Chade on 21/7/2010 at 03:04
Quote Posted by Papy
Again, can you define what is an adaptive difficulty system for you in very specific terms? Because we obviously are not talking about the same thing.
A simple definition is always the best one. Any mechanic which adapts the difficulty of the game when to the player performs poorly, or well, or both.
Taken by itself, this is a very broad definition, and it is hard to think of a game with no adaptive difficulty features at all. Any game where the player must overcome obstacles to increase the difficulty has some adaptive difficulty. Any game where the player has a cap on the amount of resources he can stockpile has some adaptive difficulty. Any "area-of-effect" weapon is more likely to hit several monsters at once as the number of monsters surrounding the player increases.
Of course, there are many other distinctions you might like to make. How is the performance of the player monitored? How is the difficulty affected? How is the reward system affected? Does the mechanic have a fictional representation, or not? Etc ...
Speaking of ammo cap, it should be obvious that the amount of ammo the player can pick up throughout the game is amount_of_ammo_in_game * fraction_of_time_spent_without_full_ammo. The amount of ammo the player can pick up decreases as the amount of time he spends with full ammo increases. Adaptive difficulty. Interestingly, players often spend more ammo then they have to in order to artificially increase the amount of ammo they are given, but because there is a good fictional explanation for the mechanic, it is just "gameplay" rather then "cheating".
Quote Posted by Papy
No, it's not. With the "linear progression", if the player is not good enough, he will never be able to do the more difficult races. With "adaptive difficulty", the game will lower the overall difficulty to make sure the player will be able to participate in those "more difficult" races ... But, from my point of view, you fail to understand what a "reward" is, and so you fail to see why a system which adapt to the player well enough to eliminate the need of an "easy, medium, hard" system, also make a lot of those possible rewards lose their value.
You keep assuming that the adaptive difficulty system does not affect the rewards the player is given. This may be the case, but it doesn't have to be.
polytourist97 on 21/7/2010 at 11:15
Quote Posted by Chade
A simple definition is always the best one...
How about this for a simple definition: any game which punishes players for playing more effectively, and rewards players for playing more poorly, has adaptive difficulty.
That is essentially what adaptive difficulty boils down to.
And any so-called "better algorithm" or improved approach to adaptive difficulty can't change the fact that there is no way a game will EVER be able to determine exactly how I'm responding to its content. When I overcome a challenge presented within a game, I want it to be due to my own efforts and ability, not the game allowing me to do so.
Thirith on 21/7/2010 at 11:51
Quote Posted by polytourist97
How about this for a simple definition: any game which punishes players for playing more effectively, and rewards players for playing more poorly, has adaptive difficulty.
That is essentially what adaptive difficulty boils down to.
Except there's an extremely silly presupposition at its basis: easier game=reward, more difficult game=punishment. Which you then go and contradict with your following paragraph. Your simple definition doesn't even work for your argument.
polytourist97 on 22/7/2010 at 10:08
Except that I'm not saying that an easier game is a more rewarding experience, but that with adaptive difficulty in place, a game literally rewards crappy play by giving more resources/allowing a player to be more successful.
Matthew on 22/7/2010 at 10:39
God forbid that people who aren't as good at games get to experience the whole thing, after all.
Thirith on 22/7/2010 at 11:14
@polytourist97: I don't think I'll ever understand why it matters to some people whether others finished the game with more or less of a challenge. As long as you can play the game at the difficulty that you enjoy, who gives a flying fuck whether Joe Bloggs had an easier game, used cheat code etc. etc.? Unless you're talking some form of competitive gameplay, but then there are lots of ways to address that issue.
Koki on 22/7/2010 at 12:01
So you don't plan on playing Thief 4 yourself?
Thirith on 22/7/2010 at 12:28
Who's the question for? And how does it relate? Right now it seems like a bit of a non sequitur.
DDL on 22/7/2010 at 12:49
The view that "crappy play is rewarded" is looking at things the wrong way.
This is not the idea of adaptive difficulty, though the impression is certainly perceivable as a glass half empty/half full situation...the idea is not to
reward crappy play, it's to
punish crappy play LESS. Rather than regular mistakes resulting in constant FAIL, DEATH, it should result in a game where regular mistakes leave you badly off, wishing you hadn't made mistakes, aware that you had made mistakes, but STILL IN THE GAME.
The intention is to create a beatable
challenge regardless of your relative skill. The intention is
still to present a challenge no matter how crap you are.
Yes, I guess that any implementation would be 'gamable', if you're honestly prepared to deliberately get killed repeatedly just so you can stop paying any attention for a while, but fuck's sake: that's one of the stupidest misuses of a game I've ever heard.
If we come back to that badminton example..*searches*
Quote:
When I play badminton against someone who has no chance of winning, I will play easy with him. I won't smash. My clears won't be as far and my drop shots not as near the net. The idea is to make sure my opponent can touch the shuttlecock once in a while. But you know what? this is not playing, this is training. It is still somewhat fun, but not near as fun as if it was a real game.
The problem here is that in this example you're assuming you're the player. You're not.
You're the adaptive difficulty. And note: you adapted your play down to your opponent. You could have simply smashed the shit out of them and said "LOL SELECT E-Z MODE NEXT TIME NOOB", but you didn't, because that wouldn't've been any fun for them.
They were playing the game. You were providing a level of difficulty appropriate for them to enjoy the experience while not being hopelessly beaten. Adaptive difficulty works, see?
Yes, it wasn't as much fun for you, but as noted, you're not the 'player' here. If we took you as the player in that example, it would be analogous of you playing a game with a maximum difficulty setting that is vastly below your skill level. You'd breeze through if you actually tried to play at your ability level, and view it merely as training if you tried to play down to the difficulty. In this situation, wouldn't it be nice if your opponent could suddenly get more skilled, so that you were actually presented with a challenge? It's dynamic difficulty again.
Koki on 22/7/2010 at 13:52
Quote Posted by Thirith
Who's the question for?
You, since you apparently don't realize you'll be playing same game as Joe Bloggs. His unchallenging game is your unchallenging game.
