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阐述游戏衡量关键参数之平衡性与道德性(3)

发布时间:2012-01-18 17:43:46 Tags:,,,

作者:Ian Schreiber

难度衡量

类似于趣味性,游戏难度也是个本质上无法直接衡量的东西,但是你可以衡量进程和失败进展。进程衡量根据游戏的不同而不同。(请点击此处阅读本系列第12篇

对于向Retro街机游戏等呈现基于技能的挑战的游戏而言,你可以衡量玩家通过每个关卡所花费的时间,每个关卡中的角色死亡次数。更为重要的是,要了解他们死亡的地点和原因。收集这些信息使你可以很容易地找到游戏中最困难的地方在哪里以及是否存在打乱难度曲线的内容。我知道Valve就采取这种措施来跟踪他们的FPS游戏,他们还有个可视化工具,不仅能够显示出所有上述信息,还能够在关卡的地图上显示出具体位置,这样你便可以看到玩家在哪些地方死亡率较高。有趣的是,从《半条命2:第2章》开始,他们允许玩家将实时报告上传到他们的服务器上,而且他们将指标显示在公开页面上(游戏邦注:这或许对之前提到的盗版问题有所帮助,因为玩家自己就可以看到上传的东西及其使用情况)。

半条命:第2章(from store.steampowered.com)

半条命:第2章(from store.steampowered.com)

衡量游戏平衡性

假如你想知道游戏是否平衡,那要怎么办呢?这也是个无法直接衡量的东西。但是,你可以跟踪任何与玩家、动作或游戏中物品相关的数字,这会告诉你许多有关普通玩法以及战略、物品和其他内容间的相对平衡的信息。

比如,假设在你的战略游戏中,每个玩家每回合可以从4种不同的动作中选择1种,而且你有数量化跟踪每个玩家回合持续时间的方法。你可以记录在每个回合中,每个玩家做出了何种动作及其对玩家各自在游戏中的持续时间的影响。

或者说,假设你拥有的是玩家可自行建造船只的CCG,或每个玩家可自行选择战斗者的战争游戏,或玩家可自行选择派别的RTS,或玩家可自行选择种族及职业组合的MMO及桌面RPG游戏。无论你面对的是何种游戏,你都可以跟踪最抢手和最不受待见的选择,还可以跟踪哪些选择与最终获胜的关联性最高。应当注意的是,以上两个跟踪的内容并非总是相同,有些东西因外观出众和易于使用而深受所有人的喜爱,但他们仍然有可能被经验丰富并且善出奇招的玩家所击败。有时,玩家需要数个月乃至数年时间,历经数万次游戏体验才能形成主流策略。《万智牌:旅法师对决》中的Necropotence卡牌在发布后将近半年的时间里无人问津,直到某些顶尖玩家弄清楚如何有效地使用。这张卡牌产生的效果很复杂而且令人费解,但是一旦人们开始尝试使用,他们发现它是最强大的卡牌之一。因而,流行度和与胜利的关联度都是可用来衡量游戏平衡的指标。

如果某个游戏物品的使用率大大超过你的预期值,那么就标志着可能存在潜在的游戏平衡问题。这种现象或许还意味着,某些其他原因导致该物品对目标受众产生更大的吸引力。比如,在玄幻游戏中,你或许会惊奇地发现,选择精灵族的玩家比选择人类的玩家更多,事实上这与游戏的平衡问题无关。在某些游戏中,流行度能够体现出某种玩法风格与其他相比更为有趣,而且有时你可以采取一定措施将流行度转移向其他角色、职业或卡片上,提升游戏的整体趣味性。

如果某个游戏物品的使用率远低于期望值,或许意味着它的效能过低或成本过高。但是,还可能意味着它只是用起来不十分有趣而已,即便该物品效果出众。或者,还可能意味着它的使用过于复杂,相对游戏的其他物品来说有着过高的学习曲线,因而玩家并不愿意过早地尝试使用这件物品(游戏邦注:不可单纯凭借游戏测试者的行为便做出判断,因为测试者很经常忽视某些物品的存在,将其弃之不顾)。

除了游戏物品外,指标还可以用在其他的方面。比如,用来衡量起点不对称性,首先做出动作的玩家很可能占有优势或处于下风。收集大量与顺序编排相关的数据,将其与最终的结果想比较。这种做法在职业游戏和运动中并不少见。比如,统计学家已计算出美式足球的主场优势在2.3分左右,《象棋》中先手优势为6.5至7.5分。《卡坦岛》锦标赛数据显示,4人游戏中的第2个行动的玩家仅占有微弱的优势,通常情况下完全可以忽略不计。但是要得出如此有份量且令人信服的数据,就必须统计大量的比赛场次数据。

游戏设计与伦理

这里所考虑的伦理问题指的是,这些指标注重的都是玩家的行为,但它们并没有考虑到对玩家生活的影响。有些游戏被人指责是无耻地操控和利用人类心理中的已知弱点,让玩家不断玩游戏并支付金钱。Facebook游戏在这个方面表现尤为突出,它们对指标的利用已经大大超过其他类型的游戏。现在,上述内容听起来似乎很荒诞,因为我们一直将玩游戏视为自愿行为,所以游戏“囚禁玩家”听起来似乎是个很诡异的想法。从另一方面来看,任何你投入大量时间来玩的游戏,你都在其中投入了自己的情感,而这种情感投资也是带有货币化价值的。我认为游戏会让你为它花钱,如果你觉得这种想法很愚蠢的话,那么就看看以下这个例子。假设我发现你所有游戏存档的存放之处,比如主机内存卡或硬盘以及PC硬盘驱动器。对于网络游戏来说,你的“游戏存档”位于某些公司的服务器上。然后,假设我威胁要摧毁所有存档。不过你无需担心,我只是更换硬件而已。也就是说,有人愿意免费更换你的硬盘驱动器和主机内存卡,为你提供订阅的所有网络游戏的全新账户。接下来,假设我问你,你愿意支付多少金钱来让我打消计划。我敢打赌,你肯定愿意花点钱解决问题。原因就在于,那些游戏存档对你来说有一定的价值!假设有款游戏威胁称,如果你不购买额外的可下载内容,就要删除你的所有存档,那么你肯定会考虑付费购买。原因不在于你想要获得那些额外的内容,而在于你不希望失去自己的存档。

公平地说,所有游戏都会操控玩家的心理,电影、书籍和所有其他媒体也是如此。对多数人来说,这并不会构成问题,他们依然会将游戏体验本身视为生活的附加值。

但是游戏对生活价值的增加和减少值并非恒久不变,它如同难度曲线那样因人而异。这就是为何我们会看到,诸如MMO之类的游戏既能够提升数百万订阅者的生活乐趣,也会导致少部分人因沉迷游戏而失去婚姻和家庭等惨剧的发生,有些人甚至因为无暇顾及身体机能的基本需求而死于电脑屏幕之前。

所以,如何保持玩家能够在伦理界线之内健康地玩游戏和花费金钱,就成了个需要考虑的问题,那些主要由以金钱指标为主的游戏更是如此。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2011年3月31日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Metrics (Part III)

Ian Schreiber

Another example: measuring difficulty

Player difficulty, like fun, is another thing that’s basically impossible to measure directly, but what you can measure is progression, and failure to progress. Measures of progression are going to be different depending on your game.

For a game that presents skill-based challenges like a retro arcade game, you can measure things like how long it takes the player to clear each level, how many times they lose a life on each level, and importantly, where and how they lose a life. Collecting this information makes it really easy to see where your hardest points are, and if there are any unintentional spikes in your difficulty curve. I understand that Valve does this for their FPS games, and that they actually have a visualizer tool that will not only display all of this information, but actually plot it overlaid on a map of the level, so you can see where player deaths are clustered. Interestingly, starting with Half-Life 2 Episode 2 they actually have live reporting and uploading from players to their servers, and they have displayed their metrics on a public page (which probably helps with the aforementioned privacy concerns, because players can see for themselves exactly what is being uploaded and how it’s being used).

Yet another example: measuring game balance

What if instead you want to know if your game is fair and balanced? That’s not something you can measure directly either. However, you can track just about any number attached to any player, action or object in the game, and this can tell you a lot about both normal play patterns, and also the relative balance of strategies, objects, and anything else.

For example, suppose you have a strategy game where each player can take one of four different actions each turn, and you have a way of numerically tracking each player’s standing. You could record each turn, what action each player takes, and how it affects their respective standing in the game.

Or, suppose you have a CCG where players build their own decks, or a Fighting game where each player chooses a fighter, or an RTS where players choose a faction, or an MMO or tabletop RPG where players choose a race/class combination. Two things you can track here are which choices seem to be the most and least popular, and also which choices seem to have the highest correlation with actually winning. Note that this is not always the same thing; sometimes the big, flashy, cool-looking thing that everyone likes because it’s impressive and easy to use is still easily defeated by a sufficiently skilled player who uses a less well-known strategy. Sometimes, dominant strategies take months or even years to emerge through tens of thousands of games played; the Necropotence card in Magic: the Gathering saw almost no play for six months or so after release, until some top players figured out how to use it, because it had this really complicated and obscure set of effects… but once people started experimenting with it, they found it to be one of the most powerful cards ever made. So, both popularity and correlation with winning are two useful metrics here.

If a particular game object sees a lot more use than you expected, that can certainly signal a potential game balance issue. It may also mean that this one thing is just a lot more compelling to your target audience for whatever reason – for example, in a high fantasy game, you might be surprised to find more players creating Elves than Humans, regardless of balance issues… or maybe you wouldn’t be that surprised. Popularity can be a sign in some games that a certain play style is really fun compared to the others, and you can sometimes migrate that into other characters or classes or cards or what have you in order to make the game overall more fun.

If a game object sees less use than expected, again that can mean it’s underpowered or overcosted. It might also mean that it’s just not very fun to use, even if it’s effective. Or it might mean it is too complicated to use, it has a high learning curve relative to the rest of the game, and so players aren’t experimenting with it right away (which can be really dangerous if you’re relying on playtesters to actually, you know, playtest, if they leave some of your things alone and don’t play with them).

Metrics have other applications besides game objects. For example, one really useful area is in measuring beginning asymmetries, a common one being the first-player advantage (or disadvantage). Collect a bunch of data on seating arrangements versus end results. This happens a lot with professional games and sports; for example, I think statisticians have calculated the home-field advantage in American Football to be about 2.3 points, and depending on where you play the first-move advantage in Go is 6.5 or 7.5 points (in this latter case, the half point is used to prevent tie games). Statistics from Settlers of Catan tournaments have shown a very slight advantage to playing second in a four-player game, on the order of a few hundredths of a percent; normally we could discard that as random variation, but the sheer number of games that have been played gives the numbers some weight.

A Note on Ethics

The ethical consideration here is that a lot of these metrics look at player behavior but they don’t actually look at the value added (or removed) from the players’ lives. Some games, particularly those on Facebook which have evolved to make some of the most efficient use of metrics of any games ever made, have also been accused (by some people) of being blatantly manipulative, exploiting known flaws in human psychology to keep their players playing (and giving money) against their will. Now, this sounds silly when taken to the extreme, because we think of games as something inherently voluntary, so the idea of a game “holding us prisoner” seems strange. On the other hand, any game you’ve played for an extended period of time is a game you are emotionally invested in, and that emotional investment does have cash value. If it seems silly to you that I’d say a game “makes” you spend money, consider this: suppose I found all of your saved games and put them in one place. Maybe some of these are on console memory cards or hard disks. Maybe some of them are on your PC hard drive. For online games, your “saved game” is on some company’s server somewhere. And then suppose I threatened to destroy all of them… but not to worry, I’d replace the hardware. So you get free replacements of your hard drive and console memory cards, a fresh account on every online game you subscribe to, and so on. And then suppose I asked you, how much would you pay me to not do that. And I bet when you think about it, the answer is more than zero, and the reason is that those saved games have value to you! And more to the point, if one of these games threatened to delete all your saves unless you bought some extra downloadable content, you would at least consider it… not because you wanted to gain the content, but because you wanted to not lose your save.

To be fair, all games involve some kind of psychological manipulation, just like movies and books and all other media (there’s that whole thing about suspending our disbelief, for example). And most people don’t really have a problem with this; they still see the game experience itself as a net value-add to their life, by letting them live more in the hours they spend playing than they would have lived had they done other activities.

But just like difficulty curves, the difference between value added and taken away is not constant; it’s different from person to person. This is why we have things like MMOs that enhance the lives of millions of subscribers, while also causing horrendous bad events in the lives of a small minority that lose their marriage and family to their game obsession, or that play for so long without attending to basic bodily needs that they keel over and die at the keyboard.

So there is a question of how far we can push our players to give us money, or just to play our game at all, before we cross an ethical line… especially in the case where our game design is being driven primarily by money-based metrics. As before, I invite you to think about where you stand on this, because if you don’t know, the decision will be made for you by someone else who does. (Source: Game Design Aspect)


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