The concept of “programmed luck” to help players feel less oppressed by the odds and more joyful at random success is already in games like Civilization:
Extensive play-testing revealed that a player who was told that he had a 33 percent chance of success in a battle but then failed to defeat his opponent three times in a row would become irate and incredulous. So Meier altered the game to more closely match human cognitive biases; if your odds of winning a battle were 1 in 3, the game guaranteed that you’d win on the third attempt—a misrepresentation of true probability that nevertheless gave the illusion of fairness.
And Peggle:
Tweaking the direction of any given bounce by just a few compass degrees—but not so much that the ball swerves unrealistically in mid-air—is enough to encourage beginners and not make the game too unbelievable, Kapalka said.
And (of course) slot machines:
Slot machines often employ the fiction of luck by making it look as if you just missed out on a king’s ransom as the final matching bar of gold or lemon reels to a stop just shy of a jackpot payout.
Blizzard games, too:
In World of Warcaft, every time players defeat a foe, they hope to receive a “Legendary”—one of the game’s highly powerful weapons. Legendaries have an infinitesimally small chance of being “dropped,” but are also on a pity timer. “Fatigue can set in where a player is just waiting for the pity timer to kick in,” Sottosanti said. “The primary emotion they feel upon finally finding a Legendary is often not joy but relief, perhaps tinged with sadness.”
Hearthstone uses a pity timer for card packs, and if you track how many packs you’ve opened since your last legendary drop, you can make it more likely that you’ll get a card you really want by only getting packs from one set until a legendary drops. I’m pretty sure all “random drop” and loot box mechanics (in Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch) are on pity timers.
Think about this, though: What if the conditions for amazing POTGs are programmed into the game on a pity-timer basis? If, at certain rare and random moments when your ult is ready to use, hit boxes and power levels change size to make it more likely to get a POTG? POTG clips are a viral marketing golden goose for Overwatch – people never stop sharing them. It would make perfect sense from an engagement and marketing standpoint.
Altering POTG conditions could also impact the perception of hero balance.
There is reason why to have system like that in games you presented. Not really in overwatch tho as you dont need it. You dont need programmend luck so people can feel better after winning games because of that. You have player base instead, which will keep you where you belong and have 50% winrate so you can be happy with 50% win games.
Yes. Standard practice now it seems. Wiki Dynamic_Difficulty_Adjustment and follow some of the references to Blizz/Activision patents. Typically it gives ttk/hps passives, ult charge modifiers, hitbox/aim assist, etc. Not sure what triggers it or how adaptive it is. Typically lasts an entire point/round/match. I’ve noticed DDA on far too many occasions, both for/against and on streams. It seems to be lessened above Diamond.
It is in-game until the devs say otherwise, and it tries to smooth out the gaps caused by poor matchmaking, to create that fun, dynamic, and engaging experience.
What a nonsense. Such changes to hitboxes etc. would be easily detectable. So many people are alread closely watching for cheaters and other uncommon events, beside of the fact that this all makes zero sense in such a game and is totally uncontrollable within the given dynamics.
Think harder. Server side aim-assist is baked into the engine which is cross-compatible for console and controller players. And just the other day there was a clip where people were laughing on stream about Moira raidboss orbs, bouncing 18+ times and heatseeking to hit everyone on the team.
Since we can’t see the numbers in realtime (only in sum on the scoreboard and in your profile post-match), we can’t prove that there’s no dynamic adjustment ala “programmed luck” or “pity timers.” It’s really easy to fudge the numbers a little to favor a certain outcome.
Maybe this is the real reason Blizzard banned Visor.
It’s really strange that every other Blizzard game shows realtime numbers for damage and healing, and Overwatch specifically does not.
“Favor the shooter”, latency, and lag all make perfect excuses for what would appear to be dynamically-adjusted hitboxes.
It’s possible that something in Ashe’s ADS design exposed a dynamic hitbox feature (Ashe has some kind of weird bug that makes ADS shots not register sometimes).
Look at how difficult it is for ordinary players to detect cheating at sub-rage-mode levels. Look at all the complaints about “smurfs,” which Blizzard insists don’t exist and aren’t a problem.
Another flag for you since you contribute nothing and acuse others of trolling. Can’t wait to see you leave us, coach.
The DDA patents are out there, and the server-side ‘luck’ like aim-assist and passive ult % modifiers are baked into the engine because of cross-platform/controller/etc. Not that hard to grasp. Until the devs officially confirm there is no DDA whatsoever, I’m going to err on the side of capability and assume there is.
The RNG in overwatch is composed primarily of who you get for the other 11 people each match. Even in an ideal world, where everyone is at the correct rank and plays to win, synergy between the players can vary, as well as the players’ ability on the map.
Add in people at the wrong rank and trolls, and the RNG becomes significantly larger.
What all these games have in common is that the players are playing against the house: either loot tables or AI opponents. Once the other players’ in the game are human, rigging probability for a better experience takes on a rather dubious feel.
In theory, the Overwatch team could rig game mechanics or how the teams are made to give loss streak protection. The main argument against this is that there is no evidence that this is happening. Game mechanic manipulations could be seen in replays.
Affecting win probability by messing with the matchmaker would be a bit more subtle, but the main result should be shorter win/loss streaks. That is, if Blizzard was rigging the games to force 50/50 and shorter win/loss streaks, they are doing a horrible job of it.
Finally, mathematical analysis can be done on win/loss streaks to show that they are consistent with an unrigged matchmaker: Overwatch Forums. Similar analysis done on pity timers in Hearthstone (for example) would show that early rolls would have lower success rates than later rolls as no-drop protection kicks in.
It’s possible (but unlikely) that Blizzard has a pity timer for POGs that doesn’t affect in game mechanics, but if so, I don’t really see the problem.
