Disclaimer: I would like to remind you that everything I show and describe here represents stages of development. Absolutely everything you see now has been changed, and not just once.
Now let's focus on the issues we see in the current gameplay (after several tests, one of which I described in my previous post). I'm not talking about minor issues like interface convenience, bugs, or balance flaws. Those things were quickly identified and fixed. I'm talking about more serious problems – there was no unique aspect in the builder gameplay that could captivate players and make them want to play the game repeatedly. From this point onward, my task as a game designer reached a new level. Previously, my job was simply to create a new game (by "game," I mean a set of rules that define the gameplay, not a finished product). Now, I had to make this game engaging. We are now delving into the psychology of the player.
During the tests, I always found myself more inclined to play as the champion rather than the builder. This posed a significant problem. There's no surprise in the fact that playing as a champion is exciting – the gameplay was inspired by DOTA and League of Legends, some of the most popular and successful games in history. This gameplay has been refined over two decades by various developers and millions of players. But why is playing as the builder less interesting? The builder has so many abilities and such diverse gameplay. In fact, when reviewing our test recordings, I always found the builder videos far more engaging to watch. Yet, I still preferred playing as the champion. So, what was wrong with the builder? Understanding this turned out to be quite challenging. Many of my conclusions might seem straightforward and logical now, but arriving at them required a lot of time and contemplation.
In the course of all these reflections, I discovered several key principles that influence the engagement of the game. Here is the first principle I arrived at:
- A player must clearly understand their contribution to the team and be able to assess how well they are fulfilling their role.
The Psychology of the Champion
Let's examine this principle from the perspective of the champion. The champion's value to the team lies in their combat prowess, which is reflected in their ability to kill opponents. The more they kill other heroes and destroy towers, the more valuable they are to the team. In practice, this is, of course, more complex, but for understanding player psychology, this simplification suffices. In addition to the primary measure of effectiveness, kills, there is a secondary measure: gold. The more gold a champion earns, the stronger they become, and the greater their potential to defeat the enemy. That’s it – kills and gold: two numerical metrics sufficient to determine a champion’s effectiveness.
If a player loses while playing as a champion, they can analyze their game to understand their mistakes and weaknesses. Perhaps the player struggles with last-hitting minions, earning less gold than their opponent, making them weaker. Or maybe they are buying the wrong items in the shop, hindering their chances of victory. They might also be taking too much damage from minions while attacking the enemy at inopportune times. By analyzing these aspects, the player can identify their errors and start believing they can fix them next time and improve their gameplay. This anticipation of applying new knowledge keeps the player engaged. If the player is already earning a lot of gold, winning battles, and destroying towers, they won't have issues with self-esteem. Their engagement comes from the sense of superiority over their opponent.
The Psychology of the Builder
Now, let's return to the builder. How does the builder contribute to the team's victory? They gather resources and invest them in minions and towers. Of course, they have other tasks – reconnaissance, direct participation in battles through minions, etc. However, these are not their primary responsibilities. The builder intuitively evaluates their contribution to the team through two metrics: how efficiently they gather resources and how effectively they spend those resources.
The efficiency of resource gathering can be measured by the quantity of resources collected. This is a bit more complex than gold for champions because there are many different resources, each with varying value. Will the builder be satisfied if they collect significantly more branches than the opponent, but the opponent gathers more copper, iron, and obsidian? Probably not. However, there is still some opportunity to quantify their work, compare these numbers, and monitor which strategies lead to increased resource numbers.
What about the spending of resources? This is where the main problem lies. Imagine a situation where the builder collects significantly more resources than the opponent, but their team still loses. How does the builder distribute the responsibility for the loss between their own efficiency in managing collected resources and the champion's performance in the lane? Did the team lose because the builder ordered the wrong minions, or were the minions good and correct, but the champion in the lane played poorly? It's unclear. And the builder themselves can't determine this – they can't evaluate their own gameplay, identify their weaknesses, or understand what to focus on in the next game to achieve victory. They can't even tell if they're playing correctly at all. As a result, after a few losses, interest in the game wanes, and the player is likely to switch to another game.
Let me emphasize the most important point: the builder must be able to see which of their actions yielded good results and which did not. Currently, this feedback is missing. The player has to make many decisions about where to allocate resources, but there is no way to evaluate the consequences of those decisions. Something needs to change in the builder's gameplay so that the decisions they make have clearer and more visible outcomes.
For now, let's pause on this thought. Additionally, I will briefly talk about another side project I was working on in parallel.
VR Shooting Range
The idea for a VR shooting range came from a 3D artist who worked with me on the second part of Force of Nature. I happened to have an old HTC VIVE VR headset, and the idea seemed intriguing, so I agreed to help him create a game prototype and test his concepts in practice. The game is set in a cowboy-themed environment. You play as a rowdy bar patron who starts seeing targets in every object around him. The game is time-limited, and your goal is to score as many points as possible. Different objects yield different point values, but the core concept is that the environment reacts to your shots in specific ways, creating new opportunities to earn even more points.
Developing a game for VR turned out to be a new and exciting experience for me. It was not as complicated as I had initially thought. Nevertheless, we soon decided to put this project on hold and focus more on our primary tasks. Perhaps we'll return to it in the future. Here’s how the prototype looked.
Of course, the prototype is filled with third-party assets, lacks animations, special effects, and sound. We didn’t aim for final-quality visuals; our goal was simply to familiarize ourselves with the new technology and test the viability of the idea.
Write a comment