Virtual Environment Guidance via Historical User Position Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users in complex virtual environments, such as video games, face difficulties in completing scenarios due to inadequate guidance, which can lead to a worsened user experience and reduced engagement, as existing methods like pre-scripted hints are resource-intensive, not universally applicable, and distracting.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that generates a visual indicator within the virtual environment based on historical data from successful user interactions, allowing users to intuitively follow or avoid positions and behaviors of other users who have successfully or unsuccessfully completed a scenario, providing personalized and dynamic guidance without the need for pre-scripted hints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If pre-scripted hints are provided to guide users, then user guidance is improved, but resource consumption and development time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service guidance by automatically analyzing user gameplay data and generating context-specific hints without requiring developer intervention. The guidance system serves itself by using gameplay metrics to identify when and what type of assistance users need, eliminating the need for pre-scripted hints covering all possible scenarios.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes guidance parameters based on real-time analysis of user performance metrics. Instead of static pre-scripted hints, the system adjusts guidance content, timing, and type based on varying user skills, difficulty levels, and contextual gameplay parameters, reducing the need for comprehensive pre-programming.
2Ease of operation
If pre-scripted hints are displayed to guide users, then user guidance is provided, but user engagement and experience worsen due to distraction and obscuration
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies guidance locally and contextually rather than using universal pre-scripted hints. Guidance is delivered only in specific contexts where users actually need assistance, based on real-time analysis of their gameplay state, ensuring hints appear at the right moment and place without unnecessarily distracting users during fluent gameplay.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses partial action by providing guidance only when necessary rather than continuously displaying pre-scripted hints. By analyzing user performance metrics, the system determines when guidance is actually needed and delivers minimal sufficient assistance, avoiding excessive guidance that would distract or obscure the gameplay experience.
3Adaptability or versatility
If pre-scripted hints cover wide range of difficulties, then user guidance applicability is improved, but development time and resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from static pre-scripted hints to dynamic, adaptive guidance that automatically adjusts to user needs. The guidance system evolves in real-time based on user performance data, allowing it to cover a wide range of difficulty levels and scenarios without requiring developers to pre-program each possibility, as the system learns and adapts during gameplay.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback loops where user gameplay data continuously informs guidance generation. By monitoring user performance metrics and feedback, the system automatically adjusts hint content and delivery to match user skill levels and contextual needs, enabling broad applicability across different difficulty levels without manual scripting for each scenario.
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a method of guiding a user within a virtual environment in a current session. The method includes receiving data relating to user interactions with the virtual environment of a plurality of other users in a plurality of previous sessions, where a predetermined event occurred in user interactions of each of the other users; determining a representative user position, in the virtual environment, of the other users during the previous sessions; and generating a visual indicator, within the virtual environment in the current session, of the representative user position to guide the user within the virtual environment in the current session.