Confusion isn't fun: It kills the core appeal of a deck builder

[Cizak94]

Preface: I make some fairly dramatic statements in this post, but I wouldn't call myself a card game or deck building expert. I don't expect the game developers to change much or anything because of this. You may disagree entirely. If you do, feel free to say so! Maybe you can convince me to change my stance. In the end, this is just one player sharing his opinion. Cheers!

This game is really fun. I have 76 hours played and have watched close to 200 episodes of different Let's Play videos. I'm at Ascension 12 with The Silent. I don't play The Ironclad, but I admit that's purely because I'm not good at him. The Silent's various playstyles come more naturally to me, and though The Ironclad isn't the most fun for me personally, I think he's well balanced.

Balance is the greatest part of this game, I would say. Particularly the balance surrounding the RNG. While the game may seem like an RNG fest at first, with random paths, random drops, random draws, etc, its most clever design emerges when you realise it's all about how you MANAGE that RNG. You chose which paths you follow, what risks to take, which cards to add and/or remove...

...and that last one is the kicker here. The core appeal of a deck builder is that the one consistent thing through all the RNG is that you KNOW what's in your deck. That's never RNG. Even in the RNG cases where you were forced to take cards you didn't want or had particularly bad luck drawing on a crucial turn, the one consistent was that you knew exactly what was in the deck. You knew your chances of drawing what you wanted, and the game gave you the fair chance of playing around and planning that draw.

Confusion kills this. It ruins your carefully crafted deck; your main way of fairly dealing with the RNG, and converts it into just more RNG. Yes, you still know what you have a chance to draw, but you have no idea if it's even playable in the way your deck is supposed to work, or even at all. Even in the best case scenario where it lowers the cost of an expensive card, it's not fun. If my Wraith Form costs 0 because of Confusion, I won't get the satifaction of playing a card that I put in my deck specifically because its high cost/high reward/additional risk was a great choice. Instead, that satisfaction is turned into an apathetic: "Oh, it costs 0. Lucky me." This one debuff is where the entire brilliantly designed balance of the game crumbles to dust.

Slay the Spire is incredibly fun, because it excels in balancing the way you get to skillfully interact with the RNG. No matter how good a run turns out, it's always just plain ol' fun to play. That is, except for when you are forced into interacting with Confusion. Not once have I thought the Snecko encounter was fun. I never pick Snecko Eye, because building a deck around it isn't fun. Snecko Oil gets replaced more often than not, or used when I would probably win next turn anyway in order to avoid the Confusion for as long as possible. Throughout the thoroughly fun experince that is Slay the Spire, Confusion is the one instance that has never once failed to break my smile.

[Benkyo]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zu:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Cizak94:

In-jokes aren't generally reasonable arguments.

It's an established term for a certain type of player uwu

Look it up and see if you're a Timmy, a Johnny, or a Spike.

Established term for a subset of people in a niche hobby who happen to know what it means. With the three terms together it's easy to Google, but using jargon that doesn't communicate anything to the reader without clarification is a lot less efficient than just writing what you mean in the first place.

Also, seems to me the categories make little sense when applied to a solo game (no-one to show off to, no-one to laugh with, no tournament to win...)

[SimplyGnome]

I enjoy Snecko eye decks, if I can get it early. Defect Meteor Snecko is so fun.

And the encounter of Snecko is WAY more fun to me than ANY Chosen fight. Then again, enemy abilities dont have to be fun.

[The Fool]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Benkyo:

Also, seems to me the categories make little sense when applied to a solo game (no-one to show off to, no-one to laugh with, no tournament to win...)

I don't know what you're reading, but from a Wizards of the Coast article, this is what I've thought of the definitions as:

"Timmy likes to win big. He doesn’t want to eke out a last minute victory. Timmy wants to smash his opponents. He likes his cards to be impressive, and he enjoys playing big creatures and big spells."

"Johnny likes to win, but he wants to win with style... Johnny enjoys winning with cards that no one else wants to use. He likes making decks that win in innovative ways... Johnny loves the cool interactions of the cards. He loves combo decks. Johnny is happiest when he’s exploring uncharted territory."

"Spike plays to win. Spike enjoys winning. To accomplish this, Spike will play whatever the best deck is... To Spike, the thrill of the game is the adrenaline rush of competition. Spike enjoys the stimulation of outplaying the opponent and the glory of victory.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

These could certainly be applied to Slay the Spire as well, though I'm not sure the relationship would necessarily be one-to-one. But Zu's argument is that since confusion in general and the snecko eye in particular enables big things to be played, it's for that player type. I'm not sure that if their existence detracts from other players' enjoyments of the game that "It's not for you" is necessarily a good argument for keeping it around, though.

With that said, I personally don't have a problem with confusion. It's just another effect to be played around - I get more annoyed by Hex than by confusion, honestly - and it can be really fun to build a snecko eye deck.

[Benkyo]

From the guy who coined the terms (according to my 5 minute googling):
The common bond to all the Johnnies is that they are on a mission to show the world something about themselves. What they're showing varies tremendously, but at the core of each Johnny is a similar motivation: “Look at me, world! Look at me!” - Mark Rosewater

Timmy plays with cards that make him happy; cards that create cool moments; cards that make him laugh; cards that allow him to hang with his friends; cards that cause him to have fun. Winning and losing isn't even really the point (although winning is fun – Timmy gets that). For Timmy, the entire reason to play is having a good time. - Mark Rosewater

To Spike, the thrill of Magic is the Adrenalin rush of competition. Spike enjoys the stimulation of outplaying the opponent and the glory of victory. - Mark Rosewater

So, as I said, no-one to show off to, no-one to laugh with, and no direct competition or opponent.

Of course there are some parallels, how could there not be? My point is that the fit for terms specific to a CCG played with other people isn't very good, and throwing jargon specific to that environment into this one is hardly helpful.

[The Fool]

Heh, seems like we're both quoting from the same article. I'm just focusing more on the "how they play the game" aspects while you're focused more on the social aspects. Which is fair - the archetypes are broader than just how they choose which cards to use and how to play them. (Though personally I'd say that the game itself provides a perfectly valid opponent for Spike to beat. Though maybe that would depend on the person.) I agree that it's not the most useful parallel anyway. And I'm not sure why Zu assumed that everyone would know the term just from "It's for Timmy" anyway.

[Xiarn]

Probably because it succinctly puts across the idea he was trying to present, and worse case scenario you just elaborate if they don't know what it means?

As far as OP's arguments go, you're also never really in a situation where you didn't know Confusion was a thing that was going to happen. Don't see any reason to remove something that some people like when it's something that's not super prevalent (especially if you avoid it) anyway.

[Aelender]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Cizak94:

I'm at Ascension 12 with The Silent. I don't play The Ironclad

This is why you don't like confusion. You are only looking at how it negatively affects your one playstyle. You are correct in that for a typical silent build, confusion does not play well and disrupts 'good planning'. For Ironclad builds, however, you can easily account for and build around confusion.

It is a poor tool for Silent, it is an excellent tool for Ironclad.

[Benkyo]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von The Fool:

Heh, seems like we're both quoting from the same article. I'm just focusing more on the "how they play the game" aspects while you're focused more on the social aspects. Which is fair - the archetypes are broader than just how they choose which cards to use and how to play them. (Though personally I'd say that the game itself provides a perfectly valid opponent for Spike to beat. Though maybe that would depend on the person.) I agree that it's not the most useful parallel anyway. And I'm not sure why Zu assumed that everyone would know the term just from "It's for Timmy" anyway.

Right, we're on the same page.

Anyway, I mentioned the disconnect between the archetypes and solo play as an afterthought mainly because I realised I'm mostly a bit of a Spike when I play card and board games (and sometimes a Timmy and sometimes a Johnny), but not really Spike-y at all when playing solo (computer) games. No netdecking, no spoilers, no thrill of competition. Just me, killing time, getting better as I gain understanding of a complex randomised system.

[Velrun]

From a deck building perspective it is fine to keep the Confusion relic in the game but facing an enemy that confuses you completely makes the game random. There is no way of avoiding the encounter but you can also not be sure to encounter it. In fact there is no way of affecting your RNG odds of encountering that enemy.

The actual effect is cool IF you can build your deck around it. It is not cool to lose or to win if you had no way of affecting your odds of winning or losing. It takes away 90 % of the skills.

Keep the relic, ditch the enemy

[Drecon]

As I keep saying in all of these threads: Pretty muche very enemy exists to counter specific strategies. Snecko exists to punish 0-cost decks/low-cost decks. If you want to excel at this game, make sure you have a plan for every enemy. Maybe there's an ancient potion you could've used, maybe you could've picked up a Dash or something to make this encounter viable.
While I also tend to build decks that struggle against confusion, I love that it's in the game. It gives you that one encounter that you really need to plan for when you're in some 0-cost infinite deck.
I understand the complaint, but look at the larger picture. There's lots of enemies in the game that specifically counter strategies that you're not playing right now. Are those bad too?

[Zu]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Benkyo:

So, as I said, no-one to show off to, no-one to laugh with, and no direct competition or opponent.

Of course there are some parallels, how could there not be? My point is that the fit for a game played solo isn't very appropriate.

Your mileage may vary, hm?

Well, made people learn some D E E P E S T L O R E, so good enough. uwu

[Cyiel]

Confusion isn't fun. To be honest i stopped there at first because fun is subjective. It's not fun for you but it can be for someone else.

And to answer to Zu : People are more nuanced than that and, in addition, there is more archetypes than these 3 ones.

[Ysen]

Snecko Eye is hilarious and I love it.

I can understand that some people might not like the Snecko fight, but it doesn't appear that often and it's not especially difficult, so I don't think it's too much of a problem. There are always going to people who don't like particular enemies, and I've seen similar complaints about a variety of other fights.

[Velrun]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Drecon:

As I keep saying in all of these threads: Pretty muche very enemy exists to counter specific strategies. Snecko exists to punish 0-cost decks/low-cost decks. If you want to excel at this game, make sure you have a plan for every enemy. Maybe there's an ancient potion you could've used, maybe you could've picked up a Dash or something to make this encounter viable.
While I also tend to build decks that struggle against confusion, I love that it's in the game. It gives you that one encounter that you really need to plan for when you're in some 0-cost infinite deck.
I understand the complaint, but look at the larger picture. There's lots of enemies in the game that specifically counter strategies that you're not playing right now. Are those bad too?

I have excelled at this game and beaten Ascension 15 with all classes.

Now if we come up with an enemy ability that counter the 0-cost decks, would that suffice your There-Must-Always-Be-A-Stark-In-Winterf....Sorry I mean There-Must-Always-Be-An-Enemy-With-A-Counterplay?

[knightcoreframe]

Time Eater also counters the 0 cost infinite decks unless you somehow get enough block going and setup the next sequence with jsut 12 cards before she tick tocks you to death. The Awakened One semi-counters any deck that relies too heavily on powers such as a fair number of Defect builds. Hex dude semi-counters decks that don't do a lot of attacking.

My point being, they intentionally made enemies for /any/ deck to struggle against unless you're so supremely OP that you just beat everything or you're playing smart. I think that confusion is just one of the weirder and more unique statuses. If they expanded on it (or make it come up more often, such as when infinite mode rolls around), or perhaps altered it (see my previous comment), then maybe people would feel better about it