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No it's not, it's frustating as hell! I'm lucky I have 26000 exp to be able to afford some uses, I can't imagine how bad it's for newcommers to be able to reveal maybe 3 to 4 cards per battle and then being left in the dark.
This is not a balanced experience by any stretch of imagination, with or without the reveal and again, I doubt ANYONE wanted reveal to be reworked the way it is now, especially given most character do not even have easy accesss to reveal to begin with!
Going forward, we absolutely won't do anything like this, once people have paid money for the game.
We 100% understand that it felt like a loss of progress for you, and we're sorry for that.
The issue I have here is that you specifically nerfed something that I feel it didn't need to be, and in fact made the game far better
Because, by actually being able to see most of my enemy hand, I could at least work around what they got, and know when to block if I could (which is extremely important given that almost all things that give block in the game work on cooldown: block at the wrong time and you are defenceless)
Now I literally have zero recourse in most fights because if an enemy doesn't die before I run out of reveals, I'm in trouble, because I won't be able to properly react to what they are gonna pull most of time
Reworking and rebalancing a game regualrly is important for a rougelike, where the introduction of new elements and playable characters can throw the whole package in disarray, but if you are tellling this is one of the few balance changes you are gonna implement here, you honestly killed my whole interest in this game altoghther, if the few adjustment you gonna make are gonna just worsen an already unpleseant experience.
I am not a casual player, but I did check the update screen for sure. Tbh, even in the point of view of casual players, reveal 20 cards per combat is more than enough for 90% monsters (personally I would say first 5 is already game changing, but that's just me).
I mean, as long as you have an extra weapon or two, most enemies could be finished within 10 rounds. How many monsters have 3 hidden cards or more? Do we really need the game to make remaining 10% monsters revealing every cards possible? If so, what's the point of having reveal equipment in game?
And the world doesn't end even if you have used up all the reveal available. Trust me, finding out the probability of enemies move isn't that hard.
What's the probility of the remaining card to be 10 or above? 10,J,Q,K,A, that's 5/13.
Three cards to be all red? 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8
See? They are not complicated math to deal with tbh.
Block or deny enemie's attack when the probability is high, leave it alone when the probability is low.
Sure there will be exceptional cases but in the long run you will find it easier.
As someone who has actually beaten the game on both casual and hardcore I can safely tell you I didn't feel any satisfaction when I won those run... I felt BORED out of my mind, because the game kept dragging on and on and reused enemies from the first area back to the last with even more HP to chew through, almost reaching a thousand, and the new foes introduced didn't do anything to spice things up, if anything they just made me play safe and fight the old enemies because they were less dangerous overall even if they had increased life and attack power, because they had more limited card requirements for their moves I could deal with more easily
I would have nothing against this game feeling less like Poker if it meant it would FINALLY be fun to play.
As long as you have an extra weapon or two? Yeah, good luck getting enough chips to actually be able to use those blasted pieces of equipment when one can barely survive the first world and beat Sergeant Toad in most runs, and even if you did, try getting through every enemy getting 100 more HP in the next area while you probably were lucky to get 2 or 3 blacksmith AND having enough chips to upgrade yourself.
Aside for the fact getting to the point that you can reveal all 20 cards takes an absurd amount of griding, revealing up to 5 cards might be enough for enemies that hide 1 card, but there are so many that hide up to 2 or 3, even back in the first area! (Like the Phoenix or the Thug) Meaning that you will be unable to see what they are doing in 3 turns of time or around that.
Also your ability to finish off enemies is tied directly to your card draw as well and your ability to meet requirements for your equipment fast enough, if you get bad draws you are going to take extra turns for that, which leaves you open to take damage: and given that most enemy draw more cards than the usual starting 2 you do, you are very unlikely to get what you want most of the time
"And the world doesn't end even if you have used up all the reveal available."
No it does, it very much does: because probability ISN'T certainty: one of the very worst feeling you can have in any roguelike is that your luck and/or the rng screwed you over, and sure you still gonna feel that way if the enemy draws well or you draw badly, but being able to SEE what an enemy is going to do gives the player a sense of agency, like they can influence the flow of the game in some ways. It's like if you played Slay the Spire without actually knowing your enemy intent (and I know there is an artifact that hides the intent, but playing with it is widely considered suicide unsurprsingly), or just a vague idea of what they could do, it turns the game in a completely different direction this approach DOES NOT work for: there is way too little room for error because of how fragile most heroes are and how uneffective healing over all is (as most of it is percentage based)
Also, that final sugestion just doesn't work: almost all stuff that gives you block in-game has cooldown, meaning that if you block when the enemy is more likely to attack you but he doesn't, then great: you left yourself open next turn with probably zero recourse.
HELL, sometimes even if you block in time you are still screwed because nothing can prevent an enemy from drawing ANOTHER attacking hand back to back, and because of the cooldown you are like again vulnerable unless you have another tool to fall back, which most of time isn't even something you can reliably find because it's either randomly generated and/or it costs chips to obtain, which you are never gonna have enough
I have MANY issues with this game: the reveal nerf is merely the straw that broke the camel's back. I tried my best to learn how to play, to master the mechanics and to enjoy it, but after around 150 hours I can safely said I've seen enough of the game to say: this isn't fun, this isn't good and it isn't well balanced, and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise when there are so many issues and design choices that make the whole experience botherline unplayable from a mechanical stand point.
What you can do is either giving yourself a break or discover new mechanism from the game, which I think is what Poker Quest excels at. There are many interesting combos in the game, that can beat the same monster in different way (card swapping/stealing, shield bashing, card stash for flushes straights x of a kind, wild card manipulation, and more). If you stick with the same formula you are gonna get bored.
Man, I mean it's not that hard to get 4 card draw and another item at 1-10, even if it's in the classic mode. Most of the weapon upgrades deal an extra 10-20 damage per round, upgrading once or twice before 2-10 is definitely good enough to deal that 100 extra damage in 5 rounds. You have sufficient resource to do that as long as you are not upgrading to 6 card draws at world 2. Not to mention you have many more buffs in casual mode.
I am not gonna judge the amount of grinding 20 reveals (I had my opinion on the game's xp curve as well, but that's another matter). I would say the first X reveals is in the right direction, it's just how long the grinding is needed to reach that. 10 is about 6000xp which is 5 turns for 90% enemies. Phoenix and thug is exactly the 10% I am talking about. Again my questions is, what is the meaning of reveal equipment if you have 100% reveal on 100% enemies.
I understand you want player agency and gets everything in control. I was once thinking in the same way, but my past experience (from 3As to indie games) tells me that makes game boring fast in general. I played rogue fable III a while ago. It was a good game in general and does what you want (no RNGness on attacks or defence), but I stopped playing that once I have won the game with all heroes. I am a fan of skyrim but what I enjoyed most wasn't when I have the highest assistance and best enchanted gears. It is when the next hit of Draugr Overload gonna kill me if I didn't block it on time. Is it really absurd to have 10% enemies hiding their intentions, where you can bring the probability further down by some basic maths?
Regarding block items, its only one of the few ways mitigating damage (a less effective one IMO). You can use consumables, steal/cycle/swap his card, freeze/enflame, burnt your energy/gems to shorten the fight, deliberately halt your attacks etc (halting an extra round isn't gonna kill you every time). This is why block items have a cooldown, if a single block item is so consistent enough, are you going to use other options? Nope, people (including me) just love staying in their comfort zone. And gets bored because it is too reliable to make a game trivial. A game gives you different solutions to the same problem is a good game, not otherwise.
I can give you an example here: bard run + card stash + toad sceptre with return card. Bard just draws a club of Ace and it's a infinite stun. This was the most boring gameplay I ever had in my 25 classic wins so far, so boring that I forgot stashing that Ace and gets hit a couple of times.
Afterall, I can see that you live with a different philosophy. There is nothing wrong or right about it, and I am not typing this wall of text for the sake of winning a debate. I just think that it is not that unbalanced or unfun to play with. I was playing this game long time ago, at that time there was no casual mode, consumables don't refill and every enemy (including boss) amplifying crazy. I have been whining every run at that time. I am still whining a lot for bad RNGs nowadays but I do see the improvements made over these years.
Trust me, this game deserves more than what you think of.
Maybe not repeat the same foes as the first world? Like, what is a rat doing in space?!
You know, I would really like to do that, except everything in the game is so incredibly expensive that branching out to try something different is effectively unfeasible when you need to pay for better card draw (unless you are using something that doesn't consume cards), for the item slot (unless it's weightless) and for the item itself (unless you got it from a chest or something else). And no, custom mode doesn't count, I shouldn't fix myself the issues the game has.
Then we are playing completely different games I'm afraid, because unless you get lucky with something like a weak mage or a dwarf hoarder, you are not gonna get more than 15 extra chips before your reach the first castle: I'm not joking when I said I consistently get at that point with less than 40 chips at most. Also 10 to 20 damage upgrades it's incredibly bad scaling, and it's not enough for later foes at all. In fact, some character do not even get the extra base damage: knight and huntress get the whole useless "deal x% extra damage on a pair", which good luck getting that consistently without drawing 8 cards or having a storing equipment
I don't know, but you know what: not having to use reveal equipment is actually pretty good, because I don't have to pay for it to buy or upgrade and I do not have to deal with whatever cost or limitation they have. In a game all about resource managment and how much overbearing it is at times, not having to deal with some made the whole experience just a bit more bereable. And again, there is no gurantee you would even get reveal equipment AT ALL with some characters, so that might the only way for you to be able to see hidden cards at all
As someone who played Rogue Fable III and Skyrim as well (both better games than this by the way) I'd say yes. Especially when basic mathematics don't make the game good, or fix all the other balance issues it has. I'm not wasting effort on something that isn't worth it. This doesn't add depths the way it is implemented or make it more interesting, it's just needlessly obnoxious.
When I have most agency on what I'm doing I can look where I failed, realise what i did wrong and make up for it the next time I play. I can't learn a thing in a game that arbitrarly decides Sergeant Toad attacks me for 56 damage 5 turns in a row with me being unable to counter than in any way because none of the shop gave me things that allowed to stun him or cycle his cards, steal and so on
And I'm not gonna accept the justification of the game being based on a game of chance as a reasonable argument: the devs job was to adapt the mechanics of Poker for an RPG roguelike, which means reworking things that do not work for such game. Instead they took the easy choice of giving enemies extremely lax card requirements for their skills and/or make them draw so many cards at once they are very likely to get what they want almost every turn. No potential counterplay can justify the insane advantage some foes have over the player
If it isn't effective, then what is even the point in THE. FIRST. PLACE? Why give players something that doesn't properly work?|
A game isn't good because it gives you different solutions, it is good because it gives good solutions that work, regardless of the number: quality over quantity
Also that's nonsense because most of the things you listed aren't even defensive options: flaming is an attack, energy can be used defensively or offensively depending on the character and items they have equipped, gems are used to fuel cards regardless. If we want to talk about actual defensive options, why not dodge? Because all of that I'm going to use regardless: I'm not gonna overelay on block when the game structure is the one of a roguelike, where you make the most of what you got and block honestly scales awfully! So no, it doesn't make sense for block to have a cooldown where most of time it's not even enough to block the brunt of the damage!
I haven't even seen what the toad sceptre even is, so that means nothing to me. Also, just because one combination is busted doesn't justify making the game harder, because the chance of you living long enough to be able to pull that out are really low on their own
I don't meant to be offensive here, I'm merely paraphrasing what another guy said, because I feel it express what my opinion on this here "If you train yourself to eat manure and enjoy it, that doesn't mean it turns into chocolate"
Granted, the guy that said that was using another word for "manure", but I can't really say that in the steam forums.
More power to you if you still can enjoy it and regularly win, but that doesn't mean the game is well-balanced or fun. I mean by the same logic it doesn't mean that the game is bad if I bash it, but if someone that sinked some hours into the game still couldn't get the appeal, either it isn't for them or there are issues that may be competely ignored by people who enjoy it
Only thing this game deserves is a deeper rework
The lack of monster problem is more like resource management problem for developers, you can't expect they improve everything while the game is only selling for $15 in a niche market. Of course I would always prefer more monsters, but I have a realistic expectation as well. And I do see the game improves over time.
You have 10 nodes before 1-10. Each battle node give 2-7 coins plus your 15 chips at start. That should be enough to get a 4th card draw on average. The castle gives 10-15 chips and combine with want you left you should be able to get a 15-20 worth of item. Sometimes when RNG sucks you get perhaps 3 draw/1 item, but sometimes you got 4 draw/2 item (when the right equipment is half price).
The +x% damage is not useful? Huh? They are one of the easier attack boost in game, only 2 card striaght and flush is even easier. Of course you are not gonna roll out pairs every round for 4 card draw but you have many ways to achieve that, card draw, stashing stealing cycling. There are many items in game that synergises well with others, way more powerful than just making pairs. Take skyrim as a example, the best weapons sucks in legendary difficulty if you dont even improve it, but they become a one-hit weapon if you have high smithing alchemy enchanting. Its just that poker quest's op combo not as straight forward as skyrim is.
10-20 damage is base improvement only and again, you have ways to multiply it. A pair of 10 makes only 30 damage on Kraken, what if you upgrade it? 40. What if Kraken is vulnerable? 60. What if you have a strength potion? 90. What if you have an axe that does 25 before multipliers? 147 for two weapons. Already 1/4 if you execute the combo at right timing. And attacking is just an average method in game. If you have been attacking Kraken for twice like that, you can easily finish it within ten rounds. Note that attack is only average damage options in game and there are ways to kill them even faster.
So you want the game to remove all reveal equipment and makes everything visible? It's a CARD GAME man. How many kind of card games have you ever played? Taking hidden element away from a card game is like taking roleplaying factor away from RPGs. You can't simply go to Burger King to order a Peking Duck.
Poker Quest also works the same way - learn from mistakes, gets better, learn more. Sergeant Toad may hit you three times in a row in your unluckiest game, but he will not hit like that every single time. If you expect every time you have the exact counter measure even for the unluckiest case, again you are ordering a Peking Duck here, roguelike game just never work this way. Card games never work this way. There are always RNGness in these genres.
Mobs don't hit every turn, you are having a bias here. There are times they hit back-to-back, there are times they stop for 3 rounds. That's all. Question is how often do you want them to hit, and how often you can stop an attack.
"Less effective" is in the context of comparing other means to beat your enemy. Blocking is inferior because it is a passive way that don't kill enemies directly, but there are times when blocking excels. It is just not as often as other ways of playing.
The goal here is to beat your enemy in most effective way. You can't simply isolate block/dodge from every other action in game. Your resources are limited, every action you take will affect each other. If you rush your enemy, ignoring his small attack from round 1 to 3, you might end up saving yourself from a big hit at round 4. But if you are passively blocking everything, you might end up taking a big hit at round 4. There are no exactly 100% rule here, but there are patterns to learn with, like any other card games.
No I am not using that example to justify the hardness of the game. What I mean is that if you have everything in control in a card game, it will end up very boring. This is the limitation of the genre: It is not an action game where you can control the timing to block, it is not a fighting game to test your knowledge of commands and playing mind games. What technical factor do we still have, if we can consistent getting a decent defense and know every enemies moves? Speed runs?
I really try to be as polite as possible and nope, your words aren't offensive to me, you are just offending yourself with a rude comment.
Last but not least, people are not ignoring your comments. No, I don't beat the game consistently. It's exactly the opposite. I lose a lot but I don't complain about RNGs or hidden cards because they are what exactly this kind of game genre should offer. I would definitely go to a Chinese Restaurant if I want a Peking Duck. That's all.
I don't have an issue with the lack of variety in foes on its own, but recycling the same foes of the first world and give them more HP and attack power is just lazy: I rather have a smaller enemy pool in the final world, than fighting the same guys that were at the start of the game. On top of that, if those enemies even show up, I have strategically no motivation to fight the new foes, because why would I put myself in danger fighting someone MORE dangerous than someone I already fought before, beside masochism? Better the devil you know
Okay, those counts don't work, and here is why: not all of those 10 nodes give you chips, and in fact in some of them you may want to spend them for upgrades if you get the chance: no enemy I fought in the first area ever dropped more than 5 chips at most UNLESS they were elites, and even then the reward is around the 6 to 8 range. That's not even getting how the new updates introduced blank nodes to make you waste even more spaces that could be used to improve yourself and get more resources. The castle's dungeon (good luck surviving that gauntlet by the way) only gave me consistently under 15 chips, never that much, like mostly 13. With items costing around 15 to 20 unless on sales, if not more, having 4 draws and 2 extra items by that time is literally a pipe dream (unless you are playing casual mode)
Oh look, the knight and the huntress don't get draw and stashing by default! Your opinion is invalid.
Cycling is also too unreliable to be used to draw the cards you want yourself, at most it's useful to give you a better hand if you got a bad one, but it works far best as defensive tool to mess with the foes' hands.
So basically, to actually make use of the whole damage bonus those two characters get, I have to get lucky to at least obtain one of the few things and pray to the RNG I can afford to buy and equip: yes that's good game design right here, make expensive upgrades completely situational unless you get lucky to find a complementary item soon after
That's why I prefer the Rogue's knife as a base weapon: sure it can't reach the levels of damage the sword or poison spears can get to if you meet their card requirements, but upgrades effects it's CONSTANTLY ACTIVE, meaning it's far more consistent damage in the long run most of the time
That's not even getting with the blatant power creeping: the Ninja throwing knives are just the Knight's sword but better in spite of the limitations (cards under 9, only 2 uses at base level), it does the damage of a fully upgraded sword without having to spend the ungodly amount of chips to get there, in facts its own upgrades have the cheapest cost of any equipment in the game!
And again, whether you get those combos or not is based completely on the luck of the draw: the game should be balanced around the player not being able to pull that off most of the time, not the opposite
"Oh don't worry, you just need to get this, and this, and this, and this, and all of these items are completely randomised with no certainty you may be able to get them all at once: good luck idiot!"
The issue isn't the fact you have to pull those combos to win: the issue is that your ability to actually have the equipment to do that is complately up to the random seed: how am I supposed to pull that out if I'm struggling on the first world and the castle shop I get sells items that work on full houses or 6 cards and multiply poison while I do not have anything that inflicts it? I can't even prepare for a proper strategy against a boss, because I won't be able to know who I'm fighting until I get to their world, unless it's the final boss or the first.
That's again why you design the game with the thought the player won't be able to pull those combos consistently: look at Binding of Isaac just for one classic example, as long as you are skilled you can finish a run even without grabbing anything: sure it's very hard and it locks out of some content, but it's possible to do! That's how any roguelike should be designed!
Oh, and let's not forget, here equipment isn't unique, so you can't even buy something to get it out of the "item pool" and prevent from showing up later in place of another potentially good tool. Hell, I once remember I entered a shop that sold 3 daggers, I may even a screenshot of it! I don't even have to say how much that lowers your chances to get what you need
That literally means less than nothing to me: especially because I know cards games (both digital and not) where cards are never hidden to anyone. If it makes the game more enjoyable who cares it competely eshews the original design of cards to do something that works better here.
Hell, I think I saw another roguelike that used poker (or another gambling game) as the main theme where you could always see what the enemy was doing
I know that, but I would like for the RNG not to be able to arbitrary go "Okay you die" here. I would like a tough but fair challenge, and this ain't it chef. It's the worst feel in the world to be going on a run and already know, 5 minutes into it, that you are doomed. It makes you feel you are wasting your time or, worse, that the game is wasting your time
The fact that Sergeant can even do that to begin with IS an issue, because the hand he has to draw to attack isn't that unlikely (4 red cards out of 5 is around 50% chances to draw one per card), ESPECIALLY when his whole gimmick is to stall long lenough to be able to draw that hand.
Seriously, who was the idea of giving THE first boss of the game not only around 200 HP, but also a block of 50! How is anyone, this early in the game capable of cutting through that, especially with the simple requirement of 3 black cards. That's not even getting how the boss basically cheats because you have to deal with the cooldown, while he just can spam it as long as he meets the requirements.
Maybe there is some equipment that allows you to do piercing damage to him and bypass the block: I don't know, I never saw it on sale on the shop, only that some enemies could dealthat with their skill. I know the vampire special ability allows her to deal piercing damage too, but that doesn't really count. But even if you could gain a way to hit through block, that wouldn't change the fact that you need to get lucky to get it before reaching the first boss (seeing a flippin' pattern here?)
So yeah, Sergeant Toad isn't boss, it's a stupid arse wall that prevents most players to see what the game has to offer beyond him (which is to say, not that much). And it's telling how much the balance of this game is out of whack that many bosses after him are actually EASIER than him (The sand worm and not-dracula)
No, they can and they WILL. The discard pile gets shuffled back into the draw pile every turn, so both you and a foe can ALWAYS draws cards to activate your skills. You cannot even strategise by, for example, drawing all aces to prevent the thug from using blackjack until the discard piles gets shuffled back because said aces can be drawn again next turn, which means he can get a blackjack potentially every turn if the RNG hates you
Of course, I immeditely found killing an enemy fast is almost always better than drawn out the fight and tanking hits, that's why in one of my few succesful knight runs I completely forfeited the shield altoghther in favour of more weapons
If this isn't enough of an argument on how woefully underpowered blocking is for the player, nothing will ever be
There is no pattern here because the draw is randomised: whether something happens or not is up mostly through sheer dumb luck, which again I could work against better if I could SEE what my enemy is doing.
The fact you are staright up forced to take damage sometimes is also a questionable choice: now I'm not gonna say that a good rougelikes make it so you can through the whole game unharmed or stuff like that, some allow you to and some don't. The issue is that you are sometimes forced to take damage and most healing options in the game woefully ineffective, because most of them are percentage based, so it's far harder to outheal most of the damage you take, and unless you get one lucky doctor, sometimes expensive. That's why raising your max hp in casual mode is one of the best upgrades toghether with more starting chips and reveals, because it doesn't just improve your durability, but your ability to recover
I'm not against the game having randomised elements; I'm against the game being so randomised it's not even fun to play
...Okay?
I went in this game with the full knowledge, that being based on Poker, I was far more likely to lose than to win... And even with that in mind I can tell you this game still managed to disappoint me, not because of the design of Poker itself, but because they way it's implemented sucks all fun out of it when luck is literally the only constant factor that actually matter. Player skill plays second fiddle to rng, and that is something, no matter the game, I find unacceptable in game design
You think repeating monster is an issue to address, which I already agreed,
but I will be realistic and wait. Making a smaller pool isn't really solving problem,
what if I want more variety on last world even if it's repeating on 1st world?
If you really insist on that and can't patiently wait, I have 3 options for you:
A. Make a mod. Go edit csv, edit the monster, draw a portrait sketch, balance it with other monsters.
Share if you like. This is the best way, I know that because I was a modder for a wide variety of games.
B. Delete the so-called repeating monsters in csv, run in custom mode. See what's better.
Less effort involved. Tell people what you think in Discord, if it's constructive opinion people will listen.
C. Fund the developer. I mean, you have already sunk 150 hours into it,
and you want the game to improve. Is it absurd to pay $0.1/hour for that?
D. If you don't want to spend time, effort or money. That's fine.
But don't complain people are ignoring you, because many community members contribute with concrete suggestions, not just some whining with no solutions.
2. I tried five seeds and have a result to support my claim.
Feel free to verfiy them, or argue with me with counter example.
seeds: five of hexagons
before 1-10: +25 chips, +church
seeds: jack of terror
before 1-10: +39 chips, +doctor
seeds: lord of catacombs
before 1-10: +24 chips, +healing
seeds: princess of revenge
before 1-10: +25 chips, thunder sword of pairs, forgive counterattack
seeds: princess of the wilds
before 1-10: +22 chips, +smithing
The worst of them gives 22 chips, plus your own 15 chips, that's enough for 3rd (16) and 4th (17)
draws with 4 chips left. Dungeon gives 13 chips, makes you 17 chips - not enough to buy good weapons usually.
But, there is an enflame weapon half priced. Good for toad but slightly strict condition to trigger.
You have two choices:
A. Dont improve your 4th card draw yet. Then you are free to choose better weapon.
B. Go with fourth card draw with enflame, expect to burn a few gems when you use it.
Now this is the worst seed. There are seeds with +39 chips, and seed which I chose a bad path, forgiving
a strong buff (counterattack). Not every runs are optimal. And they have all qualified as 4 draw/1 item, only the worst seeds lets you decide on 4th draw vs better weapon.
3. You want stash? Ok, go mage.
You want draw? Ok, go ninja.
Complain about their inconsistency for pairs? Play rogue.
Cycling is less reliable, yes. But they cost very cheap, applicable both offense and defense.
They excel a lot better than blocking in many conditions.
You are complaining the RNGness of shops, weapons, and draws.
Question is, how do you want the game modified to make them more consistent?
Knife has consistent but low damage. Throwing knives have limited uses.
They are cheap for a reason.
Output power relied on the luck of draw? Yes. Completely on luck? No.
There are more useful stash items than I had been playing long time ago,
many of them are weightless as well. Do you know that mage's stash item
was once occupying the slot?
That's why I see their progress towards more balanced gameplay,
but I can't expect total consistency on draws for a Poker game. It just doesn't make sense.
4. Now, your statement of "you just need to get this, and this..." exactly counter agrues
your previous statement of "balanced around not being able to pull good RNGs".
With only exception of strength potion, NONE of them require GOOD RNGs.
A pair of ten or above? 1-2 gems.
An upgraded knight's sword? A blacksmith before 2-20.
Vulnerable? Hit Kraken for 2-3 times per round, get him draw 4, sometimes 5.
Extra 25 attack damage? Seriously, is it that hard to achieve?
But even if you don't have the potion, you have just 1 less modifier.
You can still get 100 damage/round, able to kill the boss well before round 10.
Isn't these modifiers heavily depends on how player make choices?
Yes, there are bad shops. I am not gonna argue with it.
Question is, how many shops you expect it to be good? How good do you want?
You are comparing an action game with a card game, man.
How are you going to implement movement control on a card game?
Click the card within 2 seconds to have 50% boost?
What if the player is good at thinking but sucks at reflexes?
A good game gives player certain degree of agency, yes.
So does Poker Quest, by decision making and resource management.
It may not be perfect, but you cannot put an example from different genre and expect the game to improve that way.
Bad shop is bad. Not gonna argue it, I had so many bad runs that I decided to close it on 1-10.
But I consider it part of the game (meta-game to be exact), because I may roll out an interesting modifer next run.
Again the burger king metaphor, I am not gonna upset because I can't order a peking duck there.
5. Please tell me card game examples that have no hidden card, has more fun that Poker Quest, and play at least 50 hours on it?
I mean its not a harsh requirement given that you have spent 150 hour on PQ.
Competely eshews everything as long as its enjoyable?
If you can give good example to inspire the development, good to you.
If not, its just a statement easier to say than done.
I can give card game examples with hidden cards, to justify the "hidden element" in card games.
Magic the gathering, Hearthstone, Gwent, Yu-gi-oh, these are popular franchises but
they all inherit the "weakness" of card games:
You don't know your enemy's intention exactly, but you can guess.
Your enemy gets a good draw, you are doomed.
6. I don't feel happy at a bad run as well, but nope, its not wasting your time.
I feel the exact opposite, if I achieve more than I expected in a supposedly bad bad run,
I had better accomplishment than a good run I suppose to beat.
It's you to decide how you play the game.
The tough defense of toad is quite user-unfriendly, I can agree.
So does the whole game, the learning curve is deep at first world.
Bad design or good design? I can't exactly tell that.
On one hand it stops new players from doing new content.
On the other hand, it lets you ditching the bad runs early,
so you can learn more from a completely new run.
About the difficulty of world bosses.
I mean, I think I have only lose once to the final boss -
and that's because I have wagered too much to have not enough resources.
Does that mean the final boss is easier than toad? Of course not,
because hero need to scale properly to even reach certain point.
I doubt sandwyrm would be easier at world 1, because it restrict you having limited attack.
Dracula yes. He is generally weak anyway.
By the way there is a modifier to reverse the world order.
6. I am not talking about pattern of drawing what cards.
I am talking about the pattern after you have drawn cards,
and how often the hidden cards are likely to complete a condition.
Some are fairly easy to tell, if giant's visable is 38 and have 1 hidden card,
then he is impossible to make the total to 50.
Some are hard to tell. I won't bother with that, but those conditions are not common.
I mean I am fairly cautious on hidden cards (if phoneix has 3 visible reds
I would stll try to cycle its card even the odd is only 1/4),
but I honestly don't think every time I am in trouble if I have zero reveal items over the whole run.
Yes you need some maths for that, but you simply cant take the
fun of guessing cards away from detail-minded players. And the reveal upgrade
surely satisfy 90% needs as I have previously stated.
7. To conclude, if you want to pay the effort: mod the game if you can,
remove something you feel unpleasant, try again to see if you have better experience.
It may or might not improve the game, but you may learn more,
not just the game itself, but knowledge about balancing a card game.
Less, make some constructive criticism. Instead of pointing out how worse an aspect is,
tell people how can it be improved, with relevant examples.
The more concrete it is, the more likely developer will listen.
Even less, its not absurd to buy a game for $0.1/hour,
which I believe you may somewhat enjoy it at some stage.
If none of these satsify you, the best I can tell you is to move on.
Maybe card games with hidden conditions isn't really your cup of tea.
8. Last, this will be my last reply on this thread, unless you have some constructive criticism I am happy to reply with.
I mean I have not replied something so long in years, because I know that you won't convince anyone online 99% of the time (worst than a roguelike run).
I still take that 1% because, as a half-ass modder and developer, I treasured people who pay dedicated effort on a game, even if they may have different opinions on that.
1. There is also solution E: play something else worth your time
2. Only 5 seeds ain't enough given how much the pathing to the first castle can change immensely: if I could care to spare the time, I probably could find 5 seeds myself where you get far less of those resources. Beside, only in 3 of those seeds you actually reached 40 chips or beyond (not counting the dungeon)
3. That still doesn't cover the fact that many characters have the whole stupid "you need a pair to improve the effect" gimmick as their main upgrade to their equipment when they do not have easy access to things that allow them to get pairs easily. If their whole damage output with their base items relays on something they do not have access to by default then that character is literally broken (That's why Ninja, Rogue and Mage are the best characters in the game, because they are actually properly playable)
4. Okay, I forgot Kraken can inflcit vulnerable on itself: but I'm still gonna call it bull for various reasons
"A pair of ten or above? 1-2 gems." Yeah, you wish, unless you upgrade your gem draw to like 3 to 4, getting a 10 with a draw of 2 per gem is fairly unlikely, especially if they have to be the same type of 10s, beside, you are spending who knows how many gems for 1 attack that might not be enough to take out the kraken
"An upgraded knight's sword? A blacksmith before 2-20." That if you actually upgrade the sword and not something else: remember my point of the knight base kit being literally broken? Why would I upgrade something that is unlikely to benefit me if I don't know if I'm gonna get draw or storing? Usually my first upgrade as the knight is the shield, not for the defense, but to change the requirement from "2 cards" to "Up to 2 cards" so I don't get screwed over by curse
"Extra 25 attack damage? Seriously, is it that hard to achieve?" Depending on your seed, yes
"Question is, how many shops you expect it to be good?"
None, that's why I stopped going to shops altoghether on the world map: because they are usually waste of a location when I could travel somewhere where I'm guranteed to get a tangible benefit instead of having to spend an ungodly amount of chips for a good tool at best, or get literally nothing at worst
Also, that's a nice strawman there: what I'm saying here is that the game is supposed to allow you to progress even if you get screwed over by the rng. Putting litteral walls because you haven't powered up in time it's bad game design
5. Tabletop: Arkham Horror LCG, Mage Knight, basically most cooperative deckbuilders out there
Videogames: Again, most deckbuilders roguelikes that have "intentions" shown to the player (beside Slay the Spire, special mention goes to Second Second and Gordian Quest, the former especially eshiwing any kind of randomness by having the whole deck visible to you and with a set draw order)
So yeah, I can give plenty of examples
Actually, I even remember the other upcoming game using Poker mechanics for combat, I think it's called Zoeti
I seriously hope you are not comparing this to Yu-gi-oh of Magic: it would be like comparing the sun to a broken lightbulb
6. Oh yeah, I feel I great amount of pride and accomplishment over not dying to Sergeant Toad because I got lucky as he didn't draw enough to block and attack only to get torn apart by the normal encounters in the next world
No, this is awful design: a run should NEVER be so bad the only logical conclusion is suicide, you should always get a fighting chance, otherwise the game just becomes frustating, because every run basically becomes "Either I grow strong enough to beat the first boss and then I hope to god I don't die before I reach the end, or I have to get killed repeadetly and literally accomplish nothing but get pity exp". I'll repeat that, this isn't good roguelike design, period
The final bosses are a crapshoot anyway: one is incredibly easy, another is cheap but you can beat it if you have ways to heal frozen and the other is NIGHTMARISH hard
The worm has no block, just a heal, and is unlikely to attack, and even if it attacks there are various ways to lower or prevent damage, like blocking, getting tough status buff, dodging, card stealing, freezing... Etc
And unlike many enemies where you need a combination of one of those things to even hope to survive, you only one of them to have good chances in the fight and even then, you can do without any one of them: THAT's how the game should be designed
The worm aslo gets completely screwed over by big single attacks, so if you have access to them it's easy to bring him down, like with the Rogue's shank... Can't say the same for Sergeant Toad who you need to wait for him not to block every single turn, if you want to actually deal damage
Modifiers still don't count
6 the Second. "and how often the hidden cards are likely to complete a condition." VERY: in fact I think you forget all the cases where a giant has a revealed value ABOVE 38
Just because sometimes it's obvious a guy can't use their moves, doesn't mean that's the norm
"Some are hard to tell. I won't bother with that, but those conditions are not common." ...Are we even playing the same game?
That's not even getting how some characters do not even have the luxury to basically being able to take defensive countermeasures every turn if needed, Sure Mage and Warlock can cycle spending energy and health, so as long as they have to spare, they aren't really in trouble (as long as the cycling doesn't make them draw an attacking hand), but people that relay on block like the knight have literally almost zero recourse of action (and that's not getting about characters that have ACTUAL zero recourse, like the Bard)
"Yes you need some maths for that, but you simply cant take the
fun of guessing cards away from detail-minded players"
How the hell does this take the "fun" from anyone? You like losing runs because you can't actually see what your foe is doing? Play hardcore mode, or play casual mode without reveal upgrades! Nerfing passive reveal upgrades didn't make the game better for people like you, it made the game worse for everyone else
(continued on another reply)
remove something you feel unpleasant, try again to see if you have better experience.
It may or might not improve the game, but you may learn more,
not just the game itself, but knowledge about balancing a card game"
It's not my job to fix your crap: I can't be bother to experiment and toy with the game when I'm having a bad time with the base experience, it's already a lot if I played this game for more than 100 hours to see if I was doing badly or the game was bad, doing basically free beta testing and then taking my time to write and reply here instead of just going of my merry way to play something better
"Less, make some constructive criticism. Instead of pointing out how worse an aspect is,
tell people how can it be improved, with relevant examples.
The more concrete it is, the more likely developer will listen."
Oh yeah, because NONE of what i said was constructive and didn't bother to explain why the things I critisiced don't even work... Nah that was just me idle whining because I'm butthurt the game and the devs bend over backwards to my needs, clearly this game is bloody perfect as it and doesn't need any adjustment.
It's already a lot somebody with contrasting opinions went here and bothered to even lay out why he thinks the game isn't good and why he doesn't like recent changes: writing it off as "non-constructive" just shows how little you care about a contrasting opinion that isn't your own
Do you want to give actual advices on how to improve it beside a rework: alright then, let me just lay down some things on top of my head
1:Get rid of sigh distance, there is no reason why this is a thing, it's just frustating to not be able to properly plan your path ahead of time and have to spend resources to actually be able to know where you are going. Even if it ties with the theme of gambling, it had nothing when most competitors show you the whole so that you can plan ahead a pathing instead of having to risk jeopardising an entire run just because your are in the wrong branch
2:Improve starting hands of every hero: 2 cards isn't enough, period, and the whole becomes literally a game of making up for your bad draw for the rest of the run. Given this game is inspired by Poker, wouldn't even make more sense for heroes to start drawing 5 cards? So they can also potentially satisfy most normal results in Poker?
3:Introduce an exp and level up system in-run, everything in Poker Quest is way too expensive, especially shop items, so one easy way to fix that is making so personal upgrade of your character (like slots for items and card draw) are tied to an exp system instead, that will kill two birds with a stone: a separate resources can help balancing the cost of improving your character better than using the main currency, and shops don't need to really fix their prices because the main money sink of the game is gone
"Even less, its not absurd to buy a game for $0.1/hour,
which I believe you may somewhat enjoy it at some stage."
Yeah, for like maybe the first 10 hours or so: you are not guilt tripping me into donating money to a free game that seems to be going nowhere. I rather pay to reward the devs for making a free game that gave me a GOOD experience, like I did with Circadian Dice
"If none of these satsify you, the best I can tell you is to move on.
Maybe card games with hidden conditions isn't really your cup of tea."
*Looks at the side, where my collection of Yu-gi-oh, Magic and Keyforge cards rests, toghether with Mage Knight, Arkham Horror LCG, Thunderstone, One Deck Dungeon...*
8. "Last, this will be my last reply on this thread, unless you have some constructive criticism I am happy to reply with."
Well, go figure whatever YOU consider "constructive"...
"I mean I have not replied something so long in years, because I know that you won't convince anyone online 99% of the time (worst than a roguelike run)."
I literally feel like i have better chances convinving somebody I'm talking to over the internet than winning a hardcore run on Poker Quest, that's why I'm here instead of playing the game
"I still take that 1% because, as a half-ass modder and developer, I treasured people who pay dedicated effort on a game, even if they may have different opinions on that."
The only thing you seemed interested to being doing here seemed to tell me I'm full of crap and I should stop complaining
That's why we added Custom Runs as a game mode. If you think the game is too hard or too easy, please try it out and adjust the difficulty to your liking. You can play exactly how you like!
Can I completely remove Sergeant Toad from the game with it?