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| 'Random' power weapon drops in Halo 4 | |
| Posted By: RC Master | Date: 4/7/12 12:59 p.m. |
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This was just going to be a forum post, but I decided to post it on my site as well. Crosspost for click-saving: Knowledge is power. But knowledge is not a skill. You cannot get better at knowledge. You simply acquire more of it. What is the skill, is the rapid acquisition and application of this knowledge for success. Lack of knowledge, about maps, about weapon placements, is a huge barrier for entry to new players. You only have to compare the amount of players that buy the game, to the amount of players that enter multiplayer at all, to the amount of players that play more than 20 games to see a huge drop off of players. Thats a problem when you want to keep as many games off the 2nd hand market as possible, when you want people to stick around to buy DLC, to use other tertiary and premium services like the rendering or Atlas. You want players in your game, playing matches, because the more people you have the better the overall experience for everyone in terms of skill and connection matches. It's not hard to understand that part of the reason for the massive drop of rate is because players are getting killed by powerful on-map weapons they had no idea even existed - that doesn't seem fun or fair to them. They have difficulty learning where these weapons spawn because they always seem to be in the hands of other players who have simply played more - who have got over that initial frustration and lack of knowledge, not that they're actually better at the game. The only consistent, in-game, way to learn where the weapons are is to go into Forge, select each weapon in turn and inspect the properties. Even then, the version you have provided for you on the disc inevitably diverges from the one in matchmaking (but you can fix that of course). Maps are set up for a plethora of gametypes where some weapons or vehicles may not appear in the gametype you're interested in, and they contain a huge amount of extra information that is difficult to interpret into it's in-game relevance (tags, spawn zones etc). It is completely unreasonable to expect new players to learn the ins and outs of Forge mode, to painstakingly go through each map in turn learning where weapons are and how long they take to respawn, just so they can begin to be on an even footing with more experienced players. I'll try to be clear here: I'm talking about a game between two players where their ability to manipulate weapons, their aim, their strafe, their ability to navigate spaces quickly and cleanly is the same, they learn at the same pace etc. One player however knows a given map, where the weapons are, how long they take to respawn and because of that, that player is almost guaranteed to win. Weapon locations are an essential part of map knowledge, crucial to success in almost every gametype, yet that information is very obscured. Tell me: how often have you done gone into Forge to do this? I have only done it a few times on a handful of maps, to check very specific weapons that were confusing me. For the most part I've muddled through learning mid-game because I want to play against people and not spend my time in Forge reciting weapon locations and respawn times. My knowledge is incomplete, vague and yet my skill still means I'm counted amoung the top few percentiles of players. For example, there is a Plasma Pistol in each of the bases on Hemmorhage; can you tell me off the top of your head, what the respawn time for the weapon is? Now this is an essential anti-vehicle weapon on the map, and I don't know what the respawn time is myself. So how do you fix this? How do you make maps easier to learn, and make sure the players that win are the ones that are more skilled, rather than simply more knowledgable? Well to start with you could bring the information about weapon spawns and timings much closer to the surface: Gears of War (last I checked) has a little overhead map that you can view before the start of a game which showed you key weapon locations. Halo could certainly use that verbatim - the Atlas facility in the Halo Waypoint app is certainly the start of that (although it is behind an awful pay-barrier). But that's still just rote-learning and is out-of-game. Ideally you want players to be learning as they play, inside the game world because that is more fun and what players would rather be doing anway. For that you'd rather need to change the mechanic. That's exactly what 343 Industries seems to be doing with Halo 4: where power weapons aren't always in set locations at set repetious times. The would 'random' was used as part of the brief description of a system that is clearly more complex than vague rumours and 3rd hand information can effectively convey. The company was quoted as saying they wanted to take away the aforementioned advantage that experienced players have. For Mr. Traditional-Halo-Uber-Pro-Headshot-Skill-Gap, both of those are huge red flags: "They're casualising the game", "They're noobing it up", "They're catering to casuals, they don't care about skilled halo" and other such dramatic assertions. When this type of player thinks of "random", they think of Crazy King, of Fiesta, of weapon firing spreads - mechanics that can (both potentially and in actuality) dish out advantages to one side or another 'unfairly.' But things can contain elements of randomness and still be entirely fair, fun and even competitive. Respawn locations for example. It will never be completely random of course, and there will necessarily be a limit to the number of locations. We still know next to nothing about the specifics. 343i aren't immune to the cries of the hardcore competitive types (see the recent removal of Jetpack from Arena). It's entirely possible, for example, that while the exact location is random each time it spawns, that this location will be called out to all players on the map 10 seconds before it actually spawns - so that players have a chance to adapt their location and tactics on the fly to acquire it or defend from it's possession by the opposite team. Does that sound a little like Invasion Slayer? Why yes it does. But unlike that gametype, there need not be just one location for power weapons, they don't need to be as overwhelming and numerous in each drop, and the locations can be more finely and fairly controlled. It isn't a question between pure hidden randomness (which is unfair) and pure hidden determinism (which can get boring and has the problem of knowledge rather than skill ruling the day). You can bring the knowledge to the surface, and you can make it so players need to react on their feet a little more rather than act in pre-determined cycles. Have you ever heard the phrase: "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master"? It's a good rule of thumb for creating games: that anyone should be able to get up and running very quickly, but that there is still immense depth to the gameplay. From the sounds of it, 343i want the basics to be quicker and easier to learn, so players can concentrate on the mastering part more - this is a fine goal and nothing people should be objecting too. Halo, even just from the perspective of using the Xbox controller, is difficult to get into and if you can make the rest of it easier to learn you'll have generally made a better overall game. These things don't have to make the game easier to master either. Let's think about it: why wouldn't you instead go the opposite direction and make the maps arbitrarily difficult to learn and navigate? With hidden passages and invisible routes, hidden caches of weapons (Carney Holes) with arbitarily obtuse weapon respawn timers and triggers? Well, because once everyone has that knowledge, you haven't necessarily added anything to the complexity, fun, skill gap and competitiveness of the game. It's fake skill-gap dependant purely on the difference in knowledge - not how well you can acquire, process or apply that knowledge. Knowledge is power. But knowledge isn't a skill. Don't get me wrong: I've been among the harshest of 343i's critics - so much so that in some circles I am known for such. They haven't earned my trust and for all we know Halo 4 could still be an unmittigated disaster. But please, if you're going to complain about or criticse them for something, do so about something that actually needs it and not about something that, at least on it's motivations, is a good idea. Once we have a fully-realised example we can then discuss whether the implementation really works, but until then let's not freak out. Besides, everyone knows 2v2 Halo CE will always be the pinnacle of competitiveness ;)
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