A negative outcome for you as the player, but it is a positive feedback loop since it pushes you towards defeat. A negative loop is just the opposite from a positive one. The results of your actions makes it more difficult to do the same tasks or get the same objects again.
The example everybody gives when reading about this is Mario Kart. If you are in the lead, the system will make it harder for you to stay there. Consequently, the losing players will get only good objects, either targeting the ones in the lead or helping them advance and taking the leading position. However, this time the forces of the system pulls you back closer to where you started instead of pushing you away.
Negative feedback loops can be particularly useful for controlling game length and balance. If a player has quickly gained the lead and found a dominant strategy, you might want to consider using a negative loop. Of course, it all depends on the type of game you are making, but you might want to give losing players a chance to catch up.
Not only to control game length, but to give the player a challenge. It is a game mode where your goal is to collect as much money as possible until two teams collected more than 1 millon dollars. However, if you and your teammates are doing well and earned a sizeable amount of cash that puts you in the lead, things will get more tricky.
You will be marked as a HVT High-Value Target and all the other teams will be able to see the area where you are located. Thus making it more difficult to stay in the lead since people will most likely start hunting you.
Feedback loops is something all game developers can benefit from knowing. Using loops can have such a great impact on the game itself. A loop that is out of control can rapidly bring down the user experience of your game. It can leave your players with feelings that your game is unfair, unbalanced or even boring. But handled with care and caution you could have a money making machine right there.
However, depending on the result of the feedback, it creates one of two loop types; Positive or Negative. A positive feedback loop in a game setting is when the result of your actions makes it easier to do the same tasks or get the same objects again.
An easy example to give is what many RPG:s do. You fight enemies and gain experience. That experience will eventually make you gain a new level. That level will make your character stronger and it will become easier to fight the same monsters again.
RPG games usually combat this type of loop by introducing tougher and tougher enemies as you grow stronger. This is to not make the game boring from everything getting too easy after a while and still keep the sense of progression you get from it.
Looking at it from a multiplayer perspective, a positive loop will give better players an advantage. Their skill will give benefits that will make it easier for them to win more and potentially ending the game faster.
However, a positive feedback loop should not be misinterpreted as something that always gives the player a positive outcome, like getting stronger, faster or obtaining stronger equipment. It is the magnitude of the effect fed back into the system we should be looking at. Personally, I like to visualize this on a single horizontal axis showing where you are in terms of winning; left means you are losing and right means that you are winning.
Let me give you an example to make it clearer. In the classic game series Worms, you have an army of worms with whom you can use a number of tactics and weapons to beat your opponent. However, when one of your worms dies by the hand of your opponent, things get a lot harder for you.
A negative outcome for you as the player, but it is a positive feedback loop since it pushes you towards defeat. A negative loop is just the opposite from a positive one. In the example above the feedback loop was in two steps, sound to electricity to sound etc.
Can you say which is the starting point? In this case yes. The loop starts with a sound; in a completely silent room there will be no feedback. In the first post in this series I discussed resources as the basic building block of board-games. It is therefore natural to express feedback loops in terms of resources as well.
In Catan you can use a wood, brick, sheep and grain to build a village, which then throughout the game will produce more of the same depending on where you place your village of course. The essence of a feedback loop in board-games then is: Anything that lets you spend resources now, to get even more resources a bit later. This situation we call a positive or exciting feedback loop. The alternative is a negative or inhibiting feedback loop: The more you have, the less you get or the more you need to pay, or the more difficult it becomes to obtain.
Negative feedback: I might be winning the game, but this turn is a total loss. Starting with very little you improve your lot a bit, so that you get more, so you can improve a bit further.
The essence then is to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible. Positive feedback loops help players win the game. Unless they are not the first one to get them running. If another player gets to a strong positive loop, it can be very difficult to gain in on them again. This can be seen in Catan, where if someone has two more villages than the rest, the game is in many cases already determined.
Introduce negative feedback loops : Make it costly to be ahead. The combination of a positive and negative feedback loop can give some very interesting and deep gameplay, as your players very naturally get two or more things that they need to pay attention to. Lots of depth through good use of feedback-loops Feedback loops are an important part of board-game design. When used well they can increase the depth of the game. The challenge for board-game designers is to balance positive and negative feedback.
Too much positive feedback and you get runaway leaders and frustration. Too much negative feedback however makes your game never get off the ground, resulting in a tedious churn. Balancing however is not trivial, as by their very essence, feedback-loops interact.
Feedback adds depth, but with that it also adds complexity.
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