Analysis of the design of the combat rules of competitive mobile games: appropriate randomness to maintain the freshness of the battle
I. Introduction
With the rapid growth of the share of competitive mobile games in the global market, coupled with the booming e-sports industry chain, IG won the global championship, and the value ceiling of a truly high DAU competitive mobile game is also rising.
But there seems to be very little article about the design of combat rules in the industry. Let’s briefly discuss it here today.
Players who have played MOBA games must have experienced the embarrassment of being interrupted by other things during the battle. Especially the interference of the girlfriend, the phrase "the game is important or important to me" is really helpless.
I have thought that before the emergence of MOBA games, another category of games can not be interrupted, that is, RTS represented by "StarCraft" and "Warcraft." Because the operation of RTS is more complicated, multi-tasking requires more brain holes.
Fortunately, in that era, personal computers were a luxury for the average family. Play black and star with the brothers, mostly in Internet cafes.
At the same time, the mobile phone is not popular, there is no girlfriend's life-saving serial call, the player usually has a large period of non-interference time for the game.
Human life habits are constantly changing with the times. In addition to reducing the length of a single game and simplifying operations, how can we design a new generation of competitive mobile games to be more popular?
This article will briefly discuss this issue by analyzing the ability of the competitive rules of the competitive game to test the various organs of the human body.
a brain
The game behavior that the brain is responsible for generally requires higher brain holes, which can be roughly divided into two categories.
- Multi-tasking ability (Multy-Task)
Players who have played rts must remember that masters are multi-line operations. It takes time for farmers to open mines or harassment to go to their destinations. It takes time for soldiers to build soldiers, time c for technology upgrades, and time d for troops at hand.
How to reduce idleness is a test of the player's multitasking ability. Not a small number of white players, let alone reduce idle, I am afraid to do one or two things at the same time at the same time.
- Computational power
Tcg gamers, such as Hearthstone, when you have 10 hands, 10 crystals, and 7 followers, you are faced with thousands of choices, and there are no fewer than 10 better solutions.
Even more terrible, each choice needs to complete the calculation along the veins, and all calculations and comparisons need to be completed in just a few tens of seconds, which is undoubtedly a big challenge for the white players.
Therefore, a large number of female players in World of Warcraft did not join the heart of the IP.
In short, because these designs play a decisive role in the game, so both players are familiar with the rules of the game, players with such ability (such as most men) than those who do not have this ability (such as most Women) have obvious advantages.
This seriously affects the latter's winning percentage, and the two types of players are clearly distinguished. Therefore, such rules should not be the key to determining the outcome of a game.
We collectively refer to the rules of war that can determine the outcome of a victory. For example, Multy-Task multi-line operation is a key rule for Warcraft, and huge calculations and selections are key rules for Hearthstone.
And dota2 jumps to avoid firearms sniper, can only be used in extremely occasional cases, is not a key rule; Karl refreshes twenty companies, can only be used in the case of choosing Carl and reaching the gods, is not a key rule.
A playable competitive mobile game, the key rules that can be written in the planning case are often countless. If the planners pay little attention, they will design the key rules for testing the brain hole. The name is “increasing strategic”. In fact, only one can affect the whole game.
Even the Hearthstone legend, and a large number of TCG games are inevitable, so that the collective is a niche. So, in order to make the game more popular, in addition to avoiding the player's Multy-Task and computing power, what are the key rules to avoid?
Let's take a look at the table below and everything starts with a white player:
Key rules for white players
Extremely difficult to learn: see others use -> "This is awesome" -> Try -> Failure -> Try -> Failure -> Negative feedback too large -> Do not want to learn -> Churn
Can learn: see others use -> "This trick is great" -> try -> grow -> try -> grow -> ensure freshness and positive feedback
Therefore, the criteria for judging are as follows: Using the enumeration method, it is extremely difficult to learn how to understand each key rule of the battle. As long as there is one, the game will become a niche.
Two hands
The game behaviors that are responsible for both hands are divided into two categories based on the conclusions of the above analysis:
General micro exercise
For example, some moves, moves, and hands in the MOBA, the ripples in the FPS, and the drift in the racing game.
These operations are highly ornamental. And, a larger percentage of players can learn and grow in the learning process (which may be relatively least).
Therefore, if a competitive game has ordinary micro-manipulation and is designed to be good enough, it will greatly increase the playability of the game.
- High-end operation APM
Such as the "pull tactics" commonly found in RTS games. For a chestnut, in "StarCraft", 12 dragon knights play against 12 identical dragon knights, and high-end operations can smash each other in the case of 0 deaths.
"3V" in the bubble hall, interested in Baidu.
Some heroes in MOBA games that are too complicated to operate, such as geoscientists, have very few people who can really play well.
These high-end operations, the player APM requirements are too high, is a very difficult rule for many white players. But because of his great enjoyment, if he deeply loves this game, he will eventually become the game audience of this game.
In short, the complicated operation that players can't learn should not be one of the key rules. We hope that more than 90% of the players will match their opponents.
Occasionally there is a master with high-end operation and strong brain hole. Players can also accept the abuse, lament the charm of this game, and refresh their taste.
Therefore, as an ideal competitive game, we are not in favor of completely removing the rules that are difficult to learn, including testing Multy-Task, math scores, APM, etc.
After all, we have to give our friends and professional players a space to play and give the audience a reason to pay attention.
Therefore, the conclusion is as follows: In all the rules of the battle, the rules that the white players can hardly learn should be controlled between 5% and 10%. Of course, it cannot be a key rule.
How can we design "normal micro-operations"? There is a principle here: the longer the rules of the game can be learned by the player, the longer the life cycle of the game.
Not only "normal micro-operations", but all the rules are designed. Some designs that seem difficult to be proficient, may have bitten the liver for days and nights, which is not really difficult to master.
For example, Super Mario, with a score of 5,000 points, is an example that looks difficult, but will be proficient after a certain practice.
The only standard that is difficult to master is the learning time required for the player to get started with the rules.
In addition, for the core rules of competitive mobile games, when the player gets started with the basics, in the whole practice process, the real growth should be gradually obtained in the positive feedback.
For example, the basic operation of "Big Ball Battle" is indeed extremely simple. However, in the early stage of the launch, the core rules of the mother, side expansion, anti-mother, and mother-mother were slowly learned in the process of being educated by the opponents, and the negative feedback in the learning process was strong.
Of course, in the early days of no competitors, this does not affect the success of the ball.
Eyes
We categorize the game behaviors that only require extremely fast and extremely simple judgments to be judged by the eyes. Generally divided into two categories.
- Ordinary tactical strategy
For such rules, players only face these 2-5 tactical choices at the same time. For example, the skills of MOBA are generally 3-4, and the number of optional cards for CR is 4. The purchase of turrets is 5 for each round of heroes. Choose 1.
With these choices, players can make judgments with almost only conditioned reflexes, and it's easy to learn.
Consciousness
Consciousness is something that players, event spectators, and e-sports players all talk about. Consciousness is also a metaphysical thing. So this is also the content of this article.
Consciousness is cooperation. When other online teammates come to help you gank your online opponents, people with poor consciousness will not cooperate in time.
Consciousness is the overall situation. When everyone goes to push the tower, you are still playing wild. This is the expression of poor consciousness.
Consciousness is the sixth sense. A person with good consciousness can inexplicably sense that there is a gun against himself; or that someone is coming to gank himself.
Consciousness is a reaction. When a shot is not dead, a conscious person can immediately find the opponent's position and kill him. When the butcher's hook flies toward him, the conscious person can easily escape.
Consciousness is strategic leadership. Choosing a good time to fight dragons and smoothing out is a good rhythm. Choose a good time to defend, a good time to push the tower, a good time to steal the tower, a good time to fight.
Consciousness is experience, in MOBA and eating chicken games, when being chased, conscious people can always use the terrain to escape successfully.
Maybe consciousness also contains a lot of elements, not enumerated here.
In short, with regard to the rules of consciousness, players will not greatly reduce the success rate because their math scores are not good enough and their hands are too stupid. On the contrary, each player can continue to gain real growth over time and has no ability to cap.
Consciousness is the ability of players to make judgments with only the simplest thinking, without burdening the brain and operations, and having strong ornamental and learnable qualities.
The chicken game and the MOBA game are precisely because of this exquisite design, becoming the most popular competitive game nowadays.
Therefore, consciousness is the most valuable part of competitive games. The more elements related to consciousness, the more they are included, the more playable the game is.
Ordinary tactical strategies must work together with the strategy of consciousness to maximize playability.
For example, the recent popular "Knife Self-Going Chess", every tactical choice, is constantly changed by the situation of the war, and the resulting strategic routines are constantly changing to guide.
The pre-war deck of CR, and the already matched opponents, basically decided their own strategy.
The lack of strategic changes in the war has, to a certain extent, made "CR" a tactical contest for stone scissors. Compared to "Knife Tower" and "Heartstone", there is a lot of playability discount.
So how can we make the strategy endlessly change? In addition to the rich strategy routines, it is important to develop in the war.
One of the reasons for the greater success of FPC's latest form of eating chicken game is the addition of traditional CS to the development of warfare, which has evolved more strategic changes.
We have said that games are a series of meaningful choices.
This article makes a little supplement for competitive mobile games: the competitive mobile game in the new era is a series of meaningful tactical choices that are constantly adjusted in the process of development and situation change.
Heart
Regarding the pre-war strategy, because the player has enough time for research and discussion, the requirements for the brain hole are not so high. We divide the game behavior of the pre-war strategy into heart control.
For example, the pre-war card group of Hearthstone CR, the team of MOBA chickens. Pre-war strategy design has the following principles:
Combination: Different occupations or decks can have a 1+1>2 effect. Can improve playability, but also promote player cooperation
Restraint: Routine A, B, C cycle restraint, there is no best card group, only the most suitable timing. At the same time, restraint can make the strategy in the battle process constantly changing.
Visualization: Every rule should be visualized as much as possible. The less visible it is, the more stressful it is on the brain. For example, CR meat will have a large torso, while high-attacks are generally thin.
But the puncture attack in Warcraft is probably not understood by many dota players. The complex occupations and races in "Knife Self-Going" have not been visualized in the war. This is one of the reasons why players can easily get caught up in the game before they actually play in.
Differentiation: There must be sufficient differentiation between routines and routines
In short, pre-war strategies can increase the playability of the game, allowing players to encounter opponents in the battle process is ever-changing, rather than the same.
And just the design that makes the player learn the longest time is to use simple operations and limited routines in different situations.
V. mouth
As a competitive mobile game, luck is also a very important game behavior. The disaster comes from the mouth, and it comes from the mouth. The accumulation of the mouth greatly affects one's fortune and is controlled by the mouth. Generally divided into two categories:
Random mechanism
Such as eating weapons and equipment randomly encountered in the chicken, "Knife Tower", random heroes and so on.
If the player cooperates, if the player fails, he can blame the teammates for not being random. If the next game encounters a master or someone brings it, I will be able to score.
For the 1V1 game, it fails to blame others. A certain randomness can greatly reduce the frustration, because you can blame the card is not random, if you come again, you may win.
Like chess and mahjong, the strength of chess is a poor grade, basically won't win, and there is no interest in playing another game. While playing mahjong is a poor grade, I have a chance to win better.
- Random teammates/opponents
All competitive mobile games have random opponents. And competitive multi-player mobile games require random opponents.
There are two important points here, the matching mechanism, and the design of the AI mechanism.
Matching: We mainly achieve the player's winning rate control through matching. If you are completely free to match, the player's winning percentage will be around 50%. In fact, if the player's winning percentage is higher than 50% (but not more than 90%), the player retention rate will be higher.
AI: We design ai to teach novice gamers rules and control all the experiences of novice players.
Common games, randomness from low to high is "Warcraft RTS
We believe that the best randomness ratio control is MOBA and eating chicken games.
In short, proper randomness, in addition to reducing frustration, while bringing different experiences in each game, can also greatly improve the playability.
In addition, it is reiterated that matching and AI are the top priority of competitive games. Not only the above, but all the combat experience that controls the player's entire life cycle is a long-term and arduous task, which will not be repeated here.
Through the above analysis, I believe that the game is also a collection of tests for various organs of the human body. The test of each of the above organs will increase the playability as appropriate, but if it is not supported by nature (for example, adding micro-manipulation to the hearth), it is not necessary to force it.
As the times change, the proportions of the above parts are also changing. we can find out:
The first generation of competitive mobile games, represented by RTS, almost tested all of the above organs, and the randomness was relatively small.
The second generation of competitive mobile games, represented by MOBA and eating chicken, abandoned the test of the brain hole, reduced the high requirements for APM, and focused on the player's awareness. In addition, the battle process is more ever-changing, and the randomness is also appropriately improved.