the trouble with balance, or, I'm the ha-aa-at! I'm the hat!

[Judging__Eagle]

From a very old ozy and millie strip.

We were talking about this a while ago.

The question is this, is it possible to explain game balance, to people who don't care, and how do you do so?

[PhoneLobster]

The question is this, is it possible to explain game balance, to people who don't care, and how do you do so?

Yeah sure.

"Wouldn't it be cool if the rules never jumped out and sabotaged your happy fun hat time?

Wouldn't it be even cooler if the rules better facilitated your happy fun hat time?"

[Roy]

The slaughter will continue until play improves.

[Murtak]

The question is this, is it possible to explain game balance, to people who don't care, and how do you do so?

There is no need to. Why would you balance the game for someone who does not appreciate the effort? Balance for those who do care (which should be plenty).

What ticks me off is a particular subspecies of the above, best paraphrased as "Tee-hee, I'm the hat and you are a rollplayer. If you even try to show someone how underpowered hats are I am going to throw a hissy fit worthy of a five-year old and puke all over everyone's game. Hats should be underpowered". I am mystified why this type of person exists at all, but I have seen quite a few of them now. Those people I hate with a passion. Those "I'm the hat"-guys you describe on the other hand do no harm - I just ignore them and they should pretty much ignore you, unless you get the flavor text wrong that is.

[Heath Robinson]

What ticks me off is a particular subspecies of the above, best paraphrased as "Tee-hee, I'm the hat and you are a rollplayer. If you even try to show someone how underpowered hats are I am going to throw a hissy fit worthy of a five-year old and puke all over everyone's game. Hats should be underpowered". I am mystified why this type of person exists at all, but I have seen quite a few of them now. Those people I hate with a passion. Those "I'm the hat"-guys you describe on the other hand do no harm - I just ignore them and they should pretty much ignore you, unless you get the flavor text wrong that is.

That's all sociology. Gripping subject.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, who wouldn't be excited to play the hat? That's instant win right there.

[mean_liar]

That's all sociology. Gripping subject.

His conclusions are junk. He acted the ass and was ostracized. The CoH/V game was not heroes against villains in a battle to the death, the game was getting Influence and having fun. Twixt totally ignored that game to focus on the Hero v Villain aspect, which is of no consequence to just about everyone. His conclusion to say that the only game rationally worth exploring is his own and the social order of CoH is somehow unnatural is just completely bullshit and ignores his continued inflaming taunts.

For the record, he's a professor of communications, not psychology or anthropology. That he totally misses the point is not unexpected.

...

Also:

[Wed May 22 18:42:27 2002] You told Hinote, 'GO GO GOOD TEAM!'
[Wed May 22 18:42:32 2002] Hinote tells you, 'its only a game dude lol'
[Wed May 22 18:42:37 2002] Hinote tells you, 'GO RL'
[Wed May 22 18:58:00 2002] Hinote tells you, 'seriously man y can't u pull yourself from the game for a conversation?'
[Wed May 22 18:58:11 2002] Hinote tells you, 'is it that tough for like 20 mins?'
[Wed May 22 18:58:15 2002] You told Hinote, 'I'm a good guy!'
[Wed May 22 18:58:25 2002] Hinote tells you, 'this game is sick'
[Wed May 22 18:58:32 2002] Hinote tells you, 'it just messes up peeps livs'
[Wed May 22 18:58:41 2002] Hinote tells you, 'so addicting'
[Wed May 22 18:58:46 2002] Hinote tells you, 'nothing of value'
[Wed May 22 18:58:51 2002] Hinote tells you, 'just to waste a life away'
[Wed May 22 18:58:59 2002] Hinote tells you, 'sad'
[Wed May 22 18:59:14 2002] You told Hinote, 'my grandpa says that and also video games are rotting kids brains and this generation is worse than his'
[Wed May 22 19:00:11 2002] You told Hinote, 'but if I bring him more applesauce he gets quiet and I can play again'

[violence in the media]

That was a surprisingly vehement response to the article.

[mean_liar]

I suppose bullshit does that to me.

[Roy]

You're making the guy's point. Fail.

[violence in the media]

That's all sociology. Gripping subject.

His conclusions are junk. He acted the ass and was ostracized. The CoH/V game was not heroes against villains in a battle to the death, the game was getting Influence and having fun. Twixt totally ignored that game to focus on the Hero v Villain aspect, which is of no consequence to just about everyone. His conclusion to say that the only game rationally worth exploring is his own and the social order of CoH is somehow unnatural is just completely bullshit and ignores his continued inflaming taunts.

I guess what I don't understand is why you feel this way? The bolded section is kind of the point, as that he was deliberately flouting the game's social constructions and holding only to the enforceable mechanical ones.

Using your life-or-death example, it's similar to pitting an opponent concerned with honorable combat versus one who's goal is to survive/kill at all costs. One of them is operating under an arbitrary set of restrictions.

Similarly, regarding your assertion that the game is about gaining Influence and having fun, I have to ask: how much Influence and who's fun? How much individual responsibility does each player have to the accepted social mores of the game community and the relative fun of others?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Well, who wouldn't be excited to play the hat? That's instant win right there.

That was my first thought too. Although this would be the 'Davy Crockett' ranger.

[Judging__Eagle]

In any case, the basic premise of an MMO is that it's a really fancy version of IRC, or a even a MUD. If you don't use it to chat with people, you're missing the point of the game, it's a place where people talk with others; ideally, with people that you know ahead of time, or in real life. Usually it's with random people.

The play of constant PvP is a way to reap benefits, and in some games, PvP is one of the two main places that the best players of the game are in; the other place being large organized groups of players getting their timing and movement learned for how to solve the puzzle of end-game bosses.

I think that the biggest problem is that CoH/CoV doesn't give real rewards for the things that they want their players to do; PvP.

It's more rewarding to grind the mobs that exist in the PvP area, instead of actually accomplishing the PvP goals (capture a bunch of "pillboxes").

At that point, I put a lot of blame on the game designers. The mobs in the PvP area should give no rewards, or the rewards from the PvP accomplishment should be notable enough to foster feelings of competition.

In WoW, even the most low-end of the PvP matches, an over-glorified capture the flag mission, is still considered to be worth going to by a high level player that does PvP. It's not the most fun PvP match out there, but it's not something that people will seriously say has no point. Of course, it should be noted that the Game Devs at Blizzard have changed and tweaked the rewards system for PvP on a regular basis for a few years now in an effort to keep people on a sort of balance.

[mean_liar]

His point was that these social constructions in CoH are somehow unnatural.

We start here:

There is a great deal of literature on the nature and treatment of deviant
behavior (Goode, 2008). Equally relevant here, however, are those studies in
cultural psychology noting similarities among how members of a dominant
culture represent non-members. These representations use precisely the same
tactics – predominantly inferences of inferiority (immaturity, ignorance) – that
were used in CoH/V to label and typecast Twixt. A well known example in this
regard, as noted in Cole (1996), are those characteristics 19th century Europeans
attached to the native cultures of their foreign conquests, e. g. “an inability to
control the emotions, animistic thinking, [and an] inability to reason out cause or
plan for the future” (p. 16).

The fact is, he's horrendously, demonstrably hypocritical. Why?

Within CoH/V and other similar, socially oriented role-playing games,
however, there are embedded rules for game play and in-game behavior
determined entirely by the game design; these rules exist prior to and apart from
those social rules that later emerge among players. Twixt’s behavior within RV,
for instance, was purposefully governed and guided by the rules of the game; and,
most players’ negative and critical reactions to Twixt’s behavior were peripheral
to and, in many cases. contrary to those same rules. In a sense – i. e., in the
reification of game rules as “natural” law -- Twixt’s behavior was non-deviant,
conforming to an absolute and essential set of values.5 In a similar sense,
negative and critical reactions to Twixt’s behavior can be seen as non-conforming
and “deviant” in prioritizing a limited set of players’ interests and concerns.6

...

In real-world environments, “natural” laws governing social relationships,
if they exist at all, are part of the same social system in which they operate and,
for that reason, are difficult to isolate, measure, and confirm. In Twixt’s case,
however, two unique sets of rules – one governing the game system, one
governing the game society -- offered an opportunity to observe how social rules
adapt to system rules (or, more speculatively, how social laws might reproduce
natural laws.) And, the clearest answer, based on Twixt’s experience, is that they
don’t. Rather, if game rules pose some threat to social order, these rules are
simply ignored. And further, if some player -- like Twixt -- decides to explore
those rules fully, then that player is shunned, silenced, and, if at all possible,
expelled.

His conclusion is built on the assumption that his way is the only to play the game: ignoring Influence and leveling and focusing on PvP. He assumes that anyone playing for Influence (neato costumes) or leveling (its own reward), which is who he mainly targeted with his tactics, are somehow having badwrongfun and the social conventions they've constructed to facilitate those activities are somehow less important than the PvP game.

Yes, they're doing it in a PvP zone. Yes, there are other places to do it (Mission Architects, for example. ). But they're playing a different game from him and because of that he calls them irrational.

That he focuses on the common understanding of these PvE people in the PvP zones as staying away from each other, treats it as divorced from the game rules (it's not), and then brushes them off as unnatural is playing precisely to the blinkered vision the opening of his conclusion sought to point out.

Indeed, the strong, negative, and increasingly emotional reactions to
Twixt’s behavior were almost always focused on preserving beneficent social
communities and friendships in blatant disregard of game rules. The most
important negative consequence of Twixt’s behavior in the eyes of other players,
then, was not his failure to achieve game goals – Twixt’s opponents “failed” this
test more often than he did -- but his failure to garner and sustain social
connections: the most repellant consequence of Twixt’s behavior was that it made
him unlikable.

...

Remaining likable – socially connected -- within the CoH/V community
meant playing the game according to values other than those made explicit by the
game design and the game designers. Players could only learn these values –
much like those affecting social activities in the real world -- by becoming (or
already being) a member of the game’s entrenched social order.

This is more highlighting of the fundamental flaw that he assumes that PvP is the only focus of the game, and that PvE doesn't exist at all and those pursuing it are somehow missing the point.

It did not seem
within the purview of social orders and ordering within CoH/V to recognize
(much less nurture) any sort of rationality

Seriously.


I don't give a shit that the guy griefed a bunch of people. I did shit like that all the time. I think Fansy the Bard is hilarious. But to trot it out as some kind of modern anthropological wowee is academically irresponsible.

[MartinHarper]

Myers starts off by equating "natural law" with game physics, and thus achieves nonsensical conclusions. The correct analogy is:

Real world physics -> Game physics
Natural law -> conclusions that follow directly from the game physics: this like "thou shalt level up"
Divine law -> stated objectives of designers
Social law -> social law

Thus we see that Twixt is analogous to a religious nutter who is ostracised by society.

[mean_liar]

I guess what I don't understand is why you feel this way? The bolded section is kind of the point, as that he was deliberately flouting the game's social constructions and holding only to the enforceable mechanical ones.

That's actually not the entire point. Where he goes off the rails is that he acts somehow surprised that his actions garnered that response.

That's the annoying part, not the part where he shit on a bunch of people.

Similarly, regarding your assertion that the game is about gaining Influence and having fun, I have to ask: how much Influence and who's fun? How much individual responsibility does each player have to the accepted social mores of the game community and the relative fun of others?

This is the important part. Killing people the way he did impedes their XP progress, meaning that the leveling they're trying to do is directly impeded. He's actively working against the game they're trying to play, not just besting them in some undignified manner. It's those methods and his targets that made him hated, not the fact that he was "cheap" and teleported enemies to where they could die.

For him to completely not mention that perspective in his paper just looks like he's dressing up his bullshittery. You always want to talk about contrary positions in your conclusion, if only to straw-man them. He dodges it completely and its dishonest.

[Roy]

...It's a fucking Playing to Win article. Say it with me.

[Maj]

The question is this, is it possible to explain game balance, to people who don't care, and how do you do so?

You build a character that sucks even more than theirs does and accuse them of being a munchkin.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Divine law -> stated objectives of designers

I don't believe in designers.

[Josh_Kablack]

Divine law -> stated objectives of designers

I don't believe in designers.

Only fundamentalist terrorists follow the will of the users:

http://www.galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=236

[Murtak]

I don't think Sirlin gets noncompetitive gaming at all. I think his articles are spot-on when he is talking about fighting games which are by their very nature competitive. But he simply doesn't understand playing coop games or exploring an imaginary world. To him, the mechanics are the game, and nothing else is worth exploring. I can grok liking to explore game mechanics, but I fail to understand why he thinks exploring content or building your own social structures on top or even in spite of a game's mechanics are not valid goals too.

As MartinHarper said, he is like a religious nutjob disrupting a functional society and winding up hated or ignored.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

It's those methods and his targets that made him hated, not the fact that he was "cheap" and teleported enemies to where they could die.

Not really. The hatred started when he had done nothing but use his teleport foe power effectively. He even quotes those chat logs.

Yes, they're doing it in a PvP zone. Yes, there are other places to do it (Mission Architects, for example. Tongue ). But they're playing a different game from him and because of that he calls them irrational.

I have to disagree with this in the context of an MMO. If you're going to invite the whole world to play your game, you're going to need some kind of "zone integrity" to keep the different communities from interfering with each other. In a D&D game, the master thespians or the master optimizers can choose (theoretically) to only play with like-minded people. However, you can't keep people from joining an MMO, so you have to keep the activities separated. So nobody should be going to the PvP area expecting people not to PvP. And if they have no other place to go, they should pester the designers to create such a place.

[Murtak]

I have to disagree with this in the context of an MMO. If you're going to invite the whole world to play your game, you're going to need some kind of "zone integrity" to keep the different communities from interfering with each other. In a D&D game, the master thespians or the master optimizers can choose (theoretically) to only play with like-minded people. However, you can't keep people from joining an MMO, so you have to keep the activities separated. So nobody should be going to the PvP area expecting people not to PvP. And if they have no other place to go, they should pester the designers to create such a place.

While I wouldn't complain about PvPing in a PvP zone, I can sort of see a point to their complaints. Those people built a society on top of chaos - not unlike our society. In our society, when someone goes on a killing spree we don't pray to god to create a no-kill-zone, we call the cops. In the context of that society that guy is a sociopath, and if you didn't respawn he would have been dealt with in the same way.

I wonder if that is a decent example of how a "realistic" DnD-world would look like ... high level mass murderes running around, killing people for fun, secure in their knowledge they can't really die.

[Roy]

It's a PvP zone. The closest real world analogy would be a battlefield. Would you willingly and knowingly enter a battlefield, if you did not intend to fight?

How about turn it into a sing and dance, against the desires of your commanding officers? Why or why not?

Now, if you did want to sing and dance, wouldn't you choose to do that somewhere else?

[Previn]

In our society, when someone goes on a killing spree we don't pray to god to create a no-kill-zone, we call the cops. In the context of that society that guy is a sociopath, and if you didn't respawn he would have been dealt with in the same way.

Except that it's a PvP zone. It's like going into a warzone and then complaining when an enemy soldier shoots you. If you didn't want to be shot by an enemy soldier, don't go into the warzone/PvP. Much like expecting the axis and ally players in a WW2 shooter to actually shoot at each other and not hold picnics.

If he was killing random people in a non-PvP zone, then I could see the analogy to calling the cops and being a sociopath.