How Battle Legion’s rested XP keeps players coming back

Harshal Karvande, Game Design Lead at Rovio, deconstructs the hit mobile game’s season pass and XP system

Build an army and watch it fight idle-style! — Traplight Post

Battle Legion is a F2P strategy game, developed and published by Traplight, where players collect, upgrade and customize a deck of army units that engage in quick, auto-play, bite-sized battles.

Players earn XP after each victorious battle, which advances them on the fortnightly season pass. Players also have a reserve of bonus (AKA rested) XP that grants them additional progress on this principal progression track — a key factor for keeping players coming back every day.

The Season Pass

Season pass rewards are unique for every season.

Battle Legion features a fortnightly season pass with a free and premium track with milestone rewards that include unit shards, cosmetics and the game’s various resources. Progress on the season pass is made by obtaining XP, which is awarded when players are victorious in battle.

Rewards from wagons, the game’s version of loot boxes, are dependant on player rank. This is a separate, permanent progression track and affects the amount of resources and unit shards received from wagons. Players progress through ranks by earning trophies from battles.

The rested XP

Battle and (deck)build.

Users collect rested, or bonus XP when they return to the game after a break from playing. It is a resource collected from the bonus XP cauldron that regenerates over time. Once collected, it is permanently added to the XP track of the current season pass. Bonus XP is also collected when players win battles, helping them accelerate their progress in the game.

Since the bonus XP cauldron is usually replenished at the start of a day’s session and grants over three times the normal XP after every victorious battle, it makes coming back to the game and battling extremely satisfying and rewarding.

Using this rested XP system to make the first session of the day feel powerful, with a strong feedback of progress, is key to helping the game become a part of the player’s daily routine.

Once the player has exhausted the bonus XP reserve, the victorious battles end up rewarding only a quarter of the XP, signalling players towards a natural end to their session and enabling the game session to fit into their daily routine.

Because the audience for strategy, deck-building games have a strong drive to take the most efficient path and min-max the bonus XP resource, Battle Legion’s XP system also helps to pace players through the content available in the season pass.

Collected bonus XP still needs battles to be won for unlocking rewards.

Monetizing XP

Traplight also monetizes the bonus XP resource — in addition to collecting it from the resource generator, players can buy bonus XP from the shop and add it to their current bonus XP reserve on the season pass.

This generates IAP revenue from impatient players who want to unlock all the new content immediately — a behaviour seen especially in hardcore players who have already purchased the season pass, as well as players who want to unlock all the milestones before the season pass timer runs out.

The season pass also has an endless power-stone collection track for players who reach the end of the current milestone rewards. This ensures players don’t run out of rewards irrespective of the rate at which they progress through the season pass.

The season pass mechanic gets players returning to the game for a regular, predictable schedule of new content. The rested XP system for the season pass fulfills the audience’s desire to make progress efficiently, which encourages them to play consistently and ensures the content cadence remains optimal for the game.

Originally published at Game Design Post.