Josh Bycer强调游戏设计应重视玩家的“新手体验”

原作者：Josh Bycer 译者：Vivian Xue

最近我收到了一条关于我某个视频的评论，评论者想了解如何在游戏中运用3D镜头。这使我想起了一件非常重要的事，一块许多开发者都没能做好的领域——理解并围绕新玩家体验进行设计。

新玩家的类型

谈到新玩家体验，我们所指的新玩家包含3类群体。第一类玩家从未玩过你的游戏。这类玩家熟悉该类型的常规设计和玩法循环，但不知道你的版本与该品类的其它游戏有什么区别。

围绕这类玩家设计是最容易的，因为他们对游戏已经有了大致的了解。我记得《文明3》的教程中有一个章节，专门提供给那些熟悉该系列、只想了解新版本特色的玩家。尽管教程对这类玩家没那么重要，游戏设计师仍有必要阐述你的游戏与同类竞品的区别。尤是规则千变万化的抽象游戏，如策略类和角色扮演类游戏。

Building in Fortnite（from gamasutra.com）

第二类是从未接触过该类型的玩家。当游戏的知名度足够高，在此情况下，人们想看看它究竟好在哪里。这类玩家最有可能转化为游戏的忠诚粉丝，但往往也是开发者最难以征服的群体。

对这类玩家，你无法指望他们对该类型有任何基础性的理解。因此新手引导和教程是必要的，缺失了它们，就相当于把这个群体拒之门外。著名游戏公司Paradox Interactive(简称P社）在这方面一直做的很糟糕，但还存在许多更小的例子。

小众游戏类型的开发者往往只关注现有的粉丝，无视更大的市场——经验丰富的玩家能够直接上手他们的游戏，新人则一窍不通。顺便提一句，这也是3A开发商胜过独立游戏开发者的地方，他们往往能设计出有效的新手引导/教程。这是由于3A开发商往往制作的是知名的类型，并且有充足的资金进行广泛的玩家测试。

最后一类新玩家很少见，但仍值得考虑，他们从未接触过游戏，但对你的游戏产生了兴趣。随着多年来游戏行业的发展，这个群体越来越小，但还是存在一些第一次玩游戏或第一次做某事的人。

新手引导此时至关重要，它也使众多不打游戏的人爱上了手游和F2P游戏。手机游戏设计一直尽可能照顾新玩家。

谈到这里，我相信有人会说独立开发者不需要考虑这个群体，或第二类群体，因为他们的游戏规模和受众面更小，但作为一名游戏设计师，理解新玩家体验是一种重要的提升。

为什么新玩家体验很重要：

游戏设计师最容易陷入的误区就是不考虑新玩家体验。这种现象造成的回声室效应导致许多项目的失败，一个典型例子是不倾听新玩家的意见。

几乎所有硬核或小众的游戏论坛里，总有人询问如何更简单地学习掌握游戏，而这总是会遭到专业玩家的谴责。

作为开发者，你要明白复杂性和难度并不是优质游戏的特点。尽管有些人觉得弄清复杂的系统和玩法循环是件很有成就感的事，但若你不试图解决游戏的痛点，反而损害了你的游戏。不仅如此，若你不能恰当地描述你的游戏与同类产品的区别，你的游戏很难在市场上突出重围。

能够用简单易懂的方式解释复杂事物是优秀开发者的标志之一。《杀戮尖塔》做得最好的方面之一就是其优雅的用户界面，它帮助玩家弄清楚了许多游戏规则。

许多独立游戏都成功收获了一批死忠粉，但很难继续扩大玩家群体，主要问题出在它们的新手指导上。这个方面怎么强调都不为过——任何游戏，无论属于什么类型，都应当考虑新玩家体验。

[新手体验往往是大型战略游戏设计的败笔]

即便再复杂、目标玩家群体再小的游戏依旧需要考虑新玩家体验。就这个方面而言，你可以对比游戏《异星工厂》（Factorio）和《坎巴拉太空计划》（Kerbal Space Program）。刚开始玩《坎巴拉太空计划》时，游戏提供了众多的工具和元素，并让玩家自己去摸索和理解。这种完全的自由对熟练的玩家来说可能挺不错，但新手完全找不到重点。

而在《异星工厂》中，游戏一开始只开放有限的工具供玩家使用和学习，之后再继续解锁更复杂的事物。即便如此，《异星工厂》近年还是推出了官方教程。

回归游戏：

在这篇文章中我还想谈及另一个方面，也是我所发现的一种趋势。服务型游戏对回归玩家来说是最不友好的。如果玩家6个月至1年没打游戏，当他们回归游戏时，基本无异于新玩家。

更不用说那些发行后获得广泛更新支持的游戏。《星际战甲》、《收获日2》、《军团要塞2》、《堡垒之夜》等游戏都发生了巨大的变化。有时只是发布补丁或平衡参数；有时推出全新的系统和规则。这些游戏的设计目的是鼓励玩家每天打游戏，从而跟上更新节奏，一旦玩家落后了，想要追上进度简直是噩梦。

出现这种情况的原因有几个。首先，许多服务型游戏的设计基于玩家的账号等级而不是他们的真实状况。以《星际战甲》为例，无论是解锁物品、付费货币还是任务系统，都与玩家账号挂钩。尽管玩家可以翻看基础教程，但想弄清游戏发生了哪些变化，或者回忆游戏机制的运作方式都不容易。

对于那些以竞技/排位模式为主的服务型游戏，玩家通过之前的游戏取得了一定的排名。但玩家一年甚至多年前排名很高不代表他们的技术一如既往。

然而，当他们回归游戏、想重新学习机制时，匹配系统默认他们是高段位玩家——玩家被迫进行毫无准备的战斗，并受到游戏惩罚，同样被惩罚的还有无辜的队友。

要想让玩家更顺利地回归游戏，方法有几个。首先也是最浅显的：提供可重复播放的教程。具备多重系统的游戏还应提供帮助页面或工具提示。

排位玩法的游戏比较难处理好这个问题，因为任何解决方案，理论上，都可能被利用。如果允许玩家创建多个角色，玩家可能会开小号试练，利用不同角色隐藏他们的真实水平，避免影响段位。允许购买物品在不同角色间转移可能会造成不公平的优势。

就排位模式而言，游戏必须有一个防止玩家不打游戏却一直保持高段位的系统。这也是ELO评分系统如此流行的原因之一。

擦亮双眼：

无论目标玩家是谁，游戏类型是什么，任何设计师在设计游戏时都应该考虑新玩家体验。这将帮助你改善新手引导和教程设计，从而留住玩家。每个被糟糕的教程拒之门外的潜在玩家，你将永远失去他。

这一点再怎么强调都不为过，如果你的游戏拥有独特的机制或核心循环，你必须提供相应的教程指导。我最近在《异星工厂》里发现了一个非常棒的迷你教程，它介绍了如何利用快捷键进行整理和填充燃料操作。

记住：任何游戏都可能成为某人的首次体验，根据这一原则思考游戏的新人引导和教程，这最终有益于你的设计，并让更多人体验你的游戏。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Recently I got a comment on one of my videos from someone asking me about learning how to manipulate a 3D camera in a game. That comment reminded me of something very important, and an area where a lot of developers fail to grasp—understanding and designing around the new player’s experience.

First Time Players

When we talk about the new player’s experience, there are three specific groups of players we’re referring to. The first are completely new to the game in question. These are players who are familiar with the genre conventions and gameplay loop, but don’t know what makes your version of the game different.

They are the easiest to design around, as much of the onboarding has been done already. I remember reading in the manual for Civilization 3 a section for people who are familiar with the series and just want to know what’s new in that version of the game. While onboarding isn’t as important to this group, it’s still vital as a designer to be able to explain the areas where your game differs from its contemporaries. This is especially true for abstracted titles like strategy and RPG where games can have different rules.

The second group are players new to a genre. What happens, in this case, is that a game achieves a high enough level of renown to attract people who want to play it to see what the praise is about. This group has the highest potential to convert people into being longtime fans of yours, and is often the failing point for many developers.

For them, you can’t rely on the person coming in with even a basic understanding of the genre. This is where onboarding and tutorial design are needed, and without them, you’re going to turn away this group. Companies like Paradox Interactive have been terrible in this regard, but there are many smaller examples.

Too often, developers of niche genres will only think about their established fans and not about the greater market—creating a game experience that vets can jump right into, and new players will have no idea what’s going on. Incidentally, this is where AAA developers tend to succeed over indie developers, and being able to create effective onboarding/tutorials.

It helps that AAA developers tend to work in established genres, and they have the budget to do extensive playtesting as well.

The final category is rarer, but still important to consider, someone brand new to games playing your title. As the game industry grew over the years, this group is becoming smaller, but there are still people out there who will experience their first game or first time doing something.

Onboarding is vital here, and why we’ve seen a surge of non-gamers take to mobile and free to play titles. Mobile games have always been built around being as accommodating to the new player experience as possible.

At this point, I’m sure someone is going to comment about indie devs not having to worry about this group, or the second one, as their games are smaller in scale and reach, but understanding the new player experience is important to improving as a game designer.

Why This Matters:

One of the easiest traps for developers to fall into with their designs is not thinking about the new player experience. The echo chamber effect has been the downfall of many projects, and a key example is not listening to new players.

For almost every forum centered around a hard or niche game, there will be people asking to make things more playable and easier to learn, and there will be expert players denouncing that.

As a developer, you need to understand that complexity and difficulty are not the hallmarks of a good game. While some people will find it rewarding to figure out confusing systems and gameplay loops, you are doing a disservice to your game by not attempting to fix any pain points. Not only that, but if you can’t properly explain what makes your game different from its contemporaries, you’re less likely to have your game break into that market.

Being able to take something complex and explain it in a way that is easy for anyone to follow is a sign of a great developer. One of the best aspects of Slay the Spire was that very fact, and how the developers used an elegant UI to help demystify a lot of the rules of the game.

There are many indie games out there who have achieved cult status, but fail to grow despite that, primarily due to their onboarding. I cannot stress this enough—every game regardless of its genre and fanbase should always have the new player experience in mind.

Even complicated titles that are built around niche audiences still need to think about the new player’s experience. You can look at the differences between Factorio and Kerbal Space Program in this regard. When I tried to learn KSP, the game starts you with a wide variety of tools and pieces and leaves it to the player to make sense out of everything. The complete freedom may be nice for skilled players but leaves new players wondering what to focus on.

While Factorio starts the player with a limited pool of tools for the player to use and figure out, before unlocking more complexities. Even with that said, the game has officially added an introduction scenario in recent years.

Returning to Play:

There is one other area I want to touch on for this piece, and it’s one that I see a growing trend around. Live service games are some of the worse titles when it comes to punishing returning players. For someone who hasn’t played a game in six months to a year or more, they could be considered a new player at that point.

Even more so if we’re talking about titles that receive extensive post-release support. Warframe, Payday 2, Team Fortress 2, Fortnite, and many more titles, evolved considerably. Sometimes it’s just patching and balancing; sometimes it’s brand new systems and rules. These games are all designed around conditioning people to play daily to keep up, and when they fall behind, it becomes a nightmare to catch up.

There are several reasons why this happens. First is that many live service games are built around account progress and not player progress. With Warframe, everything is tied to the account in terms of items unlocked, premium currency, quests done, etc. While the game lets you review basic tutorial info, it doesn’t make it easy to find what’s been changed or remember how the mechanics work.

For live service titles that are built on a competitive or ranked play, you have players who have a pre-existing rank that dictates placement. Just because a player had a high rank a year or more ago doesn’t mean they have the same skills now.

However, when they go to try and relearn the game, the matchmaking will assume they’re still that high rank—punishing them by playing in matches they’re not ready for and punishing their teammates who expected a higher skilled player.

There are several ways to make it easier to return to a game. The first one should be obvious: tutorials should always be replayable. For games that have multiple systems, have help screens or tooltips available.

Games with ranked play is a tougher nut to crack. The problem is that every option could, in theory, be exploited. If you let players create multiple characters, then you run the risk of having smurf accounts: players who use different characters to hide their skills and avoid hurting their online ranking. Setting up a transfer of bought items from different characters could give them an unfair advantage.

For matchmaking purposes, there should be something in place to prevent someone from keeping the top position and not playing. This is part of the popularity of an ELO rating system.

Fresh Eyes:

No matter who your market is or the genre, all designers need to consider the new player’s experience when building their games. This is how you can improve onboarding and tutorial design and being able to retain players. Every person you turn away due to poor tutorials is a potential fan permanently lost.

I cannot stress this point enough, if your game features mechanics or loops unique from other games, you must always have tutorials and onboarding for those sections. A really great quality of life feature I recently saw was in Factorio that brought up a mini tutorial to explain several of its hotkeys that help with sorting and filling up machines.

Remember: every game is somebody’s first, and thinking about your onboarding and tutorials along those lines will ultimately make you a better designer and give your game a better chance of being played.(source：Gamasutra)