Here is the game: https://www.roblox.com/games/92173688896691/Brick-Slide-RNG
My game has terrible retention, it seems that players do play it for a certain time but then just seem to never come back.
Yeah, this is the “RNG” trend, however, I’ve added another element to it to be more of a “hybrid.” This is because I like following trends but adding something new to it that’s different from typical trendy games.
Why is my game not doing well?
can you say for how much they play? if small time then tutorial might be too chaotic, if not then the game is too repetetive, there is not that much content, or the game seems like there is not that much to do
also the game might be too grindy, because at some point things get expensive fast, but player doesnt get that much more money
Can you explain more on how it gets too grindy?
after the second chest, it gets really grindy
upgrades are for thousands
money gain is almost like at the start
its mostly because money gain mostly comes from the slide, and better objects to slide with dont help a lot
it will probably be good if there was an option to increase damage for more money so a lot of strength will actually do something
I could see how the upgrades are expensive and the slide doesn’t help much. The chests, seems iffy because it gives you rarer items guaranteed which can be very Overpowering if it’s too cheap.
What are your thoughts?
I might consider rarer items just give more cash instead, I think that will help.
But I need the chests to increase costs exponentially because linear effort makes the game too easy don’t you think?
yeah, but also the slide should have the ability to change damage for money because the slide is the main part of the game, not selling the items
I added a Slide Earnings multiplier, so basically rarer items = your earnings are more multiplied and I’ve nerfed the upgrades, I made it much more fair now.
The game is fundamentally flawed. Your retention likely sucks because there’s zero reason to replay. Here’s my experience with it, the issues with the game design, and what you can do to fix it.
I wasn’t greeted with much of a tutorial, but the game is easy enough to figure out. However, on like my 3rd roll, I got a car. I used this to get to the end of the slide on the first try,
While I could grind over and over to get better items, what’s the point? My car can beat the game just fine, and finding “rarer items” doesn’t really matter, especially if those items have no real value to the player.
There lies problem #1. Once you make it to the end, why get better items when your current items are just as capable?
Another problem is tying progression directly to luck. A player that keeps getting a brick or chair can’t effectively make it to the end, where a player who started with the same resources can win within 3 minutes. Imagine a board game where you could instantly win by rolling a certain number. That’s not fun nor fair.
Finally, the slide is just… too short. Why bother grinding money, spending time, and trying to get lucky for a rare, strong object when the slide isn’t long enough to warrant such upgrades?4.
All of these problems tie into each other, from the game having no real reason to keep playing to the game also being too short. Here’s what I would change:
Make the slide longer
As I said previously, the slide is just too short. I get that the slides change every so often to keep things looking fresh, but as I said, it’s not difficult enough to grind for those higher-rarity items. I’d suggest extending the slide with more goal rings every 10k studs. However, each ring gives more and more extra money (and wins) and the obstacles on those slides deal more and more damage. That way, you can actually grind more with your stronger items.
Make stuff upgradable
Like I said, imagine a scenario with two new players. Let’s say one person only gets cars and the other only gets chairs. The unlucky person will have to spend much more time buying money multipliers to get better boxes, while the other person will progress much faster because they had a massive headstart.
By making items upgradable, it lets players catch up to a stronger item, even if they get unlucky. So with enough duplicate rolls, a player could have a chair that’s almost as strong as a car, for example.
Add daily rewards
Daily rewards are a good way to improve retention. Offer a good reward on Day 2 to make players want to return to your game.
Sidenote:
Just… no…
This only makes the issue of lucky players getting a headstart even worse. Instead, I’d say extend the slide, and make the later stages of the slide pay more, rewarding players who get stronger items.
Overall it’s a fun concept; I liked watching stuff go down the slide. Hopefully these key points will help improve your game. Let me know if you want any more advice/clarification!
Thank you for your fair and constructive criticism. I have some questions to ask back, and some possible counterarguments. As I am very open to hearing, please don’t take the counterarguments as me being in denial, take them more of a way that I have thought and why you would find these arguments invalid.
I had intentions of making this game extremely simple and not complex. You may be viewing this game differently than I am, but correct me if I am wrong.
Some players may get a better headstart and be more lucky, however, I’ve given so many opportunities, selling duplicates, cash and luck multipliers, and chest guarantees, that it starts to move away from being an RNG game and I can’t have it move even farther away from it. If this game was not RNG based, I would definitely do those.
However, I do agree on the slides part. It can be done much better and I should do something about it.
My response was meant for you to see my perspective as well, and see what your thoughts on it and why my perspective may be causing the issue.
Mostly my speculation comes from the fact that it gets way too grindy quickly. I’ve seen most players quit at a point where things get extremely expensive, and my analytics/engagement show that. I realized this afterwards, so my apologies for not saying this.
I think that @eatabler0ck summed up the problems best, but I don’t think their solutions would fix the issue.
The issue being that once you have an item that can consistently win the game, there’s really no point to continuing to play it.
Its like if you had a tycoon with no rebirths, that at random, a user can get enough money to fully build and complete. Eventually, after not long, that user will just leave because they already beat the tycoon, and since it saves, they most likely won’t return, there’s no more content the game can logically offer.
On the other hand, you have another player playing the same tycoon, however they keep getting bad rolls and instead of being given the money to build the tycoon, all their money just keeps getting taken away. This user, as expected, gets upset and leaves the game as they cannot beat the tycoon.
(Summary: Good luck players beat the game and stop playing it, and bad luck players leave because they can’t beat it, at fault of the game, not them)
Yeah, you may have upgrades and daily rewards, but if the user can beat the main core-loop with ease, why should they keep playing? Daily rewards wouldn’t offer anything to this user, nor would upgrades as they simply don’t need them.
As for the bad luck players, they can’t even afford the upgrades, sure daily rewards may incentivize them to return, but why upgrade something that can only beat 5% of the game?
All I can say is that like most RNG games, this one was just doomed to fail from the start with zero solution to it without entirely rebuilding it without rng.
It’s just an inherit problem of RNG games when you try to implement gameplay. These issues always can and will exist in these games and no, there’s no fix but to remove the RNG aspect and redesign your entire game around not having RNG.
“The Issues” in question being that at a certain point, usually very quickly, the user gets an item thats just good enough, or one of the best to complete the game, or people keep getting bad rolls and can’t get those items, thus can’t progress.
In both cases, the player is never at fault, the game is. Either they progress too fast or not at all, both cases simply aren’t fun.
Thanks for your input. Here are my counterarguments + some new solutions
It’s absolutely not guaranteed. However, more strength means you can take more damage, so rarer items are inherently better. There are a few exceptions though, such as the Rocket Ship, which felt worse than the car I got. You even admitted this yourself, saying:
Also, please make the slide longer. I still don’t see a point in getting rarer items when the more common items work just fine. How does it add complexity? It’s just duplicating the already existing objects, no?
After playing a bit more and getting better chests, I’ll say that that’s enough guaranteed progression. However, there’s no real point to selling stuff when you get basically no cash from it. Even the “legendary” items only sell for like $20, which is ridiculous considering the legendary box costs $10,000. I’d suggest heavily buffing the sell rates.
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This still doesn’t fix the core issue of players getting unfair headstarts depending on their luck. Your game is essentially a simulator, but your starter gear is a random object, some OP while others not as much.
To fix this, I think adding an element of skill can bridge the gap.
What if you make it so that when players move left or right when seated, their object goes a bit in that direction? It would be nice to have a bit more control, and that could help “weaker” items stand a chance. To keep it balanced, the force could also be a light one, so common, lighter objects get more movement than rarer, heavier objects.
EDIT: I was thinking about the slide being too long. Would that be an issue due to Roblox bugging out after passing 10,000 studs, and things like the floating point limit?
After analyzing the game, I’m not saying that you were wrong, but it was good the way the game was in terms of economy.
Now that I nerfed the multipliers, and made rarer items earned more cash, it ended up inflating the economy so much that it destroyed the economy, and everyone was getting rare items very easily due to the inflation. Making it too easy. It was good the way it was in terms of grindyness. Game shouldn’t be so easy to do well at… you seemed to just play for only a couple minutes and automatically assumed “it was too grindy,” you gotta spend hours and hours for it to be a good game, or else it would be too easy. Please analyze this much better next time.
I agree. I should have made a better decision on how the slides would work to earn more cash, but it had to harmonize very well with RNG, but extremely difficult to harmonize RNG with skill sometimes.
Making the slide longer would had just added additional complexities for me that would’ve made very risky for me to update game, because I’m such on limited time, it’s better for me to make a new game than to take the risk knowing that the core loop may not work. It’s not that your idea is bad, it’s more like for me it’s too risky since the core loop isn’t addicting enough to the players.
if players gotta grind hours and hours, then make the grind worth it, just a rare slide isn’t rewarding enough so people, it has to have a fun use or anything to make players actually want to grind and get it
