5 Lessons From Diablo 3 for Gamification Design

If you haven’t heard the news, Diablo 3 is the fastest selling game in PC history moving 3.5 million copies in just 24 hours. Blizzard employs some of the best game designers in the world and managed to create the most hyped game of 2012 by far.  I should know – it’s consumed a huge chunk of my life already. I have done one complete playthrough with a Monk and am halfway through my second playthrough with my Witch Doctor. Diablo 3 is addicting.

Given the power and undeniable success of the game design in Diablo 3, it seems clear that some lessons could be applied to gamification as well. Here then are my Top 5 Lessons from Diablo 3 for Gamification Design.

Collaborative Achievement Design

An interesting aspect I found while playing cooperatively was that I could unlock an achievement for playing with others, even if I’ve already completed that same achievement alone. This achievement design is not new, in fact it is probably overused as a means to entice people to play with others. What was interesting was that the new achievement unlocked an emblem for my party of friends to use to indicate that we achieved this together. Promote a collaborative atmosphere by rewarding specific groups of people and displaying their ability to work with others. Consider creating a badge that is divided in four parts that is comprised by the four people who completed one specific task as a team. This badge will then be uniquely theirs (status) and can incentivize others to get their own:

An example of a “Collaborative Badge” featuring the awesome dopamine team.

Instill a Sense of Order

Diablo 3 contains many tiered achievements. There’s no limit to how many visual rewards you can earn for collecting gold or killing monsters.  Once someone meets the requirement for collecting 50,000 gold in the game, that person will earn that achievement but will also have 50,000 gold in progress towards the next tier of the 100,000 gold achievement. The maximum tier will also have a special emblem indicating user’s progression/mastery of this task. Again, this is not a new game mechanic but in Diablo the achievements list clearly show the progress of tiers in the achievement list. Providing this information as opposed to a more open ended style of achievement (like Foursquare) caters to different people. Diablo’s style of tiers and a maximum level of achievement will likely be preferable to achiever types, whereas open ended achievements might be preferable to explorer types. Achievers will want to know how close they are to completion so that they can work towards a goal but explorers love the element of surprise and could be disappointed to know that there are no more achievements to be found. Know what type of player will be using your system and cater to their achievement preferences; Diablo definitely caters to the achievers.

The Satisfaction of Clicking

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of an interesting animation/audio confirmation to motivate users. For the easiest difficulty in Diablo, left-clicking to kill monsters will be all that a player really needs to succeed. It isn’t difficult but also super satisfying. Providing a repetitive action with interesting/unique feedback can make that action more pleasurable to do. Another really good example of this is the game Peggle:

There is something wonderfully satisfying about the way the meter on the right builds up in sync with the rising notes of the pegs as they are lit up, yet all this is caused by a single click and the fall of a single ball. Peggle really does it right but this does not mean a fun animation in a gamified system will save a poorly-designed process.

Let Users be Social (But not too Social)

When patch 1.0.2 was released,  the developers changed it so that all people upon login were taken into a general chat visible by everyone. The chat is immediately noticeable when one logs on as people begin to talk away but the developers managed to keep it unobtrusive if you simply wish to play and ignore it. This suggests that you can provide generic group chat as a simple way of engaging players in interaction. But the lesson of Diablo is that chat is not the dominant interaction, but rather a simple, easily hidden option.  The potential benefit is that people can just ask an open question at any point or receive quick feedback about an idea without having to directly contact anyone. Be wary of designing chats with rewards for users chatting – that runs the risk of turning the chat into a XP generator rather than a social tool.

Give Players a Choice

One great change from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 was the way the developers handled skill progression. In 2, once skills were chosen, players were essentially forced to stay with their decisions. In 3, they revamped the system so that players could pick, choose, and customize all of their skills at anytime to adapt to new challenges in the game. Giving users the element of choice and rewarding them for playing in their own way is a fantastic way to motivate action. One great example of this can be seen in Nike+, in which user goals are identified but how you get there and what exercises you do will be up to you. Making the wrong decision early on will allow the user to filter out their mistakes and find a more efficient method of action. Users who know their own personal decisions have led to their success will feel a much stronger internal feedback loop. Designing objectives with multiple paths to achieve them, in addition to achievements indicating what path a user took, could greatly empower users.

   

Many people argue against the idea of video game design as being appropriate for gamification design purpose, which for some cases is definitely true. Some game design elements will not be appropriate for everything but there are still lessons learned from Blizzard’s developers. In the end, user experience is user experience and after 3.5 million copies, Blizzard knows a thing or two on how to get people excited about a game. Have any of you guys played Diablo 3 yet? Let me know in the comments of any other mechanics you’ve enjoyed in Diablo 3.