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Avetis Zakharyan and Gevorg Kopalyan are founders at Rockbite Video games.
Idle Outpost is doing nice – particularly for its area of interest – and we truthfully find it irresistible to bits. And there is nonetheless much more we wish to construct. However funnily sufficient, this entire journey began with one easy concept: what if we added rush occasions?
As soon as we truly launched the function, it grew to become clear fairly quick – with out greater gameplay adjustments behind it, rush occasions simply weren’t going to ship. That’s after we took on a a lot greater problem: mainly overhauling the sport with out scaring off our core gamers.
The challenge was by no means a “traditional” idle recreation to start with, nevertheless it additionally wasn’t a full-blown RPG. Gamers spent most of their time buying and selling and upgrading stations. Fight? Not a lot.
However we had been seeing higher ARPU from RPG options, and we had been actively searching for new development factors – each in gameplay and monetisation. So we determined to lean more durable in that path.
The principle aim was to put down a robust basis for future options – and never mess up what was already doing effectively.
In fact, there was some threat in all this. We weren’t positive if the shift in focus would go over effectively with our audience. However trying again now, we are able to safely say it labored. Gamers are diving into boss fights and exploring the RPG techniques with far more enthusiasm.
And no, we weren’t making an attempt to hit some magical “increase all metrics and participant curiosity in a single day” button. The principle aim was to put down a robust basis for future options – and never mess up what was already doing effectively.
Creating a house base and the every day routine that got here with it
One of many first huge adjustments gamers see now when logging in is the brand new dwelling base. Earlier than this, the expertise was kinda chaotic. You’d bounce between commerce ranges, combat screens, gear upgrades, buttons overlapped, stuff acquired messy, and it was simple to get misplaced.
So we determined to carry some order to the chaos. Now, there’s a house display the place all the things comes collectively – your base. It reveals your progress, your standing, accessible actions, bonuses – all the things in a single place.
You see your avatar in full battle gear they’re at the moment sporting, plus a model displaying your buying and selling outfit and the way a lot revenue you’re pulling in. Under are two huge buttons: “Go to Work” (for commerce ranges) and “Missions” (for PvE and PvP).
What it did is make the dual-core gameplay – commerce and fight – immediately clear to the gamers as soon as they land within the dwelling base. You go do your factor, no matter it might be, then return to base to regroup and resolve what’s subsequent.
Moreover it being an effective way to declutter recreation menus and sections, the house base gave us a method to construction an intuitive every day routine for the participant. We added a every day missions tab proper to the house display – a guidelines with duties and rewards.
We did our homework: checked out how our rivals deal with dailies, crunched the numbers on what number of and which placements our gamers watch every day, and got here up with a system that is sensible.
The plan was easy – present gamers what they’ll do at present, what’s value watching, what duties to hit, and the place the rewards are hiding.
So right here’s the way it performs out: log in, see your purple marker on the duty record – the primary mission is simply displaying up, so that you accumulate your reward. From there, you test what’s subsequent: perhaps it’s upgrading peaceable gear, spending shovels on fight gear, clearing the world, or hitting PvE missions. Each accomplished job is marked purple, pointing the participant in the correct path in keeping with their objectives.
Retention and advert views are up by a couple of %. R1-R3 lifted by about 3%, and later days are seeing even higher outcomes.
The principle concept behind this construction was to encourage gamers to construct a behavior much like a morning routine: get up, brush your tooth, seize a espresso, go to work. And that sort of every day routine? That’s what drives long-term retention.
Most of those little missions additionally include ad-based bonuses. Struggle 3 times at no cost within the enviornment? Nice. Need two extra runs? Watch an advert.
In whole, for gamers to hit probably the most quantity of bonuses, we’ve acquired round 20 placements per day baked into the circulate – however we made positive the entire routine doesn’t take greater than 45 minutes. It’s dense however not exhausting.
We’ve counted on the every day routine to spice up our retention and advert views, and yeah – it’s already working. Each retention and advert views are up by a couple of %. R1-R3 lifted by about 3%, and later days are seeing even higher outcomes. Not dangerous for the beginning.
However the greatest win? The house base and every day targets gave us a rock-solid basis. A transparent construction to construct new options on prime of.
From Idle… to Idle RPG
As we mentioned earlier – the core participant base spent most of their time buying and selling and upgrading stations, not often touching fight. However we actually needed to shift that steadiness and diversify the expertise with out turning gamers off or blowing up the circulate. That’s how we got here up with “save a personality”.
Right here’s the way it works: there’s a particular improve tab in buying and selling ranges. That’s the place you enhance items to earn more money and buff characters so that they work higher.
It used to only say “rent a personality”. Now, there’s additionally a mission – “save a personality”. It performs out like this: your character’s been snatched by a bandit or a zombie – and also you’ve gotta get them again. Till you do, progress is frozen. No upgrades, no new earnings. You wish to continue to grow? You’ve acquired to combat.
This rescue mission turns right into a full-on boss battle in a chosen location. Bosses have energy indicators, and in the event you’ve been skipping fight upgrades to go commerce? Good luck.
However right here’s the kicker: these bosses put on premium gear, often from future units – it’s mainly a reside showcase of stuff the participant can ultimately earn. It’s a sneaky, efficient little bit of set advertising and marketing that may be folded into the reside ops calendar. We’ll get to that in a second.
Now, we’d truly had a full universe and lore for Idle Outpost mapped out in docs for ages, however barely any of it made it into the sport. This gave us a method to lastly begin utilizing it. Every boss is constructed across the lore – they’ve all acquired their very own backstories, and every of the 19 places has its personal boss and henchmen.
There are additionally three super-rare elite bosses. If you beat them, they don’t die – they escape, organising future encounters. Feels kinda old-school in the easiest way.
First, you combat off the henchmen, after which the boss reveals up close to the tip of the zone to complete the job personally – flexing the best gear, in fact. That gear? Coming quickly to a reside ops occasion close to you.
We additionally added a small experiment: throughout boss fights, gamers can watch an advert to select certainly one of three buffs. The gamers, total, dug it.
If a boss is just too robust for you, there isn’t any disgrace in retreating. Head again to dwelling base, seize some shovels, improve your loadout, and are available again stronger. After the latest updates, nothing’s gonna come simple in the event you don’t toughen up as a warrior, not even buying and selling.
We additionally added a small experiment: throughout boss fights, gamers can watch an advert to select certainly one of three buffs. The gamers, total, dug it. We managed to layer the techniques in a approach the place they don’t conflict, they help one another.
If you’re buying and selling, you’re laser-focused on station upgrades. If you’re on a mission, it’s all concerning the combat.
So, what else is cooking?
Subsequent up, we’re placing collectively a correct reside ops calendar, one which lays out what’s going to occur within the recreation over the following 100 days. When the occasions begin, what you get out of them, what sorts of bonuses to anticipate – all the things can be spelled out upfront.
Our hope is that with a transparent calendar, gamers will keep extra engaged, and we’ll be capable to plan content material – and income – extra confidently.
Proper now, we’ve acquired Rush occasions and normal LTEs working, however we’re additionally beginning to group them into bigger themed occasions. We truly examined this over the New 12 months with a mega-event that mixed Rush and LTE into one factor. It did nice.
So now, we’re seeking to make these sorts of occasions a daily factor – with unique units as rewards you can’t get anyplace else.
We’ve additionally utterly overhauled the world. Now it has clearly outlined time home windows for seasons, revamped rankings, and as an alternative of servers, we’ve divided the entire thing into combat zones.
We tightened up the steadiness and enviornment ticket distribution – in order that newbies have a cause to leap in, and seasoned gamers nonetheless get problem. Plus, the world’s not a separate module, it’s a part of the “Missions” tab, proper alongside all of the fight stuff.
The PvE part underneath “Missions” additionally acquired a glow-up. Now you combat zombies in a subway setting – suppose Neo vs. agent Smith vibes. You get three fights a day, and two further in the event you watch an advert.
The larger imaginative and prescient right here is to regularly broaden the Missions tab right into a full ecosystem of battle modes. Make it one of many anchors of the sport, not only a aspect gig.
Talking of latest modes – the primary one is already within the works. We’re taking our hottest artistic and turning it right into a Tower Protection mode. Think about hordes of zombies charging your base whilst you maintain them off with a squad of heroes. Not only one hero – a number of without delay.
This checks a bunch of bins. First, it pushes us deeper into RPG territory – lively fight the place your selections actually matter, in contrast to the Area mode. Second, it provides gamers a cause to gather extra characters. It’s sort of like constructing a mini-CCG on prime of the core recreation. Extra depth, extra monetisation potential.
Seems just like the experiment is working
So, what did we find yourself with?
First off, we reworked the UI and launched the house base. That’s now the participant’s foremost hub – all of the every day, acquainted stuff lives there. Something gameplay-related – whether or not it’s buying and selling or combating – lives within the “Go to Work” and “Missions” tabs.
The concept was to softly nudge the sport within the path we needed: extra depth, extra selection. However with out breaking what already labored. And, to date, we predict we managed to tug it off. The sport now appears like an actual RPG – you wish to end it, you’ve gotta improve, gear up, develop into a beast.
On the core, this entire system is a springboard – a framework that we are able to use to layer in additional gameplay depth, evolve our meta, and develop smarter monetisation paths. It’s a base we are able to actually construct on.
