Slippery slopes and intuitive games

[Zpock]

Fighting game does have combos, which are essentially slippery slopes just the same as RTSes.

One of his instruction videos on street fighter shows how he got the opponent backed up in a corner and can repeatedly attack his opponent with little chance of getting out, this is exactly the same as having successfully rushed your opponent in an RTS.

[Pxtl]

Fighting game does have combos, which are essentially slippery slopes just the same as RTSes.

One of his instruction videos on street fighter shows how he got the opponent backed up in a corner and can repeatedly attack his opponent with little chance of getting out, this is exactly the same as having successfully rushed your opponent in an RTS.

No, combos are not the same as a slippery slope. Combos are deliberately designed to have a limit - there's a finite amount of damage you can do in a single combo, and after the combo is over the damaged player has still lost none of his offensive capacity. Really, they're like a single move with a very complicated effect, except where combo-breakers exist.

the positional things is far more of a relevant example... but that is the kind of gameplay feature that they actively try to (and successfully) remove from fighting games. Most newer fighting games don't have that.

[Sleksa]

I think an important question is always "is it fun" though. Comnapping isn't fun. The game is over before it began

The game is over before it began yes, but so are every WARC vs X games ;] So this in mind Warc should be banned from playing games because they are "no fun" for the other players.

and the attacker had to make such a huge gamble that even if it fails, the game may still be over before it began

There are telltale signs of commbomb(no jeffies, no expos), and counters to it ( rushing out defenders, cloacking comm)

So it is not a "I WIN YOU LOSE" button.

It rapes n00bs simply by turning the game into a high-speed game of trivial pursuit - not their skill or their strategy, but by not knowing about some weird properties of some units.

Read above.

This means developers do have a responsibility to block such tactics.

responsibility to block such tactics why? Just because newbies dont know how to cope with it?

The example he gave on wow roofsniping is a good one. A ranged class player goes to a rooftop to shoot @ warriors/rogues down below who cant reach him. Bad gameplay or a brilliant move by a ranged class player?

Imo these kind of things shouldnt be outright banned. Like sirlin said, if the feature is only available for 1 party and dominates the game, it should be banned. But Both the melee and ranged classes can get to the roof , and they can still be shot by ranged classes down below.

Despite this, blizzard banned this.


Also im pretty sure sirlin is more experienced on street fighter games than you pxtl, so i wouldnt make a statement saying fighting games dont have slippery slopes(read the "fear aura" and yomi(mindreading) articles)

Also the other fighting game example he gave where you have multiple characters in play, and the ones who are not in the ring are outside regenerating, which demonstrates very steep slippery slope as you lose characters.

[Zpock]

As long as fighting games have moves (including walking) that do something other then down the healthbar, like knockbacks, and setting up positional advantages they do have a form of slippery slope.

What they do have that RTS lack is the healthbar tough. The units and stuff in an RTS are not the equivalent of the healthbar in a fighting game, their the equivalent of the moves. You can string together moves to build advantage and screw up the opponents moves, just like you can combine units in an RTS and kill the opponents units.

The health bar is what separates them, an RTS is like a fighting game where you die in one hit, just that getting this hit in is very hard and complicated. (This could be an interesting fighting game...)

I guess you could make an RTS that is more like a fighting game something like this:

Both players start off with one half of the map filled with civilian infrastructure, people etc, that they have to protect. This is the healthbar. Each player gets a steady influx of units to use in trying to protect their civilians, and to kill their opponents. This could be an interesting sort of RTS I think...

[Pxtl]

The tag-team slippery slope can be mitigated, though. No decent tag-team player will lose one of his fighters until they're both on the brink of death and the match is already over. It's not like I can re-direct damage from my solars into other solars so they'll all be 90% dead instead of losing 90% of them.

And yes, EVERY game has at least a little slippery slope, in that a better player can take an advantage in terms of position - but games where you can't lose assets (only victory points) tend to have a very small amount of slippery slope. RTS games or games that involve "wounding" are quite a different story.

You can get out of a corner pin in a single moment, and re-take the game. You can't come back from losing your resources in a single moment, it takes a miracle of luck and incompetence on the part of your adversary to come back from a bad gutting of your res.

And as you're not exactly refuting my argument that comnapping is Spring-as-trivial-pursuit with your information on how to deal with it. I know how to handle comnapping, and I learned after the first time I saw it. But it's still a stupid gameplay feature.

edit: @Zpock:

That game was called Bushido Blade. And yes, it was rather good... but it doesn't really improve your position, since the thing with Bushido Blade was that after an attack failed and both players backed off, you were pretty much back to starting point. There is no "tie" in Spring that causes you to revert back to a near-starting-state, whereas in BB that was generally the most common occurrence. Arenas were large so there as very little positional relevance... so in general, the game was almost a polar opposite of Spring, in that there was almost no way to take a persistent advantage. Either you killed your opponent, or you didn't. The game did have some limited persistent positional damage, but it was rarely relevant - your running speed didn't have a huge effect on gameplay.

[smoth]

Everyone goes through this perioid though, for example i raged for ... ... ... disappear from wow, or ban awps in every cs server, and instead using them yourself, and learning counters to them.

Except that in spring, we can correct these things. Commbomb isn't bad but I always felt that if the comm is so worthless that you would use him as pocket nuke then he is missing something. With morph being available, why do mods not add upgrades to make the comm more useful? I always felt the comm boom was supposed to penalize the idiot who let his comm die not his opponent. That being said, I comm bomb and I do it because the fucker is useless late game, something that SHOULD be addressed IMO.

honor rules like no nukes/air are there as part of spring/tas design, the designers realized that players may feel some of the hundreds of units may need to be banned for either competitive or personal reasons.

What seems OP at first, will soon be exploited so much that people will naturally learn and make up counters to those things (such as flash in the OTA being later on killed by a mix of flash+samson)

As a designer though, we have to consider such counters are not always apparent. Even more so sometimes, the list of counters becomes so exhaustive that only the most experienced players can grasp it. Meaning the learning curve is too steep.

There are telltale signs of commbomb(no jeffies, no expos), and counters to it ( rushing out defenders, cloacking comm)

So it is not a "I WIN YOU LOSE" button.

Commbomb early game sucks as the player pushes into your base early and even if you kill his com it takes yours with it making the game either very slow starting or over. However, yeah it is not a win button, just a game now sucks button.

It rapes n00bs simply by turning the game into a high-speed game of trivial pursuit - not their skill or their strategy, but by not knowing about some weird properties of some units.

Read above.

This means developers do have a responsibility to block such tactics.

responsibility to block such tactics why? Just because newbies dont know how to cope with it?

*nods* but there should also be a way for the player to read up on the counters.

The problem is that in "hardcore games" the learning curve is steep and the players often times do not have correct documentation. In fact what the manual will tell them is wrong. Often time hardcore players pervert the intention of the designers. That is likely why blizzard banned roof sniping. As you said, they made the rules, so the player has to deal with it and if blizzard feels you are exploiting a gameplay element(because that is what it was) they can ban it if they so choose.

However, I should probably say, I do not mind the hardcore players exploiting things. We have an engine with projects that are easily modified. If a player exploits something we can patch it, and if we content developers DO NOT address it, SHAME ON US. On the other hand, I think it is important to remember that people have lives. I would much rather cater to that casual weekend player then the hardcore guy who plays the game TOO MUCH. despite this, I still recognize many people may become hardcore eventually.

So I do not think a game design should only cater to one crowd but I do feel that the design SHOULD permit both parties having a good time. To keep the softcore players happy you have to constantly address things that the hardcore crowd will exploit. I do not believe for one second that a design cannot appeal to both.

[Zpock]

That game was called Bushido Blade. And yes, it was rather good... but it doesn't really improve your position, since the thing with Bushido Blade was that after an attack failed and both players backed off, you were pretty much back to starting point. There is no "tie" in Spring that causes you to revert back to a near-starting-state, whereas in BB that was generally the most common occurrence. Arenas were large so there as very little positional relevance... so in general, the game was almost a polar opposite of Spring, in that there was almost no way to take a persistent advantage. Either you killed your opponent, or you didn't. The game did have some limited persistent positional damage, but it was rarely relevant - your running speed didn't have a huge effect on gameplay.

That would be another aspect of gameplay, fleeing and how locked into combat you are. WC3 for example leans towards this kind of play where you have many minor skirmishes that don't lead to the end and you can frequently back off and "reset".

The difference being that with the healthbar, you essentially have several games played in sucession. The results are recorded and at the end the one with the most "wins" is the victor. With the fleeing/reseting mechanism its different in that it's only the final mortal moment that counts.

[Sleksa]

You can get out of a corner pin in a single moment, and re-take the game. You can't come back from losing your resources in a single moment, it takes a miracle of luck and incompetence on the part of your adversary to come back from a bad gutting of your res.

Atleast, the player who is winning should be rewarded for his actions. He outmicroed the enemy, outmacroed him, outscouted , or did all these things, and for that he should be rewarded with being closer to winning than the other player. Zwszg seems to be proposing an idea where the player who got outplayed would be rewarded for being outplayed, which is pretty disturbing. The player who did less work still gets rewarded.

The tag-team slippery slope can be mitigated, though. No decent tag-team player will lose one of his fighters until they're both on the brink of death

Says you before getting hit by a 12 hit combo by bass in DOA ~~~~

It's not like I can re-direct damage from my solars into other solars so they'll all be 90% dead instead of losing 90% of them.

Solars? No.

Grunts/zealots/marines/flashes? Yes.

And as you're not exactly refuting my argument that comnapping is Spring-as-trivial-pursuit with your information on how to deal with it. I know how to handle comnapping, and I learned after the first time I saw it. But it's still a stupid gameplay feature.

Reread the article on scrubs.

Except that in spring, we can correct these things. Commbomb isn't bad but I always felt that if the comm is so worthless that you would use him as pocket nuke then he is missing something. With morph being available, why do mods not add upgrades to make the comm more useful? I always felt the comm boom was supposed to penalize the idiot who let his comm die not his opponent. That being said, I comm bomb and I do it because the fucker is useless late game, something that SHOULD be addressed IMO.

That being said, I comm bomb and I do it because the fucker is useless late game, something that SHOULD be addressed IMO.

Most games are comm ends

Or maybe its "still a stupid gameplay feature."

honor rules like no nukes/air are there as part of spring/tas design, the designers realized that players may feel some of the hundreds of units may need to be banned for either competitive or personal reasons.

Ota/most *A mods do not have the tickable option in the menu for
"5 min no rush" or "no nukes" While the latter CAN be adressed by banning it from the unitlist, it is really never done.

Competitive ota was anything but restrictive, people used offscreening, preworking mohomakers, nanoshielding, hawkdancing , linebombing and invisible submarines. and people who complained about these were generally labeled noobs, whereas people who could do "perfect" linebombing runs were admired.

(sirlins' "play to win article")

As a designer though, we have to consider such counters are not always apparent. Even more so sometimes, the list of counters becomes so exhaustive that only the most experienced players can grasp it. Meaning the learning curve is too steep.

IE player X has spent more time analyzing and playing the game, and for that player Y should be rewarded by having instant counters to player X's moves/builds/strats

?_?

Commbomb early game sucks as the player pushes into your base early and even if you kill his com it takes yours with it making the game either very slow starting or over. However, yeah it is not a win button, just a game now sucks button.

*A mods also generally have a very metal-rich comm corpses, which is more of a "HERES INSTANT T2 AND 300 FLASH FOR YOU" button, instead of a game now sucks

Ofcourse this wasnt apparent in OTA, but OTA games made more use of defenders, which made commbombing harder.

*nods* but there should also be a way for the player to read up on the counters.

I agree. But it shouldnt be so that the more inexperienced player has easy-access counters to more experienced player's moves (since this would be unfair to the "better" player)

Often time hardcore players pervert the intention of the designers.

Yeah, but IMO often this is only a good thing. take for example, the reaver/shuttle micro from starcraft that propably WAS NOT INTENDED, or the nelf archer+ dark ranger on zeppelin vs human in wc3

There were 2 options for blizzard to cope with these, to patch it and ban people doing it, or to let people exploit it until people learnt counters for it.

As you said, they made the rules, so the player has to deal with it and if blizzard feels you are exploiting a gameplay element(because that is what it was) they can ban it if they so choose.

I didnt mean that we should obey blindly the gamedesigner's ideas on how the game is meant to be played. For me , finding out new ways to use units is one of the reasons i play rts games.

So I do not think a game design should only cater to one crowd but I do feel that the design SHOULD permit both parties having a good time. To keep the softcore players happy you have to constantly address things that the hardcore crowd will exploit. I do not believe for one second that a design cannot appeal to both.

There is already a answer for this one, Multi/single players.

For example starcraft singleplayer will propably cater to softcore-weekend players, but still allows leagues and tournaments, which get broadcasted on TV to be played by 600 apm koreans.

[Erom]

One aside:

They didn't ban roof sniping WoW because of interplayer competition. You can see this because it is still allowed in the PvP battlegrounds areas, where it is a valid and common tactic (For example, roofing in Warsong Gulch is commonly used to "hide" a flag for a while if you are down players and waiting for a respawn or for your team to get your flag back.) They banned it because you were breaking a deliberate game mechanic- you were avoiding the NPC guards that were in place to prevent fighting in neutral towns. Remember, ranged players firing back up on the roof snipers would be quickly killed by the guards. So it's not really a valid comparison to the rest of this thread.

[Pxtl]

Wait, Sleksa - so players who want to play a fun game without being hardcore should be relegated to playing offline?

Are you for real?

[Sleksa]

Wait, Sleksa - so players who want to play a fun game without being hardcore should be relegated to playing offline?

Are you for real?

It worked for the most known and played rts.

Other than that, "weekend" players can go buy WII , some other console, Or go play runescape or some other "fun" games, instead of trying to convert "hardcore" games (cs, starcraft) into games they like.

(reread the article on scrubs and "play to win")

Hardcore gaming and casual fun gaming dont go hand in hand, even if you cry and pray to god for it.

http://www.sirlin.net/archive/game-balance-part-1/

[Neddie]

I don't know, we have a lot of terrible players online, and they seem to have a lot of fun!

[smoth]

Most games are comm ends

Or maybe its "still a stupid gameplay feature."

That still doesn't meant that an upgradeable commander is not an avenue to explore.

Ota/most *A mods do not have the tickable option in the menu for
"5 min no rush" or "no nukes" While the latter CAN be adressed by banning it from the unitlist, it is really never done.

totally and the no rush could be handled via a deployment mutator. So yeah, the rules could be enforced but odds are the players do not know how.

Competitive ota was anything but restrictive, people used offscreening, preworking mohomakers, nanoshielding, hawkdancing , linebombing and invisible submarines. and people who complained about these were generally labeled noobs, whereas people who could do "perfect" linebombing runs were admired.

you forgot off screen transports, something i never learned.

(sirlins' "play to win article")

Yeah, I read many of his articles. Play to win also very much is about comprimising the spirit of the game because the devs do not fix bugs. However, sirlin admits in his article that he is the type that repetitively uses something he thinks can be abused for a greater effect/advantage. Not that it actually works. Truely skilled players always dance on the edges of ranges etc. Randy doesn't need to exploit shit as his micro makes great usage of range. I remember one demo of him dancing with jeffies.

IE player X has spent more time analyzing and playing the game, and for that player Y should be rewarded by having instant counters to player X's moves/builds/strats

?_?

The devs should acknowledge, embrace and document the exploits so that player X and Y can start on equal footing and it becomes less about who learns some stupid trick first and more about who can pull off said trick better.

*A mods also generally have a very metal-rich comm corpses, which is more of a "HERES INSTANT T2 AND 300 FLASH FOR YOU" button, instead of a game now sucks

Fair enough

I agree. But it shouldnt be so that the more inexperienced player has easy-access counters to more experienced player's moves (since this would be unfair to the "better" player)

Noob has the same access as everyone else, just that noob can be more educated and thus give a more enjoyable game to pro. I doubt pro wants to constantly stomp noob, that makes pro rusty.

Often time hardcore players pervert the intention of the designers.

Yeah, but IMO often this is only a good thing. take for example, the reaver/shuttle micro from starcraft that propably WAS NOT INTENDED, or the nelf archer+ dark ranger on zeppelin vs human in wc3

There were 2 options for blizzard to cope with these, to patch it and ban people doing it, or to let people exploit it until people learnt counters for it.

3 options:
--Fix it so the unit is used right
--Accept and document this as how the unit is actually used
--turn a blind eye

There is already a answer for this one, Multi/single players.

except that spring has no proper singleplayer and no this is not a debateable point.

A Good example of fix an exploit, forgive me as this is a gundam example.
The xamel is a powerful artillery piece, you could even equate it to a bertha. It can move meaning a full squad of them moving and shooting would dominate a game. Now, I could have left this in however, I felt that it made the xamels too easy to use and they were a skill less win button unit. OH and it could shoot from on top of water. I had no solution except that they had a slow aim.

Kdr then suggested that I make them only able to fire while stationary. We debated the point to try and rectify all possible problems with it. The solution was to remove it's hover ability and make it not able to shoot while moving. This made a few things better, first I was able to increase the aim speed. Second, I was able to make the xamel require skill and planning to use. This meant that the noobs can kill it with cheap fast attack if the pro does not watch his shit and it means that truely skilled players can be devastating with the xamel once they learn the unit.

I hate to bring gundam up and I only list this as an example where addressing an exploit can enhance and not detriment the game. Most games are released and besides a few stat tweaks are not seriously changed. Here in spring, the projects are in constant states of change and eventually all the exploits could be addressed to provide games with depth requiring skill and still reward the creative players.

[Pxtl]

http://www.sirlin.net/archive/game-balance-part-1/

FFS, I read it when it was new. I know what the guy says. Doesn't make him magically correct - he's quite right that players should always play to win, and if there's something that seems "cheap" either it means the game is flawed or you haven't sufficiently explored it.

The point is that he's arguing from the point of view of a hardcore. Which is redundant with the stuff you're already saying.

My point is that a game is still no-fun if it creates
1) obscenely large amounts of trivia knowledge required to succeed, and
2) a situation where players who might be able to manage a decent midgame (which is generally agreed to be the fun part) are wiped out at the beginning. Obviously, if a guy was going to get flashmobbed and crushed 5 minutes in, then the fact that he was set a foot down by the jeffies at the beginning is no biggie. But if a guy stood a decent chance of having a good time in the actual fun, expansion/fighting part of the game but fails because he was gimped in the opening tedium, that's not a fun game. That's just a nuisance.

[Sleksa]

Randy doesn't need to exploit shit as his micro makes great usage of range. I remember one demo of him dancing with jeffies.

Thats a poor excuse since randy had no competition in here, he was/is so good that he can win without using "dirty" tricks, and instead play for show (doing crazy/over the top tricks and winning) ~~

But looking korean sc/ wc3 replays, these people use every possible bug/feature that was not intended (buying merc units with a farm, blocking ramps with DT's/buildings etc) Because they really need to use those things to gain a edge against the other player.

The devs should acknowledge, embrace and document the exploits so that player X and Y can start on equal footing and it becomes less about who learns some stupid trick first and more about who can pull off said trick better.

I disagree, blizz used the "turn a blind eye" for the transport-abusing, and after a few tournament games people learnt to cope with it somewhat, providing some new strategies for nelf players vs humans.

FFS, I read it when it was new. I know what the guy says. Doesn't make him magically correct

i'd rather listen to some guy who has won/played in international game tournaments rather than someone who afaik doesnt even play spring

[Pxtl]

I play. Maybe just in a different timezone from you (late nights) and yes, only casually.

But that's the whole point. Sirlin is hardcore, so his interests reflect the hardcore players. Other players do have interests - and if you ever want hardcores to play with, you have to make sure the game is enjoyable for non-hardcores, or you're going to be in a lonely world sitting around with Day and a handful of others talking about how awesome you are with nobody new to play against.

[smoth]

Thats a poor excuse since randy had no competition in here, he was/is so good that he can win without using "dirty" tricks, and instead play for show (doing crazy/over the top tricks and winning) ~~

No, that is a valid example because he is a skilled and competitive player. I have watched more then a couple of his "serious" matches and he does that in them also. Just because you didn't like my example does not invalidate it. It is still very real and very valid. he didn't have to use any tricks as he has actual skill.

Also I never said anything about "dirty tricks" so as much as you want to call me a scrub get over it. I recognize skilled players and frankly randy is one of them. Just because you feel that exploiting a game is a good idea doesn't mean it is necessary.

*edit* also if you had read his turtle and offensive articles you would see that siriln

But looking korean sc/ wc3 replays, these people use every possible bug/feature that was not intended (buying merc units with a farm, blocking ramps with DT's/buildings etc) Because they really need to use those things to gain a edge against the other player.

That is not true all of the time, yeah they exploit some of the game and yeah they do what they can but only because they have to as blizzard opted to NOT address the issues. If those items were not there they would be forced to use other channels. Because it is broken and because the other guy will use it means you have to. Not that it is a good thing.

You also completely ignored my points about the merits of fixing and exploit to attack the argument and try and say that randy is invalid for the discussion.

*edit* also if you read sirlin's articles about turtle and attacker you would recognize that a truely skilled player who knows the ranges and attack abilities of his unit gets more out of them. AGAIN even sirlin says that exploiting is not required to win.

[Forboding Angel]

Sirlin is an idiot. Stop linking to his stuff.

A while back me and lurker (lurker did all the hard work) had to remove the ability to reclaim enemy units. Reason being is that the con in evo is very very good and is also very fast. With low health they need ot be able to retreat quickly. They also build extremely fast, so you get 20 or so of them and you have an army that not only pwns an enemy, but bolsters your econ at thes same time. Heh, not likely, think again buddy.

Atm, Gundam, EE, and Evolution are probably the only games where exploits are squelched quickly. In evo I fix them the moment I see them. I cannot seriously vouch for Gundam or EE, but Evo is not something you will be using exploits in and claiming a "Feature".

Horseshit. Anytime you use something as the creator did not design to gain a truly unfair advantage is an exploit. In Evo, anything resembling an exploit is closed swiftly and promptly. That's the main reason I use a patching system. There won't be any of that bullshit going on in my game.

Admittedly there are ways to get an advantage that are not unfair (cause it's expensive and truly a gamble) which would be the infamous fatso rush, but it's pretty easy to deal with to an extent (and that particular unit is up for consideration anyway).

Any designer that does not close exploits of his originally good intentions is an idiot, plain and simple. Any designer that does not fix bugs in his game as quickly as possible is also an idiot.

[Sleksa]

No, that is a valid example because he is a skilled and competitive player. I have watched more then a couple of his "serious" matches and he does that in them also. Just because you didn't like my example does not invalidate it. It is still very real and very valid. he didn't have to use any tricks as he has actual skill.

That's what i mean. randy is far beyond any other spring player, there are like 2-3 people who could beat him, against everyone else has has ~90% win ratio or more. Ie he doesnt need to fight serious to win.

He could even win me by going air first.(and while im not a good player im not a bad one either)

Also I never said anything about "dirty tricks" so as much as you want to call me a scrub get over it. I recognize skilled players and frankly randy is one of them. Just because you feel that exploiting a game is a good idea doesn't mean it is necessary.

That is not true all of the time, yeah they exploit some of the game and yeah they do what they can but only because they have to as blizzard opted to NOT address the issues. If those items were not there they would be forced to use other channels. Because it is broken and because the other guy will use it means you have to. Not that it is a good thing.

How is it a bad thing then? Just because the players use units in the ways devs didnt think of?

Also thank you forboding, Im sure sirlin is a idiot and yours , the godly mod-creator-know-all's words are law, just as i am sure the war evo is more balanced than starcraft and will become the next universal e-sport.

[Forboding Angel]

How is it a bad thing then? Just because the players use units in the ways devs didnt think of?

To gain a truly unfair advantage, yes.

Also thank you forboding, Im sure sirlin is a idiot and yours , the godly mod-creator-know-all's words are law, just as i am sure the war evo is more balanced than starcraft and will become the next universal e-sport.

It's Evolution RTS. War Evo was made by Optimus Prime. So you're the only one here allowed to have an opinion? Heh, fits your personality. You keep stating things as though they were utter fact citing your bible(sirlin) whenever you feel it is needed.

Starcraft was horribly balanced, but that's another thread.

I'm sure Balanced Annihilation will be the next universal e-sport as well. Great argument champ