Dear Owls (Fighting Complexity Creep)

Let me start off by saying that I love the game. I can't think of any game in the last decade or two which has affected me more than Pox Nora. While I was an active player, I was completely hooked. While I wasn't an active player, memories of the game served as a constant inspiration to me.

By now, I think everybody must have realised the damage that "chasing the whale" has done to the game, most of it (but not all) during the dark reign of SOE. Chief of all the complexity creep introduced by ever more fancy and powerful Legendary runes. So some years ago, when I came back to the game after an equally long hiatus, I just couldn't get into it any more. I felt put off by the complexity creep, as this didn't resemble the game I fell in love with any longer: A game which put more weight on calculating deeply to find out the very best move in the relatively short time you got for it, rather than intimate knowledge of an entire encyclopaedia of champs and abilities.

According to some Pox Nora wiki, there are over 1000 abilities. For comparison, MtG has about 90. Hearthstone has 16. This is not a direct apples to apples comparison, but with numbers of that dimension, we don't need to nitpick to realise that the situation is out of control.

I am glad to hear that this is a subject you take seriously (and the Pox Renovator is a beautiful symbol of this). I don't expect major changes overnight, and I know that stability has higher priority right now, but I'd love to hear more about your plans. Just hearing concrete and sound plans would be enough for me to fully buy in again, possibly spend some money, and definitely start recommending the game again.

Because this subject has been such a major source of frustration to me (I really want Pox Nora to succeed, and observing what happened to it over the last few years has been torture), I had a lot of time to think about it. In his post I want to summarise all my thoughts and present them to you as food for thought. If any of this matches your plans, that's fantastic (I'd love to know!), if any of this is actually helpful or inspiring, that's even better. So without further ado... Let me present to you, my plan for Pox World Domination:


PART 1: COMMONS SHOULD BE COMMON

There used to be a time, when decks consisted largely of fairly plain common runes (C, E, a couple of Rs). The fancy stuff was reserved for exotics, like heroes and elementals. This provided a nice balance between simplicity and awesomeness, and "efficiency" was really the name of the game. Which basic runes provide the most bang for the buck?

With the advent of the Legendaries however, this mindset seems to have changed. What is a Bowmage if not just a fancy archer? What is a Garu Kodiak if not just a fancy beater? Suddenly you could fill your entire deck with "fancy" runes. Actual heroes hardly stand out any longer.

This sold a lot of expansion boxes, but it came at the cost of incredible power creep. Suddenly the old commons just didn't cut it any more. Who cared if they were a little cheaper, if you could run a Legendary instead which poses a far more serious threat to your opponent? So to "solve" that problem, we got a large revamp. The "solution" to the power creep was to add a ton of abilities to formerly very straight forward common runes. Yes, this certainly made the game more balanced and interesting overall, but it came at the terrible cost of making the game almost incomprehensible to a newcomer.

At the same time, new commons had to be designed with this power level in mind, so we got things like this:



With upgrades that's ten abilities. On a common beater.

So here's my first plea: Return to the original philosophy of reserving the most complex of designs for runes you would use sparingly in your BG. Keep commons simple, then increase complexity as the rarity goes up, and make it inefficient to run many of them in a single BG.

The question is then, what to do with Legendaries? I would propose one of these two options:

1) Redesign them to be comparable to more common designs, but with a twist. E.g. a Bowmage would not be too different from an Elven Archer, but he gets imbue stun instead of barrage, slightly different stats, and an appropriate cost. The Bowmage should not simply be better but more or less equivalent. Legendaries would then essentially become "vanity runes", similar to more common ones but with a unique twist that makes your deck stand out (and allow for some different tactics).

2) Design legendaries to be powerful, but also super expensive. If they are a significant tempo hit, then people will not be able to fill their entire deck with them.

EDIT: I now prefer a third option, which I have detailed in A Modest Proposal. The basic idea is that Legendaries become the most flexible champs and have upgrades which allow them to either take the role of an efficient common or a powerful exotic. This flexibility would make them stand out without making them strictly more powerful, and would also allow players to use their purdy Legendaries in as many BGs as possible.


PART 2: IMPROVING THE USER INTERFACE

While I believe that the main problem is the number of (passive) abilities on the average champ, the problem is magnified by a sub-optimal UI. While the old list-view of passive abilities was even worse whenever the list became so large that it had to be scrolled, the icons are not particularly efficient either. I believe that a lot of improvements could be made to make it a lot more digestible, e.g. I would like you to consider the following options. Assuming we are starting with this sample:




Step 1 - Letter Mnemonics

Icons are great as mnemonics, if you have a small number and unique icons for every ability. Of course that is not the case, so I suggest to add a unique three letter code as an additional mnemonic. That would look something like this:



(As a side note, please get rid of abilities like Sonar, which simply grant additional abilities. You are only uncluttering the rune browser, at the expense of additional in-game clutter which is much more significant. Just give each Voil Evasive and Vulnerability Sonic instead if that's what you want to do).

If some people find these letters too distracting, what you can do is to only display them while the mouse is hovering over the champ UI. Of course the letters are not perfect, but I do believe that they would go a long way at making abilities easier to recognise at a glance.


Step 2 - Priorities

"Some abilities are more equal than others". There are signature abilities (e.g. Timber Wolves on Timber Wolves), then there are primary abilities which significantly define a champion's nature (e.g. Swarm or Life Siphon), then there are racials (Arctic, Pack Mentality, etc), resistances and vulnerabilities, and finally there are what I would call "attributes", like Flying or Unique. Attributes are often added more for thematic reasons, which makes them easier to remember and their effect on the game tends to be much lower. E.g. Flight in Pox Nora isn't nearly as significant as Flight in MtG.

My suggestion is to colour code each class of attributes with a unique border, and then sort them in order. It could look something like this:



Of course the design could be improved (a more subtle design would be to have coloured bars underneath each icon), but you get the idea. Blue are the signature abilities, green are resistances, red are vulnerabilities, and then you have the other stuff. Abilities which are granted instead of base (e.g. through equipments) could also be marked specifically, maybe similarly to upgrade abilities.

This should make it both easier to scan a new champ and quickly get an idea of what it is about, as well as hunt for a specific ability you were looking for.


Step 3 - The Popup

My final suggestion is to turn the whole bar of passive abilities into a clickable button. You can still hover over each icon directly to get the tooltip, but if you click on it, you get a popup similar to this:



(This should include the ability icons as well, I just couldn't be bothered with that)

The labels can also be hovered to get the tooltips.

This should be a huge help to new players, since studying a champ's abilities by hovering the mouse from one icon to another is no fun at all, and for experienced players the list can be helpful to get a quick overview.

You could go even further and include the ability descriptions directly in this popup, but some ability descriptions are so long, that this might not be feasible... (which may be an indicator that those abilities could do with a redesign ).


PART 3: UNLEASHING THE CORE

Another catalyst of complexity creep of course is the ever increasing number of runes. I know that you are looking into this, which is great, and things like a rune rotation could be an option.

The option I find the most promising, and which has already been brought up by a few different people (including me) is to utilize the Core set as a gateway drug.

Benefits of the Core set are that it is always stable, so no matter how many expansions you add, you know that beginners receive the same streamlined experience which does not overwhelm.

To enable this, all you need is a separate ranked queue that only allows Core runes. Then make this the primary experience for new players, and ensure that they receive a large number of Core runes early on (e.g. as free rewards to get them hooked). Core packs and boxes could be very cheap.

Pox Nora Core is a fantastic game. It's deep and complex, but not overwhelmingly so. Pitch this to new players and I believe that you will receive a very positive response. Then pitch the extended set as the Pox Nora Premium experience. Make it clear to players that they can join this premium experience whenever they feel ready for it, but they are also welcome to stick with Core for as long as they want to.


FINAL WORDS

I'm not going to get into the pricing structure, as this has already been discussed at great length in another thread. Suffice to say that I agree with most of the basic sentiments that were expressed over there.

I understand that changing the pricing structure is a risk, and is only going to work out if this really leads to more customers. In the end, it all has to come together: More accessible pricing, more accessible gameplay mechanics, and of course a server architecture that can handle the load efficiently.

I completely disagree with anybody who says that Pox Nora is too much of a niche game for this to be feasible. I remember an interview with somebody from Octopi, long ago, who described the target audience for the game as "casual hardcore". That is, former hardcore players who now got jobs or otherwise couldn't spend too much time with gaming any more, so they are looking for bite sized gaming sessions which offer the same depth they are used to from hardcore games.

I thought that was brilliant, and it has been an inspiration to me ever since I read that interview. Meanwhile, the gaming industry coined the term "midcore", which is essentially the same thing. You were absolutely on to something, and if you play your cards right, then Pox Nora still has all the ingredients to be a massive hit with that target audience.

Please make it happen, and thank you for not giving up on the dream!

 

I like the color border thing. Haha

 

Didn't read it because it looked complicated, but I'll come back to it. EDIT: Finished reading, must say I'm impressed. I really like the idea of a PoxNora core set being either very accessible or completely open to everyone. I would completely support this proposal, and the ideas on making the interface better are great as well.

This was something Richard Garfield said about MtG in a recent AMA on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/20f1dn/we_are_richard_garfield_creator_of_magic_the/cg2n0sk

I think we have spent a lot of our complexity budget in inconsequential ways, and DOG really needs to think about what are the most worthwhile things to keep. Things like Rover and Solo that Alpha introduced play fine if you know what's going on, but we really need to get back to basic conditionals, like Domain or Hidden.

 

Been a long time since I read such a nice post on pox forums, thanks mate.

 

Why to create identical thread every day? Devs alrdy answer in last few thread similar to this , that they agree with opinion that in the game is to much abilities. I think they first should improve game performance and than work on balance and changing.

 

Pimp toast approves of this post!


Great job man, I agree with the message you are conveying here!

 

I like your idea about the core runes.....thats a great idea i think.....and i do like what youre saying about legends vs commons........

a couple things i have to argue against tho....pls keep an open mind when i say these things

1. legends for example were bought by many people in this game.....now youre saying that legend should be equal to a normal archer but many of the legends at one time costed players 9 dollars a piece.........while i like what youre saying.....that money will be pretty much completely wasted once a change like that happens. so yea i dont think a "vanity" rune is gonna cut it.......i do agree with much of what u say though. i just dont think they should be completly "equal" BUT.......heres the BUT

things like this could be handled by a rotation as u stated......i do like the idea of a rotation.....it will force players to think and redesign their bgs more often....and also be more original when making bgs

another thing.....just a small thign that annoyed me.....you compared 1000 abilities in poxnora to 16 on MTG? but this concept is completly ridiculous...i assume ur talking about abilities like HASTE and stuff like that in MTG so while there may not be many of those most all cards in MTG have unique abilities and effects they create when they are played or while they are in play.....This creates countless and even sometimes interactions so complex that judges are required to think about how such things actually work......so in that comparison MTG is far far far more vast and complex than poxnora.

in conclusion : i like what ur saying......tho certain things do need to be taken into account.

 

Well I gave two options, both have pros and cons. And the first option is more than just a vanity rune, you still get something unique, and that could give you a small edge (or just be fun to play with). The main point is that Legendaries aren't overloaded with fancy abilities if they are meant to be used as common replacements.

The alternative is that Legendaries remain overloaded with abilities, but are priced accordingly so you can put much fewer of them in a BG.

What would you prefer, being able to play more of your Legendaries in the same deck, or them being more powerful? I don't think that a major improvement will be possible without ruffling some feathers though.

That is true, and why I stated that it isn't an apples vs. apples comparison. If Pox Nora would have gone the MTG way and put signature abilities right in the card text (similar to spells, relics, and equipments), things would probably look a lot less cluttered. However, even if you count each unique description on an MTG card as an ability in Pox Nora, you have about 1-3 abilities on the average MTG creature, compared to 6-10 on Pox Nora.

Oh and I would make a bet that if Pox Nora would not be a digital game, judges would be required all the time. Even the code doesn't always seem to know how to resolve a given situation...

 

First off, nice post.

PART 1: COMMONS SHOULD BE COMMON
I totally agree that Rarity should = complexity.

PART 2: IMPROVING THE USER INTERFACE
I like the popup option but think the acronyms/priorities/icons are more symptoms of too many abilities.

One thing that MTG and Hearthstone do well is using Keywords to build on prior knowledge so that you can tell exactly what an ability does quickly and easily.

Another bonus would be displaying simple damage calculations from abilities. Say when you hover over champs when targeting a bomb it showing a #. Same for when attacking.

PART 3: UNLEASHING THE CORE
Nice idea. Although that does bring up an issue of splitting the player base which may become a non-issue if new blood does flow in.

Potentially it could be two lobbies:
Core Lobby (instead of training grounds)
Battlegrounds (All expansions)

Each would have their own ladder and have 3 modes of play:
1) Pre-constructed bgs only (free bgs that you unlock)
2) Ranked play (1v1 /2v2)
3) Unranked Play

It would be interesting if the game only introduced new players to the core set first and then unlocked the other lobbies as they played. Similar to how Cardhunter does it by slowly opening up more options to the new player instead of throwing them right into everything.

 

Solid points and digging the pop-up abilities idea

 

Good post OP

 

Best thread in years! I think the Pop-up suggestion, in particular, is epic material!

I really hope the Owls get to do something about these issues. A game can be complex, but that doesn't mean it can't be clear and intuitive too, something Pox is definitely not.

 

Good thread.

another thing is removing attack spear from things, its exactly the same as attack physical but the target gets a diffirent hit animation.
keep the spear hit animation for pin down sure.

"attack:specific weapon: champ makes a basic physical attack" is another one of those unnecesary clutterings

of course... I am biased, because the explorer has a knife.

 

If the common - exotic change suggested here was made i would probably get back into the game.

 

100 points for being a constructive, well thought, well written, and purposeful thread.

I won't say I'm in favor of all the suggestions, but I do think they are all good suggestions. Impressive that someone even cares enough anymore to spend the time to express their thoughts creatively. Thank you.

Where I could add to this is in two areas:

1.) The Core set idea is awesome. And although I think it would be a difficult design task, making trees for expansion arenas would be aweseome. For example, you could play in the "Drums of War" tree. This would allow runes from DoW or earlier. But nothing after. And there could be an arena for each major expansion. Or at least each major thematic expansion. Again, I realize this is a hard concept design-wise, but would add a fantastic dynamic to game play. After a while, you'd begin to see the players trending toward certain arenas. Then you could ask the question "why is this so", and when the answers are found, it would help to focus on what is good about the game, and design new stuff based on that.

2.) Streamlining abilities. This has been done at least once before. Example: Shatter and Disarm used to both exist in the game. The abilities accomplished the same thing, but had different names and costs and ranges and cooldowns (slightly, I think). Anyway, these abilities were merged. A great idea. There are already too many abilities in the game. A new user is simply overwhelmed when every champ he/she sees deployed by the enemy has something "new" to read, interpret, understand, and then get hosed by It gets frustrating, I'm sure. I do not envy the dev who would have the job of doing this, but I believe the game would be better off if abilities of similar ilk were once again merged. The list of abilities should be manageable and comprehendable to new players.

 

you're saruman, not dumbledore.

 

+1 Love the Ideas! This is like "Bring back the Original Poxnora (Pre Sony) with better champ summery's in game." Once again. Love it.

 

Nice stuff in this thread

 

Completely agree about the Core set - been suggesting this for a while now, nice to see it in a well-constructed post.

I think that DOG is on board with fighting complexity creep, if Pox Renovator's "Renovate" ability is any indication. It's one of the biggest (and now with the Rune Forge, perhaps THE biggest) hurdles for new players in this game, and obliterating it is the first big step to making Pox officially new-player friendly.

 

I think we should avoid abilities, which give abilities just for the sake of flavor. some of them might be just consolidated into one.


Flight
This champion is Flying (This unit ignores restrictions and penalties imposed by terrain and may move across chasm spaces without dying. This unit has two additional ranks of Sentry and is immune to the effects of Lumbering unless Grounded).

Sentry Rank 1
This unit's spell presence is increased by 1.

so instead of saying "This unith has two additional ranks of Sentry", it could be. This unit's spell presence is increased by 1. it would mean that there is no need for Sentry icon to be displayed.

see how Terraform: Lava gives Lavawalker. how Amphibious give "Waterwalker". so there is no need for Icewalker to have seperate icon, it could be just added description/clause to Arctic.

Sonar doesn't need to give Vulner: Sonic.

they could use more new icons by using seperate parts of already existing artworks. I mean it wouldn't be so hard to get TONS of new icons if it's needed. like Confuse could easily get icon of Voil Jester's head. it probably wouldn't be too hard to tweak already existing icons for similar type abilities. see how rover is.

for me perfect Voil Jester would be:

Confuse
Flight (without Sentry icon)
Evasive (1)
Deflect
Restraining Aura

+upgrades

it would mean 7 icons. a mix of active/passive abilities so that wouldn't be crowded. I would aim for such an template.

at the moment, ST looks the most terribly in my eyes due to flight+arctic and NKD. Sceian Admiral is honorable mention though.