A Huge Rant Against Progression/Unlock Systems

[Arnoxthe1]

Note that this rant is discluding single-player focused games like Elder Scrolls and Half-Life.

I have now ran into three otherwise great MP games in my Steam library that have a forced multiplayer progression/unlock system. I can't tell you just how pissed I'm getting. For example, I bought CoD: Black Ops for the PC. Install it, launch right into an offline multiplayer game, and then find out... Not only are custom classes and killstreaks completely blocked off but even when you DO get access to custom classes, the weapons ALL need to be purchased. Seperately.

Fuck... THAT. I was so angry when I found out there was no way at all around it that I refunded the game immediately despite the rock-solid single-player campaign, Nazi Zombies, and Dead Ops Arcade. This is made even more infuriating by the fact that in the console versions of both Black Ops AND Black Ops 2, starting an offline game will give you access to ALL the equipment, weapons, and killstreaks. Just... Why???

So, after I promptly uninstalled the game, I decided to give Chivalry: Medieval Warfare a try. Safe from progression systems. Back when a developer understood the pointlessness of... Why am I running around in FFA with no weapons? *looks online* Ohhhhhh...

So why do I hate progression/unlock systems in MP games? Well... Technically I don't. When they're not forced on me. But they usually are. See, in an MP game, it's VERY important to have everyone on the same level as you. And restricting new player's options right out of the gate is downright fucking annoying, insulting, and also conveys a lack of faith in your own game. That you don't think people will want to play it without some arbitrary progression treadmill. And even further, when a customer buys your product and plays it, they have no access over the content that they bought. Does that sound fair? Imagine if Unreal Tournament '99 was released today and you could only use the Enforcer, Impact Hammer, and the Bio-rifle to start. That's it. Does that sound fun? Does that sound fair? Imagine you're first playing Team Fortress 2 and you can only use the Scout. That's it. That sound fun? And what about everybody else? Are they going to enjoy the massive amount of Scouts always around because new people always have to start as one? How about Halo. You can't access Custom Games options or Theater until you've shot 200 people. That sounds real great, right guys?

This kind of behavior also encourages even more cheating than usual as players get frustrated by the arbitrary requirements they have to meet to get something they want and instead turn to illegitimate methods to get them. Sometimes they'll get banned for this which just adds so much more fuel to this little shitstorm as you antagonize the people who just want to enjoy the content they paid for.

TL;DR - If you're a developer/publisher and you're making a multiplayer focused game or a major multiplayer and you're going to put in a forced progression treadmill...

At LEAST making it optional. I can understand that some people actually like the progression, but for everybody else, DO NOT MAKE THEM DO WHAT THEY DON'T WANT TO DO.

When players are picking from a pool of options, they are much happier with the decisions they make when provided all of the options simultaneously instead of sequentially.

 

[Recusant]

Enough people want Skinner boxes to make these companies money. There's no real reason for them not to do it; those who don't want them avoid it (after the first time, at least), and the complaints of a few hundred people can scarcely be heard over the avalanche of money coming in. One of the downsides of the unprecedented explosion in the game-playing population in the past two decades has been the release of a torrent of the sort of manipulative crap that even Acclaim would refuse to release, but it has an audience today.

Ultimately, people vote with their wallets, whether deliberately or not. All you can do is stay informed. Read up on a game before you buy it, and if a company does this and you find it so objectionable that you won't buy a game because of it, tell the company. Telling us won't do any good.

 

[Saelune]

I dont mind them, cause honestly, I like unlocking things. I think a big problem though is combining them. Having a level limit AND a cost is annoying, something Call of Duty has been doing lately, where you need to be x level AND spend an unlock token.

Though I need to ask...how could you make it optional? Cause wouldnt that be like "Its free, but pay me anyways if you want" Seems it would have to either be there or not be there.

 

[sanquin]

This is why I like Planetside 2's progression system. Sure, some weapons are definitely stronger, if only by a little. But all classes and vehicles are unlocked, and almost everything that you have to unlock is a side grade or nice bonuses.

I don't mind the progression system for ME:A either, though it is annoying for the reasons you stated. You get a nice selection of classes, and the locked classes basically just have different skill sets. The weapon unlocks are annoying though, since you start off with rather weak and very basic weapons at first. And it takes ages to get the good stuff.

So in short, in my opinion, the best progression systems are the ones where you have plenty of choice to start with, but can unlock small upgrades, nice extra's or side-grades.

Overall I agree though. I never understood why games like CoD went with a progression system. All it does is create a time sink to get to the stuff you pretty much need to be competitive. Then again, I guess that's why they added it. To keep people playing for longer by putting the stuff they really want behind a breadcrumb trail of slow progression. (As you said, no confidence in their game's longevity.)

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Though I need to ask...how could you make it optional? Cause wouldnt that be like "Its free, but pay me anyways if you want" Seems it would have to either be there or not be there.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

There would be two choices that the player makes when they start the MP portion of the game for the first time. The first choice is the usual progression/unlock system, where most of the weapons and/or abilities and/or whatever are locked and need to be unlocked with play.

The second simply unlocks all available abilities and/or weapons and/or equipment for the player to use immediately and permanently. Or at least until the player decides they wish to go down the unlock path instead. Switching paths can be done anytime outside of a match. If a player is on the unlocking path and they decide they want all the weapons now for whatever reason, they can switch as well. Their progress in the unlock path will also be saved and they can choose to remove their unlock progress if they so desire.

Actual rank would be kept totally separate from unlocks.

 

[Saelune]

Though I need to ask...how could you make it optional? Cause wouldnt that be like "Its free, but pay me anyways if you want" Seems it would have to either be there or not be there.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

There would be two choices that the player makes when they start the MP portion of the game for the first time. The first choice is the usual progression/unlock system, where most of the weapons and/or abilities and/or whatever are locked and need to be unlocked with play.

The second simply unlocks all available abilities and/or weapons and/or equipment for the player to use immediately and permanently. Or at least until the player decides they wish to go down the unlock path instead. Switching paths can be done anytime outside of a match. If a player is on the unlocking path and they decide they want all the weapons now for whatever reason, they can switch as well. Their progress in the unlock path will also be saved and they can choose to remove their unlock progress if they so desire.

Actual rank would be kept totally separate from unlocks.

...but...what purpose does having the locked path be? There would have to be some purpose, some benefit, otherwise you're limiting yourself in...a weird way. If you just want to not use a gun or something, it would just be easier to...not use it.

Like, it would be like ordering a hot meal and telling the waiter to wait to give it to you because you want it to cool off first. You -could- just have it at your table and wait for it to cool yourself. Why put it on someone else to decide for you?

There is no benefit to having optional progression. Either the game doesnt have it and everyone has access to everything, or it does to limit people for one reason or another.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

...but...what purpose does having the locked path be? There would have to be some purpose, some benefit, otherwise you're limiting yourself in...a weird way. If you just want to not use a gun or something, it would just be easier to...not use it.

Like, it would be like ordering a hot meal and telling the waiter to wait to give it to you because you want it to cool off first. You -could- just have it at your table and wait for it to cool yourself. Why put it on someone else to decide for you?

I think you're now saying what I was going on about in the OP. lol

Although now I'm confused. If you don't understand what the point of going through an unlock system is, why do you like it when it's forced on you?

 

[Saelune]

...but...what purpose does having the locked path be? There would have to be some purpose, some benefit, otherwise you're limiting yourself in...a weird way. If you just want to not use a gun or something, it would just be easier to...not use it.

Like, it would be like ordering a hot meal and telling the waiter to wait to give it to you because you want it to cool off first. You -could- just have it at your table and wait for it to cool yourself. Why put it on someone else to decide for you?

I think you're now saying what I was going on about in the OP. lol

Although now I'm confused. If you don't understand what the point of going through an unlock system is, why do you like it when it's forced on you?

Its different when -everyone- goes through it though. If people can just opt-out, then not everyone is going through it. If you cannot use X Gun until you reach level Y, then I know anyone under level Y doesnt have that gun...unless they can just opt-out.

 

[KraQ]

I'm not a fan of progression systems and I don't really play many games designed around them, but...

I think you're making the false assumption that all multiplayer games are required to serve the same function or audience. Not all games are designed to be overly concerned with competition. Call of Duty's entire design since Modern Warfare has been to optimize the experience of Casual players. I'm not trying to use "Casual" in the pejorative sense, but in the sense that the target player for Call of Duty is someone that plays for fifteen minutes to an hour, and maybe plays an extended session of a couple of hours on a weekend. If the designers have any interest in retaining players, they can't solely rely on the satisfaction of personal improvement as a means of keeping people playing, since casual players aren't going to be putting in both the time and effort necessary to achieve any real improvement. So what do they do? They offer explicit progression as a way of giving more casual players something to look forward to.

As for making it optional, Human psychology doesn't work that way. The sorts of casual players the progression systems are designed primarily for are going to choose the shiniest, flashiest gun they can get their hands on, use it for five minutes, and then get bored because they don't have any sense of having earned it.

What's more, the argument of "If I purchased a game, I should have access to all the content" isn't necessarily always true. For example, I don't think Dark Souls would be suddenly better if it let you skip bosses simply because it might be barring people who purchased the game from seeing a majority of the content. Quite the opposite, part of the appeal of fromsoftware's recent ARPG titles is the sense that every bit of content the player sees is earned. I'm specifically mentioning Dark Souls despite your disclaimer that you weren't directing your ire at single player focused games because it has a direct effect on people's ability to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of Dark Souls. You can't just hop into dark souls and start hacking away at other players. Most PvP takes place at level 100 and higher, which is about where players will be when they've gotten to the end of the game. What's more, if you want to try out another build, you have to (more or less) play through the entire game again to create a character with appropriate stats.

I also don't think that the analogy of being only able to use three guns in Unreal Tournament is a good one. Call of Duty 4 gave a fairly nice selection of default classes, some of which had abilities that wouldn't be unlocked till late in the progression system. Only being able to use three weapons in unreal tournament would noticeably cripple players far more than anything I can remember call of duty doing. A better example would be forcing players to play a certain number of times on one map before being able to play on others. It would personally annoy me, but I can at least conceive of legitimate reasons that such a design decision would be made.

Of course, that's all assuming that every choice is the result of careful design. What might be possibly upsetting to you isn't necessarily the "progression systems," but the poor implementation of them. For example, the "shoot 200 people to access features of the game" isn't necessarily annoying because of the delay'd access to the feature, but because the number of people is arbitrarily high past the point of confirming that the player understands a given concept. It's annoying because it's essentially a timer. Killing the 180th player requires no more skill than killing the 156th player.

I don't think it's a fundamentally different issue from whether or not players have access to an FOV slider or not, or if they should be able to change certain graphical options. There are many games that have no excuse for not providing the option. MW2 was actually pretty notorious for having an atrociously low forced FOV on PC, and then banning people that circumvented the restriction without any warning after the game had been out for a few weeks, which I'd be pretty hard pressed to believe is a design decision. On the other hand, I can entirely understand why (though don't agree with) a game like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive forceing the FOV to 90 degrees (21:9 and 4:3 aside).

tl;dr Progression systems aren't fundamentally bad, it's the implementation that matters.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Its different when -everyone- goes through it though. If people can just opt-out, then not everyone is going through it. If you cannot use X Gun until you reach level Y, then I know anyone under level Y doesnt have that gun...unless they can just opt-out.

Why does it matter which gun they have though? (besides the obvious tactical reasons)

I'm not a fan of progression systems and I don't really play many games designed around them, but...

I think you're making the false assumption that all multiplayer games are required to serve the same function or audience. Not all games are designed to be overly concerned with competition. Call of Duty's entire design since Modern Warfare has been to optimize the experience of Casual players. I'm not trying to use "Casual" in the pejorative sense, but in the sense that the target player for Call of Duty is someone that plays for fifteen minutes to an hour, and maybe plays an extended session of a couple of hours on a weekend. If the designers have any interest in retaining players, they can't solely rely on the satisfaction of personal improvement as a means of keeping people playing, since casual players aren't going to be putting in both the time and effort necessary to achieve any real improvement. So what do they do? They offer explicit progression as a way of giving more casual players something to look forward to.

As for making it optional, Human psychology doesn't work that way. The sorts of casual players the progression systems are designed primarily for are going to choose the shiniest, flashiest gun they can get their hands on, use it for five minutes, and then get bored because they don't have any sense of having earned it.

What's more, the argument of "If I purchased a game, I should have access to all the content" isn't necessarily always true. For example, I don't think Dark Souls would be suddenly better if it let you skip bosses simply because it might be barring people who purchased the game from seeing a majority of the content. Quite the opposite, part of the appeal of fromsoftware's recent ARPG titles is the sense that every bit of content the player sees is earned. I'm specifically mentioning Dark Souls despite your disclaimer that you weren't directing your ire at single player focused games because it has a direct effect on people's ability to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of Dark Souls. You can't just hop into dark souls and start hacking away at other players. Most PvP takes place at level 100 and higher, which is about where players will be when they've gotten to the end of the game. What's more, if you want to try out another build, you have to (more or less) play through the entire game again to create a character with appropriate stats.

I also don't think that the analogy of being only able to use three guns in Unreal Tournament is a good one. Call of Duty 4 gave a fairly nice selection of default classes, some of which had abilities that wouldn't be unlocked till late in the progression system. Only being able to use three weapons in unreal tournament would noticeably cripple players far more than anything I can remember call of duty doing. A better example would be forcing players to play a certain number of times on one map before being able to play on others. It would personally annoy me, but I can at least conceive of legitimate reasons that such a design decision would be made.

Of course, that's all assuming that every choice is the result of careful design. What might be possibly upsetting to you isn't necessarily the "progression systems," but the poor implementation of them. For example, the "shoot 200 people to access features of the game" isn't necessarily annoying because of the delay'd access to the feature, but because the number of people is arbitrarily high past the point of confirming that the player understands a given concept. It's annoying because it's essentially a timer. Killing the 180th player requires no more skill than killing the 156th player.

I don't think it's a fundamentally different issue from whether or not players have access to an FOV slider or not, or if they should be able to change certain graphical options. There are many games that have no excuse for not providing the option. MW2 was actually pretty notorious for having an atrociously low forced FOV on PC, and then banning people that circumvented the restriction without any warning after the game had been out for a few weeks, which I'd be pretty hard pressed to believe is a design decision. On the other hand, I can entirely understand why (though don't agree with) a game like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive forceing the FOV to 90 degrees (21:9 and 4:3 aside).

tl;dr Progression systems aren't fundamentally bad, it's the implementation that matters.

There's a lot of points here I need to make so I'm really gonna have to break this down.

1. I have no illusions that my tastes and general skill are not the exact same for everyone else. Notice that I said that I hate being forced into progression systems. It's not simply that I don't like them.

2. Look, I understand that we're dealing with casual players when it comes to CoD, but the thing is, I think you're grossly underestimating people's intelligence in general. Look at Minecraft. It has both a "Survival" mode and a "Creative" mode. By your logic, these should clash for the casual players, but Minecraft is one of, if not THE top selling indie game of all time and has become as iconic as CoD now. Players will explore the game IF THEY HAVE INCENTIVE to do so. If the game is fun, if the content can hold their attention (and CoD absolutely IS fun and is great at holding attention just by itself) they will put in the time to play it. To master it. Or at least to screw around with it a little.

3. Well sure, DS has those mechanics, but I would argue that DS multiplayer is successful DESPITE such clunky mechanics. Single player games are all or at least mostly about the journey. Competitive multiplayer by contrast is about the end goal. The winning. The out-smarting. The crushing. When you have to fill up some random bar just to get access to the tools you need to further that goal, it's annoying. That's why progression in SP games is forgiven. Because it's a large part of the pleasurable experience. Because it's the journey that we want, To build and to slowly see your works come to fruition. But even in SP games, more options is always good.

4. Black Ops and Modern Warfare restrict you to three default classes out of the gate. You can't choose anything else. But honestly, even if there was more, I'd still be super put off because, well, see the OP.

5. If I had to shoot just five people, I'd still be annoyed. I'm not a baby. I can figure out menu options for myself. I can figure out how to move a camera with a controller. I could figure it out when I was 10 and I can figure it out now. And if the options really need more explaining, then simply give it! There is zero reason to forcibly guide all players through the same strict path of progression as if everyone is mentally challenged.

Progression systems aren't fundamentally bad, but it's being forced into them that's awful.

 

[Saelune]

Its different when -everyone- goes through it though. If people can just opt-out, then not everyone is going through it. If you cannot use X Gun until you reach level Y, then I know anyone under level Y doesnt have that gun...unless they can just opt-out.

Why does it matter which gun they have though? (besides the obvious tactical reasons)

...The obvious tactical reason. Cause its a game, where the guns are not all the same gun... o. o;;

My point is your "best of both sides" solution just doesnt work. If you dont like progression systems, thats fine and understandable, but I dont think there is any happy middle-ground here beyond either no progression system, or implementing a more balanced/fair one.

 

[sanquin]

Its different when -everyone- goes through it though. If people can just opt-out, then not everyone is going through it. If you cannot use X Gun until you reach level Y, then I know anyone under level Y doesnt have that gun...unless they can just opt-out.

Why does it matter which gun they have though? (besides the obvious tactical reasons)

...The obvious tactical reason. Cause its a game, where the guns are not all the same gun... o. o;;

My point is your "best of both sides" solution just doesnt work. If you dont like progression systems, thats fine and understandable, but I dont think there is any happy middle-ground here beyond either no progression system, or implementing a more balanced/fair one.

I think a bit more explanation is needed. When you pit people with all the unlocks against people that use the progression system, the ones using the progression system are at a clear disadvantage. Even in such games as Planetside 2 where pretty much all guns are side-grades you'll find you do better with some guns versus others. And immediately having the guns you're good with available makes you play better than the ones that still need to unlock those.

Saelune's point is that progression systems only work when everyone has to use them. Otherwise they lose any meaning they have.

My solution, make two different lobby pools. One where everything is unlocked and one where you have to unlock things.

 

[Squilookle]

This is one of the key reasons I still prefer Bf 1942 to any other Battlefield. It wasn't afraid of longevity. It proudly let you have everything right out of the gate and voila- 15 years later people still play it. UT99 is older still and people still play that too.

I've got about 25 unopened battlepacks in BF1 because they're utterly pointless. Complete waste of development time to even have them in the game. If something loses meaning unless everyone is forced to use it... perhaps it's not such a good thing to have eh?

Hell if I made a game I'd give players the option to level or not. Those that really want it can play that way, whereas everyone else gets everything at once with an occasional note saying 'if you were leveling, you'd only be unlocking the [insert weapon] now! What a treat!'

 

[gsilver]

I lose interest fast when people have blatantly better equipment than I do, just because they have more hours to sink into the game.
Probably the reason why I mostly avoid multiplayer games.

 

[CaitSeith]

Wait, is there an example of unlock systems that aren't forced on the player? Or are you referring to locked content that you aren't interested in, so you don't mind it being locked?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I think a bit more explanation is needed. When you pit people with all the unlocks against people that use the progression system, the ones using the progression system are at a clear disadvantage.

But this already happens. People who have done the work to unlock everything vs. the people who haven't. It happens a lot.

 

[KraQ]

1. I have no illusions that my tastes and general skill are not the exact same for everyone else. Notice that I said that I hate being forced into progression systems. It's not simply that I don't like them.

If a game has a progression system, you're going to be forced to use it in most conceivable situations, so it's going to come down to whether or not you think that progression systems as a whole have a right to exist. I can empathize with your complaint that the instance of offline black ops multiplayer doesn't let you play with everything immediately (especially if it's only a problem specific to the PC version). Obviously, hosting a LAN with Black Ops is going to be severely hampered by this (as well as by many other things). I would regard this as a failure, but one of laziness and not design.

I remember one of my biggest complaints regarding the first Titanfall was that the game didn't let you play the game in any sort of offline capacity, not because I wanted to play offline in a LAN setting, but because I wanted the option of launching specific maps in order to test certain routes around the map. This is also example of another frustrating restriction of content, but notice how it's completely unrelated to the existence of the progression system. Another problem was unlocking titan chassis, where the player was forced to play through the campaign on both sides in order to unlock two different. You might think that this frustration is related to the progression system, but if it had been like a weapon where it's unlocked at a certain level, it wouldn't have been that much of an issue. What was frustrating about it was that the "campaign" was a series of multiplayer games that would restart or change to a different level if not enough players were present, or would force you to another side if teams were unbalanced. In effect, it put you into a situation where progress could be interrupted at random due to circumstances outside of the player's control. Both of these complaints are illustrations of the idea that while progression systems can be related to annoying restrictions on content, they're not fundamental to them.

As such, I'd argue that you need to refocus your frustrations on the poorly conceived restrictions themselves, and not necessarily on the progression systems.

Spoiler: I had more to say, but I thought I'd spoiler it because I think it seems accidental to the main point I was trying to get across

2. Look, I understand that we're dealing with casual players when it comes to CoD, but the thing is, I think you're grossly underestimating people's intelligence in general. Look at Minecraft. It has both a "Survival" mode and a "Creative" mode. By your logic, these should clash for the casual players, but Minecraft is one of, if not THE top selling indie game of all time and has become as iconic as CoD now. Players will explore the game IF THEY HAVE INCENTIVE to do so. If the game is fun, if the content can hold their attention (and CoD absolutely IS fun and is great at holding attention just by itself) they will put in the time to play it. To master it. Or at least to screw around with it a little.

I'd argue that Minecraft has a fundamentally different appeal when compared with CoD. Both Minecraft and CoD have a large playerbase of Casual players, but Call of Duty is explicitly designed with casual players in mind where as Minecraft simply lacks aspects that repel casual players. Is either design better? I think that's like asking whether or not Monopoly has a better design than a box of Legos.

3. Well sure, DS has those mechanics, but I would argue that DS multiplayer is successful DESPITE such clunky mechanics. Single player games are all or at least mostly about the journey. Competitive multiplayer by contrast is about the end goal. The winning. The out-smarting. The crushing. When you have to fill up some random bar just to get access to the tools you need to further that goal, it's annoying.

I'd certainly be interested in a multiplayer oriented game that has mechanics similar or identical to Dark Souls, but with equipment being chosen rather than acquired through play past the entire campaign. I'll confess that while I've played through Ds 1, 2, and Bloodborne, but I haven't really touched the multiplayer that much simply because the act of playing through the game (with a specific set of actions) just to try out a certain build that I may or may not like sounds like a massive time investment that I'd rather put into an equal amount of street fighter, especially when the character builds I tend to use to get through the game are generally unoptimized for PvP. Similarly, I've never played WoW, but what I've been told by friends that are/were into it, it's incredibly deep at a high level, but you can't really even touch that level until you've played through most of the basic content. Again, it sounds like an immense barrier to entry.

However, I don't wish for the barrier of entry to go away because I want to try out what all the cool kids are doing. From what I understand, part of the fundamental appear to multiplayer in Dark souls is that even the ability to use certain items is a mark of what the player has accomplished up to that point, a badge of pride. Dark Souls 2 doesn't even let you use one of the highest DPS weapons in the game unless you can beat one of the hardest bosses in the game. I like that it exists, even if I'm not part of it.

5. If I had to shoot just five people, I'd still be annoyed. I'm not a baby. I can figure out menu options for myself. I can figure out how to move a camera with a controller. I could figure it out when I was 10 and I can figure it out now. And if the options really need more explaining, then simply give it! There is zero reason to forcibly guide all players through the same strict path of progression as if everyone is mentally challenged.

Personally, I think respecting a player is an optimal decision and I tend to gravitate towards games that don't hold my hand, but I'm also keenly aware that even when I consider myself bad at this or that game, in actuality, I (and you as well) probably occupy a very high percentile of competence when it comes to being able to comprehend video games. This might shock you, but most people are bad with computers. Like, really bad. [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/] I don't have numbers, but I'm speculating that the numbers probably carry over to some degree.