Theory of Fun and Related Problems with BBGs

[CygnusX]

I read recently that "Fun" comes from the act of solving, or attempting to solve, a difficult but possible problem.  Graphics, while very pleasing, are not "Fun".  Failing to solve a problem (aka, losing a game), while unpleasant, does not make the process "boring" (aka, un-fun).  After reading the article (found at gameasutra), I found myself agreeing with many of the author's points.

Examples:
Tic-tac-toe has the problem of obtaining 3 symbols in a row, with an opponent that tries to either block your attempt or get the pattern first.  The number of combinations/permutations of the possible moves are limited, but very vast.  The problem is challenging, yet ideas involving the solution can be conceived by children.

Football (American or Euro) has the problem of trying to outscore your opponent.  You desire to move a ball in one direction, while your opponent desires to move it in another.  The problem is full of challenge, has many different combinations/permutations of possible moves, yet ideas involving the solution can be conceived by childern.

Starcraft/Civilization has the problem of trying to defeat your enemies base.  You desire to destroy it, while they desire to destroy yours.  You compete for resources, have different maps, and many combinations of strategies.  And again, ideas involving the solution can be conceived by childern.

The idea here is that the notion of Fun can be created by giving a player a goal, a set of rules, an opponent that can quasi-adapt to your strategy, and many non-random-outcome combinations/permutations of moves/choices/solutions.

To me, this sounds easy, but BBG's struggle in 2 out of the 4 necessary elements.  Specifically, an opponent that can adapt to your strategy and a vast combination of choices/moves/solutions.  In many bbg games I've played, PvP is the primary theme, and the rules allow you to attack anyone at any time.  This is a concern because it is impossible (which results in boring) to customize your defense against such a wide variety of players.  The best you can hope for in this situation is for combat to work off raw power, and for you to have the highest raw power.  But, this leads to the second problem.  BBG games struggle to offer a wide variety of permutations of choices.   Now, let me state that last sentence in a different manor.  Even if a BBG game has a million things to buy, chances are, I can buy on my next turn what I was not able to buy on my current turn.  And although there are a million choices, in reality, the order I choose these things does not matter much, the choice is always available, and I will eventually obtain the thing being offered.  At the end of the day, with all things equal, the person with the most time ends up winning the game.  And because having more time is not always possible, boredom ensues.

So how, as designers, do we defeat this?  I will give my solution, then I wish others to weigh in.

For my application, I think gains from combat need to be minimal compared to everything else.  By reducing PvP battle gains, the choice a player makes in what to buy becomes more important than gains through combat.  In addition, not all presented choices need to be forever present.  Its one thing for a player to have the day-in routine of buying walls, forges and mines.  But perhaps an NPC traveling salesman will be in town only today, and has some magic beans to sell.  If you don't buy today, you'll lose the opportunity forever.  Or perhaps two neighbor nations are at war with each other, and you can only make a treaty with one.  This not only has a good "fun" dynamic, but also lends itself to replayability.

[Nox]

Cool, I totally agree, the number of combinations - iirc called "game space" by Sirlin - is an important thing. If you manage to make the array of combinations very huge then player will experience different situations each time, making it interesting.

Though I disagree that battle is by default bad -> bad is everything that can be boring. If you manage to make battle open for choices and excting why not? Also depends what kind of game you have... whether you focus more on economy and diplomations or fight and building etc. That can be done for example by interactive combat or making combat not instantenious but spread over a longer time.

Also depending on the game and target audience the game does not have to necessarily lack randomness, some measure of rand() can increase fun too since player results are never exactly known, there's always excited expectation - of course in case of building competitive hardcore game you would make a decision not to include this. I would also not that random event != random outcome of game - the more attempts are performed, the more events converge to their certain set point (meaning throwing a coin might mean 50% chance to lose totally, but in a long run it's gonna be a draw 50:50)

[pixlepix]

Think that a map can settle the"cant customize your defense" And gives you a goal(beat the player next to you)

[Nox]

However without map you can meet hundreds of players in the game, without it only a few, this gets static for you + issue of too strong/weak neighbors ... unless there are solutions I am not aware of

[CygnusX]

I think combat is a good system.  I wasn't trying to downplay the importance of it.  Making that critical decision of who to attack and seeing the profit is a major part of the whole 'fun' experience.  Rather, my goal was to point out some obstacles bbg combat design faces.  Namely, common combat design makes it impossible to adapt your strategy against everyone in the game when there is a large player base.  If we recognize this impossibility, and know it leads to boredom because there are no competing solutions, then we can implement strategies to fix it.

Chris has some pretty cleaver solutions to this in Lords.  For example, a popular strategy is a low early-score technique.  With this, you find upgrades to your power that don't raise your score, allowing you to attack and win against players with a 'higher score' than you.  This separates players into low score and high score groups.  The high score group tries to stay there through attacking other high score members whereas the low score players can attack pretty much anyone (they do not have to worry about penalties of attacking down).  It makes for a really great dynamic between players trying to figure out the best strategy for victory.

As for random chance, small random chance is good.  What is not good is the paper-rock-scissors approach where, no matter the strategy, the outcome is always random.  This is what I want to avoid as there is no logical way to adapt to your opponents strategies in this game.  

[Chris]

I disagree with almost everything written above

Fun comes not only and not primarily from solving difficult puzzles. It's much more broad.
- When we gather with friends and cakes and sit on comfortable sofa to play boardgames we also have fun when playing mindless games (like who throws a bigger number on a six sided die).
- All sport (like football) is about intercepting the ball and kicking in in the right direction screaming loudly to intimidate your opponent (it is utterly and completely crazy idea for me that you could "think" or try to "outsmart" the opponent).
- Surveys from my game shows that the most fun features for players is sending private messages and ergonomical interface elements placement.
- Tic-tac-toe is not fun at all, it is boring

[CygnusX]

- When we gather with friends and cakes and sit on comfortable sofa to play boardgames we also have fun when playing mindless games (like who throws a bigger number on a six sided die).

People do not line outside my door every night to roll a six sided dice.  In fact, I have never had a dice rolling contest in my house.  Although, I have played risk.  Now, for the times when I had a constant stream of people over was during halo 1's prime years.  We'd set up xbconnect and go wild for hours on end, trying to defeat other teams across the internet.  There was a challenge, and coming together as friends to defeat that challenge was even more "fun" than doing it alone.  So yes, I can understand why people want more communication in lords.  The social aspect of defeating a hard problem is even more rewarding than the solo experience.  This does not defeat my argument.

- All sport (like football) is about intercepting the ball and kicking in in the right direction screaming loudly to intimidate your opponent (it is utterly and completely crazy idea for me that you could "think" or try to "outsmart" the opponent).

Even in soccer, which I know you have to be familiar with, there are formations, plays, etc.  You can play the feet, or play the space.  You can move men forward, or move them back.  You also have to time your line changes.  Take all the Olympic athletes you want, and put them against a decent euro soccer club, and the soccer club will win every time.  Its about experience, knowing where to place the ball, when to place it, who to place it to, and where to be at every instance.  That is not running around screaming, its outsmarting/outplaying.  And again, my argument still holds.  Because if the Olympic athletes had a re-match, I can promise they'd "re-think they're strategy" before going at it again.

[Chris]

- All sport (like football) is about intercepting the ball and kicking in in the right direction screaming loudly to intimidate your opponent (it is utterly and completely crazy idea for me that you could "think" or try to "outsmart" the opponent).

Even in soccer, which I know you have to be familiar with, there are formations, plays, etc.  You can play the feet, or play the space.  You can move men forward, or move them back.  You also have to time your line changes.  Take all the Olympic athletes you want, and put them against a decent euro soccer club, and the soccer club will win every time.  Its about experience, knowing where to place the ball, when to place it, who to place it to, and where to be at every instance.  That is not running around screaming, its outsmarting/outplaying.  And again, my argument still holds.  Because if the Olympic athletes had a re-match, I can promise they'd "re-think they're strategy" before going at it again.

Olympic athletes do not do it for fun, they do it because it is their job. They rarely care if it is fun or not. Don't tell me you play with your friends real non computer football and have fun from outsmarting them instead than from the blood running through your veins? If yes then your are a lost case to the humanity

Another example, maybe more obvious. Hanging out with females is fun, right? And it has nothing to do with outsmarting anyone or solving hard puzzles

Or interface. Like Dune 2 which was the first RTS had no unit grouping, no moving unit via right mouse click (you had to select move command from a menu and then select destination). It had superior mood and gameplay and brains than Starcraft, but was it more fun? Unlikely, the interface was taking away a huge part of the fun.

[CygnusX]

Olympic athletes do not do it for fun, they do it because it is their job. They rarely care if it is fun or not. Don't tell me you play with your friends real non computer football and have fun from outsmarting them instead than from the blood running through your veins? If yes then your are a lost case to the humanity

Perhaps there is just a difference here from America to Euro.  My sister-in-law is training for the Olympics.  She gets up every morning at 4:30 to head to a pool to swim.  The training is not fun.  But you should listen to her talk about winning a meet.  She is 10x more enthused about winning than I have ever been at completing a task at work.  In her case, superior training and/or natural talent is what lead to her victory.  In many ways, she found a solution to a difficult problem, and the outcome was "fun" / enjoyable / whatever.

In contrast, my most enjoyable/fun moments at work come from finding solutions to extremely difficult problems.  When a customer comes in at 3:00 and tells me the entire central energy plant has shut down their campus of buildings, its exciting for me. They call me for my help, and its very enjoyable to work through the issues with everyone.

Another example, maybe more obvious. Hanging out with females is fun, right? And it has nothing to do with outsmarting anyone or solving hard puzzles

Well, some girls are more fun to hang out with than others    But if girls are so fun, then why do so many men cheat on their wives?  And why do women leave perfectly nice/honest/good men to be with 'bad boys'.  The answer many people have given is because they desire challenge in their relationship.  If you rate yourself a 6... and you're dating a girl that is a 6... by your theory, you should be happy.  But in many instances, guys will break up with the girl they're with to go after an 8.  Why?  Because the 8 offers many things the 6 cannot.  The biggest of which is a sense of pride knowing you 'got' someone out of your league.  This is fun.  You've solved a difficult social challenge.  And many movies are made about this.

Or interface. Like Dune 2 which was the first RTS had no unit grouping, no moving unit via right mouse click (you had to select move command from a menu and then select destination). It had superior mood and gameplay and brains than Starcraft, but was it more fun? Unlikely, the interface was taking away a huge part of the fun.

Interface is a big deal.  One of the underlying principals I've stated is that the solution must be possible.  With a difficult interface, the solution for a good tactics in a game like Rune becomes many times harder to implement.  This frustrates players in a bad way.  On the other hand, you can have the most beautiful interface in the world. But if the game behind it sucks, then I see very little chance of it succeeding. 

The games that tend to break this theory a little are maplestory, mafia wars and farmville.  These games seem to get their sense of difficulty from their time requirements and not from the mechanics of the game.  To me, this is very poor design.... yet these games have done extremely well.