I would like to call 'BS' on the latest 'Design Club'

As someone who's always looking to improve their game design skills, I was giddy when I saw the 'Design Club' program from Extra Creditz appear. The first two videos were pure genius, that gave me some great insights on how to build better games, and ways to approach the problem of making games more fun and generally better-executed (anyone who's played my three games so far agrees I need all the help I can get in that department.)

Today, I thought I would be just as happy when I found a new little gem in my YouTube inbox! So, I started watching.

I watched, but a few things didn't quite add up. Maybe it was the sheer amount of rather uncharacteristic negativity from the narrator. I shrugged it off as playing to the audience; who really likes the Blue Shell in a Mario Kart game?

...But, like Fermi's Paradox, it hit me:

Who really likes the Blue Shell?
Why is Extra Creditz pretending this is a good thing?

On my lunch break, I re-watched the video, and re-parsed their arguments. There's problems.

I wrote a long, rather detailed blog post about my thoughts, and I would like to discuss this. I've made my point that I think ExtraCreditz is wrong; a punishing mechanic like the Blue Shell, to my mind, is a game development anti-pattern.

Am I wrong? Is ExtraCreditz actually right? Am I getting the right lesson out of this? Am I missing anything?

Are punishing game mechanics ever useful?

 

I'm going to have to look into this later, but the first thing that came to mind is this article by Ian Bogost.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/218696/the_blue_shell_and_its_discontents.php

 

I see it more like the youtube video:
It would be boring if you are in front without it. And only having mechanisms that make the weak faster would also be boring. It gives a new goal if you are better than the others, to be so much in front that it does not matter or to try to evade it. For me it makes the game more interesting. I understand other viewpoints, but for me in casual games it can add fun.

 

I definitely like the blue shell - even when it's used against me. It makes me feel like there's always tension... always a chance I could lose even if I'm way ahead (unless I'm so far that it's no big deal).

 

I like the sentiment, but I feel the author of this article is a bit off: the Blue Shell isn't about an easy win for a down-trodden last-placer. It's not welfare of any sort. It's not what's wrong with America, as it is what's wrong with human nature itself.

It's trolling.

The Blue Shell is useless as a strategic option, and intentionally toxic in all possible use cases. If you have it and you're the leading person, don't use it! In the circumstances you're most likely to pull it, you're not going to win anyhow, just screw with the leading person. The Blue Shell is not some panacea that makes life better or easier for the untrained casual, it's a troll weapon, that exists for the sole purposes of trolling. It punishes success and good decisions.

While having a reversal mechanic in a game is a good idea to keep everyone engaged, I think the Thunderbolt or the Star fundamentally do it better. In fact, I think with some tuning of the drop rate and the duration/potency of such effects, the Thunderbolt or Star could completely supplant the Blue Shell, period.

Judging from the hate for the blue shell (from some other players, definently few others who have posted so far) it would do much to make the game more fun. Of course, fun is subjective, and maybe that's where my ideals and that of others - specifically ExtraCreditz - breaks down.

While I respect the sense of danger it adds, what I disrespect about it is the certainty of danger it adds. The only ways to mitigate it are A) a boost mushroom, B) an invincibility star, or C) the rarest item in the game, which will destroy it in transit. These all rely on RNG to even have. The boost mushroom is worse, because while the shell has a slight tell before the nuclear detonation (!) it's an extremely small window. You cannot evade it under normal circumstances.

I also dislike its toxic nature. When the narrator says that a valid strategy is to brake to try to get other people caught in the blast as an attempt to try to maintain the status quo, that reverbrated in all sorts of (bad) ways. What's more, as I talk about in my article, the point isn't to win the race with this thing, it's a general screw you. It's of nearly no actual utility, yet causes a lot of pain.

As before, maybe my ideas of fun are different (it wouldn't be the first time), but I have a hard time justifying this as a 'good' mechanic. There's gotta be a better way to equalize an unequal situation that a homing troll-nuke.

 

My feel is that it's a catch-up mechanism ... but not for the person who fires it. It's a mechanism for the 2nd or 3rd place player to catch up. And it's necessary, IMO, because without it, the first-place player often reaches an "island of safety" from which they simply pull farther and farther ahead.

The issue is that - while the 1st place player gets the worst items, the 2nd place player gets almost the worst items. They're often not going to get anything capable of toppling the 1st-place player, and meanwhile they have to deal with the superior artillery possessed by the 3rd and 4th players. And if they do get hit, they get rapidly chain-reaction smashed by all the people coming up behind them. Which means that the former 3rd is the new 2nd, and the gap between 1st and 2nd is now wider.

So why not give blue shell to those players, instead of the last? Two reasons:
1) Giving it to the 2nd or 3rd player makes it a sure thing they can guaranteed capitalize on. Putting the timing outside their control makes it uncertain exactly who will benefit, and gives the 1st place player the chance to succeed anyway.
2) It gives the last / near-last place player something exciting to do.

Also, in terms of "it makes 2nd place a better place to be than 1st place" - I did find this true previously, but not in 8. In 8, there are a few factors that combine to make just getting in 1st ASAP the better strategy:
1) Power ups are less rigidly tied to place, so 2nd place won't get consistently better ones.
2) And because of that, 3rd-4th place might get some really potent items that you'd rather not be the target of.
3) Because you can't hold two power-ups at once, there's less ability to "stock up" in a lower place and then reap the benefits once you get into 1st.
4) The blue shell can be stopped. Counting on one is a risky strategy when it might not work. Also, blue shells just seem more rare in general.

 

I don't really get the issue. For the kind of race that they trying to create, it makes sense to me. The whole point is to keep a tighter pack where poll positions can change on a dime, because that intermingling is the point they define where the fun is. It's much less about getting last place to first so much as it's about making sure first is contested.

 

This I find to be an interesting remark, but I have a problem with it. If you're not the one doing the catch-up (in this case, helping someone doing better than you to - wait for it - do better-er than you), I think that's still evidence of a bad mechanic. It's a choice that it does not make any sense to make. Why is this mechanic even in the game, in this case? It's simply unnecessary.

Point #2 is probably the best point in favor of this mechanic I've heard, just throwing that out there.

As for the timing, my problem isn't who has the shell, the problem is that the shell itself is either superfluous, or a way of promoting a bad experience, both things that I understand are to be avoided. Given your point about how bad it is for the 2nd or 3rd place user just drives home how much more useless it is - if you're the 2nd place player, it can backfire on you as much as it can help, and it still leaves the gap problem in place. This Blue Shell isn't solving any problems, still. This is only reinforcing my arguments that it could be safely omitted due to uselessness, and is bad for the overall experience.

Points 1-3 I agree with, and I think are positive changes. Point #4 I call into question, because, as even ExtraCreditz has mentioned, there is no mitigation strategy for the Blue Shell, except for one of the three items (Mushroom, Star, Sound Box.) Those rely on RNG. There is no RNG-free way to defeat the Blue Shell; if you fail to roll correctly, you lose (not unlike D&D interestingly.)

I am calling BS on ExtraCreditz asserting that the Blue Shell is beneficial for Mario Kart 8. Specifically, I argue it adds nothing of value to the game experience, and is little more than a griefing tool. Specifically, it fails to solve the gap problem in races, which is one of the main arguments used in its favor. Additionally, it robs the game of agency, because your good decisions don't matter so much as when someone at the back of the pack fires the Blue Shell. This is an 'anti-fun' mechanic, which is a game design 'anti-pattern' in a game designed to convey a sense of having fun.

 

? That doesn't match my experience at all. The shell might backfire for the 2nd-place player, but in that case it will probably help the 3rd-place one. The goal of the shell is very simple - keep everyone bunched together, make sure that a wide gap doesn't develop between 1st and 2nd place. For the purpose of the gameplay that Nintendo's trying to encourage there, it doesn't matter who benefits - the only important thing is that 1st place stays volatile rather than being a foregone conclusion after a certain point.

So - useless, I can't agree at all. As to whether this is good gameplay - that's a matter of opinion. For a serious competitive game about precision driving, it wouldn't be. For Mario Kart - it is, IMO. Having the karts spread out too much means less interaction, less gameplay. Having victory guaranteed by sufficient skill would mean that only people with a similar skill level could really play together. So for this type of game, I'll call it good gameplay.

 

Our experiences, and I suspect opinions in the bolded cases, do not match, but I respect your position; thanks for the good reply. But this is really bothering me on an intellectual level, because I'm still just not seeing the truth in the positions that EC advanced (namely, that the Blue Shell is good/useful to Mario Kart).

To the point, I still do not understand how the Blue Shell solves the gap problem, or how it encourages bunching. Given that A) it has a blast radius, and B) it always homes in on an endpoint of the pack, I think it encourages keeping your distance from the first place guy so you don't get nuked, or if you're the first place guy getting as much distance between yourself and the pack as you possibly can. Put another way, I think it does less of a job of solving the gap problem than possibly mitigating it.

The intriguing part about this mechanic, is it makes last-second plays for the 1st place goal a really good idea, and sort of end-loads the game experience as a result. The problem is, that doesn't apply to most of the race. Even being really, really charitable with the utility of this mechanic, I still fail to see that it provides anything of significant value to Mario Kart, that better tuned items, or a different (for that matter, actual catch-up) mechanic wouldn't solve more effectively.

Since this is a design discussion, would you mind elaborating on your experiences with how the Blue Shell made the pack tighter? I think between our experiences, I'm missing something that you might have a little better insight on.

 

How does the blue shell not help prevent a runaway lead? That's its point. It's there so that it never comes to be that first place is uncontested. As far as I am aware, it does that one function better than any other power up.

I would say this is a case where you really need to watch matches (as an uninvolved third party) and see what impact it has on races. If you actually took out blue shells, I would be willing to bet you would frequently see first place half the track ahead and a giant pack that does nothing but fight amongst itself for second.

 

Not everything is about winning. It's a way that people near the end can have some influence on what happens, messing with the people that they otherwise have no way of impacting whatsoever. The 'island of safety' of a person out ahead in first place has been mentioned - has the flip-side of that been considered? Ignoring the people in the middle, how often are the players at the rear ever able to effect the players at the front in any way?

Plus, I suspect it helps to casual up the game. Zero Punctuation once remarked that local social games suck when you're the owner, because you become "that guy" who has more practice than anyone else and either has to play down to the crowd or be in the awkward position of always winning when playing socially with casuals. It sounds to me like this mechanic was made to nullify that precise situation - even if it's you and three casuals you don't have to play down 'cause they can slam you with that, and even if the person who hit you doesn't win as a result they might have fun just knowing that they punked "that guy".

Not everyone takes these things as seriously as us.

Yep, and even when there's a huge skill disparity.

I think the contention comes from the fact that it lowers the skill ceiling for the game, and the people who tend to analyze these things to be able to talk about them are typically people who don't like deliberate skill ceilings.

 

2 ways to make the pack tighter: make the weakest faster or slow down the first. They do both.

 

@RockoDyne @angrypenguin I think I need to get some perspective from the Blue Shell problem. Thank God for Twitch.tv

As far as not caring for deliberate skill ceilings, it's less that and more that I think this is being done in a very 'raw force' way. Yes, games need to be casual for the 'Smash Bros.' reason (during Smash Bros Melee, I was that guy...of course, back then I also had illusions of being a pro gamer, for a while...), but simply tossing a nuke at the first place player with very limited, RNG-based counterplay?

My personal suggestion for a better 'catch-up' mechanic is sort of a drag system, similar to why bicyclers experience. If you're close to another cart (particularly a bigger cart) you get a 'drag' boost. If the first place guy goes too far ahead, he loses it, the pack all has it, so physics prevents the first place guy from going too far ahead. What's more, for anyone who staggles behind, a (relatively) unobtrusive powerup could either give the last place guy a speed boost (the mushroom), or rocket-blast the last place racer at the end of the slipstream effect.

In other words, instead of using a nuclear missile, I'd use something vaguely resembling physics.

But, I'll watch those Twitch streams.

 

Racing games typically implement slipstreaming (what you're calling the "drag system) as well as other mechanics.

Also, slipstreaming is a local phenomenon. Two or more cars working or competing in tandem can repeatedly slingshot each other to gain some communual speed, but someone who's fallen behind the pack can't. A guy who's lost the pack can't.

Also also, it takes a reasonable amount of skill to take advantage of slipstreaming, and we're talking about providing benefits for people with the lowest skill levels, so I think there's a mismatch there.

 

Right, but my hypothetical alternative would be to make the slipstreaming system more casual.

Unless you've got a realistic fluid physics simulation in your racing game (I'd suspect the Gran Turismo franchise would, but we're not worried about them, we're talking Mario Kart), I think having a trigger around the cart that, when entered gives a forward momentum boost, would be the way to go. Since we're making it casual, the effect radius would be larger than real life (likely, about two to three times as far, depending on playtesting feedback), and the player would have it sold to them that they're getting a boost with some good particle work and a sound effect. Conversely, getting too far ahead will have particle work and a sound to let you know your boost has worn off.

This way, you're training even a new racer to aim for the pack (feedback is awesome!) What's more, since this is a wacky cart racer, we do have things like mushrooms, the Bullet Bill, and various other powerups, so there's ways to mitigate a racer falling too far behind. We're not concerned with reality so much as we are with a self-regulating system that enables the behaviors we want to happen.

Is my idea here flawed, or is it truly impractical? Or, do I need to try it? Or, have I gone batshit crazy and need to lay off the skooma?

 

I don't know about Mario Kart, but that's exactly how it works in LBP and/or Modnation Racers. The thing is that even at two or three times realistic distances, once you're out of the pack you've still lost it. The pack still has it, so you're both behind and at a speed disadvantage. And, in a kart racer, it's easy to get knocked out of the pack. It's a great mechanic, but it's not a solution to the same problem that blue 'shrooms seem to solve.

Also, consider that for a person who always comes first the game could actually get really boring if there wasn't something to add unpredictability or tension. Slipstreaming mechanics wouldn't do anything about that. Being able to get punked on the last turn totally does.

 

Only making weak players faster does not work, often they cannot keep the cart on track if it goes even faster. There are bonuses that get the weak closer to the pack without them having to keep on track at high speed. But if you are much better than the rest, something that stops you is also needed.

 

That is precisely the reason I'm pro blue shell. I agree in that it's not reeeealy about balancing and more of a troll tool.. but that it precisely it's point and it is implemented very nicely.
If you have an easy game where you win all the time it gets boring, if you have a hard game where you loose all the time it gets frustrating. If you have a tense game where you're just in reach of the 1st place you're pretty likely to have a coronary.. The blue shell helps to even that out.
Of course winning and positive feedback are important tools of flow but without negative feedback how can you grade how much fun you're having?
Humans need contrast. If you're in a bright room with no shading or shadows.. only light.. you can't find your way around. to see the good bits and attenuate them they have to be shaded by the bad bits. Ying and Yang of game design so to speak.

 

Note on slipstreaming/drafting: Mario Kart has it, and not only that, if you draft for just long enough, you get a mushroom-like boost.

It's still not enough to close the 1st place gap, and making it faster/longer wouldn't really change that. As you get further up the pack, there's less opportunities until you get to the place of 0 drafting...2nd place.

 

Another thing to think about, the desired skills for MK are very different from typical racing games. What wins the day isn't driving skill but strategy, and this is what makes it good as a party game. Once a person get familiar with the controls and some of the various pick ups, it's not hard for a person to start plotting someones demise and score a come-from-behind victory when the right items fall into their lap.

At least that's what I think is the case since the last mario kart game I played was on the N64. I'm pretty sure S*** got more complicated, so the novice to day wrecker transformation probably takes a lot longer.

 

I haven't watched the video but I still have an opinion on it as I have played MK on Wii with my ex-girlfriend up to the point of making it on all the tracks and cups on gold. So I do have to say: I ... I like the blue shell. even if I am at first place.
Also remember that the blue shell is not the only catch-up item for the last player to get. It's the block item to the first one. If that happens to be the CPU - fine no loss there. If it happens to be the other player then it adds tension.
For actuall catch-up there's still bullet bill.

Mario kart is all about a faster turnover of racing ranks and I find it to be balanced pretty perfectly. The item distribution is made in such a way that the frustrated last players can either still gain a few places and roll up the field or at least release anger by firing a blue shell. As a good player it doesn't bother me because I can either catch up or I make up for it on the next track. As two really good players you can be angry about the blue shell all you want together but if it is a match of pro vs beginner the item distribution including the overpowered blue shell and bulet bill are pretty cool difficulty equalizer.

It may not be the most perfect implementation ever but what is perfect really?

If there are mechanics in a game that make people still play with me despite me being the by far better player than that's absolutely fine to me. The item distribution on a whole is just that. A form of very dynamic difficulty adjustments - and yes that includes the blue shell.

 

well... Company of Heroes... its an okay game... but whoever owns more of the resources wins, and its REALLY REALLY stupid.. because once you own more of the flag points, you will almost never lose..

you have the advantage, the lead, you are winning, the loser has 0 chance, the loser is increasingly penalized over time.

company of heroes sucks.. lol (i only played the first one... it felt entirely broken)
a catchup mechanic in company of heroes wouldve made it alot better..
i guess there sort of was.. in that, the enemy that is winning would throw more soldiers at you, and if you kill them.. since theres more, you get more XP points... but, they have more, which means most likely they'll just win.

really though, i think for mario kart (i havent played it since the SNES one lol) the blue shell sounds like BS ... but for a game like company of heroes, a catchup mechanic should be mandatory..

the reason being, mario kart is more a game of direct skill, how fast are you, how good are you at dodging stuff, etc.. its direct control skill.. when you penalize a person for being superior in direct control skill, its just total BS

but company of heroes, you make one little mistake and its the whole game, and theres like 1000 ways to make a little mistake...
lol i always thought RTSs were kinda crazy, because in real life, all those orders and stuff are handled by like 100 different people.. and You just 1 person is supposed to do all that? lol

the AI tends to totally destroy me in RTSs .. cause theyre like 100 different people lol

...

hmm , in call of duty black ops 2, when you get killstreaks, (especially there was a drone hunter seeker? that was just BS) and rewards for killstreaks, it feels kind of BS .. it almost seems like the people losing should get the killstreak rewards instead.. sort of... just because the people winning end up Ultra winning.. and it made the losers feel "whats the point of playing"

like i remember CoD:modern warfare 2.. i remember people chaining ac-130s one after another, because the kills you get with it add to more killstreaks, but thats a major design flaw, in that you can just die, and then use the ac130 ... when that happened LOTS of people just quit the game session

but Call of duty is really poorly designed... i designed better maps for their game then they did lol, especially zombie mode.. (particularly, you cant stand on ANY object in the zombie mode, which had sort of technical limitation (which i fixed), but really a design decision to make it harder, really it just makes the game break immersion and feel lame/ lazy devs)

 

People talk to much and don't make enough games.

Blue shell: the reason it homes in on the leading player is because it's actually capable of hitting anything along the way. If it didn't home in on the leading player then you'd be 11th place most likely, and someone else would be S***canned for the rest of the race. The blue shell is a mix-up mechanic to make the last guy feel a bit less S*** at the game. It rarely changes the outcome for anyone, but it's still not a terrible thing to add.

The concept that you *should* have something that helps you up from 12th place is a fallacy. The world is full of winners and losers. Don't get your ass in 12th place to begin with.

I never watch these youtube videos, since they're never actually by any actual game designers who understand the problems at a deeper level.

Not only this, there's no really perfect solution. Blue shell has a higher chance for the lowest positioned players on the track, but it's not reserved for the last player. It's a bit of fun to mix things up and that is not a bad thing. If it wasn't there, something else probably would have to be there. Nintendo have been experimenting a long time. Longer than most people have been alive. It's not always going to get it perfect.

 

I guess you never even played Company of Heroes for good and/or never understood the game mechanics. Sector control in it did not mean automatic win and the game does not have resource flood. The main game resource is not really affected by map control and the game allows comebacks if the player does not completely suck. In terms of game design the game is a nice change from generic zergfest and mirror match games.

 

well.. in Company of Heroes, if you dont have a fuel sector, and the enemy has em all, youre dead... pretty much.

i guess i did suck.. i played mostly against bots, .. and german tanks.. they just roll out tank, tank, tank tank tank tank, and its impossible to even get the fuel point.

and then sometimes, if i make a good flag rush, and kill the enemy flag rushers, in the beginning then its waaay too easy
from what i played, it was always either waaay too easy, or waay too hard, never a middle
that game was Never, not one game truly satisfying to me ..
(well the campaign was fun, but i meant skirmish mode, which I always viewed as the main game, since campaign is just a scripted events, and skirmish is: heres the game, have fun with it)

 

The idea of the game (Like ExtraCredits said) is not just about the racing, the combat is a integral mechanic added to the game to keep players attention throughout the race.

I think they put it in there to tighten the play group, other items like the star and rocket are helpful but if you're coming last then you are only going to affect those around you, and while this helps you it actually has a negative effect over all the racers, like for example if Player1 is coming first and Player2 is coming second while Player3 is coming eighth and Player4 is coming seventh when Player3 gets a rocket or star, they probably wont get to Player1 or Player2 having absolutely no effect on the higher end of the leader board, they will however pull back Player4 creating a divide between the players.

The blue shell is the opposite, it will have no effect on those around you but Player1 and potentially Player2 will be effected which is obviously the better option for equalising the game, it not only helps you it helps everyone who is behind which is beneficial for a max of three players.

It's also important to note that in local multiplayer (The target of this game for most of it's existence and even now is probably the main aspect) It's actually just the four players who are racing as none of the NPC's matter it's nearly entirely about the four players competing so the blue shell stops the disconnect between winners and losers and puts them in the same game instead of just having the game relating to the racers around you.