SMART in Hindsight - Exedore @ GDC Europe

[Humate]

The thing is, people don’t want to play games where you have to exploit engine glitches and do complicated techniques to move correctly. This adds an unnecessary learning curve, and while it certainly takes more skill to move in UrT or W:ET than it does in BRINK, most people find that to be a bad thing. It shouldn’t “take skill” to move correctly and traverse obstacles. The SMART system is a great achievement in that regard and I think we’ll soon see it or systems like it become more prevalent in gaming as a whole.

IMO if someone isnt willing to learn basic circle strafing, they shouldnt be playing games.

[Verticae]

I wasn’t referring only to trickjumping; even “simple” strafejumping or bunnyhopping falls under this category for me. The default movement controls should move you as quickly and efficiently as possible. I was never really good at W:ET, but at least in UrT it always seemed like knowing how to strafejump, walljump, and slide effectively was a prerequisite for high-level play.

So high-level skill is a prerequisite for high-level play? Wow, who’d have thought.

Wolf:ET, Quake3, and UT promote putting in time and effort. If you don’t want to do tht, fine, but don’t expect to become a great player - it simply doesn’t work that way. You don’t go onto a soccer field and instantly know how to play like a professional either, even if you can quickly get the basics. It’s the subtle complexities that separate the great players from the casuals.

[shirosae]

I wasn’t referring only to trickjumping; even “simple” strafejumping or bunnyhopping falls under this category for me. The default movement controls should move you as quickly and efficiently as possible.

In general, anything default should not be the most quick or efficient anything. It should be feasibly efficient. If your game doesn’t have room for player growth, it might as well be farmville.

[GreasedScotsman]

… the games you outline are very old and that the gaming landscape has changed dramatically since then…

Yes, and why is it that these games I outlined are still played today and have even larger playerbases than Brink?

Brink tries to straddle the fence in this way, trying to keep a foot in the old way (PC) and a foot in the new way of the gaming industry (Everything else).

And my point is that, unless you’re a COD-killer, you’re not going to be very appealing for very long. Case in point: Brink. And as you suggest, BF3 is directly going “toe-to-toe” with COD for this exact reason.

Or just create a game with mass appeal built up like in the case of anything Rock Star Games puts out. Oh, its by Rockstar. It must be good!

Rockstar games are good. They’re extremely well produced, have deep storylines, interesting characters, and a gameplay style that suits the consoles well because gunplay is a backseat to the adventure/open-world and story they offer. This is not the case of a game like Brink, which has 2 primary mechanics: movement and shooting. Let me be clear: If Brink’s shooting mechanic wasn’t flawed, I think everyone would be more than happy with SMART 1.0 because we can all see the potential of it in the hands of devs for Brink 2 or modders on the PC with a SDK. I personally love SMART and can’t wait for the next title (that may or may not be by SD) that employs it and takes it further. My gripe is that, given Brink’s design, SMART is not that useful in combat, a distinction I made in my earlier posts. Again, if Brink’s shooting was better and presented a challenge to gamers such that they would have to work on their skill, I can almost guarantee the hordes would still be playing. After respawn timers that have been adjusted, shooting (not weapon balance, but the actual shooter mechanics) was the top issue raised across these forums. It has yet to be addressed satisfactorily.

It is very likely, with the largest purchase base of Brink was on Console, that part of the challenge you are trying to overcome, is that which you fear the most? Changing gaming industry. The world has moved on.

If that were true, Brink would be a smashing success on consoles at the very least. It is not, so your words ring hollow to me. Again, sales do not speak to player retention, and Brink is hemorrhaging players like a siv compared to other recent FPS titles. Again, I ask: When you join a server, is it completely full of human beings 30% 50%, 80%, 90% of the time? No, it is not. I’ve routinely gone over to friends’ houses to see Brink played on both consoles. They can’t find full games, even at peak times and even after the DLC hit. I was originally doing this to scope out the console scene to see if Brink TV could figure out a way to broadcast console matches. After a while, I realized there was very little cohesion and no way to cultivate a competitive scene on the console due to the restrictions in the way players connect to games and, again, that there seem to be very few servers that are full, let alone anyone playing the competitive stopwatch mode.

The console crowd on Brink has grown considerably (noticeable difference) once the DLC dropped.

Any swell you’ve seen is temporary because Brink doesn’t offer enough challenge, even to the clearly lowered expectations of the console crowd.

Again… compare completely full servers and a line lasting 30 minutes to join a single server for a SD-made FPS just 4 years ago. It was fast paced and had fast movement. It required skill to aim. It had far more going on/higher learning curve and skill ceiling than Brink. It had a competitive scene for over a year. Or go back further to the pinnacle of FPS games, Quake 3. It has none of these “mainstream” qualities you tout and everything that I admire and wish for. It has been played casually and competitively for over a decade. It is still played casually today and it has taken until this year for the competitive scene to finally fade.

Both Brink’s casual and competitive runs lasted 3 months. At this point, Brink is probably humming along at 1% of its PC sales and probably along the lines of 5% of its console sales in terms of player retention based on whatever estimations you might make from the console stats site and some of the xbox and ps3 snapshots you can find on the web.

Therefore, there is no comparison or reasoning that will make your arguments valid. Again, sales do not mean much more than a successful hype department. It’s player retention that matters, and Brink, I’m sad to say, doesn’t have it, even when compared to other new IP FPS titles, regardless of platform.

Does it have to remain that way? No… SD is working hard to fix problems and I’m still hopeful. However, that hope is diminished when I read stuff from the original post that clearly says to me SD doesn’t understand the dissatisfaction, frustration and problems people have with their game and are doomed to repeat their mistakes. The only difference is, they’ve used their “hype capital” and spent their reputation on Brink. Gamers on both PC and console were unhappy enough with Brink that they will probably not be pre-ordering SD’s next game and may not risk forking out $60 unless there’s a demo that lets them know for sure that the game stands up to the hype. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

[tokamak]

Starcraft doesn’t ‘straddle the fence’ by appealing to the most casual rts noob and the most hardcore of the hardcore gaming has to offer. What’s more, to an untrained eye, the ‘newbie’ games look very similar to the hardcore games even though underneath there’s a world of difference playing.

Tuning is key here, at least the extend to which you reward players for fine-tuning themselves. In Starcraft the more experienced players have all kinds of bell curves processing in their head telling them when it’s most optimal to tech, expand, defend or attack, these bell curves depend on the information the gater and even the information gathering has a bell curve (over a period of time there are optimal points to scout in depending on what you already know).

Now in lower leagues the difference is that players are less aware of these curves, and when they do, they may not correspond well enough with the rest of the game to play optimally. This doesn’t matter due to the excellent matchmaking, but it still means they can all enjoy the game equally. In team games this point is driven home even more so as you can mix pro-gamers with casual gamers in teams and the game will still be fun.

For Brink and ETQW one of the most obvious ‘curves’ is the spread curve. All the things a player can do to influence the spread set out against the need for that spread. The spread parameters are obvious and diverse in ETQW (huge high and lows) yet in Brink they’re frantic (sensitive) but not all that varied. This gives a player less control over his weapon which lowers the skill difference in the game. Relative to effort and skill put into the game, it clearly is biased towards the casual player rather than making the game viable to both ends.

[MoonOnAStick]

The thing is, people don’t want to play games where you have to exploit engine glitches and do complicated techniques to move correctly. This adds an unnecessary learning curve, and while it certainly takes more skill to move in UrT or W:ET than it does in BRINK, most people find that to be a bad thing. It shouldn’t “take skill” to move correctly and traverse obstacles. The SMART system is a great achievement in that regard and I think we’ll soon see it or systems like it become more prevalent in gaming as a whole.

The approach taken with SMART is perfectly valid, but it’s only one possible input system for a parkour movement style. Driving seems like a good comparison. It is obviously an action that requires some skill in real life and more in professional racing. There are all sorts of representations of driving in modern games. In most simulations you can tweak the driving assists all the way from steering only (everything else automatic) through to manual gear changes, traction control off, etc. Finally, in F1 sims you have all sorts of extra buttons for fuel mixes, KERS boosts and drag reduction flaps. So why do people play Forza with all the assists off? Why not just make it like GTA?

Likewise, parkour is something that requires skill to perform in real life (and we might think that fictional movement techniques like rocket-jumping/plasma-wall-climbing would require even more skill.) Also, like driving, first person movement can be fun in its own right (for example Mirror’s Edge or InMomentum) without any shooting or squad tactics.

Any input system that tries to simulate parkour will necessarily be more abstracted than those schemes for driving games but I don’t think that means you have to just automate everything. The essence of strafe-jumping is not particularly hard to grasp. One of the open source Q3 derivatives (Warsow?) includes a velocity meter to help new players get the hang of it and Brink could easily have included an enjoyable set of challenges showcasing some trick jumps. Of course, strafe-jumping was initially an engine glitch in Quake, but I think the reason it persisted is that it’s actually a lot of fun to increase/maintain momentum and bound around a level, perhaps performing actions the developers hadn’t anticipated.

I agree that, for Brink, something like trick jumping shouldn’t be integral to (public server) success, but SD managed to include some “classic” movement in ET:QW without it affecting the gun play at all. There are some great videos being posted in the ‘Skill’ in Brink thread showing some of the crazy possibilities in W:ET. But these are basically another game mode (before such things needed a title in the options menu) and not really representative of normal online play.

The dynamic movement systems of previous ET games were, with the benefit of hindsight, one of those games biggest strengths and are quite a loss in Brink. I guess what I would hope for is a movement system robust enough that it could be applied in unforeseen and exciting ways (which, by definition, can’t be automated) and that any successor to SMART is a little more consistent in how it interacts with the maps.

[nephandys]

[QUOTE=shirosae;372406]I should probably say: I do like some of the ideas behind SMART.

The wall bounces, wall runs, mantles, could all be useful if they worked more like trick jumping in ETQW and less like gimmicky setpieces.

If Brink’s movement were like ETQW,

SMART could have been an extension to that. A set of tricks you can dump on top of trickjumping to expand the options you’re given. Without that freedom of movement ETQW had, SMART really doesn’t seem to offer much other than a(n unclear) route selector.[/QUOTE]
This would be the greatest thing ever. Also your comment that there are no visual cues or otherwise to indicate where you can make use of SMART to access areas, wall jump, etc. I was talking to some friends and they all had to agree as well this would make things a lot more intuitive.

[Fetter]

In general, anything default should not be the most quick or efficient anything. It should be feasibly efficient. If your game doesn’t have room for player growth, it might as well be farmville.

I’m not talking about the game choosing routes and timing pushes for you here, I’m talking about simply moving around the environment. You shouldn’t have to have advanced techniques to move correctly, as this makes 100% no sense at all and stifles the real crux of competitive play-- efficient coordination and teamwork. Trickjumping doesn’t have a place in modern games, and there’s a reason that modern games no longer include it.

SMART isn’t necessarily the be-all end-all. Mirror’s Edge, for instance, had better parkour. On the other hand, Mirror’s Edge was a parkour game and also had (IIRC) three buttons to dedicate to parkour instead of one/two. That said, normal movement + SMART strikes me as a good solution to the problem.

Also, several people had said that parkour takes skill in real life. That’s true-- it does. As someone who does parkour in real life, I can tell you that most of the skill involved, aside from simply practicing technique to the point where you can do it quickly and effectively (which the BRINK characters have clearly already done), is in the realm of understanding what possibilities you have and how you can use your tool set of movement options to get from one place to another. The SMART system accomplishes this admirably-- just as in real life, the main skill required by a skilled practitioner is creativity and route discovery.

I can guarantee that I use the SMART system more effectively than most players, since I’m always on the lookout for new spots or routes that I can use to my advantage, but that’s simply thanks to good situational and environmental awareness-- a core skill that everyone should possess-- rather than spending long hours practicing unintuitive and glitch-based “trick jumps.” For me at least, I think that this shift is a good one and that the SMART system should be commended.

[DarkangelUK]

For me at least, I think that this shift is a good one and that the SMART system should be commended.

No offense, but please don’t do that selective reading thing. I’ve praised SMART over and over again for doing exactly what it says on the tin, and for opening up maps and removing movement restrictions that someone not willing to spend the time practicing would find awkward (and console players). It’s the restrictions it brings with it that’s annoying. No one NEEDS to learn this stuff, no one ever said they had to, why are you fixated on this position that everyone is forced to learn it? Tricking, as has been explained… is about accomplishing things the normal gamer can’t… of course it’s unintuitive! If it was intuitive, they’d probably make it a selling point and call it SMART,

For a game with very little game types and content, removing anything that brings longevity to it can only be a bad thing. Any game that can make something as simple as moving so popular and embracing to a point where people WANT to spend hours learning new things is a fantastic achievement. Communities built from the art of moving, movies, tutorials, challenges, maps dedicated to it, mods dedicated to it, servers dedicated to it, websites dedicated to it… even clans dedicated to it! It’s not this little niche thing a couple of people like to do, it’s its own monster. Removing all of that, sticking it on a button and removing any effort was a poor decision, and so was limiting any innovation that it could’ve brought. They could have had SMART in place and still left the skill cap high enough, but chose to gimp it and turn it into a trivial function.

[MoonOnAStick]

Trickjumping doesn’t have a place in modern games, and there’s a reason that modern games no longer include it.

To argue that no one uses strafe-jumping any more, therefore it’s rubbish is not hugely convincing. Even in the brief history of gaming there are plenty of examples of game styles that were deemed old fashioned at one point only to come back and enjoy a renaissance. Also, it’s impossible to look at any trend in FPS movement in isolation from changes in the FPS player demographic.

On the other hand, Mirror’s Edge was a parkour game and also had (IIRC) three buttons to dedicate to parkour instead of one/two.

Was it only three? It felt like 10 Still a cracking game though.

rather than spending long hours practicing unintuitive and glitch-based “trick jumps.” For me at least, I think that this shift is a good one and that the SMART system should be commended.

You keep saying “glitch-based” but surely by id tech 3 these cases were well known about and continued to be included because players wanted them. Having said that, I do agree that trick jumping is unlikely to come back in its current form, largely because it’s too difficult to perform with a controller. What I was trying to express was the qualities that made it fun in the hope that they might somehow be incorporated into SMART 2.0 because, as impressive as SMART is, it’s not really enjoyable to feel like a passenger through a series of canned animations.

Edit: Here’s an article (published before Brink) that better articulates my hopes.

[Verticae]

I’m not talking about the game choosing routes and timing pushes for you here, I’m talking about simply moving around the environment. You shouldn’t have to have advanced techniques to move correctly, as this makes 100% no sense at all and stifles the real crux of competitive play-- efficient coordination and teamwork. Trickjumping doesn’t have a place in modern games, and there’s a reason that modern games no longer include it.

Modern games have no need for dedicated players and advanced movement techniques? Excuse me?

Also, several people had said that parkour takes skill in real life. That’s true-- it does. As someone who does parkour in real life, I can tell you that most of the skill involved, aside from simply practicing technique to the point where you can do it quickly and effectively (which the BRINK characters have clearly already done), is in the realm of understanding what possibilities you have and how you can use your tool set of movement options to get from one place to another. The SMART system accomplishes this admirably-- just as in real life, the main skill required by a skilled practitioner is creativity and route discovery.

Replace ‘parkour’ and ‘smart’ with the word ‘trickjumping’ in your post, and realise why I’m about to call you out.

rather than spending long hours practicing unintuitive and glitch-based “trick jumps.”

Kay. So when YOU are used to a system, it’s intuitive and useful, but when others haven been doing something since 1996, that can be considered intuitive for them too. Next to that, as of Quake 2, there is no reason to consider strafejumping ‘glitch-based’ in the slightest, because the developers saw what players did with it in Quake, loved it, and enhanced the possibilities. That’s right, they turned it into an actual game mechanic.

Just becaose some people are too lazy to try and master all elements of a game, doesn’t mean the dedicated players shouldn’t be rewarded.

[Exedore]

The only way I can think of, off, the top of my head, to deal with that is to put ladders/stairs back in, even if they’re non-functional, just to act as visual cues.

This is another thing I mentioned, but it wasn’t quoted. We consciously chose to avoid such cues to invite players to explore the system, which obviously ended up a bit hit and miss. Another thing I mentioned is that such indicators rarely scale well, so if you have to change the heights inherent in the system (which we did), you’re stuck with having to modify a bunch of assets.

It’s worth noting that this talk was specifically a Design talk for a Developer’s conference, and I wasn’t as blunt as I sometimes am here because we knew there would be press there.

[Chris2]

This is another thing I mentioned, but it wasn’t quoted. We consciously chose to avoid such queues to invite players to explore the system, which obviously ended up a bit hit and miss. Another thing I mentioned is that such indicators rarely scale well, so if you have to change the heights inherent in the system (which we did), you’re stuck with having to modify a bunch of assets.

Like any map details shouldn’t they be added in after the layout is somewhat finalised?

Regarding visual queues in general though, it would have perhaps been beneficial to have them at some of the more useful SMART routes just to get people to give it a go perhaps then let them discover others on their own. I dunno, just thinking out loud

[Exedore]

Regarding visual queues in general though, it would have perhaps been beneficial to have them at some of the more useful SMART routes just to get people to give it a go perhaps then let them discover others on their own. I dunno, just thinking out loud

I think Container City is one of our better maps in this regard, and it’s no coincidence that it’s the map that had the most iteration in this aspect.

[tokamak]

There’s isn’t much exploring to do anyway. The big limiter on SMART isn’t the player’s unwillingness but rather the way they’re enclosed within the map. Now I would prefer to play a heavy but besides a few obvious ones like the CC start, there aren’t that many routes or shortcuts that a heavy can’t take. I was kind of hoping from being besieged from all sides rather than being met upfront with lights and still being defeated by their smgs.

This isn’t a rant btw, this illustrates that the problems stack up. Making a balanced map with SMART is hard so you limit the ways in which light and even medium types can navigate, this cripples the true strength of the light whichmeans that their supposed weakness (firepower) can’t be as big as it should be in order for the heavy to have it’s own advantage.

Making the contrast between these things higher is challenging, but at the same time it’s what makes a game so good. It’s where the depth comes from.

[Chris2]

I think they are a few to discover here and there, other day I found a nice one on Aquarium that cut some travel time a fair bit.

[DarkangelUK]

I think they are a few to discover here and there, other day I found a nice one on Aquarium that cut some travel time a fair bit.

There are 1 or 2 hidden away here or there, but again they’re thrown in by the mapper and held within the confines of smart. I always liked thinking beyond the mappers intentions and discovering new routes that no one else had thought of, not even the mapper.

[Exedore]

[QUOTE=GreasedScotsman;371566]“Americans prize individualism a lot more, this [kind of class-based team multiplayer] didn’t catch on as much over there as it did here [in Europe]. I don’t mean to slander them all, though. Some absolutely love it.”

Being one of those that “absolutely love it,” I’ve been silent over much of Brink’s downfall, but this is just an utter cop out and disconnect from the realities of Brink’s shortcomings.
…
Further, his “take-away” about SMART is completely wrong. SMART isn’t under-used in combat situations because it’s hard to remember in the insanity of the moment. SMART is not confusing/difficult to use.
…
Worse, the assumption that we players are somehow lazy baffles me considering (at least in the PC crowd) I can think of players who have (collectively) literally spent thousands of hours mastering even a tiny facet of a game (Quake 3 trick jumps, for example). Further, for Brink itself, I’d counter by saying, “QuakeCon competitors are anything but lazy,” and the notion is insulting to their skill, time and the effort put specifically into Brink… which, I dare say, was far more dedicated and thorough than the QA testers assigned to route out bugs on any of the 3 platforms. THOSE players might fit the label of “lazy” given the glaring problems that somehow escaped unnoticed.[/QUOTE]
Sorry for the long quote, but I want to respond to these points individually. I realize what I’m writing is very much like what others have already written, but I feel I need to be clear on this one.

One of the things that worried me about my European and American social observations was that the irony of speaking at GDC Europe with an American accent is rather lost if they choose not to mention that! I’ve commented on this same thing previously on this very board to get some of your views on this subject as well. It was a minor point that got emphasized in coverage because it can be perceived as somewhat sensational (and I’m still in two minds about whether I should’ve said it).

On the next point, I never said that SMART is under-utilized in combat situations, I said that some people under-utilized it. That’s all. I largely agree with your points… it’s not difficult or confusing to use, but for a lot of new players it’s the first thing out the window when they get overwhelmed and fall back on their instincts. I was addressing the barrier to entry rather than the skill ceiling.

On the laziness point, I’m not referring to gaming habits as much as the human and natural tendency for picking easier options. But, I do agree with you, and that’s because dedicated gamers take the time to un-learn their natural tendencies and immerse themselves in the simulation. Another thing I mentioned but didn’t get quoted on.

[Verticae]

That clears it up quite a bit. I didn’t comment on the USA/EU distinction for that particular reason, nice to know I was right for once.

[wolfnemesis75]

[QUOTE=GreasedScotsman;372911]Yes, and why is it that these games I outlined are still played today and have even larger playerbases than Brink?
And my point is that, unless you’re a COD-killer, you’re not going to be very appealing for very long. Case in point: Brink. And as you suggest, BF3 is directly going “toe-to-toe” with COD for this exact reason.
Rockstar games are good. They’re extremely well produced, have deep storylines, interesting characters, and a gameplay style that suits the consoles well because gunplay is a backseat to the adventure/open-world and story they offer. This is not the case of a game like Brink, which has 2 primary mechanics: movement and shooting. Let me be clear: If Brink’s shooting mechanic wasn’t flawed, I think everyone would be more than happy with SMART 1.0 because we can all see the potential of it in the hands of devs for Brink 2 or modders on the PC with a SDK. I personally love SMART and can’t wait for the next title (that may or may not be by SD) that employs it and takes it further. My gripe is that, given Brink’s design, SMART is not that useful in combat, a distinction I made in my earlier posts. Again, if Brink’s shooting was better and presented a challenge to gamers such that they would have to work on their skill, I can almost guarantee the hordes would still be playing. After respawn timers that have been adjusted, shooting (not weapon balance, but the actual shooter mechanics) was the top issue raised across these forums. It has yet to be addressed satisfactorily.
If that were true, Brink would be a smashing success on consoles at the very least. It is not, so your words ring hollow to me. Again, sales do not speak to player retention, and Brink is hemorrhaging players like a siv compared to other recent FPS titles. Again, I ask: When you join a server, is it completely full of human beings 30% 50%, 80%, 90% of the time? No, it is not. I’ve routinely gone over to friends’ houses to see Brink played on both consoles. They can’t find full games, even at peak times and even after the DLC hit. I was originally doing this to scope out the console scene to see if Brink TV could figure out a way to broadcast console matches. After a while, I realized there was very little cohesion and no way to cultivate a competitive scene on the console due to the restrictions in the way players connect to games and, again, that there seem to be very few servers that are full, let alone anyone playing the competitive stopwatch mode.
Any swell you’ve seen is temporary because Brink doesn’t offer enough challenge, even to the clearly lowered expectations of the console crowd.
Again… compare completely full servers and a line lasting 30 minutes to join a single server for a SD-made FPS just 4 years ago. It was fast paced and had fast movement. It required skill to aim. It had far more going on/higher learning curve and skill ceiling than Brink. It had a competitive scene for over a year. Or go back further to the pinnacle of FPS games, Quake 3. It has none of these “mainstream” qualities you tout and everything that I admire and wish for. It has been played casually and competitively for over a decade. It is still played casually today and it has taken until this year for the competitive scene to finally fade.
Both Brink’s casual and competitive runs lasted 3 months. At this point, Brink is probably humming along at 1% of its PC sales and probably along the lines of 5% of its console sales in terms of player retention based on whatever estimations you might make from the console stats site and some of the xbox and ps3 snapshots you can find on the web.
Therefore, there is no comparison or reasoning that will make your arguments valid. Again, sales do not mean much more than a successful hype department. It’s player retention that matters, and Brink, I’m sad to say, doesn’t have it, even when compared to other new IP FPS titles, regardless of platform.
Does it have to remain that way? No… SD is working hard to fix problems and I’m still hopeful. However, that hope is diminished when I read stuff from the original post that clearly says to me SD doesn’t understand the dissatisfaction, frustration and problems people have with their game and are doomed to repeat their mistakes. The only difference is, they’ve used their “hype capital” and spent their reputation on Brink. Gamers on both PC and console were unhappy enough with Brink that they will probably not be pre-ordering SD’s next game and may not risk forking out $60 unless there’s a demo that lets them know for sure that the game stands up to the hype. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.[/QUOTE]Fingers crossed. Low player retention, barrier to entry, lack of competitive scene. All indicators of doom. Much too bad, because not many games offer an alternative to COD. All we can do now is lick our wounds, hope a lesson was learned, and keep the fingers crossed that there’s a happy place to be found somewhere in the future gaming verse.