New episode - How Games Use Feedback Loops

One thing that I think is worth mentioning is that a lot of multiplayer matchmaking systems are filled with negative feedback loops, especially when the game is team based. The majority of systems use an Elo/Glicko based system, which comes from chess. This is brilliant if you are playing one versus one because your true skill is rewarded, and failure is punished with relation to your direct opponent. In my humble opinion, there is a problem with squad based multiplayer games, Heroes of the Storm being a prime example. The problem is that if you have a bad team and you lose, your ranking goes down, and you play with continuously worse players making it harder and harder to escape the loop.

Mayaleon

MARIO KART 8: DELUXE

Christopher Foss

Continuing on that note, one grand strategy game I remember that explicitly used AI cooperation as a negative feedback mechanism was Shogun: Total War 2. If player managed to gain control over more than half the provinces, the emperor would declare them the enemy of the empire, causing all AIs to declare war on them. It was quite harsh, but by letting the player know what is the trigger condition, and thus letting the player to some degree choose when they want to trigger it, it made it feel kind of fair.

It's worth noting that these examples only represent extrinsic reward systems related to game balance. There are many feedback loops which exist as positive/negative intrinsic rewards as well. These tend to align with mechanical skill like the power slide in Mario Kart, aiming in an FPS, or movement in a platformer. A player can improve their skills in these areas through practice, and the game typically won't provide a discrete reward for this. What's interesting here is that many balance systems counter this type of player skill with negative feedback - the Mario Kart items, for example.

Hey Mark. Regarding the Civilization and 4X games in general, a lot of behind the scenes info can be heard on the Designer Notes podcast (hosted by Soren Johnson and Sid Meier himself is the interviewed guest in several episodes) and on early episodes of Game Design Roundtable (when Jon Shafer was one of the hosts). Anyway, from what I remember players in Civ considered AI ganging up on them to be extremely unfair (even if completely logical), so the code is written specifically so that the AI gangs up even less than it would naturally occur (due to the sheer player's country size) and more or less lets the player steam roll the AI players.

It's a valid "well actually"! You're totally right, I missed that. Luckily the overall point still stands about nothing carrying over from round to round, but the rage system is indeed a negative feedback loop.

Game Maker's Toolkit

Hey Mark! Welcome back - strong open for 2018. Gonna be a bit of a "well actually guy" here: You mention Tekken offhand as an example of a game without feedback loops, but the Tekken clip you used is literally showing Tekken's Rage system; aka when on low health, you do more damage. Actually a clear example of the same Mario Kart style negative feedback loops used for choreographing comebacks

Steven Thornton

I wanted to see a mention of MOBAs; both League of Legends and DOTA have quite strong positive feedback loops that feed individual success and failure into team success that can be very frustrating for some players.

Matt Cramp

Hadn't heard of Pyre but I'll be getting it now. Love your videos, keep up the great work buddy, and I hope you're having a nice new year.

FoxDeploy

Great video. I had heard of Pyre, but didn't look into seeing what it was about. But after watching this, I think I'll be picking it up.

FCRacer

There's one thing I always love first about your videos and it's them thumbnails! Just...so concise and neat and striking!

Dan Root