Extra Credits

Intermediate Social Curve Design - Introducing Cooperation Rewards (2015x24)

Air date: Jun 24, 2015

Once players like Emily have gotten comfortable with the mechanics of the game, they're ready to dip their toes into the social features. Early social challenges should be easy to complete in a single play session, like small raids that can easily be defeated by a random pick up group. Instead of just ramping up the difficulty to force players into groups, though, the game designer should give bonus rewards to players who work together (even if it's something as small as increasing their chance of getting better loot) without making solo missions impossible. Hitting this balance between low effort social tasks and better game rewards makes the player feel comfortable and confident about reaching out to other players, which is crucial to move them onto the next stage of social curve design.