Differences in Scale vs Differences in Kind - Keeping Players Interested - Extra Credits
Why Game Development Stack Exchange recommends it
Game Development Stack Exchange answerers link it when explaining why games vary challenge types over time, such as waves in tower defense and boss fights.
Recommended by 1 people across 1 different months, 2013 to 2017.
What it is
An Extra Credits episode that uses the first Call of Duty mission to show how a game can reuse the same mechanics across its length without feeling repetitive. It separates differences in scale (harder versions of the same challenge) from differences in kind (new types of challenge), and argues that both are needed to keep players engaged. It is a short, narrated animated explainer aimed at game designers.
What people said
Recommends Will · 2017-04 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “Why would one have "waves" in each stage of a tower defense game?”
Waves and the lulls in-between provide a few advantages to the player. They provide more variety of play types. In PvZ, this is embodied by elements like the peashooter vs. cherry bomb: the peashooter can beat 10 enemies separately, but if they are in a clump, you need AOE. By varying the type of challenge, they prevent a single optimal strategy, and let us have a more interesting experience. (extra credits has an episode on this here [this video] ) They provide time to prepare for the next challenge. In plants versus zombies this is important due to the cool-downs on different plants, you can't build them all at once even if you can afford it. The lulls also allow planning, increasing the strate
Cites Sparkz63 · 2013-07 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “How are boss battles important?”
As a player progresses through a game, they expect something more than just the same boring level over and over again. Not only do games generally get harder, they throw new scenarios at the player as they go along. According to Extra Credits [LINK] , both a difficulty change (difference in scale) and new scenarios (differences in kind) [this video] are necessary to make a good game. Let's analyze the usual components of a boss fight: Difficult obstacle or foe ( Bigger scale ) Some weak point or strategy to win ( Difference in kind ) Cinematics, cut scenes, big animations ( Emphasizes this particular conflict ) Rewards the player with loot / items / cut scenes ( Sense of accomplishment ) Boss fig
Cites CiscoIPPhone · 2014-06 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “What are the reasons for MMOs to have level caps?”
It's easier to think about what would happen in absence of a level cap in a generic mmo: First Reason: Players could become spread across the infinite level range, meaning less interaction between players. Here's a quote from a study which analyzed a 1,356-million-packet trace of ShenZhou Online, a mid-sized commercial MMORPG: Our major findings are as follows...Players who have a higher degree of social interaction tend to participate much longer. This suggests that game companies could increase the “sticki- ness” of games by encouraging, or even forcing, team playing. Furthermore, the duration of group play correlates with a group’s size and the network distance between players. [LINK] Sec