Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

It's about ACCOMPLISHMENT, not difficulty

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by JoeStrout, Sep 27, 2015.

  1. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    @Gigiwoo's excellent podcast about flow has been rolling around in my head for a while now. He argues that there are three main elements (plus one anti-element) to achieving and maintaining flow:
    • Clear Goals
    • Feedback
    • Balanced Difficulty
    • No Distractions
    (Incidentally, Gigi, you really should put that nifty flow diagram up as a linkable image... I'd have included it here!)

    All makes pretty good sense, except for the third one, "Balanced Difficulty." I'd like to argue that this is missing the mark. As evidence, I point to a variety of very popular games that have essentially no difficulty at all: Cookie Clicker, Farmville, most tower/city building games, Cooper's Little Adventure, etc.

    So what's the real thing that keeps players engaged? I say it's accomplishment. Players must walk away feeling like they've accomplished something (however fictitious that might be). They gotta feel like this guy.



    Difficulty is one way to achieve that: we give players a difficult task that they can't initially do, and then hope they stick around long enough to build the skills to the point where they can do it (beat the boss, pass the level, whatever). This gives them a sense of accomplishment.

    But these other games show that there are much more direct ways to provide accomplishment: simply give them some clear "how they are doing" number (total cookies, cookies per second, Farmville bucks, number of fancy decorations, etc.), and make sure this increases over time. Earlier today I was generating 1000 cookies per second (cps), but now I'm making over 3000 cps; that's a morning well spent! This works even when there is essentially no difficulty or skill to the game at all; anybody can play and do the very simple interactions required to keep these numbers increasing.

    But there's a catch: I think people judge accomplishment in such cases by percentage change, not absolute change in the number. In the beginning, if I get my measure (whatever that is) from 10 to 11, that's a pretty decent accomplishment. Later on, if I spend the same time to get it from 1436 to 1437, that's a waste of my time. I'll go play something else.

    So to keep a sense of accomplishment in this case, you have to keep increasing the rate at which the numbers go up, in an exponential growth curve. Embracing this is what made Cookie Clicker so popular.

    When the accomplishment is dedicated toward a specific goal, such as finishing a project, then I think what we perceive is basically % complete, and % remaining. And the same effect applies: at the start of the project, we focus on % complete, and when we move that from 5% to 6%, that's noticeable and feels good. (This is true even if there is no such explicit computation, but just our own perceptions, as for example when trying to reach the end-goal in Minecraft or build a huge castle out of LEGO or whatever.) And if we get close to the end, we focus on % remaining; moving that from 5% left to 4% left also feels like a good day. But in the middle, when the best we can do in the same amount of time is go from 45% to 46% complete (or worse, from 55% to 54% left)... that's not rewarding. This is the "long slog" period that many projects (and poorly-designed games) go through, and is when we often abandon it and do something else, where the sense of accomplishment is higher.

    (And note that this isn't just about games — it applies in real life, too. It takes real stubbornness and discipline to get through the long slog period of any project, because the fun of accomplishment is mostly in the beginning and the end.)

    I believe the focus on difficulty in games is an artifact of the initial monetization scheme, i.e., chucking quarters into arcade games. Games had to be designed so that most players couldn't play them for more than a minute or two, in order to make money. And by improving their skills, players got more play per quarter, which is very rewarding (not just for the inherent accomplishment of beating a previously unbeatable challenge, but because it was linked to money — making or saving money always generates a sense of accomplishment, which leads to another great example for my thesis: slot machines!). So of course it was all about the difficulty then.

    But now, when that's no longer the point, I think the focus on difficulty is missing the mark. It's all about the accomplishment.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2022
    YBtheS, Schneider21, Gigiwoo and 7 others like this.
  2. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    Interesting.

    I am not sure though that your amount of increase has to go up as you get closer to the end, although I do believe people look at the percentage and even more so, the amount remaining.

    In life, when we learn something new, there is a learning curve, some steeper than others. As we learn, the curve becomes more shallow and it gets easier. If we model a game the way we learn in real life, then the feeling of accomplishment diminishes as the task becomes easier.

    This is why most games do the opposite. You start out easy, learn how to do the task, and then it becomes harder to do, more time to accomplish the same percentage of change. What makes it feel like an accomplishment isn't how much better you get in 5 seconds, but what you can do with what you learn.

    In the first ten minutes of the game, you are gaining skills/levels quickly but you can only do small things with what you have learned. Maybe you can run faster or jump. Later, as it becomes harder to gain that much skill/levels in ten minutes, the reward is that you can do more with that skill, such as make a magic weapon or discover a hidden treasure. In a simpler mobile game, it might mean new levels opening up that are more challenging and reward more coins, or a new chapter in the story.

    In real life, when we master the Blender learning curve, we find we can continue to make more types of models and make them faster. The reward goes up as we see what we can make with our new skill. Yes, we can work faster, and we are learning faster now, but the real feeling of accomplishment no longer comes from learning to make an edge loop but from making a castle or a character model.

    So..while I absolutely agree that accomplishment belongs on Gigi's list, I think that accomplishment is based more on what we can achieve as our skill increases, rather than simply mastering a skill. I would argue that making money in-game is also rewarding if you can use that money to buy items that help you accomplish things in the game.
     
    chrisall76 and Ryiah like this.
  3. BackwoodsGaming

    BackwoodsGaming

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2014
    Posts:
    2,229
    Very interesting conversation! In the example @JoeStrout gave with the cookies, I would think that as your skill increases with a cookie they would work to be easier and eventually trivial. So the more you progress, the more cookies it will take to progress but the time to make each cookie would decrease. The accomplishment would be increasing skill and being able to move on to harder cookies, or cakes... I guess I'm old school in that way and like the way things were done in the early days of EQ and other similar games. Sure, sometimes there was a grind but when you made it, you really felt like you accomplished something. Personally, I would like to figure out how to combine that type of old school mechanic with something fun thrown in to distract from the grind. I think it took me a couple of months to get into my 20s back when I first started EQ. But I had a blast during that time.

    So definitely agree with what has already been said. And you guys may be talking about the same thing as what I said. Insomnia filled night probably doesn't have my comprehension level high enough to properly digest this post today... lol
     
  4. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    Star Wars Galaxies had an interesting skill grind. You would chose our primary skill tree and grind each skill until it was topped out and then the next skill would be released to you to grind, etc. Each new skill you learned within the tree allowed you to do something new, make a new article of clothing, dance a new dance, play a new instrument. Of course, many just find a dark corner, turned on macros and starting grinding rather than play. The once social game became very dry.

    The true sense of accomplishment came when you reached the top of the tree and now could dance any dance or make any article of clothing. Then the new goal became making a lot of money to buy as much stuff as you can. :) Or for some, to get involved in factions and kill as many other player enemies as you could.

    Most games don't have a top though, so the accomplishments must be scattered throughout or the top continuously moved upward. Personally, I think it could be demotivating to never reach the top, always having another hill to climb but obviously the formula works since there are still people waiting for that new expansion pack with new levels and new things to try.

    I suppose that a game can never really appeal to everyone because some people get bored with grinding and others want to get to the top and end the game.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2015
    JoeStrout, Ryiah and BackwoodsGaming like this.
  5. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    So if you're still in the mood for lengthy diatribes on game design, you might want to dig up my engagement cycles thread and give that a read. I've got a similar sort of conclusion about difficulty, not that I linger on that part for long. My emphasis is more on what actual conflicts are resolved and how important those are, rather than just numbers going up though.
     
    BackwoodsGaming and Teila like this.
  6. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    I happen to agree with you. I am a storyteller, so for me as a player and a game designer, I need accomplishments that are more than the mundane grinding, even in a multiplayer game which are rather open ended.

    In most games, the resolution has to do with quests or the storyline of the game. In an RTS game, maybe the goal of a farm that has every building and produces enough goods to sustain itself with little input from the user or a city that runs smoothly, continues growing and surviving.

    Open ended games that are more player directed such as sandbox games require the player to find his/her own goal, whether that be building a player city and inviting others, making friends with all the NPCs in town, battling the "other side" to save the world...or to destroy the world, owning every clothing item in the game, becoming very rich, becoming famous or infamous, etc.

    As for conflicts, I don't want to find the farmer's poor kidnapped daughter. I want to create lasting peace between the two dwarven tribes, or destroy a lair of evil cult members, or help to elect a new mayor who will grow the city. What I don't want to do is solve conflicts that are not really solved...for example, in a multiplayer game, I don't want to solve the same problem that everyone else is going to solve after me..because really it is not solved. :) That totally destroys any sense of accomplishment I have. In a single player game, that is fine.

    However, as noted before, I tend to be a Socializer, so I want to impact the world, not just compete against myself. :) I also want to make games where players can actually make an impact, change paths that are not written in stone.
     
  7. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Yep. But (to doggedly bring it back to the point I was trying to make), what's important in all those examples is the sense of accomplishment, not whether it was the "right" difficulty level.

    In fact, I think it's easy to see that for difficult-task based games design, this notion of "balanced difficulty" falls naturally out of looking at it from an accomplishment point of view. Too easy, and the user doesn't feel a sense of accomplishment. Too hard, and they can't accomplish it at all.

    My point is that this isn't the only way to produce a sense of accomplishment. @Shawn67, I suspect you've never tried one of these cookie-clicker games! There is no "making" a cookie — or rather, you make a cookie simply by clicking a big giant button. There is absolutely zero skill to it. But you spend the cookies you make on various gadgets to auto-make cookies, faster and faster, until after a few hours of this you're creating millions of cookies per second. Still no skill to it. But players feel a sense of accomplishment at all those busy gadgets, and every time they sit down and spend all the cookies they've accumulated, they get more accomplishment at how much their cookies/second has increased.

    I referenced Cooper's Little Adventure, even though it's not very well known, because it's a perfectly delightful little game that also illustrates this well. You collect coins. You could walk away from the keyboard and continue to collect coins. But if you play a little (still no particular skill required), you can spend coins on gadgets that let you collect coins faster, in an exponential curve that is very satisfying. Why is it satisfying? Because you feel like you've really accomplished something. You started out collecting a coin every second or two, and now you're raking them in by the thousands.

    @Teila, I'm generally with you on value I get from pointless quests vs. impacting the story/world. But again, the motivating factor is the accomplishment we feel — not how difficult it is. If I can create lasting peace between two dwarven tribes just by introducing the chieftain's daughter or some such, that's still pretty rewarding. If it takes a very clever solution or three weeks of hard labor, well sure, that's even more rewarding — because you have the accomplishment of dwarven peace, and the accomplishment of achieving a difficult task. So, even better. But difficulty isn't necessary.

    Note that I didn't address different types of goals. Some games give you an explicit goal; some have implicit goals (maximize your cookie production!), and some (e.g. sandbox games) depend primarily on self-selected goals. It doesn't matter. What keeps the players going is that sense of accomplishment that comes from making noticeable progress towards that goal, whatever it is.

    Minecraft example: several times I've started a game with my boys with the goal of getting to the Ender dragon (which I've never seen, but hear it's great). We have great fun in the beginning, when we're accomplishing a great deal; starting with absolutely nothing, we've built safe shelter, useful tools, some armor, a nice place to sleep, a useful mine... and then we get into the long slog in the middle, where we're grinding through the nether, trying to keep villagers alive so we can collect enough crap to make the potions we need to get the pearls required to eventually do some other sub-goal I no longer remember, and one day we realize we're not having any fun, and quit playing. Why? Because it no longer feels like we're accomplishing much with the hours we put in.

    @RockoDyne, it sounds like we may be on the same page. (And yes, we're in the mood for lengthy diatribes on game design; that's what this forum is for.) For a game based on resolving conflict, the accomplishment comes directly from resolving conflicts. But that's not the only sort of game either.

    Let's look closer at slot machines, for example. These take in millions of dollars a day. Absolutely zero skill, zero conflict; you stick in your coin, and pull the lever. Now and then you get a payout, and feel like all that lever-pulling has accomplished something. (And because this accomplishment comes at random times, this is intermittent reinforcement, which means that once players get used to it, it's very hard for them to stop.)

    I'm thinking accomplishment — along with clear goals, feedback, and lack of distractions — is the key element that unifies all games, rather than just the difficulty-based ones we traditionally think about. And it was expanding game design beyond mere difficulty that caused the explosion of casual games, reaching entirely new markets and making literally billions.
     
  8. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    I find slot machines very dull and boring. The payout is not worth the time I spent...but then I don't play them long enough and for enough money to really have a big payout. But the payout is not worth the mindless pulling of a lever. I feel the same way about lottery tickets..standing in line for them is just not worth it. :) I like to play games that challenge my mind, not how fast I can click buttons or pull levers.

    What I am trying to say is that there isn't one size fits all here. The cookie game you mentioned...boring. I would never play it. :) That would feel like a waste of time rather than an accomplishment. So do all players feel a sense of accomplishment when they play it? Some may but I suspect many do not.

    So we need to look at the scope of our game, our intended audience, and of course, the platform. Mobile games are usually simpler than a PC game simply because of the limitations...although I have played some very challenging and interesting mobile games that are not about clicking cookies. :)
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  9. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    I completely agree (as usual). But clearly they do have appeal for some players.

    Why do they play it then? It's not for the challenge (there isn't any). I think it is the sense of accomplishment, and because in this case that comes almost exclusively from the increase in a pretty arbitrary number ("cookies"), that number needs to increase exponentially to maintain that feeling.

    Those of us who don't get any sense of accomplishment out of that, don't play such games.

    (OK, I'll confess, I have actually done a session or two of Cookie Clicker, and found it an amusing enough distraction to put some time into. And it was exactly that "woo, look how many cookies I'm generating now!" feeling of accomplishment that made it worthwhile. I quit playing once I understood its trick, and no longer felt I was accomplishing anything significant.)

    I absolutely agree, there is no one-size-fits-all design that works for all players. But, I still think as a theory of fun, accomplishment works better than difficulty. Different people will get a different sense of accomplishment out of different things, depending on what they value (since "accomplishment" could be defined as something like "achieving or increasing something of value to you"). But accomplishment of a difficult task is only one subset of a much larger world of things we can let players accomplish, and recognizing that opens up the design space quite a lot.
     
  10. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    From watching my own kids....I think honestly, lots of people play games because they need something to do. We have raised a bunch of kids who depend on electronics. Our power went out last night, and wow..you would have thought the world ended. lol

    My son had a smart phone for a while but could not put down the games, even when grandmother visited from out of state. We got rid of it and went back to an old phone with no games. He is older now and recognizes the problem..lol. His usual games are very complex, RTS, RPG, MMO's....I have NEVER seen him playing a game like the ones he played on the phone. The cookie clicker game might have been played by him but only because he had no other choice. Me? I would rather read a book or play solitaire on my tablet.
     
  11. BackwoodsGaming

    BackwoodsGaming

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2014
    Posts:
    2,229
    I've never played the cookie clicker games.. But I did do a run with Farmville and all those games for a bit when I was between MMOs.. *hangs head in shame* :p I imagine it is kind of similar to what you are talking about.. I droned on to gain levels so I could buy better decorations, tractor, plant better crops, etc.. Seems that the drive there is all about moving up.. I nicely decorated farm with lots of crops and trees gives a sense of accomplishment (while you are droning your life away) lol

    Normally I'm not a gamer. I know.. Odd for someone working to develop a game. lol I think the big draw for me with EQ was it was the first time I sat down with a game and felt like I was being immersed in my own story. The accomplishments were ok, but the immersion was probably more of what drew me in and had me quickly hooked.. lol
     
  12. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    I like Farmville type games. :) At least with those, there is a challenge to handle money well, choose what to do first, etc. It is a little more complex than most clicky games.
     
  13. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    I also hate the clicker games too. But every once in a while I cave and pick one up. Then I have to forcibly drag myself away from the screen and say no more.

    Interesting? No. Engaging? No. Fun? No. Addicting? Yes.

    I would encourage you to play one for a half hour or so, just to observe the psychological effects on yourself as a player. Its certainly interesting.
     
    Jonathan-Watkins and JoeStrout like this.
  14. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    They would kill my hands and I don't like pain. :)
     
    Kiwasi likes this.
  15. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    Try trimps. Its an idle clicker without the clicking.

    Or actually don't try it. Its an incredible waste of time for not much benefit.
     
    Teila likes this.
  16. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Right, @Telia, you don't actually click that much in clicker games. You only have to click at all for the first couple of minutes — you'll very soon have enough to buy an auto-clicker, and then you never need to click again (except for the usual UI manipulation of any other game). It's not about clicking, it's about increasing your cookies/second. I think you should try one sometime, just to see what it's like. :)

    But anyway, this has been an interesting discussion, and I really appreciate everyone who took the time to chime in with your thoughts. Thanks for being awesome, as always!
     
    Kiwasi likes this.
  17. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    Oh but it sounds so boring. Sorry. :( I just can't see accumulating cookies by clicking and then buying an auto clicker as fun. It actually sounds silly. lol Glad that some folks like them but I guess I am just not one of them.
     
  18. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    It is boring. That's my point. The genre has no redeeming value. And yet its hard to draw yourself out once you start playing one. Its a weird glitch in human psychology.

    Actually, if we want a modern example, isn't Fallout Shelter essentially the same game done by an AAA?

    (I haven't played it yet, but by all accounts it looks like a classic idle game).
     
  19. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    Then I must be doubly weird because I can't get myself to start playing one. It is sort of like someone asking me to eat raw oysters. I just can't bring myself to do it...the thought is just icky.
     
  20. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    We use numbers as a general benchmark for success in lots of human endeavors. A lot of how we as a society judge success is based on numbers, be it money or some other measure.

    Representing progress numerically (income, stats, etc) is definitely useful and important in many games.

    Accomplishment is a huge subject and I think there are as many ways to go about giving the player a sense of accomplishment as there are games.

    A big part of it is also narrative tie in. Often times, our 'impact' on a game is played out via story. We beat a boss, and freed a princess. A lot of games live and die by these kinds of more narrative driven accomplishments. The more that a game leans toward narrative, they'll often invest time and effort in stuff that makes these narrative accomplishments more tangible: you saved the village, whenever you talk to a villager he says "thank you so much" "you're the champion of village 1918a!!" etc.

    You mix narrative accomplishments in with numeric accomplishments and you can start to give players a more holistic experience.

    There is also a lot to be said about the build up to a challenge. I find myself spending a lot of time on the buildup and so far, I think that time is very well spent.

    Another good example of the balance between narrative accomplishments and numeric ones would be if you want to compare the Diablo style equipment system against a more old school non random system like in Pillars of Eternity or Baldurs gate.

    Diablo's stuff was randomly generated, better stuff had bigger numbers. Pillars had hand designed items with specific backstories written for each of the 'legendary' items.

    A decade later, I kind of remember some of the items in Baldurs gate. I don't remember a single thing about any item I had in diablo.
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  21. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    I've been thinking a lot about accomplishment in the context of work as well.

    As was pointed out earlier with the minecraft example, there is a lot to be said about the effort to reward ratio.

    I invested a bunch of hours yesterday in a camera animation. It was a lot of fun doing it and felt great when it was done. The effort required was so low and the results were so tangible and awesome feeling.

    You don't really need to look at games to find how accomplishment and feedback works, you can look at your life and your actions and see it everywhere. Why does making the bed or doing the dishes suck so much? Why is writing plumbing code boring?
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  22. Azmar

    Azmar

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2015
    Posts:
    246
    As far as "Balanced Difficulty" goes, what you find easy is not easy for everyone else. Some people say RTS games are easy ( to me they are easy ) but its very very very hard for other people out there. "Balanced Difficulty" could vary on the person's intelligence level, reaction time, knowledge of past games to help, etc. If a person lacked all of these, cookie cutter games could be very difficult for them!

    Accomplishment is only ONE aspect that keeps players engaged, I feel like this is one of the few aspects we all understand because we are programmers and think in accomplishing our tasks. I've tried to get my family / love ones / friends / myself to play one game that is very close to what I want to make to see how they play it, and the differences on how everyone plays is astonishing. I play to complete the game to the end and the the quickest way of getting there ( accomplishment ), but the sad thing was out of the 4 people total only I had this mindset! My girlfriend played the game and she only played to collect stuff and level up stuff ( ONLY for fun ) she would not care about anything else or how fast she completed stuff or even if she cared to complete stuff. My brothers played because they were bored and wanted to kill time ( BORED, need something simple ), when they were not bored they never played.

    These are 4 people that played for different reasons and I only played for accomplishment (All 4 played the game for over a year). There are so many other aspects to consider, even gambling addiction is a huge thing to make a game towards. In my opinion, making a game based only on accomplishment will result in a higher chance of being a failed game in today's market. You really need to hook people on several aspects to have a better chance in my opinion.
     
  23. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    I played a text-based game for 3 years and never made it past level 8. Others were 50 or 100, whatever. I made a lot of friends, got involved in many of the storylines of the game, but I cared very little about leveling up.

    So yeah, people all play games differently which is why it is good to design your game for different types of gamers OR target your audience.
     
    BackwoodsGaming likes this.
  24. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    I think the problem here is just one of definition (which probably means I was unclear!). You're thinking "accomplishment" means "completing the game," but that's not what I'm trying to say at all. Accomplishment is the feeling a player gets when they achieve or increase whatever they value.
    • You value completion of the game, so you feel accomplishment when you do that.
    • Your girlfriend values collecting and leveling up stuff, and feels accomplishment when she grows (or levels up) her collection.
    • Your brothers, well, we can't tell from what you told us — but whatever they played, I virtually guarantee that they felt some sense of accomplishment from whatever they were doing. Otherwise, they would not do it. (I really do think this sense of accomplishment is a universal factor, and without it, people quit and do something else.)
    • @Teila values friends and storylines, and feels accomplishment when she makes a new friend, deepens an existing relationship, or learns/creates a new storyline.
    It is not about completing the level, game, or anything else — except for players who value that.

    The key insight here is that difficulty is not a necessary condition for fun. Accomplishment is a necessary condition for fun. Some players get their feelings of accomplishment from overcoming difficulties, but not all, as the examples above illustrate; there are many other things that various players might feel accomplishment from.

    Nope. Every one of you (plus one more, since I shamelessly throw Teila in there) played for accomplishment. We didn't actually identify what your brothers were accomplishing, but if we had the details, I'm certain we could do so.
     
    BackwoodsGaming likes this.
  25. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Well maybe you can go help Cooper sometime. It's much less obviously pointless, and it even has a little narrative (time to take Cooper for a walk!). I keep bringing this up because I think it's a marvel of minimalistic game design, and surprisingly fun if you have ten minutes to spare. (The only thing not awesome about it is that it's so freaking small — I have to zoom in on it with the screen magnifier to actually play!) And as you play, ask yourself: Is this difficult? I think the answer is "no, not at all," yet it's quite fun anyway. The whole point of this thread is to understand why.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2015
  26. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    This thread went fast! @JoeStrout - I loved your challenge. I had too many thoughts for a simple reply, so I offer Episode 7 - "Not Your Average Joe - Difficulty, Engagement, and Cookie Clicker".

    Much <3 to you Joe!
    Gigi
     
    Schneider21, Kiwasi, Teila and 2 others like this.
  27. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Wow, I'm honored! And episode 007, too! :D I look forward to hearing it.
     
    Gigiwoo likes this.
  28. Schneider21

    Schneider21

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2014
    Posts:
    3,512
    Very interesting topic, Joe. And great analysis of the clicker/idle genre. I never understood it, and consequently never bothered trying to play one, but a good friend of mine tried his hardest to get my clicking cookies. I tried getting out of him what was so entertaining about it, and he couldn't explain it. I think you nailed it.

    I think this point is enough to divide people. "Old School" gamers might feel that the challenge is necessary, while others will see games as defined more loosely. I would say, though, that the clicker/idle mechanic is much less about gameplay and more along the lines of those psychological exploits that freemium and casino games use to suck your money from you. So while a game can give a sense of achievement without a balanced difficulty curve, I think a well-designed game makes the player truly earn that feeling. I think that's the difference between people posting their proud 100% completion screenshots of MGSV vs. shamefully admitting they're generating 10k cookies per second now. :p

    What other Gigi rules can you poke holes in?!
     
    Gigiwoo and JoeStrout like this.
  29. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    Pretty much all of it, assuming you aren't actually concerned with flow. If you aren't concerned with keeping the player in the moment, then those "rules" are more like guidelines. Some can be bent, while others can be broken.

    Take feedback. In the case of perceivable consequences, there can actually be times where understanding exactly what effects on the game your actions have can be off putting. Simulating human interactions is usually the big one. When all people interact and can be manipulated in exactly the same way, you've broken down something that should be highly complicated systems into something easily knowable.
     
    Gigiwoo likes this.
  30. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    It gets deep. So many overlapping perspectives, that with few caveats, all seem to point in the same general direction. Flow, engagement, balanced difficulty, simplicity, accomplishment, fiero, habit loops, learning, ziegarnik effect, paradox of choice. A never-ending inquiry about a singularly-complex, crazily-wondrous, divinely-mundane animal - humans.

    Gigi
     
    Schneider21 likes this.
  31. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2010
    Posts:
    5,834
    Some people say accomplishment vs difficulty. Some say tension and release. I say insanity and sanity, problems and solutions, fear and love, separation and unity.
     
  32. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    What do you think now after listening to ep7? Cooper is a perfect little example, of using simple concepts to capture one game mechanic. It does a fair amount right, though the thumbnail size, 100x100 game screen is odd. It'd be a fun exercise to expand the concept.

    Gigi
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  33. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Well, I did listen to the episode, and I'm afraid I'm not convinced. Though I'm not sure how much I want to belabor it... there is a line, somewhere, where I would cross from "raising interesting points" to "just being annoying."

    But since you asked.

    Your argument, as I understand it, is that flow does indeed require (balanced) difficulty — but games don't require flow. Non-skill-based games, you say, use other psychological techniques (habit forming, conditioning, ziegarnik effect) to get people to play them, despite the lack of flow.

    But I'm not convinced. When you play Cooper (and yeah, the thumbnail size was something the designer chose as a personal challenge — make an interesting game in 100x100 pixels — but he should have just tripled the pixel size, instead of making us do it at the OS level), it's engaging from the get-go. Those habit-related effects don't have time to kick in until later. The immediate coin collection provides clear goals and feedback, the minimalist design avoids distractions, and there's something else that gets me in a state where my attention quickly focuses on the game, tuning out all else.

    But that something else sure isn't balanced difficulty. So, you would argue, that enjoyable, engaged state I'm in when I play must not be flow.

    So I say, if that's how flow has to be defined and we can't revise that definition, then flow isn't the useful concept I was looking for. I want something which can explain and inform the design of any game, not just skill-based games. This must be something else, of which flow is a subset. Let's call it... I don't know... how about "floo."

    So how do we get our players in a state of floo? There's an easy recipe:
    • clear goals
    • good feedback
    • no distractions
    • sense of accomplishment
    The fourth ingredient is, the player must get a frequent sense of accomplishment. How you provide this varies with the game and the player, but there are some common ways:
    • provide properly balanced challenges (this is why "flow" is a subset of "floo"!)
    • increase the amount of something the player values
    • provide access or discovery of something the player cares about
    • provide new abilities the player finds interesting
    • provide visible progress towards a goal the player cares about
    In Cooper, continuous small levels of accomplishment is provided by the collection of coins (which we recognize and subconsciously associate with money, the gaining of which has deep value for us). This works through both "increase the amount of something" and "provide visible progress toward a goal." Cooper also provides a LOT of upgrades, and every time you buy one, that provides a larger sense of accomplishment (via "provide new abilities the player finds interesting").

    In that guilty-pleasure game you mentioned (sorry, I've forgotten the name), you check in every day to buy upgrades for your units. This provides a sense of accomplishment through the "provide new abilities" and "increase the amount of something" methods. If you've selected a goal, something like "get Frank to level 20" or "upgrade all my archers to level 5," then it also hooks into "provide visible progress." In these ways, you're getting a sense of accomplishment.

    Now, I can almost hear you say, "Well yeah, it does that, but I'm not in a state of flow! I'm just wasting a few minutes over morning coffee." But I don't see why that's a useful distinction. Even in a game that you play in small time chunks, in between other tasks, for the minute or two that you're playing it, you ARE in a state of something (floo!) where the rest of the world fades away. It's your coffee that is getting mentally squeezed out by the game, not the other way around.

    And more importantly, as game designers, I don't think we should care. We already know whether a "session" of our game requires an hour commitment or just a few minutes a day. In either case, we want to be sure that, whatever that time is, our game is engaging and rewarding; it is pleasurable to play, and it keeps players coming back.

    So, if "flow" can't explain how to do that except in skill-based games, I say, nuts to flow. I'll use the broader theory outlined here to design games that keep my players in a state of Floo!
     
    Kiwasi and Gigiwoo like this.
  34. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    Why isn't it a balanced difficulty? Cooper captures your attention with a nice Initial Spike (see interest Curve). Then, you begin jumping. That jumping is a skill. And yes, it's a crazily simple skill, and even so, the coins are coming kind of fast, and there IS skill involved. If you had to do that for TOO long, you'd surely find the game boring. Fortunately, Cooper has an upgrade path. Soon, it's going faster, your collecting more coins, and then there's more upgrades. Soon, you're flying, trying to navigate, up and down, to get the max coins, fastest. There is skill involved. There is a balanced difficulty.

    The collection of coins is related to 1) goals and 2) feedback. The goal is to gather X coins, the feedback, is that you're gaining more coins. "Progress toward a goal" is the definition of feedback. Yes, the upgrades are accomplishments, and more importantly, they are goals to be worked toward. As soon as I reach one goal, I am off to the next one (zeigarnik). There is definitely 1) goals, 2) feedback, 4) balanced difficulty.

    Cooper also invokes the "Mystery Box" - particularly after you make hte first upgrade to Cooper, where he begins to Fly, and I'm thinking, HOLY COW, I WONDER WHAT ELSE!? That's what kept me going, after that point around 10 mins, where I was kind of like, 'Ok, I've grokked this game. I'm kind of curious if it has a clever ending'. And the zeigarnik effect also reminds me that I haven't finished. Fortunately, it was short. SPOILER - It was worth finishing :).

    The science helps us. Flow is well researched - it does exist, and it is measurable. I also agree there are nuanced differences that game designers probably don't care about. I look to understand ALL of the theories that help me make better games - Flow, Accomplishments, Zeigarnik, Motivation Theory, Habits, Addiction, Feedback, Visual cues, and SOOO many more. Most of them apply. Most of them help me make better games.

    The science helps us. Except in the area of Simplicity. For that, there's almost NOTHING to draw on.

    Gigi
     
    JoeStrout and frosted like this.
  35. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    To lean on my own terminology a bit, both accomplishment and challenge rely on the same thing: whether the player acknowledges a conflict. For the sake of accomplishment, the player just has to care about the conflict, but challenge needs enough difficulty to force the player to acknowledge the conflict, while also not being so difficult that the player loses focus of the other conflicts they are addressing.

    Curiously, your list of how to provide accomplishment is mostly just feedback, and not cases of things to accomplish.


    Since you've been talking about clickers so much, I'm surprised you haven't started poking holes in "no distractions" yet, too.
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  36. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    There's no difficulty because you can't fail. You don't have to jump. There are no obstacles to overcome, or things you can't do if you don't jump. You don't get coins as quickly that way, and you, being a challenge-driven player, quickly self-select a goal to get the coins as quickly as possible, and challenge yourself to jump for them. When you succeed, you feel a sense of accomplishment from beating that small challenge.

    So, yeah, we could sort of cram this into the classic flow mold by allowing "balanced difficulty" to sometimes include challenges so easy that you literally can't fail, but it's a stretch. And when we start trying to explain other activities that I claim are equally engrossing — like slot machines, movies, and books — it flat-out breaks. Yet with the minor modification I'm proposing, all these different ways of being "in the zone" and focused on a pleasurable activity make sense.

    Except for the difficulty part, I agree. So it's tempting to just throw that ingredient out, and claim you can cook up a fine flow with just goals and feedback (and hold the distractions).

    But you can't; something is still missing. It's not difficulty, because I've shown many examples of things people get engrossed in, tuning out everything else, and do even at significant personal cost, that involve no difficulty at all. There has to be some reward that keeps you going.

    Now, maybe I took a misstep with my terminology, because several people have made the mistake of thinking that by "accomplishment" I mean some big, obvious win like finishing the level or game. That's not what I mean at all. I mean the little feeling of satisfaction you get from one of the several cases I outlined above (progress, discovery, beating a challenge, etc.).

    What really convinces me that I'm on the right track with this is that it also explains what's gone wrong when games are not fun. Like the long slog in the middle of Minecraft. I still have my goal; I still have feedback; it's about the same difficulty as it was at the beginning, and probably will be at the end. For that matter, I still have a mental to-do list and ziegarnik breathing down my neck. But it's no fun. Why?

    I say it's because in that middle section, what's missing is a sense of accomplishment. You've reached a point where the ultimate goal is still so far off, you can't perceive any significant progress towards it. And you're so far from the beginning, you don't perceive any significant increase in distance from that, either. Without one (or both) of these, the "noticeable progress towards a goal" accomplishment has checked out.

    Since Minecraft pretty much lacks all the other means of accomplishment (nothing new to discover at that point, no exponentially-increasing value to care about, etc.), I've got nothing. The other ingredients are all there, but accomplishment is missing, and it's no fun. I quit and go play Corporation Inc. instead.

    Yes, those are good points too.

    OK, and I know we shouldn't just make stuff up willy-nilly, when there is well-established research out there by people who made stuff up years before us. :) But on the other hand, I've got a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in neuroscience; I'm well familiar with the quality of psychological research. There's good stuff there, to be sure, but researchers are no less susceptible to blind spots and assumptions than anybody else.

    In this case, I believe the research on flow has been hampered by the assumption of skill-based games, where challenges are the primary source of accomplishment. That's how probably how all video games were at the time the initial theory was being constructed. It's fine as far as it goes, but we can take it farther.

    I guess I should dig up some of those papers, though. I'm really curious about this measurement you speak of.

    Best,
    - Joe

    P.S. Please let me know when I cross that annoyance line, and I will gladly shut up. :)
     
    Gigiwoo and Martin_H like this.
  37. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    This is likely becoming about semantics.

    What exactly is "difficulty"? Is it difficult to flip a coin heads four times in a row?

    I've spent a lot of time in casinos and I'll tell you this, even games of pure chance can be extremely challenging. I've found myself at 6 in the morning, absolutely emotionally drained from doing nothing more than rolling dice and trying to guess which number will be tossed. The drained feeling is from a struggle with chance, it's the same feeling as after any other intense struggle, any other competition.

    It might be strange, even counter intuitive to think of these things as 'challenging' and the rational arguments you put together may be logically sound. But intuitively, the primal side of your brain understands things in a more raw sense, actions taken, leading to a successful outcome feel like an accomplishment. The fact that there are multiple outcomes is translated to your brain as difficulty.

    That sense of accomplishment, in truth, doesn't matter if it was skill, luck, or pre-determined scripting. It doesn't even matter if you rationally know better. The wiring for these feelings is way down in the lizard brain.

    I pick a stock, buy it. The price goes up. I feel good. It doesn't matter why the stock went up. It doesn't matter if I was right about the reason. Your brain will even go to great lengths to fabricate reason to attribute the success to your action.

    I would put forth the argument that anything that can produce the sense of accomplishment, must have some intrinsic difficulty. But difficulty, to the lizard brain, really just means the possibility of variable outcome and the assumption that your actions influence the chance of a desired outcome.

    Collecting coins is a challenge if there are different rates of coin collection and you believe that your actions dictate the rate of collection. It's very likely that the more 'accomplished' you feel in the action depends on how successful your brain is at fabricating a challenge that your skillful actions overcame. If those reasons are real or correct is entirely irrelevant. It doesn't even matter if the execution or even the outcome was actually good, as mediocre or poor results/execution can still feel good if your brain isn't aware of the fact that the result/execution was actually poor. Most games rely on this fact to deliver a sense of accomplishment with very little or no real challenge (only the illusion of challenge).

    You can argue all you want, reason all you want, and even be logically correct but at the end of the day, what matters is if your brain is releasing that dopamine, and the triggers for dopamine release are dependent on if you feel good about some action (regardless of the skill involved in the action).
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2015
  38. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    I agree. But I still see merit in the ongoing discussion to explore good practices to make games "fun". Let's not get tooo caught up in semantics. Flow, floo, fun... I prefer to talk about immersion, but whatever. They all have their places! About 5 years ago I've read something in a gamedesign book about the various forms of immersion and there where quite many. E.g. you can get immersed by the story, by the visual representation of a space or by the cognitive challenge you are occupied with. I think the last one is part of the classic flow mechanic. So maybe this challenge/reward thing is just one way to achieve immersion and get the "good brain feel" from it. I remember getting that feeling in the original "Thief", in "Fallout 3", in "Jagged Alliance 2" and for a short while also in "Brothers" - and each time for a different reason. The last one has a very unusual control scheme where you use 2 analog sticks on a gamepad to controll 2 characters at the same time and perform tasks with them that you have to coordinate. I tried my best to move both at the same time and that tickled my brain in a strange but rewarding way because I never did something like that. I was "learning" something new. I'm not sure if it is either necessary or helpful for the discussion to find different words for these different ways of getting into that "pleasant state of mind".

    I've read an article once that proposed to design a game around "skill atoms". Teach the player one little thing after the other, introduce them, let them be tried out and give the player space to recognize what to use when and how to combine different skills. Then stretch that out over the bigger part of the game and you hopefully can keep up engagement for a longer time. This mechanic also goes well with many things that already were presented in this thread.


    P.S.: And not everyone is the same and can achieve "immersion" through the same things. One player can find a challenge engaging while another gets frustrated and turns away. A friend of mine doesn't care one bit about story in games and has zero interest in reality based settings like GTA or COD. I can get immersion from different things in games, but I feel that it gets harder and harder for me to get into that state. I feel like I'm becoming more and more jaded as the years pass by and I wonder if there even is a way for games to keep up with that process or if I'll just be "too old" one day, which is a scary thought for me (I'm only 30).
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2015
  39. BackwoodsGaming

    BackwoodsGaming

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2014
    Posts:
    2,229
    This is something I want to explore more. Would be interested in finding out which book you were reading. I think that is the problem I've had with every game I've played since playing EverQuest. Even EQ lost that feeling as they added more expansions, trivialized travel, and started turning everything "cookie cutter". And then again, maybe it was because EQ was my first dive into the graphics-based multiplayer worlds. I fought the pressure to play EQ by friends for months because, in my words back then - "it killed the imagination process". Up until that point I was heavily addicted to Simutronics' DragonRealm. All text based, mud type game where I had to paint pictures in my mind of what the world I was adventuring in looked like based on short descriptive text supplied by the game developer. I loved it and my friends only even got me to try EQ by buying it for me and challenging me to try it with the free trial sub. Once I tried it, I was hooked and was easily immersed into the world of Norrath.

    By the time WoW was released, the immersion in Norrath had been ruined - at least for me. So I tried WoW and later several other fantasy MMOs. I have yet to find that same level of immersion that I had with EQ. So maybe as in the thread about Story, it may just be a nostalgia thing. But I'd love to figure out a way to combine current day game mechanics in a game with the same level of immersion that I had before. To me I don't think difficulty overall matters. I understand some things will be hard (or impossible). Developing a fun and immersive experience is my goal. Accomplishments, achievements, etc I think are pretty much a required component for that. For multiplayer, figuring out how to develop a tight community is another key factor. I think those things (immersion, accomplishments, community) rank a bit higher than difficulty, at least from my perspective. May be totally wrong there, but I think those are key factors that I'm looking for in a game these days. :)

    EDIT:
    Maybe that's my problem as I am nearing that 50 mark, myself... :p
     
    Gigiwoo and Martin_H like this.
  40. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    Immersion is an interesting thing. But I think it's also very related to the same principals above.

    There used to be a term that people used that I really liked, "suspension of disbelief". I think suspension of disbelief is a much more descriptive term. It's much easier to get that "good brain feel" if you've suspended your disbelief. If you've forgotten that you're playing a game or watching a fictional story. The numbers and symbols of the matrix fade away, leaving you immersed in an fiction of the world you're being presented with.

    If you can help a person get there, if you can help the player forget to disbelieve, their lizard brain can start to engage. Our experiences become more visceral, more meaningful, the results matter more, the challenges feel bigger, the possibilities feel endless. But it can only really happen if you can help allow the player to forget, if you can get him to ignore the guy behind the curtain.

    Honestly, I personally see a lot of games as an effort to do battle with the rational mind. In general, games are pretty dumb. They all boil down to so much less than we want them to. Didn't progress quest demonstrate how foolish we are to enjoy just about any RPG a decade ago? In completely rational terms, games are largely a poor way to spend your time.

    I also love games, deeply, I've loved them from as young as I can remember to playing friggin hearthstone last night. But in order to really enjoy a game, in order to really give into them, I believe that you need to forget that it's a game. When gigiwoo talks about flow, this is what I think of. It's the moment when you've completely forgotten everything else. It's not just a game, it's the whole friggin universe, even if it's just bloody minesweeper.

    When I look at Diablo 3 and the sheer degree of folly that the auction house was, how it entirely destroyed the chance to suspend disbelief. When I play diablo, I want to believe that that legendary item is special. I want to believe that it was my superior skill, talent, and yes, my inherent specialness as a person that made me deserve that magical, unique sword. Forcing me to look at listings of a quarter million other, identical swords destroys the illusion. I'm still pissed at Jay Wilson for that.

    PS: I also think this is why game developers often have trouble enjoying games. They all just say "I don't really have time to play games anymore" but what they really mean is that they've spend so much time looking at the mechanics, working with the machinery of making games that they can often no longer forget that it's a game. Instead of seeing the fiction, you just see the mechanics.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2015
    Gigiwoo, Martin_H and BackwoodsGaming like this.
  41. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    I read that during research for something that I wrote and could dig up what it was:
    "Patterns in Game Design" by Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen. I got it from a library back then. Seems like it is super rare, used copies are listed on amazon for ~200,- and upwards. I don't think it's worth to buy it at that price, but I haven't read the whole thing and barely remember anything from it, only the different kinds of immersion. They distinguish between 4 kinds apparently. I thought it was more and I had just forgotten most of them.


    I need to rewatch this Southpark episode:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1947585/
    I've never seen the topic covered so well.


    I can relate. There was a time where I did a lot of research on how films are made and it really harmed my "suspension of disbelief" (which btw is a great term for what we want to achieve) while watching movies. I could no longer focus on the story because my brain was wired to dissect every detail of the shot and it became more about the medium than about the subject.
    I know a music composer who told me that he no longer listens to music, except out of professional interest in how certain things are made.
     
    frosted likes this.
  42. LMan

    LMan

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2013
    Posts:
    493
    Just to weigh in on this bit-

    I would offer an opposing view to the idea that knowing how it works diminishes the ability to enjoy a game- or any art. In fact, I'd say it increases it.

    When I do get the chance to play a game, I can appreciate the passion and skill on the part of the developer. I can pick up on the nuances of design and take pleasure in something truely well crafted, and have respect for something that turned out to be merely a good effort. The inability of which on the part of others turns into fanboyism, ridiculous ranting about how something so amazing an endeavor of a AAA game is "crap." And the dismissal of the modern miracle that is the indie success as "it was good but the multiplayer sucked" or something like.

    I say thank God we all know better, and can reject skinner box schemes and pay walls, and terrible design for what they are.
     
    RockoDyne and BackwoodsGaming like this.
  43. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    I hear what you're saying about learning to better appreciate the craft. But man, there's a huge difference between that kind of cerebral appreciation and the raw, emotional bond you have when you allow yourself to really fully surrender and entirely lose yourself in a game.

    Aside from appreciating craft. I think there's something important about the relationship with a game that does have to do with hiding the nuts and bolts. I don't think that's a negative thing. Most gamers don't want to see the machinery for what it is. The gamer wants to lose themselves in the game, the game maker works to give them the tools to do so.

    I don't think less of a gamer for wanting to believe in the fiction of the game's world. I don't think less of the game designer, even if they have to fib a bit, in the effort to build that fiction.

    As a gamer, I don't appreciate it when a developer messes with that agreement. Stuff like the introduction of IAP creates a huge dissonance, breaking the fourth wall in a really detrimental way, and Diablo's auction house being a probably the largest example of that ever produced.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2015
    Martin_H likes this.
  44. LMan

    LMan

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2013
    Posts:
    493
    Well maybe I'm different- I think if I played Chrono Trigger today even with what I know, I would fall in love with it all over again.

    I went to school for film for a time, and even with seeing behind the curtain, I binge watch TV series and feel for the characters, just as before. Only now I know the difference between good and sloppy work.

    I look at a piece of art today and I can pick up the influence of classical or cubist, urban, modernist ect. But it doesn't really change the way the canvas speaks to me, I think it adds to it.

    But I do think you have a choice now, whereas before immersion and excitement for something new was automatic, now you have to put your own signature to agree to suspend disbelief.
     
    frosted likes this.
  45. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    I thought I could fail. The second I opened the game, I decided, "I want to get more coins", with the implied, "as fast as possible." So maybe technically, I couldn't fail - anymore than I can FAIL World of Warcraft, even if I just sit at level 1, running around the newbie area, doing absolutely NOTHING. I won't fail - from the game's perspective.
    • I'm not convinced true 'failure' is a requirement for games. By failure, I mean 'death', 'game over', or similar distinct, defined condition, as described in Total Biscuits video. I do agree that in order for 'player driven tasks' to matter, I must be able to have better and worse performance, such as 'I failed to collect as many coins as fast as I might have liked'.
    Image_Flow_shrunk.png

    This diagram shows the part of balanced difficulty that's often overlooked - Time. In the case of Minecraft, the task is not any harder, except now you have 5 hours of it, as opposed to 5 minutes. That change in time makes the goal boring. The reason Minecraft succeeds anyway, is that the game is driven by player-driven-tasks, so if finding Diamond takes too long, that's all in your head. You can just as easily switch over to a new player-driven-task, building a house of glass in the trees.

    Most games struggle with this in the mid-game as they seek to stretch hours-of-play.

    Why would this be annoying? It's productive, civil, and interesting. A nice discussion, among friends. Aka - fun.

    Gigi
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  46. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    I'm not too sure that graph makes sense then when both of those axes represent time. I get that time required is analogous to difficulty and that time spent (chiefly with progression systems) is analogous to acquiring skill, but is this actually flow? Is the player actively in a state of flow, or are they just spending time with a game?

    Diamond mining makes for a curious case, because it relies on distractions to keep it from being tedious. The player's state is constantly degrading, as they are frequently in need of new tools or food or inventory space, and this forces the player to put aside or abandon the base task for a time. It's built-in pacing mechanics that prevents any one mechanic from being the focus for too long.
     
    Gigiwoo likes this.
  47. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    I've been debating for some time about putting in a 'report card' after combat. The idea is seen very frequently in JRPGs and was also used in Hotline Miami.

    The idea is just to create more shades of grey between winning and losing. Especially in games where the player needs to win 95% of the time, making it so that it isn't just about a binary win or lose, but about the degree of victory really adds something. It provides a space for challenge and accomplishment even in what is naturally a sort of repetitive.

    Other things that add spice or degrees of success include secondary objectives and other stuff, but I think that report card is the most bang for your development time.
     
  48. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    I don't like that mechanic. It can lead to situations where you struggle with a level for half an hour and then you finally beat it and get a D- rating for it because you only barely made it. For me that takes away from the fiero moment.
     
    frosted and Gigiwoo like this.
  49. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    Up/down indicates the difficult of the activity. Left/right indicates the skill of the player, OR the amount of time it takes.

    1. So, if a task is HARD, and the player has very little skill, you'd be in the upper left - TOO HARD. Similarly, if the player has enough skill, and for some reason the task only allowed a small amount of time, then it might still be TOO HARD. In this case, we become agitated, frustrated, and sometimes, we give up.
    2. On the other end, if the task is EASY, and the player skill is HIGH, then you'd be in the lower right - TOO EASY. Similarly, even if the task is appropriate for the player, if the time involved was REALLY LONG, then it would be lower right. This is the Minecraft example that Joe gave. In this case, we become bored, distracted, and again, tend to give up.

    In both cases, it's hard to stay in flow.

    Gigi
     
    BackwoodsGaming likes this.
  50. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Posts:
    2,981
    This is the challenge when simplifying things. In that picture, I simplified it to 6 words, because I'm usually there to talk to the graph. And in this case, I wasn't there, so it was probably over simplified.

    Gigi