Story or gameplay...mutually exclusive?

[Vyrien]

As an avid gamer, I am eager to hear the opinions of others on MoTK. I myself consider story far and away more important than gameplay, I am in no way motivated to complete a game 100% for the sheer point of completing the game unless I unlock juicy bits of extra lore along the way. I don't care much if a game has terrible controls or dreadful graphics as long as the story is enjoyable and substantial. For me, Touhou would be an example of this, as a rule, I detest STG's but I like the story and characters of Touhou enough to play it to a point where I can 1CC it and get to extra, simply because I like the additional dialogue.

Most games nowadays with so called "amazing gameplay" or "perfect graphics"  I have found to have dreadful stories (war games generally) and a lot of the more story-rich games are either too old to meet current graphical standards or are made by indie developers without the funding and resources to pull off the impressive eye candy seen in games by big developers. An exception being 'From Dust' which was beautiful and fun but had very little actual story.

So, MoTK, what is your opinion? And do you have any games which you feel contain the perfect mix of both qualities? Discuss.

Spoiler:

Apologies if a thread like this already exists.

[DX7.EP]

Though I favour gameplay over story, I find it really depends on the genre. On the one hand, I wouldn't expect a JRPG or adventure game to be good without a nice plot behind it; yet on the other, FPS games without a challenge are just a waste of time. Depending on what I'm playing my expectations concerning the two (and other qualifiers) will vary.

For excellent examples of gameplay and story mixed together, I will cite Deus Ex and Portal. Former is much better known for its very flexible approaches to everything, but the plot is quite plausible from today's perspective. As for Portal, well, much of the background and story revolved around GlaDOS' lines and hidden areas marked by graffiti, while the player was busy thinking with portals to solve test chambers.

As for story, though, I prefer knowing it via background items rather than cutscenes, as it helps with immersion and gameplay. I'd refer to Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the Left 4 Dead series for those. Granted, most of the direct events happen in cutscenes or with gameplay progression but the little extra details (e-books and e-mails in the former, graffiti and newspaper clippings in latter) give a better sense of the finer details.

I'm not a real fan of this 'perfect graphics' phenomenon, though, but that is for another discussion.

[Jq1790]

As was stated, it really depends on the game.  I mean, I like Sonic and Mario games even though their stories are either nonexistant or garbage overall, but their gameplay is usually really fun to play around with.

However, with an RPG, while I like neat battle systems and everything, the story's the bigger draw for me in those. 

Though they (almost) don't really qualify as "games", VNs are even FARTHER on the Story-Gameplay scale, since there's not much gameplay at all, but the story is why you play them.

There's no concrete definition of what amount of either component is needed for a game to work well, I think.

[Aquamentis]

I almost always go gameplay over story. I'm mostly a tactical fan so things like Disgaea 1-4 interest me more for the elements of combat over the mediocre story.
I also enjoy the more sandbox games since I can work in my own little story for what is happening to events and when I come back to it I can change things up and enjoy the game all over again.

However I don't think I've ever run into a game that perfectly mixes the two however I feel Devil Survivor has come close to it.

[Stuffman]

As an avid gamer, I am eager to hear the opinions of others on MoTK. I myself consider story far and away more important than gameplay, I am in no way motivated to complete a game 100% for the sheer point of completing the game unless I unlock juicy bits of extra lore along the way. I don't care much if a game has terrible controls or dreadful graphics as long as the story is enjoyable and substantial. For me, Touhou would be an example of this, as a rule, I detest STG's but I like the story and characters of Touhou enough to play it to a point where I can 1CC it and get to extra, simply because I like the additional dialogue.

Most games nowadays with so called "amazing gameplay" or "perfect graphics"  I have found to have dreadful stories (war games generally) and a lot of the more story-rich games are either too old to meet current graphical standards or are made by indie developers without the funding and resources to pull off the impressive eye candy seen in games by big developers. An exception being 'From Dust' which was beautiful and fun but had very little actual story.

So, MoTK, what is your opinion? And do you have any games which you feel contain the perfect mix of both qualities? Discuss.

Spoiler:

Apologies if a thread like this already exists.

Comparing story to gameplay is comparing a rather narrow concept to a broad one. It's sort of like saying, "which is more important, the music or the final boss fight?" You keep talking about graphics and I feel compelled to point out that graphics are not a component of gameplay. If anything, they're more closely related to the story, since when combined they create part of what amounts to the presentation of the game, which is a more apt comparison.

Some games do not benefit from a story at all. For instance, I strongly doubt Super Meat Boy, or any other game of its type, would be made better by having a deeper story. Super Meat Boy, does, however, have good presentation to support the gameplay, and illustrates how a low-budget title can round out the multiple elements that go into it to create a quality title.

So, that said, I would always prioritize gameplay over story. If I find a game's story intriguing but the gameplay isn't worth bothering with I'm more likely to just read the script or watch an LP than actually play it.

However, excellent presentation, of which story is one part, can make an otherwise mediocre game pretty entertaining.

[HakureiSM]

I think Stuff p much said it, I don't see this as a valid comparison at all

[ふねん1]

Both are important of course, but I believe gameplay is more so for video games. They might have a good story and presentation, but things like movies and books do too. Gameplay implementation creates an interactive aspect for video games that really defines and separates them from other media, and without good gameplay, not only does it slowly turn into a movie/book, but a movie/book that becomes a real chore to progress through. Because I'm so involved in the flow of the game like this, I'm a bit more lenient toward a story that's less-than-stellar (in one way or another) since I can still find enjoyment in the parts I can control and the challenges I try to overcome.

[Vyrien]

Comparing story to gameplay is comparing a rather narrow concept to a broad one. It's sort of like saying, "which is more important, the music or the final boss fight?"

I appreciate what you're saying, perhaps I chose my words clumsily?  In my mind I was thinking of fighting games such as UMvC. However, I think what is important to me is not the final boss fight itself, but rather why is the boss there? Who is he? If the answer is merely, "this is a demon with more health and deals more damage than the other demons, therefore it is the last boss, you must kill it," really doesn't cut it for me and I'll get bored.

You keep talking about graphics and I feel compelled to point out that graphics are not a component of gameplay. If anything, they're more closely related to the story, since when combined they create part of what amounts to the presentation of the game, which is a more apt comparison.

Trufax, I went off on a tangent there I think, although I wouldn't say they were closer to the story than the gameplay, being that the quality of the graphics will define how you play the game (along with controls etc) . I think presentation is in it's own segment altogether, so apologies. :V

I think Stuff p much said it, I don't see this as a valid comparison at all

I didn't intend for this to be a technical discussion as to the approximate sizes of everything that makes up the game, I just wanted to know how importantly some people weighed the story in general (I weigh it pretty heftily, as you can see) and to get a couple games thrown out there where the story does make as much difference to the game as the key elements. Games like Heavy Rain or VN's are pretty much only story based with very little actual gameplay or player interaction, but still make great games that people enjoy playing,

[HakureiSM]

Well yeah, but point is that isn't a solid parameter.
I think importance of story varies from game to game, same goes for gameplay mechanics, graphics, etc.

In one game(say, Half-Life), the story is the core of the whole thing. It plays like any classic FPS should, except it carries a fascinating story, and that's what makes it so good. And then you have a multiplayer-based game like Battlefield, in which the fun is far from the story(there isn't one to begin with :derp:), and yet can be regarded as a high level game, to many just as good or better than Half-Life.
These two franchises are amongst my favorite games ever since the first of each, and if I had a general parameter set to care more about the story or more about the gameplay I wouldn't be able to enjoy both to their full extent, would I?

[Paul Debrion]

I'm of the opinion that not all games need a "story", but it can certainly be nice to have.

There is the question of what exactly a "story" is in the game. Games can have things that resemble "stories" even if they aren't explicitly written by the developer to be "stories". A game have elements or parts of what could be called story, even if they don't have all the elements of a story.
A lot of games have what some could call "drama" even if they don't really have a "plot".

Games like Mount & Blade and Elite don't really have stories, at least not whole ones in the traditional sense. They do have some elements of stories in them in that they present worlds for stuff to happen in as well as various bits of lore to enhance their worlds, but they don't really have a "plot" nor would they really benefit from one. On the other hand, they certainly provide a space for plenty of "drama" to happen in.

[shadowbringer]

to answer the OP's title, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive.

There are different reasons for why people like the games they play. In my case, for example, I don't get the appeal of realistic graphics (maybe because.. 1 - too much detail would require a lower pacing, to avoid the details to become a distraction; 2 - I value the pacing when I'm reading manga or watching movies/anime/etc, and try to understand how do the writers manage to keep the viewer's attention; 3 - I've gotten used to having a low expectancy about my available time for reading written works and/or watching stuff, so I've gotten used to read spoilers or brief summaries or the beginnings and ends of books -- that says much about my expectations of having a good "reading experience".. and sadly, this low-fun-expectation of mine has reached videogames as well.), while gameplay mechanics (which offer lots of factors to consider, lots of virtues and flaws to exploit, lots of ways for attaining a goal, lots of fast decisions keeping me interested, entertained and mentally exercised) tend to appeal to me the most.

Ever since learning about how deep fighting games and shmups could get, gameplay-wise, I learned how trusting on some important information you know (for example, the timing and enemies' possible attack patterns in platformers such as Megaman. As for shmups, there are techniques such as hoarding bullets, not moving around needlessly, planning paths ahead, and other stuff regarding survival and scoring. For fighting games, there are factors to consider such as your execution accuracy level, reaction speed, foresight, perception, matchup knowledge/experience, spatial/temporal sense, ability to create situations in which you have higher rewards for lesser risks, how to try to make your opponent commit mistakes, or how to use game-specific mechanics besides fighting game fundamentals) and executing what you have planned based on such information can
be even more rewarding than playing without such knowledge, without such material from where to base decisions from.

Finally, about stories.. umm... maybe I would enjoy stories in games more, if I weren't exposed with enough stories which didn't seem to meet my "fun expectations". Reading LotR and not liking it, and playing Donkey Kong (arcade version) for score for a week and not liking it, does have some negative impact on my "fun expectation".

[Vyrien]

to answer the OP's title, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive.

/reasons/

Thank you for being the first one here to actually answer the question I proposed :V

These two franchises are amongst my favorite games ever since the first of each, and if I had a general parameter set to care more about the story or more about the gameplay I wouldn't be able to enjoy both to their full extent, would I?

I never said you should set a general perimeter for anything, all I tried to say was that I tend to value story more, maybe I'm a book-nerd and I've just grown accustomed to a well thought out story. I also never said that I absolutely didn't care at all about the mechanics of a game or gameplay, what I meant to imply was that for a game to make it to the top of my favourites list (that's mine, not anybody else's) it needs to have something somewhat resembling a plot. Fluid gameplay is always a nice bonus. For this reason, Half-Life is near the top for me, yet Battlefield I'm indifferent towards.

[trancehime]

Story and gameplay are definitely not mutually exclusive. In fact, it is possible to model story around gameplay and vice versa. In fact, it is possible to have a game that has both a good story and fun gameplay, though the latter is incredibly subjective (ahem, Planescape: Torment, anyone?). Personally, I find it hard to keep myself hooked into an engaging story if it has shitty gameplay that a game would try to impose on me. If I wanted to play a "game" of that nature I would just read a visual novel instead; there is minimal gameplay involved aside from the character interaction, AND there tends to be a decent and well-written story bundled with it. But in a sense, I do value gameplay more - that's why I play games anyway, for the game. The story is just icing on a cake, if I wanted a truly engaging story experience I would just read a book and be done with it. In the case of RPGs, I almost always play them more for the game itself than the story; though both are quite important indicators of whether said RPG is actually good or not. SaGa2, for instance, has a relatively generic (but in some cases it could be considered nicely written, given it was made in 1992) story, but the reason why I loved it so much was because I loved the gameplay and the amazing replay value it had for something made when I was literally born.

That is just personally my own view though, I have eaten and breathed visual novels for a time in my life, which has opened my eyes to analyzing story more in video games, though ultimately I still value gameplay more than the story (that doesn't mean I disagree that they aren't mutually exclusive). I have some comments on existing posts though.

I appreciate what you're saying, perhaps I chose my words clumsily?  In my mind I was thinking of fighting games such as UMvC. However, I think what is important to me is not the final boss fight itself, but rather why is the boss there? Who is he? If the answer is merely, "this is a demon with more health and deals more damage than the other demons, therefore it is the last boss, you must kill it," really doesn't cut it for me and I'll get bored.

Really fair point here, I'd be inclined to follow the same sort of philosophy except if the gameplay doesn't keep me hooked enough for me to get to that point in time then story and everything else is irrelevant to me. I cannot enjoy the story of something I'm no longer playing, because the actual experience and immersion one gains in the story is almost only totally felt by playing the game. Okay, I could watch/read an LP and pretend I'm living vicariously in whoever's LPing the game, but it just wouldn't be the same as if I had done it myself. Fortunately, I'm very selective with the games I play now .

I didn't intend for this to be a technical discussion as to the approximate sizes of everything that makes up the game, I just wanted to know how importantly some people weighed the story in general (I weigh it pretty heftily, as you can see) and to get a couple games thrown out there where the story does make as much difference to the game as the key elements. Games like Heavy Rain or VN's are pretty much only story based with very little actual gameplay or player interaction, but still make great games that people enjoy playing,

VNs aren't called visual novels for nothing after all. :getdown:

Both are important of course, but I believe gameplay is more so for video games. They might have a good story and presentation, but things like movies and books do too. Gameplay implementation creates an interactive aspect for video games that really defines and separates them from other media, and without good gameplay, not only does it slowly turn into a movie/book, but a movie/book that becomes a real chore to progress through. Because I'm so involved in the flow of the game like this, I'm a bit more lenient toward a story that's less-than-stellar (in one way or another) since I can still find enjoyment in the parts I can control and the challenges I try to overcome.

I'm pretty much this guy. :]

As for story, though, I prefer knowing it via background items rather than cutscenes, as it helps with immersion and gameplay. I'd refer to Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the Left 4 Dead series for those. Granted, most of the direct events happen in cutscenes or with gameplay progression but the little extra details (e-books and e-mails in the former, graffiti and newspaper clippings in latter) give a better sense of the finer details.

More games really need to do this, but it brings up a point that I want to really drive home with regards to story in games - people do not like overly long cutscenes in their games and they do not like overly long chains of overly long cutscenes, especially if there wasn't any periods of actual gameplay. People want to play a game for the interaction, not to watch what is basically an overglorified movie. Yes, I realize the significance of story that much; but it should be possible to attain a smooth balance.

[Desu_Cake]

Sometimes they are, but they shouldn't be.
I find that the main problem is the story/gameplay segregation. Many games simply have a nominal plot that doesn't affect the gameplay and vice versa, simply alternating between the two. This means that any time spent on the plot is taken a way from the gameplay, and time on the gameplay is taken from the plot. As a result, both suffer, and they end up playing a game of tug-of-war over the players time, not to mention the developers resources.
It is much more important to integrate the two elements together. They are the only elements that generally aren't. Tings like art and music are generally integrated into the gameplay and also into the story, yet the story remains seperate from the gameplay.
The story should enhance the gameplay rather than take away from it, and there have already been examples listed by some of the others. It should also work the other way though, with the gameplay enhancing the story, and that is something rarely seen, although the best examples are VNs - Ever17 for example couldn't have been told as effectively in any other medium.

people do not like overly long cutscenes in their games and they do not like overly long chains of overly long cutscenes, especially if there wasn't any periods of actual gameplay. 

Pretty much this.

[HakureiSM]

I never said you should set a general perimeter for anything, all I tried to say was that I tend to value story more, maybe I'm a book-nerd and I've just grown accustomed to a well thought out story.

That's what a general parameter is :derp:

And for the whole question to make sense, there has to be one. You have one, I don't.
Guess What I'm saying is it varies from person to person, so the question as generally proposed doesn't make sense.

That or the answer to it is simply "no, they're not mutually exclusive, they're not even directly related".

[Phlegeth]

On the story/game play argument I take a third option.  It's all about the characters for me.  I can wade through terrible gameplay and narrative if I like the characters enough.  Case in point, Tales of Legendia, the combat was boring and story was predictable, but characters like Chloe, Senel, and Grune kept me playing.  And in Xenogears I didn't mind disc 2 and in Saga the 45 minute cutscene didn't bother me at all.

And they can all come together.  I mean if you get developed characters, a nice plot, fun game play, and decent graphics (for the time) and put them together you get Chrono Trigger.

[trancehime]

That or the answer to it is simply "no, they're not mutually exclusive, they're not even directly related".

Actually, they can be.

Have people not really considered that it is possible to make gameplay elements mesh directly with the story and vice versa? I mean there's almost every recent GUST game ever (including the Atelier series) and I found those games incredibly fun to play, even though, let's say, AT2 and AT3's stories were kind of... a thing (that's not considering the fact the AT world building is fucking awesome). They're not mutually exclusive but they CAN most certainly be directly related (game mechanics etc. are directly lifted from the game's story, settings, etc.) as opposed to tangentially related (the story gives people a reason to fight etc.) if people MAKE them related.

[HakureiSM]

True dat, but that's game-specific and up to the developers.

[jaxter0987]

Gameplay is more important to me at least. Even if I absolutely adored the story, if I didn't have the patience to get through less than stellar gameplay, then the story was all for naught. I could do without the story if the gameplay was great, but there needs to be something there. So I guess my answer is that they're not mutually exclusive. You can't have one without the other and expect the game to be well recieved.

I haven't tried too many different genres and types of games out there, and I haven't played any of these newer games this generation, but based on the games I have played, both elements NEED each other. Even if the gameplay is bad or the story is bad, it needs to be existent. I think An Untitled Story is a great example of this (though I'm not saying it had a bad story). The game starts off with no information at all given to the player. For the first portion of the game, you have no interaction with the characters. Once you've progressed enough through the gameplay though, it's story starts to slowly reveal itself.

[_Zac_]

I think Gameplay is more important, but I prefer story in my games.

Gameplay is more important because if you have a story, then you only need solid gameplay to keep players playing, but if you don't have a story, your game can still function but will need some amazing gameplay to keep your players playing.

I think Yahtzee's article on Context, Challenge, and Gratification would apply here.

[Yukarin]

Gameplay.

Minecraft is a perfect example on how Gameplay makes everything better.

[GuardianTempest]

I think Yahtzee's article on Context, Challenge, and Gratification would apply here.

Dammit! You got here before me!

Anyway, I'm also preaching this, since it forms a triangle which the three elements form an essential bond. There is such thing as a triangle with two long sides and a short one, but is there a triangle with just ONE long side?

Oh right, the hypotenuse.

[Aba Matindesu!]

Story and gameplay are anything but mutually exclusive. In fact, both are very important components of any half-decent game. Some genres require story less than others (beat 'em ups/fighters, FPS, TPS, danmaku, <insert realtime action-oriented genre here>), some more (VNs, [J]RPGs).

It also depends on what you mean by story. Do you prefer character development, or lore of a mystical world undiscovered at least to you?

Graphics are an entirely different story which I may or may not discuss here. Sorry, bad experience with war gamers who go all "raaaaaaah realistic graphics ftfy, your 2D/8bit crap sucks".

[DX7.EP]

A bit of a bump, but I find this article rather relevant to this thread.

[Vyrien]

A bit of a bump, but I find this article rather relevant to this thread.

A bit of a bump but nontheless appreciated. An interesting read, thank you.

[Kinzo the Astro Curious]

I don't care much if a game has terrible controls or dreadful graphics as long as the story is enjoyable and substantial. For me, Touhou would be an example of this, as a rule, I detest STG's but I like the story and characters of Touhou enough to play it to a point where I can 1CC it and get to extra, simply because I like the additional dialogue.

Thing is though, Touhou games themselves do not go into detail with story. You travel through various settings, you go listen to some cool music and see some character designs and a tad of personality from each, the ending dialouge, and thats about it.

Touhou as a "story" is more to do with the additional works, and not particularly applicable to the games aside from their settings and endings, I suppose. But an Epilogue isn't exactly a story.

[theshirn]

I actually wrote up something relevant to this here.  I hope to keep updating this thing at least once a week, but what I've got there might be of some interest to people here.

I need to add a part 2 to that post, though.  For one thing: Blizzard.

[Ghaleon]

Of course they're not exclusive.

But anyway, Just last week I had some dumbass narbtard actually say to me "then you don't get games and I lost my respect for you", when I said (when appropriate given prior context) "stories are nice, but I'd never play anything other than VN for story alone, that's what books are for". Unsurprisingly, this dumbass never played a VN. I told them that I got games just fine, and that I've been playing them for a lot longer than him if he thought that. I say this because I don't know how anybody who has been a gamer since before the NES or back when CPU games were on floppy discs (the actually floppy ones, not the ones that had 700k/1.4megs) can possibly say to my face that games were about story back then.Pacman had no story, space invaders had no story, pong had no story. GAMES WERE NOT MADE TO HAVE A STORY

But yeah, If you play a game for story over gameplay, and the game isn't a VN, I think you're a bit strange but I'm not going to rain on your parade for having fun your own way. Fact is, games have evolved enough now that it IS possible to stuff an actually decent story into a game, but anybody who tells you that story is the only thing important in a game (as a universal fact, and not their own preference) is flipping moron.

Anyway, for those who like stories in their games, in case you haven't played any, please try some VNs. It's my humble opinion that games with actually good stories like xenogears and whatnot, even they are pretty pale in comparison to some of the better novels out there. VNs on the other hand have an advantage over novels. So while they may or may not be better or worse in your opinion, they have a totally different method of storytelling, which is MADE for storytelling. Characters in a VN simply are easier to remember, care about over even a great novel simply because you can remember their face and voice. Sometimes you even play them in what gameplay might exist in that VN. This might sound obvious and not important. But it's actually a big deal for characters that aren't the main cast. Even the less common characters you remember. But when I read something from George RR Martin after a week of not reading it. I can't remember one sir over the other very well, and likely totally forgot it was THAT sir who killed ____ back 5 chapters ago.

Of course, even non-VN games are starting to really improve for setting and immersion now. Like even though my computer is over 5 years old, and I have to play on low/medium settings. I really can't help but just sit there and enjoy the view when I see foggy squalls in some mountain top playing skyrim. Scary games are also far more effective at giving you a thrill than most books too. I think a developer should really think about what exactly they can do in their game for the story that a book cannot. Most RPGs don't do this, they put in some story in the rpg, and while everyone swears they are epic or amazing, as an avid reader, I normally think they're pretty darn juvinille. While you might dismiss my opinion as preferential taste, and you might be right, It's far more presumptuous to say that books/novel stories are inferior when they have so much more to choose from, and are not limited in the way games are.