Having issues designing my game's core loop

[BuiltToWreck (Built)]

Hi All,

I am making a round-based PvP swordfighting game but I am finding it hard to think of a core game loop that is both satisfying and fair to both experienced and new players (since it is a PvP game.)

I initially thought a progression loop like this would be best:

But if players are progressing with upgrades then wouldn’t the game become unfair to new players?

I then thought that maybe upgrades could be gained during a round but reset after every round so that it is fair for all players regardless of skill level. But then I run into the problem of engagement, wouldn’t players get bored of progressing for a 10 minute round, before the game resetting and having to do it all over again with no inter-round progression?

Maybe with a leaderboard for kills or KD I could get some cross-round progression but I still didn’t think it was engaging enough.

So my final idea was to incorporate cosmetic ‘swords’ into the game which are skins that could be unlocked through crates and traded with other players.

And that is where I am at now. I am still unsure as to if this loop is sufficient for my game to be engaging and fair. Any thoughts?

[PresidentAbdous]

Seems like it’s good enough to operate, however what exactly would make people want to play your game? Do you have custom animations, graphics, or sounds to woo some people?

[R41NB0W4C3 (R41NB0W)]

I was thinking of a rank system where once you get better you progress to the next rank to fight people that are similar level to u but it depends on how many players you will have cuz if you have about 3 players then no one will get to fight eachother