In June of 2016, little known Chinese publisher DroidHang Games (aka “DH Games”) launched  Idle Heroes, an auto-battle RPG with very heavy Asian metagame design influence. Although seemingly unremarkable at first launch, the game has steadily grown its download and revenue. Today the game sits on an estimated $70MM in accumulated net revenue.

DH Games Monthly In-App Revenue (Net Worldwide, App Store and Google Play)

Idle Heroes has consistently grown its game revenue since its initial launch on both iOS and Google Play. Its initial average daily rev during first 3 months from launch totaled $1,075 compared to $264,663 in January of 2018. A CAGR of 3,928.17%.

How did such a small and, otherwise, unheralded Chinese publisher achieve success with their game even outside of China?

The “Meta Wrap” Strategy

The developers of Idle Heroes deployed a fairly common strategy at the time employed by games such as, most famously, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (read: Galaxy of Heroes – Full Deconstruction of EA’s Death Star). These games copied the core metagame systems design popularized by Heroes Charge (who literally ripped Lilith’s DOTA Legends) but wrapped the metasystems design around a different core gameplay system.

What is Idle About Idle Heroes?

Beyond the Meta Wrap strategy, however, Idle Heroes went one step further. The game took a key characteristic from idle games and integrated idle mechanics into the game’s core loop. Notice I did not call the game an idle game, but rather mentioned that it borrowed an idle mechanic.

From a gameplay perspective, the game plays nothing like the other idle games in the category which begs the question: Is Idle Heroes an idle game?

In my opinion, the answer is no.

Then why is the game called Idle Heroes? To be honest, I’m not sure. Maybe marketing? It’s not 100% clear. However, whether you define games by core gameplay or define games by systems or characteristics, it’s a fairly difficult argument to make that Idle Heroes is an idle game. Hence, not so idle.

What Is Idle Heroes?

Let’s go back to the high level overview of the game here below:

That’s basically it. Overall, a simple strategy with good execution and likely good timing.

Let’s look at each of these three core pillars in turn.

 

Gameplay

By doing turn-based autobattle, the game differentiates meaningfully from Heroes Charge type gameplay (exactly as Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes also did). Further, turn-based battle is easy to auto (important for elder game players) and relatively interesting to watch.

Gameplay progress focuses on character upgrading and collection. To get further in the campaign critically depends on this.

 

Core Loop

Idle progress collection refers to the practice in idle games in which players make continuous progress in the game through soft currency accumulation even when not playing. A strong advantage of this design element is the positive feeling players receive from the rewards they just received and from the progress they made while not actively engaged with the game.

In Idle Heroes, this idle progress collection mechanic is inserted into the core loop of the game (rather than at app open as other idle games). By doing so, the mechanic helps motivate players to increase activity and retention for the core loop actions.

Simplified diagram of Idle Heroes Core Loop

Most idle games place the idle progress collection upon the first launch of the application. However, Idle Heroes places the collection within the core loop of the game within the campaign battle screen.

Both of these scenarios are depicted below:

Example idle progress collection in AdVenture Capitalist vs. Idle Heroes

Core loop progress critically depends on utilizing idle progress collection as well as usage of the large number of metasystems built into the game.

Metagame

The core metagame features were clearly inspired from Heroes Charge (which was itself inspired by the China-only hit DOTA Legends). The table below lists an overview of the core metagame features in Idle Heroes.

Idle Heroes Core Metagame Features	Description	Likely Emulation Target
Character Upgrade	Variation of Heroes Charge model, slightly simpler model. Tier system. No notion of quality. No skill upgrading.	Heroes Charge
Equipment System	Simpler item combination variation of Heroes Charge  model but includes a separate Blacksmith. Interesting locked slot system.	Heroes Charge
Tavern	Character mission system requiring different character prerequisites to gain rewards.	Asian MMOs
Celestial Island	Variation of Advanced Instances, basically having multiple PVE modes that encourage using different characters.	Heroes Charge
Summon Circle	Free and premium gacha summon, similar to many games including Heroes Charge	Heroes Charge
Arena	Easier to farm variation of Heroes Charge. No cool down. Skip battle option.	Heroes Charge
Brave Trial	Variation of Crusade (Survival mode)	Heroes Charge
Tower of Oblivion	Non-timered version of Summoners War’s Trial of Ascension	Summoners War
Blacksmith	Variation on Heroes Charge. Ability to upgrade gear items into better gear items. A separate Blacksmith area is used instead of integrated within the character UI.	Heroes Charge
Casino	Common and Super Casino. Random drops based on wheel spins requires separate Chip currency to spin.	Heroes Charge, Game of War
Guild	Better UX version of Heroes Charge with more farming features.	Heroes Charge
VIP	13 levels of VIP. Daily bonus, hero slots, hero quest, and many other bonuses depending on the amount of gems purchased.	Heroes Charge
Monster	Acts almost like an additional party member during battle. Deals damage, gives bonuses, and can activate some skills like healing.	Asian MMOs, Game of War

Similar to Heroes Charge-type games, there are a lot of metasystems! To some degree, it’s surprising that this level of metagame complexity has been relatively well accepted by a Western audience. Traditionally, Chinese-style metasystems have been thought to be too complex and involved for Western players. However, with Idle Heroes and other games like Summoners War and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, we are increasingly seeing greater acceptance of complex metagame design for Western audiences.

It’s also surprising how the game brands itself as an idle game. Many view idle gamers as typically more casual rather than hardcore in nature. On the face of it, this may seem like a potential audience mismatch between casual idle game players and a game with complex metagame systems. However, this particular combination seems to have been a very good match.

While copying most of the base metasystems from Heroes Charge-type games, Idle Heroes does make meaningful changes and improvements to those systems. The most interesting parts of the metagame include the way Idle Heroes has designed their Character Upgrade system.

Let’s cover that in more detail now.

Character Upgrade System:

Of all the metasystems, the game really shines when it comes to its extremely deep character upgrade system.

Character System and Upgrading:

First of all, gameplay requires 6 active playable characters each of which has a specific color type (called “Factions”). The color type system follows a typical battle triangle (rocks, scissors, paper) system as shown below:

Idle Heroes Faction System using Color Types

Characters in the game are upgraded along a number of key areas:

1. Stars: Characters are upgradable up to 10 stars and each star increases base stats and abilities. The higher the base number of stars of a character the better it is. For example, a character that starts at five stars is better than a character that starts at three stars and is upgraded to five stars. Star upgrading is based on a fairly typical sharded gacha fusion system. More detail below.
2. Level: Characters are leveled up via gold (primary soft currency) and purple orbs. The purple orbs are fairly difficult to acquire after early game. Players will get pinched requiring hard currency spend or massive grind to level up even the base team of six characters not to mention multiple teams.
3. Equipment: Characters can equip up to six items. Equipment items give bonuses primarily to HP and attack. These bonuses apply both generally and against specific classes and factions. More info on this system later in this post.

The Character Upgrade Screen shown below:

 

1. Leveling:

Level-ups increase the four base stats of each hero:

• • Health
  • Attack
  • Armor
  • Speed

Leveling increases characters base stats

In addition, increasing levels unlocks up to four total skills in addition to leveling up skills.

Additional skills are unlocked and upgraded with level ups. Level up tiers, on the other hand, are gated by Evolutions.

2. Stars (and Awakening):

Characters can upgrade up to 10 stars. Star upgrading requires the fusion (or sacrifice) of other characters of lesser stars as well as purple orbs. Characters to be sacrificed are acquired via gacha and purple orbs are acquired via the main campaign mode and some of the metasystems in the game.

In this game, Awakening refers to the upgrading of stars from the 6th star on. The awakening system does not upgrade in parallel as in other games.

As an example of star upgrading, as seen below, getting a 9-star Ormus to 10 stars requires:

• • Two 5-star Ormus heroes
  • One 6-star hero (any)
  • One 9-star hero (any)

Stars are displayed on the character as either:

• • First 5 stars = 1-5 yellow stars
  • Next 4 stars (stars 6-9) = 1-4 purple/pink stars
  • 10th star = 1 orange star

Star upgrading requirements example

Example of Star upgrading requirements

3. Equipment (aka Gear) System.

The Equipment System in the game is a variation of the Heroes Charge model with a few key differences.

Screenshot of Character Equipment Screen

• • Characters have six equipment slots (five open slots and one locked, fixed slot; see image above)
  • Equipment primarily gives bonuses to HP (Hero health) and various forms of attack and damage
  • The five open slots each have a type and are acquired via various PVE modes and the Marketplace.
  • The locked slot unlocks after reaching level 40. The locked slot item holds an upgradable “stone” item. This stone is specific to each hero and cannot be transferred to other heroes.

 

Stone Equipment Upgrading

This very interesting twist on equipment systems serves as an additional primary soft currency sink (Gold) as well as requiring an additional resource type called Purple Dust. Further, it’s very similar to the Summoners War equipment upgrade system (rune system) in that it introduces an element of RNG (random number generation) to the upgrade flow.

In the image below, you can see two choices for upgrading the stone equipment item: 1. “Convert” or 2. “Upgrade”. Upgrading will increase the bonus amount received upon paying the upgrade cost which is shown in the modal on the right. Convert refers to changing the type of bonus that the stone gives. Every time a stone is upgraded the RNG portion of the upgrade involves randomly determining the bonus type.

Overview of the Stone item upgrade flow

Character Upgrade Overview:

An overview of the Character Upgrade flow is shown below (thanks Jeff Witt!):

Character Diversity Motivation:

One of the biggest challenges for any character+gacha-based game is the problem of motivating players to collect and upgrade a diverse roster. How do you incentivize players to want a lot of characters and how do you motivate them to upgrade a large number of them?

Idle Heroes does this particularly well with many of the systems and PVE modes integrated into the game as we’ll see below.

In the game, different bonuses (called “Faction Auras”) are gained depending on the roster types deployed. These bonuses vary depending on the composition of color types (“factions”) in the team roster.

As an example, “Color Mixing” will give a bonus if a hero from each color is used in the team:

The “Good vs. Evil” aura activates when 3 dark (purple) and 3 light (orange) heroes are used in a team:

In the Celestial Island PVE mode, different enemy teams have different color combinations making them weak to specific types of teams:

Example of All Green-type Enemies in Celestial Island – Motivates building a Red Team

In the Tower of Oblivion PVE mode, similar to Celestial Island, enemy team compositions encourage the player to mix up and upgrade their team character rosters more widely. Faction auras and battle triangle bonuses are strong enough to motivate players to create strong teams that can take advantage of those bonuses.

In the example below the enemy team is comprised of a single color type.

Even further, one of the Arena modes requires 3 full teams (thereby motivating hero collection and diversity of upgrading):

Arena Mode That Requires Three Full Character Teams

Monetization

To get a deeper understanding of the monetization and character upgrade systems in Idle Heroes, I spoke to expert systems designer Jeff Witt. Jeff was a founder of Funzio and lead systems designer in top grossing games including Modern War.

I asked Jeff the following questions (with key takeaways also listed below):

1. Is Idle Heroes an idle game? [0:00]
   • The developers would want players to think it is
   • Of the 7 or 8 gameplay systems in Idle Heroes only 1 or 2 are idle influenced
   • The majority of systems are more “stat check” that is more consistent with RPGs like Heroes Charge
2. What is your general opinion of Idle Heroes vs. other idle games? [1:36]
   • Likes Idle Heroes better because it feels more like an RPG than other idle RPGs (such as Tap Titans, Nonstop Knight, etc.)
   • Strategy for idle RPGs is very singular more focused on when to prestige, Idle Heroes is more strategically diverse
3. Is the character upgrade system the best part of Idle Heroes? [2:21]
   • It’s the best part of the elder game. It gives players a direct pathway to getting stronger. It also makes all of the systems in the game continue to be relevant.
   • Many RPGs have a problem of keeping gacha relevant. Value of gacha typically plummets once a team is optimized. In this game, every single thing you get in gacha can be used down the road.
   • Based on the design, Idle Heroes can be very lucrative with their sales. They have a very deep system which is part of why they are doing so well.
4. Can you breakdown the character upgrade system? [4:33]
   • Stars cap max level of character. Upgrade characters by gold and promotion stones. By 5 stars, need to sacrifice other characters (gacha fusion).
   • If you map out going from 5 stars to 10 stars, may require 400-500 4 star characters. It’s a super deep system.
   • Idle Heroes does a great job of making clear what the upgrade pathway is.
5. How would you characterize the monetization potential of this game relative to other idle games? [6:23]
   • In comparison to other idle RPGs, it’s clearly superior
   • Leaving depth of game aside, the advantage is that the monetization system cannot be undermined by prestige. When you play Tap Titans or Nonstop Knight you can overcome challenges by prestiging, with Idle Heroes, you don’t have that system. There are more stat checks in the game and to get better in those stats you need to engage with the metasystems and monetize because the grind is so painful. Hence, this game monetizes far better.
6. How would you characterize the monetization potential of this game relative to other RPGs like Summoners War or Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes? [7:45]
   • I would believe that Idle Heroes could monetize more per player than Summoners War or Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. The depth that Idle Heroes has attained with all of its metasystems just allows the game  to give more value to the player for the dollar.
   • Summoners War has a fair amount of depth, not as much as Idle Heroes, but their sales packages just aren’t as lucrative. Meaning that they may be monetizing less per player but likely monetizing more players. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes likely has the most paying players, but both games lack the depth of Idle Heroes.

Heroic Success from Humble Beginnings

Considering that DH Games had no previous success in the genre or a powerful IP to drive installs, they have achieved significant success with Idle Heroes. The success came by employing three key strategies:

1. Meta Wrap Strategy: Employing the Meta Wrap strategy using Heroes Charge-type metasystems design and differentiated core gameplay.
2. Idle Games Integration: Integrating characteristics from idle games, in particular, idle progress to strengthen the core loop retention
3. Character System: Implementing an extremely well designed character upgrade and collection system. In particular, the game employs an extremely deep monetization model that enables the game to give a lot of rewards and extremely granular upgrade progress. Also, the game creates strong incentives to collect and upgrade many characters through their gacha system.

I strongly consider Idle Heroes to be a very good game for any professional F2P game designer to study for the reasons above. Further, I fully expect the three key strategies above to be employed and further expanded and articulated in future hit F2P mobile titles.

Overview

• This post focuses on three primary forms of F2P game design: gameplay, systems, and social.
• The console and PC world are currently dominated by a “units sold” business with emphasis on gameplay focused design. However, the F2P (free to play) business model requires additional forms of design to be successful.
• I explain requirements for success within each game design type.

F2P Game Design Types

The prevailing business model on console and PC gaming has been and (for the most part) continues to be a “units sold” business. In this model, consumers pay an initial price and own the game with all features and game progression unlocked. Hence, players are only limited by time spent and challenge.

In this “units sold” model, the primary gameplay design model essentially boils down to fun. Consumers are paying for a fun gameplay and entertainment experience.

The advent of the free to play (F2P) gaming model, however, created a new type of game design type. In fact, it created two new types: systems and social based game design.

Over the past few years, many former PC and console designers have made a lot of progress in better understanding F2P game design. However, I hope for more progress as we still see lots of legacy design thinking.

F2P Game Design Types: Gameplay, Systems, and Social:

The three types of game design can be simply expressed by the key objective designers of each of the design types focus on:

Game Design Type	Key Designer Objective	Market Archetype
Gameplay	"Find the fun"	Subway Surfer
Systems	"Find the monetization and compulsion"	Summoner's War
Social	"Find the emotion"	Game of War

In my experience, a majority of mobile game designers primarily think in terms of a single type of game design. Usually, the old console guys think it’s all about gameplay. The young, data driven analyst types think it’s all about systems  design.

Of course, there are examples of games with strength in multiple types such as Clash Royale which has strong gameplay and systems design. Finally, only a small number of designers think deeply about social game design.

Let’s break down each of the three game design types below.

#1. Gameplay Design

Most of you should already get this. Gameplay refers to the core game mechanic itself and what the player engages in to progress in the game. This design type focuses on “finding the fun” and having fun gameplay serve as the primary retention mechanic.

Runner games like Subway Surfers, card games like Solitaire, or strategy games like Hearthstone serve as good examples of games strong in gameplay design.

The console and PC “units sold” business consists completely of gameplay driven game design. You want to create a fun experience that players want to spend $60 on and play endlessly.

In recent history, many mobile game designers discounted gameplay design in favor of stronger systems or “meta” game design. However, the pendulum has started (at least partially) swinging back to strong gameplay design. This has happened primarily for two reasons: 1. Gameplay is still the strongest retention mechanic in games and 2. the explosion of monetization based on rewarded video ads has made it possible to more easily monetize good retention. Hence, a fun game without a lot of systems design can be offset to some degree by good rewarded video ad integration.

Idle games have led the charge in rewarded video ad integration. We did the same at SEGA for the game we launched with WWE: WWE Tap Mania.

WWE Tap Mania Rewarded Video Ad Integration Examples:

In general, we typically see good rewarded video ad integration contributing about $0.03 – $0.06 in net ARPDAU. Further, a really fun game should be able to hold players for an average retention days (ARD) of over 10. Hence, you can see that we could expect net LTV (lifetime value) of around $0.30 – $0.60 from this source (assuming ARD=10).

Moment-to-moment Experience:

To be successful delivering strong gameplay, a designer must deliver a compelling “moment-to-moment” user experience. Therefore, to some degree, this design type favors the old-school console and PC designers.

I strongly believe we will continue to see new forms of exciting and fun gameplay delivered across all platforms. Success here requires VERY deep understanding of specific game genres you are building a game design in and typically lots of iteration (as opposed to planning).

Platform Optimization:

The other factor to consider here is platform optimization. This has been the bread and butter of Supercell. They have been extremely good at simplifying existing proven gameplay from other platforms to mobile.

As most folks in the game industry know, Clash of Clans was a simplified version of games like Backyard Monsters and Edgeworld on social. Of course, Supercell did a great job of simplifying resources, tightening up the core loop UX, etc. However, the point being that big opportunity remains in delivering platform specific experiences from proven core elements of gameplay on other platforms.

#2. Systems Design

Many people often refer to “systems” design fairly interchangeably with the term “meta-systems” or “meta” design. This type of F2P game design primarily focuses on non core game features that are not directly connected to core loop actions or gameplay.

These systems promote specific behavior primarily with respect to:

• Monetization
• Compulsion

Both of these objectives drive LTV. Hence, a system designer largely focuses on designing systems to maximize LTV.

Monetization

A good system designer needs to know all of the F2P monetization tricks. Many of these were developed out of Asia and the best systems designers keep a very close eye on those markets for new mechanics. Mechanics like gacha, character sharding, VIP, hard currency banks, etc. all came from Asian markets. It’s also no coincidence that, during the early days, Game of War beat Kingdoms of Camelot by emulating mechanics from Chinese games during that time.

Getting better in this area requires study and practice. I have already written about some examples of F2P monetization mechanics here:

• 12 Critical Monetization Concepts

However, fair warning that post may be out of date especially as new mechanics continue to emerge.

Compulsion

Compulsion refers to mechanics or flows that encourage different types of behavior.

In Game of War, there are (to simplify) short, medium, and long-term retention hooks specifically designed to try and capture and re-engage players with the game at different points in the player’s gameplay cycle.

The Secret Gift, for example, tries to increase short term retention by incentivizing waiting just a little bit longer to gain a gift: hence, increasing gameplay session length.

The now endlessly copied Clash Royale chest timers were designed for mid-term retention and increasing additional game sessions.

Systems designers also focus on elder game play for longer term retention and monetization such as via guild-vs-guild (GVG) mechanics or features of that nature. World Domination in Modern War was an extremely well designed GVG mechanic that significantly increased monetization and retention in that game.

 

#3. Social Design

Social designers attempt to motivate social and psychological biases to drive specific in-game behaviors. For example, social designers would try think of what kinds of situations would cause players to drive towards different actions based on emotions:

• How can I get players to attack one another?
• How do I get players to hate each other after a battle? Or alternatively, how do I not get players to hate each other after a PVP battle?
• How can I get a player to invite their friends to the game?
• How can I get a player to keep coming back to the game?
• How can I prompt players to write specific types of reviews for my game?
• etc. etc.

One of the earliest games to really try to push social design was Game of War. The game design in that game can drive so much emotional energy that irrational monetizing behavior is common. For example, stories of players who have spent say a $5K investment in the game who get “zeroed” (their city and army destroyed) and yet could easily spend $10K to get revenge.

The game allowed for emotional status and states not possible in real life: the ability for players in the game who could become famous. What is fame worth?

Many of the tactics in the game drive towards specific outcomes. Throughout the week there are events that incentivize building up troops and over the weekend events that incentivize fighting enemies to drain those troops. When a member of an alliance makes an in app purchase, all of your alliance members will receive a gift increasing social pressure to purchase. Limited time offers are taken to the extreme with even 5 minute flash sales.

Without diving into too much more detail, let me leave it here and say this is the exciting new area of innovation in F2P game design today.

Conclusion

I submit that a deep understanding of all three primary game design types will be necessary to be successful with game design in the emerging competitive mobile gaming market. The days of being able to focus on single areas of game design types are over as I believe the coming successful games will be similar to Clash Royale in combining expertise across multiple game design types. In my opinion, the most innovation and differentiation will be developed in the social game design area which I recommend as an area of future study.