First, it's a question beyond The Finals, but I'll use it as an example as the comment originated from its subreddit. The Finals is a first person PvP arena shooter, where players create their own loadouts from an assortment of weapons and abilities, which to eliminate other players and capture objectives. The game emphasizes its unique set of weapons and abilities, destruction mechanics, and objectives, which make it stand out distinctly compared to other PvP shooters of the same genre.
From my own knowledge of games:
- The first video games (and likely traditional games) were player vs player, with the objective to bear the other player by some metric- inherently competitive.
- The casual nature of games comes from the want to enjoy playing games, whereas competitive as is seen today (or rather, ranked play) is moreso to prove oneself over others.
- Video game competitions arose before online multiplayer games. No doubt there were competitions of for example speedruning sonic or pacman or even pong, or early racing games.
- Quake (Id) was likely the first fps with what could be considered by today's standards, ranked PvP. While the original game lacks matchmaking or leaderboards like today, its skill level and strategy involved with the variety of weapons and maps, provides a challenge to players who want to master the content of the game. Beyond its singleplayer speed running, showing mastery of the game can come in the form of winning in PvP.
- ELO was one of the first ranking systems, developed initially for chess. Later algorithms came to form, up to trueskill which is what Microsoft uses for Halo games, and more recently there's been research in machine learning and multi attribute based algorithms which no longet factor in a single skill level (in fact I've made an algorithm I'm hoping to turn into a paper just for matchmaking). Ranking/matchmaking algorithms determine fair and balanced matchups.
- Today, any queuing for multiplayer games involves matchmaking. Maybe it's skill based, maybe its first come first serve (FIFO) or maybe its based on latency or something else. Regardless, this dominates new big studio multiplayer games, away from older dedicated server selection of joining games, which is a debate of its own; point is, modern games involve matchmaking.
Maybe we can clarify some differences between casual and ranked gameplay, based on how other games including the finals handles ranked vs other modes:
- Ranked is a separate matchmaking queue, and it's skill based. Players queuing at times where there's fewer players at their relative rank, see longer wait times, and vice versa
- Ranked has some metric of skill- often a number associated with a grouping. How this number is determined initially is dependent on the game, but generally there's 2 approaches: either start everyone off at zero and see who can climb the highest, rewarding rank only if the player makes a net positive gain in a match (see apex legends or in some ways The Finals' world tournament system before the current season), or place players into a rank after a number of matches of unknown rank, and punish for a loss or reward for a win. Both systems have issues and benefits.
- Casual play can have an implied rank- maybe it is a hidden skill level used in matchmaking, or maybe it's the player level. This implied level suggests how well a player is at a game, but is not necessarily an accurate guess (a key point to discuss below)
- Ranked tends to punish players for leaving (regardless of how they left the game), casual doesn't do that except if frequent leaving becomes too disruptive to other players' enjoyment
- There may be a perceived difference in difficulty against other players in ranked vs casual. This may be an actual difference, if the casual mode doesn't matchmake based on skill, resulting in more varied matches; plus, (disclaimer I'm not super knowledgeable in psychology) human psychology may cause you to quickly dismiss clear losing games, while remembering clear wins and close games, I'd guess because your brain would want to remember experiences you enjoy, which you probably enjoy winning or a good challenge, in a competitive scenario. (Though that may not be what everyone finds enjoyable, as such casual players may seek out creative freedoms over competitive objectives)
Now, a big question, which in a nutshell is the basis of my personal statement for my PhD apps: what aspects of a multiplayer game, actually make the game enjoyed or preferred by players?
In a game with ranked and casual, there's players playing casually, and players playing competitively; now generally the casual players would seek casual modes and vice versa, though that's not always the case (such as a trolling player queuing in ranked, or a competitive player looking for practice in casual). I believe that when a player enters a queue, they have some intention for the game they're queuing for, whether conscious or subconscious (when you just start playing but don't really know why).
Both ranked and casual offer the gameplay itself. What differs is the intentions, and the skills between the players. Ranked, as described more or less previously, is intended to have players compete against one another in a contest of skill. But what would casual be for? Not the competition of a contest of skill.
what else would players seek in a PvP multiplayer game?
- Practice, building skill and improving, or learning the game
- Creative freedoms, experimentation, enjoyment/satisfaction
- Social interaction, whether with friends or strangers
- Earning (leveling up, cosmetic rewards, lore discovery, etc.)
- Malicious intent like hacking or aggravating others (which we will dismiss, assuming the devs want to block such behavior against players)
I believe those four points more or less summarize the intention of any casual multiplayer game, PvP or not. It's up to the developers to decide what they want their game to emphasize.
Let's look at The Finals for an example: The Finals has had two ranked systems, world tour (pre-current season) and cash ranked. The Finals actually is fairly unique in that its cash ranked mode is more structured as a mini tournament rather than a single quick cash match, and there's a few rule changes that have been made vs quickplay/quick cash, which appear to help to highlight player skill. For instance, the last match being 3v3 without the 3rd team, can truly demonstrate that one team stands above 11 other teams, assuming though that the matchmaking was balanced (otherwise, it'd be an unfair upset, which is a symptom of some bracket formats, but that's a different discussion).
Now presently, there are many other non ranked modes, and occasional temp modes. I play point break and powershift myself. These two modes feature more players per team than the other modes (minus team death match), and powershift in particular features a very disruptive mechanic with the platform destroying anything in its path.
First, with the additional players there's a social emphasis, but its not just due to the increased team size. Players can interact with each other- revive, ping and respond to pings, emote, wave, place sprays, and use text/voice chat, and seeing or hearing each other. Additionally players can select cosmetics which are seen to other players, which the cosmetics can be unlocked from gameplay. This marks three of the above points: social interaction, creative freedoms (to express oneself), and earning.
As for practice/skill, that's also in it, but to a different extent than the ranked mode. Powershift's skills are significantly different than the cash modes of the game, though with an objective and end goal, still offer something for players to work for and achieve, and if they want, improve at accomplishing the goal. Point break is more comparable to the cash modes, though with three points and a team of 8 players the strategy to capture points differs. Regardless, all the modes provide a reasonable platform for players to practice and improve at using weapons and abilities to destroy buildings and destroy enemy players, which are core design pillars to The Finals.
In that conclusion, The Finals's casual modes seem to do their jobs very well, and intentionally so. But back with ranked, how there's differences between the casual modes and how thats more unique to the finals: can gameplay mechanics conflict with the intention of ranked and casual play?
Reviewing what ranked play is, for players to compete against others in a contest of skill. What defines skill in a game like the finals? More often than not, a number which changes based on a players performance. How does one determine their performance? The Finals knows a players kills, deaths, assists, revives, damage, healing, support score (i.e. damage blocked or miscellaneous points), respawns used, and it can derive further stats like weapon accuracy. With that info, the game can approximate a skill level based on the players performance relative to other players.
But are those stats truly representative of player skill? Or for example could they be representative of how powerful a weapon is, which overpowering weapons would result in inflated stats? That's where the issue lies- the weapon which may be inflating stats, but maybe its really fun to play with or even against in a more casual setting. But Nerf the weapon, and it may no longer be unique or fun in casual, perhaps even be lacking skill in using in a competitive setting. Make the weapon behave differently between ranked and casual, and now players cant practice or learn it in a casual setting, as the skills wouldn't necessarily be applicable to ranked.
Something to note about point break and powershift, regarding inflated stats: they likely would never be considered into ranked mode, because of the extreme nature of the gamemodes. With a destructive, rapidly moving platform, there's simply too much chaos with a platform to reasonably determine a player's skill- were they successful because of their tactics and use with weapons and abilities, or was it luck or dependence on their team to push the platform? Similar with point break- does a high kill count in an 8v8 match indicate they helped the team win, or did they ignore objectives? Generally with ranked modes, players move up in rank only with wins, but if skill is determined by player stats like kills (and where in 8v8 or 5v5 higher kills than in 3v3v3 is possible), what happens if a player has many kills but loses?
It seems then, that when a conflict between ranked and casual arises, making adjustments to satisfy one or the other can conflict with the other mode, and differing the changes can introduce a conflict with the core gameplay.
What's the true solution, where gameplay mechanics can be skillful for ranked, casual to learn, fun to use and experiment, be rewarding for the player to use, and enhance or not disrupt social interactions? I dont know; maybe tast would be what a PhD thesis would answer. What I would argue is that there is evidence presently in many live service games, which show this conflict, as players comment on changes made to the games. Each game may try something different, but any successful game would seek out the best changes that satisfy the playerbase which the devs want. If the devs want to focus on ranked, then it can conflict with casual players, and vice versa.
Does ranked hurt multiplayer games? Changes in favor of ranked can hurt casual gameplay, yes; but it's up to the developers to decide on what's best for the game, and for the players to accept or reject the game. So ranked could hurt a game if the devs implement changes satisfying ranked players but disliked by casual players, and if the devs want to focus ranked more than casual- and it's in this focus, which the competitive or casual culture of a game, evolves from.
As for The Finals, does ranked hurt this game? No- I believe the finals at its core is a casual game- while there is a lot of mechanics with skill worth competing over, there's many more mechanics pertaining to experimentation or social interaction or player progression, which makes The Finals a fun, primarily casual game, in my opinion.
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