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Today, "Three Kingdoms Warchess Edition" (hereinafter referred to as Sanqi) handed over its first week results: the highest rushed to the App Store best-selling third, and did not fall out of the Top6. This first-week answer sheet exceeded many expectations, including Sanqi producer Xiaoliu himself.
In fact, after "Three Kingdoms Strategic Edition" (hereinafter referred to as the Three Wars), no new SLG product in the domestic mobile game market can rush to the top three bestsellers. Not to mention, the theme of Sanqi is the Three Kingdoms, which has long become the Red Sea, and the IP shares the glorious "Three Kingdoms" with the Three Wars, which is not much advantage in terms of buying volume.
In terms of core gameplay selection, Sanqi chooses a wargame with a higher threshold and a narrow audience. Although Purple Dragon's "Fantasy Simulation Battle" and "Heaven and Earth Tribulation" did blow a wave of war chess in the domestic market, there was no particularly successful war chess game later.
So there are still a lot of curiosity about Sanqi: Why did Lingxi make a new SLG with the same theme and IP as Sanzhen? How exactly is the prototype of the gameplay of warchess considered? How to balance the strategic and commercial nature of wargaming gameplay? What are the long-term operations of the game going to do in the future?
Before the game was launched, Grape Jun had already had a roundtable discussion with several guests, but this was only speculation from an external perspective, lacking the real ideas inside the project team. For this reason, Grape Jun interviewed Sanqi producer Xiaoliu. He told me that the biggest challenge for Sanqi in the future is whether it can truly expand the circle of SLG users.
Here's a collated transcript of the interview:
01
Talk about the project: Lingxi wants to be satisfied
More users in the three countries
Grape Jun: How do you feel about getting the current result in the first week of Sanqi?
P6: It's much better than I expected, and I'm a little bit on thin ice in addition to being excited. We've had several rounds of small-scale testing in the past, and each test has accumulated some players who really like three chess. During the open beta, these old players not only went to the appointment on time, but also pulled a group of friends around them over, which made the new game exceed my expectations, which was very pleasantly surprised.
Grape Jun: How did Sanqi complete the project?
P6: Initially, in order to differentiate myself from mainstream SLG products on the market, I first found the entry point of "players can personally command the battle", and then screened the core combat gameplay prototypes that fit the SLG framework. RTS and warchess are relatively the best battlefield sense, operation sense, and strategy.
At the same time, players of the Three Kingdoms have not been satisfied with the combat gameplay of SLG before. When I went to TapTap and Tieba , I found that many players originally expected the battle screen of the famous generals of the Three Kingdoms, but in the actual game, they could only see from the text what skills the generals put in the rounds. So I wanted to make a strategy Three Kingdoms mobile game that could control the battle.
I discussed it with several people in charge for several days, and finally in RTS (real-time strategy) and SRPG (wargame), we chose the latter.
RTS, although fast-paced and simple and intuitive, was not so satisfying in either direction that came to mind at the time. The first is the mode of separating heroes and soldiers, which is played later, and the soldiers are counted, which is closer to the game experience of card games; The second is the mode of binding heroes and soldiers, but in this case, soldiers are only the blood of heroes, and I think the depth of strategy is not enough to support a product.
Warchess, on the other hand, has a deep strategic depth. Although it has problems such as high learning threshold and slow pace of gameplay, we can make up for it with other designs, such as beginner guidance, damage preview, danger range, speed double, auto/delegate combat and other functions can lower the threshold and speed up the pace. Although many players in the test were not very familiar at first, after feeling the fun of wargames, they began to actively learn and specialize.
So since we want to choose combat as the core part of this product, we have to choose the most playable, the most strategic depth, and the most suitable combat prototype for SLG mobile games. In addition, the Three Kingdoms series has been a wargame game for several generations, and the acceptance of IP users will be high.
In fact, the selection process of the entire game framework and core gameplay of Sanqi is not long, and it is only a few days, which is a natural thing.
Grape-kun: Won't warchess worry about being too niche?
P6: The so-called "wargame is relatively niche", I think it just means that there are fewer people who have played wargame, but it does not mean that there are fewer people who accept wargame, it may just be that there is no explosive enough product to attract more people to play wargame. Just like before the three wars became a hit, many people may think that SLG is also a niche category. But you see how many SLG products and users who play SLG now.
Grape Jun: With the success of the three wars, why do you want to make an SLG product with the same theme, the same IP, and the same framework?
P6: I don't think that Sanqi and Sanzhan are the same framework, and the design starting point of the two products is completely different.
The three-game project is based on combat as the core, first do the wargame gameplay, and then do the peripheral framework that can match the wargame battle. Many people may think that we just play wargames in the early stage, and then change back to the traditional war report SLG game. But no, warchess is not a side game, it is the core of three chess.
The biggest difference between the core experience of Sanqi and Sanqi is that the former is a tactical perspective, and the latter is a strategic perspective. The march time of the three battles is long, and more attention is paid to the strategic gameplay on the large map; However, the march time of the three chess pieces is negligible, and the player's energy is mainly spent on specific combat controls.
We have done a lot of simplification work in terms of strategy, such as players don't need to run so long to fight the city, and they can go over and start fighting directly; Another example is automatic replenishment, automatic queue construction, research technology and other convenient functions, playing to the middle and late stages, players will go up to fight two battles when they have time, and go offline after fighting and wait for troops to recover.
In short, other SLGs are low-intensity battles but require the player to be online for a long time, while Sanqi does the opposite, does not require the player to be online for a long time, but will keep the player more focused on the more exciting combat process when online.
Of course, the product of Sanqi cannot be said to be completely innovative, in addition to the core combat experience, other parts still retain a lot of mature designs that have been verified in the three battles. This way, players will have a sense of familiarity and easier to play.
Grape Jun: Then why did you choose the theme of the Three Kingdoms, and the IP of the Three Kingdoms?
P6: Just as quadratic companies will launch different products to meet the needs of different quadratic users, we also intend to meet the needs of users in different three countries through different products. We hope that in the future, Lingxi Interactive Entertainment can become a trustworthy brand among the user groups in the three countries.
Grape-kun: Then why does Sanqi call itself SPRG instead of SLG?
P6: Because in terms of experience, Sanqi is quite different from traditional SLG, and the big world SRPG mainly represents the two core experiences of Sanqi.
On the one hand, it emphasizes the player's personal perspective and can freely explore on the big map, including some adventures, interactive gameplay and story interpretation on the big map; On the other hand, there is a stronger sense of battlefield, players can personally command the army to decide the victory, instead of touching the second to report.
02
Talk about design: Keep players focused
Core wargame battles
Grape-kun: Warchess and SLG are both very heavy gameplay, will the addition of the two be aggravated?
P6: No, we have done a lot of simplification and convenience in both Wargame and SLG. For example, some unimportant battles can use the entrusted battle function, which strengthens the ability of AI hosting, and the strength of AI will grow with the player's operation level; Another example is that the large map march removes the paving design, and the player can visit the entire country in a few minutes, and he can fight with whoever he wants; Finally, players participating in collective activities such as sieges do not need to pull the line in advance, just walk over. At the same time, we will use the morale system to limit the player's PVP range - the farther away from home, the lower the morale and the lower the damage.
Grape-kun: But the siege seems to be heavy.
P6: Sanqi's siege is slightly heavier than other SLGs, as it is one of the game's most core social activities. We don't want everyone to just click on the attack and the siege is over. We hope that there will be a process of siege, which requires command strategy and the cooperation of alliance members. And although the overall siege time will be relatively long, more than an hour, it is still relatively easy to play - players can entrust multiple sieges, and do not need to keep staring.
Grape-kun: But I feel that the current GVE siege does not show any strategy.
P6: There is really no strategic space when crushing the neutral city, but if you hit the player city, the strategy will be much higher. In addition, because when testing siege battles before, some players said that it was too complicated, so our S1 season was simplified a lot, and we were worried that the threshold for users to get started was too high. In the following seasons, the team will introduce more strategic gameplay such as alliance buildings and city buildings, and improve the ease of operation.
Grape-kun: What about the GVG part?
P6: If the strength of the two sides is similar, GVG may indeed fight for one day, which is also closer to our original design intention. In fact, the siege gameplay has been tested and iterated many times before the public test, and everyone is relatively satisfied with this version of the current version.
Because playing one day refers to the entire alliance playing one day, not a single player to fight for a day - the player's troops are limited, the speed of replenishment is also limited, and you may have to rest after a few battles. The reason why this process is maintained is because the team hopes to restore the sense of tension of ancient siege battles, rather than that you are a little stronger than me, and you can directly occupy the city.
The purpose of the greatly simplified non-combat part of the game is to hope that the player will spend most of their time on PK, because the game in the game is the core fun of the game, and if this place is also simplified, then we will not be much different from other SLGs.
Grape-Jun: What was the experience like later in the game?
P6: The late game is mainly about online fighting PVP, which is more like Hearthstone. That is to say, players who do not want to play can not go online, if they want to play, they can go up and open two, and will not grow and fall behind because they do not play. The gap between the different paying players of the three chess is quite small, there are no particularly powerful martial artists, as long as you can play, after the full level, they are basically equal opponents.
The point we consider the most when we pay is the numerical balance of payment. Because the entire game is based on wargame gameplay, if there is a numerical crushing situation, then the battle strategy will have a large loss. Therefore, in the three chess, the player's operation has a greater impact on the victory and defeat, not that the full red big guy can run rampant in the world, and it is also possible for civilians to beat the full red big guy through operation and riot routines.
We tested it for three months and asked players which team was the strongest, and they weren't sure and gave a variety of answers. So I'm more confident in the balance and durability of wargames. In addition, each season the game will also release some new battle maps, gameplay, generals, troops, etc., which can bring a lot of experience changes to the gameplay of wargames.
Grape Jun: Where is the motivation for the big guy to pay?
Little Six: If the big guy likes to use certain warriors, or wants to collect Qi Picture Books, and can play more team lineups, he will want to draw cards, and pay more or make the lineup stronger. Let's just say that we will maintain a certain balance, so that the gap between civilians and bigwigs will not be very large.
Because we want to expand the circle and introduce more different types of players, we don't want to have an SLG model where a few people can feed the entire server with a lot of money, and other civilian players can only play with them. Therefore, the team will not do a lot of numerical amplification in order to satisfy the cool feeling of the big guy.
At present, the proportion of users paid by different levels of Sanqi is relatively healthy, and players at different levels of payment can have a better experience.
Grape Jun: What is the long-term operation strategy of Sanqi in the future?
P6: First of all, the subsequent season content updates, new campaigns, story content, single-player chapters, new alliance buildings, and some new systems that affect combat, such as advanced classes.
In addition, it will greatly shorten the time consumption of the player's land opening period. Players can have multiple teams at the beginning, and functions such as automatic delegate battles and full-map replenishment will also be directly unlocked at the beginning of the new season, and unlocked buildings will not have that reading time. In addition, there are not so many newbie stories, and upgrading buildings will be easier.
In short, S1 is like a teaching season, many constraints are limited to the early stage, and the subsequent seasons will not be there. We hope to save time so players can focus on the fun itself.
Grape-kun: So what's the difficulty of running like this?
P6: I think the main difficulty is whether Sanqi can achieve a wider range of expansion in the end - let users who did not play SLG play it before, which will be a very important factor in the long-term operation of the product in the future. If it can be done, then I believe that Sanqi can achieve stable long-term operation.
Grape Jun: What do you think of the SLG market today?
P6: I think there are still many opportunities in the SLG market. I've played a lot of single-player strategy games, and although they all belong to the strategy category, the difference between different products is very large, and SLG can spawn many sub-categories. Now SLG mobile games are mainly based on micro-innovation in gameplay, and SLG players will have demand for new gameplay modes, so I think there is still a lot of room for innovation. Because in the end, compared to mature categories such as MMOs and cards, SLG is actually very young, and there are still many possibilities.
Game Grape Recruitment Content Editor,
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