Reboot 2003

Chapter 269 048: Auto Chess? (triple)

Although it is not unreasonable, the demands for both wanting and wanting just now are a bit unreasonable. But as the saying goes, there must be a road before the car reaches the mountain. In short, Chen Qin still pointed out a way to achieve the problem——

In the Internet field, the core methodology for solving problems is user demand. You can use it to make service products, you can use it to write songs, and you can naturally use it to make games.

The previous "Friends Brawl" evolved from the childish planning project of A Yue Elementary School, but now to customize a game according to a platform, it is time to start designing the game from user needs.

"First of all, do you think 3C and Dota are good, what is the main fun of it?" Chen Qin asked, "To be more precise, since it is a custom map of "Warcraft", why don't you think Warcraft is fun? Do you think these third-party maps are fun?”

At the beginning, of course, it was time for Guo Yang and Song Ziyun, who made the suggestion, to think of a solution.

Guo Yang thought for a while and said: "Because the battle seems to be very messy. When I watch other people play, it feels like the screen is crackling and cutting randomly. I don't know how to play like that."

Song Ziyun disagreed: "The original version is actually not too complicated. It just builds troops and pushes them up. It can be played even by beginners. Team battles in Dota are not easy either. In the collection of masters, things like blocking vision and cutting off artificial legs are ordinary. People can’t play at all.”

Chen Qin reminded: "In that case, do you think there are any problems that the original version is unacceptable, but these custom maps have solved them better?"

Guo Yang said: "I think it's simple and easy to get started with."

Song Ziyun said: "I think it's exciting. Playing the hero directly makes the fight more exciting."

Chen Qin said: "Since we don't agree on the same opinion, why don't we have some fun first? You can go and play two games each. I'll go take a look at the editor..."

With that said, the two of them remembered the question of the producer's level: "By the way, A-Yue, can you play World of Warcraft?"

"I have played a little bit..."

"It doesn't matter, let's teach you. You can play those maps as if they were the Three Kingdoms. The original version is a bit more difficult..."

With that said, Chen Qin went to the computer next to the counter to study the editor of World of Warcraft, while the three of them went to find Xiao Gao, shut down a few computers with gold scripts, and then gave the producer A Yue a try on the game...

During this period, the first game was 2v2 Dota. There was no AI map yet, so Ah Yue got started quickly. Following Xiao Gao, she beat the two people on the opposite side to the ground. At first, she only knew how to play soy sauce, but then she gradually gained some experience. Although the operation is still very bad, but after hitting the back, the equipment is somehow better than Xiao Gao, and the others don't pay much attention.

Then she played Chenghai 3C. After playing it, Ah Yue said it was a bit complicated. She spent most of the time reading the skill descriptions... Song Ziyun also said that she had never seen a really complicated game before, and the original version was even more complicated.

As a result, a game of the original 4-player melee was played. Ah Yue chose the Orcs, the Explosive Wolf Cavalry Infantry Rush, and pushed all the other three players in one go.

Although she was quite proficient in basic operations before, this was a bit too professional. Guo Yang and Song Ziyun were a little confused: "How do you play so well?"

"I watched WCG on Golden Eagle Animation the year before last, so I learned to play it." A Yue said, "Because I haven't played much since last year, and I haven't been exposed to custom maps."

Chen Qin was listening next to him, thinking that he had not played the Three Kingdoms online game since last year, and sighed secretly.

Of course, since she has played it, there is no problem - A Yue has not had much contact with third-party maps, but her understanding of the original game is obviously better than others. Since she is the most powerful, the right to speak is of course returned to her. In the hands of the producer.

So when the four of them returned to the small square table, they all seemed to have gained something.

Chen Qin studied the map editor and found that it could actually mount scripts. This was an unexpected gain. However, due to the limitations of the Warcraft game itself, the functions that can be implemented now are not as many as expected. It will take two days. I want to make a game, and I want to make a game that can be ported to the mobile platform in the near future. I feel that the choice is still small.

When Song Ziyun and Song Ziyun talked about their previous conclusions, Ah Yue had an idea this time, spread out a small notebook, and said while writing:
"I just played it, and I feel that although what you said is correct, my experience is a little different. Anyway, you two should listen to what is wrong."

The two of them nodded quickly, probably saying in their hearts that you are a producer and you are very good at it, how dare they say anything now.

A Yue continued: "I think the most important thing in this kind of game is resource management. If the level is not high, it is easy to waste money. In the original version, you only need to focus on mining. However, Dota has CS, and 3c has an advantage." Make money through multiple lines, but also prevent the other party..."

Song Ziyun reminded: "gank."

"Yes, because even after reconnaissance, there will be a fight at any time, so these third-party maps are not necessarily easier than the original ones."

The two nodded, and Ah Yue continued: "So I think the difficulty level is actually about the same, but Chen Qin said that the most important thing in game design is to adapt to intuition. The original version always requires players to operate and fight, forcing players to do two things at once. It should be difficult for many people to do this, and even if they can do it, it’s very tiring. Maybe this is a ‘pain point’, right?”

The two continued to nod, and it seemed that this was indeed the case.

And A Yue said: "As for the excitement, I think the original version is also very exciting, but Chen Qin said before that in order to make players interested in the game, he must not only encourage players to fight, but also prevent the loser from snowballing, and the suspense will always exist to be exciting. .”

"The original approach here is to make resource operation more complex. If a local failure occurs, you can use the mechanism to make a comeback. However, this system is too complicated for new players and does not conform to the player's intuition, so I think this is also a pain point."

The two nodded again, and then everyone looked at Chen Qin. Chen Qin was noncommittal: "In this case, how are you going to solve it? Since you want to make a game that must be popular, you must not only be able to reach the level of others, but also To make it stronger than other third-party maps, we have studied so much, and of course we have to make a brand-new game mode that no one else has done."

Song Ziyun laughed again this time. Making games is already very difficult. Now he directly sets the goal of "being more fun than all other third-party maps". Doesn't it feel a bit blind and arrogant?

But now that the matter has come to an end, this matter is really no longer funny; now I don’t know whether Chen Qin is serious or not, but the other two people have become completely serious - A Yue is thinking seriously with a small face, and Guo Yang seems to be looking at him with both eyes. Shine, game design is not yet popular right now, but through this kind of game design that starts from the bottom-level user needs, it seems that it is indeed a shortcut to making games that transcend the times...

So the next step was to come up with a specific plan. Guo Yang was the first to suggest: "How about we make a tower defense map? I saw people playing tower defense maps in Internet cafes. The monsters are refreshed regularly, and players can make money by killing monsters. .”

Then he said: "Just killing monsters directly feels like a waste of the original hero design. How about we make a defensive-themed game, where players control a hero like Dota, and then everyone cooperates with defense towers to defend the home, or does not use defense towers and directly attacks. The enemy makes money..."

Guo Yang described it seriously, and it seemed that he had thought carefully about it. Using this guarding method to engage in cooperation and confrontation might indeed be a good way to maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses.

It's a pity that he thought too late - Chen Qin reminded him: "There are already a lot of pictures like this. If you look at the rankings, the second one "Guarding the Sword Pavilion" is like this..."

Song Ziyun also told him a few names, and Guo Yang scratched his head. Although he had some ideas, he still didn't know enough about the current industry.

Immediately, Song Ziyun made a suggestion: "I think this can also be integrated into social games. Isn't the Three Kingdoms Killing very popular recently? There are also killing games and so on. We can also make one here. Everyone secretly draws identities, and then How about using skills to kill people or find the murderer?"

This is a good idea. First of all, there is really no competing product. Secondly, Chen Qin thought about it carefully. This is almost the gameplay of the fourth generation of killing games. The fourth generation of killing games are games like AmongUs, which have integrated some resource management. Class elements are actually very suitable for making custom maps; I don’t know where they originated from, but it can definitely be implemented.

But Song Ziyun hesitated and had no idea how to design it specifically.

Chen Qin originally wanted to help him improve it, but the rules of the fourth-generation killing game are complicated and completely different from the first-generation "Please Close Your Eyes When It's Dark". Of course, it can't be supported by just one idea.

The popularity of killing games is closely related to the live broadcast industry. Now that I think about it, there is actually no need to do it in advance. Then Chen Qin didn't say anything. This suggestion was rejected after discussion.

After the two proposals failed respectively, Guo Yang and Song Ziyun scratched their heads and were a little disappointed... Now they have analyzed the players' needs so clearly, but when it comes to the 'solution', it seems that it has become difficult to move forward. .

It's normal to think about it.

Of course, making history is not that simple. For the Internet industry, the word "methodology" did not become popular until the popularity subsided. It seems to be very important, as if using it can achieve dimensionality reduction like civilized people beating primitive people. Strike, all problems can be easily solved in front of it...

It’s just that there are really no successful examples that I can see. For example, when I talk about the methodology, I often mention that Zhang Xiaolong made a small WeChat and wrote 180 pages of user analysis. This shows that his success is not accidental.

But here comes the problem. This thing is not difficult to make in the first place, and he copied it in the beginning. Furthermore, let’s talk with conscience, is WeChat’s user experience really better than other chat software?
Looking at the market, one or two people are doing it randomly and then succeed by mistake. Such examples are more worthy of analysis.

This is of course not to say that it is easier to succeed by accident, but for game production, although methodology is important, it is obviously not as important as luck. If you have to look at ability, talent and accumulation are the most important, and for a few For a middle school student, methodology alone may not be enough - Chen Qin thought and sighed.

Of course, now that the discussion has reached this point, he is sure of himself.

Although he himself is not a genius, he knows the answer in advance.

After all, today's GameJam was not originally intended to have anything to do with the World of Warcraft map. He initially planned to work on the Kaitian platform, so he let them play it by themselves first. If not, they would take out "Doodle Jump" or "Traveling Frog" flashes. Give it a try with the second-tier products that Guest Empire doesn’t have time to make.

Although there was an accident later, the reason why I still made the World of Warcraft map is because there is a standard answer related to mobile phone systems, and that is Auto Chess.

Even if you don’t consider transplantation, this is the pinnacle of third-party maps. It will be regarded as an established gameplay category in the future. This is how Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords came to be.

Thinking of this, Chen Qin planned to reveal the answer directly.

But at this time, A Yue suddenly said: "It is true that in today's maps, heroes fight by themselves, but it is actually very interesting to lead soldiers to fight. Chen Qin also said last time that the essence of gameplay is choice. Let Players continue to select units to participate in battles, and then match each other to fight against others. I think it should be a very interesting gameplay."

Guo Yang and Song Ziyun, who like single heroes, are not interested yet. Song Ziyun said: "But this is too difficult to operate. Moreover, as mentioned before, if you want to create soldiers, you have to divide your time and focus on two things."

"I don't mind complicated operations." Guo Yang also said, "But now custom maps are for multi-player play. If there are too many players, the balance will definitely be difficult to achieve, and the battlefield will be messy." "We can let the operators It's simpler." Ah Yue said, "The last time we did a friend battle, the reason why we did automatic battle was because Chen Qin said that we need to limit operability to highlight other elements. Since many players are not used to the dual use of distractions, , we can let the players not be distracted by two things, such as automatically sending troops, or presetting what troops to send out in advance, and the players can just focus on fighting..."

Ah Yue kept saying "Chen Qin said". It sounded like she remembered the previous methodologies quite clearly, and it really made sense when she said it.

Chen Qin originally wanted to talk about auto chess, but she was already very close.

The core of auto chess is to focus on a relaxed game, with combat and operations separated. Players only have to draw cards and match their teams.

So Chen Qin asked: "But we can't completely stop operations. If we automatically send troops, wouldn't everyone just choose the strongest unit in order to win?"

Ah Yue said: "It can be random. Just like in "Friends Brawl", if everyone sends out troops randomly, everyone can just fight."

Song Ziyun scratched his head: "Then what's the point of adding operations? Anyway, it's all about randomness, and players must have races and heroes they want to operate. I think it's just a matter of pure luck. Even if you win, there's nothing exciting about it. .”

He is really a bit professional... Chen Qin couldn't find a chance to reveal the answer for a while, and A Yue said: "Then we can give several choices each time and let the players choose one from several random results."

Guo Yang asked: "What should the winning players do if they snowball? Anyway, if you lose the soldiers, they will die. Without operations, the lagging players will never be able to beat the winning players at the beginning."

Ah Yue said: "We can make the soldiers into equipment-like things that can be re-summoned after each fight. By the way, we can disperse the battlefield like Dota, so that players can PK each other in different places. This way you don’t have to worry about the battlefield becoming too chaotic when there are too many people.”

Song Ziyun asked again: "Then how do you calculate winning or losing? Do you count points?"

Ah Yue racked her brains and thought: "Can we upgrade the heroes? If we win, we will gain experience. If we lose, we will get less experience. Then there will be a decisive battle... By the way, each player can play a hero. In this way, you can choose random units based on your own hero characteristics."

"hiss……"

He said it smoothly, but Chen Qin, who was listening next to him, suddenly took a breath of air.

"Chen Qin, what's wrong?" A Yue turned to ask him, "I know my idea is very immature..."

"It's nothing, it's actually pretty good." Chen Qin glanced at her strangely, then muttered, "I just have a question..."

"what?"

"What kind of players is your game for? You know that although user needs can be analyzed, the needs of different user groups are not exactly the same. If your map is made, how many more problems can it solve than other third-party maps? "

Ah Yue didn't think too much. She put her fingers together in front of her and said thoughtfully: "I learned to play the game after watching Sky win the championship in 06...I think people who played this game because of him at that time There seems to be quite a lot of them, and when I watch the competition, they all talk about how awesome the professional players are, so I definitely want to give it a try myself.”

Guo Yang next to him also said: "Well, after all, everyone wants to show off their skills. Unfortunately, the game is too complicated and I can't learn it."

A Yue added: "But once I got started, I found that I was too busy at all. I couldn't remember when to build a building or when to replenish farmers. But after I learned game design, I found that these designs are necessary. Indispensable.”

Song Ziyun nodded: "So let's go play Dota."

Ah Yue said: "But I think everyone is still willing to operate a battle like the original version. There is only one hero fighting alone. It's not bad, but I think some people are still willing to operate a large battlefield with more units."

The two nodded thoughtfully, and Ah Yue continued: "So this game, I think, should be prepared for players who want to experience the original combat and want the settings to be simpler, but don't want to completely lose the competitiveness. Yes. If we simplify the operation a little and add some random entertainment, I think some people will like it."

Her idea could not be said to be perfect. Guo Yang then asked: "What about transplantation?"

Song Ziyun also said that if it was too random, the competitiveness would definitely not be as good as Dota. A Yue had not thought about these questions and could not answer them right away.

But Chen Qin listened and thought seriously.

Auto Chess... Although it is indeed a sect of gameplay, Dota Auto Chess, which was originally born in the Dota2 creative workshop, is indeed a short-lived thing. After the appearance of this map, a large number of follow-up works appeared, and then all parties Capital rushed into the market for commercialization.

The creator of "Dota Underlords" failed to become a successful party and was cremated on the spot.

The main reason is of course that Big Bird Duoduo and Valve are trying to kill themselves, but Dota Auto Chess is obviously not a perfect game in all aspects at the beginning. Although Teamfight Tactics has greatly simplified the process, the purpose is not necessarily to make the game more fun. , but mechanisms such as suture chicken and last-place draft are actually excellent game designs. As for the later Hearthstone Tavern and Golden Shovel Battle, they have their own characteristics, which seems to illustrate this kind of gameplay. It does have its own uniqueness.

And what kind of design is the most perfect?
In fact, this answer should not exist. After all, human destiny must consider not only personal struggle, but also the process of history...

If Warcraft 2023 comes out in 4, even if the picture quality reaches the level of 3 in the same period, it probably won't be as popular as it was in the past.

If you copied a life simulator in 2008... the public of this era probably wouldn't be able to appreciate this kind of black humor on a social level, and it probably wouldn't be able to trigger social phenomena of that level in the future.

From this perspective, today’s players actually don’t have the time to play games like “Auto Chess” at all.

Just like World of Warcraft players will want to play Hearthstone when they get older, Dota and LOL players will only play auto chess when they get older.

But now that I am in my prime, I can’t wait to play games for seven or eight hours a day to release hormones at high intensity.

Now that the whole wheelchair game has come up, let people spend money to come to Internet cafes to play this?

But then again, Auto Chess itself is a game framework, and many game designs are not perfect, so they can be modified.

Of course, making random changes is worse than not making any changes at all, but based on that specious methodology, A-Yue was able to create an original version of Warcraft Auto Chess that the player can operate and lead troops to fight directly based on the original version...

Although even the element of 'self-propelled' is gone, it actually feels like a good direction.

Thinking of this, Chen Qin reminded: "I also have an idea, which is basically the same as what you said, but I think since we want to reduce operational pressure, we might as well refer to turn-based games..."

Chen Qin gave a hint that A Yue’s original idea was not perfect. For example, her idea was to fight on a map, and resource management was also very crude. But after hearing Chen Qin talk about a mature game model in the future, I felt that her ideas were starting to start. It became clear.

Just at this time, grandma opened the door and came in. Xiao Gao was watching the excitement and had nothing to do, so he quickly got up to pick her up.

After meeting several times, Wang Yinglan liked Ah Yue very much. After putting down her lunch box, she asked her: "Xiao Yue, I heard that you are going to make your own games again. How are you doing?"

Ah Yue realized that it was already noon. Thinking that a quarter of the time had passed and the game was still not progressing at all, she looked at the other three people and stuck out their tongues... Of course she was not very disappointed. After all, at least the discussion ended here. This morning's work was very rewarding. When we first started working on Brawl, we started working on it from this perspective.

However, Chen Qin was drawing a general UI layout on paper. When Wang Yinglan asked, he replied from a distance: "Grandma, more than half of it is already completed!"

Grandma put the lunch box on the table with a smile and said that you guys are quite fast. Just finish more than half of it. She made prawns for you at noon today!

The three middle school students became happy. After all, the basic design and gameplay of the game have been determined. Since Chen Qin said so, there is nothing difficult to do next.

"So where do we start? I heard that this editor is not difficult and we can help."

Song Ziyun was very enthusiastic, and Chen Qin said: "It's not difficult to return, but we are just getting started, so we still have to learn something from others. You can go to the forum to find some similar maps, such as judging unit status, switching scenes, etc. , it would be nice if I could find a reference..."

"Okay, I'll go find it now."

They all agreed to eat, and Song Ziyun sat down in front of the computer again.A Yue had just learned waterfall management and knew it was time for her to play her role. She stood up from Xiaofang's desk and asked, "Chen Qin, what are the requirements for materials and sound effects? Guo Yang and I will do this."

Chen Qin said hurriedly: "Time is tight, so use what you bring first."

"Then we design character skills or something?"

"First make a demo of the demo, and then consider the values." Chen Qin said, "And the original value balance has been done. Let's apply the original units and heroes first, so there is no need to rush."

Seeing that A Yue didn't know what to do, Chen Qin gave her some advice: "By the way, if you have nothing to do, go do the publicity first. Didn't you recently sign up for the official Weibo account of our studio? Are you here?" Go to the top and tell GameJam that we are going to make a custom map for Warcraft. It will be completed tomorrow and everyone will be asked to rate it then..."

Ah Yue was dumbfounded: "Huh? Isn't it a bit too hasty? Besides, time is so tight, how can I have time to post on Weibo..."

"Since it's GameJam," Chen Qin said nonsensically, "of course it will take two days to complete it all in one go. Publicity and distribution is one of the most important parts of game development, and of course it must be included in GameJam."

　One more chapter tonight

　　
　
(End of this chapter)