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开发者应优化“零能量时间”实现游戏盈利

发布时间:2011-08-08 15:49:32 Tags:,,,

作者:Brian Poel

不久前与一名客户谈到了关于游戏设计中如何优化玩家能量消耗“时间价值”的问题,我们针对这一点进行了反复讨论,我的看法是开发者在查看自己的日常数据仪表板时,还得注意那些有助于最大化能量消耗价值的反馈参数。

游戏中的能量

首先要指出的是,这确实是一些使用了“能量”系统以限制体验时间长度的游戏应该关注的问题。当然并非所有游戏都使用了这个系统,而且这种机制也有点过时了。但不得不承认它确实有助于控制玩家玩遍游戏内容的速度,并刺激某些付费玩家在游戏中花钱消费。开发者需善用这个设计原理,了解如何优化其中价值,才能创造更可观的收益。

FrontierVille(from surfnlearn)

FrontierVille(from surfnlearn)

非“初级阶段”的玩家

当你采用了一个能量限制系统时,你定会特别着迷于测量和策划玩家游戏初次体验中所需使用的能量。切记在这个初级阶段,不可让新玩家在还没有产生兴趣之前,就让他们过早耗尽所有的能量。以下将讨论的内容主要针对“中晚期”玩家群体,也就是那些已经进入稳定状态,掌握了游戏基本规则,并会时常回访游戏的用户。

所以你创建这方面反馈参数跟踪系统时,就要筛除那些新用户,或者那些尚未跨过特定阶段的玩家信息。

零能量时间

满足了以上条件之后,下一步就是每天观察仪表板中的一个特定参数“零能量时间”,通过多种手段优化游戏表现,但前提是不可让这种调整影响最重要的留存率和ARPPU(每付费用户平均收益)等参数。

零能量时间——特定访问过程中耗尽所有能量所使用的时间长度。

非付费玩家&留存率

对非付费玩家来说,零能量时间可以反映出他们在达到能量使用上限,并等待恢复能量时所经历的游戏时间长度。到达这个节点时,你会发现玩家游戏时间立即下降,不少用户退出游戏,但他们会在隔天回访游戏。假如这个零能量时间过于短暂,那么玩家很快就会用完所有能量,从而就会影响这类玩家的整体留存率。但如果零能量时间过于冗长,那么你就会发现玩家做完了自己想做的事情后,还会剩下大把的能量——这意味着他们无需面临付费购买能量的压力和紧迫感。

有心者或许还可以进一步追踪这些玩家离开游戏时究竟还剩下多少能量,但我们不应该陷入盲目追踪所有数据的误区,而应关注那些更高层次的反馈参数,以便事后更好地调整游戏设置。

付费玩家&购买能量

对付费玩家来说,零能量时间可以指出迫使他们花钱购买能量之前所能体验的游戏时间长度。假如时间过短,可能就会导致玩家产生消费疲劳,他们会认为这款游戏过于耗财,从而影响游戏的留存率数据。而时间如果过长,你就无法实现更可观的潜在收益,因为你并没有让他们感受到需要花钱延长玩游戏时间的压力。

使用策略

我们应使用哪种手段优化零能量时间?这一点要视不同游戏特点而定,但从整体上来看都会涉及到能量来源和能量沉淀这两个内容:

能量来源

最明显的能量来源就是时间,所以你可以调整用户每获取一个单位新能量所需使用的时间。

你可能设置了大量具有固定价值的能量来源,例如拜访邻居机制。改变这种固定来源的手段比较无情,因为它会让你得罪众多用户,它的每一个调整都会产生巨大影响。而且这种调整也非常容易被玩家所察觉。

其他的能量来源有可能是随机性的(游戏邦注:例如经过1%的时间,从一次收割行为中获取1个能量)。操纵这种随机性能量来源更不易被发现,更便于控制它的影响范围。

在当前采用能量控制系统的游戏中,玩家都会希望自己升级后能够恢复所有能量。如果你想满足玩家的预期,就得保留这种理念,但却可以改变玩家进入下一关时所需集满的经验值数目。游戏开始之初,这一切都会受到第一天优化效果的影响,但随着时间发展,高级玩家升级频率不像之前那么高,所以升级并非任何一次访问行为中的普遍能量来源。

比起升级系统,任务奖励以及其他有助于提升留存率的实惠,是一种出现频率更高的能量来源。在游戏中设置一系列短期和长期任务,并将能量作为任务奖励,会对玩家访问游戏的时间产生影响。因为每次任务都不尽相同,所以你可以用不同大小的奖励创造合适的零能量时间。

能量沉淀

许多游戏中的点击行为都要消耗能量,你也可以随着时间发展改变其中的设置,但要注意这种变化与固定能量来源的调整相同,都不能算是微小的修改,而是玩家直接可见的变动。不过你要真想对零能量时间进行大幅修改,那就可以在这一点上做做文章。

能量的生产速度可能会超过玩家消耗能量的速度,然后就会导致能量供过于求。所以要确保设计核心游戏循环时,均衡分配游戏不同节点的能量耗损设置,以避免玩家剩余许多能量无处消耗。

我个人认为,能量系统更像是一种吸引玩家的心理圈套,开发者要注意如果在这个环节上滥花心思,就有可能招致用户反感。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The “Time to Zero Energy” Metric

Brian Poel

Talking with a client on their game design, the conversation turned to that of finding the “value of time” when figuring out how to optimize player spending on Energy. We talked back and forth about some kind of mystical universal constant that might exist — but I kept coming back to metrics: when you’re staring at your daily dashboards, which metric are you trying to affect with your design changes in order to maximize spending on Energy.

ENERGY BASED GAMES

First off, let’s put it out there — this is really a discussion for that specific subset of games that utilize an ‘energy’ type system to Throttle session length. Certainly not all games use this, and to be honest the mechanic is feeling a little dated. But it’s certainly one way of controlling for how quickly your players will burn through your content and it’s also a valuable monetization for some kinds of paying players. So if you’re gonna jump in bed with this particular design philosophy, it’s something you’ll need to figure out how to optimize.

AFTER THE “NEW PLAYER PHASE”

When you’ve got an energy based Throttle, you’ll want to be super-obsessed with measuring and planning for how much energy players need in their very first game play experience. Now is not the time to have player’s run out of the ability to play your game before they’re hooked. So the metrics ideas discussed below are really meant for your mid-to-late gameplay demographics — those who have transitioned into a form of steady-state play where they’ve mastered the game fundamentals and their session activities are fairly repeatable from one day to the next.

So when you’re setting up your metrics tracking, be sure to filter out the noise from your newest players or those who haven’t crossed certain Milestones defined in your Player Progression Stories.

A SINGLE METRIC

So with all that as context, here’s a suggestion for a single metric that you can look at in your dashboard every day and that you can manipulate through various levers until you see the performance you’re looking for — while balancing the impact on your other top priority metrics, like Retention or ARPPU.

Time to Zero Energy – the length of time it takes in a given Session to run out of Energy.

Non-Paying Players & Retention

For your Non-Paying Players, Time to Zero Energy reflects how long of a play Session they can have before they run into that wall where they’re waiting for their energy to recharge. At this point, you’ll see an immediate drop off in their play session — hopefully still seeing them check back later in the day or the next day. If Time to Zero Energy is too short, you should see this reflected in overall Retention of these players. If it’s too long, you may actually find that they’ve done all the activities that they desire to do and they may leave their Session with Energy in the bank — which means they were never pressured to become a Paying Player by purchasing Energy.

If you want to get fancy, you could also track how much Energy is in the bank when the session ends… but now you’re going down that slippery slope of trying to track everything, and it’s best to stay focused on fewer high level metrics if you’re still moving the needle in big chunks. Fine tuning can happen later.

Paying Players & Spending on Energy

For your Paying Players, Time to Zero Energy reflects how long of a Session they can have before they’re tempted to buy their way into a longer Session. If it’s too short, you may eventually run into Spending Fatigue as they decide that the game is just too expensive to keep dropping quarters into — which is going to show up in your Retention numbers for sure. If it’s too long, you’re not optimizing potential revenue since you’ve got a Player demographic who is willing to pay to play but the Play Session isn’t pressuring them to do so.

PULLING LEVERS

What levers can you pull to manipulate your Time to Zero? This is going to be very specific to your game, but in general it comes down to Sources and Sinks…

Energy Sources:

The most obvious source of energy is just time: so you can always tweak how long it takes to gain a new unit of energy. Clearly this moves the needle pretty far.

You may have numerous sources of energy whose values are Fixed, like visiting neighbors. Changing the fixed sources can be a bit heavy handed, as you’re dealing with round numbers and so every change has a big effect. Also changes will be more obvious to the players.

Other sources of energy may be Random (like x% of the time, gain 1 energy from a harvest). Manipulating the randomization is more ‘behind the scenes’ and can also give you a finer control over the effects.

Nowadays, in any energy-based game, players expect to completely refill their energy when they level up. So you pretty much want to retain that concept, if you want to meet those expetations — but you can always slide around how much XP the player needs to hit their next level.  At the beginning of the game, this all falls under the broader umbrella of Day 1 Optimization — but later on, advanced players don’t level up as frequently so this is not a common Source during any individual Session.

Quest Rewards can be a more frequent source of Energy than leveling, as well as a valuable tool for all sorts of other Retention related goodness. Having a wide variety of short-term and long-term quests always in a Player’s queue allows for Energy as a Quest Reward to have an impact on individual Sessions. And because every Quest is unique, you can really play around with the size of the Rewards to create the right Time to Zero Energy.

Energy Sinks:

Many ‘clicks’ in the game cost energy, thought not necessarily all of them. You can change this over time — but like changing the value of a Fixed Source, these changes are not subtle and are out in the open for players to see. But if you’re looking to make big shifts in the Time to Zero, this’ll do it.

The number of things that produce energy can really start to outpace the ways that players can spend energy. It’s easy to end up with an energy glut because you keep coming up with fun ways to grant energy, but only certain activities cost it. Make sure that as you design the core Game Loop, that you’ve equally distributed sinks throughout different areas of the game so that players are eventually running into that wall.

IS IT WORTH IT?

Optimizing around spending on energy feels a bit brutal to me. Personally, I’d rather find ways to monetize Engagement through other areas of the game, like Creative Expression, Strategic Advantage or even Competition. The whole Energy system feels like one of the most obvious Psychological hooks to the players and if you’re too heavy handed with it, they could grow to resent it.(source:plotluckgames


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