Game Design: Stop Adding, Start Subtracting
I want the development team to avoid additive design and instead focus on a philosophy of subtraction for game design.
Continuously adding new mechanics and systems only inflates game complexity and leads to severe power creep. We need to pause and reevaluate past additions rather than keep piling on new layers.
- ExamplesNew Legends: Characters like Seer, Horizon, and Alter were released in an excessively strong state, breaking the overall balance and taking far too long to recover from.
- Reworks: Reworking legends and weapons (such as Ash and Hemlock) by adding entirely new abilities or mechanics (the "more is better" mindset) often creates new problems instead of solving them. On the other hand, when reworks like Bloodhound's fail to resonate with players, the development team's investment of effort turns into misplaced pride, making it impossible to fix or roll back.
- Sharing Class Skills via Perk Systems: Allowing characters to borrow abilities from other classes drastically expands individual toolkits, inevitably resulting in far too strong and broken meta. (Note: Pathfinder is an exception here, as his perks merely returned abilities he originally possessed, balanced against the trade-off of having an excessively large hitbox.)
From a game design perspective, constantly adding mechanics backfires. What is truly needed is a philosophy of subtraction—reducing burden, complexity, and clutter. This is a fundamental principle in design.
