作者：Motoi Okamoto

发行于2月2日的《火焰之纹章：英雄》已经取得了巨大的成功，特别是在日本和美国。这款任天堂发行的全新游戏在日本iOS畅销应用榜单中位列第3，在美国的iOS畅销榜单中则位列第8。发行第一天《火焰之纹章：英雄》便赚取了290万美元的收益并和mixi的《怪物弹珠》和索尼的《Fate / Grand Order》位于前3的排名内。

ranking(from gamasutra)

这款游戏之所以在日本取得了巨大的成功是因为其绝妙的发行时间。在年末和新年假期期间，日本手机发行商总是能从一些活动和Gacha机制中大获其利，所以在2月初他们会发现销量明显下降。但是对于许多玩其它智能RPG游戏的硬核玩家来说，《火焰之纹章》则是一款值得他们花大量时间的游戏。

根据我的计算，那些经常玩《Fate/Grand Order》，《最终幻想：记忆水晶》，《Colopul Rune Story》，《碧蓝幻想》和《影之诗》等游戏的玩家几乎同时开始玩《火焰之纹章：英雄》！当然了，任天堂的粉丝们也是一下子就跳到这款游戏中。

所以今天让我们来分析《火焰之纹章：英雄》的设计与盈利机制。

游戏玩法和用户反映

这是一款小规模的策略RPG，是在一个屏幕上进行的4对4策略战斗。在传统的SRPG中，你需要将自己单位移向敌人那边并选择一个敌人进行攻击，但在这款游戏中你只需要在敌人上滑动你的单位便可，如此便能够执行移动与攻击。战斗前后的故事演示版本很短，但你却可以在游戏中看到许多该系列最受欢迎的角色。

在观察许多用户的反应时，我发现《火焰之纹章》的忠实粉丝都对这个手机版本的游戏玩法和质量感到失望，这比主机版本更加简单。他们认为游戏的教程太简单而不好理解，UI较为粗糙，故事太过单薄，角色的描述也很简单，战斗的策略性过低等等。

另一方面，如果以手机游戏角度来看待这款游戏，我们便会认为这是一款能在短暂时间轻松游戏的内容。能够加入战斗的单位数量减少了，地图也被压缩了，并且战斗可以只持续3分钟而不再是30分钟了。

当然了，你也可以继续收集并体验更多《火焰之纹章》系列中的角色。

Gacha盈利分析

你可以使用魔法球（游戏邦注：用真钱购买或在故事地图中行进而获得魔法球奖励）从过去的游戏系列中召唤英雄。这便是所谓的gacha机制。

任天堂和DeNA都有效利用着游戏gacha系统：

在一个魔法阵的5个选项中选择一个特性（红色，蓝色，绿色，没有颜色）并转动gacha

5颗星的单位出现频率将逐渐提高

每个gacha的定价逐渐下降

这意味着总共购买20个魔法球并转动gacha5次更有价值。

gacha(from gamasutra)

实际上根据魔法球在iTunes上的销量排名，23个魔法球位列第2.这便证实了这种盈利策略是成功的。

此外我认为主要存在两种付费用户类型，即习惯于其它智能手机RPG游戏中gacha机制的过度支付玩家以及认为连续5次gacha是更好选择的轻度支付玩家。后者可能是那些之前未曾为gacha花钱过的任天堂粉丝们。

战斗系统和增长的压力

与过去系列内容不同的是，在这款游戏中没有任何躲避。这里不存在与匀速相关的任何元素，在这里预测更加简单，游戏也和象棋更接近。速度与躲避无关。如果你的单位速度比对手快5倍，你的英雄便能攻击对方两次。

遵循《火焰之纹章》系列的传统，在这里伤害计算也很简单。实体攻击的伤害是从敌人攻击（Atk）中减去防卫力量（Def）的数值。而魔法攻击伤害则是敌人的攻击力（Atk）减去你的抵抗力（Res）所得。

换句话说，如果你的ATK较低，或者敌人的DEF或（RES）较高，那么伤害值可能便为0。

在主机RPG中，这种加减公式很常见，开发者可以从中轻松获得角色的发展曲线。但是如果玩家的战斗力与开发者的假设相背离，难度便会瞬间提升。

在智能手机RPG中这样的公式并不常见，因为每个玩家是从gacha那获得角色，所以他们的参数也各不相同。对于智能手机RPG来说，计算公式是基于递减率，如伤害值=（100–DEF）*攻击值。

就像之前提到的，单位的ATK，DEF（或RES）非常重要，所以比起其它手机RPG，在这里玩家会觉得单位的发展更加必要。这种强烈的情感便是所谓的“发展压力。”

同时，EXP（经验值）也不再均匀地分布到每个参与战斗的团队中，并且只有攻击单位才能获得EXP。如果单位死了，它在战斗中所赚取的EXP便会归零。如果单位攻击了一个较低级别的单位，所获取的EXP也会较低。在这里不存在安全且有效赚取EXP的方式。在发展一个英雄的过程中，所有玩家需要面对风险与回报间的权衡。

除此之外，你也可以通过消耗结晶去“升级”你的单位。但累积结晶需要花费更多时间并在Training Tower中进行更多战斗。基于这种方式，游戏的发展压力便会不断提升。

也许设计师只是遵循着该系列游戏的传统，但这也会成为玩家去强化单位的强大动机。通常情况下如果所面对的不是《火焰之纹章》，玩家可能就不会想去面对那样的战斗系统难度了，但幸好《火焰之纹章》的粉丝们愿意这么做。

发展压力衍生出Gacha压力

因此，这也让玩家觉得带有较高参数的稀有单位很重要。所以玩家便会想去滚动更多gacha。在这款游戏中，强大的发展压力便会衍生出强大的gacha压力。

还有另一种获得稀有单位的方法。玩家可以“开启潜能”，即消耗英雄功能与徽章去提高单位的稀有性并强化单位参数。

unlock potential(from gamasutra)

滚动gacha是否必要？

并不是，这没有那么简单。任天堂和DeNA创造了一个非常巧妙的设计。

为了获得功能，玩家应该在比赛场上赢过其它玩家团队。如果你想要获得更多功能，你便需要最小化4个单位团队的失败率。为了获得徽章，你则应该在Training Tower中赢得战斗。

这需要花费玩家许多时间。所以追求效能的玩家需要一支更加强大的团队。换句话说，玩家最终将通过滚动gacha去追求最稀有的英雄。即使你尝试着避免使用gacha，最终你都会想要去滚动它的！

结论和共同策略

最后我还有一个要点要说明。像《Miitomo》，《超级马里奥跑酷》，《火焰之纹章：英雄》等任天堂手机游戏都拥有共同策略。

1.提供与主机版本体验相似的体验，即使那是手机游戏。

2.但是也会创造出手机版本和主机版本间的区别。

3.可以一手游戏，简单且简短。

任天堂并不想要终止游戏，他们只是想要去延伸主机软件的销售。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Design and Monetization Analysis of Fire Emblem Heroes

by Motoi Okamoto

Fire Emblem Heroes has been out since February 2 and has achieved great success, especially in Japan and the United States. The latest mobile game Nintendo released was ranked 3rd on Japan’s iOS top-grossing apps and 8th on America’s iOS top-grossing chart. The game earned $2.9 million on the first day, and has kept a top 3 ranking alongside mixi’s Monster Strike and Sony’s Fate / Grand Order.

The spectacular success in Japan is also because of good release timing. Japanese mobile publishers tend to be heavy earners with events and Gacha at the year-end and New Year holidays, and so they tend to see weakened sales at the beginning of February. For many core gamers who are playing other smartphone RPGs, FEH was a worthwhile game with which to spend a bit of time.

Mobile RPG gamers who are always playing Fate / Grand Order, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Colopul Rune Story, Granblue Fantasy, Shadowverse, etc, which can be confirmed with my timeline, started playing FEH almost simultaneously! And of course, Nintendo fans jumped into this game.

Okay, let me explain the analysis of design and monetization of Fire Emblem Heroes.

Gameplay and User’s Reactions

This game is a downsized strategy RPG, applying strategic battle in a 4 vs. 4 skirmish on a single screen (later, enemies will increase over four). In a traditional SRPG, you should move your unit closer to the enemies’ side and select an enemy to attack, but in this game you simply slide your unit on an enemy, and then it performs a move and attack. The story demo before and after battle is very short, but you can see many of the series’ most popular characters in the game.

Watching many reactions of users, FE’s enthusiastic fans are slightly disappointed in the gameplay and quality of the mobile version, which is much simpler than the console version. The flow of the tutorial is too simple to understand, the UI is sloppy, the story is thin, the depiction of the characters is coarse and the strategy of battle is also low, and so on.

On the other hand, when viewed as a mobile game, it is easy to play in little breaks. Due to the reduction of the number of units that can join a battle, and the shrinking of the map, a battle can last as little as 3 minutes instead of a battle that took 30 minutes.

Of couse, you can enjoy and collect and raise many characters of the FE series.

Analysis of Gacha Monetization

You can summon heroes from past series using orbs (you purchase them with real money or proceed chapters in story maps to get an orb as a reward) . This is so-called gacha.

Nintendo and DeNA are showing some ingenuity in the game’s gacha system:

Select the attributes (red, blue, green, non-color) from 5 choices on a magic circle and roll a gacha

The appearance rate of five-star units gradually increases

The price per gacha gradually declines (5 orbs/ 4 / 4 / 4 / 3)

That means it is a better value to consume 20 orbs in total and turn it 5 times.

It is obviously better to consume 20 orbs in total and roll Gacha five times. In fact, according to the orb’s sales ranking on iTunes, “23 orbs” is ranked 2nd. This confirms that this monetization strategy has success.

And one more thing, I guess that there are mainly two types of paying users, an OVER-PAYING gamer accustomed to gacha at other smartphone RPGs and a light-paying gamer who considers 5 consecutive gachas is a better deal. The latter may be a Nintendo freak who has never paid money to gacha before.

Battle System and Growth Pressure

Unlike in the past series, there is no evasion in the game. No element related to luck, prediction is easier and the game is closer to a chess game. Spd (Speed) isn’t related to evasion. If your unit’s speed is more than 5 of your opponent, then your hero will attack twice against the opponent.

Following the tradition of the FE series, the damage calculation is simple. The damage of physical attack is the value which subtracted his defense force (Def) from the enemy’s attack (Atk). Magical Attack Damage is the value of your enemy’s attack power (Atk) minus your resistance (Res).

In other words, if your ATK is low, or the enemy’s DEF (or RES) is high, the damage given can be zero.

Such addition and subtraction formulas are common in console RPGs in which developers can easily assume character growth curves. When the player’s fighting power deviates even slightly from the assumption of the developer, the difficulty rises sharply.

That formula is unusual in a smartphone RPG, because each player gets characters from gacha, and their parameters vary. For smartphone RPGs, the calculation formula is based on the reduction rate such as damage = (100 – def) * attack is more general.

As mentioned above, the unit’s Atk, Def (or Res) are very important, so players are more likely to feel the necessity for unit growth than other mobile RPGs. The strong emotion should be called as “Growth Pressure”.

Also, Exp (experience values) are not equally distributed to all teams who participated in the battle, and only attacking units gain Exp. Then, if the unit dies, Exp it earned in that battle will be zero. Even if the unit attacks a lower-level enemy than the unit, gained Exp is lower. There is no easy way to earn Exp safely and efficiently in the battle . All players have to face always a trade-off between risk and return in the process of growing a hero.

In other ways, you can “Level Up” your unit, consuming shards. But accumulating shards needs much time and the many battles in Training Tower. In this way, the growth pressure of this game is very strong.

Perhaps designers followed only the traditions of the series, but this produces a strong motivation to strengthen the units. Normally, if the game is not Fire Emblem, mobile gamers might feel unreasonable and uncomfortable with the difficulty of the battle system, but the FE fans agree with all of them.

Growth Pressure Produces Gacha Pressure

Therefore, it also makes players feel strongly that highly rare units with high parameters are necessary. That is, players desire to roll more gacha. In this game strong growth pressure produces strong gacha pressure.

There is another way to get a high-rarity unit. Players can “Unlock Potential”, consuming Hero Feathers and Badges (Great Badges) to raise up the unit’s rarity and strengthen the unit’s parameters.

Isn’t it necessary to roll a gacha?

No, it’s not that simple. Nintendo and DeNA built a clever design.

To get feathers, players should win the other player’s team in Arena. If you want to get a large number of feathers efficiently, you need to win successively with minimizing the loss of the four-unit team. To get badges, you should beat battles in Training Tower.

It takes a lot of time. Players who pursue efficiency want a stronger team. In other words, players will eventually desire a high-rarity hero by rolling a gacha. Even if you are trying to avoid a gacha, eventually you will want to roll a gacha someday.

Conclusion and Common Strategy

Finally, I have one more point. Nintendo’s mobile games like Miitomo, Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes have common strategy.

1.Provide experiences similar to the console version experience, even if it is in a mobile game.

2.Nevertheless, make distinguished differences between mobile and console versions.

3.Easy to play with one hand, simply and shortly.

Nintendo doesn’t intend to stop selling consoles, and places great importance on extending sales of console software.

Thank you for reading so far. I hope this article gives you valuable insights. Ask me in the comments If you have questions about this article.(source:gamasutra)