you're on your way to assault an enemy base when a sniper takes out one of your friendlies on their way to deliver supplies nearby possible locations are called out over the radio where the report of the shot was heard and you take it upon yourself to investigate as you carefully creep up on the sniper's location a shot rings out now is your chance to move in but there's a problem there's no cover between you and the enemy so you must move quick quickly and decisively you begin to cross the open when a shot rings out from behind a darkened window Miss now your cover is blown and you have a decision to make do you continue to push forward or fall back behind cover change your approach and radio to friendlies about your new discovery but you hesitate just long enough for the sniper to take another shot hit as your screen Fades to Black your dopamine and adrenaline are at their Peak because it is at this moment where you've experienced a dynamic situation in its purest form unadulterated by the Abomination that's about to come tension is often the feeling one experiences when you approach a situation where the stakes are high and the outcome is unknown but something profound happens the moment you click that respawn button because at that moment both the Victor and the vanquished have now been doomed by the curse of knowledge listen listen this is the plan I'm going to put a mine down on that [ __ ] wall I'm going to blow up that sandbag we're going to punch a hole through behind you [Music] in the world of firstperson Shooters where gameplay is fast-paced and the priority is on fun and maintaining that maximum dopamine level for extended periods of time tactical Shooters like ARMA and Squad stand out because they attempt to deliver a more authentic experience that is both cinematic and impactful the game you see on the screen now is the latest Arma title that is laying the groundwork for Arma 4 called reforger and the emphasis in this game is to join players together for a symphony of combat communication and Logistics weapons are modeled after their real life counterparts without arbitrary balancing forcing players to adapt to situations as they unfold Communications are done via in-game radio channels that can be compromised by the enemy and Logistics are required to keep the front line stocked with ammunition vehicles and respawn points like many tactical shooters that rely on similar systems all these things tie together into a complicated system that can be easily influenced by the shifting tides of battle often Victory or defeat can be the result of a single breakthrough from enemy or friendly forces this Dynamic Battlefield is why we love tactical Shooters because you never know what's going to happen next and it's up to you and your team to pull together and come up with the strategy that works the intensity of the experience is itself the fun but this system is delicate and if not handled carefully is subject to a fatal flaw one such flaw to this experience is the curse of knowledge a regression that undermines the purity of experience of coming face to face with your opponent for the very first time that devolves into something much different you see no matter how developers design their games they still cannot get around the fact that players at a subconscious level know that they themselves are never really in danger actions in real life have permanent consequences to life and LM so situations are often taken very seriously with plenty of caution when soldiers dispatch their enemies they're not worried about retaliation from The Departed and any new engagement will be its own set of circumstances but in tactical shooter games once an engagement is concluded and that respawn button is pressed the battlefield transforms into a much different place for both parties involved when you respawn you're reborn into the battlefield with the knowledge of the events that just transpired and you now know the sniper location the hidden Pathways and even the enemy's defenses this knowledge equips you with the information needed to outmaneuver your opponent and disrupts the natural flow of the game that would have otherwise occurred creating an infinite Loop of knowledge and counter knowledge this is the essence of the curse of knowledge what used to be an advantageous position for attackers or Defenders must now be abandoned to prepare for retaliation from the very players that they've just defeated each wave of attack revealing new locations new information no matter what you do in order to preserve the purity of the battlefield and keep the upper hand one must relocate their position after each engagement over and over again so the worst thing that can happen to a player and a tactical shooter is to be cursed by this curse of knowledge but worse yet is to know that it's happening so what can be done about this curse of knowledge I've been thinking about this a lot and unfortunately my answer is I don't know the most we can do is look at the games that came before us to see if they have any negative wisdom we can learn from or to design new and novel solutions that haven't been tried yet but no matter what we do the only way to know is to try things out to see what results emerge if we look at Day Z for example the curse of knowledge gets solved upon death where the player finds themselves back on the coast as a new Fresh spawn by the time they find their way back to their original body the other party involved is long gone in extraction Shooters like tarov the curse of knowledge is solved by removing the player from the situation entirely with their Adventure coming to a decisive conclusion but are one lifee Solutions appropriate for a tactical shooter where players expect to be able to spawn back in if implemented would players just abandon the game altogether perhaps the solution is somewhere in the middle a commonality that I've noticed between the games mentioned is that the curse of knowledge is solved by some sort of obstacle in the way of getting back into the fight with enough time or distance from the engagement that it allows for new conditions to emerge naturally one idea that I've been thinking about is to tie medical gameplay in together with players dying to help give more value to people's virtual lives and to add to the sense of adventure one experiences when going to the front lines essentially the the idea is that when a player dies they maintain their serious injuries in the locations they took damage if a medical tent has been built where they're trying to spawn in the player will wake up in one of the hospital beds Medics can attend to players as they spawn in and use their tools to heal injuries back to full health otherwise the player will be affected with stamina aiming Visual and movement speed debuffs if players spawn at an mhq or Rally Point they'll spawn in like normal with their injuries and can be healed by a medic at an ambulance anyone can be a medic by equipping the proper equipment and the medical bag is required to remove injuries and debuffs of course the players who tend to shift W straight into the respawn screen aren't going to like that so maybe main base is where you can spawn in without needing a medic just a thought recently I released a mod for armor reforger that allows for scenario creators to increase the time players need to wait before spawning in on a base that is under assault forcing Defenders to either wait it out or spawn in elsewhere of in a kilometer or two away this is just my first Small Step at trying to solve the curse of knowledge problem but I'm curious do you have any ideas or know of any games that have tackled this problem if so let me know in the comments below if you made it this far I want to thank you for your attention and listening to me ramble about the ideas rattling around in the back of my head my name's ironbeard and if you play reforger I'll see you on the battlefield [Music]