Playing the meta might be a fast track to success, but according to Marvel Rivals director Thaddeus Sasser, balance changes in the likes of Helldivers 2 can teach us an important lesson in losing “fairly.”
“Well, it’s kind of the basics of game design that players do not like things being taken away from them, right?” Talking on the VideoGamer Podcast #3, Sasser explained how nerfs and other adjustments are meant to benefit online multiplayer games – even if they can feel more like punishments. It makes sense that this irritation can work in a developer’s favor, humbling the player in the process and pushing them to experiment with new builds or strategies.
“Sometimes it’s good to frustrate the player […] because winning all of the time is boring, so it’s important to be able to lose, too and feel like you lost fairly and not be frustrated,” Sasser reasons. He also acknowledges how certain nerfs can feel extremely uncalled for, leaving players feeling “like they lost because you took ‘the thing’ away, and that feels unfair.”
Pushing players out of their comfort zones without robbing them of a good time sounds like a deft balancing act, but Sasser says developers can use one thing to their advantage: language and framing.
“Some of it is honestly psychology,” he explains of the clever tactic used to divert a player’s emotions from anger to intrigue. “Instead of saying ‘Hey, we’re going to nerf players’, I’m going to say ‘Hey, we’re going to make the enemies harder’. Oh, now I’m interested – now it’s a challenge. You haven’t made me [the player] less, you’ve made them more. So it’s almost like a lens that you’re using to look at this problem.”
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