[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Damion Schubert]

On Fri, Feb 8, 2008 at 12:47 AM, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

> "Damion Schubert" <dschubert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Throwing away good gameplay design because it might get
> > in the way of the social aspect of the game ignores the fact that the
> > tactics that arise from such gameplay constraints often do more good
> than
> > harm.
>
> Does it? Exactly what are you comparing it to? Because based on the online
> games with persistent worlds that I've seen, defined roles tend to have a
> socially unbalancing aspect to them. Have you learned no lessons from
> LucasFilms' Habitat?


I've learned plenty from Habitat - the Habitat Papers should be considered
must-
reads from anyone entering the industry.  That being said, it's easy to draw
the
wrong conclusions.

In WoW, the most popular class (the Hunter) is played by 16% of the
population,
whereas the least popular class (the Shaman) is played by half that.  This
doesn't
seem very balanced, until you compare it to, say, the early days of UO, when
virtually all classes had the melee and magery skills, and 'individuality'
was made
up of the 1-2 random skills you chose beyond that.  THAT was socially
unbalanced.

> Removing specialization so that all people can become and do all things
> if they so desire ends up creating a quagmire of overwhelming choice to
> most players, where if they are being competitive, they don't understand
> why they are failing.  In these situations, tactics tend to gravitate
> towards 'superbuilds' - character templates that have a high percentage
> of success  in the most situations.  The net result is that choice
> actually begins to shrink.

What is business school except training for being a superbuild? The
> difference is, in real life, not everyone wants to go into business. You
> create a great enough variety of activities and you won't have to worry
> about enforcing individuality. Enforcing individuality is like enforcing
> breathing. All you have to do is give people air and it'll happen anyway.
>

There is also a very serious economy of opportunity.  How many people
go to business school AND medical school AND law school?  Few.  In
real life, most people specialize.  And in fact, most people specialize
in their field - general practicioners are considered 'lesser' doctors than
doctors that specialize in Oncology, for example, and lawyers choose
whether to prosecute, whether to take on corporate law, tax law, etc, etc,
etc.  The reason is exactly the same: even exceptional people find it
difficult to remain at the top of their field in multiple arenas at once.


> > One of the lead designers of Magic: the Gathering first described this
> > paradox to me.  When one possible card combination in that game
> > becomes overwhelming, all other players who desire to have a meaningful
> > seat at the table are forced to build decks that use that combo, or
> build
> > decks specifically designed to beat that combo.  When this happens,
> > the number of different deck builds actually shrinks, and interest in
> the
> > game wanes as players cannot express their creativity.  The broken cards
> > are often artifacts - colorless cards that defy specialization, which
> > makes them harder to balance.
>
> When I played Hearts in high school, I always aimed for gathering all the
> hearts (a very difficult thing to do), but I tended to win more often than
> not because the stigma of gaining hearts was so great that by the time
> they realized that I wanted that suite, they had already given me their
> highest valued cards. This was a strategy I could employ successfully,
> simply because the people I was playing against were min-maxers. As soon
> as they figured out that I did this every game, I resorted to a second,
> slightly more sinister strategy when I appeared to be seeking hearts but
> was setting up one of the other players for them instead.


Yes.  There are two ways to min-max your gameplay (i.e. specialize) -
dishing out hearts or shooting the moon.  If you try to hybridize your
gameplay,
you will lose every time - you have to commit early in the game.  (And yes,
I played a ridiculous amount of Hearts in high school myself - almost as
much
as I played Egyptian Ratscrew).

>
> When you have a dominant strategy like in Magic, this is because there is
> no player individuality. You are assuming stranger versus stranger in
> optimal gameplay situations. But what happens when they play sealed deck
> tournaments? Or when they've played the same person multiple times? When
> they play their girlfriend versus when they play their best friend? The
> dominant strategy exists due to the simple fact that victory has been too
> narrowly defined, and the roles one plays are too strict. A game that can
> allow for different people to play it to their own satisfaction is, I
> believe, a better game. Long story short, when the goal isn't to win, you
> can't have a dominant strategy.
>

No, Magic has an ENORMOUS wealth of player individuality, ASSUMING the
game is balanced towards specialization, with restraints on what players can
do.  Magic ceases to have player individuality when unexpected card
combinations
arise, which are infinitely more likely to happen when choice is
constrained.

And yes, this happens in every serious magic tournament: draft, sealed deck,
constructed, etc.  Which cards and combos are broken varies per environment,
and one of the challenges that the team faces is that they have to be aware
and
balance for each of them.  And they do a good job.  The reason why is that
they
constrain player choice to give themselves a testable number of
combinations.

As for 'the goal of the game isn't to win' - twist that a bit to say 'the
goal of the
game is to succeed', and I wholeheartedly endorse that.  However, most
players
will look at games without hardcoded definitions of success as failures of
game
design, even if ultimately they choose a different path from within.


> > What you are describing is not at all like saying that players must all
> > play as bishops.  What you are describing is like saying that all
> players
> > may choose to populate their own chess boards with whatever pieces
> > they like.  The end result - 15 queens surrounding one king - would make
> > for a crappy game, and would be so utterly uninteresting as to not allow
> > a society to gel.
>
> If the goal was to win, then yes, that would be a dominant strategy. But
> what if the goal was to insult your opponent? Then winning with 15 pawns
> would be a better solution. What if your goal was to teach another player
> how to play? Then a mix of all components would be required. What about if
> you simply want make a picture using the pieces on the chessboard? Then
> you'd use whatever pieces were aesthetically most pleasing. How about if
> you wanted to play checkers? Then you could use pawns to stand in for
> checker pieces.
>
> When there is only one way to win, there is only one way to win. When
> winning isn't important, there are a thousand ways to win.
>

I disagree entirely on the emphasis of what you are saying.

Magic: the Gathering has potent and interesting background 'win conditions'
such as 'beat your player in the most humiliating fashion possible (such as
using the 'booby trap' card) and 'collect all the cards in this set'.
World of Warcraft has a very fertile environment for all sorts of out of
game activity, including a rich machinima community and a powerful
modding community.  However, both of these have arisen BECAUSE the
core gameplay is so fertile and intriguing to those people - i.e. the game
you play to WIN is, in some way, captivating.  This has allowed these
two games to hit critical mass.

There are other collectable card games with more humiliating win
conditions, better looking art or more interesting 'collecting mechanics'
built in.  There are other MMOs with strong UI modding tools, better
backstories for roleplaying or are better suited for Machinima.

However, all of these are for naught unless the game itself hits social
critical mass.  Trying to cater to the 10% of people who are capable
of finding their own fun and making their own rules ignores the fact that
90% of the people don't want to and won't.  And if that 90% can't find
something to latch onto and go elsewhere, the other 10% will follow.

It's no fun making UI mods that never get used.  Making machinima in
Saga of Ryzom isn't as sexy as making it with WoW art, because the
size of the audience for whom the movie has any resonance or relevance
is so small.  Having a full collection of Mythos cards impresses no one.

Having interesting core gameplay is the cornerstone to reaching social
critical mass.  This core gameplay does not need to be combat, does
not need to have tank/dps/heals, and does not need to be all men in
tights.  It most certainly, however, needs to be something that players
can immediately be directed to, engage with, and feel some success.
And since most customers are logging in expecting a game, it certainly
helps to meet their expectations and deliver, you know, a game.

> Good gameplay creates good discussion. Abandon good tactical gameplay,
> > and you are merely praying that serendipity causes a community to gel.
>
> Good gameplay causes discussion only amongst a specific type of player -
> usually one that, when dominant in a community, completely ruins the
> experience for everybody else. Screw those guys.
>

Sure, it's possible to cater too much to one crowd.  Most MMOs, though,
even the 'men in tights' ones, have strong roleplaying communities, raiding
communities, PvP communities, dungeon running communities, and a
vocal component that likes to solo.  Each of which have different needs and
balance concerns.

 > So your answer would be to only allow Magic players to play with common
> cards and chess players to play with pawns.  Big, interesting and scary
> game pieces might not combo well with something else, so we better keep
> all possible functionality as bland and safe as humanly possible.  If only
> more of my competitors took this point of view.

No, my solution is not to define victory as a socialist statement. Any
> gameplay is fine as long as you don't bother anyone else. Don't give one
> brand of gameplay the power to dominate other ones. For instance, how much
> more interesting is crafting when you are allowed to create furniture than
> when you are simply outfitting warriors? How much more interesting is
> owning a home when you can decorate it to serve functions other than
> storage for your warrior? How much better is combat when violence isn't
> the only way to solve a problem? It's better to build a world and let
> combat be part of it than to create a combat system and let the world be
> part of that.
>

This is a recipe for a broad world game.  Which is fine, although for most
players, the answers to your questions is "not much more interesting, not
much more interesting, and probably breakable somehow."

Star Wars Galaxies is probably the testament to this.  At ship, its combat
was, to put it charitably, not captivating, and most of the filthy combat
lovers
you seem to dislike so much left in pretty short order.  This created a
domino
effect, where the weaponsmiths and armorsmiths had fewer and fewer
customers to cater to, which resulted in the architects and furniture makers

having fewer and fewer customers to cater to.  The Combat Upgrade and
later New Game Experience were both attempts to rebuild the core customer
base of the game, in hopes of rebuilding social critical mass.

The more that your game depends on a player ecology of skills and economic
cooperation, the more important that it is to have social critical mass in
your
playspace.  This is true whether you are talking about a broad economic sim
like UO and SWG, or a narrower combat game with necessary combat roles,
such as the raid game in WoW or EQ.

>Why? Why does the designer need to be in control? I'm against
>authoritarian game design. Let the player have a say in his experience.

If you do not have core, bedrock gameplay to act as the center of your
game, you are effectively depending on serendipity to keep your community
whole.  As a designer, this should scare the bejeezus out of you.


> My games are never uninteresting.
>

That is ultimately up to the player's perspective.  Be sure that you aren't
ant-
farming, and are actually cognizant of the day-to-day experience inside your
playspace, even if the game fails or takes a long time to reach social
critical
mass.

--d