Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 573

She's like the villainous female protagonist in a wish-fulfillment novel.

At first, he did all sorts of stupid things, but when the player was really about to leave, he hugged the player tightly, crying and saying, "I will change, I have already changed, I still love you, I really love you, what do you want, I will give you, please don't go!!"

This is absurd, yet very realistic.

Making games is for a dream, but it's also for making money.

Finding the right balance is a complex subject.

This is a subject that Kuro in his previous life was clearly not proficient in.

Ten thousand black cards, probability fraud, rollback, voice actor players arguing, incorrect account login—Kuro's operations basically manage to deliver an artistic performance every time just when you feel the game is getting better.

For example, when the revenue wasn't good, Kuro even did a move where a skin cost 2000 yuan.

If this isn't art, what is it?

Moreover, in the later stages of the game's operation, although Punishing: Gray Raven has many advantages, it is not really fair to say it is fair compared to Honkai Impact 3.

Since the monetization model relies on drawing characters, it's essential to sell character strength.

Selling characters goes against the original intention of action games.

Essentially, it's the same predicament as the absolute zero zone.

If we prioritize satisfying the experience of whales (high spenders), then what happens when someone has already spent money to max out a character? Do you expect them to actually play the game?

This is the model.

In addition, the server launch was disastrous, leading to a significant loss of players.

Therefore, the level design of Punishing: Gray Raven quickly became polarized.

In the end, only three categories remained.

It's played with your feet, grinded like crazy, and designed to entice players to spend money.

In this kind of environment.

It's actually difficult to comment on the experience of ordinary players.

But even so.

Punishing: Gray Raven isn't without its advantages.

First of all, their production team is capable of creating good products. This is why Lin Li was willing to lend a hand to Kuro and has been trying to change miHoYo. There are too few teams in China that can create good content.

It is precisely because Kuro can create content.

Therefore, Punishing: Gray Raven was able to survive after its launch explosion because Kuro could create content, allowing Naruto to survive.

Otherwise, consider the launch status of these two games.

If he were on another team, he would have died countless times by now.

In comparison, the absolute zero.

Logically speaking, the launch of Zone Zero was far from being a complete disaster.

But that's another topic.

Let's get back to Punishing: Gray Raven.

In its previous version, Punishing: Gray Raven's update frequency, content, and text quality were all considered quite good for a mobile game.

And on this timeline.

With the emergence of Lin Li and Xing Huo, Punishing: Gray Raven has naturally undergone significant changes.

Chapter 155 Making Games More Fun

The biggest change in this version of Punishing: Gray Raven is the shift in the payment model.

The game still retains the gacha system.

Compared to Honkai Impact 3's current pity system of 100 pulls, Punishing: Gray Raven has changed to a pity system of 80 pulls.

The price per draw has been changed from 28 to 20.

Secondly, the monthly cards (both large and small) have been significantly enhanced.

The monthly card gives players 3 free draws every day they log in, and with daily tasks, monthly card players can actually get 4 draws just by completing daily tasks, excluding events.

Every month, as long as you open a monthly card, you will definitely get a limited-edition item.

Secondly, the monthly pass, also known as the battle pass, offers skins and resources every month, and if you complete the battle pass to the maximum level, you'll also receive a fragment pack of any character you've already drawn.

In addition, the upgrade system in Punishing: Gray Raven has also been optimized.

This optimization is crucial.

This is also the optimization that has the biggest impact on Honkai Impact 3.

In Honkai Impact 3, to upgrade a limited character from S to SSS, you need to draw the character 13 times.

In its previous form, Punishing: Gray Raven, Kuro took a comprehensive "tribute" to miHoYo.

It basically follows the same pattern. In the original Punishing: Gray Raven, evolving an S-rank construct into an SSS+ requires repeatedly drawing 10 characters.

However, in this timeline...

This data has been significantly compressed.

It takes 1 item to upgrade from S to SS, 1 item to upgrade to SSS, and 2 items to upgrade to SSS+.

Including the main body, it adopts a 1+4 model.

You can reach the maximum level with 4 duplicate characters.

In this way, for monthly pass players, even with the worst luck, they can have a fully upgraded character every 3 months.

For players with both large and small monthly passes, the period will be further shortened to 2 months, as the large monthly pass will include an additional character fragment pack.

If you're a hoarder, you can take advantage of the launch benefits and, with a bit of luck, hoard for half a year to get a fully upgraded character.

Note that the above estimated time is based on a guaranteed minimum return for each round.

If you're a little bit lucky, the time will be even earlier.

Overall.

In this timeline, Punishing: Gray Raven's payment model can be described as a significantly more expensive version of Honkai Impact 3.

After the changes, it is now very close to Spark's current monthly card model.

The Spark Mode maximizes the cost-effectiveness of the monthly pass.

Just like the monthly pass in Punishing: Gray Raven.

It costs 30 yuan per ticket, but you can get 120 draws, which is equivalent to 25 cents per draw.

This cost-effectiveness will likely encourage most players, if they intend to continue playing, to at least purchase a monthly pass.

This is the origin of the term "vegetable harvesting party".

Many players play four or five Spark games at the same time, and that's how they keep playing.

Besides these games.

Because most games have a long downtime period, they might even offer monthly passes for other games that use the Spark mode, depending on the situation.

The fundamental reason is that the monthly card under this model is too cost-effective.

The Spark Games community even holds players who don't spend any money in high regard.

"You don't even have a monthly pass? You're really something!! You're a ruthless person!"

Many players believe that...

In this situation, players don't even subscribe to monthly cards.

That person must be incredibly tough enough to quit masturbating.

Of course, there are also frequent comments in the community from players saying that they couldn't resist and went for it.

This elicited a burst of laughter.

This operating model.

The most interesting point is that players' monthly card income must be "collected and spent within the month, with no thought of keeping a single penny."

Spark repeatedly emphasized in its development manual that with this model, you must have sufficient production capacity to generate revenue for players to spend. Then, use new storylines, new characters, and new weapons to attract players to renew their contracts.

In addition, the skin effect is added to boost revenue.

This model seems to be just a simple change in pricing.

However, in a deeper sense, this model liberates the development team, allowing them to avoid sacrificing game quality for character strength.

Because the price of a single character is already very low.

Your target audience is not heavy spenders, but rather low-spending and medium-spending players.

The threshold for players to draw characters has been lowered because the price has dropped significantly.

for example.

An ice cream costs 2 yuan and 200 yuan.

For the average person, the expectation of an ice cream priced at 200 yuan is definitely higher than that of an ice cream priced at 2 yuan. Your 200-yuan ice cream would need to be accompanied by countless gimmicks, sprinkled with gold leaf, and promised to improve health, or made with highland milk, before it could be sold to the wealthy.

A 2-yuan ice cream only needs to be ordinary; any ice cream will sell.

Therefore, developers do not need to inflate character stats or excessively polish characters in order to make heavy spenders spend money.

More effort can be put into polishing the game itself.

Also.

This model also leaves manufacturers with no room for laziness.

Because your sales don't come from the character's strength, you can't make money by boosting stats.

You must ensure the performance is excellent.

A continuous supply of game content is required.

If a new character can win over players in the new storyline, it's enough to make most players want to pull for them.

When Kuro was making adjustments to the pay-to-win system, he also did a lot of mental preparation.

Lin Li had in-depth communication with the production team.

One sentence in particular has left a deep impression on Song Lun to this day.

"Now, what you need to do is make the game more fun, the storyline more engaging, and the character development more rewarding."

"This is more difficult than simply creating characters; not every production team is suited to this model."

"But I believe you can."

It was precisely because of Lin Li's belief that...

During the development of Punishing: Gray Raven, more effort was put into refining the gameplay and main story levels.

These changes.

This is also reflected in the numerous demos available.

For example, the early levels are much smoother, and the sense of separation between each level is not as strong; you no longer have to go in, play one or two segments, and then move on to the next level.

Instead, it is guided and performed in a linear fashion.

Take this beginner level as an example, from the combat feel to the guidance, and finally to the BOSS.

It was incredibly smooth.

And it gives players a very enjoyable experience.

"The combat system you've optimized is pretty good."

In this timeline of Punishing: Gray Raven, the battle mode is the same as in the previous life.

Dodging allows you to enter bullet time, where you can unleash skills by matching three items together.

Bullet time is actually quite simple; many games have it, so I won't go into detail.