More details on Kwari

After the announcement of Kwari, a new frags for cash game, I had some burning questions for the developers about game balance and skill matching. Sam “Protagonist” Bennett of the Kwari team got back to me with some more details about the upcoming title for this short interview. Information about Kwari is scant, but we’ll keep following up to find out just where the latest frags for cash concept is going.

GGL Wire: Due to the concept of players being paid on a per-hit basis, how will Kwari’s weapons be balanced in order to prevent players from gaming the system? For example, what prevents players from using a weak, fast-firing weapon all the time in order to maximize their profit, while never getting a kill?

Sam Bennett: Kills in Kwari are not the same as in other first person shooters. Effectively the “kill” only exists to prevent players being farmed in positions they’d be unable to escape from.

The last point of health is worth no more than the first point. The decision becomes one of whether you allow your prey to escape with whatever equipment they had, rather than forcing them to respawn. As far as weapon balancing is concerned - they’re not balanced in terms of damage or effectiveness, but they do all have practical applications. The balancing between weapons comes down to the price of the ammunition. A single shot with the machine pistol uses significantly less ammo than a single shot with the rocket launcher, and the damage difference between the two reflects that.

Ammo is never expensive to buy, so only the ultra-frugal will avoid using certain weapons due to the cost per shot. Additional balancing will be conducted through the price of the weapon to pick up. If we find that the rocket launcher, for example, is used almost exclusively by all we’ll increase the price a little so that while still available it means you contribute more towards the jackpots in the game by using it.

GGL Wire: Are there any plans for a team mode in Kwari?

SB: Kwari has been designed as a single player experience where you are reliant only on yourself, however we are more than aware that team-based play would prove popular. We’re looking at ways of introducing team play to the game, but for the time being it is every player for himself.

GGL Wire: How will skill matching work? What will stop great players from cleaning up in matches with regular players?

SB: Skill matching is based on a wide range of factors all driven by the players’ abilities in the game, ranging from accuracy to profit and loss history. The idea is that a highly skilled shooter player can and will be matched lower than a lesser skilled player if they haven’t been doing so well in terms of making a profit from the game.

Through this method, even newcomers to first person shooters can expect to win regularly as they’ll only ever be matched against those whose success is of a similar level.