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阐述填充游戏设计的相关问题

发布时间:2013-09-02 11:32:08 Tags:,,,,

作者:Josh Bycer

上周我刊登了一篇有关《龙之皇冠》的分析,其中有一个元素让人回想起了《暗黑破坏神3》,尽管我并不是这款游戏的粉丝:填充内容。即设计师需要通过现有的内容和游戏设计而人为地延长游戏时间。

吃你自己的菜:

随着过去十年里更多新手开始接触游戏设计,设计师开始面对一个问题:“我们该如何让新玩家去学习游戏?”

并不是所有人都喜欢《超级食肉男孩》或《黑暗之魂》这类型将死亡当成家常便饭的游戏。如果有人在学习期间不断遭遇失败,他们便会因此而沮丧并放弃挑战。

diablo-3(from botreviewsite)

diablo-3(from botreviewsite)

为了回应这一问题,设计师想要通过扩展内容去确保要点深入设计中。我们可以在许多休闲益智游戏中看到这点,即存在一系列围绕着单一主题的谜题或机制中包含10个谜题。

让我们回到“现实游戏是始于X”的短语中;你需要知道游戏中的“教程”需要花费多长时间。教程可以根据它花了多长时间去介绍游戏的所有核心机制而进行定义。

当然,这对于玩家来说仍是一种优秀的设计,让他们能在持续游戏过程中发现一些新内容。但是游戏不能一连好几个小时握着玩家的手前进。《最终幻想13》长达20小时的教程便是一个反面例子。

关于游戏填充的另一个要点便是它能赋予游戏一个渐变的难度曲线。有些玩家在一开始并不需要担心游戏是否会太复杂,而游戏难度则会逐渐提升从而更好地测试玩家。尽管基于这种方式设计游戏对新手非常有帮助,但是这对于那些资深玩家或回头客来说却非常受折磨。

当资深玩家在一开始被迫去玩一些较简单的内容时,这对于他们来说并不是享受而是工作。对于这一设计主要有两种例子,第一种便是带有进程系统的RPG游戏。

第二种则是源自行动游戏,即在玩家战胜了第二难的设置后打开最难的内容。

在这些例子中,最后的结果便是游戏介于正常的难度与真正难度之间。或者只让资深玩家能够经历那些最高难度的内容。

所有的这些选择都不能说服玩家去经历最简单的设置。回到《龙之皇冠》,我们可以发现开发者是基于三种难度级别去设置敌人难度,战利品掉落以及角色级别。关于游戏最普通的设置便是较为简单的内容,但却包含20个小时的活动并要求每个角色必须进入复杂模式。

虽然这些游戏自夸拥有许多游戏时间和重玩价值,但问题是:“有多少属于真正游戏时间又有多少具有真正的游戏乐趣?”

这也是我更喜欢拥有1至2个难度级别,或让玩家能够控制难度的游戏的原因。

为自己创造更复杂(或更简单)的内容:

当我们着眼于难度级别时,最简单的方法应该是只在一款游戏中设置1至2个难度级别。普遍认为,让玩家基于其它难度级别而玩游戏将成为导致他们厌倦游戏的“简单模式”。

我发现存在越少难度选择,游戏便会越趋向平衡。尝试着基于True Vault Hunter(困难模式)和Ultimate Vault Hunter(极困难模式)去玩《无主之地》,我发现敌人的能力一直增强,从而导致我不能再凭借自己的力量做任何事。

说到独自挑战和游戏平衡,这是确保敌人在游戏中与多人游戏组件相匹配的有效方法。基于不平衡的设计,这能帮助我们避免强迫性的多人游戏问题。

现在,即使你坚持一种难度级别,这也不意味着你不能拥有不同的难度级别。

在《超级马里奥银河1》和《超级马里奥银河2》中,设计师为玩家创造了各种挑战让他们能在不同的难度级别中穿梭着。

drox operative(from game-wisdom)

drox operative(from game-wisdom)

可行的挑战数意味着那些新玩家可以从较简单的内容开始玩起;而较资深的玩家则可以挑战更高难度的内容。

最后这两种类型的玩家将到达最后的竞赛,并且除非有人追求100%完成任务,否则玩家便无需经历每一个难度级别。一名玩家如何经历游戏将不会对其他玩家的体验造成任何影响。

而让玩家能够按照自己的想法改变游戏难度的做法不仅难以达到平衡也很难真正落实行动。不过在这些例子中,设计师让玩家能够基于不同的元素去改变游戏难度,并且根据玩家的选择而给予他们不同的奖励。

我只想到少数几款使用了这一方法的游戏。面向3DS的《Kid Icarus: Uprising》让玩家能在难度上升或下降之前消费游戏货币。当玩家前往更高级别时,敌人便会越复杂,不过玩家也因此能够找到更厉害的战利品。

作为游戏填充的一大例子,《暗黑破坏神3》提供了一种“怪物实力”设置。即通过设置从1到10的级别,玩家可以基于不同数量提高素有敌人的数值,以此而显著提高游戏难度级别。当玩家上升到更高级别时,他们便能够找到一些更稀有的道具。

当暴雪最后采用了隐藏式超级稀有战利品时,怪物实力系统变成了一种必要内容。

kid Icarus(from game-wisdom)

kid Icarus(from game-wisdom)

《美妙世界》便拥有我最喜欢的玩家定义难度机制。这款游戏具有非常独特的游戏系统,我们甚至可以用一整篇文章去描述它。

游戏是基于三种方式去控制难度。首先便是无处不在的难度滑动条。滑动条将决定敌人的整体难度及其状态。除此之外,敌人所携带的战利品则是受到游戏的难度所决定,即在更复杂的游戏设置中,玩家往往能够获得更厉害的战利品。

其次,主角的健康状况至关战利品的掉落。高端战利品被默认设置为具有5%至10%的掉落率。最后,为了获得更多利益和体验,你可以同时与更多群组进行比赛,即经历多人游戏体验。

基于这些方法,《美妙世界》给予了玩家多种调整难度的方法,最突出的一点还是这里不存在任何“错误的”游戏方式。不擅长游戏的玩家可以降低难度较轻松地通过游戏。而完美主义者则可以选择更复杂的比赛去测试自己并从中获得奖励。

填充内容是确保玩家沉浸于游戏中,并更多地强调设计数量(游戏邦注:而非质量)的最常见方法。即有效地确定游戏节奏,并长时间地让玩家能够看到更多新内容。

当你在开发一款追求重玩价值的游戏时,你所面临的挑战将变成设计能够长期挽留住玩家注意并让他们反复游戏的内容。像《银河特工》,《天宫崩溃》或《造物主》等游戏便不是基于1个小时便结束的游戏机制而设计。而对于那些较短且具有吸引力的游戏阶段,它们便需要想办法反复吸引玩家的注意。

需要注意的是,并非每一款游戏都具有长达80个小时的冒险内容,即使是2个小时的游戏,只要具有合理的设计也能够让玩家印象深刻。但是一旦玩家开始略过一些过场动画并忘记支线任务时,你便会清楚地意识到游戏即将走到头。

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

The Problems with Padding out Game Design

By Josh Bycer

Last week I posted my analysis of Dragon’s Crown and there was one element that was reminiscent of Diablo 3 that I’m not a fan of: Padding out content. Where, designers will artificially lengthen the playtime by stretching out the existing content and game design to the point where the game feels like busy work.

The phrase: “The real game doesn’t begin until X” can be applied here and is an example of imbalanced design.

Eating your Vegetables:

As game design over the last decade became more accessible to newcomers, designers faced a problem: “How do we give new players a shot at learning our games?”

Not everyone enjoys a game like Super Meat Boy or Dark Souls where death is a routine occurrence. And if someone keeps failing during the learning period, there is a good chance that they will become frustrated and give up all together.

In response, designers like to stretch content out to make sure that the point is hammered in about the design. We can see this in a lot of casual puzzle titles where a “set” of puzzles around a single theme or mechanic consists of 10 or so puzzles before moving on.

Going back to the phrase “the real game begins at X”; you need to be aware of how long what could be considered the “tutorial” aspect of your game takes. The tutorial can be defined by how long it takes for all the core mechanics of the game to be introduced.

Granted, it’s considered good design for players to still be finding new things out as they continue to play. But, the game shouldn’t be holding the player’s hands for hours on end. An infamous case in point would be Final Fantasy 13′s insane 20 hours worth of tutorials.

The other major point about game padding is that it helps give the game a gradual difficulty curve. Someone starting out will not have to worry about the game being difficult and the game will eventually become harder to test the player. While having games designed this way is great for newcomers, it can become torturous for expert or returning players.

When expert players are forced to play the easiest setting first before getting to the good stuff it makes the game feel more like work than actually enjoying it. There are two examples of this kind of design, the first one being RPG-based games with a progression system.

Here, the game was designed that characters of specific level ranges were meant to play through different levels. For example with Diablo 3 if I remember right, level 1-30 was normal, 31-48 for nightmare and 49 to 60 for hell (chances are I’m entirely wrong with these numbers.) The point was that you couldn’t just start a level one character on nightmare difficulty as the level difference would kill them and instead you had to work your way through each difficulty per character.

The second one we see in action-based games where the highest difficulty setting is locked until the player beats the second hardest setting (either normal or hard.)

In these cases what ends up happening is that the game is neutered for normal difficulty with what is considered “the true game” unlocked for hard. Or the hardest difficulty is so imbalanced that only the hardcore who are experts at min-maxing will be able to get through it without feeling frustrated.

None of those options are great for convincing people to play through the easiest settings. Bringing this back to Dragon’s Crown, the developers have three difficulty levels that gate the enemy difficulty, loot and character levels. The normal setting of the game was pretty easy but is about a twenty hour campaign that is required for every character to get each one to hard mode.

What it comes down to is that these games boast a high amount of playtime and replayability, but the question is: “how much of that is busy work and how much is actually enjoyable?”

This is why I prefer games that only have one or two difficulty levels, or gives players control of the difficulty that we’ll talk about next.

Making Things Harder (or Easier) for Your Self:

Looking at difficulty levels the simplest solution would be to simply have one or two levels in a game and that’s it. With “normal” considered the main way to play the game with the other level considered the “easy mode” for people having trouble with the game.

I find that the fewer difficulty options there are, the more balanced the game is. Trying to play Borderlands 2 on True Vault Hunter (hard mode) and Ultimate Vault Hunter (extra hard mode), I found that the enemy stats were boosted so far that I could barely do anything solo.

Speaking of solo and game balance, it’s a good idea to have enemy scaling in games with multiplayer components. That will help avoid the problem of forced multiplayer due to imbalanced design.

Now, just because you stick with one difficulty level, doesn’t mean that you can’t have different degrees of difficulty.

In Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, the designers created a variety of challenges for the player to do in varying degrees of difficulty.

The number of challenges available meant that someone who was brand new to the game could make progress with easier levels; while more advanced players could do the harder ones.

Eventually both groups of players would reach the final fight, but unless someone was going for 100% completion, they didn’t need to do every level. And how one player goes through the game had no impact on other players’ experience.

What’s even harder to not only balance but simply pull off, would be allowing players to alter the difficulty of the game at will. In these cases, the designers give the player the means to alter how hard playing the game is based on different factors and in return, the player is rewarded more or less depending on their choice.

There are only a handful of games that come to mind that have gone this route. Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS allowed players to spend in game currency before a level to raise or lower the difficulty from the standard rating. The higher the player went, the harder the enemies were but the better the loot the player could find.

Incidentally for being an example of game padding, Diablo 3 did eventually offer a form of this with the “monster power” setting.  By raising the setting from 1 to 10, the player could increase the stat values of all enemies by different amounts, with raising the level on inferno causing a much more dramatic increase. Each level the player went up would in return, increase their chance to find rare items.

When Blizzard finally adopted hidden super rare loot for inferno, the monster power system was used as a requirement to even have a chance at acquiring them.

My favorite use of player defined difficulty would have to be from The World Ends With You. The game was full of unique game systems which we could spend an entire post on.

For the difficulty, the game was built on three ways to control it. First was the ubiquitous difficulty slider. The slider determined the overall difficulty of the enemies and their stats. Besides that, enemy loot was determined by what difficulty the game was set at, with better loot possible for playing on the harder setting.

Second, you could love the max health of the main character which in turned increased the possible drop rate. With high end loot having by default anywhere from five to ten percent chance of dropping, this was required to get the best stuff. Lastly, to get more money and experience, you could chain fights together with the more groups fought at once, acted as a multiplier.

In those ways, The World Ends With You gave players multiple ways of adjusting the difficulty and the best part was that there was no “wrong” way of playing. Someone who wasn’t doing so well could set the difficulty to easy and make it through. While completist could test themselves with harder fights and get rewarded for it.

Padding out content is the most common way to keep players invested in a game and is about providing quantity instead of quality design. Games that are paced well, last long enough for the player to see everything and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

When developing games that are meant to be replayed, the challenge then becomes trying to design content that is engaging over the long haul as the player is going to keep repeating it. Games like Drox Operative, Skyward Collapse or Reus were not designed around a single play taking hours on end. But about short, engaging periods of gameplay that were meant to be enjoyed over and over again.

Remember, not every game has to be an epic 80 hour adventure and even a 2 hour game can be memorable if it is designed well.  But when players start skipping cutscenes and forgetting about side quests, you don’t need the Oscars wrap up music to know that it’s time for the ending.(source:game-wisdom)


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