Designing game systems #1 Emergent Gameplay

Simple form notes;

1. Break down info into easier to consume forms

2. Work the player up to more difficult stuff outside of training mode/ facing off against an AI

3. Have systems set in place to encourage the player to learn

4. Stop over relying on outside sources to teach players

5. Have alternatives to relying on players to make the game fun besides players unless you're ready to police player behavior more often than not.

6. Over relying on players to make fun will create a culture tribe where doing things such as playing outside meta being not allowed, not following in cultural norms such as bottom lane and support fighting and instead being positive with one another will be sneered at.

6.1. also to note; your MMO will die if players think the game is dying, as thus leave.

7. Game designers looking at the survivor bias of Emergent Gameplay that did survive versus looking at the ones that didn't.

Long form notes; 

Video and time stamp that made me realize this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwwgJixA98M

Time stamp 22:49

Thank you to Nerd Slayer Studio for helping me put an actual name to this.

Player made fun is where the given system has tools for the player to make the game fun for one another.

This system over relies and centralizes the game mechanics around players; note, these type of games such as Mobas like Dota 2 and League of Legends, you end up with very toxic/ angry communities. Just to note; when gathering data on Reddit for understanding what people wanted/ were getting upset about during matches is where I got the most down votes, not stating my opinion as fact, that got little to no down votes, asking people poll questions in a neutral manner got me down voted.

The problem with player created fun is that you rely on the psychology of the players not to be toxic/ angry with them having an affect on the game in a negative way and with said negative behavior being rewarded, you're more likely to see a game loop where the player starts becoming more aggressive for little to no reason. Where players will put each other down/ fight instead of work together where a loss can spiral out of control.

However on the other side; meeting nice people/ fun to play with people does spiral the other way and does create an enjoyable time, I've been a negative Nancy during matches because I'm 11 deaths and 0 kills; however my team doesn't care while I'm salty about my failure to do anything of value even supporting wise but my team gives me medals/ said I played well. I've mostly experienced negative to neutral reactions and playing match after match for a long time does start to break you down mentally and that negativity or positive behaviors can start to have an effect on the other players.

Some of the time the bullying is the rest of your team against you. Other times you have players who tell you to shut up, stop playing and to sit there and do nothing.

Why am I bringing up personal experiences? This is because they're examples of the affect of player made fun. The more you rely on players to make the fun and the longer the match, the more of a gamble this is going to be.

At the same time there is no wiggle room for your role unlike something like TF2. Now what separates a games that have player made fun at the front and center because can't all games have player made fun? Yes and no; an example, any game you don't have to over rely on a team and or another player really.

Why does this matter? This matters because you have to police player behavior, the more you rely on other players to make the game fun. Some players (such as myself) don't get tilted as much as we start to play worse the more my own teammates fight with me/ make fun of me and sure there is muting but ignoring them only starts to make them throw the game as well. Often times this only encourages the player to bully you if they're doing good and to bully you in a different way with a different response if you're doing better with something akin to, "that doesn't matter anyway" for the whole bullying aspect.

That bullying your own team often causes said players to start to bully other players, myself included for said behavior issues after dealing with so many players picking fights with me. In turn; you have it where you lose the fact of having fun with the game and are more likely to leave said game.

This also means you have a skill wall, you have it where players are less likely to get good at said game and are also more likely to quit when you have to not only deal with being bad at the game but also your teammates verbally abusing you. You might say, "oh you're just being a cry baby" last time I checked; 99.99% of the time that's said, said person is a hypocrite.

Sport etiquette exist for a reason; otherwise we'd be having sport players brawling on the field if etiquette didn't matter. However with video games it's not the same thing; if you start actively harming your own team/ harming your own team, a coach steps in right away. However with video games you don't have said system, you have to wait who knows how long until any kind of person steps in.

The reason why player made fun works for sports where bad behavior is punished right away works is because no one wants to be kicked off the team for the given sport.

Now as much as I dunk on player made fun; there were moments of fun I had where an ally helped me push, I was able to break through enemy defenses or the bottom lane told me to recall and to gear up. I loved those moments because my teammate was being a bro, not a jerk; however, human psychology has shown that negative moments affect us more than positive moments and I don't recall many moments like that.

If you did not play on meta and were a noob; people would dunk on you.

Another issue of player made fun; players wanted you to do homework outside of the game to learn how to play the game/ current meta, if you didn't; you were socially ostracized for not putting the same level of commitment from most players even though you're not in rank. That again because the fun was player made and this issue brought up on Reddit, it's not fun for the pro/ experienced players to deal with noobs even if it meant having to wait longer. People on teams want to win, they don't want to deal with less experienced teammates. As thus; you ended up having players who hated/ couldn't enjoy the game knowing their allies were noobs.

All around no one was happy; my best moments were playing with noobs versus playing with more experienced players because the more experienced players got upset more often/ would hound me.

I know these design notes look like a rant but they're the best way to describe an issue I see in these kind of games.

Fighting games

Oh you thought I was going to leave this out! No, no! Were going to talk about this!

Fighting game fans will lie to you/ shame you if you don't play them. They often have bleeding player bases until another game comes out because the problem is you have it where a few very good players dominate the game so much and so hard that you can't find anyone to face that's around your skill level.

You don't know if it's a you issue or the player just being that much better; you have a mountain of info to learn/ info you have to learn off of the game, "oh but you don't need to know this" you're under a blind assumption that you and the other player has the same level of knowledge.

Smash Ultimate (a fighting game a lot of hardcore fighting game fans dunk on) is popular because 1, it is insanely fun facing players or not and 2, even when facing other players you really don't need a huge wall of info to know in order to have fun. That knowledge barrier isn't there like with traditional fighting games. Don't get me wrong, I love fighting games but they're designed in such a way that if you're new to the genre and enter into the game genre too late for the given IP or pray to god you don't get too many legendary players back to back because of a lack of a match making system that you have it where you can't learn from your mistakes.

    A major problem with fighting games is the lack of being able to learn from your mistakes with players telling you to look over your matches/ look at them to understand why you lost, the problem is you don't know what you're looking for. That having hired someone to teach me fighting games, yes that's an actual thing and no it's not worth the money you spend. They find/ point out mistakes you never would've seen! You are given no real useful feedback of info until someone points it out to you and this is just for casual play! For rank don't even get me started!

    I went out of my way to learn Ken's frame data because I was facing Ken a lot and the game became boring; why? It's because at that point, you learn a lot of his weaknesses/ when to punish then. You have knowledge over on the other rookie player and in turn; winning only because you know more, the victory in my eyes becomes hollow and has it where the win isn't fun because how can my opponent counter when I know all of their weak spots?

    The knowledge level difference ends up making or breaking matches, not the level of play (when at low level of course) as thus the strat becomes to study the game like it's homework even though as the hardcores say, "it's not required" just because it's not required doesn't mean the game doesn't reward you for doing so. This kind of player made fun of having a competitor works mostly when both players are at similar knowledge levels and similar skill levels, otherwise the matches become one sided and become a steam roll or you getting steam rolled.

    This kind of set up for player made fun assumes you want to lose 100 matches in a row not learning a thing until you hire someone to help you figure out the actual issues. For Fighter Z I had to have someone hold my hand and walk me through the more advance mechanics and one player had to send me a link to a website with a wall of text for learning how to do the more advance stuff so I stop getting steam rolled due to the knowledge wall being so high and because the devs were too lazy to put said info in the game.

    Are you starting to see a design pattern issue with these kind of games? Often times because the fun is player made, you have it where the tuts and or videos on said game are player made with players having to explain more and more mechanics until you're doing more reading than playing the game.

    If you were to ask players what they would rather do; A. boot up a match of Halo Reach and play a couple rounds or B. do homework for the next six hours? Which one do you think players will choose?

    Now; to give one fighting game credit being the Blaze Blue series, they make fun, non player made tuts to help players out so they're not having to read a wall of text on how to play the game and or having to have another player hold their hand or pay another player to coach them at fighting games.

Souls series PvP

    Souls PvP is the best kind of game to point out for fixing this kind of issue, kind of; you slowly learn all of the fighting/ combat info over time, you learn at your own pace, you have it where you understand what you're doing wrong because you have enemies that test your knowledge/ encourage you to learn more. The souls games I've learned so many game mechanics with the game series spoon feeding me mechanics and not all at once dumping a wall of text or having players outside of the game to teach me/ hold my hand.

    If fighting games had a mode where you went around fighting an AI that rewarded you/ challenged you on certain info to learn then I would say that'd be a more natural way of teaching players important game mechanics to explore and encourages players to understand those mechanics along with taking their time until they finally want to face real players, and no I don't mean a fighting AI like Street Fighter V where you're facing off against LV1 through LV9 AI, I am talking about having the player face off against simple enemies and to work their way up towards more knowledge/ more complex enemies to get a grasp of certain ideas and concepts.

    I know I praise the souls series a lot but no really they do teach an iceberg/ a lot of game mechanics slowly over time without wall of text dumping you.

Type of players

You have four player types; achievers, socializers, killers and explorers. These kinds of games to over rely on the players making the fun often are games that focus on appealing to killers and socializers with some balance between the two.

MMOs

MMOs over rely on players making the fun such as forcing people to work together in a party; often times these kind of games you have it where players don't want to be in a dead game because well... no one to really show off your cool loot too, no one to really socialize and share the experience with! As thus; it causes a game to die and stop being supported with the servers shutting down, with over relying on players making the fun is the fact players will look to other players seeing them leave and even if it's only a small chunk, if enough players notice then they're more likely to jump ship.

This said issue can be solved with a simple, design a game so fun that it's design doesn't rely on others to make the game fun which sounds insane I know but if a game can stand on it's own two legs to be fun instead you can still salvage an experience for the players.