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cooperative, competitive or both

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Sat, 10/08/2011 - 14:02
Horatio252
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I have a game idea floating around in my head that involves assembling robot warriors and fighting with them. I am thinking of using an auction system to gain parts for building the robot warriors.

I have in mind to use an auction system invented by a friend that involves bidding on several items on your turn and receiving those items on your next turn if you are still the highest bidder. Items in this game are chassis, weapons, jump jets, that kind of thing.

I had thought about making it a cooperative game where you were fighting off waves of enemy robots (a wave every five rounds, three waves of enemies total, each tougher than before). Alternately, I could make a direct conflict game, every five rounds you fight each other, three rounds of fighting. One other option I considered was making it cooperative for the three waves of enemies, but then fighting the other players at the end to determine the ultimate winner.

The problem with a purely cooperative game is that the auction mechanism would probably break down (" jim is trying to build a long range gunner, so I won't bid on this item so that when the enemy robots come we have a good long range gunner"). My problem with direct competition is partially thematic in that the players are sharing a supply of parts but are also enemies. I'm not sure that my third solution actually solves the co-op problem, though I can explain it thematically.

So, my questions are: will a co-op design ruin the auction mechanism? Is a final pvp round a good solution or does it have its own problems?

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Sat, 10/08/2011 - 18:16
#1
Grall Ritnos
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Joined: 02/07/2011
Auction and Co-op

I think you're instinct is accurate that full co-op would break the auction mechanic. The point of using an auction is to allow players to set the prices for limited resources which they are fighting over. If players are solely motivated to help the team become as strong as possible, the optimal play is always to allow the team to discuss strategy and decide who will pay the minimum bid. If you're looking to go completely co-op, I would advise ditching the auction mechanic. One alternative would be to allow for construction or purchase of parts using a variety of resources, which each player has a greater or lesser ability to attain, thus necessitating trading/shipping, etc.

For a strictly competitive game, I think the auction mechanic works great, and this scenario is probably the best thematic fit for the mechanic. I could envision a cool game loosely themed along the lines of the new movie Real Steel (aka Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots: The Movie) which uses these mechanics to create some exciting decisions with real impacts on combat strategy.

For the co-op/competitive hybrid, I think the success of the auction mechanic would largely depend on the carrots you dangle in front of players during the co-op and competitive parts of the game. If you could find a way to carefully balance these elements so that players must absolutely make sure to defeat the outside threat, while still competing with each other in some significant way, you could have a very interesting tension which might make your game very cool. If you don't find that balance though, things could break down rather quickly.

Just my $0.02. Great idea overall!

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Mon, 10/10/2011 - 22:46
#2
NativeTexan
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Joined: 03/04/2009
It's all about incentives

In game design, as in real life, people behave based upon how you incentivize them to behave. If you want people to cooperate in one case and then compete in another, you just have to build the incentives to support that approach.

For example:

- You could structure the auction prices so that it is in everyone's benefit not to get the economy out of balance. Perhaps buying too much of one type of good raises the starting price or increment price for that category of item and subsequently reduces the price for one or more other categories. This could then drive people to collaborate on how to best keep the economy in balance.
- Then the co-op / competitive side of things can be balanced such that everyone is collaborating to fight off the waves of enemies, but you earn VPs based upon your individual performance during the skirmish. You could even complicate things more by assigning a small number of VPs to everyone when a wave has been beaten, but a large number to whomever finished the enemy or did the most damage or whatever.
- A combo like the above would provide incentives for cooperative economic activity without having them rig the auction mechanic to feed all the good stuff to certain people and thus optimize the equipment allocation. At the same time, there would be some measure of incentive to make sure that people could contribute to the fight, but still have enough incentive for people to compete for dominance during the battle waves.

All the best!

Kyle Gabhart
Driftwood Games
www.driftwoodgames.com

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Wed, 10/12/2011 - 15:12
#3
Horatio252
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Those are Good Suggestions

Thank you Kyle, your suggestions fit with what I was imagining was possible, but I wasn't sure if it would work. I imagined structuring rewards such that, much like the USA and soviet Russia during WWII, the enemy must be defeated AND you must prepare yourself to defeat your allies at the end. Too much aggression in the auction phases and you will have to bear the brunt of fighting the enemy, leaving you weaker when you must fight your former ally. That tension sounds plausible to me, but I imagine only playtesting will prove if it is possible or not.

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