Ask DICE: Gameplay Balance And Level Design

[K-16]

Update: Now with Bence Pajor's Q&A from their blog post in Feb 22, 2014.

Well as part of the Player Appreciation (of many crashes) Month, everybody on Battlelog posted their questions to Alan Kertz (lead core gameplay designer), Linnea Harrison (level artist), and Bence Pajor (audio director). After about a week, they posted answers to the most softball questions I've ever seen, and rejected the notion of reading any of your actual questions while having plausible deniability of wasting your time. Find out what the ideal vision for the game's multiplayer will be, and find out how to be a level artist at DICE! Because surely that is on everybody's minds!

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/02/ask-dice-alan-kertz/

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/02/ask-dice-level-design/

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/02/ask-dice-sound-design/

That was our one shot to find out what on Earth was going on, and this is what we use it on... Well done. Well, whoever is next on the list of Ask DICE better receive a better batch of questions, because we're never going to find out anything further about level design and gameplay balancing (I hope some people realize this isn't a regular feature).

CptainCrunch: On a side note, I can see one question of yours is fully answered, while another question you had was half-answered. There's still hope that a few other questions can be answered from people in departments more relevant to the subject.

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah, it was a bit of a disappointment to say the least. I can totally understand not answering the "When will you fix the game?!" questions, but even the good balance questions and such were ignored. Out of thousands of questions posted (many duplicate I know) only 7 were answered and they were low ball questions.

The next one is for a map designer. I asked a very straight forward two part question that she could easily answer and fits right into her job description, so we shall see.

[K-16]

I already posted a link to the answers to the level design questions. Unless there was another level designer collecting questions (which the blog isn't showing) Linnea Harrison is who you're looking for. In which case, the link is in the top post. That was why I said one of your questions was fully answered since you were wondering about snow/night maps. The snow bit wasn't in the question, but the answer should be about the same (lack of demand). Also, "find out how to be a level artist at DICE" was one of the things she talked about, because you know, we don't have any other ways to find out how to be a game developer.

Edit: Just checked the forums, and while it's strange that this was not posted in the blog like previous entries, the next Ask DICE is for the Audio Director Bence Pajor. Can't wait to see how many idiotic repeat questions I'll see about the return of the sound looping crash, and how he's wasting his time on Star Wars Battlefront 3! Because we all know sound design questions should obviously be about programming.

I’ve been working with the audio for the Battlefield series since 2003; basically all Battlefield games since Battlefield 2 to the present. As Audio Director my task is to make sure the sound of the game stays true to the audio vision of the DICE Audio team. This includes all sorts of field recordings including weapons, vehicles, and everything else you can hear in the game. I’ve probably worked on almost every aspect of the Battlefield games so I’m more than happy to answer any question regarding sound!

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah, I didnt know that hers was out. The level design was a joke as well.

I did ask about how they determine levolution in the map and how it affects design. Also asked about if China Rising had levolution removed and if it would be added back. No answers on that

On the audio guy I asked about how people complain about thier guy yelling about a teammate down across the map or when someone throws a grenade in their direction, but we, as the player, do not hear it. Any thoughts on removing that or making it so we hear it too?

I doubt that will get an answer.

[K-16]

I'd say your first part of the question was somewhat answered (with some personal assumptions made).

The level designer/artists then starts blocking in some spaces for the level based on neat locations near the reference. The larger spaces (bases) are shifted around, reworked, reworked, and reworked until they are as fun as possible. We also have destruction in at this point, so that when we are playtesting the game, we do so with destruction in mind.

My assumption would be playtesting determines how Levolution is determined. If this thing breaks, how fun would it be? So basically based on how it improves gameplay is how Levolution is implemented. Although, this completely ignores the weather portion of Levolution (a later answer mentions "emotional impact and match the adrenaline arc" so I guess the dynamic weather is controlled by DICE in how it changes based on the intensity of the map). Also the mindset of breaking = fun kind of went too far during development, which is why Battlefield 4 is still so broken despite months of patching. That dang Levolution is so destructive it'll seep out of dem files and boot yer out of dem games like the nasty varmit it is!

*Ahem.* Sorry, don't know where that came from.

As for China Rising... Yeah you got screwed. That was a pretty important question especially to those who paid for it. Best of luck in getting your audio design questions answered though. Honestly, I had hoped we could take advantage of their willingness to be more transparent during Player Appreciation Month, but now it feels like gamers don't know how to take advantage of this. When the Player Appreciation Month is over, we're going to lose the chance to learn anything important from the devs themselves, as they wall themselves off and let the community manager do all the talking once again.

Sigh... In a perfect world, I would be able to convince DICE devs to talk on reddit once every two weeks for no more than one hour for the duration of BF4's lifecycle. I'm sure they can have a PR rep monitoring their answers there too...

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah, I dont know what to think anymore on BF4. There is so much there and it can be so much fun, but every time they do something it seems something worse happens. I know the game is complicated and HUGE, but these issues easily happen and are either not being caught or are being ignored to rush a patch/update/DLC out.

Right now there are reports about Second Assault having a sound loop crashing issue. People are reporting all kinds of glitches and bugs that the Xbox1 community reported long ago in maps. Its making it sound like Second Assault was released the way it was months ago, though we dont really know what was done to the DLC to correct issues. The bugs we are seeing (except the sound loop crash) may be the minor ones compared to what has been fixed.

But, there is no communication, so its wild speculation on one side and an old list of issues in the forums. I suppose in the end it wouldnt help anything because DICE would just get "FIX THE GAME/NETCODE/TICK RATE!" and "WHY DID YOU RELEASE BROKEN STUFF?!" and nothing actually helpful.

Oh well, I will just keep asking questions and who knows.

[K-16]

As we are customers, what you said is a fair way of simplifying a complicated problem DICE/EA created for themselves. Simply keep asking questions and hope for the best, rather than continue to worry and overthink because we paid $60-$110 for the game. If you'd like suggestions on what to do in the distant future should DICE fail to improve anything on a foundational level and game-wise after the end of the Player Appreciation Month, perhaps you could contemplate on these ideas:

Spoiler: 

• Highlight and support companies that do things properly and offer games that are an alternative to DICE's games. Write about these good companies and explain how they differ, and send a quick tweet to DICE's community manager (not as an attack, but as a "check these guys out").
• Clarify forum posts of anybody in Battlelog who has a good complaint, but writes like a troll. Correct anything that actually isn't an issue and make it easier for Community Managers to see why people are whining.
• Band with as many supporting friends who share similar views to you and write something similar to an audit report on games/company/community and contact games media sites to publish them (assuming you rally enough people to make a loud noise).
• Write a clear explanation as to why DICE isn't recovering from their poor BF4 launch impression, and offer suggestions that are feasible to do long-term while more effective than a Player Appreciation Month, since not all of us are easily swayed by an olive branch. Some of us want a reassurance for the future and their foundation is full of EA's faultlines. Rally support and make a group effort to get DICE to see it. Doesn't have to be a campaign, it could be more like a group written forum post with tons of replies.

All of this is a concept suggestion. By no means would I expect you to consider these ideas word for word. That's not feasible at all. What I'm saying is these ideas could offer a base goal, where you could make a variation on these ideas to be more suitable and better scaled to what you want to do. For all I care, you could simply just ask your questions, let them ignore you, and watch them burn. Heck, I skipped the question asking and am watching them burn so who am I to judge right? I'm just saying if you feel like being more proactive and want DICE to see the problem you're seeing, you can change these ideas into something you can do. Maybe use social networking or blog posts? Maybe use smaller independant media sites to spread the word? There are some with self-publishing options, and well-written ones go on the front page.

...It's because of what Serellan is doing with Takedown that I am still willing to give them a chance to recoup. Their efforts are far more meaningful than DICE/EA. Terrible first impression and a massive slap to Kickstarter backers' faces (I'm not one), but I would scream at anybody who tries to flame them because they are doing everything possible to fix their mess with a lack of a budget, lack of resources, and a lack of one person in a ten-person team (car accident gave him a busted leg). If only DICE acted more like Serellan minus the premature launch. Ahem... Sorry that was irrelevant, never mind this part.

(I spoiler tagged because it's a wall of text. Feel free to skip the suggestions and read the remaining paragraph.)

Of course, that's only if you want to put in the time and effort to help DICE. You're already more diligent than I am by asking questions, and I wish you the best of luck on having them answered. If I have time and remember to do so, I'll update the first post with answers to the sound design questions. But one thing is for sure, Ask DICE is NOT the correct way of increasing transparency between developer and customer. This is still a cold PR-influenced article that doesn't allow two-way dynamic communication. No interactivity, no coming to an understanding between one another, and nowhere near as effective as asking on the dev's personal Twitter account. Their solution through Ask DICE merely proves the existence and the severity of the problem.

[CptainCrunch]

All right, changing the subject.

Remember when I wow and dazzled everyone with my prediction of Robert Bowling leaving Infinity Ward? Maybe not, so here is the link:

http://totalgamingnetwork.com/showthread.php?196381-Article-Robert-fourzerotwo-Bowling-Resigns-from-Infinity-Ward-and-Activision

Which started from this prediction:

http://totalgamingnetwork.com/showthread.php?195692-Rant-about-Modern-Warfare-3-I-kept-it-spoiler-free&highlight=Rant+Modern+Warfare

So anyway; Something is happening inside DICE. I dont know what. I dont know why. I dont know who is involved, but Demize has changed. Maybe its his new marriage. Maybe its the stress of the game. Maybe he is just making some changes. Maybe he was "talked to" about something and it didnt go well for him.

I would not be surprised if he leaves DICE soon.

Could be totally wrong and he is just as happy as he could be and be there 30 years as well.

[K-16]

Your last prediction included a bit of background information on why you thought Robert Bowling would leave (or at least you did after Zips questioned your prediction). May I do the same and ask where you are getting the feeling that Alan Kertz may have changed? I understand you lack information, but you have a feeling that something is happening inside of DICE without knowing what. Well, where is the feeling coming from to begin with?

Edit: Huh? Why are the Battlelog forums all white now? I didn't change anything in my browser that would prevent the template from loading properly... In fact, I didn't change anything at all!

[CptainCrunch]

The forums are white when you are on the BF3 side of things. When you flip it to BF4 it is then whatever background it is. Its weird, I dont like it and I wish they would standardize across the board.

As for the background information:

Again, not a lot to go on.
-A couple weeks ago EA threw DICE under the bus with an announcement that DICE can pick the release dates and didn't really give much more info.
-All the DICE contacts I pay attention to for news has gone silent as far as the game goes. Not some, all.
-Demize' picture in the Q&A did not really seem like him. Not really having a good time in that pic. I just got a vibe on it.
-All things DICE stripped from his twitter.
-Changes in how he communicates to "fans" on twitter.

So with all that, I feel, something is not going well. Maybe they are all just so busy working on BF4 fixes and thats why all this stuff is strange.

[K-16]

*Looks at URL and top of the screen of Battlelog forums.*

Daaaaaaaaaamn... Why the heck am I in BF3?... That explains everything. Thank you for the very helpful clarification. I too wished they would standarize it across the board, because the sound loop crash notification banner disappears if you're in BF3 "mode" even if you're in the BF4 forum (though in case Zips was wondering, the banner in the forums is showing at this time, so they haven't found it yet). Damn that's confusing and the changing forum themes is an eyesore. I'll edit my previous post regarding the linked URL to ask sound design questions, because I didn't know the URL was set to BF3 "mode."

As for the background information you provided... I see what you mean. Holy crap Mr. Kertz sounds INCREDIBLY DEPRESSED on Twitter. And I haven't seen his Twitter description before today, so I assume you mean he mentions his position at DICE before? He does comment on BF4 occasionally, and each and every time he does it, he drinks.

Embedded Tweet

I mean holy **** is he depressed, or at least knows how to tell a good joke about it that went over my head. As for the Q&A picture... I was under the impression his glare meant **** you. At least Ms. Harrison can still smile (maybe she's not drained yet). But yeah I see your point, and if he jumps ship, it won't be like the time he moved from BF3 to BF4 since BF4 is far from being finished balance-wise, and I'm beginning to doubt Mr. Kertz would want to be with EA anymore.

Also, where did you read that DICE can pick the release dates? I couldn't find a reference to that.

[CptainCrunch]

Demize always was a bit wise "cracking" at fans and stuff and trolled them a lot. But yeah, he stripped off everything DICE from twitter and his replies are "I do not work on that, but will forward to who does" on many things. Thats very generic for him.

I was also thinking though that it could be a damage control thing and its "keep everything simple and professional. No talking about the game!" Could be too that he stripped off all the DICE stuff to make a statement to someone internal.

So, its hard to say.

The EA thing is here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/11/ea-defends-bf-4-simcity-launch-efforts-discusses-future/

Here is the part:

RPS: How radically are you changing the process next time? Are you, for instance, going to focus on giving DICE time and space to iron out all the bugs?

Hilleman: That team got to ship that game when they wanted to. I don’t think we really pulled it out of their hands.

That goes against what was being said about EA rushing the title to beat CoD. Of course, this is damage control interview talking. Its easy to say that and mean "DICE set the release date and we held them to it though they were not ready." We dont really know.

I could be jumping the gun on this. It could be positioning or internal stress. The thing that sealed it for me with Bowling was the video. You can see a lot more in a video then looking at all this stuff.

But, in any case, I think something is up.

[K-16]

Update: Bumping thread as Bence Pajor's Q&A is now up on the Battlefield blog (link in the thread's top post). Great news! Congratulations to CptainCrunch as his specific question (#7) got asked! Bad news! The answer makes Battlefield 4 look bad! Derrrrrrrrrrp! Read and reap your reward to see what I mean. Ok seriously though, this time the Q&A was somewhat better with decent questions (excluding the first three wasted questions), but damn Mr. Pajor avoids going into detail on anything, except for two questions.

I mean, he went for quantity of questions instead of quality of answers. Brief and vague, and only answers what is asked and not what was implied. Did you consider such and such? "Yes." Did you talk about such and such? "Yes." Do you look bored in photographs? "Yes." Anyways, congrats again CptainCrunch. If we're going by Player Appreciation Month's timeline, then there should be about two more Ask DICE before we resort to harassing the community managers again. Or the dev's Twitters. Because like... This isn't fixing our anxieties whatsoever.


Original Post: I see what you mean. I know you're not confirming anything as there is less circumstantial evidence than your prediction on Mr. Bowling, but you do get a sense that something changed from the norm, and there's enough circumstantial evidence to show that, at least for now, people at DICE aren't acting like they used to. And I see what you mean by damage control (even cut the RPS interview short, and implied Titanfall will have a good launch simply because they're not developed by Maxis/DICE). Thanks for the link, I don't know why I didn't find it on Google.

And I read the quality assurance E-mail leak on why Battlefield 4 was shipped unfinished, and sure enough, everybody and their mothers were right. Finish before Call of Duty: Ghosts and reap the holiday sales. So to say EA didn't pull the game from DICE's hands were a flat-out lie, much like their claim that the Consumerist survey named them the Worst Company of America (again) because of homophobes. Well, I might as well do what you're already doing then. Have cautious suspicion, but wait and see how things unfold. And uh, I'll update the opening post if I have time and remember to check for the sound design answers.

Thanks again for your input on this whole matter.

[Shawn Zipay]

Q: First, I LOVE the audio in Battlefield 4. The question I have is this: since Bad Company 2 there have been many complaints about your soldier saying something to interact with the game, and the players themselves not hearing it. An example is throwing a grenade and they yell “grenade”, or when someone is killed and someone across the map yells “friendly down”. Has it ever been considered to remove that option in the game, or allow the player to hear it so that they are aware of actually making noise?
A: Glad that you love our work. We are looking into refining the design you mention for future games.

The question is literally four times as long as the "answer". FFS...

[K-16]

Aw... I wanted CptainCrunch to go into the blog and see the answer for himself... It was supposed to be a surprise! Oh well. Surprise and congratulations!