Game Studies GG

WHY APEX LEGENDS IS BETTER

This article will showcase key areas of gameplay design in Apex Legends which defines it as an example of design evolution within the battle royal genre. Specific comparison will be made against PlayerUnknown’s Battle Royal (PUBG).

PUBG Knockdown

PUBG players know all too well the helpless and sometimes hilarious feeling of being downed and slowly crawling around nibbling the toes of your more able comrades. I will prefix by saying that as a general rule, players want to play. Being downed in a battle royal from a design perspective is a consequence for being shot. Consequences set up difficulty or challenge which is essential for the creation of fun. We understand things by contrast. Fun is framed by what is not fun, i.e. being stripped of almost all control while downed. On paper it is reasonable to set up reward and consequence designs for the purpose of manipulating behavior, rules of the game and the creating fun.

In reality of course it is not so static as players do not always abide by the knockdown design as a consequence. Some of the most memorable, fun and hilarious moments involved players being downed. On all fours making gnawing sounds over voice while they chase their enemy’s toes. Blocking doorways. Desperately but slowly crawling to cover. There is something about the helplessness of the downed player that makes these behaviours all the more hilarious. The design is as a consequence but the players, as always, find unique and playful ways to break the designs intentions.

The PUBG Pan

The caste iron pan in PUBG helps give a downed player new hope in a novel and fun way. That unlikely *ding* sound makes you feel like a crawling miracle.

Apex Knockdown Shield

Apex Legends’ knockdown shield and its various tiers is an evolved form of PUBG’s Pan. Instead of a chanced based miracle it gives the player control over its use and fully protects the front; not to mention the gold tier self-revive. From a design perspective it is still a consequence as you are still downed with limited control, but it gives at least a small feeling of control and interactivity while downed. This adheres to my prefix players want to play even if in a small way. It is a design aspect which piggybacks off the observed behavior that players in such games as PUBG were already playing with the design mold of the knockdown system. Ultimately the knockdown shield makes an otherwise not fun experience, slightly more fun.

Respawn Banner

Building upon the knockdown shield, more inline with the PUBG pan, the re-spawn banner is a hope mechanic. Not based on chance or miracles but on teamwork. This serves a dual purpose both for hope and teamwork building. In the battle royal genre, it is important to keep people in a game for longer due to the often-quick nature of death. It can be frustrating to have a bad run of quick deaths. In a longer game, a quick death is more frustrating since you feel you have come so far only to be double tapped to the dome by an enemy you did not even know was there. The re-spawn banner, coupled with the knock down shield mechanic alleviates some of this tension from dying too quickly.

Apex Mobility

Apex Legends simple has more mobility options directly available to the player than PUBG. Sliding is a mechanic that also piggybacks off player behavior of crouch spamming. Players all use crouch spam to help them dodge incoming damage and with an additional sliding ability, players can move over terrain faster as well as unlock new potential stylistic kill potential. It feels great to kill someone while sliding. Sure, PUBG has vehicles which are fun as hell, but it is not immediately available to players, they have to find one first.

A sliding kill

Closing

Players want to play. Give players something to do while they are suffering the consequences of their mistakes and bad plays, rather than just giving them a time-out. You can give more options to players within consequence designs without breaking the balance. Hope mechanics increase the possible lifespan of a match for players in the battle royal genre and alleviates frustration which will bring players back for the next match.

RE: Live Simply

From the perspective of someone who lives and works in a small late capitalist city or larger:

It is a privileged position to be able to ‘live simply’ and be content. It is true whether you compare low class to high or developed countries to developing. Socio-economic structures of late capitalism are not easy to resist and I applaud anyone who does. Being ‘consciously aware’ of both structural and psychological forces that drive us to want more is not sufficient to be able to actively resist late capitalism’s 24/7 psychological bombardment and governing power structures.

To live simply you will need to be constantly resisting against everything around you. This is not psychologically sustainable. First, you must play the game in order to achieve enough social and financial capital to have the required amount of power and agency to ‘live simply’. You can’t start calling shots until you have something to back it up.

Imagine you decide that one day you will save enough money to buy some land, build a food garden and maybe even some solar panels; “Then I can live simply”, you tell yourself. You accept that you will need to work hard in your job (or find one) for a few years first. That means accepting the world around you and playing the game. You continue to dream of your future simple life but the daily grind that is so antithetical to your vision, beliefs and values is starting to get you down. Among the hustle and bustle you picture your future pumpkin patch briefly. Your attitudes and behaviours are out of alignment but you must play the game.

Years pass. You’ve reached a point where you are no longer just ‘getting by’ and you can start saving money toward your goals.

More years pass. Some life happens. Daily grind. Suffer now to prosper later. You meet someone and fall in love. You grow a pumpkin in a bag of soil because you can’t plant it as you are renting; you eat it and it is tasteless. You’re proud nonetheless.

More years pass. Between Netflix shows you are struck with a random memory and smile with the side of your mouth: “Remember when I grew that pumpkin in a bag of dirt?”, you say to your partner. “Yes, oh my god it tasted so weird”, they reply. You smile, agree, blow air through your nose, and return to Netflix.

Link to comment thread: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6635209587043733504?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A6635209587043733504%2C6637509494786101248%29

Should I Reply To This Pyramid Scheme?

Ever since I have been updating my online presence, specifically through LinkedIn for this case, I have been getting lots of targeted Ads on YouTube as well as random and suspicious people contacting me. The following is the second email I received from one such person.

The Email

Luke,

I’d like to tell you a story. It’s about WHY I do what I do, and why I’d like to help YOU achieve getting your dream job.

When I left school I struggled with clarity and what kind of career path I wanted and I worked multiple jobs. The one thing I did learn was how to quickly and effectively land a job.

I worked some dead-end jobs and know the feeling where you stare at the clock and it feels like it goes backwards, it’s depressing, it’s draining and it’s demotivating and you feel as if you are trapped.

I currently run a very successful recruitment agency and help 1000’s of people land their dream job every day. Anyone who know’s me has heard my motto “I’m in the business of helping people”. It’s now harder than ever to find and land a job let alone your dream job. But, with the right tools, skills and knowledge it is certainly possible and I’m going to show you my secrets.

The reason I wanted to share my story with you is because I want you to know me. And I want you to know that I can help you, too.

So do me a favor? Make a commitment to change your life for the better!

Get Early Access Now

As you’ll see, I’m helping people land their dream job and get the future they deserve

Can I really help YOU?

Please click this link and let’s see. Get Early Access Now.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Byron

My Draft Reply

Hi Byron,

I would like to offer some feedback/insight on your email and my impression of the 10x coaching institute website.

Your email is is well crafted to appeal to a general audience while maintaining a personal ‘feel’. Though, it is not personalized. There is nothing indicating that you have considered my personal situation or aspirations which you could have easily found in the same place you obtained my contact details on LinkedIn. This makes me believe that it is simply a standard email you send to all leads, leaving me with a sense of disconnection.

The story you have included is touching for your selected audience, I am sure; it struck a few notes with me as well. It shows that you are aware of the emotional vulnerability of your audience and that you do not mind using it as a marketing strategy.

You included the remark, ‘I want you to know me.’, which is actually quite nice but what I really want to ask is, ‘do you want to know ME?’. You should include that you want to know the person you are addressing as well.

The website https://www.10xcoachinginstitute.com/ is nice to look at but the ‘About Us’ page has no information on it, just the text ‘A default About Us page’. This does not inspire confidence to say the least. A reverse image search of one of your testimonials had 965 results. Perhaps the testimonial is real and you have just used a stock image for confidentiality purposes but surely it would not be difficult to have a satisfied client agree to having their actual picture displayed on your website?

The layout of the “certification” levels of the life coaching program reminds me of the design behind the cult of Scientology.

I do apologise but I am having difficulty establishing the credibility and authenticity of your organisation.

Skeptically yours,

Luke

Surrounded By Content

I am surrounded by content.

There is always something to listen to, something to watch, something to buy, to read, to learn, news to be shocked by, posts to share, even a juicy comment thread can have my attention for way too long. It’s great, honestly. I enjoy consuming most of it and I do my best to control what content comes my way, though I haven’t figured out how to avoid targeted advertisement without simply staying offline. You know? The ones that seem to be generated by a random word you rarely use during the only conversation you had that day with someone you hadn’t seen for a while? I shan’t digress. You can find content that you actually want in seconds. Cat videos. Awesome. With 4.54 billion users globally, the internet is the current dominant channel of content consumption and is likely to continue as such for some time, I’m sure you would agree.

Cat

But I’m not here to tell you how good this age of information is or to do an analysis of digital market trends (insert graph here). I’m here to let you know that being surrounded by content has its caveats, its pressures, and its engulfing qualities that affects your very being. With that said, allow me to be clear before we continue. You are a person. A person that consumes content. You are not a ‘consumer’. The latter is just an overused and dehumanizing buzzword within the purview of the business world. Do not confuse yourself as a person with how the marketing industry sees and speaks of you.

I write these words to you as I come to terms with my own transition from a consuming person to a creating person. From consumer to content creator. Though, I am both now. There is a lot of social pressure for us to produce content. We live in an unprecedented age where basically everyone can produce content. It’s easy to start a blog, to upload a video or share a picture on Instagram. When you upload a picture of that amazing looking salad you had for lunch, you produce content for others to be the consumers of. Everywhere you look someone is producing content.

What does that say about the seemingly very few that do not produce any content at all? How does it feel to be just a consumer alone? To only consume. To not speak, only listen. To not be heard. Even if you were to create content, how could your voice possibly be heard among the vast ocean of daily content? How could you possibly say anything more relevant, enlightening or entertaining than what is already being said a thousand times over? Your hand is forced. You must produce! If you are not producing then you are just a consumer. A lazy, zombie-like consumer of other people’s hard work. This is how the current creator/consumer climate makes me feel. See Melanie Lambiar’s two part blog post discussing Asia’s “lazy economy” where she has four categories for lazy consumers: the ‘Aspiring Environmentalist’; the ‘Sleeping Beauty Queen’; the ‘Reluctant Cook’; and the ‘Fast & Furious’.

The collective sphere of human knowledge, content and entertainment is constantly evolving to earn relevance as society reaches the edges of multiple ages, epochs, eras or what ever you want to call them. I say multiple because there are always different discourses within various fields all competing to show their relevance in the current era they find themselves in. The Talon geneticist, Dr. Moira O’Deorain from Overwatch puts it succinctly:

“The true struggle is for the superiority of ideas.”
Dr Moira O’Deorain

As content consumers we create that superiority. Every time we consume content, we cast a vote to the kinds of content that we want and creators, if they want to remain relevant, have a mandate to fulfill the content desires of consumers. That is why I have great respect for anyone that creates truly from their own heart. Content which speaks genuinely about what that person wants to communicate to the world, rather than content made to sooth the ears and eyes of as many consumers as possible at once. Ironically, today consumers seek this kind of content and feel passionately about it when they find that niche that is not part of ‘the mainstream’. The irony is there because niches are desirable, that is until they become so popular that they lose their uniqueness. Niches are desirable, desirable things become popular, popular things lose their desirability. In essence, a niche has to do with the concept of individuality, casting a distinctive content vote among the masses. It is well known in the marketing industry that the word ‘new’ gets a positive response from people. One marketing company rates it as twelve out of their list of thirty “magic marketing words”. Interestingly enough, they also rate “secret” as eighteen. This relates to the niche we talked about previously. A secret is appealing because of its exclusivity, just as a content niche is exclusive. It is VIP, invite only, that song you discovered before anyone else, don’t tell so and so about it they won’t get it; exclusive.

This cycle of always voting for the newest and next big thing repeats and the consumer market … sorry, I mean people and their interests are always dynamically changing. The content you produce should be something you want to create, something you wish to communicate to the world from your heart and passion. Not because you want a million followers, to be lost in the oceans of mass content but because you want to know that you truly expressed yourself, intimately and exclusively.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Moira

https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Moira/Quotes

The Blockbuster Flip

If you don’t remember going to a Blockbuster or Video Ezy then you are probably younger than me. Alsaka still had Blockbusters but only because internet is expensive (usatoday.com). It must be an anxious expedition to consume pornography in Alaska. Alaska, the only place that still gets that embodied and sometimes social experience of walking through a Blockbuster store, every wall slightly backward angled from floor to ceiling shelving empty DVD covers. I have a sense of nostalgia as I remember the experience. Firstly, you must physically GO to the Blockbuster store. Imagine having to get in your car and drive to the place where you would spend the next 20 minutes walking around a room with walls covered in DVD covers as you decide what you want to watch. A bit different than scrolling through a Netflix recommended playlist huh?

If you go with say your family or a friend or two you would naturally split up at some point to cover more ground. You begin to search. That slow-motion, sideways walk you do as your eyes scan the walls, your head slowly tilts up and down every few sideways steps. You lean forward for mid-shelf DVD’s that look good or squat for the lower ones. You stay squatted as you hold the DVD case front on pressed between your thumb on top and fingers supporting the back. You would then do a maneuver that younger generations will never know, The Blockbuster Flip. The Blockbuster Flip is what you do when you want to read the blurb or description on the back of a DVD case. From holding the DVD as explained above, keeping the fingers and thumb pinched on the cover you move the thumb close to the front edge closest to your wrist. Then twist your wrist inwards as you maintain thumb and figure positions. The cover should be allowed to rotate in your hand so keep a loose grip and let the cover slide where necessary. You should now be viewing the back of the cover and you should see the outside of your fingers facing you with your thumb behind out of view. The DVD cover is now resting on the meat of your thumb, your palm and inside of your wrist. You are now ready to read the blurb.

Sorry, no movie trailer will automatically start playing like Netflix. No Steam store page here. I get so upset when I select a Netflix movie or series and there is no trailer. I also get annoyed when a loud arse trailer automatically starts playing when I am trying to talk to my partner.

The Blockbuster Flip also serves as an unspoken social indication to others. When you are embodied in a place, in a viewed space, then you are broadcasting in a sense. If you do The Flip, then be prepared to be approached, even by strangers. It serves as a talking point, maybe the stranger has seen the film and would like to recommend it. Maybe, one of your parents will see you do The Flip and approach you to see what you might select, they’re probably just wishing you would hurry up and choose something, anything. Your brother or sister is probably a couple isles over in some weird section doing their own Flip unconsciously using the maneuver to get some attention.You do realise that choosing a movie together is highly political right? You need to secure a majority vote on your selection if you actually want to watch it; The Flip serves as a political tool in this instance. Like a subtle, “Hey everyone! See what I’m looking at?’ You are indicating your specific interests to the physical world around you and people take great notice of things like that. We want to know about other people’s interests and choices. It’s just one of those human things that help us situate ourselves socially. Always making self-assessments using data collected about others. What? You think your chosen streaming service doesn’t track what you watch so they can self-assess their products to better suite your consumption habits? The difference between Blockbuster and something like Netflix here is simply physical-digital. The Flip doesn’t exist anymore in a world where embodiedness is slowly becoming more digital; it is reduced to clicks, selections and search terms. Media content has moved into our homes and customized itself to us. Sometimes it takes as long as ever to choose what to watch, we can all be indecisive at times regardless of having a ‘recommended’ playlist. Our consumption decisions are now easily and conveniently made, sometimes even made for us. That choosing process is less political and more individual; it is digital and disembodied.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/12/soon-there-only-one-blockbuster-video-store-left-u-s/781653002/

Highest Account Level I Have Ever Seen – Deep Rock Galactic – A Letter To Management

So, I was joining a mission in progress one night and I see a group doing a Hazard 5. I pause to think, “do I want to do a 5?”, “Hell yea I wanna do a 5!”. I’m a Scout class employee, so I figured I would make good use of the Engineer’s platforms since it was a Mining Expedition and they needed a Scout. I always want to do what’s best for the team. I was eager to try out my new equipment since the recent ‘Feeling Perky’ roll out by management. During my decent to Hoxxes IV I immediately notice that one of the employees’ account level was 11101. This didn’t seem right. I might need to inform management of this! My DRG account level is 185 and I have been mining for 417 hours. Account level, let’s say ‘AccLvl’, divided by the number of hours mined, is an equation we can use to determine the level per hour (Lvl/h) needed to achieve a given account level. Let’s figure out my Lvl/h for a base to compare from.

The Equation: AccLvl/Hrs = Level per hour

Me: 185/417 = 0.44 Lvl/hr

Other miner: 11101/736 = 15.08 Lvl/hr

As you can see above, there is a massive discrepancy between the results. The Other miner has almost double my mining hours but is somehow 60x my level! Theoretically, there is a maximum cap to this Lvl/hr metric that even the most efficient miner, that only speed runs Hazard 5’s with a double XP bonus and Warning missions, min/maxing their heart out could not surpass. To give you a further idea of the results, I rarely settle for H3’s and spend most of my time doing H4’s. We could go on like this in more detail, maybe work out exactly how much experience management gives for each mission, but I think my point is already made.

I have been a DRG employee since the beginning and I count myself as one of the best DRG employees that ever swung a pickaxe on Hoxxes IV. So, upon joining this H5 team and seeing an account level of 11101, I instantly knew that this Dwarf could not possibly be THAT much better than me! I was getting worries that completing a mission with this employee might reflect badly on me and management might suspend me because there was clearly something dodgy going on here. I had already formulated my question to this employee before landing on Hoxxes IV. “Hey mate, you’re not doing anything dodgy right now are you? Your account level?”. Silly Dwarf played dumb, but it didn’t seem like any funny business was happening in this mission. They must have done something dodgy in the past though. I’ll keep my mouth shut for now and just keep mining. Truth be told, they were an excellent miner and it was a pleasure finishing that mission with them. I know a legit veteran miner when I see one, regardless of some artificial number management wants to assign to their employees. We even went on to do a Deep Dive! Respect!

For Rock and Stone, in Karl’s honour! P.S. The Dwarf in question later told me about his dark past and why his account level was so high. Follow the link to see that discussion.