last week we talked about Bartles simple
breakdown of different player types in
massive multiplayer games this week
we're gonna talk about the practical
application of this system how do you
balance an MMO so it doesn't become
dominated by one type of player now
remember that a lot of this comes from
the study of muds way back in the day so
not all of its going to apply perfectly
to modern multiplayer games but it's
worth knowing just to understand how
your game varies from this norm and
you'd be surprised how many games still
fit this model incredibly well so what
do I mean by player population balance
in a massive environment it's simply the
balance between the number of achievers
explorers socializers and killers in
your game if you've played any smaller
mmo's you've probably noticed that they
often drift toward being populated
largely by only one of these groups
sometimes a game just becomes a place to
hang out where the players are more
interested in chatting with their
friends and being together as a group
than in the gameplay itself this is what
happens when a game becomes dominated by
socializers sometimes a game simply
becomes about the grind or the
scoreboard or the leveling tree there's
no one really to socialize with and no
one to fight no one's really exploring
the game world instead the players are
playing simply to get further in the
game each in their own small bubble
that's what happens when a game becomes
dominated by achievers sometimes a game
becomes all about the neat little
secrets and the hidden easter eggs and
everybody is abuzz about it for a few
days but then it burns out after a month
or two because no one really cares about
the game itself they just liked finding
all the little curiosities the devs had
embedded in there that's what happens
when a game becomes dominated by
explorers and finally sometimes a game
becomes so vicious and cutthroat that
new players are instantly destroyed the
moment they joined the game and
everybody's got to be watching their
back all the time which generally leads
to a shrinking player base as new
players are put off from joining this is
what happens when a game's dominated by
killers obviously most of those outcomes
would be considered suboptimal for a lot
of MMOs although it is important to note
that there are times when you might want
an imperfectly balanced player base I'll
talk about that later in the episode for
now the question becomes how do you keep
your players in balance so things don't
drift toward one of these outcomes I
described interestingly Bartle found a
clear correlation between many of the
player populations achievers are most
affected by kill
the more killers there are out there
getting in the way of their achieving
the less happy achievers are maybe a few
killers can give the gameplay more of a
semblance of risk and to give a feeling
of real worth to achievers
accomplishments but increasing the
number of killers in your game generally
decreases the number of achievers who
will stick around killers on the other
hand thrive off of killing achievers and
why wouldn't they those guys provide a
decent challenge and they really seem to
hate being killed which is pretty fun so
the more achievers you have in your game
the more killers it'll attract which of
course leads to a sort of natural
equilibrium of killers and achievers
mind you this isn't a one-to-one
correspondence but all other things
being equal there is usually some
natural balance point for killers and
achievers this leads us directly to
explorers because they can influence
this delicate balance sea explorers
aren't usually as bothered by killers as
the achievers are after all they're far
less concerned about the negative
repercussions that the game may apply
for getting killed so unless there are
so many killers out there that exploring
becomes really difficult killers won't
dramatically decrease your Explorer
population but killers hate explorers
because they don't care about getting
killed and sometimes a seemingly weak
Explorer will use some strange
combination of equipment and techniques
the killer's never encountered before
and actually defeat them which is super
embarrassing achievers really dig
explorers though the things explorers
figure out eventually trickle down into
the achiever community giving them
better techniques for conquering the
game this means that you can up your
achiever population by increasing the
number of explorers which in turn can be
a good way to counteract having a
superfluous number of killers populating
your game as the Explorers are less
bothered by killers than the other
player types this brings us to
socializers socializers have an internal
feedback loop increase the number of
socializers and there will be more
people to talk to making your games that
much more appealing to socializers on
the other hands decrease the number of
socializers in your game and all of the
sudden there's no one to chat with so
all of your socializers will probably
migrate somewhere else killers can
affect the number of socializers in your
game though socializers don't generally
like getting killed they find it really
mean and unpleasant and it really gets
in the way of the talking so if you find
your game getting caught up in a runaway
feedback loop where socializers are
completely taking over increasing the
number of killers in the game can
helped to thin the herd so to speak of
course you do have to make sure not to
overcompensate and end up with runaway
feedback in the other direction as for
the killers well we've kind of already
covered them they end up in a rough
equilibrium with the achievers slightly
increased by the number of socializers
available for easy squishy kills and
slightly decreased by the number of
boring embarrassing explorers there are
mucking about knowing all of this you
can modulate your population dynamics by
gently trying to encourage one group or
another through the mechanics and
content you create just be aware that
not all games want the exact same
balance most MMORPGs are aiming for a
fairly well distributed balance of these
groups which isn't to say that all the
groups are going to be an equal number
but that an equilibrium is achieved in
their effect on the game across all the
different player types that equilibrium
is not the ideal player mix for every
game though games like Call of Duty for
example are killer and achiever focused
sure there are some socializers and some
explorers in there but Call of Duty's
really focused on people playing for the
mastery of the game or for the
schadenfreude of making somebody scream
and rage on the other side of the wire
if the other groups ended up losing
interest and sort of filtering out that
would probably be okay for a game like
this but that said few of the massive
scale multiplayer games will remain
massive if they tip too heavily toward
one single group so hopefully today's
episode end the work of mr. Bartel will
help you understand the way player
populations feed back into one another
in order to help you balance your game
for the population you want see you next
week
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