Accessibility and/or Depth ?
samurai_jeff
Join Date: 2004-11-18 Member: 32853Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2004-11-18 Member: 32853Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Before i say anything i'd like to point out that i'm merely raising an opinion and if you'd like to flame me and tell me i'm wrong in more ways than one then go ahead. i don't care, i'm not looking to create some sort of revolution or band wagon for people to jump on/burn.
Also know that i've been following development on this game very closely so don't think i'm 'out of the loop' or have a skewed perspective. I'm posting this because i don't think this opinion has been thought through much.. ANYWAY..
I think all this talk of making new games accessible to new players / 'easy to learn, difficult to master' / 'n00b friendly' is the wrong way to go about it.. EXAMPLE: TF2
DON'T GET ME WRONG, I love TF2. But as someone has recently posted, the techtree is flat, everything is accessible from the moment you buy/install/boot up the game (of course not taking into account the class unlocks) but i mustn't be the only person thinking to themselves "are these new class unlocks the only reason i'm still playing?" ..
Yes, i know, TF2 is a completely different game to NS- i'm not trying to make a comparison- i'm just offering an example to get my point across.. The game is accessible and easy to pickup- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.. but its not the only thing to think about, and certainly not the most important.
I, for one, found NS1 so ridiculously hard to wrap my head around when i first played it. i had no clue what i was doing. i even remember joining my first game wandering around the map as a skulk (whatever that was o_O) and getting shot and knifed by people i couldn't find. And this continued for a long time until i started to slowly familiarise myself with maps, where i was most likely to encounter enemies, etc.
These days you hear something like this and you say "LOZL WHAT KIND OF GAME IS THAT ?! OBVIOUSLY THE DESIGN BEHIND IT WAS PRETTY POOR. THAT POOR NEWBIE. OZLZ"
I now state that NS has to be the only FPS i have ever played that has kept me enthralled for, what, 5 - 6 years ? The only reason i don't play now is because the only servers even close to my region are custom servers, and i don't consider custom-ns NS.
I can now bunnyhop (sure maybe not extremely well- AND only after about 3 years of playing not knowing WHAT ON EARTH bunnyhopping was), i have a pretty good grasp on almost every element in the game from the physics of the engine, range of melee, hitboxes, hit rego.. all that stuff- "hidden modifiers" if you will..
I'm not trying to boast or inflate some online ego.. what i'm saying is that up until NS i never cared for these 'unseen' things, these tiny attributes of the game that made it work.. The thing that made me hungry for more was a complete lack of understanding to begin with.
After spending so much time delving into the depths, learning, and understanding i can now play the game to what <b>i percieve</b> as its fullest, with huge amounts of replayability because there are still things i have yet to master.
Again, i am not trying to offend anyone, i'm not trying to persuade Charlie and Max to completely rethink their design strategy or anything like that.. flip i have defended these geniuses to friends who were skeptical about the development of NS2 and Max's own engine.. I'm stating that NS1 made me work for the reward, and with things like bunnyhop, air controlled-chained blink hops (you get where i'm going with this ?) the reward is more present the more you work.
This post was intended merely to give you all something to think about.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Also know that i've been following development on this game very closely so don't think i'm 'out of the loop' or have a skewed perspective. I'm posting this because i don't think this opinion has been thought through much.. ANYWAY..
I think all this talk of making new games accessible to new players / 'easy to learn, difficult to master' / 'n00b friendly' is the wrong way to go about it.. EXAMPLE: TF2
DON'T GET ME WRONG, I love TF2. But as someone has recently posted, the techtree is flat, everything is accessible from the moment you buy/install/boot up the game (of course not taking into account the class unlocks) but i mustn't be the only person thinking to themselves "are these new class unlocks the only reason i'm still playing?" ..
Yes, i know, TF2 is a completely different game to NS- i'm not trying to make a comparison- i'm just offering an example to get my point across.. The game is accessible and easy to pickup- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.. but its not the only thing to think about, and certainly not the most important.
I, for one, found NS1 so ridiculously hard to wrap my head around when i first played it. i had no clue what i was doing. i even remember joining my first game wandering around the map as a skulk (whatever that was o_O) and getting shot and knifed by people i couldn't find. And this continued for a long time until i started to slowly familiarise myself with maps, where i was most likely to encounter enemies, etc.
These days you hear something like this and you say "LOZL WHAT KIND OF GAME IS THAT ?! OBVIOUSLY THE DESIGN BEHIND IT WAS PRETTY POOR. THAT POOR NEWBIE. OZLZ"
I now state that NS has to be the only FPS i have ever played that has kept me enthralled for, what, 5 - 6 years ? The only reason i don't play now is because the only servers even close to my region are custom servers, and i don't consider custom-ns NS.
I can now bunnyhop (sure maybe not extremely well- AND only after about 3 years of playing not knowing WHAT ON EARTH bunnyhopping was), i have a pretty good grasp on almost every element in the game from the physics of the engine, range of melee, hitboxes, hit rego.. all that stuff- "hidden modifiers" if you will..
I'm not trying to boast or inflate some online ego.. what i'm saying is that up until NS i never cared for these 'unseen' things, these tiny attributes of the game that made it work.. The thing that made me hungry for more was a complete lack of understanding to begin with.
After spending so much time delving into the depths, learning, and understanding i can now play the game to what <b>i percieve</b> as its fullest, with huge amounts of replayability because there are still things i have yet to master.
Again, i am not trying to offend anyone, i'm not trying to persuade Charlie and Max to completely rethink their design strategy or anything like that.. flip i have defended these geniuses to friends who were skeptical about the development of NS2 and Max's own engine.. I'm stating that NS1 made me work for the reward, and with things like bunnyhop, air controlled-chained blink hops (you get where i'm going with this ?) the reward is more present the more you work.
This post was intended merely to give you all something to think about.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Comments
QFT.
Not easier.
Not simpler.
Not newbie-friendly
Not necessarily even more intuitive (which is a word that's been ######ized by these forums to mean "simple and skilless").
Just having the basics of the game laid out in a more concise way than "press this button to weld" leaving the newbie educated about minor elements of the game while unable to grasp the major objectives in a pub environment where people don't explain things clealry until he drops dc and they all rage at him.
Not easier.
Not simpler.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed.
<!--quoteo(post=1700980:date=Feb 20 2009, 11:38 AM:name=Radix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Radix @ Feb 20 2009, 11:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700980"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not newbie-friendly
Not necessarily even more intuitive (which is a word that's been ######ized by these forums to mean "simple and skilless").<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Disagree. Being intuitive and newbie friendly is exactly what NS2 needs.
Intuitive does not mean "simple and skilless" by any stretch of the imagination. Aiming is an intuitive thing to do, but it's still hard and requires skill at higher levels. Aiming at a straight-lining skulk, easy ; aiming at a bhopping/wall hopping/zig zagging skulk; not "simple and skill-less".
<!--quoteo(post=1700980:date=Feb 20 2009, 11:38 AM:name=Radix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Radix @ Feb 20 2009, 11:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700980"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just having the basics of the game laid out in a more concise way than "press this button to weld" leaving the newbie educated about minor elements of the game while unable to grasp the major objectives in a pub environment where people don't explain things clealry until he drops dc and they all rage at him.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Players don't want to go read a wiki to figure out how to play or read pages of tool tips every time they drop a chamber or go through a boring tutorial. I think a wiki will and should be available, but you can't rely on that to teach a player who jumps in the game for the first time.
As a solution I think acheivements could be a good way to teach subtleties of the game on the fly. Since acheivements can be broken up into categories there could be "newbie acheivements" section that serves as the goals for a new player in the absence of a knowledgeable comm. Some examples:<ul>Marine:</li><li> Get to a resnode and build it within the first minute of the game</li><li> Base Monkey - Build an armory, ip, and other T1 structure in the first 90 seconds of the game</li><li> In The Money - Cap X res nodes</li><li> First Blood - Kill a skulk</li><li> First Blood Part II - Destroy a Kharaa structure</li><li> It's the economy stupid! - build X nodes and destory X nodes
Kharaa:</li><li> Get to a resnode and build it within the first minute of the game</li><li> First Blood - Kill a rine</li><li> First Blood Part II - Destroy a rine structure</li><li> Base Monkey - Build 3 upgrade chambers of the same type in one game</li><li> Bad Sushi - X marines parasited</li><li> Death From Above - Fall from at least X feet onto Y marines(as skulk)</li><li> Silent But Deadly - cover X teammates in umbra</li><li> It's the economy stupid! - build X nodes and destory X nodes</li></ul>etc...
As far as making it newbie-friendly, a game that is well designed is newbie-friendly enough. You don't need to cater to people who should be expected to make reasonable simple logical jumps based on gameplay mechanics that are obvious enough to learn.
Yeah, it seems like i'm trying to cover my tracks, but from experience miss communication and misunderstanding is a huge issue in these forums so i just wanted to make sure people understood what i was trying to say.
<!--quoteo(post=1700953:date=Feb 20 2009, 07:57 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Align @ Feb 20 2009, 07:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700953"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->TF2 isn't hard to master, just easy to learn.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's kind of the angle i was going for.. and because it's relatively straight forward it doesn't hold you captive as long.
As for NS2, I think the best way to lessen the learning curve yet keep depth I think would be to have tutorials for each skill.
I think TF2 is a good point of discussion since most people seem to agree it swung too far in one direction.
TF2 is not built for competitive play, it was built for casual play. This is a core philosophy of the game even if it is not stated. You can see this through many design decisions in the game: removal of skill moves, crits and random damage, very straightforward maps, nerfing of movement skills.
These are all things that improve casual play, but diminish competitive play. They took away grenades because casual servers became spam fests, even though it removed the main movement technique of some classes. They added crits and random damage to force ends to stalemates(it's a quicker solution than resources), even though it caused random advantages/disadvantages in competitive games. Because some classes had their grenades and movement skill lost, Valve had to compensate by nerfing the movement of other classes to prevent those classes being underpowered. The same thing happened to skill moves, the sniper being the most notable example in that case. Finally, since there is very little movement skill to the maps, any interesting engineer spots had to be removed to maintain balance.
TF2 is a fun casual game. It's great to play for a few hours. But it's easy to see how the competitive scene has suffered due to the Valve devs taking the "easy way" of removing without adding.
NS2 has some things going for it that would make sacrificing competitive play to the level of TF2 much harder.<ul><li> Resources shift momentum instead of crits or random dmg</li><li> Kharaa have inherent movement skills (leap, blink, flight, wall vault, wall walk) that require the use of all map geometry</li><li> Inherent movement skills also allow for more avenues of attack(you almost never have to look up anywhere in TF2, no overhangs, ledges, or vents and few ramps)</li><li> Multiple points of contention on a map instead of stalemate chokepoints(RTs, hives, MS, DI, Metal)</li><li> Aiming requires more tracking and "lucky shots" have less of an impact</li></ul>
The one way NS2 could be as bad as TF2 for the competitive community is removal of all current movement skill moves(bhop, jetpack, blink, lerk flight, leap) without replacing them with other skill moves than can be practiced as intensely AND affect each other in combat.
Isn't that exactly what NS1 was ? Wasn't it also steams most played game under CS, TFC, and DOD ?
<!--quoteo(post=1701091:date=Feb 21 2009, 11:56 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Harimau @ Feb 21 2009, 11:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701091"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->captivated?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I meant "hold your attention captive" .. but the idea is the same..
Surely you can add something to this discussion rather than pick holes in my grammar -_- ?
A fade without upgrade chambers against a marine...
the Marine should start with 10 extra armor, and a shotgun
then the rest comes down to the spacing of the map at which the two meet
Surely you can add something to this discussion rather than pick holes in my grammar -_- ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lies and slander.
Anyways, For the most part I agree with the stuff mentioned. We want accessibility of a well designed game, but we want the depth of a high-class competitive game. The great thing is you can probably get both.
I now present the example of trying to be deep but failing the accessibility game: Empires. It's very rich in tactical and strategic diversity, great ideas going in, and while the dev team can sometimes be a little nuts on the balance it's not bad. Unfortunately, every time I try to introduce new players they get stuck on the horrendous GUI and tons of hotkeys you need to know to bring up all the menus and then know how to get to the submenus.... you get the idea.
Contrast that to say DoW. In a casual match, you can dork around and pick it up fairly quickly. Sure there's some insane higher level play, but it's very simple (some would say too simple) and yet has great depth. The cover system and choices between races and upgrades makes for a diverse game. Granted it's also flawed, and I know many people who hate the emphasis on micro and very little macro, but oh well.
And TF2, well, that's been talked to death.
I'm pretty sure the NS2 devs have been doing their research on what works and what doesn't. In the end, it's not really a compromise as much as a clean execution of both elements. Let's hope they can pull it off.
Still, I've never heard that idiom used before, or any similar idiom used in that way. It still doesn't quite make sense to me actually, although I know what you're trying to say. I would have said 'keep you captivated', or 'hold your attention', but not tried to combine both.
<!--quoteo(post=1701315:date=Feb 25 2009, 10:10 AM:name=samurai_jeff)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(samurai_jeff @ Feb 25 2009, 10:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701315"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Surely you can add something to this discussion rather than pick holes in my grammar -_- ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nope. I'm thoroughly in the 'don't care, ###### off' camp.