Before and after delivering the Training system, analytics can be implemented into the game in order to validate questionnaire insights collecting metrics (M) of usage effectiveness with the following variables:

 

(M1) During active days with travel, on average, how many times players battle in Gym?

​

(M2) During team choosing step, what is the % of pokémon switched?

​

(M3) During battle, when super attack is charged, what is the % of super attack use?

​

(M4) During battle, in comparison to attack, what is the % of dodging?

 

 

Once the proposed challenge is to get new players to learn, understand and, as result, engage into Gym’s, the metrics could be applied to players from level 5 to 10. Comparing the before and after results, if the all the metrics get increased, the engaging factor can be as well considered of relative increased success. If the amount of Gym’s use is increased, potentially the understanding of Gym’s significance tends to increase too (and here must be clear that only potentially, once it’s a tricky abstract factor to measure).

​

 

How these metrics works?

​

M1 - This includes training battles once is the proposed way to invite new players. It also makes sense to exclude days (that for unknown reasons) players didn’t went out to travel through streets to be able to reach a Gym.

​

M2 - Considering the opponents on different Gym have diverse types, if player is understanding the advantages of choosing strategically between hers/his types, the number of switches between pokémons (including their order in the set) tends to increase.

​

M3 – If players have a super attack available usually makes sense to use it once delivers far more damage (even considering if it’s of an ineffective type which would deal relatively less damage). There are more factors to consider that can influence player’s decision, like the lower speed taken to deal a super attack, but in sum, if player is not using super attacks at all they probably wouldn’t be understanding yet it’s possibility.

​

M4 – This must be a relative factor (comparing with the amount of attacks) once less attacks can mean that his/hers pokémons won or loose the battle earlier and had equivalent less time to use the dodging movements.

 

​

IMPLEMENTATION

​

By giving focus to what I believe to be the root of the issues with new players, I found a relatively simple way to improve the experience, with small or no changes in the rest of the game system. The more demanding feature presented would be the system that select NPC opponents taking into consideration (something like) the eight strongest Pokémon's the player has available. After looking at player's eight strongest pokémons three NPCs would have to be selected with proportional CP as exemplified earlier. 

 

Another demanding point would be the NPC that comes in the last (and hardest) of the three battles to help the player (for the sense of teaching the player that he/she can bring friends to help in the Gym's battles). But still, the AI needed to do so already exists in every Raid boss, then I still believe this implementation wouldn't demand many "new things" as well. 

​

​

CONCLUSIONS

​

​

The propositions and metrics here presented were made by myself within a small period of time. They are prototypes themselves! For sure after showing this to a team of designers, developers and producers with different backgrounds (preferably with more in-depth knowledge of Pokémon GO’s users and inner mechanics) some answers could arise, some propositions could have better alternatives, and some could be invalidated right away.

 

Other topics could be added here, like a way to put these tests into Agile sprints of discovering, crafting and validations. There is a nutshell-like post I made about Agile in game development on my blog, feel invited to scroll a bit more there! 

 

I focused here on trying to solve the problem proposed by the exercise given, which mainly relies on the difficulty of new players. I didn’t invest much effort on changing most of the surface level of the Gym (it's visuals) once in this case my hypothesis is that the main problem starts in preparing players for successful battles that, as result, would be more inviting for them to interact with Gym more often. The visuals of UI and their organization have been updated as said earlier, and sounds to be clear after watching YouTube’s gamers trying it even for the very first time. Still, in order to validate the clearness of UI’s important components like the “quit” and “bag” buttons, or the special attack button on the GUI, a questionnaire asking things like “being at the Gym, it is clear how to get out of there?” and “being at the Gym, how would you restore your pokémon’s HP?”.