Event System possibilities

[emalafeew]

The VZfit Event system is a hybrid of the Leaderboard and Challenge systems from VirZOOM Arcade, with some ideas from Expresso bike Challenges. 

Leaderboards were global (open to everyone) and automatically entered (you didn't have to pick them).  They ranked high scores from individual plays, and we had one for every game and reset them every week.  There was also a "virtual km" leaderboard that worked across all games.

Challenges were limited and visible only to friends, ran over a specified time period on a certain game, and could rank high individual scores or cumulative scores over that period.  They weren't entered automatically, you had to choose to enter them. And you saw ghosts of other challenger's best plays.

VZfit Events are based on certain games, can rank game score, spins, or time played, and are always cumulative over their period.  They are listed and must be entered on the Events menu.  They rank both individuals and teams, which we made for commercial fitness centers but could be created for home users.  The Events we create are global, but team captains can challenge other teams to Custom Events, which only appear to teams that have accepted.  We intend to have at least one global Event running at all times, and offer prizes to spur competition.  You can also look back at the results of any past Event.

We want to tune the Event system to be engaging and motivating for the most players.  We also know that top competitors from VirZOOM Arcade lived on Leaderboards.

We can think of a few things to try and would like people's opinions:

1. Automatic player-entry for global Events, like leaderboards.  So you could play games from the Workout menu and still be entered in Events. Could limit us from providing custom Event rules and in-game feedback in the future.  And might be weird if you won an Event prize without knowing, but hey you deserve it!

2. Bring back the "virtual km" leaderboard in the form of a "Spins Event" that ranks cumulative spins across all games, and is reset every week.  This Event at least would require automatic entry to work across all games.

3. Shorten our current pace for Prize Events, from monthly to weekly for $25.  This would allow us to rotate through more games and spread the wealth to engage more players.

4. A return to automatic Events for every game reset every week, proposed by arches77.  Could look pretty empty until we have a bigger player base on VZfit, and might conflict with prize events.

[arches77]

Thank you for creating this Post. I believe it is very important motivational tool to maintain leader boards for weekly virtual kilometers across all games, also weekly leaders for each game.
I check leaderboard every day on Virzoom to see where I am standing and I see how others compete with me trying to beat me. You look at the leaderboard and challenge somebody who is stronger than you and staying higher on the leaderboard. Then you try to beat him or her for that particular week.
I cannot wait sometimes to get on my bike at night to catch up. It keeps me constantly going forward. How would I be able to do it without leaderboards?
Trying to get most points for particular game and most miles is so exciting!
I exercise also on the rowing machine on Holofit VR.
They also have worldwide leader boards. I compete online with Japanese, British, Swiss, Swedish Etc.
First thing I do in the morning is to check my leaderboard and see if the Japanese team beat me already.
Please, please, please re-create same leaderboard system for points and virtual kilometers as we have in Virzoom !
It is not as much important to get monetary price as to live in active player community and feel the pulse of it every day!

1. I am for automatic player or entry for Events. Even if you do not register to participate, I believe you should be rewarded for your hard work and exercise.
I think automation is the key. It should be seamless participating without any specific registration
2. Yes, please bring back virtual kilometer leaderboard that is updated every week and leader boards for each game that is updated every week
3. I am for shortening price events to once a week. It should be dynamic environment when you can get results faster. Monthly is too long!
I also exercise on ICAROS VR. They have price events and it is structured differently. Every participant pays about $25 to participate and winner takes the price.
These are monthly events. VZfit could have a monthly event where prices are bigger and contributed by the participants.
4. Absolutely yes for automatic events for every game every week. I don’t think cash prices needed at all and I would do only monthly events that are contributed monetary by the players who would like to participate.
It is so much more rewarding to compete a real time every day with other players and see how many miles you did and how many points you got and where you are standing on the leaderboard.

[CrashFu]

I imagine it would be possible to both have the automatic leaderboards for every game AND designate one of them per-week as being prize-enabled? Some kind of icon on the main menu (like a trophy cup or a treasure chest) beside that game could help make users aware of it when it's being offered, even if they don't check the forums or the events tab of their account.

More frequent, smaller events with smaller prizes does sound good, since it gives more people the chance to be winners. The only tradeoff is that if someone has to take a few days off for a vacation or something, or has busy work weeks and only has time to play on their days off, they could feel disadvantaged on competitions that are 1 week long and based on cumulative score. With month-long cumulative-score competitions, a person can always make up for lost time when they get the chance (and anyone who IS exercising hard almost every day probably deserves the greater chance at the prize!)

So maybe it would be better to make short-period leaderboards based around highest-single-score? If that were the case, there'd be another problem: would you limit / separate the leaderboards by specific exercise length (IE a leaderboard for the 10-minute, a separate one for the 20-minute, etc.) or would you do some kind of Points-divided-by-workout-length thing, so that for example someone scoring 4000 points in a ten-minute workout would be tied with someone scoring 8000 in the twenty-minute?

As for the total-spins leaderboard, I'd think making that a monthly, or having separate ones for weekly and monthly would be best.

[robkay]

This is great fodder for our internal design discussions as we plan out future sprints, thanks Arches77 and CrashFu!

I see an argument for leaderboards coexisting with events (as CrashFu proposed) and it's great to hear about how you use Holofit VR leaderboards Arches77. If you think there's any particularly nice aspect of their global leaderboard we should be aware of, please do let us know.

[digitaljackson]

I can't comment on the current implementation since I don't have a Oculus Go yet, but can as a longtime bike user.

I look at calorie count as my number 1 priority for work out length, but also pay attention to total minutes and distance each session. I also look forward to the weekly emails with the total distance ranking.

Global leaderboards are a big motivator for me on some of the games.

A great example is Gem Hunt. There's a user named "PeterNash", who weekly gets a very high score that I can rarely beat, but its great to have that score to motivate me to keep coming back and trying to beat it. That user has not been present the past couple of weeks and really takes the fun out of the game since I'm not trying to top what they scored.

Leaderboards for the bike levels, Le Tour and Cali Rally, do not interest me since I have to work out a specific way to score high, which I find does not give me the best work out. Getting high scores on those levels requires me to do a lot of drafting behind CPU bikers that are traveling at a slower pace than I want to go. I generally ignore leaderboards for those levels and focus on keeping a good pace to get the best work out.

[emalafeew]

Thanks for bringing up emails. VZfit emails Event players with their ranking at the end of each event, but doesn't currently send weekly emails.

Note that VZfit changed the scoring for cycle levels to not add points for drafting. Drafting is meant to give your legs a break without changing resistance, since you can draft the rider ahead of you with 20% less pedaling effort.

[spyder17]

Once I met every achievement on the Original bike I really started focusing on the rankings, (especially on the total VM).  I would check every morning to see where I was and who had passed me since i last got on the bike.  If I didn't finish in the top 5 each week would shoot for 1st)  I would feel really disappointed and made sure that I didn't repeat that the next week.  For over a year I spent almost every day on the bike and was more competitive  with it than just about other activity in my life.  Unfortunately I had to back off some due to back problems but without the leaderboards and challenges I would never have spent the time on the bike that I did.  I have just started back a little on the original games and am waiting anxiously on the Quest to come out and hope that I will have the ability to kick some ass again with the VZFit.  Just need some competition.

[CrashFu]

Hey, Spyder! Good to see you again. So you're waiting for the Quest to come out before you get in on the mobile VZ Fit, or do you also have a Go already? Either way, look forward to seeing you on the leaderboards.

[spyder17]

Thanks. Recognize most of the users on this post from the VirZoom bike.  Going to get back on the original bike some (waiting for the Quest to come out before hitting it hard).  Also, I have some spinal injections planned and want to see how they work before I get back to to full speed.  Glad to see some of the old friends are still out there.

[emalafeew]

Does everyone know about stars? We give you 1-3 stars for individual high scores in each level for each time period. You can see them on the level details screen in game, or on the web at https://www.vzfit.com/stats, and also see what your friends have gotten by appending their username. I know it's not the same as having a weekly leaderboard for each of those, but getting to 3-stars in each level would be a first step.

Another idea I wanted to bring up for Events is head-to-head tournaments. Most of our levels now have a head-to-head option instead of solo time, which joins two players in a synchronized match resulting in a winner. We could possibly have bracketed Events in which winners progress to the next stage until there's one overall winner. But the question is how we'd synchronize match times, and would require everyone to signup at start.