DECONSTRUCTING #004: Interconnected core design in ADOM and Rocket League, PART 2 of 2

DECONSTRUCTING: Interconnected core design in ADOM and Rocket League, part 2 of 2

Here's the second part of my two piece interconnected design article. Without further ado, let's dive right into the business.

CASE ROCKET LEAGUE

The more I’ve thought about Rocket League’s design, the more I’ve started to think, that it is simply a design masterpiece. I personally think huge part of the reason for this lies, like the title suggests, in the interconnections: it’s a sum of many different core design features, that ALL compliment, one way or another, the end result and some or all the other features. But Rocket League is a bit more complicated in its interconnections than ADOM (part 1 of this article duo), though the principle is still the same. Rocket League is just more like a spider’s web, where the end result (the actual game) is the spider feeling all the threads in its legs. It is unbelievably well balanced in this sense, how all the elements live together in a complex beautiful harmony, helping each other to reach out their full potential.

And just like in spider’s web, in Rocket League’s case the features aren’t as strictly dependent of each other as in ADOM’s case – remove one thread and the game would probably still work, although depending of a feature, more or less likely not as well as it could, if the “web” would be whole.

INTERCONNECTIONS

The most dominating feature the player notices, when playing the game the first time, is most probably the element of CHAOS. If one is keen to draw quick conclusions, the very first impression can very well be “this is just a game about chaotic situations and luck!” But one couldn’t be more wrong. Even though this feature might be more of a sum of many other core features, I’d still like to argue it is indeed one of the core features in this game, as being successful in Rocket League has actually a lot to do with MANAGING this CHAOS.

Sometimes just about everyone and their mom are trying to interact with the ball at the same time, creating CHAOS.

Here steps in the SKILL. As pretty much all sports games, this game is also highly SKILL driven. Whether it is about strategy, playing as a team (both offense and defense), positioning, timing, mastering the move set and general maneuvering – it is all about SKILL, which can be learned and progressed in. The more SKILL there is involved, (usually) the less CHAOS, and vice versa. Also having more SKILL makes the player able to convert the CHAOS for opportunities.

From here we can conveniently jump into the next feature: Rocket League is a marvelous design example about making a LOW BARRIER OF ENTRY to work so, that the veterans can play together with rookies without hindering their game experience too much, or in many cases at all, especially if one can adjust a bit to the per minute situation. One of the key things in here lies in the aforementioned field of SKILL vs. CHAOS: new players can create CHAOS, but the seasoned ones use that as opportunities via SKILL, thus making LOW BARRIER OF ENTRY just work pretty much un-dependent of the match making. Oh, did I mention, that the matchmaking is totally random (NOTE: of course you CAN play with your friends also, but…)? The default match making really works so mind bogglingly beautifully, because of how those core design features are so brilliantly interconnected and so incredibly WELL BALANCED.

Lurking for that opportunity to rise from the CHAOS from far away.

One other key feature in making this LOW BARRIER OF ENTRY work so well is the move set. It’s once again a text book example how to execute brilliantly something that is welcoming to a beginner, but still has enough possibilities for depth when the players acquire more experience and SKILL. This is also true with many other great sports titles, like FIFA, PES and NHL series, but in Rocket League it is just so un-intimidating, because its brilliantly crafted learning curve. The first impression about the move set can thus actually be quite misleading – “Is this really this simple?” The more you play though, the more you’ll start to figure out the more skill demanding moves, that makes those chaotic situations once again more of an SKILL driven opportunities. Having this kind of easy to pick-up, hard to master move set is very meaningful and clear design.

In the same breath I have to mention, that the rules are also super-simple, but not in any way restrictive. Honestly, I haven’t once thought, that “this game should have a rule, that would make/prevent this…” and so on. It just works beautifully for both newcomers and veterans.

Using all the things mentioned above, in order to balance the CHAOS, is one of the most interesting things in this game. Sometimes it’s almost like the back of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says: Don’t Panic. Even some truly grim situations can turn upside down, when suddenly the team finds the right balance and roles, or just right opportunities.

This again leads conveniently to the next feature, UNPREDICTABILITY. Even though this could easily be bundled in with CHAOS, I personally wouldn’t do so. And, even though this also, like CHAOS, is a bit of a mix of things, it really is more of a matter of EVERY SECOND MATTERS. As the matches last “only” 5 minutes and as there is always a hint of CHAOS and LOW BARRIER OF ENTRY thrown in the mix, anything can happen during the last 30 seconds. It’s not that uncommon to be in a situation where the underdogs climb from something like 0-2 to 2-2 in the last 30 seconds and then win in the overtime, because the other team gets too sure about their win or their concentration simply takes a nose dive, while the loosing team just don’t panic, but instead gets their act together. NOTE: Keeping your concentration and cool thru the whole match is an essential quality in a Rocket League player too, like in any other sports game or in real life sports. This makes the game incredibly satisfying and also addictive. It also prevents many rage quit situations as the game isn’t over till it’s over.

Last but certainly not the least: Rage quitting conveniently leads to the matter of Rocket League REWARDING its players a LOT. There are all kinds of customization and novelty stuff, XP from all kinds of activity on the field, ranked points, you name it. This game even rewards the player with a quite hefty bunch of XP by just completing the match, which in conjunction with the match making creates a surprisingly well invested community. Sure there are some rage quitters here and there, but I’d say way less than in some other competitive online games, which makes you play with total strangers with totally different skill levels, even in non-ranked matches.

Rocket League REWARDS the player from pretty much any successful interaction, not just scoring related activity.

When people are not rage quitting all the time, it of course affects to a lot of things and not the least to SKILL, as the game rewards the player for so many different successful participations in the game. It really encourages you to learn, get good, but also to play as a full team, defend, not just score. Also when REWARDING the players for just completing the match, it isn’t all about just not trying to prevent rage quitting, but also encouraging to play the game as much as possible, making it satisfying to play even, if one wouldn’t yet quite grasp the finer details of the game – after all losing is the most important learning experience in any sports and competitive games.

REWARDING also contributes to UNPREDICTABILITY as when the players are not as keen to rage quit, the team play can really improve a lot during these brief 5 minutes. This is one of the keys of the game having so strong feeling of EVERY SECOND MATTERS.

  

Oh my, it seems to actually be a pentagram instead of a spider's web! ;)

CLOSING THOUGHTS

ADOM and Rocket League aren’t of course by any means the only games using this kind of design interconnection, but I think in these two games it is just so huge part of why they work so well, why their core features feel so meaningful and not just some filler material. This is also why they work as such great examples.

Basically, judging by these two cases, in order to do meaningful design by using an interconnected design, in a nutshell, every core feature has to support some other core feature AND be supported by at least one core feature – every core feature always has an input-output connection. This is an easy mantra. J