As satisfying as it is to dunk on esports pros for essentially complaining that they can’t play on easy mode (especially given the short-sightedness and lack of empathy on display in their desire to freely stomp on less-skilled players - everyone has a better time when skills are more closely matched), there’s also some fascinating psychology beyond that here.
While the article doesn’t provide citations for this beyond quoting Halo 2’s multiplayer lead, it claims that “every major multiplayer shooter since Halo 2” has had skill-based matchmaking in both ranked and unranked playlists, with the different lists existing to lure the hyper-competitive or more-toxic players to ranked and leave supposedly-unranked play more enjoyable for other players.
Continuing his series in which he watches his non-gamer wife play various games, YouTuber Razbuten now takes a look at how several popular online competitive multiplayer games are experienced by an inexperienced gamer.
Key takeaways include that good tutorials are if anything even more important in these kinds of games, as understanding how to play affects not just one player’s experience but all of them, and a fear of making the game worse for other players can easily drive away exactly the sort of people you’d prefer to interact with online. Yet many games lack tutorials entirely, fail to point new players to them, or just convey the game’s basic mechanics without teaching the player how to actually use their toolkit and be a good teammate.
Additionally, it’s often very difficult to find matches against other players of similar skill levels, which can result in being frustratingly steamrolled while just trying to learn the game. One of the best solutions to both problems is to let players team up against bots - though even this often fails to convey the necessary skills to then play effectively against other humans.
Joost van Dongen of Ronimo Games (Swords & Soldiers, Awesomenauts) shares five useful insights about balance in competitive games. My personal favorite is the point that it’s far worse to have overpowered options than underpowered ones, because players flock to the strongest options. One underpowered option means the rest are still viable; one overpowered option means only that one is viable.
This look back at a couple of online games from the 1990s and 2000s shows that content moderation is a timeless problem and that if you give players a way to interact with each other, they will use it to circumvent your filters and communicate in ways less restricted than you intend. Wholly-automated prevention of harassment and obscenity may be flat-out impossible in a shared world.
Raph Koster’s fascinating and chilling GDC 2017 talk about the responsibilities of designers and maintainers of virtual and social spaces. Modern games and services from Facebook to Pokémon GO are ignoring the many lessons learned in the early days of shared online worlds, and you don’t even have to be a player or user to be affected by the fallout.
A few interesting case studies illustrating why the design of social or multiplayer experiences should be driven by the type of relationship players have with each other.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about franchises. Having recently played Mass Effect 2, and then Assassin’s Creed II, and now Uncharted 2, I have a lot of questions about what sequels are and what they should be.
When I played the original Mass Effect, I fell head-over-heels in love. I made three complete play-throughs in rapid succession, I devoured both novels available at the time (Revelation and Ascension), and when called upon to name my favorite three video games, Mass Effect made the cut.
Then I played Mass Effect 2, and now I barely care about the series. I mean, I’ll probably play Mass Effect 3. I guess. Certainly not for full launch-day price. You can bet I won’t pre-order, even if they don’t pull any of my pet peeve shenanigans.
What happened here that turned my devoted fandom to near indifference?
