Disgaea 3: Absence of Compelling Reasons to Finish the Game

Hello and welcome to todays article. This time around we'll be talking about the somewhat obscure Japanese tactical role-playing game 'Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice'. Now in a record that may go unbroken for generations here's the earliest I've ever put a disclaimer in an article.  I didn't finish 'Disgaea 3' nor did I finish 'Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories'.  I, however, did really like 'Disgaea: Hour of Darkness' (the first one). So what was it about the first one that resulted in me liking it enough to actually complete* finish the game? Well compared to its sequels 'Hour of Darkness' was a more complete package. For starters the writing in the first game is actually decent, well paced and clever (we are after all talking about a series of games involving demons fighting over the Netherworld). With 'Cursed Memories' our writing is down to 'adequate' as the pacing blows and the writer responsible for the clever dialog has apparently left the company. By the time we've gotten to 'Absence of Justice' the writing is just generally awful as is in my opinion the story. The pacing is nonexistent and the attempts at being clever are downright painful to listen to. Additionally here to exacerbate the sub-par writing is the voice acting. While never exactly a pillar of excellence in the community the voice acting in the first two games was at least serviceable. The voice work in 'Absence of Justice'...eh, not so much. Alright then well what about the gameplay? Well I'm glad you asked. In 'Hour of Darkness' we're treated to a quirky take on the tactical RPG that manages to be somewhat challenging while still offering opportunities to power level in preparation for the (much) harder hidden areas in the game. In 'Cursed Memories' and 'Absence of Justice' there is precious little added innovation-wise making the combat (the combat in a tactical RPG is pretty much the entirety of the gameplay) much more tedious. It was for this reason that I quite on 'Absence of Justice'. The reason(s?) for my stopping short of the finish on 'Cursed Memories' have been lost to history.

Pictured: A map that isn't especially representative of what you'll encounter in the rest of the game.

So what was the big issue with the combat that would result in me shelving the game? Would you believe that it's something as simple as character movement? Yup, something that simple can really screw up the experience. It's also worth noting that the picture above is representative only of the design of the Disgaea's maps as the typical map is roughly 3-4 times the size of the one pictured. The game made me update and in doing so my save data got axed so no pictures of more advanced maps. You may also have noticed that the map is broken up into square tiles which correspond to character movement. The issue here is that on larger maps you and your opponents will usually start at opposite ends of the map and spend several turns just marching towards one another. Now, I'm hoping what I'm going to say next isn't incorrect (or at least not by too much) but it feels like the actual movement allowed to the non-main characters (your grunts) has been reduced by ~25% since the previous iterations of this game. I know that the Mage classes movement wasn't this bad in 'Cursed Memories' nor in 'Hour of Darkness' and I'm pretty sure that other classes where more mobile in those previous versions as well. The reason this is a problem is that it makes things take longer. Now I realize (and remember) that a couple of character classes in 'Hour of Darkness' had some downright stupid movement options (“Go coast to coast on a large map in one turn? Don't mind if I do.”) and I'm not asking for the game to allow for something like that but at least let me get to the enemy position in under 3 rounds. It's also worth noting that in many cases if you're too far away from the enemy that they won't move at all (tactically this is the right choice as you're likely to move into their range on their terms, i.e. they get to attack first). So in this case a choice that I have to guess was made for the sake of balance (a somewhat stupid concept for a single player game of this genre) resulted in a game that left me less than enthused due to stuff just generally taking longer than it should. It sucks but when a game isn't offering much else then minor things like this can become deal-breakers. See you all next week.

*I use the word 'finish' instead of 'complete' as it is very possible to beat any one of these games without even scratching the surface on the content. The one person I know who got ~100% on the first game spent around 600 hours to get there. I suspect that the subsequent titles aren't too far off from that mark. My play-times where as follows (approximately):

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness – 200 hours

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories – 40 hours

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice – 15 hours

Some Possible Solutions to Ragequitting

Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Critical Dissection. Today we're not going to be looking at an individual game but rather an issue that affects almost all online multi-player games and then examine a few possible solutions. The issue in this case being ragequitting, an issue that's at least as infuriating as my spellchecker insisting that 'ragequitting' isn't a real word. Ragequitting is the act of quitting or disconnecting from a game due to a frustration over an opponents tactic(s) and/or to avoid taking a loss on ones record. I wouldn't go quit so far as to call this behavior a blight on online multi-player games but it, to various degrees depending on what game is being played, can be an extraordinarily irritating occurrence. So let's first look at why the two main reasons for raging occur.

Frustration is a natural human reaction in many situations. In the context of a competitive online game it usually comes from dealing with either an opponent who is significantly better than us and is therefore beating us down with relative ease OR from playing against an opponent who is utilizing a tactic that is simply hard to deal with (or at least hard to deal with from the victims perspective). While in my opinion all forms or ragequitting are inexcusable that first one, quitting against a strong opponent, is the least excusable. The reason for this is that getting smashed by a stronger player is usually one of the best opportunities to learn more about the game. I remember playing a series of matches in 'BlazBlue' against one of the best players on Playstation Network. Not only was this guy one of the best players on PSN but he also happened to use the same character that I did so I got to see how he played the character and how he approached the mirror match. I went 1(win) and 25(losses) against him but from all the stuff I saw him doing in those games I was overall a better player for that experience. An inability or unwillingness to learn from ones losses is a common trait among those who quit when overmatched. For those who are quitting against the perceived hard to deal with tactics they are, like those quitting when over-matched, shortchanging themselves in the learning department as you don't learn how to deal with a tactic by avoiding it. 

Now with regards to those who quit in order to preserve their record I actually feel a bit sorry for them as they really can't be mentally healthy individuals if they place that much importance on their record in a video game. That said, and depending on the game, quitting in order to preserve ones record (many games don't assign a loss in the event of one of the players disconnecting) is more common than quitting due to being overmatched or quitting due to an opponent using a “cheap” tactic. The reason for this being that most games have some type of leaderboard system. That is, a way of letting the whole community know who the best (in theory) players at the game are at any given moment. Some people, for some reason place a very high premium on their status withing such a ranking system. Also before anyone suggests that an easy solution to this would be to simply assign a loss to whoever disconnects doesn't know how seriously gamers take these rankings, as under such a system people would find a way (legal or not) to induce disconnects from their opponent in order to score free wins. Some people are looking for the (illusory) status of rankings and are not actually looking to improve at the game.

So how can we combat ragequitting? Well as already mentioned it would be hard to assign a loss over a disconnect due to the possibility of players gaming that sort of system. Now if a technology where to come about that allowed for an accurate assessment of who disconnected and why then it might be worth considering implementing. Also one must consider those who enjoy online games but whose internet connections aren't reliable. It is unfair to lump those people in with the raqequitters and while it would help their cause if they upgraded their internet services in many parts of the world that isn't really an option. And after all of that we're still left the question of what to do with disconnects? The system I propose would be to simply have people who have disconnected over a certain percentage of their matches be excluded from the leaderboards regardless of their record. While that proposal has a moderate chance of screwing those with unstable connections the main “victims” would be those who are quitting intentionally. Another follow-up to that several games have tried to implement (and usually failed at) is a so called "Ragequit Hell” wherein the players who've disconnected above the specified percentage of their matches will only be matched up with one another. This concept excels in two respects.  Firstly by matching the rager up only with other ragers you've removed him from the general players population and thus likely improved everyone else's experience with the game.  Secondly in his banishment to Ragequit Hell you've assured that his potential opponent pool is comprised of similarly immature individuals and that if he wants out of Ragequit Hell (granted when the percentage of disconnects falls below the specified threshold) he's going to have to be on his best behavior.  Ok, those sound like changes that could be implemented in almost any online game. What about a way to deal with raging due to being overmatched?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Now this proposal is a little more radical and as I've currently conceived it isn't as comprehensive as the leaderboard ban and Ragequit Hell solutions as it won't work for fighting games. The idea is to simply add the ability for players to concede. You're team is down by an insurmountable amount but there's still 2/3 of the game time left? Hold a vote and if the majority votes for it your team concedes. This is basically a feature that all team FPS games should already have. Especially ones like 'Left 4 Dead 2' where a full 4 vs. 4 match can, depending on skill discrepancy and map, take upwards of a hour and a half. There's no reason to subject a team on the losing end of that, especially if it's pretty obvious that the losing part isn't going to reverse course, to the entirety of the match if they don't want to. Similarly there's no reason that the losing teams only option to stop the pain is to quit. This idea gives them an out without denying the winning team their 'W'. The concession. Problem (probably) solved.

Oh and the reasons that adding the ability to concede won't work in fighting games are as follows. The first being that players, just to be dicks, would wait until the last possible moment and then concede in order to deny their opponents a more legitimate and satisfying win. The other issue with concession in fighting games being the concept of boosting. Boosting is the use of multiple accounts controlled by the same person to generate wins for their main account in order to give the impression that they're a highly skilled player. Now, in theory if there was a way to track boosters and ban them from the leaderboards (thereby greatly if not entirely discouraging the behavior) then in spite of the potential assholish behavior it would allow for then concessions could be added to fighting games. That said there isn't to my knowledge a real way to track people who're boosting (other than to play and expose them) and there's also the fact that even the most slow paced fighting game is still over relatively quickly such that the need for the ability to concede isn't as pressing here as it is in first person shooters.

Ok, so after hopefully some of the ideas presented here find there way into future games as there really isn't a reason to be nice to ragequitters and if done well the leaderboard ban, Ragequit Hell (not an original idea just never done correctly), and option to concede would drastically reduce (hopefully) the desire to quit in addition to sufficiently punishing those who do with minimal collateral damage. I have a few more thoughts on this topic but this article has already run pretty long so those will have to wait for another time. See you next week.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of (Almost) Everything Else

*sniff*sniff* Sorry, I'm just getting a little teary over what's likely to be my last 'Marvel vs. Capcom 3' article. Or at least the last one until 'Ultimate' comes out in a couple of months. So today, in memory of this occasion, I'm going to be nice to the game. Mostly. Sort of. Today we're going to examine a few things that either slipped the net on our earlier passes at the game or are minor enough to not warrant an entire article dedicated to them. Let's get the bad out of the way first. The 'bad' in this case being the 'Training' and 'Challenge' modes as both of them are seriously lacking when compared to their counterparts in other fighting games.

First up on our beatdown parade is the training mode. But wait! Before we get too far into this here's about the nicest thing I'm willing to put on record about the training mode: it's at least functional. Now that we've gotten that out of the way well here's everything else. Like most modern fighting games MvC3s training mode has a recording feature that allows the player to record(duh) a brief sequence of moves that the training dummy will then play back. Unlike most modern fighting games MvC3s recording function is very well hidden in the menu and button configuration options making it probably the most clunkily implemented recording function I've ever seen. It also doesn't allow for a long enough recording time. That's really the big one. It would also be nice to be able to pick whether you wanted to start on the player 1 or player 2 side. I also fail to see the need for the taunt button to function in training mode (except for Deadpool, the one character whose taunt is also an attack) as it makes it so that you have to have the reset function mapped to two buttons. On a more serious note the game could use a major overhaul to the controls/restrictions that one is able to place on the computer when you hand it control over the training dummy as currently the computer badly fails to replicate the way an actual human plays the game. Ummm, I think that's it for training mode.

Now! Onward to what I would only jokingly refer to (even though that's what it calls itself) as 'Challenge Mode'. The idea behind the 'Challenge Mode' is a noble one. Familiarize players with the character's move-sets, brief them on the game mechanics and then maybe hold their hand through a few basic combos. It's just unfortunate that it fails pretty badly at all of these aspects. Overall the game has 38 characters with 10 challenges apiece or 380 total challenges. Now out of that number we're going to eliminate on average 5 per character as the early “challenges” are just single moves or simple move canceling exercises. This will leaves us with 190 challenges that supposedly convey some benefit to the player. They sort of do. A friend of mine and I counted and between all the challenges for all the characters there are maybe 7 practical, can be used in competition combos. That's pretty bad. Pretty much every other fighting game I've played that had something approximating a 'Challenge Mode' managed to include, and this is my low end estimate, 3 useful combos per character. Now, I'm not advocating that a should game hold the players hand and spoon-feed them techniques but if you're already set on trying to go down that road then at least spoon-feed the players something of use.  

Disclaimer: I no longer play these teams.

Pictured: This is what saving time looks like children.

At last. Something useful. Something correctly implemented. Something that actually saves the player time. The character presets. Yes, MvC3 allows you from your otherwise worthless player profile to preset up to three different teams in order to save you time later at the actual character select screen. Why is this useful? Well, for those who don't know (and shame on you), MvC3 is a team based game (probably should have mentioned this earlier) in which both players pick 3 characters from a roster of 38. Then for each character they pick they also pick that character's assist, i.e. a move that they can be summoned, when not on the screen, to do. So that's 6 total selections per player to make. Having something in place to stream line that, especially as these presets are implemented, is a welcome design decision. That's it. That's the one non-gameplay design choice that MvC3 gets 100% right. It's not a particularly sexy design but it's certainly saved me and countless other players a boatload of time. See you all next week.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Easy Inputs

Hello and welcome back to another (hopefully) rousing discussion regarding 'Marvel vs. Capcom 3'. This time we're going to be looking at one of the more technical issues afflicting the game itself. In this case the actual game engine. This is something that is going to involve mostly guesswork drawn from examples as my own experience in dealing with this is mostly along the lines of the 'Goddammit, that wasn't the move I wanted!!!' area of the discussion. Additionally I am aware that in order for some things to work (buffering, canceling, etc.) there needs to be a certain degree of input leniency within the game engine. That said, I really doubt it's as much leniency as MvC3 currently employs.

Pictured: Your guess is as good as mine as to what happened here.

Ok, so ummmm, you know what? I have no idea what happened here. As an aside for those that don't follow/play MvC3 the character glowing purple in the above image (Wolverine) is doing so because of a move that supposedly requires . If you can find two consecutive downward inputs in that sequence then you may want to check into an asylum because you're probably hallucinating. No, what we've got there are a lot of down-ish button presses (down-forward or down-back) and apparently enough of those strung together will make the game think that you know what you're doing and activate the purple glowing aura. A more frustrating sequence for which I unfortunately don't have a screen capture would be the following:

Press down twice, forward, quarter circle forward and then another quarter circle forward. Well that seems simple enough. The issue is that the first character in that sequence (She-Hulk) has a move bound to such that if you do the first quarter circle forward a hair too quickly the game thinks that it should include the previously entered forward input and thus your consecutive direction inputs get read as forward, down then down-forward, i.e. wrong. That's OK though because we can always use another super meter to cancel into one of our teammates specials. In that example the teammate was again Wolverine who also has a special bound to so we'll use that. Except in this case I got his .  Why? I have no idea. So to recap I input:

And I got:

Now before you say that this wouldn't happen if I wasn't mashing out the moves you'd only be right if it was just the first move that screwed up. However that isn't the case as both moves came out wrong and thus the majority of the blame should be placed on the game engine. You may also notice that as far as the game is concerned that one of our directional inputs has vanished into the aether. This is a problem. As I said at the beginning I am aware that some degree of leniency is needed but the game can't need this much to truly function. When two moves consecutively come out wrong and an input is eaten we've going from 'easy inputs' to something else. That something else usually being a string of expletives. I wish there was an easy solution to this issue. But there really isn't. Do you create a game engine where if an input is 'used' such it can't effect future move inputs? Well then you've just created a game engine that (probably) doesn't allow for buffering moves. What about some sort of smart engine where the game sort of tries to read what the player intended? Even if that previous sentence made sense the idea it's describing just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Some day some clever clog with come up with something that makes us all go “Oh, so that's how you do that.” That will be a day to remember. See you next week with hopefully a less frustrating topic.

P.S.  Sorry that the formatting this week is kind of a mess.