Keep it simple...
internetexplorer
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Please!</div>There's a tendency in new games to overcomplicate things by adding far too many ideas. This problem is made worse by "listening to community feedback" - if you put enough stock in what your players say, and you make it clear to them, they will get delusions of grandeur and think they're professional game designers. Of course, they're not, and you have to realize that they're fundamentally just <i>players</i>. They have biases that you as a game designer do not - their ideas are often based on isolated experiences, perceived imbalances and so on. If you make the game good enough, they'll like it - whether or not it acknowledges the ideas they posted and explored.
A game with too many ideas will never be balanced. It will never perform well. It will not be possible for players to pick it up quickly, and the dedicated players who put in the time to learn everything will kill your community by being rude and entitled about <i>everything</i>.
I want to suggest to the developers at UWE that they take some time to deconstruct this game (in a philosophical sense). Start with a clean slate, and start listing the most fundamental NS mechanics on it. Like this:
<ul><li>FPS</li><li>RTS</li><li>Aliens</li><li>Marines</li><li>Guns</li><li>Teeth and claws</li><li>Resources</li><li>etc etc etc</li></ul>
Take a day or two and evaluate the state of the game from the bottom up (rather than from the top down). Eventually, you will get to ideas that are more complex (like clogs, the rules for bile bomb and so on). All of these ideas should:
<ul><li>Solve a problem created in the design by the simpler, more fundamental ideas</li><li>Be easy for players to understand</li><li>Be able to "grow" with players as they develop the related skills</li><li>Create interactions between players</li></ul>
Of course, I realize the irony in posting this and expecting someone to take it seriously. I also realize that this is something that is <i>already done</i>. I just don't think it's being done enough. Builds 205 and 206 both introduced too many ideas that are not fundamental, without clearly indicating the problems they solve, some not scaling with player skill and so on. The more messy the design of this game gets, the more likely it is that some issues will never be resolved.
There are some experiments you can try, too:
<ul><li>Try a 'minimal feature set' - take out all gorge buildings, all hive 2+ abilities, all robotics/advanced armory/proto lab tech, and just play the game. How are the simple traditional elements of NS working? The majority of what people see in this game will be rifle marines fighting skulks, and if that part of the game is riddled with problems you are building on a poor foundation.</li><li>Try a feature set where the full alien tech tree is unlocked, and the marines have nothing but LMGs and arms lab upgrades. How far can marines go like this? Gradually add in the other marines mechanics <b>as needed</b>, and see which ones actually interact with the aliens in a way that is good for gameplay. </li><li>Do the reverse - full marine tech, aliens are limited to skulks/gorges or something like that. See which of the less fundamental aliens mechanics interact well with the game at large.</li><li>In all this, avoid adding 'stop gap' mechanics - any high-level mechanic that has been made to interact with several others for 'balance' purposes should be set aside</li><li>Also try to avoid mechanics that do the same thing. Things like MACs and welders should be separate - the tradeoffs between them might be obvious and feel 'balanced', but that doesn't justify having both in the game. I've never seen a public build with welders but no MACs - trying things like that can help you to remove some of the bulk in this game that makes it difficult to maintain.</li><li>Feel free to remove features that are not good for gameplay. Do not spend a great deal of time revising an idea that, at its core, does not fit this game.</li></ul>
Personally, I would love to see this done in the public builds. Perhaps someone could package LUA mods with a public release, and host "marine tech" servers, or "no tech" servers. I believe this would generate a great deal of useful feedback, so that you could proceed into designing the flashy, novel, high-tech parts of the game in a way that contributes positively to the game as one whole product.
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Thanks for reading!<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
A game with too many ideas will never be balanced. It will never perform well. It will not be possible for players to pick it up quickly, and the dedicated players who put in the time to learn everything will kill your community by being rude and entitled about <i>everything</i>.
I want to suggest to the developers at UWE that they take some time to deconstruct this game (in a philosophical sense). Start with a clean slate, and start listing the most fundamental NS mechanics on it. Like this:
<ul><li>FPS</li><li>RTS</li><li>Aliens</li><li>Marines</li><li>Guns</li><li>Teeth and claws</li><li>Resources</li><li>etc etc etc</li></ul>
Take a day or two and evaluate the state of the game from the bottom up (rather than from the top down). Eventually, you will get to ideas that are more complex (like clogs, the rules for bile bomb and so on). All of these ideas should:
<ul><li>Solve a problem created in the design by the simpler, more fundamental ideas</li><li>Be easy for players to understand</li><li>Be able to "grow" with players as they develop the related skills</li><li>Create interactions between players</li></ul>
Of course, I realize the irony in posting this and expecting someone to take it seriously. I also realize that this is something that is <i>already done</i>. I just don't think it's being done enough. Builds 205 and 206 both introduced too many ideas that are not fundamental, without clearly indicating the problems they solve, some not scaling with player skill and so on. The more messy the design of this game gets, the more likely it is that some issues will never be resolved.
There are some experiments you can try, too:
<ul><li>Try a 'minimal feature set' - take out all gorge buildings, all hive 2+ abilities, all robotics/advanced armory/proto lab tech, and just play the game. How are the simple traditional elements of NS working? The majority of what people see in this game will be rifle marines fighting skulks, and if that part of the game is riddled with problems you are building on a poor foundation.</li><li>Try a feature set where the full alien tech tree is unlocked, and the marines have nothing but LMGs and arms lab upgrades. How far can marines go like this? Gradually add in the other marines mechanics <b>as needed</b>, and see which ones actually interact with the aliens in a way that is good for gameplay. </li><li>Do the reverse - full marine tech, aliens are limited to skulks/gorges or something like that. See which of the less fundamental aliens mechanics interact well with the game at large.</li><li>In all this, avoid adding 'stop gap' mechanics - any high-level mechanic that has been made to interact with several others for 'balance' purposes should be set aside</li><li>Also try to avoid mechanics that do the same thing. Things like MACs and welders should be separate - the tradeoffs between them might be obvious and feel 'balanced', but that doesn't justify having both in the game. I've never seen a public build with welders but no MACs - trying things like that can help you to remove some of the bulk in this game that makes it difficult to maintain.</li><li>Feel free to remove features that are not good for gameplay. Do not spend a great deal of time revising an idea that, at its core, does not fit this game.</li></ul>
Personally, I would love to see this done in the public builds. Perhaps someone could package LUA mods with a public release, and host "marine tech" servers, or "no tech" servers. I believe this would generate a great deal of useful feedback, so that you could proceed into designing the flashy, novel, high-tech parts of the game in a way that contributes positively to the game as one whole product.
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Thanks for reading!<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Comments
As for taking out all features, this beta was released with skulks and rifles (in fact, rifles and wooden targets). This has been tested and is now old information. We have moved on ....
Flayra has removed drifter's building ability, which I think follows your reasoning, and then again the drifters are kept in the game for 'scouting' purposes which they don't do well, and is already done by at least 3 or 4 other features in the game (parasite, hive sight, infestation, commander's cursor, minimap).
I think other things could be made more minimalistic. Do we really need shells, veils and spurs? Why not just get upgrades from the main structures?
How about the proto lab? Couldn't an armoury do the same thing?
Skulk movement has changed considerably and continues to change so that early testing didn't produce final results.
<!--quoteo(post=1930493:date=Apr 26 2012, 08:14 PM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ Apr 26 2012, 08:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1930493"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Skulk movement has changed considerably and continues to change so that early testing didn't produce final results.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For my own examples:
<ul><li>the clog ability - what does it do for the game other than "be fun" sometimes? what necessitates it? does it solve more problems than it creates?</li><li>flamethrowers and energy drain - why? there's already a way to drain alien energy - have them do something and render it ineffective by dodging, mitigating damage, planning, base layout etc (the core skills of the game)</li><li>ARCs as opposed to siege turrets - what design problem do they solve? how could they solve it without being explicitly more powerful than siege turrets (but not boring)?</li><li>walljumping as opposed to traditional bhop - every time this topic comes up, people give a really intellectually dishonest answer of "bhop isn't going to be in the game so don't bother asking", but I'm still genuinely curious how it's a better fit to the fundamentals of the game. People have repeatedly pointed out that it's a more complicated way of achieving the same thing. The consequence is that it becomes harder to scale with player skill, balance against other mechanics and so on.</li><li>grenade launcher as rifle secondary, as opposed to its own gun - versatility is power, especially when the LMG is the bread and butter gun of the marines. In NS1, the grenade launcher ONLY shoots grenades, so the strengths and weaknesses of it are much more obvious, much easier to balance, much easier to show visually (how do aliens know someone has a GL before they fire it? it's hard to see)</li><li>bellyslide - april fools joke turned good mechanic turned useless mechanic. why bother spending all the time on that if it's going to suck and not even be used by most players? does the gorge even need a movement mechanic? is it a good idea to explicitly link it with infestation, another mechanic that is always undergoing fundamental changes (and has never been seen in its 'final form')?</li><li>the shift/movement chamber is more fundamental to NS gameplay than bile bomb, onos stuns and all the other stuff being focused on. Leaving it out is having tons of undesirable effects on the design of the game (tweaking speed and movement abilities only to tweak them again, if not completely re-implement them)</li><li>the same can be said of the exosuit/minigun, but that's much less of a problem because it doesn't 'appear' in the early game the way the Shift will</li></ul>
[*]ARCs as opposed to siege turrets - what design problem do they solve? how could they solve it without being explicitly more powerful than siege turrets (but not boring)?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Completely disagree about ARCs. The 'problem' was that the commander couldn't control any units in their 'RTS' and was basically a baby sitter / researcher. At least the ARC provides some more depth and increases the skill cap for commanders (ie; being able to micro it while still completing your other duties).
It increases the amount of stuff you can do, but it doesn't necessarily increase the skill cap. This is because 'moving siege turrets' are explicitly more powerful than 'static siege turrets' at basically all levels of play. I'm curious about why the siege turret needed more ideas strapped on to it, when it was doing fine in NS1. Adding mechanics for the sake of adding mechanics is not a good idea.
As for the 'problem' I don't think that's very well formulated. How does the commander *NOT* control lots of units (the players)? The fact that they can't micro siege turrets doesn't mean they don't control anything. In fact, they have to control/support their players in order to effectively use siege turrets (just like with ARCs). ARCs never have to be built in dangerous territory, and they can be re-used without recycling and waiting for new ones to be built. On top of that, their damage is way too high, and it's embarassingly obvious that no one has really tested to see how they fit into NS2 at large. This is probably why they're the go-to option for when your team can't win through more fundamental means (like "shooting aliens with guns"), rather than an expensive high-tech niche option for winning in specific circumstances.
It provides depth in terms of the complexity of the game *without players in it*, but as soon as you add players and start using ARCs for real, they're just much easier to be effective with because of their mobility. It's harder for alien players to interact with your turrets and counteract them, because they're not built on-site, and they can leave any time they like. What appeared as added depth becomes, practically speaking, the removal of depth. The grenade launcher is the exact same idea - it seems more complex/deeper/more difficult to analyze because it's a machinegun AND a grenade launcher...but when you boil this game down to "what players actually do", it's just a more powerful version of the grenade launcher in NS1. Because versatility is power.
Do it up man
You'll end up with a PhD in forumology by the time you come down
Personally I dislike this approach. In most complex strategy games, different teams are better than others at different times. It adds additional depth to strategic play. In my opinion, aliens should not be as powerful as marines at the start of the game. In the "simplistic" game model, the marines should completely dominate. A few minutes later, the aliens should become stronger, and begin to fight the marines back. Then the marines should get new tech, and so the balance continually shifts.
One important thing we can draw from your post is that NS2 is an extremely complex, interconnected system. The concept is fundamentally complex and difficult to grapple with, in ways that deathmatches / CTFs / conquests (E.g COD, BF) are not. Ideally, we have to create deep gameplay with simple mechanics. The most horrible situation we could end up in is linear gameplay and complex mechanics.
But with clever posts like this being made in our forums, I'm sure that won't happen!
The idea to make it simple (not the game at all) is the right way. NS is fun, the community is so amazing, so many guys here with all the crazy ideas. Let NS the fun so make it simple but with a deep gameplay.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding that adding more features will increase complexity and depth, when in many cases it actually limits gameplay (case and point; power nodes and arcs).
One common problem, at least to an outside observer like me, with the development process thus far, has been that all the consequences of <x> new feature added to the game haven't been fully considered.
For example:
(1) Stated goal: Make sides more symmetric, decrease reliance of field players on commander, avoid players raging at other players for doing the wrong things as gorge.
(2) Change: Add alien commander.
(3) Change/non-change: Separate tres and pres, keep resource system otherwise unchanged from ns1.
(4) Change: Marines buy their own equipment.
(5) Unrelated stated goal: More emphasis (than ns1) on basic skulk vs. marine (machine gun) gameplay.
Now, changes (2)-(4) do a good job of addressing stated goal (1). However, they have the unfortunate side effect of wrecking havoc on unrelated stated goal (5). What changes (2)-(4) actually lead to is a lot more guns and advanced life forms in the field at any time, which of course results in less emphasis on basic skulk vs. marine gameplay.
So why is this such a big problem? Because unrelated stated goal (5) is actually more important for enjoyment of the game than stated goal (1). One of the most common comments from ns1 players when asked what they enjoyed the most while playing the game is "basic skulk vs. marine", and I personally find that to be true as well.
That's not to say that you can't accomplish both stated goal (1) and (5), it's perfectly possible. But in order to do that, you need to take all the consequences of changes (2)-(4) into account and make proper adjustments so they don't also cause unwanted consequences to (5). So, if you fundamentally change the alien side by adding a commander, you also have to fundamentally change how aliens acquire and spend their resources.
This also ties into what the OP was talking about; getting the basics right. When basic skulk vs. marine gameplay is so central to player enjoyment of the game, there needs to be an equal emphasis on getting that part of the gameplay right.
Powernodes severly limit the viability of many marine strategies (forward bases, fast pg pushes) and force marines to follow a certain procedure every time they want to establish a foward base. When there is a weak spot, you don't actually have any choice but to strengthen it, so you end up with either using (1) Turrets, (2) Mines or (3) Players to guard the weak point. It isn't actually a strategic choice, it is a necessity.
Power nodes are an especially useless mechanic because it doesn't even accomplish what it's supposed to do -- act as a weak point. Case and point; how come marine turtling is an even bigger problem in the ns2 beta than it ever was in ns1? Because power nodes actually serve as an incentive for turtling, not the other way around.
It becomes even more puzzling when you try to understand why there was a perceived need for a weak point in the first place. Baserushing was already an extremely potent counter to excessively aggressive marine play in ns1, so what exactly has changed in ns2 to necessitate making it even more powerful?
ie, the GENERAL things you say (not all of them) I'd say are quite sound.
but then you mix in your own personal views and ideas on specifics which I for one, mostly disagree with!
but that's just it - it's my also my personal view.
you're so right about your hypocrisy here, first you encourage the devs not to listen to specifics from fans, then you say some pretty good things!
and THEN, you start talking about your own views...
I could dispute your opinions you wrote about here with my own, but how will that make me look? so I'm not gonna
What I'd like to say though is that simplicity is not a single cure-all thing. There are different kinds of simplicity!
There's the horrible HORRIBLE console kind of simplicity; that is basically dumbing everything down making it "smooth" to reduce skill requirement. This is done to maximize the appeal to the broad "casual" masses and in turn make more money. I's like graphics cards: there's the expensive top card, few buy it AND it's a small part of the chip-makers income, then there's the magical midrange with maximum "bang for the buck" where the biggest income comes from. Console games are midrange. NS1 is that absolute top card with dual GPU:s, overclocked!
But NS1 is at the same time quite simple, there's nothing complicated about it if you look at it's CONSTRUCTION. Marines play like any other RTS and FPS. Very tried and true concepts. Shoot stuff, get res, tech up. Aliens are ofc a bit more unusual, but then again, several classes, each does it's own things. Again, kill stuff (in different ways though), get res, get hives in order to tech up.
The complexity comes in when you put all these simple things together, have it very well balanced, and add the ingenuity of human players.
But NS2 needs to be a NEW game so there has to be (some) new building blocks, just make these building blocks not overly complicated with artificial limitations, and make sure their properties are balanced in respect to the WHOLE system.
One aspect of complexity come from the tech tree, given a tech tree you can compute the number of different build orders. This number typically grows very fast when the tech tree becomes bigger, so adding a few elements to the game can hugely change the number of possible build orders. For example adding a fourth chamber to the aliens.
<img src="http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/images/tree_graph.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Now we could call this is the theoretical build orders depth, but of course what matter in the end is the practical build orders depth, and it's where balance comes in; most build orders should be equally successful. If just one build order is super good all the potential complexity is lost.
Currently I think the game is a bit low in term of theoretical complexity (as discussed here), specially on the alien side.
Discussions like this are why I still think that NS2 should have had seperate Classic and Combat modes to begin with.
Instead of one mode that is struggling to (and maybe never will) make everyone happy.
Power plants in the CC series serve a similar purpose as supply depots/overlords/pylons in Starcraft and "upkeep" systems in other RTS games. The point is to penalize "collecting" units (ie. turtling). I wouldn't be opposed to introducing something like that into NS2, basically further penalizing comms who treat each round as minecraft with better graphics.
1) It would actually incentivize turtling (as opposed to the purpose of the power system from the CC series from which you got the idea).
2) In effect it would just be another set of resource towers, just using a different name for the towers (power node) and resources (energy), and adding needless complexity to the game.
"too many features spoils the broth"
"two features good, four features bad"
"a watched feature never boils"
"don't dream your features, feature your dreams"
"you can lead a feature to water, but you cannot make it drink"
"more features, less speed"
"bad features travel fast"
"out of the frying pan, into the features"
"a stitch in time saves nine... features"
Discussions like this are why I still think that NS2 should have had seperate Classic and Combat modes to begin with.
Instead of one mode that is struggling to (and maybe never will) make everyone happy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
I never understood why they forced so many combat ideas into single mode, and ruined classic mode the way they did. To newcomers this might seem like great ideas, to combat players it might seem like fun but to old vets it just completely kills everything NS1 was about. I'm sure everyone in the hurry to defend charlie but the guy forgot everything ns1 was about, and ignored years balance to make ns2.
this game should appeal more to the new generation of players, since older vets have been ignored in the development in making NS2. While others just went along with whatever was handed to them. Final word goes to charlie, its his game and his future but you can't make keep ignoring ideas that worked for YEARS.
1) It would actually incentivize turtling (as opposed to the purpose of the power system from the CC series from which you got the idea).
2) In effect it would just be another set of resource towers, just using a different name for the towers (power node) and resources (energy), and adding needless complexity to the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why is it needless tho? If we wanted a simple frag game (counterstrike) then why not play that? Even ns1 was more of a frag game then a rts, imo. Marines had more of the rts part. if this is both they should make it true to both. Like Nuclear Dawn also a fps/rts. The issue that game didn't have was the tech depth. Other wise imo, it was more of a true rts/fps. a fps game is about frags, a rts is a eco.
And Fana i hope you don't take any of this the wrong way, as im not trying to start any trolling or any rage thread here. I'm just trying to understand how making a rts/fps game simplified is anything like a rts.
And Fana i hope you don't take any of this the wrong way, as im not trying to start any trolling or any rage thread here. I'm just trying to understand how making a rts/fps game simplified is anything like a rts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're definitely right that NS1 was more of a "frag game then a rts". One (of many, actually) things I think Flayra got right in his design document, was that NS2 should also be an FPS first and an RTS second. The reason for that is a huge topic in itself, so I won't get into it any further than saying that too much emphasis on any one of the sides can be detrimental to the other side's enjoyment of the game; and when any given round of NS2 features a maximum of two commanders (rts players) versus up to 30 field players (fps players), it makes sense to put at least a little more emphasis on the fps part than the rts part.
As for the power proposal, I just don't see the need for another resource type, especially when it, as I have already said, won't actually serve the purpose it does in the games you got the idea from.
We already have three resource types in NS2 (tres, pres and energy), why add a fourth? Even a fully-fledged RTS game like Starcraft doesn't go beyond three resource types (minerals, gas, energy -- although you can add supply depots/overlords/pylons to that list, but they serve a different purpose, as I described in my earlier post, which your suggestion doesn't).
There is one twist to your suggestion that would give it a clearer purpose though; you could replace pres with electricity. To be more specific: make power nodes the "harvesters" of pres. That could potentially add to the game without creating needless complexity.
I suppose I should also clarify that when I say "needless complexity", it's implicit that I don't believe that complexity in itself is something to be feared. There needs to be a purpose to it though; you never want to add complexity just for the sake of adding complexity -- that is needless complexity.
With my awesome qualifications out there, good post internetexplorer!
Quick thought:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Take a day or two and evaluate the state of the game from the bottom up (rather than from the top down).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's probably fruitful to list all of your in-game systems in a nested hierarchy of scale (temporal and spatial) and figure out their outputs, forcings and cross-scale interactions. Once you've got those drawn out you can see directly how new additions to the game will affect the system as a whole. This is basically a visual representation of your spreadsheet. All those crossed wires in your head trying to figure out non-linear transformations will thank you.
I'd put money on avoiding cross-scale feedbacks 'skipping' a hierarchy level being good game design.
Just remember to watch out for unknown unknowns (there shouldn't be any in a game made from scratch, though) and god speed!
I wouldn't count pres as a real resource like gas, in starcraft managing your gas is something tricky that a lot of players don't do well: put guys in gas at the right time, remove them when not needed, balance gas and mineral ratio in function of the build. Also gas intake is a strong indicator of build order and it's important to scout it. Nothing like that with pres, you can't manage them and they indicate nothing in terms of build order. It's more like a separate pool or something.