Metagames: on the Ontology of Games Outside of Games
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Game Design 2 Game Balance
CE810 - Game Design 2 Game Balance Joseph Walton-Rivers & Piers Williams Friday, 18 May 2018 University of Essex 1 What is Balance? Game Balance Question What is balance? 2 Game Balance “All players have an equal chance of winning” – Richard Bartle Richard covered a combat example in the first part of the module. 3 On Strategies Game Balance • What about higher level strategies? • Zerg rush? • Dominant strategies • Metagaming 4 Metagaming - Rock Paper Scissors • A beats B, B beats C, C beats A • If there are lots of A players, people will play C • Then there are a lot of C players, so people play B • and so on... 5 Metagaming - Dominant Strategies • What if A is significantly stronger? • No one will use the other two strategies • We want to encourage variety in play 6 Can we detect this? • Can we detect strategies which are overpowered? • Try to punish strategies we don’t want to see • We did this earlier in the week with rotate and shoot! • Can we measure this? 7 Automated Game Tuning • Academics seem to think so... • Ryan Leigh et al (2008) - Co-evolution for game balancing • Alexander Jaffe et al (2012) - Restricted-Play balance framework • Mihail Morosan - GAs for tuning parameters 8 Game Curves First Move Advantage First Move Advantage • Typically affects turn based games • Going first in tac tac toe means either a win or adraw • White has > 50% win rate over all games • Worse effects if you have resources • We need a way of dealing with this 9 First Move Advantage Magic Second player gets an extra card Go Second player gets 7.5 bonus -
Identifying Players and Predicting Actions from RTS Game Replays
Identifying Players and Predicting Actions from RTS Game Replays Christopher Ballinger, Siming Liu and Sushil J. Louis Abstract— This paper investigates the problem of identifying StarCraft II, seen in Figure 1, is one of the most popular a Real-Time Strategy game player and predicting what a player multi-player RTS games with professional player leagues and will do next based on previous actions in the game. Being able world wide tournaments [2]. In South Korea, there are thirty to recognize a player’s playing style and their strategies helps us learn the strengths and weaknesses of a specific player, devise two professional StarCraft II teams with top players making counter-strategies that beat the player, and eventually helps us six-figure salaries and the average professional gamer making to build better game AI. We use machine learning algorithms more than the average Korean [3]. StarCraft II’s popularity in the WEKA toolkit to learn how to identify a StarCraft II makes obtaining larges amounts of different combat scenarios player and predict the next move of the player from features for our research easier, as the players themselves create large extracted from game replays. However, StarCraft II does not have an interface that lets us get all game state information like databases of professional and amateur replays and make the BWAPI provides for StarCraft: Broodwar, so the features them freely available on the Internet [4]. However, unlike we can use are limited. Our results reveal that using a J48 StarCraft: Broodwar, which has the StarCraft: Brood War decision tree correctly identifies a specific player out of forty- API (BWAPI) to provide detailed game state information one players 75% of the time. -
Teachers Course Description
Teachers Stephanie Boluk Patrick LeMieux Associate Professor Assistant Professor English, Cinema and Digital Media Cinema and Digital Media University of California, Davis University of California, Davis [email protected] [email protected] http://stephanieboluk.com http://patrick-lemieux.com Course Description Rather than treat “videogames and culture” as two distinct categories that play off one another, in this large lecture and in discussion sections we will examine the community histories and material practices that have evolved alongside videogames as a mass medium, cultural commodity, and digital technology. We will challenge the seemingly self-evident differences between play and production, leisure and labor, form and function, and freedom and control through a quarter-long investigation of the concept of “metagaming.” Metagames are the games we play in, on, around, and through videogames. From the most complex player practices to the simple decision to press start, just as there are no videogames without culture, there are no games without metagames. And although the term “metagame” has a long history–from Cold War mind games in the 1940s to countercultural role-playing games in the 1970s to collectable card games in the 1990s–the concept has taken on renewed importance and political urgency with the rise of social media, streaming video, and sharing services in the twenty-first century. From speedrunning The Legend of Zelda to making a living playing League of Legends and from modding miniature computers in Minecraft to laundering money through Team Fortress 2, in this class we will document and theorize histories of play through the concept of metagaming and a rigorous engagement with academic disciplines such as media studies, games studies, software studies, platform studies, and code studies. -
Character Balance in MOBA Games
Character Balance in MOBA Games Faculty of Arts Department of Game Design Authors: Emanuel Palm, Teodor Norén Bachelor’s Thesis in Game Design, 15 hp Program: Game Design and Programming Supervisors: Jakob Berglund Rogert, Masaki Hayashi Examiner: Mikael Fridenfalk June, 2015 Abstract As live streaming of video games has become easier, electronic sports have grown quickly and they are still increasing as tournaments grow in viewers and prizes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the theory Metagame Bounds by applying it to League of Legends and Dota 2, to see if it is a valid way of looking at character balance in the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game genre. The main mode of both games consist of matches played on a map where a team of five players is up against another team of five players. Characters in the games generally have four abilities and a number of attributes, making them complex to compare without context. We gathered character data from websites and entered the data into a file that we used with the Metagame Bounds application. We compared the graphs that the data yielded with how often a character wins and how often it is played. To examine whether the characters were balanced we also played the games and analysed the characters in depth. All statistical data gathered was retrieved over the span of a few hours on the 21st of April 2015 from the websites Champion.gg for League of Legends and Dotabuff for Dota 2. Sirlin’s (2001) definition of multiplayer game balance is “A multiplayer game is balanced if a reasonably large number of options available to the player are viable – especially, but not limited to, during high-level play by expert players.” and with the data we see that these games are balanced in terms of characters according to that definition. -
Technology Trees and Tools: Constructing Development Graphs for Digital Games
Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto. Julkaisu 1349 Tampere University of Technology. Publication 1349 Teemu J. Heinimäki Technology Trees and Tools: Constructing Development Graphs for Digital Games Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission for public examination and criticism in Tietotalo Building, Auditorium TB224, at Tampere University of Technology, on the 27th of November 2015, at 12 noon. Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto – Tampere University of Technology Tampere 2015 ISBN 978-952-15-3633-5 (printed) ISBN 978-952-15-3647-2 (PDF) ISSN 1459-2045 Abstract In the recent years, digital games have solidified their role as important parts of life for a considerable portion of the population. Game development has become an extremely important industrial branch with a great deal of com- petition between developers and publishers. There is only a limited amount of resources to put in the development of a game, but the modern customers expect high quality. Taking these constraints into account, this dissertation focuses on devel- oping implementations of a structure that is used widely in different games: technology trees (TTs). This term covers here also so-called skill trees, talent trees, perk trees, and other such structures used to limit and guide in-game development and define development possibilities. The aim is to propose methods and usage of tools helping to achieve high TT quality, simultane- ously facilitating the actual development process and reducing human work- load. The main contributions of this dissertation consist of ideas, models, meth- ods, and software tool prototypes constructed during the research work. The significance of the thesis is amplified by the fact that there are only very few previous academic studies focusing on TTs. -
A Multi-Objective Approach to Tactical Maneuvering Within Real Time Strategy Games Christopher D
Air Force Institute of Technology AFIT Scholar Theses and Dissertations Student Graduate Works 6-16-2016 A Multi-Objective Approach to Tactical Maneuvering Within Real Time Strategy Games Christopher D. Ball Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.afit.edu/etd Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Ball, Christopher D., "A Multi-Objective Approach to Tactical Maneuvering Within Real Time Strategy Games" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 457. https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/457 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Graduate Works at AFIT Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of AFIT Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A MULTI-OBJECTIVE APPROACH TO TACTICAL MANUVERING WITHIN REAL TIME STRATEGY GAMES THESIS Christopher D. Ball, Capt, USAF AFIT-ENG-MS-16-J-004 DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE AIR UNIVERSITY AIR FORCE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE; DISTRIBUTION UNLIMITED. The views expressed in this document are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, the United States Department of Defense or the United States Government. This material is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. AFIT-ENG-MS-16-J-004 A MULTI-OBJECTIVE APPROACH TO TACTICAL MANEUVERING WITHIN REAL TIME STRATEGY GAMES THESIS Presented to the Faculty Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate School of Engineering and Management Air Force Institute of Technology Air University Air Education and Training Command in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Computer Science Christopher D. -
Metagaming and Transgressive Play Patrick S
Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Open Access Theses Theses and Dissertations Summer 2014 Playing on the periphery: Metagaming and transgressive play Patrick S. Love Purdue University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_theses Part of the Mass Communication Commons, Reading and Language Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Love, Patrick S., "Playing on the periphery: Metagaming and transgressive play" (2014). Open Access Theses. 650. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_theses/650 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Graduate School ETD Form 9 (Revised/) PURDUE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL Thesis/Dissertation Acceptance This is to certify that the thesis/dissertation prepared By Patrick S Love Entitled Playing on the Periphery: Metagaming and Transgressive Play Master of Arts For the degree of Is approved by the final examining committee: Samantha Blackmon Thomas Rickert Nathan Johnson To the best of my knowledge and as understood by the student in the 7KHVLV'LVVHUWDWLRQ$JUHHPHQW 3XEOLFDWLRQ'HOD\DQGCHUWLILFDWLRQDisclaimer (Graduate School Form ), this thesis/dissertation DGKHUHVWRWKHSURYLVLRQVRIPurdue University’s “Policy on Integrity in Research” and the use of copyrighted material. Samantha Blackmon Approved by Major Professor(s): ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Approved by:Nancy Peterson 07/18/2014 Head of the 'HSDUWPHQWGraduate Program Date i PLAYING ON THE PERIPHERY: METAGAMING AND TRANSGRESSIVE PLAY A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Patrick Love In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts August 2014 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana ii This work is dedicated to players, gamers, and people who play. -
Heuristic Search Techniques for Real-Time Strategy Games David
Heuristic Search Techniques for Real-Time Strategy Games by David Churchill A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Computing Science University of Alberta c David Churchill, 2016 Abstract Real-time strategy (RTS) video games are known for being one of the most complex and strategic games for humans to play. With a unique combination of strategic thinking and dexterous mouse movements, RTS games make for a very intense and exciting game-play experience. In recent years the games AI research community has been increasingly drawn to the field of RTS AI research due to its challenging sub-problems and harsh real-time computing constraints. With the rise of e-Sports and professional human RTS gaming, the games industry has become very interested in AI techniques for helping design, balance, and test such complex games. In this thesis we will introduce and motivate the main topics of RTS AI research, and identify which areas need the most improvement. We then describe the RTS AI research we have conducted, which consists of five major contributions. First, our depth-first branch and bound build-order search algorithm, which is capable of producing professional human-quality build-orders in real-time, and was the first heuristic search algorithm to be used on-line in a starcraft AI competition setting. Second, our RTS combat simulation system: SparCraft, which contains three new algorithms for unit micromanagement (Alpha-Beta Considering Dura- tions (ABCD), UCT Considering Durations (UCT-CD) and Portfolio Greedy Search), each outperforming the previous state-of-the-art. -
Loops and Metagames: Understanding Game Design Structures Miguel Sicart Center for Computer Games Research IT University of Copenhagen [email protected]
Loops and Metagames: Understanding Game Design Structures Miguel Sicart Center for Computer Games Research IT University of Copenhagen [email protected] ABSTRACT in Free to Play game design [10], a design space in which the In this paper we present a set of formal concepts that can help in economic need for a distinction between interaction and context game design analysis. Our goal is to provide a conceptual became a key element in the evolution of its development framework based on terminology used in game design. practices. Our model appropriates the concepts of loops and metagames and expands them through the lenses of philosophy Keywords and play research to be applicable for analyzing game designs. Game design research, Interaction Design, Loops, Context, Our model is both an analytical tool and a theoretical argument Formalism. about what game design is, given a clearly defined level of abstraction. Our goal with this model is to have an impact in 1. INTRODUCTION research, education, and design practices. We intend to Game designer and scholar Frank Lantz once defined games as systematize a set of concepts used in game design practice, “basically operas made out of bridges” [1]. A closer look at games formalize them through definitions, and exemplify the advantage shows that, while the metaphor holds, it also falls somewhat short, of using these definitions as analytical and creative tools. as operas or bridges are nowhere as complex as games. Digital games in particular, the object of study of this article, are We will start by presenting the need for formal tools for analyzing particularly complex sociotechnical constructs: they are game designs, and how that research is methodologically engineering feats, pushing the boundaries of real-time and compatible with our model. -
Identifying and Evaluating Successful Non-Meta Strategies in League of Legends
Identifying and Evaluating Successful Non-meta Strategies in League of Legends Choong-Soo Lee, Ivan Ramler St. Lawrence University Canton, NY [clee,iramler]@stlawu.edu ABSTRACT summoners, including e-sports cyberathletes, play in a map called 1 League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game where Summoner’s Rift . The map consists of three lanes, and each team teams of five players compete against each other. Over the years, has 11 towers, 3 inhibitors, and a nexus, and the objective is to players (the crowd) have formed a metagaming strategy, which destroy the opponent team’s nexus. is widely adopted. This paper questions and answers whether the Riot Games developed the game but did not offer any official wisdom of the crowd defined the best strategy. We investigate play- strategies other than classifying their champions into six categories: ers’ choices of champions (and builds) and their team performance assassin, fighter, mage, support, tank, and marksman. Over the from matches in the North America and Western Europe regions, years, summoners have formulated a strategy, commonly referred using the data gathered through the Riot Games official application to as metagaming [2] (also known as meta). The meta strategy is program interface. We classify team compositions by players’ spells a product of the wisdom of the crowd, and it has stabilized to a and attributes of items, and identify several non-meta strategies team of five unique roles, which are different from Riot Games’ that show a consistent advantage over the meta. categories: Top (T), Jungle (J), Mid (M), Attack damage carry (A), and Support (S). -
The Real-Time Strategy Game Multi-Objective Build Order Problem
Proceedings of the Tenth Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2014) The Real-Time Strategy Game Multi-Objective Build Order Problem Jason Blackford and Gary Lamont Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, United States of America Abstract next action based on an observed strategy the opponent is executing. Adaptation corresponds to an agent’s planning In this paper we examine the build order problem in mechanism in which an agent adapts its plans in real-time real-time strategy (RTS) games in which the objective to cope with changes in an uncertain environment and op- is to optimize execution of a strategy by scheduling actions with respect to a set of subgoals. We model ponent. These three capabilities enable an AI to learn from the build order problem as a multi-objective problem and reason about its world. Together the competencies and (MOP), and solutions are generated utilizing a multi- capabilities describe an AI framework that enables an agent objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). A three di- to manage competing goals in an uncertain and dynamic en- mensional solution space is presented providing a de- vironment. piction of a Pareto front for the build order MOP. Re- To summarize the high level requirements for the devel- sults of the online strategic planning tool are provided which demonstrate that our planner out-performs an opment of an expert RTS agent, we generated the expert expert scripted player. This is demonstrated for an AI RTS agent pyramid in Fig. -
Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games
Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games Malthe R. Jensen Supervised by Thessa Jensen Master’s in Interactive Digital Media June 2019 Institute of Communication Aalborg University Denmark Title Page Aalborg University Interactive digital media 10. semester June 2019 Project Title: Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games Written by: Malthe Roed Jensen Study Number: 20147408 Supervisor: Thessa Jensen Characters: 160.473 Page count: 67 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 1 Intro ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Reviewing the literature ......................................................................................................... 4 Data collection ................................................................................................................... 5 Topics ................................................................................................................................ 6 Defining the problem ......................................................................................................... 7 Problem field ......................................................................................................................... 7 Defining negative social behaviour ...................................................................................