作者：Tobias Heussner

我不只一次听到有人抱怨MM0游戏变得越来越休闲且越来越无聊。所以我便决定通过本文解答人们产生这种想法的原因。

几年前，MMO仍属于一种非常困难且难以精通的游戏，很少有玩家能够坚持到游戏最后。所以设计师们便决定降低这类型游戏的难度让它们变得更加容易接近，但是现在看来我们是否做得太过头了？也许真的是这样。那么我们是否应该回到过去？并非如此。因为作为设计师，我们的主要目标仍是通过游戏尽可能地取悦玩家。所以现在我们真正需要做的是寻找最合适的方法，结合“现代”与“传统”游戏模式，在不流失玩家的前提下创造新一代MMO。

玩家类型

在我们开始谈论不同的MMO元素之前，我们首先需要谈谈不同的玩家类型；因为只有更好地理解玩家，我们才能够创造出更好的游戏。并且只有理解了玩家的类型，我们才能够想办法创造出符合目标玩家期望的游戏系统。

我尝试着使用一些不同的方法去描述游戏类型和玩家类型。首先我想使用Bartle的玩家分类模型，但是我发现如果我希望以此解释休闲与硬核玩家的比较，这种方法就不再奏效了。所以我便想到了另一种系统，也就是类似于人格测试领域中的OCEAN（游戏邦注：也就是人类的五大性格特质）模型。

该模型是指明确每个玩家在0至100之间的分数值来确定自己所属的类型。而每一种分类则表示不同的游戏元素。在OCEAN中，拥有较高数值的人更倾向于右边的特质，而拥有较低数值的则更倾向于左边的特质。这种系统的优点在于它既能够迎合多样性，也极其通俗易懂。除此之外我们也能够将这一系统当成是一种评级工具，根据不同游戏类型为我们的游戏系统评级，从中判断哪个群组的玩家更喜欢哪些特定的功能。

personality types(from squidoo.com)

我所明确的五大分类分别是“休闲vs.硬核（难度）”，“合作vs.竞争（竞争性）”，“基于故事vs.基于机制（游戏侧重点）”，“引导vs.非引导（探索）”以及“开放vs.传统思想（开放性）”。

以下我将详细分析这五大分类：

休闲vs.硬核（难度）

这一分类是用于定义玩家更倾向于休闲类型——喜欢简单游戏，还是更倾向于硬核类型——喜欢面对复杂且具有挑战性的选择。拥有较高数值的玩家更喜欢硬核游戏机制并且不在乎游戏是否存在简单模式。而拥有较低数值的玩家则更喜欢拥有快速奖励循环的简单游戏机制；他们不喜欢接受挑战而更情愿观看一些交互式游戏场景。

合作vs.竞争（竞争性）

这一分类是指玩家更愿意选择“玩家对抗玩家（PvP）”模式还是合作游戏模式。拥有较高数值的玩家更喜欢PvP模式而不是合作模式，并且享受与其他玩家对抗的乐趣。而拥有较低数值的玩家则更乐于合作，在此体验与其他玩家合作并共同达到游戏目标的乐趣。

基于故事vs.基于机制（游戏侧重点）

这一分类是判断玩家更关注于故事体验还是游戏机制。拥有较高数值的玩家更加享受特定游戏机制的挑战，并且希望尝试不同玩法操纵角色而达到目标。典型的基于机制的玩家希望能够尽快到达游戏最后阶段并迎接最困难的挑战。而拥有较低数值的玩家则更关注于游戏故事；他们能真正感受到游戏精心雕琢的过关模式和故事情节所带来的乐趣。有时候他们甚至不关心自己是否能够到达游戏的最高级别或者获得最强大的装备，反而更希望真正融入游戏世界中体验游戏。对于基于故事的玩家来说，体验游戏故事便是他们的游戏目标，而对于基于机制的玩家来说，结果才更加重要。

引导vs.非引导探索（探索）

这一分类是判断玩家是否愿意独自探索游戏世界；并区分玩家是愿意面对一个拥有各种秘密场景的广大游戏世界，还是只希望融入一个较小但范围明确的游戏世界。拥有较高数值的玩家更愿意花时间去探索虚拟世界中的秘密；他们不需要任何引导，只要为其展现一个世界进行探索即可。而拥有较低数值的玩家则更希望有人引导自己前进；他们希望别人能够告诉自己该在什么时候前往何处；同时这类型玩家也更喜欢定义明确的小型而非浩瀚的世界。

开放vs.传统思想（开放性）

最后一个分类是用于判断玩家是否愿意接受改变。通过这一分类的评级，我们能够在创造游戏续集或者添加新内容时明确玩家是否愿意接受改变。拥有较高数值的玩家更喜欢传统游戏机制；他们习惯于现有的内容而不希望看到任何改变。典型的例子便是硬核纸笔角色扮演玩家；他们习惯于自己在所有角色扮演游戏中所看到的角色属性和技能，不想看到任何独特性；他们甚至还认为如果游戏脱离了这些传统机制便会遭遇失败，不再属于角色扮演游戏。在第一款《质量效应》发布时我们就听到过类似的讨论。而拥有较低数值的玩家则更乐于接受改变，并且不会基于游戏机制去定义游戏类型。对于这类玩家来说，基本的游戏体验比游戏机制更加重要。就好比在角色扮演游戏中，只要玩家仍在游戏中扮演一个特定的角色并与其他角色进行互动，他就会将游戏类型定义为角色扮演游戏；而对于他来说如何赢得战斗只属于角色扮演中的一个组成部分罢了。

这便是我所归纳的五大分类。这些内容都只是简略概括，未能完全阐述这些科学理论。但是我希望这种分类能够真正帮助设计师更好地理解玩家并因此创造出更棒的游戏。

（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）

“Not so casual…” – Difficulty problems in modern MMOs (Part 01: Player Types)

by Tobias Heussner

Recently I read another article regarding the difficulty in modern days MMOs. By far this wasn’t the first time that someone complained that MMOs became too casual and thus boring. So this led me to this series of blog posts for the coming weeks, asking: Why do gamers feel that way?

Just a few years back, MMOs were some of the most difficult to master games and only a very small group of gamers ever made it to the endgame. So we designers spent a lot of time making them easier and better approachable, but did we go too far? Maybe… Should we go back to the old days? I don’t think so, because as designers our goal should still be to entertain as many as possible with our games. I think that we need to find ways, which combine the “modern” and “traditional” approaches, so that we don’t lose our fans, while being on the quest designing the next generation of MMOs.

With each post I’ll highlight another typical MMO aspect and hope that we can discuss solutions which lead us to better and more entertaining MMOs. None of these posts will have the room to fully discuss or even solve the problems, but hopefully will provide some ideas to tackle the problems in the future.

Also for each aspect I’ll interview some other developers and will post their opinions in a separate post shortly after the main post. If you like to get interviewed or have a specific topic you like to discuss, feel free to write me.

That’s it for the intro; let’s start with the first aspect…

Player Types

Before we can talk about the different MMO aspects, we need to talk about our players and their different play-styles. The main reason for this is that by understanding our players better, we’ll become able to create better games. Also a strong understanding of player types helps us to develop our systems in such a way that they match the expectations of our target audience.

Several approaches have been made to describe play-styles and player types. First I was tempted to use the famous Bartle classification, but if we want to include things like casual versus hardcore, it doesn’t really help. Thus I tried to come up with another system and the one I could come up with is a bit similar to the OCEAN (or Big Five) test from the realm of personality tests.

The general idea is that each gamer rates himself/herself in five different categories by assigning a value between 0 and 100. Each category describes another gaming aspect. As in OCEAN a high value means that this person tends more to the right side attribute whereas a low value means that she tends to the left one. The advantage of such a system is that it allows a huge diversity but is still easily understood. Also, again, we can use such a system as a rating tool, to rate our game system against certain play-styles to find out which group of players feels most attracted to a certain feature.

The five categories I came up with for our discussion are “Casual versus Hardcore (Difficulty)”, “Cooperative versus Competitive (Competition)”, “Story-focused versus Mechanic-focused (Play-Focus)”, “Guided versus Un-Guided Exploration (Exploration)” and “Open versus Traditional Minded (Openness)”.

The five categories in detail

Casual versus Hardcore (Difficulty)

This category defines if a player sees himself more as a casual player, who likes simple and easy games or if he sees himself as a core gamer, who enjoys complex challenges and tough choices. A high value means that this player tends to hardcore game mechanics and normally doesn’t even care if there is an easy mode or not. A lower value means that he rather enjoys simple game mechanics with a fast reward cycle. He may doesn’t even want to be challenged at all and rather watch an interactive movie.

Cooperative versus Competitive (Competition)

With this category, I try to describe, if a player tends more to a Player-versus-Player or towards a cooperative play-style. A higher rating means that this particular player tends more to PvP than to coop-gameplay and enjoys intense battles against other players. A lower rating means that this player would enjoy activities where he can work together with other players to achieve something in the game.

Story-focused versus Mechanic-focused (Play-Focus)

This category describes if someone puts her focus on story experience or the game mechanics itself. Someone with a high value tends to enjoy the challenge that comes from certain mechanics and normally wants to try-out many different ways of playing her character just to find the perfect build. A typical mechanic-focused player wants to get to the endgame as fast as possible and then starts to challenge the most difficult encounters. A player with a low value tends to a story focus. She enjoys a huge variety of well-crafted quests and stories. Sometimes she doesn’t even care if she will reach max-level and the best equipment, she just wants to become a part of the world and experience it. For her the way is the goal, whereas for a mechanic-focused person only the results matter.

Guided versus Un-Guided Exploration (Exploration)

With the exploration category a player defines how much he is willing to explore a world on his own. Also it defines if this particular player rather wants to have a huge world with many secret spots or if he enjoys more being part of small well-defined one. A higher rating in this category means that this person wants to spend time to discover the secrets of our virtual world. He doesn’t need any guidance, just a world that needs to be discovered. A lower rating means that this player likes to have someone at hand that shows him through the world. He wants to know that he’s at the right place to the right time. Also he may enjoy small, well-defined worlds more than vast open ones.

Open versus Traditional (Openness)

The last category addresses the fact that some players are more open to changes than others. With the help of this category I want to provide a rating for this fact, because especially when we create sequels or add-ons we need to know, if our audience will tend to accepting changes or not. A higher rating in this category means that a player tends to more traditional game mechanics. She got so used to the ones we already established that she doesn’t want to see a change here. A typical example could be the hardcore pen and paper role-player. She got so used to using attributes and skill roles that she expects to see them in every role-playing game. She may even go as far as proclaiming that games without these mechanics will always fail and never could be true role-playing games. We saw this discussion for example with the release of the first Mass Effect. A lower rating in this category means that she would be open to changes and normally doesn’t define a genre by its mechanics. For her the essential experience matters more than the mechanics. For our role-playing example it would mean that she would still define a game as a role-playing one as long as she plays a certain role and interacts in this role with other characters. For her the way how the combat is resolved is only one of many parts that belong to the idea of playing a role.

These are my five categories in short. They are only a rough start and not a fully fleshed out scientific theory. For now I hope that they help us to understand our fans better and ultimately help to create better games. I’ll refer to these categories the next posts, when we look at MMO aspects such as Instances, Raids or Skill systems. Also I’ll try to show how different player types see certain MMO aspects and how we can change these aspects to address certain player types.(source:GAMASUTRA)