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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?
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.
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!