Extra Credits: Balancing for skill
I’m not really a fan of the video and its contrived measurements of skill and power. Nor do I agree with the video that it is a sign of good design. You don’t need to have characters/weapons/etc that are out of whack in a risk vs reward sense to make casual players feel like they can compete. You simply use a system which matches them with equally skilled (or as close as you can get) and let them learn to play the game in that way.
The video pretty much makes the case that the high power/low skill abilities are a crutch to make up for the lack of a decent match making system.
In general the more you compensate for a lack of player ability via abilities/ect, the less competitive your game is. Players should be learning the game and it’s mechanics, and the game should do what it can to facilitate that. Things like high power/low skill abilities do the opposite. They give a player the illusion of skill, and they’ll tend to desperately cling to the crutch rather than explore other options. Casual players will, on average be at the mercy of those who put some effort behind their play, and that is balance. The more skilled player will win.
Match-making is far better as a solution. Its like chess, you play people within your rating, and maybe challenge a few out of your league to see something interesting/learn something new.
Isn’t match making meant for Tpvp (where skilled teams usually go anyways), i’m not aware that they were planning MM for normal spvp (meant for the casuals), MM in WvW won’t help the individuality player much either.
I’m not really a fan of the video and its contrived measurements of skill and power. Nor do I agree with the video that it is a sign of good design. You don’t need to have characters/weapons/etc that are out of whack in a risk vs reward sense to make casual players feel like they can compete. You simply use a system which matches them with equally skilled (or as close as you can get) and let them learn to play the game in that way.
The video pretty much makes the case that the high power/low skill abilities are a crutch to make up for the lack of a decent match making system.
Indeed, programming “noob” weapons or “noob” classes is just very bad design. It’s frustrating for the casuals (Because they know that they get only kills because of the weapons) and for pros (because they can die to a much worse player). Also it forces bad players to pick the noob stuff.
The only thing a game needs is an elo system to fix this problem.
High power low skill tactics can be a good entry point for new players. In GW2 they end up being counter-intuitive and a crutch for various reasons. For one thing, GW2 is an MMO and players are not every player is going to start off as a faceroll profession as their character.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)
This video is 100% correct.
Maybe during the first week a Heartseeker spammer could kill me, but after the first week he couldn’t. Then maybe for the next 2 months a Thief could instantly kill me by hiding and then backstab comboing, but now that I’ve mastered Deathshroud (LOLOOL) I just press F1 immediately and it’s countered.