During a round of Civilization turns get longer because the complexity is growing (number of cities, units, diplomatic options).ĭifficulty / Randomness Controlling the rate at which the player can consume content by letting her fail and repeat more often. In MMOs sometimes non XP rewarding systems (such as crafting or PVP) are introduced which will slow down the player’s progression. So overall the time to level up increases (Fig 1).įig1: XP Requirements are growing faster than XP Income Usually also the XP income increases (numbers always need to grow so players can see the progress). The XP needed to level up, increases with every level. Level Thresholds In games that use level-systems it is common to control to pace the progression by adjusting the XP curve.
Some examples for gameplay elements that have an impact on the player progression. Although obtaining more pieces (long term goal) is worthwhile (reward), the child can spend that time waiting for cChristmas with all the pieces it has collected up to that point. While too many pieces might overwhelm a child. Example Lego, in the beginning you will need a lot of content (pieces) fast in order to build things. This means, that the further the player has progressed, she can spend more time with different aspects of the game. The number systems which the players can interact with or the complexity of the existing ones usually increases over time. Unlocking new content or mechanics can be slower because players can spend increasingly more time engaging with the previously unlocked capabilities. Although there is a fine line between spacing out unlocks of features for the sake of merely stretching the content (mostly for monetization reasons) and actually providing a smooth learning curve. Giving players one bit of the game at the (right) time gives them the chance to learn the existing ones before presenting the next one. To not overwhelm players with too many Gameplay mechanics or systems in the beginning, the access to new features needs to spaced out. Goals of progression Control Learning Curve & Ramping up new players
Controlling the progression in games like that is crucial to their success in terms of longevity and monetization. Usually economic challenges are imposed on the players as an obstacle to reaching their goal. Progression itself is the goal in these games. What is progress in “Sim City BuildIt”? In Simulation games, or in social games in general, there often is no final goal which after reaching it, concludes the game. For example, in order to progress in an RPG (progress = Levels, Items, Story), the player needs to fight (core mechanic) enemies (obstacle). The content is consumed by engaging with the game mechanics. This often implies consuming a games content while moving on. “Progression” describes how far a player has come, reaching that goal. In order to reach that goal players accomplish a subset of goals.
I will start with a brief introduction regarding the focus of this post: Player Progression. It has more content than I will refer to in this article so taking a closer look might be useful.
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Download the excel file here: SimCity_BuildIt_BalancingAnalysis and look for yourself. I recorded many data points during my play-through in order to interpret the designers’ intention behind these numbers.
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I took a close look at the balancing of the successful mobile free to play game “Sim City BuildIt”.
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