Spy's Sappin' Mah Game!

I am, admittedly, not a big fan of shooters. Specifically of the first person variety. So when I enjoy an FPS, it's a big deal. It's an even bigger deal when I find one to be completely awesome.

Enter Team Fortress 2. A class-based shooter that is fast-paced, team-oriented, and bucketloads of fun. This is one of the rare times I'll take a game and put it on a pedestal. The game has its faults, but they're mostly balance issues that I believe will be ironed out in time.

The great, great thing about this game is that it avoids the big pitfall of the shooter - generally you are either killing, or being killed. This very basic ideology is the downfall of many, many games, as there are really only so many ways you can kill or avoid being killed without one way being clearly better than the other. In single player games this means you strive for that one, most efficient way, and in multiplayer games it means you either choose the best way or end up frustrated.

TF2 manages to squeeze 9 completely different playstyles out of "kill or be killed," each of which is fun in its own right. You can switch from the fast, furious Scout, who can't take a hit but is incredibly mobile, to the Engineer who sits back and builds defensive equipment. Not only are these classes a great variety, they also provide enough difference in style of play that almost anyone can find a character they enjoy and can play effectively. This character usually ends up being a gateway drug into the other classes of Team Fortress.

In addition to these, the geniuses at Valve (creators of TF2 for the uninitiated) have begun putting out packs of new achievements and weapons for each of the classes. Unfortunately, here there is room for improvement, so let's run down a quick list:

One at a Time
These packs are released one class at a time, and usually several months apart. This means you usually get a large influx of whatever the new class is for quite some time while everyone gains the new achievements, which are a problem in and of themselves...

Achievement Whoring
To unlock the new equipment, you have to get a certain number of achievements. This would be fine except that some of the achievements are silly (see: example) and result in people doing stupid things they wouldn't normally do to unlock achievements. Silly and fun achievements are fine, but they shouldn't be required for new equipment.

Either add more standard achievements that reward good gameplay (without upping the amount needed for new equipment), or remove achievements as the qualifier. Maybe use kills/points instead?

Equipment Balance
Some of the new equipment is great (see: the Pyro's Flare Gun), adds a new dimension to the character, changes the way you should be playing, and fills out some gaps (while creating new ones, which is very important).

Some, however really do nothing for the class (see: the Heavy's KGB). They fall short of being useful, and are really only a status symbol. In the example of the KGB, the heavy really shouldn't be meleeing much at all, and when they do, slower swing speed and more crit is not at all useful. It fills in no gaps, it creates no interesting situations, and in general is somewhat half-assed.

Finally, some are simply clear and better options than the weapons they replace (see: the Medic's Blutsauger). Once you get these items there's really no reason to ever switch back. This essentially introduce an artificial form of "leveling" into a shooter, where it has no business. If the class needed a boost, it needs it across the board, and if it doesn't, there's no need to make a weapon simply better. The Blutsauger loses the ability to crit, but crits, in addition to being a rare occurence in the first place, aren't really a concern for the medic. There is no reason to not use this weapon, and that's a poor design decision.


Altogether, TF2 is still an awesome game, and these updates certainly don't detract from the experience in any way - they are additional and never detrimental to playing. I only think if the new equipment erred on the side of being more interesting, and they released updates for two classes at a time, we'd be in much better shape.

Creating Powerful Characters

Today I'd like to talk about something that I think doesn't come up nearly enough - creating a powerful character.

Often times in games we end up playing as some average schmuck stuck in the middle of some crazy situation. And almost as often said schmuck gets a little more powerful in some form as the game progresses - whether it's physical strength, better weapons, or new abilities.

This model is great in that it gives the player a great sense of accomplishment as they progress throughout the game. Unfortunately it also leaves the initial portion of the game feeling a little less awesome. A standard practice in this case is to give the player everything up front, and then have the character "lose" their abilities, which must then be regained.

Of course, if your game is designed well enough, not having a ton of abilities at your disposal from the start isn't so bad, but what if your character started out that powerful and only got better? Well that's what we're here to discuss.

High Ceilings
One of the biggest issues with powerful characters is having nowhere to go. Superman Returns actually does a really good job of making you feel powerful, but as the game progresses, there's not a lot of upward movement (pun not intended). The key here is making sure there's room for improvement, and that everything isn't the same at the end of the game as it is at the beginning. Your character is powerful, but he still needs to get better.

Keeping On Your Toes
The other serious downfall with a powerful character is that they may be too powerful and the game no longer presents a challenge. So how do you make the scenario challenging for your demi-god while keeping things fun?

• Swarms of Enemies. Put your powerful character up against an army. Keep in mind you don't want the battle to be at all annoying. It should be satisfying but still challenging. My humble suggestion is to have waves of semi-decent enemies - removing the annoyance of cheap shots from a ridiculous number of opponents coming at you at once, but still giving you the satisfaction of having kicked a whole ton of ass.
• Enormous Bosses. For a perfect example of this, see God of War 2, or Shadow of the Colossus. Make your bosses huge, and it'll equal out the power level of the character (not that SotC features a powerful character).
• Equally Powerful Rival. Give our powerful character a rival of equal strength. The combat should look as amazing as it is - a true clash of super powers. You don't want to make it a mirror match though, as that isn't a theme you can bring up again later in the game.

Super-Arsenal
So you've got the right moveset, and you've got plenty of room for that set to grow, but how do you get people to believe that these moves are truly powerful?

• Variety. Give players the option to power their move up for big damage, or keep it fast and easy. A good example of this are a lot of the charge up attacks in Marvel Ultimate Alliance - it's a basic concept that time = damage, with the downfall being that you give up something like the ability to use an attack button, or mobility, or something in that vein, in order to get the more powerful attack. The key here is to make sure that both the fast and strong versions are useful, and that your game doesn't stuff the charged moves (making them effectively useless).
• Area of Effect. Any move that hits an area and can hit multiple enemies at once is a good bet. You don't want to overdo it so as to make it the only attack of choice when presented with multiple enemies - perhaps a timer on the ability or something of the sort - but in general this helps with the hordes of enemies we discussed earlier, letting you handle several opponents at once in a way that let's you feel powerful.
• Hit Hard, Hit Often. Your character should be able to hit HARD, and it should be obvious. Flying bodies, explosions, dismemberment, whatever it takes. When he hits, there should be someone, somewhere saying "oh, SNAP!' In addition, he should have the option to hit fast and often, allowing him to trade his powerhouse moves in exchange for something a little more combo-friendly. This is something the Devil May Cry games do fairly well, but not until later in the game when you've collected all the necessary weapons.

Well, that should be it for now, this is simply a rough outline with several ideas to make a character seem powerful, while still keeping them in the scope of the game. It'll always be a tricky balance along with keeping things challenging, but it comes down to a lot of play-testing, and how the game feels in the hands of the player. And with that, I want to touch briefly on one last piece...

Multiplayer Woes
All of the above becomes infinitely more difficult to implement when you factor multiplayer into the mix - specifically versus multiplayer. No one wants to get hit with the aforementioned big, meaty attack, only to almost die from one attack.

In this situation, it's incredibly difficult to keep both sides feeling powerful - but the key is to make gameplay revolve around landing attacks over simply pounding the opponent. Your powerful characters are going to need tools to avoid getting hit by their own attacks, and should be able to take a good series of hits before falling to their knees. You don't want combat to drag on, but you don't want people dying so fast they get annoyed either. Besides that, we'll leave multiplayer issues for another post, as there's a lot to be said about balancing any kind of competitive multiplayer game, and is somewhat outside the scope of this post.

Fireballs and Uppercuts: Street Fighter IV Part 3

I promised a character breakdown, but I think if I were to go through every character, well, not only would we be here for a while, but I also cannot claim to know the ins and outs of every single character (especially since the game is so new), and thus my assessment would not be worth much. Instead, I'll group the characters and discuss each group, with highlights for the characters I know need a bit of work.

The Glass Cannon (Akuma, C.Viper, Seth) A personal favorite of mine, these characters are low health, high damage output characters. They're also usually very mobile to make sure you have the tools to avoid being hit. The Glass Cannon gets the biggest benefit, percentage-wise, from the health increase we mentioned back in the first session. Overall this type works well in SF4, as each of these characters has the tools they need to close or create space as needed (teleport, super jump, teleport, respectively). A couple quick notes, however:

• Akuma has a Raging Demon Super, AND a Raging Demon Ultra. For his ultimate move it certainly does seem to have its variations. Unfortunately this really creates an unnecessary predictability, especially considering the nature of the Raging Demon (easy to escape if you're watching for it). Instead, let's give him a Fireball Super - which can also be done in the air a la 3rd Strike - and replace his Ultra with his Super, which does less damage but grabs the opponent faster.
• Viper is a little too twitchy, and though she has a ridiculous amount of combo and cross-up options, she has to work REALLY hard for a win. I would up her damage on normals very slightly, and I think that would really make her an amazing character.

The Charger (Guile, Vega, Bison, E.Honda, Blanka, Balrog) There isn't too much to say about this group in general. In a game that lends itself a little more heavily towards defensive play, a character that has you holding down-back to do all your moves is going to be powerful, and most of these characters are. Unfortunately, the problem lies in the fact that, though they have their differences, they play somewhat similarly, and the differences more or less end up with some characters being left behind. Let's do a little breakdown:

• Guile, despite the previous statement, plays unlike any of the other characters. Unfortunately he's been weakened a lot in his current incarnation. An easy drastic improvement is to make his Super and Ultra moves a double quarter circle forward motion. This not only makes them easier to perform in general, but also allows him to land them after a Dash Cancel. Also his Ultra needs to be beefed up a bit. It should be doing as much as it does now, under the new revamped rules back in the first SF4 post.
• Vega also needs a shortcut for his Super and Ultra (if you can't tell, I am not a fan of that ridiculous motion). He should also either not lose his claw at all, or gain a minor boost of speed without it. The fact that he loses it after taking only half of his health is ludicrous. Also, his roll should start up much faster than it does now. In its current incarnation it's utterly useless.
• E.Honda is in pretty bad shape. He has a lot of damage output, but is a charge character who has a lot of trouble making it to his opponent. His EX headbutt should be able to absorb one hit - as Balrog's EX punches do. In addition his standing fierce punch should do a little less damage in exchange for being at least a decent anti-air attack.

The Grappler (Abel, El Fuerte, Zangief)
Characters whose soul purpose is to get in your face and grab you. They are generally high damage, high health, slow speed (we'll get to this in a second), and the challenge in playing them is in closing the distance and being able to set up the grabs. Grabs in SFIV are pretty beefed up so, in general, these characters are easier to play than in previous games. There is, however, one exception:

• El Fuerte. A completely different kind of grappler, high speed, low health, low damage. His game revolves around his run and the moves he can perform during it. Unfortunately this is also one of his greatest shortcomings - he can only do two moves without performing a run first, and while he can cancel out of the run at any point, it makes moves that should be straightforward require extra inputs and it just makes him a pain. In addition to that he simply doesn't have a lot of options to make up for his incredibly low health and damage.
  
  So, let's fix him up a bit shall we? First things first, let's up his damage output by about 10% across the board. This should make him a little more competitive and make his grabs actually worth performing. Let's also give him the ability to do all of his throw options from a standing position with a standard DP motion (F, D, DF). Last but not least, let's change his Quesadilla Bomb from charging a kick button, to charging B, F+kick, to ensure that holding it down doesn't remove any options (EXing it means you can't use two kick buttons until you let go) and will remove the aggravation in letting it go at the wrong time and getting nothing.
• Zangief is almost fine as he is. More powerful than he's ever been really. But his lariats need fixing. They hit too often and have too much invincibility. If Honda does his Ultra, it will push AGAINST Zangief's lariat until it's over, and then the lariat will hit Honda on recovery. You should be able to punish this move if it's thrown out for no reason.

The Rushdown Master (a lot)
A lot of characters fit into this category - characters made to pressure your opponent. In general, it's hard to catch someone who doesn't want to be caught in SFIV, and rushing is tricky. Sure we could change the game around, but the better choice is to give characters more options. You don't want to make defensive play worthless, but you want the rushers to not feel like they're fighting an uphill battle. It's all about the tools.

• Chun Li is almost entirely fine as she is. She has charge moves, which seem out of place for a rushing character, but placing them properly really gives her a lot of options at any point in the match. The ONLY issue here really, is that a charge Super/Ultra has no place on a character like this. Change her motion to a double QCF.
• Fei Long is almost there, his Flying Kick/Chicken Wing is very useful for closing distances, and can even crossup a ducking opponent occasionally. If done at the right distance it's incredibly difficult to punish as well. The motion is silly though, so let's go ahead and change that to a DP motion. (Side note, let's do this for Cammy's Hooligan throw as well.)
  
  Also, his Tenshin needs to be way more useful than it is. The timing is ridiculous, and the options off of it aren't what they should be. The stun effect from it needs to last longer than it does. In addition, the EX needs to come out faster and have a higher priority than it does now.

Extra Notes
The one type of character I haven't touched on is your standard, well-rounded average character. I feel most of these are fine as is, and will be balanced by a lot of the changes previously mentioned. A few final notes:

• Sagat needs his damage toned down by about 10% across the board. He already has a lot of really useful options, powerful moves, and a good deal of health, and his damage should reflect how well he does at everything else.
• Gen could really use his chains from his previous incarnations. He's lacking a bit in his current form.
• Rose should be able to combo in a Soul Throw from a juggle.

That's it for the time being. I lied about this being the last installment though, I'll probably do one more dealing with, well, everything else. THAT will be the last one though. Honest.