Then the power on the removal is probably fine then, but the costs still seem extreme.
A note on this: The sweeper cards (ie. cards damaging multiple CCs) are intended to be really expensive. Destroying CCs is meant to be the domain of Skill cards. You are not meant to play the big sweepers regularly. Instead, they are intended for the late game when you have either a good amount of Heat from Confidence cards or cheaper card plays through Trust. If you have neither, then most sweepers will be out of your reach by design. They are supposed to be good, but if you're going to replace the direct damage from Skill cards with sweepers, it's going to cost you. On the other hand, sweepers tend to have good attack attributes to give them some value as direct attackers for when you can't use their full power.
Skill decks are supposed to get around this problem through brute force with their direct attacks, by comparison. Such decks are usually not intended to focus on sweepers outside of those that are specifically built for Skill decks and clearly marked as such, like Concentration/Close the Shutters/Only Us, or Tripod.
I think the Skill-branch is currently a little underpowered. This is mostly because of the branch lacks a "win condition", or enablers for making plays. The thing about "removal" is that you mostly want to optimize for having as little of it as you can, while also having as many cards that help you win as possible. "Confidence" is the win-condition in the current game, and Trust has the playmaking-cards.
What deck composition did you have in mind when you wrote this? Remember, the idea is that you should combine Skill with one other category, either Confidence or Trust, and that this will make up for its shortcomings (and vice-versa). The idea behind Skill cards is that they greatly streamline the removal of CCs, allowing you to spend fewer cards for direct attacks with greater impact.
The cycle of cards that drain heat for damage are probably overcosted. They could produce at least a little Usable heat, and be fine (specifically in tiers 2 and 3), though I think they would be fine having better atk/cost as well.
Some of these cards seem popular in high-level decks I've seen, so I'm not so sure. Balance is difficult in a game like this, and a lot of this stuff is just my best guess (and math) before tossing it out there for the community to demolish. Currently, the data from users is a little too light to draw big, sweeping conclusions about game balance. Even your opinions, well-thought-out as they are, reflect your personality and playstyle and might not (or might) represent an objective truth about the game. Even so, every bit of input is both valuable and useful to me as I move forward with the game.
The "Encouragement"-effect should probably be in the Skill-branch.
No, it's placed exactly where I wanted it. This card is specifically made for Trust/Skill decks and should feel uninteresting to any deck that doesn't go that route. While there is only a limited selection of cards in the game right now, I intend to make a lot more cards that are meant for particular deck synergies.
As this game grows, I want to see more combos and synergies start to materialize. Coming up with interesting card combinations is part of the joy of a deckbuilder, after all. For now, and as mentioned, the card selection is too light for this to feel right. New cards (and new card mechanics) will be added steadily and regularly during the development of Supermodel, so things should get better over time. Think of Snapshot as a vertical slice of what is to come.
If/When you add deck-thinning cards/effects in the game, they should probably go into the Skill-branch, because I think they'll probably be bonkers.
Why should they go there? Such cards belong in the Trust category, in my opinion. The Skill category is not meant to feel agile or fast, at least not by itself.
Random thought: You could probably even give Skill-cards slightly better attack-stats as a theme. Attacking isn't exactly a thing you want to do at the moment.
Attacking is something you must do, indeed, and this was always the way it was meant to be. From the second I came up with the game's design, I wanted the core gameplay loop to revolve around deciding which cards in your hand you wanted to play each turn, and which you had to "sacrifice" to deal with the ever-present CC problem. You don't want to attack; you have to.
As for the attack values, this is something I quickly learned that I have to be very careful about. There used to be greater variance in these, but I quickly came to realize that this didn't work quite as intended, with some cards included in decks not because of their effects (which were never used) but because of their attack values, leaving the actual Attack cards behind. It's a tricky balance, but one that I feel works well right now. Skill cards are better at attacking, not because of their inherent attack values, but because they are (or should be) supported by Engines that bolster their capabilities. Again, there is likely going to be a lot of balancing here too, going forward, but my impressions and those from players is that Skill cards are highly attractive in almost any deck. Just not in isolation.
It is weird that I'm slotting in "Resolve" as an "Attack"-card. I am basically using as a replacement for "Equipment Check" in a deck that doesn't even try to play it, just as removal. It feels weird. There might be a balance-issue there.
This is perfectly fine, and another decision I grappled with during the design of the Epic cards. Here is my philosophy on card rarities in Supermodel:
Card rarity is not intended to represent how
good a card is. You'll find yourself regularly using Common cards even in decks used against Insane difficulty, and this is exactly what I want. Those are your workhorse cards, the ones that are straightforward to both use and understand. You'll find that the Common cards are simple, both in presentation and execution, while producing effects that are generally handy.
As you move into the Uncommon tier, attack values might increase slightly and some card effects may be (slightly) better than for Common cards, but I keep this rare. For stuff like, say, "Clear Instructions" vs "Empathy", the Uncommon card is clearly better than the Common one, but you'll still be encouraged to use both types if you intend to build a Confidence deck with Heat-generation in focus since you will want more than 3 level 1 Confidence cards in that case and you can't bring any more than that of Empathy. The idea here is to give new players a clear feeling of progression with the cards that are straightforward upgrades (you don't have to be an expert on the game to understand the Clear Instructions -> Empathy improvement) while also introducing cards and effects that are slightly more complex and might not be so straightforward in how they should best be employed in a deck. As you start to use Uncommon cards in your deck, your skills with the game are growing and you, as a player, should be getting more confident about experimentation as the game drip-feeds new mechanics to you. At this stage, the game encourages you to start specializing in strategies that are very different from those employed by your starter deck.
With Rare, things take a turn. Cards here are rarely direct upgrades over lower-tier cards, and they often do not have obvious use cases. On the other hand, if you can find a way to slot them into your deck (which should be done with care), they can be immensely powerful. But these cards are deliberately designed to require a greater understanding of the game's mechanics to get the most out of them, at least in the majority of cases. For Rare cards and up, you are limited to one copy of each card in your deck, so I allow these cards to have slightly better attack values without fear that it will topple game balance.
Epic cards are the most unusual of the bunch. On a surface level, they are extremely powerful, capable of turning an entire match around all by themselves...
if you can get them on the table. These cards will be wasted on a new player, who would be unable to even play them, to begin with. Future Epic cards might be extremely complex in what they do and what they offer. Right now, there are only three Epic cards in the entire game. There will be more, and with that, you will see a new limitation: Your deck can contain a maximum of 3 Epic cards at any one time. Yeah, they're powerful (extremely so), but also super-hard to play, with a significant risk that they'll be a "dud" in your deck for that match, used only for their attack values. The limit of three Epic cards in a deck is there so that I can freely give these cards rather extreme attack values without upending card balance too much. You'll still want dedicated Attack cards to complement your Epics (and just imagine what an Epic Attack card might look like!). These increased attack values are there partly to make up for the fact that the vast majority of times, you'll be unable to play Epic cards for their effects when you draw them to your hand.
Trust-cards are really strong, and "Mutual Understanding" is probably the strongest Turn 1-2 in the game. That doesn't mean it's "too strong", but it's still worth acknowledging.
Good to know, and not unexpected. The strength of Trust was always intended to be speed, and that includes in the opening turns.
At the moment, all of my decks are so reliant on "This Isn't Working", that I think that once it's fixed it will actually raise the difficulty of the entire game.
I would really like to know what's not working about it.
Opinion: Tier 4 cards should help you win the game. I think"Passion" is the best example of that atm, and "Resolve" is really shaky.
Tier 4 cards are, for the moment, relegated to Epics, and you can read my philosophy for them above. My impression based on earlier comments from playtesters is that these are all extremely powerful, with "Resourcefulness" potentially taking the lead in utility.
I think you're on the right track with having a theme of having the theme of making sacrifices in exchange for "ramping" heat in the Confidence-branch. I think that "Forced Discarding" and higher costs would be a better tradeoff over limiting hand-size, except in game-changing cases like "Passion".
This is entirely possible. Hand size penalties are extremely punishing and should be used with considerable care. We'll see what happens with these effects in the future.
