Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
This section addresses two undesirable qualities of unbalanced games, stagnation
and triviality, that you should seek to avoid.
Avoiding Stagnation
Stagnation occurs in a PvE game when the game leaves the player in a position
in which he simply does not know what to do next; he believes that he is stuck.
(Don't confuse this with a stalemate, a situation in which the players
cannot
go
on no matter what.) Stagnation tends to be a result of a design that doesn't give
the player enough information to proceed. First-person shooters that require a
player to run all over the place trying to find the hidden switch that opens the
level exit,
after
having killed all her opponents, stagnate. Once the player kills all
the opponents, the level exit should be obvious.
Stagnation seldom occurs in PvP games because such games almost always put the
competitors in direct conflict with one another and provide them with means to
act against each other's forces. Stagnation occasionally happens when one player's
forces are so reduced that there is little he can do. But because he usually loses the
game soon afterward, this doesn't represent a serious stagnation problem. The most
common complaint about stagnation in PvP games occurs in scenarios where the
victory condition requires a player to destroy all enemy units, and one last enemy
unit (often not even a combat unit) remains hidden in an obscure location. You
can avoid this by setting a different victory condition, such as to destroy the ene-
my's headquarters instead of all his units.
Stagnation can be difficult to avoid in a sprawling action-adventure with so many
different combinations and configurations that you can't reliably anticipate what
the player may or may not try. However, you can still give the players information
as they progress:
Tackle stagnation passively by hiding in plain sight clues about how to proceed.
Tackle stagnation actively by having the game detect when the player wanders
around aimlessly; make the game provide a few gentle nudges to guide her in the
right direction.
Never let the player feel bewildered. If he has to resort to outside assistance in order
to proceed—whether by cheating, reading a strategy guide, or looking up the
answers on the web—your game contains a design flaw.
Avoiding Trivialities
Players don't want to be bogged down in minutiae when they can be directing the
big decisions. Forcing the player to decide where to store the gold when she must
try to build an army and plan a campaign strategy merely distracts her with
