Rhythm Games - Part 4: Approachability and Learning Curve
(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA
One of the hardest things about rhythm games is that they are typically intimidating. Most people who see someone play Guitar Hero (who are not typical gamers) seem scared to give the game a shot. Another tough thing to deal with regarding rhythm games is that the difference in difficulty from beginner levels to expert levels is usually staggering. The songs rated 1-star in Dance Dance Revolution, for example, are so far removed from the 10-star Dance Dance Revolution song that it's almost like playing a whole different game. That even further adds to the intimidation factor for casual viewers: when someone good plays in front of someone who has never seen the game before, it looks all the more impossible to learn.
This is one of the biggest obstacles in designing a good rhythm game: how do you make sure your game is approachable? And even if you can get people to play it, can you adjust the learning curve well enough that the average, non-rhythm-games-playing player can pick up the game and become better and better through inherent, casual playing? You don't want to force people to dedicate their whole life to the game in order to learn it. Approachability and learning curve are the two most important aspects of making sure your rhythm game can be a success, aspects that creators unfortunately seem to forget about after time.
Guitar Hero II is approachable, that part is covered. It gets high marks for being intuitive and easily understood. Though it can be intimidating upon first viewing, I can't imagine a soul on the planet that hasn't wished at some point in their life that they knew how to play a guitar. Thus, the draw to actually give Guitar Hero a shot is huge. Though players may not be good at the game at all when they first try it, the concept of what they are supposed to do (hold the appropriate keys down and strum at the right time) is something everyone can pick up almost instantaneously. So, yeah: Guitar Hero II equals intuitive... yes. Check. Now how about learning curve? How are we doing there? Hmmm... Apparently not so good. As it turns out, Guitar Hero II has one of the worst learning curves in rhythm game history, mostly due to two flaws.
The first flaw, shared by its predecessor, is that Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II have two distinct skills to be learned in order to master the hardest songs. The first skill is fingering: learning how to hold chords, learning how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs, and learning how to play guitar solos. The second skill is learning how to play with 3 keys, 4 keys, and finally, with the biggest jump in difficulty, 5 keys. And, sadly, you cannot learn either skill independently of each other.
The problem is that the difficulty levels in Guitar Heros I and II determine the difficulty of both aspects. Hard Mode, in other words, is tough on fingering and on learning how to play with 5 keys. If you want to find a song that you can learn how to effectively use hammer-ons and pull-offs in fast guitar solos without necessarily trying to learn how to play with 5 keys, you won't be able to do so easily. If you want to learn how to adjust to having a 5th key but don't necessarily want to suffer through insane guitar solos or playing a bunch of chords in rapid succession, you won't be able to do that either.
And then there's the second flaw, exclusive to Guitar Hero II alone: they really did not take enough care to make the songs progressive in difficulty. Think back to the first Guitar Hero. On Hard difficulty level, the first two songs you run into are "I Love Rock N' Roll" and "I Wanna Be Sedated." The first song, if I recall correctly, didn't even use the fifth fret. The second song used it only in a key transition, where you shifted your hand down and it stayed there. These were excellent ways to ease you into playing with all 5 keys. In Guitar Hero II, however, the first song on Hard is "Shout at the Devil." But unlike the first game, "Shout at the Devil" turns out to be one of the tougher songs on Hard Mode! In fact, I only had a tougher time passing 2 of the next 19 songs! What happened to easing players into Hard Mode?
The problem is that Guitar Hero II is suffering from "Rhythm Game Sequelitis." They know people loved the first game, they know people got really good at the first game, so they figured that they need to amp up the difficulty so that veteran players will find it worth their time to buy. The problem is that you begin to alienate the novices. No game is a better example of this than Dance Dance Revolution. I've been playing the most recent release, Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova, and songs rated an 8 in difficulty in that game are harder than almost every 9 in the older Dance Dance Revolutiuon games. And quite frankly, as a result, the game just isn't as fun anymore!
Back when I played Dance Dance Revolution obsessively, I managed to get a ton of my friends hooked on the game. And they all got hooked on 3rd Mix. Every time I got new mixes, I tried to get my friends to move onto those, but they continually wanted to stay on 3rd Mix. And I understand why: 3rd Mix is just fun. The hard steps are hard, yes, but in a way that is enjoyable (except for "End of the Century..." grrrrrrr....). Even in DDRMax2 -- not that many iterations ago -- songs like "So Deep" were tough, but in a way that it made sense with the music and in a way that was still very fun. As I play the steps in SuperNova, I realize that most of the steps are just erratic, written specifically for the sole purpose of being hard.
Guitar Hero, as a franchise, is still in its infancy. I do not want to see it fall into the same traps as Dance Dance Revolution. Hopefully, Neversoft (who apparently bought the Guitar Hero name just recently) will avoid this pitfall. I mean, they already have an "Expert" difficulty for veterans. Leave Hard Mode as a way for novices to acclimate themselves to the more advanced aspects of the game.
And, more importantly, take a page from BeatMania IIDX. Beatmania IIDX has two modes: 5 keys and 7 keys. But each mode has their own set of difficulty levels. Do the same thing with Guitar Hero, please. Have an Easy Mode (basic strumming and key reading), Medium Mode (more chords and plenty of simple hammer-ons and pull-offs), and Hard Mode (crazy guitar solos and fast-paced note playing) for 3, 4, and 5 keys. And save the Expert difficulty level only for 5 keys. This allows for players to learn at a more controlled pace, being able to focus their practice on the particular areas they need work on.
Fortunately, Guitar Hero II added two things to really aid in the learning of the game: Training Mode and Cooperative Mode. If you want to learn how to play with 5 frets, but Hard Mode is kicking your ass, do yourself a favor: play only Bass tracks on Hard Mode for a while. Do so in Training Mode or, better yet, find a buddy to play Cooperative Mode with (Cooperative Mode being the best thing about Guitar Hero II).
By the way: none of these problems apply to Elite Beat Agents. The game is about as intuitive as you can get. Only the most uncoordinated people will have a hard time understanding how to play EBA when they first try it out. It's definitely not as approachable as Guitar Hero (at first glance, it doesn't look quite as fun even though it is), and as a result, it has very little chance of becoming a breakout hit like Guitar Hero.
As for the learning curve, this game does a great job of that. Well, again, I believe Elite Beat Agents does a good job of it, if it is similar enough to Ouendan. I've played all the way through Ouendan, but have not gotten far at all in Elite Beat Agents (the gloves will be off in a future post, you can trust me on that one). So in Oeundan, the early songs in each level of difficulty are much simpler than the later songs. And as the difficulty level increases, you never feel a drastic jump in difficulty, making the slow progression from Easy Mode to Insane Mode feel completely natural.
In fact, the only thing that makes Insane Mode harder than Hard Mode is something completely fabricated. It has nothing to do with making the notes harder to tap out. If you observe carefully, each difficulty level has the notes you tap appear later and later. So in Easy Mode, you see the note on screen for a day and a half before you actually need to tap it. Then, suddenly, in Insane Mode, the notes appear a fraction of a second before you need to tap it. It definitely makes the songs a lot harder, but it's still a fabricated difficulty. The parallel in Guitar Hero would be if they decided to scroll the notes down faster and faster with each difficulty level.
But the amount of notes to be played and the more syncopated rhythms that get used do make the harder levels more challenging, but it never subtracts from the fun of the game. I must say that the group that made the game, iNiS, did a fantastic job of making sure the learning curve was perfect. As I progressed through the game, it never felt like the next step was a huge leap over the previous one. And last helped keep me addicted enough to play through Ouendan from start to finish.
Next up: Song Selection
(Note: A few people may be thinking to themselves: how is this a review of Elite Beat Agents when all he does is talk about Ouendan instead? As I hinted at, don't worry, I'll address this topic head-on in a future post. And the fact that I can only talk about Ouendan probably is a good indication of where I stand with Elite Beat Agents currently.)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA
One of the hardest things about rhythm games is that they are typically intimidating. Most people who see someone play Guitar Hero (who are not typical gamers) seem scared to give the game a shot. Another tough thing to deal with regarding rhythm games is that the difference in difficulty from beginner levels to expert levels is usually staggering. The songs rated 1-star in Dance Dance Revolution, for example, are so far removed from the 10-star Dance Dance Revolution song that it's almost like playing a whole different game. That even further adds to the intimidation factor for casual viewers: when someone good plays in front of someone who has never seen the game before, it looks all the more impossible to learn.
This is one of the biggest obstacles in designing a good rhythm game: how do you make sure your game is approachable? And even if you can get people to play it, can you adjust the learning curve well enough that the average, non-rhythm-games-playing player can pick up the game and become better and better through inherent, casual playing? You don't want to force people to dedicate their whole life to the game in order to learn it. Approachability and learning curve are the two most important aspects of making sure your rhythm game can be a success, aspects that creators unfortunately seem to forget about after time.
Guitar Hero II is approachable, that part is covered. It gets high marks for being intuitive and easily understood. Though it can be intimidating upon first viewing, I can't imagine a soul on the planet that hasn't wished at some point in their life that they knew how to play a guitar. Thus, the draw to actually give Guitar Hero a shot is huge. Though players may not be good at the game at all when they first try it, the concept of what they are supposed to do (hold the appropriate keys down and strum at the right time) is something everyone can pick up almost instantaneously. So, yeah: Guitar Hero II equals intuitive... yes. Check. Now how about learning curve? How are we doing there? Hmmm... Apparently not so good. As it turns out, Guitar Hero II has one of the worst learning curves in rhythm game history, mostly due to two flaws.
The first flaw, shared by its predecessor, is that Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II have two distinct skills to be learned in order to master the hardest songs. The first skill is fingering: learning how to hold chords, learning how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs, and learning how to play guitar solos. The second skill is learning how to play with 3 keys, 4 keys, and finally, with the biggest jump in difficulty, 5 keys. And, sadly, you cannot learn either skill independently of each other.
The problem is that the difficulty levels in Guitar Heros I and II determine the difficulty of both aspects. Hard Mode, in other words, is tough on fingering and on learning how to play with 5 keys. If you want to find a song that you can learn how to effectively use hammer-ons and pull-offs in fast guitar solos without necessarily trying to learn how to play with 5 keys, you won't be able to do so easily. If you want to learn how to adjust to having a 5th key but don't necessarily want to suffer through insane guitar solos or playing a bunch of chords in rapid succession, you won't be able to do that either.
And then there's the second flaw, exclusive to Guitar Hero II alone: they really did not take enough care to make the songs progressive in difficulty. Think back to the first Guitar Hero. On Hard difficulty level, the first two songs you run into are "I Love Rock N' Roll" and "I Wanna Be Sedated." The first song, if I recall correctly, didn't even use the fifth fret. The second song used it only in a key transition, where you shifted your hand down and it stayed there. These were excellent ways to ease you into playing with all 5 keys. In Guitar Hero II, however, the first song on Hard is "Shout at the Devil." But unlike the first game, "Shout at the Devil" turns out to be one of the tougher songs on Hard Mode! In fact, I only had a tougher time passing 2 of the next 19 songs! What happened to easing players into Hard Mode?
The problem is that Guitar Hero II is suffering from "Rhythm Game Sequelitis." They know people loved the first game, they know people got really good at the first game, so they figured that they need to amp up the difficulty so that veteran players will find it worth their time to buy. The problem is that you begin to alienate the novices. No game is a better example of this than Dance Dance Revolution. I've been playing the most recent release, Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova, and songs rated an 8 in difficulty in that game are harder than almost every 9 in the older Dance Dance Revolutiuon games. And quite frankly, as a result, the game just isn't as fun anymore!
Back when I played Dance Dance Revolution obsessively, I managed to get a ton of my friends hooked on the game. And they all got hooked on 3rd Mix. Every time I got new mixes, I tried to get my friends to move onto those, but they continually wanted to stay on 3rd Mix. And I understand why: 3rd Mix is just fun. The hard steps are hard, yes, but in a way that is enjoyable (except for "End of the Century..." grrrrrrr....). Even in DDRMax2 -- not that many iterations ago -- songs like "So Deep" were tough, but in a way that it made sense with the music and in a way that was still very fun. As I play the steps in SuperNova, I realize that most of the steps are just erratic, written specifically for the sole purpose of being hard.
Guitar Hero, as a franchise, is still in its infancy. I do not want to see it fall into the same traps as Dance Dance Revolution. Hopefully, Neversoft (who apparently bought the Guitar Hero name just recently) will avoid this pitfall. I mean, they already have an "Expert" difficulty for veterans. Leave Hard Mode as a way for novices to acclimate themselves to the more advanced aspects of the game.
And, more importantly, take a page from BeatMania IIDX. Beatmania IIDX has two modes: 5 keys and 7 keys. But each mode has their own set of difficulty levels. Do the same thing with Guitar Hero, please. Have an Easy Mode (basic strumming and key reading), Medium Mode (more chords and plenty of simple hammer-ons and pull-offs), and Hard Mode (crazy guitar solos and fast-paced note playing) for 3, 4, and 5 keys. And save the Expert difficulty level only for 5 keys. This allows for players to learn at a more controlled pace, being able to focus their practice on the particular areas they need work on.
Fortunately, Guitar Hero II added two things to really aid in the learning of the game: Training Mode and Cooperative Mode. If you want to learn how to play with 5 frets, but Hard Mode is kicking your ass, do yourself a favor: play only Bass tracks on Hard Mode for a while. Do so in Training Mode or, better yet, find a buddy to play Cooperative Mode with (Cooperative Mode being the best thing about Guitar Hero II).
By the way: none of these problems apply to Elite Beat Agents. The game is about as intuitive as you can get. Only the most uncoordinated people will have a hard time understanding how to play EBA when they first try it out. It's definitely not as approachable as Guitar Hero (at first glance, it doesn't look quite as fun even though it is), and as a result, it has very little chance of becoming a breakout hit like Guitar Hero.
As for the learning curve, this game does a great job of that. Well, again, I believe Elite Beat Agents does a good job of it, if it is similar enough to Ouendan. I've played all the way through Ouendan, but have not gotten far at all in Elite Beat Agents (the gloves will be off in a future post, you can trust me on that one). So in Oeundan, the early songs in each level of difficulty are much simpler than the later songs. And as the difficulty level increases, you never feel a drastic jump in difficulty, making the slow progression from Easy Mode to Insane Mode feel completely natural.
In fact, the only thing that makes Insane Mode harder than Hard Mode is something completely fabricated. It has nothing to do with making the notes harder to tap out. If you observe carefully, each difficulty level has the notes you tap appear later and later. So in Easy Mode, you see the note on screen for a day and a half before you actually need to tap it. Then, suddenly, in Insane Mode, the notes appear a fraction of a second before you need to tap it. It definitely makes the songs a lot harder, but it's still a fabricated difficulty. The parallel in Guitar Hero would be if they decided to scroll the notes down faster and faster with each difficulty level.
But the amount of notes to be played and the more syncopated rhythms that get used do make the harder levels more challenging, but it never subtracts from the fun of the game. I must say that the group that made the game, iNiS, did a fantastic job of making sure the learning curve was perfect. As I progressed through the game, it never felt like the next step was a huge leap over the previous one. And last helped keep me addicted enough to play through Ouendan from start to finish.
Next up: Song Selection
(Note: A few people may be thinking to themselves: how is this a review of Elite Beat Agents when all he does is talk about Ouendan instead? As I hinted at, don't worry, I'll address this topic head-on in a future post. And the fact that I can only talk about Ouendan probably is a good indication of where I stand with Elite Beat Agents currently.)
posted by jchensor at
1:44 AM
4 Comments:
As always, you have an amazing knack of thorough analysis in your writing. I have only played a little of Beatmania in the rythm games space, and what you were saying of expert players making things look impossible was very true then. It seemed that, in order to get better, I'd have to spend a lot of my time memorizing specific songs and their note sequences. I'd like to know if you play Guitar Heros or one of these games for a while and then decide to pick up a real guitar and learn it, how much does having played the game (and getting good at it) help you as a learning tool or learning process? Are rythm games mostly just entertainment, or can the sense of accomplishment be applied to any genuine competence on an actual guitar? (Say for example, how far off is the idea of a music instructor listing "Guitar Heros 4, edition for music students" or something as required/recommended course reading?) After playing these games what do you think?
By
Anonymous, at 12:06 AM
Hey, David.
First off, the crazy thing about all Rhythm Games, and something I should have probably noted, is the fact that there is almost no memorization in your standard Rhythm Games. I remember watching someone play Dead End Hard Mode in DDR 3rd Mix waaaaay back when, a 9-difficulty song. And sure enough, I asked the player, "Do you memorize the songs?" He said no, and, like everyone who watches an expert play, you want to think they are lying.
But it's true, having now gotten good enough that Dead End Hard Mode is almost a formality for myself to pass (it's the perfect show-off song: looks hella intimidating, but in actuality isn't that hard). And now that I can pass the song, I realized there is NO memorization. Maybe just a little memorization in the rhythm of the notes, but that comes naturally, through no effort. You get to a point where what you are doing is simply reading the steps. Nothing different than reading a book. The notes come down, and your brain has already processed them, so muscle memory just kicks in. That's what makes it so incredible to play these games. Once you acheive that level, the experience is almost as if you've transcended to another plane.
As for helping you actually learn the thing they are simulating, it all depends on the game. DrumMania will probably allow you to play drums fairly decently. Same with KeyboardMania. DDR helps you, if anyhting, learn to move your feet in rhythm with a song, so while it won't make you a dancing master, it'll definitely help you with very basic fundamentals.
That being said, I think Guitar Hero falls the shortest on this. No way that playing Guitar Hero will help you learn anything on the guitar. No chance. Guitar playing, from what I can gather, is about memorizing chords, knowing how to transition between them quickly, and proper fingering for playing actual sequences. Guitar Hero is so far into the realm of simulation that the only thing it can help you with actual guitars is building muscle strength in your fingers, as well as finger dexterity. But it won't teach you any real chords, not even the most basic ones.
And this is the main argument against "Why not pick up a real guitar?" Because, in actuality, Guitar Hero, despite how frightening it looks, is about a gabazillion times easier than playing a real guitar. Again, this isn't a statement on how hard it is to play a real guitar, but more of a statement on how easy it is to play Guitar Hero if you give it a chance.
By
jchensor, at 2:10 PM
Interesting on memorization- I got that feeling of having to memorize to progress probably because I only got up to level 3 or so and there were only so many songs to choose from at that level. I hope there's potential for games to have beneficial side-effects... if not educational in learning a musical instrument, at least DDR will help us get exercise.
My best guess (from what little I've played of rhythm games) is that maybe the single biggest marketing factor in helping a rythm game sell and become sucessful is that it have songs by popular artists that are well liked by the player, above all else.
By
Anonymous, at 6:18 AM
Actually, song selection is a huge factor, and will be the topic of my next entry in this series of posts as a matter of fact. Expect that post up hopefully sometime this weekend.
By
jchensor, at 1:28 PM
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