Spent a decent chunk of time watching the 4v4 tournament this weekend. I’ve talked about my thoughts on the format and stuff, but instead this morning I want to talk about it from a game design angle.

Let’s pretend hypothetically, Sherman (Head of esports) and Peter (Game Director) decided we’re going to make 4v4 the main format and you have to officially support it. What changes would you make to the mode to get it officially ready to launch?

So, my hot take here is “Not much”. What does that mean exactly and why? So, first off there are for sure some UX changes that can be made for sure. Things like the scoreboard showing who is on which team (Red vs Blue team) or having the game end when a winning team is decided (If team B goes 6/7/8, then no need to play it out, just put TEAM A wins and move on). Stuff like this goes a long way to making it feel like the mode would be truly supported.

But…that might be it. I think a lot of people’s first instinct would be to alter the rules further. Stuff like “You can’t fight your allies anymore” or “Ways to share units/items” like we have in Double Up. However I think one of the main reasons people are enjoying this format is that it behaves EXACTLY like the live solo game they are used. All their learnings and understandings transfer over, and the format asks them to take all those learnings and leverage them in a slightly different way. If you alter those rules, then players don’t feel like their current mastery can apply, and quickly lose interest. I think this one of the main challenges with Double Up and getting people to cross between the modes, is that additional learning required.

So yeah, I likely wouldn’t change carousel or matchmaking or anything. I’d have the game work exactly like the solo mode so players can jump between the modes easier. And that’s sort of the lesson here. If your target audience is “The same competitive players who play the main mode”, then your design likely needs to support them and their current affinity for your game.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical. But this is the kind of thing its fun for me to think about and discuss to keep your problem solving sharp. Either way, tournament was a lot of fun to watch, and it seems like players enjoyed it as well.

Off to work for the week. Q&A stream this Friday at 8am. Over 450 questions were submitted, so time to see how many I can get through. Have a great week everyone, and take it easy 🙂