Re: Design - Digimon World Next Order

Re: Design is a series where we look at a game and redesign aspects of it in order to address the game design issues present within.

The Digimon World games by Bandi Namco hold a special place in my heart. I played these games throughout my childhood and found and still find them wholly unique in their design and the niche experience they offer the player. To be clear, here I am talking specifically about the monster training simulation entries of the series, not the JRPG entries; this limits us to Digimon World, Digimon World Re: Digitize, and Digimon World Next Order.

Digimon World Next Order is the latest entry in the series. I have spent a lot of time with this game, and while I enjoy it for being a true Digimon World game, it is greatly flawed and is only a shadow of what it could be; the simple reality is that very little effort or consideration has been put into the design of this game. But that is why we are here today, to put forth a redesign by identifying and addressing the key issues holding the game back. These key issues boil down to battles and rewards, the digivolution (evolution) system, and the difficulty pacing of the main story.

The first and most primary issue we must address is the battle & reward system and how it interacts with the digivolution system. A simple explanation of the digivolution system boils down to this; your Digimon requires specific stats to be above a threshold to digivolve before your Digimon's lifespan runs out. Every time your Digimon digivolves, their lifespan increases, allowing more time to reach their digivolution. Time is a major factor in Digimon World Next Order. You are constantly attempting to train your Digimon while also battling against the accruing needs of your Digimon: food, sleep, tiredness, and bathroom. All your goals related to your Digimon and what you can accomplish with it are set against the time of their lifespan. But battling other Digimon does not take time, and it gives stats. The ramifications of this design choice are that the most optimal way to train your Digimon is to battle it as much as possible. This strategy of battling over and over allows the Player to achieve much higher stats than would be possible if the game was played as intended. We know that this was not how the game was intended to be played because not only does this process remove the interactions with the training gym and the raising portion of the game in general, but it also allows the game to be completed in 2-3 generations which only unlocks roughly 12 Digimon when there are 232 possible Digimon to raise. In addition, this aspect of the game fails one of the most basic design tests, is the most efficient way to play the game also the most fun? This battle method of training your Digimon is by no means the most enjoyable; it requires the least decisions and problem-solving on the part of the Player and is a grind, effectively making the actual training portion of the game the least fun. The intended way for the game to be played was for the Player's Digimon to get progressively stronger across generations, as a small portion of the previous Digimon's stats is inherited by the next generation, which would mean the Player would achieve higher and higher thresholds as the game went on and would require the Player to dive deep into the training aspects of the game.

The next issue to outline is the digivolution system itself. As I have already explained, to have your Digimon progress to the next stage, it must achieve certain stat and care thresholds and sometimes have specific extra requirements. A Digimon has a few possibilities for its next stage, each with different requirements. The issue stems from the fact these are absolute values, while the Player aims to reach as high stats as possible in their Digimon. Effectively this means the Player will likely exceed all the requirements necessary for each digivolution, essentially making it random. This issue defeats the purpose of the Player choosing which specific digivolution they want to pursue, which is a large allure of the game. Now, the game and the designers know this and attempt to address it by adding a facility in the late game that allows the Player to block off certain digivolution paths. While this is all well and good, it is a bandaid addressing a problem of their own making, which could be solved more effectively by redesigning the base system.

The last issue to outline before we move on to solutions is the difficulty pacing of the game's main story. In the game's main story/quest, by the end of act 1, you are required to fight what amounts of the Mega (Stage 6) level Digimon. This Mega Digimon is the first real boss in the game and requires the Player to have an equal Mega Digimon or a well-trained Ultimate (Stage 5) tailored to beat it. The requirements for this boss at this early stage make very little sense regarding a natural narrative and game progression. I realize part of this difficulty spike is to encourage the Player to attempt more side missions, town-building, and Digimon training, but the requirements are too high, especially when considering that tailoring your Digimon for specific fights requires advanced knowledge of the game. The result of this major difficulty spike so early in the game, while much of the game world is still locked, is that most players stop playing before even completing chapter 1; as of right now, six and a half years after its release, 35% of Players according to PSN profiles have completed chapter 1.

Now that we have outlined the game's core issues, we can move on to solutions. First, the solutions I propose for the issue of battles and stats are: either the addition of a set time to the battles or a diminishing returns system to the battle gains. Toward the second issue of the absolute stat thresholds for digivolution, I add a stat distribution requirement. Finally, toward the third issue of difficulty pacing, I put forward that the Player Digimon power requirements more accurately reflect a standard narrative structure, much like the many TV series.

We have a couple of possible solutions to solve the first issue of battles and stat gains. The first and simplest is the addition of time passing in a battle. It would be much better to have a set time of perhaps one or a half in-game hours per battle, no matter how much real time it takes, rather than basing it off real-time since not doing so would discourage slower Digimon builds. This approach does cause a few predictable issues, namely the Player losing time to unwanted battles, which may result in care mistakes; for example, if your Digimon is hungry and an enemy catches the Player, too much time may pass to feed your Digimon within the correct time.

A second and perhaps more elegant solution to the issue of battle and stat gains would be to either drastically reduce the possible stat gains from battles or add significantly diminishing returns to battle gains. In both of these cases, we would need to compensate the stat gains with something else to give the Player a reason to battle in the wild, and this could easily be achieved with items or money. It is important to note the game has already attempted this diminishing return in a small way; the stat increases you gain from defeating certain enemies diminish after you reach certain stat thresholds, after which you need to find a strong enemy. The Player's

Digimon also gains more stats at lower digivolution stages across all training methods. But, this had not done much to solve the issue at hand; battling is still by far the most efficient training tactic. So, by adding diminishing returns to battle stat gains tied to the player Digimon specifically, we can greatly discourage the use of battles for training purposes and get the player back into the training gym. With this new system, wild battles will still have their purpose of gaining items and money but will be less effective for training, which also provides a good trade-off between using your Digimon to farm items and money or training them to be stronger and defeat important battles.

Now onto the solution for the second issue, the digivolution requirements. As mentioned, the issues stem from the fact that the current digivolution requirements are absolute values, along with the fact that as the player's Digimon progresses over many generations, they will exceed all those requirements, resulting in random evolutions or the requirements becoming meaningless. The simple fix is to add a distribution requirement along with the current absolute requirements. These distributions work by comparing a stat to another, typically adverse stat, for example, Strength and defense. An example case, if digivolution A requires at least 100 strength, 1000 health points, and 100 speed, it will now also require a >1:5:1 ratio between strength and stamina, as well as a >1:0.5 ratio between health and mana points. On the other hand, if digivolution B requires at least 100 stamina, 1000 mana points, and 100 wisdom, it will now also require a >1:5:1 ratio between stamina and strength, as well as a >1:0.5 ratio between mana and health points. These changes would make little difference for the early game, but for the late game, this would mean that to achieve digivolution A, the Player would need to maintain the ratios above even as all stats raise well above the minimum thresholds. This new dynamic results in certain Digimon and digivolution paths being more specialized consistently, with more defined roles and the Player able to make meaningful choices on their Digimon's digivolution paths accordingly. The only game phase where this would make little difference is when all a Digimon's stats are at max, meaning all ratios will be 1:1; in this case, the Player can still revert to the in-game facilities that allow them to block off certain digivolution paths.

With this new emphasis on gym training and building up your Digimon toward specific goals, the gameplay experience could be greatly improved by building out the training gym systems and long-term progression. As it currently stands, there are only a few upgrades for the gym throughout the game and a handful of training upgrades from the player's tamer skills. This lack of upgrades to the training means that the rate of training the player's Digimon experiences in the gym is fairly static throughout the game and prevents the player from experiencing a state of exponential flow with the game. The player has a goal of improving their Digimon but no way of improving the means and methods available to achieve that goal; no nested sub-goals means less engagement with the primary goal itself. This lack of an engaging progression within the training ultimately pushes players toward the aforementioned battle grinding, as it is significantly faster at achieving the goal of creating strong Digimon.

We can take two approaches to improve the gym experience: adding more upgrades to the gym via the town building/recruitment and adding more upgrades to the tamer level (Character level). A combination of both of these approaches would ultimately be best. When it comes to the gym upgrades, we simply add upgrade levels 1-10 for each exercise, each level increasing the stat output of that training exercise. Then with this additional upgrade progression, the player must work to upgrade the facilities, which can be done by gathering important resources. The important resources can then be gained out in the wild and through defeating wild Digimon; stronger Digimon will hold the resources needed for later upgrades. Thus the player will need to train their Digimon to defeat the wild Digimon who have the upgrade material for the training gym. Finally, we can top it off by gating certain major upgrade levels behind the recruitment of certain Digimon to the City, a major game mechanic. By gating certain upgrade tiers behind these in-game goals, e.g., "must recruit Ogremon to unlock the upgrade, " we establish major milestones for the player to work toward within this one part of the game itself. With the addition of this very simple system, we have established a progression loop that incorporates the training gym and wild battles together and a healthy way, compared to now, where the player can largely ignore the training gym. This new progression loop also provides the player with agency by providing decisions for the player to make regarding where they want to use their resources and why. For example, perhaps a player wants to pursue a certain digivolution, so they choose to focus on upgrading the strength training facilities, leading them to pursue goals relating to upgrading their gym to serve their goal of achieving their desired digivolution. Progression systems with a selection of nested goals provide the player with deep and engaging systems for the player to engage with, as well as goals for them to pursue by their own choice rather than only having one solution.

The other approach we have yet to explore is expanding training progression through player tamer levels. While there are already training upgrades within the tamer skill tree, which could be expanded upon, I pitch something much simpler since we have already established a robust upgrade system within the gym. A simple addition would be to increase the stat gains from all sources according to the tamer level, something as simple as a 0.1% increase for all stat gains per tamer level, or perhaps periodically, such as 0.5% per 5 timer levels, to provide the player with more milestone goals. What this small change accomplishes is providing the player with a multiplicative modifier to their progression, which increases with their progress with the game. Progress begetting more progress; this brings the player to a state of exponential progression flow, where the player feels they are achieving more and more as the game progresses, bringing them to play more. The fact that this multiplicative modifier comes from the tamer level, which can be increased by doing a wide range of things, gives the player a sense that everything they do matters and is contributing to their goals within the game; essentially, no time spent is waisted, every task contributes. This multiplicative multiplayer also means that as the player reaches the end game, training, which in the late stage of the game may become tiresome, becomes much easier and quicker, giving the player more time to achieve other goals and overall have an easier time training.

The final portion of the game to redesign is the story pacing. As mentioned, the issues with the story pacing stem from the need for the player to have achieved ultimate or mega-level Digimon before the end of Chapter 1. As we know, difficulty spikes in games are a difficult design subject. While difficulty spikes are sometimes necessary to encourage the player to reevaluate their skill and their character build (in RPGs) and to consider other side objectives, a difficulty spike that is too high and a context that does not provide the player with ample side objectives to progress can single-handed kill a game, as it does in Digimon: Next Order; I remind you that only 35% of player have completed chapter 1. While the changes we have already discussed would go a long way toward improving the pacing of the game, there remains a vital issue with this difficulty spike, simply put, it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint. Within the story of any of the Digimon TV series, they all follow a simple rule of ultimate and mega-level Digimon not being achieved consistently until late in the narrative. There are often teases of these mega-level digivolutions early on, but they only arise briefly at important moments. So, requiring such high-level Digimon in chapter 1 does not make sense narratively and does not give the player much more room in terms of vertical progress so early in the game. The obvious and most effective solution is to re-pace the game's difficulty to be closer to that of the TV series. The end of chapter 1 should require a champion digivolution, the end of chapter 2 an ultimate, and the end of chapter 3 should require a mega. All end game and extra content can then be balanced around high-tier mega Digimon and any special digivolution above that. This change would provide achievable difficulty spikes for the narrative while also giving the player a much better sense of achievement and progression as they experience their Digimon's evolution across the game, across their generations.

In conclusion, by redesigning the game through the above methods, we can address the game's major issues in a way that does not require drastic content changes within the game. These changes adjust the gameplay experience toward the training experience and away from mindless grinding with more emphasis on player choices, then give the player a much deeper training system to engage with, with digivolution goals that require real decision and thought, then provide the player with engaging progression loops that give the player satisfaction and a reason to play more, and finally a narrative progression that makes sense next to the game's mechanics and systems provided. Overall, this would make the game a much more engaging and unique experience as a monster-raising RPG.