Using State-action Transition to Compare Players’ Choices

Capability of state-action systems

Let’s take an example to observe the power of this system. For this example, we’ll be using dialog data collected from the VPAL game used in the previous chapters. The figure below displays 48 players’ branching dialogue choices from one conversation with a quest-giving NPC within VPAL. There are close-up screenshots in the state graph figure and cluster pattern figure. Upon speaking with the NPC, players will receive some information about their surroundings and have a number of dialog options to choose from to converse with the NPC. These dialogue options can reveal more information about the area and ultimately result in the player receiving a quest to chase away a group of bikers. To complete the quest, the player needs to return to the NPC to report that the bikers are gone.