Properties › Feedback loop
Feedback loop: negative
Success is penalised or trailing players are compensated.
13 mechanics are coded this way.
Auction and Bidding
Players compete for an item, right, or position by offering bids under a stated auction procedure, with the item going to the highest or otherwise winning bid and the price set by the players rather than by the rules.
Ball Possession
One side at a time holds the right to advance and score with a single contested object, and that right transfers by turnover, by scoring, or by a rule such as a boundary or a violation, so play alternates between attack and defence.
Dice Placement
Players roll their dice and then place them one at a time on action spaces that require or reward particular values, so the roll constrains which actions are reachable and placed dice block or outbid later placements.
Downtime Phases
Between adventures or scenarios the game runs a structured phase in which each character takes a limited number of actions from a menu such as recover, train, work on a project, or indulge, and campaign time advances.
Handicapping
A rule-sanctioned adjustment gives the weaker player a stated advantage, such as extra pieces, a head start, or an adjusted score, so that players of unequal skill can contest the same game on roughly even terms.
Inventory and Encumbrance
What a character can carry is capped by weight, slot count, or volume, so acquiring more than the limit forces the player to drop, store, or sell holdings or to accept penalties to movement.
Markets
Players buy from and sell to the game at prices the system sets and moves in response to purchases, sales, supply, or events, so the rate of exchange is a changing state rather than a fixed recipe or a negotiated deal.
Pseudo-Random Distribution
Successive trials of a chance event are made dependent on earlier results, usually by raising the chance after each failure until a success resets it, so the stated rate holds over time while long droughts and streaks become rarer.
Push Your Luck
A player who has banked a provisional gain repeatedly chooses whether to stop and keep it or to continue for more at the risk of a bust that forfeits everything accumulated this turn.
Rating and Matchmaking
A numerical rating moves after each game by transferring points from loser to winner in proportion to how unexpected the result was, and a pairing rule uses the ratings to decide who plays whom next.
Seasonal Leagues
A live game periodically opens a temporary parallel realm in which all players start new characters in an empty economy under new rules or content; when it ends, characters and items move to a permanent realm and a new season begins
Upkeep and Attrition
Holdings such as units, workers, or ships impose a recurring cost in food, money, or supply each round, and failing to pay it degrades or removes them, so growth must be matched by income.
Vulnerability Windows
A player-owned structure can be damaged, captured or destroyed only in a scheduled period, often after an attack has put it in a protected state whose end the defender partly sets, so sieges are fought at appointed hours
Coding guideline for feedback loop
Positive: success compounds (engine building, experience levels). Negative: success is penalised or trailing players are compensated (catch-up bonuses, handicap stones given to the weaker player). None: no systematic coupling. Mixed: the canonical form contains a built-in damper (deck dilution in deck-building).