Thoughts on Game Design [Discussion Thread]

[redria]

I saw this video in a thread a few days ago and did some thinking on it, and on retention and some of the things that the video mentions. Specifically, skip to the 2:30 mark to see Extra Credits describe something that sounds eerily familiar.

The point that the video makes is that new players should be able to kill experienced players using techniques/weapons/skills that are very easy, but that there should be techniques/weapons/skills that are stronger but require more skill. This gives new players an in to compete against skilled players without feeling helpless, and it rewards skilled players for taking the time to learn skills.

There are several places where GoIO fails in this regard, though not through individual efforts. In fact, GoIO does a pretty good job of following those concepts on an individual basis. However, it fails on a team diagnosis.

Consider: as a gunner, experience shows you how to use ammo types and improves your aim, making you better with harder to hit weapons that deal more damage (mines, lumberjeck, heavy flak, hades, etc). Another gunner will still do serviceably well, and could still beat you with a lucky shot, but you are distinctly better. As an engineer, experience shows you how to maintain chem sprays, how to balance shooting and repairing, how to optimize your repairs, etc. An opposing engineer might get lucky and hit a critical repair just before you, but probably not. As a pilot, your ship depends heavily on arcs. An experienced pilot will be very good at staying out of arcs an maintaining their own arcs, but may occasionally be caught and killed by a less experienced pilot.

Now consider, in the video there is a reference to the CoD noob tube (? I never played CoD...). Presumably, a less experienced player can get a kill through a lucky shot or a mistake by the more experienced player. It probably wouldn't turn the tide of the battle, but it feels like progress.

In this instance, success is had through luck and/or mistakes by a single individual.

Looking back at GoIO. A gunner may make mistakes, but an experienced pilot/engineer will keep the ship alive until the gunner fixes their mistakes. An engineer may mess up, but a good pilot and good gunner will keep the ship out of fire or finish the kill before the ship goes down. A pilot may temporarily find themself in a bad position, but a good engineer can help keep the ship alive long enough to put the gunner in a position to end the engagement.

In GoIO, success is had through luck and/or mistakes by an entire ship.

On top of this, consider that often experienced ships stick together to support each other. You have added an extra dimension of safety from teamwork.

Individually, GoIO seems to meet the standards of a game that provides an in for new players. You may cite flamethrowers or gat-mortar builds as examples of how new players can beat experienced players. But these kills really only happen when an entire team makes a series of mistakes. They minimize the window a team has to recover from these mistakes, but they do not open the window in the first place.

Question being, is GoIO a game that can be conventionally balanced to offer new players an opportunity to defeat experienced players, or is the teamwork too intricate to ever provide that opportunity in a way that makes a game big?


Does this make sense to you? Am I wrong? Can you think of a way GoIO could better entice newer players to stick around? Discuss!

[Queso]

That actually reminds me of a statistical concept called the central limit theorem. We can approximate the skill of a player as a die. Their individual skill at any given time tends to lie within a range and it tends to be fairly evenly distributed in that range. Similarly a die can be rolled any number of times and end up in the range of 1-6 with an even distribution. (Player skill may fall into other distributions such as the normal distribution, but CLT should still apply in the next section of this post.)


This graph represents an individual players ability during the match. Sometimes they get good rolls, good shots, good repair cycle execution, etc. (Rolling a 6) Sometimes they don't. (Rolling a 1), and they usually end up somewhere in between.






Next I'm going to look at what happens when we try to average some skewed individual distributions into a ship. (With a noob tube, it's like a die with 5 sides labled "1" and 1 side labled "6")



Now the skill of a ship itself is made up of more than 1 person. So let's start simple and roll 2 dice.




As you can see, the odds of getting an average performance out of a group of 2 people or 2 dice increases. However the odds of getting both people playing really bad at the same time, or really good at the same time, drastically decreases. It's much less likely to roll a 12 than a 7.

The more dice/people you have, the more it tends towards the center.

[Queso]

In my next post I'll take a look at what happens when you average distributions of "noob tube" like players. Imagine a die with 4 faces labled "1" and 2 faces labled "6". (Time to break out the programming cause doing the math is harder).

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Muse would have to release a normal mode where the HP regenerates and guns do high dmg, or something like that; and then a hardcore mode, if they wanted noobs to feel powerful. Course rarely any vet would play normal. Unless you gave them incentives to do so. Honestly if you made a 1.1 mode for either, I'd play that exclusively and not touch whatever mode was the current build.

This all goes back to many proposals done last year and over the course of time in the community. There are those that would cry community split, but you'd be a fool to refuse to notice the community is already divided. There are at least two major divergences involved around here with more that are minor ones. This goes with the territory. There is always going to be two factions. When COOP mode comes out, we'll see another. Best to just cater to both crowds because numbers are high enough on each that you'll risk losing too many if you cater to one over the other.

I'd almost be willing to bet that retention would be a heck of a lot better if there was two modes or at the very least, some form of greater control over lobby gametypes where you could set up a lobby to suit your tastes. Some folks like vanilla, and some folks like chocolate chip. Just how it goes.

[HamsterIV]

I saw that video too, and in my mind the "noob tube" of Guns of Icarus is the Manticore Goldfish. A single manticore volley at close range will disable a ship and give a new team the feeling of accomplishment, maybe even a kill if the target ship's armor has been weakened by an ally.

I think the ally component is far more important than the gun itself. Unlike COD where kills are made by individuals with no assistance, GOI kills often a combined effort between two ships. The mechanic that makes GOI more newbie friendly is the Ship Scramble. In a game where Teamwork is OP, letting a new player experience what it is like to contribute to an effective team will do far more for player retention than giving them a gun that will give them a low probability luck kill.

[Ruairi]

Having just watched the video, the 2:30 mark really does seem eerily familiar. Having said that, in terms of the "noob tube" I really believe this concept is circumstantial in GoI, border lining on non existent. You could classify the manticore goldfish or even the metamidion as the "noob tube" but the problem with this is that the more experienced players (if we are following the "FOOS" example) will be more skilled than the newer players in executing these "High power for low skill" strategies. Hence it becomes who can "noob tube" better at that instant in time.

It only gets worse that in GoI there are two options when the experienced players peak in these "FOOS" examples. a: leave the game, b: experiment with the higher skill requirement ships, that often punish you more heavily for slight mistakes or put you in some undesirable situations for a inconsistent reward.

Thus when combined with the aspect of counter play (If you do A, I'll do B, and if I do B you'll do C...) few ships are optimal/ somewhat viable in every situation that you come across and will require higher levels of effort and skill to attain positive results when stepping away from "FOOS". This becomes evident when also considering map implications along with ship pros/cons.

Higher skilled ships:
Spire, Pros: Firepower with good turning speed, vertical movement, versatile. Cons: Likely to crash into terrain due to height, vulnerable points, fragile, slow, repair ability.
Mobula, Pros: Firepower and horizontal spacing, vertical movement, versatile. Cons: Poor turning, fragile, slow, repair ability, balloon.
Galleon, Pros: Firepower, Tank, versatile, top speed, ramming potential. Cons: Size, poor turning, vulnerable balloon, acceleration.
Squid, Pros: Speed, turning, ability to deploy tar as a weapon, vertical movement, small size, potential ability to tank... Cons: Hard to maintain engines, low armor, poor firepower, can be ignored.

"FOOS" ships:
Pyramidion, Pros: Versatility, speed, easy to repair, ramming potential and combined firepower, smallish frame. Cons: I would say turning but um... phoenix claw hence *cricket churp*
Goldfish, Pros: Versatility, speed, ramming potential. Cons: Component spread, low armour, long tail (when it gets caught... >.<")

Other: (Higher skill than "FOOS" ships, but seen more regularly than other higher skilled ships)
Junker, Pros: Firepower, turning, lightweight tank, thin frame, versatile. Cons: Vulnerable balloon, slow, ability to escape

On the off chance however that the experienced players manage to successfully use one of these higher skill ships, the newer players will be slaughtered at an even higher rate... However the newer players will be unable to replicate these strategies they are having used against them with the same success rate due to the high skill requirement.

In terms of competitive we are yet to see the "FOOS" or "meta" change for some time... With only some of the competitive teams branching out into higher skill ships under the spotlight. (Not including Sunday skirmishes)

Hence I don't believe the atmosphere of GoI is conducive to retaining new players as the skill requirement is slanted heavily in favour of experience. There is no small fish eats bigger fish until the circumstantial skill plateau has been met...

In order to attempt to retain more players you really would need an in game extensive knowledge base. Something that is easily accessed and not hidden, something new players can see the moment they hit the main menu. We're probably talking in depth articles on tactics, gun combos, ships, map layouts. Etc. Just so some experience can be gained without necessarily playing. (Those who seek to learn shouldn't have to pay in blood)