开发者以实例谈惩罚系统对游戏玩法的负面影响

原作者：Josh Bycer 译者：Willow Wu

电子游戏，乃至任何游戏都一定会有输有赢。近年来，我们看到有些游戏在“惩罚系统”上下了更多功夫——即在当下玩家已经遭受重创的基础上加以惩罚。然而今天我们要讨论是为什么在玩家失意时施加惩罚并不能有效激励他们继续游戏。

惩罚系统的核心概念就是将损失或者潜在损失的可能性进一步扩大。在大多数游戏中，当玩家遭重创时——一般是生命值耗尽或者濒死——角色和周围的环境都会回到中立状态。

再比如你在玩一个平台游戏，然后在过了checkpoint之后的地方死掉，这个世界就会重置，玩家回到checkpoint。从这个例子来看，玩家失去了一条命，但是并没有引发后续影响。

最早期的惩罚系统就是“生命”机制，很多经典的游戏都有。当玩家用完所有命，他们可能要从头打这一关，有的游戏甚至会让你从头打整个游戏。

很多外星战役题材的游戏的惩罚系统是这样的：玩家每死一次就会失去升级或者是强化道具/效果，由此我们就可以看出惩罚系统的重点——要让玩家的状况比系统激活之前更加糟糕。

具体可以通过两种方式呈现：角色变得更加虚弱，再次死亡的几率极大；玩家之前的进度被抹去，必须从头再来。

我拿最近发行的游戏《只狼：影逝二度》来做进一步分析。

在From Software之前的游戏中，如果你死了，那么之前收集到的魂（经验值和货币）会散落一地，如果在第二次死亡之前你没有捡起来，那么这些东西就永远都回不来了。

Roguelike(from gamasutra)

技巧娴熟的玩家确实有充足的机会去重新获取资源，他们可以反复尝试Boss战，同时获得各种掉落物品。

《只狼》的“龙咳”系统与传统的魂类游戏不太一样，死亡时玩家有默认30%的几率不会丢失金钱和经验值。但如果死太多次，龙咳系统就会被触发——游戏里的NPC都会患病，无法做任务，而且主角死亡后保留物资的几率会逐渐下降。

龙咳系统表现出了电子游戏惩罚系统最恶劣的一面。首先，这个系统对高玩没有任何影响——只要你精通了游戏的核心玩法，龙咳永远都不会出现。第二，它并没有给游戏增加实质性的深度，也没有给玩家选择的机会，只是为了造成进度损失。玩家可以在《只狼》中“存钱”——也就是买钱袋，但每次都要跑大老远去找商人，非常耗时间。

最大的问题，同样也是为什么我认为这些系统设计不好的原因在于它给玩家带来了更多麻烦，让已经受挫的他们更难迈开脚步。甚至连如今的Kaizo游戏（故意设计得特别难的游戏，例如I wanna、猫里奥系列，游戏邦注）也剔除了惩罚系统，玩家有无限次的生命。

抹除玩家历尽辛苦完成的游戏进度可能会让玩家崩溃，但是我肯定有些人会问：“那么roguelikes呢？”尽管roguelikes玩家同样会受到严酷的惩罚，但这跟上述的系统还是有很大不同。

Roguelikes游戏的设计一直建立在惩罚系统之上——当你死亡时，无论你在游戏中的哪个位置，所有的进度都会被清零。相比失去几个物品或者是强化效果，这种后果必然是更加惨痛的，但为什么玩家都没意见呢？

这就要讲到roguelikes的游戏设计和重玩性。如果你在线性游戏中死亡，挑战和游戏环境都不会因此而变。失去游戏进度意味着你得重新打完全一样的关卡，一直到你能真正地克服这个阻碍。

然而，roguelikes游戏的每一周目都是程序生成的全新内容，每一次流程都能给玩家新鲜的游戏体验。正是这种不可预料性才促使roguelikes游戏有极高的重玩价值。

你在一次又一次地玩游戏时，体验到的应该是全新的内容，而不是像线性游戏那样强硬地把玩家的脑袋往墙上怼，直到他们放弃或者是艰难地过关。

快速地讲个题外话，这就是为什么玩家一般不会喜欢roguelike出现固定内容。如果玩家知道X一定会发生，那就意味着他们别无选择只能硬着头皮上，除非已经知道攻略。玩家对《暗黑地牢》的主要不满之一就跟最后的固定挑战内容有关。每次全军覆没之后，玩家又要花上好几个小时培养另一个队伍，再次面对这个关卡。

如果你想让玩家做点什么，相比惩罚系统还有其它更好的办法。

促使玩家去做某件事或者避免做某件事可能很困难，但是有些小窍门你可以试试。首先是要给玩家掌控权，或者是让他们觉得有掌控权。

有些游戏可以在中途更改游戏难度，可能还会给坚持玩困难模式的玩家提供奖励。如果他们觉得这关太难，可以随时降低难度。除此之外，你也可以在游戏中设置一些难度较大的可选挑战，同时保持主游戏体验在正常或简单模式下，任天堂多年来都是这样做的。

Locomalito是一位专注于现代复古游戏的开发者，他在自己的每一款游戏中都加入了高难度挑战关卡，而玩家有无限次尝试机会。

还有一种做法就是如果你不想让玩家做某事，那就在他们有相反行为的时候给予奖励。举个大多数人都知道的例子：《魔兽世界》的下线经验奖励。起初，如果玩家们玩的时间太长，他们得到的经验值会逐渐减少，直到一个固定的最低值。大家都很讨厌这种做法。

暴雪后来改变了这个设计，玩家每小时下线一会，再回来时就能得到双倍经验。上面这两个例子都达到了同一个目的：让玩家停止游戏，但是后者是通过奖励手段，而前者是通过惩罚手段。

重点在于不要让玩家觉得他们辛苦得来的进度都白费了。虽然惩罚系统在早些年行得通，但在如今这么拥挤的市场中，玩家很有可能会毫不犹豫地抛弃它直接玩另一个游戏。

在文章结束之前，我想强调一个关键点——上文所讨论的惩罚系统和挑战失败是两回事。电子游戏只要有赢那必定会有输。区别在于玩家要是输了，惩罚系统会影响后续的游戏体验。

要说服他们除了败局之外，他们应该还要承受额外的损失，这是很困难的。而且大多数情况下，实际效果也不尽人意。除了惩罚之外，要影响游戏体验的还有其它一些比较有趣的方式。

最后留给大家一个问题：在非roguelike游戏中，有哪些能够将惩罚系统运用得非常好的？

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

An essential element of videogames, and by extension any game, is having a win and lost state. One aspect we have seen to add more weight to a game’s design is the use of “punishment systems” — systems that penalize the player beyond the initial lost state. However, we’re going to talk about why kicking the player when they’re down is not the best way to motivate them to keep playing.

Penalizing Punishments:

The core concept of a punishment system is taking the lost state and extending it. In most games, when the player has a lost state — typically running out of health or dying — the character and the world around them return to a neutral state.

When you play a platformer and you die after a checkpoint, the world resets and the player returns to the last checkpoint reached. In this regard, there is a lost state, but its impact doesn’t extend beyond the loss.

The earliest example of a punishment system would be the use of “lives” in many classic games. When the player runs out of lives playing an older game, they can be sent back to the start of a level, or even back to the start of the entire game.

Many shmups have featured punishment systems where the player loses power-ups and upgrades each time they died, and this presents a major point about punishment systems — they leave the player worse off than they were before the system activated.

This feeling of being worse off can present itself in two ways: the player is now weaker and has a greater chance to die again, or the player has permanently lost progress they made and must now do things again.

A recent example of my issues with punishment systems came with Sekiro Shadows Die Twice.

Rotten Luck:

In previous From Software games, there was a punishment system in how if you died, your accumulated souls (which are experience and currency in the game) would fall to the ground. If you didn’t get back to pick them up again before you die a second time then they would be lost forever.

Sekiro’s punishment mechanic is only felt if you are still learning the game

While this was extreme, it did give skilled players a pretty fair chance to recover their resources, and they could keep trying bosses and pick them back up at the same time.

Sekiro’s system is different and is called “dragonrot.” Unlike in the Soulsborne titles, you have at default a 30% chance to recover money and experience points when you die. Die too many times and the dragonrot system kicks in — causing NPCs in the world to get sick. While they are sick, their quest-lines will not be able to move forward and your recovery chance drops down.

The dragonrot system represents the worst aspects of punishment systems in videogames. First, the system itself has no bearings or impact on expert players — once you get good enough at the game, you will never experience dragonrot. The system offers no greater depth or choices to the player, but simply causes progress loss. The game does allow players to “bank” their money by buying coin purses, but it requires the player to return to a merchant each time they want to do it; causing time spent away from progress.

The biggest issue — and the reason why these systems are not good design — is that they cause further problems for people who are already feeling the loss about failing to begin with. Even Kaizo games these days have backed away from punishment systems and now just give players infinite lives to play through.

Taking away the player’s hard-earned progress can be a kick in the gut, but I’m sure some of you are about to ask this: “what about roguelikes?” Roguelikes, despite having extreme punishments for losing, get away with these systems.

The Roguelike Difference

Roguelike design has always been built on punishment systems — when you die, all progress is immediately wiped no matter where you are in the game. That certainly is more damaging than just losing a few resources or power-ups, so why are gamers fine with it?

The reason has to do with the design of roguelikes and how they are built to be replayable. When you fail in a linear game, the challenges and situations remain fixed. Losing progress means that you have to repeat content that you have already done until you get past your roadblock.

In a roguelike, however, every playthrough is ideally procedurally generated to be something original. Having to restart a roguelike gives the player a brand new experience to play. The fact that you never know what to expect with each playthrough gives the genre its high replayability, sand that’s the key point.

You are supposed to replay a roguelike and have new experiences and content; you’re not supposed to replay a linear game by banging your head against a wall until you give up or get past a section.

As a quick tangent, this is often why having fixed situations in roguelike design is not seen as favorable for the genre. If the player always knows that X is going to happen, that creates a known event that the player cannot do anything about unless they already have the answer to it. One of the complaints about grinding in the Darkest Dungeon came with the final challenges that took place in linear areas.

Every time the player failed and lost their party, they would have to spend hours leveling up another crew to make repeated attempts at it.

If you want the player to do something, there are better ways to convince them instead of punishment systems.

Catching Flies with Honey

Conditioning the player to either do something or avoid an action can be tough, but there are some subtle tricks you can try. The first is to give the player control or make them think they have control over the situation.

Some titles allow the player to adjust the difficulty of the game at any time and may provide rewards for players who stick to the harder difficulties. If things get too hard for them, they can lower it down when they want. You can also do that by having optional challenges in your game that are on the harder side, while still keeping the baseline experience either normal or easy; which is what Nintendo has done for years.

Locomalito, a developer who specializes in modern-retro games, puts in limited dying challenges in each of his games, but you still have infinite lives if you just want to beat the game.

Another solution is if you want the player not to do something, then reward them for doing the opposite. A famous example was the change to how rest experience bonuses worked in World of Warcraft. Originally, if the player stayed on too long, they would suffer an experience penalty until they logged off and people hated it.

Blizzard changed it so that for every hour they logged off, they would receive an experience multiplier that would kick in when they returned. Both examples accomplished the same purpose of getting a player to stop playing, but the latter was viewed as a reward while the former was a punishment

The point is that you want the player to avoid feeling like they’re losing progress. While this kind of design worked back in the day, it’s no longer viewed as acceptable considering how many games are vying for consumers’ attention these days.

Tough Love

Before we end this piece, I want to make an important distinction when talking about punishment systems, and that is we’re not including fail states in this discussion. Videogames that have a win state must also have a fail state. The difference between the two is that a fail state does affect the player’s experience beyond the state itself.

Convincing the player that they should take an additional lost besides the failure of winning can be tough, and most times it doesn’t work out properly. There are always more interesting ways to affect the experience instead of just punishing the player.

To end this piece with: Can you think of non-roguelike games that did a good job of having a punishment system?

（source:gamasutra.com ）