Topic

Further (lengthy) thoughts on the Upgrade card mechanic and specialisation


(TL;DR summary at the end)


I think the new Imagination system is working really well. Not only does it give glitches something to work toward (namely, more imagination) but it then provides an additional layer (beyond the resource gathering/crafting layers) of play and expression. The upgrade system adds a lot in this regard already with the various abilities and boosts provided and, I gather, will continue to be expanded to offer even more going forward.

However, I've been musing over the last several days about the card mechanic and I'm not sure that, in its present form, it currently works as well as it could do. Of course, I can't know exactly what TS are trying to accomplish with this but, given the various comments I have read from the staff, I imagine (!) that their aims included providing a fun, less deterministic, new mechanism for upgrades that would enable the oft-mentioned specialisation of glitches.

In terms of the idea of upgrades as randomly drawn cards, I think this works brilliantly. I would have envisioned the upgrade system as something like a tech tree from an RTS game. However, this effectively just repeats the existing skill system and presenting the upgrades as a collectible cardgame makes for a very different and far more engaging system. The random element in trying to track down the harder-to-find cards can probably also provide greater longetivity and satisfaction than a deterministic system.

I believe the current implementation works against specialisation of upgrades though in the way the mechanic plays out. Numerous forum posts have talked about the frustration of being stuck with unwanted cards, sometimes repeatedly. Indeed, in the couple of days it has taken me to get around to writing this post, Janitch has beaten me to the punch to a degree with his post on dealing and shuffling of the cards. Janitch and others highlight the frustrations and I'm glad Stoot has promised reshuffled cards won't repeat. However, being a brave(/foolish) individual, I'd go further and suggest a slight redesign of the system.

When I say the current system works against specialisation, I take it that a person being able to specialise their glitch needs two things: a good range of choices and the ability to make meaningful decisions between those choices. Currently I would say that there are certainly a good range of choices available (and with more to come) but I believe the limited 3 card draw frustrates making meaningful decisions between these choices. As a reward system it would work very well, giving a person a selection of three random rewards for them to pick between. However, for specialisation the simple choice of 3 cards from many is rather limiting for player agency and highly dependent on the luck of the draw for receiving what you want. When people complain about getting too many energy boost/quoin upgrade/brain upgrade cards or what-have-you, the problem is not receiving these cards, per se, but that these unwanted cards block the cards they do want.

Now it would certainly be theoretically possible for a person to accumulate all the upgrades they desire without investing in any cards they don't want. However, this is likely to take much longer (and much greater patience) than a person will find acceptable. Rather, as I have found and I gather others have found too, it is more effective to buy all the cheaper cards available (whether they are wanted or not) in order to keep cycling through the deck. This has the double benefit of potentially providing the card you want as the next draw and (potentially - there seem to be many of certain types of cards) preventing the current card from recurring. Hence, the current system appears to offer a lot of choice but the current mechanic encourages a homogeneity based on selecting all upgrades.

A quick aside on not automatically reshuffling - as stated by Stoot, this provides the ability to retain a card you want to work towards but may not be able to currently afford. This is a very useful function and undoubtedly will become more useful as cards are added and people have burned through their vast stacks of imagination. Yet the current mechanic again frustrates this to a degree. Say I have five cards I want to get and my current draw includes one of these I can't afford and two others I don't want. I must then decide between forgoing on a chance of the other four cards until I have procurred the current desired card, on passing on this desired card for the moment in hopes of getting one or more of the other four first or, finally, of buying one of the two undesired cards in hopes of exposing one of the desired other four.

Now it could be argued that the current problems are a result of the imagination switchover with everyone now having a large pile of potential upgrades and imagination to spend. I am certainly sympathetic to the devs not wanting to spend a lot of time smoothing out the switchover which will obviously not be useful again in the future. However, I believe that the switchover only exacerbates an existing problem rather than being the cause of one. For a new player with less upgrades available, they will still have problems choosing the upgrades they want from their available pool unless that pool is quite small (in which case the question of selection is moot as they don't have much choice anyway). In any case, as new general upgrades are added (and they gain new skills unlocking further upgrades) they will quickly head towards the current situation. Either they will have accumulated all the upgrades available (or at least the cheaper ones) as they go or they will be left with unwanted cards clogging up their deck as they unlock further upgrades.

(There is also a debate here about new players not gaining all the skills versus trying out skill branches and questions of what happens to bought upgrades if a required skill is unlearned - I think I'll sidestep those. My deck is currently full of energy boost cards I don't particularly want and I imagine further upgrades not tied to skills will be added and so the solution is not simply to avoid unwanted upgrades by avoiding unwanted skills.)

I suggest that the problem with the current system therefor is a lacking card selection and so the solution is to provide a greater selection of cards. Now clearly the devs could provide you with your entire deck of potential upgrade cards and let you flick through all of them. However, I presume they wouldn't want to do this as it would rather invalidate the entire CCG aspect of the system and turn it into a laborious menu system. Therefore I propose we are allocated a sub-deck from our main deck (of all possible upgrades). This would consist of, say, 20 or 30 cards which we could freely flick (and loop) through and purchase those we desired. The game day 'reshuffle' would thus become a 'redraw' of the sub-deck (and similarly for the reshuffle card).

For the aspect of reserving cards to work towards, you would not need to redraw your deck until you decided (as with reshuffle currently) but additionally there would be a couple of 'hold' positions where you could transfer cards from your sub-deck. Thus your 2 or 3 chosen 'hold' cards would not be redrawn with the rest of your sub-deck. This would prevent the redraw dilemma above.

Some thought would have to be made as to the composition of the sub-deck. It would probably be undesirable to have a completely random deck lest you end up with 20 energy cards you don't want. (Although a random selection of 20 is still better than a random selection of 3.) It may be wise to restrict the number of cards drawn within a certain category. Stoot also mentioned there was an aspect of rarity to certain cards. I'm not sure if this is currently implemented through the number of cards available (e.g. 10 +1 brain cards, 5 +3 brain cards, 1 manic miner III card, etc) or through the probability of those card types being drawn. A system similar to CCG booster packs might work well (e.g. of your sub-deck of 20 you would be allocated 12 common, 6 uncommon and 2 rare at random) but may need adjusting since you don't reacquire previously bought cards.

I think this greater selection of cards will help alleviate some of the frustrations that I and others have found with the current system and better enable the specialisation of glitches. There are still some open questions (namely about unwanted cards clogging up the deck and sub-deck composition) but that is for another time.

Finally, I apologise for my inability to express things succinctly and with simplicity! :-/

TL;DR Version

Current 3 card draw mechanic is frustrating, lacks sufficient choice. Leads to people buying everything in order to cycle through the deck quicker. Need to encourage specialisation through greater selection of cards. Suggest 'reshuffle' becomes 'redraw' of a sub-deck of ~20 cards.

Posted 7 months ago by Dr Evanzan Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I like your thoughts and agree with your evaluation of the current system.  It matches my own observations.

    I have another suggestion to achieve something similar to what you're talking about.  What if the cards were divided up into categories like the skills are?  Then, you could have a set of check boxes for the categories you'd like to see appear in your randomly selected cards.  So, a given Glitch could really focus if they want, or select from all the cards.

    To keep things random enough, you might require them to select two categories before the cards would reshuffle.  But as more cards are added to the system, this would be less necessary.
    Posted 7 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I enjoyed reading your post, Dr. E!
    Posted 7 months ago by diaveborn ♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Mega plus!
    Posted 7 months ago by Hollybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Carl,

    I think the idea of controlling the categories that appear would be very useful. As a general mechanic though I think it might be too confusing for people to readily understand and maybe give players a bit more control than the devs would like. There's definitely room for more meta-level cards (i.e. they change the deck rather than the glitch, such as the reshuffle card) though and a new card along these lines would be good.

    Now I know my idea may not SEEM simple from that wall of text above but it maybe fits in more with the card aesthetic and the original mechanic. You are dealt a hand of ~20 cards (so more choice than 3), can purchase those you want, can 'hold' like in solitaire to reserve cards and you don't get more until you re-deal (probably a better term than 'redraw'). That last point means there is no direct incentive to buy random cheap cards you don't want to get to the ones you do.
    Posted 7 months ago by Dr Evanzan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Very good description and analysis.  A large pack of cards to choose from would certainly make things nicer.  It is also a relatively simple change that doesn't require a major overhaul (increasing the number of cards dealt at a time).
    Posted 7 months ago by Janitch Subscriber! | Permalink