Metagame: The New, The Old, The Community

Discovery vs. Being Told

It isn’t so much a phenomenon as it is a natural occurrence- since the dawn of gaming, a lack of explicit directions to reach the “win” state has been the norm. It happened on our beloved old Atari games, it happened in Super Mario, and it happens now in our shooter games. As it’s been said before, it’s much more engaging for a player to discover what to do rather than being told what to do.

Most people can easily determine Mario needs to get to the right-most point in the level within a certain timeframe. Most people can figure out in CTF that you the objective is to grab the enemy flag and bring it back to the friendly flag while it’s back at home. To many seasoned gamers, objectives come naturally- and to those new to gaming, it doesn’t take too long to figure out.

But at what point should a developer decide something needs instruction? When asking this question, there are two phrases that come to mind: “emergent gameplay” and “metagame”. Traditionally, both of these are products of the society of gamers themselves, not of the developer. 

Metagame and the Community

In competitive games, the metagame is largely decided upon by players through process of trial and error, a bit of max/min, and doing what works the best. This somewhat harkens back to the “Problem of Choice” when choices become problems with tangible solutions- this is the nature of competitive gaming. Players are more involved and care more about the meta game when they are the ones “discovering” it. All of the upsets, pleasant surprises, and feelings of validity while problem solving cease to exist if the players are told exactly what to do. Either way, you need people who care about the metagame.

What keeps any online game alive is people who care enough about the metagame to promote it and establish it as the “way” to play. To many gamers, strategy is what gives their own actions and the actions of others context and meaning. It makes people feel valuable, and gives them a sense of responsibility. As well, a metagame gives people a tangible means of communicating why they are losing or winning. For players of an online game, carrying out the responsibilities, being efficient, and proving their value to others- being “clutch” – is a large part of what constitutes “fun”- it validates the way they play the game. 

The Holy Trinity

Gary Gygex may have had something similar to “the holy trinity” (the healer, the tank, the damage dealer) in his mind when first creating Dungeons and Dragons, just likely not in such simple terms. Of course you had your Priests who healed, and Wizards who altered the vitals of his teammates as well as his enemies. Back in the old days of pen and paper dungeons and dragons, it was up to the dungeon master to craft a unique scenario for the players that would fit their play style and party composition- so choosing a role to play really was a choice.

When roleplaying games rolled over to computer games, there was no such thing as dynamic quests- at least at the beginning. The same dungeons spawned the same monsters at the same locations more or less. Even with random spawn times, there was a predictable way to counteract the encounters when the same monsters spawned. It is much more likely that the concept of the holy trinity was the result of gamers taking the idea of a choice and condensing it into a problem, because there was a pattern players could observe and take advantage of. The choice became a problem, and the holy trinity was born.

No matter how much class-based game developers try to break the holy trinity, it is still going to exist in their game, to some degree. Because no matter what, there is always going to be a class that is better at doing things than others are- if this wasn’t true, there would be no need for classes. Any game with classes can be looked at with the holy trinity in mind- we just gave the concept a tangible name. 

The Metagame of Tribes

The metagame in Tribes was crafted by players when looking at all the various tools and gadgets they had at their disposable, while also looking at the rules of the capture the flag game. The metagame of Tribes wasn’t clearly defined by the developers. Ideas like defending a base, capturing a flag, deploying and maintaining turrets, putting a player with the heaviest armor an the most hitpoints on the flag to guard it- these were all obvious to seasoned gamers and could be learned fairly fast. But the minute details of the metagame that is used in competitive Tribes- things such as timing a grab with a mortar clear from a teammate, or tossing the flag home right before dying, or “spewing” turrets as a farmer- these were much less obvious.

I for one can say personally I’ve had the most fun in Tribes when I’ve played and understood the metagame, as opposed to pubbing about. It’s really where the game shines, where a real sense of urgency and importance takes form. It’s definitely what I consider to be at the core of the essence of Tribes.

If a new FPZ game were to be made, would the older generation of Tribers care enough about the old meta enough to want to promote it and establish it? Would new players come to discover the meta on their own, therefore reinforcing its validity? The people who played back in the golden age of Tribes are now reaching middle age, have responsibilities, and likely don’t play games as often- and you can tell by the number of veterans still playing the game. Of course, trolling and unfaithful sequels hve probably not helped that at all. But in ways, I don’t blame the makers of T:V and T:A for trying to be different…

...Because they needed to pull in a newer generation of players, to mix up the meta a bit, to get people involved- to get people to care about something new and novel. They felt the need to provide new game mechanics so players would need to establish a new metagame. A metagame the community could care about and grow around.

The old gameplay is only cared about by people who had left the game, or by new players who can deal with being smacked around for a good deal of time- the players who put up with this do it for the challenge, and they can arguably find more fun in another game.

13 years after the release of Tribes 2, with just one public server, you have many players who are unaware of the metagame (or just don’t care), strolling about with their own personal agendas and goals (ex. kills by way of bomber)- and then you have the competitive community playing the metagame and actually getting things done efficiently.

Now, there is some grey area here- now and then a random pubber might be clutch by being at the right place at the right time, but this does not mean they knew what they were doing. On the other end of the spectrum, here are pubbers who slowly learn aspects of the metagame, enough to be functional and do a job for a team. And it goes without saying- younger players, and players of newer games can still discover and have fun in the old style Tribes- while they are a minority, they are surely not outliers in the dataset of all Tribes players. 

Final Thoughts

How much of the old competitive metagame should be adhered to in a new game? And how much should this metagame be explicitly told to the player, if it is not already obvious? Should a player discover the metagame for themselves? Should it be taught by the community by having it crammed down their throats by aggravated players? At one point does tutorial end and discovery begin? (Or vice versa.)

Where does this put us? Is a new-old Tribes game even worth it? Is the old Tribes meta too hardcore and too outdated, and too “tried-and-true” to appeal to younger generations of gamers who don't want to be told explicitly what to do? Is the meta game too set in stone and too predictable and not subject to change, to an extent where it is boring? If that was true, why does the game offer so much replayability- to the point where it is still played today?

These are all questions worth thinking about earnestly.

Movement : Skiing

Forward
This is the first part of many I plan to write about the movement system in Tribes. Before getting into the nitty gritty details of movement and skill, I wanted to first give a brief overview of the systems of movement.

Introduction
Skiing played a huge role in what Tribes successful- and as said before, most agree it is at the core of Tribes. Skiing made it possible to achieve very fast speeds in the game- and unlike other shooters that were fast-paced due to the ability to change direction on the ground on a dime, Tribes was fast paced due to gravity, long falls, and raw speed. Redirection was more gradual, and the twitch play was entirely different than what you see in traditional arena shooters- because it was more about leading, and less about quick reflexes.

The Birth of Skiing
How was skiing “discovered” or “invented” ? Many claim it was the players who found it during the beta of the original game. Many claim it was the developers. So really, who was it? I thought it may be helpful to ask Scott Youngblood, the lead designer and mastermind behind Tribes 1 and Tribes 2, to entertain the question.

His response:

Yes, I remember specifically the day the skiing was discovered. Symlink (Dave Moore) was working on the physics of Jet packing one day… and he came into my office and said that he found a bug with our jet packing… but he wanted to show it to me before he fixed it. I went to his office, sat down at his chair and he told me what to do….

“Alright… he said… Jet up over that hill until you’re above a slope going down….”

“Then let yourself start to fall… and right as your about to hit the ground, start tapping space.”

He didn’t tell me what was going to happen… he just told me what to do.

So I Did it…. And before I could get to the top of the next hill I uttered these words:

“Don’t fix this…. We will USE this.”

Skiing was borne...

...We purposely didn’t TELL people about it because we wanted you to discover it. Players have much more fun with things that they can discover than things they are told about.

The Phyiscal System / The Act of Skiing
Player movement in Tribes, if looked at in terms of a physical system, is a rube goldberg machine on crack, pumping out more energy than what it is taking in. At the top of a hill, the player holds down the ski button and directs himself down it- his potential energy becomes kinetic energy as he starts gaining speed. No energy is lost due to friction- so as long as the player is heading downhill, he will accelerate- on a flat surface, he maintains momentum.

On an upwards slope, the player engages his jetpacks- he uses up the jetpack fuel (energy) in order to ascend over the battlefield, losing a bit of lateral speed, but gaining much in vertical speed. There is a brief moment of hangtime, where huge lateral distances can be crossed as the player levels out. The heights the player reaches garners him a lot of potential energy. The player then begins to fall at very fast speeds.

While falling, the player makes fine-tuned course adjustments with by tapping his jets in order to fall into a downhill slope at roughly the same enterance angle as the slope angle, ensuring no health is lost in the energy transaction. The player then holds the ski button before landing, and swoops down into the next valley. The jetpack is constantly regenerating energy when not in use, so while falling and skiing, all of the energy you use on your last ascent is all replenished. And the process repeats itself- it is with the repitition that great speeds can be achieved.

Types of Skiing
One of the many controversial topics Tribes players have discussed over the years is the best form of skiing- it's one of the many reasons the Tribes community has been fractured. Simply put, there are two forms of skiing- “jump skiing” and “smooth skiing”.

Jump Skiing
“Jump Skiing” happens with a jump at every contact with the ground- this makes net prediction and aim prediction a bit harder since the players are not moving smoothly, but changing direction often (after every “bounce”)- player movement has to be extrapolated with the bounces in mind for any prediction to take place. Jump skiing looks silly admittedly- it looks like a bug from an old game. Some people like that though, it feels “glitchy” and part of a finicky player-made experience- much like wall jumping in Gunz or bunny hopping in Quake, it pays an homage to “emergent gameplay”.

A large part of what made jump skiing feel correct was an “elastic” player collision system. In most modern games, a player’s velocity and direction are only adjusted when they are jumping or landing and come in contact with a surface- otherwise, they “stick” to the ground and move along the ground normal (thus making the collision a bit “velcroish”). In Tribes, your collision normal with the ground, and position and velocity changes were made every tick, no matter what. Regardless of whether you were in mid-air, just jumping, just landing, or walking. This made all the player movement feel very elastic in nature. As far as I know, most modern games that use “smooth skiing” rely on a velcroish collision system- I reckon that it makes for less collision computations, and saves on system resources and bandwidth a little bit.

Anyway, jumping gave you an initial upwards acceleration before even tapping the jets, which easily complimented the jetting. As well, jumping allowed use of your side jets much faster- if you jetted before jumping, there would be a lag in the power of the side-jets. For these reasons, it made sense that the jumping key was also the skiing key- it was more intuitive. With jump skiing, the differences between carving from game to game are more subtle and easily adjusted for, since carving is not system-moderated like it is with smooth skiing.

Smooth terrain was not always needed with jump skiing- sometimes a bit of jagged terrain was actually preferred with this system, allowing for quick redirections given you attacked the terrain patches at the right angles. Small imperfections in an otherwise downwards slope could easily be hopped over using jumping skiing- which made some of the more jagged maps a bit more tolerable.

The one major flaw jump skiing had was deadstops. There would sometimes be spots in the terrain or on buildings that, if hit just right, would make the player come to a complete “dead stop” or bounce in an unintended way. I believe this had something to do with the player landing on the edge of a triangle, where the physics engine couldn’t sort between the different verts in the collision octet tree or what have you (I’m not completely sure on the fancy math terms). Some techniques to prevent deadstops from occurring exist- one is to make the player hitbox “pill-shaped”- another is to ensure there is as little flat terrain as possible. Another is to make sure no two floor surfaces rub up against one another too much (very important when working with the .map format when making maps for Tribes and Tribes 2).


Games That Use Jump Skiing:
Tribes 1 was where skiing was first invented/discovered. In Tribes 1, terrain was more blocky, and you needed to know your route to every minute detail, or you could easily lose all your velocity or be sent off a different direction. But side jets were stronger in Tribes 1 than in Tribes 2. In T1 you did most your redirecting while in the air. Snipes and other shots were a bit easier to dodge by strafing at the apex.

You can find a very substantial explanation and dissection of the Tribes 1 physics on [5150] Andrew's blog, found here: http://floodyberry.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/tribes-1-physics-part-one-overview/

Tribes 2 included skiing not as a bug, but as a feature- so it felt more fluid and intuitive. In Tribes 2, terrain was made much smoother. In Tribes 2 Classic (T2C), speeds gained using skiing felt a bit greater than in T1, and the increased tessellation of the terrain object made slopes more gradual. However, in Tribes 2 there was less sideways jetting; you did most of your redirecting on the ground by carving in bowls, not in the air. Snipers more easily countered by hugging terrain, compared to strafing at the apex. In a general statement, most veterans have said Tribes 1 skiing was more finicky and temperamental, whereas Tribes 2 skiing was more soupy and loose.

Legends was another game that used jump skiing. They claimed they had the physics of Tribes 1, which was debatable. It felt more like T1 physics adjusted to feel more like T2- which wasn't bad at all, really. It was easy for both T1 and T2 players alike to get used to Legends.

Smooth Skiing
Smooth skiing where player actually glides along surface without hopping- it feels more natural, looks more realistic, and is more aesthetically pleasing or “correct” to some people. Dead stops aren’t as big of a problem with smooth skiing than it was for jump skiing. However, carving systems are harder to implement with smooth skiing- and differences in carving are more readily noticeable..

Smooth skiing also suffers from a wonky ski/jump, jump/jet system. Jump jetting still needed, and you had to ski, jump, and jet all at some point. This system where two actions happen with the same key, either both on press, or one one press, one on unpress, very wonky, not intuitive.

Smooth skiing also relies on smooth terrain, which in poly land isn’t always the case, especially on maps that had terrain just slapped onto it. With smooth skiing, you feel every imperfection in the terrain. Unless a system is cleverly designed where your player can “roll over” the small imperfections, the tiny pits and bumps will be the bane to smooth skiing. And ultra smooth terrain makes for a very uninteresting map, catering to uninteresting game play.

Games That Use Smooth Skiing:
Tribes Vengeance was one of the first games to have smooth skiing. In T:V you had no carving at all, skiing just simply removed friction from your feet, and was not reliant on your facing direction or directional keys at all. Your redirection was soully at discretion of the terrain, and you had to use jets to hover up and land into hills at a “sweet spot” or tap jets for quick redirecting (carving with jets, as it were). The lack of carve control was offset a bit by having air control while in mid-air without needing to use jets. The old Tribes vets were thrown for a loop. Those who played T:V as their first Tribes game picked it up quite fast. I wouldn't go so far as to call it intuitive- it was more watered down than intuitive, and appeared like an attempt to make intuitive controls met only halfway- the lack of carving really hurt the game.

Tribes Ascend, the next game in the series, used smooth skiing with some form of carve control, which proved quite better at slower speeds, but felt very ineffective at higher speeds. At higher speeds, it was possible to get skiing to “kick in” and work more effectively by tapping the jets a few times- this felt wonky, and unnatural. As well, you lost momentum at an alarming rate while heading uphill- making it so players avoided skiing uphill altogether (in other games, you wanted to ski up at least part of the next uphill before jetting up over it).

There have been plenty of other games over the ears that have used smooth skiing, including Ascension, Legions:Overdrive, and more recently Project Freefall, and Legacy. Legacy in my opinion has the best feeling carving to date. SmoothP claims he has taken a look at Andrew's T1 physics write-up and refactored all of the variables into a smooth skiing system.

Which is Better?
So is it smooth skiing or jump skiing? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Jump skiing feels more buggy in nature, but also caters to that oldschool arena player nostalgia- and we all want to see some of the fast-paced intense action of the old games come back. Smooth skiing feels more refined, mature, and eye-catching, but it lacks some of the extra mobility features jump-skiing had, had quirky control schemes, and carving is harder to make feel right without spending a good deal of time on it.

My opinion? Jump-skiing is better. Its what I'm most used to, and it pays an homage to the old games, for which we owe a lot to. However, much effort needs to be spent on battling the dreaded deadstops if you plan on using this method.

Smooth skiing isn't bad- and it is easier to appeal to a newer audience using it. If this is used, consider inventing a new control scheme that makes jumping, skiing, and jetting intuitive. Perhaps use a different bind for jumping than what you use for skiing, so you can still jump while skiing to get past those pesky little bumps, and you can still jump before jetting for that extra boost in mobility. Using 3 keys for movement might be a bad... it's one you'd have to feel out.