5 ms·

I was going to suggest some form of automated testing during development and monte-carlo simulation of games to run a batch of "10,000 playthroughs a night", pa

I was going to suggest some form of automated testing during development and monte-carlo simulation of games to run a batch of "10,000 playthroughs a night", paired with a cost-function to "evaluate" the strength of a character-build (it can be as simple as "total damage" or "total DPS") and see if some outlier(s?) appear.

vidarh 10y ago
That's probably a good idea. But you can also pre-empt a lot of problems by designing the system around physical limitations. Many games have done that for a long time. E.g. I believe Terminus included things like mass for components, so adding all kinds of extras had a cost in fuel usage and maneuverability. So if you did build a ship loaded with the most powerful weapons, you could, but it'd also be a slow, hard to control, big target. Mass, volume, energy expenditure, waste heat - there are lots of factors you can add to make it hard to exploit. Of course, you need to tune those factors, but it makes it less likely for really extreme effects.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  I totally want players to have extremely powerful effects -- but coupled with really big penalties.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Yeah, that makes sense. Powerful is fun, but not if it becomes unbeatable.
- dr_zoidberg 10y ago
  Yes, but even well designed games (from a gameplay pov) can have unexpectedly powerfull builds, like what happened with Starcraft 2 and the genetic-algorithm build order[0]. So simulating builds/gameplays can give you another edge at detecting strange/powerful scenarios. I also think you should rely on player feedback and community to spot this kind of things, but that could become time consuming if you're a lone developer. [0] http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/11/using-genetic-algorithms-to-find-starcraft-2-build-orders/ http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/11/using-genetic-algorithms-to-...
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Absolutely - you can't get away without testing, and I agree simulation is probably a necessity given the complexity no matter how much the design tries to counter it.

vidarh 10y ago

That's probably a good idea. But you can also pre-empt a lot of problems by designing the system around physical limitations. Many games have done that for a long time. E.g. I believe Terminus included things like mass for components, so adding all kinds of extras had a cost in fuel usage and maneuverability. So if you did build a ship loaded with the most powerful weapons, you could, but it'd also be a slow, hard to control, big target. Mass, volume, energy expenditure, waste heat - there are lots of factors you can add to make it hard to exploit. Of course, you need to tune those factors, but it makes it less likely for really extreme effects.

stcredzero 10y ago
I totally want players to have extremely powerful effects -- but coupled with really big penalties.
- vidarh 10y ago
  Yeah, that makes sense. Powerful is fun, but not if it becomes unbeatable.
dr_zoidberg 10y ago
Yes, but even well designed games (from a gameplay pov) can have unexpectedly powerfull builds, like what happened with Starcraft 2 and the genetic-algorithm build order[0]. So simulating builds/gameplays can give you another edge at detecting strange/powerful scenarios. I also think you should rely on player feedback and community to spot this kind of things, but that could become time consuming if you're a lone developer. [0] http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/11/using-genetic-algorithms-to-find-starcraft-2-build-orders/ http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/11/using-genetic-algorithms-to-...
- vidarh 10y ago
  Absolutely - you can't get away without testing, and I agree simulation is probably a necessity given the complexity no matter how much the design tries to counter it.