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 Features
Multiplayer Level Design In-Depth, Part 3: Technical Constraints and Accessibility
 The
Game System, or The Balancing Of Opposing Forces
The idea is to provide the gamers with enough "tools" so they
can find a counter-measure to a possible imbalance. The game designers
who worked on the multiplayer versions of Splinter
Cell - Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory controlled
this dimension of the game system very well. Each piece of equipment
the players have at their disposal is characterized by the possibilities
it offers to its user, but also by the opportunities it offers to
the opponents. Here are a few examples: the defenders' laser enables
them to inevitably find the opponents by scanning the surroundings,
but it also allows attackers to spot the defender from a distance
and to see what he is looking at. The attackers' camouflage clothing
enables them to greatly reduce the risk of being spotted by the opponents,
but it also restricts speed. The laser mine is discreet, but the
attacker can easily spot its ray by activating electronic vision.
This approach limits the risks of having any specific piece of equipment
become too powerful.
Playtests, The Gameplay Quality Assurance
Regardless of the time you spend "planning" your game or level
design in order to identify potential weaknesses, there is nothing
like putting the game to the test in the hands of experienced gamers
to see how badly they break it and take a malicious pleasure
in exploiting its faults.
Generally, playtests are particularly useful during the development
phase of a game. They have become essential for a multiplayer game.
In fact, gamers - most often hardcore gamers - will spend hundreds
of hours exploring every slight detail in the map, applying
all the different tactics generally used in this type of game:
testing
all weapons and equipment, searching for any fault in the level
design, and any bugs that will enable them to take advantage over
their opponents. Consequently, the weaknesses in the game or level
design are quickly revealed and the game soon becomes less interesting.
Properly conducted playtests allow the detection of faults in the
level design, or poor settings of the game parameters such as the
power of weapons, health levels, and so on.
In addition to my responsibilities as the lead level designer
of the multiplayer versions of Splinter
Cell - Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory, I also implemented
and supervised the playtest structure of the Ubisoft's D'Annecy studio
where these versions were being developed. The managers of the studio
were so aware of the importance of playtesting that they wanted the
testing
to be done in the same building, so that the development team could
be directly connected to the playtest team.
How did we use the playtests?
In Splinter Cell - Pandora Tomorrow, the setting of
smoke grenades gave rise to lots of playtesting.
- We undertook systematic research of winning tactics -
strategies that enable a player to win systematically and therefore
maintain a steady interest for a game or a map. Among the most
frequently encountered martingales are the "camp" points,
which enable a player to cover one or more mission objectives
with minimum exposure.
- We put a lot of work into the game settings. Experience
showed me that the intense use of certain features of a game
(weapons, equipment, actions etc.) varies significantly according
to a players' profile, the time spent to get familiar
with the game and, of course, the settings. Only long-term playtests
that are conducted with a selected sample of gamers help ensure
that the game settings remain correct after long hours of play.
In Splinter Cell - Pandora Tomorrow, the setting of
smoke grenades gave rise to lots of playtesting. In fact, this
smoke
not only blurs the view of the players, but
also asphyxiates defenders if they remain inside it for too long.
The size of the effect area and the duration of the asphyxiating
effect are parameters which could have had an important impact
if they had been set incorrectly. If the grenade had been too
effective, it would have become a disproportionately powerful
weapon, as it would have been enough for attackers to launch
one into a passage to make it impassable for the defenders. Conversely,
if the grenade had been too ineffective, it would have become
tactically uninteresting and players would not have used it.
Remember the point regarding the player always looking to win
at any cost in my previous article. To win, players quickly stop
using useless equipment, but the development resources and the
memory space of the special effects associated with this equipment
are lost.
- Finally, we tested the accessibility of the maps and the ease of gaining control of the game.
Conducting a playtest campaign is a particularly rewarding experience
for a development team. To see how real gamers use the game and
how they change the use an item from its original function (as
I saw in the case of proximity mines that were often used as presence
detectors by the defenders) to understand why they don't
use certain equipment that seemed so cool at the design meetings.
Playtests are the tool that separate what looked great on paper
in a design meeting from what is more important: what the gamers
will actually use.
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