Over the last few years, indie and low-budget games have increasingly used procedural generation as a way to avoid having to actually create content for games. In practice, the end-result of overusing procedural generation is a large, yet "empty" game - the same content being used everywhere as the procedural generation forces a little to stretch a long way, repetitive gameplay, and a near-forced lack of any meaningful or coherent storyline.


Recently I bought "Heroes of a Broken Land" - a procedurally generated party-based dungeon-crawling game. After 20 hours, I had largely exhausted the game's content - all equipment tiers were maxed out, characters weren't gaining skills or perks for leveling up. Enemies remained the same, just with more health and more damage, turning every fight into drudgery with more numeric inflation than the Venezuelan economy.


Today, I found a bunch of articles in the news about the much hyped "No Man's Sky" (procedurally generated spaceflight and survival game) having a shortage of content. According to the news, someone paid for early access and found that the game was largely completable in 30 hours (instead of the 100's of hours advertised). If you look at that game's forum on Steam, there are a few posts from angry players cancelling their preorders.

-----------------


Is procedurally generated overdone and overrated, or just overused? IMO, the main problem is developers that are either lazy or lack the resources to create meaningful content, instead leveraging procedural generation to do all the work for them. In practice, that only produces a game that's over 9000 miles wide and a few inches deep.


The best solution would be a dedicated developer team with a budget halfway between "indie" and "AAA", combining procedural generation with a generous amount of hardcoded content (usually storyline and quests) and regular content updates.

yeah, i never wanted every game to be procedurally generated. I just like the ones that did it really well. I feel the same about open world games. and crafting mechanics.

My main experience with procedural generation is Oblivion. Unlike some, I liked the way Bethesda handled it. I thought Cyrodiil was extremely attractive. A large part of what I find attractive about it is, I think, due to procedural generation. So if developers can use the technology to create game worlds as nice as that, I say go for it.

I agree. Another game that handles it well is Spelunky. It's my top-rated Roguelite. Secret areas, new enemies, bosses, caution a necessary virtue. Procedural generation is fine, even fun, but it needs to be mixed up well to be enjoyed properly.


You can have the same melody but play an infinite number of songs if you change up the dynamics, the rhythm, the chords, the bass.

Oblivion wasn't generated. A minute in the creation kit proves this. The games before Morrowind were though.

Oblivion was procedurally generated. From an interview Todd Howard gave to Game Chronicles in 2006:

The procedural generation is a very small part of the overall design of the game world though. The coarse height-map and climate regions were hand made and the procedural generation only layered details on top of that. Anything that isn't trees, grass, or small details in the ground surface is hand made.

Looks like the OP has been watching Jim Sterling.

I am not a fan. I find that procedurally generated random content is soulless, resulting in a very vague, bland, and uninspired (because it wasn't) atmosphere. Worlds created by game developers such as Bethesda, on the other hand, are vibrant, beautiful, and inspired, resulting in a rich and deep atmosphere. That is what I enjoy, not the former.

Source?

Ah, Digital Ancient back again, the hero the gaming industry deserves but doesn't need right now. Good to see you. And for what perhaps may be a first, I am inclined to agree with you about these procedurally generated games. To a certain extent anyway.

There is a certain charm in the game constantly randomizing itself and creating and what at first seems like endless possibilities. But it doesn't take long to figure out its pattern and realize how stale the game may turn out to be if not done properly. I'm not saying that's going to be the case specifically for No Man's Sky. In fact, I don't think people should already be jumping ship based on one person's experience of 30 hours of playtime. But it is best to know what you're getting into with these kind of games, so you shouldn't be jumping on that ship in the first place and simply wait and see before purchasing it. Especially with the amount of hype generated by No Man's Sky. I personally have no interest in it, but I digress.

Overall, like all things, when used in moderation or added into a healthy mix I think procedural generation can be beneficial to a game. Though relying on it heavily (or entirely) seems risky.

I'm ok with some video games having procedural generated content.

I'm not ok with all of the video games in existence to have procedural generated.

I love a lot more hand crafted and hand placed objects and the environments of the video game worlds maps.

If the game world is interesting to me I don't care how it's made.

Like most "features", there is good and bad for me. Mostly, it depends on how they use "procedural generation." If it's done once in development, then fleshed out, that seems cool. If it is done every time one boots up (like Diablo dungeons), that can be tricky.

If the land or dungeons change with each character, then replayability moves up the scale. But that also challenges my immersion and roleplay.

I guess I'm saying what many others have said, "It depends on the game and how it is used."

You don't need a source to figure that out, everything in the game, like buildings and clutter had to be hand placed to work well according to other man-made structures, procedural generation can't be that precise. All those floating trees, rocks and bushes testify that it wasn't precise enough for that either (and that the game world wasn't thoroughly checked and fixed).


I think they said Skyrim was totally handplaced like Morrowind, but they left plenty of evidence of procedural generation in there too.


Aside from those floating objects, it was ok in both examples. Don't think I ever tried a completely generated game, but it doesn't sound like something that would cause insane repetition on it's own. Example of "all the same monsters" is handled a bit different from generating locations, it sounds more like devs didn't make a lot of different monsters to begin with, so the game doesn't have much to work with when generating.


In case of no man's sky it all depends on how deep the upgrading system is, and how many animals are there ti discover. I didn't even look at it as a "beatable" game, but a game where you simply explore and discover. Then again, I always take my time with games to explore every corner, and there's always guys who are like "dur skytim can be beaten in 4 hours, it's so short and crappy" so I don't take those statements as any measure on how much could I like the game myself.


Edit: Touch screen on a crappy phone, won't even bother fixing everything

Same here. If I enjoy it I don't care about the nuts and bolts.

I'm not going to get too worked up over one negative review for NMS - remember the first official reviews for Alien: Isolation? They slammed it because it's a slow stealth survival horror and they were FPS fans. The person quoted seems to be very goal oriented if he reached the centre of the galaxy after just 30 hours - procedurally generated sandboxes like NMS and Elite: Dangerous are best played with a view to experiencing and exploring the environments. Which in E:D at least, are frequently breathtaking and almost photorealistic.

I love procedural generated content in sandbox type games as well as in Diablo Clone games. Space exploration games like Elite: Dangerous and No Man's Sky need it especially if they have Billions of systems to explore. No one is going to hand draw each one and calling them lazy because they decided not to.

I love the world generation in Minecraft, Yes sometimes you do see a few blocks floating in the sky but then again the world of Minecraft does not follow earth based laws of physics.

I can't think of a whole lot of experience I have had with procedural generation off the top of my head. Generally speaking, I'd rather have handcrafted environments/settings over procedural or random generation.

I'm not going to be buying No Man's Sky, but I am intrigued to see if it handles procedural generation well.

I thought it was just the possible Deadlands maps that were procedurally generated. TIL. I like the Cyrodiil environment too even though I think it is a little bit bland (though not nearly as much as some other people think).

Like http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Rockpark in Arena? That city must have had some brilliant civil engineers to build an equipment store right in front of the palace gates.

For all its bugs and glitches, for the most part I didn't mind Daggerfall's procedural generation (until you came to a dungeon that took you more than 4 or so hours). And as for the overall world, I liked how expansive it helped to make the world. I think it worked out pretty solidly, all things considered. It also made for far more completely unique stories for every playthrough. Still, I prefer the Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim route.

No, those are just randomly picked from a set of seven possible maps.

wow, sorta impressed.. Digital actually brought up some fair points rather than going "all games these days svck" like alot of his threads have been



really comes down to the kind of game i suppose.. if the game is meant to be story driven pro-gen isn't the best choice.. if however the game is meant to be more open ended and exploration based, where the user decides their goals (like No Mans Sky) then i think it could work quite well...




so yeah, the concept is neither good or bad in and of itself.. it really depends on what type of game the devs are putting out there

Aren't the Diablo games essentially this? You can play the campaign over and over but the dungeons will always have a different layout.

But yeah, hand-placed stuff is more enjoyable, while "procedurally-generated" stuff makes sense in specific situations (or for specific types of games). I definitely like how in Mass Effect 2, the different star systems are obviously hand-made, even if the skins of the planets and moons themselves are just re-colored templates.

This feature is why I dont like exploring in minecraft as much once you figure out how it works. Finding a huge hole leading deep into the world you think it will be a massive adventure but you'd be surprise how often interesting places turn out to be dead ends with nothing to show for it. Exploring a procedural(spelling?) Made world feels like taking a stroll through a machine built world because thats what it is. Im still interested in No mans sky hopefully it comes to the other consoles not to long after its ps4 release.

I'm beginning to think the problem here is that some of us are using one term to mean two things. I freely admit I may be old-school and that the definition in popular use nowadays is not the one I am familiar with, but to me procedural generation and random generation are two different things. When I speak of procedural generation (particularly as it applies to Oblivion) I am speaking of a procedure that involves, as Howard outlined in the quote above, plugging geographical and topographical data into software and letting the software generate a game world in a one-time event. Developers then alter the terrain by hand to accommodate such things as road and towns.

I hope that clears things up.

ya it does I was thinking of the random generation one so now since I dont have a leg to stand on i bid you good day.