开发者谈手机游戏平台策略游戏设计的问题

原作者：Josh Bycer 译者：Vivian Xue

广受玩家喜爱的《命令与征服》系列的新作诞生了，EA在E3展上公布了新版F2P游戏《命令与征服：宿敌》（Command and Conquer Rivals）。正如EA自己和粉丝们在Twitter上指出的，这是即时战略游戏类型和战略手游领域的一大突破。然而作为RTS游戏的忠实玩家和CnC系列的粉丝，我并不赞同这一观点，我认为是时候讨论一下RTS手游设计的一些问题了。

一、关于RTS的基本知识：

RTS设计是一个很大的主题，但是为了切入正题我将避免长篇大论，集中讨论这类游戏的一些核心内容。

如果把战略游戏比作一枚硬币，那么即时战略游戏只是硬币的一面，另一面则是回合制战略游戏。即时战略游戏主要包括以下几个基础方面：

AI War：Fleet Command(from gameris)

1：基地建设/管理

无论是小型还是大型战略游戏，基地建设都是游戏设计中不可或缺的一部分。基地既是玩家升级的渠道，又对玩家起到一定的限制，决定了比赛的节奏。

玩家们必须组建起一支军队，通过升级基地来搜集更多资源以及解锁新单位。很多的战略游戏把基地建设作为战略的主要部分。《帝国时代》（Age of Empires）和《王国的兴起》(Rise of Nations)系列中玩家通过升级基地来实现时代的更替，他们需要在建设一支庞大的军队还是一个规模更小但是更先进的时代之间进行衡量。

对于某些战略游戏，基地建设可能是整场比赛中的一个持续关注点，或者仅仅用于推动生产，那么游戏剩下的内容就是军队的管理。

2：单位控制

谈到军队管理，这方面的理念千变万化。在即时战略游戏中玩家们控制着上百个单位，在此情况下他们需要尽可能控制好每一个单位。

在单位控制方面，一个关键点在于游戏重微观（还是重宏观，宏观涉及战略游戏中玩家的思维模式、游戏经济和总体策略，而微观指策略内的具体细节，比如选择和取消单位、为单位下达命令等微观操作，游戏邦注。）《星际争霸》和《英雄连》这类游戏引以为傲的便是让战斗双方能够在一种来回的博弈中进行。相对的在《横扫千星》中玩家只需排兵布阵，然后等待一场大战的上演。（与《横扫千星》这种注重大局的游戏相比，《星际争霸》和《英雄连》更偏向局部的战斗，游戏邦注。）

而控制好单位依赖于一个优秀的用户操作界面，能够让玩家管理军队以及各个单位。为避免偏题我就不深入探讨了。

3：单位的平衡

单位的平衡是战略游戏设计的主要部分，也是本文将讨论的重点。战略游戏总是把单位平衡作为设计基础以确保公平性。

一些游戏系列采取非对称的平衡，比如《星际争霸》以及《命令与征服》中，不同派别的单位的能力和属性值各不相同。而一些其他的游戏则保持单位组合大致相当，但可能存在轻微的差异和特殊奖励，《帝国时代》就是一大例子。

单位平衡的核心就是石头剪刀布系统，或者本文中提到的RPS。RPS指的是单位之间互相克制，不存在绝对的强者和弱者。

这种平衡为设计者和玩家提供了两个关键的优势。第一，玩家很容易理解游戏规则以及比赛的核心。对于设计者来说，RPS为设计和微调单位提供了一个框架。

不过，你必须了解RPS平衡会对战斗结果产生多大的影响。如果系统太强大，战斗可能会失衡并且无休止地进行下去。如果系统太弱，玩家们则不会去考虑如何建立平衡的军队，而是直接选择属性值最高的单位。

单元平衡是战略游戏设计的成败点，也是如今的“战略”游戏最失败的地方。

二、如今的战略游戏

如今让人们聊聊战略游戏，他们很可能会提到《部落冲突》或者《皇室战争》。这些年来，战略游戏设计转向了移动端，设计理念也随之改变了。

比赛在单个画面中进行，而不再是过去的多个画面。基地管理、资源，以及单位控制都被简化。最大也是最关键的变化是游戏重点落在了RPG式升级和抽象上。

游戏的主要内容不再是如何调遣你的军队，而是确保你的部队和能力得到提升。玩家通过升级单位提高基地的属性，从而在战争中获得更好的表现。这一升级过程与盈利结合在了一起。要升级单个单位，玩家必须花费游戏货币和一定数量的该单位。随着级别的提高，二者的成本越来越高昂。

尽管这种系统对玩家们来说并不是最好的，但开发者们选择了它。原因显而易见，RPG升级曲线比单纯的技能升级更长。通过将它与游戏盈利机制结合起来，它还能提供一个向玩家间接出售基础能力的简易方法。

持有一张稀有或史诗级别的卡片是永远不够的，你需要多张卡片的叠加，才能在其他玩家中保持竞争力。这意味着玩家需要花大量时间碰运气，或者在游戏商店里花钱。

RPG升级还可以帮助新玩家更好地理解游戏。一些更复杂的单位需要达到某个级别才能被解锁，这使得玩家了解新单位如何融入到游戏玩法中，从而获得成长、不断收获新的知识。

尽管有这些积极面，但是移动游戏开发者却没能从《命令与征服 4》和《帝国时代Oline》的惨痛教训中吸取经验。

三、为什么角色扮演模式行不通

正如我们之前提到的，策略游戏建立在一个要么宽松要么僵化的RPS系统上。这使得玩家必须进行不同单位的组合，而不得使用单一类型的单位。问题在于，RPS系统和RPG升级机制是不相容的。

RPS设计是为了创造一个简单的平衡规则：单元X应该总能够对抗单元Y。而单位解锁机制和额外的单位增强，会造成设计中很大的不平衡。

《命令与征服4》设计中的一个问题就是这种单位和选项的解锁机制。由于玩家们无法得到所有的选择项，等级不同的玩家在战斗过程中就会遇到一个很大的问题，如果玩家A拥有一个玩家B暂时无法抵抗的单位，那么玩家B将毫无还击的办法。

由于单位升级也与等级挂钩，即使在两个玩家拥有单位一样的情况下，仍然会因其中一方的单位等级更高而造成比赛的不平衡。

一旦允许玩家升级单位，或者改变抽象程度，游戏平衡会出现两大问题。第一点也是很容易看出的一点：游戏会失衡。多数战略手游不允许玩家直接控制单位。这意味着一场战争的结果取决于游戏中的抽象设定。

一旦相似的单位的力量等级不同，策略就失去了意义，因为高等级毫无疑问会战胜低等级。

让RPS复杂化导致了游戏对弱玩家来说更为艰难。在《帝国时代》Online中，在单位上装配武器可以提高单位的属性值；甚至能打破它们原来的性质。升级的石质单位实际上可以反击纸质单位。如果游戏抽象使玩家无法反击某单位，游戏的平衡会因此被毁掉。

不仅如此，因为抽象不属于玩法的范围内，玩家在比赛中将无力弥补。

四、不太具有战略意义

我玩的“战略”手游越多，感受到游戏的战略性越少。独立开发者仍有望开发出他们自己的RTS，《帝国时代 4》的宣告确实有一定价值。

然而，移动平台是战略游戏的新归宿是非常虚伪的说法。尽管这些战略手游具有轻战略性，但它们的核心是盈利，它们缺乏战略游戏的核心本质。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

At E3, EA announced the “next generation” of Command and Conquer as Command and Conquer Rivals: A F2P version of the beloved franchise. As they, and many supporters on Twitter, were quick to point out, this is the evolution of the real time strategy genre and mobile strategy games. As a fan of RTS games, and obviously the CnC series, this is incorrect, and it’s time to talk about how mobile has failed to learn the lessons of RTS design.

-RTS Basics:

There’s a lot more to RTS design that we’re going to talk about here, but for the sake of keeping things on track, I’m going to focus on some of core tenets of the genre.

Real Time Strategy games have always been one side of the strategy coin; with the other being turn-based. The RTS foundation is built on the following aspects:

1: Base Building/Management

Whether we’re talking about micro or macro-styled strategy games, base building has been an essential part of the design. One part progression, and one part limiter, base building defines the tempo of a match.

Players have to manage building an army with upgrading their base in order to get new research options and units. Many strategy games have turned base upgrading into a major part of the strategy process. Series like Age of Empires and Rise of Nations used the base structure and tied it into era advancement. In this regard, players had to balance between creating a massive army vs. a smaller, but more advanced one.

For some strategy titles, base building may be a constant focus throughout a match, or simply used to get production rolling, and then the rest of the game is army management.

2: Unit Control

The next point is being able to control your army. For this one, there is a wide berth in terms of philosophy. Players should have as much control over one unit, as they can with a hundred.

The big factor when it comes to unit control is just how micro-focused the game is. Titles like Starcraft or Company of Heroes prided themselves on turning combat into almost a dance between the two sides. On the other end of the spectrum, you have games like Planetary Annihilation that was about getting your massive army into position and then watching the spectacle unfold.

Good unit control requires a well thought out UI to manage armies and individual units, and going into more detail would take us way off topic.

3: Unit Balance

The big part about strategy game design, and we’ll focus this post on, has to do with unit balance. Strategy games have always been built on a foundation of unit balancing in order to keep things from becoming unfair.

Some series go for full asymmetrical balance, such as Starcraft and Command and Conquer. Here, the different factions have completely different units in terms of abilities and stats. Other series keep the unit compositions the same, but may have slight variances and special bonuses; the big example would be Age of Empires in that regard.

At the heart of unit balance is the idea of a rock paper scissors system, or RPS for this post. RPS refers to the concept that every unit type is strong against one other, and is weak against a different one.

This kind of balance provides two key advantages for designers and players. The first one is that it’s very easy to grasp while learning the game and what to do in the heat of a match. For designers, RPS provides a solid framework for creating and fine-tuning units.

With that said, you have to be aware of how much the RPS balance will impact battle outcomes. If the system is too strong, then it can lead to lopsided matches of endless countering. If the system is too weak, then players will not be conditioned to build balanced armies and simply go with whoever has the highest stats.

Unit balance is the make it or break it point for strategy design, and where modern “strategy” games have failed the most.

-The Modern RTS:

Chances are if you ask people about strategy games today, they will probably point to titles like Clash of Clans or Clash Royale. Strategy design has shifted towards mobile over the years with a change in design philosophy.

Instead of multiple screens, matches take place on just one. Base management, resources, and unit control have all been reduced. The biggest and most concerning change has been a greater focus on RPG progression and abstraction.

It’s no longer about just fielding an army, but making sure that your troops and abilities are upgraded. By upgrading units, players improve the base stats; making them better on the field. This is where the progression and monetization models combine. To upgrade a single unit, players must spend in-game currency and copies of that unit in order to level them up. The costs of both get progressively more expensive with each level.

While this system isn’t the best for the player, it’s very easy to see why developers implement it. RPG progression provides a longer curve compared to just skill. By tying it into the monetization, it also grants an easy way to sell the player base power indirectly.

You can never just use one rare or epic card, you need multiple copies in order to get them competitive with other players. That means many hours farming drops to get lucky, or spending money in the in-game store.

You can also use RPG progression to help the learning curve for new players. By purposely locking more complicated units behind an account or faction level, it provides a sense of growth and discovery as new units become unlocked to be integrated into the gameplay.

Despite those positives, mobile game developers have failed to learn the critical lesson that Command and Conquer 4 and Age of Empires Online learned the hard way.

-Why Role Playing Strategy Doesn’t Work:

As we’ve talked about, strategy games are built on either a loose or rigid RPS system. This creates army compositions and a punish for players who just build one unit type. The problem is that a RPS system doesn’t work when there is RPG progression.

RPS by its design is meant to create simple rules of balance: Unit X should always be able to counter Unit Y. When you start locking units behind progression or allow them to be powered up, it creates a big imbalance in the design.

Regarding locking units or options, this is the issue that Command and Conquer 4 had with its design. By not giving players access to all the options, it created a big issue when players of differing levels fought each other. If player A has a unit that can’t be countered yet by player B, then the second player will not be able to respond to the different unit.

With upgrades also locked to levels, this also meant that two players with the same units could still be imbalanced if one could upgrade their units more.

When you start allowing upgrades, or abstraction changes, this presents two big problems with balance. The first one is an easy one: It creates an imbalanced board. Most strategy games on mobile do not allow for direct control over units. What that means is that the outcome of a battle is dictated by the abstraction at play.

Having similar units at different power levels renders any strategy moot, because the higher level one will always win when fighting something lower.

Throwing RPS into mix makes things worse for the weaker player. In Age of Empires Online, attaching equipment to your units would raise their stats; to the point of breaking their unit roles. Someone with upgraded rock units could actually fight back against paper-type units. If the counter to a unit can’t win due to abstraction, then game balance is ruined.

Moreover, because the abstraction occurred outside of the gameplay, there was nothing a player could do during a match to compensate.

-Not so Strategic:
The more “strategy” games I play on mobile, the less actual strategy I’m seeing. There is still hope from indie developers making their own RTS, and the announcement of Age of Empires 4 does have some merit.

However, saying that the mobile platform is the new home of strategy games is very disingenuous. While these games are strategy-lite, they’ve removed the core essence of the genre and replaced it with monetization.（source：Gamasutra  ）