Designing Player Goals

Learn how to design player goals and progression systems to keep players engaged longer in Roblox games.

Key Takeaways

Clear and well-structured player goals are essential to keep players engaged and motivated.
Balancing challenge and content pacing prevents player frustration and drop-off.
Short, mid, and long-term goals work together to sustain player interest over time.
Understanding different player types helps tailor goals that appeal to a wider audience.
Progression systems help extend game longevity by providing ongoing incentives.

What the video covers

Introduction to player goals and progression by Roblox game designer Kale and host Erin.
Common reasons why players stop playing games, including lack of fun, unclear goals, repetitive gameplay, and imbalance in challenge.
Explanation of diminishing marginal utility and how clear player goals can counteract declining fun over time.
The importance of setting short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals to maintain player motivation and engagement.
Examples of goals in games, such as winning sports championships, to illustrate stakes in gameplay.
How short-term goals align with the core gameplay loop and feed into mid-term and long-term goals.
Discussion on appealing to different player types by offering varied goals to broaden game appeal.
Using progression systems to extend content lifespan and keep players invested.
Mapping player types and goals to game features for better design alignment.
Emphasis on balancing goals and progression to create a rewarding player experience.

Chapters

Why is it important to have clear player goals in a game?

Clear player goals provide direction and motivation, helping players see progress and stay engaged even as the core gameplay becomes less novel over time.

What are the different types of player goals discussed?

Player goals are categorized into short-term (achievable in a session), mid-term (days to a week), and long-term (weeks to months), each serving to maintain motivation at different stages.

How can game designers appeal to different player types?

Designers can create varied goals and features that cater to different player motivations, such as socializing, achievement, or exploration, to broaden the game's appeal.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

[Music] Hello everyone. My name is Erin, also known as Breakfast Candy, and it's my pleasure to welcome you all to our Level Up workshop on player goals and progression, featuring Roblox's own game insights game designer Kale, aka Dinosmore.

Speaker A

Ko, over to you.

Speaker A

Thank you, Aaron. Hello everybody. As Aaron said, my name is Kale. I'm a game designer over here at Roblox, and for today's workshop, I'm going to be taking you on a magical road trip through player goals and progression.

Speaker A

So our agenda for today: we're going to start with player goals. That's part one. So we'll be covering what motivates your players to keep playing, what goals appeal to different players, and finding the right goals for your audience.

Speaker A

And then after that, we'll get into part two, which is progression. So what is a progression system and why does it matter? How does progression keep players engaged? How does it help you as a developer make content last longer?

Speaker A

And kind of the overarching theme of today's talk that covers both of these topics is how you can use player goals and progression to keep players engaged in your game longer. But before we kind of get into that,

Speaker A

let's kind of talk about the opposite issue, which is why do players stop playing your game? So, A, it's not fun. That's kind of obvious. If your game's not fun, people aren't going to want to keep playing it. That's

Speaker A

pretty self-explanatory, right? There's no clear goals, so the player doesn't know what to do. It's not clear what the point of the game is. They have no direction. Gameplay gets repetitive, so players are doing the same thing over and over

Speaker A

again. Gameplay doesn't evolve or change. It just repeats itself. It's not challenging, so either the core gameplay is too easy, or if you have a competitive game, maybe advanced players are placed in the same match as new players, so there's not a feeling of

Speaker A

increased challenge as the player gets deeper into your game. And then we have the kind of opposite problem, which is that it's too challenging. So maybe as a new player, you're putting a match with

Speaker A

advanced players and just get steamrolled. Maybe you're introduced to powerful enemies early on. It feels unfair. You can't win. That's frustrating, and that's why players rage quit. Maybe they're overwhelmed or confused, so there's too much going on, there's so

Speaker A

much to do, players can't figure out how to play or what the game's main focus is. Finally, there's not enough content, so players basically just run out of stuff to do. Ah, that one's pretty obvious. All right, so luckily all of these issues can be

Speaker A

helped with player goals and progression. So like I said, we're going to start by focusing on player goals. So goals give players a reason to keep playing. So why is it important to have clear goals? Well, first off, core gameplay gets less fun

Speaker A

the more you play it. So there's actually an economic term for this called diminishing marginal utility. That's this graph over here. So margin is a unit of something, and utility is essentially the value derived from that unit. So diminishing marginal

Speaker A

utility suggests that the more of something you consume, the less value each new item has, and at some point, the cost will outweigh the benefit, at which point you'll stop buying. So I guess we can use ice cream as an

Speaker A

analogy here. So, uh, let's say it's Friday night. I have a sweet tooth. I want to get some ice cream. That first scoop of ice cream is going to be so great. It may cost three bucks, but I'd

Speaker A

happily pay four for it. So I eat that first scoop of ice cream. Hits the spot. Perfect. Um, you know, I could go for a second scoop of ice cream. It's not going to be as good as the first, but it'll still be

Speaker A

good. It's worth three dollars. I'll pay that. But then I get to the third scoop of ice cream. I've had enough. Maybe I'll get kind of starting to feel sick. Three dollars probably isn't worth another scoop of ice cream, so I'm going to tap out.

Speaker A

I'm done for the night. And you kind of take that same concept and apply it to games. So for games, our margin is time. So players are spending time, units of time, in our game, and what they're getting out of our game is fun,

Speaker A

enjoyment, etc. So generally, no matter how fun your game is, after the novelty is worn off, it will become less fun to play over time. Uh, this is unfortunately just human nature, right? But luckily, uh, goals can make up for

Speaker A

this dip by promising more fun down the road. So by giving players a clear goal, you are showing them that there are still cool new things in your games to experience. So when they reach that point where they might drop off, they might

Speaker A

instead be like, "Well, I want to see what this new feature is," or "I want to see what happens when I get this cool item." They have more incentives to keep playing. So yeah, I like to think of goals in

Speaker A

terms of short, mid, and long-term goals. So short and mid-term goals keep players motivated as they work towards more aspirational long-term goals. We'll dig into this deeper, uh, in a minute. Um, interesting goals put more at stake in core gameplay,

Speaker A

increasing the fun. So a good example of this would be a professional American football, uh, or any professional sport really. So at the beginning of the season, a team's long-term goal is to win the championship. Maybe its midterm goal might be to make

Speaker A

the playoffs, and its short-term goal would be to win the next regular season game, since their performance in the regular season game affects whether they will make the playoffs, which in turn affects whether they'll win the

Speaker A

championship. There's a lot more at stake in each individual game. So compared to like an exhibition or a preseason game where there's no consequences, these games are much more interesting because they have something at stake, right? Exhibition games, on the other

Speaker A

hand, are less interesting as it doesn't affect the team's ultimate goal. Um, so there's nothing at stake, and it doesn't really matter how they perform. And you can take that concept and apply it to your game. If there's something at

Speaker A

stake in your core gameplay, the core gameplay will inherently be much more interesting. All right, diving into short, mid, and long-term goals. Um, so, uh, usually when I'm mapping out goals for a game, I like to start with the long-term goal. I think

Speaker A

that's the most important, and kind of nailing that helps you nail the mid and short-term goals. So let's start with long-term goals. This is kind of the main driving force behind your game. It's what players want the most.

Speaker A

That could mean getting the ultimate pet, becoming the most powerful player, or maybe completing a battle pass. Depends on your game. Ideally, these goals should take weeks or months to complete, and the purpose is to give players an

Speaker A

aspirational goal to work towards. All right, next we have midterm goals. These should ideally take days to a week to complete, and the purpose here is to keep players motivated as they work towards long-term goals. So if all you have are long-term goals

Speaker A

that take a long time to reach and no mid-term goals to work towards in the meantime, players are going to feel like they aren't making any progress, and they'll lose motivation. So adding midterm goals gets something valuable and achievable that they can work

Speaker A

towards on their way to long-term goals, which not only increases motivation but will make them feel like they're making progress. And then the last goal we have are short-term goals. Basically, these should be achievable in a single session,

Speaker A

basically what am I doing right now while I'm playing, and the goal is to give players immediate goals they can act on, and usually this should be your core loop, right? So if it's not your core loop, um,

Speaker A

either your core loop needs work, or you should reframe your short-term goals. We'll get into examples of each of these in a minute. The last note here is that each goal should feed up to the next,

Speaker A

so my short-term goals should feed up into my midterm goals, and completing my midterm goals should feed up into my long-term goals. So by making and completing my short-term goals, I'm actually making progress towards this mor...

Speaker A

to players which is important too so starting with long term goals long term goals in pet simulator x are to collect all the pets get the most powerful pets you can see over here on the right that basically as soon as you enter the game

Speaker A

you're dropped in this lobby and there's rows of pet eggs and it's very clear kind of your goal is to unlock these eggs and unlock all the pets associated with those eggs it even shows your progress right there

Speaker A

um so it's very clear right at the start what the point of the game is and kind of what you're working towards moving on to midterm goals so that could be unlock the next area unlock new features unlock new pets

Speaker A

so each area of the map you can see over here on the right has a wall that must be unlocked to progress to the next area new areas unlock new eggs which in turn unlock new pets so this feeds into the long-term goal of

Speaker A

collecting all the pets getting the most powerful pets which is great some areas also unlock new features which is a very kind of exciting goal for players to work towards it also helps kind of control onboarding so by pacing

Speaker A

out when new features get unlocked you're helping to make sure new players aren't getting bombarded with a bunch of new um a bunch of features and they're not getting overwhelmed and they can unlock it as they get deeper in the game

Speaker A

so when they first start playing they can focus on the core all right moving on to short-term short-term goals um for this game that is collecting coins with your pets so this is the core gameplay this is what players are doing

Speaker A

most of the time it's the core loop you get pets use those pets to get coins right and by earning coins i can buy more eggs i can unlock new areas by unlocking new areas you're unlocking new eggs which

Speaker A

in turn unlock new pets which all gets me closer um to achieving my long-term goal of complete completing the pet collection or getting the most powerful pets so by playing the game by playing through the core loop i am making

Speaker A

progress towards my long-term goal another example could be welcome to bloxburg so the long-term goal here might be build my dream house so you know building your dream house is a great long-term goal because it takes time but it also takes money

Speaker A

so a good midterm goal might be i'm going to start by upgrading one room at a time so maybe i'm going to start with my living room here upgrade my couch get a better tv but that of course requires money so

Speaker A

maybe another midterm goal could be getting a job promotion so i can make more money so in that sense the short term goal would be to go to work to earn money for my sweet new couch by working i earn money that helps me

Speaker A

upgrade my living room which gets me closer to building my dream house so by going to work i'm making progress towards building my dream house right one more example let's go with jailbreak so jailbreak has a season pass system so

Speaker A

you could say the long-term goal there is to get this season's top prize which is this sweet car over here so that's my long-term goal but that's obviously going to take some time it's level 10 way over here

Speaker A

i've just started level one so maybe my midterm goal is just to reach the next tier right and unlock those rams so my short-term goal will be to complete contracts and by completing contracts i'm going to earn xp

Speaker A

and by earning xp i'm going to reach the next tier and by reaching the next tier i'm getting closer to getting this season's top prize so again they kind of all feed into each other and the short-term goal completing contracts is

Speaker A

kind of based on jailbreak's core loop which is robbing banks making arrests etc all right so what qualifies as a goal it depends on your game it could be new items weapons vehicles so to kind of stay on the jailbreak train

Speaker A

um they have uh one million dollar vehicles uh one million dollars in game currencies a lot it takes a lot of time to get that much currency so it's a good long-term goal and these cars are extra special they look really cool

Speaker A

uh they could have better stats um so it's something you can show off it's a great long-term goal but it could also be you know depending on your game uh cool weapons etc it could be cosmetics so um

Speaker A

if there's maybe uh more advanced cosmetics in your game that are maybe more rare or special or look cooler that kind of provides some social value in the game that could be a good goal it could be new areas kind of like we've

Speaker A

talked about with pet simulator x where new areas have you know new enemies uh potentially new you know items or pets depending on your game um it could also be new features or modes um so this is from world zero

Speaker A

um you have to reach level 40 to unlock the pvp arena so if i'm really into competitive gameplay this feature is a really good goal for me to unlock there's new ranks or levels so this example is from the battle pass in

Speaker A

bed wars so kind of in addition to the content being unlocked the rank itself can has value can have value as it shows off my skill up with other players um and maybe reaching the top of the leaderboard could be another example of

Speaker A

how ranks and levels could be a goal for some players but essentially a goal can be anything a player aspires to have again it largely depends on your game and what your players are interested in [Music] which brings us to our next point which

Speaker A

is different players have different goals so not all players are interested in the same thing focusing entirely on one goal type may appeal to one group of players but not to others so think about having different goals that appeal to different players

Speaker A

appealing to different player goals allows you to engage with a wider wider variety of players you can use the bartle player types to help you hone in on relevant player goals so this over here is the barto player types

Speaker A

it was made by richard bartle in 1996 so he was a game developer and he was interested in basically what motivates players to play certain games and he landed on four different player types right so uh this model is super helpful for

Speaker A

kind of giving direction to your game but it's by no means comprehensive it doesn't mean all players fall squarely into these different player types but it can be useful for thinking about your audience and what goals might appeal to them so let's get a little

Speaker A

deeper into these player types so bottle breaks down players based on two axes so the vertical axis is based on acting and interacting so acting kind of means acting on or against something whereas interacting kind of means interacting with more cooperatively

Speaker A

and then the horizontal axis is based on players and world players being other players in the game the world being the game world the game systems the narrative etc so if we start kind of from uh top to

Speaker A

bottom um up here in the top left corner we have killers killers enjoy acting on or against other players so they are kind of focused on beating other players reaching the top of the leaderboard flexing their skills um they

Speaker A

like competitive games so things like first person shooters esports games any game that they can kind of dominate other players right and then over here in the top right we have achievers so achievers enjoy acting acting on or against the world

Speaker A

the world being the game the game systems so they're focused on heating the game maxing out their stats getting all the achievements and collections these are your min maxers over here and then if we go back over here to the

Speaker A

bottom left we have socializers so socializers enjoy interacting with other players as opposed to against other players so their main focus is on playing with friends and making new ones they want to build relationships in the game so these players like

Speaker A

like games where they can work cooperatively cooperatively with other players express their personality meet new people so like role playing is a great example of games that appeal to socializers as it involves multiple players commuting and communicating and cooperation with

Speaker A

each other and also allows them to meet new people finally over here in the bottom right we have explorers so explorers enjoy interacting with the game world right so they are focused on exploring the world these are the people that are

Speaker A

really going to dig into the game's lore it's narrative they like to discover new things and find hidden secrets so these are your easter egg hunters etc so these players like games with detailed worlds deep narrative and systems that allow for kind of some

Speaker A

experimentation and that they can kind of figure out on their own so you can think about open world sandbox games will appeal to these people narrative focused games they like puzzles um so so yeah so those are the

Speaker A

fl the the the four player types so why is this important you want to know your audience and focus on them so by using the barto player types you can clearly define your audience and focus on what they're interested in

Speaker A

that being said don't try to make your game appeal to all player types not all players will be interested in your game and that's okay focus on the player types that will be the most engaged with your court game

Speaker A

trying to cater to all groups can make it less a less engaging experience overall so for example adding a leaderboard to your role playing game probably won't make your game much more appealing to killers or killers or achievers

Speaker A

it may however make role-playing um less enjoyable for your main players as it doesn't really fit with their kind of gameplay objectives so um generally i recommend picking one group as your primary player group to build your main goals around

Speaker A

this helps keep your gameplay and content focused on the group that will enjoy your game the most so when you go to add new features or a new goal your first question should be how will it affect my primary player

Speaker A

type will it improve their experience or will it make it worse after that i think it's really helpful to choose a secondary group and build a set of goals for them as well so as i mentioned earlier it's good to

Speaker A

appeal to more than one player type to make your game more interesting to a wider variety of players you shouldn't make this kind of the main focus of your game but you should look at ways to add additional game player

Speaker A

goals that appeal to this secondary group um it also uh encourages you as a developer to kind of be creative and think out of the box so yeah combining different kind of gameplay elements that work together to appeal to different players makes your

Speaker A

game play more interesting that being said some player types don't always get along so explorers for example can often get frustrated with killers as they get in the way of kind of peaceful exploration so uh yeah um we were

Speaker A

recently playing a game with dan uh and aaron and dan it was an exploration based game and and dan was harvesting resources to craft a new item and uh i probably follow him a killer type mostly so i was just focused on killing dan

Speaker A

and that was a frustrating experience for dan and a more enjoyable experience for me but that's kind of an example of how player types can kind of collide with each other and that's not to say you can't combine them but you

Speaker A

just need to be very conscious of of how they might conflict so in that example maybe you could have it so um pvp can only happen in certain areas that way when the explorers are out exploring in the world they don't have to worry

Speaker A

about getting killed by another player and then they can kind of coexist but anyways the point is to be very conscious of the different player groups you're trying to appeal to and make sure you make decisions based on on what

Speaker A

they're interested in um all right so let's take a look at some examples of different player types so we'll start with arsenal arsenal is a competitive pvp shooter so this one's kind of obvious it's mostly focused on acting against

Speaker A

other players so the main kind of player type for arsenal would be killers that's their primary player type but what would the secondary player type be um it doesn't inherently appeal to socializers there's not a ton of ways to

Speaker A

communicate or make fruit new friends um there are team-based mechanics but it's not it's not a big focus of the game um so i wouldn't pick socializers there's no exploration you're not like exploring the levels and finding out new

Speaker A

things there's no narrative so the gameplay actually may go against kind of what explorers are interested in it does however have a level a leveling system tons of badges and achievements and kind of a deep collection system so i think that

Speaker A

gameplay kind of fits very well with achievers so in that case i would make kind of achievers the secondary uh player group for arsenal um looking at a dot me so adopt me the primary game is focused on collecting and leveling up different

Speaker A

pets so collecting all the pets leveling them up maxing them out and showing them off fits very well with the achiever mindset right so maybe for adopt me the primary group is achievers but when it comes to the secondary group

Speaker A

adoptme has a very uh robust social system a big robust role-playing system it has trading so it actually overlaps with the socializer group quite well and a trading system is actually a great example of a feature that appeals to

Speaker A

both achievers and socializers achievers can maximize their collection by trading with other people while it also kind of requires uh communication socialization for our socializers so that's a good example of a feature that can kind of work with two

Speaker A

player groups at once um so to adopt me so lumion legacy is an adventure rpg with a deep story and exploration gameplay but because there is such a deep narrative and fascinating details about all the creatures and movement legacy an

Speaker A

expansive world to explore this game would primarily appeal to explorers so explorers would be the primary player group here gameplay is also focused on building a collection of creatures also called lumions that can be leveled up which plays very well with achievers

Speaker A

so achievers would be a good secondary player type here for our last example we have brookhaven player types so everybody should know brookhaven it's obviously a super popular role-playing game um since it's almost entirely based around role-playing and since role-playing

Speaker A

requires socializing with multiple players socializers should be the primary player group here but what with the secondary player type b so uh focusing on killers or achievers may actually get in the way of role playing so if i'm role playing some

Speaker A

scenario with my friends and someone comes and takes me out that's not fun and role-playing isn't necessarily about you know maxing out stats or anything like that so um kind of focusing on achievers doesn't necessarily fit very well to socialize just either

Speaker A

exploration on the other hand can actually make role playing better so i would say the secondary group would be explorers so the brookhaven devs have actually done a really good job of kind of making a big world and kind of sprinkling in

Speaker A

hidden secrets and narrative throughout the world and that actually feeds in to role playing it provides new scenarios for players to act out um there's also tons of interactable objects um so yeah these two player types kind of fit

Speaker A

really well with broken all right so why is important to know your player types and goals um so i guess just to wrap up this section i want to summarize um kind of the point of mapping out your player types and

Speaker A

goals so knowing your player types gives you a better understanding of your audience and what motivates them and by knowing that by knowing what your players are interested in it helps your content keep stay focused on what they are actually

Speaker A

going to like which helps you make more conscious decisions is what you should work on next and by uh having more engaging content you're creating more effective short mid and long term goals for your players and then by having more effective goals

Speaker A

that gives players something to aspire to and play for which in turn makes for a more compelling experience that will make uh players hopefully play longer right all right so um next uh that brings us to our design session for this workshop

Speaker A

so you should have received a worksheet from us if you are watching at home you should be able to find it on the dev forum i'm going to go through this worksheet to map out our goals and player types

Speaker A

for our favorite fictional farming game farm and fun so farm and fun you build your family farm into an epic agricultural empire so it's a farming game basically in which players plant and harvest crops tend livestock in order to get materials to

Speaker A

craft things like food and furniture that they sell or trade in order to upgrade their farms with more buildings more fields to plant crops and more livestock so as they earn xp from quest they level up unlock new crops animals

Speaker A

customizations and along the way they can role play as farmers you know find a community trade with other players and sell their ware at the farmers market so now that we kind of understand the core loop of this game we can start

Speaker A

figuring out um kind of what the the player types and goals might be so i'm going to stop sharing this you should have this worksheet player types and goals so um our first kind of section talks about defining your audience so i've

Speaker A

summarized all the bottle player types here just in case you weren't listening or skipped over that section um but yeah down here we have an exercise that helps us really define what our player types are so let's go through this uh with our

Speaker A

farm and fun game so the first question would be what is your pr your game's primary player type just choose one so going back to the barto player type i'm making a farming game it's really focused on starting with a small farm

Speaker A

building out my farm there's a very strong sense of progression every time i level up i unlock new uh content whether that's crops animals i unlock new buildings there's a lot of deep crafting systems i think this kind of simulation game fits

Speaker A

really well with achievers right so i'm going to say my primary player type will be achievers what about your game and its features will appeal to this player type so i've kind of already talked about this but basically it has a deep game system

Speaker A

with a lot of spelling publicly with a lot of opportunities [Music] for optimization um and experimentation so that feeds into kind of the achiever mindset um there's let's see there it is um lots of content to unlock including new

Speaker A

crafting recipes and building tights thank god for correct the game also allows players to show off their farm to others so achievers they'll if they can't show off their progress that kind of defeats the purpose of progression so the ability to show off their

Speaker A

progression is a big part of their enjoyment so being able to show off their farm progression is a big part of this game you can go to see other players farms see where they're at so basically the game allows

Speaker A

players to show off their farm to others okay so i think that's my primary player type that's why they're playing so next you should kind of define a secondary player type um so i want farm and fun to be a very social game i want players

Speaker A

to play cooperatively together i want it to be a positive experience right so probably a competitive killer game probably is not the best fit here i'm not really interested in having a lot of exploration mechanics so i think i'm gonna focus on uh my secondary

Speaker A

player type um to be socializers all right so secondary player type is going to be socializers so what about your game and its features will appeal to this player um so let's see players can cooperate with each other um

Speaker A

to kind of help with each other's farm so whether that's uh you know watering another player's crops or helping them harvest on items you can basically help in other players farm so yeah players can cooperate with each other

Speaker A

by helping by helping to [Music] let's see what else so players can trade items with each other uh which is great because then you have to interact with other people what does this person want what is this what do i

Speaker A

have can we make a trade that requires a lot of communication or socialization um so that's a good good call for socializers so players can trade items um and help each other all right um anything else um yeah maybe

Speaker A

maybe um so so in addition to kind of if you have an existing game this is very helpful for kind of categorizing what you have now kind of really focusing in um but it's also very good when you're making a new game to kind of

Speaker A

show weak points and what your game might actually be missing um so these are really kind of strong socialization features um but can i add anything else that kind of um uh systematizes that a little bit better so um maybe there we need some more uh

Speaker A

group mechanics so it's not just one player helping another but maybe there's um a way we can have one player work towards the greater good of the group because that's a big part of uh motivation for socializers so maybe

Speaker A

for this farm and fun game we can add a neighborhood like kind of like a guild system that encourages players to work together toward a common goal all right i think that's good we have achievers it's our primary group we have

Speaker A

socializers as our secondary group all right so now that we kind of have our main player groups established we can move down to play our goals so again in case you tuned me out or you skipped that section here's a quick

Speaker A

write-up on what each kind of long mid and short-term goal is with some examples but for this exercise we're going to map out our long mid and short term goals for the player types we've just chosen um so yeah for us for farm and fun my

Speaker A

primary player type is achievers and my second um player type is socializers all right so we have these two player types um let's start kind of mapping out our goals just to make sure we have something in our game that appeals to

Speaker A

these players at each level um so like i said before like just i like to start with the long term goals as that's kind of has the most powerful effect and then you can kind of build the other goals

Speaker A

from that so as an achiever what is my primary long-term goal of the game so for farm and fun that could be i want to have a let's just say i want a maxed out farm i want to have all the content i want to

Speaker A

have all the buildings all the animals all the crops everything i can get the biggest farm i want that i want the complete farm right and maybe i also want to have uh maybe an optimal layout so maybe you know certain crops generate

Speaker A

the the most experience the most coins maybe there's a certain configuration that generates the most kind of uh output so maybe kind of experimenting with that and finding the optimal layout is important to an achiever too so that's

Speaker A

my long-term goal maxed out farm optimal layout what's my midterm goal i want to unlock all the buildings unlocking buildings will help me unlock crafting recipes uh which helps and then um leveling up i can also unlock crops

Speaker A

to unlock animals so again my goal is kind of get all the content maximize my systems so these are great midterm goals i'm trying to work towards a 100 completed farm so each piece of content i unlocked working towards that

Speaker A

is working towards kind of my long-term goal right so what would the short-term goal be again they should kind of come back to your core loop so the core loop for this game is i want to harvest crops

Speaker A

to get xp of course getting xp helps me level up leveling up helps me unlock buildings etc and what would the other short-term goal be you could sell crops at the market for money getting money um will help me purchase

Speaker A

new buildings crops etc all right so i think for an achiever this is a pretty solid um kind of list of player goals it also helps me clearly define like what content i need to keep adding to the

Speaker A

game that keeps you know achievers motivated so it could be more buildings more crafting recipes more crops more animals it could be ways to kind of increase what the maxed out farm looks like so it could be expanding it

Speaker A

um maybe adding different layers to it i don't know all right so that's achievers let's go over to socializers um so socializers are a bit more kind of uh esoteric when it comes to what their long-term goal is so i would say their

Speaker A

long-term goal it's not so systematized but it's mostly just to kind of make friends all right we're starting with our secondary player type socializers a long-term goal as i mentioned is actually going to be making friends playing with friends

Speaker A

and that's a good long-term goal so uh what would be a good midterm goal it could be so what kind of feeds into making friends playing with friends it could be unlocking social features so maybe uh trading is a social mechanic

Speaker A

and maybe that doesn't unlock tell a few you know levels into the game um um yeah um it could be if we add this neighborhood mechanic we talked about it could be kind of increasing your standing in me for hood

Speaker A

so it could be increasing kind of maybe in this neighborhood system i get points for helping other players out so it could help increase my standing in that neighborhood or it could be helping my neighborhoods my clans kind of standing

Speaker A

compared to all the other neighborhoods so it's kind of more of a group effort that could be a good kind of midterm goal and kind of just like um achievers the the main kind of short-term goals what am i doing right now in this

Speaker A

session could be to harvest crops to get xp sell crops but more more importantly for socialized it could be maybe i can get rewarded for helping other players harvest crops maybe i could trade to earn money that way

Speaker A

anyways so um we have short mid and long term goals for each of our player types so again if we have an existing game that helps us focus on what content we should be focusing on and adding in the future and

Speaker A

if it's a new game it helps kind of point out areas we're missing helps us define um kind of what our game should be built around early on which kind of helps us keep focused all right so that was our design

Speaker A

exercise with farm and fun and that brings us to the end of our player types part player goals and player types any questions on that stuff hey kale we do have some really intriguing questions unfortunately we are going to have to

Speaker A

limit it to three so first question in a platformer round-based game that requires all players to have the same movement mechanics same walk speed etc what would a good form of progression be for this cosmetic items can only take

Speaker A

things so far yeah um no that's a good question we'll get into this a little bit in the next uh section of progression um but there's a lot you could do so um basically uh well a season pass system

Speaker A

works really well for this um as kind of uh it doesn't provide any kind of um advantage to a player it's largely focused on cosmetics um so um that can work for a competitive game where you don't want you know one player

Speaker A

to be super strong and others super weak and then have some kind of conflict there but as you mentioned cosmetics can only go so far so one another approach could be essentially ranking your players by skill level and as players level up

Speaker A

they're introduced basically match match with players of similar skill levels or maybe they progress to different areas of the game so you kind of concentrate new players in one part of your game and more advanced players and another that way

Speaker A

you can kind of level up skills um and and kind of have um but have those players just interact with similar player um so so you can add that kind of skill progression without having them conflict with with players of different skill

Speaker A

levels yeah nice are there player type combinations that you shouldn't try to appeal to like killers and socializers do they just have incompatible um yeah so i think there's some natural incompatibilities um like i mentioned in uh the slide on explorers and killers i

Speaker A

think those two are the most like obvious conflict conflicting player types but also like i said it doesn't mean you can't make it work it just means you have to be very conscious of those conflicts and try to kind of design

Speaker A

around it so um uh there are more natural compatibilities so like socializing explorers get along uh a bit more better than say yeah killers or uh uh socialized killer explorers so those are a bit easier to design around

Speaker A

but that doesn't mean you can't experiment with the others you just need to be very conscious of it um and then when it comes to your community though um sometimes so game play is one story community is another

Speaker A

story if you have um uh a game that uh again is maybe killers and explorers um the communities might interact with each other differently kind of outside of the game um and that's something to think about too as maybe some more aggressive

Speaker A

competitive focus folks uh might like to communicate differently than than maybe someone who's focused on the narrative and the story of the game all right when is the best time to start planning and defining player goals should this be thought out and completed

Speaker A

before developing the game um yeah so i mean that's the ideal case it would be best to think about that beforehand um as you're kind of mapping out the initial design of your game this just kind of allows you to keep it kind of

Speaker A

focused from the start um that being said it's still hugely uh beneficial to think about it during a live game once it's already out um because again it helps you kind of narrow in on what your game is and kind of keep content updates

Speaker A

moving forward a bit more focused too so it's beneficial either way ideally at the beginning of the game would be best but but yeah it's still helpful hey everyone thanks for watching part one of our level up workshop on player

Speaker A

goals and progression keep an eye out for part two that should be coming next week and if you haven't done so already please make sure to like and subscribe to the roblox developer relations youtube channel that way you'll be

Speaker A

notified whenever we drop a new video and we can keep leveling up together thanks [Music]

Topics:player goalsgame progressionRoblox game designplayer engagementgame motivationgame design workshopshort-term goalslong-term goalsgame developer tipsplayer retention

Get More with the SozAI App

Transcribe recordings, audio files, and YouTube videos — with AI summaries and speaker detection. 30 minutes free.

App Store Google Play

Or transcribe another YouTube video here →

Free tools: TXT to SRT · SRT Validator · Merge SRT · Subtitle to Text · All tools