The Paradox

The harder for the Game Master, the easier for the players.

This idea came to me as a Dungeons and Dragons Game Master (which is pretty much the one skill you need to become a gamification designer). The thing is that the amount of rules the game master has to know is gigantic. A good Game Master goes on to read at least three complete manuals (that’s aroun 300 pages each) while the player can simply get his character sheet and simply play the game.

When you are a Game Master you have to build scenarios of possibilities. You N-E-V-E-R (and I can’t stress this enough) know how your players will play. They will use your own rules against you whenever possible.

Now, the paradox is there to tell you that the more time you invest in developing a #gamification system the more your players will be able to take from it.

However another thing comes to mind: Rules must be simple. Story however, can be as complex as it may.

Simple is VERY different from easy (golf, bowling, soccer). A simple set of rules will ensure your players stay bound by them without too much thought, but if the story is complex and has many plots and turns, players will focus on it rather than the rules.

Now, if the rules MUST be complicated, then use a tutorial, DO NOT throw all of them at once. If it’s a system that will be played over months or years, take the first three to four weeks to get the players on board (Yes, the ON-BOARDING phase that Yu Kai and Andrzej talk about).

The other problem is that you are NOT dealing with characters in a fictional space where physics don’t apply. You are tending to human beings who are as complex as possible and will seek all opportunities to cheat, game, defeat or whatever the system. It is a common phrase around game designers: “You should always design for cheaters”.

Make sure players can only “cheat” under YOUR terms. Think of the law principle that states that whatever is not forbidden is allowed, so always design with that rule in mind.

Can your players repeat a quest 20 times and level up each time? Should your players figure that out by themselves? Should the difficulty of the game rely on everyone behaving?

People LOVE rules. Rules help us keep it together and make sure to point out who isn’t playing by them.

Remember there is a HUGE line between making mistakes and cheating. One is completely OK, the last one should not allow the players to continue.

Take this four things into account always

• Make it FAIR
• Keep it Simple (stupid! –> K.I.S.S.)
• Make complex plots
• What’s not forbidden is allowed

What do you think? Is there anything else you should be thinking with this paradox?

Also read The Paradox of Play by Andrzej Marczewski

In #gamification we all know about FLOW. That feeling you get when you #almost achieve a goal but feel that you are actually about to get it. In proper terms, FLOW is where the difficulty of a challenge matches the skill of the player, however,  I want to talk about how players feel when they almost achieve their goals.

The feeling of fiero, that thing you do with your arms when your team scores a goal or how people feel at the end of a marathon, comes after a lot of hard work and expectation. Normally you can feel this via proxy, but when it comes to building experiences that make the players feel like that is a complete different story.

Trying to explain it through fancy terms as FLOW and FIERO will take a lot of time. The simplest way is to understand how YOU feel when you are attempting something and ALMOST achieve it. When we are faced with a challenge that matches our abilities (or close to match them) we get excited and want to actually do it.

Whatever activity you are havign the players do, make sure it goes according to their level of tolerance to frustration. If something is too hard, you let it go, you feel disappointed and look for easier challenges, if they are too easy, you get bored and lose interest because there is no challenge. That is wher ALMOST sums all I want to say really simple.

As long as the player is ALMOST capable to get the task done, they will want to try as many times as possible. When they finally achieve it then move to the next challenge with the same feeling. The magic number is 3 to 5 times. If it takes more than 5 times to get it right people will usually start feeling frustrated, although this completely depends on the person, 5 is perfectly reasonable. If it takes less than 3, then it might be too easy. This projection escaltes to the amount of challenges that must be easy or hard accordingly. So if 5 or more tasks in a row are super easy, then the player might get bored, but if less than 3 in a row, they might feel its too hard.

This numbers are NOT hard or strict and they should be dynamic. maybe first you give 5 easy tasks, then 2 hard ones then 3 easy then 4 hards and so on… Easy tasks taking one or two attempts and hard ones less than 5 (most of the time)

I was thinking about this when talking to my wife about her growth in running. So, to explain how to calculate the progression and levels of your players, I will use some sports as an example. Why sports in #gamifiication? Simple, they aren’t called Olympic G-A-M-E-S because people compete from the office right?

Sports are the best examples on how to apply game mechanics. You should pay close attention and analyze them. It will make wonders for your #gamification design.

Now, defining what level you are, as a sports-person, one would say it’s impossible to put a number to it. Right but wrong. Depending on the type of WIN STATE it can be either easy or complicated to define the level of the players. I will only focus on the WIN STATE that is via GOAL since in a POINTS WIN STATE it gets tricky how to define it, specially if we talk teams (like what’s the level of a soccer player and why is that level).

When a goal has been set, it’s easy to use it as a reference and defining levels becomes really easy.

Let me explain with an image and people who run distance. 

Ok, so the image shows a graph where every KM a player runs gives them a level. It’s easy to define as most runners will train to a marathon or half a marathon.

As long as you define your goal and WIN STATE clearly, you can setup your leveling up system fairly easy if you focus on the CORE ability your players should be developing as they grow.

You can see how TIME doesn’t matter until they cross the MAX DISTANCE line. The red player is a level 46 runner (not 42) as his speed helps him move. However, the orange runner is Level 50 because she ran 50 KM and she is being judged by a longer distance metric.

Now, how to measure the level of the same runners but in terms of speed? Here is another image:

Here we have the same runners but very different results and a different scale of level progression (max level can’t be seen [Usain Bolt 9:58]).

However, in the distance graphic, there is a point where the core element of measure can be swithched to speed to make a difference between high level runners. In the SPRINT, distance is always fixed, so to increase the level the player MUST reduce the speed.

Now, decreasing speed from 30 seconds to 29 is easy but from 9:88 to 9:87 it may be nigh impossible. So you must make sure the scale matches the difficulty of the challenge.

If you are a runner, you will understand this scale immediately and define one that fits what players experience.

Simply put:

YOU NEED TO DO RESEARCH!!!!

If you want players to feel the real progress and experience it fairly, you NEED to know why the levels are there and why you defined such scale.

In the end the player’s profile should be something like this:

I really hope this example can help you define a proper level-up system for your #gamification strategy 🙂

May the force be with you. Let me know what you think via twitter or in the comments 😀

The core idea of gamification is take from games the best concepts and use them in real-life/non-game contexts.

Learning from games is the best thing we can do as experts, as we cannot hope to reveal all the secrets on EVERY single game or think we can possibly build one super game that covers everything, we must take a good look into others and constantly analyze them and take the best ideas from them.

I'vee been playing Diablo III for a while and it is fantastic. I believe that the part that caught my attention the most is the balance of the system.

Despite what many will mention in forums and several discussions around, the game is incredibly well balanced. Now, this is NOT a game review so let's first get started there: What do I mean with balance?

Balancing game systems is not about a great story vs graphics vs gameplay.

It refers specifically on how well every type of character in the game can perform. Meaning that it doesn't matter if you are a wizard or a barbarian, both type of players must be EQUAL.

This is one of the core components in gamification success. A balanced system will let all players feel they are treated fairly while the other hand might have them feel the system is against them.

So, how does Diablo III balances all player classes?

It's actually complex in a mathematical way but incredibly simple from a game designer point of view.

The key lies within the stats of the player. There are SO MANY stats that it becomes absurd trying to learn each of them by heart knowing how much damage your wizard can make against undead which will change completely right after you pick up that brand new wand.

Having MANY stats allow the mathematical balancing of the players be a lot easier because you have room for all player types to perform and experiment with different abilities.

Here's a quick example:

Characters have 4 basic attributes: Strength (STR), Dexterity(DEX), Intelligence (INT) and Vitality (VIT). The easy way is to create 4 classes that depend primarily on each attribute: Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Wizard and Crusader. You realte each of them with an attribute and you get certain balance. Think of it as rock, paper scissors.

STR > DEX > INT > VIT > STR

That way you have a Barbarian beating a Demon Hunter beating a Wizard beating a Crusader beating a Barbarian loop.

Now, as you can see, mathematically it will be complex when you get to 9,803 DEX points, however, understanding that DEX beats INT, all you need to do is a simple equation:

IF (DEX ATTACK > INT DEFENSE) { Damage Wizard = DEX ATTACK - INT DEFENSE }

It may seem a bit to "cody" for some, but it really is a simple question followed by basic math.

Now, how does all this round up against a gamified system.

In #gamification you will be dealing with many personalities. In Diablo you think of them as Character Classes. In your office or classroom they'll manifest in very different ways.

Since you can't measure emotion or learning, you need to build up standard abilities of your players based on their preference and styles. Close the system down to 4 types (usually the most accepted amount in EVERY brain study ever) and make sure that there is the same type of loop.

Reward growth of each ability based on what challenge the player faces: The four types are BLUE, RED, GREEN and YELLOW. If you finish a RED mission, you get BLUE points, you finish a GREEN one, you get RED points. Based on the same principles as before: BLUE > RED > GREEN > YELLOW > BLUE. That way, people will be free to choose their own style and then GROW and PROGRESS based on such style.

Hope I'm not too overboard with explanations here... Hope you like it.

#Gamification IS about analyzing games and making great systems. If you can play ANY game and figure out the mechanics they use and how to take advantage of the rules, you are already a #gamifier.