Project Battle Fury Weeks 6-7: The Divekick Transform

Hey all, sorry I've been late.  I've been ultra busy the past two weekends: Weekend 7 was spent working on a card game prototype, and this last weekend I've been daring ludums with a couple friends.

The Heart of It All

There's this super cool game called Divekick coming out this summer.  It's half-parody, half-love letter, and 100% fighter.  I absolutely cannot wait for the release.  I've traditionally loved the idea of fighting games, but mostly hated their execution.  Games like Street Fighter and Soul Calibur pit two minds against each other in a test of mental agility, but until you've mastered the combos and memorized the moves, you don't get an invitation to the mind games.

This is precisely why Divekick is so fascinating.  Divekick strips away everything but the real competitive heart of the game.  It's a digital Double Irish to evade Sirlin's "time tax."  You don't need to shell out $150 for a hypercompetitive controller (though you can if you really really want to).  You don't need to spend your nights and weekends drilling combos and memorizing movesets.  You just jump in and get straight to the battle of wits, which, to me at least, is far more fascinating than a professional's ability to execute his unbreakable half-hit combo.  Divekick is a pure test of players' ability to read their opponent and react to an ever-changing situation.

What if we took this concept and applied it to other games?  I discussed with some friends of mine this abstract concept of the "Divekick transform" (or the DKT, if you will).  A Divekick transform is a function that projects multiplayer games into an intensely simplified form that highlights the competitive essences of the game.  It does this by simplifying unimportant elements that are overcomplicated (to reduce distraction), removing redundant elements, and most importantly, by minimizing non-competitive choice. "Non-competitive" in this context refers to user decisions that are made independently of decisions your opponent makes, which we can trivially divide further into two categories:

• No-ops: decisions in which all options are equally effective (regardless of the opponent's actions), and
• No-brainers: decisions in which one option is the most effective (regardless of the opponent's actions).

Our first example, Divekick, is the result of a DKT applied to Street Fighter (or to it and its contemporaries).  The combo system in Street Fighter, while difficult to execute because of tight timing constraints, is ultimately a non-competitive choice, and is thus removed.  Hitting the second button in an unblockable combo is a no-brainer, because there is no reason not to execute it.  Additionally, the wide cast of players is also removed, because while it provides diversity in playstyle, the characters are (supposed to be) designed such that they are evenly matched against any other opponent, making character-selection an unnecessarily complicated no-op.

Divekicking Dota

So, what does a Divekicked Dota look like? Well, to determine that, we need to argue about what choices in Dota are non-competitive, and what mechanics are most important to the game.  Here's the result of one possible DKT:

• If melee heroes weren't artificially compensated for their short range, there would be no reason to choose them over a ranged hero.  So, let's stick with just one or the other.
• On top of that, heroes are effectively sets of abilities, so choosing between heroes is a no-op, so long as the only choice we leave is a sufficiently diverse hero.  For this example, the only hero available will be Skeleton King. Skeleton king has an excellent range of abilities: Hellfire Blast allows him to gank and disable.  Vampiric Aura allows him to take a more support-based role.  Critical Strike allows him to carry.  Reincarnate, while arguably a no-brainer, can still be foregone to gain more effectiveness in a role that doesn't expect to die frequently (take Blast and Stats, for example.)
• The asymmetrical map has a generally minor effect on gameplay, and is unnecessarily complicated.  We'll make the map rotationally symmetrical then.
• However, the uniqueness of Dota's safe, middle, and hard lanes offer interesting choices with regard to inter-lane dynamics, so the asymmetry between safe and hard lanes will be preserved.
• Lanes spawn more frequently, but only have one melee creep in each of them.  Keeping it simple.
• Jungle creeps can arguably stick around, because the decision to farm the jungle offers a low-risk, low-reward alternative to laning.  The jungle creep spawn types should probably be limited to one per camp difficulty, to limit distracting complexities.
• Now that everyone is playing Skeleton King, most item choices are no-brainers, though many of them were no-brainers before then.  Here are some (but not all possible) notable omissions from a Divekicked Dota shop:
• Boots. Boots are a no-brainer.  The choices offered by boot upgrades are still competitive, but what they offer can often be substituted for with other items.  Leaving them in would mostly serve to complicate things.
• Wards - maybe.  Purchasing wards are also a no-brainer.  If you can afford wards, you should buy them and plant them.  Period.  Without observer wards, sentry wards also become irrelevant.  However, there is some merit to the opportunity cost and placement of a ward.  I don't particularly think leaving this component of the game in is too vital to communicating the spirit of Dota, but some do.
• Most upgrade components.  If the upgrade components to an item are mundane, there's nothing interesting to be gained from leaving them in.
• Most carry damage items.  Dota offers many different ways to increase your effective DPS.  Leaving in Armlet and Crystalis might be interesting, since they each have their own times at which they are effective, but more than 2 or 3 damage items in the game gets distracting.
• Keep the runes, but potentially ditch Roshan.  Many tactical decisions must be weighed when deciding to go for a rune, and on deciding how to best approach it, and it would be a shame to omit this from Dota.  However, Roshan is generally a no-brainer decision, and his tactical value is not particularly interesting.  This is up for debate.
• Now that we've radically simplified the game, we can, Divekick style, radically simplify the controls.  Left click Hellfire blasts.  Right click attacks (and denies).

Naturally there are a ton more simplifications you could make to the game, and there are also other directions you could take the game to further emphasize other competitive components of the game.

Limitations of the DKT

The DKT naturally robs a game of its thematic weight and much of its metagame.  It also strips away any entertainment value gained from the interactions of potentially complex, esoteric circumstances.  However, if done correctly, what should be left is the pure competitive essence: nothing but player-versus-player interaction.

I think the real value in executing a DKT would be that the resultant projected game could be used to allow inexperienced outsiders to understand what makes the game so fun.  It massively lowers the barrier to entry, and allows the layman front-row seats to experience the competitive thrill of the game.  I'm sure someone could whip up a server mod to give it a spin.


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