作者：Zack Hiwiller

数个月前，我接受了育碧多伦多工作室的面试。谈话内容是机密的，所以我不会公开具体的细节，但是我可以透露，我与创意主管谈论了他们雇佣的设计师“类型”和适合我的岗位。在电子游戏行业中，尽管同样有HR部门，但人们往往用“设计师”来统述所有类型，所以这似乎是个令人感到新奇的话题。比如，我的关卡设计经验不足。与我的个人专长系统设计相比，关卡设计需要的技能大不相同。但是，关卡设计的本质使其比系统设计更易被认知。那么，系统设计是什么？为何它如此重要呢？

我先提供个很技术化的答案：系统设计是产生意向玩法动态的机制设计。但是，这个定义似乎很难理解。或许，举个例子会有所帮助。

在RPG中添加金钱系统有什么目标呢？这是个简单的系统，作用是在游戏中各个地方让玩家获得一定的优势。你之前可曾玩过金钱供过于求的游戏？在整个游戏过程中，意向玩法动态是种有趣的挑战层次。实现这种动态的方法便是范围刚好满足需要的奖励系统。

我觉得，自己去年玩过的两款游戏绝妙地展现了成功的系统设计，那就是《文明5》和《世界树迷宫3》。

我认为，《文明5》可能拥有历史上构建最完美的系统设计。游戏中有许多个系统，包括文化、影响力、军队力量、研究、财富、市民成长和欢乐度，而且多数系统都与其他系统存在互动关系。《文明5》的设计师必须必须创造出满足许多动态要求的系统，比如玩家无法在18世纪造出核武器、不存在所有情况下通用的优势战略、玩家不能拥有过多的金钱或征召过多军队。设计师神奇地以某种方法融合了特别市民、奇迹、单位和玩家技能，创造出让决定变得有趣的平衡系统。在《光晕》中，所有玩家都会努力获得火箭发射器或能量剑，因为它们是最强的武器。武器的决定并不有趣。在《文明5》中，你在1个回合内有许多种选择，其中许多选择没有显而易见的结果，这才使得整个系统变得有趣。

繁殖率应该是多少？(from hiwiller)

《世界树迷宫3》也是个值得探讨的例子。游戏的目标动态是清晰地创造出超高难度的经典地下城探索系统。这样的游戏很容易就会变得过难或过于容易（游戏邦注：多数RPG游戏犯下这个错误，比如新版《黄金太阳》）。玩家可以选择许多种职业，每种职业都有不同的技能树。玩家会选择何种职业呢？玩家在这些系统中会有怎样的体验呢？他愿意花多长时间来尝试，直至最终放弃？系统设计师必须不断测试各种变量，直到营造出恰当的动态。

要给予玩家多少经验值？怪物的强力程度如何？(from hiwiller)

我之前设计过一款Facebook游戏。游戏必须保持其挑战性，但玩家每次登录都要给予奖励。他们登录游戏的频率如何？提供怎样的奖励才算足够？怎样的奖励显得过度？奖励能否让他们获得最佳的游戏体验？如果他们没有获得最佳体验，要怎么办？

假设玩家每个阶段额外获得10%或11%的金钱。这两个比例看起来并没有多大差别，不是吗？假设起始金钱为100金币，那么经过100个阶段后，10%的玩家最终的金币数为1252782，11%的玩家最终的金币数为3068844，后者是前者的约2.5倍。从这个例子中，你就可以看到微小的差别逐渐累加会产生何种效果。现在，想象下如果不使用简单的10%或11%这样的比例，金钱的获得数量类似于我的Facebook游戏那样由一个含6个变量的公式确定：获得金钱数=k*访问数*游客数*动物数量*动物稀有度*兴趣等级*道具修改器。这些变量的小变动会对整个公式的结果产生影响。

现在，你应当了解了系统设计的复杂性。你对《大富翁》有何看法？是否觉得获得有趣内容的节奏过慢？是否觉得游戏持续时间过长？如果确实如此，你可以对“房产规则”进行修改，比如到达“免费公园”能够获得金钱或不继续拍卖未出售地产。这些机制都是精妙平衡系统的一部分。但是，前一种修改方法会让游戏中使用的金钱量增加，让游戏持续的时间变得更长。后者会使得玩家需要更长时间才能体验到有趣的内容。

在外人看来，你似乎只是修改数值，如果有效就将其确定下来。但事实上，优秀的系统设计师需要做很多工作，通过不断的测试和精心修改数值，直到整个游戏系统平衡或完全崩溃。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年1月11日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

What is Systems Design?

Zack Hiwiller

A few months ago I was interviewing with Ubisoft Toronto. Naturally, the conversation is confidential so I won’t get into specifics, but I was talking with a creative director about the “types” of designers they hire and where I fit in. This was a refreshing topic as many, even within the HR departments in the video game industry, use “designer” as sort of a catch-all phrase. I, for instance, have very little experience firsthand with level design. Level design requires vastly different skills than does systems design which is what I consider my forte. However, by their very natures level design is much more visible than systems design. What is it and why is it important?

I can give you a very technical answer: systems design is the design of mechanics that result in desirable play dynamics. But that likely means little to most reading. Perhaps an example will help illustrate.

The purpose of having money systems in RPGs is what? It’s a very simple system to dole out empowerment to players at various points in the game. Have you played a game before where you had more money than you could ever use by endgame? The desirable play dynamic is an interesting level of challenge throughout the game. The means to achieve that dynamic is a system of rewards that scales well to achieve that end.

Two games I played this past year are, I think, great illustrations of successful systems design: Civilization V and Etrian Odyssey III.

Civ V, I think, could possibly be the most perfectly crafted example of systems design ever. There are literally dozens of systems: culture, influence, military power, research, wealth, citizen growth, happiness (and so on and so on) and most interact with each other. Civ V’s designers had to create these systems to satisfy numerous dynamic requirements: players couldn’t get nukes in the 1700s, no track to winning must clearly dominate in all cases, players cannot have too much money or get stuck in vicious loops. Somehow, miraculously with dozens of special citizens, wonders, units and players of varying levels of understanding of the systems and skill all these moving parts work together and create a balance such that decisions are interesting. In Halo, you pretty much go for the rocket launcher or the energy sword because they are the strongest. The decision of weapon choice isn’t interesting. In Civ V, you have dozens of choices in a turn, many of which do not have a clear answer and are as such interesting.

(What should the Reproduction Rate be?)

Etrian Odyssey III is another example. The dynamic aimed for is to clearly create a brutally difficult classic dungeon crawl. It would be very easy to make this game too hard to be beat or too easy to provide the challenge (the side most RPGs err on, see the new Golden Sun reviews). Players can be a dozen classes each with vastly differing skill trees – which will the player choose? How much experience with these systems does the player have? How much time will he spend grinding before he gives up? Again, systems designers have to test and retest dozens of variables to elicit the proper dynamics.

(How much XP do you give? How strong should monsters be?)

In my previous life, I was designing a Facebook game. The game had to remain challenging, yet rewarding every time the player logged on. How often would they log on? What is a sufficient reward? What is an excessive reward? Will they play optimally? What if they don’t?

Let’s say a player gains 10% or 11% in their money per session. Not much difference right? Starting with 100 “gold”, after 100 sessions the 10% player ends up with 1,252,782. The 11% player ends with 3,068,844, almost 2.5x as much. You can see how tinychanges add up. Now imagine if instead of a simple 10% or 11%, the money is generated by a formula with six variables as it was in something similar to my my Facebook game: Money Gained = k * Visits * Tourists * Number of Animals * Rarity of Animals * Interest Level * Item Modifiers. Imagine little ripples in any of those variables and how they impact the composite variables.

Now you have an idea of the complexities of systems design. It’s a house of cards ready to be blown over by the first person to come along with an idea to “improve”. What is your opinion of Monopoly? Is it too slow to get to the interesting bits? Does it drag on too long? If so, you probably play with the “house rule” variants where you get money (for some reason) by landing on Free Parking and don’t auction unsold properties. Both of these mechanics are part of a well-balanced system. But the Free Parking modification floods the game with money, making it last much longer. The ignoring auctions modification makes the game take much longer to get to the interesting bits where players are competing for monopolies.

To outsiders, it seems like you just make up some numbers off the cuff and if they work, super. In reality, a good systems designer does a lot more work, testing and carefully tweaking values until either the tower balances or falls over. (Source: zack hiwiller)