Strategic Item Design

[Grim Tuesday]

Link to original post: [drupal=3286]Strategic Item Design[/drupal]



Originally posted on the Game Maker Community by myself: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=471399

Skip down to the TLDR if your lazy.

If anyone reading this has ever played any of the Super Smash Brothers games (competitively), then they should know all about the controversy among new players when it comes too items being banned. For those who haven't here is a brief run-down of Super Smash Brother's item system.

There are many different items in the Super Smash Bros. Series with different abilities. For example, there is the Bunny Hood, an item which temporarily increases speed and jumping height, or the Home-run Bat, a powerful one-hit KO item which takes a brief amount of time to charge up, or the Pitfall, an item which you can bury into the ground and trap anyone who walks over the place you buried it. In the options, you can choose which items are allowed to appear on stage, and how frequently they will fall. In game, the items appear a few IRL centimetres above ground level in a random position on the stage.

Items in the Super Smash Bros. series are banned in every single game in every single proper tournament for one reason. Chance. The place the items fall is completely random, the effects of some of the items are also random (Such as the Pokeball, which releases a random Pokemon) and many of them have quite game-breaking 1-Hit KO abilities. The counterargument for this banning is normally one of these three:
a) Random = Fun. The game should be played for fun, not competition.
b) Both players have the same chance of a good/bad item falling next to them. Therefore it is fair.
c) The game was meant to be played with items on, so they should be on.

Of course, the second one involves flawed logic, the third is a very weak argument, and the first is irrelevant when there is money or prizes on the line (i.e. Most Smash tourneys).

But this has gotten me thinking, how DO you fairly distribute items in multiplayer games? Fighting games especially.
Randomly giving away the items (as described above) is flawed as it bases the game more on luck than skill.
Rewarding a player who is doing well with an item gives an advantage to the player who is already winning, making it even more difficult for the losing player to come back.
Granting the losing player an item (sort-of like a mercy item) means that the player who is obviously better than the other one might still lose because the losing player got a lucky item AND made a comeback.
Having a set spot and time for items to appear in promotes camping and basically turns the game into a "capture the fort" styled game. Where first player to reach the item-spawning position has unlimited access to that item and can prevent the other player from acquiring it.

Finally, there is the items themselves. How do you create an item that actually involves skill to use, rather than a "sealed magic power in can" ability like the aforementioned Pokeball, where you just press A and gain instant advantage.

TLDR:
How do you fairly distribute items in games:
Random.
Mercy.
Reward.
Spawn Point

How do you create an item which requires skill to use and doesn't grant instant advantage.

 

[Eyada]

One fairly obvious solution is to have players start with an "Inventory" that contains an allotted amount of items, which can be accessed at any time of the player's choosing via some simple input. Players would simply pick which items are in their "Inventory" before the match, as part of the character selection process. Since both players start the match with all of their items, you don't need to worry about one player getting more items than the other or any of the issues caused by spawn-point camping.

This would introduce a resource management mechanic into Smash, akin to Super meters and whatnot from most other fighting games. Strategic use of a limited number of items would add far more depth to the game than the random-luck-a-thon-spawn-fest that Smash uses now. Both players would know which items their opponent still has in reserve, and baiting your opponent into wasting critical items at the wrong time or predicting their item use and countering it could be a game winning move.

Moreover, this provides a nice framework for balancing items. Weaker items might come in larger quantities, allowing for more opportunities to use them, while powerful items could be limited to very few uses. This would also allow for an interesting item-vs-item rock-paper-scissors style system, wherein certain items can be used to counter other items, thus helping ensure that no item is unbeatable.

This also makes items far more relevant to character match-ups --if you can count on always having a particular item vs. Character X, then it is entirely reasonable to factor that into the overall match-up. This opens the door for designing items as competitive fail-safes that help prevent one-sided, unwinnable match-ups; e.g., an item that makes your character temporarily immune to grabs, or an item that temporarily makes your character immune to projectiles could be employed at critical moments to allow a disadvantaged player to land some solid hits and turn the match around.

This would also allow players to develop unique item-based styles. Two players might main the same character but have notably different play styles due to their item selections; e.g., one of them might focus on aggressive items that increase their mobility and pressuring abilities while the other focuses on tricky items that help set up combos and traps.

This system would also open the door to designing niche items that are really only useful for certain characters, since players can simply choose not to use any items that don't work well for their character. You could even design extremely niche items that are only useful for one character; heck, you could even design several character-specific items for each character in the game (akin to the character-specific items in Diablo II), perhaps having each of the items emphasize a different aspect of the character, allowing for players to further customize their play style.

Overall, it would be a vast improvement over the current system as far as competitive depth is concerned; however, it might not be as appealing to casual players. The best route would be to simply have both systems in the game, and allow players to choose which one to use. Competitive players could use the more strategic and deep "Inventory" system, while casual players could enjoy the hectic zaniness of the random-spawn "Party-mode" system.

 

[Delta Z]

That's...a pretty good idea, actually. Now how the hell do we get them to listen to us long enough to hear it?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I like the idea, a lot. Only downsides I can see are possible over-complication, and it would need to be balanced perfectly to stop players from either
a) Having a limitless (pretty much) inventory of all the weak items and being near untouchable because of it. or...
b) Having 1 of each of the most powerful items and just using 1 each stock.

Great idea though!

I've come up with quite a few "fair" item designs for the fighting game I am designing atm, Deviant. Items come in the form of Spheres, and when you get a Sphere you can charge it either in a direction, or with a button. The Sphere will have different effects depending on length of charge and the button/direction charged.

I'll post 'em later, I gotta go to school now.