The Making Of A Mechanic: Daily Goals

Dozens of mechanics go into any given game, and how a game utilizes these mechanics can make or break it. Some elements are specific to a genre, such as a  block swap controls in triple-match games like Candy Crush Saga, but some are seen across genres and platforms. Mastering the use of these mechanics and knowing when and where to innovate with them can improve just about any game. In this piece, I’ll be analyzing the Daily Goals mechanic, which appears in many free-to-play titles and has been growing in popularity over the last few years. 

I’ll start about by describing what a daily goal is and why they’re great for many different kinds of games. Then I’ll analyze the mechanic’s usage in several titles, and go over some uses where it doesn’t work as well as it could have.
 

What Is A Daily Goal?

In general, a Daily Goal mechanic can be described as one where the player is given the opportunity to do a finite amount of a specific action, with these opportunities refreshing after a specific set of time. This mechanic can be found in countless successful titles, from console to mobile.

In EA Madden Mobile, the Live Events feature gives the player access to quick, fun challenges that they can complete for some bonus coins. They can use them to refine their skills, discover new strategies, or relive exceptional moments from NFL history.

In Destiny, the Bounty Tracker gives the player access to a bunch of mini-missions that, when completed, can be used to level up their character’s abilities and arsenal.

In Hearthstone, the player is given Quests every day to give them an extra influx of gold to earn more packs and cards to play with.

In Marvel Contest of Champions, there are special Daily events the player can bring their squad into to test their abilities with an exciting challenge that changes every day.

Daily Goals generally follow these guidelines: 

• They fit within the actions the player can take during the game’s Core Loop.
• They give a reward which is not specific to their mechanic.
• They are available from the beginning of the game and provide a meaningful challenge to the player as they progress in the game.
• The player cannot do them endlessly to grind rewards to avoid other core loop actions.
• The player either has a limited number of opportunities available or a limited number of chances to interact with their opportunities at any given time.

Each of the games listed above has an excellent implementation of Daily Goals that hits on all of these points and has its own unique twist that makes it fun and different. Later, I’ll be breaking down some of these innovations, but first, I’ll discuss why Daily Goals should be considered in the first place.
 

Why Use Daily Goals?

While it is straightforward to describe Daily Goals, pointing out exactly how they help a game succeed can be a difficult task. A big reason for this is that Daily Goals are inherently optional and crafted specifically to fit within the already defined core loop of the game. However, this seemingly minor system can still have a strong positive impact on many aspects of a game, such as retention, mastery, and cadence.

Improve Retention

One of the most important factors to consider when making a free-to-play game is getting players to come back each day and keep playing. This element, called retention, has many features and mechanics built around it, and one of the most potent mechanics which can be used to improve retention is Daily Goals. By having a limited set of tasks for the player to complete which automatically refresh every day, you are setting an expectation for them to look forward to. In addition, other game elements such as notifications can be hooked into the goals to make them even more enticing for the player to return to.

Reduce Grind  

Another important factor that a good Daily Goals system facilitates is keeping the game fresh. By necessity, many free-to-play games include some element of grinding, whether it’s to earn resources or level up, and this can get old fairly quickly, even with a strong core loop.

Daily Goals motivate the player to branch out and gives them different ways to approach the grind, making it less tedious and more fun. Furthermore, dedication to these goals can make it feel like the time to grind is being reduced, even if it is having little effect, which gives the player the impression they are mastering or “beating” the game.

Introduce New Features

Since Daily Goals are a system the player interacts with in almost every session, they are a great place to surface new features to the player and guide them through them. Sometimes players just need a little extra push to get them to dive deeper into some of the elder features in the game, and these goals can be exactly that. In some cases, they can be even more effective than the main mission or story quest at doing this, because the tasks are usually small and relatively straightforward to complete.
 

Daily Goals Success Stories

I’ve broken down why the mechanic works, but how do you actually go about implementing it? I’ll explain some solutions using a few games that show the strong potential of Daily Goals.

Hearthstone

Blizzard’s Hearthstone is the poster child for Daily Goals: its simple, elegant implementation fits perfectly into the game’s mechanics. For those not familiar, Hearthstone is a player-versus-player card battler where you take turns drawing and playing cards to take your opponent’s life points down to zero. Before they start a match, players select a hero character and a deck to take into battle. Winning matches gives the player gold, which they can use to get new cards and further increase their abilities.

Because player’s card deck can have up to 30 different cards, the number of strategies available is staggering. You can smash all your opponent’s minions the moment they play them, or play defensively and wear them down until they have nothing left to stop you. Since you get currency by winning, most players would play and master only one type of deck to try and increase their earnings. With nothing to curb this, Blizzard would run the risk of having players burn out after a short period of time and feeling like they have no way to experiment or grow as a player.

In Hearthstone, players use their massive card collection to build countless different decks which suit various playstyles and strategies. Daily Goals encourage players to build new decks and try out all of their available cards.

Enter the Quests system: A group of specific tasks for the player to complete that can get them more coins, and therefore more cards to play with. Quests ask many different things from the player, such as getting wins with a certain hero character or playing matches in a specific mode. Since the gold output of these quests is equivalent to a dozen wins or more, the player is heavily incentivized to try and complete them, even if it means branching out and trying new strategies. Furthermore, once a Quest is completed, it is not replaced with a new Quest until the next day, so players are taught to play at least a little each day, and to keep coming back to get more Quests.

When the player runs out of Quests, their display informs them to come back the next day to get more. 

Some Quests in Hearthstone are easy, while others are more difficult, but they all push the player to interact with the game in new and exciting ways while earning massive rewards in the process.

Madden NFL Mobile

EA Sport’s Madden NFL Mobile has countless features and game modes, deconstructed excellently here, but their Live Events system stands out as a superb twist on Daily Goals. In Madden Mobile, the player is tasked with building up a team of skilled real-life Football stars, and using them to compete across various competitions. These modes are all excellent, but there can be a fair amount of pressure to win in each, which is where Live Events come in and shine.

Each Live Event has a particular target the player must meet to complete it, and if they do they’ll get a minor reward for doing so. The key is that these Events are crafted to give the player an opportunity to practice their skills in situations that they might not be exposed to while playing in other modes. For example, while playing in other modes it’s fine to execute a rushing play each down if you desire, but in a certain Live Events, you are forced to complete 4 passes in 5 plays to succeed.

One batch of Set Cards can be turned in for a Pro Pack, which contains NFL players to boost your in-game team with. Earning bonus Pro Packs from doing Live Events can unlock some great players that wouldn't be easily attainable otherwise.

If the player wants, they can ignore any Live Event that doesn’t fancy their desired playstyle, but if they do that they’ll miss out on a great opportunity to earn bonus Set Cards to unlock additional Pro Packs, which are the card packs of Madden Mobile. The Set Cards each event give are based on its type and difficulty, so players are encouraged to come back every day to see which Set Cards are being offered from Live Events.

The beauty of Live Events in Madden Mobile is that they seamlessly grow and innovate with the real-life game of Football. When a huge play happens on Monday Night Football, you can be sure that Tuesday morning’s Live Events will feature a special reward for completing that same play yourself. This ability to drive players back to the game gives EA a leg up on their competition, and they take full advantage of it. By giving players a fun and straightforward way to earn extra Pro Packs while reinforcing their core loop, EA has made Madden NFL Mobile a powerhouse title in the mobile games top-grossing charts.

Destiny

While Hearthstone and Madden Mobile prove that Daily Goals can have a huge impact on the performance of a free-to-play game, Bungie has shown how powerful they can be for a paid console game as well. In Destiny, Bungie’s first-person shooter, which is deconstructed here, the player can fight back aliens on a variety of planets and game modes. There are dozens of activities that players can do at any given point at time and with all this content, it can be difficult to figure out what exactly they want to do. This is where Destiny’s Daily Goals, called Bounties, come into play.

Bounties each have their own mini-objective, and upon completion give some experience to the player’s character. These tasks are spread across the game’s various modes and help provide direction to the player as they seek to improve their abilities. In addition, the bounties are broken into categories with clear messaging so the player can quickly process and choose which bounties they want to do.

Every bounty has one or more specific goals associated with it. In this case, the player has to win a single match in a specific PvP mode. here, you can see the clear messaging between Player vs. Player Bounties on the top row, and Player vs. Environment Bounties below them.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Bounties is how they encourage players to move out of their comfort zone. In a traditional FPS, players will generally drop out once they’ve beaten the modes they enjoy. In Destiny, though, players are more likely to explore modes that they would normally ignore to get the extra rewards from their daily Bounties. Furthermore, when Destiny is running a special event, Bungie can drive players to it en masse by making a special set of Bounties available for the event. Some of the Bounties are easy, while some serve up a tough challenge, but all of them give the regular gameplay additional meaning.

These are just some of the numerous bounty types available in Destiny. Some of the Bounties are common, whereas others are tied to events that take place in the game world.

Bungie has also innovated on Daily Goals by using them to help weave the narrative of Destiny. Bounties are posted by the main NPCs of the game, which provides information on their personality and motivations. As players explore certain areas of the game, they’ll be given some Bounties based on their actions, and they get to unravel the story themselves. All these elements combine into a simple, but a deep system that makes Destiny a journey players engage in deeply and keeps them coming back day in and day out.
 

Daily Goals Letdowns

While Daily Goals can give a huge boost to a game when done well, they can also be a hindrance when done poorly. Here, I’ll provide some use cases where Daily Goals didn’t help as much as they could have, and explain how they might be improved to have a more positive impact.

Vainglory

Billed as the MOBA perfected for touch, and deconstructed here, Vainglory is perhaps the first and only successful game of the genre on mobile at the moment. While the core of Vainglory is the obvious strength of the game, its Daily Goals feature, which could have been an excellent layer on top, leaves much to be desired. While it hits on the points of giving good rewards and being available for a limited time, these quests suffer from confusing surfacing and poor challenge and end up a disappointment overall.

One of the key issues with Vainglory’s quests is that they don’t provide a meaningful challenge to the player -- one of the core components to a successful Daily Goals feature. The quests are often things that the player will do just by playing the game as they regularly do, such as leveling up. Other quests, such as playing one game of a specific mode, can be fine if you have a large number of quests, but if that is your only quest for the day it doesn’t feel powerful to have completed it. This leads to players not looking forward to the Daily Goals, which makes it more of an annoyance than a retention driver. 

Vainglory could benefit immensely from a sophisticated Daily Goals system that would curb difficulty of engaging with the game and increase early retention numbers. For example, if they gave many more quests, such as to heal a certain amount of damage or only die once in a game, players would be compelled to try out new characters and play a different and interesting ways. From this, they might learn more about the game, and feel like they are becoming a better player. Plus, there is an added feeling of accomplishment with this system where the player can strive to complete multiple quests in a single match. And of course, they would be excited to check the game every day to see what new challenges are being offered.

While its core game, deconstructed here, is well polished and fun, Vainglory’s Daily Goals feature could still be taught a few new tricks.

Heroes of the Storm

Another MOBA with an innovative core game, Heroes of the Storm never captured the same magic as Hearthstone did for Blizzard. While there are many reasons for this, I think that HotS’ implementation of Daily Goals is one of the big ones. Just like in Hearthstone, the player is offered a series of quests every day that they can be completed for extra coins. The differences, though, are where HotS’ Daily Quests system breaks down.

None of HotS’ quests reward me for taking advantage of the unique aspects it provides, such as taking down walls or capturing mercenary camps. And unlike in Hearthstone, which features solely one-versus-one matches, asking me to play a character outside of my comfort zone in HotS is potentially asking me to lose the game for my four teammates as I struggle through it. Quests which work to create learning experiences in Hearthstone serve only as frustration in HotS, making them something that I don’t even pay attention to when I play.

Furthermore, completing these quests takes a long, long time, especially compared to hearthstone. Winning three games as a certain type of character can mean multiple hours of annoying and disappointing game time. This can create a somewhat infuriating imbalance in the economy of the game, where I feel like I cannot earn in-game currency without these quests, but I don’t want to do them because they are not interesting or compelling.

Not all hope is lost for HotS, though. Because of its diverse set of mechanics, which are deconstructed here, an interesting set of Daily Goals could be implemented that rewards players for doing what they want to do: play their favorite characters. By giving quests which encourage players to battle as their favorite characters in new and exciting ways, such as landing skill shots on Malfurion or healing three people at once with LiLi, they can look forward to getting new quests, not dread it.
 

Conclusion

No matter what the core of a game is, there is often a chance that Daily Goals can improve the game by enhancing what makes it great. When done well, Daily Goals improve retention by always giving players a reason to come back and play, no matter what their skill level. They also provide a new way to practice and feel accomplished, which contributes to the element of mastery many successful games feed off of. And, as a game has more content added to it, the cadence can be enhanced by integrating some familiar and fun Daily Goals alongside it.

While Daily Goals may seem simple and unnecessary, their value is easy to underestimate. The best Daily Goals systems blend in seamlessly with the core of a game, to the point where you couldn’t imagine the game without them. Finding and leveraging the right implementation of Daily Goals can elevate a game in many ways, and keep providing value for years to come.