You’ve Got Options

So I’m 1 of 4.7 million to be playing Modern Warfare 2 right now. (As a side note, does anybody else find themselves constantly typing it as ‘Modern Warefare’? I imagine this as some sort of Tupperware party simulator. I digress.) Like many others, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the reviews to trickle in, you know, to see how it compares to the original Modern Warfare, one of the best FPS games of all time (according to reviewers at least). GameRankings tells me that it has a 94.46% (roughly), which just barely edges out MW1′s rating of 94.17%, which is interesting, considering how relatively revolutionary MW1 was compared to MW2. But that’s another post.

What caught my attention was Simon Parkin’s comments on the game’s multiplayer perks in his Eurogamer review:

“Each perk has been carefully balanced to provide options rather than, necessarily, an advantage.”

Which reminded me that this is something that’s been bothering me ever since the first Modern Warfare was released. The claim is that these unlockable perks and weapon upgrades don’t provide an explicit advantage to players, but just provide more options. Perhaps I’m just nitpicking here, but I think it’s essential to point out that options beget advantages.

What exactly does, having the ‘advantage’ in a game mean, anyway? I’d contend that there are two major forms of advantage in games. The first form of advantage is generally associated with player skill and is generally well revered. The most obvious advantage here is inherent ability. Some players are just better than others. Game knowledge is another advantage the player is responsible for. This includes knowing openings in chess or knowing map layouts in a shooter. A third, and often overlooked, form of advantage arises from providing yourself with options.

To clearly demonstrate advantage arising from options, I present you with Chess and Quake.

In chess, one of the first things you learn is that the center 4 squares are very powerful–controlling those squares inherently grants you more options and thus an advantage. Your knight can attack 8 squares rather than just the 1 or 2 in its initial position. In Quake, especially in duel matches, positioning is everything. The top of the jump pad in Q3DM6 is an example of providing yourself with options–do you stay and wait for the megahealth to spawn in at the bottom, go left and grab the yellow armor, or go right and challenge the red armor?

The other major form of advantage in games is not directly tied to player skill but arises from the game design. These are the types of advantages that get called out for being “unfair” at times. There’s the advantage of going first in Chess. This isn’t really something the player has earned–it is essentially randomly given to him or her. There’s the BFG in Quake–a game imbalancing weapon that grants the player who wields it a great advantage.  Game designers have to be very cautious when including these types of potential advantages in games. It’s not that they are inherently evil or anything–in fact, these types of advantages can often spice up an otherwise monotonous game experience. But still, designers need to be careful when including these so as not to upset the game balance too much.

Where does this leave Call of Duty’s perk system then? On the one hand, it feels like it falls in the latter category of game advantages–to some players it feels “unfair.” Why does that level 55 guy get the Uber-Scoped-Laser-Sighted-Fully-Automatic-Sniper-Rifle and all I get is this measly AK47? On the other hand, it is providing another axis of skill for players to steadily improve upon–how best to equip yourself for the given situation.  Between two level 55 players of equal ability on the battlefield, the one who has more skill in selecting his loadout should generally win out.

So providing more options to players who play longer (and thus rank up in levels) confers an advantage. But is this a problem? Not as long as we’re honest and admit that there is, in fact, an advantage. We gain a dimension of skill at the cost of it feeling “unfair” to some players. And by admitting the advantage, we as designers can do things to address it. Luckily, Infinity Ward has, in fact, done things to mitigate the potential imbalance, such as level-based matchmaking and the ability to copy/steal perks or pickup dropped fancy weapons.

One other benefit the perks system has–as players, we have a pretty good excuse as to why we lost. And we can never have enough excuses. :)