Awful mini-game design

[Ryo Pasternak]

I hope the developers of this intrigue in other aspects game understand the all future sufferings by offering to human gamers the game with the winning strategy strightly related to the NP-completeness problem i.e. to win and achive the best stars score you need the brute-force search of all cards combinations. I humbly sugest to re-write mini-game rules to exclude this by simplifing it to human level for example reducing the amount of card combinations types.

[r-cane]

What exactly is the "NP-completeness problem"? Never heard of it before. I've played through the game multiple times now and found the cardgame which I believe you mean with minigame to be good. And not only that, it gives you things for loosing aswell. So it's not about having to win all the time because you severly loose progression as in other games.

[Ryo Pasternak]

Google it.

[r-cane]

I just did. And now I understand just as much because I'm no programmer.
That being said, I'm a boardgamer and I dont see much of a problem with the current system apart of the ability to solve each challenge with one colour of cards no matter what that colour is.
So if you reduce your yellow social skill cards and physical skill cards by just not claiming more of them and relaxing them off while at the same time taking more blue cards into your deck you will be able to reach a very high score because of the huge flush bonus most of the times and therefor will be able to solve, in this said case, most social and physical challenges just with mental skill cards.
I still think that may either be a design decision to reprisent someone applying for example manipulation through intelligent arguments (in the case of using blue cards on social checks) or intimidation or good looks/physigue (in the case of using physical skills in social interactions) for example.
This could also be getting a lot harder once you get cards automaticly added to your "deck" through age for example because simply having one or two cards of a non-matching colour would decrease the score significantly.

Right now I'm very happy with the way it plays right now.

[gespenst]

This is a bit late but thought I would add my opinion just in case the designer happens to look at these. I actually agree that it requiring the "Maximum" value is an issue. It doesn't really add much of having to just try EVERY combination to find that values given the possible combinations are numerous. It moves into a reward for tedious trial and error over clever game-play.

Instead I feel the bonus should be applied for getting a specific amount OVER the success mark. Maybe a with a scaling increase as the difficulty spikes? Alternatively just make it within a percentage of the maximum value (say within 10-15%) to reduce the wasted time.

Programming Note: Not sure it will happen but NP-completeness problems can really slow a processor if there are enough variables since it has to try EVERY combination then compare them to each other. It wasn't an issue with what was in the demo but something for them to watch out for later.

[r-cane]

Originally posted by gespenst:

Instead I feel the bonus should be applied for getting a specific amount OVER the success mark.

Now I think that's probably not what the OP's post was about, but since it's kind of discussed here now I want to get back on that. I think it definitivly shouldn't be awarded for reaching any margin over the threshhold instead of just for the best possible outcome for multiple reasons.
1.) It completly awards min maxing. If you just get the better the better you already are, and not just by a static amount like right now but by an increasing amount depending on the margin, that compelles hard to just try for max results instead of max roleplaying.
2.) It does not change the fact that you still will have to think (and get better at calculating those things in your head) or just try endlessly to get the best result.
3.) It disallowes to get the increase for not achieved success. I'm not sure if that is the case right now, but for what I understood you get awarded with the extra 1 point for achievig th best possible result, making it possible to even get it when you have been dealt a bad hand or just dont have the cards to succeed at the test to begin with. But since I felt the mechanic was meant as a means to reflect someone trying their best, no matter the outcome, it would lose this effect.

That being said I realy dont understand the problem with the "trying every possible combination" that much anyway. The rules of the minigame are relativly simple. Sure, there is no tooltip during the game that shows you what amount of cards in a flush/straight/equal gets you what bonus (which I guess could be added), but I dont find it hard to solve each minigame in a matter of seconds up to half a minute absolutly max.

The number of cards you are dealt is rather small, the possible combinations therfor are too and since it's quite easy to understand that the larger your flush/straight/equal is the more points you get it's pretty intuitive to see what goes where.
The only things that makes it a bit tricky is stuff that you wont see before placing it like "last card gets +1". But even there we are at simple addition or substraction of a point or two. It's not something you cant learn relativly fast. And having to learn that is part of the game just like any game.