Custom Events: Comparing two parameters against each other

LiveOps Analytics
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Not sure if this is possible with Unity Analytics, but wanted to check in before I go off and look for something else.

I’ve got a level-based game, and every level, the player can earn either 1, 2, or 3 stars. I’d like to measure level difficulty by examining how many stars are earned on each level, so I set up a custom event with the following parameters:

Event: Beat Level

  • Parameter 1: INT Level [returns 1-90]
  • Parameter 2: INT Stars [returns 1,2,3]

What I would like to do is view all the levels & their average star counts at the same time. This would allow me to quickly identify levels that are too easy/too difficult. To achieve this, it makes sense to assign the levels parameter to my x-axis, and the stars parameter to my y-axis.

Currently, this is not possible, as time is always displayed along the x-axis. Defining a date range would be enough control for me (I don’t need to see a per-day breakdown and find it frustrating that this is always along the x-axis).

One possible workaround is to create a custom event for each level such as BeatLevel01, BeatLevel02, etc etc, and then from there view parameter stars. This is extremely problematic because it requires viewing only one level at a time, not to mention setting up 90 events. And what if I’d like to set up an event LoseLevel? Through the workaround method, that would double the number of events from 90 to 180.

To make things even more complicated, there is a filter I’d like to add to view this data accurately. Since our game has a high percentage of replay-ability, it’s important to distinguish repeat-level plays from first-time level plays. So I created a boolean parameter called firstTime. Ideally, I’d like to only look at the average star counts on a per level basis for first-time level players.

There are a few more events I’d like to be tracking and a few more parameters that I did not list for the simplicity of this post, but you get the idea. Being able to compare parameters for an event along x and y axis would be extremely beneficial to understanding the big picture in terms of level design.

You may argue that funnels could achieve a similar purpose by measuring player drop-off rates on an aggregated per-level basis. The problem here is that funnels have no way to distinguish between a level that is easy and a level that is fun but challenging, because it only knows when players turn off their app. Being able to flexibly measure star count, and also, for example, most used game characters on a per level basis would be a significant step towards understanding how to improve our game, and currently Unity Analytics limits our designers from seeing the big picture.

I’m interested to hear any workarounds to this issue, if they weren’t already addressed above, and if it isn’t possible, I’d love to hear what other data measuring solutions are currently out there that might be a good fit given our requirements. Do many of you feel the same way about Unity Analytics, or am I just an edge case? Would appreciate your thoughts if you’ve got this far! Thanks.

Grouping Data, Scenes/Level Times
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Hi @tylersbrown01 ,

Have you taken a look at the last example I posted here, Funnel Examples - Unity Services - Unity Discussions ? It does use a funnel but I think you would be able to make some minor changes to have it work for your main objective, which is measuring level difficulty. What are your thoughts on an implementation like that?

Being able to compare events to compare events along an x and y axis would be extremely helpful! Would you mind posting/voting for it here, https://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/unity/suggestions?utf8=✓&status=0&category=analytics&view=hottest We use the feedback posted on this page when we are planning which features we are going to implement/improve.

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Hey mpinol, thanks for your helpful advise. I looked into your post and it actually surprised me with how flexible the funnel system is. You did display some implementations of the funnel analyzer I didn’t know were possible, good job with that post!

That being said, this system wouldn’t work for what I’m trying to do. For any game that uses a level & stars system (such as angry birds, flow, candycrush, etc), comparing custom parameters on a per level basis is essential to seeing the big picture. Doing so will allow the designer to answer the following questions:

Under what conditions are players most likely to share replays? To answer this question, I would place levels 1-90 along the x axis. Along the y-axis would be the “share-btn-pressed-pct” value for each level. I could instantly see the level that has the most shared social media posts, and create more like that!

How many tries does each level take to beat? I would place levels along the x-axis and # of tries along the y-axis. This is more effective than a drop-off funnel system because it also measures what levels are too easy. Furthermore, players can sometimes endure a bad level before turning off their game. Bonus points if I can filter by only examining first tries (players are much more experienced on their 2nd).

I understand that a raw-data export is a heavily requested feature for Unity Analytics. A leading reason why developers want this is so they can compare custom parameters along the x and y axis using pivot tables in excel/tableau. With this feature enabled, the possibilities/applications of what outcomes can be achieved with analytics are substantially increased.

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@mpinol it looks like this feature has been requested multiple times under different names:

For example “custom queries” is currently the most voted for feature. Here is a quote from the request: “If we could create queries by ourself, then we could create a combination of parameters and visualize them based on our needs. So it will not be fixed for what currently analytics provides. And everyone could do any kind of analysis…”

I believe many of us are using different names and thinking about different solutions but essentially talking about the same problem. I highly suggest the Unity Analytics team looks into the functionality to compare parameters of custom events along the x & y axis under a specified general time range. Until this feature it implemented, I’m going to have to go with Amazon AWS.

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Hey @tylersbrown01 ,

Thank you for the great feedback, I will be sure to pass it along to the rest of the team!

We are currently working on a raw data export feature that is currently in beta, but I cannot really give you any concrete information about when it will be released other than we are getting close.

Have you read about our Heatmaps feature? Unity Analytics Heatmaps: Official Thread - Unity Services - Unity Discussions One of the aspects I think you might be interested in is that your project must have access to the raw data export to use heatmaps…

I agree, it is a feature that I have heard requested under a great many names and is an extremely important part of analytics in general.

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Bit late to the party here but… It IS possible! I was concerned of the same problem, but you CAN use the funnel to do this. See my blog post for a simple guide on how.

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Funnels only track user progression.