Intervju: Arena of Fate Game Director Vesselin Handjiev. Och Managing Director på Crytek Black Sea.

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Intervju Arena of Fate Game Director Vesselin Handjiev

Och Managing Director på Crytek Black Sea

Under Gamescom fick jag chansen att sätta mig ner en stund med Vesselin Handjiev, Game Director på Arena of Fate. Det var under E3-mässan som Arena of Fate visades, mot rätt milda reaktioner. Ett till MOBA var väl kanske inte vad folk skrek efter, men Vesselin försöker skapa ett spel som inspireras lika mycket av sport för att förenkla reglerna men inte offra djupet som MOBA-spelare söker.

Jag måste säga att jag tyckte det var ett riktigt intressant samtal och han har rätt intressanta idéer. Sedan hur de ska lyckas marknadsföra detta spelet bland alla konkurrenter där ute återstår att se. Ni kan läsa hela intervjun efter hoppet, jag har skrivit om några meningar här och där för läsningens skull.

Christopher: “So can you describe Arena of Fate?”

Vesselin: “Arena of fate is a team arena battle game where teams 5 vs 5 play. And um, that's the short answer, but I guess you want the long answer.”C: “Yes, please!”V: “Right. Okay so, I'll go back a bit in history to explain how the game emerged. How it started in development and our goals. We as a studio always worked on replayable style of games and we also are gamers ourselves, so we also play PVP games and games that are more "skill based". At some point we decided that there is still a lot of room to create something which is as deep, entertaining and addictive as a game but is really modern and easy to access and easy to enjoy. We felt in that most other team arena games, MOBAs and competitive games there is usually this barrier to get into the game itself. So if you divide the user experience in two, getting into the game and then enjoying the game, the getting into the game part is very difficult. There are actually plenty of players who are not served. They want to play and think playing is fun but they can't get into it.
Unfortunately the community is very toxic. The games have so many rules from which toxic behavior just emerge naturally. So we started thinking, this was a long time ago, and we arrived at the conclusion that this wasn't going to be easy. We had to revisit the entire history of that genre and turn it upside down. For example, if you look at other games they are like micro-RPG games. They have a story, you have a hero in a fantasy forest and you gain levels and experience and kill monsters. At some point when you get strong enough with your team you can go destroy the enemy base. Most other games are about destroying the enemy base. Because of the PVP nature there is an E-sport scene which makes it very exciting and interesting. Everybody wants to feel like an E-sport player, an E-sport star. But the reality is maybe 90% of players actually don't feel like sports players. They don't feel that they're competing on an E-sports scene and it's only those 5-10% very, very, skilled ones that do. That fun is inaccessible to the rest of players. So what we did was, we skipped the entire metaphor for RPG games and focused on sports, thinking: "Ok, we will use a similar alphabet to other games but we will treat story differently." So when you get into the session it feels more like a football game than a MOBA game. We have a time limit in our game, like football, but our limit is 20 minutes. It's short enough. And of course victory is not achieved by destroying the enemy base, the game is not about that, it's not balanced for that. It's decided by score. So when you are playing you are scoring points, your team score increases and when the game has advanced 20 minutes who has the most points wins. That simple rule has actually created very exciting and adrenalin-packed last minutes of the game. It's very often you see scores like, 3 - 3 and one minute left. It's like a football championship or something, it's very exciting.
We have draw games as well, it's not necessary that one team wins. “C: “So, how do you condense and simplify the rules but keep the depth? “V: “Yes, that's important. We really divided the game in two, the learning the game and enjoying the game. So, we didn't want to make a game which is shallow or dumb, that is not interesting for anyone or for us. So we wanted to make a game which really provides the players plenty of options and the opportunities to shine, to score and to be a really good player. When it comes to team battles, like pre-made teams in e-sports I think we have a game which can easily compete with the best. Or even, it has some mechanics that make it even more suitable to team play. Team play coordination is very important. But, most of our drastic changes were made [in the beginning of the player experience] here. How you get into the game and how the game displays the rules to the players. For example, we tried to remove all the stupid skills which were needed in other games. I know stupid is a harsh word, but let me give you an example: You have a tower and this tower has a range. We have a white line, actually our map looks like a sports field with grass and stripes and white lines, showing the ranges. So when you start playing the game, or just spectate the game it's easier for everybody to see what is going on "Okay, this is the line if I cross this the tower starts to shoot at me." besides this the map looks and feels like a stadium. I said stupid skill, so I remember an interesting case on our team. There was one guy who was saying "No no, we shouldn't paint these white lines. Remembering the range is part of the player’s skill." and I said "No, this is not an essential part of player skill, the player should focus on outsmarting the other players as a team but remember which pixel on the screen the tower shoots is not the skill type we're looking for!" “C: “So you're saying that there is no knowledge to build on after you know the range, you either know or you don’t?”V: “Yes, and this is during the initial part of the game, learning, it needs to be smooth! Imagine when we started with this football-thinking, so you know the penalty area which is a white rectangle box in front of the goal. If you make a fall outside of it, it would a free kick but if you fall inside it would be a penalty kick. It's a huge difference! Now imagine if they removed those lines and said that it's part of the football player’s skill to remember where there the penalty box is. Isn't it ridiculous? “C: “Yes, that sound pretty ridiculous...”V: “So, that is what we're bringing to these kind of games in 2014. Removing all this unnecessary stuff. It might sound strange but me as a Game Director I really believe that the perfect design is when there is nothing else to remove, not when there's nothing else to add. Most of the other teams they are doing some fantastic jobs on other games but they usually tend to add more and more and more stuff but the secret is to remove. And to simplify, make it really simple and easy, but deep. For example, items. Let's start on simple things, like naming. How do you name things in your game? I'll use football again as an example: On the football field you have a right wing player. What do they call him? Right Wing. Do they call him "The Epic Defender of the South forest of the Stadium"? No, right? That would be confusing. It's just Right Wing! This is our philosophy. Name things simple, properly, straight to the point without this layer of inflicted fantasy. In our game as you play you gain some gold, there is no experience. You gain some gold but you don't have to buy items. We have system with Traits, traits are something very simple. You click on a slot and you get a small list of 5 -7 items, and they're not named "The white Orb of Mighty something" they are just "More strength" or "More damage". To some hardcore players this might look like a childish thing but this is part of the learning. And the items do not need to be named in some super-fantasy way to give you 500 health, right? So we really have a system which allows for thousands of different combinations. And I would say that Arena of Fate is the team arena game which is most crafty of maybe them all. You can literally change almost everything about your character. How it plays, how it scales and how it gets stronger. So when the game starts you choose a role. What role do you want to play? And they're also named pretty straight forward: you have the Breaker, that's they guy that destroys Towers, you have a Keeper that is they guy who defends towers and so on. We have 7 roles which allows for very different team compositions. I really expect professional teams, when they start playing, to really start develop interesting schemes of what the proper positioning is. Two other things you choose in the beginning of the game. This is how your character scales with power every level. I can say every level I get more health, or strength or life steal... there's about 15 things you can choose. You can even say "I would like leveling to be cheaper! I would like 20% faster leveling." So you really can customize your character in very, very interesting ways.Do you play any MOBA games, by the way?”C: “I did play some League of Legends and some Dota 2, but not very much. As you said, there's a very steep learning curve but I don't have problem with that part, I play Dark Souls and Flight Simulators so that's not a problem. It's because of the community. You had to be yelled at for 20 hours before you did anything right, so I'm familiar with the game and can watch it and appreciate it but, no, it was the toxic community that drove me away. “V: “So, then Arena of Fate is your game! Because it removes everything that is confusing about the game. Arena of Fate is not a game that will force you to believe you are a Shiny Knight in a fantasy forest saving the world. The players that play that game they all know the rules, there is scoring and a left team and a right team, very simple. Of course we have tutorials and things to make it easier and when you're playing the game you don't have to be a superstar to feel like a superstar. Because when you start listening to the game, and you'll also see the crowd because it's a really fancy stadium. You'll hear people going really crazy when something interesting happens, it's a procedural ambient sound so when something interesting happens you'll hear drums pounding. It's a very rewarding experience and when you do something great in the game you'll hear the crowd cheer for you. When you make a score in the last minute turning the tide for your team, that's like, winning the world championship and saving the day. That's... priceless. And it can never happen in another game, because they don't have those rules! “C: “In other MOBAs the matches tend to be decided long before they end. At some point you have to stomp the other team out and destroy the base. It would seem that this dynamic would change quite drastically because every minute count with a 20 minute time limit. You can't just drag on until the other team slips up.”V: “Yes, all your actions are unlocked in the beginning. There's no unlocking, you just have your character and you get instantly into the action. You never ever have to return to your base, actually, we don't have a base. It's just a bigger tower there. And the towers have shields. We actually tried to remove all the micro gameplay that is not nice. Micro is good, but if it really comes from thinking, from passion, from feeling the game and thinking smart. Those micro things like last-hitting the minions under the tower while the tower shoots, is gone. Poking the towers, going in, hitting it, running back, and going in again to poke and just slowly, slowly taking down that tower? That’s gone. A lot of these things are gone. Your health for example, let me give you a typical scenario in most other games. Two players are fighting each other. And then he manages to hit you once, and maybe another time. 50 seconds later a third time. And suddenly you are at 70% health. He's at maximum health. Now you're starting to be defensive, you go under your tower. You can't do anything, you can't engage because you'll be dead. He already has his upper hand. It might be like 2 minutes you play like this, and you know you can go back to your base to heal yourself and leave your tower undefended. Or you can stay here under the tower where you are slowly losing. It's not a nice feeling. Did he win over you because of three hits? I don't think so. It's attrition, it's a kind of harassment. Which is a part of the game, of course. It's a good thing. But in Arena of Fate harassment does not equal a kill, it's worthless. It shouldn't be rewarded. It shouldn't feel like a punishment to the player. So how our health regeneration works, is that you can harass each other and exchange some fights but after a while you get your health back if you are not killed. That means, that if somebody comes to your tower and wants to kill you he needs to out-play you, not out-harass you. That's a big difference. If you fight two players your objective is not to harass but to not give them a point and disengage back to your tower. And it takes skill to disengage properly!”C: “So do you feel like pivoting towards classic sports is enough to differentiate?”V: “Well you know, we really had to question absolutely every single thing which so far was known as that's the way it should be. The fact that we have 20 minute games means we can direct the game, we know when it's the first half or the second half. We can tell your friends that your game is over in 5 minutes so you are ready to play then. Having a time limit also affect player behavior. If you are on the winning team and there is one minute left, you become more defensive. The losing side has no choice, they have to try to score and take risks. And those risks create a lot of adrenaline moments. “C: “Do you have any persistent rewards for playing or is it just on a per match basis?”V: “I understand what you mean, unfortunately not all of this I could share. Not because we're being secretive but because we are not completely happy with it. And we don't want to announce anything because we will probably change it. But I can tell you our philosophy and our goal. So usually when you are a new player you start the game, and you feel lonely. There are a bunch of players with gibberish names, and when you are new you make mistakes. These anonymous players will usually yell at you for playing bad and so on. What we want to do, is to provide for each player in the very first second in the game a social context with players from where you live where you can ask for tips and tricks. And implement mechanics which allows and stimulates people to be better persons. I don't believe in punishment that much but I really believe in positive reinforcement like giving a reason for people to be nice. There are of course always players who will do stupid things but I believe most people inside want to be nice if it could be noticed and rewarded properly. We do have ideas but they are very crude and not really ready. “C: “Do you have any hooks into like, championship and tournament play?”V: “That's upcoming, the version here has a special interface not in the full game. So we are working on it but it’s not ready yet. You will not see anything outside the session in this version, but yes we have special rankings for sessions, teams and leagues and championships. “C: “All right, cool. “V: “Like I said, it’s an early version. Unlike some other developers we decided not to hide it for years and years and show what we have. Actually the plan is to work with the community. I believe that’s the best way. Instead of saying “Hey guys, this is it!” to two million players. It should be like: “What do you like? Where would you like Arena of Fate to go?””

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