Why do most games main focus on combat?
How it to be highly playable without combat?
Here are the topics to be discussed today:
You should know that target design is the cornerstone of game design. For a type of game, the two most basic and most important are goal and effect. A clear and moderately difficult goal is important for you, and all actions for the player should have an obvious promotional effect for the goal. Goals and effects complement each other, are the foundation of the game, and are an essential part of making a game "playable". When you only have a clear goal, but the promotional effect for the goal is not obvious, the player would feel that the game is not fun enough. Not having a clear goal, or aiming too high, can also lead to players not knowing what they are playing. At this point, if you design some games and think are not fun enough, you can refer to the two-point above. Some readers would say not all games need a goal. Some games, even if not have a clear goal but also having fun. These games are called "unconventional games", which is a very advanced topic. The "regular game" is combined with a clear goal, such as most games, especially turn-based games.
Why do most games main focus on combat? Because combat is the simplest kind of mechanism to satisfy both needs. The goal quite clearly, is to empty the enemy's blood bar. And the effect is obvious, all the actions that can cause damage are advancing towards the goal of "emptying the enemy's blood bar". Rather than a combat game, it takes a little thought to do a good job of target design. Here's an example of a German Strategy game to see how a non-combat game can be cleverly designed to achieve its goals.
In most German Strategy game, to win the game is when the game ends with the highest score. This goal doesn't look too clear either. In the most German Strategy game, not all actions advance toward scoring. In this way, the two points of "clarifying the goal" and "promoting the effect" seem to have been done generally. The real goal of any game that seems to have a goal of scoring is not scoring. The "real goal", as I called it, is the "monster element" because it's like a monster in a combat game, it's the part you explicitly want to destroy/achieve. If a player always looks at something, it's time to show your good goal design. And this clear goal must be presented to the player in the early stage of the game, in the first act of entering the game.
