Duolingo makes a big change: he goes from the heart to a new energy mechanic. The idea is to go from a system that punishes errors from the one intended to feel more motivating – and a little more gamified.
Under the old system, you would lose a heart if you made a mistake by teaching a lesson. To win hearts, you can do things like watching an ad, paying a full recharging using the Duolingo jewels currency, or just waiting for hearts to cool off.
As part of the new system, you will spend an energy unit to complete an exercise, and an error will cost energy. But you will also find an additional energy at a randomized rate to finish several just consecutive lessons. Consequently, users should be able to have more lessons, and that is what appears in the data, says Moses Wayne, engineer of staff superior to Duolingo, tells The penis.
“We think it's a way of motivating you to focus on the things you get rather than penalizing for the things you make mistakes,” said Wayne. He also says that “we wanted to find a way to give the experience a little more.”
A full energy bar is 25 energy units (against five cores). Energy regenerates over time, like hearts, says Wayne. You can also buy more energy with gems, and subscribers to Super Duolingo and Duolingo Max will have unlimited energy, similar to the way subscribers of these levels have an unlimited heart, according to Duolingo spokesperson Monica Earle.
Wayne points out that under the Hearts system, you could fail from your first lesson in the day. “In an energy world, it will really not happen because we no longer penalize you for mistakes,” explains Wayne. The aggregated metrics of Duolingo show that, in general, people are able to engage “much more” with Duolingo now than before.
The change takes place first on iOS in the coming weeks and months, and the goal is to bring it to Android later this year. If you happen to play Duolingo on iOS and Android at the moment, your Android application will stand with hearts, while the iOS application will stick to energy; They will not synchronize, says Wayne.
