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Rarely, a game will leave a mental imprint on me that lasts well beyond when I finish the game. Most of these games are classics, but there’s not always a perfect correlation between the quality of a game, whether it’ll leave an imprint and how strong that imprint becomes. I’m not going to delve deeply into the subject, but I wanted to briefly pose the question: what makes a game leave an imprint?

I’ll spare you all the long-winded monologue and instead I’ll focus on one highly subjective point: it’s in the music. The games that leave the strongest impressions on me almost always have a great soundtrack.  Shadow Complex was probably a technically better game than Trine, but the latter is the one that left an imprint. I burned through both games, but I continue to play Trine through the music - the soundtrack contains the essence of the game. I can listen to it after I’ve played the game and I can observe how my memories are mapped to the individual tracks. Each song is linked to different experiences.

Normally, my memories are fleeting - they’re attached to any of dozens of simultaneously moving thoughts and they slip through my mind before I can get a solid grip on a particular thread. But the sounds of the game bring clarity to even the smallest details. Most of the games that have made an impression on me fit this bill, ranging from classics like Betrayal at Krondor and Xenogears to modern recent obscurities like Spirit Engine 2. In some cases, this extends beyond the soundtrack and to the effects and ambient noise in games like X-Com.

I have yet to play an MMO that evokes the same reaction, but the genre doesn’t give music the same role for obvious reasons. I can’t help but wonder what kind of MMO will leave an imprint on me.

I often hear that players are stupid. It even comes from the players themselves as often as not, typically referring to another segment of the population. They do stupid things, make stupid mistakes. That previous sentence is true, but it also contributes to a horrible misconception.

Players are only as stupid as any random group of people. Any group is going to have stupid people, average people and smart people. Even if you argue that people in general are stupid, there are still going to be smart ones in the group… especially if you consider the sample size. On an individual level, there are stupid players. As an audience, players are not stupid. Even the most intelligent people do stupid things, fail to read instructions and generally bungle simple tasks. However, doing stupid things is a far cry from being stupid.

The problem with saying that players are stupid is that it can become a justification to do things wrong. And when that happens, players figure it out and suddenly you’re wrong instead of them.

• If you lie to them, they’ll figure it out.
• If you hide something from them, they’ll find it.
• If you leave something out, they’ll know it’s missing.
• If you try to keep them from doing something by only making it seem impossible, they’ll find a way to make it possible.
• If you try to keep them from beating your game too fast, they’ll still tear through it in no time.
• If you try to patronize them, they’ll see through it.
• If you try to ignore an issue, they’ll know it’s a hot button.
• If you try to fudge the math, they’ll find where the formula breaks.

Players are smart. Treat them like they’re smart, and then you’ll see that they’re industrious too. Give them a problem and the opportunity and they’ll solve it. Keep them loyal and they’ll build things you never had the time to create.

It’s time for my first substantial post in a while.

Overview

When it comes to combat systems, one of the common problems in MMOs is that they don’t have a strong flow. Let me explain some terms I’m going to use here:

1. Combat Encounter: This is the entirety of a fight, which may be anywhere from a single to a dozen monsters.
2. Combat Flow: This is the natural progression that happens in the course of a fight.
   
3. Combat Segment: This is a sub-object within the encounter. One encounter may consist of multiple segments, each of which has their own combat flow.  For example, each monster may be a segment.

Simple enough. In most non-MMO combat-focused games, the duration of the flow is nearly identical to the duration of the encounter. The actions I take trickle down, changing how I will proceed in the near future. This tends to be true no matter how many opponents you are facing.

Example Scenarios

Let’s say I’m playing a fighting game with a single opponent. My actions at any given second are determined by what’s happening in the fight. If I break my opponent’s guard, I’m going to press an attack… but perhaps more cautiously if he pulled off a good combo breaker last time. I’m going to change my approach depending on the relative health of the my opponent and my character. I’m going to watch how my opponent attacks and look for holes to exploit. Even if we disengage briefly, the flow still persists. That disengagement period is more likely to happen due to previous events, and our next actions are influenced by the disengage.

Next, let’s say we have an action-RPG with an emphasis on the action (Ninja Gaiden or God of War more than Diablo). In these, most combat encounters consist of multiple opponents. When this is true, positioning naturally becomes a critical flow element. You move through the network of enemies, with your relative positions increasing and decreasing the strategic weight of different options. The other enemies alter my behavior, and the fight proceeds as a unit. These games naturally benefit from a matrix of positioning, time and vulnerabilities. Note that with the except of a few uber attacks, these games tend to have no use restrictions on attacks. You can do that super powerful attack over and over if you can pull it off, but there’s a good chance it’s not appropriate, it will leave you vulnerable and it just doesn’t fit in your chains. On that note, I ought to post about combat cancels in the future.

This doesn’t just apply to action games. Magic the Gathering is a great example of a game with a strong combat flow, if not always because of the same principles. Even RTS games like Total War follow this loose guideline.

How does the MMORPG fit in?

Now we get to the MMORPG. Say that the MMORPG has a 60 second encounter and the action RPG has a 30 second encounter.  You fight 3 enemies in the MMORPG and 5 in the action RPG. With most of the MMORPGs, the duration of the flow = encounter duration / # of enemies. This is an over-generalization, but it makes it easier to make my point. If there are three guys, I’m going to kill one and then do exactly the same thing to the next guy and I will repeat it for each opponent. Depending on the game, my overall approach to the fight may change, but for this we’ll assume the standard encounter is 3 opponents.

With the above scenario, the generic MMORPG encounter is made up of three 20 second segments. Each of these segments has the same flow, making the repetition cycle 20 seconds. With the action RPG, the the duration of the flow = the duration of the encounter. This gives it a 30 second repetition cycle. Even though the overall encounter is shorter, the repetition cycle is longer. That’s a good thing.

Note that while time is a critical element here, combat flow is not about the total length of the fight. Whether your combat takes 30 seconds or 5 minutes, you generally want to make the flow equal the encounter length. Special circumstances can be exceptions, but as a rule of thumb you want to extend the combat flow to be equal to or close to the length of the encounter. You definitely don’t want the combat segments = # of opponents. Although you can measure the repetition cycle, that number alone isn’t necessarily useful. An example with two 30 second repetition cycle scenarios: If you make me kill five guys at 30 seconds each (2.5 minute encounter) and my approach to each is identical, then it’s actually going to feel more repetitive than a combat that pits me three guys at 10 seconds each in an encounter with only one segment.

When an MMORPG reduces the time it takes to defeat a single opponent, it becomes easier to see this problem in the combat system. Players won’t describe it this way, but it can be the cause for many symptoms related to the combat system. Most MMORPGs remove the key elements that contribute to combat flow. There are often technical reasons behind the removal. For the sake of argument, let’s assume  it’s impossible / unfeasible / a bad idea / whatever to make an MMORPG that has a combat system on par with an action game, just because it’s close to what most MMORPGs offer. If this is the case, it means the game systems need to compensate for the inherent loss of flow-strengthening elements.

Broken Flow

In MMOs where you fight multiple enemies, it’s common for the resource pool to be the main element that carries over from one enemy to the next. In contrast, nearly all action games use time and vulnerability as their restriction instead of a resource pool. All of your attacks are available, but they are locked in chains. Attacks have varying execution times. This is not as simple as an activation time. The following components are usually present:

1. Pre-hit frames: The time between clicking the attack and damage.
2. Hit frames: The time when the attack is hitting.
3. Post-hit frames: Time after the attack when you can’t act.

Then, each attack has other considerations. Does it stutter the enemy? Can I get the most benefit out of my attack at this range? Will this leave me vulnerable with the current positioning of the enemies? Can I cancel this attack if I need to react to an unexpected threat? Attack use is calculated and mana pools tend to be for encounter-winning abilities. Additionally, the positioning tends to be a binary switch for whether powers can be used in an MMO, while it impacts the strategic options in action games.

Now let’s look at the MMO resource pool (usually mana). What does it accomplish? It’s primarily a disabler, not an enabler. With standard implementations, the resource pool simply prevents actions that you might want to take. In contrast, time and vulnerability based systems adjust how effective action are in each situation. You may always be able to use a big charge up attack, but chances are it’ll be one of your less frequently used abilities. With a resource pool, you can choose to either be effective now or effective later. There’s a consideration for efficiency over the course of an encounter, which contributes some flow. It’s not as strong as the flow that comes from time, vulnerability and position-based combat.

Note this doesn’t mean you can’t use resource pools, but it does mean that it will not provide the combat flow you want in the combat system. So, for the tally, MMORPGs lose flow in the following areas:

1. Actions rarely vary in effectiveness in a non-formulaic way.
2. Actions are resource-limited, not effectiveness-dependent.
3. Actions cannot be changed once started.
4. Actions are binary on/off due to position, as opposed to adjusting the effectiveness based on position.
5. Actions rarely carry over from one opponent to the next.
6. Actions rarely impact the enemy in a way that strategically alters my potential actions.

This post is full of gross over-generalizations and there are with exceptions, but I hope those don’t distract people from the point I’m trying to make. The traditional MMORPG’s combat flow suffers in numerous areas, and yet we expect people to use that combat system much longer than they would in other games. We need the flow in our games to be consistently close to the encounter duration so that we don’t have as many repetition cycles, especially in games with fast combat.

Player versus Developer posted the latest in a series on RMTs today. You should read it. I haven’t really talked about RMT, but the posts highlight why I find the concept of designing around RMTs distasteful. I’m neutral on whether to do them, but I prefer as few barriers in the way of my design goals as possible. (Note: subscriptions can also be a barrier.)

I gave my lecture on Balance Constraints: Lessons from Pirates this past Wednesday. Today I threw together a hybrid of my slides with my notes that are somewhere between notes and a full paper in an attempts to record what I said. Hopefully it parses fine.

Presentation Slides (PPTX)

I devoured the original Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. It’s a great game, and it’s rather well known for being challenging. I didn’t find it terribly difficult, but I did need to think to make my way through the game. Part of that may be because I played a Wizard, and I found they were quite strong. Challenge of the Warlords got a lot of buzz through word of mouth and good publicity.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix’s biggest accomplishment is the way it managed to bounce me right out of the game despite being a Sci Fi hungry Puzzle Quest addict. I was forcing myself to play, but I never found the game I hoped was buried underneath the endless luck-driven timed puzzles.

Then Puzzle Kingdoms showed up. It completely slipped under my radar - I only heard about the game a few days before it shipped. That was unusual, because Galactrix got quite a bit of hype. Infinite Interactive’s site doesn’t even list the game as released, and I haven’t seen a single review despite it releasing two weeks ago. And yet it’s a much better game than Galactrix. I’ll describe the basic mechanics since it’s not as well known.

As another color-matching game, Puzzle Kingdoms relies on acquiring mana (power) to charge units in your army so they can attack the enemy army. Armies consist of four units. Each unit requires a specific kind of mana, and the first unit of that in your army receives that mana. Anytime you acquire mana that doesn’t go to one of your units, it goes into the hero’s generic mana pool.

Initially, attacking is strategic. If you attack with multiple units at once, they all gain a damage bonus. Sometimes you want to hold off to give yourself a little bit more damage to finish off the enemy in fewer attacks, but you make yourself vulnerable to the enemy killing off your charged units. As you level up, your hero stats increase the attack and defense of your units. The number scale is much smaller than Puzzle Quest, so the +1-3 damage you get from combos should always be useful.

Unfortunately, Puzzle Kingdoms bears too much resemblance to an area where the original Puzzle Quest was weak: item balance. About midway through Puzzle Quest, I found a few items that gave my character insane amounts of power. There were still some difficult fights, but I’d have to self handicap to make the average fight mildly interesting. Puzzle Kingdoms has the same problem, but it is much more egregious in its flaw. After an intriguing early experience,  I found two items early that basically ensure I win any fight after a couple rounds. Every fight is trivial. It’s pretty common to kill the entire army of a boss in a single attack. Enemies are so un-threatening that I routinely give them damage block combines just so I can match the kind of mana I want. There are a few factors that cause this:

1) Items. Early in the game, I found an item that increases my unit hitpoints by 3. Suddenly, even cheap 1 hitpoint glass cannons became effective front line units. Shortly after that, I found a weapon that gives me +2 red power everytime I combine red blocks. Combine that with a goblin (and later a wolfrider) who only needs 2 red power to attack, and I get 1.5 attacks for combining a simple block. Without that, you need 2-5 combines to charge a unit. Right now I use 3 wolf riders, and I charge all three by making two basic red combines (or a single 4 combine charges two instantly).

2) Heroes & Scaling. Your hero quickly gains power, but past the first few zones, the enemies you fight don’t scale up for a very long time. I’ve conquered a good 12 kingdoms, about half the game from what I can tell, and the creaures are rarely harder than the ones I saw by the second or third kingdom. Meanwhile, my hero increases the attack/defense of my units by around 5/3. That addition is stronger than most of the creatures I fight. And I outnumber them. And I have spells. And I have items. My cheap wolf riders have enough base damage (10) to one-hit everything I’ve fought short of some dragons, and they attack almost instantly. Meanwhile, I keep fighting creatures that have 2-4 hitpoints and insufficient damage to kill my “frail” wolfriders.

I’ve thought about self handicapping to play the game, but even when I tried that it wasn’t a challenge with an unequipped level 1 hero and basic units. My own skill has increased disproportionately to the difficulty curve in the game, which means there’s no real way for me to get a challenge unless I field less than four units. The heroes level up fast enough that I quickly gain strength on new characters and once again outmatch the enemy units.

I’m curious whether it’s just my experiences or if the game’s difficulty curve is ridiculously, horribly broken. It’s disappointing because I like the game so much otherwise.