DevUpdate #12: Saved steps and active gameplay feedback
Hello! I'm back from London, but sadly caught a flu, but I'm already getting better. I saw this great post with some really valuable feedback:
I really appreciate having feedback like this: reading through conversations about game mechanics helps me get a better sense of how the community is feeling and enables me to take action to improve the game. So I'd like to clarify two things that were especially brought up in this feedback: saved steps and active gameplay component.
Saved Steps
So, this has been causing some confusion: why are the saved steps designed to be consumed by walking instead of being spendable immediately?
Here are the reasons for the design:
- Saved steps first and foremost are a mechanic to prevent punishing you for not being able to check the game as often and were designed to combat that issue. You never lose steps, as they get added when you walk more than the activity you had selected required.
- The current saved steps cap was based on the survey data we gathered pre-release on how much people interested in WS walk on average. However, I didn't expect people's daily average to increase so much when playing the game, so the current cap amounts will likely be increased in the upcoming update.
- The way it is currently designed in my mind supports the main intention of the game, which, in my mind, all of our designs should be about: motivating you to walk. If you get saved steps, they incentivize you to walk more to spend them.
- When I considered spending them instantly, I found out that it would change the gameplay to an entirely different one from how I imagined the game. The current system ensures that when you walk, you feel like your character is doing something while you're exercising.
To further explain why we don't want to have saved steps spendable instantly, the following reasons apply:
- It would fundamentally change the game feel. Instead, you would be walking to gain energy for your character and then playing a math puzzle to spend them in the most efficient way when you sit down. This, in my mind, would ruin the RPG element, as people would then definitely want to always check stuff from wikis and calculators to spend their steps most efficiently.
- The game no longer has the feedback loop of being something you can also quickly check while walking and getting motivation from the game to keep walking more. It's then only about walking to gain as much energy as possible to spend later on. This essentially makes the walking part feel too much like a chore of just getting energy.
- Bottom line is, you no longer feel good and get the dopamine hits while walking, but only when you sit down and get instant gratification from spending the steps in the most min-maxed way possible. This, in my mind, is the opposite of what an exercise game should be about: the game should add to your walk while you're walking and encourage you during it to keep walking more if possible, while not being a distraction you need to check on constantly. The game as it’s currently designed in my experience for the most part does exactly that.
For me personally, and I also see from the conversations with a lot of people, the way saved steps are currently designed does what we planned. It removes the feeling of being punished if you couldn't check the game at the right moment, and while you see you have some saved steps, it makes you feel more incentivized to walk more to spend those. The way the game is currently set up allows you to not check it too often while walking, but if you do check it and see the "X amount of steps to level up" or "700 steps until your crafting is done," it makes you go the extra mile, which, in my mind, is awesome. If instead, you only saw "21k saved steps" and collected those to spend later when you sit down at home, there's much less concrete feedback during your walk to keep you going.
This comment in the post underlined our current design philosophy regarding the Saved Steps really well.
Which brings me to the second point: the game has, from the first original designs, also had plans for giving players something to do while they're not walking. And I feel like the conversation about having steps to spend instantly might mostly be about people feeling like there's nothing to do in the game while at home and sitting down but people would like to do something.
Active Gameplay Components
Let's start off with our current plans that we're planning to add before or shortly after the open beta as something you can play after your walk. These are also optional, like many things in the game, so we're not forcing you to engage with these mechanics if you're only interested in the walking part and don't have enough time to keep playing afterwards.
- The combat system: This is the biggest one. It includes both PvE and PvP. You don't need to walk to fight; instead, the current plan is that it's a turn-based system you'll play at home. We've designed it so that it's still tied to walking, though. The combat skills are leveled up through walking, but combat classes are leveled up through the combat itself. We've also thought that during your walk, you gain Combat Points which you'll need to spend to engage in combat. This means you can't grind combat infinitely without going for a walk every now and then.
- Quest system and random encounters: You'll progress through quests and encounter random events during your in-game activities. Random encounters require some reading and decision-making, so you don't need to act on them immediately. Instead, you resolve them when you have time to sit and decide how to proceed.
- Trading: You can engage with the player-to-player market, flip items, and so forth. This is something you wouldn't be doing while walking.
- Player housing and farming skill: The farming skill, when introduced, works quite differently from the other skills as it also has a real-time component to it. We also intend to add player housing with the farming skill to especially expand the Carpentry skill, and designing your house is something you would also do by sitting down and playing with it.
- Social and MMO features: The friends system, guilds, and in-game Portal also give you something to do in the game. For instance, we've been thinking of making it possible to share some images from your walks in the Portal with other WalkScape players. It might be fun to check out some of that stuff while taking a break from walking.
These are the main components we're planning to add before and possibly shortly after the open beta. The current version definitely lacks in this area, and I'm aware of it. However, it's a good reminder that the game currently only consists of the core gameplay loop (walking) and is still missing quite a bit of content. But the great thing is that we've received a ton of good suggestions and feedback already, and I plan to implement as much of those as possible before and during wave 2.
In addition to the features listed above, we’re also thinking of other types of minigames we could add to the game. Suggestions are always very welcome.
Other News and Until Next Time
Patreon linking on Portal works once again! I am really sorry it took so long to get it fixed, but I have been very busy, and only now got some time to work on it. BMAC isn't updated to the new system yet; I plan to upgrade it as well during this week.
I am planning on outlining a clearer roadmap and beginning the dev blog posts next week's Thursday. I'll also explain any changes and additions we're making for wave two in the next devblog. Basically, I want to focus on fixing bugs, improving some confusing elements in the UI, and adding quality of life improvements before opening the game for wave two. And a couple of new smaller features as well! I'm thinking we can start wave two in a couple of weeks.
And once again, thanks for all the feedback and the conversations about these things! I'm looking forward to having more conversations in this post and discussing these things further.
P.S. At the London convention, I actually met one of Niantic's executives who tried the game and loved it. It was a pretty cool moment :D
❤️ Keep walking!
Excited for the release ♥️ keep up the good work 👍
Thanks for the awesome update. You have a great game concept and a lot of good ideas. Don't let your vision be diminished by the couple of loud negative comments when the overwhelming majority of people like it :)
I really enjoy the implementation of saved steps and appreciate the explicit design philosophies here. Hope you feel better soon!
I actually really like the current saved steps system. I got nervous when I saw the title of the dev blog and was worried you were planning on changing it. I have on multiple occasions decided to take a quick extra walk at the end of the day to use up my step bank, it's a great motivator. I think increasing the step bank amounts is a good idea. Thanks for all the hard work, feel better soon!
I love the core gameplay loop. I think options to harvest X materials, with an estimated step count would alleviate some of these issues. Giving players a sense of when they need to check in during a longer walk.
This is also an actual beta, not an "early access beta" and I think people like the reddit poster have mismatched expectations because of that.
@PielsGood: This is something that has been suggested many times, kinda similarly to how Crafting is setup. We're definitely going to be adding it, along with a button to cancel your current activity and turn off spending saved steps if you want to save them for something else.
I, too, wanted saved steps to be spendable immediately, but after reading schamppu's reasoning I now see why they shouldn't be. You're doing an amazing job, schamppu!
I've been enjoying the core loop and agree that the saved steps already work well.
I also agree that additional content will help quite a bit; walking from A to B to A etc. is indeed repetitive.
One feature request: it would be nice if the game would keep the phone screen on (Android) such as when intentionally walking the last few steps of current activity; I personally encounter this the most when stationary walking such as on an elliptical when I would like to watch the screen more while walking.
- Reposting here from Reddit to confirm post issue is resolved after logout / login
I really like the saved steps because as you have mentioned, it motivates me to get up again for that task, now with a boost! haha. I have been walking a lot more thanks to this. Other games already exploit the "walk and then spend your steps with thousands of clicks" and that's what I wanted to get away from with WalkScape. Amazing game 😍. I am excited for what is coming.
I'm in it for the motivation to walk more than I usually do, so I like how the banking system works. If it was changed to 'spend at home' I'd walk and just go home to spend which may end up cutting my walks shorter than usual to get home and focus on spending.