The basic knowledge of the game-the design technique of "pollution" and its related skills

In the real world, the definition of "pollution" is probably like this-harmful substances enter an environment, and if their concentration exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment, it will lead to the environment being out of normal state. This phenomenon is "pollution". This definition is also applicable in the game, but the types of "harmful substances" will be more abundant, and the abnormal state caused by the environment will be more diverse and imaginative. Specifically, it can not only harm the units affected by "pollution", but also cause other forms of negative effects, and even directly lead to the variation of biological units.

In the game, not all characters can use the abilities related to "pollution", but by observing a variety of games, we can see that some specific types of characters are frequent visitors to "pollution". Moreover, the object of "pollution" in the game is not limited to the "environment" in people's conventional cognition. An artifact or a character's spiritual world may also be polluted. At the same time, there will be many stories about "purifying pollution", telling how to recover after being polluted.

What I want to introduce to you today is the "pollution" in the game and the design techniques of related skills.

In the game, all actions and skills will have their own goals, such as "sniper" and "hypnosis", which obviously affect enemy biological units, while skills such as "building walls" and "rainfall" can be aimed at the environment, with the effect of reshaping the terrain of a certain area or changing the weather state of the area. There are such examples in many types of games. For example, some monsters in "Ice Crystal Phoenix" in League of Legends and diablo 3 can "build walls", and the fighting scene in the fighting game "Unfaithfulness in the East" will also have various weather changes, which can not only visually affect the scene, but also have an effect on the player's role. However, "pollution" is special. In the game, it has the ability to influence many types of goals. There are three common categories of targets that "pollution" may affect.

First, biological units, including "constructive creatures" and "elemental creatures" that are not "flesh and blood creatures". The "biological unit" in the game can be simply divided into two parts-body and mind. Obviously, any aspect may be polluted. For example, in the setting of the real-time strategy game Command and Conquest, Tiberium mine is a substance that will directly pollute organisms. According to the description of the game settings, if humans come into direct contact with Tiberium mine, it will directly merge with the skin in about 20 seconds. If it is not treated and amputated immediately, it will cause the body to crystallize and present a glass-green appearance. In the end, Tiberium mine will spread all over the body, and all the internal organs will be necrotic. Even the famous Tiberium devil is the result of canine biological variation after being polluted by Tiberium mine. The fangs that seem to grow constantly and the sharp crystal mines that can be ejected from their backs make them enemies to be reckoned with.

There is an example in World of Warcraft that simply pollutes the spiritual world of the characters. In the final stage of the junior five-person copy "Mourning Cave", the player needs to protect a night elf druid named "Nararex" to prevent his spiritual world from being polluted by nightmares. From the appearance, Nararex is not unusual.

In the process of guarding him, the game only expresses its mental state through commentary and monsters constantly refreshing in the lower left corner. After the player defeated the giant fisherman who represented the "nightmare", Narrax finally woke up. Later, players will find that the main threat to the "Emerald Dream", which represents the spiritual world of druids and the Green Dragon, is the pollution of nightmares, which is manifested in many subsequent plots.

What needs to be added is that there are basically only two situations after the biological body in the game is polluted-death or mutation. The pollution consequences of "Taikuang" are a good example, and organisms polluted by this ore are faced with the possibility of "choosing one from the other". However, if a creature is mentally polluted, it will not die directly, and it is common to lose its mind. For example, a druid whose mind is completely polluted by nightmares (such as "I Lois" in the copy of "Emerald Nightmare" in The Second Coming of the Legion) will abandon the way of nature he guards and be hostile to almost all creatures. The production team will give players two choices when facing such creatures-kill or purify.

Second, the object. Objects in the game will also be polluted. "A vital artifact is polluted and cannot exert its original power, so the protagonist and his party have to find a way to purify it." This kind of plot is used very much and can add a lot of capacity to the story. For example, there is a bridge in "Little Master China" where "Yongling Road is stained with blood and loses its magical power". Later, during the journey of the protagonist and his party "looking for legendary kitchen utensils",

Generally speaking, judging from the consequences caused by pollution, after the objects in the game are polluted, there are actually three manifestations-the original power of the objects is greatly weakened; Things become completely unusable and can only be simply put in backpacks or warehouses; Objects have gained brand-new power, but at the same time they also have certain "side effects". The design methods of the first two expressions are relatively simple, and they only need to be numerically weakened (for example, the value of a polluted equipment is reduced by 25%) or make it have only side effects without additional "positive effects" (for example, if a polluted equipment is not numerically weakened, the visual field of the character will be reduced when it is used 15%). The setting of "gaining new strength with side effects" will be more difficult to design, because on the one hand, it involves the problem of "balance"-the intensity of new ability and the consequences of side effects cannot be exaggerated too much, such as "the movement speed is increased by 5% after equipment, and the therapeutic effect is reduced by 80%", which is an obvious "unbalanced design"; On the other hand, it also involves the player's "calculation", such as "how to match the polluted equipment with different abilities and side effects to get the highest income" or "what kind of ability is the most reasonable with what kind of side effects", which can neither make the player match the combination with too strong and almost no side effects, nor let the weak ability produce too serious side effects. When making this design, both the mechanism and the value should be adjusted frequently according to the test and the feedback from the players. For example, version 8.3 of World of Warcraft: Azeroth for hegemony has such a setting. Most of the equipment players get in this version will be polluted by Enzos, the ancient god. Contaminated equipment will have a corresponding "corrosion effect", but at the same time, "corrosion value" will be superimposed on the player. The higher the corrosion value, the greater the negative effects that players need to bear. From the deceleration of low corrosion value to the gradual superposition of damage, and then to chasing the illusion of high damage of players, in order to avoid players having to wear too many contaminated equipment, players can "purify" the equipment at a very small cost to remove the corrosion value, but at the same time, the "corrosion special effect" will also be removed.

Third, the region. A certain area can also be the object of pollution, even it can be said that it is the object with the most "pollution" in reality, such as "polluting the ocean" and "polluting the river" and so on. The design method of the "polluted area" in the game is relatively less complicated, just need to make corresponding visual effects, and then design what kind of influence other units will receive after entering this area.

For example, in the real-time strategy game Red Alert 2, "desolator" can pollute an area with nuclear radiation after deployment, and the polluted area will show a very obvious green color (in the whole game Red Alert 2, the elements related to "radiation" are basically expressed in green), and the units in this area will be continuously injured, and most infantry units will die immediately.

In the series of urban construction games of Sim City, the waters and groundwater near industrial areas and garbage disposal plants will be polluted. If these polluted water sources are directly connected to residential areas by water pipes without treatment, it will cause a lot of complaints from citizens, wither plants and drop land prices. Obviously, this type of pollution will be shown in the game in the form of "regional pollution".

It is easy for people to think that there is no essential difference between some manifestations and descriptions of the psychological state of "polluted" characters and creatures and "depravity", but in fact, there are still some differences between the two situations when designing games, mainly the following four points.

First, "pollution" must have a clear source of pollution, which belongs to the influence from the outside world, but the main reason for "degeneration" lies in the role itself, which is basically caused by the negative emotions generated by one's past experience. For "depravity", sometimes external factors are not even necessary. For example, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars series of animations, the Jedi Knight "Paris Orphee" had doubts about the justice of the war and the Jedi Council because of years of war, and then she joined an anti-war organization to destroy it, blaming her companion "Ahsoka" and going further and further on the road to becoming a "dark Jedi". In diablo 3, "Malthael" didn't mention any explicit external factors during his fall. He only degenerated after years of "eternal war" in heaven and hell and long-term study of the power of death, and became an angel of death by hook or by crook in order to achieve his goal (eliminating all demons).

We can all find the corresponding pollution source because of "pollution" in the game, such as the aforementioned "Tiberian demon", and the pollution source that leads to its variation is Tiberian mine; The pollution source of "zombie dog" in Resident Evil 2 is "T virus". Most of the pollution sources related to emerald dreams in World of Warcraft refer to "nightmares", and druids and green dragons will also have some variations when they are polluted by nightmares, which is not the result of biological subjectivity (even canines do not want to be "Tiber demons" or "zombie dogs" subjectively). Therefore, compared with "depravity", "pollution" will emphasize the influence of the outside world more, and even have some "compulsion".

Second, the speed of "pollution" is relatively fast, while "degradation" is a long process. Generally speaking, every character who becomes a villain after "falling" in a plot story will have a story that is not too short. Players will explain his personal experience and the process of changing his mentality from the initial state to the degenerate state. Players will extract key bridges such as "the last straw", "the most influential" and "induced events" from the story, such as warcraft 3: The Governance of Chaos. In the team copy of World of Warcraft: Azeroth for hegemony, players can personally feel what it is like to fight a villain with the ability of "spiritual pollution". In this battle, Enzos, the "ancient god", will use various skills to attack the players, which will not only damage the players' life value, but also reduce their "spiritual value", which is a much faster thing than "depravity". Judging from the plot, players still can't avoid mental pollution after a fierce battle with Enzos. Finally, the energy provided by the Heart Chamber helps players clean up pollution and shoot Enzo.

The related settings of "Taikuang" introduced before also highlight the rapid pollution of crystal ore to organisms, and it only takes 20 seconds to fuse with human skin after contact.

Third, "pollution" is diffuse, but "degradation" basically does not spontaneously spread outward. As a word used to describe thoughts most of the time, the state of "depravity" can only be spread by constantly confusing others, which is similar to a way of "preaching" and belongs to artificial diffusion. And "pollution" is generally very diffuse in the game, just like dropping a drop of blue pigment into a basin of clear water, the whole basin will turn blue (this is actually a kind of "water pollution"). Tabray in Command and Conquest has this attribute. One of their major characteristics is that Tiberium will be "regenerated" after being mined in the game, and players can be interested in it. In the specific setting of the game, we can see that Tiberias can not only replicate itself and pollute an area quickly, but also change the gene sequence of surrounding plants, making them become their own "flowering trees" to spread the spores of Tiberias around, thus polluting more areas. In the battle between World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and the Lich King, the "pollution" skill is also the vanishing point that players need to handle carefully. The Lich King will randomly assign a player to drop a polluted area under his feet, and the area of the polluted area will be expanded with each additional player, which is also a classic example of the "diffusion" of the "pollution" skill.

Fourth, purifying "pollution" requires the use of very specific and targeted means. For example, in "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King", the battle with Titan guardian Torem is like this. After the player exposed the fake Sif (Torim's wife) scam, Torim regained consciousness and launched a battle with the yoga salon of the ancient god.

On the other hand, the purification process of "pollution" is much more complicated, and the economic cost and time cost will be higher. It doesn't mean that the polluted unit will be destroyed instantly when it wakes up mentally. For example, in World of Warcraft: The Second Coming of the Legion, Isela, the green dragon queen polluted by nightmares, was killed by Elune, the moon god, before she exerted her strength to purify her soul. In this plot, "death" can be regarded as "will" to the environment and the region, and purifying "pollution" is also a troublesome project. In the "Simulated City" series, players need to build sewage treatment plants in areas where water pollution may occur to purify water bodies. According to the discharge of pollutants, the demand for sewage treatment plants in different industrial zones is of course different. In fact, the scene design concept of World of Warcraft also illustrates this point. After the victory of Northrend expedition, druids and many other mortal races began to cure the "western plague land" polluted by natural disasters of the undead by "planting" (including planting brand-new trees and crops here), but it took many years for this "cure" to show its initial effect, and the smell of withering and rotting still lingered in some corners of the western plague land. As can be seen from the above examples, purifying "pollution" requires very clear methods and means. For example, purifying the soul requires "death", purifying the sewage requires "sewage treatment plant" and purifying the plague land requires "green plants". After all, "pollution" actually transfers some energy or substances to the target, unlike "degradation", which may be just a spiritual change.

Whether it is a polluted area, an object or a biological unit, or a character who can use the "pollution" ability, they usually have the following four characteristics in gameplay performance.

First of all, the skills related to "pollution" are basically a range of AOE skills, and there is no purely single goal. This is because in reality, the role of "pollution" itself is diffuse, whether it is the pigment dripping into clean water or the waste gas generated by burning garbage. As a cultural product made by human beings, games are bound to be inspired by human life, so the skills related to "pollution" are bound to be extensive. For example, the nuclear pollution caused by the deployment of desolator in Red Alert 2 is large, and the talents and skills of warlocks in World of Warcraft have also been mentioned earlier.

Second, polluted biological units or objects will acquire different new capabilities according to different pollution sources, but at the same time they may retain some "old capabilities" before being polluted. For example, this is the case with the "corrosion equipment" in the 8.3 version of World of Warcraft: Azeroth for hegemony. These equipments have "corrosion effects" while retaining their original attributes or special effects. For example, even the corroded staff "sea breeze" can still improve the player's "quickness" attribute to a certain extent, and the attributes of "intelligence" and "endurance" will not increase because of it. The "polluted fanatic" in Hearthstone can also illustrate this point well-this card has two special effects: "divine shield" and "spell damage+1". In fact, players who have a certain understanding of the world view of Warcraft will soon see that "fanaticism" refers to "fanaticism of light" here, so "spell damage+1" belongs to the new ability acquired after being polluted, and the two coexist. There is no such thing as "the ability endowed by pollution is exclusive". After all, as discussed before, whether it is physical pollution or mental pollution, it will only make the target "mutate" and will not make the target "amnesia", even if it will reshape the memory.

Third, some special units will be strengthened in "polluted" areas. This is because "pollution" is actually a relative concept, because there are differences in living conditions and habits of organisms, so if the environmental structure becomes very suitable for the survival and reproduction of a certain organism, but it can't survive for other organisms, then this change in environmental structure can't be called "pollution" for A, but it is "pollution" for other organisms except A (for example, the flooding of "water hyacinth" in Dianchi Lake in early years caused water pollution. For us human beings and most other aquatic creatures, water hyacinth has indeed "polluted" Dianchi Lake, but it is definitely not a "pollution" to water hyacinth itself, but an "ideal" living environment. So we can see that the so-called "polluted" environment in the game is based on our normal human perspective, but for those creatures who are suitable for living in that environment, it will produce benefits. For example, in StarCraft II, the Zerg need to constantly cover the whole map with a "bacterial carpet", which is definitely "pollution" to the other two races-humans and elves, because neither race can cover the whole map with a bacterial carpet. But for the Zerg, "carpet" is definitely not pollution. First of all, most buildings of Zerg need to be built on carpets. In addition, when Zerg's combat units move on the carpet, they will have additional movement speed and life recovery speed bonus, because "carpet" is more suitable for their living environment.

Fourth, "pollution" is usually a lasting effect in the game, and there is basically no simple "instantaneous" type of "pollution". The reason is that no matter in reality or in games, "pollution" is basically not accompanied by special effects such as "explosion", "puncture" and "impact". Generally speaking, only these three effects belong to "instant action". For example, the common instant skills in the game-"ice arrow", "lightning arrow" and "heavy punch" can be understood as "stabbing the enemy with condensed sharp ice" respectively.

"Pollution" is often associated with "toxins" or "harmful substances", and what they produce in the game is basically continuous injury or loss of interests. As mentioned above, no matter the warlock's talent skill "evil pollution" in World of Warcraft or the Lich King's "pollution" skill, or the nuclear pollution area in desolator in Red Alert 2, all the damage is continuous.

Obviously, even in the game world, not all characters can master the ability of "pollution". Generally speaking, people who can use the power of "pollution" are not "positive people" in the traditional sense, such as "paladins", "bards" and "brave people", and they must have certain magic or scientific and technological power, so conventional races (such as humans and dwarves) are not explained.

The first kind, alien creatures. Alien creatures refer to creatures that invade from the space outside the main world of the game, such as void creatures in League of Legends and World of Warcraft. They don't belong to the main world of the game, the land of Varoland and the planet Azeroth, but they have the ambition to invade the main world. Because alien creatures are bound to have a completely different living environment from the main world, they invade. The setting of void creatures in League of Legends can directly pollute the normal creatures in the main world. For example, the protagonist "Kasha" is an example of being trapped in the void for many years. His body has been polluted by the void (but he is still rational). Of course, this polluted body also gave her great strength, making her a top hunter;

The "Great Illusion" scene in World of Warcraft: The Hegemony of Azeroth shows the players the pollution of vanity to creatures and the environment. Players will see that once the ancient god Enzos occupied Stormwind and Orgrimmar, the whole city will be filled with all kinds of tentacles, eyeballs and faceless people from the void, and the creatures polluted by the void will be completely mutated in both body and nature, even "Ressar" and "Orr".

Of course, compared with the "void" of Cthulhu style, the pollution styles caused by the alien creature "devil" are mainly "flame" and "blood". If "void pollution" gives people the feeling of depression, darkness and shadow, then the pollution caused by "devil" needs to be reminiscent of tyranny, burning and anger. Simply put, it needs to be "hell"

Second, users of chemical, biological and radiological weapons. These characters mainly release toxic gas, venom or cause regional radiation pollution. Their characteristic is that they can hardly directly pollute biological units or objects, but must first pollute the environment and then affect various units in the environment. In fact, this has a lot to do with the purpose of weapon development. Many biochemical and radioactive weapons in the game are themselves developed for "chip killing", unlike pistols, sniper rifles and other weapons designed for "single-point attack", and one of the means of "chip killing" is to directly pollute a certain area, and then the effect of pollution will affect its effective force. The sweeper in Red Alert 2 and the above-mentioned commands are the same as Tabray in the conquest series. Nuclear radiation and crystal mines will cover a very wide area, and if they are not protected in advance, all the creatures within the coverage will not be spared.

Third, the dead. Especially wizards who master the power of the undead will pollute the world of the living with the power of death. There are two common manifestations-withering and withering of various plants; The spread of plague can be understood as that the former will take the lives of plants in the living world, while the latter will take the lives of animals (including higher animals) in the living world. This is reflected in warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. In warcraft 3, necromancers have a setting similar to "Zerg carpet". Their buildings must be built in "barren land". They can use skulls in shops to pollute ordinary ground, or they can build a "big cemetery" on ordinary ground, which seems to be "floating". In World of Warcraft, players can personally witness what the area covered by the "barren land" in the "oriental plague land" is like. The air here is grayish brown, which represents the plague. All the trees are withered without exception, and all the crops are withered. Diffuse diseases not only kill ordinary people, but also turn them into enslaved zombies and ghouls (in warcraft 3: The Rule of Chaos, in the early stage of the human war,

Therefore, it can also be briefly summarized that there are actually several common "pollution styles" in the game-the "burning and blood" style similar to hell; The "empty" style in Cthulhu culture: the "toxic" or "radiation" style commonly used in modern and sci-fi backgrounds; The style of "withering and plague" representing the undead.

In addition to the above parts, there are some supplementary contents about "pollution" in the game, including "visual design points of pollution", "effects and consequences caused by pollution" and "line design of some characters about pollution".

First, the game should have a very intuitive visual expression of "pollution". Players should not only know "which areas in the game are polluted" at the first time, but also quickly reflect what kind of power caused the pollution. For example, the polluted Orgrimmar and Stormwind in "Hegemony of Azeroth" are shrouded in purple, which represents the "void" color in the game, plus twisted monsters, faceless people, tentacles and eyeballs everywhere.

Because pollution should be a vicious situation that the game allows players to guard against, if players enter the polluted area without any hint and continue to be affected, their game experience will be seriously damaged. In contrast, "depravity" can be used as a foreshadowing in the plot at some time, so there is no need to adjust the appearance of the character when it degenerates.

Second, the effects of "pollution" are mostly reversible. For example, the plague land in the west, which was polluted by the undead in World of Warcraft mentioned earlier, has begun to recover by planting new plants; "Simulated City" series can purify polluted water sources through sewage treatment plants; The land polluted by desolator will be restored to its original appearance after a period of time; Equipment contaminated by Enzo can also be purified by pure virgins; In StarCraft II, Jim Reynolds also used Sanaga artifact to purify Kerrigan polluted by Zerg gene. Therefore, no matter whether the object of pollution is a region, an object or a creature, there are basically corresponding purification methods in the game, and many degenerate characters are not "washed white" in the end, perhaps because the "pollution" in reality can basically be dealt with in a certain way in theory.

Third, for people from different camps, the production team should pay more attention when designing relevant lines. For example, don't use the word "pollute an area" when communicating within the camp of vanity, undead, demons and other creatures. We can consider changing "pollution" into words such as "transformation", "assimilation" and "transformation", because as mentioned above, what is "pollution" for human beings and other major races belongs to transforming the environment in a direction suitable for their own survival.

The above is the introduction of "pollution" in the game and its related skill design techniques in this issue. See you next time ~