Fair is Fair, Too

So last time, I talked about fair matchups. The gist of it was asymmetry is great because it opens up the number of possible strategies and play styles in a game. It gives different players different tools to deal with different threats – each other – and each side of a different matchup ends up playing very differently. Asymmetry makes things so much more interesting. And different. Did I say different enough?

If Unreal Tournament ’99 had only one weapon – the rocket launcher – it’d be an alright game. There’s plenty of interesting spatial dynamics the weapon has, and players would still be jockeying for territory and control of power ups and all that, but people’s approach to a given map would get stale quickly – the person who secured high ground first would probably win. You’d be losing out on all the interesting dynamics that the other weapons bring. Imagine a game where one player has a bow and a dagger, and the other has a sword and a slingshot. There are interesting emergent qualities that develop when these asymmetrical tool sets clash! The slingshot can’t possibly outrange the bow, so the bow player wants to stay as far away as possible to maintain their positional advantage and land hits. The sword player needs to use cover to his advantage and avoid getting shot to get in range of at least his slingshot - or better yet, his sword. The slingshot has lower range and damage than the bow does, but finding rocks to fire with it would be easier than finding arrows for the bow, so the bow player has to worry about conserving his arrows where the sword player doesn’t. If the bow player runs out of arrows or can’t beat the sword player before he gets close, his large positional advantage disappears and now the sword player has it! Up close, in range of the slingshot, the bow player has to start looking for cover, and in melee range, his dagger is at a severe disadvantage to the other player’s sword.

It’s a lot more interesting than two bow players fighting each other – they have roughly the same range and ammunition (given some variance in a level), but neither wants to go in close before all their arrows are out. It’s more interesting than two sword players fighting each other – as soon as they’re in slingshot range they’ll slingshot at each other, and as soon as they’re in sword range they’ll sword each other. The dynamics of the match don’t change nearly as much because both players are trying to solve a problem – how do I hit the other player – and they have the same solution for it.

So, Bow Player vs. Sword Player (expect it in July of 2017! (maybe (don’t bet on it))) is interesting, in large parts because the dynamics of the fight change over the course of the match, more so than Bow Player vs. Bow player or Sword Player vs. Sword Player (expect them never). Is Bow Player vs. Sword Player fair, though? I haven’t a goddamn clue! It probably depends a lot on how large the levels are, how much damage the weapons do, how many arrows Bow Player gets, how much cover is available, how quickly each player can run, and a thousand other factors. And that’s the problem with asymmetrical games – there are so many factors that determine whether one character is balanced against the other. It’s hard to tell if you need to tweak something more, or tweak it less, or radically change it in order for the balance to get better.

I don’t think my last article was particularly strong, and it’s because I used examples from existing games and tried simplifying their dynamics in the interest of brevity. Hopefully, this hypothetical example feels better fleshed out. Unfortunately, it leaves me with no easy way to segue into my next topic – so I’m going to leave that for next time. Fair is fair, fair is good – that’s what you’re shooting for when designing games. However, there is a case to be made for designing deliberately unfair things. It sounds completely against everything I’ve just said, but it isn’t – and that’s where it gets really interesting.

Fair is fair. Until next time - when unfair is fair.

-Jacob

Another way to die

SpoilersSpoilersSpoilersSpoilersSpoilersNah, whatever.  You already know it.  

I've added to the Choose Your Own Adventure.  Either start the fun all over again, or skip to the new part! Enjoy!

Start it anew!

Get right to the juicy parts (don't forget to pull the pin)!

Fair is fair, right?

The beauty of asymmetrical games is that they aren’t equal. Asymmetry lets players have different sets of options, and this has a wide number of positive side effects. Players are more likely to find a character, class or faction that feels good to them, so they’ll play and enjoy it more. It opens up strategic space in the game, allowing for more depth, more exploration, and more experiences, so the game stays fresh for longer. Tired of playing a specific faction? Play a new one; it’s like a whole different game.

The problem biggest problem – and honestly, maybe the only problem – with asymmetrical games is that they’re prone to imbalance. Symmetrical games don’t get off scot-free from this one – a dominant strategy can easily exist in a symmetrical game. In a symmetrical game, though, the matchup is always 5-5, meaning that if two players of equal skill play 10 games, each is expected to win 5. Makes sense, if everything is equal.

The beauty of asymmetrical games is that they aren’t equal, though. Hell, it’s the first thing I said! While two players playing the same character (it could also be faction/class/deck or whatever, but I’m just using character from now on outside of specific examples) is still 5-5, those are the only truly even matchups that exist. Everything else is slanted one way or the other.  The advantage one character has might be so small as to be imperceptible, or it might be so huge you can’t ignore it.

In Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Super Turbo for short), there’s a character called E. Honda. A cornerstone of his play is a move where he launches himself forward like a rocket. While doing this move you can’t hurt him by hitting him in the head, you have to hit his torso. Hitting his head will hurt you, though, so if you try to punch or kick him out of it, there’s two basic possibilities: either you hit each other, or you don’t hit E. Honda (you only clipped his head) but he hits you. The “fat man rocket” is a really good move because it beats or trades with everything, right?

Haha, wrong. A lot of characters in Super Turbo have fireballs – projectiles of some sort that they throw in front of themselves. Your fireball is not part of your person, so if it gets punched you don’t get hurt, but the opponent does because seriously, who would try to punch a fireball? If E. Honda fat man rockets and you throw a fireball at him, the fireball will hit him and stop him before he hits you. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with one player’s option beating another player’s option – basically everything in any game can get beaten by something else – but this is the cornerstone of E. Honda’s plan. It’s like, the most important thing he can do. Half the cast can throw fireballs at him – he has a lot of 3-7 matchups against these characters. The other half of the characters cannot throw fireballs at him, and he has a lot of 7-3 matchups against them. If E. Honda is fighting himself, it’s a 5-5 matchup. Now, is this fair? If half the cast is heavily advantaged against him, and he’s heavily advantaged against the other half, then it all averages out and he’s basically even and fair, right?

 No, he’s not. When he’s fighting a character without a fireball (advantaged for Honda), it’s not magically fair just because there are other characters advantaged against Honda. That doesn’t change the game being played this instant.

A few years back, a friend of mine made a particular Magic: the Gathering deck (Magic for shorthand). It focused on spewing out large numbers of very powerful goblins, completely overwhelming the other player. This deck crushed the other decks our group played effortlessly, and was no doubt the best deck any of us had.

To hell with all of that, I said, I will play a deck he cannot beat. I played cards that destroyed every goblin in play, leaving my own creatures intact, I only played creatures that goblins literally could not hurt, and cards that would be able to stop him from doing anything at all, after I’d nullified any threat he posed. I played a lot of matches against the goblin deck, and the goblin deck never won. It never even got close. I played matches against other decks, too – the anti goblin deck never won, because everything it did focused on stopping one specific strategy. Don’t play that strategy? You’re welcome for the free win. My deck’s matchups were all 10-0 or 0-10; there wasn’t any point to playing, because no amount of player skill could bridge that gap.

At the end of the day, even though my deck beat the strongest deck in the group, it was still the weakest by far. It sacrificed so much efficacy to beat the strongest deck that it was completely worthless everywhere else. It wasn’t fun to play as or against, and it was really unfair. E. Honda’s matchups aren’t all or nothing – 7-3 matchups are definitely winnable, they’re just really tough. In an asymmetrical game, you’re never going to get a true 5-5 matchup, but as a designer, you should really strive for every matchup to be as close as possible.

I’ve got other related topics I could talk about, but I think those deserve their own article – covering them here would drift too much from the original idea. Until next time, may you enjoy fairness.

-Jacob

Choose Your Own Misadventure

Thanks for the wait!  I heard about some software (Twine) a while back that's great for interactive fiction, and I've wanted to get back to this Choose Your Own Misadventure (another similar name might be copyrighted...), so I decided to download Twine and mess around with it.  

It's crazy easy.  I haven't done anything fancy with it, but the basic stuff is so straightforward that anyone can do it.  If you've ever thought about making your own interactive story (you can use pictures and make a slideshow with it, too, I randomly mentioned!), then definitely give it a try.  

In the meantime, copy and paste the address below and start making decisions!

http://paxelk.squarespace.com/storage/Choose%20Your%20Own%20Death%20prototype.html

(I know, copy + paste?  Not a simple click?  I haven't figured that out yet... but the entire STORY is all clickable and awesome, so rock that shit out, playa!)  

Slippin' down a slope into the jaws of defeat, and why that's maybe not fun.

Everyone loves an underdog.  We love when a player or team is able to come from behind and beat the odds.  

While "beating the odds" infers they're already stacked against you, there are times when they're insurmountably towering against you... and growing.  This occurs in games that suffer from too much "slippery slope", which means that when a player or team starts to win a game, the advantage they receive through good play makes it easier and easier to win the game.  Players like being rewarded for good play--it's only natural to want recognition for doing well--but this is about how the advantage awarded for playing well can be too great, which also means the losing team is more and more likely to lose.  With every minute, they're becoming undererdogs.  

Nope, don't regret that joke at all.  

Slippery slope occurs pretty often in games.  In chess, when you put your opponent's king in check by capturing his bishop, you've placed the player on the edge of losing the game and eliminated all of the plays the opponent could have made with that bishop.  Because players both attack and defend with their pieces in chess, losing a piece affects their ability to win--or keep from losing.  When good play allows you to punish the opponent too much, a game suffers from slippery slope.  Of course, good play should lead to players being more likely to win, but games do not have to reward players for good play.  They can simply win by virtue of their good play, as with Scabble.  

Scrabble does not have slippery slope.  Throughout the game, both players always draw up to a complete rack of 7 tiles (no matter how many they used this turn), and their current scores do not give them any advantage or disadvantage.  Each word played is its own moment in the game, and does not build any momentum for the player that plays it (outside of psychological advantage, perhaps).  This is largely due to the lack of interaction between the two players--playing a word does change the board state, meaning the other player gains or loses a few words he could play--but you could play Scrabble by yourself if you wanted to.  It's just a game about making the word that earns you the most points.  You can do that alone, forever, and it could still be interesting.  

But try playing chess against yourself.  

What happens?  You'll try to play both sides to the best of your ability... until one of two things happen: you either choose a sub-optimal move for the black pieces because you subconsciously favor the white pieces (racist!), or you'll get bored.  No, it's not because racism keeps things interesting--it's because chess is a game full of interaction.  Players are constantly vying for control of the board.  You're trying to use your pieces to outmaneuver my brain.  

Which is great!  Interaction is fantastic for competitive games, because we like to beat other humans.  That back-and-forth is a culmination of strategy and skill and insight into the other player's mind.  

However, if your game has a lot of player interaction and it frequently rewards players for playing well, your game is at a higher risk of undering the undererdogs.  

(Last time for that joke, I swear.)

I've been a bit vague about what sort of player rewards could lead to slippery slope, so let's delve into that a bit.  I've been playing a lot of League of Legends, which definitely suffers from slippery slope.  League is a MOBA (or DOTA, or other horrible acronym)--basically, it's a game in which you control a single champion and attempt to control territory until you're able to destroy your opponent's base.  Killing minions and opposing champions rewards the player with experience points and gold--get enough experience, you'll gain a level and unlock new skills (or make those skills more powerful); get enough gold, you can buy powerful items to make your champion deal more damage or become more impervious to attacks.  Both of those reward systems are fun--it's great to have your champion become tougher and more versatile as she levels up, and players can add points to skills in virtually any order, meaning they can add points to whatever skill they most need given the current game state.  Purchasing items is even more dynamic--a whole plethora of items are available, all enhancing different stats or giving champions brand-new skills they can use in a pinch.  

Did you catch the problem, though?  Players receive gold and experience for killing opposing champions.  

Oh, and whenever a champion dies, he takes some time to respawn--over a minute when he's at level 18.  

If player A kills player B, player A gains gold and experience, and player B loses opportunities to gain gold and experience (because he's busy resurrecting himself).  Player A is rewarded PLUS player B is punished.  The game is definitely tipping in player A's favor, and that will only increase as player A is able to push his advantage.  

Now, League isn't oblivious to the slippery slope--a champion is worth increasingly less gold every time he's killed.  Additionally, a champion that has gone on a killing streak rewards anyone able to bring him down with a significant increase in gold--baseline gold reward for champions is 300, and players receive up to 500 gold for killing a champion on a killing streak.  That's a sizable swing for the player who had been losing, which gives them a way to catch up.  

Unfortunately, they have to risk dying AGAIN and putting that champion even further ahead if they lose again in this losing battle.  And to make a champion worth 500 gold, they need to have killed four champions already--which means they've received between 504 and 1200 gold for those kills.  They still have a decided advantage, and that's only if they've only killed four champions before having their kill streak ended.  

League could do a couple things to tilt the slippery slope back to a more reasonable slant.  It could provide more options for players who are losing to gain some gold and experience in a less dangerous way--for example, there could be more AI-controlled monsters on the map that a player could safely tackle, giving them a slight hope in coming back from a disadvantage.  However, this keeps players from interacting as much (because anyone who's losing would always avoid the winning champion), and that's not much fun for a competitive multiplayer game.  Another, probably better solution is also pretty straightforward--simply reward players less for killing opposing champions.  That would decrease the gold disparity between players and help even out the odds for player B.  

But, but... player A isn't getting rewarded for his good play!  

Mmm, he is--remember how champions take time to respawn?  Those 30, 45, 60 seconds is time that the player isn't getting any gold or experience points.  That punishment for player B is essentially a reward for player B.  Additionally, as League is a team game, whenever a champion is dead, it's harder for the team to do anything safely, potentially giving player A's team a good chunk of time to push their advantage by taking some territory.  Conceding that territory is punishment enough for dying without also letting your opponent buy a bunch of sweet loot and bling out your grave over and over again.  

No, that's not a terrible metaphor.  

But yes, that's about the end of this article.  I thought about writing about competitive multiplayer games without so much slippery slope (like many first-person shooters or fighting games),but maybe I'll leave that for you to ponder over.  

Yep.  No maybe about it--definitely leaving that to you guys.  

--Peter