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Balancing Player Input and Developer Vision?
Chris_Jefferson writes "I work on a simple iPhone puzzle game called Combination. Probably the most frequent request I get from users is for an in-game hint system, to help them out on the harder problems. However, when I tried beta testing such a system, almost every user would just hammer the hint button as soon as they got stuck for longer than 30 seconds, spoiling (I believe) their enjoyment of the game. Should games programmers decide they know what's best for users, and not give them features they are crying out for? Has anyone ever seen a good middle-ground, where users are helped, but can't just skip their way through the entire game?"
This question can be generalized for just about any game that's being continually developed — where should the game's designer draw the line between responding to feedback and maintaining what they feel is is the greater source of entertainment?
How about puting a timer or trigger to reset the hint button. 1 hint per minute/several minutes or 1-3 hints per level. Give the user what they want not what they asked for.
I don't find ultra "realistic" or difficult games fun to play. As a casual gamer, I want to play a game to pass the time and enjoy a sense of accomplishment. If I can't make any progress in what I feel to be a reasonable time, I drop the game and move to something else.
Easy/Normal/Hard mode.
You can compromise Easy mode challenge and much as possible, up to including auto-solve button.
Then, you can throw your most sadistic version of game on users in hard mode.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Three things come to my mind:
First, if your game awards some score or something then getting a hint must cost them.
And/or you only give a set amount of hints throughout their session. Maybe allow for an additional hint every x levels.
And/or make them aware that they have not succeeded themselves. I remember a good Solitair back in the MS-DOS days which also gave you a hint if you asked it to. When the game was finished it displayed ''You won (with my help)''. The ''with my help'' was what encouraged me not to press the button.
You need to give your customers what they want, but not necessarily what they ask for. There is often a very gulf between the two, and unless your customers are professional designers they are very likely to mistake one for the other.
The job of a designer is to incorporate feedback and continually improve the design. That does not mean implementing every request, but rather addressing the root problem that leads to the requests.
In other words, don't give people a free hint button if playtesting shows that it reduces overall accomplishment. Figure out why people are finding certain puzzles so frustrating, and do something about that instead. Or else incorporate the hint mechanic in a way that rewards players for using it sparingly.
So, you're saying that your game can only be enjoyed by the user if they are constantly frustrated with it?
Maybe the problem has nothing to do with the hint button at all, but rather the game itself. It's apparently not what your test group wants. (What gamers in general want is probably different yet.)
Also, don't forget that the iPhone is for gamers on the go. They don't -want- to spend more than 30 seconds staring at the screen and doing nothing. They'll also probably be quite a bit more distracted than if they were at home on their PC/console.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I bet if WoW offered two identical releases, one where you started level 1 and one where you could start on any level you wanted most people would choose the second. However, long term that would probably give WoW a worse reputation and an overall loss of sales.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Getting stuck is irritating. Getting a total solution is unsatisfying. There must be an in-between option. Could you just tell them how many pieces are in the right place, or just that they have some in the wrong place?
Make a number of versions and divide your beta-testers into groups. A control group playing the current version, perhaps one where hints are unlimited and have no penalty, one where there are limited numbers of hints, or some penalty is associated with using them. After they've played ask them to fill out a questionaire rating their enjoyment of the game overall, and in specific areas.
That way you'll have useful, qualitative data about the overall "enjoyment factor" of your game, as apposed to using guesswork and the (possibly biased) opinions of others to decide which features you need. This masters dissertation contains some relevant points, and seems to have some references which may be useful to you.
On a more personal note, I find games that provide hints can be more satisfying than games that leave it entirely to the user, especially in cases where the puzzles require a certain way of thinking, or a certain intrisic understanding of a system that I perhaps do not possess. Limited hints allow me to continue past a puzzle or area that I might otherwise have been stuck on, and in some cases might have caused me to ragequit. It's a fine line though, as some games provide hints too freely, and I find it too tempting to click the hint button whenever my progress is delayed more than a few minutes or seconds. In these situations I might have discovered the answer on my own in time and felt elated by my own cleverness, probably enhancing my perceived enjoyment of the game. There are probably those that only derive enjoyment from a game through its completion, or through using every possible hint, guide or even cheat to be the "best".
Basically I think you need some empirical testing to determine what system is right for your game, and what your target users will find to be the most fun.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
What about the obvious third option - I want to make a game that is the most fun for everyone else?
You will never please everyone! Stop trying now.
Once again, you are either making a game which is fun for you or a game which produces some profit, whether it's money or an increased sense of self-worth due to believing that you enriched the lives of others. If you are trying to do the former, then stop! You're done. If you're trying to do the latter, put in the hint feature. It's their choice whether they use it, or not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So you're telling me that almost every single user would reach several points in your puzzles where, for a whole 30 seconds they have no bloody clue what to do, and essentially have to surrender and use that button? And you think they should enjoy the frustration instead?
I'm sorry, but that's not a case of mindlessly hammering away at the "help" button. If they hit it each second, ok, I could see it that way. But if they first did try 30 seconds, that's really an "ok, I give up" gesture. It's reaching a point where it's either that button or they uninstall the stupid game.
But, at any rate, if almost every user gets stuck repeatedly in your game, I'd say that's bad design. The help button may be a band-aid fix for the symptoms, but the underlying problem remains. And forcing the players to stay stuck there, is only going to build up frustration, not fun.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Yeah, this. A lot of the time the customer doesn't really know what they want, they just think they do. You give it to them and discover that they didn't actually want that.
WoW raids are a good example. People said for years "we want easier more casual raids!" In Wrath, Blizzard did it. Now people are bored to death because everything is so easily PUGgable, there's no sense of accomplishment that comes from hitting your head against a wall for a while before doing something hard.
What they really wanted is some of the bureaucracy removed from raiding, so they could get some friends together easily and try stuff. They didn't want every boss to become a total joke. But they couldn't articulate what they actually wanted properly.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I assume this is the game they are referring to?
As a game designer, 30 seconds actually does sound like a long time to be unable to make even interim progress towards a goal. I personally try to make sure that people aren't stuck for more than 15 seconds without being able to make some perceived progress, though I work on very different types of games.
If people are abusing hints, perhaps there could be a pre-visualization system, or some other way of helping players understand the consequences of complex interactions? Maybe when you click a piece, the spots that piece cannot take are dimmed out? Also perhaps your visual presentation could be improved / altered somehow to make the piece positions and colors more comprehensible. The green, blue, and yellow you have chosen are way to close to eachother in hue and saturation, and the all important beams across the board are thin and blend together. And perhaps the level design just needs to start simpler and build up towards super hard, training the player more thoroughly in what they might need to be successful. Heck, I got stuck on level Fun 3 for about 3 minutes, and I'm a heavy puzzler. I'm playing through the fun levels now, and it feels like I just jumped into most other games' medium or hard.
If you are married to the tips system (and it sounds like it is implemented already anyway) there are ways that such a thing can not break gameplay. EA's sudoku had a meta-scoring system, where level completed contributed to an overall constantly-growing score. However, they also implemented two cheat systems to get players unstuck. If the players asked for a hint, their final score plummetted, but at least they weren't totally blocked. You can also offer one tip per level / ten levels / hour / etc. Or otherwise time-limit it.
Essentially, it sounds like your players are simply getting stuck and frustrated. The simple answer to what to do, is shuffle your difficulty curve to embed core concepts into your players earlier, and adjust your presentation design and artwork to help the player with their task.
The ______ Agenda
You need to give your customers what they want, but not necessarily what they ask for.
Exactly right. And I'd wager to say that this is more true of games than of other products. Customer requests are based on a superficial analysis of the product. Sometimes what they want isn't feasible from a logical perspective (ie the consequences are unconsidered, they only know they want X not that X comes at the cost of Y).
I've done some game design and balancing (see my sig - that's me in the primary copyright). My players often wanted things that made their life easier, but which would represent a game unbalancing. For example, perhaps I designed in a requirement for the player to make a decision between two trade offs.
Such decisions are critical to enjoyable game play - if every decision has an obvious right and wrong choice then you are on a rail and that's not as much fun. Players often asked for these trade offs to not be a decision they have to make, or asked that the consequences of the decision not exist; maybe asked to be able to have it both ways.
They also wanted certain elements which were designed to be highly rewarding but also very rare to be made dramatically more available. Such as having their drop rate increased, or being able to purchase them for prices which would turn them from rare into common.
I could do these things, and it would be easy for me, and you would be glad that I did... today. Tomorrow you'd be like every other player because everyone made the same choice or didn't have to make a choice at all. Success (however you measure that) would come after a fixed number of clicks.
There's already a game for people who want that out of a roleplaying game: http://www.progressquest.com/
No, you have to decode what your users are really asking for and give *that* to them, not the literal request. In the case of games, they are asking you to make it more fun. It's not fun when you get stuck in a puzzle game and can't figure out how to proceed. These times it makes sense to have a Suggest button. However that should be detected and only offered when the user is stuck, because if you offer them it immediately it amounts to a "solve this for me" button (aka an I WIN button), and that isn't fun. Offer the suggest button, but only when they haven't made a move in some amount of time (long enough that it's not viable to use for every move, but short enough that they don't get frustrated and close out your app). Also make it have a cost. Give them either a fixed number of total uses, or make it dock their score in some significant way (if scoring on time, add 30 seconds for each use, if scoring by points, deduct 10 moves worth of points). They choose whether they want to pay that price.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Which is an acceptable attitude right up to the point where you start asking people for money.
Designers have creative license to do what they want to do. If a gamer doesn't like something, they can move on to another game or learn to create a game themselves.
As a designer, you have an obligation to your process and your field not to pay any attention to the people playing the game.
Unless of course, you are doing it for the money -- then you better listen to them or you'll be broke soon! :)
You can't please everyone. You can please some, but not all of them. If you please them all you please nobody, least of all yourself.
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