Text/Yiguang Flow

In recent years, SLG has gradually developed from a sweet spot in the industry to a highly involuted track.

It is true that many teams found opportunities in the early days, but after years of chaos among many large manufacturers, simple skinning and buying products were gradually eliminated, and the remaining products also precipitated richer playing styles. When all manufacturers are increasing their size, the products in it are also facing greater survival challenges.

Products that can stabilize their position in such an environment have more or less explored their own unique skills. Among them, "Red Alert OL" is a unique case, judging from the trend of the list, after the popularity of the initial launch returned to stability, this product also experienced short-term pains that other SLGs had not encountered, but in the following years, "Red Alert OL" quickly turned over and entered a stable long-term development period.

Up to now, "Red Alert Online" has accumulated 30 million registered users, and judging from this year's performance, it will usher in a peak of best-selling rankings in the near sixth-year anniversary. It can be said that in the SLG market, which is full of masters, this product has come out of the trough in a low-key manner, and has established a modern warfare subdivision in the SLG category, forming its own category barriers.

It's not easy to keep up with this trend in SLG today. Shang Zhenyu, head of the Red Police R&D team of Ruyi Jingxiu, told Grape Jun that "Red Police OL" has made a lot of attempts in long-term operation, IP development and track exploration in the past six years, so it can stabilize its position and not fall behind. And with all these years of accumulation, they are also preparing for the next change in the SLG market.

01

Six years on the line,

SLG's long-term challenges

As we all know, "Red Alert Online" is backed by the IP of Red Alert for nearly 30 years, and in the early version of the game, the core task for research and development was to restore it to ensure that this IP can also reflect the flavor of the original game on top of SLG gameplay. Looking back now, this was not a difficult task for the R&D team at that time.

Previous versions

And when you look at it for a long time, the difficulty arises.

First of all, at the content level, the original game of Red Alert has limited content after all, and there are times when the original content is exhausted when it is restored. In Shang Zhenyu's view, the solution is to reasonably expand the theme of the game.

Compared with other commonly used IPs of SLGs, the biggest feature of Red Alert is the theme of "modern warfare", so when it conforms to the worldview of Red Alert, it is possible to extend more branches of themes that can be mined to explore the richer concept of modern warfare for content creation.

For example, this sixth anniversary version adopts the theme concept of "Star Sea Fierce War", which is based on the sea war scene of the Red Alert terminal game, and spreads out the three-dimensional combat mode of sea, land and air, and these ideas are finally designed into the theme and gameplay of the Star Sea Battle version.

In the new version, the player's battlefield is set on the sea, and with the starry sea-themed dress up and casual gameplay, it can not only bring the freshness of three-dimensional combat on land, sea and air that is different from the traditional land combat scene of SLG, but also allow players to relive the memories of the Red Alert game.

"The advantage of this kind of theme extension is that we abstract the combat characteristics of the Red Alert IP into the keyword "modern warfare", and then create through this keyword, it is difficult for the new content generated to deviate from the main axis of the IP. This way, even if the new content is not something that is original to Red Alert, players will find an opportunity to embrace it. In Shang Zhenyu's view, this is a key strategy to solve the long-term content reserve.

Secondly, at the level of gameplay, long-term operations cannot rely solely on numerical inflation to brutally solve version updates, and to design more gameplay, it is naturally not enough to rely on the reserve resources of the original game. When solving this problem, Shang Zhenyu believes that it is necessary to think in two directions.

The first is the expansion of IP gameplay. As an IP adaptation, it is natural that you can't stuff all the gameplay into it, so the most important thing is to fully excavate the gameplay settings of the original IP. For example, in this sixth anniversary version, the game introduces the gameplay of super weapons, which are a major feature of Red Alert, from nuclear bomb silos, to weather controllers, to psychic controllers, which are all elements that all veteran players talk about.

In "Red Alert Online", the superweapon has been redeveloped. In terms of setting, the super weapon is more suitable for the worldview background of this game, and is used as a strategic weapon to deal with the Thai Star War. On the system, the superweapon is divided into the energy base part and the weapon part, and the current version of the super weapon that can be unlocked includes an electromagnetic pulse tower, a ballistic launcher, a lightning controller, etc.

The second is the fine-tuning of the gameplay experience. In the past version, the gameplay experience of "Red Alert Online" emphasized the strong confrontation rhythm and coolness in SLG, but after a long period of operation, this confrontation is likely to evolve into a show for pure head players. Therefore, in Shang Zhenyu's view, if the game wants to go long-term, it is necessary to reconcile the differences in game demands and game habits between different players.

For example, in the "Star Sea Fierce War" version, the production team tried to add more strategy and operational space. "This is similar to adding more RTS decisions in SLG, at the bottom of the day, we have added fuel as a basic resource tree, but in actual combat, players need to always consider the benefits generated by fuel consumption, so a series of considerations such as geopolitical contention, route interception, and marching strategy are derived."

The clever thing about the experience adjustment of "Red Alert Online" is that the fuel mechanism is only a new element, and the learning cost of players is not high, but it is also a basic element with a lot of influence, which can tap many different gameplay strategies.

Shang Zhenyu believes: "By adding a fresh small mechanism to mobilize players to explore strategies, it can not only simply stimulate activity, but also enrich the playability of the game little by little without affecting players' habits." And with the continuous fresh playability, the life cycle of the game will naturally be extended, so this decision will continue to affect the iteration direction of "Red Alert Online" in the future.

Then there are the details and services, with the upgrading of the market, to maintain the competitiveness of the product, it is natural to improve the details, in addition to maintaining the feelings of existing users, it is also necessary to continuously absorb the suggestions of players and improve all aspects of the product. This approach is reflected in many places in "Red Alert Online".

The most typical example is the anniversary livestream, where the player competition becomes the main event. Compared with the arrangement of the anniversary live broadcast of other games, the most interesting thing about the anniversary live broadcast of "Red Alert Online" is actually the finals of the game Tabertai Star Season, and in the follow-up live broadcast review, the official account also explained the grand occasion of the game in detail for the first time, which shows that "Red Alert Online" puts players in the most important position.

In fact, the current operation strategy of "Red Alert Online" is "based on the needs of players". "Almost all of our decisions now revolve around the needs of our players, and we will give one-on-one quality customer service to the core players who have supported us for six years; In addition, we keep an eye on changes in game data to analyze changes in player needs. ”

Shang Zhenyu looks back on the development of "Red Alert Online" in the past six years: "This is more like a process of continuous evolution and growth of the game in the process of meeting the needs of players as players play. ”

The same example can be seen in the distribution of benefits. The intensity of the sixth anniversary benefit distribution this time is roughly estimated to be more than 30% more than in previous years. At the same time, the distribution of benefits also pays more attention to the sense of participation and interaction in the details. For example, through big data, the game memories that are exclusive to each player are generated, and the design of space battleship air defense drill gameplay, etc., so that players can relive their feelings or casual interaction at the same time, and gain something.

In many details outside the game, "Red Alert Online" is also trying to find ways to show players more of their stages. For example, talk to excellent players, learn about their game experiences, and the stories of the alliance members behind them; Collect player contributions to show players' expectations and blessings for the game at different moments; Launch a popular commander poll to choose the most popular male god and goddess commander in your players' minds.

On the whole, the reason why "Red Alert Online" can operate stably until the sixth year after the labor pains is due to its uniqueness and plasticity in content, which is different from the Three Kingdoms, zombies, and fantasy overhead SLGs; the second is to rely on the innovation of the gameplay to keep the core players interested; The third is to focus on the service and details of the player, and keep the base of the game itself.

On top of this, Shang Zhenyu also pointed out that the steady and steady attitude of the entire Red Police team, the prudence of not making big mistakes, and the seriousness of maintaining daily operations for several years are also important guarantees for "Red Police OL" to turn around and achieve long-term results. "If it hadn't been for that resilience and persistence, the team would have been beaten a long time ago."

02

Prepare ahead for the next six years of the SLG

For most mobile games, it is not easy to maintain good results after six years of operation. But for an SLG, six years seems to be just a starting point, and a truly successful SLG is bound to challenge the next six years. This is also a major goal that "Red Alert Online" is exploring.

When it comes to SLG now, Shang Zhenyu is more lamented by the fierce competition in this track. "SLG mobile games have basically reached a bottleneck period at the level of gameplay innovation, and now most products focus more on the theme of its exploration, such as studying its storytelling and enhancing the player's sense of substitution, but there are few content gameplay that makes SLG itself significantly interesting."

It is also because of this judgment that "Red Alert Online" focuses on theme mining and user maintenance, the former determines how many things the production team can make and how far it goes, and the latter determines how many players can continue to stay in the product on this road. Strictly speaking, this approach is more on defense.

In order to find a bigger foothold in the next six years of the SLG track, it is not only necessary to continue to strengthen the defense, but also to consider how to attack.

Fortunately, after joining Jingxiu, thanks to the team's overall attention and substantial investment in SLG, the Red Alert production team also has a lot of exploration attempts and innovative ideas on the SLG track based on the past accumulation and current market conditions.

The first is the strategy of consolidating the defense. The Jingxiu Red Police R&D team conceived and tried two mechanisms in this regard.

One is the official account trading system. For a veteran SLG that has been in business for many years, there will always be players in and out of the pit, and not every old player can always support the game, in fact, according to official big data, there are only 1437 full sign-in players since the start of the service.

Therefore, after the official account transaction is opened, on the one hand, the valuable account on the market can be recycled and reinvested into the ecological cycle of the game, and on the other hand, it can also be guaranteed to players to avoid some problems and losses that may occur in unofficial transactions. At the same time, with the original protection mechanism of the game's old players after returning to the pit (such as the pit return server), the loss of high-end players/accounts can be avoided to the greatest extent, and the stability of the game ecology can be maintained in the long run.

The second is the mechanism of disassembling and merging servers. Combining servers is a very routine operation in the industry, but dismantling is extremely rare, and I have the impression that only FF14 has carried out similar operations in China, and the dismantling of the service as a fixed strategy, I am afraid that there is only one product of "Red Alert OL". Compared with the merger, the dismantling of the server means that the players in the original server are dispersed to a certain extent and divided into different new servers.

This sounds a bit unreasonable, in fact, the dismantling of "Red Alert Online" is not a violent re-distribution of players, but on the basis of the season system, to ensure that it does not affect the accumulation of resources in the previous season, and at the same time, the new season will be re-divided to a certain extent, so as to ensure that players with different levels of development meet opponents of equal strength.

"The recombined server is a new ecosystem, which can not only avoid the excessive concentration of fixed server resources and high-end players, but also allow players to always encounter new opponents, new environments, and new challenges through the cycle of seasons." Therefore, this mechanic can greatly improve the player's long-term retention and activity in the SLG game.

In our opinion, the operation method of dismantling and combining the server is undoubtedly rare in the current game field, when talking about why he boldly made the attempt, Shang Zhenyu further shared: "We Jingxiu have a long-term strategic plan for the SLG track, and Red Alert OL can be said to have its unique strategic significance. ”

It is true that from the above two innovative mechanisms, it can also be seen that "Red Alert Online" is quite radical in its exploration of SLG innovation. The courage to make such an attempt also shows that the Red Alert OL team has accumulated enough experience in the past, and the team now has sufficient investment in the SLG track. After all, new things also come with new risks, and it must be able to get to the bottom before it is worth trial and error.

Let's talk about the strategy of attacking the track. Regarding this point, the current "Red Alert OL" is still in the exploration stage.

In Shang Zhenyu's view, the most obvious trend change in SLG today is the exploration and integration of lightweight gameplay and sub-gameplay. "This kind of gameplay can often break the limitations of the original SLG audience and attract a new user group that has only heard of SLG, or does not know SLG at all, which will be a very potential new user source for the long-term development of SLG."

Therefore, "Red Alert Online" has also studied and tried similar gameplay designs in recent times, thinking about how to create a sub-gameplay that can attract potential users under the SLG of Red Alert IP and modern warfare themes.

It's just that this kind of gameplay can't follow the design ideas of other SLGs: "For example, Red Alert's representative end-to-end gameplay is RTS, and if you want to ensure that players are attracted by the sub-gameplay and don't have a sense of dislocation in the gameplay, you need to design a mini-game related to the performance of RTS gameplay." ”

Tower defense déjà vu

So for now, Shang Zhenyu believes that compared with other SLGs' various rich gameplay designs, tower defense-like gameplay is more suitable for combining with "Red Alert Online". Of course, tower defense is only one of the directions in the early stage of their exploration, and as the creativity continues to improve, the follow-up production team will make more attempts.

And Shang Zhenyu also shared, "Our team has gone through 6 years of development, from the beginning of love to the current Jingxiu, no matter good times or bad, the team's centripetal force is still very strong, precipitating the next batch of excellent partners." We dare to face players, and we are still insisting on meeting players this year to understand the latest needs of players, listen to the latest technology and means innovation in the industry, and constantly find solutions that can keep up with the times and market demand. ”

Jingxiu itself has also made a long-term strategic deployment in the SLG category. In addition to the several representative decisions mentioned above, Jingxiu has increased investment in R&D technology, art resources, gameplay exploration and other aspects, coupled with the past accumulation of the Red Police R&D team, there are bound to be more new actions in the future.

Overall, in addition to maintaining stable long-term operations, "Red Alert Online" has begun to increase investment through the transformation of old gameplay, the attempt of new mechanisms, and the exploration of sub-gameplay, and gradually prepare for the next round of competition in the SLG market. It is often said that if you are prepared, as long as you can keep up with the changing trend of the market and retreat to defend your own products and users, then "Red Alert OL" will at least not be left behind in the future.

03

The era and the user determine the future of SLG

Having said that, in recent years, domestic manufacturers have increased their expectations for SLG, and everyone wants to be the first to find a breakthrough and open the deadlock of SLG.

Some manufacturers focus on the excavation of gameplay, and the season system is its product; Some products engage in content, such as turning out the theme of the Three Kingdoms, and creating stories in the way of young people, so as to expand the audience; There are also manufacturers who focus on buying volume, so they work backwards to have a routine of SLG+ sub-gameplay; Others have begun to subtract from the classic SLG architecture, trying to find a path that fits the gaming habits and rhythm of today's players.

In this vast army of SLGs, the angle of entry of the R&D team of "Red Alert Online" is even more bold and rare. From the perspective of positioning, whether it is an official account transaction or a dismantling mechanism, it is more practical for long-term operations. These innovative mechanics will be further validated as the game aligns with mainstream trends such as sub-gameplay and a large number of new users enter the game.

In general, some of the various attempts of SLG have been successfully verified, and some are still on the way to exploration. In any case, players and markets are always changing dynamically, and SLG is affected by them, and they are not locked in one direction. Therefore, for SLG products and teams that pursue long-term, it is always necessary to adapt to the changes of the times and meet the demands of users at different stages.

Just like the concept "Journey" that appears most often in SLGs, it can be a horse stepping on a river, or firing at the enemy, or a sea of stars.

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