作者：Josh Bycer

任何有关游戏设计的争论都免不了提到难度。这次我想谈的游戏难度问题也已经被热烈讨论过了。难度应该奖励玩家吗？

为了奖励而挑战

有一句老话叫作：“风险越大，奖励越大”。这已经成为近年来游戏设计的格言了。

《美妙世界》是我最喜欢的游戏之一。玩家可以通过几个途径影响游戏的难度：第一，除了战斗中，玩家可以随时调整游戏的整体难度；这意味着掉落物品随着难度变化。第二，玩家可以通过降低自己的最大生命值来控制物品掉落率。第三，玩家可以通过同时与多个怪群战斗得到更多奖励。

玩家根据自己的水平或要求调整游戏难度，意味着游戏一方面奖励肯冒险的玩家，另一方面又不至于让游戏难度变得过高。更重要的是，游戏提供内部奖励，并且奖励玩家提高游戏难度的行为，这可以有效地激励玩家学习游戏系统。

能持续奖励游戏行为的游戏才是最有重玩价值的游戏。另外，动作RPG的玩法本身就是建立在“冒险VS奖励”之上的。也就是，随着关卡难度提升，敌人也更加强悍更加多样，奖励自然也更好。

毕竟，人们坚持不懈地玩《暗黑2》和《暗黑3》等游戏不是没有原因的。

Diablo-II(from gametomasti)

给予玩家调整难度的另一个好处是，使玩家更容易上手游戏。对于许多新玩家，当他们还处于摸索阶段的时候，游戏难度过大会成为他们离开游戏的主要原因。

虽然用奖励刺激玩家有多种好处，但如果设计师意图特别的设计，那么难度本身应该成为必要的刺激。

为了挑战而挑战

给玩家理由玩更高难度的游戏，可能会刺激玩家学习这款游戏，但对于那些渴望迎接挑战的玩家，他们并不需要任何其他理由。

一个明显的事实是，当设计师希望游戏具有多种难度水平时，微调和测试游戏需要的时间就更多。并且多重难度可能导致游戏难度不平衡：太容易游戏变得无聊；太困难使玩家流失。

Path of Exile(from gamasutra)

在某些情况下，因为设计的局限性，提高难度可能会减少游戏的乐趣。

例如，在策略游戏如《文明》中，提高难度只是一程度上让AI的策略变得更高明；也就是给予AI更多优势，而不是单纯地让AI表现得更聪明。

对于许多玩家，先从最简单的阶段玩起再接触困难的部分，这可能是一个令人厌烦的过程。许多玩家抱怨《暗黑3》的起始关卡的难度太低，难度直到第二或第三关才有明显的提升。

Dark Souls(from gamasutra)

虽然让玩家有理由玩更高难度的游戏可能有很高的重玩价值，但最独特、最高品质的游戏还需要平衡的关卡难度。

《恶魔之魂》和《黑暗之魂》是近来最出色的两款游戏。但二者均不允许玩家调整难度，并且游戏从一开始就很有挑战性。从这点看，它们的平衡性很好，更讲究从玩家学习到掌握机制的自然过程， 而不是人为地提高或降低难度。

对于许多硬核玩家而言，战胜游戏就是必要的动机。在Game-Wisdom Podcast上，我们与Arcen Games的Chris Park讨论《无风的山谷》及其游戏设计。

在讨论中，我们谈到了难度问题。他表示他们并不需要在更高难度的关卡中添加额外的奖励；因为他们的玩家主要是硬核向的，玩家提高游戏难度只是为了挑战和达成成就，并非为了游戏中的奖励。

那就是为什么他们更倾向于设置更高的默认难度。所以只要第一次玩家没有被难度压倒，他们就能相信硬核的粉丝会继续挑战自己。

另一个例子是，许多游戏并不设置难度级别，而是考验玩家，看看他们能够到承受到什么程度的挑战。

就这点来看，用更高的难度刺激玩家挑战自己，可以提供更有意义的奖励，因为它是一种内在动机。这种自我挑战的玩家并不是为了更多成就或更好的装备，而是为了证明自己的能力。

对我个人而言，我介于“为了奖励”和“为了挑战”之间。一方面，我喜欢《美妙世界》和《流放之路》这种“为了奖励而挑战”的游戏。另一方面，我也喜欢《恶魔之魂》、《黑暗之魂》和《忍者龙剑传》这种“为了挑战而挑战”的游戏。

但现在，因为开发者改变了游戏的难度级别设置，所以《忍者龙剑传》变得有些怪异了，但它的难度主要还是围绕挑战玩家极限来设计的。

说到这里，我想还是把奖励冒险VS冒险奖励的难题留给读者们吧。用奖励让玩家继续游戏更好吗？还是游戏行为本身就是唯一的动机？（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）

Design Debate: Risky Rewards or Rewarding Risk?

by Josh Bycer

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good old design debate. Game Difficulty is one of those terms that can spawn any number of topics. For today’s talk on difficulty I want to focus on one area that has seen heated debates on both sides: Should difficulty reward players?

Putting the Reward in “Risk vs. Reward”:

One of the oldest expressions around would have to be: “With great risk comes great reward” and that has become a motto of some of the most interesting games in recent years.

The World Ends With You is one of my all time favorite games and it featured several ways for the player to affect the difficulty. The player can change the overall difficulty level of the game at anytime outside of combat, this in turn determines what kind of loot can be dropped.

The player can also control the drop rate by lowering their max health and finally they can further increase the bonuses by fighting more than one enemy group at a time.

By giving the player all these ways to fine tune the difficulty to their specifications it rewards players who take the big risks, while not hitting them over the head with intense difficulty out of the gate. More importantly is that it provides and in game benefit and reward for making the game harder, which can be a good motivator for players to learn the systems.

Games that continue to provide rewards for playing are some of the most replay-able games out there. Heck, the ARPG genre’s playability is built on risk vs. rewards. With each new difficulty level, the enemies become stronger and more varied, while the loot gets better.

After all, there is a reason why people kept playing Diablo 2 or Path of Exile, Diablo 3… Not so much but that’s a story for another post.

The other positive of giving the player control over difficulty is that it can help make a game more accessible. For many gamers, being hit over the head with difficulty while they’re trying to learn it can be a huge turn off.

While motivating players can be a huge boon, if the designer is going for a specific design, some feel that the challenge should be all the motivation needed.

Mountain Climbing Game Design:

Giving the player reasons to play a game at a higher difficulty level may inspire those to learn it, but for gamers looking to be tested, they don’t need any other reason.

A simple fact is that whenever designers have to implement multiple difficulty levels that requires more time spent fine tuning and play testing. This can lead to difficulty levels that are just imbalanced: either so easy that it renders the game boring, or so difficult that no one wants to play.

Games like Path of Exile constantly push the player towards greater challenges with the promise of better loot.
In some cases, raising the difficulty can make the game less appealing due to limitations in the design.

In strategy games like Civilization, raising the difficulty will only make the AI’s strategy better to a point. After which the game will become harder by giving the AI more advantages to use and not simply playing the game better.

For many gamers, it can be annoying to have to play a game at the easy level first before getting to the hard stuff, or when the phrase “the real game begins at X” is used. Many people complained about how easy Diablo 3′s starting difficulty was and how the game didn’t really hit its stride until the 2nd or third play-through.

While games that give the player reasons to play at a higher difficulty can be very replay-able, games balanced around one difficulty are some of the most unique, high quality games around.

Both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are regarded as two of the best games this generation. Neither of which gave the player any way to alter the difficulty and the games are challenging from the start. In this regard, they are well balanced and tailored around the player learning and mastering the mechanics and not being tweaked to artificially raise or lower the difficulty curve.

For many hard core gamers, the thrill of being challenged and overcoming it can be all the motivation needed. On the Game-Wisdom Podcast, we sat down with Chris Park from Arcen Games to talk about A Valley Without Wind 2 and game design.

During the chat we got on the subject of difficulty and he talked about how with their audience they don’t need to add additional rewards for higher difficulty. Since their fans are more on the hardcore side, they are already more inclined to raise the difficulty of the game just for the challenge and accomplishment, over any major in-game reward.

But in a game like Dark Souls, the title pushes the player to improve with the real reward being more challenges to conquer.
That’s why they like to set the default difficulty of their games more on the easy side, so that first time players aren’t overwhelmed and they can be assured that their core fans would bump the difficulty up to be challenged.

Rogue-Likes are another good example, as many of them don’t feature difficulty levels and are about challenge. The thrill of playing them is testing the player to see how far they can go in the game.

In this regard, motivating the player to test themselves with harder difficulties can provide a more meaningful reward, as it is intrinsic to the player. They’re not looking for an achievement or better gear, but to prove to themselves that they can handle it.

For myself, I’m torn between the two as I’m a fan of games on both sides. I already talked about my love of The World Ends With You and Path of Exile. On the other side I loved Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls and Ninja Gaiden Black is one of my favorite games.

Now, Ninja Gaiden Black is a weird choice as the developers did change the game with each difficulty level. But the game was primarily built around testing the player and seeing how far they could go.

And with that, we’re now at the part of the debate where I turn the spotlight on you. Is it better to reward the player to keep playing the game, or should playing the game be all the motivation needed?(source:gamasutra)