Foreword: In the previous article, we talked about the choice of space and time in competitive games, and then talked about the design of game information and the design of game victory rules.
Design of competitive game information
The information in the game is divided into complete information, partial information and false information, and the display and arrangement of information can present a lot of rich gameplay.
When designing game information, we need to think about the following questions
1. What information do I need to have?
2. What information needs to be displayed or what information does not need to be displayed?
3. What information needs to be displayed as false information?
4. Does it need to show accurate information or vague information?
The information displayed affects the judgment of intent, the judgment of intention affects the decision, and the decision affects the fun of the game.
The typical information judgment game is a guessing puzzle, and the puzzle is to hide a part of the information, display a part of the information, and let people judge the hidden information according to the part of the information displayed.
So what kind of puzzles should we offer? The classic pirate gold puzzle features five very clever pirates, all of whom are dead rationalists, who together have snatched 100 gold coins and now need to find a way to distribute them.
The pirates were distributed according to the principle of one distribution plan, starting with Pirate One. All pirates then vote on whether or not to accept the allocation, including the proposer. And in the case of a tie in the number of votes, the proposer has the right to decide. If the proposal passes, then the pirates distribute the gold according to the proposal. If it doesn't, the proposer will be thrown overboard and the next highest-ranking pirate will come up with a new allocation.
Pirates base their decisions on three factors. First of all, it is necessary to be able to survive on board. Secondly, you should maximize your own benefits (i.e., get the most coins). Finally, all other things being equal, throwing someone else out of the ship is preferred (this is because every pirate wants to take control of the ship).
Now, if you were the first Pirate One, what would you choose? Intuitively, in order to save your life, you may choose to leave yourself a small amount of gold in order to get everyone to agree with your decision. However, the results were quite different.
The key to solving this problem is to think differently. Instead of pondering what decisions you're going to make, think about what decisions the last remaining people will make. Assuming that now only Pirate Five and Pirate Four remain, what decision would Pirate Four make? It was clear that he would keep the 100 gold coins for himself and vote for himself. Since the proposer has the right to decide in the event of a tie, Pirate 4 will be able to pocket all the gold without any danger, regardless of whether Pirate 5 agrees or not.
Now let's take Pirate Three into account. Pirate Five knew that if Pirate Three was thrown overboard, the game would be the same, and he would end up with nothing. Since they were all smart, and Pirate Three could see this as well, he knew that Pirate Five would vote for his decision if he gave Pirate Five a small benefit. So the final decision of Pirate 3 should be: Pirate 3 gets 99 gold coins, Pirate 4 doesn't have a single gold coin, and Pirate 5 gets a gold coin.
Pirate 2's strategy is similar: since he needs 50% support, he only needs to bribe 1 gold to Pirate 4. Pirate Four will definitely support him (otherwise it would be Pirate Three's turn to make a decision, and he would have nothing to gain). So Pirate 2's final decision was: (Pirate 2 took 99 gold coins, Pirate 3 didn't have a single gold coin, Pirate 4 took a gold coin, and Pirate 5 didn't have a single gold coin.)
Pirate One's situation was slightly different: since there were 5 people this time, he would need to bribe at least two pirates to get his resolution passed. So the decision was: Pirate 1 took 98 gold coins, Pirate 2 didn't have a single gold coin, Pirate 3 took a gold coin, Pirate 4 didn't have a gold coin, and Pirate 5 took a gold coin.
Wasn't this result unexpected? Not only will you be able to protect yourself, but you will also be able to get most of the benefits! In fact, there is the idea of recursion in this, which is a useful means to solve many problems.
It's a classic puzzle, but in my opinion, it's not a good game at all. There are three flaws to this type of puzzle:
1. Logical reasoning is too complicated
We have previously shown that the human brain is naturally unsuitable for logical reasoning, the human brain is more adapted to visual and spatial things, and complex reasoning is not suitable for most people, so most people do not learn mathematics well. Complex logical reasoning is not suitable for entertainment, and games need something concrete and spatial, not logic.
2. The judgment link is lengthy
Lengthy judgment is not suitable for competitive games, competitive games still need to judge information in a short period of time and then make decisions, and too lengthy reasoning and decision-making processes will slow down the rhythm of the whole game, which is not suitable for competition. That's right, we can indeed see that some classic games such as Go are very lengthy in the judgment process, Go needs to judge the next few moves or even dozens of moves in a row, and the next game of Go takes up to several hours, and after playing, exhaustion, completely losing the purpose of the game's leisure and entertainment, not so much entertainment as doing math problems, Go has been reduced to a niche game market. We can see that games such as mahjong poker with a shorter judgment link are more popular with the public, because only partial information can be seen, and the uncertainty of the opponent's cards makes it more necessary to play cards with instant judgment rather than long logical reasoning, and this kind of game is more entertaining to live in the moment.
3. There is only one correct answer
In fact, many games do have a single correct answer, and walking the maze is a typical only correct answer game, but this kind of game is gradually being eliminated by the market, and more and more games have canceled the maze and changed to an open scene. The same is true for puzzles, the only one with the right answer will become less and less popular, and there will be more and more open-ended puzzles in the future. Some people may ask how the open-answer puzzle system determines the correct answer. In fact, a lot of times we don't need the right answer, we need the result. Playing all the cards in the hand is the result we need, as for which card to play there is no real correct answer, sometimes we feel that it is the right answer after the review is not really correct, because after the review you see the complete information, and at that time you can only play cards according to the judgment of local information, the reduction of information simplifies the judgment so it increases the entertainment.
3.1 Complete Information
The most typical example of complete information is Xiangqi, where all the information is presented in front of you, and you need to judge your opponent's next move based on the current game and make a decision. All-open cards require strong logical calculations, extremely brain-intensive, very small luck components, longer judgment links, the strong is king, for most players this kind of accurate calculation and completely rely on the strength of the game is not fun. In video games, it is mainly action fighting games that use complete information, because the focus of the game is not on information judgment but on spatial selection. Nowadays, games are becoming less and less likely to use the form of full information.
3.2 Partial Information
The most typical local information is the fog of war in MOBA games, the information in the field of vision is visible, and the information outside the field of vision can see the terrain but not the characters, because you can't see the opponent's position to gank, ambush, steal the wild, if you can see everything, it's boring. League of Legends designed the grass, and those who are outside the grass cannot see the people inside the grass, which is also fog. Mahjong poker is also a typical local information game. The cards in poker games are divided into three categories, the open cards in your own hand, the open cards on the table, and the opponent's hidden cards. Mahjong cards are divided into four categories, the face cards in their own hands, the face cards in the opponent's hand, the face cards on the table, and the face cards in the library. Guess the cards in his hand according to the cards played by the opponent, and at the same time play the cards to be able to confuse the opponent and make his hand easy to play, which is the essence of playing poker mahjong. The agnosticism of the library makes it possible to flexibly match as many cards as possible, which is a unique skill in playing mahjong. In addition, the cards in the stud game are also divided into three categories, but slightly different from other card games, in addition to the library draw, the opponent's face and face cards, the cards in your own hand are also divided into face and face cards. The library draw and the opponent's face down cards are unknowable, while the cards in your own hand and the opponent's cards are known. The random element of the library can add to the unknowns of the game itself, and the open cards are used to confuse the opponent, and the hidden cards are the key to your own victory.
mahjong
Stud
Another manifestation of local information is vague information, which is typically "Heroes of Invincible", which can see the range of the enemy's troops, but cannot know the specific number of people, and needs to be estimated and then make decisions. Most of our lives today are filled with ambiguous information, and we need to make decisions based on ambiguous information. Military chess is also a fuzzy information decision-making game, a regiment commander is eaten, so what could the opponent be? It could be a brigade commander, a division commander, a corps commander, or a commander. What exactly? Estimates can only be made based on other criteria. You blew him up directly, if you were lucky enough to blow up the commander, if you were unlucky enough to blow up the brigade commander, can you take the median value to bomb the division commander and the commander acceptable? If you can accept it, you will blow it up, and if you can't accept it, you will not blow it up. Ambiguous information has a lot of uncertainty and luck components, and it's because there are so many uncertainty and luck elements that the game becomes fun.
The essence of the design of local information is to reasonably control the game, which information should be hidden? What information should be displayed? What shows ambiguous information?
Early RTSs such as Red Alert did not have the fog of war, only black fog, that is, all information was invisible, while the area after pathfinding showed all information. After the arrival, there is the fog of war, that is, it is divided into two layers: inside the field of vision and outside the field of vision, and the information outside the field of vision is that only the terrain is displayed after the pathfinder, and all the information in the field of vision is visible. The inability to see the enemy's movements has greatly improved the strategy, so that there are strategies such as reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, outflanking, ambush and sneak attack, but the same problem of not being able to see is too little information to judge the movement, resulting in such tactics as darkness and bluff are also difficult to play. Imagine if there were no rules such as mines can only be placed in the last two rows, and military flags can only be placed in one of the two base camps and cannot be moved, how should the information of the opponent's chess be judged? It's also hard to judge. Sound judgment requires more information, and too little information can only be guessed. In addition to showing the terrain, the fog of war has nothing information about the opponent in the fog, and such information is obviously too little (of course, you can narrow the fog and expand the field of vision by means of reconnaissance skills, eye insertion, etc., but the amount of information is still too little for the fog itself), my suggestion is that the fog needs to show the general vague information of the opponent, but does not show the specific information troop numbers. The MOBA game can display the lag information in the fog, such as the chance to show the opponent's hero's action position 10 seconds ago, and judge the current position by the location information 10 seconds ago, and we can also use the lag position information 10 seconds ago to reverse the position to confuse the opponent. If you deliberately move in the direction of the dragon, you will give the opponent the illusion that you are going to fight the dragon, but in fact you will attack the dragon in the opposite direction.
The important role of information warfare cannot be overemphasized, but this is often overlooked, and people tend to pay more attention to the explicit indicators of firepower, protection, and mobility, but not enough to the soft power of information. In the Gulf War, the United States used information superiority to destroy the Iraq army at only a slight cost, but in terms of hard power, although the Iraq army was inferior to the US military, the gap was not too large. The main reason is that the US military showed a huge information advantage in the Gulf War, and the United States M1A1 tank has advantages in firepower, protection and mobility compared with Iraq's T-72M tank, but the difference is not large, but the tank is equipped with a thermal imager that can identify targets within 1500 meters at night or in smoke conditions, and the detection distance is as far as 3000 meters. The Iraqi T-72M is only equipped with a second-generation low-light night vision device, with a maximum detection range of 800 meters or even less. During the battle, the M1A1 achieved "spot first, shoot first" in most cases, and many Iraqi tank captives recalled after the battle that they could only return fire at the muzzle flames. Therefore, the contest between the T-72M and the M1A1 in the Gulf War was like a blind man fighting with a sighted man, and this sighted person was stronger, and it is not surprising that the T-72M was beaten 0:200 in a fiasco.
The E-3 AWACS aircraft allowed the US military to establish a comprehensive information superiority
More important than tanks and fighter planes, such as large electronic reconnaissance planes, early warning planes, and other support aircraft, enable the US military to establish an information-based system advantage. For example, the E-3 early warning aircraft is mainly equipped with the AN/APY-1 S-band pulse Doppler radar, which has a maximum detection distance of 400 kilometers for fighters; Cruising at an altitude of several thousand meters allows the E-3 to break through the limits of the curvature of the Earth and conduct full-airspace exploration of the enemy's hinterland at a distance of 400 km.
On 7 August, the day the United States decided to send troops, five E-3 AWACS planes of the 552nd Air Control Wing of the United States Air Force departed for Saudi Arabia and began patrolling over Saudi Arabia on 10 August. After the "Desert Storm" operation began, the E-3 early warning aircraft patrolled and flew along the Iranian-Saudi border, and the Iraq fighter plane was spotted as soon as it took off from the airport, enabling the US military to calmly mobilize the escort fighter formation to attack the Iraqi fighter plane and protect the safety of its own attack aircraft formation.
The E-8 battlefield surveillance aircraft made it difficult for Iraqi troops to assemble
The U.S. military also deployed E-8 battlefield joint surveillance aircraft in the Gulf War. Like the E-3, the E-8 is powered by a Boeing 707 airliner, but it is equipped with the APY-3 radar, which mainly uses the Wide Area Active Target Surveillance Indication Mode (WAS/MTI) and the Synthetic Aperture/Fixed Target Indication Mode (SAR/FTI), which can monitor the enemy's hinterland up to 100 kilometers of ground moving targets, or high-resolution images of the enemy's fixed targets.
During the US air strikes, the Iraqi army in Kuwait took the initiative to launch a ground attack on the Saudi border town of Haijif, hoping to drag the US troops into the ground war as soon as possible. After the Iraqi army captured Haijiv, the coalition launched a counterattack, and the Iraqi army launched large-scale reinforcements in order to maintain the results of the battle. However, on the night of January 30, the main forces of the Iraqi Army's 3rd Armored Division and 5th Mechanized Division, which were still assembled in Kuwait, were discovered by E-8 battlefield joint surveillance aircraft. The U.S. forces immediately launched a massive air attack on the two divisions, inflicting heavy losses on them, and more than 80 vehicles were destroyed in a single strike by three B-52 bombers. In the post-war statistics, it was found that among all the divisions of the Iraqi Army's tactical and strategic reserve, the losses of these two divisions were second only to the Iraqi 10th and 12th Armored Divisions, which were surrounded and annihilated by the US 7th Army in a tank battle on February 27-28.
Before the battle was launched, Iraq believed that even if the coalition forces had air superiority, the Iraqi army could still fight on the ground. But after the battle of Khafji, the Iraqi army's expectations came to naught. The Iraqi commanders found that under the aerial surveillance and strikes of the US military, they simply could not gather enough troops and move them to where they were needed, let alone launch a powerful counterattack, and all they could do was sit in the trenches and wait for the coalition forces to attack. The Gulf War fully demonstrated the importance of information warfare.
Let's look at military chess again, the essence of military chess is a simple game compared to size, but the combination of various information types to make gameplay is a typical example of using information judgment to achieve gameplay. At the beginning, all the opponent's chess pieces are not visible, and the chess pieces need to be judged according to the opponent's actions, but some rules will limit the position of some chess, such as the military flag can only be placed in the base camp of the two choices, either here or there, narrowing the scope of judgment, which is equivalent to showing local information and clarifying the offensive target. The ability of mines is too strong so they can only be placed in the last two rows, which is equivalent to showing local information, and being able to attack the last two rows represents that the game has entered the final stage, mines can delay the opponent's attack, protect the pace of the game to avoid the game ending too quickly, and also give the laggard a little chance to turn over. If the commander is killed, the flag needs to be flown to encourage the superior side to speed up the offensive tempo and reduce garbage time.
There are not only many types of local information, but also can be converted into each other, MOBA games have the concept of vision, the field of vision is the open card, and the fog outside the field of vision is the dark card. In addition, certain terrain can also create hidden card effects, such as grass, woods, and high ground. You can use the terrain to achieve the effect of combining light and dark cards to confuse your opponent. For example, one person brushes soldiers online, and the rest of the squatting grass is a typical combination of light and dark, and the online brushing is a bright card, the purpose is to lure the other party to catch, and the grass is a dark card, the purpose is to catch the opponent. We can also go further, the light and dark cards are interchanged, the open cards can be turned into dark cards, the dark cards can also be turned into open cards, "League of Legends" will be inserted in the grass, you can get the vision of the grass, the dark cards will become the open cards, if the other party does not know that the grass has eyes rashly crouched in the grass, then we can count the siege and annihilate this part of the enemy.
3.3 False Information
The reconnaissance side collects more information through various means, so the counter-reconnaissance side of course needs to take as much false information as possible to confuse the opponent, so that the other side can get more false information and make wrong judgments.
The Light Sanctuary in StarCraft 1 can create illusions, that is, copy the image of a soldier and confuse the enemy through illusions, but the cost performance is not outstanding due to the high blue consumption, but we can make illusions a practical skill by adjusting them. By creating a large number of aircraft carrier illusions, we have made the enemy mistakenly believe that our side wants to switch aircraft carriers to fight, but in fact, we have transferred a large number of ground troops to take the opponent by surprise.
FPS games are very suitable for the use of illusions due to their long-range attack mechanics, which can not only deceive the enemy's attention when used properly, but also attract a lot of enemy firepower, allowing us to grasp a more favorable attack position and timing. For example, if the dummy mechanism is buried at an important intersection, and the enemy enters the intersection to trigger the mechanism, the dummy suddenly bounces up, which is bound to cause the enemy to panic, and it is inevitable that the bullet will be poured on the dummy immediately, and our army in ambush on the side can take the opportunity to kill the enemy.
Before the Normandy landings of World War II began, British and American bombers carried not only bombs, but also many dummies and aluminum foil strips sewn from burlap. Both "secret weapons" were used to distract the Germans and provide cover for the real Airborne Forces.
The dummies on the United Kingdom side are called Rupert, while on the American side they are called Oska. Rupert is 82 centimeters high and 40 centimeters wide, and the interior is filled with waste materials such as sand or straw. Although it looks small, when Rupert falls from the sky, it is impossible for anyone on the ground to judge its specific specifications. What's more, these dummies are still "paratroopers" with umbrella bags and special sounding devices inside! Rupert dummy with a white umbrella bag, unfilled with scrap. It is said that in order to increase its authenticity, the Allied engineers even added a self-destruct device after landing, so that it would turn into a ball of fire not long after landing.
The operation was called "Titanic" by the United Kingdom. According to the plan, the footprints of the dummies will be scattered all over Normandy along with the aluminum foil strips: 40 planes will take action on the night of June 5, 1944, dropping a total of 450 fake paratroopers. Of these, 200 are on the Cotentin peninsula, 50 west of Caen and 200 southwest of Dieppe. Some of the British airborne troops who followed the dummy landing will also attack some lone German soldiers, and deliberately let him go, so that after he escapes back to the German army headquarters, he will spread the news that "a large group of Allied paratroopers have fallen on our heads" to create panic. This plan eventually succeeded in plunging the Germans into disarray, especially at night. It also created the conditions for the smooth airborne landing of the Allied forces at the beginning of the Normandy campaign.
MOBA games can also create some illusions to confuse the opponent, such as all our team ambushing in the grass near the dragon pit, deliberately creating a hero illusion in the lower road, so that the opponent thinks that they can take the opportunity to grab the dragon, and when it reaches the vicinity of the dragon pit, it will suddenly kill and annihilate the enemy. You can also do the opposite, creating a few hero illusions to confuse the opponent online, when in fact they are all fighting dragons, so that the opponent mistakenly thinks that we are not fighting dragons, so as to get the big dragon by surprise.
In the run-up to the Battle of Normandy, in order to deceive the enemy into believing that the landing site was Calais rather than Cotenne, the Allies created a Dover-based 1st Army Group, larger than Montgomery's 21st Army Group, and appointed Patton as commander-in-chief of the Army Group.
More than 300 telegraph operators were dispatched to disguise radio communications between group armies, corps, divisions, regiments, and battalions, and to communicate strictly according to the daily traffic volume of units at the same level, thus confusing the German troops.
The Allies staged a Hollywood set show, built barracks, warehouses, roads, and set up fake material hoards by Hollywood prop masters in the southeast of England, with fake airfields, planes, tanks, and artillery, and then transferred some troops who had no combat mission in the early days of the landing to be stationed here for drills.
On the one hand, the navy and air force feints to create the illusion of a large-scale build-up in southeastern United Kingdom, and at the same time use agents, electronic jamming and other means to make the Germans misjudge the landing place; On the other hand, General Patton gave a pre-war speech in United Kingdom and found a stand-in for Montgomery to appear in North Africa to speak, making Rommel think that Montgomery had been in North Africa. Therefore, the heavy forces of the German army were deployed in the Calais area.
All this strategic deception and secrecy plans have become the cornerstone of a successful landing, as Churchill said, "the truth in war is so precious, it needs to be defended with lies", seemingly calm Normandy, but in fact a big "conspiracy" is brewing, until the Allies landed in Normandy, the Germany high command center woke up like a dream, but it was too late, the Allies successfully opened up the second battlefield in Europe, and it was also one of the important turning points of World War II.
At present, the hidden information of the game is still too simple, for example, MOBA games only have the fog outside the field of vision, the information in the shadows of the grass and trees is not visible, and the fake information and vague information are not enough.
3.4 Unexpected Information
In addition to full information, partial information, and false information, a good game also needs unexpected information. The plot of the movie needs to be "both unexpected and reasonable", and the game also needs to be unexpected, and a game where everything is under control is not a good game, so how can there be accidents? You need to add random elements.
We can see that there is a significantly larger audience playing cards than playing chess, because randomness makes playing cards that everyone has a chance to win, so more people are willing to play. Playing chess basically relies on hard power, and the luck component is very small, so it is more hardcore, and if you can't play others, you can't play after all, and the user group will be much smaller. Therefore, if you want to expand the user base, you must increase randomness, and the randomness of most games is still not enough.
Some people may worry that increasing randomness will lead to less skill, which will lead to a very unfair game, and it is impossible to go e-sports, because to go e-sports, you have to be absolutely fair. For this kind of thinking, I can only say that it is too old-fashioned and uninformed. In the United States, there is a tournament called Texas Hold'em, and to win Texas Hold'em tournaments, there are random factors and technical factors, which are also very popular. So in the case of fair rules, games with large random factors can also be used to compete.
Randomness is very common in card games, but it is still rare in mainstream games, and there are many new benefits to adding randomness to video games, such as increasing variability, avoiding snowballs, stimulating spending, and so on. Can we add more randomness to MOBA games, FPS games, RPG games? That's totally okay.
For example, there are more random elements in the chicken game. The route of the plane flight is random, resulting in a certain randomness of the player's landing location, in addition, the equipment of the resource point is also randomly generated, the vehicles are also random, the weather is also random, and the circle of the safe zone is also random, resulting in the finals circle is also random. These random conditions cause the appearance of enemies to be random, and the equipment that kills the opponent is also random. In other words, the variables of the whole game are very large, which is the fundamental reason why this game will not be boring to play constantly. Every time a player plays, there will be a sense of freshness and unknown, which is the most interesting. Counter to other shooting games now, keep coming out of new maps, keep coming out of new guns, and keep coming out of new items. But if there is no random factor added, no matter how many new things players will figure out a formula, so there is no freshness. So you will find that although there is only one map in PUBG, all players are not bored, because of the strong random factor, so players play differently every game, every time there is a freshness, and players are looking forward to what the finals of this game will be like.
There are not many random elements in MOBA games, the biggest random element is the matching system, and the level of the people matched each time is different, so as to maintain the 50% win rate of most people, and you can throw the pot to your teammates if you lose. For the game itself, in addition to critical hits as a general random factor, there are also river charms in DOTA, the dragon refresh in League of Legends, and there are very few other random factors, these are not enough, to make the game fun, you need to add more random elements.
What random elements should be included in a MOBA game? Can Kill Hero Equipment drop randomly? Can skill damage be randomized? Can the dragon's spawn point be randomized? There's also plenty of random elements for designers to dig into.
Random elements are divided into random results and random effects.
What is randomization? For example, mahjong, Yu-Gi-Oh, Fighting landlords and other open card games are limited to the unknown library drawing stage, and the control of known resources is basically accurate, and there will not be an operation that will bring unknown expected results. For example, mahjong is random, but the behavior of the game itself, such as eating, touching, and kong, is determined. There is randomness in the fight landlord's drawing, but the effect of the behavior after the start of the game such as bombs, straights, and pairs is determined, so the player's strategy is controllable.
We further divide the random results into two categories: dynamic random results and fixed random results.
Mahjong tiles are dynamically randomized, its victory conditions are uncertain, in addition to each round to draw cards, each round is constantly generating randomness, players will constantly change their victory conditions according to the cards in their hands and the situation. Therefore, its strategy is also uncertain, but due to the certainty of the game's behavior itself, the player can make expectations of his own behavior, so its strategy is controllable. I call this controllable uncertainty random.
Fight the landlord is a fixed random get, its victory conditions are determined, that is, the cards in the hand are knocked out, randomness only exists in the card stage, when the moment the cards are completed there is no longer randomness. The strategy after that is completely certain, the only thing that is uncertain is the underestimation of the opponent's hand. When the cards are played one by one, the certainty becomes clearer and clearer, so the strategy is expected. I call this controllable deterministic randomness.
And the random effect refers to the final effect of an action is random, such as the card game "Hearthstone", in addition to the randomness of the random drawing of the library, the final effect obtained by the use of a large number of cards is random, the most representative random card of "Hearthstone" is Yug Saron, 10 fees 7 attacks and 5 blood, the effect is that every time 1 spell is cast in this game, 1 spell will be randomly cast, and the target is still random, which means that it is possible to kill yourself. Basically all the advantages and disadvantages of this card will be in vain, and nine times out of ten, one person will be blown to death, and basically randomness determines the outcome.
Yog Saron
If there are too many random effects, the strategy will be completely unpredictable, and it will become a game of pure luck, and the gameplay will be reduced. We compare the above three types of dynamic random results, fixed random results, and random effects, and random effects are the most uncontrollable.
Random effects are further divided into variance and random times. We use the concept of variance to illustrate the random effect, a large variance means that the difference between the upper and lower limits of the randomly generated effect is large, and a small variance means that the difference between the upper and lower limits of the randomly generated effect is small.
Variance is a measure of the degree of deviation between a random variable and its mathematical expectation (i.e., the mean), and the larger the variance, the more unstable it is. Mathematically speaking, the fire demon is a random single card with low variance: because the damage must be inflicted on the opponent in the first place, and secondly, the regression effect of a large sample does not make this deviation too large. However, the master craftsman Owersback is obviously a very varied follower, both sides are in range, and the huge difference between 1/1 and 5/5 can easily affect the game.
Moderate random effects can interrupt the logic of the game, and avoid the high logic and high reasoning caused by too rigor and make the game too niche. Games such as Go and Chess are too strict and logical to become popular, and they have become a small piece of entertainment. Every step can be accurately calculated so that a very small number of logical people can always win a hundred battles, and most people have no choice but to leave the game after many failed setbacks. Interrupt the logic of the game and create surprises to give everyone a chance to win, so as to get more users. But such contingencies should be predictable, built on strategy, not completely unpredictable accidents.
In the case of Arcane Missile, it has four possibilities for each target, i.e. 0-3 damage.
When the opponent has 2 or more followers on the field:
1. Deal 1 damage to each of the 3 targets
2. Deal 2 damage to 1 target and 1 damage to another target
3. Deal 3 damage to the same target
And if the opponent has 1 minion
1. Deal 2 damage to 1 target and 1 damage to another target
2. Deal 3 damage to the same target
If the opponent does not have an entourage, it will directly deal 3 damage to the hero.
The Arcane Missile skill has not many variations, and the variance is small, so players can anticipate the various possibilities on the field, and then make corresponding strategic choices, while also interrupting the logic of the game. This kind of randomness can increase the game experience.
Arcane missiles
Not only in card games such as Hearthstone, but also in MOBA games, critical hits can also interrupt the logical strategic choice of the game, one attack does not produce a critical hit and does not kill the key character and thus makes the battle fail, and one attack has a critical hit that kills the key person, so that the battle victory can lead to different results.
Randomness with a small variance can also lead to a butterfly effect, but likewise an adversary can have countermeasures that can counteract the effects of randomness with adequate preparation. The randomness of the large variance is too strong, which may lead to the uncontrollable game situation. Sylvanas is a card with much more randomness than Arcane Missiles, the ability is Dead Word, which controls a random enemy follower, and her effects are random, but good timing usually brings more rhythm value. Although randomness can be controlled by some means, such as the queen shield of the anti-war, the queen coin brawl, and you can also let the queen pull the mob and screw the report through the paving to reduce your losses, but in general, the effect variance of this card is still too large, and it is not easy to deal with if there is no corresponding restraint card, which is not a good design. Just like some heroes in MOBA games are very strong, but there are corresponding restraint heroes, this is also not a good design, so that BAN is too large, but it weakens the diverse possibilities in the game, and restraint should be played by players in the game, not designed by designers in advance.
Sylvanas
Random cards with low variance can really exercise your ability to predict the effect and judge the scene. To a certain extent, the controllable random single card makes the game more operational, allowing players to choose and think more, and also improving the sense of operation. But multiple randomization is a bad random situation, too many random elements and great variance make the player completely unplayable game, because there is basically no possibility of estimation and calculation, you can only operate it, and then expect your life to be good enough. The typical one is Yog-Saron, but there are also things like Bang Bang Robot (Bomb) and Master Craftsman. These cards have multiple random results, and there are too many random objects and random effects for the player to judge the effect of the card used, and ultimately it will be left to chance.
3.5 Create spatial information contradictions
There needs to be a contradiction between space and information, and it is up to the player to make a trade-off, what should they choose? What to give up? That's how gameplay comes in.
For example, the common ones are scattered development and concentrated attack. MOBA games have a three-way line, heroes to develop to obtain equipment and experience to eat the line, but the branch also means that the strength of each road is very weak, easy to be broken by each one, if you want to launch an attack, you have to concentrate, but although the strength of the attack has grown, but the other way of the line can not eat, the development of the hero has been delayed, if the attack is not cheap, the overall strength is damaged. So when is it time to spread out? When is it time to focus on the attack? There are trade-offs to be made, and that's the gameplay.
RTS games are also scattered to obtain resources, concentrated attack, mining areas are scattered in various points of the map, to obtain resources in each mining point to open mines, the more mines opened, the larger the defense area, which means that the pressure of defense is greater, more vulnerable to attack. The more troops are concentrated to attack, the fewer troops are needed to defend the various mines, and the mining area is more vulnerable and vulnerable to attack.
Distribution of Mines in StarCraft:
What if a game doesn't have resources to get it? Common FPS games, such as Battlefield games, are similar to MOBA games and RTS games, where you can scatter points to score points and concentrate on attacking enemies. To get more points, you need to occupy as many points as possible, and to occupy more points, you need to disperse your forces, and if you scatter your forces, you can't beat your opponent in battle, or is it back to when to disperse? When is it time to concentrate? on the issue of spatial contradictions.
Let's look at the demolition mode of CS, the map is divided into point A and point B, the bandit side only needs to blast at any point to win, the police don't know which point the bandit will bury the bag, what should the police do at this time?
At this point, the police have the following three options:
1. Concentrate on defending one place, but this is a bit of a gambling taste, and if the bandits go to another place, it basically means failure. Some people may say that there are two points in total, and the success rate of concentrated defense is not low at 50%, but you must know that the bandits can reconnoiter by fire, and if there is no one at all in the other place, then the bandits will go to another undefended place after discovering the truth through fire reconnaissance, so that the police will basically lose, because the bandits go to another place first to occupy the advantage, and it is basically impossible for the police to stop the bandits' blasting when they hear the news.
2. Decentralized defense, that is, the police are sent to guard both places, because of the geographical advantage, it is hoped that the defense side can win more with less, but if the bandits attack a joint attack, the numerical advantage is too obvious, relying on the geographical advantage to win more with less is not large.
3. Send one person to reconnoiter at each point, the main force is in the middle as a reserve, and the scout team members will call the main force to reinforce after finding out the main attack direction of the bandits. However, if the bandits have a high fighting quality and quickly kill the scouts, the reserve may not be able to rescue and stop the bandits' blasting. Moreover, the bandits may also launch feints in two places to confuse the police, causing the police to misjudge the direction of the bandits' main attack, and so on. Overall, however, this option is more flexible than the first two options and is more suitable for most situations.
Of course, the actual situation is much more complicated, such as how big is the defender's geographical advantage, and can it support it to fight more with less? Even if you can't support it to fight more with less, can you support other team members to rush to reinforcements? AB: How far is the distance between two points? Is there enough time to rush to reinforcements after discovering that the enemy's main attack is in a different direction? And so on and so forth.
If we were a police officer and we found a bandit at point A, would we immediately shoot him? It is possible that this was a reconnaissance of the fire of the opposing side, and the immediate opening of fire prematurely exposed the point of fire. But if we continue to hide the firing point without firing, if this is the main direction of attack of the bandits, and one bandit suddenly investigates, and then the rest of the people swarm in, our side will fall into the disadvantage of being outnumbered if we do not strike first. If the other side fires at us, do we need to call for backup? If you don't call for support, you may not be able to defeat the opponent, but if you call for support, if the opponent only feints, then point B will not be able to get reinforcements in time, and if the bandit turns to point B, he will succeed. This is the problem of information contradiction in the game, players need to make an analysis and judgment of the situation on the field, and then make a choice, and how to choose is where the gameplay lies.
3.6 Self-information
In addition to the above information, I also need self-information, I can perceive my value, if there is a team, the team should not be too large, generally 5-6 people are enough, too many people make it difficult to communicate and cooperate, and more importantly, the scale is too large so that the individual has no sense of existence, I feel extremely small, become a screw, and I can't feel the feeling of a hero. The most typical game with an oversized team, such as Interstellar OL (also known as Planetary Marginal OL), has a large scale of thousands of people with the same picture, but the player's feeling is not good, and suddenly a cannonball is blown up without knowing where it flies, and there is no sense of existence. At present, most competitive games are dominated by 4-5 players, and it is difficult to give players a good sense of presence no matter how many people there are.
Let's take the design of leaderboards as an example, many of them are too large and have too many people. The large number of people in the ranking makes most people have no sense of existence, only a small number of people at the top of the list have a sense of existence, and most of them are obscure, so we must narrow the scope, everyone's ranking will be advanced, and the sense of existence will be improved. Imagine if it was a ranking of 100,000 people, would people pay attention to the 99,900 people in the back? 99.9% of people have no sense of existence.
League of Legends Rank Ranking Ranking (Image Source Network)
In addition, it is also necessary to increase the types of rankings, professional division of labor, and each person has his own specialty project, and there will always be one that will be ranked first. For example, the injury list, the injury list, the reply list, the money list, the KDA list, etc., due to the existence of professional characteristics, everyone has their own leading classification items, so that everyone has a sense of existence.
Everyone's favorite comparison is the damage list and the KDA list, the top of the damage list is generally ADC or APC, but this comparison is unfair, the assistant can't focus on playing money, and he has to sacrifice his life to protect the C position, which means that there is no harm, how to compare the damage list and the KDA list with others? Although it can't be compared to the damage list and the KDA list, it can be compared to the recovery list and the injury list, and the support is just as good.
Why divide occupations? In the early FPS games, there were no professions, and when you picked up a gun, you just did it, and later it gradually differentiated into various professions, each with its own role.
Some people say that the design profession is to play with the cooperation, of course, this is true, the game needs to cooperate, but without the profession, you can't cooperate? CS doesn't have a class, so doesn't the game need to cooperate? No, it also needs to be cooperated. In fact, the biggest role of career division is to make Xiaobai have a sense of existence. Just imagine that the little white marksmanship and consciousness are not as good as people, as soon as he went to the battlefield and couldn't see the enemy, he was killed, such a game experience is very poor, since he can't kill people, he will do an auxiliary to exert residual heat, help the C position block the gun, add blood, and also have a sense of existence, which is often said to be a comparative advantage.
Comparative advantage was originally an economic concept that refers to the act of one producer producing an item at a lower opportunity cost than another. If the opportunity cost of producing a product (measured by other products) is lower than the opportunity cost of producing the product at other producers, then the producer has a comparative advantage in producing that product. It can also be said that when a producer produces a product at a lower opportunity cost than another, we say that the producer has a comparative advantage in that product or service.
For example, a doctor needs to spend time doing scientific research every day, and the results of scientific research are worth 100 yuan per minute, if the doctor is typing very fast and typing 100 words per minute, and hiring a typist to type 80 words per minute, and each word is worth 1 cent, then the value created by this doctor's typing per minute is 1 yuan. The value created by the typist per minute is 0.8 yuan, although the value created by the typist typing is still not as good as that of this doctor, the doctor should still hire the typist to type, because the value per hour of the results of scientific research is much higher than the value created by typing, which is the comparative advantage.
Back to the question just mentioned, maybe the C-position play support is also more powerful than the current support, but due to the role of comparative advantage, although the position of the C-position is more important, but the support also has an irreplaceable role, and the auxiliary player has its own value of existence, so as to give everyone a good sense of existence experience.
The design of the rules for winning competitive games
The winning rules of the game determine how fun the game is, and the victory rules are simple to say but not easy to do. To understand what are good winning rules, to understand what are bad winning rules, let's first look at bad winning rules.
"Age of Empires" due to the simulation of the progress of human civilization makes the game very procrastinating, in order to speed up the game process designed to win the spectacle, after the completion of the spectacle into the countdown, the other party must destroy the spectacle before the end of the countdown, otherwise it will be judged to lose, but such a victory condition design appears to be excellent, the gameplay has not been implemented, the moment the spectacle countdown ends, the whole game comes to an abrupt end but the players are still unsatisfied, so more players like to choose to conquer the victory by force, that is, to completely destroy the opponent, But this makes the game very protracted, and it is often difficult to tell the winner of a game that can be played for several hours. Neither military conquest nor spectacular victory is actually a good victory condition, and Age of Empires also needs to find victory conditions that suit you.
Screenshot of the game "Age of Empires" (source network)
4.1 Spatial divergence
In order to destroy the base, you need to bring the line to the opponent's high ground, and in order to bring the line to the high ground, you must destroy the enemy tower along the map and kill the enemy hero, and in order to destroy the enemy tower and kill the enemy hero, you must brush the soldier development, so as to form a complete chain and promote the development of the game.
We can classify the victorious locations into two main categories, explicit locations and ambiguous locations. The explicit location class, as the name suggests, is that the location of the victory is very explicit. For example, the "Battlefield" series is a game with clear location victory rules, that is, the location of victory is very clear, and players compete for a fixed victory point to win. The chicken game is a game of vague locations, and it is not clear where the poison circle of the chicken game will shrink in the end, and the specific location of the enemy hiding is not clear. This creates a spatial divergence. Because "Battlefield" has a clear victory location, it will be around the victory point to do you fight, although there are also outflanking, but due to the fixed victory point, other tactical actions are just around the axis of the victory point to do rotation, if we do a heat map of the player's actions, we can see that most of the player's actions are on a fixed point, and after playing for a long time, a fixed routine may be formed. Similarly, there is chess, where the first few moves are actually such a few routines, which are so mechanical that you can memorize them after a few more plays.
Battlefield Heat Map:
And the chicken game because it is a vague victory point, where the enemy parachutes, where the poison circle shrinks is uncertain, so there is no fixed winning area, his entire combat range is more divergent, and there are more changes in each game, this game can be parachuted here, the next game goes there to parachute, this game goes this way, the next game goes that way, relatively speaking, it is not easy to appear a fixed routine, and it is stronger in terms of playability.
There are also games that are partially implemented in vague locations, such as land chess, knowing that the military flag must be in one of the two base camps, but it is not clear in which base camp exactly. CS packets can only be buried at point A or point B, but it is not clear where and where it is. The start of this mode is better than the game with a clear location, but it is easy to form a fixed routine after playing for a long time, because there are not many points to choose, either/or, you can try it out a few more times, if you can set up a few more base camps, set up a few more buried points, and make the style of play more flexible and changeable.
My opinion is that games that blur the victory point are the future development direction, and if the space is divergent enough, the game will not be easy to fix, the richer the variety, and the more fun the game will be.
4.2 Limited Time and Unlimited Time
The time of the game is divided into two categories: limited time and unlimited time. The MOBA class is infinite time, as long as you want to play forever, some "League of Legends" players have achieved the small goal of 10,000 kobold Q soldiers...... Eating chicken is a limited time, and the poison circle gradually shrinks, driving players into a small space, and players will either kill each other to decide the winner, or be completely overwhelmed by the poisonous mist.
Of course, strictly speaking, all games have a time limit, although the game of unlimited time does not force the time limit, but will also use various methods to shorten the game time, such as "Glory of Kings" after 20 minutes before the winner is decided, there will be a storm dragon king, the storm dragon king can greatly enhance the ability of the winner, provide a shield and a true lightning strike, who gets the dragon king BUFF is largely equivalent to winning the game, the game is over.
The whole rhythm of the limited time is more controllable, and when the time comes, it will inevitably be overwhelmed by the poisonous fog, creating a sense of oppression through the limited time, forcing the player to move towards the goal. And although the infinite time can also end the game by some means, the control is not as good as the limited time, and the dragon king BUFF is not equal to winning after all. And the rhythm of infinite time is more controlled by the player,
The time-limited victory conditions can also be divided into two broad categories, Fight for First Place and When Survive. Racing games are to compete for the first place, to reach the finish line as quickly as possible, the whole rhythm is very tense, but in fact, the confrontation of this mode is not strong enough, everyone only needs to sacrifice their lives to run, the lack of interactivity, and because the rhythm is too tense, the game audience is too small.
Eating chicken is to survive, survive to the end for the winner, as the players are eliminated one by one, the drug circle is getting smaller and smaller, and the sense of oppression struggling for survival is getting stronger and stronger, and it is this sense of oppression that makes countless players obsessed, obviously when surviving is far more attractive than fighting for the first.
So how do we reinvent racing games? That is, let the racing game not fight for the first place as the goal of victory, but the goal of survival as the goal of victory. For example, if we can design a beast chasing a group of players, the slower runner will be eaten in turn, and the last surviving person will win, will this design make the racing game more interesting?
4.3 Unilateral and multilateral confrontation
The types of confrontation are divided into unilateral confrontation and multilateral confrontation. Unilateral confrontation means that there are only two opposing camps, while multilateral confrontation is where there are multiple hostile camps.
- Multilateral confrontation
Unilateral confrontation is often who is strong and who wins, while multilateral confrontation is much more complicated, and the weak of multilateral confrontation can also win the final victory by joining forces and horizontally, so this model is actually fairer for everyone, and there are more changes, which will be the mainstream development trend in the future.
The most typical type of multilateral confrontation is the chicken game, where many players are scattered on a large island, and the poison circle is shrinking on the island, fighting each other for survival space, and the player who can survive wins in the end. Strictly speaking, the chicken game can't play the true essence of multi-sided confrontation games, because the long-distance spike mechanism of FPS games makes it basically impossible for players from different camps to communicate, which has become the law of the dark forest, that is, since I can't judge the opponent's next behavior, killing immediately is the safest way. The real essence of the multilateral confrontation game lies precisely in communication, in the grand strategy of combining vertical and horizontal. The weakest team is the least threatened, as long as it can handle diplomatic relations well, it will often not be attacked, and the strongest camp is likely to be besieged by everyone because it is the greatest threat to others, so the final winner is not necessarily the strong, it is likely to be a weak, this is Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy: build a high wall, accumulate grain, and slow down the king. This design gives everyone a chance to win.
The design goal of a multi-sided confrontation game should not be to destroy, but to possess the target, destroying is not good for the attacker, it will only cheapen the bystander, and possession can motivate the attacker, and then move the whole game forward. The goal of possession can be to occupy cities, equipment, personnel, technology, and so on.
Strategy games can be about taking over cities, expanding your sphere of influence and compressing your opponent's living space by constantly occupying cities, while more cities also means more resources, more soldiers, and a larger territory. Strategy games are the most suitable for multilateral confrontation, when to form an alliance, when to break an alliance, when to join forces, when to connect horizontally, when to rescue, when to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, which is crucial for strategy games.
Possession of equipment is more of an MMORPG game, such as "Legend" by killing the opponent to explode equipment, the opponent has a certain chance of dropping equipment after death, which was a lot of fun for PK back then, and later games can no longer drop equipment for harmony, resulting in a lot less fun. Killing an opponent in a chicken game can also get the equipment it drops, which is the motivation to kill.
Multilateral confrontational competition and cooperation are also more flexible, not only the relationship between the factions can be changed, but also the relationship within the camp, that is, the team is no longer fixed as it is now, the players can enter and exit freely, there can be small teams in the team, and the teams can cooperate temporarily to create a new experience. For example, after the cooperation agreement between the teams in the chicken game is reached, the two teams can not hurt each other, and can talk to each other, exchange items, share information, and so on. The identity of the team members should also be able to change, such as the identity of the current MOBA game team members are the same, and the most selected roles are different, shooters, mages, warriors, auxiliaries, junglers, etc., but the identities of the team members will also change in the future, there can be a captain, and the team members have the power to reward and punish the team members, and the team members can also jointly coax the captain to step down.
Unilateral confrontation game is the current mainstream, but the development potential is exhausted, in the long run will develop from the current symmetrical confrontation mode to the asymmetrical confrontation in the offensive and defensive mode, the seemingly balanced mutual destruction is actually the most unbalanced, the rules of Go are the absolute balance, but because the question of how many hands should be made has not been concluded for thousands of years......
4.4 Symmetrical confrontation and asymmetric confrontation
Symmetrical confrontation means that the opposing camps are exactly equal or similar, and the conditions for victory are the same. Asymmetrical confrontation refers to the fact that the opposing camps are not equal, and the conditions for victory are also different. Typical of the complete reciprocal symmetrical confrontation is chess and Go, where the two sides of the confrontation are exactly the same, and the approximate symmetrical confrontation is similar to that of a MOBA game, where the two sides of the confrontation are the same in terms of basic rules, but the heroes chosen by the two sides are different, and the double buckle in the card game is the approximate confrontation. Examples of asymmetrical confrontations such as fighting landlords, where the landlord is one side and three peasants are the other, in video games such as Dead by Daylight, where one side plays the role of the supervisor and the other side is the escapee, the supervisor kills the escapee to win, and the escapee escapes to the designated location for victory.
If it's a simple battle against you, it's likely to turn into a big brawl, and for ordinary people, it's just a matter of disobedience, and although it looks more refreshing, it actually lacks deep multi-replayability, which will also lead to a rapid loss of players.
Red Alert, an early RTS game, became a tank battle with the number of classes due to the similarity of various races, and the playability of the game was greatly reduced, until the advent of StarCraft changed this situation. Why did StarCraft change the way it was played? Because "StarCraft" has three completely different races, in fact, the civil war of the same race in "StarCraft" is the war of the sea of soldiers, the civil war of the Terran tank, the civil war of the Zerg throwing the dragon, and the civil war of the Protoss fighting dragoon. Interracial wars are the essence of StarCraft, and they have completely changed the battle of the sea of soldiers in previous RTS games. The Terrans focus on defense, where should the mine be buried, where should the tank be erected, and how to lay up the defensive position step by step. The Zerg focus on attacking, where should the Wyvern attack from, where the puppy should break through and outflank, and find suitable fighters and decisive battle locations to encircle and annihilate. Because the needs of offense and defense are completely different, they can perform wonderful scenes.
StarCraft
Offensive and defensive modes can naturally break the stalemate and promote the development of the game's rhythm. Since the attacker naturally has offensive pressure, it will do everything possible to break the balance, and the passage of time is naturally the rhythm of the defense for the defender, and every second that passes means that the defender has increased a chance of winning, and the attacker loses a chance of winning, so even if there is no battle, because of the design of this mechanism, people can still feel the undercurrent under the surface calm.
Another advantage of designing into an offensive and defensive mode is that it can strictly control the game time to avoid endless stalemate between the two sides, and it can be designed so that the attacker must achieve the goal within the specified time, otherwise it will be lost, so that the attacker has the motivation to take the initiative to break the situation, and also make the whole game time and rhythm more controllable.
Offensive and defensive modes are the most common in FPS games, such as one side has to plant a bomb in a designated place within the specified time and detonate it to win, while the other side has to prevent the opponent from detonating the bomb or completely destroy the opponent within the specified time, and some modes are one side to protect a car or a person to reach the destination safely within the specified time, and the other side needs to prevent the other party from reaching the destination, so that the pace of the game can be strictly controlled.
The hero design of the early and late stages of the MOBA game actually partially does this, the one who chooses the early hero is the attacker, and the one who chooses the late hero is the defender, but because it is a mutual destruction, it has caused a lot of problems, such as the stalemate between the two sides in the highlands, one side can't go to the highlands and the other side can't get out of the highlands, in order to solve this problem, it is necessary to design a series of complex elements such as big and small dragons, super soldiers, etc., to advance the game, so that the fun of the game is no longer pure, and the whole game is too complicated. So can we design a MOBA game into an offensive and defensive mode? Of course, for example, we can limit "Honor of Kings" into two factions, one offensive and one defensive, the attacker needs to destroy the defender's base within 15 minutes, and the defender needs to hold the base for 15 minutes, so that the game time will not exceed 15 minutes.
The typical non-confrontational video game is Dead by Daylight, where players need to play as a supervisor or a survivor, each plot has a different mission, and there are 4 players who play the role of survivor, and only one regulator, and the player has to escape by escaping. The specific escape method is as follows: the Survivor has to crack several codes of the gate to escape, while the Supervisor uses the Survivor to crack the code, and it takes a lot of time to defeat the Survivor and hang the balloon on the Survivor and place it on the prescribed chair. If the survivor is injured or caught, other companions can take the opportunity to help escape.
Dead by Daylight
The offensive and defensive mode is better designed to design the turning point, the attacker needs to find the defender's weakness and tear the defense line to break through, and the defender needs to find the attacker's possible breakthrough point and set up the defense in advance. The offensive and defensive mode better grasps the rhythm of the game, and several waves of attacks on the attacker can be pre-set.
The early RTS games were often against A, without skill and strategy at all, such as the tank battle in "Red Alert", which is more tanks than whom, and "Age of Empires 1" is a carriage battle, which is more than who's carriage, and the fun of the game is not high until the advent of "StarCraft 1". In fact, the clan civil war in StarCraft 1 is also boring, and the real classic is interracial battles, why is this happening? Why are the two factions different in order to become classics?
Because in fact, it is difficult to have a perfect balance, there will always be strong and weak troops, if the race is the same, players can always find a type of troops with the highest cost performance, and then only build this kind of soldiers, biased towards offensive races, such as ZVZ is to fight the dragon, and it will end soon if you are not careful, and if it is a race that is biased towards defense, such as TVT, it is a tank along the frame on both sides, and often a dozen is an hour, resulting in a game rhythm that is too slow, and the PVP is slightly better, but it often becomes a dragoon battle.
Due to the development of troops, interracial battles are rarely offensive battles, and are often divided into offensive and defensive sides.
For example, ZVT, because Z's base can make both farmers and puppies, so in the early stage, Z can quickly explode puppies to suppress opponents, at this time it is the advantage of Z, Z can take the initiative to attack and T can only defend passively, but the price of Z puppies is that there are fewer farmers, mining efficiency is reduced, and if the offense does not take advantage enough, it will fall behind. When T's machine gunner is formed, it is the advantage of the T side, and the combat effectiveness of the machine gunner of T is far greater than that of the puppy, and Z can only use the flying dragon or the ground spur to drag the time at this time, and when the ground spur of Z is formed, it is the advantage of the Z side, the ground spur can tie a bunch of soldiers, the machine gunner is not an opponent, and T needs to wait for the tank to appear to regain the advantage. When T's tank gradually advances, Z can only keep retreating to delay time, because Z needs to wait for the appearance of the scorpion, the yellow mist of the scorpion can invalidate the ranged troops, and after the appearance of Z's scorpion, the advantage returns to Z's hands, T needs to temporarily avoid the edge and wait for the technology ball to play, and after the technology ball appears, T can regain the advantage. The competing advantages of the two sides make the game tense and intense, and the situation is not easy to one-sided.
The defending side needs to think about where the mines should be buried? Where should the tank be erected? Where should the ground thorns be buried? Where should the yellow fog be sprayed? The attacker, on the other hand, needs to consider where to attack in order to step on fewer mines, to be attacked with less tank fire and thus destroy the tank formation, or where to attack to avoid the yellow fog and be attacked with fewer ground thorns to tear open the gap.
Because of the strong defensive troops, the game avoids a one-sided situation, even if the attack is unfavorable, the inferior side can rely on the strong defensive arms for effective defense, such as burying ground thorns at key intersections, and scorpions spraying a mouthful of mist, the attacker will need much more troops to capture, and the game can continue. Such are the many benefits of asymmetric confrontation.
Nowadays, the rules of most games are symmetrical, such as MOBA games where each other destroys bases to win, RTS games that require the destruction of all the opponent's buildings, and fighting games that reduce the opponent's HP to zero, but asymmetrical confrontation is the future, and we can expect that with the development of game design theory, there will be more and more asymmetrical confrontation games.
The most common symmetrical confrontation is to complain about teammates, because the strength of the player is not equal, and the equal design looks fairer but is actually unfair, which is also the reason why many players complain about unfairness in many competitive games. Some are white players, star players like shows, like 1VN, experience the feeling of changing their lives against the sky, and white players like to mix, and need someone to take him to lie down to win, these different needs lead to a set of models that are difficult to meet different users. Most people actually have a mixed mentality, and they eat meat and drink soup with the big army, and they won't have pressure if they lose. And by design, four players will usually have a higher win rate than one overseer, and white players can have a higher win rate and a better sense of presence when mixed with a large army. Although the regulator players are high-risk and high-reward, the choice of regulators is generally high-play, with a higher risk tolerance, even if the win rate is low, as long as there is a higher return, it can still prompt them to take risks.
Many people will think that the balance of asymmetric confrontation is difficult to grasp, but in fact, the balance of symmetrical confrontation is the most difficult to grasp, and it is precisely asymmetry that makes the balance easier to grasp. The StarCraft 1 game is considered a classic of balance, with almost no waste classes, precisely because each class is unique and makes balance easy.
P's dragoon is considered to be very cost-effective, with low attacks, slow attack frequency, large size, and high population, but there is no way, P has no other ground ranged troops available except for dragoons, so it has become a well-deserved main force, P's ground troops are quite cost-effective, and fork soldiers are not as good as puppies and gold beetles in terms of combat effectiveness and mobility, but it can't be helped, because you can only use it.
P's reconnaissance plane is a waste of firewood, and very few people are willing to use it, because P also has a very cost-effective aircraft carrier available, and the functions of the two are very similar, both are air-to-ground air units, and since there are more cost-effective aircraft carriers available, naturally no one wants to use reconnaissance aircraft.
StarCraft 1 The weapons in the game are divided into general attack weapons, concussive attack weapons, and explosive attack weapons, and the unit types are divided into large units, medium units, and small units, and different weapons cause different damage ratios to units of different sizes, general attack weapons deal full damage to any unit type, concussive attack weapons deal full damage to small units, 50% damage to medium units, 25% damage to large units, and explosive attack weapons cause 50% damage to small units, Medium units deal 75% damage, large units deal full damage, and there are flying units and stealth units, and it's this diversity that makes StarCraft 1 require more classes to meet different needs, and most classes can come in handy.
So how are the different races balanced?
"StarCraft 1" has a number of different maps, each map has a different racial advantage, some map T has an advantage, some map P has an advantage, and some map Z has an advantage, the rules of the game except for the first game map is selected by the organizing committee, and the other maps are selected by the losing side, and the racial advantage is offset by the complementarity of the maps. This is actually a structural equilibrium, not a numerical equilibrium.
This is an Aztec (Aztec) 3-person picture
According to the statistics of Kespa in Korea:
TVZ胜率39%; ZVP胜率50%,PVT胜率65.4%。
It is said that this picture is to limit the super high winning rate of the Terrans, and TVZ has a winning rate of only 39% in an advantageous confrontation, and TVP's disadvantage is even more obvious. As long as you don't make mistakes, no god race in Korea will lose to a human race other than the sect leader and other front-line people! Why is T so disadvantaged? First of all, the anti-highland at the door is easy to be suppressed in the early stage, and the three mines are also relatively difficult to open, even if you have a population of 200 people going out, there is no route on the map for a large army to march, which is called "Terran Grave"!
Due to the mechanics of the game, the designers repeatedly modified the values of each hero, but they did not understand the essentials, although "Honor of Kings" produced so many heroes, but most of the heroes never became the underdogs. Most of DOTA's heroes are able to play. Because the equipment of "DOTA" mainly relies on the functionality of props, while the equipment of "Honor of Kings" mainly relies on its increased attributes. Functionality can not replace each other and the attributes have obvious advantages and disadvantages, just like a high-end car can completely replace an ordinary car, but no matter how advanced the car can not replace the function of a mobile phone, although the price of a mobile phone is only a few tenths of a car. The large number of active skills in Dota can make up for the lack of heroes themselves, and the characteristics of the heroes themselves make the heroes in Dota have their own unique roles. Most of the equipment in the "Honor of Kings" game only provides attributes, and heroes cannot make up for their own shortcomings, which is destined to be extremely difficult to adjust the balance.
Non-displacement ADC such as Lu Ban Houyi and the like, the game is basically not played, and it is called a mobile ATM in the passerby bureau, when you face a super fat assassin, you just can't solve it, helpless, even if you are as fat as him. It's not your fault, it's a problem with the game mechanics.
However, "DOTA" provides active functional items to compensate for the hero's own shortcomings, such as the Black King Staff, which is activated to enter a 10/9/8/7/6/5 second (1s less for each opening, minimum 5s) Skill Immunity (i.e., ignoring skill damage and control effects), in other words, during these 5 seconds, anyone hitting you will have no effect except for the damage caused by Ping A. This ensures that you enter the arena with enough output space to get rid of the people you want to second.
Another example is the Blink Dagger, which has no attributes, but the Action Skill effect is a 13-second CD flash at a distance of 1200 yards, and is disabled for 3 seconds after receiving damage from the hero. If Lu Ban and Hou Yi can use the Black Emperor Staff for a few seconds to ignore skill damage and control effects, combined with the movement of the Blink Dagger, they can deal a lot of damage.
Some people will say, if that's the case, then isn't the ADC in "DOTA" invincible? Of course, it is not invincible, and there are three types of items that the king does not have:
Wind Staff, the effect of the active skill is the golden body of the 23-second CD, but unlike the golden body of "Glory of Kings", it can not only choose to use it on itself, but also choose to forcibly let the enemy have a golden body.
Green Staff,The effect of the active skill is to enter the soul state that lasts for 4 seconds.,During the period, you can't level a and can only put skills.,But ignore all the physical damage you receive.,The AP damage you receive will be deepened.。
Force Staff (True · Push Stick), the active effect is to eject yourself or enemy units in the direction facing 600 yards, 23 seconds CD. Also, you can also choose the black and yellow staff and the glittering dagger mentioned above.
OK, see? In DOTA, first of all, there is the problem of skill deficiencies, which can be compensated for with equipment effects, and most of DOTA's equipment basically has active skills, which can make up for almost all the unexpected flaws you can imagine. And when the hero is targeted, he can also use equipment to counter.
But what about the thinking of "Glory of Kings", he uses equipment to increase the attributes of heroes, rather than making up for the shortcomings of each hero. Will Honor of Kings be able to launch a large number of equipment with active skills in the future? In the short term, it is impossible, if this is the case, the complexity of the game's operation will be greatly increased, and it will not be able to meet the needs of casual mobile game players for the simple and easy operation of the game, so "Honor of Kings" may be difficult to solve this problem.
Therefore, it is not difficult to explain why so many heroes in "Honor of Kings" do not get the opportunity to play. Because the equipment mechanics are inherently flawed. And unless the equipment system is reworked, the flaws can never be repaired. That's the imbalance.