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万字长文,关于游戏中的难度曲线设定和用户体验,中篇

发布时间:2015-09-30 09:22:50 Tags:,,

篇目1,举例分析游戏难度的设计要求

作者:Dylan Woodbury

游戏的难度是一个非常令人困惑的话题。设计师甚至在开始设计以前就要明确自己希望游戏达到什么程度的难度。难度决定了你的目标受众是哪些人,休闲的还是硬核的。

许多设计师有这样的误解:为了迎合最硬核的玩家,难度必须上升,以便排除大部分非硬核玩家。与这种做法相反的是,把游戏做得尽量简单,使所有人都能上手。事实上,近来游戏公司一直在让玩家作弊。在《超级马里奥银河2》中,任天堂允许玩家跳过玩家认为太难的挑战。不!糟糕的设计师。

作弊是游戏的大敌。允许玩家作弊是设计师的失职。在学校,有些老师总是人为“扭曲”测验得分,即去掉大部分学生都不会做的题目。这种“扭曲”正是教师承认自己教得不够好,学生不应该对此负责。如果学生被要求使用这些他们没有学会的技能,他们可能就会不及格。在电子游戏中,能够跳过这些旨在考验你的技能同时教授/训练你的技能的挑战,导致你错过重要的概念等,更别说让玩家心生反感。

在线攻略也是如此——它们破坏了玩家本应该感觉到的成就感。许多技能是通过尝试-犯错学习到的,单纯地阅读攻略可能让玩家错过重要的知识。这表明游戏设计中存在重大缺陷,也提供了一个非常重要的信号。

如果玩家绝对无法克服这个挑战,以至于放弃或求助于在线攻略,上述信号就是,学习曲线有缺口。玩家不能够利用他所必需的技能或知识。我们怎么解决这个问题?更多挑战。

Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess(from zelda.com)

Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess(from zelda.com)

例如:在《塞尔达传说:黎明公主》中,有一个非常小的挑战给我带来麻烦。目标:到地底下去。障碍:通向地底的两个洞被蜘蛛网盖住了,导致不能通过。我尝试了我能想到的一切办法——抛回力镖、射箭、用弹弓。我用回力镖弹墙上的火把,希望烧掉蜘蛛网。我滚到蜘蛛网那里,希望用我的体重破坏它。都不管用。

我不想这么做,但最终我还是做了——我看了在线攻略。说出这件事让我很羞愧,不过总有那么个时候,遇到实在太让人受挫的挑战,为了继续玩下去只能作弊,否则就永远玩不下去。解决方案:拿出你的灯笼,滚到蜘蛛网的地方——火会烧掉蜘蛛网。

出于某些原因,我对这个方法很郁闷。那时候我不明白我为什么郁闷,不过我现在明白了——游戏并没有告诉你在蜘蛛网前面滚你的灯笼(摇动远程控制器)就能破坏蜘蛛网。在整个游戏中有足够的挑战让玩家记住这点。在这个挑战之前的部分,游戏从来没有要求玩家通过滚动某物来解决挑战,也没有要求玩家通过除了摇摆控制器以外的方式来使用灯笼。

所以有些人可能会马上指出来,没有经过足够的训练使大部分人理解这个挑战,怎么能指望他们解决这个挑战?如果在这个挑战以前添加许多需要摇摆操作的挑战呢?这不能让答案明显,但它对发现这个解决方案且后来觉得了不起的玩家没有提出很高的要求。它只是给玩家他们想出这个解决方案所需要的完整技能——既要想到新技能,又要懂得如何用它解决新难题,这对玩家的要求可能太高了。

这些问题大多是可以通过测试发现的。设计师应该发现哪些挑战太困难或太简单,为什么太困难(以至于玩家放弃、完全不理解或寻找在线攻略、破坏了长期体验),如何通过提前训练玩家以帮助解决困难。

挑战的难度应该由问题解决方案、模式识别和横向思维(或其他思维)等产生的,且玩家有一套特定的技能和工具来解决这些挑战。挑战不应该来自要求玩家使用自己还没有学过的技能解决问题(正如《黎明公主》这个例子所反映的)。挑战也不应该要求玩家使用自己刚学会不久的技能(人是见忘的)。

half life 2(from the-ripple.co.uk)

half life 2(from the-ripple.co.uk)

《半条命:第二章》提供了一个好例子。在接近结尾时,在黑森林里,玩家遇到一个要求使用蒸汽阀的情境,玩家学习这个技能还不久。在真正的行动开始前,设计师安排了一个小挑战,要求玩家从散出蒸汽的管道的一另爬到另一边。玩家无法忍受高温的蒸汽,但能看到红色的大转盘,操作它,蒸汽就被关了。玩家已经学习了许多关于某个技能的东西,突然从脑海中回想起来。玩家不必在高温的折磨中思考转盘和蒸汽的关系,因为他之前就知道了。所以,这个挑战就显得更合理、更有趣了。

这个例子解释了我的观点,让我想到另一个重点。挑战应该要么关于解决挑战,要么关于学习新技能(游戏邦注:用非常简单的挑战,如上述《半条命2》的小挑战)——通常不能二者兼有。当玩家面临挑战时,他不会尝试解决它且通常不会想出什么新技能(新工具),而是希望用自己已经知道的办法解决挑战——这是我们大脑的运作方式。如果够明显,玩家可以学习技能(如用转盘关掉蒸汽),且这类挑战通常应该让人有成就感。这类挑战最需要测试(以便确定是否需要修改或删除)。

现在可以总结我的观点了——难度不应该只关于乱按键、定时等。难度是使用技能完成挑战,使用新技能完成新挑战。在《塞尔达传说》中,当你得到一个新工具时,游戏就会给你一个非常基础的挑战教你学习基本技能。与此类似,当玩家学会新技能,游戏就可以拿许多需要这种技能的挑战来考验玩家。

令一些惊讶的是,游戏的相对难度在整个游戏过程中应该保持一致(不能比开头难上10多倍)。当你玩一款设计良好的游戏时,你对游戏教给你的技能会越来越上手。你会不断地学习新技能,为了解决新问题,你会不断改良旧方法。出现在游戏结尾的绝对难度的挑战是非常困难的——把新玩家折腾得非常厉害的挑战。但是,如果相对难度是基本一致的,那么从头到尾玩到这里的玩家感觉到的困难应该与解决第三关的挑战差不多。

设计游戏的一系列挑战是很困难的——每个挑战都需要加强技能、启发玩家以新方式使用技能、教玩家组合某些技能或学习全新的技能。游戏必须在之前的挑战中教会玩家当前挑战所要求的技能/知识——这个难度在于使用这些工具(无论你是以不同的方式还是以更困难的方式使用它们)。

如果学习曲线和个人挑战不存在断层,那么困难的程度应该既适合休闲玩家,也适合硬核玩家,且这两类玩家仍然从中获得乐趣。

篇目2,分析游戏难度之主观难度的优势与挑战

作者:Josh Bycer

我在“达尔文难度”这篇文章中以《恶魔之魂》为例,提出了“主观难度”这个概念。但这个概念并不仅适用于那极为困难的游戏,甚至是《超级马里奥》这种自1996年问世以来就一直以易用性而著称的游戏也不例外。

在深入探讨这个问题之前,我们得先解释两个定义:

主观难度:根据玩家技能水平而设计的挑战。

安全度:玩家历尽艰辛,但最后仍能克服特定挑战的程度。

从技术上讲,我们可以说游戏中的任何挑战难度都取决于玩家主观技能水平,《街霸》高手玩家面对街机模式,当然不可能像从未接触过格斗游戏的玩家一样蹩脚。主观难度的关键元素在于,同时根据玩家的不同技能水平设计特定挑战。

要实现这一目标,就得让玩家在游戏开始之初就接触其中涉及的所有机制。要设计适用于不同技能等级玩家的关卡,就一定要呈现所有的机制供他们选择。如果某些关卡仅围绕一两个机制而设计,那么这就不叫主观难度,因为新手和高手玩家在这种情况下都只能接触同个难度的内容。

因此我们需要考虑到设置主观难度需厘清的一些问题。首先,随着游戏进程解琐机制并不能算是主观难度。玩过《银河战士》或者2D《恶魔城》的人就会发现,这些游戏中总有一些关键路径衍生出的有待解琐的分支。玩家一路探索游戏时,将通过与boss过招或者找到一些能量补充道具以解开新机制,以便进入之前那些限制访问的领域。

问题关键在于,玩家无法进入那些领域并不是他们水平不济,而是设计师有意所为。无论《恶魔城》的高手玩家有多厉害,他们也只得跟新手一样以同样的方式通关玩游戏。

其次,传统的难度等级设置也不能算是主观难度。从“安全度”这个概念可以看出,如果状态值(游戏邦注:例如,在“简单”关卡,敌人的杀伤力较小,在“困难”关卡,敌人杀伤力上升)成了决定不同难度等级的唯一要素时,那么所有的设计师都只要增加或者降低“安全度”,就可以完成难度设置了。

《神手》中的主观难度

神手(from gamasutra)

神手(from gamasutra)

PlayStation 2游戏《神手》有两种难度形式。刚开始,玩家可以选择一个难度等级。在游戏过程中,屏幕左下方有个仪表会始终显示当前的难度等级。

游戏难度会根据玩家的表现情况,在0级和死亡级(6级)之前浮动。如果玩家不慎受重伤或死亡,就会降低仪表中的数值,并因此而降低等级。玩家在游戏过程中受到的损害越小,其等级就会晋升得越高。

难度等级会带来两个影响:首先,它会影响AI的攻击强度。难度等级越小,敌人进行反击、群攻或使用必杀技的机率就越小,而高难度等级则与此相反。其次,高等级(尤其是死亡等级)关卡中会出现更多(和更困难)的敌人,迫使玩家提高适应能力。

《神手》会通过提升或降低难度来匹配玩家的技能水平,新手或高手都会经历同个关卡,只是新手遇到的挑战与高手不同罢了。

挑战的变化

主观难度的另一种形式是提供同个挑战的不同变体。例如《托尼霍克计划8》或《班卓熊:神奇螺丝》,这两者的挑战都含有基本、高级和专家级目标。

游戏中的每个挑战都会向最低限度地完成游戏(这也是最易完成目标的方法)的玩家颁发铜牌奖章,如果以更困难的方式克服挑战,就有可能赢得银牌或金牌奖章。例如,玩家在《托尼霍克计划8》中的竞赛中取得第五名,那就可以得到铜牌奖章,第二名就是银牌,两分钟内完成任务的第一名就可以拿金牌。

这种更困难的选项可以鼓励乐于参与挑战的玩家进行尝试,但只要拿到铜牌(或银牌)就已足够说明玩家已经“完成”挑战。

这种奖励系统在许多智能手机游戏中也很常见。有不少《割绳子》玩家总希望在每个关卡中都拿到3颗星——这并非完成挑战的必要行为,但却是完美主义者的必要选择。

3D版《超级马里奥》

《马里奥》是自NES时代以来一直备受欢迎的游戏系列,1996年3D版本的《超级马里奥64》的游戏设计变化较大。在之前版本的游戏中,每个关卡的路径和机制都完全采用线性设置,而3D版游戏则以开放式的关卡形式呈现了非线性特点。

《马里奥银河》系列和《恶魔之魂》的难度设置特点相当于一枚硬币的两面。

首先要申明一点,这两者都允许玩家在游戏开始之初让角色发挥所有的核心技能。在《马里奥》中,水管工的技能主要是跑、跳和旋转攻击等方式。

在《恶魔之魂》中,技能和机制主要根据与攻击、防御、精力管理和反击等与战斗有关的元素而设计(游戏邦注:值得注意的是,玩家在《马里奥银河》中可解琐一些提升能量的道具,但这仅限于一些特定的关卡或游戏场景)。

这两款游戏系列之间的偏差——《马里奥》可成为主观难度的典型而《恶魔之魂》不行的原因就在于,两者之间的关卡设计特点。《恶魔之魂》玩家一开始就可以接触所有的机制,游戏之初时就会遇到各种技能考验。但《马里奥银河》玩家虽然也能使用所有的机制,但可以在必要情况下才使用某些机制。

在达尔文难度概念中,玩家一开始就会接触到所有游戏机制(至少是多数游戏机制),并在随后的任务中有效使用这些机制。以下是该篇文章中的难度曲线图:

达尔文难度曲线(from gamasutra)

达尔文难度曲线(from gamasutra)

在这两种类型的游戏中,玩家在刚开始时都能接触到所有游戏玩法,所不同的是,采用达尔文难度的游戏要求玩家使用所有技能,而主观难度却允许玩家在高效体验游戏的情况下,自由选择要不要使用某些技能。这能够让不同技能水平的玩家体验同种内容,但可根据自己专长以不同的方式体验游戏。

《马里奥银河2》第一关就是主观难度设置的完美典型。在游戏半途中,马里奥需使用升降平台爬上一座山,高手玩家可使用较少的时间,以三级跳和高跳技能组合攀上山顶。

在该关卡接近尾声之时也出现了类似情况,玩家需跨越移动平台以穿过无底洞,新手可以仅使用基本的弹跳能力闯过这一关,但高手却可以使用远跳技能越过这个区域。

新手和高手在此面临的是同种挑战,但却可根据自己的技能水平以不同方式解决问题。除非新手之前就看过游戏指南,或者玩过《马里奥银河》,不然他们根本不知道怎么使用远跳技能。因为这种远跳技能考验出现在之后的游戏内容中。该游戏每次引进新技能都会显示一个指示牌,指导玩家如何操作新机制,并且会附上一个简单的小测试。

以下是游戏主观难度设置的曲线图:

主观难度曲线(from gamasutra)

主观难度曲线(from gamasutra)

从中可以看出,对于新手玩家来说,难度曲线会随着游戏进程而逐步上升,其中会伴随几个小起伏。而高手玩家的难度曲线起点较低,随后会持续稳步上升。

也许有人会问,“如果高手执行的是更困难的任务,其难度曲线不是应该比新手更高吗?”这里的原因就在于,即使高手应对的是更困难的挑战,他们的技能水平也足够令其轻松应对。举例来说,我们要是让从未接触举重的人举起40磅,让专业举重运动员举起60磅,缺乏经验的新手肯定会难以胜任,而这对身经百战的举重运动员来说却是小菜一碟。

随着游戏进程的发展,新手及高手的难度曲线最终会产生交集,这可以反映两种情况:

1.新手技能已经接近高手的水平;

2.游戏此时为新手、高手呈现的是同种内容。

在《马里奥银河》的常规游戏内容将尽之时,玩家应该已经完全了解马里奥的技能组合,也已经在最后一个阶段接受过所有的考验。这时游戏虽然仍在使用同种关卡设计方式,但其特点已接近于《恶魔之魂》的设置,并希望玩家能够把马里奥所有的技能都派上用场。

新手玩家在《马里奥银河》中获胜后会发现,游戏难度是根据自己的情况而发生变化。他们现在已经知道马里奥的不同技能,可以在游戏中的任何关卡使用这些技能。这与RPG游戏中的情况相似,高等级的玩家可以重返之前令自己恐惧的区域,然后彻底击败其中的敌人——不同的是,在《马里奥银河》中实现能力提升的是玩家本身,而不是游戏角色。

隐藏高级内容

在讨论主观难度的正反作用之前,我们得先看看《马里奥银河2》之后的内容设置,及其呈现的主观难度特点。针对不同玩家的技能水平,游戏在每个关卡中的一些难以进入的区域隐藏了一些特殊金币。

玩家找到一个金币就可以解琐彗星挑战,将自己返送回之前的关卡中,并用修改器增加旧关卡的难度。例如,第一个世界的彗星挑战要求玩家在倒计时环境中闯过第一关,这就促使玩家去寻找获胜的捷径。

新手的技能还达不到可找到特殊金币的水平,所以他们无法解琐这种挑战,但高手却可相对快速地找到金币。参与彗星挑战并非玩家通关的必要条件(因为玩家都可以通过常规玩法达到最后一个台阶并赢取足够的星星),但这却是增加高手游戏乐趣的元素。

随着新手技能的提升,他们之后也会开始找到隐藏的金币,并解琐彗星挑战。与玩常规游戏内容一样,新手最终也会晋升至高手玩家的行列,并解琐更多额外挑战。但高手玩家因为技能水平相对占优,他们不需要循序渐进地探索,在一开始就有可能解琐彗星挑战。

Super Mario Galaxy 2(from gamesradar.com)

Super Mario Galaxy 2(from gamesradar.com)

主观难度的优势和挑战

主观难度设置的优势在于其灵活而易用的特点。一方面,《马里奥银河》刚开始时很简单,降低了新玩家体验游戏的门槛;另一方面,这种设计风格也允许高手玩家一开始就体验挑战,提供额外内容考验他们的技能。

但问题就在于,设置主观难度并非易事,它需要融入不同设计方法。在一般游戏中,设计师只需关注每个挑战的渐进式发展,锁定同种用户即可。大家都清楚,多数游戏刚开始的内容都比后面要简单得多,但主观难度设计却有所不同。

此类设计师需兼顾不同技能水平的玩家需求,并以此设计每个关卡,这就需要他们投入更多时间创造额外内容。正因为如此,带有主观难度的游戏通常都有一些捷径和隐藏区域以供玩家探索,并使用所有的游戏机制。创造这种额外内容要求设计师吃透所有的游戏机制,设置可让不同技能水平的玩家以多种方式解决的难题。

作为设计师,你还得根据复杂性来排列游戏机制,以便玩家更好地理解游戏内容。《马里奥银河2》的设计师通过设置挑战,逐步引进每个机制,预留了充足的时间以便玩家消化每个游戏机制。不过有人可能就会发问,“三级跳转向高跳,然后再旋转跳,或者侧边弹跳转向旋转跳,再接着高跳,哪一种方法更复杂?”

主观难度与达尔文难度一样,如果使用得当,就可以让不同技能水平的玩家都获得丰富的游戏乐趣,同时又能在游戏过程中不断提升自己的水平。这类同时吸引多种玩家群体的游戏,无需简化设计就能收获大量用户。主观难度的目标是让新手玩遍游戏中的内容,在通关之后以自己升级后的技能,再以全新的视角从头体验游戏。

篇目3,分析两种游戏难度设置的差异与优劣

作者:Paul Suddaby

在我们讨论高难度的概念之前,首先要解释一下难度的定义。

难度与玩家推动游戏进程所需掌握的技能水平有关,高难度意味着玩家需要掌握更多技能。在此值得一提的差别就是,技能不只是与玩电子游戏涉及的肢体内容有关,例如反应时间——它还与记忆力和策略等其他许多方面密不可分。

电子游戏中的高难度有两种形式:人为难度和设计难度。我承认这只是我自创的术语,那就来看看我对它们的解释吧。

人为难度

让我们先从人为难度说起,要实现这类难度需要修改较低难度游戏中的一些统计元素。

这听起来很复杂,但其实只是增加了一些类似于游戏从“标准”模式切换到“困难”模式的难度。普通的难度调整包括增加敌人命值和破坏力,更多时间限制,更少的生命,以及减少金钱或弹药等资源。最重要的是,游戏的核心体验,例如关卡设计、敌人行为和谜题解决方法保持不变。

dead-space-difficulty-select(from gamedev)

dead-space-difficulty-select(from gamedev)

第一和第二部《死亡空间》就属于这种系统的典型案例。在标准难度模式,游戏呈现相对持平的难度曲线,以及合理的挑战性。而在更困难的模式中,难度曲线并不平稳,玩家的命值和弹药都更少了,敌人却更为强悍,游戏中其余元素则保持不变。这就是我所谓的人为难度增长。

设计难度

设计难度则是哪些根植于游戏系统的难度——例如之前提到的关卡设计、敌人行为和谜题解决方法。

这可以表现为多种形式,例如复杂的敌人,微妙的攻击模式,以及精心设计以令玩家受困的迷宫。这个理念有点难以解释,就让我们以包含这类难度的游戏为例进行说明吧。

《暗黑之魂》可能就是设计难度的一个绝佳例子,游戏中所包含的一切几乎都是为了让玩家备受摧残而存在。这款游戏一开始让人觉得难以接受,其教程几乎没有对游戏背后的系统进行任何解释,玩家只能自己去下琢磨该如何行动。

Dead-Space-2(from gamedev)

Dead-Space-2(from gamedev)

《暗黑之魂》中的战斗也极为困难,极端强大的敌人通常会扎堆出现,这对群体战斗非常不利。更令人雪上加霜的是,玩家死亡还会受到惩罚,他们死后身上所有的资源都会掉落在地。他们只有在原地复活,并且不再死亡时才能找回这些掉落的东西,假如他们再次死亡就会永远失去这些东西。

游戏中还有其他细节也增加了难度,例如非敌对方的NPC会在没有任何预兆的情况下杀死对玩家有帮助的NPC,或者游戏让玩家永远无法找到大量有用的道具。《暗黑之魂》是一款困难无孔不入的游戏,是围绕充满挑战性的理念来设计,所以我将此称为设计难度。

两种难度的优劣

我们已经确立了人为难度与设计难度之间的区别,现在就来看看这两种不同系统对玩家体验的影响。

人为难度比较肤浅,它提供的是既无法令人满意又不愉悦的玩家体验,通常令人觉得比较廉价和不公平。而设计难度通常却可为玩家提供很棒的满足感,因为其提供的挑战会令人觉得自然而公平。以上提到的两款游戏最能说明问题。

《暗黑之魂》是款非常困难的游戏,但这只是因为游戏迫使你进行这种体验。客观地说,如果你是在最高难度的关卡玩《死亡空间》,它的每一部分都和《暗黑之魂》一样困难。但如果真这样玩,《死亡空间》就一点都不好玩了。这是因为它人为地增加了难度,正如之前所言,这极大分离了玩家的游戏体验。

每款电子游戏都是基于一套系统而设计,这些系统都会经过调整以便合成一个完整的游戏体验。在标准难度模式中,这些系统一般都很平衡,允许玩家以相对公平的挑战性来体验游戏。检测自己驾驭这些系统时的技能。但在人为难度增加时,这些系统就会脱离正轨,出现紊乱情况。

例如在《死亡空间》中,标准难度模式的设计就恰到好处,这样当敌人突然从阴影中跳出来时,玩家还不至于吓一跳,至少还有足够的时间调整状态,并策略性地肢解敌人。这是游戏的核心玩法循环,适当的执行方法正是多数游戏的趣味来源。

但随着难度上升,这种模式就不再可行了:敌人太强悍,玩家太弱小,根本无力招架敌人。从暗处中跳出来的敌人,多半意味着玩家死期将近,所以玩家只能靠无先见之明和不断试错来度过难关。这种系统对多数玩家来说十分令人抓狂,它让游戏变得一种折磨,而基于不断试错的游戏进程通常也容易让人觉得不公平和不自然。

You-died(from gamedev)

You-died(from gamedev)

所以这些极端困难的模式通常是服务于一些已经通关玩完游戏,寻找更多刺激的玩家。事实上,玩家也只有通关一次,才能解琐《死亡空间》中最困难的模式。

游戏为何要有难度

现在我们已经了解了好难度与坏难度之间的差异,好难度不仅仅是调整一些数据的滑动器,它是游戏的核心设计环节。但为什么我们要制造难度的电子游戏,为何要这样“折磨”玩家呢?

这是因为难度可为游戏设计带来的不仅仅是令人受挫的感觉。

首先,征服游戏中的困难环节,有可能为玩家带来一种极大的满足感。如果事情很有难度,克服困难就会让玩家觉得是一种真正的胜利,并且这种感觉还可以极大增强玩家的游戏体验。但开发者要谨慎行事,因为在这方面的表现好坏或者就只有一线之差。

impossible-dark-souls(from gamedev)

impossible-dark-souls(from gamedev)

《暗黑之魂》则与之相反,它从玩家一打开游戏时就向其灌输难度理念,但却能够呈现趣味性,不会让人觉得有失公平。这是因为《暗黑之魂》的核心玩法循环是围绕困难而设计。游戏中的一切,从持续的敌人布局和行为,到复活点系统,再到在线功能都围绕着不断试错的理念而设计。《暗黑之魂》中的困难很有趣,但与《死亡空间》不一样的是,它并不会破坏核心玩法循环。

在《暗黑之魂》中,玩家经常遇到势不可挡并且看似无法阻止的障碍,征服这些困难也极为考验玩家的技能。这是因为这些挑战乍一看似乎无法征服,但经过反复战斗的玩家会从混战中发现一些模式,并发现情况其实没有那么困难。《暗黑之魂》极少要求玩家拥有惊人的技能,它只要求玩家付出耐心,并理解这种试错法。事实上,你要是理解了其中的挑战性,第二次再玩《暗黑之魂》时就不会那么困难了。

如果游戏要求玩家拥有不可思议的特技,让他们去做超出自己能力范围的事情,那就不好玩了。旧版《Ghosts and Goblins》就属于这方面的典型,这款游戏对玩家技能要求甚高,除了高端的硬核群体之外,它无法取悦任何玩家。

除了带来满足感之外,难度还是一种创建游戏沉浸感的强大工具。当遇到困难时,游戏进程通常就会减缓并且更讲究条理,玩家此时就会花些时间细细体会和理解游戏的各个元素(游戏邦注:包括叙事和主题内容)。

虽然《暗黑之魂》教程的解释内容不多,但其中的荒芜的氛围,以及被抛弃的世界仍然令人难以忘怀,因为玩家一开始投入大量时间经历这种感觉。其关卡的复杂设计也让这一切特点更为明显,因为玩家会在多次试图闯关时牢牢记住自己发现的每个捷径和秘密通道。

这并不是说每款游戏都应该很困难,这里我无法界定严格的标准,但难度应试与设计融为一体,能够给游戏体验带来价值。若只是为了难度而设置难度,那只会毁了游戏。

总而言之,游戏设计之初就应该考虑到难度。它应该成为体验必不可少的一个环节,与游戏系统的其他元素一样能够加强和提升核心玩法循环。这一点很重要,要知道我们很容易做出只会令人受挫和心烦的游戏,而对多数玩家来说,这并不可取。

篇目4,如何在游戏中创造更出色的难度

作者:Taylor Bair

那些穿着装甲背心的人一直用短枪朝我射击;狙击手们使用内红点瞄准具对准了我那宝贵的头盖骨;Aztecan的死亡音乐不断回荡在我那乱成一团的脑子里。于是我便打开了《神秘海域3》的菜单并向下滑动到难度选择中,然后做出了一个难以想象的选择。

我深吸了一口气并点击了“非常简单”选项。

它先后带给了我一些困扰,但却是基于不同原因。

你看这并不只是关于电子游戏难度级别的问题—-如果它们是多余或必要的话。这是有关动机的问题—-不管是源自开发者还是游戏玩家的角度来看。这是关于什么元素激励我们去玩游戏,最终这也是关于什么元素从心理上激励到我们—-在关系中,决策制定方面以及生活中。

Uncharted(from gamasutra)

Uncharted(from gamasutra)

难度选择的传统模式会传达并激发玩家心中的某些感受,这不仅会带给玩家不利影响,也会影响到游戏设计。所以让我们通过分析我自己的开发以明确这一问题,我偶然发现一些对于游戏设计师和玩家的深远影响能够改变我们创造游戏与体验游戏的方式。

这又回到了激励层面上—-我们对未来的渴望,对自己的信任以及改善的意义。所以一开始我们将先说说传统的难度选择系统以及它对于我们的意义。

大家都在走的路

游戏开发者有许多害怕的事。这大多是隐藏在表面之下并会在我们经历充满压力的一天并躺在床上准备休息的时候冒出来。因为我们的生活非常多变,所以我们总是想要获得保障。而我们能够获得的最好的保障是什么呢?即我们的游戏对于所有人来说便是一切。

但是我们却不能都创造出《侠盗猎车手V》这样的游戏,所以开发者还需要发挥一定的创造性。我们理解有些玩家想要看到一个可靠的故事,有些玩家想要一些刺激的挑战,也有些玩家想要我们提供给他们的任何内容。

因此便诞生了难度选择。玩家能够通过按压按键去改变一系列较容易执行的编辑器。如此每个人便都能够获得胜利。

或者我们都会遭遇失败。

我们可以通过理解玩家动机去寻找原因。

玩家动机的核心

如果你是Dracula,你便拥有一堆的秘密。但我并不是Dracula,所以我只拥有一堆的愿望。

这也是我接近电子游戏的原因,我想要获得某些东西。乐趣吗?当然。娱乐?差不多。时间消耗?可能。

但是我们不能错认为这便是自己想要的一切。我们想要财富,快感,陪伴,谈笑,爆发,眼泪,逃避,以及一大堆其它东西。

而这些愿望的核心在于动机—-即能够一直推动着我们前进。它能够不断且有效地提供给我们愿望与执行,我们会在游戏未能做到这点的时候停下来。

这一切的核心非常简单:我们将基于不同方式得到激励,这些激励因子会影响我们对于挑战的反应。心理学家将动机分解为一些核心类别,其中两种类别引起了我们特别的关注:

“自我”激励因子

这种动机是源自我们的自我感知,当玩家以“我真的只关心故事”或“我没有时间去应对这些冲向我的愚蠢的射击手”或“你知道,如果我拥有更多耐心的话我便会更喜欢这款游戏”等方式去判断决定时,你便能够看到这种动机发挥作用。这通常会导致玩家选择降低难度级别。

那么谁会提升难度级别呢?也是基于同样的概念。即那些会说:“我喜欢挑战”或者“我是个偏执的完成主义者”或者“胜利的奖杯在召唤我”的玩家。

这些表达中的共同思路是:他们考虑的都是自己而不是游戏。玩家是核心。我们必须了解自己或组织有关自己的看法。

NatureofSelf(from gamasutra)

NatureofSelf(from gamasutra)

你经常会在带有难度级别选择的游戏中发现这种激励因子,这是因为这种激励因子同时也是受到难度级别选择的激励。作为玩家而不是开发者的我们现在能够决定如何适应游戏中的挑战,这也能够将我们进一步带到游戏中。

这种自我评估是发生在游戏前。我们需要判断自己是否足够硬核?是否属于休闲玩家?在这一领域属于哪个立基群体?随着我们在游戏中的不断前进,这样的问题也会反复出现。这里始终都会呈现出各种选择,所以这便是一种自我反思的状态。

“改善”激励因子

处于对立面的改善激励因子是以进程和技能为基础。

经历这种动机的玩家将作出这样的评价:“我已经识别出这种攻击模式”或“如果有更多钱的话我便能够得到更厉害的盔甲去对抗boss”或“
所以这次我选择潜伏在他周围并将剑插进他的内脏将其消灭掉。”

你经常会在基于技能和记忆的游戏或者带有RPG元素的游戏中看到这种激励因子。特别是现在,这两者更是进一步融合在一起。这些动机工具瞄准了我们心理元素中的复杂部分,包括我们如何衡量风险和不确定性,如何解决谜题以及如何在长期目标中衡量短期收获。

FlightSchoolImprovement(from gamasutra)

FlightSchoolImprovement(from gamasutra)

长话短说,概念激励因子能够让我们基于复杂的方式进行更多的思考。就像剑士需要经历几年的训练才能真正精通剑术一样,改善激励因子也是通过重复,技能和属性改善而提供给我们同等的电子游戏体验。

相对于自我激励因子,这种类型的激励因子具有一定的内在优势,让我们着眼于一些使用了“改善”的游戏例子。

关于挑战的一些典例

你可能听过有人说一款游戏并不复杂但却具有挑战性。尽管这是语义的问题,它却揭示了一些游戏激励因子的内涵。

自我激励因子倾向于让玩家做出反应并将游戏变成是更加静态化的体验。比起提升难度去应对挑战,玩家将只会喃喃道自己能够做到,如果出现更糟糕的情况,他们只会选择降低难度级别。这也许能够明确玩家当前对自己以及愿望的看法,但这却不能带给他们挑战并将其引至自我改善的阶段。

以下是一些相关游戏例子。

《血源诅咒》

我曾一度好奇为什么From Software的游戏会如此受欢迎。人们说《Souls》系列和《血源诅咒》非常复杂但也很直接,这是因为它使用了改善激励因子。

《血源诅咒》中经常出现的场景是:你死掉了并失去了所有的进程。这听起来真的很糟糕。但你要想想,至少我发现了一些捷径并清楚如果射中敌人的内脏,这便是致命的一击。

所以你能够使用这一的智慧快速回到游戏中并抄捷径去延伸你的进程。但如果失败了,你便可以通过提高属性或购买更厉害的装备去获得优势。

这些都说明改善激励因子在发挥作用。它们并不会提供给你难度级别选择,但它们会提供给你其它选择。这是关键。这里的选择是关于更复杂的内容(多条改善路径),这取决于开发者创造出让玩家能够以更具创造性的方式获得优势的系统。

这样的挑战是From Software游戏的核心,这意味着他们是围绕着这样的框架去创造游戏—-这需要计划与紧密的测试。这同时也能够促进玩家的反应,也就是更深层次的满足感。这能够呈现出玩家的自我形象,并让我们能够变成更棒的人。

《合金装备:原爆点》

所以你没玩过RPG以及最近基于RPG的一些游戏?没事,因为还有许多基于技能的游戏体验能够让我们以各种方式去处理问题,而难度的存在与方法一样多变。

我敢打赌有人在尝试了《合金装备:原爆点》后会说“我害怕潜行”,然后便退出了游戏。为什么?这是我们猜到的事。我便是这样的人,即玩过之前的《合金装备》游戏并只是想要在经历了4个小时的爬行后掏出一把枪射杀眼前的所有人。

在这方面上《合金装备》真的很酷。但更吸引人的是什么?它让潜行变得非常有趣让你会更喜欢它。这是我第一次欣然俯身爬行,击退一个又一个可怜的守卫,并拉出双筒望远镜去标记任何移动的事物。

原因很简单:它会给予任何风格的游戏别出心裁的奖励。潜行将获得武器,弹药和对话奖励。而炮轰将获得纯粹的欢笑奖励。不管怎样你都能够获得可开启的额外任务奖励以及背景故事卡式磁带去填补更多角色和背景。

尽管《合金装备:原爆点》拥有可选择的难度级别,它却几乎不需要它们(游戏邦注:直到你完成基本模式后才能看到复杂模式)。这也是Kojima所创造的游戏的优势—-纯粹的挑战需要玩家不断改善自己,并始终以让人惊讶的方式去奖励玩家的这种改善。

改善的结果

所以问题是,这对我们来说意味着什么?

首先,它并不意味着:可选择的难度级别是好的。自从1981年《Tempest》发行以来它们便存在着,并且是作为一种必要的功能。换句话说,它们将提供给人们反复回到游戏中的借口。我理解开发者拥有有限资源这一事实,有时候有将一个可选择的难度级别整合到游戏中是一种实现目标的明确且快速方式。

生活就像一条漫长且崎岖的道路,我不会责怪那些选择最短路径的人(也许我也做了同样的选择),但是我认为当我们这么做的时候其实也失去了一些东西。

毫无疑问,改善的道路非常艰难。它需要开发者事先规划挑战以及通向成功的多条道路,并通过开发不断重新做出评估。

但是改善的结果总是会变得更好,因为它击中了克服困境的核心。它让游戏成为玩家感受到胜利以及灵魂上的满足感的垫脚石。

比起只是表现出我们的偏见,它能够改变它们,这真的非常厉害。作为开发者的我们有机会根据玩家去创造挑战,并推动着他们去改善自己。

因为除了提供给他们轻松,中等或复杂等选择外,我们可以提供给他们一些更棒的选择—-即让他们能够按照自己的想法前进的选择。

这也是生活的真谛所在:通过一次又一次的试验让自己不断变得更好。

篇目5,开发者应根据整体游戏体验设置难度

作者:Paul Suddaby

每个玩家和游戏记者谈到电子游戏时总是不免提及该游戏的难度。最后人们的结论不是“太简单”就是“太困难”,但实际上我们应该更深入探讨这一话题,因为它的处理方式可能彻底改变玩家的游戏体验。我将在本文阐述低难度对游戏体验的多种影响。

难度的定义:玩家完成游戏体验所需掌握的技能。

易用性陷阱

我曾在之前的文章中提到,难度(应该融入电子游戏设计的核心之中。更准确的说法是,高层次的复杂度,以及出色的挑战为游戏体验带来的好处。

但这并不意味着所有游戏都应该很困难。事实上,过去几年的游戏设计还出现了一个愈发容易的趋势,以便吸引更多并不擅长玩高难度游戏的休闲群体。

这种情况产生了一种有趣的争论:更简单、更通俗的游戏是否就比更复杂、困难、晦涩的游戏更易吸引大量用户?我个人认为两种体验在游戏领域都有各自的空间。但如果开发者试图为游戏增加更多易用性,而游戏本身的设计并不支持这种设置,那就会产生许多问题。

也许在这方面没有哪一款现代游戏系列会比《刺客信条》更可恶了。这个系列是复杂的游戏,拥有丰富的可探索世界,精致的故事情节,充满许多需要玩家理解和掌握的多种不同游戏机制。这是休闲玩家不会尝试的游戏类型,它们是专为硬核群体而设计的游戏。

不幸的是,每款《刺客信条》游戏都有同样的致命弱点,而这又严重威胁了游戏的基本核心——这些游戏太简单了。

《刺客信条》的败笔

assassin_come_at_me(from gamedev.tutsplus)

assassin_come_at_me(from gamedev.tutsplus)

《刺客信条》有三个基本的玩法支柱:战斗、自由奔跑以及潜行(游戏邦注:不过随着该系列的发展,潜行的重要性日趋削弱)。除了一些在更新的游戏中所出现的元素,例如海战或塔防,你在《刺客信条》中所做的一切都可以归结为这三种玩法,或者这三者的合体,尽管游戏中并没有明显强调战斗元素。

在过去几年中,该系列的这些玩法备受诟病,有人认为其中的潜行元素令人抓狂,认为自由奔跑过于机械化。本文则将主要讨论这三者中最重要的一个元素:战斗。

《刺客信条》中的战斗是件令人愉快的事情,充满野蛮手段和快速的连击,但却太过于简单了。你在《刺客信条》的遭遇战中几乎不可能失败,无论你面对多少敌人。

这其中有多个原因,但主要还在于你实在是过于强大了,拥有快速杀死多个敌人的能力,在自己倒下前能够得到数量惊人的命中率。因为你可以通过掉头与追踪者打斗而避免多数潜行和自由奔跑环节,所以这种轻松的战斗常让游戏体验变得无足轻重。

例如,在《刺客信条3》中,玩家很难在自己的角色能够干掉一只熊的时候,觉察到自己正受训成为刺客高手。其他场景则让人觉得是在浪费时间,例如等待暴风雪降临以作掩护,潜入英国哨所,而是事实上你的角色完全可以轻易打败那支没有什么武器力量的军队。

《天空之剑》的无趣

另一个让游戏因易用性而受困的例子就是最新版《塞尔达传奇:天空之剑》,这款游戏中充满许多谜题——如果你有机会破解那应该会很有趣。

不幸的是,你有太多可提供帮助的同伴,它们会积极提供谜题解决方法,经常在你还没有意识到之前就告诉你如何解琐最后一个房门。你无需听取她的建议,但她仍会一直提醒你,她有话要跟你说。

这种提供帮助的伙伴一直是《塞尔达》3D版问世以来的设计惯例,但其中表现最为典型的当属《天空之剑》中的同伴。

首先我要声明《天空之剑》和《刺客信条》都是质量上乘之作,我指责的是它们缺乏难度,或者说是其难度并不适用于游戏机制或主题,其休验也会因此而受害。

fi_thanks_for_that(from gamedev.tutsplus)

fi_thanks_for_that(from gamedev.tutsplus)

《刺客信条》的人物设计很强大,《天空之剑》的地下城设置也很符合该系列的历史,但它们也不是毫无瑕疵,难度就是其中之一。

简单的游戏就很糟糕吗?

这里我们提到的只是那些过于简单,或者因为缺乏难度而影响整体效果的游戏。但这并不意味着挑战性较小的游戏就没有生存空间了,也不是说任何真正的“硬核”游戏体验都要很困难。这里的结论是:设计核心游戏系统时,一定要将难度铭记在心。

实际上我并不是说要把困难的游戏做成简单的,或者将简单的游戏做成困难的。我们在这里所举的游戏之所以存在败笔,是因为其机制和主题无法兼容缺乏难度的特点。它们简单化了玩法的“游戏”元素,稀释了交互无素,导致其他游戏体验无法相容。

成功案例

现在让我们看看成功利用了简单优势,提供了无挫折体验,没有因为难度而产生叙事或主题干扰元素,并且对技能不佳的群体极具易用性的游戏典型。这就是thatgamecompany推出的《Journey》。

《Journey》是一款关于两个陌生人之间美妙的人际互动。游戏很短,仅持续两个小时,基本上由前进和爬山组成。你也可以根据自己所搜集到的物品飞翔一小段距离,但这些都取决于你的选择。

这款游戏也不存在时间限制,你不会死亡,也只有一种让自己受害的可能,并且这种影响只能算是一种心理上的感伤,并不会对游戏进程造成任何影响。这款游戏极其简单——它基本上是在自娱自乐。

但它一点也不无聊,因为游戏中的每一样东西都很令人激动。它拥有精妙绝伦的图像,音乐插曲也颇令人陶醉。但这些都不是游戏的关键所在,真正让你无法自拔的却是其他玩家的行为。

journey_beauty(from gamedev.tutsplus)

journey_beauty(from gamedev.tutsplus)

你在这个游戏世界中旅行时会遇到其他玩家,你不会知道他们的在线ID,除了你的角色所发出的一些声响之外,你也不会同他们进行什么交流。但由于游戏中的所有设计都支持玩家进行合作,你们就会一起旅行,会对这个你一无所知的眼前人产生依恋,这种感觉很奇妙。

但我并不是说《Journey》以及所有的这一切同难度有直接的关联。可以说,它如果没有这么简单,《Journey》就行不通了。这款游戏关注的是人际互动,美丽的场景和音乐,而这些元素都无法因更具难度的玩法体验而获得提升。

事实上,如果游戏更具挑战性,玩家在与他人互动时的出发点可能就不是自己的实际需求,而是自己身为游戏玩家所能发挥的作用。如果《Journey》中充满复杂的谜题,有心帮助玩家解谜的其他人可能会束手无策,而玩家之间的互动可能会由游戏系统所主宰,而不是由玩家自己来决定。通过让一切简单化,《Journey》成功避开了这个问题,让玩家根据自己的意愿彼此互动。《Journey》实在不能算有什么难度,它只存在于游戏背后核心设计的执行。

这里的经验就是:设计游戏核心系统时一定要将难度设置牢记在心。不要考虑你的游戏是否太难,缺乏易用性。如果你想制作一款人人都可以玩的游戏,但不考虑游戏体验,那就设计一种符合这一目标的体验吧。不要试图在明知游戏核心设计无法兼容的情况下,削足适履地强塞易用性。

但是,也不要认为难度与易用性就是矛盾的对立面,它们通常都有交集。记住,即使是最复杂和引人入胜的游戏也可能非常简单,而极为简单的游戏也可能极具挑战性。重要的是根据整个游戏体验设计有意义的难度。

篇目6,分享设计师平衡游戏难度的4大技巧

作者:David Maletz

平衡游戏难度是件非常困难的事。不同玩家将带着不同技能水平进入游戏——取决于他们之前是否玩过类似的游戏。而他们在游戏中的学习曲线也是多种多样,这便导致开发者在游戏创造过程中很难把握游戏的难度——太困难会让玩家感到沮丧,而太简单又会让他们感到厌烦。

difficulty_curve(from gamasutra)

difficulty_curve(from gamasutra)

上图是基于玩家技能和游戏难度的平衡区图表。我们可以发现,随着玩家技能的提高,游戏难度也必须相应提高,如此才能确保游戏整体的平衡。平衡区主要包含如下内容:

沮丧——太复杂以致感觉不到乐趣。

艰难的乐趣——非常困难,但是有些人就刚好喜欢这种困难。

挑战的乐趣-—–对于那些喜欢克服挑战的人群而言。

平衡的乐趣——最适宜的区域(不太困难也不太简单)。

休闲的乐趣——简单,不具备多少挑战性,但却也不愚蠢。

愚蠢的乐趣——玩家只是想要玩而不愿意思考。

无聊——比起玩游戏我更想睡觉。

为了平衡游戏我们可以采取测试,以及收集玩家的反馈意见等方法,而我将通过本篇文章阐述我在游戏开发过程中所明确的游戏难度设计4大技巧。

1.了解你的用户。

在每一个游戏开发过程中,了解用户这一点总是非常重要,在游戏平衡中也不例外。谁希望玩你的游戏?在玩你的游戏前他们玩过哪些游戏(这些游戏与你的游戏有何共同点)?找出这两个问题的答案能够帮助你明确玩家一开始的技能水平,并为他们选择最合适的平衡区。就像休闲游戏将假设大部分玩家拥有较低的游戏技能,并不希望面临太过复杂的挑战。细分市场的游戏应该假设每个玩家都喜欢这类游戏,并且之前已经玩过许多类似的游戏,拥有较高的技能水平并喜欢接受挑战。了解目标用户是平衡游戏的起点,将能帮助你更准确地完成最初的平衡工作。

要点在于,如果你能更好地了解你的用户,你的游戏便能更好地迎合他们的喜好——这一点不只适用于游戏平衡中。

2.不要高估玩家的学习曲线

随着游戏的发展,玩家的技能将不断提高,所以游戏难度也必须进行相应的提高。但是比起高估玩家的学习曲线,低估将会带给你更多帮助(很多开发者都会高估他们的玩家——但是事实上却不是每个人都和你一样擅长玩游戏!)如果你高估了玩家的学习曲线,那么学习能力较高的玩家便能够获得有效的平衡,但是其他玩家却只能被学习曲线远远地甩在后面,而这时候游戏将会继续提升难度,并最终导致这些玩家难以继续游戏。而如果你低估了玩家的学习曲线,那么学习能力较强的玩家将继续平稳地享受游戏(游戏邦注:尽管游戏可能不再具有多大的挑战性,但是他们可能会觉得自己非常厉害),而与此同时其他玩家也将能够有效地追赶上游戏的难度变化。

可能一开始玩家会觉得游戏很有趣,但是随着难度的不断提升可能到最后他们便不再能够感受到游戏的乐趣了。最后的boss非常无聊,导致玩家只能选择放弃游戏。而这也是开发者必须想尽办法避免的情况。

要点在于,比起复杂的游戏,简单的游戏更能留住玩家的心。所以毫无疑问,低估比高估有效。

3.不要用降低游戏难度来奖励技能型玩家!

许多游戏都会给予那些表现出色的玩家更多升级的机会。但是这种做法就等于让那些攻克游戏难度的玩家只能面对更容易的游戏,并且不能给予那些不断努力着的玩家任何帮助。许多这类型游戏便是通过提升游戏难度去弥补这种升级奖励,但是这么做虽然能够平衡技能型玩家,但却为那些不断努力的玩家设置了更多挑战,导致他们更加难以升级了。这也是导致游戏用户流失的最快速的方法。你必须提供给表现出色的玩家更加复杂的游戏并“惩罚”那些表现糟糕的玩家较为容易的游戏,即有针对性地为不同玩家设置不同难度。虽然这听起来有点矛盾,但是的确存在一些方法能够帮助我们创造出具有奖励性的高难度游戏以及具有惩罚性的低难度游戏。例如我看过的一款游戏便奖励那些表现良好的玩家直接进入第二个关卡结尾的机会。第二个关卡结尾的游戏玩法总是难于第一个关卡的结尾,但是至少玩家能够获得进入第二个关卡的奖励,而面对更加复杂的结尾,没准是件好事。

你同样也可以隐藏将更复杂的游戏作为奖励的做法。例如你可以让表现出色的玩家获得升级,但同时去提升他们所面对的游戏难度(高于他们所获得的级别),并且不改变其他玩家所面对的游戏难度。这看起来像是在欺骗玩家,但是大多数游戏既让玩家获得升级也相应提高了游戏难度,并且这种难度提高仅面向获得升级的玩家。

要点在于,给予玩家奖励固然重要,但是从长远角度看来,让那些表现出色的玩家面对更简单的游戏并不能算是一种真正的奖励。

4.允许玩家去改变游戏难度。

我们总是很难面向所有潜在玩家而平衡游戏。所以让玩家自行选择游戏难度能够帮助游戏吸引更广泛的玩家。那些喜欢休闲乐趣的玩家便能够降低难度,而喜欢迎接更多挑战的玩家则可以提升难度。如果玩家能够在游戏过程中调整难度,那么他们便能够更好地适应学习曲线。切记不要因为玩家降低了难度而惩罚他们。这只是他们为了完善游戏体验所做出的选择。他们可能是因为支撑不住了才选择降低难度的,你又何必在他们面前喋喋不休呢。如果你真的想要做些什么的话,就给予那些提高难度的玩家奖励吧。要点在于,只有玩家最了解自己,所以让他们选择难度可以有效地平衡游戏去适应他们的需求。

结论

测试与修改始终是平衡游戏的最重要的方法。不管你如何擅长游戏平衡,你都需要明确别人对于游戏的看法,除非你只是为了自己而创造游戏。让好友去玩你的游戏并做出评价(即哪些内容简单哪些内容复杂等等)是你需要迈出的第一步。如果能够发行测试版并获得目标用户的评价就再好不过了。但是以上的4大技巧则能帮你尽早平衡游戏,并将帮助你更加专注游戏设计。

篇目1篇目2篇目3篇目4篇目5篇目6(本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao)

篇目1,The Difficulty of Difficulty

by Dylan Woodbury

Difficulty in games is a very confusing topic. All designers must know how difficult they want their game to be before the design process even begins. It decides what kind of audience you are shooting for. Casual vs Hardcore.

There is a major misconception that in order to please the most hardcore, the difficulty needs to be raised, shutting out a large part of the market. The alternative to this would be to make the game so easy that anyone can beat it. In fact, companies have been cheating lately. In Super Mario Galaxy 2, Nintendo allowed the player to skip over challenges the player deemed to difficult. NO! Bad designer.

Cheating is the enemy of gaming. Allowing the player to cheat is the designers not doing their job. In school, some teachers are always “curving” test scores, getting rid of problems that most students missed (pretty much extra credit). This “curve” is the teacher acknowledging that the teaching was not good enough, and that the students should not be held accountable for it. If they are required to use these skills that haven’t counted, that they have not correctly learned, they are going to fail. In a video game, being able to skip challenges, which are designed to test your skills while teach/train your skills, leads to you missing out on important concepts and such, not to mention the terrible feeling the player has inside.

The same goes for online walkthroughs – they ruin the satisfaction that the player is supposed tofeel. Many skills are learned by trial and error, and the player may miss out on important things by just reading the solution to the challenge online. Although this is a very big pitfall of video game design, it is a very important signal.

If a player absolutely cannot solve the challenge, to the point where they give up or look it up online, it is a signal that there is a gap in the learning curve. Something is not clicking, and the player is not able to draw on a skill or piece of knowledge that is required of him/her. How do we solve this? More challenges.

Example: In Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, there was a small challenge that gave me trouble. Goal: get to floor below ground. Obstacle: the two holes one can use to get to bottom floor are covered in spider webs, making them impossible to go through. I tried everything I could think of – shooting my boomerang, arrows, and slingshot at the web. I tried shooting my boomerang from the torch on the wall to the web, hoping to burn it. I tried rolling onto the web, hoping my weight would break apart the web. Nothing worked.

I didn’t want to do this, but I eventually had to – I looked at the walkthrough online. I am ashamed to say it, but there is a point where you become so frustrated with a challenge, that cheating is the only thing that can keep you engrossed in the game, as not doing so would lead to you not being able to play it anymore. The solution: pull out your lantern and roll onto the web – the fire will break open the web.

For some reason then, I was frustrated with this solution. I did not understand why at the time, but I think I do now. In the game, they taught you that swinging your lantern (by shaking the remote) infront of a web in your way will break it. There were enough challenges here and there for the player to remember this throughout the game. In the entire portion of the game before this challenge, the player was never required to roll to solve a challenge, nor was the player required to use a lantern in a way besides shaking the remote in front of a web.

So some people may have figured out, maybe right away, but there was not enough training beforehand to make that challenge reasonable for many. How could they have solved this? How about a couple challenges prior to this one that require rolling to complete the challenge. This doesn’t make the answer obvious, but it doesn’t take much away from the player who found the solution and felt awesome afterwards. It simply gives the player the complete skills they need to figure out the solution – it may be to much to ask from the player, figuring out both new skills and how you can use them to solve a new problem.

Much of these problems are found by just testing. Designers should find out which challenges are too difficult or broken, why they were too difficult (to the point where the player gave up, now completely unabsorbed, or looked up the answer, hurting his/her experience in the long run), and how to help this by training the player better beforehand.

Challenge’s difficulty should arise from their problem solving, pattern recognition, and lateral thinking (amond others), with a given set of skills and tools to work with. Challenges should not arise from solving a problem with a skill that has not been well established yet (Twilight Princess example). Challenges should also not require the player to use a skill that has not been used in quite a while (people are forgetful).

An example of this is seen in Half Life 2: Episode 2. Near the end, at Black Forest, the player was thrown into areas that required him/her to make use of the steam valves, which had not been utilized in quite a while. The designers through in a mini challenge before the real action started, requiring the player to get from one side of a pipe shooting out steam to the other. One cannot get through the steam, so the player would see the big red wheel, interact with it, and what do you know, the steam is shut off. Suddenly, the player has learned a lot about a certain skill, recalling from memory. Instead of the player having to figure out the corrollation between the wheel and steam and such during the heat of battle, he/she is taught it beforehand, makingfor a more pleasurable, and rewarding, challenge.

This example shows my point well, and leads me to another important point. Challenges should either be about solving a challenge or learning a new skill (with a very easy challenge, like the Half Life 2 example) – not both… usually. When a player is given a challenge, he/she is going to try to solve it, and usually, he/she will not figure out a new skill (a new use of a tool/asset), as he/she expects to be able to solve the challenge using only what he/she knows already – it is the way our brains work. A player could learn a skill if it is obvious (like turning the wheel to stop the steam), and these type of challenges tend to be very rewarding. These kind of challenges require the most testing (be prepared to change or throw them out).

Now to finish my point – difficulty should not include only button mashing, quick timing, etc. The difficulty is reliant on using skills to complete challenges, with the occasional new skill introduced to open up new kinds of challenges. When you get a new tool in Zelda, you are given a VERY basic challenge to learn the basics of that skill. When given the hookshot, you are in a small room, and must shoot the hookshot at the red dot to get out of the room. Just like that, the player knows a new skill, and many challenges that require this skill can be thrown at him/her.

The relative difficulty of the game, surprising to some, should remain about the same throughout the game (it does not get 10X harder – in may even be harder in the beginning). As you play through a well designed game, you get better and better at the skills it quizzes you on. You tackle new skills constantly, always improving on old concepts for new ways to tackle solutions. The absolute difficulty of a challenge at the end of the game is very hard – a brand new player would have a extremely (it is almost impossible) hard time with it. But, if the relative difficulty is about the same – a player playing the game all the way through that point will have about as hard of a time as he/she did solving a challenge from way back to level 3.

Designing a game’s series of challenges is very difficult – each challenge needs to reinforce skills, open the player’s mind to using skills in new ways, teach the player to combine certain skills, or learn entire new skills. The skills/knowledge a challenge requires must be well taught through previous challenges – the difficulty lies in using these tools (whether you use them in a different way, or in a more difficult way).

The level of difficulty can be suitable to both the casual and hardcore audience, and still be wildly fun for both, if the learning curve and individual challenges are not broken.

篇目2,Examining Subjective Difficulty: How Plumbers Can Fight Demons

by Josh Bycer

In my previous article on Darwinian Difficulty, there was a brief look, relating to Demon’s Souls, at the concept of Subjective Difficulty. However, the concept of Subjective Difficulty is not restricted to brutally hard titles, and one of the most famous and accessible franchises of all time has been an example of this since 1996.

Before we continue, it’s important to define two terms for the sake of this article:

Subjective Difficulty. Designing a challenge so that its severity is based on the player’s skill level.

Safety Net. The degree to which the player can mess up and still succeed at the specific challenge.

Technically, we can argue that any challenge in a game is subjective by skill; someone who is a grand master at Street Fighter is not going to have the same problems with arcade mode as a player that has never touched a fighting game before. The key component in Subjective Difficulty, however, is that specific challenges are designed for different skill levels at the same time.

To achieve this, the player must have access to all (or most) of the available mechanics from the get-go. In order to design levels that allow different levels of skill to work, the player must have the option to use all the mechanics. If the levels are only designed around using one or two of the available mechanics, then it’s not Subjective Difficulty, as both the novice and expert players are limited to the exact same thing.

With that said, there are a few considerations to understand about Subjective Difficulty. First is that unlocking mechanics as a form of progression is not considered Subjective

Difficulty. If you have ever played a Metroid game, or the latest 2D Castlevania titles, there are always paths or sections along the main route that are blocked or inaccessible. As the player explores the game, they’ll fight a boss or find a power-up that unlocks a new mechanic that can be used to enter the previously inaccessible area.

The point of contention is that it’s not the player’s fault that the area could not be reached, but the designer limiting the mechanics available. An expert player in Castlevania, no matter how good they are, will take the same path through the game as someone who is brand new.

Second is that the traditional use of difficulty levels is also not an example of Subjective Difficulty. Going back to the concept of the safety net, when the only difference between

difficulty levels is stat-based (i.e., on “easy”, enemies do less damage, but on “hard”, enemies do more damage) then all the designer is doing is raising or lower the safety net based on the difficulty setting.

Subjective Difficulty Levels: God Hand

However, that doesn’t mean that difficulty levels aren’t a factor. God Hand for the PlayStation 2 has two forms of difficulty. At the start of the game, the player chooses a difficult level; this in turn affects the second layer. During play, at all times a meter in the bottom left of the screen displays the current difficulty level.

The difficulty of the game can fluctuate between Level 0 and Level Die (or 6) based on the player’s performance. Taking significant damage or dying will lower the meter, which will drop the level down. The more the player avoids damage while continuing to make progress, the higher the level will rise.

The level of difficulty affects two things. First, it affects how aggressive the AI is. The lower the number, the less likely enemies will counterattack, attack in groups, or use their stronger attacks with the opposite more frequent at higher levels. The second detail is that at the higher levels (specifically Level Die) more (and more difficult) enemies will show up in the levels, forcing the player to adapt. Going back to the initial difficulty level at the start, the only things it determines is the starting level of the meter and how high it can go.

Playing God Hand, the game attempts to match the player’s skill level by raising or lowering the difficulty. Both a novice player and a skilled player are going to take the same path through the level, but what a novice player will be facing will be different compared to someone who is consistently performing well.

Challenge Variation

Another form of Subjective Difficulty is providing different variations of the same challenge. Games like Tony Hawk’s Project 8 or Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts each feature challenges with basic, advanced and expert goals.

Every challenge in the games has a bare minimum to complete to get a bronze medal, which is the easiest way to finish it. There are also more difficult ways to attempt challenges, which could earn players a silver or gold medal. For example: in Project 8, completing a race while placing at least 5th would be a bronze award, placing 2nd gives silver, and placing 1st while finishing the race in under 2 minutes awards gold.

These harder considerations are always available to the player to try if they want and be awarded accordingly, but getting the bronze (or silver) award is good enough to check that challenge off as being “completed”.

This system is also popular in many smartphone games. A variation on it in the popular Cut the Rope finds players striving to capture three stars in each level — which are not essential for completion, but are necessary for completists.

The Mario franchise has been going strong since the NES era. When the series transitioned to 3D with 1996′s Super Mario 64, the game design changed profoundly. Before, every level was completely linear in its approach and mechanics; with the move to 3D, nonlinearity was introduced in the form of open levels.

The Super Mario Galaxy series and Demon’s Souls are two sides of the same coin.

Obviously, that statement needs to be clarified. Both games give the player access to all of the core abilities of the character from the start of the game. In Mario, the plumber’s abilities are movement-based (running, jumping) and his spin attack.

In Demon’s Souls, the abilities and mechanics revolve around combat: attack, defense, managing stamina, and counterattacks. (It’s worth noting that the player will unlock power-ups in the Super Mario Galaxy games, but these are usually confined to specific levels or gameplay scenarios.)

Now, the deviating point between the two series — and why Mario is a better example of Subjective Difficulty than Demon’s Souls — has to do with the level design. In Demon’s Souls, the player has access to all the available mechanics from the start and from the first stage is tested on all of them. In Mario Galaxy, the player has all the available mechanics and is not tested on all of them, but can use them if necessary.

Referring back to the concept of Darwinian Difficulty, the player is introduced from the very beginning of the game to all (or at least most) of the mechanics and is then tasked with using them effectively. Here is the difficulty chart from the previous article, as a point of reference:

In both types of games, the player has all of the gameplay tools from the outset. In a game with Darwinian Difficulty, the player is asked to use them all; in a game with Subjective Difficulty, the player may or may not use them at any time during the game and still play effectively. The difference between the two allows different skill levels to experience the same content, but handle it in different ways based on their expertise.

The first level in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a perfect example of level design built around Subjective Difficulty. About halfway through the level, Mario has to use ascending and descending platforms to climb up a hill. Expert players can use a combination of Mario’s triple jump and wall jump to get up the hill in a fraction of the time a novice might take.

There’s another example near the end of the level. The player is tasked with maneuvering over bottomless pits by traversing moving platforms. A novice player can get through this entire area using nothing but Mario’s basic jumping ability, and be tested with this design. However, an expert player can simply bypass the entire area by performing a long jump across the pits.

Both the novice and expert player have the same challenge, but handle it differently based on their skill levels. Unless the novice player has read the manual or played Super Mario Galaxy, at that point they probably have no idea how to perform a long jump, and that’s perfectly fine. The first mention and test of using the long jump ability comes later on, at the same time Mario gets the cloud power-up. The in-game introduction to each of Mario’s abilities is signified by a signpost showing the player how to perform the mechanic, followed by a simple test.

The following graph shows the difficulty curve of a subjective game:

For the sake of the article, this chart only represents the normal content of the game; we’ll touch on post-game content further on. As you can see, for the novice player, the game’s difficulty curve follows the normal progression — a steady progress higher across the chart with a few dips here and there. Meanwhile, an expert player starts out lower on the curve and makes a continual progression.

Now, you may be asking, “If the expert player is taking a harder course, shouldn’t the curve be higher than for the novice?” The reason it isn’t goes back to the concept of Subjective Difficulty. Even though the expert player is doing something harder, their skill level at the game makes it easier for them. For example, if we ask someone who has never lifted weights to lift 40 pounds, and a professional weightlifter to lift 60 pounds, the novice is going to struggle due to their inexperience. However, the weightlifter, used to lifting much heavier loads, wouldn’t even sweat.

As the game progresses there should come a point where the difficulty curves converge indicating two things:

1. The novice player has reached the same skill level as the expert player.

2. The game is now challenging both groups with the same content.

At the end of the regular content in Super Mario Galaxy, players are expected to fully understand Mario’s move set, and are tested on it all in one final stage. The same philosophy of designing the levels is still used, but now the game is more akin to Demon’s Souls, expecting the player to make use of all of Mario’s abilities to win.

Novice players who do manage to beat Super Mario Galaxy will find that the game has changed for them. Now that they understand all of the different abilities Mario has, they can now use them anywhere in the game. It’s similar to how in an RPG, a higher level player can return to a once difficult spot and utterly demolish it — but what’s leveled up is the player, not the character.

Handling Optional Content

Before we talk about the pros and cons of Subjective Difficulty, we need to take a look at how post-game content worked in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and how it plays off of the concept of Subjective Difficulty. Fitting into the theme of developing level design for different skill levels, there are special coins hidden in each level, most often placed in harder-to-reach areas.

Each coin found will unlock a comet challenge, which sends players back through older levels with modifiers to make them more difficult. For example, in the first world, the comet challenge requires the player to run through the first level with a timer counting down, requiring the player to use the shortcuts to win.

Novice players will not have access to these challenges, as they are not good enough yet to reach the special coins, but the expert players should find them relatively quickly. The comet challenges aren’t required to beat the game, as players will earn more than enough stars through regular play to reach the final stage, but they are there for expert players who want more.

As novice players become more skilled at the game, they will start to find the hidden coins and unlock comet challenges. Like with the regular game content, novice players should eventually reach the same point as the expert players, allowing them to tackle the additional challenges. Expert players, however, don’t have to wait, and if they are good enough at the start of the game, they can begin comet challenges relatively early in the game.

The Advantage, and the Challenge, Of Designing For Subjective Difficulty
The advantage of Subjective Difficulty revolves around accessibility. Games like Super Mario Galaxy allow the designer to have their cake and eat it too, in a sense.

On one hand, the game starts out simple enough, easing new players into the game without throwing them right into the thick of things. On the other hand, this design style allows expert players to be rewarded with areas suited for them from the beginning, and offers additional content to test their skills.

Now, the problem is that Subjective Difficulty is that it’s hard to pull off and requires a different kind of design. In a normal game, the designer will look at each challenge progressively, with one group in mind. You know that a challenge in the beginning of the game is going to be easier than one found later on, but Subjective Difficulty is different.

Essentially, the designer will have to design each level for different skill levels at the same time, requiring more time to create the content. Because of this, there are usually more shortcuts and hidden areas in games with Subjective Difficulty which allow gamers to fully use the mechanics. Creating this additional content requires an extensive understanding of the mechanics of the game, to set up challenges that can be handled in multiple ways at different levels of skill.

As a designer, you also need to rank your mechanics in terms of complexity to understand the best order for the player to understand them. Going back to Super Mario Galaxy 2, the designers slowly introduced each mechanic officially to the player through set challenges, giving ample time for the player to understand one mechanic before introducing another. This leads to asking questions like, “What is more complex to use, a triple jump into a wall jump followed by a spin jump, or a sideways flip, into a spin, followed by a wall jump?”

Subjective Difficulty, like Darwinian Difficulty, requires an expert touch to achieve. When pulled off, it allows gamers to enjoy the game regardless of skill level, while seeing improvements in their skill over the course of the game. By keeping multiple groups of gamers engaged, the game will attract a larger audience without having to simplify the design of the game. Ultimately, the goal of Subjective Difficulty is that the novice players should achieve a full circle of play, after finishing the game they can replay the game again, but using their improve ability to see the game in a different light.

篇目3,Hard Mode: Good Difficulty Versus Bad Difficulty

Paul Suddaby

Every gamer and games journalist will invariably end up talking about difficulty when discussing a video game. This often takes the form of a comment saying it’s “too easy” or “too hard”, but
it’s a topic that deserves to be looked at in much more depth, as the way it is handled can completely reshape a player’s experience with a game. In this article, I’ll look at extremely high difficulty in video games, what works, what doesn’t, and what we can learn from it.

Easy to Define

So before we start talking about high difficulty, we need to make it abundantly clear exactly what difficulty entails.

Difficulty refers to the amount of skill required by the player to progress through a game experience, with higher difficulty obviously meaning more skill is required. The distinction worth noting here is that skill doesn’t only refer to the typical physical aspect of playing a video game, i.e. reaction time – it can also refer to many other aspects of playing a video game, such as
memorization and strategy.

This definition of difficulty isn’t very complex, but it’s important for us to be on the same page about what the term means before going any further.

It Can’t Be That Simple

At its core, high difficulty in video games comes in one of two forms: artificial difficulty and designed difficulty. I’ll admit that I just made up these terms, so let’s take a look at what I mean by them.

Artificial Difficulty

Let’s start with artificial difficulty: the type of difficulty achieved by altering the statistics of the elements of a game with lesser difficulty.

This sounds complex, but it’s really just the type of rote difficulty increase you typically see when you switch a game from “normal” to “hard” mode. Common changes include increased enemy health and damage, more stringent time constraints, fewer lives, and reduced resources like money or ammunition. Most importantly, the core of the experience, things like level design, enemy behaviour and puzzle solutions does not change.

This type of thing is artificial difficulty.A great example of this kind of system can be seen in both the first and second Dead Space games. On normal difficulty the games present a fair difficulty curve and a reasonable challenge. The more difficult modes, on the other hand, do not feel nearly as fair, with the player simply having less health and ammo, and the enemies being much stronger, while everything else in the games remains the same. This is what I class as an artificial difficulty increase.

Designed Difficulty

Designed difficulty, on the other hand, is difficulty baked into the very systems of the game – things like the aforementioned level design, enemy behaviour and puzzle solutions.

This can take all types of forms, from enemies with complex or nuanced attack patterns all the way to levels which are basically elaborate mazes for the player to get trapped in. This idea can be a bit tricky to explain, so let’s take a look at a game that employs this type of difficulty.

Dark Souls might be the perfect example of designed difficulty, as almost everything included in the game seems to have been made the way it is simply to make the player’s life miserable. The game is incredibly unwelcoming from the start, with a tutorial that offers almost no explanation of the systems behind the game, which leaves the player struggling to figure out where they are supposed to be going and what they are supposed to be doing.

At least it looks cool when you fail.Combat is also very difficult in Dark Souls; extremely strong enemies are often placed very close together forcing disadvantageous group battles. To add insult to injury, dying is punished as well, with all of the player’s resources being dropped on the ground upon their death. They can only be recovered if the player makes it back to where they died without dying again, since if they do their resources are lost forever.

There are also small things in Dark Souls that add to the difficulty, such as non-hostile NPCs who murder other useful NPCs without the game giving any indication, or the fact that it is entirely
possible to just plain never find a large amount of the most useful items in the game. Dark Souls is a game that lives and breathes difficulty, and was clearly designed around the idea of being
challenging; this is what I call designed difficulty.

The Bad and the Good

Now that we’ve established the difference between artificial and designed difficulty, we’ll take a look at the ways in which these two very different systems affect the player’s experience.

At its core, artificial difficulty is shallow, providing a level of difficulty that is neither satisfying nor enjoyable for the player, often feeling cheap and unfair. In contrast, designed
difficulty typically offers the player great satisfaction once conquered because the challenge presented felt organic and fair. To look at why this is you need not look any further than the two
examples given above.

Dark Souls is a very hard game, but this is only notable because the game forces you to play it this way. Objectively, if you play Dead Space on the highest difficulty level, it is every bit as
hard as Dark Souls. However, when played this way, Dead Space isn’t any fun. This is because it increases the difficulty artificially, as stated above, and this has terrible ramifications on the
experience.

Every video game is designed around a set of systems, and these systems are tuned and tweaked to work together to create the overall game experience.
Every video game is designed around a set of systems, and these systems are tuned and tweaked to work together to create the overall game experience. On normal difficulty these systems are usually balanced perfectly, allowing the player to experience the game with a fair amount of challenge, testing their skill in navigating these systems. With an artificial difficulty increase these systems get out of whack.

In Dead Space, for example, the normal difficulty mode is perfectly designed so that when an enemy jumps out at the player from the shadows, they have time to be startled, compose themselves and then tactically dispatch the enemy by removing its limbs. The is the game’s core gameplay loop, and its proper execution is where most of the game’s fun originates.

However, with the difficulty cranked up, this pattern doesn’t really work any more: the enemies are too strong, and the player is too weak to dispatch them if they get startled. Instead, an enemy jumping out at the player from the shadows often means near-instant death, so foreknowledge and trial and error become the only reliable ways to complete the section. This type of system can be very frustrating for most players, leaving the game feeling like a grind, as trial and error based progress can often feel unfair and contrived.

For this reason these extreme difficulty modes are usually included for the sake of completionists who have already played through and enjoyed the game once and are looking to get more out of the experience. In fact, the hardest difficulty in both Dead Space games requires the game to be beaten once to unlock it.

Expect to see this quite a bit.In contrast to this philosophy, we have Dark Souls, a game which shoves crushing difficulty down its players’ throats from the moment they turn it on, yet somehow manages to be fun and never feel unfair. This is because the core gameplay loop in Dark Souls is designed with difficulty in mind. Everything in the game, from the persistent enemy placement and behaviour, to the checkpoint system to the online functionality is designed around the idea of trial and error. Difficulty is fun in Dark Souls because, unlike in Dead Space, it doesn’t break the core gameplay loop.

Why Should My Game Be Hard?

We now understand the difference between good difficulty and bad difficulty, in that good difficulty isn’t just a slider adjusting some numbers, it’s a core design tenant of your game. But why make a video game difficult at all; why make your players work harder then they need to?

Well, there are many things difficulty can bring to the design of a game beyond just offering something for masochists to beat their heads on.

First off, conquering a difficult section of a game has the potential to give the player an immense feeling of satisfaction. When something is difficult, overcoming it feels like a real triumph and this feeling can really add to a player’s experience with your game. However, you need to be very careful, because there is a fine line between doing this right and doing this very wrong.

This doesn’t look possible to beat the first time you see it.In Dark Souls, the player often encounters overwhelming and seemingly impossible obstacles and conquering them feels like a true
testament of skill. This is because though the challenges may seem impossible at first glance, with repetition players will see patterns arise in the chaos and find that things aren’t so difficult after all. Rarely does Dark Souls demand incredible skill from the player; it only asks for patience and understanding of its trials. In fact, playing through Dark Souls a second time through isn’
t that difficult at all once you understand its challenges.

What isn’t so fun is when games require incredible feats from their players, often demanding they do things they simply aren’t capable of. The old Ghosts and Goblins game is a perfect example of this; it’s a game that is too demanding of its players and is simply not entertaining to anybody but the hardest of hardcore.

More than just satisfaction, difficulty is also an incredible tool in building immersion in your game. When something is difficult, progress is often slow and methodical, giving the player time to
truly soak in and understand every aspect of your game, including its narrative and thematic content.

You don’t want your game to elicit this type of reaction in people.Though Dark Souls is low on exposition, the atmosphere of desolation and abandonment of its world still shines through because the player spends so much time experiencing these feeling first hand due to the difficult gameplay. The intricate design of the levels is also made all the more apparent because the player will invariably commit every shortcut and secret path to memory as they traverse the levels on their umpteenth try at success.

This does not mean that every game should be difficult. I can’t give any strict rules, but difficulty needs to make sense within the context of your design, and needs to be able to bring something worthwhile to your experience. Difficulty for difficulty’s sake has ruined many games.

At its core, the difficulty of a game should be baked into its very design. It should be indispensable to the experience, something that works symbiotically with the rest of the game’s systems to
reinforce and improve the core gameplay loops of your title. This is important, because it’s very easy to make a game that will only be frustrating and annoying, and for most gamers, that just won’t do.

篇目4,Motivate Me: Crafting Better Game Difficulties

by Taylor Bair

I snapped. Guys with armored vests kept blowing holes in me with shotguns; snipers with floating red dot sights scattered my precious cranium meat on the stones; that Aztecan death music looped endlessly in my addled brain, and I just snapped. I opened the Uncharted 3 menu, scrolled down to difficulty selection, and did the unthinkable.

I took a deep breath and clicked “Very Easy.”

It troubled me then and it troubles me now, but for very different reasons.

You see, this isn’t just a question of video game difficulty levels – if they’re superfluous or essential. It’s a question of motivation – both from a developer and gamer standpoint. It’s about what motivates us to play games, and ultimately, it’s about what motivates us psychologically – in relationships, in decision making, in life.

Uncharted

The traditional model of difficulty selection communicates and triggers something in the mind of a gamer, and that has harmful effects not just for the player, but for game design. So in looking through this issue for a development of my own, I stumbled upon some far reaching implications for game designers and gamers that could change the way we not only create games, but enjoy them.

It all comes back to motivation – our desires for the future, beliefs about ourselves, and the very meaning of improvement. So we turn first to the traditional system of difficulty selection and what it says about us.

The Road Most Traveled

Game developers are plagued with a host of fears. Most hide below the surface, bubbling up at night while we lie in bed after a particularly long, stressful day. Because our lives are variable, we want guarantees. And the greatest guarantee we can get? That our game can be all things to all people.

But we can’t all be GTA V, so devs must get a little creative. We understand that some gamers want a solid story, some want a bone-crushing challenge, and some just want whatever we’re giving them.

Hence difficulty selection was born. A series of modifiers, relatively easy to implement, that can be changed at the push of a button. Everyone wins.

Or maybe we all lose.

The reason why lies in understanding player motivation.

The Heart of Player Motivation

What is a man? Well, if you’re Dracula, we’re miserable little piles of secrets. But I’m not Dracula (so put away the stakes); I’m just a miserable little pile of desires.

That’s why when I approach a video game, I want something. Enjoyment? Sure. Entertainment? Almost certainly. A time sink? Likely.

But we’d be mistaken to think that’s all we want. We want riches, titillation, companionship, jokes, explosions, tears, escapism, and a miserable pile of other things.

And at the heart of these desires lies motivation – the impulse that keeps us chugging along. It feeds us a constant supply of desires and desire fulfillments when done correctly, and we stop playing when done poorly.

The key to all this is simple: we’re motivated in different ways, and those motivators affect our response to challenges. Psychologists have subdivided motivations into core categories (see here and here for more on that if interested), and two categories are of particular interest to us:

“Nature-of-Self” Motivators

This motivation stems from our perception of self, and you can see it at work when the player justifies decisions with phrases like, “Well, I only really care about the story” or “I don’t have time to screw with these stupid shotgunners rushing at me” or “You know, I’d like this game way better if I had more patience.” And it usually leads to a person turning the difficulty level down.

The person who turns the difficulty up? Similar concept. They say, “I like a good challenge” or, “I’m a rabid completionist” or, “That platinum trophy is calling my name.”

The common thread in all these statements: they are about us, not the game. The player is central. We have to know ourselves or form opinions about ourselves to make them.

You often find this motivator in any game with difficulty level selection, and that’s because this type of motivator is actually encouraged by including a difficulty level selection. We as the player, and not the developer, are now responsible for deciding how we fit into the game’s challenge, which turns us internally.

This self-evaluation takes place before we even begin a game. We’re asked to decide – am I hardcore enough? Am I casual? What niche do I occupy in this space? – and that question constantly recurs as we struggle through the game. The choice is always present, and so is the self-reflection.

“Improvement” Motivators

Operating on the opposite end of the spectrum, improvement motivators are progress and skill based.

Players experiencing this sort of motivator will make comments like, “I’ve got to figure out this attack pattern,” or “With a bit more money I can get better armor for that boss,” or “So this time I snuck around him and put a sword in his gut and took him out.”

You often see this motivator in skill and memory based games (and so much of skill is just muscle and pattern memory) or games with RPG elements. Especially now, the two are bleeding into each other. These motivation tools target complex parts of our psyches, including how we weigh risks and uncertainties, work through puzzles, and how we measure short-term gains in the interest of long-term goals.

Long story short, improvement motivators make us think more, and in complex ways. Just as a sword fighter has to gain years of experience to be truly proficient, improvement motivators target repetition, skill, and stat improvement to give us the video game equivalent of experience.

And there are inherent advantages of this kind of motivator over the nature-of-self variety, which we will consider by looking at a few games that utilize them.

Shining Examples of Challenge

You may have heard people say a certain game isn’t difficult, but challenging. While largely a matter of semantics, it reveals something inherent about which motivators a game targets.

Nature-of-self motivators (and having selectable difficulty levels by extension) tend to make players reactive and games more static experiences. Instead of rising to meet a challenge, players will have the nagging feeling that they could, if worse comes to it, just bump the difficulty level down. This may self-validate the player’s current view of themselves and their desires, but it doesn’t challenge them in a way that will actually lead to self-improvement.

Here are some games that do, however, and the means by which they manage it.

Bloodborne (Souls Series)

Ever wonder why From Software’s games are so popular? People say the Souls series and Bloodborne are incredibly difficult but fair, and that’s largely because it uses improvement motivators.

A common scenario in Bloodborne runs like this: you die and lose all your progress. It’s sorta terrible, really. But hey, you think, at least I opened a shortcut and learned if I shoot this enemy in the gut, it’s a one-hit kill.

So you run back through, hopefully using that wisdom and that shortcut to further your progress. But if that fails, you can always gain an advantage by improving stats or buying better equipment.

These are both improvement motivators at work. They don’t give you an option of selecting a difficulty level, but they do give you an option. And that’s key. The option here is more complex – multiple paths of improvement – and it depends on the developer creating systems that allow players to gain the advantage in creative ways.

That challenge is at the heart of From Software’s games, which means they create their games around that framework – planning and intense testing are required. But it also fosters a better player response – namely, deep satisfaction. It actually informs self-image rather than draws from it, which quite literally makes us better people.

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes

So you’re not into RPGs and the stat-boosting craze of recent RPG-inspired games? No problem, because there are still skill-based experiences out there that allow us to approach things in multiple ways, the difficulty as variable as the approaches.

I dare someone to try MGS:GZ, say, “I’m terrible at stealth,” and quit. Why? Because it kind of expects that. I’m that guy, the one who plays previous MGS games and just wants to pull out a gun after 4 hours of crawling like an idiot on my belly and mow every person down in sight.

And MGS:GZ is totally cool with that. But more fascinating? It makes stealth so damn fun that you’ll probably prefer it. For the first time I gladly crawled on my belly, pumped round after round of knockout darts into hapless guards, and pulled out binoculars to mark everything that moved.

The reason is simple: it has such inventive rewards for every style of play. Stealth is rewarded with bonus weapons, ammo, and conversations. But run and gun is rewarded with sheer volume of hilarious. Rocket a guard in the face, close-quarters-combat a poor bloke into submission, or set intricate C4 charges in a line and lure everyone into your wall of flame. Either way, you’ll get unlockable bonus missions and backstory cassette tapes to fill out even more of the characters and setting.

And while MGS:GZ has selectable difficulty levels, it hardly needs them (and the hard mode is blocked anyway until you complete it on normal). That speaks to the strength of the game Kojima has crafted – pure challenge that requires players to improve, always rewarding that improvement in spectacular ways.

The End of Improvement

So the question then becomes, what does this mean for us?

First, what it does not mean: selectable difficulty levels are not bad. They have existed, arguably, since Tempest released in 1981, and they serve a necessary function. Namely, they give people an excuse to come back for more and developers one less thing to focus on. I understand that developers have limited resources, and sometimes tossing a selectable difficulty level into the mix is the clearest, quickest way of achieving a goal.

Life is full of long, arduous roads, and I wouldn’t hold it against someone for taking the path of least resistance (God knows I’ve done the same), but I do think we rob ourselves of something when we do.

Make no mistake, the path of improvement is tough. It requires developers plan challenges and multiple paths to success ahead of time, and constantly re-evaluate throughout development.

But the end of improvement is always better, because it strikes at the heart of overcoming adversity. It makes the game a stepping-stone to moments of euphoric air punches, of howls of victory, of deep, soul-satisfying joy.

Instead of just reflecting our preconceptions, it changes them, and that’s powerful. We as developers have a chance to make challenges that scale as players scale, pushing them to improve – yes, even those who play on easy.

Because if we don’t give them the choice of easy, medium, or hard, we give them a greater choice – the choice to rise to the occasion their own way.

And that’s what life is really about: making us better, one trial at a time.

篇目5,Easy Mode: When Easy is Okay

Paul Suddaby

Nintendo Hard Mode: It Was Acceptable in the Eighties

Every gamer and games journalist will invariably end up talking about difficulty when discussing a video game. This often takes the form of a comment saying it’s “too easy” or “too hard”, but it’s a topic that deserves to be looked at in much more depth, as the way it is handled can completely reshape a player’s experience with a game. In this article, I’ll look at the many ways low difficulty can affect a game experience.

Definition of Difficulty: The amount of player skill required to progress through a game experience. (From my previous article.)

The Accessibility Trap

As I stated in the previous article of this series, difficulty is (or at least should be) baked into the very core of any video game’s design. More specifically, we talked about high levels of difficulty, and the benefits great challenge can bring to an experience.

However, this doesn’t mean all games need to be difficult. In fact, there has been a growing trend in game design over the last few years for easier and easier video games, mostly in order to appeal to a more casual audience who developers seem to think aren’t capable of enjoying more difficult games.

I don’t know about you, but this is how I game.This situation has brought up an interesting debate: is an easier, more accessible game capable of reaching a wide audience of players better than a more complex, difficult and nuanced game that fewer will be able to understand and appreciate? I personally believe that both types of experiences have their place in the gaming landscape. Problems arise, however, when developers try to make their game into something it isn’t, trying to increase its accessibility when that is not appropriate in the context of the game’s design.

Perhaps no modern game series is more guilty of this sin than the Assassin’s Creed franchise. These are very complex games, with rich worlds to explore, nuanced storylines spanning multiple instalments and a plethora of different game mechanics to grasp and understand. These are the types of games casual players don’t play; these games are designed for the hardcore.

Unfortunately, every single Assassin’s Creed game suffers from the same fatal flaw which threatens to break the very core of its functioning: the games are just too easy.

Assassin’s Ease

The Assassin’s Creed games hinge on three basic gameplay pillars: combat, free running and stealth (although the latter has taken more and more of a back seat to the others as the series has progressed). Other than a few key distractions present in the more recent games, such as naval combat or tower defence, everything you do in Assassin’s Creed can be boiled down to one of these three pillars, or a combination thereof, though there is a noticeable emphasis on combat.

There have been many criticisms thrown at these pillars of the franchise over the years, with the stealth often being called frustrating and the free running cited as being overly automated. However, for the sake of this article we will look at the most prominent of the three: combat.

Combat in Assassin’s Creed is an exhilarating affair, filled with brutal executions and flashy combos, but it’s entirely too easy. It’s almost impossible to fail during a combat encounter in any Assassin’s Creed game, no matter how many enemies you are fighting.

There are a multitude of reasons for this, but it mostly comes down to the fact that you are simply overpowered, sporting the ability to instantly kill most enemies and take a ridiculous amount of hits before you are downed. Since the vast majority of stealth and free running sections can be completely avoided by turning around and fighting your pursuers, the ease of combat often serves to trivialize the experience.

Five versus one? Come at me.In Assassin’s Creed 3, for example, it’s difficult for the player to feel like they are training to become a master assassin when their character has proven capable of winning fist fights against bears as a teenager. Other scenarios simply feel like a waste of time, such as waiting for a snowstorm to use as cover to infiltrate a British outpost when your character can easily defeat the entirety of the red coat forces armed with nothing but a rabbit snare.

Bolero of Boredom

Another great example of a game getting caught in the accessibility trap is the newest Legend of Zelda game, Skyward Sword. The game is filled with many devilish puzzles that would be tons of fun to solve – if only you were given the chance to.

Unfortunately, you are burdened with an overly helpful companion who feels the need to give you the solution to puzzles proactively, often telling you how to unlock that pesky door at the end of the room before you even had the time to notice it was locked. You do not need to listen to her advice, but she will keep reminding you that she has something to say until you do.

This type of helpful partner has been a staple of the Zelda series since its 3D début, but never have the companions been as overbearing as the one in Skyward Sword.

Now before anybody runs around calling me names because I’m ragging on some very well received games, let me say that Skyward Sword and the Assassin’s Creed games are all quality products. All I’m saying is that their level of difficulty, or lack thereof, is not appropriate in the context of the mechanics or the mythos, and the experience is definitely hurt because of it.

Being a badass assassin is still empowering, and Skyward Sword’s dungeons are still as elegantly crafted as one would expect given the series’ history, but they aren’t without flaw, and difficulty is one of them.

Wow, aren’t you a smart cookie.

So Easy Games Are Bad?

What we’ve just looked at are games that are too easy, or rather games who were hurt by their overall lack of difficulty. This however does not mean that there is no place for less challenging games, and it also doesn’t mean that any serious “hardcore” game experience needs to be difficult. What it all boils down to is something that risks becoming a theme in this series: keep difficulty in mind when designing the core systems behind your game.

Essentially I’m saying to not make hard games easy or easy games hard. The games we looked at stumbled because their mechanics and themes did not mesh well with their lack of difficulty. They were simplifying the “play” part of gameplay, diluting the interactive element to the point where the rest of the experience no longer fit.

Who Does It Right?

Let’s now look at a game that takes advantage of all the benefits of being easy, namely providing an experience without frustration, without interruption of narrative or thematic flow because of difficult sections and with extreme accessibility to a less skilled or determined audience. This game is thatgamecompany‘s Journey.

Journey, for those of you who don’t know, is a about beauty and personal interaction between two strangers. The game is short, lasting only a couple of hours, and basically consists of walking towards and then scaling a mountain. You can fly a little bit depending on how many collectibles you find along the way, but these are entirely optional.

There are also no time limits, it’s impossible to die and there is only one instance where it’s possible to harm yourself in any way, though the repercussions can only really be considered sentimental as they have no impact whatsoever on progress. The game goes beyond even being easy: it practically plays itself.

LamouraGames’ video walkthrough of Journey. Contains spoilers (as far as such a game can have spoilers).While I don’t think the aspect of human interaction and difficulty can’t really be properly delivered through watching somebody else play the game, I do think videos express very well the beauty and serenity on display here.Unlike what you would expect, though, it’s not boring at all, because everything in the game is so breathtaking. The graphics are unbelievably beautiful (just look at the screenshot below) and the musical score will sweep you away into another world. But none of this is really the point of the game; what really hooks you is the other players.

As you traverse the world you will encounter other players, you will not know their online IDs, and you will have no means of communicating with them other than a few small chirps your character can make. Yet somehow, because of the way everything in the game is designed to support cooperation, you will travel together and you will become attached to this person you know absolutely nothing about, and it’s beautiful.

This. This is beautiful.But I’m not here to review Journey and all of this does have a direct link to difficulty. Basically, Journey wouldn’t work if it wasn’t stupidly easy. The game focuses on human interaction and on taking in beautiful vistas and sounds, and none of these things would be improved by a more difficult gameplay experience.

In fact, if the game were more challenging, players wouldn’t necessarily be interacting with each other on the basis of what they wanted to do, but rather on the basis of what they were capable of doing as gamers. If Journey was filled with complicated puzzles, someone who might want to help their partner come up with a solution might not be able to and the interaction between the players would then be governed mostly by the game’s systems rather than by the players themselves. By keeping things simple, Journey manages to avoid this pitfall, letting players interact with each other on their own terms. The difficulty in Journey is trivial, but it only exists in service of the core design tenants behind the game.

The lesson here is exactly the same as it was in the last article: keep difficulty in mind when designing the core systems behind your game. Do not wonder if your game is too difficult to be accessible. If you want a game that anybody can play, regardless of video game experience, then design an experience that suits that goal; do not try and shoehorn in accessibility when it doesn’t fit with the core design of your title.

However, do not think that difficulty and accessibility are one side of the same coin, though they do often intersect. Remember, even the most complex and engrossing games can be very easy and the most simple of games can be incredibly challenging. What’s important is that your game’s difficulty level makes sense within the context of the overall experience.

篇目6,Four Tricks to Improve Game Balance

by David Maletz

Balancing a game’s difficulty can be tough. Different players will enter the game at different skill levels depending on whether they’ve played similar games or not. Their learning curves during the game will be varied as well, making it tricky to decide how difficult to make the game without making the game too difficult (frustrating), or too easy (boring).

Above is an approximate graph of balance zones based on the player’s skill and the game’s difficulty. As player skill increases, the difficulty must also increase to keep a balance. The balance zones are as follows:

•Frustrating – Too difficult to be fun.

•Hardcore Fun – Really tough, but some people like that.

•Challenging Fun – For people who like to overcome challenges.

•Balanced Fun – The goldilocks zone (not too tough, not too easy).

•Casual Fun – Nice and easy, never a challenge, but not mindless either.

•Mindless Fun – They just want to play, they don’t want to think.

•Boring – I could play this in my sleep… in fact, I’d rather sleep.

While it requires testing, balance and player feedback to really balance a game, this article will cover four tips and tricks for designing game difficulty, which I’ve learned through my game development experiences.

1. Know your audience.

Knowing your audience is important in almost every aspect of game development, and is also important for game balance. Who do you expect to play your game? What games will they have played before yours (and how similar are those games to yours)? Knowing the answer to these two questions will help you guess what skill level the players will start with, and which balance zone they prefer. A casual game should assume that the average player has a low skill level, and doesn’t want to be particularly challenged. A niche game should assume that the average player enjoys that niche and has played many similar games before, and so has a high skill level and enjoys a challenge. Having a good read on your target audience gives you a starting point to balance the game, and will make your initial balancing more accurate.

The takeaway point here is that the better you understand your audience, the more you can cater the game to that audience – and that applies to a lot more than just the balance of the game.

2. Underestimate the player’s learning curve.

The player’s skill will increase throughout the course of the game, and so the difficulty of the game has to increase to compensate. However, overestimating the player’s learning curve is worse than underestimating it (and most developers tend to overestimate their players – not everyone is as good as you!). If you overestimate the player’s learning curve, players who learn quickly may get a good balance, but the rest of the players will not be able to keep up with the curve and the game will continue to get harder and harder until they can’t continue. Whereas if you underestimate the player’s learning curve, players who learn quickly will still enjoy the game even if it’s not as challenging for them (they will simply feel that they are awesome), while the rest of the players will still be able to keep up with the game difficulty.

You’ve probably played a game you liked a lot in the beginning, but then it became so difficult that by the end it was no longer fun to play. The final boss was impossibly frustrating, and you probably resorted to walkthroughs or outright gave up. This is a situation you want to avoid at all costs. A player is far less likely to quit because a game is too easy.

The takeaway point here is that it’s easier to lose players by making a game too hard than by making a game too easy. So, when in doubt, underestimate the player’s learning curve (actually, it’s good practice in general to underestimate your players).

3. Don’t reward skilled players by making the game easier!

There are a lot of games that reward their players for doing well by giving them more upgrades. But what this is basically doing is making the game easier for players who already found the game easy, while giving nothing to the players who are struggling. A lot of these games try to compensate for these upgrades by increasing the difficulty. While this may balance the game for skilled players, it makes the game even more difficult for the players who were struggling and didn’t even get the upgrades. This is a very fast way to lose players. Really, you should “reward” players who do well by making the game more difficult, and “punish” the players who do poorly by making the game easier, in essence dynamically changing the difficulty to suit the player. While this seems like an oxy-moron, there are ways to make higher difficulty feel like a reward, and lower difficulty feel like a punishment. For example, I’ve seen games that, if you do well enough, reward you by giving you access to a second ending. The gameplay to get the second ending is a lot more difficult than the first ending, but the reward is that you get the second, perhaps better, ending.

You can also hide the fact that the reward is making the game more difficult. For example, you could give the player upgrades if they do well, but increase the difficulty even more than the benefit of the upgrades (and don’t change the difficulty for those who didn’t get the upgrade). While this seems like cheating the player, most games that give upgrades increase the difficulty to compensate – this is the same idea, simply limiting the increased difficulty to the players who got the upgrades.

The takeaway point here is that while it’s important to give rewards to players, making the game easier to a player who is already doing well is not really a reward in the long run.

4. Allow players to change the game’s difficulty.

It’s impossible to balance a game perfectly for every potential player. So, giving the player a choice on how difficult they want the game can help widen the audience. Players who want casual fun can lower the difficulty, and players who want a challenging experience can raise the difficulty. If the player can adjust the difficulty in the middle of the game, then they can even compensate for their learning curve. Just be certain to never punish a player for lowering the difficulty. It is a choice they are making to improve their gameplay experience. They may already feel bad about having to lower the difficulty, you don’t need to rub it in their face with a punishment. If you do anything, reward players who increase the difficulty.

The takeaway point here is that players (sometimes) know themselves best, so letting them choose the difficulty can help balance the game to suit their personal needs.

Closing Thoughts

Testing and tweaking are still the most important methods of balancing a game. No matter how well you balance the game yourself, unless you are the sole audience of the game, you will need to know what it’s like for others. Getting friends to play and comment on what they found easy and difficult is a great first step. A beta test that gets comments from the actual target audience of the game is even better. But these four tricks can improve the balance early on, and in doing so help focus the design of the game.


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