Left 4 Dead 2 Mutations

I've been playing Left 4 Dead 2 a lot recently, and quite enjoying it. Several months ago, Valve introduced a new game-mode called Mutation, a weekly-variegating modification of standard game types. There have been fourteen mutations thus far, an impressive count. And each offers a new perspective on the norm. Valve's mutations not only experiment with permutations of their game modes, but also revise and restate the emotional affect of a mode's gameplay by increasing the sense of impact, necessity, and intensity.

Two modes I've been exploring much of lately are Follow the Liter and Healthpackalypse.

Follow the Liter
Follow the Liter is a mutation of far-and-away my favorite game mode, Scavenge. In Scavenge, two teams of players take turns as the survivor team, collecting as many of sixteen available gas cans as possible, and, subsequently, preventing the opposing team from doing so as special infected. Follow the Liter more strictly narrows the objective by allowing only a certain patch of cans to be collected at a time. A new patch spawns for collection as soon as the current has been dumped.

In Scavenge, the survivor-team has the upper-hand. Survivors are equipped to fell infected easily, especially experienced players who know what to expect. The challenge for infected is communicating coordinated, timely assaults that can incapacitate the survivor team. The trouble is, with cans spread widely throughout a level, infected players often have difficulty predicting where the survivors will aim for next, excepting that they're eventually guaranteed to fuel the generator. Therefore, infected players must be constantly communicating to be one step ahead of the survivors and pull off a successful gank, a task only experienced teams can negotiate. To be fair, survivors must also communicate direction frequently lest one of their team wander off in the wrong direction.

Follow the Liter is an excellent riff on Scavenge and, in my opinion, a superior game mode. Follow the Liter punctuates the core emotional qualities of Scavenge, more strictly defining the gameplay experience. Because infected have guaranteed knowledge of a survivor's run for cans, they can better prepare for the advance and coordinate a joint-strike. The middle-man of maintaining rank becomes much easier to manage and more minute planning takes precedent. Survivors are funneled into a choke-point each run for cans, and infected can focus on simply timing their spawns and locating specific spawn locations for optimal attacks rather than foolishly chasing down survivors in frustration or spawning into a shotgun from feeling rushed. The crux of the matter is that Follow the Liter, as opposed to Scavenge, allows the infected team to feel more powerful, in control, and dominating, boons of the horror trade and the source of enjoyment as infected characters. The mutation accentuates what is already so good about Scavenge by more strictly tightening the rules. The mode creates pressure. And every impact as a result is energized and charged with greater force.

As survivors, Follow the Liter at the very least encourages unified formation rather than allowing players to assume their own pairs and venture on improvised paths. On one hand, this structure of sequenced singular goals incites teamwork and cohesion, especially since players know to expect more effective attacks, and where. On the other hand, though, allowing only one present objective arguably stunts creativity, barring surprising and diversified approaches to can retrieval. In fact, I would say this is Follow the Liter's comparatively greatest fault, negating the myriad of styles of can collection offered to survivors, for two reasons. First, standard Scavenge is creatively liberal, offering multiple approaches for survivors. Part of the fun of scavenge is discussing with your team members and attempting the most efficient or surprising strategy to collecting cans. Second, the level and objective design of standard scavenge is nearly begging survivors to split up and open themselves to vulnerability. Much like the cave of wonders scene in Disney's Aladdin when Abu can't help touching the ruby despite both his own and Aladdin’s best interests, Survivors often have trouble working as a unit. Scavenge is invitation for schism between survivors, an invitation readily gobbled by keen infected. Staying focused and communicative is the mark of a good Scavenge team, something Follow the Liter arguably somewhat negates.

The last things I would like to mention about Follow the Liter is that rounds are shorter than Scavenge, a good thing, and that rounds are potentially more balanced because each team is required to run the same gauntlet as the opposition. Furthermore, mistakes are more harshly punished. A failed gank on any single patch of cans means two to three guaranteed points for the survivors and an additional forty to sixty seconds on the clock. Likewise, destroying cans, either as spitter or by tricking survivors into shooting them, bears greatly increased consequences, as survivors are unable to switch tacks for new cans, but must wait in agony for the destroyed to respawn, time ticking away all the while.

Healthpackalypse
For one main reason, I never played much Versus: I didn't feel as though my attempts as an infected had any impact on the survivors' progress. Versus is where the L4D elite go to play. Many players are so good at playing survivors, a less-than-perfect attack from an infected is swept easily aside. An infected team must perform flawless ganks to even remotely impact the opposing team.

Far more importantly, though, is the emotion derived from versus. As infected, a botched attack accomplishes nothing and is frustrating. One reason for this is because any damage dealt can be readily healed away with pills or a health pack. Suppose an infected player deals forty damage to a survivor before getting killed. The player may have even downed the survivor. No worries. The survivor just pops some pills or wraps up his wounds real fast. No harm done. All that effort, if not, in fact, wasted, feels wasted. Sure, that survivor wont be able to use his or health pack later on which may eventually cause trouble, but the present feeling of the infected is one of disappointment and failure. In my opinion, healing in Versus is a handicap, achieving not much more than to prolong deserved victory.

However, there is one reason I appreciate the presence of healing: the intellectual gamble of timely healing. People are greedy and arrogant. Players like to wait until the last moment to heal themselves because they want to horde their pills or health for as long as they are able. Unfortunately for them, their hubris is often their downfall, falling prey to infected before they “get the chance” to heal-up. Survivors acutely feel this balance of risk and reward because they do not want to use their health packs until they can receive the item's full benefits. Pills are a larger problem, in terms of game design, because they temporarily heal thirty health almost instantly, meaning they can be used at even 70% of full health and still receive the full benefit.

But I digress. Healthpackalypse is mutation of Versus, removing all health items from the game. No pills, no adrenaline shots, no health packs. Only a single health bar fast on it's way to depletion. Survivors can no longer heal-up and move on; any damage they sustain stays that way. This design has fascinating repercussions on the experience. Infected players have easier opportunity for more individual impact because even fifteen damage has an effect. It feels amazing to deal damage and relish the fact that your victims are unable to undo your efforts. However, for the very same reason, that any attack is damaging and has an impact, infected team-play is less essential. Teamwork and cooperation is still extremely effective, fun, and recommended, but the mutation lessens it's necessity.

Healthpackalypse for survivors, meanwhile, is a more tense, frightening, and suspenseful experience. Mistakes carry larger consequences because the Ctrl+Z function has been removed. Cooperation is vital. It is in a way the reverse of the affect upon the infected experience. Solo play is disastrous because healing is impossible. This incites unifying teamwork.

Valve's mutations are interesting revisions of their established game-types. As revisions, they offer different experiences, some positive, others negative. It's great to see a company still experimenting with what has been a proven success, stating that maybe there is room for improvement yet. Largely, I think at least these two mutations discussed help to accentuate the emotional qualities of the modes but dilute the intellectual qualities. And game design aside, as a marketing strategy, mutations are genius, hypothetically rejuvenating the established player-base while inspiring new customers. Especially when paired with Valve's approach to free DLC, like The Sacrifice coming October 5th, mutations are refreshing a game nearly a year into it's life, a long time for most video games.

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Aperture Science

"This is cake," my brother Hans exclaims, completely oblivious of the irony of his statement. Watching my brothers and friends play Portal is like, well, maybe the cake isn't a lie after all. Interested in player-learning, I put a number of my family and friends through GLadDOS's test chambers. As their first game since the days of Ikari Warriors, Portal was an anomaly, a universe unexplored. And like GLadDOS, I was a passive observer. No clues. No hints. Just the players finding their way. Aperture Science isn't the real analyst of the Portal gun, we are. Portal is player-teaching, player self-learning, player-everything. Portal is Aperture Science. And Aperture Science is teaching players how to teach themselves.

"I got to go through a chute and there's cake at the end," my brother Noah surmises, looking at one the test chambers' helpful diagrams. Also playing Portal for the first time, Noah is learning all about Portal's and guns and suspicious wall-mounted cameras. "I love how you run into this and it makes sound. . . .I never use my strafe button. It's a lot of fun. . . . . This is amazing! I'm totally in another world." We're fairly jaded as core gamers. A good example, we take it for granted that we are actually playing as someone. "I can see myself," my friend Mike exclaims, "I'm a girl." For Noah, this realization comes in waves. "Hey! there's a person". And later, "It's me." he pauses to make sure, "It's totally me cause she does everything I do." Hans is more critically observant. "That body runs weird." Hans is an exercise physiologist.Learning is about trial and error, and so is Portal. At the 2008 Nordic Game Jam, Jonathan Blow discussed conveyance, or how a game teaches players how to play. Conveyance, Blow says, is when "you start to make inferences about the game world and how it works." Aperture Science. During his presentation, Blow looked at a number of indie games, discussing at one point Rod Humble's The Marriage:

So you start playing this game, and you've just got a mouse cursor, and you move it around, and you notice that things react to where you put the cursor. And you start to understand the patterns. And then you start to interpret the patterns . . . You really understand what he was trying to say simply through this process of conveyance.

Blow is discussing a seamless conveyance. A far cry from the established tutorial, seamless conveyance is experiential learning. Play and learn. Learn and play. For experiential learning, Portal's test chambers are a pristine model. Seamless conveyance, experiential learning, aperture science: they all refer to the same thing. It is creating a guideline for player learning, for player self-teaching.Earlier today my nephew Foust was playing with a Batman action figure. "What does he do?" he asked. I answered, "whatever you want him to." Foust proceeded to fly Batman around as if he were Superman. Players are looking for boundaries. They want to know what they can do and what they cannot. It's up to us to show them. In Portal, players teach themselves these rules, exploring the limits of the Portal gun. But if we let players run rampid, they might become frustrated and confused. The success of Portal is its test chambers. The test chambers are specifically designed to allow players to teach themselves the game's mechanics. Portal travel, cubes, prolonged exposure to buttons, the game's mechanics are numerous. But the game plays simpler than we imagine because its rules are presented so smoothly. Learning them is natural, challenging, and fun.

introduction of challenge.As a matter of fact, this is a good time to mention the interdependence of these concepts. Challenge is fun. Challenge engages players' minds, forces them to think, to reason, to use logic. The lack of challenge means easy gameplay, which means boring gameplay, because the minds of our players aren't working. We want the mental cogs to be spinning. On the flip-side, however, if the challenge exceeds the player's present skills, then it's like throwing a monkey wrench into the player's mental cogs: the game is too hard, the mind cannot process everything being presented. But challenge remains for only so long. Something difficult, when learned, becomes second-hand nature. And this is where flow comes in. Mathematically, one challenge looks like an inverse U curve. Easy, then the challenge comes, then easy again once the challenge is mastered. Flow equals a constant upward curve of Challenge. This achievement requires a continuousClosely related to this is something called M+1. This comes from a developer commentary in a level of Sly Cooper (hands-down one of the best games ever). M in this equation is a skill, challenge, or obstacle, and the +1 refers to the amplification of that challenge. This found all over Sly Cooper, but in this particular level, M+1 meant dodging a series of lasers which became continuously more and more complex. This continuous amplification of challenge assures player flow, as the player's skills are continuously both learned and tested. In lamens, we need to maintain challenge and flow while teaching players new mechanics, obstacles, and skills in order to create a continuity of fun. How about some more algebra. If the answer is always Fun, then what is the question?Portal teaches players incrementally. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that a mechanic is introduced in one level then reapplied two or three levels later. Level 7, for example, is just like level 6, but opposite and combined with the skills from level 3. In reality, there is no formula. Valve simply devoted themselves to intense play-testing and reiterated their levels probably hundreds of times to create a smooth flow for players.

It was very interesting when this failed. Will struggled during a level when he inadvertently skipped the learning of an essential skill earlier on. In level 9, the "impossible" level, players generally shoot a portal through the hole in the wall then walk through the fixed orange portal behind them with cube in tow. Will, however solved the puzzle by walking through the energy field, and shooting a portal on that side of the wall creating a link between the two rooms without using the hole. Surprisingly, this innovation hurt him when level 11 came around, the level where players retrieve the orange portal gun. In level 11, players are required to quickly shoot a portal through the door near the ceiling after opening it with a button. At least twenty minutes went by before Will figured this out. He failed to learn this skill two levels previous.
In my observations, players were learning all of the time, sometimes blatantly so. While playing level 10, Noah exclaimed: "Oh! you can make portals in the floor. Oh! that's what they just showed me on the picture." Level 14: "Lines show you a door is over there!" and when he solved the puzzle: "I figured it out. I'd forgot about my power fling." Level 16: "This is a hard level. It's a new element." But perhaps most revelatory, Noah said in Level 7: "Can't I just use the skills I already learned?"

My friend Will is a longtime console gamer, but this was basically his first PC game. Like Noah, he frequently verbalized his thought-process (NSFW): "You cant do anything with black tiles. They suck balls." Level 9: "You just have to put it right through that conveniently box-shaped hole," (making mistakes is learning, too).In the same presentation as above, at the Nordic Game Jam, Jonathon Blow discusses a game called Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much, a graphically-simple, avatar-based puzzle game. This game, like Portal and The Marriage, teaches players how to play through gameplay.

And so these aren't really puzzles yet, right? Despite the fact that they're not challenging, they're interesting to the player. Because I'm seeing new things. I'm learning new things as I proceed through the game. So it doesn't have to be challenging yet, even though its a puzzle game.....that's all the game mechanics. It showed you each one, one at a time, and then it shows you how to combine them together, all in something that's not hard to figure out...It should be intuitive but also compelling. I play so many games where they have a really boring tutorial at the beginning. And I'm like 'Ah! I just want to skip through this and get to the real thing.' That was the real thing, but it was also teaching me about it.

The most difficult level in Portal, and most critical to understanding the game, is unquestionably level 3. Players need to know two things. One of these things they have already taught themselves: go through blue portal makes come out orange portal. The other skill, however, is not so obvious: you can walk through orange portals, and, doing so will take you to blue ones. Sounds obvious, I know. But that's because we've already played the game. It took one android subject at least fifteen minutes to solve this. Up until this point, we always traveled through blue portals, never orange. Its almost subliminal.

Confusing description? About Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much, Blow makes another, very revelatory statement: "I don't even know if I would have understood that if he tried to explain it in words. But in gameplay its so simple. You touch the wall and it moves."

Portal has a guideline structure. Players walk a path of self-learning. But the path is not entirely scripted, there is room for diversion and play, for players to have a little breathing room during their learning. Players assume a distinct gameplay style in the test chambers. In fact, Portal acted as an outlet for players to express themselves however they pleased. Noah was curious, inquisitive, and excited about everything in Portal, like in real life. For Mike, the test chambers were like a playground; Mike was playful with his new Portal gun-toy and was most interested in exploring its limitations and the limitations of the world around him. Also like in real life. Mike was actually an interesting player to watch simply because he is really, really intelligent. Honestly, Portal was too easy for Mike; he solved every level instantly. After creating infinite loops with a wall camera, Mike finally sighed, "I guess I should go to the next level." This statement is indicative of so much. To Mike, Portal was not challenging. Mike wasn't interested in performing something he knew he could achieve. Mike was more interested in discovering other things about the game, like infinite loops (shame on you Mike coughjavacough), and how far he has to fall to die, and how portals do not affect momentum. Will was quite the opposite. Like usual, he just wanted to swear a lot in frustration. "Portal? Portal can sucka my balls."
Aperture Science is players teaching themselves how to use a set of tools. Aperture Science is a guideline by which players teach themselves skills. But aperture science isn't directly applicable to every game. I would argue the opposite, in fact. Portal's aperture science, as with The Marriage and Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much, functions well because the entire game was designed alongside the teaching style. Good game design requires synergy. Aperture Science cannot be shoehorned into every game we make. A teaching system, like any aspect of game design, must work with other aspects of the game, harmoniously. I played part-way through Call of Duty 4 recently, and even it began with a fairly short tutorial level. But its tutorial was fun, a training session. It worked for the game.

Like many other gameplay systems, aperture science is just another example of a tutorial system. But its a system that works well when implemented correctly. Portal is a fun game. Portal offers a constant stream of new challenges and puzzles for players to solve. Players are always having fun because the challenge flows parallel to their competence.

Aperture Science
ap-er-cher sahy-uhns
-noun
1. The learning of new skills.
2. The process by which new skills are taught to players.
3. A guideline for players to teach themselves gameplay skills, restrictions, limitations, and boundaries.

Synonyms: conveyance, player-learning

images from Valve and Rod Humble.
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Team Fortress 2 Statistics

Now here's something awesome: a series of graphs and maps showing statical analyses of Team Fortress 2. I haven't had a chance to play yet, unfortunately, but the information is fascinating nonetheless. For example, the Scout is the most played class. More interesting, the final graph shows the team balances of each map. Your not the only blue player getting owned on dustbowl. There is something I'm curious about, though, how does the Sniper have the most points/hour, but not the most kills, captures, or assists? Do headshots warrant extra points? Let me know. Also, if, like me, you don't know every detail about the game, check out this expansive guide at Custom PC.

Kind of makes me want to take a statistics class. You?

Team Fortress 2 Statistics

Defining Class: Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress was a first-person-shooter mod for the original Half-Life over 10 years ago. The game enjoyed much popularity and sucess, and apparently, still does. But with a second Half-Life already well established, Valve is re-creating Team Fortress for a whole new generation of gamers and PCs. GameInformer online recently ran a great three-part series of articles on Team Fortress 2. The Valve team first spoke to GI about Team Fortress Classic; the team seemed rather disappointed with the game's design. Their primary criticism (of their own game. It is important to look at one's past work objectively) was that there was not a clear definition between the player classes. The abilities and values of each class was of marginal significance. And at times, a class's intended skills could be outperformed by a different class altogether. Similar to the employment of categorization by WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Valve has approached Team Fortress 2 with a focus on class definition and differentiation.

Classes left to right: Pyro, Engineer, Sniper, Spy, Heavy, Demoman, Medic, Scout, Soldier

Every class is designed play differently from another. Robin Walker was a co-creator of Team Fortress Classic and is now a designer on TF2. Walker said the following of class differentiation.

With TF2 I think we’ve been much better about making sure everyone has those weaknesses. As a Soldier you really worry when that Scout starts jumping around you and you’re trying to hit him with your rocket launcher. I think we’ve done a better job through hundreds of small changes of ensuring that everyone has those weaknesses so that no matter what class you are, you have something to fear. You have this Achilles heel that you have to keep watching for, and making sure your core nemesis hasn’t shown up in some way. . . .We don’t internally think of it as rock-paper-scissors, we’re making sure that each class has well defined strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully they’re exposed well at every sort of level.

As Walker explains, the balancing is not so much rock-paper-scissors as it is a well-defined set of weakness and strengths. I don't believe in comparison, I like things to be appreciated based on their own merits. Even so, each class is best at one trait, and worst at something else. The Heavy will have hard time actually hitting the Scout, for example, whereas the Scout will be susceptible to the Pyro. The reasons for this are not so much class specific, as they are in ability. The Heavy aims slowly, the Scout moves fast, the Pyro has a wide range of fire (literally!). Valve is working very hard at creating an accute and fair balance. In addition, each class is marked at the selection screen as either offensive, defensive, or support. This is primarily for noobs, it seems, but the added "classification" is a most welcome feature. Balance in general is sensitive, but I feel even the most creative of players will have a hard time offsetting it. This is because of Valve's dedication towards clearly marking the territory that each class can make claim to.

Prepare. To Get. PWN3D.

Aside from ability, the other aspect of class differentation is graphical. It goes without saying that each class is distinct in their physical attributes. Walker explains more:

I should be able to, as a new player, look at the Scout and see that he’s weaker relatively to the Heavy Weapons Guy, just looking at him, clearly, that guy is much tougher and can take a heap more damage. Besides, his gun tells me something too. Everything about the game has to tell the player about those strengths and weaknesses.

Each class has a distinct height and apparent weight, clothing style and weapons loadout. Each class is even uniquely animated. It will be impossible to see other players with out immediately knowing the ability and limitations of their class, and whether or not to turn-tail and run. The flip side is that teammates will also know a classes specific ability, and will be able to formulate tactics on the fly. The graphics in Team Fortress 2 are completely integrated with the gameplay. Aside from the awesome art style, the characters and their skills are immediately announced with a quick glance. Also, the teamwork that will arise from this game will be extrordinarily interesting. People are creative, they will most certainly discover unique and effective class combinations with which to battle. See you in the Dustbowl (I'll be the one by whom you just got Sniped)!

Its going to be scary as heck to turn the corner into this behemoth.

Welcome to Class
What is the purpose of defining each class so distinctly?
How does the approach differ from most other multiplayer first-person-shooters?
-Do you think this approach is better than others?
What class will you be?

GameInformer Articles
Team Fortress 2: History
Team Fortress 2: Evolution
Team Fortress 2: Game Test