How to do daily tasks and not screw up?

There are a lot of mechanics in any game. How they are implemented depends on whether the game “takes off” or not. Some mechanics are characteristic of certain genres, such as moving objects by swipes in a “three-in-a-row” like Candy Crush Saga, and some roam from genre to genre and from platform to platform.

If you learn how to use these mechanics correctly and understand exactly how and when to add new elements to them, you can improve any game. In this text I will analyze the so-called “daily tasks”. This mechanic appears in many shareware titles and in recent years has not ceased to gain popularity.

I’ll start with a story about what daily tasks are and why this mechanic is suitable for a variety of games. Then I will analyze how the mechanics are used in specific games, and describe cases when it is not implemented as well as it could be.

What are daily tasks?

Daily tasks can be described as follows: this is a mechanic that gives the player the opportunity to perform a finite number of certain actions that are updated after a given period of time.

Daily tasks are present in a huge number of successful titles, both console and mobile.

EA Madden Mobile has Live Events – events that pose small interesting tasks to the player. As a prize, you are entitled to several bonus coins. Then this currency can be spent to upgrade skills, discover new game strategies or to see outstanding moments from the history of the NFL.

In Destiny, with the help of the Bounty Tracker, the player gets access to a set of mini-missions. If you pass them, you can level up your character and improve your arsenal.

In Hearthstone, the player receives a quest every day to earn extra gold, which can be used to buy packs and unique cards.

In Marvel Contest of Champions there are special daily updated quests (Daily Quests), which allow the player to test the capabilities of his team and get certain resources.

Daily goals are usually:

• fit into the main game cycle;
• reward the player with currency, which can be obtained in the game in another way;
• available from the very beginning of the game and allow the player to get new interesting tasks according to the game progress ;
• they do not give the opportunity to endlessly perform the tasks they offer, receive rewards and thus avoid other actions provided for in the game cycle.;
• give a limited number of tasks, or a limited number of attempts to complete tasks.

In each of the above games, the mechanics of daily goals are perfectly implemented. It corresponds to all the above points, and in addition, it has some unique feature that makes it interesting and unusual. A little later I will focus on these features in more detail. But first I will tell you why it is so important to determine your daily goals from the very beginning.

Why do I need daily goals?

It is very simple to outline what the daily goals are. But to explain why they help the game to achieve success is a more difficult task. After all, no one forces the player to complete daily tasks. Plus, they are inscribed in the main game cycle. And yet, this seemingly insignificant mechanics can have a huge positive impact on all aspects of the game, such as retention, the achievement of skill by the player and the submission of new content.

Retention

In the development of a free-play game, almost the most important task is to get the player to return to the game and continue playing. To solve this problem and keep the player, there are many ways and mechanics. One of the most effective tools here are daily goals. As soon as the player receives a limited set of tasks, which is updated daily, he has something to wait for. In addition, to further engage the player, other elements, such as notifications, can be added to daily goals.

Reducing the grind

Another important point: a well-designed system of daily goals supports interest in the game. In many free-play games, there is a grind element by default: you have to collect resources or download a character. Even if there is a strong game cycle in the game, the user can get bored very quickly. Daily goals bring variety to the process and make the grind not so dull.

Submission of new content

Since the player deals with daily goals almost every session, it is very convenient to demonstrate innovations and teach how to use them with their help. Sometimes the player just needs a little push to start interacting with older features. And here again, daily goals come to the rescue. Sometimes they are even more effective than the main missions or quests, because, as a rule, they are small and relatively simple.

Successful examples

I have already told you why daily goals are needed. But how exactly to work with them? I will give some tips on the example of games in which this mechanic is very successfully applied.

Hearthstone

Blizzard’s Hearthstone is a perfect example of how to apply daily goals: the mechanics fit very simply and elegantly into the game itself. For those who are not familiar with Hearthstone, this is a KKI in which the player is invited to play cards in such a way as to reduce the opponent’s life points to zero. Before the match starts, the player chooses a hero and collects a deck with which he will then go into battle. If the player wins, he will receive gold, which will be able to boosters with cards.

The deck can contain up to 30 cards, which means that the number of strategies available to the player is off the scale. You can destroy the opponent’s card as soon as it lies on the table, or defend yourself and exhaust the enemy so that he will have nothing to respond to the attack. Since the player receives currency after winning, many players, trying to earn as much as possible, prefer to improve the same deck. If Blizzard could not oppose anything to such a strategy, then there would be a risk that players would “burn out” very quickly and feel that they have nowhere to grow.

In Hearthstone, players use their huge collection of cards to create countless decks that are suitable for a variety of ways of playing and strategies. Daily goals encourage players to collect all new decks and use all available cards.

Welcome to the quest system. This is a group of special tasks in Hearthstone. If the player passes them, he will receive additional coins, which means additional cards.

In quests, the player gets a variety of tasks – for example, to win with the help of a certain hero or to play a match in a certain mode. Since the reward for the quest is equivalent to a dozen or more winnings, the player is very motivated to try to pass it, even if it requires going beyond the usual framework and trying out a new strategy. In addition, the completed quest will be replaced with a new one only the next day, so the player is taught to return for new quests and play at least a little every day.

As soon as the quest is over, information appears on the display when to return to complete the next one.

Some quests in Hearthstone are quite simple, others are more difficult, but they all force the player to try new, interesting approaches and win a large reward in the process.

Madden NFL Mobile

EA Sport’s Madden NFL Mobile has a huge number of features and game modes that are detailed here, but their Live Events event system is worthy of a separate mention. This is a great implementation of the mechanics of daily goals. In Madden Mobile, the player is tasked with creating a team of football stars and using it to participate in a variety of competitions. Although all the game modes are interesting, it is quite difficult to win in each of them. This is where “events” (Live Events) come to the rescue.

In each of the events, the player is assigned a specific goal that needs to be achieved. For this, the player receives a small reward. The point is that each event allows the player to practice in situations that he may not get into in a real game. For example, usually a player can not pass if he wants, but in certain events he will have to pass the ball 4 times in 5 matches to complete the task.

One pack of cards from the set (Set Cards) can be exchanged for a Pro card (Pro Pack) with NFL players who make the player’s team stronger. The bonus cards of the pros, which can be obtained during the events, can open access to cool players. In other ways, these players are not so easy to get.

The player, in principle, can ignore events where a style of play that he does not like is involved. But then he will not be able to earn bonus cards, with which you can unlock the cards of the pros. For each event passed, the player receives certain cards. Which ones depend on the complexity and type of the event itself. So the player has to come into the game every day to see which cards are being offered this time.

The events are interesting because they go very well with real football matches. As soon as an interesting match takes place, in Live Events, the player is immediately offered to participate in a similar match himself. Such a mechanism for retaining players gives EA an unconditional competitive advantage, and the company takes full advantage of this advantage. EA gives players a fun and easy way to earn extra pro cards while strengthening the main game cycle. As a result, Madden NFL Mobile occupies a worthy place in the box office tops.

Destiny

Hearthstone and Madden Mobile prove that daily goals improve the performance of free-to-play games. And Bungie demonstrates that this mechanic is perfectly suitable for premium games. In Destiny from Bungie – FPS, which is analyzed in detail here – the player is offered to fight with aliens on various planets and in different game modes. The player has a huge choice of different ways of spending time. And with so much content, it can be difficult for him to choose exactly what he wants to do. And then the daily goals come into play, which in Destiny are called “trials” (Bounties).

Each challenge has its own mini-goal. Passing these tasks, the player gets the opportunity to additionally upgrade the character. Tests are scattered throughout the game, and help the player decide what to do to improve the characteristics of his hero. In addition, these tests are divided into understandable categories, so that the player can quickly figure out exactly what tasks he needs to complete.

Each challenge has one or more specific goals. In this case, the player must win a single match in PvP mode. Here you can clearly see the difference between the tasks of the type “player against player” (the upper row of icons) and “player against the game world” (the lower row).

Perhaps the most important thing in the trials is how they force the player to leave the comfort zone. In traditional first-person shooters, the player usually first plays in all the modes interesting to him, and then leaves the game. In Destiny, it is more likely that the player explores all, even not the most interesting modes, for the sake of reward for the tests passed. Plus, when a special event appears in Destiny, Bungie attracts the attention of players to it by creating a special set of tests for this event. Some tasks are simple, some are complex, but each makes you look at the usual gameplay a little differently.

Destiny is full of all kinds of challenges. Some are very common, others are tied to certain events in the game world.

Bungie has come up with an interesting innovation for daily purposes – it uses this mechanics in order to reveal the world of the game more deeply. The player receives tests from the main NPCs in the game. Along the way, they give out information about themselves and what drives them. When players explore certain game areas, they receive tasks. These tasks depend on the player’s actions and also help them uncover the plot of the game. It all adds up to a simple but thoughtful system that makes Destiny so exciting and keeps players coming back to the game day after day.

Not the most successful examples

Daily tasks, if applied correctly, will greatly improve the game. But if this mechanics is implemented somehow, the effect will be reversed. I will give some examples of how daily tasks did not help the game as much as they could, and explain how they could be improved.

Vainglory

Vainglory – “a MOBA sharpened for touch control”, disassembled in detail by the link – is perhaps the only successful representative of its genre on mobile. Among the strengths of the game is the game cycle, but the daily tasks that could be the cherry on the cake are not so good. They meet two necessary points – they give the player a valuable reward and are available for a limited time. But the design, and the challenges themselves, let us down. The result is a complete disappointment.

One of the main problems of mechanics in the case of Vainglory is that the player is not given interesting tasks. Some quests often force the player to do what he would have done in the course of the game – for example, to raise the level of the character. Others – for example, to play one match in a certain mode – would be fine if there were a lot of them. But if this is the only task of the day, then it’s kind of boring to do it. It turns out that the players are not waiting for the next daily tasks. And the mechanics, instead of keeping the players, are just annoying.

Vainglory would greatly benefit if she thought through the system of daily goals more carefully. So that this mechanic engages players and improves retention in the early stages. For example, you could add more quests: heal a certain type of damage or die just once per game. Users would have to play unusual characters and look for new techniques. This way they would learn more about the game and feel like more advanced players. And, of course, they would be happy to come to the game every day to see what new tasks have appeared there.

Although the game cycle of the game is very interesting and thoughtful, daily tasks in Vainglory will not hurt to finalize.

Heroes of the Storm

Heroes of the Storm is another MOBA with a non-banal game cycle. But the game failed to become Hearthstone in its genre. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones, in my opinion, is how daily tasks are implemented in Heroes of the Storm. Just like in Hearthstone, the player is offered a set of quests every day, for which you can get additional coins. But unlike Hearthstone, in Heroes of the Storm, the mechanics of daily tasks are embodied very crookedly.

Unlike Hearthstone, where the player is offered quests only in PvP mode, in HotS, when the player leaves the comfort zone and plays an unusual character, he risks letting down four more people from his team in case of failure. It turns out that you study in Hearthstone while you are completing tasks. And in HotS, tasks are only annoying, and eventually you just start ignoring them.

In addition, quests take a lot of time. Especially compared to Hearthstone. To win three games in a row with a certain character, you need to spend a lot of exhausting hours playing. The result is such an annoying imbalance: you can’t earn in-game currency without quests, and you don’t want to go through the quests themselves, because they are uninteresting.

But all is not lost for HotS either. There are many different mechanics in the game, so you can come up with a series of daily tasks that will reward the player for playing his favorite characters. For example, create quests where you will need to perform three skillshots with Malfurion or cure three people at once with the help of LiLi. Then players will start waiting for tasks, rather than avoiding them.

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter what the game cycle is in the project – it can always be improved due to daily goals. If this mechanic is implemented correctly, retention rates will improve: players of any level will have a reason to return to the game. In addition, daily quests allow the player to upgrade his skill and feel cool. Plus, if new content is added to the game, then the rate of submission of this content can be increased if you introduce the player to it with the help of familiar and familiar daily quests.

Although this mechanics may seem simple and unnecessary, do not underestimate its importance. Correct daily tasks easily fit into the game cycle – so that it is difficult to imagine a game without them. If you apply this mechanics thoughtfully, it will benefit for many years, and the game will benefit from it in many ways.

Source: Deconstructor of Fun