UX Review: Marvel Contest Of Champions

Marvel Contest falls in the latter category.

Developer Kabam’s stronghold has traditionally been RPG’s which are more suited to hard core players with an appetite for empire building and penchant for battles. Marvel Contest was a new leaf in Kabam’s book. Why?...Because it lowered the entry barrier for masses of casual and mid-core players, whilst offering depth and content which it’s other strategy games are famously known for.

Gameplay

Many games which involve an assortment of powerful heroes usually introduce trading card mechanics which makes it easier to manage them on mobile. But Kabam went ahead with the genre of character brawler similar to Streetfighter but with controls that are so simplified that even a two year old can figure them out.

Street Brawler Mechanics Simplified?

Traditional street brawlers have an assortment of moves mapped to the controller as seen below:

Just like FPS, this genre also traditionally demands high motor and sensory coordination as the fights can be in real time with an enemy who can execute 'n'  number of combos and special attacks, countering them requires adapting your hero's fighting controls on the fly.

We can see above, how in classical brawlers not only player has to track character movement but also combines them with well timed combos for punching and kicking.

Origin of course lies in the old arcade machines, which were designed to fully engage and immerse players within the game session, without affordance for distractions. Tactile controls were designed to use and engage multiple fingers at a given time. needing players complete immersion and involvement.

It has been achieved by something I refer to as Erasing of loads, now a rampant phenomenon in mobile gaming where in, the heavy cognitive loads involved in traditional pc and console games are either reduced or removed in magnitude by simplifying the inputs required in core mechnics or removal altogether, to achieve better balance for mobile audiences.

(This approach has been explained in greater detail in my article on FPS games)

Battle System: Tactical assault with Strategic undercurrents?

MCC battle system surfaces the more obvious and easy to understand tactical combat system upfront, using it as an on-boarding device, which lowers the entry barrier for casual players.

MCC combat system was designed for mobile and more importantly casual player experience from the ground up. It was a gamble indeed, but it works (kind of).

There are two key differentiators:

But as you progress through the game you realise...

The advantage is that it perfectly suits the mobile screen experience with less to manage in bite sized sessions. This inherently is what mobile gaming is gyrating towards.

While the combat system and controls are simple and easy to remember beyond the action phase, Kabam has a whole lot more going on in the core and meta loop to keep players engaged for long duration of time.

But as you dig deeper in to the game the strategy element start surfacing

Between the six different classes of Champions, the relationships look like this:

Cosmic -> Skill -> Tech -> Mutant -> Science -> Mystic -> Cosmic

You should always try to be on the correct side of these match-ups, as doing so increases your attack power and reduces it for your opponent. This is also relevant in 3vs3 match-ups. Strategy players will invest in building the best roster and teams with synergies that can beat the opponent, leading to planning in advance that will affect the longterm outcome.

Core Loop

Core loop of the game revolves around fighting, getting reward crystals, opening them to gain evolution material, upgrading heroes and rinse repeat the cycle. It is about the "Gotcha catch em all" fever.

Early on, the game does a phenomenal job of teaching players this rinse and repeat cycle as you only receive 1-3 heroes via the crystal drop, who go into a cool down immediately after a fight (fights don't last more then 1-2 minutes). What can the player do in the remaining time? ?Not much really other than upgrading the champion and crystal drops.

From a players perspective there are only two major time-sinks in the game.

The crystal you receive every 4 hours gives you consumables while the one you get every 24 hours gives you a two-star Champion (and more rarely, something better).

Versus crystals are earned in PvP quick matches, and they give you either Gold or Battle Chips which can be redeemed for an Arena Crystal that offers you a chance at a 4 star Champion.

The Purple crystals you find during quests can contain a variety of rewards but mostly yield ISO-8.

Last, and certainly not least, are the Premium Hero crystals that can be purchased with Units, the game’s premium currency. These crystals guarantee a two-star Champion at least and can give up to a four-star Champion.

Monetisation : Gacha crystals shop with super-market psychology!

Ask gamers and developers alike, gacha mechanics which drops random loot is one of the most loved mechanics. Players enjoy the uncertainty and thrill of unlocking cool gear, anticipation and uncertainty keeps the outcome fresh for players and have them drooling for more. Usually chests are the most common form of gacha mechanics developers use in many game.

For most gacha system RARITY of some form goes hand in hand, as the chance of getting a epic or rare rewards keeps player pining and trying for more and more. (You can see it as tiered star system in the screen shot above)

How MC taps physical retail store psychology cleverly in to it's digital version

Shop/inventory design in Marvel Contest mimics the super-market layout psychology very well. It’s something we all go through in our everyday life when we go to super-markets or the shopping store. The most essential or daily use items are always kept at the back of the store so you have to go through and see all the expensive and high vanity ones which you are not planning on purchasing but end up buying.

Similar implementation in Marvel Contest!

Vertical scrolling crystal inventory shows player the purchasable high vanity and visually impressive items the moment you come to this screen. (Screenshot above)

Player has to manually scroll down to see or claim the crystals s/he has won in battles

Idea is to send player as often to the shop/inventory space as possible, which is done by giving player free hourly and daily crystals. This ensures the player comes to this space frequently.

UX Take: Any UX designer would, under normal circumstances, think of making the screen more accessible by sorting the list with free or ready to open crystals at the top and not hide it under a scrolling list at the bottom so players do not have to make efforts to find it.

Reinforcing this behaviour

This behaviour becomes more obvious, when player earns a reward crystal as a result of a PvE and PvP battle but is not allowed to open it directly at the result screen!

UX perspective: Allowing the player to open it directly would have led to "Instant Gratification" as desirable after a battle or such activity, but the player can only open and claim his reward crystals by going to Crystal Shop, scrolling to the bottom - An additional 3 clicks away from the result screen!

There is another top grossing IP game which debuted after MC but was quick to adopt a similar approach -Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

Star Wars: GOH uses a similar approach in it's gacha system

Daily/Hourly free cards are populated in the shop, buried at the end of the roster, which player need to scroll to walking past all high value aspirational offers.

Conclusion

Overall Kabam's strategy of focussing on less games at a time, imbibed with deep learnings from it's hard-core games the past, catering to both casual and mid-core audiences is generating well deserved long term returns.

If you liked this post, you can check out my other Game UX Deconstructs. Feel free to connect with me for my future article.