作者：Dan Bergin Holly

作为这个夏天的一大盛事，在全球引起巨大轰动的《Pokemon Go》似乎打破了所有记录，但就像许多突然被炒热的游戏一样，它的长期成功也是取决于用户获取和留存。在这款游戏中玩家并不需要投入太多个人技巧，相反地他们需要投入更多时间，并且这款游戏的准入障碍和进程障碍更是远高于许多传统的手机游戏。

在所有MMO游戏中，新玩家培训与玩家进程管理都是开发者需要克服的主要障碍。Niantic Labs自然也不例外。

Pokemon Go(from gamasutra)

在《Pokemon Go》中，战斗主要是发生在体育场中。在这里没有经验的新玩家与最硬核的玩家间的差距便会表现出来。

随着世界各地的玩家已经在这款游戏中投入了无数时间，Niantic的开发团队需要去认真思考如何将新玩家带进游戏中。

有些玩家已经注意到这款游戏需要拥有更出色的平衡和玩家管理。《Pokemon Go》在Reddit评论线程中便有个玩家做出了如下分析：

“首先，每个区域的分配比例都很有问题，这是迫切需要调整的内容。你在第30级和第1级所捕抓到的Pokemon不应该提供相同的经验值，特别是当它们是一些稀有/进化过的/拥有高CP的Pokemon。也就是10cp的Pidgey如果提供与1600cp的Scyther一样的经验值就毫无意义了。更强大，经过进化且更稀有的Pokemon应该能够奖励玩家更多经验值，这是毋庸置疑的不是吗？同时每个级别所分配的经验值也非常不合理。大多数玩家可能在到达第20级时也未能意识到这点，但一旦玩家到达25级以上，他们便会因为所需要的经验值而逐渐意识到每个级别的困难。我敢保证如果开发者不能有效解决这一比例问题，那么在接下来的几周或几个月里这将演变成一个更大的问题。”

所以Niantic该如何处理分配比例和平衡问题呢？该开发团队该如何在玩家大面积流失之前将这些问题扼杀于襁褓中呢？

能够帮助他们管理玩家的一种常见的方法便是去平衡难度级别。也就是让新玩家可以更快速地升级。Niantic可以通过改变游戏参数去调整其中的经验值。

就像Keith Burgen在《理解电子游戏中的平衡》中所写的那样，游戏玩法是关于创造选择，而在拥有糟糕平衡的游戏中玩家所面对的许多选择都是无用的。这也是为何游戏平衡如此重要的原因—-它能够有效避免你的游戏元素变得无关紧要。

为了避免新玩家因为资深玩家而遭受不公平待遇，游戏会随着玩家的升级去提高难度，从而尽力缩小新玩家和资深玩家之间的差距。

最近在圣地亚哥国际动漫展上，Niantic介绍了一些新内容并更新了路线图让玩家清楚还有许多全新游戏功能即将问世，但是他们还是未明确提及游戏平衡的问题。不过我们可以假设他们私底下应该讨论了这一话题。

随着游戏的不断发展，它便需要使用更多游戏机制去确保玩家在不同级别间的发展。随着体育场所有者不断变强，玩家更希望将体育场当成一个终极目标而不是一个即时目标。同时那些投入大量时间，精力和电池寿命于《Pokemon Go》中的玩家也会希望自己的优势能够得到回报。

在写这篇文章的时候，我们也注意到《Pokemon Go》的一大更新内容，为了呈现一个更清楚的UI而改变了许多视觉元素。除了清理了UI并处理了一些小漏洞外，Niantic也改变了一些功能，如为最近的Pokemon删除了乱步系统以及为玩家角色所提供的定制化选择。

在其中的一部分更新中Niantic关闭了Pokevision以及其它第三方地图服务器：即让玩家能够轻松找到并定位附近Pokemon的应用和网站。而已公开这一决定他们便遭来了许多反对，这便说明玩家对于那些第三方应用具有深深的依赖感，如果他们不能解决这一情况的话游戏一定会失去许多玩家的。

在这款遭遇了平衡问题以及全新玩家管理问题的游戏中，Niantic还未能搞清楚那些能够帮助他们管理全新玩家的粉丝驱动工具。所以如果全新玩家知道5个街区外有只Haunter该怎样？如果是玩了很久游戏的玩家知道这一信息的话会有什么区别？而如果新玩家知道自己与资深玩家间具有很大的差距的话他们又会怎么做呢？

因为那些稀有的Pokemon只会出现在一些区域几秒钟，所以游戏需要一个官方追踪功能去实现平衡并管理全新玩家。这让新玩家也能够找到这些稀有Pokemon，并获得足够的经验值从而更快速地升级。而对于资深玩家来说，他们反倒可以将每日午餐后的散步时间作为目标。

不过除了我们所说的挑战性外，如今的Niantic还面临的一大挑战或许是天气吧。因为一旦冬天到了天黑得早且户外变得又湿又冷，玩家是否还会想要出门去累积公里数以孵育蛋或去寻找Pokemon呢？最近任天堂还宣称其可穿戴设备Pokémon Go Plus将被推迟到9月份发布。现在正是Pokemon的大热时期，而对于自然原因或游戏平衡是否真正会影响到这款游戏未来的成功还是需要我们进一步去考究。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Pokemon Go’s future is bleak without game balancing

by Dan Bergin Holly

The cultural event of the summer – Pokémon Go – may be a global smash that has broken all records, but like many hyped games, its long-term success depends on acquiring and retaining users. In a game less about individual skill and more about the amount of time invested, the barriers-to-entry and barriers-to-progression are far higher than traditional mobile games.

As is common with MMO games, in particular, new player onboarding and managing player progression are major obstacles that developers have to overcome. Niantic Labs is no exception.

In the case of Pokémon Go, battles take place in gyms. This is where a gulf between new, inexperienced players and the game’s most hardcore players comes to the forefront.

With hundreds of millions of hours already invested by players around the world, the team at Niantic will need to think about how to ensure new players aren’t put off by starting the game.

Already, players are noticing that the game needs to have better balancing and player management. On the official Pokémon Go Reddit thread, named ’Silph Road’, player Riggnaros delivered the following analysis:

“First and foremost; Scaling is WAY off in every area and needs to be adjusted. Pokémon that you capture do not need to give the same XP at level 30 as they do at level 1, especially rare/evolved/high CP Pokémon (Snorlax/Venusaur/2k CP/etc.). It makes no sense that a 10cp Pidgey should be giving the same XP as a 1600cp Scyther. Stronger, evolved, and more rare Pokémon should reward you with more XP, plain and simple. Also, the way each level scales with XP is horribly designed. Most people are probably around level 20ish at this point and don’t realize it, but once you get to 25+ it starts to sink in just how daunting each level is when it comes to XP required…As someone who has gamed for their entire life, some of which has been at a competitive level, I can promise you this scaling is out of touch and will be a huge problem in the coming weeks/months if it’s not addressed.”

So what can Niantic do to address its scaling and balancing issues? How can its team nip these issues in the bud, before players begin to churn at an alarming rate?

One common technique to help with player onboarding is the balancing of level difficulty. So that new players can level-up faster, Niantic could alter the game parameters that adjusts the experience points (XP).

As Keith Burgen wrote about in his article on Gamasutra, ‘Understanding Balance in Video Games’, Gameplay is all about making choices and in a poorly-balanced game, many of the choices available to the player are essentially rendered useless. And this, in a nutshell, is why game balance is so important — it preserves your game elements from irrelevance.

To prevent newer players from unfairly overtaking those who have been playing for longer, the difficulty would increase as the player levels up, plugging the gap between new players and veteran Pokémon Trainers.

Recently at Comic-Con, Niantic outlined its content and update roadmap to reassure players that a wealth of new game features (and fixes) are on their way, yet there was no explicit mention of game balancing. It’s safe to assume, however, that this is something that’s being discussed behind closed doors.

The more the game grows, the more mechanics it will need to use to make sure that players can progress through different levels. The more powerful gym leaders become, the greater the need for players to see gyms as an end goal rather than an immediate one. At the same time, players who have invested vast amounts of time, miles and battery life into Pokémon Go will also want to feel like their dominance is paying off.

As of writing, we’ve also seen one of Pokémon Go’s biggest updates – changing a plethora visual facets in order to create a cleaner UI. In addition to cleaning up the UI and addressing minor bugs, Niantic has made changes to some features, such as the removal of the broken step system for nearest Pokémon and customisation options for player avatars.

Part of this update involved Niantic shutting down Pokevision and other third party map services: apps and websites that allowed players to easily identify and locate nearby Pokémon. The outcry after this change, in particular, shows just how dependent some players had become on those third-party apps, and without an alternative, the game may begin haemorrhaging users.

In a game that suffers from major balancing issues and new player onboarding, Niantic has failed to recognise that these fan-driven tools were helping new players develop and grow. So what if a new player knew a Haunter is five blocks away? That knowledge could have be the difference between he/she becoming a long-term player, or instantly falling by the wayside when seeing just how large that gap between themselves and other players is.

Given rarer Pokémon can occupy areas for a matter of seconds, the game needs an official tracking feature to help with game balancing and new player onboarding. This allows new players to find that rarer Pokémon, generate larger amounts of XP and subsequently progress faster. As for veterans, their usual lunchtime walk is merely a more targeted one instead.

But perhaps the biggest challenge that Niantic faces is something beyond the complexities we’ve discussed – the weather. Once it’s dark and cold outside, will players still be interested in going outside to build up enough distance to hatch eggs or find new Pokémon? Nintendo recently announced that Pokémon Go Plus, the wearable to ‘catch-em-all’ had been pushed back to September. While we’re in peak Pokémon hype, it’s too early to know whether mother nature or poor game balancing will impact the game’s future success.（source：Gamasutra）