The Influence of Game Difficulty Curves on Player Experience－A Case Study of First Person Shooter Game

• Main Authors: FAN, TIEN-HUNG, 范天鴻
• Other Authors: CHEN, YU-LUN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/mzqax6

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 數位科技設計學系(含玩具與遊戲設計碩士班) === 106 === This study design three difficulty curves based on “flow theory” and apply to first-person shooter game. Research the influence of different difficulty curves on the player's experience. After a gameplay is designed, it is necessary to create more level and content to make the players continue playing the game. The difficulty design is part of game design. It affects all of the game until gameover. Therefore this study research the influence of three different difficulty curves on the player's experience and investigate the suitable difficulty curve for first-person shooter game. Review the work of first-person shooter games in the history of video games, and study the interesting things, design element in game and gameplay form the work. Also, researcher collected the emphasis on level design, and studied “flow theory” about the characteristics of immersion as well as the 8 mental state formed with challenge level and skill level. Quantified the game difficulty (challenge level) by difficulty curve. In this study, three difficulty curves are designed: line-type (difficulty increase gently), peak-type (difficulty is increase and then decrease), valley-type (difficulty is decrease and then increase),and apply to a first-person shooter game "OneWayOut" to research the player's experience. After the scene design, enemy design and difficulty curve design, the game is completed. This game pass twice expert interviews to adjust its difficulty curve. In the experiment, there are three groups of difficulty curves: line-type, peak-type and valley-type. It has 20~25 players in each group, a total of 66 players to play the game "OneWayOut". After playing game, collect flow state scale data and use one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyzed date. The result show that their player experience scores of waved difficulty curves: peak-type and valley-type are higher than linear difficulty curve: line-type. In the similar waved difficulty curves, peak-type which difficulty is increase and then decrease, its player experience scores is higher than valley-type which difficulty is decrease and then increase. Overall, in first-person shooter game, peak-type is the best difficulty curve in three difficulty curves.