Chapter 27 Section 4 How to manage game planning

This is a concept I proposed based on our previous planning problems, and no textbook has said so.Because I found that the general process of our planning is like this: pat your head—write documents—hand over to the art program—debugging—sub-test area. The problem is that after putting it in the sub-test area, he will start to do new work. In the past, several of our R&D teams had the habit of putting it in the sub-test area, and the planner thought his work had been completed, which caused 90% of our plans to fail.Like "Giant", many functions were pushed, but they all failed. Most of the functions were overturned and redone, and then overturned and redone.A feature is lucky if it has only been overridden three rounds.

Why such a high failure rate? After the planning pushes this function to the sub-test area, I think his work is only 30% completed, and the subsequent planning work is called secondary planning. First, the most important difference between the second plan is that the first plan is shot out of the head, while the second plan is watched by the players. In fact, there are very few successful plans, almost none, because after all, we don't know the players yet.Put it in the sub-test area and meet the players for the first time. This is the real start of planning. Only at this time can you get the players' feelings about this function?Is it the process, or the attraction of numerical experience?Our values ​​used to be slapped on the head, and most of them were unreasonable.Only after the player comes in and you do the investigation can you get a relatively reasonable value.

Tianlong's baby system was adjusted by his person in charge, and finally he adjusted it to an accuracy of 1/10000000, which was adjusted after letting the players in.If you just think in your head, can you adjust to one in ten million?Indeed, in many key places, the value plays a decisive role. Whether a player can get started, whether the operation interface is comfortable, etc., you can only feel it after passing the player test. In addition, when you plan, you are already conceiving the four major needs and goals that must be met, but have you achieved these four points?You should go to the player to have a look, go to the game to have a look, only when you really get in touch with the players, you have to start thinking.I think this is definitely not the end of planning, but the beginning of planning. The first planning is the prelude, and the second planning is the real beginning.

I often say two sentences, the first sentence is: a good game is modified. Modification means that you make modifications while the players are playing. Good games rarely succeed in brainstorming. It is modified little by little after there are players. Another sentence is: don't be slow before the test, and don't be fast after the test. Before testing, your ideas are immature, so you must be fast. Don’t wait until a month to finish what you can finish in a week, because there are not many really effective things in this process, so you must rush for time.Once these functions are put into the test area, you can't seek speed, but you have to step by step, modify it again and again, and you can't leave the test area until you succeed.

And we were not like this before, the test area was updated in the whole area without running a few times.This is tightrope walking. Before the test area is successful, we must not take the next step, and we must not update the entire area.So the test area can't be fast.In the test area, we, especially the responsible planners, must communicate with the players and adjust the values ​​ourselves.The right to determine this value should be in the hands of the responsible planner, who should adjust it himself. "Giant" has such a problem, the planning doesn't care about the value, so the value of "Giant" is rare to reach an absurd level.

The boss of Tianlong adjusts the values ​​by himself. As the responsible planner, you know the situation best, and you will not feel wronged at all by adjusting the values. Your adjustment is the most scientific.In addition, the computer at this time should also record some data that is conducive to the planning work, such as how many people are playing a function, what level of people are playing, and how many people are actually playing online. Planning helps a lot. After all these data are collected, a formal meeting for secondary planning is required.Responsibility planning to convene, according to computer statistics and player feedback, plan the first planning meeting to start the second planning.

The planning this time will be far more than the first head-patting planning meeting, because you already have first-hand information at this time, so the decisions you make are often correct, at least the success rate has increased significantly.This procedure is repeated several times until it succeeds before updating the entire district. Therefore, the importance of secondary planning and the energy that should be expended far exceeds that of primary planning. Don't look at the details as small and unimportant tasks, and have nothing to do with the top leader.Now, let me analyze the necessity of first-hand attention to details.

The homogenization of online games is becoming more and more serious, and everyone is fighting for details.The era when details are king has arrived, even if you have details, you must do it to the extreme.Despise the enemy strategically, and attach importance to the enemy tactically.Tactics are actually about the details. If you look at Blizzard and EA, you can hardly find any faults in the games made by Blizzard. If you look at EA, it is much bigger than Blizzard and has a lot of money, but EA's products are easy to find faults.From the perspective of game profits alone, EA is actually losing money, but Blizzard has huge profits.This difference is actually caused by the different cultures of the two companies.

Looking at "Zhengtu" again, it actually pays great attention to details.I've been catching on to the details.The details of Fantasy and Tianlong are also very well done. Of course, we can't compare with Blizzard, but it is much more successful than other games. Looking at the opposite example, look at Kingsoft, which has the strongest research and development capabilities and the largest number of teams, but none of its games are successful.Judging from its games, there is a common problem, that is, the details are not well done and not done enough. Looking at "Zhengtu" and "Giant" again, when "Giant" started, I arranged for them to say, which features of "Zhengtu" are the players' favorite and successful, and you can copy them all for me.

All of "Giant" were copied over, but all of them failed.Why did "Giant" fail? It was because the planners of "Giant" felt that they copied it as it was, and did not show that they were at a higher level than "Zhengtu", so they made some minor changes.It's these small changes that make the difference.You must know that these details of "Journey" have been optimized after a long period of time. "Giant" is in these details, all copied functions are not optimized, so that they all fail in the end. The successful functions of "Zhengtu" such as moving bricks and spying are all available in "Giant", but none of them have achieved great success.This example is very illustrative, the same function, because the details are not optimized, so the ending is a failure.

Through these few examples, we can draw such a conclusion: details are king.If the details are not done well, it is best not to put it on the market, and one shot will die. The details include a lot, which may be an interface, a value, or a setting.Although it is small, in front of hundreds of thousands of players, it is actually no small matter. The workload is small but by no means trivial. Why does the top leader need to grasp the details? First, the details are too important, especially the details of key links.Adjust the value by yourself and set it by yourself.There should be no deviation in the value of key links, and there should be no problems with the setting of key links, and it must be extreme.For example, the explosion rate of killing monsters may differ by 1/1000, which will cause a great imbalance. Grasp the details with one hand, which can effectively reduce the risks borne by the project. Second, role models take the lead.The top leaders pay attention to details, and the planning below will naturally pay attention to it unconsciously.If the head of the team gets mad, the people below will be the same as you, then this project will be over. The top leaders must grasp the details, so that the details are king and implemented in action. Looking back at my 20 years of sailing, there have been uphills and downhills.It just so happens that in the past 20 years, there have been three periods where I have paid attention to the details and done it myself. The first time was in 1989. There was no money and no one. I wrote 100% of the code of the company’s products, and all the advertisements were written by myself. Every punctuation, every word, and every design were done by me. of.At that time, whether you like it or not, you really grasp the details yourself, and the company develops. By 1992, the company already had more than a dozen R&D personnel, and 60% of the code for the company's products was written by myself.In order to improve efficiency, all the high-efficiency and important ones are added to statistics, and all are written in assembly.At this stage, our company has grown from zero to hundreds of people. In 1997, our company failed, and I put down my airs again.I write all the advertising copy and the management manual by myself.All branches report directly to me.All employees cannot work without passing my Melatonin product test. Including running the market, more than 70 cities, running terminals, not tens of thousands, but definitely not less than 5,000, at least 3 years at that time is to grasp the details. The third time was when I took over Giant Networks.It is precisely because I don't understand online games that I grasp the details.I stay in the game for more than ten hours every day, just to observe the details. Although I can't solve it, I can observe it. Looking back on the history of more than 20 years, only these three periods have risen, and other periods have been either stable or small progress, so it is very important to grasp the details.I hope that our planning will put down our arrogance, really pay attention to details, and put details as king in action. In the face of planning and academic issues, there are no experts and leaders, and everyone should be democratic.Content and planning decisions should be made democratically, by voting. At this time, the leaders should let go of their official airs, and any project should be decided collectively.Even if it is not guaranteed to be 100% correct, the failure rate will decrease.And when making decisions, the program and art should be pulled together to vote together. Any project and function should have a clear person in charge.One person should be responsible for the rewards and punishments for the primary planning, secondary planning, and final finishing. The most important thing is to make statistics on most of the player's behaviors.For example, Tianlong has statistics, and will print out player behavior analysis tables every day.And we never did it, and now we should make it up.We have to start doing these behavioral research reports on what senior, intermediate, and gang leaders do every day.From these reports, we can see the trend of game development, which functions are liked by players, which are abandoned, and which have potential. Our management used to be qualitative management, and now we have to start the transition to quantitative management in an all-round way.For this, the program needs to cooperate, and the planning needs to be thought through.Although it is not good for planning and assessment, it is very beneficial for planning and management. Moreover, the work of quantitative management must not go through the motions. Although there is a lot of resistance, as the leader of the project, you must first advance. Problems will be exposed in a timely manner. To become a planner, I think the first factor is not IQ, but EQ.The second is diligence. There is little difference in the IQ of people.If it is a stand-alone game, IQ is important, and if it is an online game, EQ is important. Emotional intelligence mainly refers to the ability to see problems from the perspective of others. People with qualified emotional intelligence can consider problems from the perspective of players. Diligence, the online game planning industry is not something everyone can do.Those who can do a good job in programming and art may not be able to do a good job in planning. Programs spend more time typing on the keyboard, while art spends more time holding paintbrushes.But planning is not much time for hands, but more time for brains. If the plan is to get off work from nine to five like normal commuters, then the plan must not be done well.First of all, planning must be a game fanatic, and only those who love games can do planning.Therefore, planning is a hard-working industry, and planning is a hard-working person. Planning is often not a good student, because planning is not a step-by-step industry.So I have a standard. When people are dreaming, if half of your dreams are not related to planning, then you must not be able to do planning well. So you can evaluate it yourself.When I was planning in the past, almost all my dreams were related to planning.Without this level of obsession, planning is not good.Because the battlefield of planning is in the mind, and the optimization of details is endless.Therefore, planning must be obsessed and uninterrupted. As the main planner, you must also have a strong logical thinking ability and be able to think about problems from a macro perspective. The other is leadership. Because planning is the most difficult to manage, it is actually very difficult to make everyone obsessed and work hard, so the leadership style is also very important.

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