In order to better explain the content of the article, I will simply divide the game stage of "Original God" into three stages:
Pre-production: New players enter the game to experience all the main content of the version (big world, story)
Mid-term: The process of developing the character until they can complete the Abyss
Late Stage: Players can basically complete the Abyss level in each episode
preface:
The "Deep Spiral", a level that many Protoss players love and hate, has been controversial and concerned since it was born in this world along with the original body, and has spawned many discussions about it.
For most players, it's like a kind of "tasteless abandonment" existence - the hardest Abyss 12 layer reward is only 150 rough stones, less than a draw. But for this draw, it takes a lot of time and energy.
In order to verify the clearance rate of the deep spiral, I searched for a long time on the Internet. Unfortunately, there are no accurate data to illustrate, only some rough voting statistics. Considering the number of players in Protoshin, the number of players who can complete the Abyss with stars should only account for less than 10% of all active players.
Today, we talk about the position and value of the "Deep Spiral" in Tivat.
The abyss carries the handle
I. Underlying Architecture: Exploration, Combat and Cultivation (Pre-game)
I'll write in my title that the "Deep Spiral" is something akin to the final point, and it's certainly worth a lot more than 600 rough. And if you want to understand the meaning of this "final", you must start with the beginning.
Where does the fun of Protos god come from?
Of course, for different players, there are different ways to have fun out of a free open-world game – so we can see a multitude of original pot, proto-demon, and original-eaters.
However, these gameplay are not the core gameplay of "Original God", from the perspective of various designs of the game, the main gameplay of "Original God" has three:
World exploration
Real-time Combat (PVE)
Character development
The game does not force you to fight or high-intensity cultivation, players only need to play normally, without spending extra effort to smoothly experience all the contents of the big world.
The basic logic of a player's world exploration is this:
World exploration (encounters with enemies) Real-time battle Monster difficulty increase requires character development to increase damage In order to obtain the materials needed for cultivation for world exploration
In this way, the loop is completed.
Whether it's exploration, fighting, or nurturing, it will somehow make you think that you are really in the wilderness or breeding heirs, and the brain will produce a certain feeling of pleasure.
Such a cyclical structure will lead the player into one exciting or comfortable point after another, but it will also bury some kind of hidden danger in the future. If one of these three suddenly falls into a stuck shell, it is easy to break the player's already formed behavior habits and cause the player to retreat. If the world exploration process loses the driving force given by character cultivation, it is easy for us to fall into confusion. Well... It is also commonly known as the "long grass period".
This logic applies to the first half of the game, and for veteran players who have been playing Protoss for a long enough time, the fun of the game is no longer limited to this cyclical structure (at least for me).
Players who like to explore may put down their phones and wait patiently for new content to be released. Players who love to fight may enjoy challenging the "Deep Spiral" level tirelessly. Players who like to cultivate may work towards full map and full character level 80. Players who simply like liver may be about to embark on a secret journey to prison... In any case, by this stage, you are already a loyal player of Protosthesis.
And what I want to talk about is still before this:
2. Secondary Loop: Character Development Cycle (Mid-Game)
We know that there is a limit to the cultivation of a single character (a single sacred relic) in "Original God":
If this limit is set to 100 points, then 80 points, or 80% of the maximum DPS, is easily achievable by most people.
And these 80 points actually determine the cultivation cycle of a single role. This is the time it takes for an average player to develop a character to damage enough to complete the Deep Spiral (World Level 8).
Why is it designed that way?
What determines the character development cycle?
The two-dimensional game can't throw time and energy into a single character at any cost like "Legends", because its source of income is to draw cards, and all your resources are used to raise a wife, who still draws extra cards?
Therefore, in the two-dimensional game, it is necessary to design an upper limit that a single character can touch. However, this is not absolute, as the life of the game increases, the resources on hand of the old player will overflow, and the game may add some cultivation methods to increase the upper limit, to achieve the balance between cultivation and card draw.
The cycle of character development needs to achieve such a balance:
If the cycle is too long, the player is prone to fatigue. Long-term nurturing behaviors that lack gameplay are highly likely to dissuade players. Imagine how you want to pull a full character to brush up on a month's thunder right to appear.
The average player has a tendency to develop their character as strong as possible, but if the process is too difficult, we probably just give up.
Most people don't care much about whether the holy relics reach a perfect score, but for that few, the pursuit of "limits" is so long. Some time ago, a person brushed the holy relics to the retreat pit, which in a sense is the embodiment of the long training cycle.
My standard is "0 life five-star characters can pass the 12 holy relics full of stars have reached the graduation standard".
If the cycle is too short, players will fall into a "long grass period", and too long idleness will also seriously affect retention rates. This problem is quite evident in the opening of the service, but it has improved a lot since the high-intensity update of "Original God" began on the 42nd. Stable and predictable updates go a long way toward retaining players.
In addition to building an emotional connection between the player and the character, nurturing content can also help us find something to do during the long grass period.
The process of the Holy Relic from 80 to 100 corresponds to a longer "long grass period" - but this is the area of the late game.
Therefore, what determines the character training cycle is actually the "production capacity" of the game manufacturer.
The rough stones obtained by the player during the development of one character are almost exactly enough (the Moon Card) to be able to draw a second character, so as to stimulate the continuation of the cultivation.
The manufacturer's production capacity can determine the revenue, and this issue will be discussed later.
Third, the contradiction: the ultimate direction.
As mentioned earlier, the main incentive to stimulate players to cultivate behavior is the existence of more difficult monsters in the big world.
As we all know, the difficulty of the big world of "Original God" is relatively low.
This is to cater to its main user population – Protos isn't Elda's Ring, and players like to be relaxed and don't like to suffer.
The cultivation system can be done by anyone, but the open world mobile game is only one.
"Original God" needs to let players experience the charm of Mijia's open world, and it cannot stop them numerically. Therefore, the difficulty of the big world should be reduced as much as possible, so that only the player needs to carry out general cultivation, and will not be hindered in the big world.
The emergency weakening of the plot boss "Gongzi" (many people complained that it was too difficult at the time) was based on this logic.
This creates a contradiction:
In order to retain players, it is necessary to reduce the difficulty of the big world - after the new player has played the main content of the current version in one go, the lineup in hand is enough to complete the big world - and the motivation to continue to cultivate the character is not enough.
The "deep spiral" is to solve this contradiction.
A level of far greater difficulty than the world, which can effectively motivate players to participate in challenges.
The deep spiral has the following characteristics:
Marginal effect of rewards
Increasing difficulty, low rewards
Does not affect the big world gaming experience
The marginal effect means that if you just want to get a reward of 500 rough, the player may only have to pay 50 units of time cost. If you want to increase the reward from 500 to 600, the time cost paid by the player will be multiplied.
The later you get, the harder it is to increase the Abyss time by 10 seconds.
The ninth and tenth layers of the Abyss are just a little higher than the difficulty of the big world, which can guide players into this tower-climbing mode very well.
After the player has completed the ninth and tenth layers, the idea of "I can still be stronger" will naturally germinate.
In this way, the game can direct players into a "character development cycle" to achieve profitability.
If it is just to play the big world, in fact, there is no need for players to rise to level 80, brush holy relics, brush world boss... In this way, they may leave the game before they get caught in the "character development cycle".
In the same way, if it is only to play the big world, the player's desire for kryptonite will be reduced to a certain extent.
This is the first function of the Deep Spiral:
Provide a reason for players to develop their characters and attract players to enter the "character development cycle".
Stimulates players to draw current characters.
This is the second feature.
This doesn't really need much elaboration, and anyone with a discerning eye can see it (blessing).
I say something else, I don't know if you have noticed that the amount of blood in the abyss has decreased in this issue?
Correspondingly, more requirements are placed on the mechanism (bleeding, charging).
The planner doesn't want the value bloat to happen, but he wants the player to extract new characters, so he puts more effort into the mechanics.
The future: the abyss trend
The above mentions the two major functions of the "deep spiral", so how to ensure the smooth operation of its functions?
Numerical planning is a group of people, and the difficulty of the abyss also shifts with the upper limit of character training.
He needs a right amount of difficulty:
The difficulty is too high to dissuade the player, and there is a suspicion of "forced Krypton". If you must kryptonite gold or burst liver to pass, it does not fit the lightweight game positioning of "Original God".
The difficulty is too low to guarantee its ability to encourage players to develop their character.
Therefore, the difficulty of the abyss (measured by the full star rate) will be determined by the following indicators:
The number of new players in the month
The rate at which new players move from pre-game to mid-game
Players develop a single character to enough time to complete the Abyss
If the rate of players transitioning to the mid-term is low, the difficulty needs to be reduced appropriately. If the time it takes for the player to develop a character is too short to keep up with the production capacity, the difficulty needs to be slightly increased.
The two are in conflict, but will eventually reach a balance of maximization of interests.
Therefore, the difficulty of the Abyss will always remain at a level where only X% of players can pass. This X is where the marginal return curve is 0.
If there are fewer new players and more old players, then slightly increase the difficulty of the abyss, so that players feel the excitement of cultivating their characters.
If there are more new players and fewer old players, reduce the difficulty so as not to dissuade you.
When it comes to the difficulty change of the "deep spiral", we have to mention another thing: numerical inflation.
The impact of numerical inflation on the game environment I mentioned in a previous article, leave a link here, or you can click on my homepage to read. 【Hardcore】A brief analysis of "value expansion", why do old players talk about discoloration?
5. Conclusion
Didn't expect to write so long... That's more than three thousand words.
But to help us understand the role of the abyss as an ultimate pointer, we have to start with the underlying logical architecture of the entire game.
Creation is not easy, like support.