F2P MMO游戏开发者谈战利品宝箱的运用

原作者：Alan Bardley 译者：Vivian Xue

过去的几个月，战利品宝箱（loot box）成了广受争议的话题，一些知名度很高的游戏都纷纷采用了这种盈利模式，虽然在人们看来他们采取的方式高调而拙劣。

尽管开发者们围绕战利品宝箱的和真钱交易制定了一些基本原则（比如奖励应属于装饰性质而不会破坏游戏平衡，奖品内容应有一定的价值，等等），许多这种盈利尝试还是受到了玩家的强烈抵制。

但在人们围绕3A发行商企图通过微交易系统获得额外收入、或者战利品宝箱是否是一种赌博进行讨论之时，他们忽略了一点，这种群体性的失误正在损害F2P模式，以及那些多年来一直得当地使用战利品宝箱并依赖它取得成功的游戏。

最近的新闻频频报道这些高调的失误，但是也有不少的小型开发商们长期以来在战利品宝箱的使用上把握着良好的分寸，并且依赖这种模式继续他们的开发工作。

考虑到这一点，Gamasutra联系了许多MMO游戏开发者，向他们了解战利品宝箱对F2P模式意味着什么、如何让它们在游戏中显得精致不突兀，以及如何有效应用它们且不让玩家感到被剥削或欺骗。

战利品宝箱的吸引力

鉴于玩家们对战利品宝箱通常的态度，它们对开发者来说是一把双刃剑；一方面，它们代表着潜在的收入，但另一方面它们可能会让玩家远离游戏。F2P MMO射击游戏《反抗军》（Defiance）的制作人Matt Pettit指出，你无法从退出游戏的玩家身上盈利。

“玩家的反应是第一位的，赚钱是第二位的，”Pettit说，“没有前者，后者就不会发生。我们的核心思维是，专注于开发出我们自己也想玩的游戏，并且确保游戏能够像业务一样持续发展下去。一款免费游戏必须要有一个合理的收入来源，否则它将无法存在。”

Petitt说，他的团队希望确保他们的战利品宝箱——在他们的游戏《反抗军》中被称作Supply Caches，成为游戏核心循环的一部分。玩家既能通过游戏获得它们，又可以从商店中购买它们。

“通过商店售卖Supply Caches为玩家提供了追求目标的两种不同方式，这是我们最初吸引玩家的地方。”

战利品宝箱提供的另外一种可能性是设计者可以通过它们向玩家提供各种稀奇古怪的、独特的奖励，这些奖励内容和游戏的相关性可能不是特别强。《星际迷航Online》允许玩家通真钱交易或通过和其他玩家交换游戏货币来获得战利品宝箱(并且所有的物品都可以交易，这样玩家就能够购买箱子里出现的物品)，这意味着开发者可以从某种程度上通过战利品宝箱来控制新道具的传播。这使得他们能够发布小众的新飞船。

defiance（from gamasutra.com）

“通过战利品宝箱我们能够为玩家提供特殊的飞船并保持这些飞船的稀缺性，同时也保持了科幻世界设定的真实感，”制作总监Stephen Ricossa说，“我们还可以通过战利品宝箱试验一些处于概念和设计阶段的道具，因为我们知道这些样品比标准发行的数量要少得多。然后，我们可以利用基于后端数据、游戏内的拍卖价格、论坛或社交网站帖子获得的信息来判断试验道具是否受欢迎，从而为游戏带来更多种类的道具物品。”

在游戏《海战世界》(游戏邦注World of Warships)中，战利品宝箱解决了一个截然不同的问题。对游戏分析团队的Phillip Molodkovets来说，战利品宝箱（该游戏中的集装箱）可以用于解决一些长期存在的与日常任务相关的问题。

“你每天会随机被分配到这些任务，如果你不喜欢的话可以换一个，任务奖励是固定的，通常是少量的游戏币或者消耗道具。”

虽然对于MMO游戏来说这是一个相当标准的模式，但Molodkovets说，这引发了很多问题。玩家们在完成日常任务后不愿参与游戏了，并且当他们发现完成任务需要特定等级或者使用他们不熟悉、不喜欢的武器时，玩家们会很沮丧。固定的奖励也意味着他们永远不会得到史诗级的奖品，并且限制了玩家的选择。

“有趣的是，我们的随机的战利品集装箱为玩家提供了更多的选择。在获得集装箱之前，你可以选择它的类型，“他说，“这并不意味着你一定能得到想要的奖品，但可以保证它会包含一些你所感兴趣的奖品。”

同时，这种集装箱系统在玩家累积了一定量的经验值而不是完成某项特定任务之后奖励他们一个箱子，这意味着玩家们可以使用任何战船进行游戏来获得奖励集装箱，并且比起开启一系列静态的物品，打开集装箱的过程对他们更具吸引力，特别是当他们知道其中可能隐藏着一件极其罕见的物品时。集装箱还提供了一些日常任务所没有的功能，并且它和其他的奖励系统结合在一起成为假日和特别活动的一部分。

战利品宝箱的内容

尽管随机的战利品宝箱很值得推荐，但是如何合理分配箱内的物品以及如何确定这些物品的稀缺性是一件很困难的事。平衡问题总是存在，并且稍有不慎，玩家们将因此被惹怒。此外，影响内容和稀缺性的因素数不胜数。《反抗军》中的奖励宝箱的设计是建立在一套核心的原则之上的。

“首先，使得玩家能通过游戏获得所有的物品，商店购买是作为实现这一目标的替代方式，”Pettit告诉我。

“游戏平衡的关键在于确保那些通过游戏获得物品的玩家所花费的时间是合理的。第二，无论玩家从Supply Cache里获得了什么，如果一个玩家确实选择通过商店购买它，我们要确保他们的付出至少都获得了回报。从商店购买东西必须总能让玩家感觉是值得的并且加快了游戏的进程。即使从商店购买的物品和通过游戏得到的物品是一样的，但通常从商店购买的Cache头等奖品和稀有物品的掉落率会更高。“

《反抗军》中物品掉落率的设置依据的是非付费玩家获得它们需要的时间，以及它们的获取方式，比如标准奖励或一些随机的游戏奖励。计算这些比率是一项持续的任务，Pettit说这是确保玩家不会觉得《反抗军》是一个付费获胜游戏的关键。

Ricossa也认为这是一大挑战，《星际迷航Online》在经过了多次试验和迭代后才找到了解决方案。

“我们在进行初代宝箱设计时是基于最佳的猜测，根据我们所认为的玩家会觉得什么物品会更酷更有趣来设置掉落率，”他说，“随着我们发布的宝箱越来越多，我们会根据物品在全服范围内的获得率、玩家的满意度以及对物品的兴趣程度来调整掉落率。一些我们认为很酷的物品并没有获得到玩家的认可，所以我们要么让它们变得更普通，要么把它们从游戏中去掉。”

确保游戏环境的公平比表面看上去难得多，它是一个持续的过程，如果没有什么戏剧性的变化，你很难看出其中出了什么问题。

“除非什么东西出现了大毛病，它可能非常艰难，”Ricossa说，“当我们在制作解锁宝箱的物品时，我们广泛讨论了可能出错的地方，我们内部测试了一系列武器的组合并且尝试跳脱思维定式去思考现有物品可能形成的不同组合。最终，我们的目标是为人们提供更多的战斗方式，而不一定让他们变得更强大。“

所有的研究和迭代的成果是一个高效的、开发者友好型的系统。“如今我们拥有了一个精细化的物品列表，其中每个物品都有一个固定的稀缺率。当设计师创建宝箱的时候，他们从中选择他们想要的物品，对掉落率做轻微的调整然后所有相加起来，然后他们就被设置好了。”

但是，Molodkovets承认，除非是纯粹的装扮物品，否则新的战利品宝箱很难不打破游戏原先调整好的平衡性，《海战世界》的开发团队也觉得这很棘手。

“当然，我们的目标是保持战利品宝箱的吸引力的同时不让游戏充斥免费的高级物品，”他说，“在大多数情况下，这是纯粹的数学问题。当我们设计掉落率时，我们选择了最受欢迎的那些消耗品，并且在含有它们的集装箱发布后，我们会不断地对它们的流量进行监控。

但是尽管他们尽了最大的努力，Molodkovets发现一些集装箱物品正在破坏游戏，特别是称为信号旗（signal flags）的消耗和性能提升器。

“通过集装箱分发这些物品，对游戏平衡的以及它们的概念价值都产生了很大的影响。它们成了玩家们无脑使用的道具，而不是特定时刻提升战舰性能的关键工具，”他说，“与此同时，我们引入了特殊的飞船升级道具，并把它们加入了史诗级的奖励。不幸的是，这些升级道具的平衡能力不够强，玩家觉得其中一些道具没什么价值。“

Molodkovets说，他们很快就受到玩家的强烈抵制，但开发小组很快做出反应，重新设计和改进旗帜和升级道具。“当然，并不是每个人都对这一功能感到满意，有些玩家认为，史诗级奖品最好是一艘高级战舰，但是从整体上看，我们认为集装箱系统在目前的状态下是有吸引力的，并且对游戏平衡来说也相对安全。”

外观和感觉

和战利品宝箱的内容几乎一样重要的是它的美学设计，丰富的视觉和听觉效果能够让开箱过程感觉更隆重，就像玩家正在发现一些罕见的，不可思议的宝藏。对于《海战世界》的开发团队来说，集装箱的设计正来源于他们所模拟的海上战争。

他说：“这些集装箱的外形设计和开箱动画都严格按照真实的货物集装箱。开箱是在SS Red Oak Victory——一艘美国军用货船的甲板上进行的，可以在任何一个游戏港口被找到这艘船只，为了让环境更生动，我们在箱子周围增加了几个从事各种活动的船员。声音也同样具有极强的仿真效果。“

但是Molodkovets认识到，开箱过程并不一定要搞的很严肃。“特殊活动期间，我们设计了一些非传统的海军风格的集装箱。例如，圣诞集装箱看起来就像礼盒，并且把圣诞老人引进了残酷的海战世界，我们在万圣节活动中有更多有趣的设计。”

《星际迷航Online》团队一开始按照25世纪的华丽未来主义美学来设计箱子。但他们很快意识到缺少了一些什么东西。

“我们并没有开箱机制！我们决定提升玩家的开箱体验，加入一些视觉效果的同时不延长开箱时间。我们认为提升开箱界面是提升宝箱解锁体验的关键一步。 “

对于Ricossa和《星际迷航Online》团队来说，打开箱子的过程并不是关键，关键在于箱子内部的设计。

他说：“确保箱子获得好评的最好方法是让里面的物品具有吸引力、对玩家有价值，并且能够与当前游戏中正发生的事件相互作用。”他称团队希望能够让玩家实现 “星际迷航”的幻想，而宝箱解锁机制将会是一个实现这种体验的方式。

“例如，如果有人想‘成为一个Tzenkethi’，我们有提供一个包含所有Tzenkethi有关的飞船、物件和装饰品的解锁宝箱，” Ricossa说，“为玩家社区提供有趣的物品和新玩法是确保你可以继续制作游戏同时玩家们能感受到乐趣的最好方式。”

Pettit同意这种观点——对于《反抗军》来说，关键是要确保玩家对所购买的物品感到满意，然后再考虑外观设计。当游戏的区域广播提醒玩家一个罕见的顶级物品从宝箱中被解锁出来时，Pettit承认还有更好的物品在未解锁的箱子里等着玩家们。

“商店的Cache的开箱动画和音效是我们一直想改进的！打开Cache的过程应该像打开一个新的卡包，或者糖果从礼品包里掉落出来，”他说，“这是我希望我们能做得更好的方面，但是我认为我们所做的正确的事是确保提供尽可能多的信息。”

“无论玩家是用真钱购买Supply Cache还是用游戏货币购买Cache，二者细节都至关重要，”《反抗军》的开发者继续说道，“他们应被告知箱子里有什么物品，以及他们可能得到的特殊掉落奖励。开箱时播放一些庆祝动画是一个很好的方式，但是让玩家们准备好接受所要得到的物品、合理地设计它们，同时还要让玩家感觉到这是一种奖励，这对我们来说是最重要的事。”

通过与这些经验丰富的F2P游戏开发者交谈，我们能明显感受到在游戏中如何(以及何时、为何要)最佳地运用战利品宝箱盈利策略的是一个复杂的问题，即便你在这方面已经做了一段时间工作。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Loot boxes have been the subject of tremendous controversy over the last few months, with some very high profile games blundering into this format of monetization in some extremely clumsy, extremely high profile ways.

Ignoring some of the basic precepts that developers have hashed out around loot boxes and real money purchases (rewards should be cosmetic and not influence game balance, contents should always feel appropriately valuable, etc.), many of these attempts have backfired in spectacular fashion.

But lost in the conversation around triple-A publishers seeking additional revenue through microtransactions or whether or not loot boxes are gambling is the damage these public blunders are doing to the free-to-play model, to games that have relied on loot boxes and executed them gracefully and successfully for years now.

As much as recent high-profile stumbles have been monopolizing coverage, there are a huge number of smaller developers that have been doing loot boxes elegantly for a long time, and they often rely on them to keep the lights on and to continue development/support.

With that in mind, Gamasutra reached out to a number of MMO developers to get a sense of what loot boxes mean in the free-to-play space, how they can be done tastefully and non-intrusively, and how they can be implemented without players feeling exploited or deceived.

The allure of loot

Given how players often react to them, loot boxes represent a double-edged sword for developers; on one hand, they represent a potential revenue stream, but on the other there’s a risk of alienating users. As Matt Pettit, a producer on the free-to-play MMO shooter Defiance, is quick to point out, you make no money from players who walk away from your game.

“We think about the player-facing perspective as the priority, and the business need second,” Pettit says. “Without the first, the second doesn’t happen. At our core, we’re focused on making the kinds of games that we want to play too, and making sure they’re sustainable as businesses. Creating a fair revenue stream for a free game is essential; the game wouldn’t be able to exist otherwise.”

“Creating a fair revenue stream for a free game is essential; the game wouldn’t be able to exist otherwise.”
Petitt says his team wanted to make sure that their loot boxes, called Supply Caches in Defiance, were part of the core gameplay loop, and attainable in-game as well as on from their store.

“Having Supply Caches on the store gives us that opportunity to provide players with two different ways to pursue their goals, and that choice is what attracted us to them in the first place.”

Another opportunity afforded by loot boxes is the ability to tuck odd, rare, or unique rewards into them, content that might exist on the fringe of a game’s universe. For Star Trek Online, which allows players to earn loot boxes through both real money and by trading in-game currency on an exchange with other players (and makes all items tradeable so that players have the opportunity to buy items that appear in boxes a la carte), this means loot boxes allow devs to control, to some extent, the proliferation of new items. It allows them to unleash new vessels that may seem out of place in larger numbers.

“Loot boxes provide the team with opportunities to deliver atypical starships in a way that keeps them rare, which helps maintain the in-universe believability of our fictional setting,” says executive producer Stephen Ricossa. “Lock boxes also allow us to experiment with concepts and designs for items because we know the player sample will be smaller than a standard release. We can then use the information we’ve gained based on back-end data, in-player auction pricing, and forums or social posts to determine the popularity of our experiment and potentially bring more of that type of item into the game.”

For World of Warships, loot boxes solve a completely different problem. For Philip Molodkovets, the head of Warships’ game analytics team, loot boxes (containers) were a way to solve a number of long-standing issues with daily missions.

“They were randomly assigned to you each day, with the ability to re-roll one of them in case you didn’t like it. The rewards were fixed, known from the start, and typically were small amounts of in-game currency or consumables.”

While a fairly standard approach to an MMO staple, Molodkovets said it resulted in a number of issues. Players weren’t engaged when completing their dailies, and were often frustrated when they called for specific classes or weapons, ones they weren’t familiar with or didn’t enjoy using. Fixed rewards also meant that they’d never yield epic loot, and curtailed player choice.

“Funnily enough, our random loot containers offer more choice to the player. Before receiving a container, you may choose its type,” he said. “This won’t set your reward in stone, but guarantees it will partly contain the type of items you’re interested in.”

And the container system, which awards a box after a certain amount of XP accrued instead of after players accomplished a specific task, means players can use whatever ships they like while chasing them, and are more engaged by the process of opening a container than with a static slate of goodies, especially knowing that a super rare item might be hidden inside. Containers also provided utility in a way that daily missions didn’t and have been incorporated into other reward systems and as part of holiday and special events.

What’s in the box?

While there’s a lot to recommend random loot, deciding which items to apportion to boxes and how to set the rarity on those items can be a tricky balancing act. There’s the ever-present threat of a misstep infuriating your community, and a huge number of factors influence contents and rarity. For the Defiance team, a few core principles shape the way their reward caches are designed.

“First, allow the player to obtain everything in-game through gameplay, and offer the store as an alternate way of accomplishing that goal,” Pettit told me.

“The balance is ensuring that what players can accomplish in-game does not take an unfair amount of time. Second, we make sure that no matter what one gets from a Supply Cache, if a person does choose to buy one, they’re always at least getting the value out that they put into it. Purchasing something from the store needs to always feel rewarding and speed up your progress. Even though the items you get from the store are the same as the items you get in the game, often a store-purchased Cache will have a higher chance for jackpot and rare items.”

Setting drop rates for the items in Defiance’s caches comes down to calculating how long it takes for a non-paying player to obtain them, and balancing that with how they’re obtained, whether as a standard reward or through some random gameplay element. Figuring out those ratios is an ongoing task and one that Pettit says is core to ensuring that Defiance never feels pay-to-win.

It’s a challenge that Ricossa also readily acknowledges, one the Star Trek Online team approached through experimentation and careful iteration.

“We took our best guess with our initial lock box offerings and based the drop rate of items on what we felt would be cool or interesting from a player’s perspective,” he said. “As we released more boxes, we adjusted drop rates based on general server-wide availability, player satisfaction, and interest in the items. Some of the items that we thought were cool didn’t resonate, so we either made them more common or eliminated them entirely.”

Ensuring an even playing field is much more difficult proposition than it often appears from the outside, a continuous process that can be difficult to read if there aren’t dramatic swings in one direction or the other.

“Unless something is catastrophically broken, it can be tough,” Ricossa said. “When we’re making lock box items, we talk extensively about what can go wrong, we playtest them internally in a variety of loadouts and try to think outside the box on the different combinations that could be made with existing items. At the end of the day, our goal is to provide people with things that give them more combat options and not necessarily make them more powerful.”

“Providing great items and interesting new gameplay opportunities at a value for the player community is the best way to ensure you can keep making your game while everyone playing it is having fun.”
The result of all that research and iteration is a streamlined, developer-friendly system. “These days we have a refined menu of items that we can choose from and each of those item types has a set rarity. When a designer builds the box they choose what they want to make, make very minor adjustments to the drop rates so everything adds up, and they’re set.”

But unless you’re restricting yourself to purely cosmetic loot, ensuring new loot doesn’t upend your game’s carefully calibrated parity is a huge undertaking, one Molodkovets admits the Warships devs have struggled with.

“The goal was, of course, to sustain the balance between appealing loot and not overflowing the game with free premium items,” he said. “It was pure mathematics, for the most part. When we designed the drop rates we picked the most popular consumables and monitored the flow we generated by releasing containers with them.”

But despite their best efforts, Molodkovets found that some of the container items were disrupting the game, particularly consumable experience and performance boosters called signal flags.

“Distributing them with the containers contributed to their impact on game balance and their conceptual value too much. They had become a no-brainer choice instead of a valuable situational tool for customizing your ship,” he said. “At the same time, we introduced special ship upgrades, and put them into epic rewards instead. Unfortunately these upgrades were not balanced enough, and some of them gave too little value for players.”

Molodkovets says the backlash was strong and immediate, but that the team responded quickly to redesign and improve the flags and upgrades. “Of course, not everybody is happy with the feature, and there are players who believe they should pull a premium ship each time they roll epic, but as a whole, we consider containers both appealing and safe for balance in their current state.”

The look and feel

Almost as important as the contents of a loot box are the aesthetics of it, the visual and aural flourishes and effects that make opening a box feel like an occasion, like the player is discovering some rare, incredible treasure. For the Warships team, the design of containers is drawn from the world of naval warfare they’re emulating.

“The containers have the austere design and animation of actual cargo containers. They are operated aboard the SS Red Oak Victory – a U.S. military cargo ship that can be found in any of the game ports. To animate the surroundings, we added a few crewmen engaged in various activities. The sound design followed the same strict concept.”

But Molodkovets recognizes that cracking open loot doesn’t have to be grim, serious business. “When we design special event containers, we let ourselves venture beyond classic naval style. For example, Christmas containers looked like gift boxes, and introduced Santa himself to the world of brutal naval warfare, and we had more fun designs in our Halloween event.”

The Star Trek Online team started with boxes that fit the slick futuristic aesthetic of the franchise’s 25th century. But they quickly realized something was missing.

“As for the opening mechanic, we actually launched without one! We decided to update our opening experience for players so it would feel more satisfying and have some visual flair, while not making the process of opening boxes take longer. We felt updating that interface was a critical part to improving the lock box experience.”

For Ricossa and the Star Trek Online team, the key isn’t so much the process of cracking open the box as much as the look and theme of what’s inside.

“The best way to ensure that the box itself is well received is that the items look great, are valuable to players and typically interact with the current story based events of the game,” he said. He claims the team wants players to be able to live out their Star Trek fantasies, and lock boxes are a way to flesh them out.

“For example, if someone wants to ‘be a Tzenkethi,’ we have a lock box that offers all of the ships, items, and cosmetic apparel they would need to look and fight like a Tzenkethi,” said Ricossa. “Providing great items and interesting new gameplay opportunities at a value for the player community is the best way to ensure you can keep making your game while everyone playing it is having fun.”

Pettit agrees with this sentiment — for Defiance, the key is ensure players are happy with the result of their purchase first, and consider aesthetics later. While a zone-wide broadcast lets other players know anytime a rare Jackpot item has been obtained from a lock box, Pettit admits that the actual ritual of unlocking one could be better.

“The animation and sounds around opening a store Cache is one area where we really want to improve! Opening up a Cache should feel like opening a new pack of cards, or spilling candy out of a piñata,” he said. “That’s something I’d like us to do better, but what I think we do right is make sure to provide is as much information as possible.

“We feel that details are incredibly important both when players are paying for a Supply Cache and when they purchase a Cache with in game currency,” the Defiance dev continued. “They should know what rewards are hidden inside, along with what special drops they could receive. Fanfare when opening a box is a nice touch, but preparing you for what you will receive, and being fair in their designs, while also providing a sense of reward, is of the utmost importance to us.”

In speaking to these experienced F2P game devs it’s clear that the question of how (and when, and why) to best implement “loot box” monetization schemes in your game is complex, even if you’ve been doing it for a while. （source：Gamasutra  ）