Hello to all of you and thank you for taking the time to answer me =)
I see that some of my ideas contradict themselves (I can't seem to decide between a PVPish CCG with better chances for new users and a AI powered Card RPG), but either way I'm just happy to share all of them with you all.
If upgrading all the cards in the game was a quick matter then people would do that and then likely leave as they saw nothing more to strive for.
If grinding is all there is to strive for, what's left for the awesome deck building system?
IMO, that's more fun than playing thousands of games and it can only be achieved after getting some upgraded cards (Otherwise, there would be a lot more unupped decks in the Decks section. Even SGs Rainbow FG killer uses seven upped cards).
I am sure the community would love a more skill based reward system, but currently the game AI isn't exactly good at distinguishing good choices from bad ones. I'm unconvinced that you need to be more skilled to play AI5 rather than AI3 - you just need a different deck. I don't think skill can be judged well by what level you play. And any kind of leveling system like that would shatter the current game balance. Killing FGs would be a piece of cake.
Yeah, you are right.
Still, it could be a nice addition to single player/questing/grinding mode (Leaving PVP unaffected), making for a parallel character development and rewarding commitment to the game.
Simply giving out greater rewards for EM wouldn't cut it either since that is also much a matter of the type of deck you're playing (and you needen't have even thought of the deck you're using).
Yep, that's why I proposed to change EM's condition to something more balanced for all the posible decks.
Think about the concept of "game dominance" instead of full HP at the end of the game.
Having to create a deck thinking about EMs (FFQ, Life, Miracle, etc) seems rather artificial and limiting, don't you think?
"Game dominance" is a subjective concept, riddled with multiple variables. Still, even something as simple as Average HP of Player1 / Average HP of Player2 would give, with proper tweaking, a much better solution to EM.
After all, destroying permanents and creatures doesn't mean crap if your HP keeps lowering.
This example solution would give an excellent rating to a successful rush, to a great denial game and to every conceivable scenario I can think of right now. Even healing is considered.
Learning how to farm FGs effectively involves losing a lot. Players who give up because of the learning curve won't get the higher rewards they offer. That isn't exactly unfair... it's much like life (which can be unfair in general, but not on this matter).
The thing is, there is no learning curve but only in deck building and the rest is common sense and sheer luck.
Regarding common sense or luck, there's not much you can do for the user.
About deck building, we get to the same stuff I wrote about in this thread.
Even if you have the ability to create wonderful decks, the only way to get to them is to grind, grind and then grind a little more.
Players won't give up on steep learning curves, they'll lose interest because of seemingly unnatainable goals.
Essence:
I'm just a programmer who plays games while compiling
Also, you can get my WIP here (
http://www.otratuercadevuelta.blogspot.com/).
The page is in spanish, but the documentation is bilingual (And a pain to mantain ^^).
To download directly, get it from here (
http://www.box.net/shared/0hsk6mh48q). (See what I did there? XD)
That said, from a game designer's perspective, the 'levelling up' option is a bad one, because it makes players inclined to play less immediately after leveling up -- because they know that the next major reward is a long ways off, so there's less impetus to play again right now (which the slot system totally provides.)
I'm not replacing the slot system with the levelling one, they would work in parallel.
It would only add a medium term goal while keeping the ADD patients playing, and everyone is happy :p
