Articles | Challenge

Challenge. What is challenge? What makes something "hard"?

Is it super high numbers that take a long time to grind through?

Is it a series of arbitrary inputs that you must execute on a given prompt?

Is it a RNG Simon Says?

Nay.

Challenge is the interaction of a player and a design that encourages a player to improve objectively. Challenge offers no mercy for the unprepared, but offers them instead the incentive to improve. This is what makes Challenge more definitive than Grind. In order for something to be challenging it must first be something that requires an evolution of mental development to overcome. It must not be wholly arbitrary, determined mostly by things outside of the player's ability to control. It must requires exercising a varied series of skills that feel both natural and rewarding to the player to execute. Indeed, the entire function of challenge is to provoke that sensation of accomplishment when the challenge is overcome. Grinding, RNG, QTE's and other such designs that have become paramount in Western design philosophy are all designed to remove challenge from games and instead level the playing field for all players by excluding player interactivity from the game entirely. Good examples of this include MMO's, Bethesda titles, and Starcraft 2.

The goal of the Apex Design is to tackle the RTS concept as a body and return it to where it was at its greatest - Brood War. But it isn't simply a throwback. It is also an attempt to evolve outwards from this design in a, at least subjectively, meaningful way. It would be arrogant and foolhearty to think I possess the skill or wisdom to best Brood War, but I believe I can learn many things from it, and derive from my experience in designing and modding games, to make a convincing knockoff inspired by it.

To establish the philosophy of how I would approach a modern campaign based on Brood War concepts, I bring to light and tackle many different arms of balance and design that may have been touched on by other games, but rarely to meaningful extent.

Trading

Trading is a concept employed in nearly every number-crunching software. A trade occurs when two equations meet and make an exchange, such as two units fighting, resources being spent, time being consumed, and other such things.

To grasp the concept of a trade, we must first see all things actuated in any given moment as a resource. Time, for example, is a resource. As is human thought power - we may trade our multitasking macro capacity to dance those vultures. Our trade is less favorable than Flash, because Flash can multitask better. We could improve our abilities by practicing like Flash did, and make trades more favorable. This in itself is an expression of challenge. We should always be looking for ways to make player interaction make trades more favorable. But this is also a slippery slope, one we'll get into in a bit (see: Counterplay).

A resource, and therefor any Trades made with that resource, is only as valuable to the player as how much control over it he has is. Minerals harvested in Starcraft were secured by the player's effort and must always be spent quickly and wisely. They have real-world value in the context of time and energy invested into them, so as a trade, they must make meaningful impact on the player's overarching gameplan. The trade is determined by how those resources end up impacting that gameplan. They are part of an equation that is built into cost-effectiveness of purchases, how fast those purchases came into play, how the player used them, and the energy that went into acquiring those resources to begin with.

We can consider most interactions that impact the Game world, especially those with any form of time element, as a trade. It is a trade to move workers from your main to your expansion before you are fully saturated - you are trading mining time for positioning. It is a trade to retreat from an attacking enemy - you are giving up health for positioning and maybe time. It is a trade to expend cooldowns on an enemy - you are trading power budget for numbers and, potentially, retaliation. A favorable trade is when you exceed what should be expected out of your investment. A cooldown rotation in an RPG on an enemy that runs instead of fighting means you get relatively free damage on them when otherwise you could be counter-engaged. Free damage, depending on the circumstances and title in question, can even determine a game's outcome. In a world where every decision matters, every motion has a trade of time and positional value versus outcome.