We report on a preliminary investigation into whether there is value in personalizing game-world topologies for CRPGs as well as whether game-world topological preferences can be predicted from player behavior.

1. Examining Game World
Topology Personalization
Sauvik Das
Carnegie Mellon
University
Alexander Zook
Georgia Institute
of Technology
Mark Riedl
Georgia Institute
of Technology
1

2. 2

3. Is it too linear?
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4. 4

5. 5

6. “Boring. Bland. Linear. Those are three of the kinder things that
can be said of Final Fantasy XIII…”
http://kotaku.com/5881121/just-why-exactly-did-final-fantasy-xiii-suck-so-badly
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7. http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/editors/b/gijoe_blog/archive/2010/03/09/yes-crybaby-final-fantasy-xiii-is-linear.aspx
“You want to make steady progress without getting bogged
down by ancillary garbage? Heresy!”
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8. Players care about topology
• Final Fantasy XIII is just an example — illustrative of a
broader point.
• Anecdotally, players have strong personal preferences
for game world topology.
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9. What if each player got
their desired game world?
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10. Our contribution
• In that spirit, our goal was to examine whether:
(i) personalizing game world topologies increases user
engagement with a Computer Role-Playing Game (i.e., is
there value in personalizing topologies?)
(ii) player preferences for game world topology can be
predicted (i.e., can we algorithmically determine how to
best personalize topologies?)
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11. Method
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12. The Game
• Turn-based combat.
• Regular and rare
monsters.
• Boss battles.
• Treasure chests in
sidepaths.
• Story: simplified Yuffie
Wutai sidequest from FF7.
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13. “Big” world “Small” world
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14. Within-subjects study
• We ran a within-subjects study with 16 participants.
• Participants played a game three times. The only difference
between each play through was the topology of the game.
• First world: baseline; topologically “neutral”
• Second/third worlds: “big” or “small”, randomly ordered
• Afterwards, players filled out survey providing complete
ordering of world preference.
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15. Data-collected
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16. Results
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17. Descriptive Stats
• 16 participants. 14 male. Mostly early twenties - early
thirties.
• On average, 45 minutes to complete study (27-83 range).
• Strong topological preferences: Mostly preferred big (7)
or small world (7). Two preferred neutral (2). Those two
also preferred small to big.
• order of presentation had non-significant effect on
preference.
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18. Are players more engaged in
topologically aligned worlds?
• Operationalized engagement as higher overall activity (more of the
world explored, more battles, more treasures opened, etc.)
• Divided players into groups based on order of presentation (big first or
small first) and world preference (big or small). Compared
engagement within order and preference groups
• BB: Big first, big preference
• BS: Big first, small preference
• SB: Small first, big preference
• SS: Small first, small preference
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19. Expectation
• Controlling for order of presentation, players should be
more engaged in the world that better aligns with their
topological preference.
• in big world: BB > BS and SB > SS
• in small world: BS > BB and SS > SB
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20. 20
Big First
0
15
30
45
60
Sidepaths Treasures Battles Time Exploring
Big Preference Small Preference
Small First
0
12.5
25
37.5
50
Sidepaths Treasures Battles Time Exploring
Big Preference Small Preference
Big World Engagement

21. 21
Big First
0
7.5
15
22.5
30
Sidepaths Treasures Battles Time Exploring
Big Preference Small Preference
Small First
0
4
8
12
16
Sidepaths Treasures Battles Time Exploring
Big Preference Small Preference
Small World Engagement

22. Are players more engaged in
topologically aligned worlds?
Yeah, probably.
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23. Can we predict player topological
preferences from in-game behavior?
• Created ridge-logistic regression model (predicting for
big or small preference).
• Dataset: in-game behavioral trace from playthrough of
initial baseline world.
• Used Wrapper feature subset selector to pick best 4
predictive features to avoid overfitting.
• Used ridge regularization to avoid overfitting.
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24. Results
• With leave-one-out CV,
correctly predicted
topology preference for
13/16 participants (81%).
• 3 errors were all those
who preferred large
world, but predicted to
prefer small.
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25. Can we predict player topological
preferences from in-game behavior?
For a lot of people, yes.
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26. Conclusion
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27. We ran a small within-subjects study, examining whether:
(i) personalizing CRPG world topologies can increase
engagement with a game;
(ii) in-game behavior can predict a player’s preferences for
game world topology.
“Big” world “Small” world
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28. Player behavior in an initially topologically neutral world can be
used to predict their topological preferences.
Players may exhibit greater engagement in worlds that better
align with their topological preferences.
Players have strong preferences for game world topology.
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29. Thus, real-time algorithmic personalization of game world
topology may be both possible and valuable for CRPGs.
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30. 1. Players have strong preferences for game world topologies.
2. Player behavior in an initially topologically neutral world can be
used to predict their topological preferences.
3. Players may exhibit greater engagement in worlds that better
align with their topological preferences.
Take-aways
Sauvik Das [sauvik@cmu.edu]
Carnegie Mellon
University
Examining Game World
Topology Personalization

31. Results
• With leave-one-out CV,
correctly predicted
topology preference for
13/16 participants (81%).
• 3 errors were all those
who preferred large
world, but predicted to
prefer small.
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32. GameForge
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