#abstract level

Welcome to Blast from the Past where i look at game design decisions from ye olden times and compare it to the games of today, and see what has changed.  And no, this isn’t a “old games are automatically better” or “Man it sure is great how much more civilized we are now” series, quit fanboying

Ok so lets talk about a major difference in the early day of Bioware vs. the latter days of BIoware, Baldur’s Gate vs. Dragon Age.  Specifically the Notion of Abstracted Levels vs. Non Abstracted Level. 

   Ok so a Level is something that we are familiar in most gaming, you’re character has an abstracted “Power Level” which is determined by you’re level.  So if Lin and Fu are both characters in the same game, but Fu is level 4 while Lin was level 7, Lin is objectively more powerful.  Leveling up is fun, you can slowly advance you’re self and bit by bit (The SOVIET MACHINE ADVANCES).  And that is all fun.  But there is sort of a question of how integrated into the world levels are, obviously its a gameplay convention but how seriously are we suppose to take them?  

  An Abstracted Level is basically a level a level that exists purely as a gameplay convention.   So as an example, lets use Dragon Age:Inquisition 

So when you start the game, you’re companion is Cassandra, one of the elite soldiers of the Church of the Maker, established early on to be one badass person, the impression given in the first game is that she is one of the toughest and legendary people in the world and now she is next to you kicking ass.  And when she joins...she is Level One.   And over the course you’re adventure, Cassandra the Dragonslayer goes from Level One to Level Twenty Seven through you’re adventures.   It gets a little stranger when you take into account the presence of Varric, a character from Dragon Age 2.  In that game you took Varric from Level 1 to at least level 20, and when he joins the party he is...Level 1

So we can presume that Level 1 in Inquisition is about equal to Level 20-25 in Dragon Age II, so the Level is just describing the epic level power level.  After all you’re first three companions are Varric Hero of the last Game, Cassandra the champion of the Church, and no one of importance.  

And then we meet Sera, and the whole thing kinda breaks down.  Because Sera is basically just a local skilled rogue, clearly talented, but no where near on par with Cassandra or Varric.  Except when she joins, the party, she is like level 4

So are we saying that Sera, a random street urchin is more powerful than all of the main characters of Dragon Age II and Cassandra at the start of the start of the game?  That doesn’t make any sense...Like what, are the Red Jennies killing fucking dragons?  

    Except of course, it isn’t suppose too.  Because these levels are thoroughly abstract.  Why are Cassandra and Varric the same level which is Level 1?  Because that is what is needed for game balance.  Why does Sera join the party at about you’re level of XP?  Because they want you’re companion to be roughly the same level as the rest of the party.  The type of gameplay they are going for is to keep everybody at roughly the same level at all times.  And this isn’t a bad thing, the suspension of disbelief is based upon the notion of everybody operating on the same power level.  Cassandra at Level 1 vs. Level 27 isn’t really different in universe, it is just a mechanical quirk for the gameplay, as far as the story goes, Cassandra might not have even improved in skill over the course of the adventure (Solas certainly hasn’t).  Varric at level 1 doesn’t really mean anything in relation to the world, he basically has a set power level that doesn’t alter over the course of the game.  

(200 year old vampire elf and he starts the game at...level 2) 

So for point of contrast, lets go look at Baldur’s Gate.   In Baldur’s Gate, Level aren’t just “The rough power level of the party” it is far more interrelated into the world.  A level 1 character in Baldur’s Gate is objectively by the standards of the world, a novice, easily killed.  While a level 20 character is objectively extraordinarily powerful, this is reflected in the lore and the mechanics of the universe.  One major difference is that levels don’t exist as soley for you’re characters.  In Inquisition, you’re enemies are just sort of set creatures, a Red Templar just has a set of powers, health, and bonuses, they aren’t tied to a class necessarily.  In contrast, the third boss in the game Davaeron, literally is a wizard, he is a level 11 wizard and you could hypothetically build a character to perfectly reflect him

If you are totally psychotic you could just wait for him to eventually run out of spells and he will start to attack you in melee, just like you’re own wizards (he seems to have unlimited teleportation though).  The friendly mayor of the town of Nashkel, Berrun Ghastkill, is a level 6 elven Ranger, you could build a clone of him.  And if you randomly decide to murder him (you monster) he will display the skills of that class. he even has the racial enemy of ogres, though he will almost never encounter one in game. Levels mean something in the world of Baldur’s Gate, they are a tangible in universe equation, even if nobody actually references them by word.  If you encounter 2 different neutral NPCs of different level, they will react entirely differently.  

So why are these games different?  Well two major reasons.  Firstly, Baldur’s Gate isn’t its own system, it is an adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons, and so it is taking an existing system and integrating it into a video game, so because of that, the system is actually a lot larger than it actually needs to be, like for serious, Baldur’s Gate is much larger mechanical set than is purely necessary.  Most RPGs are built from the ground up with their own system, so they don’t need to represent this stuff in more detail.  

The second reason is that is Baldur’s Gate is going for a totally different experience, one where there was a lot more mechanical story telling.  Randomly killing people and taking their stuff was a totally valid play style that was quite rewarding, aimlessly wandering the land as a murder hobo was pat of the game itself.  Dragon Age:Inquisition by contrast has a very centered story, one that is reliant upon arcs, a central constant narrative and far more banter, conversation, and a much more conventional form of storytelling which is mostly separate from the mechanics.  

So, what approach is better?  Well it depends, the Balder's Gate style opens up a lot of alternative approaches to story telling and I am always a fan of gameplay/story integration, but I don’t think Dragon Age could have had that style of game it was going for with the Baldur’s Gate’s Approach, it is just too much work for not enough pay off in that game.  Remember, the Baldur’s Gate approach is a lot harder.  So it depends on what you are going for, as always, there are no simple answers.  

Using Eugene Meehan’s criteria for judging social science theory and models[1] – its mental constructs – this blog, over its last seven postings, has provided the bulk of its viability statement regarding the model, liberated federalism.  While such a review is helpful to civics teachers, it does not directly address pedagogic concerns that civics educators have in their day-to-day responsibilities. 

This posting rectifies this – to a degree – by adding to Meehan’s list of criteria two more areas of concern, abstract level, and motivation.  This blogger believes these two concerns, while separate, are highly related and that relationship is highlighted below.  To begin with, both reflect mental qualities that affect how people learn.

Their meanings are fairly straightforward.  Abstract level refers to how much the construct's information or images contain elements of reality which constitute the phenomena it describes or explains.  Any representation, by necessity, has to strip elements of reality from it and, therefore, be abstract to some degree. 

For example, if someone asks how a person’s day was, that person would only be able to convey very little of that day.  If the person had gone to a movie, the person would very likely not relate the color of the person’s seat or whether it was cushy or not.  The more one leaves out, the more abstract the information is.  As for scientific research, it is known for its abstraction as a scientist tries to distill the causal factors that account for some occurrence or condition.[2]

As for the motivational quality, it simply refers to the potential a body of information has in soliciting interest on the part of an observer, consumer, or, in this case, learner.  Of course, the motivational quality of any material varies among the people who are exposed to it.  What's interesting to this blogger might be downright boring to a reader of this blog. 

But there are certain general aspects about motivation that one can abstract that helps one explain why some presentations tend to be more motivating than others.  Such characteristics as relevance, understandability, entertainment, curiosity, challenge, etc. are some of those aspects.  These are generally seen as qualities that enhance the motivational quality of information or other symbolic presentations. 

The connection between abstraction and motivation, how they relate, zeroes in on the quality of understandability.  It is hard to see any presentation or activity being motivational unless it is at least understandable to the learner or consumer of the content to some minimal degree.  Whether the presentation or activity meets this minimal degree reflects on the sophistication of the person consuming the information.  Sophistication in each area, in turn, reflects the level of abstraction the consumer can handle in dealing with the content in question.

There have been two theorists whose ideas help us see this relation between sophistication and abstraction and are highlighted here and in the next posting.  They both understood that the abstract level of information is dependent on the media in which the information is presented.  Some modes of presentation, by their very nature, contain more or less the reality contained in the situations or conditions described or explained. 

Before identifying these pioneers, let this blogger make the central point of this posting.  For presentation media or instructional activity to be motivating, the presentation of the content must employ an instructional effort that suitably matches the sophistication level of the student vis-a-vis the content being taught.  This is done by employing appropriate levels of abstraction or lack of abstraction in the media employed. 

Some media, simply due to the nature of the media, will contain, to various degrees, elements of the reality being addressed.  The general trend is that the less sophistication the student has, the less abstract the media needs to be.  Conversely, the more sophisticated the student is, in relation to specific content, the more abstract the media can be and probably should be to sustain the student’s interest.

That is, while for the lesser sophisticated students, to be successful, lower abstraction media can be considered necessary, for higher sophisticated students, higher abstraction media can be considered preferable.  This is because such instruction takes less time to implement and is likely to maintain the interest of such students.  Low abstraction material can easily turn out to be boring for the more knowledgeable students. 

The other factors affecting media choices are availability of material options, time availability, and technological options.  Material options are affected by the financial resources of the purchasers of the materials and access to material markets.  Time availability refers to the amount of time the instructor can dedicate to any lesson or set of lessons. 

As indicated, in general, instruction that is less abstract takes more time to use – if for no other reason due to the amount of reality it contains – and the more abstract material takes less time, assuming students are sophisticated enough to understand and appreciate its educational value.  In addition, technological availability is a concern.  Technological options refer to the media hardware and software the instructor or instructional institution can secure, and the instructional staff can proficiently use.

The two theorists referred to above are Jerome S. Bruner[3] and Edgar Dale.[4]  Both of these educational academics provided relevant insights to this topic in the 1960s.  This posting will stop here and promise that the next one will delve into the work of Bruner and Dale which this blogger believes is still powerful today.

[1] For readers wishing to read the previous postings relating to these viability claims that the blog is making, they can read the last seven postings found in the online site http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  As for Meehan’s criteria, see Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).  To date, the blog has reviewed comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, isomorphism, compatibility, predictability, and control.

[2]This could be, for example, information relating to what causes water to freeze.  A scientist observes water in a variety of environmental conditions and might eventually abstract the varying temperatures in which water is found and detect a pattern between lower temperatures and the freezing of water.  The abstracted bits of information would be the falling temperature of the water's environment, the changing temperature of the water, and the degree to which the water hardens into ice.

[3]See Saul McIeod, “Jerome Bruner’s Theory of Learning and Cognitive Development” (June 14, 2023), accessed August 31, 2023, Jerome Bruner's Theory of Learning And Cognitive Development - Simply Psychology.  The issue was how the material was presented.  And one of the factors determining success was the nature of the media used to present the information.  To this blogger’s understanding, Bruner was not arguing that young students had to mature to learn complicated material.  He was of the mind that any content could be taught to any student regardless of his/her sophistication.  The issue is how the material is presented.