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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?
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
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
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!