Every boss is easy for somebody#
SLOP2875 · Week 11
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“Is the first boss too hard?”#
has no answer.
“For whom?” does.
The claim#
A game does not have a difficulty.
It has a different difficulty for every player who picks it up.
A balance decision is a decision about which of those players you are willing to lose.
The same game, six players#
Only the reaction time changes. 51 runs each.
| Reaction time | Past boss 1 | Past boss 2 | Win |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 ms | 50 | 39 | 38 |
| 100 ms | 47 | 22 | 12 |
| 150 ms | 38 | 5 | 2 |
| 200 ms | 18 | 2 | 0 |
| 250 ms | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| 300 ms | 10 | 1 | 0 |
Read across a row#
and you get one player’s way through the game.
Read down a column#
and you get what a gate does to a crowd.
The first boss#
lets through 50 of the fastest player’s 51 runs.
And 10 of the slowest one’s.
For the 200 ms player, two thirds of runs are over when the first boss’s clock runs out#
Whether that is right#
depends on who the game is for.
It is a number now, so it can be argued about.
Reading, weeks 11 and 12#
Roohi and colleagues, Predicting Game Difficulty and Churn Without Players.
Which levels of a shipped game lose players, from simulated players and a model of a population.
This week’s table at the scale of a real studio’s game.
Thursday#
Pass rates at both bosses for three players of your own.
One sentence saying which of the three the specimen is currently built for.
Week 11, in full#
The page for this week has the numbers and where they came from.