Many RPGs grapple with how to make their systems last in the face of massive Whale spend. An obvious answer is to keep adding new features that have more things for players to invest in. But in the hustle and bustle of operating a live game, new feature development is never as easy or as quick as it seems. Furthermore, the more systems added that improve Heroes, the harder it is to make those new systems as impactful as the original Hero systems. So what are Developers to do?
AFK Arena took a novel approach to their Hero Systems that partially solves this problem. In the elder game, the max level of Heroes is dependent on how many heroes are fully ascended. Here is a concise explanation of the feature:
And you can see the Resonating Crystal Change:
This one aspect of Hero Level has a couple implications. First and foremost, it directly forces the player to fully ascend all Heroes that they can (versus other RPGs that just try to use situational content to encourage Players to upgrade all heroes). But the second implication of the max level system addresses the original problem: Adding new heroes to the game immediately increases the potential max level of all heroes. It puts AFK Arena in a position to keep moving the goalpost for players every time they add a new hero.
The long term implications of this system is pretty clear: just add more Heroes. This is not to say that AFK Arena should do nothing but make more Heroes…long term I would like to see them creating more ways to utilize the Heroes they add. But from a Live-Ops standpoint, they are in a nice spot. One of the best system designs in RPGs out right now.
That’s it for me this week. Thank you for reading this. To find more blog posts from me and other important articles and commentary about the Gaming Industry, please follow me at http://www.ggdigest.com! See you next week.
Jeff
Principles of Free to Play Game Design 