Rhythm Games and Carrots

January 9, 2011 3:00 am Sir Haxington Game Development, Gaming

The proverbial “carrot-and-stick.” A mechanic. Some unlockable. A reward that keeps the player playing. The motivating factor.

I’m playing through Rock Band 3 and I’m liking it. It feels cozy. Warm. Like home. I’ve played this game before, but it’s presented in a just different enough way to keep me playing. They’ve fixed some things. Swapping between profiles and characters is finally fixed. Character customization is cleaner by having currency removed. The way the “career” is presented through road challenges seems more accessible and forgivable than in the past.

But the problem I’ve had with all music games since day one is that the incentive to get better at them for me is nearly non-existent. Once I get to a certain level of play, there’s no external motivator to push me to improve, which I would like to do.

I want to be clear. Maybe there’s incentives for other gamers, and some people are probably more self-motivated to improve, but for my play through of Rock Band 3, proper incentives are often missing. The game often works against itself and its players and I’ll explain why. And maybe some ways to fix them.

Nothing for Something

I discovered one of the new features of RB3 the hard way. Losing during the middle of song gives the player the option to pick up from where the song left off before the fail-out occurred. Pretty sweet! At least that’s what I thought. Instead the rest of the song is played with no-fail mode enabled, even though in the menu no fail is indicated as being off. Players don’t even need to play the song anymore, they can watch it sail by. Needless to say, the designers thought ahead about this decision and probably didn’t want people gaming the system. So, if a fail-out does occur, the player gets no stars or spades awarded to them for song completion. They lose it all. Zero reward.

From a player standpoint, they feel like crap. The player already feels tired and shitty for getting 97% on a song then failing at the very end, possibly even letting down their bandmates. The player can play the last bit if they want, as if it’ll make them feel better. Or make them better at the song some how. Like players will want to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and try gain. Sure…

What’s the incentive to play anymore anyway? It’s gone! The player gets nothing! If you tell me to do something and you offer me money for it, then as I’m doing it you take the money away, I will no longer do the thing. Right?

What the goal of this feature? I would argue as a designer, you want the player to feel as though they can redeem themselves, or cut their losses but get something in return for their time and energy investment. As it stands, the game kicks players while they are down.

How would I fix this? I’m always asking this when I play games. I’d probably rewind the song with no-fail mode off. Let the player actually take another shot at the part they failed. Set them at full boost, 8x, but then cut the reward in half, rounding up. If they were going to five star the song, they now only get three, max. The player failed so there needs to be some penalty, but at least they won’t feel like they got hit by a bus. They’ll lick their wounds and move on. If they three starred it, they can only now get two. A slap in the face no matter how you slice it, but at least it’s something.

The concept is no different than making a character blinky and invincible after falling in a pit. Let the player respawn and move on.

Creating Mediocre Players

So, failing a song means you get no reward. Failing multiple songs means you might have to do the entire series of shows over again. Why? Because getting various medals (bronze, silver, gold) are predicated on receiving a certain number of stars and spades per song set. Getting bronze on a road challenge takes 50 stars / spades total, silver is 75 and gold is 100, lets say. Now, you’re trying to push yourself a bit and play expert, but some songs come up that you fail. Bronze is even looking hard to reach now. You decide to go switch to hard, but you aren’t familiar with the songs. Maybe they’re still too hard. You don’t get 50 points due to early expert fails and a combination of bad song picks.

Result? You get nothing. All the song scores evaporate into thin air. If you want to advance, you need to play ALL of the sets again, the entire road challenge, from the beginning again. All that work, for nothing.

Wow. Yeah, it has happened, trust me. But look at something interesting here. If the player had chosen a lower difficulty setting from the get-go, they would have advanced the game. Hard would had been passable. But instead the player wanted to get better and challenge himself on expert. The price was that they have now been de-incentivized to take on challenges  in the future. The game is telling them NOT to get better but instead to do what is safe. Do not attempt to get better at our game, we will make you pay dearly.

“Why do expert when I could lose the whole farm? No, I’ll stick to hard where I know I can win and advance, but man I wish I could be improving.” What a terrible place to put your players in, psychologically.

To fix? In this case, there are a couple of things. Give the option to go back and redo a set list mid tour. Let them game each set up to however far they want to take it before completing it. Who cares? What harm is it doing? Okay, designer. I get it. It’s not fair to other players who play through and are skilled, gotcha.

What about cutting the player off earlier then? So, if they are clearly going to fail, tell them! Let them opt out earlier! Let them restart before they get 3/4 a way down the road then realize all hope is lost! Force their failure before you waste their time.

Oh, too harsh? Tell the player they suck? Ha, well that’s one way to look at it. Okay, well what if we do another consolation prize situation. Say, if they are on the cusp of losing, they can opt to “lock-in” their medal. But! Their score is capped. Maybe they can’t get boosts or multipliers. Or maybe they get infinite boost, but the number of stars and spades is capped. Sure, they can still fail if they basically don’t play, but so long as they pass the song, they are guaranteed their medal. If they’re in the bracket where they could actually get the silver, then let them play for it!

Only use the compromise rule when the player is caught in a demoralizing situation. Give them the choice to get something for their time, instead of losing it all every time.

To be fair, you can change difficulty mid-song. I’m not sure what the effects are, I need to try it some time. Usually, things are happening or a fail sneaks up on you though, that the last thought on your mind is pausing the game and changing difficulty.

Second Place is the First Loser

A dreaded case that everyone fears both as a player and a designer. It’s nearly a lose-lose.

Player is safe in the bronze range. However, they are almost touching silver. Maybe 5-10 medals. Easy to get silver. No problem.

Gold? Impossible, but only barely so.

Example: The player can fail 2 of 3 songs and still get bumped into the silver range, but they can never exceed silver.

Why does this suck? Because the player has no incentive to play well. Why get all the stars and spades when they can fail two songs and still advance? There’s no motivation to do well since the reward is the same no matter how well they play, so playing the songs feels like a drag. And the worst feeling? When the player 100%’s all the songs and is just out of reach of gold. It was always impossible to get and they did the best they could, and still failed. What a great feeling. You can even see the math going in, it’s impossible!

Fixing this is easy. Make the range between medals less. Make that case simply go away. The bar for gold is lowered. Let the player win more. Or, add another rule to check against at the end of a set: If the player is within 10 spades / stars of moving into the next rage, but the set is over, they can opt in for an encore. That encore can put players just over. So, they finish their set and they’re like “Well, I could have had gold, but I missed it by 10… oh hey, whats this? Encore? For gold! Hell yeah! Let’s do this!”

The player is now excited and motivated to got for gold. They will play your game even more! The set list can be throwaway and count for nothing, the only purpose it serves is to boost the player to the next medal or not if they are within grasp. At the 15 star mark and too far from getting gold? Too bad, enjoy your silver.

Achievements are for Jimi Hendrix, Mozart and Rain Man

This is just a general complaint with all music games: you need to be an actual musician or some kind of savant to unlock even half the achievements in any music game ever made. I think the most I unlocked was around 400-500. I’m not going to even bother to check. But generally, I can play a music game for 30-40 hours or more and get no more than 150-200 achievement points. Lets take a look at some of them, shall we?

Rock Band 3:

• 50 points – 5 Star every song in Rock Band 3 on Expert.
• 50 points – Successfully complete “The Endless Setlist III!” (complete all the songs in the game in one sitting)
• 20 points – Maintain overdrive for 60 seconds.

Rock Band 2:

• 25 points – Beat the Impossible Drum Challenge
• 25 points  – Complete 25 Challenges on Expert Difficulty
• 25 points – Score 100% notes hit as a guitarist on Expert
• 25 points – Beat the Impossible Band Challenge

Green Day Rock Band:

• 35 points – Get Gold stars on the listed songs.
• 35 points – Score 400,000 points in a single song in solo mode.
• 30 points – Hit 100% of the drum kick notes for “Brain Stew / Jaded” on Expert.

Beatles Rock Band:

• 35 points – Score 100% notes hit on Helter Skelter playing Expert Drums.
• 30 points – Hit 100% of the notes in either of the solos in While My Guitar Gently Weeps on Expert Guitar.
• 35 points – Earn Expert gold stars on the 4 songs displayed on the Achievements screen.

Rock Band:

• 50 points – Finish Guitar Solo Tour on Expert
• 50 points – Finish Vocal Solo Tour on Expert
• 25 points – Finish the Endless Setlist in Band World Tour on Expert

Guitar Hero III:

• 30 points – Earn 100,000,000 points total in Career
• 30 points – Gold Star 20 songs on Expert
• 75 points – Earn 5 stars on all songs on the Expert difficulty
• 75 points – 5 Star all Co-op songs on Expert

Guitar Hero Hits:

• 35 points – Complete all four instrument Careers on any difficulty.
• 100 points – Complete single player Expert Career on all instruments.

Guitar Hero 5

• 50 points – Complete 50 of the challenges at Diamond
• 30 points – Complete at least one challenge for every instrument at Gold level or better
• 30 points – Earn 3,000,000 points in a single song as a band
• 30 points – Complete 50 of the challenges at Platinum or better

Guitar Hero World Tour:

• 100 points – Complete a Career on expert (Band or Solo)
• 150 points – Complete all instrument careers – any difficulty (Band or Solo)

I’ve only taken a few of the hard ones as examples. There are plenty more where that came from. At least half the achievements are this bad in every one of these game. It’s impossible to get even 500 points in if you’re not some crazy expert in at least one instrument.

And it’s across multiple companies too! Like, Neversoft and Harmonix both were like, “Yep, achievements for our games are only for the most hard core of players.” They tell their audience time and time again “Rewards are not for causal players” as evidenced by their reward systems! Crazy. It’s ingrained into the rhythm game design culture for some reason and its never been dislodged. Why? Change it! Don’t you want more people to play your games? I would think so, now more than ever!

I would be giving ‘cheeves out in these games like candy. Someone like me, who can only barely play expert on a most instruments should be getting around 700-800 points after say, 30 hours of play. Crazy savant types should be 1000 pointing this game. Even those guys are barely scratch 500 at times.

—

Eh, I’ve let my steam out. I’m probably wrong. I’m probably missing some hidden features in these games and someone will point them out to me. No the trainers aren’t motivating either.

It’s really all about nudging players who are right on edge of improving to actually improve, or at least feel like they are improving. I feel like it’s easy to do, but these games time and time again punish the player for playing them and taking on challenges. And don’t get me started on the difficulty jump between hard and expert!

I feel like more people would play these games (or they would have held their audience longer) had they changed or added a few rules incentivizing play in a few really simple ways, especially with respect to their reward systems.