Loseless combat / competition system

[Chris]

I would really love to have some combat/competition mechanic that is not affecting other parts of the game. Like you don't steal anything, you don't destroy anything. Just an independent "subgame" that do not affect directly economy and can be used in wide variety of games.

Assumptions:
- a player can select another player and initiate some competition with instant effect (the "I beat him" feel required)
- it does not need to be combat, just some form of competition
- as few direct connections to economy as possible (no stealing, destruction, combat loses etc)
- overall, the competition system should be transparent to the rest of the game (can be used in various types of games)



Some systems I thought of:

1) Reputation/influence system
- you have a certain allowance of "attack turns"
- you can "attack" anyone with equal or more reputation than you only
- when you win you get +1 reputation
- if you are among top 10% players with the highest reputation you get access to some unique building or get a bonus to population growth (because you are so famous that people flock to inhabit your kingdom)
- when you reach certain levels of reputation 100, 1000, etc you unlock some features/buildigns (so, sooner or later you will reach it)
- (alternative) you can attack players with lower reputation than you but you get less reputation in case you win plus (this prevents stalls, especially for higher reputation players that might be unable to find any targets)

The weakest part of this system is that you can attack the same player over and over again (as long as you are within reputation range), which is kind of boring I think.


2) limited reward system
Similar to above plus:
- players have randomly selected "reward types", if you beat a player (only if within certain reputation range) you get that reward
- each week you select what kind of reward type you pursue and you can collect only that reward

This system kind of limits available targets.


3) group influence system
Similar to 1 plus:
- each player has random type of influence (only for the purpose of determining reward when being attacked, not affecting the player at all, the player won't even see it)
- when you attack a player you get +1 in that influence type (example "commercial power on planet Z" or "galactic senate influence"), you also get the +1 reputation which is used for determining allowed targets range only
- you can collect any influence types you want, certain influence quantity and type unlock certain things or grant certain bonuses, also achieving top x% in certain influence type grants you some additional bonus (like top 5% highest senate influence players have access death star plans)

This system forces some thinking whom to attack (what kind of influence to get). Take a note that since each time you also increase your reputation (which is a negative trait) it makes you unable to get influence on weaker targets anymore, you have to choose which influence you collect.


Optional systems (can be merged with any above):
* it is counted how many times you lost (on "defence" only), the players who has the worst ratio get score decrease and military boost (so you will end up lower on the final rank, but you get some free military power in exchange). It is crucial to make it balanced so the miliary boost do not give you enough military power so you get more additional score from it than you lost from losing, this mechanic has to be avoided by skilled players (no losing on purpose).

[CygnusX]

What is your concern about effecting economy directly?  Would you be OK with fringe effects, such as unlocking or providing a temporary side effect?

[Chris]

What is your concern about effecting economy directly?  Would you be OK with fringe effects, such as unlocking or providing a temporary side effect?

My concern is mostly negative interference. Like I make some economy model and then sudenly I need to redesign it because in the middle one resource disappeared because some other player slote it. Or positive interference when suddenly your whole lumber industry become unneeded because one player who got a big lumber industry has pathetic military and you can steal a huge quantities of wood almost for free.

I don't mind connections of economy with military, even big connections. But not chaotic connections, no sudden changes in resources desirability and availability. You could get +50% boost to economy if you do well in military, no problem. But not on a microscale, not affecting separate resources and not messing inside the inner depths of the economy system.

Ideally, if you could make the military and economy system separately, without knowledge how the other system works. And when added together these would work. Sort of "feature encapsulation" or "modularity" but for game design domain not for programming domain

[CygnusX]

Have you considered having attack functions (such as cast magic or espionage) that do not steal from the defender, but provides resources for the attacker?  Think of it as beating up the enemy army, stealing their personal belongings, but not taking the war chest.  IMO, this would have many positive effects.  If the gains from these types of attacks were based on the enemy's possessions (ie, their castle level, qty land, etc), then it would encourage the player to 'attack up'.  Not that it would matter, but imo, its more fun to beat someone above you than below you.  And with multiple attack types, it is not mathematically possible to be the strongest in all of them, meaning even the top player will lose often.  Second, there are no losses for the defender, so there is no greif obtained from losing.  Finally, the economics of it all should be relatively easy to balance, especially since there is no resource transfer. 

I'm doing this in Lords of Midnight.  A playable alpha should be available in the next 1-2 weeks if you want to explore how it works.

[Chris]

Have you considered having attack functions (such as cast magic or espionage) that do not steal from the defender, but provides resources for the attacker?

Well... technicly this is identical to what I wrote above. Althrough, I was thinking of gaining non material stuff like reputation or influence, but getting resources from air should behave similar way...

Still, resources sound tricky to me... Above I used reputation as a limiter, but when there is no reputation involved then you can get any resources from anyone anytime? Plus, players will expect that resources are stolen nor generated, it WILL cause confusion.

If you are bored check GalacticImperator (link in my signature), I used half lose system there (two pools of money, one can be stolen and is difficult to use by the owner and one is secure and usable). It caused a HUGE confusion among players and was the most popular reason for quitting the game. I simply do not trust resources that are not stolen, it is impossible to explain to players no matter in how many places you explain it

[CygnusX]

good news is, I had already considered much of this  

Yes, you can implement a reputation/nobility/glory/honor/karma etc system into this.  In fact, I'd use this to make each type of attack more unique.  My system includes:

harassing - you get 1 of these turns per hour, steals gold based on # enemy units, can also gain nobility if you have the tech, no defender losses

embezzle - you get 1 of these turns per 4 hours, steals gold based on # enemy land, can also drop enemy moral if you have the tech, no defender losses

cast       -  you get 1 of these turns per 8 hours, steals gold based on size of enemy castle, is designed to steal the most gold/time req., no other bonuses, no defender losses

invading  - cost 1 turn of each, can actually steal users gold, take their land, and kill their units (some techs
required).  here, the defender loses stuff.  The defender gets some extra combat advantages, and the attacker loses nobility on a loss.

Through a little trial and error, you can find those who you can beat, and harp on them.  Through experience, you will learn when the different sub-attack types will net you the most profit.  In addition, Players will be relieved of major income losses through combat, which is a major negative experience in most BBGs.  Yet, there will still be an outlet to take from others should they so desire.  

Concerning GI, I think the main problem was combat.  It was very unintuitive.  I had no clue how to pick which unit to buy.  And if you're telling me in GI it was possible to attack and win, yet not gain resources... then i say this is a broken mechanic.  I'd like to hear how you thought this would be fun?  To me, it would be very obvious for the attacker that he didn't gain gold despite a well earned victory.  You might as well include a graphic here on the victory screen of a giant middle finger, because I'm sure that's how the player feels the game is treating him.  For the defender, only if the battle logs are checked would he realize that he avoided loss...  and to me, the frustration of the attacker is far far greater than any fun the defender might have.  This may have sounded like a cool, twisty mechanic in the design, but from a theory of fun approach, it just doesn't resonate  

[Chris]

And if you're telling me in GI it was possible to attack and win, yet not gain resources...

No, attacker would gain gold but the victim would not lose it. It was a bit more complex but generally just like your system.

"steals gold based on # enemy units" You see, that's what I mean by confusion. Even you have mistaken the word when describing your own system

If you earn gold from attack it is taken from the victim. That's how human's brain work. And no matter what we do we can't change this perception

negative interaction != bad, it is just a phrase. It can be fun. Also I wonder how can you say in the same post that negative interaction is bad and then implement the most brutal form of negative interaction like "can actually steal users gold, take their land, and kill their units" (the only more brutal would if the player was eliminated from the game) It's called split personality
In the end I don't understand if you want to make it without any loses or make it extremely heavy loses...


Another system I thought of was kind of "buffer" that divide economy and military. You have land that is used by your economy, it can be never lost. Each tick you get a bit of "frontier land", it can be stolen by other players. Each tick 10% of your frontier is converted to your land (I have a problem with naming here, land and frontier can be confused, not sure how to call these). So, you can never lose your already acquired economy producing assets, only potencial assets. No problem of razed infrastructure either. Still, we get almost full "excitement" of the traditional warfare, I think.

[CygnusX]

I see.  Its interesting to know players had a problem with not seeing enemy losses.....  or even seeing their own losses.  Hmm....

I have come to see a different viewpoint on negative effects in games.  Through a lot of reading, I decided that my mantra would be to fill my game with as many positive rewards as possible.  I'd then season it with a few, far less frequent, negative punishments.  It is my belief that negative reinforcement will cause behavior extinction (ie, players quitting) far faster than anything else.  Take too often from the player, fail to reward him, or restrict his capabilities, and he'll leave with no regrets.  But reward a player often, and only negatively reinforce on rare occasion (mostly for not participating), and you'll have a player that sticks around for a few years.  He'll also be many times more likely to share the game with his friends.

I had also spent some time consider a land system.  I like where you're headed with your thoughts on fringes.  Perhaps each player can generate 5 'explorers' per day.  Each explorer, if not killed, will find 1 acre of land each.  You could then have techs that generate additional explorers, etc.  A 'sub' game would then be to build forces that defend your explorers, and forces that hunt down other explorers to kill.  Killing another players explorers will earn you gold (ie, reward the attacker).  The defender would only lose the ability to gain land for that day.

[CygnusX]

Ok, I'm starting alpha testing, and I'm beginning to understand why loss-less combat systems don't work.  Not only are they not intuitive, but there is something about raping another player for his pile of cash that is just so damn satisfying : )  Pardon the language.

But it still sucks hard to log in and see your resources gone.  Especially when there is nothing you can do about it (we all have to sleep, and life sometimes calls).

So this idea just struck me.  What if I had loss forgiveness?  Ie, if you go to bed at night, and some guy nails you for 100k gold, perhaps the game would refund you for 50% of all gold lost within the past 8 hours the next time you log in?  This would keep the satisfaction level high for the attacker, and make the defender not feel quite so bad.   Thoughts?

[DV8]

How would you explain that forgiveness in the context of the game? What would be the reason that this gold is refunded?

[CygnusX]

There could be any number of explanations.  A temporary tax hike to make up for the losses.  Discovered bury treasure.  Good fortune.  Protection from the Gods.  Etc.  My main question is... will attackers feel satisfied taking another person's money knowing that person stands a chance to get a good portion of it back?  And will the defender be ok with losing a much smaller portion?  Perhaps I just need to try it... 

[Barrikor]

There could be any number of explanations.  A temporary tax hike to make up for the losses.  Discovered bury treasure.  Good fortune.  Protection from the Gods.  Etc.

or having Plundering & Pillaging Insurance  

[CygnusX]

This would make an excellent technology, yes?   

[Barrikor]

 

My main question is... will attackers feel satisfied taking another person's money knowing that person stands a chance to get a good portion of it back?  And will the defender be ok with losing a much smaller portion?  Perhaps I just need to try it...  

Depends, if they are at "war" with the other player they'll care how much damage they did, if they only need to care about strengthening themselves then not having the risk of losing everything at once would be a plus.

You'd need make sure there is no way for two people to let their guard down against each other and just steal gold back and forth making new gold though..

[Chris]

DV8, nice that you posted here on your own will. It's usually just me talking to myself on the game design subboard + some people I blackmailed to reply


I'm more and more inclined toward non material/abstract combat gains. Like influence, reputation, contracts, priority. You can shape these any way you desire and player will accept it easily. Plus it does not mess with the economy part of the game.

Like, each player get 1 contract per hour, you "attack" or to be more precise "initate competition" vs a player using your merchants. If you win you steal 1 contract, but only if you have no more than twice contracts than target. Each hour players get gold equal to number of contracts which can be later spend on various improvements. If the target share the same "industry type" than you you steal 2 contracts instead.

You can even do counterintuitve things, for example when you compete and win you steal 3 contracts from defender and get 2 additional contracts (from "bank"). If you lose the defender steals 1 your contract. Nothing odd here. Now try to rationalize this using traditional "steal resources" model: when you attack and win you steal 3 gold from defender and get 2 gold from thin air, but when you lose your army goes back to your city, take 1 gold and bring it back to give to the defender

[JGadrow]

One question... How do your users know that they even actually "stole" money from their competitor. If you just generate the resource (but don't deduct it from the loser)... are they actually privy to how many resources their competitor has?

It's all about communication I think. For example, you have 2 players: RTard and Uber1337. Both players have $150 in their banks. Your system is setup so that attackers receive 33% of the defender's resources but the source of this resource is generated, not a deduction from the defender's resources (I know, unbalanced but examples don't need to be balanced).

Example 1:
Uber1337 checks RTard's profile and sees, "RTard -> $150" so Uber1337 attacks RTard. Uber1337 wins and receives the message, "You stole $50 from RTard!" Uber1337 now has $200 and RTard has $150. Uber1337 checks RTard's profile and sees, "RTard -> $150" and says, "Hey! I just stole $50 from him! How does he still have $150?"

Example 2:
Uber1337 checks RTard's profile and sees, "RTard -> 0" so Uber1337 attacks RTard. Uber1337 wins and receives the message, "You stole $50 from RTard!" Uber1337 now has $200 and RTard has $150. Uber1337 checks RTard's profile and sees, "RTard -> -1" and says, "Sweet! I'm better than him now!"

In the second example, you're simply showing the user's resource rank relative to the current user. In the first check, both users are equal so their rank is 0. After the battle, Uber1337 now has more resources and is 1 rank higher than their enemy. But you can see that, though the end result is the same, it's the manner in which the information is conveyed to the end-user that actually matters.

Realistically, you don't really need to let users know anything about their enemy's economy... but in a case where they're "stealing" resources, it's probably helpful to them.

[Chris]

One question... How do your users know that they even actually "stole" money from their competitor. If you just generate the resource (but don't deduct it from the loser)... are they actually privy to how many resources their competitor has?

You don't play many games, do you?

A spearate page that holds "battle reports" from the last XX hours. Then you set a flag that the defending player was "robbed recently" and the notification pop up when the defender logins.

Some games use private massages and put these in "alerts box" instead.

[JGadrow]

You don't play many games, do you?

Nope... too busy for much aside from working. I've even been absent from this site for quite a while now! lol

A spearate page that holds "battle reports" from the last XX hours. Then you set a flag that the defending player was "robbed recently" and the notification pop up when the defender logins.

Some games use private massages and put these in "alerts box" instead.

All that being said... there's nothing saying that a player needs to know the exact quantity of a different user's resouces. If you review my examples above... there's two situations. In both cases, the output given to the user is the same - telling them they "stole" the resouces - but the user is unable to actually cry foul because they didn't really "steal" the resources.

Basically, there's a way to have a lossless system without creating player confusion / outcry. It's all about the way you convey information to players.

[Chris]

Basically, there's a way to have a lossless system without creating player confusion / outcry. It's all about the way you convey information to players.

My headache is gone, so now I understood what you meant previously

I dislike all kinds of "fooling" the player. Relative display of resources so players get a certain feeling... Come on, players are not that stupid. If you say "steal" and the resource is not disappearing from the target is it a lie. And they will point that out in their internal manuals for their clan members. They want to know, "have I damaged the enemy by my attack or not"? If you ever run any game clan, this is a crucial question, you have to know it and all your members have to know it. You have to coordinate clan offensives and have to understand the system PERFECTLY to let our clan win. There is no other way. All masking and feelings and fooling is futile, we, the players, will know it, and the smarter of us will explain it properly to our lesser minded mates who fight along us.

As a former founder of a clan I find such ideas outrageous (as a designer I find them acceptable ).

[Harkins]

One question... How do your users know that they even actually "stole" money from their competitor. If you just generate the resource (but don't deduct it from the loser)... are they actually privy to how many resources their competitor has?

It's all about communication I think. For example, you have 2 players: RTard and Uber1337. Both players have $150 in their banks. Your system is setup so that attackers receive 33% of the defender's resources but the source of this resource is generated, not a deduction from the defender's resources (I know, unbalanced but examples don't need to be balanced).

Hey, we just had a conversation about that in the chat room last week. I've been kicking around an idea for a caravan trading game after looking at Fleeting Fantasy but I don't like the idea of players getting preyed on. So I suggested recording that a raid happened while the player was (or even bother players were) offline. I don't want players to log on to see "here, read the log of this fun that you didn't get to have", I want them to play things. When the players come online, they each play some kind of mini-game to determine whether they see success or failure. The raider is playing to try to win resources, the caravan is trying not to lose time - but no matter the outcome, the caravan continues to carry its goods. Chris Jenkinson spotted the problem with the idea: it directly causes inflation by creating new goods. I think it's probably not a fatal problem, just one that needs to be watched closely.

[JGadrow]

I dislike all kinds of "fooling" the player.

Do-gooder!

Relative display of resources so players get a certain feeling... Come on, players are not that stupid.

Sure they are! At first, at least. And, those are the ones you really need to care about how things are conveyed to them. If someone has played your game long enough to figure out, "Hey! I was hoodwinked!" then kudos to them and you can pat them on the back and tell them how smart they are for figuring it out. But it's likely they're not going to get to this point without already becoming involved in your game... which is the whole friggin' point isn't it? Not scaring off all your players before they really even form an opinion on whether or not they like the game?

When the players come online, they each play some kind of mini-game to determine whether they see success or failure. The raider is playing to try to win resources, the caravan is trying not to lose time - but no matter the outcome, the caravan continues to carry its goods.

That's a nifty idea! I like it!

Chris Jenkinson spotted the problem with the idea: it directly causes inflation by creating new goods. I think it's probably not a fatal problem, just one that needs to be watched closely.

There's no real inflation... This is one of the rather stupid concepts that I think WoW introduced (and it's proven NOT true even in WoW!): economy. Everyone's like, "Whoa! A cap on the total amount of gold! Cool! That means static prices!" No, no it doesn't. The value of your resources is, and always has been, completely up to the individual players. A new expansion hit WoW and did the prices of the low-level goods stay the same? No, they went up. Why? More players were playing low-level characters again, which means an increased demand and a low supply. And prices for high-level stuff are just INSANE because higher level characters are just saturated with gold. So why should they sell you 5 pieces of ore for a reasonable price? If you need it, you'll buy it eventually at 100g per ore.

Nobody really cares how much gold is behind the scenes (it's not like they're counting to make sure) what they end up caring about is how much is in their pocket and how much they can dump on stuff they find useful. Create enough "gold sinks" and the inflation will be negated.

[Chris]

Fleeting Fantasy but I don't like the idea of players getting preyed on. So I suggested recording that a raid happened while the player was (or even bother players were) offline.

Why do you want raiders in the first place then?

[DV8]

DV8, nice that you posted here on your own will. It's usually just me talking to myself on the game design subboard + some people I blackmailed to reply

Oh, I'm paying attention to everything that's being said, but I often feel a little too out of my league to reply.

I'm more and more inclined toward non material/abstract combat gains. Like influence, reputation, contracts, priority. You can shape these any way you desire and player will accept it easily. Plus it does not mess with the economy part of the game.

One of the goals in my game is to band in crews (guilds) and obtain different assets throughout the city, like restaurants, bars, nightclubs, gambling dens, etc. These generate money for your crew. You have to defend them against other crews. If you have a certain percentage of assets in a district, it unlocks new contacts that offer you gear and missions. Not quite what you guys were discussing, but enough similarities to keep it interesting for me.

[chrisjenkinson]

There's no real inflation... This is one of the rather stupid concepts that I think WoW introduced (and it's proven NOT true even in WoW!): economy. Everyone's like, "Whoa! A cap on the total amount of gold! Cool! That means static prices!" No, no it doesn't. The value of your resources is, and always has been, completely up to the individual players. A new expansion hit WoW and did the prices of the low-level goods stay the same? No, they went up. Why? More players were playing low-level characters again, which means an increased demand and a low supply. And prices for high-level stuff are just INSANE because higher level characters are just saturated with gold. So why should they sell you 5 pieces of ore for a reasonable price? If you need it, you'll buy it eventually at 100g per ore.

Inflation is when the purchasing power of gold decreases. You are attacking a straw man, in a way, as I did not state that a cap on gold is the silver bullet to deal with inflation. I said that inserting extra resources into the game economy will cause their value to decrease, if there is a market-based economy in the game. You post is a bit confusing as you say you are arguing against inflation existing (which it will do at the macroeconomic level) but you are instead talking about microeconomic fluctuations in prices.

[JGadrow]

Inflation is when the purchasing power of gold decreases. You are attacking a straw man, in a way, as I did not state that a cap on gold is the silver bullet to deal with inflation. I said that inserting extra resources into the game economy will cause their value to decrease, if there is a market-based economy in the game. You post is a bit confusing as you say you are arguing against inflation existing (which it will do at the macroeconomic level) but you are instead talking about microeconomic fluctuations in prices.

Yeah, I kinda went off on a tangent which has the problem of losing coherence... The original point, which was lost, was: Don't try, as a designer, and create an economy... the players will naturally do that on their own.

However, you can't "insert extra resources" if the resource is infinite. Which, honestly, most players will believe the resource infinite even if you do have a finite cap on it. Again, it's not like they're counting. All they care about is how much everyone seems to have and how much is in their wallet / bank / etc.. What you can do is keep tabs on this stuff and if you feel something is devalued, make changes to increase the attractiveness of that object / resources / etc.. Don't let thoughts like, "Oh noes! The economy will tank!" prevent you from making a change that will benefit the game. The economy is imaginary.