In my experience the unlock mechanic in COD doesn’t keep engagement up. At best I get half way through them before I stop playing the game. Other people that are madly into FPS will go through all the unlocks and then that prestige thing and do it all again.
It’s more of a mechanic to give players a feel of progression rather than a way to improve engagement.
Rather than progression, it’s more about pacing. Since you only get a few things at a time, you’re more likely to experiment more substantially with all the gadgets you get and really get to know what works best for you.
Nice post. I’ll be following along.
I find it interesting including code and mathematics along with the discussion of the mechanics. Traditionally I’ve kept them separate in my head. But new approaches never hurt.
That’s the thing. Let’s assume you don’t want a digital game; what if you want something like D&D instead? You still need to know what to keep track of. Especially then, the mathematics is still useful for balancing purposes.
I don’t want to open the “What is a game?” question, but one thing that I find distressing that gets left out, is that games very much are a mathematical system, in addition to all the other things they are that we don’t need to discuss because that’s not the point of this thread or the GMP!
There are clear mathematical premises on how things work; this is part of the territory, even with something as innocuous as checking a timer. By knowing the math, you can do a quicker and better job of balancing The Game™*. That is why I include the math and the shape of the data structure. It doesn’t matter if the game is physical or digital; it’s information that will be exercised if you use the mechanic in question, plain and simple.
In other news, my XP System/Level Ups/Gaining Experience research is in pretty good shape, it should go up on this topic tomorrow for discussion/peer review. I was getting worried about it for a second, because Level Ups do many things for a game. Should be a good read.
*: Not actually trademarked. Also not related to the horrible Season 1 TNG episode of the same name. Evil video games aren’t the only thing Riker brings back from Risa, apparently…
Ready for another mechanic? This one is a biggie…be sure to chime in with any thoughts you have. I don’t doubt that I may have missed something.
Mechanic #02: Leveling Up AKA
Pokemon Name - Experithar (Psychic)
About the Mechanic:
Within the context of a work, the levelup mechanic simulates the player character practicing something; the character’s ability as a result is represented as a level (Lv. for short), while steps towards advancing the level are noted as experience points (XP for short.) More usefully, the numeric parts of this mechanic often operate as feedback unto itself; typically an entity that is Lv.3 is less effective than one that is Lv.15. If you have 80% of your XP bar full, you know you have a short way until your next reward (the next levelup.)
The ‘skill’ players are taught is to prioritize learning where or how to more efficiently gain XP. Levelup mechanics work against the mechanics they are keyed to, and instead train players to be more efficient in their execution of high-level concepts.
The most consequential aspect of levelups is that this mechanic implements concepts of a psychological construct known as a Skinner Box. Levelups produce a habit due to an irregular reward schedule for actions that the mechanic is keyed to give XP for. Presenting the player with XP information ‘weakens’ the Skinner box, but interestingly does not remove the effect from the construct.
Further, it’s very rare in works for a player to be penalized XP for failing a challenge. As a result, most implementations of levelup mechanics result in quick iterations that aren’t repetitive. If a task is failed, the mechanic requires you to take the player character and practice somewhere else, barring the effects of other mechanics.
Referee Information / Data Structure:
XP
XP to next level
Character level
Player Information / Feedback:
XP
XP to next level
Character level
Designer Information:
XPRate = Action XP / Action Time Investment
LvRate = XP To Next Lv / XP Rate
Conditions:
Victory: XP >= XP To Next Level
This mechanic has no common failure condition.
When Is This Mechanic Engaging?
It doesn’t make sense for the player to be an ‘instant expert’ at something - The levelup mechanic simulates the character practicing that skill over the course of the work.
Player skill renders a work, or a section of a work, solvable in a trivial amount of time - be warned that it will require attention to game balance, as well as modification or addition of content, to increase the time to solve the game. Levelups will only provide the player with a mechanical view and justification of this process unfolding.
You want to mechanically show the player character growing over the course of a work.
When Is This Mechanic Distracting?
The challenges of the work are explained as the player already being an expert - they have no need to practice them, as they know them.
Some high-level mechanic is a trivial action - trivial actions are presumably already mastered by the player character.
Too much time is spent ‘grinding’ - All uses of Levelups require the player finding and learning to find more efficient fonts of XP. In playtesting, if players can’t reach their levelup goals in a time that they find reasonable, it will lead to disengagement.
Similarly, the amount of time to gain a new level increases too sharply - The “Skinner Box” aspect of levelups works best when it eases the player into creating a habit; major changes in the numeric progression of the system can lead to serious disengagement.
Game References:
Dragon Warrior I is one of the prototypical JRPGs. This game is built nearly entirely around grinding as the Dragon Warrior tries to save the continent of Alefgard from the Dragonlord, bent on conquering it. The character is practicing fighting in general. That being said, one of the primary complaints of the game is that it is “too grind-ey”, particularly at late levels when the Dragon Warrior has conquered most challenges of the game.
Dissidia: Final Fantasy is a fighting game that uses levelup mechanics to impose a skill cap. For instance, if you’re great with one character, but are a low level, you will lack access to certain moves. Additionally because of the stat-dependence of the game, your attacks will deal less damage, and your defenses less effective. That being said, an extreme skill disparity can still result in a low-level character beating a significantly higher one, as the level/stat mechanics don’t fully negate the role of player skill.
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim features levelups for high-level skills like schools of magic, speech, and sneaking, but does not present XP information; you merely get rewarded for practicing a skill. “Skill-ups” are frequent at first, but get infrequent quite quickly; the game tries to mitigate this by including skill trainers that you can speak with to purchase instant skill-ups with in-game currency.
Planetside 2 features levelups under different names for your character. Levelups don’t affect your play ability in this case; PS2 is a MMOFPS that is nearly entirely-skill driven. Rewards are often in-game currency that can be used to buy upgrades. This is a great example of using Levelups to cultivate a habit, in this case of playing a character.
WarCraft III has Hero Units that can be ‘built’ at a special building for each faction. These are powerful units with powerful abilities, but to be effective they need to be involved in combat. This serves to shift the metagame away from the standard ‘RTS’ vision of having more, stronger units than the opponent, to instead prioritizing training heroes and having a unit composition that complements the hero’s abilities and weaknesses.
Hey guys! I’m calling it 2/12 now - Leveling Up has been added to the blog. Again, I’m taking the lack of argument as confirmation that I got it right for the time being.
I’m looking at a couple of significantly smaller possibilities for the next mechanic, specifically ones that don’t appear as often in RPGs. Next week’s mechanic will be a surprise.
I wish lack of feedback implied positive support :). To be honest, I haven’t read them, which makes me feel bad. And at the same time, that’s the big challenge all of us content creators must overcome.
Gigi
The great thing about a blog? I can edit it. It’s also possible I’ve not yet written about a mechanic people find interesting. Maybe it’s not in a way that people find interesting. Altenatively, maybe pre-posting here is a bad idea.
I pre-post as a sort of academic peer review. Now, as game developers, we’re not stuffy, university-types, but it is always good to know if I’ve missed something. If it’s not working, though, it’s a moot point. Still, it helps in its own way as I can dedicate roughly two more days to research. So…win/win?
Getting eyes on Content is hard. I’ve blogged, built apps, and lately, have the podcast. No matter the quality, the sheer VOLUME of content available in the universe means few will find it, even fewer will consume it, and only a tiny, tiny percentage will actually engage at a deeper level.
I think, in this case, I would continue if you find it meaningful, fun, and compelling. Just because you said you’d do 12, there’s no reason you have to. And, if you decide to put it on hold after releasing a few, then you can use that to help inform your next adventure (maybe I’ll just shoot for 3 next time, or just 1). Try, improve, repeat.
Gigi
All fair points.
This will continue, though. 12 mechanics in 12 weeks is doable, thus why I chose it - I’ve had projects in semi-recent history that I have not finished, that I thought I would, to my sadness. I’m done with not finishing things I set out to do for a while.
Also, as I said - I need to be more knowledgeable about mechanics, especially since I’ve discovered I design best when I start with mechanics. I find it enjoyable, and it helps me, in multiple ways. The reason I share it, is it may help others - there’s no way I’m the only person who’s at their best when they start with mechanics. It also helps me refine my communication skills - just because I communicate a lot, doesn’t mean I’m doing it well.
Lastly, as cool as 300 Mechanics, I find the “mechanics” highly suspect - while good ideas, I find very few of these to be the building blocks of a greater game. I want to dig down and find the things that make those “mechanics” actually work, and more importantly why.
The reason I set out to do this was to improve myself, and find inspiration. I haven’t lost sight of that. If the only thing that sees my blog is a caterpillar, that’s OK, provided I do a better job of making games going forward. #3 is still coming up.
It’s a good exercise. I think a lot of (new dev) people set out to make a game with just abstract ideas and no concrete understanding of what makes a game tick.
The analysis is interesting, & I didn’t really comment on the xp one as I’m not even sure where I stand on it as I haven’t been able to work out why some work & others don’t but I suspect it isn’t the xp system in isolation but rather how it all integrates. This, I think, is where the final analysis will be useful as it can hopefully guide the best integration & balancing of all these multiple mechanics.
There will never be a ‘final’ analysis in the blog. You can combine mechanics in any number of ways; some combinations will be good, others bad. Some combinations won’t fit with particular aesthetics, or stories, or genres. Some haven’t been tried yet. Also, these mechanics are themselves mutable; Timers can be paused. You can have an ‘XP gain rate’ increase on a Levelup system. Other possibilities may exist that someone hasn’t had a moment of clarity to try, yet.
Yep, agree. I meant that to me the discussion at the end may be the final analysis as we combine what you’ve found & discuss how they work together. At this point I’m trying my best not to comment on the mechanic as you do it if I’m going to say “but when you combine it with…” As I don’t want to risk bias in how I read what you find & potentially bias the other mechanic if you research it later.
The analysis of each mechanic you are doing is showing the slight differences in how each can be done & I’m thinking of making a set of cards with each ‘type’ of mechanic (1 for each subset within the mechanic, so not restricted to the high level 12 that you are doing) & shuffling them & selecting 3 like a form of divination to see what comes out of it. They could also be used as a way to check what to watch for as per your findings if I decide to do a certain mechanic.
I don’t know if you’ve seen Jesse Schell’s book of lenses but he put out a card deck (physical & on the iOS App Store) & I find that very useful when I get bogged down in detail. I can see your breakdown of 12 mechanics being done in a similar way & I’d look at getting it as an app & probably as a card deck if you put one out.
@tedthebug - That’s a good suggestion. Also, 12 isn’t a hard limit. I’m sure that well more than 12 ‘basic’ mechanics exist. So far the ones I’ve chosen are very visible, and are part of prominent, well-played games. As this goes on that will get harder. It’s easy to point out things that are obvious.
Definitely check the deck of lenses (search schell games) on the App Store to see what I meant. I don’t think I explained it well but if you see it you will hopefully be able to see what I meant & how useful it could be to designers just to get them thinking.
Dead rising for the timer (your racing against the clock to save “chucks daughter in DR2”).
For leveling up I’d say Clicker hero for levelling up (you dont even need a game if you have enough progress bars people play these games for hours – i know I did).
Variety is the spice of life, mixing up the gameplay between missions keeps the game from getting stale but cohesive enough to feel like its the same game (
Not too sure about the irregular reward schedule. This might be partly modal. If a player is actively grinding, then it’s prudent to provide metrics to not make them want to kill you because they can’t measure how long it’s going to take. If the player is otherwise off and about, then do they really care? If they are unconcerned about their level (or less than mildly concerned), then the value of it as a Skinner box is pretty much diminished.
All of this and more is why levelups typically work so well at training particular habits - in particular, the idea that a level is an accurate and dramatic measure of ability at whatever habit you’re training. Each level has value - if leveling up can be safely ignored, you’ve created the antipattern to levelups, “grinding” (the derogatory term for levelups, and for good reason.)
While Dragon Warrior I is an early example, it’s a perfect example of levelups done right* - right away the game teaches you to seek spots with a good XP rate and invest some time in leveling, if you want to progress. Specific levels grant abilities; you usually wind up finding a new place to grind when you gain a new ability (north of Tantegel at Lv.3; near Kol at Lv.4; near Rimuldar at Lv.7; the South Rimuldar region around Lv.10; “The Metal Slime Pit” at about Lv.13; Cantlin and beyond at about Lv.15; you can take on the Dragonlord with an expectation of victory at Lv.18.) More interestingly, beyond Lv.19, when you gain your last spell, levelups stop granting significant stat increases. Additionally, Dragonlord is balanced such that at Lv.19 you actually have a 95% chance of winning the fight, provided your head isn’t composed of inert meat. 
To me the interesting thing about levelups, is they’re an effective psychological tool because they give feedback, unlike the original Skinner Box. The ‘Stat Up’ system in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to me is a turn-off; I would like to know - in the middle of a situation, mind you, not just the menu - how many times I need to sell worthless items to a shopkeep to increase my Speech skill. Because I don’t know what my actions are doing, it makes me less inclined to do them. In fact, there are NPCs in Skyrim that you can pay ever-increasing amounts of money to to train skills…which, makes the leveling superfluous (in other words…a “grind.”) You’re better off practicing other skills like Alchemy or Enchanting to make money, than you are one of those more fundamental skills.
In fact…correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t I put notes in that entry to that very effect? Maybe I didn’t word them well enough.
*: Operative word being levelups; there are other issues with the game that later iterations in both the Dragon Quest series, and future RPGs would later attempt to solve with either new mechanics or better work in balancing the game itself.
Ah… maybe?.. I probably just skimmed it the second time round.
I’m prone to say the actual Skinner box is all the stuff around leveling up (the abilities and progression systems usually). In isolation level up mechanics aren’t exactly Skinner boxes, but they are close. They are more about a constant sense of progression and productivity, which probably require knowing exactly how productive you were.