Off with Their Assists
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Off With Their Assists: An Empirical Study of Driving Skill in Forza Motorsport 4 Thomas Debeauvais Thomas Zimmermann Kevin Carter, Ryan Cooper, Department of Informatics Nachiappan Nagappan Dan Greenawalt, Tyson Solberg University of California, Irvine Microsoft Research, WA Turn 10 Studios, WA [email protected] {tzimmer, nachin}@microsoft.com {v-kecart, ryanc, dangre, tysonsol}@microsoft.com ABSTRACT improve game design, and also towards recommender and This paper describes patterns of skill progression in Forza AI systems assisting players to challenge themselves and Motorsport 4, an Xbox 360 racing game. Using in-game have more fun. telemetry data from more than 200,000 players and 24 million races, we characterize how players use and More specifically, we study in this paper how players of customize driving assists such as the trajectory line, Forza Motorsport 4 (FM4) improve in skill and change the automatic gear shifting, or assisted braking over time. We game’s difficulty. FM4 lets players customize the game’s find that some of the assists are never disabled by difficulty by providing several assists. Assists are game significant player segments. Some “yoyo” players mechanisms such as the trajectory line or automatic gear repeatedly enable and disable assists. We also present a shifting that help a player race. Not all players have the model to predict when a player is ready to successfully same skill, so players can enable or disable assists to fit disable an assist with a precision ranging from 60 to 90 their needs with some level of granularity. While disabling percent. some assists may not always increase the game’s difficulty, disabling others can make it impossible to drive at all for a Author Keywords player. We look at how these assists are used, and how they assists; difficulty; progression; racing game; Forza are disabled over time, for more than 200,000 players. This ACM Classification Keywords allows us to determine which assists are useful to beginners, K.8.0 Personal Computing: General—Games completely unforgiving, or always-on assists that are rarely disabled. By looking at the trends in players’ racing data, INTRODUCTION we can model which factors determine when players can Skill level and player progression are two integral parts of safely disable an assist without being bored or frustrated. any game. If the game is too difficult, players are frustrated. If it is too easy, they are bored. Balancing the two ensures We first provide a review of the literature on skill, players enjoy the overall experience. This is one of the progression, and racing games. To familiarize the reader main reasons why game designers often provide an option with FM4, we provide a quick overview of the game with a that lets the players specify the level of difficulty description of each of the assists. We then present a themselves. But players may not always know what level of summary of our data. We explore in depth how players use difficulty will work for them, or they may not be confident and disable assists, and propose two models predicting if a enough in their skill to increase the difficulty by player is ready to disable an assist. We conclude with the themselves. implications of our findings for the design of racing games and multi-user game-based learning environments. In this paper we aim to answer several questions about skill level and player progression. We look at the patterns that RELATED WORK player progression follows. We also investigate the ability On the qualitative side, Reeves et al. broke down Counter- to predict when players are ready to increase the difficulty. Strike actions to show that experts are not concerned by Answering these questions is an important first step to particular actions, but rather by chains of actions [1]. Nardi et al. analyzed World of Warcraft chat logs to see how players learn about strategies, item usage, and game ethos through the in-game chat [2]. On the quantitative side, Huang studied the evolution of skill in Halo: Reach players, with a particular focus on regaining skill after breaks [3]. Through standardized Xbox 360 achievements, Phillips compared progression between several shooter games [4]. Kraaijenbrink et al. and Bateman et al. tried adding handicaps to balance games and make them more fun for both experts and less-skilled players alike [5] [6]. More towards racing game development, Hullett et al. found that players use few of the available tracks, cars, and game modes [7]. Finally, Togelius et al. procedurally generate race tracks based on player driving styles, and propose Easy Medium Hard Advanced Expert several definitions of “fun” tracks [8]. Telemetry data has been used for many other purposes to maximize player Stability ON OFF value [9]. Traction ON OFF Braking Assisted FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 ABS OFF Forza Motorsport 4 (FM4) is an Xbox 360 racing game w/ ABS developed by Turn 10 Studios. FM4 is the fourth Shifting Automatic Manual Manual installment in the series of Forza games. It was released in w/o clutch w/o clutch w/ clutch October 2011 and has sold four million copies to date [10]. Line Full Brake OFF Cars and modes Damage Cosmetic Limited Simulation FM4 is a complex racing simulation where each car has a particular weight, steering rate, drive type (e.g., all-wheel Table 1: Values of assists in the built-in bundles. drive, AWD, versus rear-wheel drive, RWD), and so on. To allow players to compare cars at a glance, the game The shifting assist helps the player in passing gears. It can summarizes the performance of a car in a score called the take three levels. Gears can be shifted automatically, much Performance Index (PI) ranging from 0 for small city cars like in real-life automatic cars. Gears can also be shifted to 1 for purpose-built racing cars. Players can acquire cars manually, in which case the player has to press a button to by spending in-game credits or as a level-up reward. These shift gear up, and another button to shift gear down. Manual credits and experience points are awarded when a player shifting gives the player control over the gear ratios, which, completes a race. Races can take place in several modes: if used properly, can result in faster acceleration. Gears can also be switched manually with clutch, in which case the In career mode, players progress through ten player must press the clutch trigger to switch gears. divisions, each containing a dozen races. Higher The line assist overlays the optimal trajectory to follow on division races involve cars with higher PI controlled the track. It also takes three levels. In full, the line shines by more difficult AI. green when the player should accelerate and red when the In quick race, players can select any track and car player should brake. In brake, only the red portions are they want. Quick races are offline and involve up to displayed. The line can also be completely turned off. two players sharing the same screen. In online mode, players can participate in multiplayer The damage assist determines how much the performance activities ranging from the usual lap races pitting up to of the car can change during the race. In cosmetic, 16 players to drag races or even car soccer. collisions only leave visible traces on the car. In limited, In rivals, a single player races against the time that collisions can reduce the car’s performance. In simulation, another (remote) player previously set for the race. collisions reduce the performance of the car a lot more, tires wear off, and the player has to think about refueling. Assists Assists are in-game mechanisms that help the player to We call bundle a configuration of assists. The game ships drive. The FM4 telemetry logs six assists, each of which with five built-in bundles: easy (selected by default), can take two or three levels. A seventh assist, steering, medium, hard, advanced, and expert. Table 1 describes the makes turning easier, but was not recorded. Turn 10 Studios value of assists in the built-in bundles. A custom bundle is a designed most of the assists to make players more configuration of assists that is not built-in but player- consistent and competitive [11]. defined. Players can change the bundle or the value of a particular assist in a menu before any race. In career and Stability control prevents the car from spinning when online modes, each disabled assist increases the credit cornering too fast. Traction control prevents it from rewards by 10%, giving players an incentive for disabling spinning when accelerating. When the game detects that the an assist. car starts spinning, these two assists will slow the car down. Each of these two assists can be turned on or off. We provide Figure 1 and a short scenario to give an idea of the skill necessary to drive using the easy and expert The braking assist supports the player when he/she brakes bundles: When approaching a turn in easy, the player stops or should brake. It can take three levels: in assisted with accelerating and steers so as to follow the full line. The Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), it automatically slows the player “only” coordinates two controls together: the right car down when approaching a turn. In non-assisted with trigger to accelerate and the left stick to steer. In expert, the ABS, it prevents the car from drifting when braking in a player guesses the optimal trajectory, shifts gears down in straight line, but may increase the braking distance. In non- sync with the clutch, and taps the brakes lightly so as not to assisted without ABS, the player has complete control of the skid.