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Rats won't play with each other unless the smaller rat wins 30% of the time, even though he will lose every game if the larger rat chooses to do win every game.

Rats won't play with each other unless the smaller rat wins 30% of the time, even though he will lose every game if the larger rat chooses to do win every game. A decade ago Call of Duty 4 introduced an under-barrel grenade launcher for the m16 rifle as a way to get easy kills even if you could not aim. The devs called it 'first order optimal strategy' and players called it the noobtube. CoD4 did the right thing, every new player still gets stomped but it ends up being roughly 4-20 instead of 0-24. Game design on this matters.

yoz-y 7y ago
A good way in game design is also to introduce randomness. Hearthstone is definitely a skill game but even with massive skill difference the win ration will more likely approach 60-40. It's good for new players to have fun and stick to it. I stopped playing Starcraft 2 after I realized that there is just no chance of getting anything done unless sinking massive time into it to train.
- arkh 7y ago
  > A good way in game design is also to introduce randomness. Randomness management is one of the main transferable skills from one game to another. Most good Poker players tend to be able to easily become good at other games with randomness.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  Randomness is a very popular (and good) answer to skill gaps, but it's also a dangerous knob for game designers to turn. I quite enjoyed the early days of Hearthstone, including the random factors in who won. But successive releases kept adding more randomness, and specifically uncontrollable randomness, until I quit the game. (It may have improved, and this didn't make it a bad game. It just wasn't for me anymore.) Most people recognize that War is a bad game, because it's entirely random and has no element of choice. But a game like Mario Party is full of choice, and yet the random payouts are so large that skill is often irrelevant. Even near-perfect play can be dominated by random factors, and those random elements (specifically, bonus stars) aren't numerous enough to average out over the course of a game. That's what broke me on Hearthstone: the feeling that the randomness that was too scarce to average out over one session, too potent to avoid or overcome, and too unconstrained to strategize around. At the far end of that spectrum, a game like poker consists almost entirely of strategizing around randomness, because the random factors are common enough to view statistically and only indirectly produce winners. And so the better poker player will win pretty consistently, and having fun across skill gaps starts to become difficult again. (Hence the popularity of moderate-randomness card games Euchre for social play.) Randomness is often a good addition to games, especially in combination with hidden information. Not only does it make play across skill gaps worthwhile, it makes them more replayable. But there's a lot to be said for adding it carefully, in places where players can exert some measure of control.
neonate 7y ago
Do you have a source for that claim about rats? Interesting if true.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  It was part of Jordan Peterson's spiel, he got it from Jaak Panksepp's book Affective Neuroscience.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Huh, the under-barrel grenade launcher anecdote would explain why, when playing Alien vs. Predator multiplayer with a bunch of colleagues some 12+ years ago, I was being repeatedly told to never use the pulse grenade launcher under standard marine rifle, because "it ruins the play".
Bartweiss 7y ago
Honestly, I don't understand the sentiment of "if you're losing, just get better". That's not what games are, socially. You can have contests in high jumping or pi recitation, but no one organizes weekly games of reciting pi. The definition of "game" is an endless debate, but all of the central examples have both winning and replayability. If you can't play two sessions in a row and hope for something novel the second time, it's probably not a game at all. And part of what makes a good game is providing ongoing interest for many players. I like chess, but I almost never play chess against anyone I know. It's too skill-based, and (ironically) too interactive. The better player reliably wins, substantial handicaps warp the game, and at least at amateur levels the better player is often completely dominant. Not only is there no hope of winning, there's very little room to make a good play or try an interesting strategy. If two random people who are familiar with chess sit down to a game, it's very unlikely to be an interesting experience. There are a lot of ways to mitigate this problem. There are "low skill" strategies that prevent blowouts without dominating (e.g. CoD4), rock-paper-scissors strategies (Stratego), graceful handicaps (Go), or satisfying play while losing (Catan). And of course, hidden information and randomness provide novelty in many of the most popular games like Poker. Chess is not a bad game by any means, but it's not a party game either. "Accept that they're better and keep losing" is good advice if you want to improve at chess, but it does nothing to provide entertainment for mismatched players. There's nothing wrong with wanting a game that's fun, rather than just educational.

yoz-y 7y ago

A good way in game design is also to introduce randomness. Hearthstone is definitely a skill game but even with massive skill difference the win ration will more likely approach 60-40. It's good for new players to have fun and stick to it. I stopped playing Starcraft 2 after I realized that there is just no chance of getting anything done unless sinking massive time into it to train.

arkh 7y ago
> A good way in game design is also to introduce randomness. Randomness management is one of the main transferable skills from one game to another. Most good Poker players tend to be able to easily become good at other games with randomness.
Bartweiss 7y ago
Randomness is a very popular (and good) answer to skill gaps, but it's also a dangerous knob for game designers to turn. I quite enjoyed the early days of Hearthstone, including the random factors in who won. But successive releases kept adding more randomness, and specifically uncontrollable randomness, until I quit the game. (It may have improved, and this didn't make it a bad game. It just wasn't for me anymore.) Most people recognize that War is a bad game, because it's entirely random and has no element of choice. But a game like Mario Party is full of choice, and yet the random payouts are so large that skill is often irrelevant. Even near-perfect play can be dominated by random factors, and those random elements (specifically, bonus stars) aren't numerous enough to average out over the course of a game. That's what broke me on Hearthstone: the feeling that the randomness that was too scarce to average out over one session, too potent to avoid or overcome, and too unconstrained to strategize around. At the far end of that spectrum, a game like poker consists almost entirely of strategizing around randomness, because the random factors are common enough to view statistically and only indirectly produce winners. And so the better poker player will win pretty consistently, and having fun across skill gaps starts to become difficult again. (Hence the popularity of moderate-randomness card games Euchre for social play.) Randomness is often a good addition to games, especially in combination with hidden information. Not only does it make play across skill gaps worthwhile, it makes them more replayable. But there's a lot to be said for adding it carefully, in places where players can exert some measure of control.

neonate 7y ago

Do you have a source for that claim about rats? Interesting if true.

friendlybus 7y ago
It was part of Jordan Peterson's spiel, he got it from Jaak Panksepp's book Affective Neuroscience.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Huh, the under-barrel grenade launcher anecdote would explain why, when playing Alien vs. Predator multiplayer with a bunch of colleagues some 12+ years ago, I was being repeatedly told to never use the pulse grenade launcher under standard marine rifle, because "it ruins the play".

Bartweiss 7y ago

Honestly, I don't understand the sentiment of "if you're losing, just get better". That's not what games are, socially. You can have contests in high jumping or pi recitation, but no one organizes weekly games of reciting pi. The definition of "game" is an endless debate, but all of the central examples have both winning and replayability. If you can't play two sessions in a row and hope for something novel the second time, it's probably not a game at all. And part of what makes a good game is providing ongoing interest for many players. I like chess, but I almost never play chess against anyone I know. It's too skill-based, and (ironically) too interactive. The better player reliably wins, substantial handicaps warp the game, and at least at amateur levels the better player is often completely dominant. Not only is there no hope of winning, there's very little room to make a good play or try an interesting strategy. If two random people who are familiar with chess sit down to a game, it's very unlikely to be an interesting experience. There are a lot of ways to mitigate this problem. There are "low skill" strategies that prevent blowouts without dominating (e.g. CoD4), rock-paper-scissors strategies (Stratego), graceful handicaps (Go), or satisfying play while losing (Catan). And of course, hidden information and randomness provide novelty in many of the most popular games like Poker. Chess is not a bad game by any means, but it's not a party game either. "Accept that they're better and keep losing" is good advice if you want to improve at chess, but it does nothing to provide entertainment for mismatched players. There's nothing wrong with wanting a game that's fun, rather than just educational.