Tuesday 19 December 2017

Game Design: Week 9 - The three player problem

Have you ever been playing a three player game and noticed that the better or more successful player is set upon by their opponents in unison.This is a symptom of the three player problem, the three player problem is simply referring to the extreme difficulty one can have in balancing a three player competitive game. This particular example of two players teaming up on the lead can result in a stalemate as the pairings rotate to account for each new player taking the advantage or if the game is limited by time or score than one player may make the decision to sabotage someone else's victory rather than pursue their own.
This is why most competitive games are made for two or four or more players, as when the number increases each players individual actions make a smaller effect on the game as a whole and thus either everyone would need to collaborate to bring down the lead or risk teams breaking out.
Sometimes a game might just work better with only three players, so the challenge is for the designers to find a way to around these pitfalls.
Sometimes something as simple as the type of game can completely negate this effect, take a first person shooter for example. Say its three people playing what ever your favourite shooter and they are playing the deathmatch mode and two players have agreed to team up on the leading player, not many shooters are made with three people in mind so many maps are too large for you to really control when and where you are going to come into contact with one of only two other players so the the leading play is likely to never be outnumbered in a gun fight, so all that has effectively happened is that the teamed players have limited their potential scoring options by refusing to attack each other and have created a more efficient pipeline to get shot in the head since they are hunting down a player we are assuming is potentially better than them. This creates a scenario where you are better off taking an 'every man for himself' stand and just kill whoever you see. To counter the attitude of those who just choose to sabotage an opponents win, how can they? If you are that bad to be that far behind you can't hope to hunt down and repeatedly beat one of the other players, and it's pointless to just run around let the other guy kill you, there is no fun in it and secondly you are likely to give as many points to the leading player as the person they wanted to.
So sometimes the answer to this dilemma can be simple, or at least accidentally solve itself through coincidence. But that shouldn't be relied on, solve the issue if it comes to fruition, but don't fret over it if it ruins the game. Trios may be a film quote but you should really have more than two friends.

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