Chapter 412 Lying and Dynamic Difficulty

Chapter 412 Lying and Dynamic Difficulty

Lilith was a little confused: "Reverse...dynamic difficulty?"

It must be said that the idea proposed by Qin Fengliang is really novel, and it is indeed a direction that Lilith has never thought of before.

Players of different levels do have different demands for game difficulty.

For relatively inexperienced players, if they have been suffering in the game, then their demand must be that the game becomes simpler so that they can pass the level smoothly and not be stuck at a key node and unable to move forward.

For those expert players, the current game difficulty is not challenging at all, so they will hope to increase the game difficulty and further stimulate their potential in the face of more powerful bosses or more stringent mechanisms.

The traditional dynamic difficulty mechanism is actually to meet these two different demands at the same time.

In short, it is "always provide players with a certain degree of challenge."

But this is actually an improvement to the overall game experience of players, which is not conducive to collecting negative emotions.

And if Qin Fengliang's idea can really succeed, it sounds really beautiful.

Imagine a player who is very strong. He has already lost the challenge at the current difficulty. However, he did not expect that as the game progresses, the game becomes easier and easier, and the bosses that appear later become weaker and weaker!

As you can imagine, after easily defeating the boss later, he will inevitably burst out with extremely strong negative emotions and feel bored.

On the other hand, if a player is relatively weak and can no longer bear the current game difficulty, but the difficulty is still rising, even completely beyond his ability!

There is no doubt that a lot of negative emotions will also be generated.

The best thing about this mechanism is that these two types of players can see each other's mechanism.

Suppose a very weak player challenges a boss and always fails to beat him. He desperately searches for the live broadcast videos of those high-level players and big guys on the Internet. As a result, he sees that the boss that the big guys beat is different from my boss?

It is obviously the same boss, the only difficulty, but the boss of the big guy is slow and has low damage. The big guy easily defeated it without using any skills at all.

It's so simple, I can do it, right?

But why is my boss so perverted?

After discovering this, there are still extra negative emotions.

It sounds really beautiful!

If this plan can really succeed, Lilith can foresee that there will be a lot of negative emotions.

But Lilith didn't get too happy too early, because she also realized that this approach actually has serious flaws.

That is... how to ensure that players don't quit the game?

If there is no problem of players quitting the game, then Lilith can just brainlessly increase the difficulty of the game and design a lot of dung monsters. For example, the final boss is a blood cow, permanent hegemony, and full-screen unlimited aoe. Players will die directly when they encounter it. This difficulty is definitely enough to generate a lot of negative emotions.

But players will quit the game and run away, so this design is meaningless.

Lilith is a hell demon with aspirations, and she can still distinguish between "one full meal" and "full meal every meal".

If it is really designed according to Qin Fengliang's plan, this new "dynamic difficulty" will obviously seriously discourage players, and it is probably unsustainable.

Lilith expressed her concerns, but what she didn't expect was that Qin Fengliang had already thought of this in advance.

"Mr. Li, didn't I just say that? In order to prevent players from quitting the game, we have some other mechanisms to adjust the dynamic difficulty.

"What I said before were all passive adjustments.

"For example, players are frequently injured and supplies are short, which are all classified as passive."

Lilith interrupted her: "However, players can also take the initiative to complete these behaviors, and objectively they can still adjust the dynamic difficulty."

"No, no, no, Mr. Li, they can't."

Qin Fengliang shook his head confidently: "The main difference between my dynamic difficulty and the previous conventional dynamic difficulty is here!

"In the traditional dynamic difficulty, the difficulty of the weak is reduced and the difficulty of the strong is increased. So if you want to control the dynamic difficulty, you just need to deliberately take a few hits and deliberately waste some ammunition.

"After all, whether it is a novice player or a master player, they only hope to reduce the difficulty, not increase the difficulty.

"Under the traditional dynamic difficulty mechanism, players can indeed actively adjust the dynamic difficulty.

"But under this new dynamic difficulty mechanism I designed, they can't.

"Because in order to reduce the difficulty of the game, players need to perform perfectly, such as being completely unharmed during a certain period of the game, or hoarding a large amount of supplies.

"And this is exactly what real masters can do.

"The players who need to reduce the difficulty the most are precisely those rookie players, who can't do it anyway."

Lilith understood a little: "Oh, yes! In this way, rookie players really can't take advantage of this dynamic difficulty.

"Wait, but on the other hand, expert players can still increase the difficulty of the game by deliberately wasting supplies and deliberately getting beaten?"

Qin Fengliang nodded slightly: "Yes, Mr. Li, this is unavoidable. But it's not a big problem.

"Because for masters, they need to deliberately waste materials and deliberately get beaten up in order to increase the difficulty of the game. This in itself is a very troublesome and unprofitable thing, so they may not be willing to do it."

Lilith quickly understood what Qin Fengliang meant.

In the traditional dynamic difficulty mode, masters deliberately waste bullets and deliberately get beaten in order to reduce the dynamic difficulty of the game. The purpose of lowering the difficulty is to pass the level more smoothly.

However, in this new dynamic difficulty mode, there is no benefit at all from being beaten deliberately. It only increases the difficulty to give yourself some challenges and increases the probability of overturning. On the contrary, it runs counter to the goal of successfully passing the level.

What's more, getting beaten on purpose is boring and boring.

If you want the dynamic difficulty to change significantly, the player needs to spend a lot of time being beaten. The subconscious reaction is to avoid, but they can only stand there and be careful not to die. This is also true for expert players. A torture.

It is very troublesome and has no benefits. It is conceivable that only a few players will choose to do this. Although most players complain, they will still pass the level silently on the lowest difficulty level.

Therefore, although in theory players can reversely use this set of dynamic difficulty to adjust, in fact, not many people will actually use it.

Lilith nodded: "I understand, let's continue talking about how to prevent players from quitting the game."

Qin Fengliang smiled slightly and continued to say confidently: "Mr. Li, what we talked about before were passive difficulty changes. Such as being beaten, wasting materials, etc.

“In order to keep players from quitting the game and to give novice players a little hope, we also need to introduce active difficulty changes.

"In response to this, I have carefully designed a...'lying' system.

"Lying allows players to actively adjust dynamic difficulty."

Lilith didn't understand: "Lying? How to lie? To whom?"

Qin Fengliang explained: “Of course I lied in the game.

"First of all, the mechanism of 'anti-dissuasion' only applies to novice players. Although expert players will have negative emotions, they rarely quit the game because the game is too simple. They must at least finish the game quickly. twice.

“So, we want to create an illusion for novice players, an illusion that ‘the difficulty of the game can be reduced through specific operations’.

"After they rely on this illusion, we can... close the net tightly, and at a certain point, show him the real world again!

"So, how this lying system works is simple:

“At some key nodes in the game, when players talk to key NPCs, the NPCs will ask questions, and players need to choose one of two answers.

“One true and one false.

"To give a simple example: Suppose the player's goal at this time is to defeat a boss with dual attributes. This boss has both "filthy" and "holy" forms, and it can freely switch between these two forms. .

"We can first tell the players this information through the plot. Then before fighting the boss, the boss will pretend to be a friendly NPC and ask the player: What is your identity?

"At this point, the player can answer that he is a clergyman or a mercenary.

"Actually, the players are mercenaries, not clergy. In other words, the former is a lie and the latter is the truth.

"But if the player answers truthfully that he is a mercenary, then the boss will appear in a filthy form. Due to the lack of sacred attack and defense means, the player will continue to be corrupted, and normal combat will become extremely difficult.

"And if the player lies and says that he is a clergyman, then the boss will not dare to appear in the dirty form, but will appear in the sacred form.

"It stands to reason that the main attack method of clergy is sacred spells. Such spells will not hurt or itch the boss who is in a holy state, but the boss can easily crush the clergy with its powerful force.

"But the player's true identity is a mercenary, with flexible skills and powerful physical attacks. The boss's sacred spells cannot cause harm to the player.

“In this way, players are actually making the game less difficult by lying.

“We can go even bolder:

"For another example, if a player wants to enter a certain town, the town has a main entrance and a side entrance. The main entrance is heavily guarded, while the side entrance requires checking the player's identity.

“If players lie, they can easily sneak in through the side door and avoid many difficult battles.

"In addition, players can also lie about insignificant things, and can even choose to lie to every NPC.

"Even lying about insignificant things will actually reduce the dynamic difficulty of the game. This is definitely a huge boon for players with handicapped hands and will give them hope of persevering."

Lilith's eyes lit up, she already fully understood: "However, the so-called lying to reduce the difficulty is only temporary. At a certain point in the future, it will all come back in an intensified manner!"

Qin Fengliang smiled slightly: "Yes, Mr. Li is really smart!

“Lying feels good for a while, but it may be exposed by NPC afterwards.

“Once exposed, the game difficulty will return directly to the original difficulty level, which is simply bad news for players who are accustomed to low difficulty.

“And the best part about this is that once players are exposed, they won’t quit the game immediately.

“They will reflect on themselves: Oh, was I careless somewhere, so I got exposed?

“It seems that I have to be more careful when lying in the future, and I have to do a good job of follow-up work afterwards.

“In short, it’s: I was wrong, I will dare to do it next time.

“In the early stage, players can indeed avoid being exposed through certain means. But the more they go on, the more they will find that being exposed is inevitable. But by that time, they have already generated a lot of negative emotions, even if they quit the game, we have already earned enough.”

Lilith asked again: “Telling lies will temporarily reduce the difficulty, so will telling the truth increase the difficulty?”

Qin Fengliang shook his head: “No.

“Telling the truth will only keep the original difficulty of the game.

"If the difficulty can be increased, those experts will definitely choose to tell the truth without thinking, which will play a role of dynamic balance again, which is definitely not okay."

Lilith nodded slightly: "Well, that makes sense!"

To sum up Qin Fengliang's dynamic difficulty routine, there are actually two ways.

For experts: the better they play, the lower the difficulty, which makes them feel bored. But even if they are bored, experts will not quit the game quickly. They will think that maybe the difficulty of the game will be raised later? But in the end, they find that the difficulty is getting lower and lower, which will inevitably produce negative emotions.

For rookies: the game becomes more and more difficult, even more difficult than the game of experts. Lying can temporarily reduce the difficulty and let them see hope, but in the end they will get worse and give it all back.

The key is that when rookies and experts see each other's difficulty, they can't hold it back.

This dynamic difficulty plan is indeed promising, and it is worth a try!

But then there is a new problem: how to hide this mechanism cleverly?

If this mechanism is seen through by players at a glance, they will definitely curse, give bad reviews, and try to persuade players who have not entered the pit to quit. If fewer players enter, the negative emotions collected by the game will inevitably decrease.

At least this dynamic difficulty mechanism must have a seamless packaging in the game plot and world view, otherwise it will be too abrupt and players will be wary.

Qin Fengliang was actually prepared for this.

"Mr. Li, this is not difficult at all. I have already thought of the world view.

"This game is set in a Western fantasy background, which is roughly Victorian + Gothic style. In this world, there are humans, zombies, puppets, and some Cthulhu content.

"Because it is a cruel and dangerous world, it is reasonable to use lies to protect yourself, right?

"In the game, the player plays a "half-puppet", that is, a human transformed by puppet technology, and there are two different development directions.

"You can develop in the direction of pure puppets, or you can develop in the direction of pure humans.

"These two identities have their own advantages and disadvantages: humans naturally have the ability to lie, and their bodies are flexible, but their ability to resist attacks is weak, in layman's terms, their blood is thin;

"Puppets do not naturally have the ability to lie, and they need practice. In the early stage, it is easy to be exposed if they lie. Only after lying a certain number of times can they deceive the other party. The puppet's body is relatively stiff, but it has strong resistance to attacks and thick blood.

"The more puppets lie, the more they become like humans; and the more humans lie, the more unstable their mental state is, and they may see all kinds of dirty things. "

Lilith's eyes lit up: "So that's it, combining the world view, plot and dynamic difficulty, it's great! This can confuse players to the greatest extent, making it difficult for them to distinguish the specific rules of dynamic difficulty changes in the early stage!"

And as long as the players are retained in the early stage and form game inertia, then in the later stage, they will be abused and negative emotions will be collected, and it will be relatively less easy to quit the game.