One of my two favorite game genres is the RPG. No other games offer the same level of customization and attention to story. Unfortunately, I find that far too many of them aren't very well balanced. On many of the message boards I frequent, I love to discuss this, and often I get the same disheartening response:
"Why does it have to be balanced? The AI isn't going to complain."
For a while, I didn't have a response to this. Of course games have to be balanced; that's what makes them good. The more I thought about it, the less sense the question made. It was tantamount to asking why games have to have control schemes that are usable - otherwise, you have a bad game.
It wasn't until we were facing down the deadline for the GreatForge system that I found an answer. We had a system called the Perk Grid; every five levels, a player could choose to have more health, more Endurance (the fuel for their abilities), more Initiative (letting them act sooner in the turn order), or a chance to shake off a control effect or a debuff. This was a nightmare to balance; having more Endurance meant you could use your flashier, fun abilities more often. All having more Initiative did was slightly tweak the turn order, and it didn't matter if you rolled well enough anyway.
After much deliberation, we decided that it had to be removed. It just couldn't be salvaged in a satisfactory way. Scott, our beta tester and my devil's advocate, was upset about this. He liked the extra customization that the system added. I told him that we couldn't balance it properly, especially so close to the deadline. He asked why it had to be balanced. Wasn't the extra customization worth the imbalance? And that's when I found my answer.
Games have to balanced so that player choice matters.
An imbalanced game offers the Illusion of Choice. Informed players who are interested in getting maximum efficiency are always going to go after the option that gives them the best returns, making multiple playthroughs pointless. They are always going to build the same maximally efficient character, make the same maximally efficient choices, and have the same exact experience they did the last time. Players who don't have the same information or impulse for efficiency are essentially paying a "not min-maxing tax".
Some players explicitly want to be weaker for extra challenge. I have no problem allowing them to do that, but it should be a conscious choice. Players should make the game harder because they want to, not because I screwed up my design.
A balanced game means meaningful choices. Meaningful choices mean happy players. Happy players keep buying and playing my games, which means I get to keep doing what I love: balancing games.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
No, but there's still a chance you could save me.
Woo! After two and a half years, the GreatForge RPG system is finally complete! Well, complete enough to enter open beta. There's still a ton of work I want to do on it - filling in pages of flavor text, adding systems that needed more time to percolate, writing sample campaigns - but it's finished enough that I'm comfortable showing it to the public.
That means I can get back to this blog! I can talk about all that I've learned from designing a tabletop game, along with other design thoughts I want to explore. So,
With bony hands I hold my partner
On soulless feet we cross the floor
The music stops as if to answer
An empty knocking at the door
It seems his skin was sweet as mango
When last I held him to my breast
But now we dance this grim fandango
And will four years before we rest.
That means I can get back to this blog! I can talk about all that I've learned from designing a tabletop game, along with other design thoughts I want to explore. So,
With bony hands I hold my partner
On soulless feet we cross the floor
The music stops as if to answer
An empty knocking at the door
It seems his skin was sweet as mango
When last I held him to my breast
But now we dance this grim fandango
And will four years before we rest.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Learning from Everywhere
I just returned from vacation in Orlando. My family and I visited Universal Studios, Universal Islands of Adventure, and Disney’s Magic Kingdom. As we walked throughout the parks and waited in line for rides, I couldn’t help but notice that theme parks have a lot of lessons that game designers can learn.
Both Disney and Universal spend considerable effort to ensure that every part of a ride works toward the overall experience. Placed throughout the queue area are television screens, posters, and animatronics to set up the story of the ride. Waiting in line for Universal Studios’ Jaws ride, you watch television interviews with the survivors of Amity, discussing the way they’ve coped with the trauma of a shark attack. Outside the ride, the park is set up to mimic Amity, complete with tacky shark souvenirs. At Disney, the path to the Haunted Mansion is littered with tombstones inscribed with cheesy jokes. The ride operators wear funeral attire and make terrible puns in somber tones. Once you get off Space Mountain, you take a walkway back to the entrance. The ceiling is covered in stars, there are alien landscapes built around the conveyor; the ride is over, but the experience isn’t.
Game designers need to remember that every part of a game should work towards enhancing the experience. The opening menu, the pause interface, everything needs to contribute towards the atmosphere the game is trying to achieve. I’ve played a number of games that shattered my immersion because the interface wasn’t as streamlined as the rest of the game, throwing the fantastic pacing down the toilet.
There’s more to establishing tone for a game than just the gameplay and the visuals. Game designers need to remember that they have lots of tools at their disposal, and they need to use all of them.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Pacing in Alan Wake
Lately, I've been replaying Alan Wake. It's a survival horror game heavily based around contrasting light and dark. Enemies are surrounded by darkness, which needs to be burned away with the beam of a flashlight before they can be hurt. I could talk for days about all the things Alan Wake does right, but I'm going to focus on one thing: pacing.
In order for a survival horror game to work, it needs to be scary. And in order for the player to feel scared, they have to feel threatened. Previous survival horror games, like the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill, did this by crippling the player's supplies. The player never really had the tools to fight back, so the best course of action was always to run. More modern games, like Dead Space, have tighter controls, but they still rely on giving the player too little ammo to properly protect themselves.
Alan Wake - I assume through incredibly strenuous playtesting - manages to give exactly enough for the player to fight their foes while still feeling as though they're lacking. Every time I run out of ammo, I turn the corner to find a checkpoint with an ammo cache. And while it was predictable, it didn't lessen the tension. I still felt like I could run empty and be left helpless.
Part of this is due to brilliant level design. Enemies generally require a very specific amount of ammo to dispatch; standard foes take three pistol shots, more difficult foes can take a whole clip. So when the designers build an encounter, they can know exactly how much ammo a player will need to face it. By stringing these encounters together cleverly, they can ensure that the player has just enough ammo to deal with the dangers they'll face. There's still enough wiggle room that the player doesn't feel that they have more ammo than necessary, but they never feel that they need to run rather than fight (unless the encounter is specifically designed that way).
Proper pacing makes or breaks a game. I wish more developers would play Alan Wake and see that.
In order for a survival horror game to work, it needs to be scary. And in order for the player to feel scared, they have to feel threatened. Previous survival horror games, like the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill, did this by crippling the player's supplies. The player never really had the tools to fight back, so the best course of action was always to run. More modern games, like Dead Space, have tighter controls, but they still rely on giving the player too little ammo to properly protect themselves.
Alan Wake - I assume through incredibly strenuous playtesting - manages to give exactly enough for the player to fight their foes while still feeling as though they're lacking. Every time I run out of ammo, I turn the corner to find a checkpoint with an ammo cache. And while it was predictable, it didn't lessen the tension. I still felt like I could run empty and be left helpless.
Part of this is due to brilliant level design. Enemies generally require a very specific amount of ammo to dispatch; standard foes take three pistol shots, more difficult foes can take a whole clip. So when the designers build an encounter, they can know exactly how much ammo a player will need to face it. By stringing these encounters together cleverly, they can ensure that the player has just enough ammo to deal with the dangers they'll face. There's still enough wiggle room that the player doesn't feel that they have more ammo than necessary, but they never feel that they need to run rather than fight (unless the encounter is specifically designed that way).
Proper pacing makes or breaks a game. I wish more developers would play Alan Wake and see that.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Games I Love: Team Fortress 2
With Battlefield 3 just released and Modern Warfare 3 on the horizon, I'm often asked which I prefer. And my answer surprises more often than not: neither.
My favorite shooter - and the only one I'll play - is Team Fortress 2.
I don't like military style shooters. I find that battles between two players end in a second or two at most; either someone catches the other by surprise and kills them instantly, or the player with the better aim gets a headshot and kills the other instantly. The guns in military shooters all tend to blur together; there are the assault rifles with slightly different stats, the shotguns with slightly different stats, and the sniper rifles with slightly different stats.
Listening to the developer commentary in TF2 (Valve commentary is ALWAYS worth listening to) reveals a set of brilliant mantras.
At a glance, a player should be able to tell a.) what team someone is on, b.) what class they are, and c.) what weapon they are using. In military shooters, everyone is the same "soldier in camo", and I can never tell if someone is on my team or if I should be shooting them.
Only two classes have the ability to kill in one shot: the Sniper and the Spy. The Sniper has to get a headshot (no other class has that ability), and his laser sight will alert his prey that they need to beware. The Spy has to get a backstab with his knife, which requires him to be in melee range and sneak up on his target. Both classes have the least health in the game, so they pay for their power with fragility.
Balance between classes is, while not perfect, incredibly well done. All classes fit into a rock-paper-scissors configuration, but skill can trump class counters. Nearly all unlocked weapons are sidegrades, gaining strength in one area at the cost of a weakness elsewhere. One of my biggest complaints with military shooters is that they all have weapon unlocks that are clear upgrades to the defaults, making the barrier to entry incredibly high.
Most of all, Team Fortress 2 gets the pacing of combat perfectly. When combat starts, I have long enough to decide if I should engage or if the fight is a guaranteed loss. Once I start fighting, I know it's going to take more than one shot to kill either of us, so there can actually be a fight. And if it's clear I'm losing, I have the ability to escape while simultaneously allowing my opponent the chance to finish me off. Fights are (almost) never over too quickly or too slowly.
I've come to expect a lot from my shooters. I want fights that last, balanced weapons, and game modes that reward teamwork rather than mere deathmatching. And nothing has offered what I want like Team Fortress 2.
My favorite shooter - and the only one I'll play - is Team Fortress 2.
I don't like military style shooters. I find that battles between two players end in a second or two at most; either someone catches the other by surprise and kills them instantly, or the player with the better aim gets a headshot and kills the other instantly. The guns in military shooters all tend to blur together; there are the assault rifles with slightly different stats, the shotguns with slightly different stats, and the sniper rifles with slightly different stats.
Listening to the developer commentary in TF2 (Valve commentary is ALWAYS worth listening to) reveals a set of brilliant mantras.
At a glance, a player should be able to tell a.) what team someone is on, b.) what class they are, and c.) what weapon they are using. In military shooters, everyone is the same "soldier in camo", and I can never tell if someone is on my team or if I should be shooting them.
Only two classes have the ability to kill in one shot: the Sniper and the Spy. The Sniper has to get a headshot (no other class has that ability), and his laser sight will alert his prey that they need to beware. The Spy has to get a backstab with his knife, which requires him to be in melee range and sneak up on his target. Both classes have the least health in the game, so they pay for their power with fragility.
Balance between classes is, while not perfect, incredibly well done. All classes fit into a rock-paper-scissors configuration, but skill can trump class counters. Nearly all unlocked weapons are sidegrades, gaining strength in one area at the cost of a weakness elsewhere. One of my biggest complaints with military shooters is that they all have weapon unlocks that are clear upgrades to the defaults, making the barrier to entry incredibly high.
Most of all, Team Fortress 2 gets the pacing of combat perfectly. When combat starts, I have long enough to decide if I should engage or if the fight is a guaranteed loss. Once I start fighting, I know it's going to take more than one shot to kill either of us, so there can actually be a fight. And if it's clear I'm losing, I have the ability to escape while simultaneously allowing my opponent the chance to finish me off. Fights are (almost) never over too quickly or too slowly.
I've come to expect a lot from my shooters. I want fights that last, balanced weapons, and game modes that reward teamwork rather than mere deathmatching. And nothing has offered what I want like Team Fortress 2.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Devil's Advocate
Our group at Great Forge Studios is four people. When we need to make a decision - for instance, lately we've been discussing how to handle Endurance costs - the four of us sit down and debate until we find a solution that makes us all happy. As a result of over half a year of this, we've begun thinking alike. The proper psychological term is "groupthink".
Every Sunday night I go to a bar with my good friend Scott for karaoke. One night, I decided to bring some of my work with me. He was intrigued, and I showed him what I was trying to accomplish. At the time, it was mostly creative work - coming up with new powers to fill out powersets. He began tossing out ideas, and we debated them. Eventually, we had enough powers that I could bring them before the rest of the team for serious discussion.
One of the first powers he suggested was an attack for Fiery Aura. It was a toggle that hurt enemies and allies alike. When I brought it before my team, it was immediately shot down; they didn't want friendly fire. I asked for a reason, and they couldn't immediately give one. For the rest of the evening, we debated the merits of allowing or disallowing powers that could injure teammates. Eventually, we decided against friendly fire, but it showed me something important: we would never have had that discussion if Scott hadn't tossed out the idea. We thought so alike that the idea of friendly fire never occurred to us.
Every design team needs someone to question every decision made. Far too often, teams who work closely together fall into groupthink, and they take the group's assumptions as fact. Someone has to shake up that mentality and question the status quo.
In discussing Powerpoint presentations, Kathy Sierra said that every slide should to have to fight for its life. I use that mentality in game design - every idea should have explain why it has to be added in. If there isn't a compelling argument that the idea both provides something the game needs and provides something that no other idea can provide better, that idea gets scrapped. Similarly, if the team immediately shoots down an idea, I jump in and start arguing why we have to include it.
Without debate, there is no game design. A devil's advocate is the most important thing a team could have, and I'm glad I found one.
Every Sunday night I go to a bar with my good friend Scott for karaoke. One night, I decided to bring some of my work with me. He was intrigued, and I showed him what I was trying to accomplish. At the time, it was mostly creative work - coming up with new powers to fill out powersets. He began tossing out ideas, and we debated them. Eventually, we had enough powers that I could bring them before the rest of the team for serious discussion.
One of the first powers he suggested was an attack for Fiery Aura. It was a toggle that hurt enemies and allies alike. When I brought it before my team, it was immediately shot down; they didn't want friendly fire. I asked for a reason, and they couldn't immediately give one. For the rest of the evening, we debated the merits of allowing or disallowing powers that could injure teammates. Eventually, we decided against friendly fire, but it showed me something important: we would never have had that discussion if Scott hadn't tossed out the idea. We thought so alike that the idea of friendly fire never occurred to us.
Every design team needs someone to question every decision made. Far too often, teams who work closely together fall into groupthink, and they take the group's assumptions as fact. Someone has to shake up that mentality and question the status quo.
In discussing Powerpoint presentations, Kathy Sierra said that every slide should to have to fight for its life. I use that mentality in game design - every idea should have explain why it has to be added in. If there isn't a compelling argument that the idea both provides something the game needs and provides something that no other idea can provide better, that idea gets scrapped. Similarly, if the team immediately shoots down an idea, I jump in and start arguing why we have to include it.
Without debate, there is no game design. A devil's advocate is the most important thing a team could have, and I'm glad I found one.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
L.A. Noire and the Use of Graphics
On Tuesday, Rockstar Games (developers of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption) released their latest game, L.A. Noire. The game is a crime thriller set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. The player controls a newly-promoted detective as he investigates crimes in one of the city's most decadent periods. Most of the gameplay consists of investigating crime scenes and interrogating witnesses.
Rockstar's biggest success in L.A. Noire is their new MotionScan technology for capturing an actor's expressions. They use 32 cameras positioned around the actor to capture his face as he emotes, and they convert that into CG to use in the game. It allows for a depth of facial expression never before seen in the gaming industry. L.A. Noire was the first game to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received near-unanimous praise. It's absolutely breathtaking.
It's also one of the few examples of using better graphics to enhance gameplay rather than for the sake of having better graphics.
The power of modern gaming consoles and PCs means that games can achieve hyper-realistic graphical quality. Franchises like Uncharted have created experiences that could easily pass for Hollywood blockbusters. Unfortunately, this level of visual excellence is incredibly expensive. Games cost upwards of $50 million to make, and much of that goes to the art teams.
The problem with this is that generally the hyper-realistic graphics don't accomplish anything. Games have whiz-bang graphics purely for the sake of whiz-bang graphics. Most games that strive for realism would be equally enjoyable with half the graphical quality. Good gameplay can make up for weak graphics, but good graphics can't make up for weak gameplay.
That's why L.A Noire is so groundbreaking. The technology used to better display facial expressions is vital to the game; players need to watch characters for eye contact and facial ticks to know if the witness is lying or witholding information. I'm glad to see someone finally using their incredible graphics to improve the experience. And thinking back, it should have been obvious that if anyone would do this, it would be Rockstar.
Rockstar's biggest success in L.A. Noire is their new MotionScan technology for capturing an actor's expressions. They use 32 cameras positioned around the actor to capture his face as he emotes, and they convert that into CG to use in the game. It allows for a depth of facial expression never before seen in the gaming industry. L.A. Noire was the first game to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received near-unanimous praise. It's absolutely breathtaking.
It's also one of the few examples of using better graphics to enhance gameplay rather than for the sake of having better graphics.
The power of modern gaming consoles and PCs means that games can achieve hyper-realistic graphical quality. Franchises like Uncharted have created experiences that could easily pass for Hollywood blockbusters. Unfortunately, this level of visual excellence is incredibly expensive. Games cost upwards of $50 million to make, and much of that goes to the art teams.
The problem with this is that generally the hyper-realistic graphics don't accomplish anything. Games have whiz-bang graphics purely for the sake of whiz-bang graphics. Most games that strive for realism would be equally enjoyable with half the graphical quality. Good gameplay can make up for weak graphics, but good graphics can't make up for weak gameplay.
That's why L.A Noire is so groundbreaking. The technology used to better display facial expressions is vital to the game; players need to watch characters for eye contact and facial ticks to know if the witness is lying or witholding information. I'm glad to see someone finally using their incredible graphics to improve the experience. And thinking back, it should have been obvious that if anyone would do this, it would be Rockstar.
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