Breaking Open the Black Box

The Secrets and Stories of Game Design

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Preparation and Recuperation

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In addition to reaction, there’s two other major forms of gameplay responses: Preparation and Recuperation.  Preparation is where you perform an action before the event begins. The most common example of this in WoW is assigning crowd control targets before a pull.  Recuperation is the act of recovering after the event has occurred. Healing frequently falls into this area, but so does running back to a monster after being knocked away.

Preparation

Preparation is an interesting response type – you coordinate, plan or otherwise setup for the incoming event. 
In the outdoor world, you might face a creature who can knock you off a cliff. Preparation is pulling that creature away from the cliff so you aren’t easily knocked off. 
In larger group content, high level planning is often assigned to a group or raid leader who communicates what’s happening and helps his team plan out what they should do. At a higher level, the act of gearing your character properly, picking the right items, bringing reagents, food and supplies are further extension of this gameplay type.  Even something like picking the right hardware to handle the machine counts!

The Burden of Preparation is High

Preparation is a very difficult mechanic to use. However, the difficulty with preparation mechanics is rarely in the actions required to handle or setup the event.  The difficulty with preparation is the burden of knowledge.  
Write that one down and keep it somewhere safe. 
In order to prepare for an event, you need to know it is coming. How do you know it is coming? Someone must have seen it before. That fact alone is one of the largest blind spots designers have.  
“How will he handle this?” 
“Oh, easy, he’ll step to the side, flick the switch and stop the blade moments before it impales him.”
That’s great on paper, but what it really means is you’re going to die at least once, if not many times, before discovering the trick.  I’ve frequently sifted good games from great guys by the degree to which they sufficiently feed you the information you need to understand what is about to happen.  
In Diablo 3, there’s a creature who explodes upon death, unleashing three grub like carrion worms. There is no way to know prior to killing one that it will do this. The animators did an incredible job of making the creature swell before it explodes. However, this alone wasn’t enough.
If you fight one carefully, you’ll notice that not only do they explode upon death, their normal attack is a highly dangerous, but not lethal, point blank AoE with a warning animation.  What this means is that before you’ve ever slain even one of these guys, you’re taught to hit it for a bit, then run away. 
This way, there’s a good chance you’re already performing the correct behaviour before it’s actually a threat.

Reinforcement

If you want players to use an ability in anticipation to an event, you need to be encouraging them constantly to use it, even before the right situation occurs.  One of my favorite examples of this was the Freeze ray in Metroid for the NES.  
I had a huge crush on a girl who reminded me of Samus.
The Freeze ray let you do some very cool things – stun enemies and use enemies as platforms, weaken Metroids for the killing, etc. In fact, the final act of the game is highly dependent on your ability to use the Freeze ray correctly. 
So what did Nintendo do – wait until the final act where you needed it?  No, they gave you access to it early in the game, so you knew what it was, played with it for a while, used it to solve a few puzzles, then moved on to more powerful upgrades.
When you eventually came to a place where going further isn’t possible, the memory of that tool kicks it and you pick it up again when you need it.
If you want players to use a tool – they need to be already using it. 

Recuperation

Sometimes bad things happen. In those situations, you can give up and run away or try to recover. 
Growing up, I often went with the former. Whenever my brother started to get the better of me in a wrestling match, I ran away.  Whenever my homework started to get hard, I ran away. When the girls on the track started to catch up with me, I … well, I guess actually they ran away from me.
However, once you’re behind, all is not lost. It just requires a different kind of mindset. 
One of my favorite kinds of experiences is when I’m forced to stop what I’m doing, take up a defensive posture for a time, then go back to my normal behaviour.  Fighting games are frequently built around these sequences.  
In fact, one of the most thrilling moments is when you make a huge comeback.
When they interviewed Daigo afterwards, he asked what it was that made him capable of this incredible feat.  What did he say? “I just didn’t panic.”  

Recuperation is a change in mindset

Recuperation is my personal weakness. I’m an aggressive, tunneling, red-blooded American boy. When I’m forced to take up the defensive and patiently wait out a opportunity, I often get impatient and try to deliver the finishing blow prematurely. 
League of Legends is one of those games that is a great example of recuperation. Tonight, I was playing around with the new “Pulsefire Ezreal” skin. For people who play league, you’ll immediately groan because you know what happened. 
For non League players, Ezreal is a very difficult and fragile character to play. My ally and I lost our lane badly. So badly, in fact, that the game was in peril because of how badly we played. 
However, in an unusual show of courtesy, they didn’t rage or get upset at me. After a pivotal battle was lost, the enemy team defeated Baron Nashor and gained a significant advantage.  My team was highly upset and I could feel it. The enemy constantly attempted to lure us into into a trap and my allies started to fall for the bait.
I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, I started typing.  “I know this is my fault. But please, just be patient. Don’t engage them, just stay back and wait here by our tower.” Then I counted down the minutes until the Baron’s power faded each time my team started to get antsy…
… somehow it worked.  We waited until the danger passed, despite the enemy’s attempts to lure us into their traps. 
After the game ended, the enemy team’s Ezreal player, who had massively outplayed me the entire game, boasted that I should be ashamed for my poor play. In an incredibly humbling moment, my team, who I had never met before, told him they would gladly choose my ability to inspire teamwork over his higher skill, but selfish playstyle any day. 
Such is the power of my team’s patience. 

Recuperation is built upon Opportunities

Drinking a health potion is an excellent example of recuperation. However, recuperation is meaningless if you can always do it and without risk.  In early WoW PvP, the Paladin was an incredible recuperator. His ability to heal, bubble and otherwise protect himself was so potent that all of the other classes were incredibly frustrated attempting to fight one. 
To combat this perception, many abilities were given exclusivity or otherwise limited. The result was that it created windows of time where Paladins could be defeated. Not particularly satisfying for the Paladins, but it greatly improved the experience for everyone else.
Next time, we’ll talk about the most important and most difficult aspect of game design. So hard, in fact, that once you’ve done it right, it’s even harder to do right the second time.
Post in the comments below if you have a guess.

Reactive Responses

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“Alex, what’s the most basic counter in the WoW?”, Mike asked me one sunny morning.

We had been working long nights creating abilities for Zangarmarsh and I was still quite sleep lagged.

“Obviously whatever the other jerk just did to beat me that I don’t have and am clearly underpowered without,” I sniped back.

This is not a rogue kicking.

Mike snorted, “Okay, lets narrows this a bit. What’s the most basic mechanic to counter a spell?”

I thought for a bit. Weeks of Mike’s deceptively simple sounding questions had taught me to resist the instinct to give the first answer that came to mind. “At first, I would think of the rogue ability Kick, but in truth, I think it’s actually something even more basic.”

Mike’s eyebrows raised slightly, “That was actually the answer I was thinking of, but go on.”

“I think the most basic counter in our game to anything is movement. The universally available tool to avoid a spell is to move out of range of it. Unfortunately, we’ve done a lot that reduces the impact of movement on avoiding spells.”

“How so?”

“You can’t move to avoid most spells once you’re in close, ducking around a corner only works in buildings. Hiding behind a hill flat out doesn’t work. The fact that most spells are targeted takes a lot of the counter fun out of the game.”

I have no idea what game this is.

“That’s true.”

“Why?”

“Part of it is that our movement validation isn’t very accurate. Other parts are because WoW was built on EQ and targeting is a legacy feature from EQ.  In the end though, I could see a game working either way.”

“I feel like movement is the one thing all classes share. It’s a shame we don’t put it to good use.”

“Maybe someday you will.”

Counterspell

The ability to prevent another from performing an action is a very powerful and very potent game mechanic. It’s a pervasive mechanic in many games. Having a clear and direct counter to a given ability makes you feel smart for picking that choice. 
The ability to kick a fireball, counterspell a force of nature or place the thief on a brick quarry when you roll a 7 are powerful, potentially game changing effects. As a result, they can be incredibly frustrating to play against. 
In Magic: The Gathering, a popular blue deck type was the Counterspell deck. Designed exclusively to prevent the opponent from acting and eventually force him out of the game from a steady stream of damage, it was a frequent source of complaints and frustration.  Likewise, the rogue ability Kick, can shutdown a caster for a fairly long amount of time and generated large amount of complaints when PvP opened in WoW Alpha. 
Consequentially, there’s two major ways to handle this: limit it to being used against NPCs, who don’t mind it, or restrict the frequency of its use.  This forces the player to choose the best time and ability to counter. When you add a counterspell to any game – make sure it exists for the right reason and at an appropriate cost.

Avoidance

Obligatory Neo reference – check!
As I mentioned earlier, another popular response is to GET OUT OF THE WAY!
In fact, 90% of the games created in the arcade and platforming era were based almost exclusively around this idea.  If the location is clear and sufficient warning is given, avoidable attacks compose the widest variety of response-triggering mechanics. 
Yet somehow, even after 25 years of gaming, people still seem to stand in the fire. 

Tool Change

In Legend of Zelda, a Link to the Past, there was a simple boss with three heads. One was weak to swords and bombs, the other was weak to fire and the last weak to ice. 
This is one of just many examples of swapping to the right tool for the job. It reinforces the natural instinct to counter cold with fire, fire with cold and to stab large, scary things in the face.
On its own, tool change is a simple thing, but is built upon reuse of tools the player has been trained upon earlier in the game.  The longer and more frequently the player has been exposed to the tool, the more consistently they will be capable of using it. 
In WoW, occasionally a fight will call for a rarely used tool, like Enslave Demon, Scare Beast or Water Breathing (just kidding). If you’ve gone weeks, if not years, without using that spell, players will take longer to realize that tool exists in their toolkit. Frequency leads to reinforcement, reinforcement to mastery.
However, you have to be careful. Sometimes you can create situation without a real solution. One my favorite examples was the use of the chromatic drakonids in Blackwing Lair. The Drakonid would be dramatically vulnerable to one of the major schools of damage in WoW and resistant to all of the others.  This was great when a common school like Fire or Shadow was picked, but Frost or Arcane types were both highly annoying and took a long time to kill. 
When creating a scenario for a tool swap, you need make sure the player has two things: the tool and the training to use it. 

Timing

Another super common tool is the use of an attack or blocking at the right time. Stab the heart before it attacks. Parry the blow before it lands. Block the attack to reduce the damage taken. Fighting games in particular are rich in these mechanics.

“What the heck, these are all obvious!”

This is true. None of what you’re going to be reading the next few weeks is very hard to understand. However, think of how many times you’ve play a game where they failed to provide these kinds of opportunities. 
When the only way to deal with damage is to heal through it, you become bored and your playstyle static. When the only option is to dodge or die, you become frustrated quickly. Creating and selling the windows of opportunity is a powerful tool that often distinguishes novice designers from great ones. 
Next time, I’ll be writing about the other two major categories of response: recuperative and preparational.

Lesson 3. Response

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A dragon stands before you, your attacks against its skin bounce off it harmlessly. A pang of helplessness surges through you as you swing your sword wildly, narrowly dodging the beast’s claw. It breathes in deeply, the sinewy smoke tendrils waif through its nostrils as the mouth begins to glow. A moment later a fountain of fire blooms from its open mouth, searing the earth around you as you roll out of the way behind a rock.

All seems lost until you spy a glowing, red spot on its chest. You swing your blade at its glowing heart and the beast reels from the blow, lurching backwards.  The dance continues, but now you know how this game is played and victory feels close at hand.

Slaying the Beast

The sequence I just described has been played out hundreds of times in legends, games and the imagination for as long as anyone can remember. Little wonder then that so many games seek to recreate that exact experience. But what is it about the story above that hits home so deeply with people? 
The answer is not simple, but one piece matters heavily for today’s lesson:
There is always something you can do to handle the monster’s attacks. 

The Heart

The dragon has a weak spot. You must attack that weak spot in order to slay it. However, the creatures attacks prevent you from safely approaching it. Furthermore, the heart is only exposed at certain times. The bright glow draws your eye to its location.

The Skin

The dragon’s armor deflects your sword effortlessly. It is clear that attempting to attack any other location is useless. This is reinforced with a metal deflecting sound which is highly unsatisfying. 

The Claws

The dragon’s attacks swing fiercely, but slowly, giving you ample time to raise your shield or roll away. However, it can only claw in front of itself, giving you a safe area to completely avoid the claws while it is frenzied.

The Breath

The dragon’s mouth glows brightly for a time before the flames are hurled at you. You can either dodge the flames once they start, or take cover behind a rock to wait out the attack. 

A Masterpiece of Responsive Mechanics

Despite being a difficult, highly damaging and dangerous boss, you are solely responsible for your survival. The beast doesn’t attack you without warning, its most powerful attacks are clearly telegraphed and the exposed safe spot of the heart makes it abundantly clear where you should strike. 
These are the types of fights players like the most. The path to victory is clear, but fraught with peril. 
There’s a sea of details, exceptions, theme and nuance that I could delve into here, but the lesson here is clear:
Give the player a response

The Types of Responses

There are three major categories of responses:
  1. Reaction – I see it occurring and I take action to counter it now.
  2. Preparation – I know it can occur and preemptively take actions to prevent it.
  3. Recooperation – It happened and I take action to recover from the consequences.
What are your favorite examples of these categories of response?  
Next time, I will write some more about these three points and how I’ve put them to use.