I feel as if the spin/roll systems are now just clear moneygrab systems that show lack of thought and care for a game and brings the overall feel of the game down. Most anime games have this problem where players will either get a fodder power and get demotivated and not play your game, or lifelessly grind your game until they get that one power, try it out, then leave and not join again until you add another one.
That is not the type of gameplay experience that is memorable and I do not want to see anymore.
The first idea I had was to for example, if you were making a game where you had to choose a race/power, was to separate them into different categories and let the player roll for a specific rarity and then choose the thing they want within the category. The problem is that they would likely (IF they are a sane human being) choose the best one that is meta. You will have balancing issues because if you then go to buff/nerf certain races it will upset the playerbase. So then that idea went out the skyscraper window and dropped 100 stories.
The second idea I had was to just straight up let the player just choose it. But then that quickly diminished after about 20 seconds for obvious reasons.
The question is, how do we create a system that avoids all these issues. It should solve 3 issues.
Not upset a playerbase.
Not involve too much RNG
Not complicated
Answers are appreciated. I will let you all know if i manage to come up with a system from the answers.
maybe every time you level up or something, you can choose something among other things, and for each option there are different things you can choose on the next level.
example:
you got to level 1: you can choose either ability A or B
if you choose A: after you get to level 2 you can choose C or D
if you choose B: after you get to level 2 you can choose E or F
and you can’t revert back
this idea sounds bad, but maybe someone could use it to come up with another similar idea
What about the system that Elemental Battlegrounds or Diep.io has?
Why not just have choose what you want to start with and have like a “skill tree”. I think this will add more competitiveness to the game because. Entry point also has a good system like this too. I think something like that is very hard to implement because it requires a knowhow to create graphs and store that node graph in a Datastore.
The reason this spin/roll system is so popular is why casinos are popular.
Spin/roll systems are essentially mini casinos the developers built in the game.
It’s addictive for the players,
It’s profitable for the devs.
Spin/roll systems just have 1000% more profit potential compared to gamepasses and dev products, especially with “whales” (aka people who spend a whole lot money in a game)
A player gets demotivated because he/she gets bad rng three times in a row?
No problem, there’s like a thousand more willing to spend $$$ to get that jackpot.
And now we’re teaching kids to gamble.
Hooray.
tl;dr
Spin/roll system won’t be ditched anytime soon because in the grand scheme of capitalism, it’s just much more profitable than selling products traditionally. And “you give this, you may get this” is just more exciting than “you give this, you get this”.
Why have different powers to begin with? That question should be answered before trying to come up with a replacement. Because otherwise there is the possibility that the thing you’re talking about is so rancid that it should just be deleted without any replacement at all.
When you only focus on avoiding negatives (rather than pursuing clearly defined positives), it makes this a lot harder than it needs to be, and opens the door for silly suggestions like scrapping the whole project or changing the genre.
That aside, does this system actually need to be removed? Minimal edits might do the trick.
Don’t sell new spins. Gambling/cashgrab problem solved.
Fodder powers? Balance your game better. Make the skill ceiling a lot higher so people can overcome their bad luck with skill.
People grinding too much? Change the odds so it’s easier to get what they want. Don’t tie new rolls to grinding. For example, it could be one roll per week (or whatever timespan you feel is appropriate)
People getting bored and leaving after getting the power they want? If these powers are only interesting on a surface level maybe the spins aren’t the problem… Adding more depth to each power would probably be the way to go even if it means having less powers in total.
