@davre i understand your point. with "rotation" i intended a more TCG-like rotation like " in ranked you make bgs only from last 2-3-4 expansions". Its very common in a lot of cardgames. I , honestly, i dont like it even in games that can support it with a huge players base. I think that poxnora is one of the games that needs a rune rotation less than any other. Also, i dont like the idea of a total reset. I just said that , maybe, it could be more acceptable than a rune rotation, if it came with a HUGE rework and graphic change of all the game. But I do not support it,yet. @Excalibur95 i think there is no need for a rotation, and my (long) post was about that. I wrote cause i saw some "rotation" talks here and there in the forums, so I wanted to explain my idea about how its unnecessary for this game.
Anyone who doesn't want a rotation is either: 1) Not aware how card games work: if there isn't a limit on whats being played with, and in this case it agravates with Pox due to each creature "card" having 6+ abilities, powecreep starts being mandatory - so people can acquire new runes - which leads to unsatisfied customers, which leads to a reduction in the playerbase and company income; 2) Wanting Pox to die off completely due to some nostalgia attachment; 3) Trolling every thread that brings it up. Honest opinion here.
So they either agree with your opinion, are stupid, hateful, or a troll.... For the record I disagree with set rotations because I love themes and a lot of themes require runes from very different sets. I'll let you decide where that puts me on your spectrum.
It would certainly address the foolish expectation people have in regards to the rune pool and how it should measure up to what is being used competitively. I don't know how to approach this, but PoxNora's both main appeals and detractors are tied to the size of the current rune pool. The expansion cycles do a job on their own replacing what was previously being played, but the older rune sets are subject to change as well which makes them very present regardless of how old they are. I don't necessarily think the release of new abilities every cycle adds too much complexity to a new set of players, and quite frankly more often than not they're just a different mean (yet very similar) to achieve an end which has been previously established, so even in the case of veterans, since they possess the experience, they would not require much to associate newer concepts to their background knowledge of the game. I believe it's just a matter of giving concise and clear information through tool tips (which Sok has addressed), but overall this portrayed issue fixes itself by just playing the game. I do admit, though, that the size of the rune pool is quite intimidating at first, however, this too can be addressed in several other ways which facilitate the acquisition of wanted runes within said rune pool for players (which again has been done through the forge). In the case of newcomers, they will most likely pay heed to what people play (after experiencing the game through the newly updated training decks) in order to gather an idea of the current standard for the competitive environment. Ultimately, I would like the goal to be making the rune pool on it's entirety appealing, particularly through abilities which build a specific thematic for each deck, be it racial or other types of synergies. I do realise it's easier said than done, but the same goes for every other alternative that has been proposed.
@MaruXV Yeah, I agree with you on that one. As I mentioned in my previous post, I think that a lot of poxnora's financial stability depends on the positive dynamic they've developed with the playerbase. If they made an announcement telling the community that they will never be able to play 75% of their collection in ranked, I don't think it would go over well. But what I think a lot of people fail to understand is that there is more to the idea of expansion than more choice = more fun. Let's look at it from a pseudo-math/statistics point of view. I will present some curves and the most important thing that we should be interested in is the shape of the curves: The first is that very idea that more choice = more fun. You plot that out and you get a curve that looks something like this. I'm not going to dispute any argument based on this idea, but I think there is more to the story than that. What I disagree with is the idea that more runes == more choice == more fun. If you're on those forums you should be well-versed in the pox definition of "meta", which is a simple distinction between runes that you can win consistently with at high ranks vs. those you can't. This is borne out in a typical UD player's (non-theme) deck: if they are playing above a certain rank you know that they will be running doombringers, pincushions, mandate, boundless enthusiasm, warbanner, price of victory, with the rest of the deck filled out from another pool of near-auto includes (retribution, sacrifice, fiery ambush, siegemonger, chosen of osarius, etc.) What I am arguing here is that something along the lines of 70% of the runes that you can expect to experience in a given pox session will come from about 30% of the game's rune pool. Well there will always be good cards and bad cards so who cares? Well, here is where another graph comes in: When you plot complexity (and here we can use it as shorthand for the # of runes in the game) against choice (shorthand for the # of meta runes), the graph is going to be logarithmic. A logarithmic graph is used to represent ideas of growth in the real world, where something grows unconstrained for a short time before becoming constrained or saturated and slowing down until new inputs stop having an effect. In the case of pox, that saturation occurs because the amount of roles available in a deck is limited. When any game starts out, there is a lot of room for new roles to be explored. Eventually, however, you run out of roles and runes have to compete with one another. One of the best examples in pox is nefari dragon, bok raider, and balefire knight: 3 runes in terms of complexity but they all fill the same role and if one of them is a bit better then we're really looking at 1 rune in terms of choice. With every new expansion we are going to have four or five that carve out a new niche, another 10 or 20 that displace other runes out of the meta, and the remainder with very limited use (we can quibble about the exact numbers but the only "choice growth" number here is the first group). Every rune that is released in an expansion increases complexity while only a handful increase choice (the raw # of "meta" runes). And complexity has its own impact on fun: This is an inverse parabolic curve, where we see an increase, a "sweet spot" and a decrease in fun as complexity increases. Managing complexity is a source of pride, a way of separating "good" players from bad. However, too much complexity becomes burdensome. I think this plays into the idea of "emotional fatigue" that we've talked about before. In order to play the game you have to consider both runes that are in the game and runes that your opponent might play. You have to take galeforce or righteous deflection or whispers of the mind into consideration whether your opponent plays them or not. A non-pox example of this is Master of Orion 3, the sequel to the universally beloved 4x game Master of Orion 2. The game was hyped for years but fell on its ass because the developers made it too complex, to the point where you had to ignore the meat of the game if you wanted to finish it and control decisions abstractly through sliders. This graph refers to the idea of "complexity creep" and is the reason why the game has had to go through a number of revamps. So what you end up with is a majority of players drawing from the same small subset of good cards while there is an ever growing pool of less viable includes that do not contribute very much to the overall experience of the game, but which you still need to understand if you want to git gud. Domination right now is a perfect example of one of those outliers. Right now there is only one map where domichasm is a real threat, and another two maps where it is a rare possibility. Very few people run it right now because of its limited instakill potential, but if you are playing against an FW player on IS pass (or mountain, I don't know which one it is... the cliff one) you still have to play around it because you can lose the game if they do have it in their deck. If you add both functions of complexity together (complexity affecting choice affecting fun + complexity affecting fun) you end up with a graph that looks like this: This is what the current model of poxnora looks like over time. You can argue about where on the curve the game is now, but we are moving in one direction.
@davre you stunned me with your math. You won 3 graphs to 0 ^^ I understand (i think) your point, but i think also that we should consider the emotional factor of the players. In a x000000 players base game, with a professional players circuit like Heartstone or similar, you could just work on statistics , most played decks and similar. In poxnora, where there are at most 60 players logged at time, the personal choices made by emotional decisions affect the game stronger than in games with bigger audience. Example: If in heartstone a pro player plays for a while in ranked a strange deck, its one on x thousands competitive players that does it. the others will still play with their competitive decks taken from a pool of 100 competitive cards, and play against other players with same kind of decks. This situation is more usual when you use a rotation sistem, because the pool of competitive cards is smaller. In poxnora, i saw Tinydragon play goblins, some SP/UD beasts decks with spirit of the mountain, and other kinds of decks that are not considered "top choice". He is not one on x thousands of battlemasters who play always same deck. I saw you playing FS/IS salaman/equip (pls send me the bg list it was so awesome). A lot of the top seeds in this game like to change, experiment, try bgs etc, basing on an emotional choice, not just pure "i just play top choices" idea. And i like this sooo much. Poxnora, more than other games i saw in my life, has a big CREATIVITY factor that fascinates all the players, from the newcomer that continues finding new runes and new interactions to play, to the top player who discovers(better) interactions every patch. I think the devs (thanks @Sokolov and the others) are doing a really good (and hard) job keeping this balance going, and making even older runes feel "fresh". Now that KF ranger bg is playable, i see people running runes that were forgot. I also see tree bgs vanish with the nerfs, but i'm sure in some months there will be another change...and so on. I like this idea the devs are working on, to make new runes with new abilities/themes, but at the same time giving attention and love to older ones. About your example of UD units, you say they cover the same spot. Its true, but in THAT bg. If you think outside the bg, one is just a dragon more focused on fire, so in a UD fire BG is favored to the others. the others are demons, so there could be other interactions with demon shield, maxxarek, etc. One is an archer, so in a KF/UD archers bg is a good choice. One is a knight so can bear the Jek's lance. The devs are working a lot not only on abilities but also on adjusting races and CLASSES of units. As long as they keep on this policy, we will see more of this hidden interactions, and units will get different places in bg based also on that.
(http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/playing-pox-and-emotional-fatigue.23145/) You did mention set rotation in that thread, but my thesis has nothing to do with rune pools or deck construction; those are decision making processes that happen at their own game level, one comparable to a turn-based game without a time limit. I think your choice of short-hand when it comes to labeling the axes on those graphs does any argument you are trying to make a disservice. The ideas of "choice" and "complexity" are more complex than that. More broadly, though, I think the entire project of attempting to calculate and systematize game design is sickening two-fold -- not only does it assume that the aim of design is to numerically maximize "fun," but also that "fun" is a calculable quantity that can be maximized. I'm reading stuff about the philosophy of technology right now, and a common theme is the assertion that technological society has lead to a nihilistic, hyper-rational, uncritical way of thinking, one that assumes efficiency as its ultimate goal per se without any conscious moral grounding. Every time that thesis came up, I thought "Ok, maybe that applies to some people, but it surely isn't prevalent, and it surely isn't of the intensity that these authors describe" -- then this crap happens. Seriously? The discussion about set rotation turns into this? Optimizing the game purely as a "fun"-producing tool? If this is the prevailing attitude, then games' potential as an artistic medium truly is doomed. I would say I respect the intention to make a better game, but the meaning of "better game" seems so thoroughly mangled that I can't even be sure it's something to want.
Heidegger, Ellul, and Franklin? They're key players in my thesis The criticism of technician system is that is premised on measurement and interchangeability (stemming from the advent of Hall's carbine and leading to universal measuring gauges and numerical control as a means of production). What this system lacks is a tether to reality, what Franklin describes as "reciprocity" or the unscripted "give-and-take" process that occurs when two subjects interact in a non-TS process. That does not mean that we should not use models to understand the world. The graphs that I showed are shapes, meant to describe an idea rather than to prescribe a solution. In fact, if you were to read my post you will find that it offered no solution at all, I just described a problem. If an intervention is to take place I do believe that it would occur in a reciprocal process, as Sok's work always has.
No, we started on Heidegger, but have gone through Marcuse, Illych, Don Idhe's Technology and the Lifeworld, and are reading Neil Postman's Technopoly right now. Anyway, a stern philosophy-of-technology finger wag at you for that stuff you just pulled. Bad. I'd been holding a loose but steady line against Marcuse, Illych, and Postman, but you just did a darn good job of convincing me that they are more right than I thought.
Can you go through my post in detail and cite these references? I find the idea that we should not model things interesting. And yes, I stand by my assumption that the developers' best interest is to "maximize fun" to maintain interest in the game among current and prospective players. Everybody appreciates art but it doesn't get butts in seats. I am happy to let you vilify my intent on account of things you have read, and if you think that there should be more to this discussion than ensuring that the game stays fun for as many people as possible, this is a public forum.
I don't oppose modeling as a process generally; I oppose the two things mentioned in my first post: "assum[ing] that the aim of design is to numerically maximize 'fun,' [and] that 'fun' is a calculable quantity that can be maximized." Making mathematical models to understand what is happening can be great -- Sok does it all the time, for instance, and when it comes to actually playing Pox, I love calculation; check out the resource curve essay if you doubt me. But plugging terms like "choice" and especially "fun" into equations and then taking those equations as a path to good design is deeply, deeply problematic. In a specific, technical sense, you could define "fun" and "choice" in such a way that their corresponding models would accurately and clearly portray some relationship, but that has not so much created a model for "fun" as it has defined "fun" into a model -- created "fun" as a model-able form. There's actually a passage from Technopoly that relates well to this idea: Postman is essentially saying that as we attempt to measure something with a diagnostic tool, we come to believe that the reduced version of what we have tried to measure is the thing itself. So too would be the case with "fun," were we to endeavor to quantify it or even treat it as quantifiable. The second point on which I object is even more fundamental, and it is that "fun" should be an aim at all. Maybe we can talk about that later.
In my opinion, the difference between "fun" as a construct and between "intelligence" is that, while both might be subjective, one is assigned externally and one internally. If you ask somebody if they are having fun they will give you a subjective answer but, so long as there is no coercive pressure, you should expect a response that they feel to be true. If you were to create a survey and ask individuals if they were having fun, this entirely subjective and indescribable sense could be measured in a way that does not rob it of the intensely individual meaning felt by the individuals, while still creating abstract data on which the survey's creator could act. I explicitly used the terms "choice" and "complexity" as shorthand to convey my ideas succinctly. I hold to my belief that if you looked at the two ideas I presented ("choice" as the number of moving parts that an individual can use to affect a discrete outcome- in this case putting together a personalized deck that is both a tool they can use to win a game and a statement of identity, and "complexity" as the number of moving parts that may affect the outcome but are not under the user's direct control), these variables that I have defined because they fit the central idea we are all arguing over (how the game grows), you could correlate both of them to a population's concept of "fun" without predefining what "fun" is to that population. e: in the case of fun or pleasure, this is something that is both intensely personal but also measureable. If I were to go full tilt into the technofascism I am clearly capable of, I could tell you that you were about to experience pleasure, inject you with MDMA, and not only would the serotonin levels at your synapses tell me that you were feeling pleasure, you yourself would experience it as pleasure and just might tell me that. Thankfully I am not actually a technofascist so I would not do this to you. It is messed up, it raises a lot of questions about free will and our understanding of ourselves, but it is real. I described the two shapes with fun as the y-axes based on my own intuition, and it is up to each reader of my post - especially those that might make decisions based on my arguments- to be critical about what these shapes might be and if they also believe that those relationships take those forms (if they believe that those relationships exist at all). I didn't think I would need to create a disclaimer for that but there it is. The second point is where we will just have to differ, andI will go even further and create an argument that I expect you will disagree with: I believe that "balance" should not be the ultimate goal that we attempt to achieve through discussion on these forums. I believe that the perception of balance is the real end goal. I believe that the lifeblood of this game, an active and engaged community of players, should come out of every game believing that either they had a fair chance or that they could have a better chance in the future by making a different deckbuilding choice that does not compromise the identity that they invest into their decks (eg. not putting Spirit of the Mountain into their cool split slag deck that nobody else has even thought of making). I believe that a player should not leave a game feeling frustrated because their opponent made predictable moves but even foresight could not prevent them from working. I believe that individuals become emotionally invested in these types of games by finding new and creative ways to assert their agency, and that these assertions are what makes these games fun for a lot of people. This is my personal perspective on the game's development and an agenda that I will continue to push.
I think that distinction does nothing to solve the disjoint of quantification. If anything, trying to relate different highly subject answers to a single metric would make calculation even more difficult, not less. Yes, I'm aware that you defined them -- the short-hand you chose is already problematic even within the confines of a quantified system, as I said. What, "fun" is in direct correlation with the number of player choices? That's preposterous. That's the kind of rational that drives the "5 UNIQUE endings!" on the back of boxes: that the raw number of choices is a direct good. Assuming that one does want to use a system of quantification (which I don't), then you should at least have a quantification for a qualitative element of choice, even if you can actually demonstrate that people like making choices, which people don't, really, it's more complicated than that. Sweet. Not sweet. And bunch of stuff with which, yes, you are right, I disagree. Not that my disagreement matters all that much: I'm not lead designer, and have no intention of advocating for any of my design philosophy that I don't think fits with what Sok wants to do.
I think this is the point where we start talking past each other. My central argument is essentially that people enjoy agency, especially in a fantasy video game where nothing is at stake except their pride. I agree that my model is a simplification, they always are. I am sorry that the way I have tried to predict user responses to growth in an online card game offends you on such a deep level. I am happy to disagree with you and although we will never meet in real life I hope you appreciate that I am aware of these philosophical tensions when I go about my life (and if this is the part where you tell me "well, I don't think you really do when it comes down to it" I will pay it no heed).
I think that's your central assumption, more than your central argument. Goddamn it, I hate having to say this -- there's no offense at all here, neither do I feel any on my part nor do I hope you feel any; this is how I try to treat other people, it's how I want them to treat me; the respect I have for you should go without saying, I hope it would be implicit and taken for granted; I may try to hammer the hell out of you (or anyone else) when we're talking but that isn't because I don't like you or don't take you seriously or have it out to prove you wrong; I don't think relationships or respect or love or any of those other things that matter should rest upon constant, overt expressions of those things, even if it sometimes becomes necessary; I'm not trying to say you are deluded, or that you don't understand how you think, or that you are a bad person, and neither do I feel threatened by what you have said nor affronted by any of it; conversation should demand everything we got -- not the kind of pleasant smiles and careful avoidances to which people too often resort with strangers and family but something more direct and honest. Friends should challenge each other in the most complete way possible. So, yeah, if I say something like "I think that your ideas are a danger to society," then don't worry too much!
I would like to see a rotation in pox. clearly theres pro and cons to this,, but If the idea is to increase pop , maintain new players, and get more people playing, ,, id probably go with rotations, if not, then id gamble the pop pretty much will always be the same.(66 players on atm.) New Ui will definitely be a boon, especially to vets,, im pretty excited I'll admit. But imo I dont think its the main cause of low pop. Now im not saying a limited pool is better or worse , what im thinking is it will probably make entry for new players much easier. Im here 8 yrs and like many long time players ,I have big collection and are very intimate with all the cards,,, but as a new player its alot, gathering and learning cards,, its a big investment, I can understand the lure to tbs gamers(prolly the smallest gaming demograph),, but getting casual players to invest such effort..I dont know,, imagine joining mtg,, heres 50000 cards,, make a deck. some thoughts: --rotation runs the risk of alienating vets since they cant play there whole collection or favorite roons. to this I say great, get out of yer little comfort zone and use whats available, all of a sudden new players may actual give u a good match?. ,, also.... --limited pool will give limited option.. (im working under the assumption we hit the right number of runes per rotation). this may or may not be true,, but lets face it,,, show me a SP bg without cleansing emerald, FW without UT. aside from a few cards , racial themes are all quite similar. firks, voils, etc we all know the drill,,, not having these crutch cards kind of excites me. forces players to think out of the box, , and can flesh out cards that never see play. --but new players can goto forums and get help with bg's,,, yea after endless grinding they can finally copy someones posted bg..., isnt this the same argument against lim rune pools? mtg is to expensive 4 me now,, but when they dropped an expansion, it was exciting,, new, game changing,, but when pox drops a new one, its more like,, oh. ok.. I agree,,, theres been many times when I used new cards above past cards simply because they were new, as opposed to me really needing them. when playing a rotation, , a new expanions was much more significant, for me at least. again,,as one who owns over 80% of all runes I can understand that players with big collections might be upset,, and may put off collectors,, but whats the point ,? looking in lobby now...62 players,,4 matches,, if I was told to give up all my runes and from now on there gonna be 500 players min online all the time,I do it in a heartbeat. ....cuz as of now,,, I dont have much interest in clicking the ranked play button. of course I dont know if this is the best answer,, so im only speaking for myself as a player/paying customer,,, but if we were In a rotation I would probably be wanting to buy the new expansion cuz I really"need" those cards as opposed to purchasing them because I want pox to survive.. 62 players on line,,, what are we holding on to?
