PUBG vs Fortnite | Game Feel and Analysis
Talk about Game Mechanics in Gaming Feedback Loop
I am Joseph Cheung or madchun for my in-game name. Today I wanna talk about my game feel and analysis on two Battle Royale games — PUBG by Bluehole and Fortnite by Epic Games.
Battle Royale is the hottest gaming genre last year
Thanks to PUBG, it has brought massive players all over the world and PUBG broke many records, included “Fastest time to sell 1 million units for a Steam Early Access game,” “Fastest Steam Early Access game to gross $100 million,” and “First video game to reach 2 million concurrent players on Steam.” PUBG has also launched in Xbox console after the spike of dramatic player base.
Before playing PUBG, my first Battle Royale game is actually Fortnite, by Epic Games. The fundamental game mode is more less the same as PUBG, to be the last survival among 100 players and you can play as solo, duo or squad mode. My gaming buddy Jeff has strongly recommended this game last year after he knew I have built my PC gears. Fortnite has grown a massive players and community within short time too, by just checking out the rising streamers and audience in Twitch.
I have played both PUBG and Fortnite and I had fun in these 2 games. Although two games has similar game mode, I have different game feel — so I want to find it out why. I have watched many gamers and Youtubers has commented and compared these two games in terms of various game elements, like UI, game items, graphical style, game mechanics and extra. And this video I wanna focus on one thing — Feedback Loops in game.
Feedback Loops in Fortnite VS PUBG
In games, players receive feedbacks so that we can know our last move we did is great or bad, and also proceed to the next stage/decision making moments. For Feedback loops, there are mainly 2 types: positive and negative feedback loops. Positive one simply is rewarding players to do particular task/move/decision. The more you do, the more rewards you get, like playing League of Legends, you get money reward from killing minions and enemies, so you can buy weapons faster than your enemy which is beneficial to push the towers and win the game. The negative feedback goes opposite, take League of Legends as example again, when you shutting down a higher level enemy player or he is in ‘killing spree’, you can get extra experience and gold. The one who has more advantages in games will result suffering more.
Come back to PUBG and Fortnite. To engage players interaction/battle, Fortnite gives me a better positive feedback loops in game because of simple looting and grow by battles. In Fortnite, once you landed, you just find the weapon nearby ASAP and then sneak in your target enemies in the next building or even same building to knock them down. The mechanism speeds up players to fight against each other and encourages me and my squad move and hunt other players. Games in Fortnite, the one win the battle, he can loot the loser’s weapons, supplier like bullets, shield and medical kit and resources like wood and brick. Unlike PUBG, each player can carry have 5 items (plus the default axe), so normally players will bring 3 to 4 guns. And one of the game elements in Fortnite is unique, you can build something by using resources in wood, brick or iron which is very crucial to set a temporary base, blocking bullets, getting high grounds and sneaking to the enemy base/house.
Once an enemy is dead, you can see all his weapons and resources directly as they are all falling on the floor separately and have different colour indicating them, showing how rare they are, and then you can easily make decision what you want to pick up. As rare and epic items are randomly distributed in the map, and they are much powerful than normal one. So hunting the enemies is the best way to have higher chance to get great items, hence higher chance to win the game eventually.
Fortnite doing better in player interaction in engaging battles
PUBG also have this positive feedback loop — more bullets, rare guns and higher level gear and suppliers after knocking down your enemies. But PUBG is apparently slower in game tempo, longer looting time and more idling time when running over to sites comparing to Fortnite. In PUBG, the map and the corresponding playzone/circle also much bigger than Fornite, so I find hiding is not a bad strategy to survive. In order to win the game, in my gaming experience, the better weapons and resources itself doesn’t have 10x better effect to win the game. Hence this discouraged me and my team to risk more to have a battle.
I usually play Fortnite and PUBG in squad mode with my gaming buddies. Winning in the game is the best feeling, and the second most satisfying part is battling with other squad, either win or lose in that battle, I am very happy with immediate planning and executing strategies together — definitely winning the battle is great, but even if we lose, we can immediately talk about what mistake we committed and how to improve. My team and I can feel the growth to start a new battle immediately. So to enhance these gaming experience, the game mechanism in Fortnite encourages squad battles will be beneficial for me to play more and more.
The above point of view is just my own gaming experience and understanding, the analytics and comparison between two great games has a lot to discuss. Actually I am still new to these two games, maybe some of points newbie like me didn’t noticed. So it will be cool to have comments if you are experienced player in these games. Always welcome comment both positive and negative feedback for me. Subscribe this channel and share to your gaming buddies if you are interested in game design and analytic.
