From the perspective of player needs, how can RPG mobile games design excellent social systems?

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Let me make it clear before I say that when we talk about RPG, we are referring to stand-alone RPG, which does not require a strong social system, so the RPG we are talking about here is MMORPG by default.

The social system in RPG mobile games is not about building a community, that is, we are not trying to make a social application. This system will serve the game itself, that is, it will solve some specific needs for the players in the game. If you can understand the specific social needs of the players in your game and solve them well, then you can say that you have made an excellent social system.

Next, let’s take a look at the specific social needs of players.

1. Initial stage: Novice players don’t know much about the game itself, and many players are prone to taking detours, and they are also afraid of taking detours. So in addition to the novice guidance system that comes with the game itself, we can design friend systems, team systems, and master-apprentice systems to help players grow. At the same time, we need to drive benefits for players who help other players grow (but not necessarily direct benefits, to avoid the situation of brushing small accounts).

For example, we once made a strategy game with national war as the core of the game. National war requires a large number of real players to participate in the offensive and defensive battles. Therefore, in order to grow stronger, many countries will send special players to stay at the exit of the novice village. Once a new player leaves the village, someone will immediately go over to pull the new player in, give the new player equipment and money, and upgrade the novice player throughout the process. Compared with the state of many game novices being ignored, many new players have a very high opinion of our game.

The design points of the friend, team and master-apprentice systems are to facilitate communication and to help other players complete tasks.

2. Mid-term: At this stage, players begin to have a certain understanding of the game, but the novelty brought by the game itself begins to decline. Players gradually come into contact with the more difficult and boring parts of the game and are more likely to leave. At this time, a gang (guild/country) system is needed to maintain players. The gang system generally has direct benefit rewards (gang wages, gang skills) and indirect benefit rewards (it is easier to team up with gang members to complete tasks that are difficult to complete alone, and it is easier to invite senior players in the gang to lead you through tasks).

The key point in designing the gang system is how to unite more players into a whole, rather than tending to a loose organization. If members are easily lost, the gang system will not play a corresponding role.

3. Late stage: At this stage, players generally reach a relatively high level, and their equipment and skills are close to the top. The general PVE gameplay can no longer arouse the interest of players, so the PVP system will be a higher challenge for players. Fighting with others is endless fun, and there are many systems such as single-player competition, multiplayer competition, gang competition, and cross-server competition. At the same time, some ranking systems and showing-off systems should be used to give the top players a sense of honor.

The key point in designing the PVP system is to balance the strength, operation and randomness. If the strength is too important, PVP will not be fun or interesting to mid-R, small-R and non-RMB players. If the operation and randomness are too important, it will be a fatal flaw for big-R players.

In addition, all the systems mentioned above also have a very important basic system, which is the chat system (world chat, gang chat, team chat, private chat). Without a good chat system, it is basically impossible to maintain a good experience for all the interactive systems mentioned above.

As for mobile games, it is nothing more than making the UI simple and clear, but simplicity is easier said than done.