Poxnora analysis from a non-commited player

Hello,

My ING is Planewalkr and I have been playing Poxnora for a couple years. However, during this time I have only played a few matches. I’m level 49 and have perhaps 40 ranked matches under my belt.

Even though, I have a great interest in this game and in the concept behind it. Also, I have lurked the forums a lot to see what people are saying about the game and what are the issues within the community. Occasionally I have made a post.

I make this long post now, because I feel I have something to add to the discussion on this game as a whole. I do this because I see all discussion is being dominated by people who like the game and are in to it. Therefore, changes suggested is on the level of gameplay mechanics, balancing, level of rune accessibility, bug fixes, etc, because they argue from a perspective that the game is fun to play when these things get in order.

I would like to approach the future of this game from a completely different point of view. I am a historian by profession, board game designer, have an interest in psychology and have been an avid gamer (Tibia, Utopia, Counterstrike, RainbowSix, Age of Empires, Call of Combat, League of Legends, Battle for Wesnoth, Hearthstone).

My main point is that is does not matter if the game is fun or not compared to some other elements.

Myself and many others have been addicted to the most stupid of games. Games that were not per se fun to play, but had the structure that kept people playing. This is the main problem PoxNora has in my opinion. A total lack of viable retention structure for (new) players.

By now it is well known that large and small game developers hire psychologists for building and analysing their games. Most innocently put, this means testing if the content is received as intended by users. On the darker end developers try to synchronise gameplay experience with neurological reward mechanisms. This basically means trying to make your game as addictive as possible.

The clearest examples can be seen in MMORPG like World of Warcraft. How much experience does a creature give, how much do you need to level up, how many wolf paws can we let a player collect before he gets bored.

Please realize that the 10 gold for three wins, 100 gold a pack and quest rewards in Hearthstone are not chosen at random. A multi-million dollar company like Blizzard will spend a large chunk to optimize these numbers to have maximum player retention, keep players interested in the game and give a feeling of progress, achievement and goals. All the while still having the numbers right that people have incentive to buy packs, quests and reskins.

Yes, they also have made an entertaining game.

How would the big players in gaming land look like when they would just have made an entertaining game, but forgot about the above part? They would look like PoxNora.

I therefore propose a paradigm shift to the developers and the community.

Content, balance, bugfixes, a global chat function instead of local chat…… As well intended as it all sounds, the war is fought on a different front.

I have let friends of mine look at the game. They see 10 000 runes with 10 000 abilities. How autistic must one be at this point to be able to get in this game? How do you expect someone to play 90 second turns when they need to read up on the equivalent of novels worth of text on champions they have never seen before.

An sense of progress is utterly lacking. I can grind to buy a pack, a box or whatever, but it lacks any large embedment to get me hooked.

Nurture new players. Form a plan why they would keep playing. Use data to see what the make or break point in retention is. Create an epic story with Pox lore that players feel they take a part in. Find a way to expose new players only to a fraction of the runes in the game. Let it be a fun discovery. Let players get addicted to reach the next level where they unlock a new tier rune. Pitch players against players with a basic rune pool of 10-30 runes. Make an interesting AI to fill voids if player base is lacking. Introduce only a new rune every few games to the new players. Find a balance between playing with the same runes and unlocking new content that makes things manageable, interesting but not tedious for people signing up.

I hope I got my point across. There is a great effort from the community to help fix the game, but I see both the players and the developers to committed to a concept they already find fun. My wish is that we drop this insider view and try bring changes to the game on different level.


If you see merit to what I say; I can draft specific plans on how to use the PoxNora existing lore, gameplay and rune setup to create an engaging experience to both new players and older players. Also I’m willing to consult further on reward systems, to put it bluntly, make the game more addictive. Because I have, perhaps unfortunately, both professionally and personally, a great deal of experience in this field.

 

a worthwhile read, i don't have too much to add right now aside from that (and that i tend to agree).


also, introducing only a new rune at a time would take longer to fulfill than the current system- do it by expansions, possibly. win 5 games (or something) with an expansion and the next is unlocked for you too. there's really no getting around the fact that pox as-it-is requires a ridiculous depth of knowledge that you can't acquire anywhere else- the only real hope is to give people a parachute when they jump off the mountain (or something- you get my point). the expansion thing would require a significantly more f2p-like system, too, which brings us to our next point

the odds of this happening in the remotely near future seem minute, due to how staffed DOG are. i feel like even if they dropped everything else and focused on this, the time it would take might drive everyone away because there's no new anything else to keep them around.

 

I agree completely.

 

Sounds great, good feedback

If basic expansions are given for free, they can create special campaings where they unclock runes by faction, by rarity, by expansion. Everything lorewise.

 

Pox 2.0 is the only salvation this game has at this point.

 

What do you mean with 2.0? How much of an overhaul? Graphics? Engine? Revamp?

 

Just starting the game from scratch, as if there was a big cataclysm in the world of Pox, all the living/unliving creatures were decimated and we need new ones.
Same gameplay mechanics.
Give us new art, sprite, engine, whatever. Just start it from scratch, like first expansion there are like 30 runes from each faction and go from there.
I mean, DOG is moving the game in a good direction, but its far too late for that (at least imo).

 

the whole game is broken buggy mess,it would be better to start from scratch on new engine

 

I agree Pox 2.0 would be better than this, mostly for it's new engine and multiple platrom availability, but the investment that would require it's HUGE.

I don't see a new company buying Pox and redoing it. If anything, fans will reprogramme it. I simply don't see Pox dying complety, just it's profitability.

 

I wonder if any game has been successfully kept alive by being taken over by players.

 

Man I hate to say it but everything he said is true!

 

I just can not agree with you

After reading your post, I have to say that your analysis of this game is a bit off. Pox is not like any game out there. It is a combination of a trading card game and chess. Your request implies that this combination be simplified, which it can not be since the very fascination of this game is in its complexity. Here is what you are asking. DOG should create a ramp up system that gets a player addicted. Well, Hearthstone does that. It is that though because the strategy is simple. It is a trading card game. It goes fast, and it grows more powerful, everything an addict needs. But when you move chess into the strategy, addiction no longer becomes an effective draw because chess is not fast. It is a slow paced, thinking game that requires well-developed strategy that takes years to master. In chess, your pieces are already set for you, and their movements are known. In Pox, however, the pieces are much more complex than the pieces of chess. So your request just can not be done because the integrating system from newbie to any decent level requires a tutorial on trading cards build and chess, which would take a long time to design and complete. New people would still quit because the tutorial time is too long.

 

TL;DR Pox needs 2.0
A new Pox on a new engine for cross-platform play (EVEN IF IT NEEDS TO BE DELIVERED IN STAGES)
Kickstart the dang thing and incorporate all the balance, NUX, and everything you need to get it rolling. <-- But for all that is holy, please make sure you have it done so that it looks totally smexy!
Pox is a great game, and I say this honestly without any negativity at all, but this version of Pox is done.

All that said, imagine an incredible Steam release (with rune give-aways and special incentives) for a balanced, non-bugged, non-ancient, NUX giving Pox 2.0!
Make it so, Number 1!

 

Seriously? If you think single player is ok, then I dont even know what to say... The AI stinks, campaigns are basically either super champs or a swarm of enemies... nothing interesting on the AI level, which can barely use equips or spells... Yes, it might have improoved, but single player experience is still a long way from being decent.

Why should you focus on single player, you ask? Because thats the first thing most new players get into when playing a new game... In almost no game a new player is able to jump right into PvP and even if he's able to, he usually wont expect to do well, unless it's a sequel of a game he already knew or one that have well-known mechanics (FPS, Wow or DOTA style games).

And that is exactly the OP point, you wont get people to download the game simply by adding new runes and making balance changes. Those actions are for games that are doing great and just need some improovement to keep the already big player base interested in the game. Pox needs more emphasis on player achievement and neither the single player or the ranked league offer any of it.

Do you really belive that the reason its quite difficult to reach new players is the one you pointed?

The task to get into Pox to a point where its actually fun to play is daunting with all the abilities and runes there are atm. Yes, you have been working on reducing the amount of abilities, but that alone is not enough. And by that I don't mean you need to simplify the game, just make it more accessible and rewarding (see DOFUS or PoE, both have a complex aspect to it but both are newbie friendly)

"My wish is that we drop this insider view and try bring changes to the game on different level."

 

@dooiefries

Great read. You from the netherlands by any chance btw?