{"id":6172,"date":"2019-04-15T06:03:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T14:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aovpro.net\/?p=6172"},"modified":"2023-01-06T09:20:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T17:20:35","slug":"arena-of-valor-unity-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html","title":{"rendered":"Creating a MOBA phenomenon: Arena of Valor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_88 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#tencent-leverages-unity-to-meet-a-huge-opportunity-for-mobile-gaming\" >Tencent leverages Unity to meet a huge opportunity for mobile gaming.<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#tencent-games-a-unity-developer-case-study\" >TENCENT GAMES: A UNITY DEVELOPER CASE STUDY<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#ensuring-broad-deviceregion-support\" >ENSURING BROAD DEVICE\/REGION SUPPORT<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#rigorous-testing-is-essential\" >RIGOROUS TESTING IS ESSENTIAL<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#readying-a-release-includes-real-world-playtesting\" >READYING A RELEASE INCLUDES REAL-WORLD PLAYTESTING<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#upgrading-to-the-latest-unity-version-with-enterprise-support\" >UPGRADING TO THE LATEST UNITY VERSION WITH ENTERPRISE SUPPORT<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/news\/arena-of-valor-unity-case-study-6172.html\/#making-a-big-switch\" >MAKING A BIG SWITCH<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"tencent-leverages-unity-to-meet-a-huge-opportunity-for-mobile-gaming\"><\/span>Tencent leverages Unity to meet a huge opportunity for mobile gaming.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"tencent-games-a-unity-developer-case-study\"><\/span>TENCENT GAMES: A UNITY DEVELOPER CASE STUDY<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>How does one of the gaming industry\u2019s most-prolific publishers sustain its success as it adapts to different platforms in vastly different regions? After Tencent Games acquired LA\u2019s Riot Games and its League of Legends, the most popular PC game worldwide, Tencent went after the Chinese mobile market with a new game and IP: Wangzhe Rongyao. Translated as Honor of Kings, it quickly became a top iOS and Android download with over 200M daily users generating almost $2 billion in 2017 alone.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The project: Bring the immensely popular MOBA genre to mobile with a new game and IP.<\/li>\n<li>The goal: Reach masses and eSports arenas with a competitive MOBA.<\/li>\n<li>Platforms: Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch.<\/li>\n<li>Project Staff: 150 during development and ongoing operations.<\/li>\n<li>Company: ~45,000 employees. HQ: Shenzhen, China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"youtube-responsive-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bt5hoFLh_8M\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>Having conquered the Chinese market, Tencent reconfigured Wangzhe Rongyao with characters and settings for Western markets and launched <a href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Arena of Valor<\/strong><\/a> worldwide in late 2017. It subsequently won numerous music awards and Best Competitive Game at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards. And with over 10M daily active users (DAU) playing concurrently on one of Arena of Valor\u2019s busiest days, it\u2019s on track to continue Tencent\u2019s winning streak.<\/p>\n<p>Used by Tencent studios worldwide, Unity has long been an important part of Tencent\u2019s success. To start, Unity helps them publish multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like Arena of Valor on many platforms with multiple localizations. To accomplish this enormous task, Tencent maintains these core principles: ensure performance comes first; measure everything from triangle\/particle numbers and UI\/LOD models to code changes; make sure all components such as scene objects, characters, particles, and sounds are scalable; and, test the entire build thoroughly before every release.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-06.jpg\" alt=\"TENCENT GAMES: A UNITY DEVELOPER CASE STUDY\" width=\"680\" height=\"680\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6182\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The results:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stable and reliable workflows across three development teams and numerous test groups.<\/li>\n<li>Asset Store packages reduced the amount of custom tooling needed for the game\u2019s release.<\/li>\n<li>Successfully managed different versions of the game with Unity, including 9 different published versions for mobile and console.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"ensuring-broad-deviceregion-support\"><\/span>ENSURING BROAD DEVICE\/REGION SUPPORT<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-04.jpg\" alt=\"ENSURING BROAD DEVICE\/REGION SUPPORT\" width=\"680\" height=\"282\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6180\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Mellow Yue, Technical Director at Tencent, said, <em>\u201cWith Arena of Valor, we need to support a lot of different hardware configurations in many different countries, and Unity makes it much easier to get the consistent performance we expect.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For example, Tencent adjusted graphics details based on particular hardware configurations, taking into account parameters such as CPU\/GPU temperatures, clock rates, average frame rates in the last five seconds, and actor-nums in camera. According to Mellow Yue, <em>\u201cThe strategy is complex and can be tricky, especially with so many Android devices. But the goal is simple \u2013 to balance the graphics and the frame rate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tencent also collaborates with a number of manufacturers who provide device APIs. This enables querying hardware status to adjust the gameplay as well as adjusting hardware resources (for example, CPU\/GPU, network, IO, and RAM) to ensure the best player experiences regardless of the device.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"rigorous-testing-is-essential\"><\/span>RIGOROUS TESTING IS ESSENTIAL<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-02.jpg\" alt=\"RIGOROUS TESTING IS ESSENTIAL\" width=\"680\" height=\"315\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6178\" \/><\/p>\n<p>According to Mellow Yue, here are Tencent\u2019s key steps for ensuring optimal performance during the development cycle, especially for a title of this magnitude:<\/p>\n<p>Automatic routines when importing game assets to check that they comply with the game specifications (for example, the number of vertices of a 3D model or texture size).<\/p>\n<p>Daily full-resource checks on the build machine to verify dynamic elements such as particle effects.<\/p>\n<p>Daily 5v5 fixed hero\/AI tests to detect any performance drops from code and UI changes.<\/p>\n<p>Many automatic 5v5 matches using new content, whether it is a hero, avatar or a level, with retests after any modifications by designers or artists.<\/p>\n<p>Everything tested on a prerelease server with 50-100k players.<\/p>\n<p>For localizations, Tencent maintains a text map for each language to help ensure that text regions accommodate multiple languages with different word lengths. To manage audio, they use Audiokinetic\u2019s Wwise program. And for localized images, Tencent separates resources into different folders with {LANGUAGE}\/ prefixes. Mellow Yue added, <em>\u201cChinese, Korean, and Western versions tend to share the same source-code architecture, but the game design and art differ a lot between the East-Asian and Western versions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"readying-a-release-includes-real-world-playtesting\"><\/span>READYING A RELEASE INCLUDES REAL-WORLD PLAYTESTING<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-03.jpg\" alt=\"READYING A RELEASE INCLUDES REAL-WORLD PLAYTESTING\" width=\"680\" height=\"388\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6179\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As Arena of Valor neared final QA, the team spent several weeks competing in the game to fine-tune gameplay. Then they tested it on the prerelease server with over 50,000 players to collect statistics such as kill\/death\/assists (KDA), damage made\/taken, healing made\/taken, and win rates. <em>\u201cWe make most of the parameters hot-patchable so we can quickly release a correction after adjusting things like skill mechanisms,\u201d said Mellow Yue. \u201cDesigning and iterating on a hero can take from two weeks to six months, and it\u2019s definitely more challenging now that we\u2019ve got 70+ heroes!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>According to Mellow Yue, Unity was a favorite resource for developing <a href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Arena of Valor<\/strong><\/a>. <em>\u201cOur best talent is quite experienced with Unity, and this helps us keep a stable, reliable workflow. Unity\u2019s also very user-friendly, so the less-experienced developers can quickly get up to speed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The team also relies on the Asset Store, which has provided important Unity add-ons like TextMesh Pro (now part of Unity through the Package Manager) and third-party tools such as A* Pathfinding Project Pro and Easy Movie Texture. It also includes several Tencent custom tools like Behaviac (a behavior tree asset). \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see Behaviac getting four-star reviews,\u201d enthused Mellow Yue.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"upgrading-to-the-latest-unity-version-with-enterprise-support\"><\/span>UPGRADING TO THE LATEST UNITY VERSION WITH ENTERPRISE SUPPORT<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-01.jpg\" alt=\"UPGRADING TO THE LATEST UNITY VERSION WITH ENTERPRISE SUPPORT\" width=\"680\" height=\"383\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6177\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In a company the size of Tencent Games, having a common platform to coordinate large projects and teams is a real necessity, especially considering the complexity of different localized versions and different publishers. Tencent\u2019s Chengdu team maintains the Chinese version of the game while the Shenzhen team is focused on versions for other markets.<\/p>\n<p>Since they started development with Unity 5, Mellow Yue is planning to upgrade Shenzhen\u2019s team to a more-recent Unity version, the same one that was used for the Switch release (see below) and maintained by Tencent\u2019s team in Shanghai, <em>\u201cIt\u2019s been more than two years since release and upgrading our version of Unity will give the game a big visual boost.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Unity\u2019s Enterprise Support is a key partner to make the process smooth. Mellow Yue appreciates the assistance Enterprise Support provides during development, <em>\u201cThey helped us back-port a multi-threading patch that we needed in the development-locked version.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"space\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"making-a-big-switch\"><\/span>MAKING A BIG SWITCH<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/aov-unity-05.jpg\" alt=\"MAKING A BIG SWITCH\" width=\"680\" height=\"383\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6181\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Switch hybrid portable\/console has become an extraordinary success for Nintendo, breaking sales records worldwide. Accordingly, Tencent made an early decision to launch on the platform, releasing a Switch version of <a href=\"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Arena of Valor<\/strong><\/a> in the fall of 2018, and it now has over 1M installs. Porting the game required nearly 30 programmers, artists, designers, and Unity.<\/p>\n<p>The team used a mix of existing and new elements for Switch, porting localization resources and many assets from the mobile platform. For the rest, they developed new components for the file system, memory manager, and user manager, refined battle scene and character art, and rewrote portions of the shader. Alex Jin, Technical Director of the Switch version noted, <em>\u201cWe were able to do some great things with the Switch platform, especially with graphics, and Unity was a tremendous help. We\u2019re working on cross-play with other mobile versions, keeping in mind that the console game\u2019s content is unique in many respects. For example, heroes have different stats.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tencent has a rigorous approach to ensuring quality and reliability at every stage of game development. Assets are double-checked before importing; each and every modification is reviewed; developers compete as part of QA; and, over 50K players help Tencent optimize gameplay before release. This discipline combines with the creativity of Tencent\u2019s artists and game designers \u2013 plus help from Unity features, Enterprise Support, and the Asset Store \u2013 to deliver one of the world\u2019s blockbuster MOBA games, year after year, on multiple platforms.<\/p>\n<div class=\"space\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/unity.com\/case-study\/arena-valor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" class=\"external\">Unity <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How does one of the gaming industry\u2019s most-prolific publishers sustain its success as it adapts to different platforms in vastly different regions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hthgaming.com\/aov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}