|
Hi people! :D
I'm working on an article for my main blog (in spanish) about what does a game needs to be highly competitive? (new RTS to fight SC2? new FPS to fight CS1.6?)
So I came with this Pyramid, I hope you excuse me for the bad quality, but I need to go to sleep cuz there's work tomorrow D: --- ah, and also about my english :p
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tHVI6.jpg)
So, there's the base, basic, something that just can't be in almost any situation: balance, fun to watch and a replay system. Balance is never prefect,but imbalanced games never make it. Is needed so people agrees to watch and not to play sometimes. And replays so pros can make analysis of their game, and us mortals can enjoy doing our analysis too.
Other fundamentals, are the high capacity on-line and the no-casual skillcap, I mean, I don't expect to see 'The Sims' on a MLG or Dreamhack.
About the reward/punishment I want to say something, is explicit and implicit cuz sometimes the game does not gives you additional disadvantage from a bad move, You are in a inferior position because the game itself puts you behind. This happens in SC, you get punished by loosing early units by loosing important minerals and gas on early game, but is not so explicit as CS for example, when you earn less money by not winning a round.
It's really hard to talk about metagame, but in short words, but I think that basically metagame should be very well worked. it's hard to say, cuz FPS doesn't have that much metagame as difference of RTS or ARTS... hard to tell... Oh, and about randomness, well, some RTS have that "unit do miss, that's realistic", which is true at some point, but a pro won't enjoy making a good micro to finally see a unit miss a target (CoH someone?)
And finally, a supportive company, as Valve, Blizzard and even Riot Games or early Id with Quake and stuff.
I would love to have some feedback, and sorry fot the english... dah I hate work I don't have time for playing and writing stuff!!! 
EDIT: ok, I got it, the pyramid is a fail XD
Bye! ;D
 
|
So the question that I have is what is the point of the pyramid? These elements are completely randomly thrown onto the pyramid (albeit correct elements) but why is the base bigger and the top smaller?
The order of significance does not seem correct or seem to even exist at all.
the elements are correct though 
|
Randomness does not preclude esport. COH didn't become e-sport for a multitude of reasons, it's accuracy system was not one of them. COH would not have been nearly as exciting to watch or play without the systems containing randomness.
Poker is an example of a game being competitive where the randomness is integral and beneficial to the experience.
Your other components are mostly good. The pyramid makes no sense.
|
Well you definitely got the foundation of the pyramid down pat. You can't have anything even beginning to approach a competitive game without those three things. Higher up you may want to do some shuffling depending on if you're talking only about what within the game itself makes it competitive or what on the whole scale makes it so. If you're talking specifically about the game then you should leave out Company Supporting the Game, as that comes in on the business side. If you did that I would suggest moving the Metagame to the peak as the ability to metagame and the shifting of strategies imo is what has kept games like SC and CS and DotA alive for so long as no two games are ever the same and strategies as a whole are continuously shifting.
|
See, it depends on what type of "competitiveness" you're going for. Plenty of games are considered highly competitive, but not many of them are popular. Games because popular because of two things in my opinion:
1) Easy to spectate
2) The game has "it" moments
The "it" moments are clutch moments, moments in the game when anything can happen.
Personally, I found the Call of Duty franchise extremely competitive until modern warfare 2. One of the major reasons why the CoD franchise died competitively was because it is hard to spectate. Without mods or dedicated servers it became nearly impossible on the PC to spectate or stream matches.
Nonetheless, I think eventually there will be a stalemate in SC2, moreso than SC1 because it isn't advancing enough imo.
|
Fun to play might be a useful thing.
|
What is the point of the pyramid, man? The elements in it are all correct, but you seem to have thrown them in at complete randomness.
Also, CoH is NOT a competitive e-sport. Had the POTENTIAL to become so, but didn´t. The comparison with SC2 is just silly. I didn´t really get the point you wanted to make there.
|
Well got form work just now:
1) more important, thank you for your feedback :D:D:D I see that the most important problem is that my pyramid failed hard, but it's ok i was never good for that kind of stuff... i'm a finance man, numbers and stuff
2)I didn't tried to compare SC2 to CoH, just tried to throw a RTS that I consider had a very good potential to become a good RTS in the eSports scene, it failed. What i mean that the core of the game was perfect, I didn't quite understand why it didn't made the quality jump even if the community was huge and maybe after WCIII it was one of the biggest FPS to play out there, that I think was clear. Then I assumed that one of the points was the randomness and I remembered SC2 have almost 0 randomness... I don't know, I didn't liked it randomness even if it was 'good' for the gameplay, I think it was just, well whatever. I still think that randomness is no good, even if poker is a good example, I don't remember a game like CS, CoD, SC, WC, or any other 'eSport title (or close)' that had a significative amount of randomness.
3)I think I got most of the elements to make the analysis right. Thank you again :D
|
On October 18 2012 06:37 uberxD wrote:
Well got form work just now:
1) more important, thank you for your feedback :D:D:D I see that the most important problem is that my pyramid failed hard, but it's ok i was never good for that kind of stuff... i'm a finance man, numbers and stuff
2)I didn't tried to compare SC2 to CoH, just tried to throw a RTS that I consider had a very good potential to become a good RTS in the eSports scene, it failed. What i mean that the core of the game was perfect, I didn't quite understand why it didn't made the quality jump even if the community was huge and maybe after WCIII it was one of the biggest FPS to play out there, that I think was clear. Then I assumed that one of the points was the randomness and I remembered SC2 have almost 0 randomness... I don't know, I didn't liked it randomness even if it was 'good' for the gameplay, I think it was just, well whatever. I still think that randomness is no good, even if poker is a good example, I don't remember a game like CS, CoD, SC, WC, or any other 'eSport title (or close)' that had a significative amount of randomness.
3)I think I got most of the elements to make the analysis right. Thank you again :D
* WC had random drops from creeps
* SC had 33% chance to hit up cliffs (which some TL pros argued that it was a poor choice to change it in SC2)
* MoBA games have chance to critically hit, as well as chance for on-hit effects
Again, COH was not as popular as it could have been for a multitude reasons (both in competitiveness and popularity). ie: lack of transparency of game systems, bad marketing, WWII theme (niche theme), etc.
You'll need to provide more evidence if you want to claim that randomness hurts e-sport.
|
On October 21 2012 01:04 Mora wrote:
* WC had random drops from creeps
* SC had 33% chance to hit up cliffs (which some TL pros argued that it was a poor choice to change it in SC2)
* MoBA games have chance to critically hit, as well as chance for on-hit effects
Again, COH was not as popular as it could have been for a multitude reasons (both in competitiveness and popularity). ie: lack of transparency of game systems, bad marketing, WWII theme (niche theme), etc.
You'll need to provide more evidence if you want to claim that randomness hurts e-sport.
Interesting dude, I really didn't know that in SC2, I just suspected reduced damage or something lol it's so cool to learn something new :D
But the WC and ARTS (or moba), even if is true, is really far from being core on the game. I mean, there's always 'edge situations' where a critical or a bashing can make the difference, but is not like that is part of the core on the game, is not even close! I can assure that no pro will ever trust his chance to win something due to randomness (or probability in this case) in a Moba, it goes against what pro means!.
Even if creeps have random drops on WC it's hard to believe it is core on the game. At the pro level anyway, anything is important.
I'm really curious on what you mean by lack of transparency of game systems o:
btw thank you for the reply :D
|
At the very bottom, below your entire pyramid you're missing a rung:
Lage Player Base.
Without a lot of people playing, It's impossible for a game to be highly competitive.
A step you're missing in the middle is matchmaking. It's very hard to get a competitive game without good matchmaking (although it still might work as simple as iccup's matchmaking).
|
On October 22 2012 00:57 uberxD wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 01:04 Mora wrote:
* WC had random drops from creeps
* SC had 33% chance to hit up cliffs (which some TL pros argued that it was a poor choice to change it in SC2)
* MoBA games have chance to critically hit, as well as chance for on-hit effects
Again, COH was not as popular as it could have been for a multitude reasons (both in competitiveness and popularity). ie: lack of transparency of game systems, bad marketing, WWII theme (niche theme), etc.
You'll need to provide more evidence if you want to claim that randomness hurts e-sport. Interesting dude, I really didn't know that in SC2, I just suspected reduced damage or something lol it's so cool to learn something new :D But the WC and ARTS (or moba), even if is true, is really far from being core on the game. I mean, there's always 'edge situations' where a critical or a bashing can make the difference, but is not like that is part of the core on the game, is not even close! I can assure that no pro will ever trust his chance to win something due to randomness (or probability in this case) in a Moba, it goes against what pro means!. Even if creeps have random drops on WC it's hard to believe it is core on the game. At the pro level anyway, anything is important. I'm really curious on what you mean by lack of transparency of game systems o: btw thank you for the reply :D
COH had a bunch of systems that made it very complex, which in turn added tons of depth. (side note: simple systems with lots of depth are more elegant than complex ones).
For example:
Behind the bullets fired on your screen is an exhaustive list of math figuring out the damage output of a weapon. Before I cover those fields, let's look at SC2:
* Damage
* Number of attacks per 'swing'/'shot' (ie: thor shoots 4 at once, a banshee, two)
* Rate of Fire (how many times a weapon shoots per second)
* Range
* Projectile speed (how fast a 'shot' takes to travel from it's shooter to its target)
* Damage Type (whether it calculates bonus damage or not)
* Target's Armor Type (a value subtracted from the damage output of the weapon)
And maybe a few more that I can't think of off the top of my head. Nearly all of these stats are communicated in the UI if a player is to hover a weapon icon when they have a unit selected.
Now let's look at a list that does not nearly exhaust the amount of variables in a COH weapon:
* Damage (the base amount of damage a weapon deals)
* Range Long (designates the range of values that count as 'long range')
* Range Medium (designates the range of values that count as 'medium range')
* Range Short (designates the range of values that count as 'short range')
* Accuracy Long Range (the percent chance your weapon has to miss a target at long range)
* Accuracy Medium Range (at medium range)
* Accuracy Short Range (etc)
* Reload Min (the minimum amount of time it takes for a weapon to be reloaded)
* Reload Maximum (the maximum amount of time a weapon can take to be reloaded)
* Reload Multiplier Long (a value multiplied against the reload time, depending on the targets distance away from the weapon)
* Reload Multiplier Med (etc.)
* Reload Multiplier Short (etc.)
* Cooldown Min (the minimum amount of time it takes for a weapon to cooldown)
* Cooldown Max (the maximum amount of time it takes for a weapon to cooldown)
* Cooldown Multiplier Long (multiplier dependong range)
* Cooldown Multiplier Medium (etc.)
* Cooldown Multiplier Short (etc.)
* Wind Up
* Wind Down
* Setup Time
* Burst Duration Min
* Burst Duration Max
* Rate of Fire Min
* Rate of Fire Max
* Frequency
* Moving Accuracy
* Moving Burst
* and roughly 50 more stats
But the most convoluted of all these stats, is the blasphemous target table. This table is used to tune a weapon vs each target type in the game. Now, SC2 uses this system as well, but they've worked under the design constraints of 5 or 6 target types, with really only focusing on three: Light, Armored, Psionic, Massive, Absence of type, etc. In COH, each unit is it's own target type. Meaning that your marine would deal X damage to a zergling, Y damage to a roach, Z damage to a hydralisk, B damage to an infestor, with no-overlap; a marine would deal a different amount of damage to every unit in the game.
Company of Heroes, for this reason, didn't put stats on the UI. You couldn't see the damage of a unit, or the health of a unit, or the armor of a unit. There's no point - they don't mean anything without knowing the other numbers. I'm not sure if this makes sense. I'll try to give an example:
A riflemen does 10 damage. But when he's shooting at regular infantry he has a damage modifier of 1.1 (ie: Damage*1.1). When he's shooting at elite infantry he has a damage modifier of 0.8. When he's shooting at elite infantry he has a damage modifier of 0.613. When he's shooting at another type of elite infantry he has a damage modifier of 0.82. There are roughly 70 target types in company of heroes.
Hopefully that depicts how hopeless it was to make the math transparent. For an actual look at a page tracking all these stats: http://coh-stats.net/Weapon_M1_Carbine.html. Make sure not to miss the 'cover table' and 'target table' tabs, otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of complexity.
Now, all that said, the complexity of COH actually made it incredibly rich and incredibly deep.
Knowing that on a specific spot on a particular map will allow your riflemen to beat a grenadier squad by 10% more than usual on average will allow you to deny his cap order, screwing up his resourcing for the next several minutes. Conversely, your opponent knows that he can flank from the left while saving up his first 50munitions on a flamethrower, to instantly make you retreat, allowing him to plant a mine in the chokepoint for the greyhound he's expecting in 2 minutes and 20 seconds later.
The amount of strategic and tactical depth in COH is exhaustive. It is rivaled only by Starcraft: Brood War, and perhaps not even it. Stacraft 2 certainly not.
Unfortunately, all this hidden information serves as a barrier to entry for new players and interested players alike. How are people supposed to appreciate the minutia and decision making that's happening on screen if they don't know it's happening.
I don't have any more time to go into it now, but this is just one of the reasons that COH had a difficult time breaking into the competitive scene. A lack of exposure/marketing (ie: the majority of people on this forum have never even heard of company of heroes before) and a lack of adequate support from Relic killed any chance of the game being propelled into e-sport.
The randomness of the accuracy system, I would argue, increased its spectator appeal (and therefore plausibility for e-sport).
Cheers
|
woooow
I'm so excited having this kind of debate with someone of your (noticeable) experience. Even if I played some CoH I never knew the damage-acurracy system was so complex, for me it was just like... volks do better in long range, considering covers, upgrades, what are you shooting at, kar or mp40 etc
I agree with you that the lack of marketing and stuff from Relic wasn't good for CoH, I think u (unconsciously) gave me a point on the 'eSports company' point, I mean, in this god forsaken country, SC2 advertising was on the public transport buses ... IN THE PUBLIC TRANSPORT BUSES, I mean even if u lived under a rock u new SC2 was coming, ofc the support on the infraestructure was also a stepback for Relic...
Well the big point is the randomness and I got ur point. For example football (soccer) is the most popular sport in the world, and football is a very random game, I mean, look at Chelsea, the are europe champions and they varely shoot like 5 or 6 times to goal in the last 3 matches, they won on penalties (I don't think penalties are random. but well, you could try go to shoot a penalty with millions, millions of people watching you...) So yes, randomness is good for the spectator point of view since it keeps you on "okay, match is going like this, but still, anything can happen, just a piece of magic or a tragic mistake can make the difference" and that usually happens lot. But my point on randomness was more about the scientifically unpredictable result of a supposed not so random mechanism as for example in RTS the unit hit/miss. I mean, considering your explanation of the mechanics, I would not be surprised to see people and even pros not interesed in it... just it's too much variables to control reasonably ...
Thank you for your answer
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
