Accessibility in the FPS Genre

As an avid FPS gamer (among other things) I find that the genre tends to cater to the more hardcore player rather than the casual gamer. My fiance loves rpg's and rts's but will only play an fps if me and my friends are, such as at a social game night. Last weekend we were playing Call of Duty 4. CoD 4 incorporates an experience system that rewards players with perks and additional weapon options as they score kills. However this system makes it hard for somebody who doesn't play the genre that much to compete. My fiance said that it rewards better players so much that after a certain point less skilled players become absolutely unable to compete, thus ruining the experience for them. Call of Duty attempts to combat this (pun intended) by creating a separate "Old School" mode that takes out the experience system and replaces the perks and weapons with battlefield pickups. However to me that detracts from the experience by dumbing it down. As a designer I tried to think of ways that might make the game more equal for casual players like her. Call of Duty could have changed at which level the perks were given to a player. For instance after a 3 kill streak a player is given a UAV, or temporary radar. Expereinced players can get access to a UAV very quickly while a less experienced player may never get one. Several experience levels into the system players have access to a perk that will jam an enemy UAV thus making it much harder for an inexperienced player even if they get a UAV to find an experienced player. This negates the advantage that even the inexperienced player might gain. To a casual player this creates an insurmountable barrier once the enemy reaches a certain level. But by moving around the order in which perks such as the UAV Jammer and Extra Armor are given you can still maintain the gameplay balance but make it easy for inexperienced players to occasionally defeat more experienced players. For example, by moving the UAV Jammer to become available at an earlier level an inexperience player can gain a certain amount of protection from a more experience player thus making it still possible for them to have fun without getting too frustrated and wanting to quit.

I am hoping to take this idea of accessibility for causal players one step further through the Make Something Unreal contest Epic Games just announced today. The plan is to create a mutator that will give a slight advantage to players as they fall further behind the leader. I hope to enter it in the Best Mutator catagory. I also hope to complete WAR-Piracy in time to enter it in the Best Warfare map category.

On the Internship front. I am still waiting on an answer from a developer on a possible design internship. I'm very excited so wish me luck. I will update as soon as I know anything.