Topic: Emphasizing Strategy in Pikmin 3

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For minimal reading, just read the bold text.
I can imagine Nintendo reintroducing strategy in Pikmin 3 in the following ways:

1) A Single Goal with Limited Days to Complete
This would be something just like Pikmin. The player has to complete a goal within a set number of days or the player fails the game.

2) Micro-Goals each with Limited Days to Complete
This would be like Pikmin but in chunks, so that the player would never have to restart the entire game. For example, say the player has to collect 5000 Pokos worth of treasure in 5 days, and player fails to meet the goal within the deadline. Now, instead of losing the whole game, the player just reverts back 5 days. This is comparable to a game over in Mario. When you get a game over, you don't actually start the whole game over (anymore). You just go back to the last castle or fort you completed.

3) Far Away Tasks and More Comprehensive Explorative Level Design
This would be like Pikmin 2 in some ways, but the player would be challenged to accomplish tasks farther away from the ship and onions within the day limit. If placed far enough away, some tasks would be impossible to accomplish if the player is too slow, especially if coupled with soft resets.

4) Soft Resets
In this scenario, if the player isn't timely, stuff will start to reset in levels (like bridges being eaten in the earlier games), setting the player back to square one for the given task. This could be like obstacles and enemies reappearing and treasures reverting to their original places. These conditions would not have to be the same on every level. Some of the later levels could undoubtedly be harder.

5) A Single Goal with Unlimited Days to Complete but a Challenge Mode for Strategy Seekers
This would basically be like Pikmin 2.

I tend to think of all games as on a scale. At one end is pure strategy and at the other is pure action. So I think of games as some combination of strategy, tactics, and execution (ie. action).  

To be clear, strategy is the steps one takes to victory, whereas tactics are how one actually carries out those steps.  There is sort of a hierarchy: goal→strategy→tactics→execution.  So in Pikmin, the goal is to get all the ship parts or treasures. The strategy is "today I will get this item, kill these enemies, and avoid that really big thing."  The tactics are how many of each unit type you will use to fight those enemies, how many of each unit types you will spare for each task, how you will time your pikmin throws, and how efficiently you can move around (and I mean the decisions in accomplishing that not the actions themselves).  Execution is your ability to control Olimar's abilities and do what you mean to do.  

In actuality, there are very few pure strategy games that operate in realtime.  The fact that it's in real time dictates some degree of tactics and execution.  Side-scrollers (like Mario) are generally great examples of games featuring very little strategy (if any), limited tactics (if any, but usually at least a tiny bit), and a heavy focus on execution—not really about thinking analytically.  Shooters (like Halo) feature limited strategy but tons of both tactics (to play well anyway) and execution.  Most turn based games and board games will feature next to no execution play.  Ultimately, it's very hard to create a game that doesn't feature some degree of strategy, tactics, and execution as part of the play.  

Strategy and tactics are all about analysis and decisions (motivated by prospect of victory). Strategy tends to be more about logistics, economics, and ability all on a macro scale, not just of self, but also of the adversarial forces. Tactics seems to be more of the same on a micromanagement level. Both tactics and strategy can seem pretty similar, which is where the distinction of action and strategy derives. When many people talk about strategy, without realizing it, they are actually talking about both tactics and strategy.

If one eliminates all decision making components (which is only possible in mental theoretical conception, not the real world), you are left with only execution/action, and it's in the realm of execution that most modern games differentiate themselves as various action games. I mean action in a very pure sense, not necessarily as many have come to regard action games a a genre (in this way, racing games and many sports games are action games too; it depends on the adventure game; some RPGs can be weird in terms of being a true/pure game). Execution is the action of video games. I think of execution play being a combination of reflex, and reaction (and exploration sometimes, and I don't mean virtual world exploration. However, sometimes I feel exploration is more of a decision process or goal—it could just depend on circumstances) (motivated by stimulation).

It's pretty foolish to assert that Pikmin has no strategy (especially Pikmin), so I guess the argument is really about just how strategically comprehensive and difficult Pikmin truly is as well as how similarly it is structured to games in the various strategy genres.  Pikmin impresses me for featuring vast qualities of video games abroad simultaneously and largely equally. For a game to feature strategy heavily, complex and/or varied decisions need to be available to the player all at one time. Most games accomplish that by introducing multiple units, as Pikmin does, but Pikmin is unique in some other ways.

In Pikmin, the player is tasked with making most efficient use of time to collect as many ship parts as possible. To maximize strategy, the player must balance unit creation (and loss), unit management (nectar, candypop buds, exchanging units at the onions), enemy engagement, travel, obstacle confrontation, and part collecting within the same broad timeframe. The player must develop tactics to defeat the various enemies, anticipate necessary unit numbers, divide tasks among various groups of pikmin efficiently, avoid and confront obstacles and attacks, and keeping track of units, their tasks and their movement. (To execute those tactics, the player must be able to control Olimar efficiently, throw pikmin quickly and in correct number, respond to and anticipate enemies in adequate time.)

Pikmin quite clearly meets the criteria for being a strategic game. The questions now are how difficult is the strategic thinking process and how varied are strategic alternatives (there are many different ways to approach most highly strategic games). In these ways, I would argue that Pikmin is not so highly strategic, but obviously still strategic. Strategy in Pikmin is not layered. It's not like chess where every decision adds a layer of complexity to the game. Pikmin is very consistent in its relatively strategical simplicity. In Pikmin, any strategy the player devises (and there aren't a great number one can devise in the first place) is likely to be a working one. It's just a matter of being able to execute that strategy through sound tactics, which themselves are similar in that there are typically only one or two sound tactics to any given scenario. This is all quite different from a game like chess for example, in which there are tons of different strategies to adopt, and, against a sufficient player, not just any strategy will work. Pitting the player against a largely static environment rather than a competing adversary also limits Pikmin's strategic propensity. That actually makes Pikmin a puzzle game in many aspects.

Pikmin 2 is much less strategic because of the removal of an ultimate time constraint. Pikmin 2 does not punish the player for doing a single task at a time. This virtually eliminates Pikmin's entire strategic element. Pikmin 2 is entirely about tactics and execution, while strategy is now optional. By that I mean that strategy is in no way needed to accomplish the game's goal, but using strategy will still expedite the speed at which you accomplish that goal. However, I think Nintendo was well aware of this, as the Challenge Mode, which reintroduces a (much tighter) time constraint, does reintroduce strategy as a necessary component to accomplish the goal. In fact, some of Pikmin 2's Challenge Arenas are extremely difficult, though some only call only for better tactics and execution to meet the time.

Overall, I think Pikmin operates more on a tactical and operational level, than on a strategic level, though it definitely still has some level of a strategic component.

Comparing Pikmin to a typical realtime strategy game, there are actually a number of similarities. While many think of Pikmin as a third person game (and it ultimately is), just imagine that Olimar wasn't there for a moment. What does Pikmin look like now? It looks a lot like a realtime strategy game in which you control a single swarm and throw units at your cursor with a button press. You also have units, both on the map and in storage, a map, and management of both tasks and resources. Pikmin clearly has some pretty big things in common with realtime strategy games. Pikmin is different too though, largely in the scale of those elements. Pikmin simplifies the typical realtime strategy game elements so that it can perfect the action of the game. Pikmin actually plays more like an action game, which is quite different. Pikmin is clearly not a typical realtime strategy game, but it is in realtime and does incorporate strategy and tactics, so I'm not sure quite where Pikmin falls in regards to that genre.