Case study
Problem: In Minecraft Legend's public PVP games, players are teamed up with strangers but struggle to communicate their needs and intentions to their teammates, creating frustration. The lack of built in text or voice chat put the players joining strangers at a disadvantage against already formed teams of friends.
Constraints:
- Due to platform TRC, fear of player harassment, and lack of resources to build a robust moderation system, text chat and voice chat are out of the question for public games. Players can use a third party application to talk with friends, but voice or text chat cannot be expected for all players.
- Minecraft Legends is playable with a controller, or a keyboard and mouse, on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox and Steam deck. The HUD screen real estate is already limited, and the available additional button inputs are limited.
- All player to player communication must support Text to Speech to meet the accessibility requirements set by Microsoft.
- Development resources are limited, so the designs must try to reuse and expand existing systems or tech rather than building brand new ones.
What is the PVP mode of Minecraft Legend
ML is a Pikmin style action strategy game. The PvP mode shares some of the campaign gameplay, but introduces differences. The goal is to destroy the other team’s wellhouse. Piglin outposts (AI enemies) spawn buildings and units, which attack all players and also provide necessary resources to fuel the battle.
The main things players can to do are:
- Explore to find resources, treasure chests or the witch hut Collect resources from the world (wood and stone to start, then after purchasing upgrades coal, diamond, redstone and iron)
- Destroy Piglin’s buildings in Piglin outposts to get prismarine (to purchase upgrades)
- Kill Piglins to get lapis (to summon troops)
- Build defenses to protect the base against Piglins and the opposing team
- Build upgrades (unlock resources, units, tech improvements etc)
- Attack and destroy the enemy player base to win
Because of the third person view, players must make the decision to focus on one or two tasks at the start, and trust that their teammates are doing their part. Resources are shared within the team, but the allays (fairy-like creatures used to place resource gather orders or build orders) are not.
Major communication pain points in PVP at launch
“Someone used all the resources I saved to build something I didn’t want”Design strategies
Different phases in the game require different types of communication.
1. Pre-game role selection:
Goal: help to build broad strokes strategy, reduce friction in the first crucial minutes in the game
We decided to leverage the lobby down time for players to pick a starting role. Taking example on modern MOBA, players can pick a role option while waiting for the matchmaking to go through. The list of presets is built taking into account the main strategies and roles that players tend to take.
The choice is visible to their teammate through icon and text in the lobby, and in the pause menu after the game starts. Using this simple system, players can coordinate their role in the team, or plan simple strategies (like focusing on “fighter” to signify rushing the enemy base).
This significantly reduces the friction at the start of the game, players can head straight into their role in the precious initial minutes, and adjust course naturally later on.
The roles can’t be changed after the game started, and will naturally become less relevant as the situation evolves. Player can then rely on other systems.
2. Improved build pings
Goal: allow to better communicate intention, add ability to communicate general approval and disapproval
“It’s really important to work together, because you’re sharing resources and so with the ping system you can say, ‘I want to build a Redstone Launcher’, and the team go, ‘OK, let’s save up our Redstone. Or you could be like, ‘I want coal!’, and so people go ‘OK let’s save up our coal’.”
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/02/07/minecraft-legends-pvp-ping-cross-platform-fast-travel/
Right: Instead, I reused the category component
While build mode is toggled, one building is selected. This allows a player to ping it specifically. The player needs to release the build mode to change their selection. So, while in build mode, some of the controls used to select a building are freed up.
Icons allows to limit the footprint on the HUD. It makes the ping a little less clear, but we considered the trade off acceptable, as the action is not destructive. A string appears on the chat log on the left for the entire team.
String structure:
[Name]: Can someone build a [structure] ([cost])
[Name]: I am going to build a [structure] ([cost])
[Name]: Can someone gather [resource]
[Name]: I am going to gather [resource]
[Name]: Yes
[Name]: No
3. Hotbar improvements
To prevent spoilers during the campaign, locked resources and buildings are hidden from view. In PVP, the resources are visible in the songbook, but shown as locked. Prior to this improvement, Players could fill their hotbar with locked items and ping it, but it required multiple steps and every locked item looked the same:
I recommended to fill the hotbar to include a set of locked options. The preset for each category is defined by the game designers, looking at the most commonly used strategies. Players can still rearrange their hotbar at any point in the game if they want to ping a less common building.
Cross mode compatibility is ensured. Locked items are hidden in campaign, and allow Designers to pick what should be unlocked, locked, or hidden in Lost Legends game mode.
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