"It's very rare for you to have such an experience."

"Sid. Mr. Mel is an absolute master of strategy game development, and even I can learn a lot from his experience......"

"Okay, let's get down to business, or let's say that our mutual assurance is ruined."

Jester smiled.

The audience below the stage was also intrigued by the abstract name, and they all pricked up their ears to hear it more clearly.

"I don't know if you remember the Cold War, the Cold War that just ended, and we, as the victors, defeated the most evil empire in the history of mankind...... This rule comes from the Cold War, and his rule is this: we have a bunch of nuclear weapons, the Russians have a bunch of nuclear weapons, we can blow each other up at any time, and the reason why we don't do it is because we know that the other side can blow us up too. ”

Jester saw that many people's faces showed the same expressions, and he smiled: "That's right, it's the so-called nuclear bondage. ”

"But what we're talking about now is the mutual destruction of the principle between game designers and designers, and the relationship between game designers and players is very similar to the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Players can ruin their own experience of playing the game at any time. They can quit the game, they can employ cheats, and so on. We designers can also mess up the game......"

"A few years ago, I discussed with my colleagues about a game like this, an adventure game in which you have to follow the road and go on all kinds of adventures until you reach the castle and meet the king. However, upon meeting the king, the player learns that the king is actually a bad guy and not a good guy. Therefore, the player must return to the www.biquge.info of the Pen Fun Pavilion along the same path and start the adventure again...... It was just a small brainstorming discussion at the time, and even we had time to do a very rough demo version to try it out. ”

"Trust me, it was a terrible experience."

"I can tell you why we did this game, because we were talking about it. A very young designer said, 'The player's face is going to be really exciting.' All their efforts were in vain, what a surprise! Amazing design! This sentence touched many of us, so we went to give it a try. ”

"That's really shit, players just feel like they've wasted eight hours on a stupid game, and that's how I felt at the time."

"In this way, the player and the designer have achieved mutual destruction, we have to be true to the story told by the game, and we must also value the player's contribution, and the effort must be rewarded. You can't afford to spend an afternoon playing your game and tell him that you won't get anything, and that the damage to the experience is simply too bad. ”

"Do you understand what I just said?"

"There may be some abstraction."

Jester finished this long paragraph, and then questioned the people in the room.

After seeing that no one expressed his incomprehension, he nodded: "Then let's continue, this time I have prepared a long speech." As he spoke, he raised the thick stack of manuscript paper in his hand to everyone.

"We've talked a lot about abstract things that you probably don't like to hear. Now I'm going to talk about something that's not abstract. ”

"For example, another aspect of our alliance with players is style. There are a lot of factors that reflect the spirit of the game. If the game starts with light-hearted music and cartoon-style graphics, and then suddenly there is a scene where people are bursting heads, then you've broken the covenant. Because you're not offering the player what you promised to give. ”

"Conversely, if the art style of the game is eerie and the content is simple, then you are fooling the player. At this point, the player will regain their suspicions. And quit the game. The only way to keep the player on the back burner and stay in the game is to keep the music and atmosphere at your disposal consistent. ”

"It's crucial, but."

When he said this, Jester deliberately accentuated his tone a little.

"There's another thing that's really interesting. This is also what we found when we developed "Civilization", that is, players play games without intelligence, so it seems to offend a lot of people, so I will change it to a more euphemistic way, that is, the player's psychology has nothing to do with rational thinking, maybe you will ask, this is obviously a strategy game, how can it have nothing to do with rational thinking? ”

"I'll give you an example."

"That's something we clearly realized when we set up the system for Civilization 2."

"I came from an engineering background, and Sid. Mr. Mel is a math and statistics student, and in our design team, especially planning, 80% of the majors are similar to ours, so we think we are a very logical team, so our games are also very logical. ”

"So, in the combat system of Civilization 2, we will give the probability of victory or defeat before the start of the war. For example, the attacker has a 1.5 win rate and the defender Barbarian has a 0.5 win rate. In fact, the Barbarian's win rate was quite large at first, but because they were uncivilized and had to accept a 50% penalty point, there was only 0.5 left - the biggest advantage of being a game designer is that you can live and die in the game: the Barbarian has a 50% penalty point, and you deserve it! ”

"In short, the win ratio is 3:1, and roughly speaking, for every three attacks by the attacker, the defender should win once. But players don't see it that way. In every battle, players feel like they can win at some point, so when we were testing, there were a lot of testers who said to me, "Why did I lose this battle?" Three to one! ”

"I'll answer as a matter of course, yes, three to one, you're going to lose every three to five."

Jester paused for a moment, then smiled, "I don't think there's anything wrong with my thinking, but here's the problem, players don't think so. ”

"They'll say, 'No, you don't understand. Three to one, how big is three! How small! My numbers are big, how can I lose? ”

Hearing Jester say this, many people laughed.

Jester didn't laugh much.

"This thing Sid. Mr. Mel also knew, and I discussed it with him, and in the end it was Sid . Mr. Mel solved this matter, very simply, he changed the combat system. (To be continued......)