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So I first started thinking about this when I heard the phrase “toy guns or paper mechs” in terms of balancing, because really it accurately sums up the positions of the high TTK/low TTK advocates respectively, and is used as the counterarguments for the opposite side. Low TTK advocates say they want guns to feel threatening; they don’t want Nerf dart guns attached to these giant, futuristic mechs. High TTK advocates do not want the heavily armored mechanical monstrosities to be made out of tissue paper. Both of these are good points, and reading this struck a thought in me, “where is the middle ground_”
That is why I started thinking about what power is, and what elements define it. After ordering my thoughts, I wanted to present it here (as my 2,000th post
) to hopefully allow players to have a frame of reference as to what makes up power, and why it matters. I should mention that, while I will be relating this to Hawken, I am writing this as a general theory for games. Whether it is a multiplayer or single-player game, or whether it is an MMO, MOBA, FPS, RPG, or any other game, I intend this to be a general purpose discussion. As such, I will be using examples from a lot of games. Now, before I could get too deeply into these thoughts, I needed to define what I thought power is.I think of power as “the player’s ability to influence the outcome of a battle, the options to influence the battle, as well as giving the player the feeling of having some influence in that battle.” These are all very similar, but very, very different. I will mostly be focusing on how the player feels, because if a player feels like they were powerful, they will feel like they are having fun. After all, no one likes taking part in something they feel like they have no control of.
Now, power (especially the feeling of it) is very subjective, and giving the player the feeling of being powerful, while not being OP, requires a delicate balance of several factors.
- Animation – from screen shake to projectile speed to enemy recoil to “wind up”. Provides weight.
- Sound – Sounds need to reinforce the weight, tied with animation
- Cost – More Mana/heat/ammo, a secondary resource
- Limitations – Tied with cost, but different. Refers to the limits of a character’s power. How much mana they have, how easy is it to regenerate the secondary resource_ How long is the cast time_ How long are the Cooldowns_
- Perceived damage – A trap usually set for the unskilled and the ignorant, but even skilled and experienced players can fall for it, this can create a feeling that a weapon is either weaker or stronger than it is, creating disappointment either way. This usually negatively affects a player’s feeling of power, even if the player believes the weapon is stronger than it is.
- Actual damage – Fairly obvious. Moves can be strong, but don’t have to one shot everything.
- Utility – a character can be powerful without having to do damage, or an attack can do less direct damage than other attacks, but still be more powerful thanks to utility.
Animation: If a move is powerful, it needs to look powerful… but not too powerful. The animation is a major contributor to how the attack feels. A fireball spell should be a fireball, not a fire pebble. There needs to be fluidity between every part of the animation, from the “cast” to the “launch/travel” to the “arrival”. Slow attacks need weight behind them to feel powerful, fast attacks can seem weak individually, but need to feel strong when combined. Speed is all relative to the individual game.
Take WoW’s mage for example. The basic fireball spell has a good cast animation, with the entire character’s body going into a cast pose. The launch animation is good too, when the spell is released, it has an obvious effect, it’s big and looks deadly, but it falls flat at the arrival animation, since it kind of just fizzles out of existence. In shooters, this is slightly different, but it still has all three parts. In a shooter, the casting animation is much shorter, but it is still there, in the form of visual weapon recoil (this does not mean the mechanic of recoil, although it is often implemented alongside it). In this case, think of the TOW, it fires, has a huge and obvious recoil visual effect, but does not change your aim when it is used. Next comes the launch animation, although in a shooter it is better to focus on the travel aspect, since cast and launch typically happen at the same time. Continuing with the TOW example, the missile fires, and thanks to a relatively recent update (meaning months ago
), is much more obvious during the travel animation. The bright glare now caused by the missile is a giant “get out of my way, or I’ll ruin your day” sign to enemies. It also has a satisfying arrival animation, when it causes a large explosion that deals decent damage.edit: I feel at this point I should mention the Hack-n'-Slash genre here, because this is where it is king. Large, flashy combos and attacks are the name of the game -- or rather, the genre. Whether the game is Devil May Cry, Deadpool, God of War, or Darksiders, the gameplay revolves around flashy and awesome combos. The animations for attacks in these games are designed to be brutal, flashy, and fun to watch. However that's all the genre has going for it, imo. Anyway, when it comes to animations for the attacks, the Hack-n'-slash genre is arguably king of it.
Sound: Very closely tied with animation. Sound reinforces the weight behind attacks. Same as animation, the cast, launch, and arrival sounds all need to match with the animation. Animation creates the weight, sound reinforces it. Think of how the familiar “thump” of a grenade launcher in a shooter helps to convey the force used to pump out the explosive. For those players around, remember the Rev-GL sound before Operation: Frostburn_ It was similar to the GL’s sound, and hearing a lot of those “thumps” in quick succession really used to freak people out. Of course, back then the Gren was very strong, with the Stunlock bug and Rev-GL damage, it was a very dangerous mech. However, the sound helped to convey that power before you even saw the Gren. You heard that and you knew it would be a tough fight. The new Rev-GL sound doesn’t do as good of a job to convey the power of the weapon, it makes the weapon feel weaker than the old sound did, since instead of a loud, deep “thump”, we are getting a more quiet, high pitched “Pew”.
Cost: cost is a great indicator of an attack’s power. It is safe to say that the more the attack costs, the more powerful it will be in comparison to weaker attacks. However, if the move’s power does not match up with the cost, it becomes either impractical to use (low power/cost ratio) or it dominates every other choice, causing it to lose weight as a feeling of being powerful, since that is the only attack worth using (high power/cost ratio).
For example, in Final Fantasy IV, at one point you will learn the spell “meteor”. This is one of the strongest black magic spells in the game and costs 99 MP (even though the animation for it is better for a spell called “meteorites”, imo). When you first get it, you can use it about 6-8 times (depending on the version, since it's learned at different levels) before not having enough MP to use it. On the other hand, you can take advantage of an enemy’s elemental weakness, still do massive damage, and at 1/3 the cost using the Blizzaga, Firaga, or Thundaga spells. The power isn’t always as good as meteor, but the cost effectiveness of the spells means they are a decent option, while still retaining the feeling of power.
This gets more complex with the addition of a secondary resource. Take WoW as an example, between Cataclysm and MOP they have given almost every class a secondary resource (some had them earlier, like Rouges or DK’s), and that resource must be taken into consideration along with your primary resource.
Limitations: The limits placed on the character are important as well. The feeling of something being powerful also stems, at least in part, from how often/how little the player can use it. Cost falls under this, but is distinct enough that it deserves its own category. It is more than just cost, though. This also includes cooldowns/clip size/reload time/resource regeneration, not simply the cost of whatever resource system the game uses. More powerful attacks/weapons/spells typically require more time in between successive attacks.
For example, in COD, a rocket launcher takes more time to reload then an assault rifle. Shotguns (typically) require a pump between shots, and still have a longer reload time than an assault rifle. There are automatic shotguns, but they are weaker and have a faster reload time. Another good example is Infamous, where you have this super powerful lightning-based badass who has a plethora of devastating attacks at his disposal. However if you are not careful with managing these attacks, you can easily run out of electricity and find yourself powerless against a group of enemies. That is why you always need to keep track of nearby sources of electricity, so you don’t run out at a crucial time. In fact, several times over the course of the game you are forced to go into zones with no power, and that is truly a dangerous place, since mismanagement of your abilities could very well lead to your death. That is when you as a player feel weakened, and that is one of the few times that it is a good thing. Times when you are weak make times when you are strong make you feel even stronger, and that creates a good experience.
Percieved damage: Naturally all of the above traits need to match up with how much damage the attack does – or at least appears to do. In Hawken, watching a few bars of an enemy’s health drop off is always satisfying, and we automatically start building a frame of reference for the power of each weapon in our minds depending on how many bars are lost when firing, even if we don’t know the exact numbers. It allows us to compare the different weapons with each other in terms of perceived power. However, it is not a perfect reference, as there exist in Hawken many ways to mess with that perception. Dodging can make shots miss slightly (for example, when using the Flak), registering a hit but not getting the full power. Dodging can also take you to the edge of an explosive’s radius, causing a perception that the weapon is weaker because of feathering, even though it could do massive damage on a direct hit. The Bruiser ability mitigates the damage a little, as do the turret modes.
These ways of mitigating damage can create a feeling in players that the weapon is weak, when it is not. This makes the weapon less fun to use. Those players are usually surprised when they hear the weapon is actually very strong, like in the case of the Heat or EOC. Players who know how to use the weapons effectively, as well as theorycrafters, typically see less of this, as perceived damage usually only affects unskilled/unknowledgeable players. Once a player knows how strong it is, they usually stop attributing the perceived weakness to the weapon, and instead attribute it to player/opponent factors (outplayed/missed/etc.) Another example would be FF XIV, where the health bar of your target is displayed twice, one small bar above the enemy’s head, and one large bar at the top of the screen. Watching the large bar (and consequently what appears to be a larger amount of damage being dealt) is a lot more fun and empowering than watching the small bar, which makes it appear you do less damage.
Damage can also be overestimated due to outside factors. If you are not the only one damaging an enemy but do not realize it, it becomes all too easy to overestimate your weapon’s effectiveness. This can only lead to disappointment and a less fun experience when you find out it is actually not as strong as you thought.
Actual damage: The theorycrafter’s favorite toy, this is an obvious stat when it comes to talking about power. The above points mean nothing without this. However, a move with a bland animation, no sound, ridiculously high cost, low resource regeneration, low perceived damage, but high actual damage, is no fun to use. The damage needs to click with every other point made. When it comes to the actual balancing of this point, however, there is a small bit of wriggle room. For example, when the TOW damage and ROF (and indirectly Heat gen because of the higher ROF) was changed, many people didn’t like it…why_ It did the same overall damage as before, so why did people not like it_ Because it didn’t feel as powerful. Because it was spammy.
This is because the cost (heat gen) was higher, the limitation was lower (ROF), the perceived damage was lower, but the actual damage stayed about the same/similar. So in this trade, you have –3 and a + 0. By this I mean, three negative effects happened, and one neutral effect happened. This means that the TOW has the same effectiveness, but it does not feel as powerful. This is important to remember: the actual damage of a weapon may contribute to a feeling of power, but it is very easy to mess up.
DOT attacks often seem weak to players because of the nature of damage over time. This makes classes that use a lot of DOTs secretly very strong, as they are typically underused. Why_ Because the damage isn’t frontloaded. It isn’t immediate. The same thing happened with the TOW changes. Players see the TOW dealing less damage per shot, and because of that it is perceived as weaker than the old TOW, even though it will do the same/similar damage over a certain amount of time. However, it is true that speaking in pure damage, the new TOW does less damage per shot than the old one. It just attacks faster.
Utility: Finally. I initially wasn’t going to mention this, as I consider utility-based discussion more fitting in a support’s power discussion (a whole different beast), and I was focusing on power when it comes to damage dealers, but utility does have a place here, and is worth a mention. The utility of a weapon or a character does contribute to a feeling of power, even if it is weaker than other choices.
For example, when I’m playing COD (ugh), why would I use a grenade instead of a rocket launcher_ Both are explosives, but the grenade animation takes far longer to fire compared to the rocket, plus it is a slower projectile, and is harder to aim. The answer is simple: you can lob grenades over obstacles, or bounce them around walls/corners that a rocket could never do. This utility makes the grenade a situationally better choice than the easier to use rocket. It also makes you feel pretty good when you get a blind kill with one.
Often times in games, utility can help avoid damage or direct confrontation, or even allow a stealth/ambush approach. This is often done with poisons, mezzes, active camo, etc. It is utility that allows most damage dealing classes in RPGs to be squishier, as they often have ways outside of armor/defensive buffs to mitigate that…aside from killing them before they kill you. For example, in the Final Fantasy series, black mages (the damaging kind) often have status inflicting spells as well as damage dealing spells, since it gives them more utility in combat. Utility helps a player feel powerful while not frontloading damage all at once.
Well, that was long. Well yeah, of course. However, I’m not done yet. I have defined power, and I have given what elements I think make up that power, now how does this relate to the paper mechs/toy guns issue_ Well if you know the elements that define power, it then becomes easier to manipulate those elements to give satisfaction to most of either party. It also becomes easier to make suggestions based on these elements to help improve a player’s feeling of power in game. However, this is only one part of the game. I completely ignored counterplay, support, health, speed, and many other factors that contribute to a player’s enjoyment of the game. Power is not the only thing that contributes to fun, but it is a major element.
Remember, these are my thoughts, and mine alone. Some of you may not agree, and that’s fine. If you don’t feel free to explain why. I am actually very curious as to what other people’s thoughts are on this subject. Thanks for reading this far!
tl;dr: nope.
Edited by Guiotine, July 03 2013 - 11:36 AM.
