"How did he change it?"

Jester asked such a question, and he didn't mean to ask anyone to answer it.

Instead, he immediately made his own answer.

"Splitting a big battle into many smaller battles that run automatically makes the outcome more in line with the player's expectations. This time the player won, but the offense and defense are changed, the computer's win rate is a big three, and the player's win rate is a small one, at this time I went to ask the tester again, don't you think it's wrong? How did your little one defeat the big three? ”

Then he said to me in a righteous tone, "Why is it wrong?" I was able to win, and it was because of my high level of skill and tactics! ”

Jester said this, and the audience laughed.

Including himself.

Jester pressed his palm, signaling for the loud voice to be quieter.

"Obviously, the way the player thinks doesn't follow mathematical principles at all. If the player's win rate against the computer is 3 to 1 or 4 to 1, then the player always expects to win every time. So I asked the player, if your win rate is 2 to 1, can you accept the occasional loss? ”

"He quickly replied to me, okay, it's reasonable to lose a game once in a while, if it's two to one."

I continued to ask him, do you have any questions? He told me that I was now winning this battle with a ratio of twenty to ten, and I still lost. Twenty to ten, I'm ten points more than the other party's winning rate! ”

"I'm curious, isn't twenty to ten two to one?"

"No, twenty to ten is twenty to ten, not two to one at all. So, we had no choice, so we adjusted the system according to the new requirements, and then asked him, you should be satisfied now, right? He replied: Pretty much, but a little bit of a problem. I had a two-to-one win ratio that day. Lost. No problem, we've all said it, a two-to-one battle is occasionally a loss. But then I immediately fought another two-to-one battle, and I lost again. How so? Isn't the computer cheating? ”

"So we added a new tweak so that the outcome of the previous battle had an impact on the next. This time, the players were finally completely happy. ”

Jester finished speaking, and looked up at all the people present.

"We're making this series of tweaks not just to make players happy. If the player feels that something is wrong with the combat system, they will not continue to put the doubts on hold and quit the game. In the process of tweaking, I gradually became aware of the interaction of logic, mathematics and psychology in the player's mind. The interaction of these three often produces counter-intuitive results. As long as the role of psychology is taken into account in the game design process, it is bound to make counter-intuitive designs. However, in many cases, this can actually be used by designers. ”

"Having said that, we have summed up some of our experiences. I'm going to talk about some of the mistakes we made when designing the game. ”

Hearing Jester say this, many people had curious looks on their faces.

Obviously, they were interested in what Jester was going to say about some of the mistakes they made in designing Civilization.

"Actually, it's a very common thing, any game is designed and released, and there will be some mistakes, and some things that are completely inconsistent with the original concept of our design."

"For example. We set up the concept of ups and downs in the game. If the civilization built by the player is bound to collapse, and we provide the player with a chance to turn the tide before the civilization collapses completely, so that the player can not only rebuild the original civilization, but also create a new glory. How exciting should that be? Not at all. We've found that the vast majority of players will reload the game before the civilization they've built is about to collapse, not even experiencing the glorious revitalization we've had in store for them - so we've learned a lesson that Civilization is all about progress. Rising and rising, not going down. ”

"Another example is another mistake. It's the design of the tech tree. ”

"I need to say why we designed the tech tree - my original idea was to use the tech tree to represent the progress of human civilization in the dark, and the player doesn't know what path a particular technology will lead to. I think it's ridiculous to think that in the third millennium B.C., iron tools were developed in order to one day develop gunpowder and even nuclear weapons. ”

Hearing Jester say this, many people laughed.

However, Jester continued to speak without any change in his expression, only changing his tone slightly.

As a result, the original version of the tech tree contained a lot of randomness, but after the player had cleared the level, they knew that there was gunpowder on the tech tree, so their only goal in replaying the game was to light up as much gunpowder as possible. Only then did we understand that the player wanted to control the overall situation. The implication of this lesson is that all random designs are treated with great care. ”

"We used to design the natural disaster system for Civilization. Wouldn't it be cool if historical events like volcanic eruptions and plagues could happen randomly? No. A random element in the game can make the player suspicious. Players will think that the computer is deliberately trying to make them unhappy on the eve of their imminent victory. If randomness is heavy, the player will surely find the worst and most paranoid explanation for the consequences of randomness. Low-level randomness does help improve replayability, but you have to be cautious, cautious, and more cautious when designing high-level randomness. ”

With that said, Jester tossed his speech aside once more.

That's the main thing I'm going to talk about today, but in the middle of this talk, Sid . Mr. Mel wanted me to mention it and asked me if I could talk about how I could save millions of dollars through game design, which was a difficult topic to talk about, but I was very interested, so after much consideration, I agreed to the request. ”

"If you're interested in this topic, I think you have to brace yourself."

"Because this is a question that I often ask an employee who comes to Mars Entertainment in an interview, and it's also a question that a good designer needs to know."

As Jester said this, as he had envisioned, those who wanted to pursue a career in game development after graduation instantly showed their eyes blazing. (To be continued......)