tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post2292474832516651801..comments2015-08-13T13:23:23.270-04:00Comments on That's a Terrible Idea: Emergent Solutions vs. Exploitative Solutionsmotstandethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06296441082624422375noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-3751516729597808872009-07-03T17:19:29.379-04:002009-07-03T17:19:29.379-04:00I like where this series is going and the rat anal...I like where this series is going and the rat analogy is a good one. The concept of the exploit comes about because the designer strictly wants to control everything about the game; as in chess. Layers and layers of rules get added; mostly as special cases to prevent "exploits"; which are just novel uses of the rules. Consider that technological innovation is essentially "finding an exploit" in the ruleset that is real world physics.<br /><br />Perhaps Bartle's offhand remark that worlds should implement just enough naive physics to make the world believable has merit. Then you only need a very lightwieght ruleset. http://dancingelephants.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/lightwieght-and-heavywieght-rulesets/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-49422544020025415452009-07-01T18:26:03.122-04:002009-07-01T18:26:03.122-04:00Put another way: "If everyone is doing it, i...Put another way: "If everyone is doing it, is it still wrong"? It depends. If it's against the designer's intent, I'd have to say yes, it's still an exploit.<br /><br />In that case, though, there's probably just something wrong with the implementation not lining up with the intent, so it's something the dev needs to fix, and be grateful that the players pointed it out.Teshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760350503235227686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-15187202306830636562009-07-01T10:17:52.687-04:002009-07-01T10:17:52.687-04:00Wouldn't most emergent solutions surface in ca...Wouldn't most emergent solutions surface in cases of optimization? Unless the player wanted to try his hand at a Rube Goldberg machine.<br /><br />Those class-based, compartmentalized progression schemes are difficult to work with in terms of balancing, especially when you ask the player to invest weeks and months into that progression. If all the players had a way to trigger that exploit, would it still be an exploit?motstandethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06296441082624422375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-23057290682402465722009-07-01T04:14:15.170-04:002009-07-01T04:14:15.170-04:00Most of the examples you gave are game hyper-optim...Most of the examples you gave are game hyper-optimization. The FFXI rusty items is probably something that was intended to be in the game, but the developers probably made the newbie mistake of thinking "nobody will seriously do that!" Well, people will, and it's easy to bot to boot!<br /><br />The TF2 example is a bit different since, in theory, any player could choose that class and do that "exploit". Same as in DotA. As I commented on a more recent post, an "equal" playing field like TF2 isn't something people will pay a subscription for, though.<br /><br />But, not all "emergent behavior" is good. An early WoW exploit involved rogues stealthing to the end of a raid, pulling the boss, then getting summoned back to the beginning by Warlocks. The boss then ran through the whole instance to catch up with the rogues and the group just killed the boss at the entrance without having to clear trash. Pretty clever, but this causes problems beyond developer ego; if this strategy had been allowed to stay, it would mean that most encounters would have to have a rogue and warlock to be played optimally. This probably would have shut mages out of many encounters, because why bring a mage when a warlock can do the exploit? (Actually, that was the attitude for a while even without the exploit being allowed, so it would have been worse.)<br /><br />In this situation, if I had been in charge of WoW and found that exploit, I would have thought it was clever but would have fixed it anyway for the reason I state. Yes, it's clever, but it causes problems for a lot of players in the game. There are worse fates than players having to play through the game as a competent designer intended in order too make more people in the game happy.Psychochildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06066038436696697892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-29300211127988364752009-06-30T11:01:10.254-04:002009-06-30T11:01:10.254-04:00This post has some more examples of unintended pla...This post has some more examples of unintended play.<br />http://blogatelle.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/unintended-play-why-does-it-threaten-people/motstandethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06296441082624422375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-88738085657682576352009-06-30T10:42:38.179-04:002009-06-30T10:42:38.179-04:00MMOs are filled with these emergent solutions. No,...MMOs are filled with these emergent solutions. No, players aren't freezing the tails of rats off, but they are still using the rules and items in the game in ways originally unintended. <br /><br />A major source of gil in FFXI used to be to fish up rusty items (usually a sign of a bad fishing location). Instead of destroying the Rusty Cap or selling it for next to nothing to a vendor, players learned that they could get their Blacksmithing up to the mid 50s and use a Light Crystal (the Restoration Synthesis) to turn that cap into a more valuable item which vendors bought for a pretty penny. [This was eventually removed since it was very easy to bot.]<br /><br />Or how about in WoW, before Warlocks were able to Summon into instances: you activate a Summon on a player already in the instance, that player could Hearth to fetch items or repair, and then accept the Summon to be transported back into the instance.<br /><br />What you are asking for isn't that revolutionary. To me competitive games have always had emergent solutions. What else would strategies and counter-strategies be? TF2 Engineers use their buildings to get to previously unreachable places; players use items as projectiles in Super Smash Brothers rather then using the item's ability; DotA players use the fog of war and tree lines to "juke" a pursuing enemy; WoW players theorycraft for hours determining the optimal skill rotation and talent builds from among hundreds of possible combinations.motstandethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06296441082624422375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352155589322140093.post-78916878012988235112009-06-30T09:00:17.839-04:002009-06-30T09:00:17.839-04:00I talked a bit about cheating at a recent conferen...I talked a bit about cheating <a href="http://www.psychochild.org/?p=695" rel="nofollow">at a recent conference</a>. The line between "cheating" and "clever" is indistinct.<br /><br />The main issue is keeping the game fun for everyone. It may seem like the developers are being arbitrary (and they might be), but most of the time a strategy that is too effective is removed to preserve the fun of the game. This could be to avoid cheapening the experience (especially of those who already did the content), or maybe avoiding "you must have a party composition of X" situations that just aren't fun for people who fall outside of X.<br /><br />That said, there are probably times when developer ego at creating a challenging encounter gets the best of them. It really kind of sucks for a player to have an ability nerfed because it was used a specific way. So, developers should really take a hard look and see if a situation is truly an exploit or a bit of cleverness.Psychochildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06066038436696697892noreply@blogger.com