Design pattern Library - Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design - page 334

Participants
n Actions players can perform whose success depends in part on the attributes of
the player's character or the units involved in the action.
n A resource ability that affects the chance that actions succeed and that can grow
over time.
n An optional resource experience points that can be used to increase an ability.
Some games call these skill points and include a different resource called experience
points that cannot be traded.
collaborations
n Ability affects the success rate of actions.
n Attempting actions generates experience points or directly improves abilities.
Some games require the action to be successful, while others do not.
n Experience points might be spent to improve abilities.
consequences
Playing style reinforcement works best in games that are played over multiple ses-
sions and over a long time.
Playing style reinforcement works well only when multiple strategies and play styles
are viable options in the game. When there is only one, or only a few, all the players
will use the same strategy, which makes the game uninteresting.
Playing style reinforcement can inspire min-maxing behavior with players. This
refers to a strategy in which players seek the best possible options that will allow
them to gain powerful avatars or units as fast as possible. If min-maxing is success-
ful, it usually becomes a dominant strategy. This can happen when the strength of
the feedback is not distributed evenly over all actions and strategies.
Playing style reinforcement favors experienced players over inexperienced players,
because the experienced ones will have a better understanding of their options and
the long-term consequences of their actions.
Playing style reinforcement rewards the player who can invest the most time in
playing the game. In this case, time spent playing can compensate for different lev-
els of skill among players, which can be a wanted or an unwanted side-effect.
It can be ineffective for a player to change strategies over time in a game with
playing style reinforcement, because the player will lose the benefit of previous
investments in another play style.