Re: [GD-Design] Re: Gamedevlists-design digest, Vol 1 #67 - 6 msgs

[Cruise <cr...@ca...>]

Neil Stewart wrote:
> It is conceivable that you can devise the implants such that an expert can
> get better results by doing everything manually if he is skilled enough to
> do so. The example of automatic gear changing is a good one; racing games
> generally make the automatic changes slightly less optimal than well-timed
> manual ones, so experts can achieve slightly better acceleration. If you
> manage to make all your implants have this property, then you could have
> novices and experts playing together without any problems. The experts would
> probably still win, but the game would be more competitive.

Agreed - this method can be extended to lots of things. Auto-aiming, for 
example, can be made somewhat innaccurate (always aims for the torso, 
perhaps), so that a good player with manual aiming still has an 
advantage. Auto-blocking in a beat-em-up, but that doesn't fully prevent 
the damage (or, better, prevent more damage the better the timing of the 
block - sliding scales rather than on-offs are always better).

Generally, having a choice of easy-but-not-so-effective or 
hard-but-more-successful abilities is an excellent way to level the 
playng field.

> I'm sure a lot of people will argue that the simplest way to solve
> difficulty in multiplayer games is to keep people of wildly differing
> abilities apart, which seems to work well on Xbox Live.

The trouble with that is players who go up a level suddenly go from 
"being amongst the best" to "being one of the worst", which can be a 
nasty and unpleasant jump.

> In single player games, no-one is being "cheated" (unless you are comparing
> scores, which makes it a kind of poor man's multiplayer game), so you can
> adopt whatever method you think will give the novice the better experience.
> 
> - Neil.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
	"quantam sufficit"
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]