过于强调平衡性编辑本段回目录
我有时在想，现代RPG之所以无法使用某些较老游戏的设计技巧，原因在于我们过于追求游戏的流线型和平衡性。
目前，总体来说游戏平衡依然是需要追求的目标。确保游戏中的挑战不至于容易到让其变得乏味无趣，也不可难到让玩家心灰意冷，这是件很重要的事情。实现游戏平衡的方式有许多种。你可以采用让《上古卷轴：湮灭》声名狼藉的level-scaling机制（游戏邦注：怪物的实力随玩家等级的提升而增强）。你可以使用道具限制机制，防止玩家在游戏早期获得过于强大的道具，因为这会使战斗失去挑战性，从而使游戏显得乏味无趣。你可以使用职业平衡系统，确保游戏对某个特定的职业来说不会显得过于容易或困难（游戏邦注：适用于当人游戏），以及多人游戏中所有职业能够平等竞争。同时，你还需要投入精力确保角色各种能力的交互和配合不至于让游戏中的某些挑战失去意义。
上古卷轴：湮灭(from reviews.cnet.com)
但是，如果过分追求这些内容，就会让游戏变得过于均衡而显得乏味。我希望游戏中存在部分不平衡。很显然，这些不平衡不可影响到游戏的质量。但是我相信，游戏设计中无需将所有的元素进行平衡，关卡中也可以存在无法胜利的遭遇战。而且，寻找魔法道具的过程也应该是相当具有吸引力。让玩家明白你有一定概率发现可以真正改变游戏态势的道具，即便这种改变只是一小段时间，也足以激发起你的探索感。
数年以前，我曾经花数周的时间重新制作了自己玩过的首款CRPG游戏《Telengard》。这是款古老的游戏，游戏处处透露着其悠久的历史。游戏相当侧重于随机性，这使得地下城的“探索”变得毫无用处。玩家所需要做的就是寻找通往下层的楼梯，因为原地不动会让你遭遇各种怪物。我失足掉进某个传输陷阱中，被抛到地下。我有传送卷轴可以让角色回到地面，但是我不想使用，我想知道接下来会发生什么事情。如果角色死亡，我可以读取存档。而且，使用传送卷轴会让我失去所有的金币。接下来，我不得不尽力摆脱蜂拥而至的怪物，但是随后我发现了一件非常强大的护甲。有个高等级的精灵似乎很看好我，并送给我一个非常强大的重生戒指。我回到地面之后，仿佛涅槃重生一般。这两个道具让我在战斗中拥有巨大的优势，但是这种情况的持续时间并不长。随着游戏进行下去，我的其他装备也逐渐提升，这两件装备仅仅是较为优异而已。但是，这个过程让我体验到巨大的乐趣，感觉像是一次冒险。
许多年前，当我首次开始玩《龙与地下城》的时候，在另一个小组的好友拿到了“冰冻魔杖”。他当时只有3-4级，发现的这件装备让其魔法能力大幅提升。接下来的两周时间里，每当我们谈论起与《龙与地下城》有关的话题时，他就会说到这把冰冻魔杖。在这件装备失去优势之前的这段时间，他俨然就是个超级英雄。当然，你可以抱怨游戏设计不佳，但这种体验确实很有趣。它让我朋友喜欢上了这款游戏。尽管这种设计与他当时的等级所需的游戏平衡性相悖，但是并没有损害到整个游戏。
今日，较老CRPG游戏中所含有的“软边界”已经不复存在。所谓的“软边界”就是游戏中有难度超高的看门怪物，阻止你进入游戏世界的其他部分。但是，优秀的玩家有可能击败看门怪物，改变游戏设计师的计划提前进入游戏中更深层次的地区。不幸的是，现在的玩家养成的想法是，他们在游戏中遭遇到的怪物都应当能够被击败。如果在所处关卡中出现某些无法被击败的东西，他们会觉得特别失意。
Gary Gygax是《龙与地下城》的制作者之一，他在晚年时写过自己的一次经历。在初版游戏发布数年之后，他在“杀戮”单位Tomb of Horrors中沿用了最初的设计方式。尽管游戏的不公平性及其怪物的致命性人尽皆知，但是许多玩家不仅是该系列游戏的老玩家，而且之前还使用过这个单位。令所有人感到惊奇的是，玩家并不接受这样的设计，情况比二十年前要糟糕得多。为什么呢？因为这些年来，玩家已经习惯了更为公平和平衡的环境。他们可以探索游戏中的每个房间，尝试使用每件东西，战胜遇见的每个怪物，克服面临的所有障碍。他们已经习惯于那种不会奖励其在游戏中小心翼翼行动的设计方法。他们已经习惯于体验被完美平衡的游戏。他们已经不再习惯于逃离角色无法克服的险境。他们已经忘却了角色会在短时间内死亡，甚至连存档的时间都没有。依我来看，他们已经忘却了在接近某些不公平且令人厌恶的“惊喜”时，预言咒要比火球术更强大。
平衡很重要，但是过度的平衡会使游戏显得平淡乏味。设计师应当放轻松些，业界高估了平衡的作用。让玩家拥有些稍微偏离正轨的体验。假如玩家能够提前数个关卡获得强大的武器，或者依靠咒语的巧妙结合和出奇的好运可以在两回合内击败游戏中的BOSS，这或许会让游戏更加精彩。这些才是产生游戏奇妙故事的源泉，而并非每日埋头整理的那些数据电子表。
游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年5月5日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Rampant Coyote）
Design: Game Balance is Overrated
Rampant Coyote
I swear I’m not writing this article to justify any laziness on my part in balancing Frayed Knights. Honest! But I sometimes think that of the failings of modern RPGs to capture some of the magic of older games (and face it: as a jaded gamer who’s been playing CRPGs for decades now, it’s always going to be hard to capture that magic) has been that they are simply too streamlined and balanced.
Now, balance is a good thing in general. It’s important to make sure a games’ challenge doesn’t become so easy it becomes boring, or so difficult it becomes frustrating. It comes in many forms. You’ve got level-scaling, made notorious by The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. You have item restrictions that prevent you from obtaining too-powerful items early in the game which would make combat boringly unchallenging for your current level. You’ve got class balancing to make sure the game isn’t too easy or difficult for a particular class (in single player) and that all classes can compete on reasonably equal footing for slots in groups and raids in multiplayer games. And then there’s the effort that gets put into making sure that the various abilities and powers don’t interact in such a way that they create a serious loophole or exploit that nullifies the game’s challenge.
But taken too far, it makes the game too even, too balanced, and boring. I want a game to have spiky, imbalanced edges. Not something that wrecks the game, obviously, but I’m a believer that not every power should scale equally, and not every encounter should be defeatable at your current level. And finding magic items should be – well, magical. Nothing helps that sense of discovery and anticipation more than knowing that maybe – just maybe – you will find an item that’s truly a game-changer – at least for a while.
A couple of years ago, I spent a couple of weeks tinkering with a remake of Telengard, one of the first CRPGs I ever played. It’s an ancient game, and it shows. It’s pretty generic and random game – so much so that it makes “exploration” of the dungeon pretty useless (as there’s little advantage to doing anything beyond finding the next stairway down, as waiting in place will cause encounters to come to you). A misstep took me to a teleportation trap that dropped me many levels below. I had a scroll of recall to return to the surface, but rather than using it I figured I’d see what happened. After all, unlike the original, I could restore a saved game if I died, right? (And using the scroll of recall would make me lose all my gold). I had to flee from a couple of encounters, but in my hanging-out I found a really over-powered suit of armor in a pile on the floor, and a high-level elf decided he liked my body and gave me an extremely powerful ring of regeneration. Upon my eventual return to the surface, I was hell on wheels. The two items gave me a huge advantage, but it didn’t take long before I had partly ‘caught up’ to my equipment and their advantage was reduced to merely exceptional. You know what? It was a lot of fun. It felt like an adventure.
Many years ago, when I was first starting to play Dungeons & Dragons, a friend of mine in another group had come across what he called a “freeze wand.” He was only third or fourth level, and the magical wand he’d discovered was really overpowered for his magic user. But for two weeks, if you brought up the topic of D&D, he’d want to tell you about his freeze wand. Until it ran out of (very limited) charges, he got to be a superhero. Yeah, you can complain about Monty Haul Dungeon Masters all you want. But it was fun. It made the game for him. And while it would be arguably “inappropriate” for game balance at his level, it didn’t really wreck the game after all.
A feature of many older CRPGs that is too often missing today is a “soft boundary” of an improbably difficult gatekeeper preventing your progress to another part of the world. Now, it is possible for a good player to defeat the gatekeeper and progress deeper into the game before the game designer thinks they are ready or have hit all their marks. HORROR! Or, not. Unfortunately, players these days have become trained to expect that any monster they encounter in a game is there because it is supposed to be fought and defeated, now. And they will get extremely frustrated if it is somehow unbeatable at their current level.
The late Gary Gygax, one of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, wrote about an experience he had running his “killer” module Tomb of Horrors at a convention many years after its initial release. It has a reputation for being unfair and deadly, but many of the players were not only long-term veterans, but had actually played the module before. Much to everyone’s surprise, they fared very poorly. Much, much worse than players (sometimes the same ones) almost two decades earlier. Why? The players had gotten used to a much more even, fair, “balanced” approach to the game which assumed players would run through room-by-room, trying everything out, defeating every monster, and overcoming each obstacle as it was encountered. They’d gotten used to a gaming style that didn’t reward a cautious, thoughtful approach. They’d gotten used to a game that was, effectively, too carefully balanced and even-handed. They were no longer used to running away from danger that was beyond their character’s abilities to resist. They had forgotten how death could come instantly and without a saving throw. In my experience, they’d forgotten how those divination spells could be far more powerful than the fireball spells in figuring out how to approach otherwise unfair, nasty surprises.
“Iggy Chaos” recently wrote about this as well, in his blog post “Here. Have a Sword Sandwich.” In his major example, the game was broken by a bug, which eventually led to his losing interest in it. But it sounds like it compares favorably in his eyes to the ho-hum progression of Borderlands (which I’ve not personally played). But even up until the bug made his character uber-powerful (programmers will get a kick out of this one – I wish I knew which game he was talking about), this kind of exploration and chance of getting in over your head (and stumbling into power Beyond Your Station) in an RPG is the sort of experience I crave.
Balance is important. But too much balance makes things feel static, and — well, boring. Designers need to loosen up – balance is overrated. Let players run off the rails a little more. So what if they get the Sword of Disaster a few levels early, or manage to nuke the Vampire Lord in two rounds due to a clever combination of spells and a good chunk of luck? Those are the kinds of things stories are made of, not that carefully measured incremental advancement you’ve so painstakingly worked out on spreadsheets and flow charts. (Source: Rampant Games)
