In this regard, I summed up a eight-character policy: glory, goal, interaction and surprise.
If you list the needs of players, you can list a dozen or twenty, but after screening and my experience, as well as my discussion with Xiao Dao, Feng Xue and others, these four are finally left. If we can do these four things, from our current level, we think it is enough.
But we are unlikely to do these four things, even though there are only four. So we should focus on these four items and put all our energy into them. If we can do these four things well, our online game industry in China will be outstanding.
distinguished
According to Maslow's theory, people have five pursuits, in order of importance. The first pursuit is the physical pursuit, that is, eating enough; The second is security; The third is social communication, such as affection, friendship and love. The fourth is respect; The last one is the need for self-realization.
From this perspective, people who come to play games first have social needs, not physical needs or security needs. But due to the characteristics of online games, it should have been listed as the first demand, but I didn't. I listed the glory. Why? This is the characteristic of online games.
There is a gap between the love a person is looking for on the Internet and the love he is looking for in reality. In reality, when you see the opposite sex you like, it will glow. Will you take part in the competition? No. Don't talk about family relations, but also friendship. This has something to do with the interaction I listed.
But the first is glory, that is, the fourth pursuit, which is also the first need for players to come to the game. The player's first need to play the game is actually to gain the respect and glory of others.
How important is glory? For example, people who do real estate often say that the most important thing to invest in real estate is location, followed by location and the third is location. The same is true of online games. To meet the needs of players, the first is glory, the second is glory, and the third is glory.
We should regard glory as the primary demand that players meet.
We can often see in the game that a well-equipped player is actually very happy when he is called an idol. A trumpet that is usually worthless saved a tuba. When tuba thanks him, trumpet can be happy for ten minutes and feel important.
And when there is a team battle, as long as the king is there, no one will hit others, only the king, because the king can be on TV when he is ready.
Another situation is that when I am with the king of an ally, the trumpet often says, King, let me kill once, because I want to be on TV. This reflects his inner need for glory.
During the journey, once a domestic dart car is robbed, those tubas will go all out to protect those trumpets and save the dart car.
Why do you keep darts? You need to spend your own money to buy bamboo dragonflies for the large size, and it won't do you any benefit after you come back. You analyze his psychology, in fact, he just wants to satisfy his own glory, and a thank you from the rescued person makes him very happy. If you encounter a smart trumpet, swipe the screen and say, "Thank you XX for saving my dart." He will be happy for another ten minutes. Therefore, in the game, regardless of the size of the trumpet, players are most eager for glory. But our planning lacks this idea.
If we realize this, then when we plan to do the function, the first thing to think about is whether the function I am doing can meet the player's demand for glory to the greatest extent. If there is this string, most of our functions, 2/3, can meet the player's demand for glory to varying degrees. This can be done as long as you pay attention.
90% of our functions have not brought glory to players, not because we can't do it, but because we don't have this string.
In the past, when we thought of glory, including myself, we always thought of the glory of big and well-equipped players, kings and officials, while ignoring the needs of small players. These trumpets, like tubas, are all played for glory.
For a long time, I, including our core team, didn't pay attention to this. Once the glory of trumpet is satisfied, it will be more exciting than tuba.
Most of our domestic games don't attach importance to the glory of the trumpet. If we do this, our non-RMB players and our online population will greatly increase. Therefore, it is particularly pointed out here that in addition to the tuba, special attention should be paid to the glory of the trumpet in the future.
As long as we pay attention to it, the problem of glory can be solved. We must unify our thinking and regard glory as the first demand of players.
Here, I want to say one thing, that is, our TV series has been very effective since its launch. When our TV charts serve glory, our TV still plays a huge role.
Getting on TV is a very simple thing, just say a word to the screen, but players still care. This is a small invention of ours, but it far exceeds many other functions in meeting the needs of players. This shows that glory is very important to players.
We should regard the player's demand for glory as the primary pursuit of the player, and at the same time regard glory as an important part of the planning work.
Any function must go through a glory level, especially the glory of the trumpet.
target
Stand-alone games, like online games, have requirements for goals.
In single-player games, the goal is the most important. If there is no goal, then the single-player game is a complete failure. Relatively speaking, people who have played stand-alone games will have a deeper understanding of the goal.
In our planning team, there are very few people who have played stand-alone games, so relatively speaking, we don't pay much attention to target management.
Without the target management system, there will be no stand-alone games, and online games are developed from stand-alone games, so the foundation of stand-alone games must be preserved. This lesson is exactly what we lack and need to make up now.
Goals are divided into short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals are very short-lived. If the player receives the task and hits 20 monsters, he will be rewarded after hitting these 20 monsters, and this short-term goal will be achieved.
What are the medium-term goals? If my package is not enough, I have to work hard to increase it. It may take hours or even a day, and I can meet my needs. This is one of my medium-term goals. The long-term goal may be upgrading and equipping.
For players, any time node should have a goal; At any time node, short, medium and long-term goals should exist at the same time. Once a player loses his goal, it is very dangerous.
If the player feels that there is nothing to do online, in fact, the player has no goal. Maybe the planner will say, I set him many goals. These goals are all from your planning point of view, which may be due to the problem of planning level, unreasonable values, optimization of details and high difficulty. From the player's point of view, it is not his goal. So planning can't replace players.
Only when the plan is done and the player accepts it, the player will take those you set as his own goals. Once a player feels that there is nothing to do online, it is not far from this player. So target management is also a key to the success or failure of the game.
I'll tell you a case in which a version of Giant failed in target management last September. The novice's goal is ok. In an hour, he will be promoted to the militia. Players can go directly to NPC to get swimming, dancing, unlocking and other skills. These things could have been satisfied as the player's mid-term pursuit in the previous week, but they were all given in an instant, and there was nothing to give him in the following week. This is a typical case of target management confusion.
What should be correct?
As a goal, there is a process. The first is to create pressure. For example, in the case of parcels, it is necessary to improve the explosion rate of the corresponding level so that he can't put all the good things down. Tell him at this time that you are going to undertake a big task. This big task includes ten small tasks. After all these ten tasks are completed, your package can be increased. Pressure is created, let him feel the value of pressure, then give him a medium-term goal and tell him that you can get the value of this effort as long as you work hard for a few hours. In these hours of hard work, the player will not leave, because his goal is clear, because there is something of great value waiting for him, even if he stays up late at night.
At this stage, we can set the time of effort according to the numerical value. Players don't complain when they have a strong goal. Once the goal is achieved, players will have a kind of pressure release and will be very happy. It's best not to stop immediately after this joy, but to give him an aftertaste, such as a package, so that he can put a lot of equipment that he doesn't want to lose immediately.
Another example is swimming. If you tell him that you can swim as soon as you come up, he won't feel anything. If a task always needs to be completed on the other side of the river at first, then it always needs to run halfway across the city to a bridge over the river. After ten times and eight times, you tell him that you can learn to swim and swim directly. At this time, swimming skills will become very valuable to him.
At this time, you tell him that if you want to learn swimming, you must complete a big task with 10 small tasks, which takes two hours in total, and the player will be happy to do it.
After you learn to swim, when you arrange the next task, let him continue to experience it, let him continue to do the task on the other side of the river, release the pressure and experience the value of swimming skills.
Because, after a year, players may become indifferent to swimming skills. Therefore, after learning, players should concentrate on enjoying the value of swimming.
These two cases want to talk about the process of goal design and the importance of goals.
There are still three things to remind you about the goal.
First, it often happens in our planning. The planner feels that every time point has set goals for the players, but the player survey found that the players regard these goals as a burden. It is no exaggeration to say that more than 90% of our functions are like this.
In other words, we like to judge the player's thinking with our own thinking. This requires our planners to do things from the player's point of view, and to understand the player's needs in various ways when setting goals for each other. This should attract the general attention of our plan.
Second, once the goal is achieved, players will feel lost for a while. Therefore, before the last goal is achieved, new goals must be established. Players must not miss the target or break the file at any time.
A player spent 5 million yuan to make several sets of 15-star equipment, which took 1 more than a month. When preparing, he surfed the Internet every day and worked hard. After finishing these equipments, I won't play online.
Before making these devices, he had a strong goal to make them. After the goal was achieved, he was lost and didn't go online for a month. Although this example is not universal, this truth is universal. It is because after his goal was achieved, the new goal did not help him set up. This lost stage is very dangerous.
Third, we should create the value of the goal through pressure.
At the same time, when to set a goal, when to give it value, and how long it takes, all need a reasonable management. The black dot diagram we are using now is a good method.
interaction
The biggest difference between stand-alone and online games is interaction.
Online games are communities with game elements. From its definition, we can see the importance of online game interaction.
If there is no interaction, it is a stand-alone game rather than an online game. Players of online games and stand-alone games have different pursuits.
The demand for friendship exists in online games, second only to the pursuit of glory. For our R&D staff, we can do two things: the first is to satisfy the way players interact as much as possible. In the past, through language and writing, it has now developed into a phonetic system.
In addition, try to provide other interactive systems, such as expressions and limbs. Our programs and art should be more considerate in this respect and enrich the interactive system of players.
The second is guidance. Make the relationship between players better through interest guidance. When we are in trouble, we need several people to fight against BOSS. I think the BOSS is stronger and friends will get better and better in the process of fighting. We should deliberately design a few good friends to share weal and woe.
In addition, hatred is also an interaction, and it is necessary to create hatred between players. However, hatred within the country should be created as little as possible, because the weak side can easily be beaten away by the strong side and stop playing. Therefore, hatred should be used as much as possible between groups, countries and gangs.
The more hatred between groups, the better. It depends on your own ability. Hatred between groups is different from hatred between individuals. The superior side will have a strong sense of honor, and the individuals of the inferior side will not leave in large areas because of the weakness of the group. Therefore, it is necessary to guide the love and hate between players, and hate will bring passion to players. If there is no love, players will not have a sense of belonging.
Our planning should have such a process. When designing tasks, we should consider the interaction between players, so that players will love and hate to what extent. The journey handled the hatred between countries very well, and the love very poorly, which led to our poor reputation outside, saying that killing was too heavy. Therefore, if the love is well designed, not only the players have a sense of belonging, but also our reputation is very good.
Like the previous legend, fighting monsters is the only way to upgrade. To put it bluntly, fighting monsters is time-consuming for players and human-computer interaction.
With the development of online games, we should pay more attention to interaction. Taking a certain amount of time, human-computer interaction is definitely better than taking a certain amount of time. In the past, there was not much human-computer interaction, and the Journey increased a lot, and the proportion of human-computer interaction decreased a lot.
I think interaction between people will become the development direction of online games in the future, and players will like it more. We should pay attention to the change of upgrade mode, and we should keep up with the trend.
In terms of interaction, there is one thing that we have not done well in Journey and Giant, that is, the interaction between the strong and the weak. Our interaction is often limited to the master and the weak and the weak.
In fact, players need not only horizontal interaction, but also vertical interaction. We have tried hard in this respect, but failed several times. We tried both ways, but failed. The first is the mentoring system, which is to solve the interaction between the strong and the weak, because the weak need protection more, and the strong need the weak to give him benefits. However, several schemes we designed failed, but some games were done well, so it's not that he couldn't design the mentoring system, but that the people who did this project were not good enough or didn't work hard enough.
The second is that I didn't do a good job of bringing new people. It's important to bring new people. If a system with new people is done well, it can exceed 1 100 million advertising expenses. Its basic principles are good and necessary.
It is correct that a player wants to play with friends in reality and on the Internet just because it is fun. This is much better than our advertisement. Because the player trusts his friends most, not the advertisement of the manufacturer.
If this system is done well, the significance is very significant. And why didn't we do well in the past? Because we didn't do our work seriously, we were played by the players. Because the newcomer he brought is not a newcomer, but his own trumpet.
In the past, bringing new people was by fighting monsters, and it was possible to use plug-ins One person can bring dozens of trumpets. If he snoops, the trumpet won't work. If we let him carry darts, there is a risk of being robbed on the road, and he won't use the trumpet.
We do a screening of functions, some of which can be done by machines, which cannot be used as a criterion to judge their relationship with retrieval. Some machines can't do it, but players can do it. Pick a few at random, and you can make the system with new people fire.
The most important thing about Fantasy Westward Journey is that it has gone from 50,000 public beta to millions of online systems. And Journey, a system with new people, we can't give up this system just because there are some problems.
pleasant surprise
Surprise is actually randomness. Its status is also very high.
I have such a conclusion: without randomness, online games will have no playability; Without randomness, there would be no games. To analyze, all human activities are random. As long as it is a game, such as playing mahjong. It is said that the strength of playing mahjong in Chengdu is admired all over the country, and the biggest feature of mahjong is randomness.
Tetris is the same, because you never know what shape will come next, which is also random. So is the casino. If there were no randomness, no one would be so enthusiastic. Because as long as it is a game, it is random. However, the planners of several of our projects have not paid enough attention to randomness.
If we do well in randomness, just like playing mahjong, even if we don't gamble, even if the reward of the task is small, as long as the process is fun, players are still happy to play and enjoy the process.
If our game can be played without experience and money, and everyone likes to play it, wouldn't it be a good game if you gave it experience, money and various benefits?
Why is it fun to play mahjong?
Because it works hard besides randomness.
Randomness and hard work are subtle when they collide, which will produce chemical reactions and give players a strong attraction. Pure randomness is bad, just like playing cards. After everyone has dealt cards, everyone will show their cards. Whoever scores high will win. Although it's random, it's not fun because it doesn't require effort.
Mahjong needs hard work besides randomness. In reality, the game is a seven-point random three-point effort, and the players are crazy. I think four points of hard work and six points of randomness are more suitable proportions for online games.
If you really can't do it, even if it's 50-50. But our game function, half random is 0, effort is 100%, half is 1, and randomness is 99%. In the past, our planning didn't pay attention to the importance of randomness, especially the superposition of randomness and effort is the greatest charm of the game.
Last September, I failed in Giant, that is, pulling a cart. Some players have asked why I always pull the white car and others pull the purple car. Our planning listened to the opinions of the players and cancelled the randomness.
Originally, players still had expectations before. After canceling the distance, they looked again, and no one came to pull the car. Then it was changed back. After the change, the popularity of pulling carts rose again. This example shows that randomness is very important.
You can think about these two words I said: all human games need to be random. Without randomness, all games would cease to exist.
If we can handle the ratio of randomness and effort, it will greatly increase the playability of the game.