Resource system revsited (again)

[snowdrop]

While trinity does sound like an interesting resource method I feel it fails on a few points.

1. Complexity not to the gameplay itself but for us the designers. Why have to balance 3 resources when you can easily express those costs in a single resource.

Yups. A question well posed, which I've raised and will continue to raise for a little longer. This far I share your notion though.

2. It will make the game play much much faster. The first 5 or so rounds i only put out creatures to provide defence. As soon as I hit my magic combination of Resources I flood the board with creatures and the win will quick. Of course the other player is doing the same thing. So what happens it becomes a race to the magic number very little strategy. Making each pile deplete fixes this but removes the point of have 3 different resource types.

I agree it will make playing certain card types faster, but keep in mind that the player who always has zero cards in hand or near zero is also at a disadvantage in several ways. Just playing all you have always"because you can" is probably a guaranteed loss against a more experienced player that would hold on to a couple of well selected cards. Knowing all this one might argue that it will shift the meta-game and the deck building, so that what you suggest won't actually happen.

I also think it is very hard to draw conclusions from scenario-examples like the one you gave, simply because they are only true if a deck can only be built in one way or the game favours it.

As an example we could use that "the magic number of resources" in your example leads to an ultimate combo of creatures. It could, but if properly designed it could lead to plenty of other stuff happening instead. In a sense the criticism is also valid for all games, at any given time the resources are optimized for the specific deck, isn't it? What I mean to express is that you could pick any deck in MtG right now and come with the same criticism. It only states that "when resources are optimal for conditions x y z to be true, then effects a b c will be triggered by cards in the deck (given I have the cards a hand or in play)"

3. Lastly this change is basiclly forces us to start from scratch to utilize it properly. I think we need to call the stats we have frozen and do gameplay testing.

I agree we're long long overdue with a freeze, but given the fact that I'm more or less the only one working on it, at least in the long run, it can't go any faster and there hasn't been any serious amount of time put on it last couple of months. That is about to change now as I'm unemployed as of today. ...hence I'll have much more time to put into it. Long story short, there won't be a freeze until we have a good system and it has been somewhat tested. Currently we don't have a good system. It lacks in several regards, but I'm honestly hoping that many of the questions and some kind of soft freeze could be in place before new years.

[verbalshadow]

In what ways is the current system lacking? Has is been confirmed through play testing?

I think we are finding problems that don't exist and trying to fix them. We are allowing our imaginations to work not on known problems but on what ifs.

Play testing is the solution to our problems. The delays and consistent wanting to change the rules. It is simple boils down to we can't actual play our game against each other. Those games will tell us what really needs fixed.

We need a working card client that all of us can use since we are an international team is it the only way to achieve the MUCH needed play testing that will move this game forward.

[TorbenBeta]

I can't find where, but Sd said that we shouldn't playtest yet.

[snowdrop]

In what ways is the current system lacking? Has is been confirmed through play testing?

The current rules lack mainly in ways not related to the resource system itself (at least that's my call, I know Q_x would disagree).

For example, I'm currently trying to figure out how and if conquerable object can be implemented, and with that, also a new win condition.

I think we are finding problems that don't exist and trying to fix them. We are allowing our imaginations to work not on known problems but on what ifs..

I agree, to the most part. At the same time some issues can be understood purely by thinking. Me dissing Trinity would be an example of that. I'm not necessarily suggesting I always come to the correct conclusions, but given nobody else tried to dissect it my ramblings is what we'll use.

Two win conditions that are truly independent of each other would potentially add strategical depth to the game. True or false? Do we need playtesting to evaluate that suggestion? I don't think so. That notion in itself doesn't have to be playtested. It can be a theoretical construction that can be evaluated. Most of the time it would fail at that stage. If it wouldn't then next step would be to playtest it.

Summarized, I'd only want to playtest what art least appears to be is theoretically sound.

Play testing is the solution to our problems. The delays and consistent wanting to change the rules. It is simple boils down to we can't actual play our game against each other. Those games will tell us what really needs fixed

Agree. I think we lack playtesting altogether. I raised that issue in the latest newsletter where I explicitly write that:

"the ORC rules can’t be developed further in a meaningful way without us having more testing data at our disposal."

That's still true. From my point of view we're ready to playtest pretty soon. We just have to nail down the (non) usage of:

a) conquerable objects
b) multiple win conditions

If one or both of the above should be playtested then all cards marked for playtesting has to be reviewed again and in some cases slightly altered. If not, we're back at the start, have lost some time on reseraching the two points above, but wouldn't have done so in vain: We'd then know with more security that what we're doing can't be done "better" under the circumstances.

We need a working card client that all of us can use since we are an international team is it the only way to achieve the MUCH needed play testing that will move this game forward.

I'm not sure I agree on that being the problem, since both LackeyCCG and gCCG is around. While not everyone of us is happy about WINE lackey is perfectly usable in it. I have asked for playtesters several times, both in forum and newsletter(s), and interest was non-existent. Same goes for gCCG: That one is even Linux native, yet nobody is interested in setting it up for us so we can use it for playtesting. Last guy that tried that was a guy that disappeared without a trace.