Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
interactive.usc.edu
Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#2[deleted]
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#3For me, one of the reasons that the concept of Marginal Advantage is important for game design, is because you have to interact with, or at least react to, your opponent. In the Mancala example, the greedy AI was basically playing a single-player optimization game, and ignoring its opponent. Meanwhile, the clever AI paid attention to what its opponent could do and played around it. The Starcraft example continues the theme: amateurs concentrate on what's best for them in an absolute sense, while the pros consider their opponents.
FYI, the author, Sean Plott, is better known as Day[9], one of the top-ranked Starcraft players in the United States. Also a mathematician, as it turns out. His podcasts on the SCII beta are really insightful.
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#4I cannot help but think that these examples share a different commonality -- that they are war simulations where the winners in these examples were the ones who did not overextend and instead fortified or played a better numbers game. This is not marginal advantage; it is fortification and resource consolidation. I forget the word for it... where you are trying to reduce your opponent's resources before yours... but that resource management skill is what makes good players good. Viewed that way, what is really going on is much less mystical.
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#5I cannot help but think that these examples share a different commonality -- that they are war simulations where the winners in these examples were the ones who did not overextend and instead fortified or played a better numbers game. This is not marginal advantage; it is fortification and resource consolidation. I forget the word for it... where you are trying to reduce your opponent's resources before yours... but…
Yeah. His examples didn't really show anything other than that experienced players make fewer mistakes.
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#6Insightful: all reasonably designed competitive games share three basic traits:
1. ambiguity of optimal play
2. diversity of play
3. allowance for skill
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#7I've had a really hard time finding writing of this quality and insight into good game design.
There's lots of fluffy, high level stuff at one end of the spectrum and then lots of stuff that discusses the details of specific well trodden genres ad nauseum.
There's not so much that's of direct use when you sit down and try and design an orginal type of game by applying principals like this it seems to me.
I don't know how much of that is because the people with such insight haven't written it down, or they really just do it by feel and trial and error rather than by applying easy to describe techniques.
Does anyone have any other recommendations like this?
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#8I cannot help but think that these examples share a different commonality -- that they are war simulations where the winners in these examples were the ones who did not overextend and instead fortified or played a better numbers game. This is not marginal advantage; it is fortification and resource consolidation. I forget the word for it... where you are trying to reduce your opponent's resources before yours... but…
The word is attrition, by the way.
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#9I cannot help but think that these examples share a different commonality -- that they are war simulations where the winners in these examples were the ones who did not overextend and instead fortified or played a better numbers game. This is not marginal advantage; it is fortification and resource consolidation. I forget the word for it... where you are trying to reduce your opponent's resources before yours... but…
The word is attrition, by the way.
That's it! War of attrition. Point for you.
Re: Game Theory - Marginal Advantage
#10I've had a really hard time finding writing of this quality and insight into good game design. There's lots of fluffy, high level stuff at one end of the spectrum and then lots of stuff that discusses the details of specific well trodden genres ad nauseum. There's not so much that's of direct use when you sit down and try and design an orginal type of game by applying principals like this it seems to me. I don't know…
Sirlin has written what seems to be the most commonly referenced piece whenever games and "thinking" come up. Playing to Win, available free at his website (www.sirlin.net/ptw/), doesn't directly deal with game design, but it comes up throughout. His blog generally trends on game design topics. (He's been a fighting game pro, rebalanced SF2 for the most recent version, and is in the process of releasing some physical games now.)
Costikyan writes a lot of good stuff. http://playthisthing.com/randomness-blight-or-bane is a great example, and you can find some other writings of his in various archives. PTT itself has him (and a few other contributors of varying flavors) writing on new (indie, board, etc.) games.
Soren Johnson (Lead designer on Civ4) had a series going at http://www.designer-notes.com/, but hasn't appeared to have posted recently. http://www.designer-notes.com/?p=132 is a good example, discussing how easily players can perceive an AI to be "cheating".
Brenda Braithwaite (Wizardry series, Train) has a similar, seemingly modestly defunct blog that is worth reading regardless.
Edmund McMillen of Super Meatboy posted about difficulty: http://supermeatboy.com/13/Why_am_I_so____hard_/. There's a similar post somewhere on the blog.
Gama Sutra occasionally has useful things, but you need to filter a lot.
Without endorsing it overly, Less Talk More Rock (http://boingboing.net/features/morerock.html) is worth consideration. (For balance, http://sinisterdesign.net/?p=457).