Diminishing Returns
Diminishing Returns is a perceptual error created in the minds of developers. It takes the form of substituting acceleration for velocity with the result of a long series of failed patches attempting to address speed as it goes out of scope.
- Virtually every RPG ever made contains an experience system with diminishing returns, the resultant unbalance-able efforts to create high-xp mobs in a vain effort to keep up, and the eventual history of patch headaches that end in a linear end-boss level up system to supplant it.
- The 4X space and colonization genres produce a similar result in exponential expansion across resource-generating worlds, which are addressed by linear expansion of resource consumption and the game is over in just a few turns, with the rest of play a boring mop-up.
- The economic models that attach arbitrary loss of value to the unit of exchange on top of opportunity cost and rapidly devolve into hyper-inflation
So how can we begin to see the unseen before it becomes a problem?
Another model of how the illusion enters the mind may help. Picture a steady narrow stream of water poured onto a flat surface. The observer will see a circular pool growing, and the growth rate of the diameter of that circle seems to decay over time. But the area of the circle is growing at a steady linear clip in sync with the stream of water.
The perception of diminishing returns is a mistake of viewing across dimensions. Wherever there is a hunch or desire for such a curve to exist in-game, it is an indicator that one variable has been substituted for multiple axes of a higher-dimensional space.
A good approach to resolving the desire is to disassemble the initial image into two or more linear variables. This exercise also leads to a better comprehension of what is being modeled.
