Profile of CieZ

Jump back to quoted post4 Apr 2015, 02:41 AMRomeo

Jaedrik has challenged the COH2 community to take up this banner and present it differently. To that end, Here's my attempt to translate the OP into modern day English:

During yesterday's livestream, the topic of critical hits and plane crashes was raised. Quinn Duffy defended both mechanics, yet anyone with even cursory game knowledge probably felt tension beneath his words. Relic seems to understand that their position is contrary to the wishes of the playerbase, if only vaguely.

In fact, their position runs contrary to all reasonable game design. These mechanics introduce frustration in place of enjoyment! So why hasn't Relic changed them?

The center of Quinn's argument is that uncertainty adds an element of drama to the game. If the game were completely predictable, it would be boring. There's no doubt that this is the case. All competitive games have a certain degree of uncertainty, from Brood War to Melee. Even Minesweeper has some moments of uncertainty.

Uncertainty must be presented as a "consistent inconsistency". The armor system falls into this category, and it's a beautiful game mechanic. Both sides know the risks and rewards, and know the various ways to improve their chances. In a typical engagement, both players have a measure of control over the outcome.

Players have no control over plane crashes or critical hits at all. That's what makes them frustrating. If your opponent gets a lucky crit, you feel as if you've been robbed of a kill that you earned. If you get a lucky crit of your own, you may not feel as though you truly deserve a win. This is because neither you nor your opponent had any control over the critical hit. It was purely random, and neither of you did anything special to make it happen.

Unit preservation is an extremely important game mechanic. If you preserve your units and wipe your opponent's, you'll win. The armor system is what enables players to preserve their heavy tanks. Since tanks get shot quite frequently, the hit/miss bounce/penetrate dynamic feels reasonably fair. If a tank gets away with a lucky miss or bounce, frustration is relatively mild. A critical hit is infuriating because again, the player has no control.

The uncertainty provided by the armor system is more than enough to satisfy Quinn's desire for drama. Taking it any further only hurts COH2's chances of becoming an E-sport. If Relic is serious about making COH2 a competitive game, these game mechanics must be changed or removed.

Jump back to quoted post3 Apr 2015, 18:26 PMJaedrik

During yesterday's livestream, the question of tank critical strikes and plane crashes was raised and addressed, if unsatisfactorily. They were defended in a cautiously wistful, if not blasé, manner. Yet, anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the game must feel some tension beneath their words. They seem to know at some level, even if only intuitively and vaguely, that their position is running directly contrary to the wishes of the playerbase.

Indeed, directly contrary to all reasonable game design as well. For the maximization of enjoyment, which is the virtue of design, is ignored, and instead frustration is introduced. Henceforth, the above mentioned RNG elements will be contrasted and distinguished from other games, then systems within CoH2 itself and the general character of a player's reaction, and thus defined their error is made clear.

It is conceded that dramatics, which are the corner of Quinn's argument, are important to the enjoyment of the individual; that which is predictable is thus solved, and thus solved then more boring.[1] Even in the most logical and consistent games this is true, just as flow of enjoyment is derived from the logical rote of clearing minesweeper, or employing the technical skill required to micro units in Brood War, or the degree of control one exercises over their character in Melee, the games still retain their uncertainty, as with mindgames and prediction and far more in Brood War and Melee, and the sheer chance involved in some minesweeper clicks that cannot be solved from the given information. It is that flowing mode of consciousness for the sake of some higher point and purpose which is the aid to solving uncertainty.

It is a consistent inconsistency. The penetration and armor system falls neatly into this category as a beautiful gameplay mechanic. Both sides know the risks and rewards, and know the various ways to improve their chances, this makes the engagement typical in that both players have a fair amount of control as to whether an engagement goes favorably or not. For, though RNG is in effect, its uncertainty is mitigated by being roughly expected and normal. And it is that norm which drives the player's expectation.

These expectations are spit on by plane crashes killing units and critical strikes causing the survival of a tank. Frustration is the emotion elicited when this norm is defied. For, often it occurs the noble minded are sympathetic towards those whom it happens upon, the unsympathetic derive little enjoyment from that which they may feel they did not earn, and those whom it happens upon are not wont to feel glad for their opponent, for it is unearned in the degree of its arbitration. Mind, it is not the arbitration itself which causes the frustration, it is the degree and significance which it defies expectation in.[2] Again, the emotion is affected because of the degree of its arbitration.

Relic has succeeded in making squad/unit preservation an extremely important gameplay mechanic. Those that preserve more often win than those that do not, and often it is quite deserved. However, as with a tank and its penetration system, one expects that if he has made the better choices, he capitalizes on the failure of the other, to destroy the target within an expected time frame. Penetration, being so normal, and being of predictable and middling percentages, with tanks being hit upon often enough to come nearer the law of large numbers, feels fair, therefore it is more often that one feels he or his opponent deserves the preservation or deprivation of that unit. Thus, frustration is relatively mild, and enjoyment of the game unaffected. Therefore, tank criticals fly in the face of the penetration system as an added layer of protection, where expectation would have them not be.[3]

The uncertainty provided by the other systems described is more than enough for Quinn's want of randomness, in his ill-defined analogy to real-life sports, ill defined because he does not explain the system comparable to RNG that makes it so 'compelling' to him.[4] Frustration is heightened because the plane crashes and tank crits can often decide a game, while feeling entirely undeserved on both sides. If removing these poor design choices means not feeling like Company of Heroes any more, then Company of Heroes as Quinn sees it ought not to exist.

Footnote:
[1] By a "binary existence", Quinn means a qualitative effect put on the tank that forces it to operate in a sort of in-between state. Presumably, this also means a plane does not simply live operational and die nonoperational, but that its in-between state is something, again, qualitatively unique. It turns out that a gun becoming non-operational, for example, means nothing but the absolute survival of the tank, or the frustration of having to spend extra valuable time and risk pursuing it to finish it off. Thus, it is only one small degree removed from the penetration system in that the pursuers have less apparent risk of being shot back at, disregarding any support one may have around the tank. A plane's qualitative addition is comparatively shallow, since it means either the absolute death of some random unit, or absolutely nothing, thus it feels just as quantitative, that is numbers-based, as the chances of shooting a plane down, but far more frustrating and arbitrary.

[2] It does well to point out that this is the reason many are as passionate about balance as they are, for often it seems that things ought not to be as they are, that they feel some faction or unit has enough advantages that there is little reasonable one can do against it. It does well to point that out, because it demonstrates that plane crashes killing units and tank crits aiding preservation is a universal imbalance. It is a universal imbalance, because it is so significant an arbitration in the outcome of a game.

[3] Just as plane crashes fly in the face of the expected and entirely deserved outcomes of the chance-to-kill system delivered by flak. It would be likewise ridiculous, from a gameplay and not immersion perspective, if dead infantry models randomly exploded with a very small chance under the pretense that 'he pulled his grenade before he died'.

[4] If he means qualitatively as talked about in footnote 1, I would challenge him to find a system comparable to the effects and relative predictability of penetration, and another system analogous to tank crits or plane crashes, then critically analyze the degree of arbitration involved in each. He will find there is nothing quite like the latter systems.

Jump back to quoted post3 Apr 2015, 16:51 PMVon Kluge

Both user generated content and ESL are on the roadmap...