Knowing, too soon, that it's over.

[pxib]

I was struck by Malakili's post in the Star Craft II beta thread:

There are very few games that I look back and say "Well, there was this critical moment where the game is even and one player took the upper hand" or whatever.  Its more like, welllllll, that guy was just better than me right from the beginning or vice versa.

Indeed. This feeling is why I've never played much competitive RTS and FPS. Overwhelming victories and failures aren't a lot of fun. In fact, I generally have little fun past the point where I realize I'll either win or lose. It's only games that have me biting my nails to the last second that make for enjoyable, or even memorable, experiences.

TF2 and WoW's battlegrounds put effort into making sure that advantages accumulate: The more unbalanced the game, the shorter it will last. This is a reasonable enough way to learn to play, but I've never found it particularly satisfying gameplay. Why should I spend any of my R&R time thinking "Ugh, when will this be over?" There has to be a better way.

Many recent board and card games -- Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, and Agricola for example -- disguise success and failure by moving away from direct competition and having players compete for common resources in parallel. Additionally, they further confuse the "score" by increasing the number of goals and their complexity. Now that Facebook "games" are adopting these strategies as well, is there any way to incorporate them something I'd actually like to play online?

[Aez]

Multiplayer Left 4 Death was amazing on this.  Even when there was cleat winner/loser the game was still fun.  You could also make a huge comeback on the last act and end up winning.  The game was just frustrating when you had bad teammates but they could have solved it easily with a better matchmaker, I don't know if the sequel solved this.

For an RTS or MMO, you could probably code in NPC reinforcements. You have to balance it so players don't log off when they are losing to spawn their uber NPC guards.

[pxib]

For an RTS or MMO, you could probably code in NPC reinforcements. You have to balance it so players don't log off when they are losing to spawn their uber NPC guards.

Functionally that's Left 4 Dead, except the players are the uber NPC guards and the computer summons hordes of weaker reinforcements. I found zombie play frustrating because I didn't feel the interface worked well with their abilities, but I haven't played the sequel/expansion. In an RTS I'm realllly suspicious of the AI's ability to balance on the fly. I've been disappointed with the narrow distance between zero challenge and completely unbeatable in the past.

In either case, I'm not sure that the idea of Player Team vs. Computer Team (with a few players on it!) is enough more attractive than Player Team vs. Computer to make it worth chasing that bunny.

[Malakili]

I was struck by Malakili's post in the Star Craft II beta thread:

There are very few games that I look back and say "Well, there was this critical moment where the game is even and one player took the upper hand" or whatever.  Its more like, welllllll, that guy was just better than me right from the beginning or vice versa.

Indeed. This feeling is why I've never played much competitive RTS and FPS. Overwhelming victories and failures aren't a lot of fun. In fact, I generally have little fun past the point where I realize I'll either win or lose. It's only games that have me biting my nails to the last second that make for enjoyable, or even memorable, experiences.

TF2 and WoW's battlegrounds put effort into making sure that advantages accumulate: The more unbalanced the game, the shorter it will last. This is a reasonable enough way to learn to play, but I've never found it particularly satisfying gameplay. Why should I spend any of my R&R time thinking "Ugh, when will this be over?" There has to be a better way.

Many recent board and card games -- Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, and Agricola for example -- disguise success and failure by moving away from direct competition and having players compete for common resources in parallel. Additionally, they further confuse the "score" by increasing the number of goals and their complexity. Now that Facebook "games" are adopting these strategies as well, is there any way to incorporate them something I'd actually like to play online?

Well, since I'm quoted here I guess I'll see if I can add a little bit to the conversation.  There are a few variables that seem particularly important as far as I'm concerned:

1) In a pure 1v1 game this can be very pronounced compared to team games, or FFA games, which tend to even things out a little.  In SC2, if there is a big enough discrepancy in skill, the game might as well not be played.  The same could be said in something like a quake 3 1v1 death match.  The reason TF2 seems less bad is that even if your team is losing pretty badly, generally any given little fight that happens you still have a chance to kill the other person. 

2) Then again, I have complained in the past that things like crits make it TOO unpredictable about who can win in TF2. Which brings me to my second point, perception is as important as actually chance.  A pure chance thing like a crit % that will mean one person is going to kill the other for sure, leaving it up to chance to determine who will win isn't what I want as a solution to make games more even. 

3) Something like Starcraft 2 actually is a pretty good game, and I actually want to enjoy it, but it got to the point where I just wasn't.  I think you can see your point in the way games end now, no one plays until the game is actually over, people know when they've effectively lost, say "gg" and quit, this is interesting because the victory condition the game gives and the victory condition in reality are fairly different.   An example of a game that does this better, in my opinion, is Dawn of War 2, which I still play regularly and enjoy (even ranked "competitive" games).   For people not familar with DoW2 victory conditions I'll give a quick summary in the spoiler below, if you are familiar with it, feel free to skip it.

(continued from the spoiler)
The result is, that as long as you have any victory points in your pool, you still have an outside shot at winning.  There are games where one player concedes, as it can get one sided, but it usually isn't decided very early like a starcraft game, and most of my games last in the 15-20 minute range.  Combined with a variety of things in the game that help keep things even (hard counters, armor types, damage types, etc) the games are generally much more even unless there is a very wide disparity is knowledge and/or skill level.  The match maker also generally gives even games, more so than my experience with SC2.   

The more I think about it, I think it is that the game relies less on physical skill (actions per minute, executing your build order to perfection) though it does reward good micromanagement, and more about making good decisions about what to build, where to attack, etc.  If you make a mistake, you are totally hosed, and comebacks are very possible.  Combine that with some well conceived mechanics like retreat which allow you to cede area or points while having a good chance of preserving your units, and you have less moments where 1 mistake causes you to basically have lost the entire match.  It should be noted though that I think one of the reasons DoW2 hasn't become more popular is because it isn't as desirable to the esports crowd who really like like pure physical execution/skill of Starcraft that rewards perfect execution and punishes mistakes more harshly.

[Aez]

Quick match with a 2 out 3 mechanism could also solve it.

[Typhon]

If I understand your first post correctly I think you are suggesting that something like a WoW battleground is created where Horde isn't directly against Alliance (to put it into a WoW context)?

I would love to see a map where they randomly placed a horde/alliance/scourge town center on the map.  As the PC player your intially your job is to protect you resource gatherers from the other PC race and the Scourge, but especially from the Scourge because losing gatherers to the Scourge builds the Scourge army.

Basically have a NPC RTS controller leading each army.  They attempt to 1) gather resources to build a defense 2) build an offensive force to wage war against the scourge.  Back story is as simple as "both Horde and Alliance realize that if they don't take a Scourge camp out within a period of time they'll both be overrun and wiped out".

Victory is determined by the side that does the most damage (or survives the longest).  Different starting conditions could force a different strategy - e.g. if the game started with three Scourge town halls instead of one, Horde/Alliance should choose to be more cooperative with each other and more defensive in their base construction.  If the game started with only one Scourge camp, Horde/Alliance would choose to be more aggressive with everyone (i.e. it would be a race to see who could wipe out the Scourge first).  Player scouting would trigger the strategy changes.

I really wanted something like that for a while, I just don't know how hard it would be for them to program the random start and the NPC RTS controller.  You would think they have a fair amount of experience with coding RTS generals, but I guess it's significantly more complicated then that.

[Aez]

Which first post?  Malakili, pxib or me?

I did not have your example in mind but it's an interesting one and I can see it working.

[Typhon]

Sorry, I was talking to pxib, in the original post.  What I think he's hoping for is, rather than try to level the playing field, change the nature of the conflict.

While I think there is still a lot of good work that can be done to automatically attempt to adjust a match to make each one more of a nail-biter, but his post seemed to point toward looking for a different solution and I was trying to stay within the spirit of that.

[pxib]

I would love to see a map where they randomly placed a horde/alliance/scourge town center on the map.  As the PC player your intially your job is to protect you resource gatherers from the other PC race and the Scourge, but especially from the Scourge because losing gatherers to the Scourge builds the Scourge army.

Basically have a NPC RTS controller leading each army.  They attempt to 1) gather resources to build a defense 2) build an offensive force to wage war against the scourge.  Back story is as simple as "both Horde and Alliance realize that if they don't take a Scourge camp out within a period of time they'll both be overrun and wiped out".

That's precisely the sort of thing I'm talking about. A race against the clock or an imposing enemy in which direct conflict is impossible, of limited impact, or potentially counter-productive. I'd be happy with any situation where majority of a victory is in winning against the game, then a score is tallied and kudos distributed based on was the most productive victor. The more complexity there is to the win conditions, and the more variety there is in the ways they can be achieved, the more ways there are that a player who isn't peaking the charts can say "Well next time I'll..." rather than "Well fuck."

[Grimwell]

Why not have a PC do the RTS instead of a NPC?

Your posts made me think of Battleswarm:
http://www.battleswarm.net/game/

I tinkered with it at launch, but it really didn't like my computer at home. One side is FPS, the other is RTS.

If you are talking about a fixed point battlefield trading the FPS for MMO could still work out. It's an interesting mix and Battleswarm actually made it work. The only negative that my limited contact demonstrated to me was that most people wanted to FPS and the RTS side was so empty that lobbies were waiting for anyone to play the RTS role. Which I did, and promptly had instant matches nonstop. :)

Putting that into your scenario and things get even more interesting. A human controlling the RTS creatures taking on humans from the RPG perspective...

[Typhon]

I didn't suggest having a PC do the RTS general role because I don't have answers to these questions:

1) Assume it's WoW.  People are playing WoW to be a character, not an RTS general.  Will anyone want to play the RTS general role?
2) Will anyone want to play an RTS general when no-one listens to them?  How would I motivate people to listen to the general?
3) How much will I personally hate the RTS general when we lose?  Will I find out where he lives and k-k-k-kill him, or just put him on /ignore? (I think this is the hardest one to fix)
4) Do I program a RTS general UI?  Do pan out and let them scroll around the battlefield?  If I don't, how badly will it suck to play the RTS general?
5) If I let the PC armies be directed humans, does it make the NPC army too easy to beat?  Too hard to beat?  (granted, this last question can probably be handled via scaling).

I agree that it would be more interesting to have a person in control, I'm just scairt of all those questions.  If they were to build that out, it would also be more interesting to have full-on RTS matches (like the pick-up matches in Warcraft or Starcraft).

[LK]

Part of the problem is that people resign themselves to their fates instead of using the time they have to improve themselves and just playing the game. It becomes about the win / loss instead of the entertainment. Been reading a lot of material lately on how happiness can be derived from the play / work, and not the results thereof.

[Kail]

It becomes about the win / loss instead of the entertainment.

That's what jumped out at me, too.  Playing a lot of League of Legends lately (a game where blowout victories/defeats are the norm), and there's a lot of conflict between people who view the game as a casual time waster, and people who view it as some kind of competitive e-sport.

In a super competitive game, you theoretically don't want close matches.  You want there to be a clear winner and a clear loser.  In LoL, if the game is close, it's because the players are very close in skill level.  If they're not, the game is designed so that they get stronger and stronger against their weaker opponents.  I haven't played SC2, but the old SC was like this, too, to a degree:  a player who is slightly better will have a few more units left over from the last attack, will have a bit more resources to build more units, get more tech, etc.  Which adds up over time until they can overcome the otherwise quite difficult task of attacking an enemy base.  It's a very clean victory, and the game is designed to encourage that.  It establishes decisive wins and decisive losses.

In a more casual game, it can go back and forth.  Take Mario Kart, for example.  I can be losing the entire time, grab a blue shell late in the game, and take first.  You can be winning, and someone behind you with a triple red shell can knock you out, with virtually nothing you can do about it.  Is he better than you for doing that?  I'd have difficulty admitting that was true, but circumstances like that will often win or lose a race.  It tends to create very close races, which tend to be more fun for a lot of people (especially if you're playing with friends or something, where some players are going to suck way worse than others), but as far as e-peen goes, there's too much luck involved to really bang your chest and assert your status as Alpha Nerd.

[jakonovski]

"Win more" mechanics are surprisingly ubiquitous, I have a feeling it's much easier to design than something where the losing side can actually turn the tables by exploiting an event that occurs later in the game. I hold Magic: the Gathering in very high regard for this very reason. It has so many different methods for winning the game that you really can't control them all. There's always the chance, if your opponent built his deck right, that your seemingly winning position is only an illusion.

[Typhon]

What about a map/game where the nature of the game changes based upon how the conflict is progressing?

Map is essentially a long rectangle with horde and alliance camps at opposite ends of the map.  Objective is to take the neutral keep in the center of the map and hold it for a period of time.  If one side completes this objective then the other side is instructed to pull back and defend their town which is more heavily fortified - it's easier to defend due to reinforcements and defensive armaments.  In my mind, this scales with how quickly the neutral town is taken - if it's taken more quickly, there are more reinforcements and defensive armaments.

Yes, lots of opportunity for cheese here - if you are the obviously superior team you might choose to take your time in winning the neutral town - is one that immediately springs to mind.

There is also opportunity for the defending team to turn the tables if the attackers over-extend themselves and the defenders manage to take back (ninja!) the graveyard it could result in a last-minute neutral keep capture by the previously defending team.

The concept is to keep the losing team's will to fight strong.  Rewards would be based upon controlling the neutral keep and your keep.  Say one token for each.  If you manage to take all three keeps you get three tokens, but since it should be pretty easy to defend your keep, this should rarely happen.

Edit:  Multiple grammar/spelling changes... sadly, English is my only language so I have no excuse.  Also, I switch back and forth between calling the objective "keep" or "town".  In my head a smaller/quicker map with fewer people has keeps, larger/longer have towns (or town and keeps).

[Aez]

MTGO is a great example for mid and late game but there is still the early game problem of not having enough/having too much mana.  Then it's a perfect case of knowing, too soon, that it's over.


For Typhon last example :

Seems to work great, isn't Warhammer Online RvR build around this?  Every battlefield you conquer leads you to an harder battlefield (harder for the winner, easier for the loser).

[LK]

So then I guess it becomes about insuring that the losers are still having fun. ^^ I think TF2 had that philosophy with their kill cams and stuff?

Like, in Modern Warfare 2, I hate it when I spawn to air strikes. That sucks like hell. Even with Cold Blooded and a Stinger, if a teammate is next to me against, say, Chopper Gunner, I'm dead because we all spawn on the same spot.

[Typhon]

COD: MW And MW2, imo, are completely backwards - the people getting the perks should be those who are dying multiple times in a row without scoring a kill.  People getting kill streaks should not be getting a boost in something that clearly doesn't need a boost - combat.

Or at least put in a game option that says something like - "Underdog/Overdog", where "Underdog" boosts those having trouble and "Overdog" rewards flawless play and let players decide which games they want to play in.

[LK]

Funny situation, the pros bitch and whine when the people getting owned have Painkiller / Death Streak advantage because it disrupts their expectations of when someone will die and gives a major advantage to the person being killed. The other deathstreak perks are all useless compared to Painkiller.

[Malakili]

it disrupts their expectations of when someone will die and gives a major advantage to the person being killed.

Yeah, this sort of thing is the biggest problem.   Is there any sort of indication when someone is buffed?  If you know whats going on, its not such a big deal, because you can adjust on the fly, but if you just do something that would normally kill someone, but they don't die, thats rage quit inducing.  I agree that its bad to buff people that are already winning though, its like playing "winners" in 1 on 1 basketball.  You don't necessarily need to give a big buff to people who are losing either though, they really just need a reason to think they still have a chance.  I think instead of thinking in terms of buffs for one side or the other, I think it is better to have overall victory conditions that give you an advantage for winning a particular encounter or skirimish, or whatever, but don't basically end the game decisively. 

Example:  I was playing a game of 1v1 DoW2 earlier.  I made an early mistake and lost one of my Guardian units (ranged unit).  I waited too long to retreat them and they were totally lost instead of just wounded (which meant I had to pay for an entire new squad, instead of reinforcing that squad, which is far cheaper in terms of resources, and the upgrade I had purchased for them was effectively lost resources as well).  Still, I was able to overcome the early deficit because even though I was in trouble, the enemy couldn't then waltz right in with his numerical advantage and win the game, the best he could do was use the advantage to take more map control.   Eventually I was able make a come back and win. 

I didn't need a buff, I just needed a victory condition that allowed me to stay in the game even though I lost a unit very early on that put me at a fairly big disadvantage in terms of both army and economy.  If the enemy could have come into my base and destroyed it, then I'd have been hosed.  Instead, the game continued on.    For the record, you can conceivably win a game of DoW2 by destroying the enemy HQ, but they are highly resistant to damage, and every base comes equipped with 2 anti infantry turrets.  I've never seen a game end that way in a ranked match, and only rarely when people are screwing around in custom games.

[LK]

If I liked RTS at all I'd check out DoW2. 

(Also I've noticed that kill streak advantages in MW2 are able to be quickly negated by certain kits, so you might die once but it takes a team purposely ignoring an enemy advantage and letting it persist that leads to butt rape.)

[pxib]

I agree that buff and debuff handicapping is an inferior solution. It's just another system, hard to balance, that can be gamed by savvy players. I like Typhon's example of scaling victory conditions rather than an all-or-nothing contest. If the push us back past the ravine, we get an optional side goal to blow the bridge. If they push us past the fort, we maintain control of a one-way cliffside scramble that gives us access to it from a second front. When pushed back to the final defensive point, the we have the option of setting off a "sudden death" mode where they we make their last stand count. Alternately, once the timer's set, we might receive bonus points for every team member who successfully retreats out a particular risky road.

The more one side is winning, the more that side should have to worry about. The more one side is losing, the more ways they should have to change the rules of the endgame... and either turn things around or achieve a partial victory.

[Megrim]

Wait, that's retarded. Why the hell are you punishing the winning side? They're winning because they are better then you.

[jakonovski]

Wait, that's retarded. Why the hell are you punishing the winning side? They're winning because they are better then you.

The idea is to keep the losing side in the game, so that everyone has a better gaming experience.

[pxib]

Wait, that's retarded. Why the hell are you punishing the winning side? They're winning because they are better then you.

The idea is to keep the losing side in the game, so that everyone has a better gaming experience.

...or rather, the idea is to measure how much you win rather than whether you win. Winning more should be more challenging than just winning a little. If the losing side blows the bridge (or activates the escape condition), they are explicitly giving up on victory. They are also stopping the winning side from completely crushing them... and possibly saving themselves points or victory conditions in the longer term. It's like coming in third in a few races in a circuit, or resigning a few early games in a chess tournament.

That the winning force has pushed past the bridge, captured the fort, or backed the enemy against the wall is what demonstrates that they're winning... but if crossing the bridge means it will be impossible for the enemy team to win at all, why design anything past the bridge? If the losers think they can fight their way back across it, they are still free to do so. All I'm asking is to give them the option to cut their losses at various points along the way to a one-sided slaughter.

[Koyasha]

I agree that buff and debuff handicapping is an inferior solution. It's just another system, hard to balance, that can be gamed by savvy players. I like Typhon's example of scaling victory conditions rather than an all-or-nothing contest. If the push us back past the ravine, we get an optional side goal to blow the bridge. If they push us past the fort, we maintain control of a one-way cliffside scramble that gives us access to it from a second front. When pushed back to the final defensive point, the we have the option of setting off a "sudden death" mode where they we make their last stand count. Alternately, once the timer's set, we might receive bonus points for every team member who successfully retreats out a particular risky road.

The more one side is winning, the more that side should have to worry about. The more one side is losing, the more ways they should have to change the rules of the endgame... and either turn things around or achieve a partial victory.

I especially like the idea of setting off a sort of 'self-destruct device' and then getting additional points for every person that manages to safely evac before it goes.  Make the goal of the attacker to disarm the self-destruct, too.  Give the defenders lots of advantages in defending it, but if everyone runs off the attacker can disarm it easily and significantly reduce the defenders' score by achieving complete victory.

[pxib]

I'm just throwing goofy ideas out. There are all sorts of possibilities that could happen at every one of a dozen tiers in what is theoretically a single fight. Winner-takes-all is absolutely the most boring option.

Also it's scary how much I need to proofread my posts.

[Margalis]

There are very few games that I look back and say "Well, there was this critical moment where the game is even and one player took the upper hand" or whatever.  Its more like, welllllll, that guy was just better than me right from the beginning or vice versa.

I dunno, I'd say in the majority of games that I lose I can look back and find critical mistakes. The fact that you can instantly watch any replay and get full information on what happened means you can see exactly how and why the other player won. Even in games that I win handily I can find areas for improvement.

To the point of not even playing if the skill levels are too different - isn't that how it should work? If I play a game of basketball against an NBA player I'll lose a billion to zero, as I should. At that point I don't need some set of mechanics that make it more enjoyable, what I need is a better set of opponents more equal to my skill level. Starcraft 2 is trying to do that by putting players in leagues with players of their own skill level ensuring that most games are competitive.

The point that most RTS games end before they really end is a good one. But people declaring "GG" and quitting out is a decent enough home-rolled solution.

[Malakili]

To the point of not even playing if the skill levels are too different - isn't that how it should work?

Sure, as long as the matchmaker will actually give me good games.   The fact of the matter is that most of the time I wasn't getting into good games, and it turned me away from the game, I uninstalled it and don't miss it at all.     I still think its just that the game isn't well balanced for lower skill level players like myself.  It seems to play far better when both players are of some certain skill threshold, and while I can't quantify it, I know I am definitely below it.   Like I said in the SC2 thread, I watch high level replays and I think,t his game is great, but my experience playing the game is nothing like what I see in those videos.

[Typhon]

There are very few games that I look back and say "Well, there was this critical moment where the game is even and one player took the upper hand" or whatever.  Its more like, welllllll, that guy was just better than me right from the beginning or vice versa.

I dunno, I'd say in the majority of games that I lose I can look back and find critical mistakes. The fact that you can instantly watch any replay and get full information on what happened means you can see exactly how and why the other player won. Even in games that I win handily I can find areas for improvement.

To the point of not even playing if the skill levels are too different - isn't that how it should work? If I play a game of basketball against an NBA player I'll lose a billion to zero, as I should. At that point I don't need some set of mechanics that make it more enjoyable, what I need is a better set of opponents more equal to my skill level. Starcraft 2 is trying to do that by putting players in leagues with players of their own skill level ensuring that most games are competitive.

The point that most RTS games end before they really end is a good one. But people declaring "GG" and quitting out is a decent enough home-rolled solution.

You're talking about eSport - a big part of the fun for someone who favors eSport is getting better at the game.  Improving their player skills.  Probably they are also happier with the rules of the game being static, it's more like chess or kickball.  Level playing fields and all that.

They're talking about playing a video game - they are primarily interested in having matches that feel close and are fun.  I wouldn't say that they are non-interested in improving as a player, but having to watch replays would make it feel like work.  They have day jobs, they just want that "damn that was close!" feeling and a couple of hours of entertainment a week.

Computers can do a lot of crazy shit.  There's room for both.  eSport is already heavily represented.

[Aez]

Worst case scenario :

• Lose 10-15 mins to find a good match or reach a battleground.
• Lose 5-10 mins building up your army in a RTS or reaching points of interest in a FPS/MMO.
• The first 30 secs fight happen, you screw up, you are 99% sure of losing.
• You either quit or the game drags on an other 5-10 mins.

This is even worst in team game where quiting piss off the teammates that wanted to stay.

[jakonovski]

So in short, one could say that the ability recover from a mistake should be proportional to the average game length. Street Fighter IV, who cares since it's only a couple of minutes. DoW2 3v3 slugfest, I really don't want to waste my time.

[Malakili]

So in short, one could say that the ability recover from a mistake should be proportional to the average game length. Street Fighter IV, who cares since it's only a couple of minutes. DoW2 3v3 slugfest, I really don't want to waste my time.

I think its more that small mistakes shouldn't have really huge effects, at least in terms of general gameplay.  Maybe for an e-sport its pretty important to play flawless to win (not just like, people playing a ladder, I'm talking like pro level).  But you shouldn't open yourself up to losing in 4 minutes because you got your gas before your barracks, or whatever.