Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Concept: Herding

Herding is when a game pressures players to play together, to the disadvantage or elimination of solo play.

Some games outright require multiplayer. Shattered Horizon was an MP-only team shooter, didn't even have bots. (SP was later added in an expansion.)

Some games have modes that require multiplayer. You can solo a lot of content in World of Warcraft, but you need to join a group to raid.

Some games are more challenging, less rewarding, or less designed around single-player. To a degree additional challenge can be its own reward, but something balanced for multiplayer isn't always enjoyable or even possible by yourself. In Warframe, you'll get loot faster together, as well as having new combinations of powers available.

I imagine that developers think promoting or requiring a social aspect of the game will increase participation and longevity, but from experience I can say it's more likely players will skip the game because they can't get people to play with them, or quit when their group stops convening. It's always easier to schedule for one person than four.

Pickup groups have their own problems. They can't reliably be assembled except in the most populous games. New players are often a liability due to mechanical mismatch (like level imbalance), clashing degrees of player skill, selfishness, and simple unfamiliarity.

For me it's a plus when a game doesn't push me to group up.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Pokemon Go at Level 11

A user named TorD has challenged my assumptions about Pokemon Go. This post updates this one.

On player level gating available pokemon types for capture: "Well this is not true [...] It does not affect what Pokemon types you can catch." I can't remember where I saw the claim that player level determines which pokemon types can appear for the player, but it remains plausible in light of my own experience with the game. I've also heard of "pokemon nests" where certain types are more common, but this system is so untransparent as to be useless to me. Where do I go to catch a Charmander? No idea, no way to find out.

On counterpicking: "the formula for damage bonuses based on type advantage is so low (1.25x for super effective, 0.75 for not very effective)" Well shit! This is an immense nerf to type bonuses, which previously gave 2x/0.5x. It further degrades Go pokemon into being nothing but blobs of CP, and removes what I assumed would be a salutary attacker advantage at gyms. Pikachu, I choose you — but you might as well be a Squirtle, it doesn't really matter.

On gym balance: "a level 10 will have no chance against a level 20's Pokemon if both players have theirs maxed to their fullest potential. It's impossible. But Go isn't a solo game: 3 level 10's can work together to take down a gym of much higher level [...] gym battles are not for soloing." Hearing this impression almost inspired me to uninstall the game immediately. If true, this is fucking terrible. Multiplayer is a plague on gaming. In some games it's used to excuse bad AI, in others it's "optional" but you're mechanically pushed toward it, and of course there are MP-only games which I don't even consider.

On F2P: "I think PoGO is probably one of the fairest f2p games I've been into" I've seen worse, I guess, but Go isn't anywhere near the league of my personal favorite F2P game, Warframe. Fact is, Go's biggest problems aren't unique to F2P games. Any multiplayer game with a long level progression is likely to have a seniority system (why play if you'll never catch up?), any with a big launch and a shared world is likely to have a baby boom clogging content bottlenecks (e.g., World of Warcraft newb areas at launch; they would have been wiser to spread characters through the game by retaining progression from the open beta), lacking sufficient player choice and sharing too little information with the player are common flaws (datamine those damage formulas!), and over and over there are multiplayer games with a bad solo experience. Fuck.
Monday, August 29, 2016

Pokemon Go at Level 10

This post has been updated.

I didn't play Niantic's previous game, Ingress. I haven't played much Pokemon either, probably spent the most time with Emerald. Most importantly, I didn't start playing Pokemon Go until August 12th, more than five weeks after launch.

I'm seeing a different game than early adopters did — I'm level 10, but gyms are controlled by people in the level 20-30 range. Fighting over gyms is an important part of the game, but I'm unlikely to catch up with the leading edge of players, especially without paying to win.

Despite fighting's importance, it has implementation problems that push me away from it. With no Pokemon Centers to heal pokemon for free, expendable potions are the only means of healing — discouraging risky fighting. The pace of fights is such that I don't always have as much time as I would like to consider and execute my next move, especially when switching pokemon. There's no quick reference for which types are strong against others.

Players in Pokemon games have been pokemon trainers, but with Pokemon Go, I'm hearing people talk about being pokemon hunters. A lot of the training aspects are gone — you don't control which moves a pokemon learns, you don't see useful pokemon stats directly, you don't breed pokemon, and you have less power over when pokemon can evolve or level up (CP+ in Go terms). With fighting also difficult to get into, that leaves catching pokemon.

Catching pokemon is the most important source of experience points, which level up the player rather than their pokemon. Player level determines the range of pokemon that can be randomly encountered. Catching a new kind of pokemon gives a lot of experience, but if your level is low you're not eligible to find most pokemon.

The game's biggest problem is that unlike previous Pokemon games, where I can go particular places to have a better chance of catching particular pokemon, in Go I'm stuck with what the servers and my level agree on. A trip to a new zone for a pokemon I haven't got yet won't make a difference. Niantic even suppresses attempts to map where pokemon are at the moment. (And I'm surprised they don't offer a first-party map of stops and gyms.)

Introducing zones sounds good, and it would add depth to the catching-centric "pokemon hunter" aspect of the game, but it would be a problem for players whose ability to go from zone to zone is limited. A kid who can only play in the local park would be out of luck trying to get other pokemon. Maybe the solution is items that selectively alter encounter rates, like an incense variant that boosts one type only.

Pokestops are boring and often unhelpful; gyms are interesting and varied, but effectively closed off. Pokestops could be reinvented as micro-gyms, guarded by the last victorious pokemon, but limited by a "weight class" that serves as an upper bound on the CP of challenging pokemon, perhaps leagues of <100, <500, and <1000. This would breathe life into the game for players below the levels dominant at gyms.

More interaction between trainers would be nice. I'd like to be able to challenge other players directly, without the need for gyms. The ability to trade items and pokemon would also be welcome. But I suspect that player interaction is limited by design due to the general idea of "stranger danger" that influences games with an intended audience that includes young children.

Ultimately I'm not the person they're designing for. Every free to play/pay to win game has two audiences, the F2P and the P2W. Since revenue comes from the P2Ws, milking them will always come before improving the F2P experience. These doldrum levels locked out of the meat of the game may be a deliberate attempt to frustrate newcomers, goading them into either quitting or paying.