Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 9.4
Because the number of attacks is limited to 12 and the amount
of damage we need to do is fixed, as the damage dealt by the blizzard
wand decreases, the minimum number of usages increases.
Originally, the factors that went into our decision seemed only to be how much
damage we could do with each weapon and which one we preferred to use (our
never-ending fireball spell). However, just as in the Monty Hall Problem, we must
be careful to take into account
all
the parameters that affect the equation. In this
case, the reason we can't simply use the relative strengths of the two weapons as our
guide is that other factors are in play. First, we have a limited number of actions we
can take in the time allotted to us (12). Second, we have a minimum amount of
damage we need to do (260) in that amount of time. Therefore, as the efficiency
of our more powerful, yet less desirable, weapon goes down, the necessity of its
usage goes up.
The moral of our story is that like the rats and their root beer, our agents need
to be able to identify situations where a change in one factor may require a corre-
sponding change in action that seems contradictory to what we would expect. The
problem often results from not taking every factor into account.
Another stumbling block is an assumption that some things are equal when
they are not. For the moral of
that
story, we turn to a story about morals.
M
ORAL
D
ILEMMAS
In the outbreak problem, the decisions were exactly the same—people simply didn't
realize it because their perceptions were colored by the emotionality conveyed by
