The Way Forward: The Gentlemen's Duel

by Mobuis571 <3

The Way forward: Tighten the game-play loop

Instead of having fun for 5%-15% of the time we spent involved in this game it needs to be much greater. We need more of the moments of pulling off the flashy clutch plays, and less looting and waiting in lobbies. It’s even better if we are doing it with friends and rivals and people we know and respect. These are the 3 things we need to pull this off.

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1. Community
2. More Combat
3. More good fair competitive fights

The Devil is in the Details:

Here is what I think is needed to tighten this game-play loop, We want more dopamine hits of action and less depressing third-partys, cheap knowledge potion mechanics, and boring looting or RNG in general.

Refocus away from BR. Battle royale has too much downtime for a game with such long drawn out fights, dying to a third party feels cheap, and playing defensive to avoid 3rd party feels boring. Clash was a move in the right direction, playing against real players and tightening the game-play loop from BR but still has a slow looting phase, random spawns on too large of circles which make it hard to stick to your team, and the combat is largely not fair due to being outnumbered at any one point)

ENTER THE ARENA OF MONSTERS:

ARENA MODE: This needs to be 1 v 1 as well as a team vs team, 3 v 3. It will be round based Bo5. You need to have the right size circle of the map and or a dedicated arena map in order to have terrain as a fun and exciting element to make the fights competitive and diverse. It needs to be large enough that people cannot be spawn sniped and allow the option to kite and bait the other team, yet not so large that travel time becomes a serious drain on the action.Two mechanics are necessary for this to work. Fixed Spawning on the ground to prevent cheap parachute mechanics like landing behind your enemy. Each team needs to spawn on the ground in an area that the enemy team cannot enter and is not visible to snipe into or cast spells into. These team areas need to be on opposite sides of the arena or circle. When you spawn on the ground, you need access to every legendary rune, belt, gauntlet ect. This is the 30 sec downtime, before the match starts where everyone chooses their items.At the end of the match a combination of your kills, victory status, damage, ect will contribute to a visible and or hidden mmr for both the individual and clan rating if the team was in a clan. People need something to work towards on this game and a MMR or Rank is one way to do that.

There are two extremely important things necessary to make arena mode a success. We need to integrate the community portion into it. We need the ability for people of the same community to get into the same lobbies and games together to allow for community tournaments and practice matches. We need a spectator function with the ability to join as a spectator. Whether this means custom lobbies with passwords or an expanded party or community system to join a game together, I am not sure. What I am sure of is that Prol has decided this game needs to grow organically, and the way to do that is to allow communities to have a larger control over events and allow those communities the ability to reliably play together.

So what we have is an arena mode with minimized downtime, maximized beautiful spellbreak combat that is fair and competitive, all within a framework where people can show off in front of their friends and communities. Max the dopamine, max the fun. More runes, balance tuning, classes and talents will increase the diversity of combat.Once this mode is polished, and the game better balanced, I think the next move is to release Spellbreak on steam to draw in a new influx of players into a new exciting and rewarding game-play loop.

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Why is tightening the game-play loop so important?: (Dont read this if you aren't into reading long post)

Our Spellbreak community has a tough task ahead. Our game has some of the most unique and exciting combat I've ever seen, it also has one of the higher skill ceilings I've ever seen. The player-base is quite small at the moment, and the game still has some serious issues that hurts the game’s appeal. These have been discussed in great detail before by Talkohsss.

I am here today to discuss a way forward, a way for this game to provide a great environment for the players and the community. Enter the Gentleman's Duel. If you play on IXI-Timmy’s stacked solos, which he does every stream, the most exciting part of the casting and game, is the when 2 players reach the end, they give each other any armor or hp pots they need, head to the final circle, square off a bow to each other via emote, then comes the most beautiful thing this game is capable of. Fair combat by 2 unique and skilled players. This is what spellbreak needs more of, not more cheap explosions from knowledge potions or chaotic third party fights.

The Game-play Loop: Spellbreak’s greatest and most rewarding moments are provided by the combat system which is always so fresh and exciting due to the many interactions, runes, gauntlet pairings, and talents. The frost shot from a mile away on an escaping enemy, the midair fireball, the clutch shadowstep outbreak or the sick long range boulder artillery strike on a man running for his life. This is the bread and butter of Spellbreak, these are tasty rewarding moments that provide the dopamine hit that keeps us coming back for more. This dopamine hit is amplified when we do it in front of and with people we know as friends and rivals.

Currently our typical game-play loop looks like this:

Newer Player: Pick class talents → wait in BR lobby for upwards of 6 minutes depending on time of day with up to 30 bots in non peak times → get into huge map of most likely what is less than 42 real players → loot for 2-6 min → fight 30 sec of combat kill a bot or two→ run into real gamer → if your a newer player your likely dead → re-queue lobby→ repeat

(you maybe had some fun for 25 seconds out of the 900 sec)

Experienced Player:

Pick class talents → wait in BR lobby for upwards of 6 minutes depending on time of day with up to 30 bots in non peak times → get into huge map of most likely what is less than 42 real players → loot for 2-6 min → fight for the next 6 minutes → get third partied hard or lose helplessly to knowledge potion spam → win vs other experienced players you can't fight as freely to prevent third partying → maybe you get a good final fight and win → repeat

(An experienced player already has had dopamine hits from regular combat but that has worn off, experienced players enjoy a good drawn out fair fight where they have to think to get those good dopamine hits) (had some fun for maybe the 200 sec of combat you experienced but you lived longer so its like 200 outta 1200 sec, because your desensitized to combat maybe you only had 100 seconds outta that combat that was challenging and enjoyable)

To Proletariat: I understand the custom lobbies, and new game modes take time, but If you take away anything, I want you to realize that tightening the game play loop is one of the most important things for the success of yourselves, the players and the community.

Edit, Put the details first and boring reasoning after, changed 3 v 3 arena to rounded based Bo5

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