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How games cheat to help players

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Re: How games cheat to help players

#11

Post by mey »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #10

I run a simulation football game called http://deeproute.com So far the biggest mistake I believe I've made is not cheating to help players win. I made a brutally difficult simulation game. We have tons of players quit simply because the game is too hard. Because you are 1 person versus 31 other people, there is only 1 winner, and 31 losers. People don't like this. Compare this to our competitors, and they make losse…

Think rubber banding, part of the fun for the player is thinking they have a chance. Either by splitting up the players into leagues based skill levels (star craft 2), or fudge the game slightly (or significantly in mario kart's case)

Re: How games cheat to help players

#12

Post by andrewfelix »

Back in the early 90's when platform games were all the rage I was always confused as to how a platform game that looked great could get a bad score in the magazines I read. For example the SNES game Blues Brothers looked better than a lot of other platformers and it sounded like it had similar mechanics to Mario Bros. So how could it possibly get a low score? I think this article might be the answer to that question.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#13

Post by AndyNemmity »

mey wrote: post #11
AndyNemmity wrote: post #10

I run a simulation football game called http://deeproute.com So far the biggest mistake I believe I've made is not cheating to help players win. I made a brutally difficult simulation game. We have tons of players quit simply because the game is too hard. Because you are 1 person versus 31 other people, there is only 1 winner, and 31 losers. People don't like this. Compare this to our competitors, and they make losse…

Think rubber banding, part of the fun for the player is thinking they have a chance. Either by splitting up the players into leagues based skill levels (star craft 2), or fudge the game slightly (or significantly in mario kart's case)

I agree with you, but here's my core problem.

My gameplay involves 32 human players playing against each other in football for a title that only one can win. Each season takes a month.

That's 32 shades of grey, with 31 of those shades being losses.

How do you rubber band that? I'm about to build a facebook app for our game, and I'm trying to brain storm solutions to this problem.

The only answer I have so far is make 32 team leagues, with 16 fairly inept CPU players. But not indicate they are CPUs, so that humans believe they are beating 31 other humans, even though the reality is they are beating 15.

This cuts my problem by a lot, but adds overhead, and removes a lot of the challenge.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#14

Post by tonyarkles »

xxdiamondxx wrote: post #6

Entirely unrelated, but is there a way to find out why this is incompatible with my device? Samsung Galaxy S...its not that old!

I've only done a small amount of Android development, but I recall the stock firmware on the Galaxy S to be somewhat buggy with respect to game development. Things would work, but then crash unexpectedly. The solution was to blacklist that firmware version, so that you didn't get a huge pile of bad reviews due to the crashing.

I might not be remembering the details exactly, it was about a year ago I was working on this stuff.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#15

Post by gujk »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #13
mey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think rubber banding, part of the fun for the player is thinking they have a chance. Either by splitting up the players into leagues based skill levels (star craft 2), or fudge the game slightly (or significantly in mario kart's case)

I agree with you, but here's my core problem. My gameplay involves 32 human players playing against each other in football for a title that only one can win. Each season takes a month. That's 32 shades of grey, with 31 of those shades being losses. How do you rubber band that? I'm about to build a facebook app for our game, and I'm trying to brain storm solutions to this problem. The only answer I have so far is make…

If your players are mutually anonymous, have the worst player play against multiple other teams each week, soaking up the losses. Each player gets their own Potemkin village where half their opponents are actually copies of the worst player. Now you have 1 loser instead of 31.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#16

Post by gujk »

It is interesting how games differ from sports or academic contests. In sports, losing is OK because it makes you work harder to become stronger or smarter. In games, losing (or winning) is almost pointless because getting better at the game doesn't make you better at anything else in your life; so the value is in feeding some emotional or anesthetic aspect.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#17

Post by skybrian »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #13
mey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think rubber banding, part of the fun for the player is thinking they have a chance. Either by splitting up the players into leagues based skill levels (star craft 2), or fudge the game slightly (or significantly in mario kart's case)

I agree with you, but here's my core problem. My gameplay involves 32 human players playing against each other in football for a title that only one can win. Each season takes a month. That's 32 shades of grey, with 31 of those shades being losses. How do you rubber band that? I'm about to build a facebook app for our game, and I'm trying to brain storm solutions to this problem. The only answer I have so far is make…

A couple ideas: (1) do what you can to make sure the outcome is in doubt until near the end, and (2) arrange so that the person "in the lead" changes often. Only one person can win, but a lot of people can feel like they were close to winning.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#18

Post by tstyle »

gujk wrote: post #16

It is interesting how games differ from sports or academic contests. In sports, losing is OK because it makes you work harder to become stronger or smarter. In games, losing (or winning) is almost pointless because getting better at the game doesn't make you better at anything else in your life; so the value is in feeding some emotional or anesthetic aspect.

Professional gamers would disagree with you

Re: How games cheat to help players

#19

Post by megablast »

gujk wrote: post #16

It is interesting how games differ from sports or academic contests. In sports, losing is OK because it makes you work harder to become stronger or smarter. In games, losing (or winning) is almost pointless because getting better at the game doesn't make you better at anything else in your life; so the value is in feeding some emotional or anesthetic aspect.

Academic results are adjusted all the time.

Sports, there is no way to adjust those results. If you lose a game, you lose. There is no fudging anyone can do to avoid that.

You are setting up a strawman.

Re: How games cheat to help players

#20

Post by shabble »

There was a bit I'm reminded of in the write-up on the Crash Bandicoot series,[1] where they mention 'Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment.[2] Essentially, fail enough times at a given point, and it gets a little bit easier (sloppier timings, more power-ups nearby, etc) until you get past it.

"Good player, bad player, everyone loved Crash games. They never realized it is because they were all playing a slightly different game, balanced for their specific needs."

Reminds me a lot of what I'm sure was a Mariokart64 behaviour - that the powerups you received were directly proportional to your race position, giving everyone behind you much better options to ruin your day.

[1] http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games-archive/

[2] http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/07/making-crash-ban...

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