لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Positive Feedback in a Game
Not all games use negative feedback systems. Some make good use of positive feedback systems as well. Powerstone is a console fighting game for up to four players that features cartoony, fast-paced brawling action. In Powerstone, when a player is successfully hit by a powerful attack, the target of the attack will be stunned for a short time, during which the target player cannot move his or her character, and the attacker can continue to strike the stunned character. A stunned character cannot move out of the way, defend, or counterattack, and is much easier to hit. This is, in effect, a positive feedback system: because a player successfully launches a powerful attack, the player has a better chance of launching yet more attacks as the target remains stunned and easier to hit. The new attacks continue to stun the target, increasing the ability of the attacker to deliver more damage. Positive feedback creates dramatic results, in which a player can be devastated by a rapidly delivered series of attacks. This kind of slapstick action makes sense in a lighthearted and humorous game such as Powerstone. However, if the positive feedback system were permitted to play itself out until the end of a match, then the game as a whole wouldn't work. Once your character was hit for the first time, you would remain stunned while an opponent continued to attack you. In effect, the first blow landed would determine your fate and the game would lose the back-and-forth struggle that is an important ingredient of fighting games. Powerstone gets out of this feedback trap by adding a different behavior to the game system. After receiving a certain number of attacks, a stunned character will be hurled across the playfield, making it impossible for the attacker to indefinitely continue rapid-fire strikes. The attacker can pursue the character that flew across the playfield, but the far-flung character is usually no longer stunned by the time the attacker gets there. Because positive feedback systems are inherently unstable and push a game system toward an inevitable outcome, they are usually dampened by other game factors that limit the acceleration of the feedback loop. In real-time multiplayer strategy games such as Warcraft II, players gather resources, which allow them to build more units that can gather yet more resources, increasing the acceleration of resource-gathering. In this way, all of the players are building their own positive feedback loops, joined together in an arms race to see who will gather enough resources and be the first to front an army capable of winning the game. In Warcraft II, potentially unstable positive feedback loops are balanced by the fact that each player is creating his or her own feedback loop in parallel. Furthermore, these feedback loops help bring the game to conclusion. Because of their complexity, real-time multiplayer strategy games can sometimes drag on interminably, with players evenly matched and unable to get an upper hand. Because of the way that positive feedback systems can quickly grow out of control, a player that can gain a slight advantage (such as capturing a resource-rich gold mine from another player) can use the advantage to overwhelm an opponent. Obviously, there are many strategic factors other than the resource-feedback loops that determine the outcome of Warcraft II. (For example, skillful battle tactics can help defeat a more resource-powerful opponent.) However, positive feedback systems are clearly a key element of the game design and contribute to the successful play of the game.
