Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
From your answer about mistakes new game designers make you mentioned “Not recognizing that they have reached a point of diminishing returns.” Can you explain what that means?
As a developer, there are a limited number of hours in the work week (even if you willingly work extra hours, which a lot of Rioters do). If you are spending your time on problem X, then you aren’t spending your time on problem Y.
If you get problem X to a solution that you would grade as an 85% in a day, and it takes you another day to get it to 90%, then you’re only improving it by 5% a day compared to your original output of 85% a day. That’s the diminishing returns part. Your efficiency drops to the floor, particularly compared to other projects you could be working on.
Now I’m not advocating shipping crappy, half-baked, or phoned-in designs. But in this business hitting 100% is almost never realistic, and the cost of hitting 100% isn’t worth it when you consider the opportunity cost of what you’re not doing in the same window. You have probably heard the phrase “The enemy of good is perfect.”
Junior designers mismanage this all the time. They get so excited about their project that they don’t want to live within any constraints. They are completely focused on how awesome their project is and lose sight of the cost of that project (in terms of their time).
I once spent several days setting up a battle between two NPCs that was just background action for players to make it feel like a battle was raging all around them. It looked really cool, but it took a long time to set up. If this was the climax of a big moment, then maybe that expenditure was worth it. Or maybe I should have spent that time to set up two different battles that would have more impact on players in the long run.
Another way this manifests is when a junior designer spends too much time trying to save a flawed concept rather than recognizing that it probably can’t be saved without weeks of work and that they would be better off to consider alternative concepts. (
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