Agenda
When Metrics Mislead: How Farm Heroes Saga Redefined Difficulty
Anton Johnsson (Senior Game Designer, King)
Pass Type:
Academic Pass, Festival Pass, Game Changer Pass, Indie Pass, Start-Up Pass -
Get your pass now!
Track:
Design, Business Strategy
Audience Level:
All
Format:
Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
For years, Farm Heroes Saga relied on a trusted difficulty metric: Attempts Per Success (APS). The team saw no reason to doubt it - the data looked right - yet the player experience was quietly and significantly worsening.
This session will explore how the relationship between level and reward balancing created a vicious cycle that obscured the player experience from the team. By the time the problem surfaced, it had contributed to lower engagement, retention, and monetisation across thousands of levels for several years.
The talk walks through how the team at King uncovered the issue, why APS failed to reflect the real player experience, and how Farm Heroes Saga rebuilt its approach to measuring and balancing difficulty. Attendees will see how using new metrics, combined with large-scale level tuning, helped break the cycle and created a more reliable foundation for one of mobile gaming's longest-running live service titles.
This session will explore how the relationship between level and reward balancing created a vicious cycle that obscured the player experience from the team. By the time the problem surfaced, it had contributed to lower engagement, retention, and monetisation across thousands of levels for several years.
The talk walks through how the team at King uncovered the issue, why APS failed to reflect the real player experience, and how Farm Heroes Saga rebuilt its approach to measuring and balancing difficulty. Attendees will see how using new metrics, combined with large-scale level tuning, helped break the cycle and created a more reliable foundation for one of mobile gaming's longest-running live service titles.
Takeaway
This talk highlights how easy it is to take core metrics for granted, and how data disconnected from the player experience can lead to costly consequences.
You'll hopefully leave this talk with a newfound curiosity for how your own game defines and measures difficulty.
You'll hopefully leave this talk with a newfound curiosity for how your own game defines and measures difficulty.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is anyone working on mobile live games, especially teams who are data driven. No prior knowledge is needed to partake, but you'll likely gain more from this presentation with previous experience in game balancing.