Gameplay speed

Yes, we all need to do a better job at multitasking to make our lives more efficient and productive. However, that's not the multitasking to which I am referring.

I am referring to the number of tasks a player can do at once while playing a game. On a related note, how many actions can a player do per second, averaged over time. It's an often overlooked aspect of game design. Multitasking and action management are one of my major frustrations while playing multiplayer games.

I will use two games as an example of how poor game design affects the aspect of action management in a game.

World of Warcraft
This is most easily seen in the aspect of player vs. player gameplay. In PvP combat, whether in battlegrounds (a PvP match involving groups of 10 players or more battling against each other) or arena play (2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3, or 5 vs. 5 combat where players only have a single life and cannot respawn), players win by most effectively using their gear, racial, and class talents/abilities to their advantage.

A game designer can effectively balance players with equivalent, but different gear by making their gear scale in a balanced manner. The WoW game designers attempt to balance racial skills around timing (how long does a racial ability last for and how long is it on cooldown or rather how long until the player can use the racial ability again). Many players are advocating the elimination of racial abilities from PvP play due to their inherent inbalance. Certain racial abilities are seen as more advantageous for PvP play since they allow for more first strikes and earlier crowd control (Human Perception) or because they can counter crowd control (Gnome Escape Artist, Undead Will of the Forsaken, or Dwarf Stoneform).

Class talents and abilities are, by far, the most difficult problem to tackle. Class talents define gameplay. Gear changes; talents (for the most part) do not. In order to balance class talents, major overhauls need to be done for a class in order to balance that class with all of the other classes in the game. WoW talents and abilities show as most unbalanced when it comes to gameplay action management.

If one class can manage two things at once, while another class can only manage one thing at a time, the multitasking class has a significant advantage. If one class can manage 1 action per second, while another class can manage 0.33 actions per second, the class that can manage more actions per second has a significant advantage. The only way to balance this situation is to do the following:
a) Overhaul the class, adding multitasking talents.
b) Overhaul the class, nerfing multitasking talents.

Now, it's important to use the term 'overhaul' here. The required changes may affect only one talent or ability, or it may affect many abilities. The reason the change is an overhaul is because it would require core gameplay changes to the class.

In WoW, every class can multitask to a degree. For this analysis, I will only look at the core PvP specs for each class. Mages, for example, can multitask via slowing their opponent via a frost attack (which lasts a number of seconds after the initial hit) and continue to output damage or switch to crowd control while that target is slowed. A mage can also output damage or crowd control while their pet, a water elemental, does damage without active management from the mage player.

1. The player tells his or her water elemental pet to attack this target and the pet begins attacking.
2. The player begins to output damage or crowd control on their own while the pet continues attacking (multitasking).

The problem is that each class has various degrees of uptime when it comes to multitasking and actions per second. This is where the major imbalance occurs in the game.

Druids - Can lay down heal over time effects (HoTs) and continue to do additional heals or crowd control while that is occurring.
Warlocks - Can lay down damage over time effects (DoTs) and continue to do additional damage or crowd control while that is occurring.
Priests - Can lay down heal over time or damage effects (HoTs or Prayer of Mending) and continue to do additional heals, crowd control, or mana burns while that is occurring.
Rogues - Opening stealth attack with instant attacks.
Warriors - Undispellable snares with instant attacks.

Rogues and warriors are an interesting case to observe. Barring stealth prevention or detection (which is amazingly useful but not omnipresent for all classes or arena makeups), rogues have a guaranteed opening attack or crowd control. They have an immediate advantage in terms of action management. Both rogues and warriors also can manage instant attacks, which is not common amongst the damage dealing classes in PvP play. They can attack more often, which gives them more gameplay flexibility. The only other class with a major amount of instant attacks is the Warlock, who deals instant damage of time abilities.

Classes that do not have high action management or high uptime multitasking abilities tend to either be much more difficult to play or underpowered. These classes are either under-represented in PvP arena play (the most seriously analyzed form of WoW PvP) or rely on high action management classes to cover for their weaknesses, thus forming a PvP metagame of managing class composition to strengthen ones arena team or countering other popular team compositions.

Some players claim the game is balanced via metagame, but this is a poor argument. The metagame can change based on Blizzard (the gaming company who develops WoW) releasing a patch which only changes one ability. Since gear changes frequently, the only solution to this game imbalance is to overhaul class abilities and talents.

Since WoW has been imbalanced so long, why hasn't this been done yet? I think for two reasons:
1. Overhauling the gameplay of a class is a monstrously difficult task. Despite the fact that many talented professionals work at Blizzard, it also implies culpability of game designers. People are, in fact, only human.
2. WoW has no competition. If WoW has no strong competition, Blizzard has no strong need to work heavily on game balance. If a player dislikes how a class plays, they can choose to create a new character that more matches up with their gameplay likes (whether it's for fun, competition, or balance concerns).

Team Fortress 2
The problem of action management is also found in Team Fortress 2 (TF2). One of the great aspects of first-person shooter game design history is that everyone starts out equal (this has changed with some popular games, but the core FPS game design examples agree with this game design philosophy [Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike]). All players spawn as the same type of player. They all have the capability to act and move at the same speed and manage actions at the same rate. The major difference between players is observed based on what weapons they are utilizing and the experience of the player. WoW should be striving towards this where the only balance considerations to make during a play session would be how much gear does a player have and how much experience does a player have.

Team Fortress 2 fails on this front a bit. TF2 has the same problem as WoW in that there are multiple classes with different abilities, thereby making game balance an uphill battle. However, there are core action management differences which show game design failure.

The two classes which strike me as the most imbalanced are the pyro and demoman. The pyro can damage or reposition while fire damage of time effects are occurring. The demoman can fire and forget grenades while firing or repositioning. These two classes have the ability for increased action management in comparison to other classes.

It is fun to see people die in fire. It is fun to also blow people up with a grenade trap. The problem is that it's not as fun to be on the receiving end. I grant that it is usually more fun to be on the winning side of things. Game balance is something to be strived for, not because it is more technically adept to do so, but because it provides a more equal platform for players to get what they want most out of a game, whether it's respawning after a death or tallying another frag -- a fair chance at having fun.