sgtdroopy: the "starter" is so people who earn cards from challenges, etc, get nice looking cards. It's to attract people to playing challenges. Yes, the current options aren't ideal. Relax, my crack team of mad-scientists are hard at work on the solution. They expect a result by yesterday, but that's the madness speaking. ;)
Lightsun, if you tell all your friends about Kongai and it does well, you'd make it more possible to see a team game similar to Kongai (but probably with 1vs1 support, too). Not guaranteed, but more possible.
Plix is right; certain people will be able to take cards that others think are bad and work wonders with them in the right situation, with the right deck configuration. People generally think that everybody is the same—they may not say it, but it's reflected in their actions. Finally, oodles of testing has proven what I always intuitively knew and everyone told me I was wrong about, heh (to their defence, they didn't have the talent themes to be able to see the uniqueness in each person, just like I can't see when I should apply empathy, or even how to apply it). People say, “enough of this self help glop”, but these are the mechanics that heavily influence your life, much like gravity, or how you might not look under the hood of your car, but if you understand your engine, you know more about what your car can and can’t do.
We'll pretend BlackAces said this:
Kongai has a factor of slippery slope that causes me to have a frustrating, draining, or boring play experience.
To that I say: Good point, but getting rid of that is super hard. You have to trade of when you design something, so if you didn't want it, you'd probably have uber more complexity, at which point you'd complain about that, heh. ;)
- Bruce
“please cut the time in half people are abusing it to make others quit”
Technically it’s a legitimate strategy you can use, but if you’re consistently deliberately using it, yes, you should be able to report people, or something, and have it investigated somehow (like Guild Wars do with Arena player leavers). It’s really hard to enforce, though. Personally, I take almost a full minute to make decisions. Often I use part of that minute to say something in chat so I don't cut into my decision making time. I think Kongai would be worse with a significantly shorter time (and you might think so if you experience it, but there’s lots of variables, so it’s highly relative and I could just be wrong, too), but perhaps 40 seconds would be ok. It needs testing. I've suggested this exact concept, and even asked if people want to test it in a thread, but nobody seemed interested. FYI, this is the thread:
http://www.sirlin.net/forums/showthread.php?p=2377
Oh, I'll also add that if the optimal solution to most of the challenges in the game completely removes the need to really explore the challenges and interact with them in the way they were intended, then they need a bit of work. I found this was the case on stage 2 and 3. 1 and 4 were good in the "got you to actually play" sense.
This is a very original and cool game, but the randomness in it really kills the fun factor (randomness = if you get unlucky, you die; you can maximise your chances to win, but not employ skill 90% of the time, which makes it non-deal; Ask Kongai players how they feel about luck, heh). Cool, original ideas are great, but you have to take the players experience into account. Not doing that is akin to a coach giving his football team a strategy he knows they can't execute. The common pattern here is not acknowledging the fact that (A) you have a game, AND (B) you have players. Both must work together to create a fun experience for the game, while still incorporating your cool and original ideas on a level that is fun for the player. But you said this was an experimental game, so fair enough.
- Bruce
"dissapointing. you need to test this stuff out people."
As a rule, assume nobody tests things out before they make/release/do them. A very good "lie of success" that has helped me make much more resilient, holistic decisions. (I.e. Those that stand up from multiple perspectives.) I should also mention that this comment is completely unrelated to this game, and very related to what you said.
This is a 5 star game in a 4 star wrapping. Please do something about the "tap arrow keys quickly" mechanic that just ends your game. It doesn't test skill, it isn't fun, and it kills you before you even know what you're really supposed to be doing (i.e. if you stop tapping, it's game over). Things like that aren't fun. Remove or replace them with more interesting challenges, and you have a winner.
- Bruce
PS. Something that would really add to the game is (A) multiplayer, and (B) a fast mode. Beginners can play the normal mode, and those who are interested can play the faster mode. For me, there's just too much space between decisions to make it interesting. More difficulty isn't the answer, unless the decisions are interesting and have risk/reward.
"This game is beyond boredom."
I concur. The game is well made, but it's just not fun. I have a design for a card game I could make into a game, but Kongai is just more fun. My point? Make games that you can really make well, not games that are "almost, but not quite" fun. You do great work, Gamebrew, but this game simply lacked interesting decisions. Everything seemed rather arbitrary.
See this article for some nice info: http://www.sirlin.net/archive/rock-paper-scissors/
— Bruce
Stats, and other info.
Charlie_Frank said to me, "where can one see his own stats?"
I replied, "ask someone to tell you them when you host."
Charlie_Frank replied, "that hard."
Kongregate, please make it easier for us to see our win:loss ratio. As a rule, the more info available without having to click or really do anything but look at the current screen, the better. It's more intuitive, and allows you to think faster, because you don't have to think "to get X info, I have to do Y first, then I'll see X info."
- Bruce
re: "what happens if you overrun the timer?"
If you don't choose to do something, you simply stay at the range you are and rest for that round. There is no penatly, nor should there be (it's ok to think, and while unreasonable, it's even ok to drag on the game if that's your "outside the game" strategy; Kong can't reasonably enforce this, so I don't advise they try... Sirlin would flip, heh). But perhaps an AFK timer feature will be helpful.
- Bruce
Hey guys,
I'm looking for experienced players to submit decks to help new players. You can post annonymously by posting to my contact form if you want, or to either of these threads:
If you're a member of Sirlin's forums:
http://www.sirlin.net/forums/showthread.php?p=2539&posted=1#post2539
If you're not:
http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1/topics/8719?page=1
Thanks guys. This benefits us all, but only if you submit some decks!
- Bruce
Kongregate—a quick note: you probably haven't fanlised the starter-card situation yet, but if anything, please mention that players can't pick their starter cards again (assuming the system remains the same as it is). If you can't directly resolve an issue, at least make people aware of it. Perhaps a "pick my starter cards later" option would be nice along with the "random (all cards)" feature, if you keep that feature.
Re: Saus' comment about his card list (which you can find here: http://momako.blogspot.com/2008/04/kongai-card-list.html)
I'm not Saus, so I thought I'd mention that his card list is every bit as awesome as he says it is. You should all favorite it, look at it, and tell your friends about it. When I grow up, I want to be like Saus's card list. ;)
— Bruce
Re: "well it might encourage more beta [testers] to play if they had more cards to experiment" —
Great point. It would be great if we could earn cards to use in beta, which encourages us to play more so we can earn them, but unlocks cards reasonably fast so we can actually earn them quick enough to want to keep playing instead of saying, "bah, grind", and not playing. I'd be nice if we could keep those cards as a "thanks for beta testing" reward, but Kong may not think that's fair to non-testers. So they could take away the cards we earn from the beta test acquisition method, and so long as (A) they tell us that's what they're doing, and (B) they make it so we get them from playing, I'd say the net effect would be more play, more testing. — Bruce
Bardblaster—
I think you have great points, but from my observations, it seems Kongregate are more interested in gathering data and less interested in us having access to all cards to test balance (I assume they gather data when we play, such as what cards we use, what moves we make, etc; not sure, though). Very few players can give decent balance feedback that's actionable. Data is more reliable and objective. You could argue that giving access to all cards would give you better data, but if Guild Wars teaches us anything, it's not always wise to give people full access to in-game resources (which makes the game really fun because it removes barriers to entry) and then take that away. Players tend to revolt, so perhaps Kong are wise. Do keep up the great feedback, though.
— Bruce
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