What is Skill
Defines something that can be measured, like who can run faster or throw a ball further. This can be influenced by attributes that directly affect it, like who is taller. Things that are considered skilful change over time, in sports techniques that will be considered skilful at one point will likely transition to being expected in the future which will result in a rise of the potential skill level within one discipline. It is also possible that a person who is considered skilful at one point will be seen as average in the future either because the overall skill potential has increased or the person has become worse at this discipline.
- Generally describes a form of measurement
- Will return a value that will be absolute but narrow
- Can change over time
What is Luck
Luck defines a situation in which skill is not the reason for an outcome. This could be because the skill level of the participants is not high enough to make a contest skill-based, an example of this would be to let two toddlers that just learned how to grab something play chess against each other. Other situations that are defined by luck would be if the participants themselves do not have control over the object that defines the outcome like in roulette.
- Describes the absence of Skill
- Lack of knowledge or dexterity
- Non-determinable outcome
Luck vs Skill
The common question that Game Design deals with is how luck and skill function in relation to each other.
Does increasing luck-based elements in your project reduce the skill level required to play the game? Does increasing skill-based elements in your project give the players more control over luck?
Example: In a fighting game tournament after every match, a die is cast. If the dice lands on a 6 the loser are considered the winner. This does add a major luck element to the game, but on average the winning players will stay the same since all the skill-based components for winning the game still exist and it is preferable to win. So adding this luck-based component has not changed the skill required at all. What has happened instead is that skill is now harder to measure since it would require more games to figure out who is the best player. So by adding luck-based elements, the skill required has not changed, but the game now also requires more luck. This will hold true until one side makes the other completely irrelevant, so if instead of a dice a coin would be used to decide the outcome of the match, so we’re expecting a 50/50 outcome the skill-based outcome of the match would no longer matter.
Loss Aversion
This explains a phenomenon in which people frequently act against their best interests because the bad emotional impact of losing is higher than the good emotional impact of winning.
Street bet: Coin toss for 10$
- Most people won‘t take the bet unless they could win double what they could lose
- The emotional impact of losing is higher than the impact of winning
Lottery or Casino:
- Numerous people make this bet all the time
- People tend to be bad at really small and large numbers (numbers not usually dealt with)
- 1.000.000 feels like more money than you would ever need
- 0.000001% feels like 1%
Regret
This describes a similar situation to loss aversion in which people make choices based on the emotional impact of being wrong.
Switching:
- The user is asked to switch a previously made choice
- Switching to a wrong choice from a right one feels worse than being wrong in the first place
- Even under the promise of a higher gain for switching users don‘t like to do it
- The reward must be at least 5x higher for a majority of users to switch
Choice paralysis:
- Making a choice from many options increases the worry of being wrong
- Often leads to not making a choice at all
- If you want the user to make a choice present less than 3 at once
Competence:
- It is easier to make a choice if the user assumes to be informed about it
- This depends on the knowledge of the user compared to the presumed existing knowledge
Types of Randomness
Random elements can be presented at different moments and places to give users a different feeling about how they can act on something.
Input Randomness:
- The game state is random, but acting on it has a fixed result
- Feels: Strategic; Skillful; Player controlled
- Example: Magic the Gathering –> drawing cards is random, but using them is not
Output Randomness:
- The game state is fixed, but acting on it has a random result
- Feels: Tactical; Random; Game controlled
- Example: Roulett –> All elements are set at the start, but the ball ends in a random place
Correlation
What the current state of something tells you about the next events.
White Noise:
- Results are unrelated to the current state
- Example: Roulett –> The results of the last game have no effect on the current
Brown Noise:
- Results are similar to the current state but random in the long run
- Example: Chess –> The places the pieces can be moved to are known, but which and where is hidden
Pink Noise: (Players tend to like this the most)
- Results are similar to the current state, but random in the long run and have a rare chance for a huge change
- Example: Catan –> The frequency of resource gain is static but sometimes a rare resource or the bandit event will occur
Manage Luck and Skill
Luck and Skill can be adjusted by changing how much control users have over elements of the product.
Change the number of known elements:
- „Into the Breach“ shows enemy actions for the next turn
- „Starcraft 2“ fog of war hides enemy actions but can be interacted with
Change how easy actions can be executed:
- „Street Fighter“ combos require many inputs
- „Dark Souls“ blocking allows one to simply hold the button down
Adjust how things can vary when executing them:
- „Counter-Strike“ features fixed spray patterns for every gun
- „Magic the Gathering“ gives the player a random card from a selection every turn
Framing
Change the perception of something without altering the intention.
The game „World of Warcraft“ was trying to reduce play session length to do that they have added a punishment after receiving a certain amount of experience each day. So players would level slower after this point. To no surprise, this was not very well received. This has been changed to a system during which the players receive extra experience every day until they have reached a certain amount and the overall need for experience has been increased. Both of these versions do the same thing but the latter one was well received by the players.
Additional Reading
General topic:
Uncertainty in Games; Greg Costikyan
Luck & Skill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2owa2s8GdlM
Loss Aversion & Framing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_1YcCcBVfY
Randomness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXn3tGBztVc
