I gave the playtesters (friends from my lab, who hadn’t played the game) the following control directions:
Controls:
A: Attack (Fire Arrow if Bow is Drawn)
X: Block
Y: Jab
B: Power Attack
Left/Right Trigger: Draw Bow
Left/Right Shoulder: Dodge Left/Right
One playtester asked “What does dodge mean?” and they didn’t really understand how to shoot arrows.
Then they played while I watched. At first, they had difficulty using the bow. Then once they figured out how to use the bow they felt that it was too powerful. They commented that block should block arrows. One playtester mentioned that he wanted a different button to perform dodge, since he could only do one thing with one hand at a time.
For a long time, whichever playtester went first would win, as they were not able to defeat an AI with any training whatsoever. Finally, they started winning, and once they starting beating the AI they got very into the game. One playtester expressed frustration at one point at his AI for not being able to move forwards and attack under certain conditions. He wanted to know how he could teach his AI to move forwards.
They got very competitive during a long matchup and I had to force them to stop playing to answer my playtesting questions:
1) What did you most enjoy about AI Fighter?
2) What did least enjoy, what was most frustrating?
3) How did the controls feel? Did they make sense?
4) Did the controls ever feel clunky or awkward? When?
5) Are there moves that you would like to be able to do?
6) What was your strategy for winning?
7) Did you feel that your AI (the AI that fought against your opponent) had your playstyle?
Were you able to train your AI to do what you wished?
9) Did you feel that you were interacting with the other player?
10) If you could change just one thing, what would it be?
Here were their answers:
1) What did you most enjoy about AI Fighter?
Satisfaction of winning. Seeing an AI go from Stupid to Smart. Once the playtesters learned the controls they enjoyed the game much more. They described the game as “Action Packed” and “Frenetic”
2) What did least enjoy, what was most frustrating?
This only happened once, but there was one time when the AI went from smart to dumb.
Losing to the AI was no fun, especially on the first game after only one training sample.
The AI was too good with arrows, AI arrow combat not fun to play against.
3) How did the controls feel? Did they make sense?
Shooting arrows was too difficult.
Close combat encouraged button mashing
Took a while to learn
Too many options?
Too difficult to parry or dodge
Power Attack was fun.
4) Did the controls ever feel clunky or awkward? When?
see above
5) Are there moves that you would like to be able to do?
Want to be able to move while Bow is out.
Slowly move towards arrow shooting foe
Too difficult to beat Arrow Turret
Block should beat arrows
Didn’t understand when characters turned RED
6) What was your strategy for winning?
Find AI blindspot. Find some area where the AI isn’t trained well and exploit it there. A training strategy was to attempt to cover any possible situation.
7) Did you feel that your AI (the AI that fought against your opponent) had your playstyle?
No
One playtester called it a willful animal… you had to force it to do what you wanted
Were you able to train your AI to do what you wished?
Sometimes (see 6 and 7)
9) Did you feel that you were interacting with the other player?
Very competitive, even though no direct interaction
10) If you could change just one thing, what would it be?
Shield vs. Arrows
AI Arrows less accurate, hit with probability close to human user
Arrows were too good
They also noted that they were drawn into the game quite a bit, more than they expected. One player really liked the debug screens which showed the learned AI plan (which were for debugging only)
In response to the comments, I changed dodge so that it rotated around the target (rather than sidestepping) and had the automatic aiming of the bow aim for the dodge position rather than the actual position when the target was dodging. This allowed me to beat the arrow turret character that always bow attacked.