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Comment by croon | Hacker News Reader

I've been lamenting this ever since CoD 4 which many hail as a pinnacle in gaming.

That was the day that gaming went from performance to grind.

In QuakeWorld when I started a match, I had the exact same pre-conditions as Thresh, other than me sucking as a player in comparison. The same was true in Counter-Strike (any iteration), and now Dota 2, which I've played for 2000 hours.

I've stopped playing every CoD, BF, LoL and any other metagame-unlocks/progression game within 100 hours because they've replaced real progression (you getting better) with synthetic progression with account levels, unlockables, game-affecting items, (microtransactions on top of that) etc, and some strategizing on what to equip out of what you've unlocked, but that's a poor reward.

I'm glad more big studios are going against that grain.

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It's funny that you cite CoD4 as an example of this because the first weapons and arguably the first perks are among the best in the game.

I don't know about later games in the series, but CoD4 handled sidegrades extremely well. You only ever unlocked options, not improvements. Giving players all options up front is daunting. Giving it to them in a slow trickle is fun and helps them learn things.

Cod4's starting loadout was pretty good compared to some games. It was a great all-around loadout. But there were definitely powerful niches filled by unlockables.

In comparison, some of the Battlefield games literally give you empty slots when you start playing, which can be filled by 100% advantageous perks or whatever. Like doing more damage with no accompanying penalty. Which is ridiculous.

CoD4 is an example, but it is listed because it was one of the first modern games to toy with this idea. It executed the idea well enough, but it also paved the road for future games to execute the idea poorly.

I think you'd like overwatch a great deal. There is literally no advantage whatsoever you can gain via having played the game longer other than your own increased skill, but there are some fun things like skins (well, I think they're fun.) Not only that, the barrier to entry is practically non-existent, and yet there oodles to master.

For some reason I wasn't very into TF2 despite trying many times, and am thinking Overwatch is a newer and better version of that. I would probably be playing it if more of my long time gamer friends were into it.

And I totally understands skins being fun. I've probably poured more money into Dota 2 than any other game I own, for 0 in-game advantage (only hats and tournament viewer tickets). I regret nothing :)

I think the best multiplayer I've experienced was 4v4 Left 4 Dead (1 & 2). Everyone was talking about the co-op-campaign, but versus was a hundred times more interesting.

I've been waiting for L4D3 for 7 years now. Evolve (made by the turtlerock team of L4D1) wasn't any good, unfortunately.

I've spent more than I am willing to admit on Dota 2 skins....

It seems Valve is cursed to never release a game with the number 3 in the title.

Overwatch definitely feels like it's learned from most of TF2's problems, like huge interchangeable player lists (matches are limited to 6v6), characters being impossible to recognize over time (every skin keeps the same outline and visual signifiers), endless stalemates (ultimate abilities can drastically change the flow of play for a few seconds), etc.

I understand why you included LoL on that list, unlockables, but as a lifelong counter strike and moba player it doesn't belong. The unlocks are not giving you an advantage over skill at all.

You can't play every champion you want but the win rates show that every champion is viable and there is no 'right' mastery setup for any champion evidenced by the wide variety you see in pro build guides.

The unlockables simply give you more options, NOT any kind of unfair advantage. Look at how many pros regurslry run new account to diamond marathons with the one rune page and 10 champions they unlocked leveling their account to 30.

As I mentioned I have played it, but not by any stretch as long as other games, so it might have been unfair in that regard. You are probably right.

However, would it be unfair to suggest that designing a game with unlocks that way takes you down one of two routes below?

* That unlocks (whether it be items or heroes) give you unfair advantage by being fundamentally different in balance and design, and having those available only to some skews the advantage towards the one with a bigger pool.

* That to avoid being unfair to newer players with less unlocks, you end up balancing everything towards a lowest common denominator, that variations in function/mechanics can not exist because it would skew the advantage to only the few who has unlocked it.

In dota you can have really hard hero counters, because everyone has the entire hero pool. If you could only expect players to have 20 out of 100+ heroes, you would have to design them in such a way that at least a 1/5 heroes could play in either the exact same way, or a sufficiently equivalent way.

And at that point, what's the case for making a lot of heroes?

I'm not a CoD guy so I can't speak for it, but I don't think BF initial progressions hinder you much. It's a pretty well-balanced game in that the new weapons do more to add variety than give the player an advantage. I will say though that the new BF1 has some dark patterns that encourage you to keep playing (like progression meters that scale non-linearly, so it always looks like youre really close to getting the next level).

I get what you're saying though, and I would say most sustainably competitive games, the ones that really stick around, are ones where everyone starts every game from the same initial conditions.

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