Game Design Discussion : Removing Unlimited Heal @ Base
In our next update, which we'll be version 0.6.1, there's going to be one big change to the feature of the game and since I foresee that this might be something a lot of our players are going to feel strongly (like negatively) about, I decided to do a proper blog post detailing our thought process.
What's the change?
Basically this is the release notes that will come with the new version:
====== Release Note - version 0.6.1 ======
[change] Healing items are now more effective and are cheaper to purchase.
[change] All healing items are now unlocked at lower ranks than previously.
[change] Capture item price has increased from 3 Spectral Particles to 10.
[change] Unlimited heals at the base has been removed in favor of cheaper healing items to encourage playing on the go instead of just playing at home.
The subject of this post is the last (emphasized) point of the release note.
What is this feature?
For those not familiar with the game, Prototype Zero is a location-based game where players capture and battle monsters that they encounter on the real world map, to move the player has to walk around in the real world.
As the player use their monsters to fight, the monsters gets injured and needs to be healed. The player has several choices:
Use healing items that can be purchased at the store or dropped during missions.
Use a healing charge (the player has 3 charges that refills at 1 charge every 30 minutes.)
If they run out of heal charges, they have to pay to heal.
If the player is near their home or "base" they can heal unlimited times without any penalty and does not need to wait for charges to refill.
This last feature is what will be removed.
Why was the feature created in the first place?
So before we explain our changes, it's best to give the reason why the current feature works the way it does.
I think when we first implemented this feature we didn't really think it through properly. The main reasons we wanted to have this feature were:
Location-specific benefits - Since this was a location-based game, we wanted to provide benefits to players at certain locations on the map and providing healing stations seemed like a cool idea so allowing players to set up a base that gives heals sounded like a great step in that direction.
Allowing players to have the option to play as long as they'd like in one spot BUT have the option to play with a more fun + more rewarding way by moving around.
Although this feature achieved those 2 goals, it had a number of really negative unintended consequences which makes the game just not fun to play.
Unintended consequences of this feature
We can say that this feature was very successful, too successful in fact, that it caused a lot of unintended consequences:
It turns out when you give players the option to be lazy but bored vs exiting/rewarding but require more work... players tend to choose less work but boring most of the time, which is not what we want from a game at all.
Healing at the Base was such a no brainer that people who play the game away from the Base was almost non-existant which really defeats the purpose of a location-based game. (Features that don't ask players to make meaningful choices are usually not good in games.)
Playing missions is viewed as tedius since it requires players to move away from the base. Most players will walk out for missions and walk back home to heal, and that was very annoying for players. (Since healing at Base seem like something they would be stupid not to use if it was there.)
Players got really bored since they insisted on playing only at the base, which means they will only encounter the same monsters all the time since they're in the same location. Combine this with the fact that heals are unlimited, players can keep grinding in one place forever, which they tend to do and get bored of the repetition.
Nobody was really using Healing items since they could just exit from combat and use the free heal at the Base instead of buying healing items so they just pile up in the inventory.
Inflation. Since nobody was buying healing items, there was no outlet for the currency that they were getting after every mission and battle... so the currency became useless and just pile up in player accounts.
How we are fixing this
Now we also realize that the reasons for the problems highlighted above doesn't only stem directly from the heal feature alone, it's also because healing items are pretty expensive and they are not very powerful. Often healing items don't heal enough to warrant buying it.
So with this change, we're doing a few things to address all the problem points:
Removing Unlimited Heals
This is the most important change.
Players will get out more. Without unlimited heals at the base, it will make no difference between playing at work, while out with friends, or at home, which should increase the diversity of location at which players play. This will cause players to play the game closer to how we intended the game to be played.
Healing items become more appealing. As heals are now limited by charges, healing items become much more important and thus would be used more often. Players earn currency by fighting monsters, then use that currency to purchase healing items which can be used to heal their combat team to continue fighting.
Reduce inflation. This should reduce the number of healing items being stockpiled as well as reduce inflation of the currency.
Making healing items more cost efficient
Previously healing items were very expensive and heals very little. With the removal of unlimited heals, we wanted to make sure we're compensating that change with a better improvement to the healing items.
Now healing items will be cheaper per HP that it heals. Hopefully that will make the healing items much much more attractive to purchase.
Making powerful healing items available sooner
Healing items are unlocked as the player increase in rank, and previously powerful healing items were being unlocked too slowly, leaving powerful players stuck not being able to buy better healing items even when they wanted to. Then by the time they can purchase them, the healing items are no longer powerful enough to be attractive.
We've made changes to when healing items unlock so that players get acccess to powerful healing items sooner.
Conclusion
So that's why we're removing this feature, hopefully this post gives you a good idea of why we think it's better for the game to have this feature removed before we can come up with something else that would be a better addition to the game.
Do share your thoughts with us via [email protected] or on twitter @GoPrototypeZero! We'd love to hear from you.
What do you think about this up-coming change?














