Game Mechanics

What if you could win in Fortnite, and defend your position? What if you could prove to yourself and others over the span of several weeks that you are the best at what you are doing by combining MMO elements and round based survival.

The Idea is simple: Start a match and fight through day-advancements and overcome 24 in game days to face your foes in a final arena. Start easy in areas catered to welcome you, grind through mobs in PVE areas, fight through the PVP areas to forge your path into new areas of a gigantic new world. Your chosen character develops over time, by gaining experience points and more optimal gear. Some days will be more grind intensive, some others will be a fight to keep what was earned. The Map will be designed in a way that will allow access to areas depending on the day advancements, as of now there are 6 areas in total, the sixth being the final arena where the last battle takes place. As the areas advance, scarcity of obtainable items will rise, but with it, also the grading of the items, the number of events and boss fights be set according to the best game-experience. At the 20th day-advancement, this game will change unlimited life points to a total of 3 ultimate. Losing these will lead to a game over for the challenger. The last day will be set with one life, while surplus of lives when arriving at such day-advancement will be beneficial for stats and strength. The last day of this game, will become a battleground and final test of strength, character skills, grinding skills and end-game strategy, which will decide over the winner. And this winner, will be allowed to continue into another final game, with the newcomers at day 24.

Game Modes would be one good way to explain the entire evolution of the game, the final evolution, the concept it is today allows all other ideas to be experimented around in the future, with the adjustment of one in game parameter: Day-Advancements.

But as of now, the game modes are limited to normal games and ranked matches.

The main difference between these two modes will be the amount of time needed to complete one day-advancement and furthermore the statistical relevance of one match for the ranking.

The day-advancement will decide over a few things: As the days pass, the challengers will have had their chance to accumulate strength and experience, to show it all at the end. Players can take their own time in finishing up a day and play as long as they want on a certain day-advancement, but after an hour in a ranked game, they will stop accumulating experience points, stats for their rank and won't be able to stack stackable items. Their advancement will basically only be in terms of collecting resources and finding better augments and attachments for weapons. 

Some day-advancements will have unique events, like boss fights (in a pve area), manhunts, loot drops, and unique mob challenges, in which staying longer can be encouraged, on other days it can be the other way and worth it to switch the server as soon as the hour is hit, which will be symbolized by a small in game clock on the HUD, with 24 hours on it, which will fill up separate to the in-game hour clock, ticking with a shimmer until it starts pulsing to signal the player that a change can be made. 

There will be at least as many servers as there are possible days the players can reach by surviving, divided into zones that the Players can visit since most events will be Zone Based. An Example of how Servers would be divided would explain it the best:

• There are currently 5 zones, while the last zone is the final battle which has different regulations

• There are 24 (23), Day-Advancements a player can have to be matched evenly with others who have spent the same amount of time 

So one Server Identifier would read out like this:

• Zone1_DayAdvancement1, Zone1_DA2, ..., Zone1_DA7, Zone2_DA7-14... 

The number of days will have to be adjusted via playtests, currently the match duration reaches between 20 and 30 days (preferably with 24 in game days). The way people will individually advance into the next day depends on their play style. 

The early development idea of this game was suggesting that the players would join a server on a certain day, be marked with according day and have to play on the “same” server for the entire duration which was not set in 24 in game days but actual days, but that did not only pose various challenges from which some were basically unsolvable but is something that requires a massive loyal player base upfront; so the idea changed from basically being forced to play on the same server for the match duration into, each player has their own day-system and only people with the same amount of days are matched in one server and this day system works similar to other games, where one in game day requires only hours to complete. 

The day system is closely tied to how the servers has to work, so it’s mentioned more in detail here. Basically the player will be queued into a server, with other people that are on the same day-advancement, the closer their completion rate of the day is the more likely it is that they’ll be put into a trio or squad. 

The idea of how many people should be in one server is up to debate but definitely more than 100 up to a maximum of 250, so that the challenges and map-size works out, the exact number will depend on the technicalities. Depending on the amount of players at a certain day-advancement, we will provide more or less servers. 

As to how the day-advancement works, which is closely tied to how the servers have to work: 24 hours in-game will be around 124 minutes IRL (For ease of calculation from now on and spread around the document, it’s described as two exact hours, but for psychological reasons it does make more sense to take something which is not exact). These minutes will be played individually and the day and night cycle of the game will not depend on the person but on the server, the 124 minutes of a 24-hour cycle could technically be played completely during in-game sunrise as well if the person plays one hour on one day, and another hour the next day and randomly joins when the server is at the same in game hours. This can be tweaked on, but generally this would allow everything that posed a problem earlier:

• Loss of development at the end game is milder, since a day doesn’t take an actual day, or anything close to it, this has a few effects in itself: 

  • Speed; the value of day-advancements would stay, but an end would be far more feasible and can be tweaked on over time when a loyal player base comes into existence

  • But nonetheless, the day-advancements can be binged within three unhealthy days, aka. Around 50 hours

• For players with less time, this allows a continues development over time, while always facing people that are fairly “balanced” in their advancement, for lack of skill no competitive game can compensate for you as to the proverb - git gud 

• The issue of mismatching the day-advancement in a social setting (with IRL or in game friends). In a game that is based on individual day-advancement, it becomes a huge challenge to keep up with different paced players, but this issue is tackled in two ways

  • First: Players can decide to stay longer than required on a server and switch if they see fit, some days will have more players than others due to their unique events and loot drops anyway. So if a sympathetic trio is found, one can stay longer with them to switch together. 

  • Second: Three possibilities for different simultaneous characters allows different use-cases for each character, from which one could be to play that with a friend, one as a test another in cold heart ranked. 

The server switch will occur in the following way: There will be a UI element that can be opened up with a button and occurs tiny next to hp bar. The clock would show the time of the in game day, and it would slowly fill up opaque while the time passes that the person has on a server, when it’s full, it would signal the player two things: 

• You are allowed to progress in your day-advancement 

• You will now stop gaining XP, which is crucial to unlock the ability tree and become base stats by leveling 

• You will now stop stacking aura stones in your equipment (which is a crucial component for in game strength) 

This opens up possibilities to individualize the game experience, while staying in the loop, because there is always a way ahead, but a possibility to stay if there are any other motivators than leveling and stacking aura stones.

Players will be put in squads or trios (not cleared so far) chronologically depending on their in day advancement (of course only as close as possible means there can be huge gaps, but if one player leaves another can join so there is not a huge problem also if no one is in the squad, at least pre day 20. And basically if 2-3 other people are found for the day, in game or out of game, the match begins. Players in game can always quote kick others from the group or leave the group to have an own squad or no squad.Squads can keep the option toggled to have space for new players that can join without waiting for a squad to quick start a game basically. This option can also be turned off to not be a constant reminder, but trio/squad mate search can also be activated manually in case people want to be a group of 3 or 4. Of course, people can send friend requests and in case the play times do not match, people can spend longer on a certain day advancement, though this will come with it’s own drawbacks such as no XP gain, no way to stack items etc. 

This game could fantastically work also without squads and it would simplify a lot, but playing with teammates creates so many special social instances and joy that it would be sad to force it down upon people. Basically solo players can always choose to be solo, while the game recommends a trio or squad to be stronger on the battlefield, because other people can also always be a group of up to 4 people.

What happens after we die? The big question of our real life, became a big question of our game. Dying is a critical point, especially when we are talking about a game, which is leaned on surviving in an Arena, with people who want to kill you. But at the same time, you are leveling up your character, which you don’t want to really lose.

After a lot of different approaches, the mechanic looks as follows: 

If you die, all your items in your inventory that are not equipped nor in the bag item are lost, and you lose XP but only within the frame of your current level, so basically with 0% progression in the current level the player loses no further XP. 

Items that were equipped, get damaged with every death every item has 3 "lp" and one gets removed upon death. Basically three deaths can lead to the loss of a complete item if it was not repaired before, so far item durability is only something that gets affected upon death.

If you lost aura stones that were not equipped, but you had them stacked, you will be able to stack those stones faster than before, “One Kill = Two stacks” up until the point where you stacked them already. Later in the game, this catch-up mechanic can become even stronger. 

Items in your bag (not the normal inventory) and the bag itself are the only things that do not lose durability, this bag is basically attached to the soul and spawns with the player holding the same items it had before. 

For the first 20 days, the explanations above hold truth. 

After those 20 days, the sirens go off and next to the health bar, three heart like symbols appear, which means that if the player character dies three times, it’s game over. 

So there are 4 days, in which the game turns into a hardcore mode, even death by mobs leads to the loss of a heart. 

Every day from then on, one of the three hearts is removed, if not already removed by death.

If the player still had the heart, it grants them one type of extra stat they can choose from (like x% extra damage, x% extra health, x% extra movement speed, the more hearts, the more you can choose), this happens before the player character is attackable or even visible, when it switches the day-advancement to the next.

Day 24, every player that starts that day, starts with only one life left and will have no access to any pve area, there will be challenges spread across the area that will allow the players to gain important rank points to boost up their elo gain after the match. Because elo will be gained or lost for everyone no matter at which state one leaves the match. These challenges can reach from simple interactions, to various game modes such as capture the flag, or defending a statue, therefore playing in squads will be highly encouraged, even though a skilled full build player could potentially take on a group as well, with a lot of skill and perfect gear of course.  

Endless Arena Mode: Loss in 24 Day cycle can lead to either retiring your charakter or hanging onto it, sending them into an endless arena mode, where you can win to get revived from your rotten flesh back to alive state, to then try again, accepting the endless mode for a charakter changes their appearance, if you should retire them without winning the endless arena, they are saved with that state. Otherwise, if you win, they come back alive but with a mark, you can play again if you lose the og game again, it will be retired automatically, with the entire journey. You can only have one endless char at a time. 

One successful way of giving players a reason to play a game for the day are daily quests, which are kept short and simple. 

Simple to follow, and short-lived and especially… achievable. Something personal, so the feeling of accomplishment is achieved in a more genuine way and allows an individualistic feeling.

For this, I took an example from the game “Black Desert Online”. Which introduced the mechanic of special boss monsters, who appear from dark rifts and the loot can be massive as well. So it feels honestly worth to do those quests. Though there will also be “basic” quests. But not to say that people would get individual boss monsters, but rather that those events can pop off randomly for the current players during a session. 

One further example of a quest system, would be unique to this game. A type of integrated Storyline that can be played through every day until a certain point. A story line individual broken down to the character that is being played, since every character has an established lore. 

Let’s take Gunslinger for example (since Gunslinger has a good established Story in comparison to the other characters right now): His mission is to beat the Arena, so he can go back to his ex-wife Kolahna right? So his mission could be, to investigate the Arena (the story elements can be placed in pve places), to move from spot to spot, and accomplish daily missions, to be able to get back to his wife. This would be something that would give the Player more experience and connection to the character, which HE DOES NOT have to fulfill when he wants to rather just farm and level up in his own way, the UI has to be kept clean and minimalistic in case people want to disregard the mission. Because for that, there would be day-advancement depending on missions like “Kill 500 hellhounds”.  

These Monsters will be found in the PVE only zone of course and drop more specialized Aura Stones, Weapon attachments and Exp. Technically, people who just play for a short time, can use this mechanic as a checkpoint. 

Furthermore, one can turn these 24 in-game advancements into 24 real life day battle basses, that are not just pay to get but play to win and mostly tied to additional cosmetics for the BP duration.

The missions would be divided into Daily Quests and Storyline Quests.

To mitigate the problem of not having enough players clash on each other, especially in the first phases where the largest chunk of the map is the one where people are playing. Events would take place to draw attention, certain areas of the map would be highlighted for a day, some ideas would be bright shining circles appearing on the map, like a beacon almost in which certain perks would be activated for players i.e. ammunition is not used up, xp becomes twice as effective, mana/energy is not used for abilities. These areas can be combined with the idea of small game modes implemented on the map like conquer the flag, defend the location and so on. 

On top of these events at random or arithmetically calculated locations, there are also so called “centers with design and function”, only specified in so far because these would be map areas designed for matchfighting, looting, defending. Places that would have the most resources obviously, to attract attention, simple places like tilted tower in fortnite, but with even more functionality since this game offers a wide range of mmo elements.

After having designed one version of the rank system in intricate detail, I have come to the conclusion it would be best to leave the rank system to the final product design, since even with furbished games, ranked is something that has to be so well-adjusted to what’s exactly possible and not in the game, that giving pre-defined systems on how ranks does not work.

Generally the idea is, ELO will not only be based on how far someone has come even though that will be the main metric, but also how much someone has done within a match. To mitigate cheating, by abusing loops, kills, deaths, heals etc. other metrics have to be found and/or made more fundamental in value. For example, the placing one gets at the final day and especially how many final days someone has survived. That will be the metric of professionals, while for everyone else and then including certain in-game stats will hopefully be used. 

Winners get special type of coins, which they can only get by winning: so this is not the regular coin, which can be spent on skins or similar, for that there is another currency.

The value/amount of these coins would be set according to certain metrics that will also define the elo/ranking of the person. 

These coins are for the great upcoming future tournament. 

A tournament, which will be displayed worldwide. 

The Top 240 players, with the most coins collected on one server, are then invited to the server tournament, which is streamed globally and of course directed with certain amount of extra rules and referees. 

• Extra rules might look like this:

  • Only play on certain times

  • Stream only with certain amount of delay

  • Have a fixed team by day 1, unlike dynamic teams like in normal (participants can discuss this prior to the game)

  • People have a max amount of playtime which they can use. In case of a fight, the time is exceeded until the fight is over (can be used tactically of course)

  • Inactivity for a certain amount of days leads to disqualification

People with the most coins will be invited, the only other function of these coins will then be the ability to purchase skins, emblems, titles, HUD designs from a season shop (or convert the coins into regular coins), after the final game these coins will be set to zero to start the next collection warfare for the next season.

One idea is also, to use 1% of spendings on skins or transactions into the pot for the finale, rounding up to a total figure.