Research on the influence of balance patch on players' character preference

Abstract

PurposeThe balance patch is an important but not well studied area to maintain game fairness and improve player entertainment. In this paper, we examine the effect of balance patch on player's character preference and further explore the moderating effect of psychological distance and character selection pattern.Design/methodology/approachIn study 1, a web crawler was used to get server-side data of 40, 974 multi-player online battle arena (MOBA) players through official application programming interfaces (APIs). A paired-T test and a stepwise regression were performed to verify the hypothesis. In study 2, a 2-patch type (buff vs nerf) × 2 psychological distance (near vs distant) × 2 character selection pattern (stable vs variable) between-subjects design was adopted to confirm the empirical conclusions through questionnaire survey design and further explored the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception.FindingsThe analyzed results showed that the buff patch led to an increase in players' character preference, while the nerf patch led to a decrease in players' character preference. Moreover, the main effect was mediated by patch adjustment perception. Furthermore, psychological distance and character selection pattern both moderated the relationship between balance patch and character preference changes. The character preference of the near psychological distance increased more significantly elicited by buff patches and decreased more significantly in an adverse situation. Similarly, players with variable selection pattern of characters were more sensitive to the stimuli, and the character preference of the variable group changed more significantly than that of the stable group caused by balance patch release.Originality/valueThis paper studies the influence of a patch on the balance of character strength on player preference, which expands the research on game balance and fairness. The present results contribute to the theoretical research on consumer behavior of psychological distance and character selection pattern elicited by balance patches. Meanwhile, the results indicate that psychological distance theory can apply to the study of the relationship between players and virtual characters.

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Heterogeneous Effects of Software Patches in a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Game

“…Specifically, we cannot guarantee that players are selected at random into the control (before a patch) and treatment (after the patch) conditions. On the contrary, previous work shows that some players behavior changes after a patch to reflect the known champion buffs and nerfs [28]. Not only is there a potential selection bias, however, there might be potential confoundings from features we do not know, and therefore cannot control for.…”

“…Patches are regular updates to the game that fix bugs, introduce new game contents, and most importantly alter the skills and abilities of champions to balance the game [8]. Wang et al show that the effect of champion balancing patches also affect player's champion preference [28]. Other game related work focus on mining and understanding human behavior.…”

“…Surprisingly, there has been relatively little work done on this problem. Existing research examined the impact software patches on player's choices, showing that they increase player preference for buffed champions and reduce preference for nerfed champions [28]. Additionally, buffs typically improve champion's win rate, especially for underperforming champions [8] When measuring the impact of an intervention (e.g., a patch) on a system, it is important to model the intervention's causal effect on target outcomes rather than the correlation between them [18].…”

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