Ren'Py Onhold Supermodel Snapshot [v2.1.0] [Belle]

[RockType]

Okay, so thinking on it more, I think I need to start by going back a bit.
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The basic position I have is that "The Skill-branch slightly is underpowered", but there's two separate ideas that lead me to that:

1) The power of Skill-cards scales depending on what CC you're facing.

and

2) Many Skill-cards are balanced to have only a slight advantage over their alternatives.

Most of my thoughts are just examples of those two things, and what they mean. The two are also related, in that the less accurate and flexible the numbers on CC are, the less accurate the balancing of Skill-cards is going to be.


For example, if the power of a card is "changing" depending on the situation, why do I think it's "underpowered"?

• Because it's not a strong enough play at it's cost and slot, compared other similar cards. It might have situations where it's strong, and you can engineer scenarios where the card shines over others, but the card will have more scenarios where it can't be played, or gets played after you're already ahead because of other cards.

This is a "Win More"-card, and I would call "Only Us" and "Resolve", two high-curve skill-cards, two of the biggest "win more"-cards in the demo.
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Overall though, I might be blowing the difference out of proportion a little bit, since I'm talking about a very specific slice of gameplay, where you're comparing completed collections against some arbitrary "average", in a single-player game focused around customized, different matchups. Restricting the cardpool, balance-changes, adding more unique CCs and having incomplete information cause the "issue" to vanish, because the math changes. In fact the deck I'm using to form this opinion has an arguably broken draw-engine, so...
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Skill as it is, is all about increasing "efficiency", more than anything else, and as I've mentioned when talking about the CC-combo cards, it is kind of lacking an interesting payoff to playing Skill.
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I'm posting this part in two parts for the sake of readability.

 

[RockType]

cont.
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So, few words on "Resolve". I have said that it is the worst Tier-4 card so far.
My problem with it, in a vacuum, is pretty binary: If you can get it into play, and it does something, it is either the ONLY CARD that could have saved you, or most end-game boards of your deck could have done the same thing. If you played it, the game is going well, you are getting 5 heat per-turn either way, you're probably going to win. But to make use of it, you still have to deplete your hand attacking, and I know from experience that "double damage", isn't guaranteed to be "a lot". It feels like you desperately want this card to come out as fast as possible to gain game-winning value out of it, because on a bad draw it might not get you advantage, or force you to toss one of your key-haymakers for the attack-value. That could be an argument for making it a tiny bit cheaper.

Your "payoff" can basically boil down to getting to "hold" 1-2 cards more in the challenge-phase, and maybe freeing up an engine-slot to play something else, + the standard Epic-rarity bonuses, which are very good.

"Passion" just wins you the game if you can play it before turn 7.

I haven't said anything about "Resourcefulness", so... it lets you play bigger numbers sometimes?
It's the "Even further beyond"-card. Will be great once there's stuff to play with it.
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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.

Right, so the idea of "deck-thinning" in Skill. With "deck-thinning" I mean both cards that remove themselves when they are played, and cards that remove other cards from your deck when you play them.

Reasons being:

• Skill needs good cards.
• Giving another really good theme to Trust is kind of unnecessary, as it is already the most synergistic branch.
• Skill already has a focus of destruction/removal/spending resources for future gain (more on this below)
• Deck-thinning is not inherently a "fast" playstyle, though it does improve the consistency of a deck. It can be implemented in ways that happen "over time", which would fit Skill's snowballing playstyle.
• Thinning your deck is an advantage. If you tie it into Skill, you're not (necessarily) tying it into generating heat or drawing cards, which are both also advantages.

Card-ideas:

• The best-fitting idea that would probably just be a concept of attack-cards that remove themselves when used. Either pure attack, or a dual-purpose card like an instant, cards that "break" when used to attack, or when played, are an interesting concept in many ways.
• Traditional "milling", like an engine that creates advantage at the cost of removing cards from the deck, would also be interesting in Skill.
• A specific engine that is depicted as "Growing" in a more organic sense, that... nvm.

...Okay, so the thing is, I know I am kind of going outside your vision for the theme. And that is usually bad, or at least rude.
One of the problems I see with Skill is that although it is tied to the game's core mechanics, it has to share more space with the neutral damage-instants, than the other branches have to with neutral draw and -heat-gen. I do think it is could use some expansion to it's core identity, to somewhat push past just "Dealing Direct Damage Better", because the nieche for that can get kinda cramped.
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While you probably could make some crazy deck-thinning cards in Trust, ("Remove the cards in your hand" -> "Draw that many" etc.) I was thinking more that the counterpoint to card-removing would be card-generation. Trust with it's ability to quickly cycle through the deck and draw, would be one of the best candidates for focusing on cards that shuffle more cards into your deck. As this is one of the more powerful forms of "storytelling" in a card-game, I'm sure you've already thought about this as well. Another viable tactic would be to reserve this kind of progression for "special" cards, and not necessarily a card-type.

On the flip-side, though, I have thought that "Skill" also has a pretty strong case for card-generation, though it's specifically for creating attack-cards during the challenge-phase.
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Have a cookie, if you read this far.

 

[Belle]

As you say, I have my own vision for these things, but your feedback is very valuable even so. Skill is a category that is meant to synergize a lot, but it needs more cards for this to work well. A few of the cards in this version are meant to introduce these concepts, but it feels unfinished and doesn't quite reach the level of making Skill feel self-sufficient.

There are two things I want from Skill decks:
1) Strong single-card attacks.
2) Getting rewarded for destroying Challenge cards.

I also don't want Skill to step on the toes of the other two categories. Confidence owns the domain of big earning and big spending. Trust dominates card draws and cheap card plays. Skill can touch on these areas, particularly Heat generation, but it cannot do so in a way that devalues the other two categories. That would be the wrong type of approach.

My current vision for this, strengthened by both your feedback and my own thoughts now that I have some distance from working on the card systems (my focus has been on story for a while now), is that Skill is more of a high risk, high reward category. It should put you in a position where you're not destroying CCs just to survive, but you do it to strengthen yourself more directly. In fact, I'm likely to even let Skill decks add more CCs to the board so that you can take advantage of them (or suffer if you fail to deal with them).

Several branches of Skill Engines are not meant to be particularly effective by themselves (such as the Concentration line of Engines) but to have a symbiotic relationship with other Skill cards where they strengthen each other. This, again, is something that requires a greater selection of cards to work properly.

I do feel like Problem Solver and In The Zone need a slight buff. These are a little complicated to balance. The idea here is to reward a focus on CC attacks, but this is offset by the fact that every deck desperately needs to do so anyway. If you draw 2 CCs a turn, all decks need to destroy those two cards to even survive (in most cases), so you can relatively safely assume that a card like Problem Solver will earn you 3 Heat per turn under such conditions, with the chance to earn more against situations with more CC draws... if everything goes well. The problem here is that the conditions that make this card earn more Heat than something like Flattery are so infrequent that the benefit of going for Problem Solver instead of Flattery is questionable. There are several possible solutions to this conundrum, including adding the potential ability to deliberately draw more CCs in Skill decks, but there might be a need for buffing without going overboard. It's extremely important to me that Problem Solver isn't tuned to the point where Flattery feels weak in comparison, and that's hard to get right. A deck focusing on Confidence is supposed to earn potentially ridiculous amounts of Heat, and Skill isn't meant to compete directly with that. So it's tricky.

I believe working too hard to balance the current version of the game further would be a waste of time. Instead, I will use feedback and my own knowledge of holes in the game balance to better plan new card additions in future updates, and then, hopefully, things will gradually get better and more interesting when it comes to deck design and strategy.

 

[RockType]

Thanks a lot for your answers. It's great to feel like I'm at least somewhat on to something, though maybe not to the extent of justifying all the walls of text.

I think Skill will look a lot different once the game is more developed, and you've had time to look at more complex cards and mechanics, and that might well be ways away. I had also thought about the prospect of effects that add CC, and I hope you explore that in mechanics outside the player's deck as well. More elaborate gameplans that utilize combinations of engines are a fun idea.

I did also try to format most my advice from the perspective of being more general, though getting into basing my opinions involved talking about individual cards in the current cardpool. To go back to my review, I still do think that in this game, as you've described it, the more you can get the cardpool to match the story you're trying to tell, the better. But you've still given a serious go at designing a solo-ccg, which is very commendable. (The gameplay portions of LLtP were very good as well)

(*Edit:Skill feels like the category that should most reward you for "holding" cards.)

You probably have your own theory on what "High Risk*" means, but I can at least hard agree that Skill feels like it needs a "High Reward". It feels like the category for setting up, and paying off, but in a game like this, a guaranteed payoff can be too strong. I would also classify it as "defensive", at least in it's current iteration, though that aspect may not be being represented in the "text" of the cards quite as much at the moment. It is true that most of the reasons I'm singling it out are just that two out of the three cycles of engines you chose for it, are a bit awkward in the current pool. Even Trust has mediocre/average cards, like "Sharing Ideas", but they're not worth making a deal about because they're in such good company.

...But there I go again.
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This has been an interesting discussion, if nothing else. As I said, I like card-games, but this was still an unusual bit of posting from me. It's nice of you to have these kinds of discussions on this forum, 'cause, well, I wouldn't.

Good luck with your health, and your game, in that order.

 

[RockType]

Actually, there was one more thing that I forgot. There was one interesting card-idea I had while writing these, that I feel comfortable posting:

Spoiler: Pokercard

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So obviously, the idea just came from the fact that the playboard looks like a Poker-hand. The theming breaks a bit if you have the option to add more than five engines. The current version is simply balanced around having lots of "7" in it.
The association is so obvious, and the demo has been out for long enough, that I don't expect I'm the absolute first person to come up with the idea of incorporating poker. I also view the card as being a bit outside the normal bounds of the game's theming, and it would only show up if you deliberately engineered a casino/bunny-girl themed scenario.

Still, I do think it's a neat idea. At least it'll be fun for me to look back on.

 

[SuddenReal]

Don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but the Challenge Firestarter has the Trait "Skill" on the card (as well as the weakness icon) but in the close up, it has the Trait Trust. If you use cards that do AOE damage to Skill cards, they don't affect Firestarter. So clearly something's wrong here.

 

[Belle]

Don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but the Challenge Firestarter has the Trait "Skill" on the card (as well as the weakness icon) but in the close up, it has the Trait Trust. If you use cards that do AOE damage to Skill cards, they don't affect Firestarter. So clearly something's wrong here.

Huh, it's weird that nobody seems to have noticed (or at least mentioned) this before. Fixed and thank you! It's supposed to be Skill all the way.

 

[SuddenReal]

Found another bug. This Isn't Working has a cost of 0 with the Burnout symbol, but the cost never goes up. Think it has something to do with the 0 cost, because the other Burnout card I used did go up (Trigger Happy if you're curious).

 

[Belle]

Found another bug. This Isn't Working has a cost of 0 with the Burnout symbol, but the cost never goes up. Think it has something to do with the 0 cost, because the other Burnout card I used did go up (Trigger Happy if you're curious).

Yes, this is a known bug. I'm aware of why it happens and how it needs to be fixed, if I haven't fixed it already (can't check right now).

 

[HighTide]

Really liking my "Lighting & Action" deck

Spoiler: Lighting & Action

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Building up for "Skills" to wave-clear the challenges while "Confidence" builds up your heat is very satisfying, can't wait to see more cards develop for the game =)
Who needs trust when you've got style and good equipment?

I like the story the cards tell while you're getting into it, though I do feel like "Skills" feels more like "Gear" with the focus on the tripods and everything, though with the "Mood music" also being apparently gear related, maybe that can be a type of card as well, with effects on 'gear' by both the complications and your own cards

Having played my fair share of MTG I'm rather pleased with this piece ^_^
I gotta hold back from just talking about every individual card I like and why or this'll be a much longer post. I'll start throwing a bunch of unsolicited suggestions out in no time

 

[Belle]

Really liking my "Lighting & Action" deck

Spoiler: Lighting & Action

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Building up for "Skills" to wave-clear the challenges while "Confidence" builds up your heat is very satisfying, can't wait to see more cards develop for the game =)
Who needs trust when you've got style and good equipment?

I like the story the cards tell while you're getting into it, though I do feel like "Skills" feels more like "Gear" with the focus on the tripods and everything, though with the "Mood music" also being apparently gear related, maybe that can be a type of card as well, with effects on 'gear' by both the complications and your own cards

Having played my fair share of MTG I'm rather pleased with this piece ^_^
I gotta hold back from just talking about every individual card I like and why or this'll be a much longer post. I'll start throwing a bunch of unsolicited suggestions out in no time

How refreshing to see a deck that doesn't rely on Trust. That was the biggest flaw in the initial versions of Snapshot in that Trust was too useful, so I've tried to pull it back a little to allow the other categories to shine.

"Skill" was actually "Equipment" during the earliest stages of development, but I changed it when I realized that it was too restrictive (there are limits to how many equipment-related cards you can add for a simple photo session) and would leave Michael feeling somewhat insignificant. Focusing on his skills gives him agency, even if the equipment he uses is a big part of that.

 

[hoshimota]

I'm gonna have to cave and check this one out sooner or later. Still desperately hoping you will make another game like LLTP at some point though, especially given it was one of the best adult games of all time.

 

[Belle]

I'm gonna have to cave and check this one out sooner or later. Still desperately hoping you will make another game like LLTP at some point though, especially given it was one of the best adult games of all time.

You don't have to check out Snapshot unless you're interested specifically in the card game. The VN experience is almost ready for release, so it won't be a long wait for that.

 

[HighTide]

I've had multiple games where I get 69 heat as my ending heat, would it be too cheeky or on-the-nose to suggest an Easter Egg for ending on that score? Doesn't have to be a mechanical benefit, I'm just amused at how often it keeps happening and can imagine a little bracketed (nice) next to it

and since I just can't even contain myself... (sorry, unsolicited suggestion splurge)

I feel like, inversely with Trust, Confidence can have a sense of "The model is doing their own thing" in that you can trade benefits for hand size or card cost, maybe even some of your cards get their numbers shuffled up and down be they attack, cost or heat generated.

Trust *is* very powerful, after you mentioned it I tried out a deck and found that, because of the card draw, I consistently can get much higher scores than I was getting with Skill. I see the theme of the model letting you take command and control of the situation and I think that it tells its version of the story quite well. If you want to balance it, however, I'm reminded of the League of Legends card game where they have extra card draw tempered by a condition called "Fleeting" where, if you draw a card, you have to use it or lose it, the card discarding automatically at the end of the turn you draw it-but for this particular system where we constantly cycle our cards, maybe instead of the cards discarding automatically, it gives only 1 useable heat instead of 2 for that turn when you discard it?

Skill I get the sense is all about dealing with arising problems. Maybe it can have certain Contingency/Trap cards for challenges that arise, like... For example, you place a card on the table that will deal damage to the next Challenge that's placed, you can call it "Contingency" or something. It takes up a slot on the table, but it gives you a head start on tackling the incoming challenges.

I mentioned the potential for a card subtype being "Gear" and how that can be affected by other factors, but didn't get into detail. I'm thinking of things like a challenge being "Tripped circuit breaker" coming when you put too many "Gear" cards down that specifically disables your gear cards until you get rid of it, whereas you can have cards that empower your gear cards like "Batteries" that give them one protection if they would have been taken out.

Overall the concept is fun to play with in terms of design, and whatever its future I am glad to have another deckbuilder to strategize on =)

 

[SuddenReal]

I started this up again, and I still feel the same frustration I had when I first played this.

Why is the Challenge Phase before the Action Phase? Yes, I can clear the board, but I have the Engine in hand that gives me Heat when I destroy a Challenge, so that's wasted. But if I don't kill Challenges, I'll get overwhelmed. The Engine that doubles my attack? Too bad I don't have enough damage to kill enough Challenges this turn to stay in the game.

When I see the cards, I can see combo's forming, but are they really combo's if you're forced to play the second part of the combo the next turn? Especially when three or more Challenges hit the board in the mean time. I know I lost at the start of the final turn because if I can't clear the board, there's nothing I can do in the Action Phase to generate enough Heat to off-set the remaining Challenges. Usually in card games, you draw for answers, but here you draw for prayers, that there won't be a Challenge that screws you over before you have a chance to play the answer you just drew in the Action Phase (and that you can't play because it's not the Challenge Phase).

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but I just don't get why the order seems counter-intuitive. A card that does nothing when it hits the board is a dead card, and since you play the cards at the end of your turn, most of them do nothing.

 

[HighTide]

What if "Useable Heat" was called "Steam"?
Heat generates Steam, running out of steam, too much?

 

[cxx]

What if "Useable Heat" was called "Steam"?
Heat generates Steam, running out of steam, too much?

and belle gets sued by valve.

 

[Belle]

I've had multiple games where I get 69 heat as my ending heat, would it be too cheeky or on-the-nose to suggest an Easter Egg for ending on that score? Doesn't have to be a mechanical benefit, I'm just amused at how often it keeps happening and can imagine a little bracketed (nice) next to it

I'm not a big fan of adding meme references to my games (just look at how little referential humor I added to LLtP), but it's not out of the question. Would be something for a later update, if so.

I feel like, inversely with Trust, Confidence can have a sense of "The model is doing their own thing" in that you can trade benefits for hand size or card cost, maybe even some of your cards get their numbers shuffled up and down be they attack, cost or heat generated.

There is a bit of that in the game already, but there is also a lot of potential for this to expand as new cards are added. It's nicely put.

Trust *is* very powerful, after you mentioned it I tried out a deck and found that, because of the card draw, I consistently can get much higher scores than I was getting with Skill. I see the theme of the model letting you take command and control of the situation and I think that it tells its version of the story quite well. If you want to balance it, however, I'm reminded of the League of Legends card game where they have extra card draw tempered by a condition called "Fleeting" where, if you draw a card, you have to use it or lose it, the card discarding automatically at the end of the turn you draw it-but for this particular system where we constantly cycle our cards, maybe instead of the cards discarding automatically, it gives only 1 useable heat instead of 2 for that turn when you discard it?

This is the purpose of the Burnout mechanic that was added in a smaller patch. It's meant to rein in the most egregious abuses of Trust (har har) without overly hurting decks that simply dip into those mechanics. I don't want to add too many situational mechanics like these since they can end up overcomplicating the game, but the idea is sound. If anything, I could see myself making a change like only giving Usable Heat for discarding a card once per turn, or something. I'll keep it in mind as we go forward.

Right now, I'm not focusing on the card game at all. The version you'll see in the first release of Supermodel: Defenders of Desire will be almost exactly the same as in the current version of Snapshot. The first update to Supermodel will be card-focused though, so we'll see what happens then.

Skill I get the sense is all about dealing with arising problems. Maybe it can have certain Contingency/Trap cards for challenges that arise, like... For example, you place a card on the table that will deal damage to the next Challenge that's placed, you can call it "Contingency" or something. It takes up a slot on the table, but it gives you a head start on tackling the incoming challenges.

This is something I'm extremely reluctant to do. Table space is an enormously precious commodity that becomes even more precious in the latter half of a match. Also, since most of the cards you place on the table have gradual, sometimes exponential value as time goes by, adding cards that force you to leave table space aside for other purposes becomes very hard to balance properly. I feel like I hit a sweet spot with Coffee and Energy Drink, but it's a precarious tightrope to walk. There will be cards like these, but I don't expect to add them often.

I mentioned the potential for a card subtype being "Gear" and how that can be affected by other factors, but didn't get into detail. I'm thinking of things like a challenge being "Tripped circuit breaker" coming when you put too many "Gear" cards down that specifically disables your gear cards until you get rid of it, whereas you can have cards that empower your gear cards like "Batteries" that give them one protection if they would have been taken out.

This is also something that I'm cautious about. I want people to build their decks to deal with specific challenges, not for challenges to be built to counter specific decks. I'd rather not place players in a gotcha situation where they feel like the game is out to get them, and specifically them. To me, that kind of laser-focused punishment isn't fun for those who get targeted by it.

I started this up again, and I still feel the same frustration I had when I first played this.

Why is the Challenge Phase before the Action Phase? Yes, I can clear the board, but I have the Engine in hand that gives me Heat when I destroy a Challenge, so that's wasted. But if I don't kill Challenges, I'll get overwhelmed. The Engine that doubles my attack? Too bad I don't have enough damage to kill enough Challenges this turn to stay in the game.

As I've said before (or so I seem to recall, anyway), the game is designed around this. Engines are meant to only rarely give immediate effects. They are investments for future payoff. If you want instant results, use Instant cards.

This is so fundamental to the game's design that I only see two choices here: either relent in your preconceptions of how a game like this should play in your opinion, or don't play it at all. This aspect of the game's design is very unlikely to ever change.

What if "Useable Heat" was called "Steam"?
Heat generates Steam, running out of steam, too much?

I don't need to add even more word salad to the game. "Usable Heat" is already pushing it, which is why I didn't even have a separate word for it originally.

 

[rb813]

I'd rather not place players in a gotcha situation where they feel like the game is out to get them, and specifically them. To me, that kind of laser-focused punishment isn't fun for those who get targeted by it.

I think you're exactly right.

 

[HighTide]

Sorry there was so much, I enjoyed the game and was bursting.
You're right about overcomplicating things, totally fine, hope some of it was a little helpful!

I'll be very interested in seeing how the card game fits in with a storyline =)