The Division: The Dark Zone Divide
Over time I have become obsessed with loops, the cycles of gameplay that make up the whole, the patterns of input and the output stimulus that make up a games. They’re what grabs us initially and, when well designed, they are what keep us coming back, over and over. There are different kind of loops, smaller loops are moment to moment; the action of cover, shoot, reload, grenade, are all cycles of action to end result. The best are consist, with an obvious and direct correlation between the players skill and the output of success. These build into bigger and more abstract systems, loot and random reward loops. These are the systems that keep us playing. Smaller loops give us the reward of satisfaction, of seeing the end result of our actions and knowing that we made that kill, that we scored that critical, that we secured that point. A loot system galvanized this by turning time invested into repeating these loops into an irregular reward, a cherry on top of our own personal succ...