGs do (although usually still with sexual dimorphism visually present).
What opinion do you hold on the concept of meaningful gender differences in games? Please think of this question not only in the context of the scenario I have illustrated above, but also as a question of MMORPG theory.
What opinion do you hold on the concept of meaningful gender differences in games? Please think of this question not only in the context of the scenario I have illustrated above, but also as a question of MMORPG theory.
Comments
However, when you present these fact to most gamers, they will flee in horror as if how dare you put that in a game. My Hugh McFatasse character should be able to run just as long as all the other Jedi in SWTOR and be just as physically capable in all other areas. Additionally, as soon as you start pointing out the actual scientifically proven biological facts that there are physical differences between men and women, then dear lord man, just don't ever tell anyone your real name. The SJW's will burn your damn house down.
When it comes to games, you're better off just averaging everything out so the millennials don't start lighting torches and sharpening pitchforks.
Besides, no man or women can swim across the bay in full plate carrying a shield; so what's the point? Lets just continue letting the real world benefits of being man.. women.. unemployed sloth.. show through in our game play instead.
Also look at the whole height advantage thing. Lets say you are fighting someone standing on a platform. Your defensive angle is cut very small giving you a better chance to parry and dodge. Whereas the person on the platform has just about their entire body at risk of being attacked. The person on the ground just needs to defend their head/shoulders. Look down on someone holding a shield upwards at an angle and see how the shield protects their entire body. Meanwhile someone standing on a platform trying to hold a shield downwards is just awkward and hinders their ability to move around. So the person on the ground has 100% movement freedom and the ability to cover 90% of their body with just a medium sized shield.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Otherwise, while I am a tall person in real life and like to play large/tall characters, I guarantee I will play max shortness/max skinny character with every single bonus I can get to movement speed.
In the original Starship Troopers, all of the pilots were female because they had a physiological edge as pilots. While Heinlein later said that he regretted not having equality of the sexes for Mobile Infantry, I think that his decision to make all the pilots women was excellent.
I believe your height as a stat allocation system is a good idea. If you give some alternate benefits for being short then it all works out. I would say that you should look at actual averages and start at the median, with the points for larger size being equal in expense to the further they go on the curve. What you don't want though, is for people to do things like maximizing strength by killing their height lol.
Also women can be taller than the average man but tall women aren't taller than tall men. For instance my mother is 6'1 but my father and brother are 6'3" and I'm 6'7".
I'd love to see women get some taller options too but their slider probably shouldn't go quite as high as mens.
If Darkfall is any indication though, smaller characters will actually be more popular than larger characters. And there were benefits to being tall in Darkfall. Hitboxes are a huge deal in a manual aim game though.
Anyway my suggestion is to simply look at this from a height perspective... No need to bring male/female in to it at all. (after all there are males like me who sit just shy of 170 cm... and as pointed out above females who push past the 175-180 cm male average)
To put it simply....
If you balance the bonus for being shorter correctly, male or female will not matter. You are simply overthinking a problem that is not really there unless you as a developer fall short.
This have been a good conversation
Gender differences,i don't see the NEED for such a design.
IMO you are more on the right track by simply creating "differences" but with all characters.
A taller person would have a better camera angle,especially in for example high grass or seeing over a small ridge or bush.
I am not a fan of "point" systems,they never do anything to improve a game.Instead go for a class/subclass system,it gives players loads of time to improve their characters via options by achieving more with more classes.It needs to be done right and NOT the way i have seen many games do it via the "you pickem"spells and abilities.They should be strictly tied into your main/sub classes.This is how you create "differences" as well as a steady nominal change as you level up depending on both your race and classes.
I believe in a overall statistical,character structure that is separate from your class structure.Yes it would be a super long grind but does create longevity and a lot of differences.Example one who might play nothing but a healer 24/7 might slowly become better with Wisdom and a tad slower with INT while never much improving STR or STA as simple comparisons.Someone who plays a ranged character might gain a lot of dexterity ,some str but not much agility is needed or used.Every idea can have it's benefits,all depends on how a player wants to build his/her character.They could spend ions just building up STR or INT or perhaps slowly grind away at improving all characteristics and this includes OTHER ideas like crafting skills and harvesting,mining,building,dismantling,run speed,swim speed,climbing etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The world doesn't conform to modern standards of equality just because we want it to.
So if the objective is realism then the female height scale should be slightly lower than the male height slider.
A larger person has better reach and more physical strength, but smaller person has +to hit advantage because he has larger target to hit than his opponent.
And being tall is bad when you want to stay alive in a cold climate, you will need far more food and so on.
Taking a few things in account but not everything will just make a mess of tings. Instead let the attributes strength and dexterity make the difference, it is as logical but far simpler to implement.
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished
Sounds more like he is confusing physical characteristics with tactical advantages, in a shooter based game, gender is irrelevant, target size isn't however.
The gender based idea I had was, the more female characters in a faction, the more faction NPC guards there are and the speed that they get replaced is increased.