Mock Player Data Analysis of Marvel, Contest of Champions

I have been playing Kabam’s new street fighting game, Marvel, Contest of Champions on mobiles and I am interested in viewing the game from a bigger picture, how players as various groups react to the systems and interact with the interfaces. So I did this mock player data analysis. By saying “mock”, it means that all the scenarios are my prediction and I didn’t bother to fake some statistics and to delve into design changes/decisions.

There are two aspects that the player data can help us to understand our games: what they like best and what is problematic for them. It is not very meaningful to make assumptions on what they like, so I will focus on the later one. Also, I am very interested in the systems and UI/UX design. So I will talk about the intersection of them and below are the areas that I tackled with:

I.  System design

1. PvP system

a) To fake or not to fake?

The game has been pushing a PvP system and I think this mode is fake. Because I feel that instead of fighting against a real player real time, the players are just fighting against AI (which is understandable), although the game is pulling out champions owned by real players.

We all know that players generate infinite content for a game, so I think it would be super cool if they can actually fight against real humans, or at least the experience could feel like more fun and different than fighting AI in the quest mode.

So I wonder how the players will rate the experience (AI in PvP mode) without implying anything such as that they were not fighting against real players. If many out of the testers are pretty sure that they were fighting against AI and didn’t feel satisfying and dominating after defeating a champion owned by another player, they might want to improve the AI and overall experience in PvP mode.

b) The intensity and reward system

I didn’t play through many PvP seasons (and honestly, it was because I felt frustrated by the system). But I know that each mobile game (actually all the games on all platforms) have a life cycle. If the game asked you to spend too much time, you probably don’t want to touch it again when the reward system is not good enough. And even though it is pretty decent, it is dangerous to over-motivate the player and break the curve.

So I really want to know the experience curve of players’ PvP experience in this game (like how many hours do they invest in PvP, and time allocation between PvP and PvE; do they get bored after overplaying PvP in a short period; if they keep playing very constantly, what drive them to do so; do the reward system feel satisfying for them; do the reward grow as they expected; etc).

2. Champion system

The game monetizes by selling crystals (that can open champions), in-game currency and other stuff. Since the champions have tremendous impact on the player’s performance and result of every single fight, I think the crystals are the biggest selling point.

I just wonder which on-sale champions are more popular than which, how many out of how many people paid for crystals after which champion is released. And bring them back to analysis the champion design, such as the appearance, the abilities, fight style, the specs, etc.

3. Balancing in difficulty (PvE mode)

The strongest feeling I had when progressing in the game was, when I finished the first chapter in PvE mode, the quests suddenly felt super hard to beat. I think the game tuned the difficulty on purpose. Because the players who already went through the first chapter seem to like the game a lot and it is just reasonable that they pay to get better. I simply wonder how many among all the players who finished the first chapter paid right after the game became harder for them, and what they bought (champions or other stuff). In this case, we can learn about how to tune the balance to increase in-game purchase.

II. UX design

1. Game flow

The game already has a pretty smooth game flow. However, when I played through the game, I was still confused by some designs. To be more specific, there is chance that the player uses the “back” button on top left corner to reach an interface that they have never been to during the current play session.

I want to know if the players would get confused by the flow and whether they want buttons to make their life easier.

2. Items on upgrade interface

There are two systems to upgrade a champion, “level up” and “rank up”. The two systems require totally different types of items and they already designed a distinguish interface for “rank up” than the “level up” upgrade. I have been confused why they also make “rank up” items available for the player in “level up” upgrade. And when the player selects the “rank up” items (the catalysts), a warning message will pop up, asking whether the player wants to “deselect” or “continue”. If the player hits “continue”, the item will be consumed and it grants 0 XP for the champion.

This feels like a trap and it is very unfriendly. The game actually allows the player to sell the catalysts for money and the player can purchase in-game currency with real money. I understand that inflation has always been a problem for video games. It is so easy to tell that the item has no effect on the champion that I don’t think any player will keep pushing the “continue” button. So I wonder how the players think/react to this design.  I disliked the design a lot, because games should always provide possibilities for the player to win in all cases. Since there is no way to trade money between two players in the game, and the in-game currency is not a big selling point. It is totally fine that even everything gets convert to money eventually. And by doing this, the player also gains satisfaction and a sense of ownership.

So I am really curious that how players react to this design and what if they just not show the catalysts on “level up” interface.

3. Other design changes I noticed

I have been constantly checking this games since it came out, so I noticed a couple of design changes they made so far.

For example, they previously just added that, after completing a daily quest, the player may purchase the awarded catalyst with a discount. I think this is a pretty good design change. But I wonder how impactful this offer is. Thinking from a player’s stand point, if I already earned this catalyst, how much chance that I would like to buy another one (exactly the same catalyst)? Since there are two conditions to get the specific catalyst without buying from vault, completing the daily quest and opening the chest and getting it. So who will encounter the scenario that they went through the quest but didn’t get the specific catalyst? The ones who want/need the catalyst and didn’t get it.

So I would suggest that they try offering the discount for those groups of players, as a compensation for the fact that they were just not lucky so that they failed to get the catalyst. Because they are more likely to pay for the catalyst than the ones who already get one after doing the quest. Simply distributing two versions of this part can tell the effect of this change.

Above are some thoughts on how to use player data from a big picture to make design changes/decisions. There are more things I wanted to address but couldn’t delve into. I hope video games can effectively use players’ actions and feedback to refine their design and to craft better gaming experience. Games should be better than life and they can be perfect.

Reward System Analysis of Bloons TD 5

I.                    Overview

As a popular casual game, Bloons TD 5 has nice reward loops. The game is rich in content (turret/map/upgrades/etc.), so it has decent replayability. Meanwhile, it is super time consuming (each play is 20 minutes in average).

II.                    Reward System

The game ties all the rewards to the experience points (XP). Killing Bloons grants the player XP for the tower used to kill the Bloons as well as the player’s account. Unlockables (new towers/upgrades/enemies/game modes) come out as the player ranks up and the towers level up.

It is very easy to rank/level up at the beginning. The speed slows down as the player progresses.

Because of the reward system, new unlockables are constantly being introduced to the player. Even I am already Rank 25, I still get new content in an acceptable pace (I was dropping all types of towers in order to unlock their upgrades as fast as possible).

Except the unlockables, the game also has accomplishments being unlocked as the player does something that meets the condition, which is rewarding to the player. But they don’t appear to be very meaningful, since they are not real rewards. They are just badges representing what you achieve in the game.

Below is a rough chart showing the content being unlocked as the player ranks up. Rank 30~35 seem to be a turning point for the player, since 80% of the content is available for the player by then.

III.                    Time Investment

Each play session is about 20~40 minutes, unless the level is super challenging. In that case, each play could last merely 5 minutes. Since the game is designed for the players who want to kill time (?!), I got bored very quickly.

It took me around 40 minutes to beat a Beginner-Easy level and get the accomplishment. Then I tried Beginner-Medium and Beginner-Hard modes for the same map, each spent ≈3 minutes, in order to learn the increase in difficulty. Then I tried some Intermediate maps and failed at Round 40 out of 50/65/85. Then I tried Advanced maps and felt overwhelming. So I learned that Intermediate maps were fit for my current level. Daily Challenges were very hard and I had to give up in a few rounds. Unlike Normals, Special Missions don’t allow the player to choose a difficulty. The pace was too slow so I put the game aside after several rounds (or let the game run by itself instead of staring at the screen, waiting to interact with the game real time). And I still got some XP and leveled up, just in a slower pace. After exploring all the modes, I decided to learn more details about the game by playing Intermediate maps and unlock things.

So, it took me 2 walkthroughs, each for a level and some quick trials for other modes/difficulties (≈1 hour in total) to get bored with the system. It took me a few more play sessions (≈2 hours in total) to familiarize with and experiment on the towers/upgrades/enemies. Then I kept playing and spent ≈6~8 hours to level up and try out new unlockables until Rank 25. Because the game doesn’t feel intense to play, I was multi-tasking and spent more time than planned. But I felt enough with the game when I hit Rank 25, although there are more content awaiting me.

In summary, I spent more than 10 hours to figure out 60% content of the game and didn’t have much interest in learning more at the point, since the game pace is too slow and I could kind of imagine the rest of the game.

Maybe they can fix this problem by only showing the next upgrade for each tower in the tower menu. In this case, instead of being able to check all the upgrades before unlocking them, the game can not only hold some surprise for the player to explore as they progress, but also the player will have a better focus on content when they look at the available upgrades.

Also, as I mentioned, I don’t feel that there is a strong motivation for a player to keep playing after having unlocked 80% of the content. So maybe the game can spread out the XP required to unlock the next upgrade/tower, since the unlocking relies on XP gained for individual tower and the player have no limit in tower choice as long as they can afford them.

In addition to the limit on tower choice, maybe the game can trim the game modes corresponding to the theming of each map. For instance, there is a ship tower which can only be placed on water. The game can just remove or grey out this tower for the maps with no water area. In this case, the player won’t get confused why the tower is available even it seems not possible to be used. The game can limit more on tower choice, which can not only help the player to explore the towers that they are not so familiar with but fun to use, but also strengthen the fantasy of each map. And of course, it makes unlocking a new map more exciting since they might bring different tower selection and new play style.

IV.                    Bloon Franchise

As mentioned in Balance Analysis, the Bloon series is also very popular on mobiles. I tried the Bloon 5 TD on iPhone, featuring multi-player modes.

The main content remains the same with the one I have been discussing, but this version has decent tutorials and a better learning curve (and much better graphics). Since I already knew enough about the game, I ran through every available module very quickly (spending ≈30 minutes). Then I tried more of the multi-player modes, Assault Mode and Defensive Mode. Assault Mode allows you to send Bloons to crush your opponent, which was fun and more strategic than the classic game. However, Defensive Mode is similar to the Normals in the Kongregate game, simply adding another player. You two play the same level and try to defend longer than the other player. It has some level of social meaning. But I wasn’t playing against a friend, so I didn’t find the social factor strong. The total time spent on the iPhone version was ≈40 minutes.

V.                    Conclusion

Among all types of rewards the game is providing, I think the new towers and upgrades are the most appealing part. Also, using players as infinite content generator adds more fun to the classic gameplay (Assault Mode in mobile version).

To sum up, the game has a nice reward system which constantly provides new goals for the player. But the game pace is too slow for me. Comparing the time invested to beat more advanced levels with the potential new content, I stopped playing after ≈12 hours in total. But because of the fact that there are some good content, I might pull out the game again when I want to check or show someone else something.