Illusion Connect recently re-launched Ares' Battlefield, their real-time PvP mode. Although they did better than most MMOs by introducing a system of leagues, Superprism made one fatal mistake that has generated a lot of complaints.
In this article we will analyze Ares' Battlefield, make some comparisons, and provide our a recommendation for how to change it.
Good but flawed: Ares' Battlefield League structure
The leagues/tiers implemented by tracking wins and losses in Ares' Battlefield is actually good. It is one of the ways to get players "appropriate" matchups that can make PvP interesting and satisfying, and thus retain a PvP population.
Too many games do not do this or do it properly, and when players get bad matchups, they try to identify reasons for their discontent. Usually they end up pointing to the wrong reasons and fail to realize what most of the complaints are essentially about:
- Highly unbalanced matches
- No net gain for genuine effort
It is a mistake to discount how this dissatisfaction with the game mode can affect the game. Even though it is technically an optional game mode, it can colour a player's perception and attitude toward the game as a whole. And simply telling someone to "not play it" is a dangerously dismissive attitude that is likely to create more anger.
Note: Ares' Battlefield is not a "true" league system because once players are satisfied with their end of season rewards there is no more need to participate. So once players reach the top tier, if they stop participating (and therefore do not move themselves or anyone else out of that tier) then everyone can eventually keep drifting up to the top tier.
Highly unbalanced matches
Theoretically, the league system in Illusion Connect will work over the long term, sorting players into leagues where their matches are competitive. This is what adjusting ranks based on tracking wins and losses will eventually do.
However, on the micro level of individual players and individual matches, it might not seem this way and there are many reasons which are basically out of anyone's control.
For example, a high-powered player may finally start playing Ares' Battlefield late in the season. They'd have to start from zero like everyone else, so their matches on their way up to the higher leagues will be against much weaker opponents which they'd just flatten.
Those opponents will rightly feel they got a highly unbalanced match even though that high-powered player did nothing wrong and the league system was working as intended.
If this situation happens too often, they will start to perceive that the matching system is broken and try to identify traits that their matchups had -- much high level, advanced units, etcetera. But none of this is the real cause of dissatisfaction.
Since no one did anything wrong here, the only thing that can be addressed is the other aspect of PvP matches: Net gain for genuine effort.
(We are assuming there there is no exploit to somehow choose matchups -- which there may be. Some players claim to always be outmatched by a very wide margin, which is suspicious if true. And there is a report about quickly using the "back" button on a smart phone to decline a match if they see that the server is an older one compared to their own).
No net gain for genuine effort
When we look at gaming, one of the causes of frustration is being stuck. And this is not specific to PvP: For example, when players at endgame push for more power creep, they are feeling stuck because there is nothing more to develop, and no content to show off that development.
In PvP, and specifically in Ares' Battlefield, being stuck can mean you can't get more wins than losses to advance out of your league. During the PvP season, a player might not be able to improve their team enough to start winning more and go up to the next League. Again, no one is doing anything wrong -- in a league system, you are sorted into a league where you get competitive matches and if you are stuck there, you are actually in an appropriate place. If you have improved, you will naturally move up due to wins.
But players who perceive No Net Gain for Genuine Effort will not be happy with this situation. They may even recognize that they are legitimately stuck, but they will also start to recognize that it is a waste of time to continue trying because there is no immediate reward for their time. There is only risk of losing and falling into a lower league, and this becomes unacceptable when they might get a highly unbalanced matchup (see above) and there's nothing they can do about it.
This can lead to a destructive cycle where players simply stop trying and instead hold position in their tier to protect their end-of-season reward -- reducing the matchmaking pool, and making it more likely that unbalanced matches result.
(On the other hand, players who have reached the very top tier and therefore secured the best end of season rewards don't need to participate anymore. And if they don't participate, they cannot move themselves or anyone else out of that tier. So more and more people can eventually get into that top tier.)
If end-of-season rewards were protected -- if players got the reward for the highest tier they achieved, even if they later fell to al lower tier -- then there would at least be no net loss and reason to keep trying. However even that would probably not stop players from giving up if they continued to get bad matchups too often.
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In general, not getting anything (or not getting enough reward) for genuine effort destroys PvP populations. For example, in Star Wars: The Old Republic's Warzone PvP, Bioware basically changed PvP loss rewards to zero, and you can see the type of complaints about that on the official forum threads:
Bioware zeroed SWTOR Warzone PvP rewards because players were, among other reasons, loss-farming -- that is, they didn't care about winning, and the reward for losing was good enough. This resulted in teams losing because some or all members sabotaged the match in this way. Trying to combat loss-farming is legitimate, but how they did it created more problems.
Comparison: Dream Arena
Before Ares' Battlefield, there was a type of non-real-time PvP in Illusion Connect -- Dream Arena.
In Dream Arena, you "fight" other players. Their teams are controlled by the AI, and theoretically a live player could do better. But in reality most players just use Auto Combat to save time.
Dream Arena tracked participation with currency, and tracked rank by ranking up when you won a match, and ranking down when someone else defeated your team. You had no control over when you might lose rank because you weren't actually fighting them in real time. They just got you as an opponent controlled by the AI.
Everyone knows that Dream Arena is flawed -- the player level and Combat Power of the enemy teams might look higher than yours, but you can repeatedly try and eventually win some matches anyway. Or they might be a lower level and have a much lower Combat Power but you somehow can't defeat them even after trying a dozen times. But since you are both using the same AI through Auto Combat, it's "fair".
The crucial differences between Dream Arena and Ares' Battlefield -- and the reasons why Dream Arena is actually a superior system and provides a better gameplay experience for players -- is how it avoids Highly Unbalanced Matches and provides Net gain for Genuine Effort.
Dream Arena has better matchups
Dream Arena finds the player 10 matches each time. From the wide range of player levels and Combat Power of the teams, it is clear that those numbers are misleading and meaningless, especially when you can still win despite those matchups having a numerical advantage on paper. But typically players experience being able to win some matches and lose some matches. This is an appropriate experience of PvP.
In fact most players will be able to defeat at least the five easier opponents, and that experience of winning (even though those opponents are probably deliberately weaker) keeps players motivated.
Additionally, players end up looking at their performance over 10 matches, instead of one match at a time, which can result in only considering the losses and ignoring wins.
Furthermore, Dream Arena does this without "Equal CP" scaling to help newer and very low level players participate. In fact, scaling up players to participate in Ares' Battlefield may in fact be a cause of confusion and inappropriate expectations because players expect that they will be quite competitive when in fact lens and gear has a much greater effect than merely level and they are still overwhelmed by more established players.
If there is anything frustrating it would be losing rank when you are offline and basically not being able to do anything to avoid that. This is particularly irritating toward the final hours of a season, where you could get bumped down in tier at any time if there is a flurry of activity; and in turn cause you to lose some rewards. However, when the player is active in Dream Arena, their experience of matchups is generally positive.
In summary, Dream Arena manages a more appropriate PvP experience with more appropriate matchups, and does so without eliciting the same anger as Ares' Battlefield -- this even when the opponent Level and Combat Power is displayed.
Dream Arena has Net Gain for Genuine Effort
If you lose, you don't really lose anything in Dream Arena and you can re-try. (Although attempts are limited by the number of Arena Tickets available, players can avoid losing Tickets in the case of a loss).
In the case where you happen to get a really strong opponent and can't get past them, at least you can give it a really good go instead of losing rank with each attempt -- which would eventually make a player too cautious to try, too frustrated with PvP, and ultimately frustrated with the game.
So the experience of Dream Arena is generally a positive one -- when you work on it, you inch upward. Your rank might still get lowered later, but you accumulate game currency and that can't be taken from you. For the player's time, there is net gain, or in the worst case there is no loss, and they can use the "Refresh" button to get a new set of matches to try again.
Recommendation: Integrate Real-Time PvP with Dream Arena as an option
Realistically, real-time PvP in a gacha game like Illusion Connect is a way for big-spending whales to flex the results of their purchases -- the power of their team, the fancy upgrades, the expensive skins/costumes, etcetera. For that social reason, having this live interaction to "show off" is in fact useful and healthy for the game. But for it to be sustainable and have a healthy population of participants, it needs to be a net positive experience for players.
Dream Arena can provide that net positive experience, so real-time PvP could be integrated with Dream Arena, and Dream Arena can be expanded into a cross-server experience like Ares' Battlefield.
Dream Arena would require two separate reward tracks:
- One for participation (measured by currency accumulation) and server Rank
- Basically this is what we have now, except matchups will be cross-server and server Rank is based on where they are in cross-server Rank.
- One for cross-server Rank and with rewards that steadily improve to what Ares' Battlefield provides.
- This would have smaller and smaller rank brackets as we get closer to the top tiers, similar to what Ares' Battlefield has now.
Although Auto Combat has a lot of randomness to it, realistically in the Top 5 to Top 10 positions, the power disparity is likely to be so great that unless they are quite closely matched, the randomness of Auto Combat using the AI should not be enough to get lucky and win.
For the Real-Time PvP aspect, instead of limiting the participation to two time windows daily (which can end up handicapping various players based on their schedules), it can be left open all the time, especially as it would be an optional and different way to play Dream Arena. Players who can't get live matches for whatever reason can still participate against the AI, which they do now.
Since live matches is dependent on who is available in the queue at the moment and is therefore more likely to result in bad matchups, we will need to be careful with the reward structure for wins and losses:
- Win: Currency gain, rank up, use up 1 Arena Ticket.
- Similar to an Auto Combat win.
- Extra currency could be provided because of the extra effort required in a live match.
- Loss: Currency loss, rank down, and gain 1 Arena Ticket.
- There is a penalty on currency and rank in case of players trying to farm losses. However, this is a net zero loss because they get 1 Arena Ticket and can regain currency and rank by regular Dream Arena against AI-controlled opponents.
- In the worst case, where the match turned out to be highly unbalanced, the losing player at least walked away with something to make up for it.
- Forfeit / Disconnect: Same as Loss
- Since the results for a Loss are estimated to even out to zero because we are giving an Arena Ticket, this result for accidental loss due to disconnection is acceptable.
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