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The Blackbeard Problem

Your favorite game has a Blackbeard problem.

By Holden MarxPublished 2 years ago 6 min read
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The Blackbeard Problem
Photo by Mateo on Unsplash

USPs, or Unique Selling Points, are what make a game stand out from the crowd of other games that share the same characteristics. For example; Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a hack and slash action-adventure game utilizing the counter-based combat made famous by the Arkham series. But its USP, the nemesis system, puts it head and shoulders above almost all other hack and slash games released recently in terms of both critical acclaim as well as replayability. Superhot is a minimalistic first person shooter that stands out due to its USP; time only moving when the character does, which turns a fast-paced shooter into an almost strategy-esque title. And of course, the godfather of USP’s; Portal. Portal is one of a million physics puzzle games, but is widely considered to be one of the greatest games ever made because of how its USP, the titular portals, makes for a completely unique experience relative to other games that share the genre of ‘puzzle’. All of these USPs take a core mechanic that has been done millions of times before; killing orcs, shooting people, and solving puzzles, and makes it completely unique; killing specific orcs, taking a breather from shooting people to plan your next move, and solving puzzles with portals. Even though these three games all have wildly different genres and USPs, they all share one specific quality; they are single player or co-op only. What happens when a competitive, player vs player game has a USP? And why can that get it into trouble? Let’s talk about Siege.

A Ubisoft tactical shooter, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege was first released on December 1st, 2015. After a lackluster beta plagued by bugs, sloppy gameplay, and dwindling player interest, Ubisoft threw their full weight behind the game and set out to make a competitive shooter that stood amongst the industry giants, and has since made good on that promise as both the community and competitive scene continue to grow. Over the years it has exploded in popularity, reaching its all-time monthly peak of 119,877 average players in March of 2020, (at time of writing)as well as birthing a professional scene that has gone on to top professional shooter king CS:GO in terms of largest tournament prize pool. (CS:GO largest prize pool 1.5 million for WESG 2017 & 2018, R6 largest prize pool 3 million for Six Invitational 2020 and 2021.)

Siege technically has two USPs, the destructibility of the environment is the first; many walls, floors, and ceilings can be destroyed with explosives, can be broken through with enough bullets, or have little peek holes punched out with the melee attack. The headshot mechanic is second, but arguably the most important; any character can be killed instantly with a single bullet to the head from any gun; from the dinkiest pistol, to the biggest and baddest sniper rifle. This is where Blackbeard comes in.

Blackbeard was released on May 10th, 2016 during the second expansion for Siege, Operation Dust Line. An attacking character, called ‘Operator’s’ in game, Blackbeard's unique operator ability is the TARS, or Transparent Armored-Rifle Shield. This gives him a pair of bulletproof glass shields that he mounts to the top of his rifle. While aiming down sights, these shields protect his head completely from headshots in an area that is roughly 90-120 degrees in front of him. On his first iteration, right when Operation Dust Line was released, he had only one shield, but it had 800 health. Most defenders, the other team playing against Blackbeard, came equipped with SMGs that had each bullet doing between 20-30 damage each, this means that his one shield could take over 30 bullets from most defenders' guns, more bullets than were in most whole magazines at the time. I began playing Siege over a year after Blackbeard was released, and even I have heard the horror stories of the monster that he was when he first took to the game.

77 patches later, and 6 direct nerfs to him and his shields, Blackbeard is a shell of the character that he once was, but is still disliked by the community. The reason? From the very beginning of playing the game you understand that one bullet to the head will kill, Blackbeard is the only operator on the entire 60-man Siege roster, -- at time of writing -- including Recruit, who defies that. Which begs the question; in a competitive PvP game that is constantly looking to expand and introduce new and interesting characters, can the developers introduce new content that plays off of their own games' USP?

Game development for competitive multiplayer games is a rat race of the highest order; adding in new and exciting content that attempts to get new players interested in your game, while also keeping your older, more faithful players content is a balancing act that is incredibly difficult. This is where competitive player vs player games start to run into issues with implementing new content; can you release new characters/items/maps/situations that come into direct conflict with your games USP?

If you were in charge of designing new and interesting ideas and implementing them into Siege, the first thing that would pop into most peoples head would be to have an Operator that interacts in some way with the headshot mechanic. It would be simple to add in a character that has some sort of advanced helmet that can eat a couple bullets. But, Ubisoft has shown hesitation, likely due to the community's response to Blackbeard, when it comes to adding new content that comes into direct conflict with their cardinal rule and USP of siege; one bullet to the dome, one kill. In fact, 36 new operators (at time of writing) have been introduced into the game post-Blackbeard, and not a single one of them has any unique interactions with the headshot mechanic. (Except for maybe Clash, but shield operators don’t really count, as they, unlike Blackbeard, cannot return fire without exposing their head.)

This problem isn’t unique to Siege either, competitive gaming titan League of Legends is one of the most influential competitive games ever made. It dominates the MOBA genre, and has been the most successful Esport in the world for over a decade, yet it is beginning to run into a similar problem. League’s USP isn’t as much a mechanic of the game itself, but rather it simply doing the MOBA genre better than any other game. But MOBA’s are predicated on the strengths and weaknesses of their different classes of character, and League has begun to run into a problem of class-mixing. Ekko arguably started it off by being released as a “utility assassin”, and it has only gotten more pronounced with characters like the hybrid support marksman Senna, the burst-skirmisher Sylas, and the entire class of Juggernauts that sit between tanks and fighters.

Apex legends, the current champion of the highly competitive Battle Royale genre, has run into issues going in the opposite direction, as two of their latest characters, Crypto and Rampart, have plummeted in both pick and win rate due to the stationary nature of their kits; in a game that is designed around high octane movement, these two just cannot compete as their abilities either incentivize or force them to stay stationary.

In conclusion; adding new content to a game is necessary in creating a player base that tries the game, and then comes back. Player retention is a fickle thing, and there is no right way to do it. The only truth is that new and exciting content is the only surefire way to prolong the lifespan of a game, but you cannot be too extreme lest you go against the very design principles that made your game unique in the first place. Be careful, in your quest to make your game bigger and better, you may release Blackbeard.

first person shooter
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About the Creator

Holden Marx

I am an aspiring writer. I prefer poetry, but enjoy all types of writing.

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