Economy, Collectibles and Gatherables

/ Game Theory, User Experience / By

Aim

  • Break down the various definitions, applications and ideas behind collectibles and gatherables.
  • Show the considerations that need to be made when integrating collectibles and gatherables into an online experience.
  • I will be utilizing two games as case studies in this article, Breath of the Wild and Fortnite.

Case study 1: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

  • Breath of the Wild does a great job of capturing the core principles of an effective gatherable and collectible system.
    • If a player looks at an area, and thinks it looks cool, there should be some relevant content.
      • This involves a visual language that leads the player to believe there is something of value there, thus motivating exploration.

Case study 2: Fortnite

  • Fortnite does a great job of showing the complexities with integrating collectibles and gatherables into an online space, opening up a variety of variables that need to be managed, like spawn rates, player hotspots and balancing.

Definitions:

Collectibles

These are finite in number and set in location.

  • These include:
    • Checklists
    • Tomes
    • Specific Gear

Gatherables

These are fungible resources that theoretically infinite.

  • These include:
    • Resources
    • Crafting materials
    • Advancement currency
    • Randomized lootables

Types of collectibles:

Collectible: Tome

  • A tome is a little hit of narrative.
  • These include things like: Holocrons, recorders, journal entries, notes, 
  • Collaborates with narrative, but also collaborates with world art and props.
  • You can add a lot to the story with these collectibles.
  • Strategic placement of tomes can create layers to the story.
  • Be careful to not halt flow! Do not force the player to stop and read/listen to it right then.
    • Adding audio that plays while the user continues his gameplay is a good means of navigating this issue.

Collectible: Checklist

  • A wide array of implementations, but basically anything where collecting them all is the main objective.
  • Quest items and checklists share a lot, but there is a difference. If you find a quest isn’t working, it could be transferred to a checklist-based quest.

Collectible: Specific gear

  • Items placed in a set place  – you will get them in the same place on any play through
  • There are limited amount of them.
  • Can be aesthetic or practical items.

GATHERABLES

Gatherable: Crafting materials

The most common gatherable type is crafting materials

  • Use it as a way to teach players rules
  • Once they learn, they feel smart.

Gatherable: Advancement currency

  • Can be gold, experience, cash, anything you gather a lot of and use to advance your character.
  • These are used to funnel the player (Think coin trails leading player)

Gatherable: Randomised loot

Instant dopamine hit.

When do collectibles and gatherables fail?

  • Tedious – A lot of people find collectibles and gatherables tedious. If they are completionists, they feel like they have to 100% complete a game, meaning they will find out if the game has a tedious collectible and gatherable design.
  • Incongruous – doesn’t fit with the theme and feels out of place
  • Antagonistic – inconsistent implementation is unintuitive
  • Economically unsupported – gathered items aren’t useful.

What constitutes success with collectibles and gatherables?

  • Rewarding different gameplay types
  • Challenge – appealing items visible behind challenging gameplay
  • Exploration – huge resource caches in less travelled areas
  • Role-playing – thematic items linked to environmental storytelling.
  • Observation – place items according to patterns.

Collectibles and gatherable can and should in some cases work together for the following outcomes according to the type of game:

Platformers / non linear action

  • Alert players to alternative paths
  • Reward memory and backtracking
  • Challenge the players skills

RPG / Story exploration game

  • Every space should be treated as its own mini open world
  • You must reward the players curiosity, exploration and intelligence.
  • Utilize environmental storytelling – Placement of items is huge.
  • Include secret tunnels and rooms for your players to explore.

Linear /narrow world games

  • Match visibility and difficulty of rewards to the intended playstyle.
  • Reward skill and pattern recognition
  • Completionist tasks only if the game is designed for replay ability.

There are of course exceptions to all of these rules.

Remember: Everything is the economy

  • Economy will inevitably motivate the player.
  • Every balance you make where items or content is found will weigh on players decisions.
  • Players will see plot advancement as a currency, level progression as currency, character progression as currency, story advancement as currency.

Why is this?

  • Well, the player has to earn these, and in earning them, he ascribes a sense of value to them.
  • Add to this that the player will usually do whatever is most efficient to achieve the currency, meaning that currency actually ends up influencing player behavior and meta of the game.

Some closing desing principles.

  • People love secrets to explore
  • Visibility of rewards is often a good thing.
    Breadcrumb trails work very well.
  • Teach people where to look for rewards and do it early
  • Too many empty barrels and chests is not good and disappoints players
  • Achievements are nice, but can become somewhat compulsive.
  • Collection and gathering should not halt flow.

You have to look at the holistic game design

Item spawning, gatherbales, and collectables relate to mnay other systems

  • Combat in the area for online games
  • Story and characters relevant
  • World and art
  • Economic weighting of items

Collecting and gathering Vs grinding

Now you have a responsibility to avoid burning the player out in his attempts to obtain currency. Interacting with static objects or entities placed in the game world.

Action may be involved, but it usually does not usually involve as much violence as the quests within the game. If you had a rare monster spawning however, you could have violence as a means of execution.

Why?

People who use their social time for gathering are the most productive form of player. It taps into our innermost psychology. Gatherables and collectibles are more interconnected than. It provides a different type of expeirnec from the core action of the gameplay.  

Distribution planning

Basic preparation

  • Work out the main route and mandatory quests
  • Look at all side quests
  • Identify hot spots and cool spots
  • Take into account Aesthetic and Story.
Hot Spots

Hot spots

  • Major quest hubs
  • Towns and cities
  • Zone transitions

Cool spots

Cool Spots

Few quests

  • Require platforming.
  • Optional Content
  • Content for one group / class

In order to effectively manage these hot and cool spots, consider a shared world spawn system with the following rules.

  • Spawn group – spawn points managed together
  • Spawn minimum – lowest before respawn is triggered
  • Spawn Low – spawning is sped up when below this point
  • Spawn max – the maximum number of objects allowed.

Example

Herb spawn has 30 points, spawns herb every 60 sec

Spawn min = 5, there will never be <5 herbs spawned

Low = 0, when <10 spawned, 1 new hear spawns every 30 sec

Max = 15, index will never be completely full. Stops spawning at 15

Optimal times and numbers will vary based on Individual design.