A Question of Balance (FPS related)

[Wonderbanana]

Iirc there's a few fans of the FPS genre on here (buggered if I can find the thread though) and I thought you may be interested in this article I wrote on game balance..

Whilst I'm sure there will be many who disagree with the viewpoint, I hope it at least provides a reasonable 5 minute read

Thanks,
Nana.

[worstplayer]

Agreed on all points. Unlocks are total bullshit (in VS, it's OK in singleplayer, co-op and other non-competitive modes), and one of the reasons why I never liked CoD multiplayer (another one is unbalanced weapons, which is of course a consequence of unlock system).

[kengou]

I completely agree! Unlocks are not "depth" like most reviewers seem to think, and the multiplayer of the recent CoD games sucks. It places players on unequal footing and removes skill and balance in favor of playtime as the determining factor. And especially when you play FPSes on consoles, the skill associated with aiming quickly and accurately is diminished too.

Also, HL2:DM is kickass.

[Damocles]

There's something you're ignoring: In COD games you generally don't unlock better weapons. Not even better perks, really. The perks you start with are the ones you'll be using anyway until you learn the maps. Hell, in COD4 you're practically forced to use the M16/AK-47 at the beginning. Without a doubt these are two of the best guns in the game.

In all reality, the COD games are about seeing your opponent first. The gun you're using is largely secondary.

[ColonelFatso]

COD4 is whatever, half the best weapons in the game are unlocked either at the start or when you get Create-a-Class (mind you, I'm a Hardcore SMG whore who can outsnipe snipers with a skorp). Some of the good perks (Bomb Squad, Dead Silence) take forever and a day to unlock, but Stopping Power, UAV Jammer and Extreme Conditioning are the only others you need (and C4 for the lulz).

[lgb]

love the way this is written

"It all become’s second nature." <-- no need for an apostrophe here

may want to use commas in some places but it's still legible if you actually stop and try to comprehend what you're reading

[Ed Oscuro]

Here is my new and improved version of your article:

There was a time when multiplayer videogames in the first person shooter genre were based on one core concept; and that concept was purely the skill of the player. Then people got sick of playing with the same old weapons and maps over and over, and demanded more variety. Maps were expensive, but new weapons weren't. Developers didn't want to upset the playing field too much, or lower the rewards for skillful playing, so they played DOOM again and then after many hours in consultations decided to give people newer, but worse, weapons for playing longer. This was directly borrowed from Professional Wrestling games of the late 90s that let you bling-out your ring avatar: No matter what you looked like, you were as effective as ever before, but it was a way to make people feel more involved in the game without actually doing anything. One of the first games that applied this cosmetic approach to weapons was Battlefield 2, a game where your unlocked weapons land twice as much damage in the same location as before in slightly more than twice as much time as before.

I don't even want to touch the whole bunny-hopping thing. For what it's worth, you're not going far enough back into the history of it. There was a time when shitty programming - no max speed setting - meant you could get more speed out of moving diagonally in a lot of games, and the same is true of the bunny-hopping. I think DOOM had it; Quake used jumping while moving upwards for moon jumps to at least one secret; Goldeneye had it and made it mandatory for unlocking some cheetz. There was also a time when Quake III's coding was messing with some people's speed based on their framerate.

I think you touched on this: While a bit of unrealism enhances things, and we can certainly over-engineer things to death, there are a couple ideas that I think we might agree on:

1.) Unpredictable behavior by a game engine is bad.
2.) Stuff that isn't explained at all by the game world is stretching it, and is contrary to the spirit of gaming.
3.) Paradoxically, but importantly, a lot of gamers take undeniable and legitimate pride in finding secrets and "outsmarting" the program(mers), and not all of these should be classified as hax0rs and cheats.

I think one of the great over-arching themes of gaming these days is that of "nerdy" love of the secrets within the program - "nerds" versus the really mysterious and quite unknown "everybody else." "Nerds" love figuring out how a game works as opposed to what one expects: They relish the fun of untying riddles versus attempts to make such depth accessible to everyone by making it obvious which they see as layering the game with threads of story and weapon configuration kind of like throwing extra burger patties on. It's not more delicious because there's more of it to eat; it just takes longer to eat (and the hope is our enjoyment of the flavor lingers longer than would otherwise be the case), and that experience seems more hollow. The flip side is that game engines are a bit more sophisticated than they used to be, and the popularity of games like Magic: The Gathering (and indeed, any casino game) show that people will often accept a bit of bad luck or design that works against them to get at a game that's well-designed and has depth by intention. Nerds obviously demand a lot out of systems with calculated depth, but it's funny how some old games that have either a couple really endearing glitches or room for improvement (some old FPSes) and other "simple" games (many of those we like at Shmups) can still keep some people busy years and years after release. Budget considerations mean that despite intentions, most games out today end up playing like long-format movies and are done pretty quick in the end, so "depth" is generally just delaying an inevitable "THE END" screen.

Agreed that HL2:DM is excellent, much better than the original HLDM, which itself wasn't shabby except for the weapons being completely unbalanced (Half-Life 1's main weak point is the weapon balance I think - it's fun to pick up powerful weapons in single-player and use them until the ammo runs out, but not so much in multiplayer where ammunition is much more available and allows somebody to clean up quickly versus playing against single-player monsters that can't boycott the game and don't care about getting slaughtered). Nice to finally use the SLAM and the maps were top-notch (some good-looking community ones too).

I haven't really played any online FPSes competitively since Modern Warfare came out for PC, but I try to keep a handle on things. I remember the issue of suicide grenades...annoying but, like so many "Modern Battle" games you have to learn and adapt. Kind of like how you used to be king of the road in a HMMV but now you have to watch out for bombs disguised as road and the like.

That actually got a lot longer than I intended, I thought I could summarize things up with a snappy one-liner after your opening sentence but your title didn't match what I expected. Definitely there's a lot that could be written on this topic.

[Wonderbanana]

I thought I could summarize things up with a snappy one-liner after your opening sentence but your title didn't match what I expected. Definitely there's a lot that could be written on this topic.

An interesting opinion from someone who clearly has some knowledge of the genre.

Perhaps like you I probably could have waffled on for 3 or 4 times more than the actual article length but I felt to do so would have been too much.

Also like most articles it is entirely subject to opinion and (partially) designed to inspire thoughtful debate.

For everyone who has taken the time to read it and/or offer opinion, thank you

[JoshF]

Sometimes glitches can add more than they subtract, and in the cases where they add who cares what was originally intended. Patch up your bruised leet buxfixing ego instead of the game, or steal a line from Columns 2 player when you get 6 chains and say "yeah, I meant to do that."

[Ed Oscuro]

Sometimes glitches can add more than they subtract, and in the cases where they add who cares what was originally intended. Patch up your bruised leet buxfixing ego instead of the game, or steal a line from Columns 2 player when you get 6 chains and say "yeah, I meant to do that."

Sums up the whole thing perfectly and elegantly, I think.

Okay, so I said I owed Wondanana a better article, here you go:

Perhaps like you I probably could have waffled on for 3 or 4 times more than the actual article length but I felt to do so would have been too much.

I know I deserved this, but where was I waffling, please? That's not waffling, that's called trying to get to the damned point in a few sentences, which your article fails to do. Worse, your article is written as if you are so much more knowledgeable than your audience that you don't need to provide detailed examples, instead boiling things down and highlighting key terms like you were writing a textbook. There certainly are times when such writing is called for - such as when you're a famed expert in the subject matter writing a textbook - but I think this subject matter calls for you to be more direct with your readers.

The droning nature of the article and the lack of examples are why I didn't read it line-by-line and drew my initial comments out of this thread. You spend literally all the space between the first and second screenshots talking about personal feelings - somehow developing them into universally applicable truisms, without really getting into any history or examples. An article like this needs to be grounded with examples.

I have issues with your ideas as well:

But the toolset, the weapons and methods available to the player, must remain the same. Everyone should have access to every part of it. This is what makes the game balanced. This is what makes the game fair.

I'll explain the idea in a bit behind some of the game design I detect in Modern Warfare 2 in a bit, but as I have said: There is a problem with the lack of context in the article. Pictures of random game screenshots without context aren't even eye-candy; just filler. The caption "Modern Warfare 2: obligatory noob handicaps" underneath a static picture of the player's gun and somebody running down an avenue explains nothing to us except that you don't think "noobs" are worthy of purchasing games. Slightly after that you introduce and italicize the concept of "experience points," which is needlessly abstracting the topic. In fact, it's condescending, without actually really describing the essence of what those experience points represent: "rewards for playing a long time" - that's all you need have said about the subject. You ought to refer to your real-world examples - negative and positive - by name more often and create your argument directly; let the reader decide for themselves if it is a good argument.

My problem with the idea in the first quote ("weapons and methods...must remain the same") is not just that it's a truism uttered without a direct link to evidence; it really seems to begrudge people their enjoyment of games that have unlocks. Some people would argue that you don't ever have to write "in my opinion..." but this would have been a good time. Better yet, you ought to have reflected that your sentiment may not apply to everyone. As it stands, there are a lot of successful and enjoyable shooters made with the dreaded unlocks system. The often unbalanced weapons of the Battlefield series (such as in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, and BF 2142, where one update dramatically increased the firing rate of the Engineer's shotgun) haven't stopped people from having fun with them, and I think lots of people were perfectly willing to put up with some glitches in order to enjoy the flexibility of the unlock system.

You hold up HL2DM as an example of rather neglected great game design; it's a fine game, but it is merely replicating the standard iD Arena-style shooter in a Half-Life 2 setting. Your topic calls for more discussion of games around the fringes of their genre that try to push into new territory. Some people simply don't like war sim shooters; they ought then to realize that liking them is mainly a matter of personal preference and they ought not to condemn them. Similarly, you seem not to enjoy the choices and strategy games like Modern Warfare 2 offer, but that alone is no basis for saying that it is actually bad and wrong, as you do. If you want to lionize chess, or checkers, or tic-tac-toe, that's fine; it can be done without dragging down all the variations of those games. If you think that Magic: The Gathering is a waste of card stock that could be better used for traditional 52-card decks, that's probably something that is best left unsaid unless you're an economist bewailing the shortage of traditional decks because people are printing and buying too many Magic cards. Ironically, I don't even see that argument holding up so strongly. There are, as you suggest, still plenty of bare-bones Arena shooters around, and new ones too. I recently got ahold of Alien Arena 7.33, which is very obviously a Quake II-engine game, but was updated as recently as 2009.

What we're left with is a discussion that should go back to the roots: DOOM, with its legendary weapon balance. At the other end of the spectrum I mentioned Half-Life, which I feel has some very unbalanced weapons (mitigated a bit by ammunition scarcity), yet to this day some people still play the original HLDM and enjoy it. Is there any reason all games need to fit into this simple "balanced weapons" paradigm? What's wrong with variety? Even as an American I got your football goal reference, but I question why you would use that analogy instead of, you know, a useful direct reference.

You also write as if the only people who play are top-tier skilled or long-term players, who either don't need help or who will gladly exploit unlocks to increase their power yet further over other players. Instead, consider this: The infamous "drop a grenade when you die" (which already required you to fail, i.e. die, to use it) Tier 3 Perk from Modern Warfare and World at War, "Martyrdom," was reworked and nerfed for Modern Warfare 2. Now it's only available to players who really need the extra help - though the grenade dropped (after four consecutive deaths) is easier to avoid than Modern Warfare 1's (a standard five-second timer instead of the 2.5 second timer of Modern Warfare 1). That would be an interesting place to take your discussion: What about tweaks to the game that help level the playing field? It keeps good players on their toes, and is a check against domination of their opponents (even if, as you would suggest, it adds a bit of random chance to the equation) in uneven battles. Meanwhile it throws a bone to players who suffer strongly from what I call "Counter-Strike syndrome" and feel brutalized after being killed over and over without having the chance to cover any ground. It's the perfect "fuck you" to release some tension. Even knowing that you made somebody vacate the premises in a hurry after killing you may be worth the price to some (the only better thing I could think of are face spikes on corpses to prevent that vile "teabagging" practice).

The idea behind Martyrdom may have become the perfect argument against the thesis (as far as I understand it) of your article. To accept that, though, you have to accept that the main points of games are to have fun, and to become better than you are, even if you have better skills than most players now - not to merely play whack-a-mole forever. Interestingly enough, I think that addresses one of my main points from my response earlier: it provides more variables (which is depth, by definition, despite what Kengou thinks) for good players to look out for, while not requiring new players and people without the ability to spend that much time on the game to necessarily know all the details.

I'm not going to call you an elitist who thinks that poor and new players should get no quarter (I wonder how games would continue to be sold if this happened, though), but you haven't covered this issue from all the relevant angles. As it stands, I'll call the article currently incomplete. But I've already written up enough text here in the few minutes I've spent on these posts to make a clearly better article.

[JoshF]

Sums up the whole thing perfectly and elegantly, I think.

Spanks. The obvious exception is that you can't have your soldier grenade jumping across Normandy beach, but when you're a Space Marine named "Buff" Biff Beeftits it doesn't really take anything from the atmosphere. But you knew that.

[kengou]

it provides more variables (which is depth, by definition)

I do disagree with this definition, in fact. A lot of game developers seem to think exactly this, that more variables is the definition of more depth. It isn't adequate to simply say more variables = more depth, because there are different types of variables. Consider the Super Smash Bros. series. If you play with every item turned on, you'll surely have more variables in the form of the random item drops. In Brawl, you've even got random tripping. Even further, you might consider a 4-player free-for-all in Brawl, with all items and even the smash ball allowed. An awful lot of things can happen at any time! Will this be a game with more depth than a one-on-one no-item battle on a level stage such as final destination? I'd argue it isn't. The restricted rules eliminates random inequalities that might occur during a match. The addition of some variables can actually detract from the depth of a game if they add randomness or (more importantly) inequality.

I wouldn't try to say that the 4-player free-for-all item battle in Brawl wouldn't be fun for a lot of casual players. Indeed, it's probably what most people bought the game for and enjoy the most. But I think it's definitely not a consensus that simply "more variables" is the same as "more depth", and there are also plenty of people who prefer the equality of one-on-one no-item matchups on flat stages, compared to wacky anything-goes melees.

I'm not in the mood for writing up a big essay or anything, and I'm not currently able to articulate my idea of what I think depth really is, but I hope I've been clear enough with the point I was making. The disagreement here between your viewpoint and the one presented (however clearly or unclearly) in the article, is a disagreement of definitions, and I don't think it's one you can so easily settle by making the assumption that everyone shares the definition you argue from.

[Taylor]

Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer is aimed at people who just want to sit in front of the TV and shoot people for a few minutes. These players like the fact they can unlock different weapons and perks, it means the game plays differently over a long span of time. And they like building a character out of these new abilities, as many of the unlocks are new options they have to choose between rather than a linear ‘get stronger’ system. The matchmaking system is also supposed to take player level into account so you don’t have newbies fighting super-soldiers (no idea how well this works).

And I’ll say something else on this... While a lot of gamers say they want a completely balanced game, they really don’t. Let’s say you’re browsing randomly on youtube and find SFIV match video between Gen and Sagat. Even before it begins, you want Sagat to lose and you want Gen to win. It’s nautral, you want to see the underdog come up top, and I think a game would feel flat with perfect balance. Likewise if you’re facing someone with better perks than you in a modern FPS and you take him out, that’s a much better feeling than taking someone out on a level playing field. Because you’re not just the better player, but you’re so much better you overthrew his advantage! But, if you lost he had the better character and you would’ve won if it was fair. Honest.

I have problems with Team Fortress 2 in general, being an avid Team Fortress Classic fan, but I particularly have a gripe with the unlocks and find it strange you used is as a counter-comparison. While generally these weapons are side-grades, they are still tools you are missing. What’s more they are unlocked by achievements opposed to something guaranteed. A lot of them will not naturally occur in combat and some actively ask that you play like a moron.

[Limbrooke]

This entire topic is an impact crater of bologna. Even the dinosaur is rambling on about something in here.

I'd want my 5 minutes back upon reading that article. Of course it doesn't really relate to me since I've been firmly entrenched in the id (EdO, see iDoh) camp while logging plenty of time in Halo (1) as well. Never bothered with HL, HL2, CS, TF, TF2, or UT while I am missing out there's only so much time and always too many games. To put in my two cents of useless knowledge, my largest complaint lately is going back to Q3, where often times lag without calibration determines the winner. It doesn't help either most of the opponents have been going non-stop for shit load of time. Strangely enough I'm usually less frustrated by Q3 versus QL and I've yet to find out why even though Q3 is harder.

If you think that Magic: The Gathering is a waste of card stock that could be better used for traditional 52-card decks, that's probably something that is best left unsaid unless you're an economist bewailing the shortage of traditional decks because people are printing and buying too many Magic cards.

Magic sucks because of the money and rarity creation issues. Fun game though.


Carry on you crazy monkeyheads.

[Ed Oscuro]

Magic sucks because of the money and rarity creation issues. Fun game though.

So basically the analogy holds as far as it was meant to

'course the money is one of the reasons I won't get into Magic (that and the amount of time it'd take to set up just one deck right, lol)

[Ed Oscuro]

it provides more variables (which is depth, by definition)

I do disagree with this definition, in fact.

Tough cookies; just because you don't appreciate doesn't mean that it's not adding depth. You can say you don't like the strategy in general, which is fine (though saying it always fails = lol, gameplay made under this theory can be balanced like regular gameplay). You're trying to dismiss it on grounds of semantics, though, where you're wrong. It's like you're saying that dark blue isn't a color because you don't consider it bright enough. The stuff being described adds variety and conditional rules which factor into playing the game - it might be rare, you might consider it cheap; doesn't mean it's not extra depth. It could be depth in the wrong direction, but you went beyond that argument.

[kengou]

The stuff being described adds variety and conditional rules which factor into playing the game - it might be rare, you might consider it cheap; doesn't mean it's not extra depth. It could be depth in the wrong direction, but you went beyond that argument.

Maybe I wasn't being clear enough but that was exactly my point. "Depth in the wrong direction" as you say. I don't really know what you mean by saying I "went beyond that argument". And discarding my argument simply as semantic nitpicking isn't really helping anything. The argument is about what we consider to be the definition of "depth". You said the definition of depth was more variables, and I mentioned that the addition of more variables doesn't always lead to a deeper game. Now we're discussing "depth in the wrong direction", which I take to mean an overall shallower game, even if more broad in features. It's always useful, I'd say necessary, to be clear about definitions. Most disagreements, when boiled down to the fundamentals, are disagreements over definitions.

[Wonderbanana]

Perhaps like you I probably could have waffled on for 3 or 4 times more than the actual article length but I felt to do so would have been too much.

I know I deserved this, but where was I waffling, please? That's not waffling, that's called trying to get to the damned point in a few sentences, which your article fails to do. Worse, your article is written as if you are so much more knowledgeable than your audience that you don't need to provide detailed examples, instead boiling things down and highlighting key terms like you were writing a textbook. There certainly are times when such writing is called for - such as when you're a famed expert in the subject matter writing a textbook - but I think this subject matter calls for you to be more direct with your readers.

Wow, that was an unexpected response.

To clarify, use of the term 'waffle' was just a figure of speech and was aimed more at your closing comment "Definitely there's a lot that could be written on this topic." My post was in no way meant at offending you or what you wrote; I thought that was obvious as was the fact I was actually quite thankful for you taking the time to write what you did! I guess many people are too quick to jump into defence mode

The droning nature of the article and the lack of examples are why I didn't read it line-by-line and drew my initial comments out of this thread. You spend literally all the space between the first and second screenshots talking about personal feelings - somehow developing them into universally applicable truisms, without really getting into any history or examples. An article like this needs to be grounded with examples.

My style and I'm happy with it I've had a lot of good feedback on it elsewhere on more FPS related boards so it can't be all bad As for talking about personal feelings - I agree 100% - the article is designed and intended to reflect just that and as I've pointed out above from the start, my views will naturally differ from others. And I'm fine with that

I have issues with your ideas as well:

But the toolset, the weapons and methods available to the player, must remain the same. Everyone should have access to every part of it. This is what makes the game balanced. This is what makes the game fair.

I'll explain the idea in a bit behind some of the game design I detect in Modern Warfare 2 in a bit, but as I have said: There is a problem with the lack of context in the article. Pictures of random game screenshots without context aren't even eye-candy; just filler. The caption "Modern Warfare 2: obligatory noob handicaps" underneath a static picture of the player's gun and somebody running down an avenue explains nothing to us except that you don't think "noobs" are worthy of purchasing games. Slightly after that you introduce and italicize the concept of "experience points," which is needlessly abstracting the topic. In fact, it's condescending, without actually really describing the essence of what those experience points represent: "rewards for playing a long time" - that's all you need have said about the subject. You ought to refer to your real-world examples - negative and positive - by name more often and create your argument directly; let the reader decide for themselves if it is a good argument.

We are all 'noobs' when we first play any game. At no point do I state anywhere that I don't think noobs are worthy of playing games - my views on MW2 are quite clear - noobs are at a disadvantage - and more so than they need to be.

My problem with the idea in the first quote ("weapons and methods...must remain the same") is not just that it's a truism uttered without a direct link to evidence; it really seems to begrudge people their enjoyment of games that have unlocks. Some people would argue that you don't ever have to write "in my opinion..." but this would have been a good time. Better yet, you ought to have reflected that your sentiment may not apply to everyone. As it stands, there are a lot of successful and enjoyable shooters made with the dreaded unlocks system. The often unbalanced weapons of the Battlefield series (such as in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, and BF 2142, where one update dramatically increased the firing rate of the Engineer's shotgun) haven't stopped people from having fun with them, and I think lots of people were perfectly willing to put up with some glitches in order to enjoy the flexibility of the unlock system.

Agreed - people are different and naturally many like unlocks. I don't even say these games can not be fun; simply they can and often are unbalanced.

You hold up HL2DM as an example of rather neglected great game design; it's a fine game, but it is merely replicating the standard iD Arena-style shooter in a Half-Life 2 setting. Your topic calls for more discussion of games around the fringes of their genre that try to push into new territory. Some people simply don't like war sim shooters; they ought then to realize that liking them is mainly a matter of personal preference and they ought not to condemn them. Similarly, you seem not to enjoy the choices and strategy games like Modern Warfare 2 offer, but that alone is no basis for saying that it is actually bad and wrong, as you do. If you want to lionize chess, or checkers, or tic-tac-toe, that's fine; it can be done without dragging down all the variations of those games. If you think that Magic: The Gathering is a waste of card stock that could be better used for traditional 52-card decks, that's probably something that is best left unsaid unless you're an economist bewailing the shortage of traditional decks because people are printing and buying too many Magic cards. Ironically, I don't even see that argument holding up so strongly. There are, as you suggest, still plenty of bare-bones Arena shooters around, and new ones too. I recently got ahold of Alien Arena 7.33, which is very obviously a Quake II-engine game, but was updated as recently as 2009.

Again, it's written from a personal viewpoint but my basis is still clearly about offering a balanced competitive environment; so my choice of what I praise and what I deride is not entirely without merit despite the obvious and intended bias.

Even as an American I got your football goal reference, but I question why you would use that analogy instead of, you know, a useful direct reference.

Lol, fair point but since I love football and in most countries except the USA football is massive, hey why not

I'm not going to call you an elitist who thinks that poor and new players should get no quarter (I wonder how games would continue to be sold if this happened, though), but you haven't covered this issue from all the relevant angles. As it stands, I'll call the article currently incomplete. But I've already written up enough text here in the few minutes I've spent on these posts to make a clearly better article.

Genuinely baffled why you think I have an issue with new players; I do quite clearly say I would prefer new players to have advantages.

As someone who has in various FPS communities taken the time to actually write up numerous training/how to guides for newer players and is actually involved in running a variety of servers designed to be a safe(er) haven for people to play, I'm far from elitist

Still nice feedback, your opinion of course but the article has succeeded in what I intended which was to express my viewpoint and inspire a debate And to re-iterate, my waffle comment was a figure of speech and not meant as derogatory so have a virtual *shakes hand* on me

[Ed Oscuro]

but the article has succeeded in what I intended which was to express my viewpoint and inspire a debate )

Now that's your opinion, isn't it? From what I can tell, half the posters in this thread couldn't be bothered to read all the way through it, and that's just from people who were interested enough to click on it. Shorten it down, direct examples, drop the definitions (not needed for your intended audience), really I think the whole topic is about as useful as "Are Games Art?" essays - which is to say not very, since game companies are going with current trends. Not going over again why I think you were wrong to say that "noobs are at a disadvantage," but there will be some of that anyway.

[Wonderbanana]

really I think the whole topic is about as useful as "Are Games Art?" essays - which is to say not very,

That is entirely subjective to an individual’s personal interest which can be applied to any subject matter.