Your views on mechanics vs story?

[Monkeyman04]

Doesn't matter how good or bad a story is. If a game isn't fun/engaging, than I don't see a point of playing the game. So, mechanics is a top priority to me.

[EurydiceKallos]

I really enjoy games with a good story, but if the game has bad mechanics then it makes it overall difficult to continue to play the game far enough to even get "into" the story.
Good mechanics for me, help increase the replay value a lot even if the story isn't 100% or "choice-effects" ending,etc or has an awesome story.
But bad mechanics can be enough to just make a game not worth playing for me. If I'm wanting to rage at just trying to do what the game is meant to be able to do or expects of the player, its not worth it to struggle just to see the story play out.
So I guess in the cases of if a story or mechanics is more important to me in playing a game, it would have to be mechanics.
Good mechanics then awesome, I hope the story is good too. But bad enough mechanics, and I won't enjoy playing the game no matter if the story is good.

I'm a very story driven type player, I like learning the lore of the world I am in or what is the drive behind the character or NPCs in the world. But despite that, if its hard to even get close to being able to get a further understanding in these respects, then the mechanics in the end control if I will be playing the game I suppose. (At least in RPG games or those that are meant to have story etc)

Challenge games or those like Banished were its mostly all effected by mechanics, of course then the mechanics and how they work together and such have the most importance in my opinion.

So, this also is probably dependent on the type of games people are playing.

[Dub-Z]

I lean more towards mechanics and overall game design, but I love a good story and presentation and take everything on a case-by-case basis of what it sets out to do. Overall aesthetic comes into play too, as I feel just being in a world is part of adventure with any kind of contextualization.

[Doomie]

Heavily prefer mechanics over story. My favorite game of all time is Doom, for crying out loud, do I look like I care about a plot?


...I mean, I do, but still! I'll gladly take a great game with no story then basically a movie.

[ryvrdrgn14]

Strong mechanics + Strong story = Best
Strong mechanics + Minimal story = Okay
Minimal mechanics + Strong story = Okay

Bad mechanics + Strong story = Bad
Strong mechanics + Bad story = Bad

If one or the other dips too low in quality it can ruin the other side's enjoyment as well.

[Lucabratz]

If I had read this response before my overly long, and drawn-out reply. I would simply look to this one to sum it all up.

[Last_Dragoon]

Game mechanics are more important because if it isn't fun to play chances are I'm just going to drop it regardless of a good story.

[Astraea]

I like both, but I don't care when a story is bad if the gameplay is good. But vice versa is unacceptable. Gameplay triumphs all imo.

[Cyruss]

Mechanics/Gameplay always

I eventually come to the conclusion that if you play video games and or read books long enough you'll get to the point you've seen it all. So gameplay will always be #1 to me above story, even a good story is one and done, a story with choices still leads to generally the same ending so at best 2 or 3 playthroughs of good, evil, WWJD and then done. Though good gameplay and progression will get you coming back for that next epic drop while enjoying great controls and playing the way you want to play.

A good example is Devil Macy Cry 3 and 4, people will do bloody palace all day but how many times are you going to go through a talltale game like walking dead the order 1886? Compare that though hours put in on something like borderlands 1 and 2 now look at games like heavy rain and until dawn.

When you strip down both you can either argue our story games haven't evolved enough or that story isn't strong enough so it needs decent gameplay mechanics to hold it up an example being Mass Effect 1-3, God of War, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 15 etc etc.

[Hopeless Wombat]

I honestly think this debate is a bit of a fallacy. I've lost track over the years of how many games win me out on either when the other element has been rubbish, and so I don't think any game is exclusively tied to either depending on their genre. As a developer, I think it's important to put out product that ticks all the boxes instead of focusing on a singular element being top notch. No point in having an amazing story or gameplay if the world you build the game for is wanting for lore, the visuals and style are tacky, the online services are worse than Nintendo WFC and the music makes Daisuke "The God" Ishiwatari cry in his sleep.

[Juan-ton_Soup]

To put it short, a game "needs to be fun, before it can be pretty." Pretty, as in the artistry of a story.

[TitusCrow]

Hmm..I've changed my mind like 2-3 times as I've read the arguments here. They have kinda made it clearer in my own mind what I'm in games for. I was a big wow player. I mean like crazy addicted, used to wake up, first thought..what times the raid I better check the signups. Second thought I wonder how the auction house is doing!? I can hardly remember anything from 2005-2008. I could literally name %on loot and every loot table. How to gear your sword and board warrior from 0-60 how to do every boss including Naxx. However.. I still have no idea of any the story from the game.
The art basically informed me what things did and if they were "goodies" or "baddies" I'm an artist myself so maybe this is why but I also am a book reader and love all the classics etc so I should have been big into the story. Let me tell you what I think it is. It has to be a very high standard of writing before I am "in!" I think. Game of thrones , kingkiller, Gemmell etc. Damn straight! Horrible high fantasy fan fiction standard Warcraft.. my brain says "no thankyou my friend we need this room for more important shit!" So going back to wow ( Oh go in then! ) the mechanics , the 0 feedback delay on skills and combat. The animations the art design ( omg the art! ) the videos.. It was all perfect. With this in place I didn't need a story.
I literally filtered out the crap and just enjoyed the most perfectly made MMO, ever to do it. I think this puts me in the gameplay over story right? However there is an anomaly here. The game , the last of us was the last game I ever picked up on my ps3. Now I haven't told you everything abou me. I am a real graphics guy and I'm an even bigger fps guy! This leaves me in the sticky situation where I say I got to have at least 100fps on a game. But if I turn down stuff to get this number I'm like "Oh my god my eyes! Wtf is on my screen! 2000 want their game back!" I know what your thinking, you can't have both you fool! To which I say, you can if your a PC gamer it just costs stupid amounts of money. So I then throw more tech at it and my wallet weeps tears of blood! ( no I am not getting mixed up with stigmata either! )

Ok so we have established that I am pretty obsessed with good fps and beutiful graphics. So it really would take a lot of persuading to in 2013? I think.. ) get me to want to play at 720p at an average fps of about 28 a game on the ps3 which at this time I only ever played everbodys golf on. The Last of Us was the game that got me. When I saw the previews and videos and read the story for that wow! I was in! Bought day 1 and played the shit out of it till finished and the story blew me away! ( slightly worried for the 2nd one but hope it will be ok..sigh! ) what I'm saying here is I really went against my grain to participate in what I, just had a gut feeling was going to be a classic story. I am not great at games with controller either so to play through on hard, well I was really taking one for the team to get the full fat experience. The story, was so good that it made me forget a bunch of stuff that I would have said would make me hard pass.

So with these two examples I think it leads me to the conclusion that gameplay is the most important, unless the storytelling is such next level stuff that it hits me in the same place as that which sucks me in when 1 first read The stand or "insert great book that blew your mind" So Am I a story guy? I guess I am as long as the quality is up there. But since the writing on games is generally not up there, I default to being a gameplay guy.

[Xbottoss]

Mechanics are the most important element in games. Gameplay separates video games from other entertainment mediums. However I believe that mechanics that work in tandem with story create a truly unique experience that really showcases what is special about gaming. There are tons of examples but one of my favorites is Brothers:A Tale of Two Sons. I won’t spoil the game but the concluding mechanical change really helps to drive the emotional narrative. The games characters are deeply effected by what takes place but you the player now play different. It is a incredible game and would recommend to anyone.

[starfur666]

For me it just depends on the game, if it's an RPG i prefer a good story if It's a fps or fast paced game I don't pay attention to the story as much although good game play and a good story will always be prefered if I had to choose it would be a good story, if a game has a good-great story I won't mind the less than exciting gameplay

[DarknessFX]

100% Mechanics and gameplay.
I mostly don't care about the story, that's why Firewatch, Undertale, DearEsther, Gone home, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, didn't bring me any joy to play.
While other games like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and What Remains of Edith Finch I liked because even with only small chunks of gameplay there is at least something to be played.

[Cipher]

For the most part, if a game has crappy gameplay then it's a crappy game, no matter how good the story is. However, I do think the main exception to this rule is immersion. If a game is immersive, a game doesn't really have to be traditionally fun to be good. If a game fully immerses you into the world, you probably won't even notice the flaws in the gameplay until you think about it in retrospect. That's really the only time a game can transcend its questionable gameplay.