Stupid Drunk1
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
96
   |
Posted - 2012.08.12 20:25:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Soundwave:
GÇ£Why balancing is bad, monkeys are good, and how to design games with that in mind.GÇ¥
Is it really about monkeys? Yes! TheyGÇÖre cute.
But itGÇÖs also because we test things on monkeys before we try it on humans. WeGÇÖll also be talking about rats and other test animals. We can learn a lot about game design from them.
Soundwave is now a big fan of imbalance GÇô itGÇÖs not universally good but it can be a powerful tool to generate gameplay. Supercaps are a good example of GÇ£badGÇ¥ imbalance. You have to handle imbalancing with care. Imbalances have to be small and careful. If done right it keeps the game experience fresh, to shake things up and encourage people to play the game in new ways.
Tweaking ships and changing their roles is a cheaper and faster way to introduce these tweaks to the game GÇô itGÇÖs much simpler and more controllable than introducing whole new ships.
Soundwave is talking about his love affair with the Arbitrator, and learning to solo in the Pilgrim. He had a ton of fun, and then CCP nerfed them. (FFFFUUUUU)
But then his perspective shifted. Once the Pilgrim was nerfed, people started using the Rapier and loving that. Soundwave had the same great time with that, and then CCP nerfed it. Then he played with the Vagabond, and CCP nerfed it!
What people overlook is that this was his first goal-oriented path of the game. It came from his perceived view of power and success in the game, and the imbalance is what led him along it. The imbalance created a game experience which was entertaining, because you felt powerful. This means chasing GÇ£the next thingGÇ¥ is an incredibly powerful goalsetting mechanism. Adjusting to changes in GÇ£whatGÇÖs bestGÇ¥ drives peoplesGÇÖ goals and keeps them dynamic.
If all ships were the same, weGÇÖd be bored to death.
This is where the monkeys come in: power and novelty are primitive desires that give us a lot of satisfaction. Knowing and predicting the world is a natural drive, and a very powerful one. The more we knew, back in the monkey days, the greater our chances of survival GÇô the same is true today, and the goal is to make it especially true in EVE. Today, Soundwave jumps from ship to ship like a monkey between the trees.
Discovering the unknown and learning about it is a powerful trigger for dopamine, a neurotransmitter that gives us a pleasurable feeling. ThatGÇÖs one of the reasons why games are so popular GÇô it presses the dopamine trigger button.
Rules for Imbalance
One of the keys is to give players equal access to all the same imbalanced items. ThatGÇÖs why Soundwave is more worried about supercap balancing than Dramiel balancing GÇô itGÇÖs easy for people to get in Dramiels and fly them, not so much with supercaps.
Another is to make the imbalance slight, or if possible, only perceived (supercaps really didnGÇÖt meet this criteria).
Yet another is to continually rotate the imbalance. (Hence why when Gallente come around again, something else will be considered less-good).
Also: People die. ThatGÇÖs good. EVE is a game of loss GÇô you try to fly the most efficient ships, balancing risk/reward.
Stroking
Stroking is a unit of recognition. A stroke can be another player entering your belt, saying hi (positive stroke) or a player blowing you up (negative stroke).
Describing an experiment in which a scientist built a bunch of boxes rats were kept in; some received positive input, some none, some received electric shocks. The suprising discovery was that the rats developed better if they received negative stimuli than they did if they received no stimuli whatsoever.
That maps to EVE in the form of losing ships. YouGÇÖll go from having one person get ganked, escalate to forming defense gangs. If this happens often, it becomes default social behavior. In the end, weGÇÖre a lot like rats, weGÇÖll use both negative and positive strokes to satisfy the hunger for stimulation.
GÇ£If thereGÇÖs anything I wish itGÇÖs that we had bigger grids so that people could interact more directly in a wider area. IGÇÖd rather have one big superbelt where people could rat instead of being all in one box. That way you can always see another player and have a chance to interact. A lot of eve is very isolated.GÇ¥
Conflict is good
In a game where loss discourages risktaking, you can use other things to encourage them, such as giving an advantage (good ships), giving them a reason to take risks (such as imbalanced rewards, like moons). The practical implementation of moons is awful, but the idea of such an imbalanced reward is good.
If thereGÇÖs no advantage or reward, gameplay is boring. You donGÇÖt build huge amounts of man hours and organization to deal with it.
Q & A by CCP Devs Read further |
Stupid Drunk1
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
96
|
Posted - 2012.08.12 21:06:00 -
[2] - Quote
I would already say with 7 years of skills, EvE Dust 514 could be called spreadsheats fodder, to each his own, nice post Jor Dawg, but we will see what CCP does, and do not even attemp to contemplate what this game really needs, I will leave that to my trusty CCP devs I have counted on for years for the above logic, in the OP |