Chapter 301: Positive Cycle of New Players Joining the Game

Gu Fan continued:

“Although the balancing idea of ​​adding more noodles with more water and more water with more noodles has been criticized by players, this is indeed the best way to balance the game at present.

“You must not think that if you have too much noodles, just pick out some noodles and throw them out. That is definitely not a good balance.

“For example, what should we do if the current highest difficulty level is Legendary difficulty, and players suddenly discover a bug that prevents all players from passing Legendary difficulty?

"We must not kill players with one blow, so that most players cannot pass the legendary difficulty. In that case, these players will definitely quit the game.

"At this time, open a higher difficulty. For example, on the legend, open another nightmare difficulty, hell difficulty, ultimate difficulty, or ultimate difficulty II, ultimate III difficulty, ultimate IV difficulty..."

Lilith thought thoughtfully: "So... the designers of "World of Stars" insisted that a group of 25 people must have 7 healers. Isn't that also wrong? How many healers don't seem to matter at all?"

Gu Fan nodded: "Yes, this is also a fatal mistake they made.

“But this idea is understandable.

"Obviously, the designers of "Protoss World" relied too much on past successful experiences in the gameplay design of the "Healing" profession, which hindered the innovation and improvement of the game.

"In the "iron triangle mode" of traditional mmorpg games, the division of labor among tanks, damage dealers and healers is very strict. At that time, all mmorpg game values ​​were very conservative, which resulted in large groups requiring a large number of healers. , in order to lift the blood of the whole group.

“Some experienced healer players are also accustomed to this game mode and are addicted to the state of ‘fast blood loss, low milk supply, and not enough mana’, thinking that only in this way can the technical level of healer players be reflected.

"Once the healing ability is strengthened, these veteran players will feel uncomfortable. It seems that simple one-click treatment like Starlight Milk is not enough to reflect their different methods from ordinary people.

“The designers of Protoss World actually followed the ideas of these veteran players.

“But unfortunately, this kind of behavior actually discourages new players.

"Because in terms of actual experience, treatment is the most boring position in the Iron Triangle. Currently, treatment is missing most of the time in "Protoss World". Why? It's because it's not fun and people don't play it. There are many, and the group base gap is huge, so players are looking for healers everywhere.

"Many guilds are even trying to trick newcomers into playing healing. But these newcomers have been fooled, and just because they play healing doesn't mean they really like to play.

"In the traditional mmorpg mode, treating players is just like playing "whack-a-mole", staring at the health bars of teammates in the team frame. If anyone loses blood, click on it, and then click on the healing skill. At most, it will be on the whole team. When blood is lost, a few targeted group health recovery skills can be thrown in, but this does not change the boring nature of treatment.

"Even if there are some so-called high-end techniques, they are nothing more than pre-reading, interrupting, or using skills more appropriately to rescue emergencies, etc. This is not a very advanced technique.

"Taking a step back, what if all treatments have the ability of infinite starlight milk?

“Even if a group of 25 people only needs two breasts, so what?

"Other healing players will not be lost. They can play output professions, other healing BDs, and entertainment BDs that increase blood while fighting.

“Isn’t it good to liberate those players who don’t like to play the healing profession and allow them to play the output profession, so that the output capability of the 25-man group can be further improved, and the group can play faster?

"But it is obvious that the designers of "Protoss World" did not consider it from this perspective, but just as if they were engraved with ideological stamps, they firmly believe that "healing means rushing", "healing means not stopping all the time", "A group of 25 must have 7 healers."

“The Ascension Mode breaks the shackles of skills and talents in the game, but it does not break the shackles of the designer’s head.

"They insist on using traditional mmorpg game balancing ideas to create this brand new model, so it's not surprising that problems will occur."

Lilith nodded thoughtfully: "Well, Gu Fan, what you said seems to make sense!"

Gu Fan continued: "Actually, there is one thing that the "Protoss World" project team has not seen, and that is that their changes have completely interrupted the positive cycle of new players entering the game.

"Starlight Milk is like "God gives you food to eat". This not only means that Starlight Milk brings popularity to the game, but more importantly, it gives many small groups in the game a living space and gives newcomers a strong presence. feel.

"If you want to increase the number of people on the server, you must first retain players, and secondly attract players. If you can't retain existing players, then no matter how you promote it, it will just be water without a source and a tree without roots. .

"In the game, there are of course players who are willing to team up with wildlings, and there are quite a few of them, but the experience of these people is relatively unimportant. Because they will continue to play no matter what.

"There is also a group of people who only want to play with friends in real life and form a small guild to entertain themselves. And these people are the group that the game should focus on. Because they will draw themselves away from reality. Playing with friends will help attract new players to the game; when they are lost, they will also be lost in batches.

“Therefore, as games are becoming increasingly fast-food, most MMORPG games have changed 40-player groups to 25-player groups or even 10-player groups.

“Fast-food itself is not a derogatory term. After all, for most players nowadays, time and friends are luxuries. There is nothing wrong with lowering the threshold appropriately.

“But in such a small group, there are not many players willing to play healing. If a 10-player team wants to get two healers, they must ensure that these two healers have certain equipment and skills and can withstand the pressure of group blood. This is difficult in itself and is also the main obstacle for them to enter the group dungeon.

“If you want to get three healers, it will be even more difficult. Someone must sacrifice for the team.

“Newcomers join the team because they have poor skills, bad equipment, can’t heal blood, and have no sense of participation. It is easy for them to quit the game.

“However, Starlight Healer accidentally fills this link and becomes a positive cycle.

"Newcomers can easily get started with Starlight Milk and can relatively easily withstand the pressure of group health. The team successfully passes the group, everyone praises the newcomer, the newcomer is happy, and the team is actually improved. This positive feedback will stimulate the team to continue to invite friends to play in real life.

"Because after inviting a friend, it is very easy to create a Starlight Milk or Dark Chain output, which has an immediate improvement effect on the team, and the newcomer can also feel that he is needed. This is a double positive feedback.

"But the rude removal of the two BDs, Starlight Milk and Dark Chain, directly interrupted this positive feedback. The newcomer originally played a role with Starlight Milk, but now he has become a burden; and the team that could successfully pass the group now has to start from scratch. This gap will cause a huge psychological blow to the players.

"If two people in a ten-person group can't stand it and quit the game, what will be the result?

"In the end, it wasn't the leader of the ten-person group who went to the real world to pull two more people, but the remaining eight people also quit the game together.

"After many ten-person small groups in the game quit the game, the middle-level structure of the entire game collapsed, and the collapse of the game became a matter of course."

Lilith nodded slowly, thinking.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up: "That makes sense, Gu Fan, what you said makes a lot of sense!

"Does that mean... if I want to collect negative emotions, I just need to do the opposite of your method?

"I will directly destroy the BD that players like; I will directly increase the difficulty of the dungeon that players can pass so that they can't pass it. I will definitely collect a large amount of negative emotions, right?

"Can "Shadow World" also learn from it?"

Gu Fan was silent for a moment: "Yes, it can, but... the premise is that you, Mr. Li, have to continue to modify the game after the game goes online. Can you do it?"

Lilith's twin ponytails visibly wilted: "...No."