I have to say that Modern Warfare is the only CoD game for which I have enjoyed the multiplayer, and I thing that is because they balanced it perfectly - even with the worst gun, one can handily take out someone with a rocket launcher and the chopper perk. Modern Warfare 2 has completely screwed balance, and I stopped playing it after a few hours.
I do love playing Halo, but I don't think it has ever had decent balance either. Halo CE was a pure sniper-fest (mostly with the overpowered pistols), except on the one or two maps where it was easy to sneak up behind them. Halo 3 also suffers from a complete overuse of sniper rifle and battle rifle. And don't even get me started on the grenades - even with halfway-decent aim you can sticky someone from halfway across the map.
The appeal for me in MW is the balance and the speed, where one plays many rounds over the course of a few minutes (because almost any engagement results in at least one player's death), and one has a 50/50 chance of getting the kill. For Halo, the appeal is completely different. Encounters are rarely fatal, so I can play very strategically, drawing back to recharge shields, etc.
Multiplayer FPS design principles
Gameplay needs to be somewhat balanced for twitch to work... if you've got the drop on someone, you shoot first, you even get a headshot, but they can spin around and kill you due to weapon imbalance... then the twitch aspect is ruined.
When this happens, you've got to compliment your twitch skills with some higher strategy - positioning, maneuvering, team organisation, etc...
This example happens in counter-strike with pistol VS AK. However, that's admittedly an extreme example.
The way I see most shooters, is strategy decides who goes first in the twitch fight. If you're both equal on strategy, then you twitch-off at the same time. If you're better on strategy, you get to twitch first, but if you're not good enough, they get to twitch back. Repeat until one dies or (occasionally) manages to retreat.
If the weapons are complicated/specialized enough, then there's a 3rd level to this abstraction. The choice of weapons by both players influences how effective their twitch attacks will be.
In terms of a turn-based dice game:
Strategy -> Initiative
Weapon/class match-up -> Damage roll
Twitch skill -> Roll to hit
The less extreme the differences between weapons are, the less that 'damage' matters -- it's just initiative and roll to hit.
Also, the less important that aiming skills are (e.g. console auto-aim), then the less 'roll to hit' matters -- it's just initiative and damage.
When this happens, you've got to compliment your twitch skills with some higher strategy - positioning, maneuvering, team organisation, etc...
This example happens in counter-strike with pistol VS AK. However, that's admittedly an extreme example.
The way I see most shooters, is strategy decides who goes first in the twitch fight. If you're both equal on strategy, then you twitch-off at the same time. If you're better on strategy, you get to twitch first, but if you're not good enough, they get to twitch back. Repeat until one dies or (occasionally) manages to retreat.
If the weapons are complicated/specialized enough, then there's a 3rd level to this abstraction. The choice of weapons by both players influences how effective their twitch attacks will be.
In terms of a turn-based dice game:
Strategy -> Initiative
Weapon/class match-up -> Damage roll
Twitch skill -> Roll to hit
The less extreme the differences between weapons are, the less that 'damage' matters -- it's just initiative and roll to hit.
Also, the less important that aiming skills are (e.g. console auto-aim), then the less 'roll to hit' matters -- it's just initiative and damage.
I, too, tend to prefer Halo games over CoD games, and I still think Battlefield 2 was the best BF. I don't know if anyone else feels the way I do, but for me a twitch shooter is a straight-up roleplay experience. I love to pretend I'm the imaginary super-soldier I'm playing as, and that archetype is often at odds with the fundamental rules of game design. Everyone's been talking about balance and gameplay and theme, and those are the key ingredients. Balance is what makes a game good, for me, and losing fair and square feels a lot better than winning due to semi-ethical behavior.
For instance, I hate to get a positive kill/death ratio by camping a corner and spawn-killing with a grenade launcher, but if the game rewards it (I'm looking at you, Modern Warfare 2) I'll do it all day long. If I go toe-to-toe with a guy and die because I hit the melee button when he had 7% shield and he took the time to fire those last two bullets and deplete mine before delivering the coup de grace, I'm angry at myself for being impatient, and I respect the victor.
I find that all games with standard maps and loadouts have a learning curve. If you play Halo and don't know where the sword is, you're going to get your ass handed to you by sword guys until you learn that tactical features of the map and take proper advantage of them. Same goes for rocket launchers in Quake or the best hiding place in Splinter Cell or the right configuration of ramp-blocking buildings in Starcraft. That's a core level of competence, and dying as a newb to vets who know what's up is neither shameful nor indicative of bad game design. If you don't know what a bishop does, you won't win at chess.
Once those skills and lessons are in place, though, the balance that's revealed is entirely on the shoulders of the designer. If the fast-sprinting knife-wielding gas-canister-holding ninja can shank me before I pull the trigger on my shotgun, then I think there's something wrong with the "shooter" I'm playing. If a half-dozen teutonic knights can burn and pillage and annihilate a battalion of archers, pikemen, catapults, swordsmen and lancers, then there's a flaw in the game's balance.
Returning to roleplay, an FPS game, especially on console, isn't really a simulation of a gunfight. All the bodily contortions and situational awareness and use of positioning and light and angles and psychology that make a gunfighter effective are traded in for things like bunny-hopping, grenade spamming, rocket-jumping and noob-tubing. These are all great gameplay devices, and games like Team Fortress 2 or Tribes go out of their way to codify these meta-game elements into the core of their game.
Halo does a good job of making the game a game. It rewards a good stealth backstab, not with an ephemeral medal, but with a short cutscene that represents a tradeoff between guaranteed assassination and momentary vulnerability. It represents health in a way that's both immediately intelligible and manageable in the context of a gunfight. It makes the melee powerful, but introduces rules that govern the perfect moment to strike, and that allows it to feel like a last-ditch maneuver, but not a flail.
Call of Duty: Black Ops pretends to be about Cold War commandos doing battle, but it's every inch the video game that Unreal Tournament or Duke Nukem ever was. I enjoy the game, and it's in my Xbox 360 as I type this, but I think of it as a hybrid between a good FPS and an MMO. Genuine advantages are imparted by "leveling up" (compared to the purely cosmetic offerings in Halo: Reach), including weapons, gadgets, superpowers and even access to gametypes. The grind governs everything, and while I'm genuinely impressed, delighted and compelled by the way they've used the in-game currency (Wager matches? Yes, please.), the actual game offers a thousand opportunities to say, "Oh, that sunuvabitch, just wait until I can use the gun he's using."
Unlockables are a great way to keep players playing, but a hojillion man-hours logged on the game doesn't always mean it's a better game.
Setting's also a factor. "Realistic" games tend to be brown and grey, with scrubby bushes and dirty paneling all through them. I'll take the crisp lines and clearly marked side-paths of a Halo map any day.
Truth be told, I loves me some Rainbow Six, and a slower, more deliberate game always feels better to me. My own training in room-clearing and threat neutralization was from a police perspective, and treating a tactical situation as a puzzle is always very rewarding to me. There's nothing I hate more than checking all my corners, communicating with my buddy and then having some moron in a ghillie suit come dashing into the room, absorb three bullets with his chest and then kill me with a stab to my thigh.
For instance, I hate to get a positive kill/death ratio by camping a corner and spawn-killing with a grenade launcher, but if the game rewards it (I'm looking at you, Modern Warfare 2) I'll do it all day long. If I go toe-to-toe with a guy and die because I hit the melee button when he had 7% shield and he took the time to fire those last two bullets and deplete mine before delivering the coup de grace, I'm angry at myself for being impatient, and I respect the victor.
I find that all games with standard maps and loadouts have a learning curve. If you play Halo and don't know where the sword is, you're going to get your ass handed to you by sword guys until you learn that tactical features of the map and take proper advantage of them. Same goes for rocket launchers in Quake or the best hiding place in Splinter Cell or the right configuration of ramp-blocking buildings in Starcraft. That's a core level of competence, and dying as a newb to vets who know what's up is neither shameful nor indicative of bad game design. If you don't know what a bishop does, you won't win at chess.
Once those skills and lessons are in place, though, the balance that's revealed is entirely on the shoulders of the designer. If the fast-sprinting knife-wielding gas-canister-holding ninja can shank me before I pull the trigger on my shotgun, then I think there's something wrong with the "shooter" I'm playing. If a half-dozen teutonic knights can burn and pillage and annihilate a battalion of archers, pikemen, catapults, swordsmen and lancers, then there's a flaw in the game's balance.
Returning to roleplay, an FPS game, especially on console, isn't really a simulation of a gunfight. All the bodily contortions and situational awareness and use of positioning and light and angles and psychology that make a gunfighter effective are traded in for things like bunny-hopping, grenade spamming, rocket-jumping and noob-tubing. These are all great gameplay devices, and games like Team Fortress 2 or Tribes go out of their way to codify these meta-game elements into the core of their game.
Halo does a good job of making the game a game. It rewards a good stealth backstab, not with an ephemeral medal, but with a short cutscene that represents a tradeoff between guaranteed assassination and momentary vulnerability. It represents health in a way that's both immediately intelligible and manageable in the context of a gunfight. It makes the melee powerful, but introduces rules that govern the perfect moment to strike, and that allows it to feel like a last-ditch maneuver, but not a flail.
Call of Duty: Black Ops pretends to be about Cold War commandos doing battle, but it's every inch the video game that Unreal Tournament or Duke Nukem ever was. I enjoy the game, and it's in my Xbox 360 as I type this, but I think of it as a hybrid between a good FPS and an MMO. Genuine advantages are imparted by "leveling up" (compared to the purely cosmetic offerings in Halo: Reach), including weapons, gadgets, superpowers and even access to gametypes. The grind governs everything, and while I'm genuinely impressed, delighted and compelled by the way they've used the in-game currency (Wager matches? Yes, please.), the actual game offers a thousand opportunities to say, "Oh, that sunuvabitch, just wait until I can use the gun he's using."
Unlockables are a great way to keep players playing, but a hojillion man-hours logged on the game doesn't always mean it's a better game.
Setting's also a factor. "Realistic" games tend to be brown and grey, with scrubby bushes and dirty paneling all through them. I'll take the crisp lines and clearly marked side-paths of a Halo map any day.
Truth be told, I loves me some Rainbow Six, and a slower, more deliberate game always feels better to me. My own training in room-clearing and threat neutralization was from a police perspective, and treating a tactical situation as a puzzle is always very rewarding to me. There's nothing I hate more than checking all my corners, communicating with my buddy and then having some moron in a ghillie suit come dashing into the room, absorb three bullets with his chest and then kill me with a stab to my thigh.
Quote:Original post by Stroppy KatamariYou can argue about console vs pc players all you want, but you can't make a claim that console shooter plays aren't competing against each other. Of course they are. Saying that they aren't isn't just foolish, it's nonsensical.
Console FPS and competitive - do those really belong to the same sentence?
That out of the way - some of us don't like Halo or COD. There are many examples of shooters where the shooting part isn't the most important element. You don't need perfect aim to win a round of execution in Gears of War; it's the team that communicates and can think strategically that wins. GRAW, Rainbow Six, are two other examples of games like this. You can tell you're playing one when rushing toward the enemy always gets you killed. A match between skilled players involves very little shooting, and a great deal of positioning and sneaking and running away.
The key here, I think, is the retreat. In some games, retreating is a viable tactic. Most don't give you the framework you need to setup situations where a strategic retreat is possible. I've never seen anyone retreat to lure a group of enemies into an ambush in Halo, but it's a common tactic in Gears of War.
Let me add -
Quote:Returning to roleplay, an FPS game, especially on console, isn't really a simulation of a gunfight. All the bodily contortions and situational awareness and use of positioning and light and angles and psychology that make a gunfighter effective are traded in for things like bunny-hopping, grenade spamming, rocket-jumping and noob-tubing.That's exactly what I want from a shooter. And it's why I play the shooters that I do, and not Halo or COD. It's pretty hard to bunny-hop in a game where you can't jump, you can't rocket jump when the game doesn't have rocket launchers, or the splash damage at that range is fatal, and you can't spam grenades when you can only hold two. But this breed of tactical shooters does give you a chance to do all those other things. While being terribly unrealistic in it's management of health, Gears of War manages to present a more realistic version of gun fighting than Halo or CoD.
As for noob-tubing - if there is a strategy that works, it will be used. Why don't the experienced players use it, if it's so effective? Stop bitching about it and learn to counter it. Or use it.
[Edited by - Deyja on November 13, 2010 12:00:48 PM]
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