Quest to Nowhere

Combat Control: How Scores in Combat Systems Can Influence How the Player Fights

After writing the piece about the way in which Bulletstorm’s scoring system can influence a player’s behavior in changing how they approach combat situations by rewarding player trial and error, I started to think about other games and how they might be influencing a player’s behavior in combat through the use of a scoring/combo system. There were three games, (well game series) that specifically came to mind as I thought about this, and while they all have combo systems that reward the player with points to use to improve their character’s abilities, they each implement these systems different. And because of that they cause the player to approach and engage in combat differently in each game.

God of War (series)

God of War’s combat scoring system is pretty simple: the more hits you get in the combo, the more red orbs you get. This orbs act as the game’s experience, and so as you get them you spend them to upgrade your weapons and abilities in the game. This makes them pretty important of course, and is definitely something that as the player you would always want more of.

Now the way this system is setup the player is rewarded for being good at the game (being able to execute long combos,) but is also rewarded for playing the game less efficiently. By which I mean that you are incentivized by the system to attack the enemies with your weakest moves, because it takes more hits to kill them with a weaker move then with a stronger one. 

Additionally because there are a number of sweeping or spinning attacks you can execute in combat, you are also incentivized to let enemies surround you rather than perform any sort of crowd control during combat, or attempt to take out enemies from a distance as they approach you.

Now it seems a bit odd that they are basically trying to get you to play less efficiently with this system, but I think it is likely designed to be like this because God of War’s combat is best in close quarters. Plus those sweeping and spinning attacks are pretty cool looking, and they feel pretty powerful especially when they are hitting a lot of guys.

So I don’t think it’s so much about incentivizing player’s to player the game less efficiently, but rather to get them to engage in combat in the ways that will be most enjoyable to them.

Devil May Cry (series)

Now on the other hand Devil May Cry’s “Stylish Rank” system is about rewarding players for mastering the game’s controls and combat. Like God of War it’s about having long combos where the longer it is the more red orbs you get, but unlike GoW you can’t just perform the same attacks over and over again.

Instead in DMC you have to not only perform these long combos, but you also have to mix different attacks, and increasingly more difficult to perform ones in order to increase the “Stylish Rank Gauge.” Once the combo the player is performing ends the player is given a grade for their performance, and based on their grade they get progressively better rewards.

So here the player is being rewarded not just for having a long combo, but for also demonstrating their mastery of the combat system through their ability to execute a varied of attacks of varying difficulties during a combo. The way this system is designed shows that the designers perhaps saw the fun in their game in the player learning to execute these very difficult moves, and then skillfully demonstrating that. Thus rewarding the hardcore player of the game more than the more casual player.

Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City

The way the combo system is setup in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City is similar to both the God of War system, and the Devil May Cry system, but with a few additions of its own that make it into something else. In AA/AC each enemy is worth a predetermined about of experience points, but by performing a combo the player is able to increase the amount they get by a multiplier. The longer the combo the higher the multiplier, so so far it is a bit like GoW’s system.

However unlike GoW you generally cannot attack more than one enemy in an attack, and so there is a lot of crowd control by keeping the enemies off balance, or far enough away from you, so that you can avoid getting hit and thus breaking the combo.

Now the part that is like DMC is that you are also able to continue the combo, and increase the multiplier, by using some of Batman’s gadgets. This can be fairly difficult to use in combat without breaking the combo, although in AC they made it a little bit easier to do. And in both, but especially AC, as you progressed in the game you encountered enemies that needed to be attacked in a certain way, or with a certain gadget, before they could be comboed into or off of.

This is in line with how DMC’s system was about rewarding players for demonstrating their mastery of the game’s controls by requiring them to do more difficult things. Though in these games it wasn’t necessary for you to be able to quick use the gadgets in order to have long combos, but being able to do made them a little bit easier and on top of that the game rewards you for mixing up the combat, basically making it more difficult.

But unlike DMC and GoW the combo system in AA and AC doesn’t just reward the player with experience. The player is also rewarded with their attacks getting stronger attacks. The addition of this aspect changes the dynamic a bit by keeping it in line with how Batman would fight these enemies, because the way the system is setup you can’t purposely attack weakly to extend the combo. 

There are also special moves that you can only execute after you have gotten a large enough combo, and these moves help with crowd controlling large groups of enemies. This helps to make it easier to extend the combo a bit more in case the player begins to get overwhelmed with enemies.

When Small Changes Add Up to Big Problems: What Happened to Uncharted 3’s Combat?

On the most recent episode of the Enter Your Initials podcast I talked about how Uncharted 3’s combat was broken and bad. After finishing the game and thinking about it some I wasn’t entirely sure if the combat was actually broken and bad, or just that the combat mechanics were the same as Uncharted 2 and just hadn’t aged well over the past two year.

So this weekend I decided to revisit Uncharted 2, which I played about a third of the way through, and I can say that the combat in Uncharted 2 is still really good. There are some problems, but they are relatively minor. Basically what this reinforced for me is that something happened between Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 that led to the combat just not being as fun as it was in Uncharted 2, never mind being as good.

I’ve tried to figure out what changes were made by comparing the differences between the two games, and from what I can tell it’s mostly a lot of small changes that were done to make things better, but collectively ended up breaking the combat of Uncharted 3.

What Changed (that has been confirmed):

First let’s start off with the two things Naughty Dog has confirmed have changed, gun accuracy. In a post on the Naughty Dog blog Justin Richmond, the Game Director, discussed what changes had been made:

“In Uncharted 2 the bullets would leave the barrel at a pre-set deviation when you were aimed in. What this means is that the bullets would not fire straight out of the barrel all the time — they could come out at an angle. Therefore, you could have a target clearly in the reticle and still miss it by a wide margin. This was frustrating, because it was difficult to tell why you were missing a target.

As a result, we wanted to be sure you had a better grasp of whether you were hitting or missing a target. In Uncharted 3 the bullets now fire straight out of the barrel 100% of the time.”

While they did this to make it easier to tell when you were missing your target, it actually makes it easier to miss the target. The problem is that the controller is an imprecise control system, if you were playing this game with a mouse it would make sense for the accuracy to be that precise since it’s much easier for the player to point the reticle at exactly what they want to shoot, but with an analog stick it is harder to get that sort of precision.

But this isn’t a knock for it using a controller instead of a mouse, but rather that while having that bullet spray may have made it hard to tell when you were missing your target, it also made it so that you didn’t have to be perfectly precise with your shots. All you had to do was make sure the target was within the spray range of you gun, so while a shot two inches to the right of the enemy would miss in Uncharted 3 since the bullet would go exactly there, in Uncharted 2 you were likely still going to hit the enemy.

Additionally due to the nature of the game, it seems out of place to demand precision aiming from the player. What I mean is that you would expect that demand in a realistic shooter, so in an unrealistic action adventure world like Uncharted’s it feels as though it doesn’t fit with the setting and style of the game.

What Changed (from what I can tell):

The next thing I’ve noticed that changed between the two games are the enemies, specifically how they behave. In Uncharted 3 the enemies are pretty aggressive, by which I mean they generally don’t seem content to stay behind a piece of cover and shoot at you. They seem to always be moving from cover to cover to try and flank you. While this is a behavior that usually helps make the gameplay better by being more dynamic, like in Uncharted 2 where this sometimes occurs. Though in those cases it’s usually only one or two enemies, and they are usually very slow and careful in their movements to get into that flanking position. In Uncharted 3 however they are much quicker about getting behind you, or to one of your blind sides, and often a good number of the enemies are trying to flank you, or are at least moving around unnecessarily between cover.

Now this might be because something was changed in the AI to make them more aggressive, but it could merely be something related to the level design. When you got in shoot outs with enemies in areas in Uncharted 2 it was clear where they were coming from, you usually engaged with them in the medium to short range, and there was typically protection for you to make it difficult for enemies to flank or get behind you. If you were flanked it was typically because you were out of position, or had pushed forward too much.

In Uncharted 3 the combat areas are sometimes far too large to tell where enemies are coming from let alone where you should be protecting yourself from, and are designed so that you are fighting enemies both really close and really far away from you. Additionally there are a couple of combat areas where there are sort of alley ways on the sides of it where enemies use to sneak up on you without you noticing because the alley ways hide them by being mostly enclosed.

I should note though that this problem might have existed in Uncharted 2, but was not as noticeable because for most of Uncharted 2 you were always with one or two other people who would engage the enemies with you. However in Uncharted 3 you spend a much more time as Drake by himself, and when you do have that additional AI partner the problems seem more manageable since the enemies are not singular focused on you alone.

What Changed (for the better):

I feel I should note after talking this whole time about changes that were bad, that there were some good changes to the game. Now you can throw back enemy grenades, which is helpful because in Uncharted 2 when a grenade landed near you it was a mad scramble to get away from it. But now if I am quick enough, I can not only throw it back but maybe get an enemy or two with it as well, which is both more frantic and more rewarding.

One small change, but was one I greatly appreciated especially after going back to play Uncharted 2, was that when you go to pick up ammo in Uncharted 3 you automatically grab all nearby ammo for guns that you have. It certainly solved the problem of moving around after a fire fight and picking up all the ammo, yet somehow accidently picking up a different gun because you were slightly closer to it then you were towards the ammo you were trying to get.

This last one is a bit subtle, and was something that rarely happened, but when it did it was incredibly useful. Basically if you were in a firefight and in cover, if you could move somewhere else without any of the enemies seeing you all the enemies would continue to aim at and fire at the location they last saw you at. When I was able to pull it off, or could pull it off, it was a great way to get them looking the wrong way while I got a better angle on some of the enemies.

Conclusion:

The thing that needs to be said about all of the changes is that none of them are particularly unreasonable. Individually I can understand why they were done, or at least what the rationale would have been. But unfortunately, collectively, they ended up ruining much of my experience with the combat in Uncharted 3. I would still recommend everyone play Uncharted 3, I would just suggest you play it on one of the lower difficulties, (not on normal.)