What Can Game Designers Learn From Behavioral Psychology?

An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss Herzberg's theory of motivation and how it relates to game design.
Hosts:
Forrest Imel
forrestimel.com/
Gavin Gray Valentine
www.ggvart.com/
Join the Distraction Makers Discord: / discord

[@distractionmakers]

Here’s a link to the hypergeometric calculator I used in the video: aetherhub.com/Apps/HyperGeometric

[@redredbluemustard]

Commander started fun because of durdling and sub-optimal synergies. The arms race and cards being printed straight into the format absolutely killed the fun of it for me. And this was years ago. Suboptimal cards have no room to overperform with the format in its current state.

[@jonathan.ahnert]

Agreed, it originally felt like "Magic: Show and Tell" or like a science fair for decks that don't survive in standard. "Want to show off a weird infinite squirrel combo? Come on in!"

[@isambo400]

Commander needs to be diced into like 10 formats for this reason

[@octopusrpg]

When Wizards started "designing for Commander" they absolutely ruined the fun of the format for me. What's the fun of a 100 singleton format if you can optimize all the jank out of those 100 cards with virtually no effort?

[@demiurge2501]

@@octopusrpgthat optimization is how they attract “spike” type players though, which is why they can continue to do it. I play 2-3 decks like a spike but I’m largely a “Johnny” like you who cares about expression

[@altrivotzck6565]

Commander would be so much more fun if WoTC didn't know it existed.

[@arjunheart5859]

Hypergeometric calculator! That's how you do the math of finding how likely drawing a card is.

[@distractionmakers]

Yup! Haha

[@misomiso8228]

5:07 Yes! The reason why Slay the Spire is/was so good is BOTH parts of the game, the building and the combat, were compelling. I havnt found a 'paper' deck builder that I really enjoy yet though. I love star realms but I find the game becomes quite stale after a while as the only decisions you have are the purchase ones. A 'Duel' deck builder, one one one, in paper would have to be a lot longer game I feel to be very compelling.

[@carlduzett]

If every single game design topic somehow diverts to ragging on Commander design, I'm here for it.

[@distractionmakers]

It’s not intentional we swear! I think it’s just really helpful to examine the cross section of commander and 60 card.

[@GFreeGamer]

I feel like the real busywork of Magic is tracking things. Counters, tracking both players' graveyards, triggers, continuous effects, etc. I guess that goes to playing the deck out, but I do think it is meaningfully distinct from the choices made in sequencing. It's particularly challenging in multiplayer with different players' triggers to sequence in APNAP order, replacement effects that fundamentally change how the game works, etc. As the average player's deck gets more complex, it can drastically affect the quality of the game when players aren't familiar enough with their decks and the rules it interacts with.

[@distractionmakers]

Agreed. I think the there’s an advantage to seeing how other aspects of the game also keep you from “doing the thing”, but also that there is joy in some of that busywork. Placing lots of +1/+1 counters feels great when all your creatures get them, you feel powerful. Without the physical act, does it feel as good?

[@GFreeGamer]

@@distractionmakers I definitely understand that feeling, but after the first time I stuck a Cathar's Crusade in play, I took it out of my deck. Also, having watched the Pioneer PT Streams last weekend, watching someone play Lotus Field Combo is sweet, but they get a lot of aggressive vibes from their opponent who's watching them solitaire.

[@TheLuckySpades]

The match does check out, the probability no not drawing a specific 4-of in your opening 7 in a 60 card deck is 56/60×55/59×54/58×53/57×52/56×51/55×50/54 (number if cards that aren't your 4-of divided by how many cards are in the deck, multiply each of the 7 draws) So to have at least one of your 4-of you do 1-(probability of not drawing any) which is about 0.3995 or 39.95% Similar math gives you the 7.070707...% for a specific card in a 99 card singleton deck When building Commander decks I don't usually run so many tutors outside of my Sliver and singular combo deck, otherwise I tend to lump cards into categories, so it isn't a 7% chance I start the game with a thing that puts cards from my graveyard onto the bottom of my library for River Song, but 26% for that

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

It’s hypergeometric distribution for those who are wondering how to find the probability of drawing cards.

[@zacparkinson900]

You takes about how commander’s rules and mechanics were not intended by the original designers, but I’m curious about your thoughts on how 1v1 magic also got changed a lot over the years by the designers. Richard Garfield clearly designed a great game but I’ve always heard that he never expected players to search out specific cards and synergies. He also expected players to enjoy things like ante. In some ways it seems that magic designers in the early years just catered to how players were playing the game, and then designing around that rather than creating a bunch of intended ways to play. What are your thoughts?

[@distractionmakers]

This is likely worth a whole video, but Mark Rosewater has stated his design philosophy is that players guide where magic goes. They design for how players are playing the game. As for Richard Garfield, Magic was the first trading card game. He had a few experiences that inspired his ideas, marbles being a big one. Ante came from a marbles design philosophy where the exchanging of game pieces wasn’t sacrilege as it is today. It would have been hard to imagine cards being worth anything near what they are today.

[@zacparkinson900]

@@distractionmakers thanks for the reply! So if players guide the design process, how does that relate to the popularity of commander? Obviously they are designing more things for commander than ever before, but do you think there’s a reason that people flock to the format if the gameplay is not as good as 1v1? Also, would love to see a video on the early development of Magic’s game design, or just the early development of game design in general.

[@jellybutton4216]

​@@zacparkinson900 people flock towards commander because a lot of 60 card 1v1 formats are geared towards tournament play which incentives optimized decks, game mastery and a high stress environment and lot of people aren't necessarily looking to improve their player skill. They just want to play a fun low stakes game with their friends instead of not being able to play their deck because it is not competitively viable or because it has rotated out.

[@zerrideas2286]

Hi Forrest! We're Facebook friends, and I got suggested this channel for only somewhat related reasons.

[@benshahon]

I'll say as someone who hasn't played much commander in a while (and only really ever as a kitchen table format, fwiw), I still think the jank is part of the appeal. But where the jank comes in definitely varies in that pre/post variance. Like, I had two decks, one an OTK combo deck where most of the challenge was in assembly (since the version of it that would be consistent would be thousands of dollars outside my possible budget), and the other a board centric budget deck (Ghalta, Primal Hunger atop an elf-ball deck). The first was more fun generally to collect for, while the other was more fun to play/execute, because of the draw variance. Which one I'd play would generally be determined by how hard my friends felt like going that night. But that all goes back to rule 0 convos, or whatever

[@alexmoskowitz811]

Wonder how this theory fits with dnd. As a dm you’re doing a lot more prep work but engaged for the whole session. As a player you’re doing almost no prep work but sharing the spotlight with other party members.

[@orpheos9]

You can make commander more consistent without tutors by just playing many cards that serve similar purposes. If you are playing a ramp deck, you play a whole bunch of different 2 mana ramp spells (rampant growth, three visits, farseek, natures lore etc.) That way you can still target enough copies to, for example have on average one in each opening hand. Commander definitely used to be about being more durdly and you can still craft a group that plays that way. But more often now its more of a deckbuilding challenge. And you can get around that without playing "everything bagel" cards with good deckbuilding, particularly because you always have your commander so if they serve as your "A", you dont have to have as much of "A" cards in your AB synergies. "Everything bagel" commanders printed by wotc are nice for newer players who may not be as effective at deckbuilding (precons). There is plenty of discourse in the commander community where people dislike playing with them because they want more of a challenge. But thats why you can just choose other commanders to build around.

[@Guru4hire]

I may or may not have made a simple python program to run a monte carlo simulation of an opening hand and the first 6 draws.....

[@distractionmakers]

Ooooo! That sounds useful indeed.

[@thygrrr]

With ADHD, you have Motivation, and *Cumulative* Upkeep.

[@PhoenicopterusR]

There was an attempt at a 60 card commander type format a few years ago named Oathbreaker. 60 card singleton, your commander is a planeswalker, and you get a "signature spell" in the command zone as well. I believe you could only cast the signature spell if your commander was on-board.

[@ya64]

This is what me and my buddy play most of the time. It's fun to think what if this planeswalker was a commander. We also just use whatever cards we happen to have in our collection.

[@BingeThinker1814]

Feels like yous didn't acknowledge the role of redundancy in commander deck building for consistency enough, which is a major focus of it, despite only having one of an exact card. Also feels like the prevalence of stax and proactive control strategies in cEDH were downplayed too. Good yarn tho

[@ZakalweDisenfranchised]

I think you guys might be interested in the Australian variant of 7 point Highlander "The 7 Point Highlander format is a constructed format that allows players to play with a modified 60 card singleton deck with 15 card sideboard that utilises the Vintage format’s card pool and ban list" The only banned cards are non-cards like chaos orb and shahazarad, and the points system for powerful game pieces allows for extremely powerful but still bounded play patterns. 1v1 format and 60 card singleton without a commander results in a really fun, high-powered environment for those of us who share your concerns about commander as a format

[@Aaron-cs3xl]

Trying to describe something to magic players with words like "hygiene" feels very counter productive. I'm glad you changed your wording accordingly later in the video

[@NewSchoolPOKERstrat]

In Commander, though, you are guaranteed to have one of the cards you need to make “something interesting happen” so you don’t necessarily need to draw the two pieces you need you just need to have cards that individually synergize w your commander. In an extreme example; Malcom in the CZ, Glinthorn bucaneer just wins the game. Or in a Cedh Najeela deck you have up to 5 or 6 cards that will go infinite w your commander. Grim Hireling for instance. Just thought it was worth mentioning

[@distractionmakers]

This is true, but makes you very susceptible to commander removal unfortunately.

[@randommaster06]

Before Commander was super popular, there was an MTGO format called Prismatic thatt aimed to have the extreme variance people like in casual commander. Nearly every tutor was banned and it was a decently popular, but it died when people gravitated to commander.

[@nemmielicious]

I love that you punched how much is 7 out of 100 into a calculator 😅

[@distractionmakers]

Haha yeah I suppose when you only have 1 copy of a card the math is much easier.

[@vexhia6792]

I think the result of commander only really working in a casual setting (maybe due to the fact that it was casually created and not intentionally designed and playtested) is that the game only really makes sense in a casual game/setting for a lot of players. I think this is good because it keeps the game fun, approachable, flexible, and lets players get creative without having to get too sweaty if they don't want to. I think its good to encourage players to play inefficiently

[@distractionmakers]

Great points. Our main goal with this video is to identify what the thing is your players love to do in your game and optimizing your design for that. Commander showed mtg designers that there’s a ton of players that play for the social aspects of the game and commander does a better job of facilitating that.

[@mattd3978]

I like making CEDH a 60 card format idea. Makes it much easier to separate the concepts, ban lists, etc.

[@jorgebleyer8108]

Me hearing "mtg higiene is compealing" while double sleeving a 100 card commander deck. Best part is, I quite like sleeving decks lol.

[@distractionmakers]

haha perfect

[@magusofthebargain]

I just laughed so hard I got the hiccups. "You'll feel it when you're on the wee." is the best way to describe the symptoms of ennui that I have ever heard!

[@wwcyfd22]

First!

[@seanedgar164]

I don't think you're shitting on commander, I just don't agree with your philosophy on it. I agree power creep is tough but tutors, kingmaking, rotation etc aren't things I worry about