Research On The Influence Of Balance Patch On Player’s Online Game Character Preference

With the continuous upgrading of terminal hardware and improvement of game quality,video and computer games become more popular,profitable and competitive than ever.Game quality and competitive fairness affect players’ game intention and behavior.The balance patch,an important measure for MOBA games manufacturers to improve game fairness and player entertainment,is one of the important components of the MOBA games environment.The adjustment of unbalanced characters in the balance patch will lead to the change of players’ character preference.However,the research on the correlation between game patches and players’behavior is not sufficient at present.Very little prior research has looked at balance patch within MOBA games.This motivates us to systematically evaluate the influence of balance patch on player’s character preference.On this basis,the changes of character preferences and game behaviors of different players after the patch release were studied.In order to ensure the accuracy,rigor and standardization of the research,this paper cross-verified the theoretical hypothesis with the empirical and experimental data.In study 1,a crawler was written in this paper,the official data interface was accessed,and the relevant data of more than 14,000 league of legends players were crawled.Anova showed that the enhanced patch would lead to the increase of players’ character preference,while the weakened patch would lead to the decrease of players’ character preference.Further regression analysis confirmed the significant moderating effect of the character’s psychological distance:the closer the player’s psychological distance from the adjusted character,the more significant the effect of patch type on the change of player’s character preference.Meanwhile,the moderating effect of player type was significant:the higher the player changeability,the more significant the influence of patch type on the change of player character preference.Study 2 attempted to retest the empirical conclusion through a laboratory study and further explored the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception.The study 2 adopted a 2×2×2[(patch type:enhanced patch vs.weakened patch)×(psychological distance:near vs.distant)×(player type:stable vs.variable)]between-subjects design.Through patch type and character psychological distance manipulation,428 interviewees were investigated by questionnaire in this paper.The results of variance analysis showed that:(1)After the weakened patch is released,the character preference of players in the near group decreased significantly more than that of the distant group.The character preference of the variable player decreased more than that of the stable group.(2)After the enhanced patch is released,the character preference of players in the near group increased significantly more than that of the distant group.The character preference of the variable player increased more than that of the stable group.(3)Full model regression analysis of moderating mediators found that:in stable players,the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception was not significant;However,the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception was significant in variable players,and the closer the psychological distance between players and characters,the larger the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception.In conclusion,although preliminary,our results confirm the impact of balance patch on player behavior,which is significant but not studied.The player behavior model is more suitable for the current status of changing environment and provides a new breakthrough point for the research of player’s behavior.