Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In Figure 6.40, the positive feedback loop is countered partially by a negative feed-
back loop that is created by increasing the number of experience points required to
reach the next level every time the player levels up. This is a common design feature
in the internal economies of many role-playing games. Such a structure strongly
favors specialization: As players need more and more experience points to level
up, they will favor the task they are better at, because these tasks will have a bigger
chance to produce new experience points. This can be countered by applying nega-
tive feedback to the upgrade cost or impact for each ability separately (
Figure 6.41
),
either instead of, or in addition to, the increasing costs to level up.
FIGURe 6.41
alternative ways of
applying negative
feedback in an rPG
economy
Some RPG economies work differently; they give experience points whether an
action succeeds or not. For example, in
The Elder Scrolls
series, performing an action
often increases the player character's ability, even if that action is unsuccessful. In
The Elder Scrolls
, negative feedback is applied by requiring the action to be per-
formed more times in order to advance to the next level of ability. This type of
mechanism is illustrated in
Figure 6.42.
FIGURe 6.42
an rPG economy
without experience
points controlled by
the player
FPS economy
At the heart of the economy of most first-person shooters there is a direct relation-
ship between fighting aggressively (thus consuming ammo) and losing health. To
compensate for this, enemies might drop ammo and health pick-ups when they are
