游戏邦注：本文原作者为心理学博士杰米·马迪根（Jamie Madigan），他通过职场中的不公平心理学研究，分析了玩家对MMO游戏中的角色力量被“削弱”（nerfling）这种情况的反应，并为开发者提供了相关建议。

大多游戏玩家都会觉得自己处于不利地位，不是被某个服务器踢下线，就是被限制访问某个论坛，又或者自己的MMO人物的力量被削弱了，面对这种情况，多数人只能握紧拳头示意其中的不公，发誓要把一切公之于众。

也许其他时候我们也有碰到类似情形，但我们只能无奈叹气：“真糟糕，但回想一下，就知道他们为什么要这样做，”然后继续忙自己的事情。

对待同一种“不公待遇”的不同态度，一直以来都是心理学家的研究兴趣之一，那些研究职场公平性的心理学家尤其如此。

这类研究始于上世纪60年代，主要关注人们对公平报酬，以及其他福利待遇公平分配的态度。

从那以后，决策过程的公平性也被纳入研究范围之内，而一些确保“程序公平”的相关准则也陆续问世。

World WarCraft

游戏邦发现除了考察定价公平的消费心理之外，这类研究大多锁定职场领域，旨在了解人们对报酬、绩效考核、雇佣决策等方面的公平观念。

例如，曾有人归纳了几个有效的研究方法，你可以利用这些方法在面试时刁难求职人员，这样他们就会讨厌你，认为这整个面试过程毫不公平。或者，你也可以不采用这些方法，让求职人员觉得他们得到公平对待。总之，这完全取决于你的选择。

这些规则也同样适用于理解MMO游戏中力量被“削弱”的公平性，这里的削弱指的是人物等级、能力或者游戏的其他要素被降低。玩家时常抱怨自己的力量被削弱，认为这很不公平。但是公平并不是遇到火灾时心跳会加快的这种客观状态，它是人脑的主观性判断，因此很容易受到自身认知以及所得信息的影响。

以下是有关职场公平性的相关经验教训，开发者和玩家社区管理员在处理游戏角色的力量削弱问题时，应该将此铭记于心。以下内容还引用了《魔兽世界》玩家在暴雪官方论坛上的相关言论来举例说明。

发言权和参与权

“我们都知道玩家社区要求削弱勇士的权利？事实上并非如此。几乎没有人提出这样的要求。”

最清晰、最可靠的一项程序公平准则就是为相关人员提供发言的机会。游戏邦认为这也就是为什么求职人员认为非固定模式的开放式面试，如包含“你为什么可以胜任这份工作？”之类的问题，会更加公平些。相对于那些问题一致的结构化面试，开放式的面试为求职者提供了更多参与并影响决策的机会。

同样地，开发者如果能够征求玩家的意见，并承认他们的贡献，可能就会让游戏的设置结果更公平些。你不需要采纳他们的意见，只需要耐心聆听就够了。当然，如果你听到有用的信息，并照此行事，最好也向玩家告知这一点。

决策一致性

“情况总是这样……随意削弱，随意增强；突然削弱，突然增强……就像《魔兽世界》的过山车，完全是所谓的高级设计师和他们团队一时兴起的主意。”

这点很好理解。保持一致能够让决策变得公平，甚至消除偏见。例如调查表明，人们认为所有求职人员都进行药物测试，这会比抽查测试公平得多。与此同理，设计原理或目标的贯彻前后一致，也能够消除人们大脑中的不公想法。

决策透明化

“削弱或增强各类人物的相关决定常常让我很头疼。我将这个原因归结于，我没有掌握相关数据，但暴雪公司的开发者有这些数据……我承认对于他们所做的一些改变，我感到非常困惑。”

某些研究者指出，求职人员认为用模拟测试考察（例如拆卸一个真正的抽水机，或者检修一个电脑代码）要比抽象测试更为公平，因为这样才能清楚体现求职人员是否胜任该职位。

同样，玩家希望看到某一类人物的削弱或者增加，与游戏中该类人物的表现有直接关系。从这方面来说，开发者得让玩家看到相关数据，了解变化的目的，这样他们才会认为这个过程很公平。

消除偏见

“《魔兽世界》的术士常常毫无预警或莫名其妙地被削弱力量……而萨满通常变化不大。有关魔术师、DK（死亡骑士）、勇士和德鲁伊（Druid）变化的蓝贴最多（游戏邦注：蓝贴指暴雪公司官方发布的有关游戏新作、补丁、修正等信息的贴子）。”

游戏邦认为，因无关紧要的外来因素所做的决策通常很难为玩家所接受。在职场上，我们称之为“歧视”，而在《魔兽世界》，玩家称之为“你们讨厌我们这一族”。所以，为玩家提供制定决策的相关背景，或者展示一些总体规划，可能有助于玩家理解设计者制定决策的初衷。

解释决策过程

“但这很有挑战性，你得说明暴雪公司的责任所在。我不得不说，游戏设置/内容变更的确是暴雪公司的职责……”

人们普遍认为，如果不满某个决策方式，他们会采用正规的手段表示抗议或者要求重新考虑，而不是干坐在屋里发送信件表愤怒。通过民意调查、投票或者向社区代表吐露心中的不快，大家心里就会略为平衡。但游戏邦的看法是，只要决策准确无误，开发者就不需要推翻这一决策，只要为玩家提供表达意见的机会就可以了。

有人可能会对此表示不屑，但这正是问题的关键所在。要知道，很多时候设计补丁所花费的工作量、测试时间和工程量是非常庞大的，而说明制定决策的过程所需花费的功夫明显更少。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

The Psychology Of Games: Procedural Justice And Nerfing

[Continuing his regular look at game-related psychology issues, Jamie Madigan examines what studies of fairness in the workplace can tell us about how people react to "nerfing" in MMOs.]

Most of us have been in a situation where we feel that we’ve gotten the short end of a pointy stick. Maybe we were booted from a game server, banned from a message board, or had our favorite MMO game character weakened by a patch in such a way that left us shaking our tiny fists at the injustice of it and vowing that we’ll show them, we’ll show them all.

And maybe other times the same exact things have happened but we’ve been able to just sigh and say, “Well, that sucks, but looking back I can see why they did it,” and move on.

Such differing ideas of what constitute “fair” treatment given identical outcomes have long been in the interest of psychologists, particularly those studying justice in the workplace.

The research started in the ’60s by examining what people considered fair pay and distribution of other rewards relative to inputs like work, time, and nice bottles of scotch.

Since then, though, the field has expanded to include the fairness of the process by which decisions are made, and several “procedural justice” rules to live by in order to create procedural justice have been discovered.

In addition to some applications in consumer psychology of pricing fairness, most of this research has been done in the context of the workplace, specifically trying to understand fairness perceptions of compensation, performance appraisal, and hiring decisions.

For example, some jughead named Madigan identified several sure-fire ways in which you could mistreat job applicants during the interview process in order to make them hate you and think that the whole thing was unfair. Or, if you preferred, you could NOT do these things and better the odds that people feel treated fairly. Your choice!

It occurs to me that these same rules apply to the perceived fairness of “nerfing” in MMOs — that is, when the efficacy of a class, ability, or any other part of a game is toned down. It is not hard to find people complaining about a given nerf and calling it unfair. But fairness is not an objective state like having an elevated heart rate being on fire. It’s a judgment made by squishy human brains, and as such it’s susceptible to molding by perceptions and how information is presented or framed.

Below are a few lessons from fairness in the world of work that developers and community managers should keep in mind when putting together the patch notes on any big nerfs. I’ve even included relevant quotes from World of Warcraft players on the official Blizzard boards for the sake of illustration. (Which isn’t to say I think Blizzard is doing a bad job in this regard. You’ll never make all the people happy all the time, and with 15 bajillion players it’s not hard to find a few disgruntled ones to quote.)

Voice and Participation

“We all know that the community was asking to nerf warriors right? No not really. Almost no one asked that.”

One of the clearest and most reliable procedural justice rules is providing those affected by a decision a chance to voice their opinions. This is one reason job applicants tend to think less structured, open-ended interviews containing questions like “Why are you qualified for this job?” are more fair — they give you more of a chance to participate in the process and influence the decision relative to tightly structured interviews that ask the same (often technical) questions of all candidates.

Likewise, developers who solicit and acknowledge input from players make things seem more fair. You don’t even have to take their advice; just listening to it helps. Of course, if you DO happen to hear something useful and act on it, it’s always good to point that out, too.

Consistency

“It has always been this way… random nerf here, random buff there, surprise nerf there, odd buff there. … Just the rollercoaster of WoW and the whims of the class designer and his buddies.”

This one is kind of a no-brainer. Being consistent in your decisions helps them seem fair, even in the absence of bias. For example, research has shown that people tend to see subjecting ALL job applicants to drug testing as more fair than random testing. Likewise, efforts made to show consistent application of a guiding design philosophy or goals should combat perceptions of unfairness.

Transparency

“I often find myself scratching my head at the decisions that get made about how/why to nerf and buff various classes. I chalk it up to I don’t have all the data, the Developers at Blizzard do. … I will admit that some of the changes they make are just completely baffling to me however.”

Some researchers have posited that job applicants feel that more simulation-based tests (like disassembling an actual pump or troubleshooting real computer code) are more fair tests of ability than abstract tests (like paper and pencil tests of personality) because it’s easier to draw a straight line from their performance to the hiring decision.

Likewise, players want to see a direct line between the decision to nerf or buff a certain class and the performance of that class in the game. To the extent that they can see the data and understand the goals of the change, they’ll see it as more fair. Show them the math.

Freedom From Bias

“Being regularly nerfed with no warning or explanation (not that the nerfs aren’t needed sometimes) is one of the main parts of the Warlock class… Shamans don’t usually get many changes. Mage, DK, Warrior and Druid changes I’d guess are the ones that get more blue posts.”

People generally don’t like it when decisions are made based on extraneous factors unrelated to the goals of the decision. In employment we call that “discrimination.” In WoW, they call it “you guys hate my class.” Again, some context usually helps, as does showing some kind of big picture or master plan.

Recourse for Bad Decisions

“Ah but therein lies the challenge. You have to prove what Blizzard is obligated to do. And I’m sorry to say, but gameplay/content changing isn’t something Blizzard is obligated NOT to do…”

People like to feel that if they disagree with the way a decision was made, they have some formal way of protesting it or asking for it to be reconsidered beyond sitting in a shack in the middle of Montana and banging out angry missives on an old IBM typewriter. Even something as simple as a survey, a poll, or a procedure for voicing displeasure to a class representative in the community can help. Again, you don’t have to actually overturn the decision if it’s the right one (and lord knows developers usually have a lot more data or a broader view than players), but just giving people a chance to appeal it helps.

So there you go. Some of you may be thinking “Well, duh,” but that’s kind of the point — these are somewhat obvious, but a lot of the time it’s amazing how much work and playtesting and engineering will go into devising a patch, but how relatively little work will go into communicating the process by which those decisions were made.

Anyone else got other fairness rules to follow they want to share in the comments, or examples of these they want to share?（Source：Gamasutra）