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MONETIZING AN AUTO-BATTLER

Retention and Monetization breakdown of a new game genre

Léo Nantermoz – January 2020

Table of contents

• What is an Auto-battler game ?

• Focus on 2 auto-battlers and their economic systems

• Teamfight Tactics

• Hearthstone Battlegrounds

• Retention and monetization of a generic auto-battler

• Teamfight Tactics breakdown

• New monetization strategies for Teamfight Tactics

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020

This document is still a Work

in progress, and as such is

not complete.

I’ve tried to be as correct as

possible with all the

information and numbers

contained in the document,

but as these games are

subject to quick changes,

parts of it might become

outdated quickly.

Disclaimer

Last update : 11/01/2020

WHAT IS AN AUTO-BATTLER ?

An auto-battler game is a turn-based

strategy game, in which players fighteach other one on one, using AI-

controlled units.


Unique aspects of auto-battlers

• The player

• Unit recruitment and synergies

• Itemization

• Economy management


DotA Underlords

The player

The first and most important variable is gold. At each round, the player earns gold, the amount depending on a few factors. This gold can be used to purchase units and to level up. Factors that impact gold earnings are :

- Win and lose streaks

- Interest gold generated from unspent gold already owned by the player

No matter the result, the player earns a set amount of gold after each round


In auto-battlers, the player controls a team of units. He will have to manage several

variables in order to gain a competitive advantage against his opponents.

The player has an experience level. This level can be increased using gold. It impact the game in several ways :

- Higher levels allow to place more units on the board at the same time

- Higher levels increase the chance to find rarer units to recruit

Finally, the player has a health bar, that depletes whenever he loses a round. When the health bar is empty, the player loses. The last player standing wins the game.

Unit recruitment and synergiesIn order to fight, each player needs to recruit a team of units. Each unit has statistics,

unique abilities, a rarity, a price, a level and will be part of several synergies.

Each unit has one or more abilities, giving them unique powers to defeat their

opponents.

Each unit has a rarity and a price. Stronger units are more expensive and of a higher

rarity.

When purchasing several units of the same level, they can be combined together to

create a stronger version of the unit. Depending on the game, this can be done once or

twice usually.

By placing on the board several units with the same synergy names, the player unlocks

bonus powers for his units. Depending on the game and the units, this can range from

bonus resistances against damage, to bonus damage, faster attack rates, or new

mobility mechanics (jumping to enemies in the back for example)…


Itemization

In auto-battlers, items are a way to fine-tune units beyond synergies and positioning.

Acquired in a variety of ways depending on the game, each item usually gives stat

boosts to a specific unit, along with a unique effect.


Economy management

In auto-battler games, managing the amount of gold that you have at any moment in time is key. Gold earned at the end of each round increases with the amount of unspent gold of the player. Therefore, choosing when to spend and when to hold on to gold allows the player to maximize gold earnings, leading to more gold to level up or buy more units.

FOCUS ON 2 AUTO-BATTLERSTeamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords

Teamfight Tactics – Design• Teamfight Tactics (TFT) is Riot Games’ take on

auto-battlers. Available on PC now and mobilelater.

• Relying on the League of Legends universe, thegame differentiates itself through a few keymechanics, focusing on making the game moreaccessible to its players :

• A carrousel system giving players items at specificpoints in the game

• High-impact synergies, changing the units behaviorsignificantly (new mobility options, new ways to dealdamage…


The Carrousel, where

players can get items

and units

The interface of Teamfight Tactics, with synergies on

the left, the shop at the bottom of the screen, and

the health in the right corner.

Teamfight Tactics – RetentionTo bring players back daily and weekly into Teamfight Tactics, Riot

Games use a few mechanics :

- Weekly missions granting XP

- A seasonal Free Battle Pass, with rewards at each tier

- Both Ranked and Unranked matches

- A daily XP reward, increasing with the amount of matches played


The Free season pass, granting emotes, icons and arena maps

Weekly missions

Daily orb

Teamfight Tactics – MonetizationTo monetize the game, Riot relies on several ways, all done with their own hard currency, Riot Points (RP) :

- Cosmetic modifications for the player arena

- Emotes that can be used during gameplay

- Player icons, seen in the loading screen – 250RP per icon

- Cosmetic skins (view next page)

The conversion from Euros to Riot Points is not simple, as varying prices give out various amounts of RP, with higher spending giving higher amount of RP per euro spent.


Amount

spent2.5€ 5€ 10€ 20€ 35€ 50€

RP Amount 310 650 1380 2800 5000 7200

RP/€ 124 130 138 140 ~143 144

Arena appearances and their price

Emotes. Animated emotes are more expensive

Teamfight Tactics – Monetization

- Cosmetics for the player avatar, with a custom model, texture,

sounds and animations

- These function with a gacha system, where the player gets a random skinwithin a set. If the player receives a skin that he already owns, it « levelsup », granting slight tweaks to the appearance and the animations.

- Some appearances can also be purchased directly, at a steeper price.


Single box with a

random appearance,

around 4€

Bundle of boxes (10 + 1),

around 35€

Single cosmetic

appearance,

around 6€

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Hearthstone Battlegrounds – Design• Hearthstone Battlegrounds is Blizzard’s

first dive into the auto-battler genre.

Based on cards from Hearthstone, the

game is faster-paced than other auto-

battlers.

• Hearthstone Battlegrounds is quite

different from the typical auto-battler :

• Units are placed in a single line, andattack one at a time

• Each player chooses a hero, withimpactful effects

• Units can only be upgraded once, andthe combined unit retains all boostsgained by the original units

• Units cannot freely move between thebench and the board, a unit placedcan only be sold


Several heroes in Battlegrounds

Hearthstone Battlegrounds interface, with 2 players facing one another

Hearthstone Battlegrounds –Retention and monetizationHearthstone Battlegrounds is embed in the

Hearthstone client. It serves mainly as an

advertising system for Hearthstone, to attract new

players to the game or to bring previous players

back.

There are only 2 visible elements of progression in

the game :

- Each player has a rating that increases or

decreases based on each match result

- When opening a certain amount of card packs

from the latest expansion, players unlock minor

bonuses for Hearthstone Battlegrounds. This

caps at 30 packs opened.


Bonuses earned by opening Hearthstone packs of the

latest expansion

RETENTION AND MONETIZATION OF A

GENERIC AUTO-BATTLER

Battle PassThe Battle Pass is an efficient system to drive retention by rewarding players for frequent gameplay. The key elements for a battle pass system are :

• An easy progression through the levels

• Appealing rewards spread throughout the battle pass

• Allowing the user to view the remaining rewards, to incentivize them to play

• In the case of a premium battle pass :

• Giving several rewards at the start, to reward the player for acquiring the premium pass

• Showing the rewards that free users are missing without the pass. From time to time, remind the cumulative rewards they would unlock by purchasing the pass

• If using a hard currency and a store, including a small currency reward with some tiers can convert users from the battle pass to the store.


Fortnite’s Battle Pass is a good example of a well implemented Battle Pass system, with incentives throughout the pass, exclusive

content and high overall value for the price

Lootboxes

Lootboxes are a mean to deliver content to players

using randomness. It requires a large amount of content

in the lootbox, to allow some content to be hard to

unlock

Some ways to create lootboxes that help make them

perceived as fair by players:

- Provide meaningful rewards when receiving a

duplicate of an already-unlocked document

- Disclose the odds of the lootbox (This is mandatory on

iOS and Android)

- Provide a way for free users to open the lootbox a few

times, to give a taste of what can be unlocked and

not lock all the content behind a paywall


Brawlstar lootboxes are obtainable both

through playing and with hard currency. They

contain gameplay improvements, a soft

currency reward and an occasional small hard

currency reward

CosmeticsCosmetics can be of many types, depending on thespecific mechanics of the game :

- Arena maps

- Avatar skins

- Unit appearances

- Badges, Icons, Player name colors or symbols

These cosmetics could also be accompanied by interface changes on the user side or, if possible, optional effects for all the players in the game.

TFT and DotA Underlords cosmetics are good examples of what can be done in auto-battler games


Teamfight Tactics player avatar skins on

release

DotA Underlordscosmetics, with a

banner, animations and

board skins

Player communication

Player interactions can go a long way in auto-battlers, as

games can often feel similar to playing against AI.

Therefore, providing players with ways to interact can

make each game feel more unique, and more player-

driven. Those can include:

- Emotes

- Animations

- Chat messages

- Player avatar in the game world

- Recognition of player achievements in the game world

Hearthstone Battlegrounds and TFT both have good

player communication methods


Emotes in Hearthstone Battlegrounds

Emotes in Teamfight Tactics, priced at around 4€ each

Gameplay elementsPremium gameplay elements is a delicate system to implement. If the game wants to

have a competitive mindset, free users can feel disrespected.


If monetizing part of the gameplay

elements is important for your game, here

are some things that can be converted

into paid content:

- Specific game modes

- Specific units or synergies

- Battle Pass progression or soft currency

acquisition boost

Call Of Duty Mobile Battle Pass allows users to purchase tiers in exchange for hard currency

TEAMFIGHT TACTICS BREAKDOWN

Content updatesThe game is regularly updated with new content, with a balance patch every two

weeks, and a gameplay patch every month. Gameplay patches usually contain a few

new heroes and some cosmetic appearances, with sometimes a new synergy.

To incentivize players to come back regularly, a daily points reward is also present. It will

be discussed more in the Battle Pass progression page.


Daily Weekly Bi-weekly Monthly Trimestral

Points reward Set of missionsBalance

updates

Gameplay

updateBattle Pass

Content update rhythm in Teamfight Tactics

Missions

Every week, 6 new missions are introduced, with 2 sets of 3 missions. The first mission in each set focuses on reaching at least a specific round in TFT games. The round is chosen so that it is easily reachable through normal gameplay, but not reachable if the player doesn’t try to play the game at all.

The second and third missions focus on specific game mechanics. This can include playing a specific type of units, a specific synergy, performing an action, or use a specific mechanic

Upon completion of a mission, the next one in the same category is unlocked. This happens even if the other missions in the same set aren’t completed yet.


Play 6 games of TFT to Stage 3-6

Activate a 6-unit trait bonus

Activate 3 different trait bonuses at once

Play 10 games of TFT to Stage 3-6

Reroll 30 times

Activate 5 different trait bonuses at once

A weekly set of missions in Teamfight Tactics

Battle Pass progressionThe Battle Pass can progress through 2 ways: the daily reward orb and the weekly missions.

The daily reward orb rewards from 100 to 160 points, with 100 base points and 10 points for every match played that day, up to 5 matches. The orb resets every 22 hours, to allow players to consistently get their orb around the same time daily.

Weekly missions reward from 75 to 200 points, depending on difficulty. The first missions being slightly easier, they reward a bit less points than the second ones.

These values slightly differ from the previous pass, as daily points were slightly lower and missions gave slightly more experience (70 daily points, and missions started at 100 points)


Points required

to complete

the pass

Daily orb (no

matches)

Daily orb (5

matches)Missions only

Daily orb (no

matches) +

missions

Daily orb (1

match) +

missions

Daily orb (5

matches) +

missions

6800 3920 6720 2560 6480 7040 9280

Points earned for the previous pass with different behaviors

The above table shows the points earned with several behaviors. By looking at the table, it shows that playing one game per day and completing missions was enough for players to unlock all of the battle pass content, with the daily orb being the most rewarding in points, around 50% more than the missions.

Little LegendsThe main hard currency product sold in Teamfight Tactics is Little Legends. They have already been introduced in this page. Here, I will keep the values in hard currency, but you can find the real currency to hard currency rates here.


Each little legend has 6 variants, with slight appearance changes, mostly relying on textures. Little legends main sale method is through Eggs, a gacha system where the player gets a random little legend variants from a set of 3. As the odds of the box are evenly distributed between every appearance, this means that the player has 1/18 chances to unlock the one that he truly wants.

Each Little Legend variants can be upgraded twice, to reach its level 3 appearance, with brighter visual effects and slight model changes by being opened in an Egg again. After that, it is no longer possible to drop it from an Egg.

Best possible spending

to get a specific level 1

appearance

490

Worst possible spending

to get a specific level 1

appearance

25 480

Average spending to get

a specific level 1

appearance

8 820

To make it easier to get access to a specific little legend, each little legend has a single-purchase egg available for 750RP in the store. This allows player to be guaranteed to get the little legend that they want, though it might not be the appearance that they prefer, for around the average price that it would cost to get any variant of that little legend.

Players can also purchase bundles with a higher volume of Eggs:

- A 5 Eggs bundle priced at 2450RP → No discount compared to buying them separately

- An 11 Eggs bundle priced at 4900RP → Around 9% discount, as the 11th Egg is considered “Free”

Linking LoL with TFTAside from Little Legends and arena skins, players can also purchase 2 type of items than are linked to both League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics : player icons and emotes.

Player icons are displayed in the loading screen and in the pre-match client, but they are not shown during the game in Teamfight Tactics.

Emotes can be used throughout the game in Teamfight Tactics. They serve as a way to communicate with opponents and taunt them.

Linking these elements between both League and TFT is a conscious design decision. It motives

League players to try TFT to unlock exclusive content, and TFT players to try League, with the elements

that they have already earned through playing.


Teamfight Tactics is also a way for Riot Games to showcase character cosmetics. Out of the current set of 56 heroes, 33 use a cosmetic appearance instead of the base one. Thanks to this, players that have only played Teamfight Tactics will be likely to link the visuals of a champion to its purchasable cosmetic, and thus more eager to acquire it if they want to play League of Legends afterwards.

Furthermore, icons and emotes earned through the Battle Pass can only be earned that way. This means that for League players that aim to collect as much content as possible, they have to play TFT to get access to that content, and could therefore be more interested in purchasing TFT-only cosmetics.

Little Legends can also be shown in one of League’s mode, ARAM, as a cosmetic pet following the player.

NEW MONETIZATION STRATEGIES FOR TEAMFIGHT

TACTICS

Monetizing the TFT Battle PassBelow is a method for the implementation of a premium Teamfight Tactics Battle Pass :


- Keep the free Battle Pass, but provide a new premium Battle Pass, with exclusive

rewards

- Grant small RP rewards at some tiers

- Give a few rewards linked to League of Legends, to incentivize users to try the main

game. Avoid exclusive rewards if possible, as LoL players will feel forced to play TFT to

get the rewards.

A mockup suggestion for a premium TFT Battle Pass

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