Robert Wolf Game Design Notes

 As of 2023 Lux is the most banned champion I've seen from any match. When playing her which I didn't like doing due to her limited pool of how you can play her is the fact she is powerful at a range, she is easy to learn and hard to fail at. She is extremely overpowered for her skill level required to play her as she is an insanely useful ranged magic user that punishes teams that don't have any kind of build to counter her. She is played more because she is powerful and has little to no actual counter play and less so I've seen because she's fun besides one ex-Lux main who played her but only quit playing her for other to quote, "because of how often she gets banned" this is the only champion designed in such a way that her power output doesn't match her skill level and can turn the tides just by herself with handling a one V two quite nicely.

 Ashe from League of Legends from the perspective of a noob; she is great with how she is able to be played with her toolkit as a support with high DMG magic builds unless your enemy champs you're facing are high anti-magic DMG then oof. Ashe is fun because when I played her as a support she was useful in warding off the enemy, at LV6 getting the enemy to step back from my ult, even a useful support to the jungler. At bot lane I was the worse with her compared to being a support, however still useful enough in getting kills down. I played the following build; Mana ramp Life Drain Attack Speed Magic DMG I always had fun being aggressive with these builds.

 Why do so many pick Jager even if he has a negative win rate/ is weak compared to the others? It comes down to these variables it would seem; 1. creativity with said builds 2. tactics of said builds 3. level of play His tool kit defensive wise is still fun and he's not a bad operator overall with how/ what kind of level of skill it takes to use him it would seem. Any operator that has a healthy level of skill while at the same time not being as restrictive and or complex. Personally for me the vertical recoil made him more fun to play so what was a nerf for some was a buff  for others. I haven't played enough of the game to know other aspects or elements about him.

I will go into each game and assess them on why I complain or don't about them.  TF2 I can get back into the fight, a lot of players to chill and have fun with on the server with trying out wacky builds even if they don't work, I can find my own niche playstyle. I met a lot of toxic people sure but enough people were on the server where the good people cancelled it out. Rainbow Six Siege I complain about a lot; why? Nerf my favorite operators instead of buff the underpowered ones. Take away toys/ gadgets from ops instead of spicing up the game. New bugs caused by "fixes" I died, a lot. Smash Ultimate I can fight CPUs, go offline for fun, have a good old time by myself, etc. I can take a break from online. I have a stressed out/ annoying time dealing with online. Rocket League It feels horrible to lose and to be on a roll of losing a lot. Street Fighter V I get salty winning or losing because of a knowledge gap and not because I did something wrong, the wall of complex...

Simple form notes; 1. Break down info into easier to consume forms 2. Work the player up to more difficult stuff outside of training mode/ facing off against an AI 3. Have systems set in place to encourage the player to learn 4. Stop over relying on outside sources to teach players 5. Have alternatives to relying on players to make the game fun besides players unless you're ready to police player behavior more often than not. 6. Over relying on players to make fun will create a culture tribe where doing things such as playing outside meta being not allowed, not following in cultural norms such as bottom lane and support fighting and instead being positive with one another will be sneered at. 6.1. also to note; your MMO will die if players think the game is dying, as thus leave. 7. Game designers looking at the survivor bias of Emergent Gameplay that did survive versus looking at the ones that didn't. Long form notes;  Video and time stamp that made me realize this; https://www...

 This is defined as having the main aspect of gameplay and the game loop to be based around, the most amount of interactions focused on. An example; Mario 64 that Mario has a lot of mechanics based around his movement, so you would say the central mechanic is movement or in Mario's case it's based around jumping.     A poorly designed game like Artifact the Dota Card Game would have it's central mechanic be RNG since most of the game mechanics are RNG based and are not giving enough depth of interactions to it's other mechanics. It's an RNG game first and a card game second; a card game that focuses and leans into the card game aspect besides drawing random cards like MTG, you would have gameplay based around playing cards and from there from deck to deck go into more specifics.

key words niy = not implemented yet gtr = going to remove Genre (new made up genre Downwellia) 2D action platformer rogue-like bullet hell RPG Breakdown of the genre; 2D platforming Many bullets and hell like difficultly RNG levels (14K pixels long) Genre lite elements RPG Combat system 1 - Fast 2 - nimble 3 - aggressive, always on the attack 4 - precise timing playstyle 5 - Execution combos Goals RNG perks Different melee hit boxes Make crystals important. Alternating kicks Jump parry Background pixel art made Work on cave art Add different gun types Boss fights Scurry melee (closer the enemy, the faster the attack for the melee) code scurryMeleeSPDin = 2; scurryRange = 2; //when falling if (self.y > enemy.y-(vsp) && self.y > enemy.y){          scurryMeleeSPD = scurryMeleeSPDin; }else{    //reset melee speed up code    scurryMeleeSPD = 0; } Gunsmith teleports you a gun Execution combos parry bullets extend life timer of the bul...

Main concept - sacerfice, cult themed abilities and concepts  Resource system HP, have to place a Saw card to bleed to cast. Bones - once per turn sack a creature from your side for 1 bone counter. HP 100 HP by default both players Hand size - 5 cards Deck size - 100 cards Cultist Speed (S) - summon speed/ ability speed; higher number wins. Attack (A) - deal dmg to target creature or try to hit player Defense (D) - block damage, protect creature, etc. Relic - a device used to bring out x thing Ritual - have target creature perform a spell, use their speed + this card type speed. Curse - debuff type

 Game mechanics Jumping Cannot shoot while jumping Shooting Ammo Passive ammo gain Held down passive firing bullets Tap fire Fast Fall Gravity only applying when airborne Dash gravity Dash boosting Dash cancel Dash timer reset Dashing x speed being more than 0 boost start up of the jump X dashing Back dashing Up dashing Down dashing Air dashing faster than ground dashing Number of mechanics dashing 10 Notes Dashing (yes dashing needs it's own segment alone) Dash canceling adds a surprising amount of skill of canceling the dashing (dash canceling does allow the player to recover into the dash state to use it again, rewarding the player for being smart with it) Dash boosting (holding the direction you boost does add some engaging gameplay elements to the given system) The more interactions created between the given buttons already for the game mechanics and how they synergize the more they work off each other to create a higher skill ceiling. An example being dash boosting into a das...

 Fortnite has an addictive game loop that rewards a short attention span with match jumping, keeping games short, once in a while map changes and constant new skins added to the game. You have a game with addictive random loot and not having all the info at all times. This style of gameplay is highly addictive for children and less so for adults. A quick easy to consume game. Side note; this style of gameplay seems to have a negative affect on children's attention spans. That their ability to pay attention is chipped away and are more of risk takers and gambling on the fact of the loot they pick up.

 //wall collision if (place_meeting(x+hsp,y,oWall)){ while (!place_meeting(x+sign(hsp),y,oWall)){ x += sign(hsp); } hsp = 0; //wall jumping code if (jump) && (!place_meeting(x,y+2,oWall)){ vsp -= 6; } } //hsp movement x += hsp; if (place_meeting(x,y+vsp,oWall)){ while (!place_meeting(x,y+sign(vsp),oWall)){ y += sign(vsp); } vsp = 0; } y += vsp;

 link to video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3InLdll3nB0 As one of the players mentioned; even if it had a bunch of people not finish it's the fact the track doesn't feel like pain rather than if it's true or not; what people feel doesn't match the reality of how difficult something is. A track that is hard to beat/ complex and yet looks simple makes people feel less pain than a track that is complex with a bunch of elements but simple. The less info the player has to take in, the less painful the said task to complete is. While the more info you have to take in, the more painful a track will feel even if the majority of the people beat said track or level in general. This is useful to note for future level design. Also to further note as people are bringing up in the comment section of said video is the fact it's not even visually appealing; people like things that look good to the eyes. Another comment in the video brought up the good fact that people finding t...

 A game having an identity, a brand is important to tell what the players are playing and the kind of game people want to have on their hands; this allowing a unique style of play/ enjoyment to have in hand for games that people can go to. Want to play something gothic? Oh wait, the devs ruined it by adding sunshine and rainbows. This doesn't mean an off brand, off beat style doesn't work but don't take what was from the original and completely destroy it. More open ended style games like MTG work because that's what people went into the game thinking was going to be the case; the general vibe/ feeling of the game is kept consistent at the end of the day. A lack of style can make it boring, forgettable and where people have a thirst for something then they'll go off and find it elsewhere.

 With commander type formats from MTG and if you don't know what it is; it's where two or more players are facing off with one creature, specifically a legendary creature in the command zone to be summoned. In this game system you have it where players synergize strats around the limiting factor of commander cost being the different colors used to summon it. This format on one hand tells your opponent the strat you're playing but on the other hand opens up more consistent strats with having something along the path to summon, this can open up more playstyle and change the flow/ tempo of the game compared to the original base set of the game. The better change to the tempo of the game the better the flow of the game. These kinds of formats can really shake up things or make things much harder for everyone involved and often have the matches being longer along with more HP but the other aspect being this allows for more cards to be unbanned in this format as well. Personal no...

 Small decks These kind of games make it where the game is being given a more consistent/ predictable strategy. The outcome being much more predictable but having it where players are dealing with mill and burn strats far too often making them busted. Large decks These kind of games make mill/ burn strats basically useless but have less reliance on consistent drawing what you want; however in a game where search abilities exist with the more search power the more options that open up and remove the down side of having a larger deck becomes.

 Armor class  being a rolled over system that's a passive reactive system. The difference between a reactive and active system; active is going out of your way to block, the reactive system is auto triggered/ having it where the hit lands or not.

 This kind of play having it where you need to stop yourself from losing and keeping the best resource to minion cost with having to effectively use your resources instead of spam it or wait for big drops all the time; any method to making the gain of resources faster completely make or break a match where zerg strats having to be nerfed in these kind of games. The overall strat for the gameplay that you need to tackle. The strats that are too slow and being rewarded too much being not great with ruining the flow of the game. You'll never run out of resources however so that's good but the same goes for your opponent. This even changes the scaling of the cards with the mana cost.

 TF2 For ammo drops in TF2, rewarding you and giving you more ammo to gain instead of ending up with low ammo and having to run for a resupply. Resupply cabinets for picking up ammo and having it where you have a quick to pick up ammo. COD BO II Ammo drops from dead bodies instead of relying on picking up new guns off of the ground or to knife people. Overwatch I and II No ammo pick up needed; infinite ammo, keep firing and having it where reloading is the only thing you need to worry about. This means however those who attack fast and deal a high amount of damage will always be the top dogs, being able to be aggressive as much as possible. Dead Space Remastered I'm unaware of the original but the remastered has a much more complex under the hood ammo pick up system where players are picking up ammo based on the guns they have on their person. This changes how you're able to deal with things with having to rely on other guns and switch to other weaponry.

 This will likely be updated/ looked over again. I am making this because in the past I wanted to make something similar to this. Now in a 2D format mind you. The Balan world concept was a good concept, however failed to do the idea. The idea of having different powers within different costumes, not a bad idea; however it failed in this area due to the lack of giving the player a time and place for suits but rather a whole selection of them, when ironically enough they wanted to make the game super simple but in turn accidentally made it hyper complex and overly choice complex at the end. Let me explain; you have it where you can go through and pick a costume and mind you that said costume can only be picked up once you have collected it, because of this you had it where players were given a very broken concept to work with when it came to puzzle designing with an overly simple puzzle system. The usage of the puzzle system being down to a single button, now single button puzzle sys...

 This system not only in terms of locking weapons away from the player when they have a level that's overall too low but also a useful method when the players are playing an FPS RPG or looter shooter it's known as with the higher more powerful weapons being locked. In one form it gives you a goal, a reason to keep leveling even if you didn't care to level up at all considering the skill tree of abilities. On the other reason with the goals that become player made that the next checkpoint to reach for is locked away from you, having it where you have to earn that power. This helps make older equipment useless as it's too low of a level to truly be useful but does give you a reason to try new toys when they're creative or experimental. These paths of understanding and or betterment of equipment give some other goal in mind for the player. In Darksiders you have it where your weapon levels up and where the more powerful form for the weapon is locked away behind killing...

 Scaling XP systems I have a love hate relationship with design wise and putting it into my own games. For the XP systems you have it where under this system the level difference between you and your enemy changes how much XP you get; the higher the level the enemy compared to you, the more XP you get. On one hand you have it where in Pokémon Black and White it was annoying due to the fact that the XP system was already slow in the game, this system mostly works when you can get your hands on higher LV enemies early or have a more consistent way of getting high level enemies early, however in Pokémon that is almost impossible in Black and White with the fact that there isn't a consistent way without RNG manipulation to do this. To be quite honest this is the biggest pain in the butt to get down because of the design and generally speaking you need areas or an area where players can face off against higher level opponents. On the other hand; in doing so you can make it where players...

 Welcome to the long form subject where were going to tackle crits as of right now! Strap in folks. Mini crits These in games such as TF2 or in other games being a damage based crits you have players being rewarded/ a bonus damage effect being stacked on top of already existing damage. Random crits This from TF2 is a game mechanic that isn't liked and can be manipulated by high damage dealers which I can understand the community not really liking a game mechanic that effectively really only given to the highest damage dealers in the game where players are given this unfair swing of the match where for more casual folks it's, "meh" but for those who climbed from the low skill floor to the higher skill ceiling that this is much more of a punch to the gut. D20 crit This kind of crit state having it where players often use the homebrewed rules for crits where the said damage is being rewarded for max possible damage on a two times multiplier with having it where extra dam...

 Super armor as a concept is not only in fighting games, it's even in dark souls. Besides the souls series and fighting games using these concepts there are other forms of info to take away from this. The commitment to try to hit an opponent. These kind of game mechanics could work well in platformers and in other genres and yet why aren't they used? Well to be honest because they're the best and worse game mechanics to add depending on how they're added, in games where you have a hard time getting a heavy weapon to hit for the given swing then yeah it'd make sense that you would want to use this. In a game where characters are quick, hit hard and fast already there isn't much of a point versus slower more defensive games along with other factors such as character size, hit boxes, etc. These ideas and concepts could be expended upon to give something further depth for players to explore and run with at the end of the day. However the said idea often isn't ev...

 This is a fine balancing act for players but the goal of the matter is to keep going for the big numbers and keep the big numbers with them getting bigger, and bigger then you get the picture. With this not only having one set of numbers get bigger but having the other numbers get bigger as well. You need some form of system to keep the players wanting the numbers to get bigger. For idle clicker games you use the reset system to get the player coming back; with the MMORPG system you scale down those numbers in updates so you can keep numbers getting bigger or use the shared power system for the players to use. Personally I like using an XP reset system; once the XP hits max for the level, the XP subtracts from the XP cost bringing it down to 0 and as thus allowing that big number of XP to still feel big. Then you might be asking about the player leveling up which there is always the COD reset level system where once the level hits a big enough number you have it where the progress...

 For in game money you have resources and money where people are given a lack of understanding what true value it has compared to the real world spending of money but don't worry it gets worse, with making things complicated and confusing with adding more currencies where players might spend the wrong one on x, y or z when they meant to spend money to get c. Not only this but it's a useful measurement to stop players from getting too many resources for one thing when most systems used a dual currency system. This kind of tactic opens up the fact players will be grinding away to get something only to realize they don't have enough resources for it. Now personally I didn't fall for this, unless it was a simple 99 cents which I had to stop myself after the third time if I'm honest and where I discovered my favorite tactic; using cheat engine to speed up the game if I was unable to modify the given values. The confusion tactic is where it's the most useful and you t...

Welcome to another topic where it's basically design choices of Overwatch versus TF2. Timer A timer system is basic, easy to balance; making it where for the more abilities with timers the more complex and annoying it becomes. This has it where less skill requirements are needing to learn how to effectively use an item and keeps match ups relatively balanced. This also gives easy to understand data for knowing if a skill is on too short of a timer or not. This makes it where the player is rewarded for surviving and waiting for the bar to fill. Feed system This is where things like x amount of damage need to be performed or y amount of healing but often for balance reasons these items are still on a passive fill (usually); for the most part this is harder to balance because something like have this do x damage before it will fill to full will turn it into a soft snowball item with it's next recharge being around the corner, that the more damage that player can get off for free t...

 A high impact low cost AOE that is a useful support tool that helps your teammates and yourself with dealing extra damage to enemies. It's a simple resource to manage and is a great example of a resource that gives you a quick to gain item. A low skill floor weapon. A large area for it's given AOE. A good example of an in depth weapon with time and place for it's effectiveness. Near a resupply cabinet? You gain it back instantly, rewarding players for staying on the back line. Can be thrown from a far distance away, said item has a situational weakness that's effectively a buff banner charge every 20 seconds or less however with many good snipers players being able to take this item to an even greater degree of getting it out quicker with more skilled play. This is what makes this item very different from the Overwatch biotic grenade from Overwatch, Ana having a simple very basic low skill floor, low skill ceiling item.

 I'm going to speak about a project I worked on in the past; the game system had it where it wasn't entirely an HP as a resource only because the game would be a race of who can get the biggest most powerful beef stick out, as thus I had what is called a needle system; said needle system would be treated like a land system. Now you might be rolling your eyes at such an idea but it did slow down the game with both players having to choose when to be aggressive and rush out resources. On the other hand changing the game tempo forced a lot of defensive plays where players turned to being a defensive positioning to stop the life lost; as thus I had to change it from an attack and defend system to more of a Hearthstone stat system where you had attack and HP instead of attack and defend for the game not to become who can race for the biggest shield first. I did drop the project because of reasons of dealing with family and not having any play testers, perhaps in the future I'll ...

  A system where you choose to draw or gain a resource is great with a risk versus reward; it's the question of the synergy of the given game. When your cards in hand are your HP you have it where you need to keep a good amount of cards in hand like Netrunner. That kind of card game gives a bigger importance to your cards in hand being just as valuable as your energy. An energy versus draw power card game system you have it where said system will change what you will be able to do; said system will change depending on how much of an importance you put on said system. You need to put a balancing act on draw power and energy in order to make the idea of trading one for the other a scale of balancing act. Said balancing act changes how you can play the game overall.

 When designing a tabletop game for combat I realized certain elements do effect the flow of the game. Offensive More offensive tactics change how you're able to engage in combat with the combat being aggressive and turns into a game of don't get hit while this often forces you to increase the HP of creatures or embrace the fact of quick encounters. Offensive game mechanics I've tested 1. Adding more weight behind attacks in trade of defensive power 2. Multi-strikes 3. Quick attacks 4. Crit system 5. Weapon clash Defensive This slows down the tempo of the game with a chipping away at HP play style; this causes the combat testing/ game balance to go on for longer. With rolling for defense down to other elements about defense that changes how encounters can and will go. 1. Holding down shield versus quickly raising it to defend 2. Rolling for defensive amount 3. Static block number 4. Finding an opening to strike 5. AC 6. Parry/ deflecting blows Conclusion It's a question...

 It shows skill, it shows how you've been able to out compete and skillfully reach your way to the top, the faster you reach your way to the top with little to no effort the better. The better you performed and less touchable your record is the more ingrained that aspect is about you and tying your achievements to your identity, to your brand that is something people will think about you. That for leaderboards seeing your name in the top 100 is amazing, it's soul-fulfilling that there is no feeling like any other to see yourself become better than a lot of people who played for much longer than you have. On the same token; it is painful to see other people race by you, just take your record out from under you with little to no effort and it feels shameful to loose that like that, even if you score better than them at the end, they were leagues ahead of you and some part of you inside yourself knows if your opponent just applied themselves a bit more, they could've easily be...

 No this isn't any anti-capitalist's game design notes; no this is about the fact idle clickers can tell us that at a certain point it becomes not enough; that willing to reset all that profit for something more valuable, at some point what you have loses it's value; that what you can do with all that money is what becomes valuable. I've played many clicker games from Capitalist Venture to Idle Hero and what I can tell you is the number going up loses it's value and so getting the next best currency is what brings "value" and then those numbers going up lose value and so the game has to introduce another currency and keep the progress resetting. Even when cheating I only used the speed up cheat on cheat engine, not even give me money kind of cheats because of how little value those kind of cheats had to me because I just wanted to see the numbers go up. The numbers going up giving me access to more resources is what I cared about more than the numbers them...

 Game loops is the interaction of mechanics, it's the state of play of step 1 to step 2 to step 3, so on and so forth until it loops around. Short game loops Repetitive quick easy game loops are easy to understand and quick for players to pickup but often have little to nothing to offer at the end of the day depending on the level of depth to the loop. These games often have a low skill floor and a low skill ceiling with rarely (can't name any off of my head) high skill ceiling. Long game loops These take longer to understand/ to enjoy with gameplay often having it where players are trying to learn as much as they can, often you have it where players are left to a complex mess that's a branching off feedback loop or a depth filled engagement with a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. You have negative feedback loops where it can discourage players which is disheartening but players who are stubborn or dedicated will be able to push through the negative discouragement ...

 In game eco systems will have flooded resources due to the processing power/ the amount of things going on within the game. You will always have a flooded system at the end of the day due to the lack of burning in game money but rather a constant flow. Games often miss the point of the reason why; you need not everything to be based on buying things and actually have a crafting system, something that encourages players to trade with one another for resources/ items where money should feel earned more than the money. The amount of time and effort people put into their craft have value. You are less likely to give something up that you spent actual time with, you feel passion, joy and at the same time can feel hurt when you lost something that you worked so hard on (my first hardcore building experience with a game, oof) the point is you have passion with things you spent time and energy into; as thus why so many people feel sad when their favorite Pathfinder character dies. Persona...

 Besides fighting games that game combos do exist, the act of stringing inputs together. Each genre has it's approach to combos. For RPG games it's how you synergize your attacks along with your team. For RPGs the combos come from team synergy with strats based around how your team can work together to win. For platformers it's how you time your inputs together to do the special mobility trick. You end up only needing to know the more advance mobility techs once you're later into the game and something that pros can do right away if need be. For fighting games it's sometimes both type of combos; however you need to know as much info as possible in order to win against your opponent which is another topic for another day. Fighting games rely on the player to use training mode, tutorials and or other game modes to learn the game mechanics with one developer creating the game footises to teach the basic concept of footies. Fighting games taking much more time and effor...

 With forever games you have it where the slow increase of game mechanics will look normal to you, however to new players will feel daunting; in a game like MTG this isn't much of an issue because you can choose not to use x or y card while in something like Yu-Gi-Oh this can be an issue with forced usage of x and or y due to having to deal with a threat on the board that you cannot win against otherwise with players even using the most absurd new game mechanics that makes it feel like a one sided fight. For games don't you want more game mechanics? Yes and no; other game mechanics you introduce can take away from the original design of the game and the question is; what design elements do you want for the game? Something aggressive, slow, creature focused; hell dare I say, spell focused? Bloat in the way of adding more to design the game around the original set of mechanics not that much of a sin but designing the game in such a way that it goes against what you originally des...

 Power creep can be both a good and a bad thing. With power creep you have it where players are being fed more powerful items or cards where they ditch old equipment for the new toys and make it so players will actually use it. On that same note you're trading the learning the items/ understanding how to make oneself more powerful through strats by relying on your given powerful new toys and making players throw them away again once more toys do show up. It's a useful investment strat for card games but does get boring for games where the only thing you have to look forward to is bigger more powerful numbers instead of different strats/ tactics you've never seen or used before with the bigger numbers feeling meaningless. Person experience; with Yu-Gi-Oh playing the rogue format was more fun even if I lost because I wasn't losing to the FTK format and actually scaled down in power with having fun seeing different strats/ tactics, that the limitations that were self impos...

 This falls under psychology but I'm not creating a blog for that. Players like big numbers but at the same time you have it where the numbers will get out of control if you're not careful where the meaning of the number is lost and having to keep track of the absurd power. You end up breaking your own game in the end where the forever game can't keep it up forever. You have so much info, so much being pumped in where players loose meaning to the numbers as of how large the numbers are, also lose the sense of the original game considering the power scale getting out of control. Having it where the power is grounded by having the cap be shown with also showing the low tiers trying to work their way up towards the higher tiers of power, otherwise having players roll a boulder up the hill only to realize there is a bigger and bigger hill that never ends makes the progress pointless when the end is nowhere and cannot be seen. However with a goal point being able to be seen or e...

 You limit the number of choices for the player to lower the amount of choice complexity and give a quicker path. The less element could come from having a weapon that requires x amount of a stat as thus forcing the player to invest more in one build versus another. For the RPGs this could be the different routing with equipment, teams, etc. For an RPG like Pokémon you have it where players are given a choice of 3 Pokémon, then a choice of two, then after that the choices slowly increase over time but even then the battle of the beginning area with one v one Pokémon battling with the wild creatures leads to people having to make a choice at the given moment to catch the creature or not versus throwing a whole bunch of creatures at the player at once. So in other words; you have players get used to the choice complexity before you add more to their plate, giving little to no items at first is the same exact reason. Even Dark Souls take this design approach with letting you choose on...

 Pros Keeps things balanced (for the most part) Easier to spot bugs Can modify rooms as need be Cons Limits room generation Easier to predict Easier to know the kind of loot you'll get from run to run Other Dead Cells use this system and works to a great degree but the fun mostly comes from the random enemies spawning within the room so it can work depending on the other game elements the player is being presented with, otherwise the game relying more on the level design itself to be the fun is going to run into issues.

Having things like commons, uncommons, etc. Can be important to making loot feel special. The name, color and text font matter when getting the player to desire it. To further note you need a good balance of all of these with having content drops not be too much or too little when it comes to the said content, some commons in MTG are better than a lot of rares for an example. Generic rarity system It's timeless, easy to pick up and players know what they're getting into right away. Players know what will or won't be valuable. Unique rarity system In a unique rarity system you have it harder to understand, better for players to pick up on the info you're trying to tell them later on when they start to put two and two together with being the time investment that the player is willing to put into understanding your rarity system is the real question however. Multi-tier rarity system These are rare cards that have a foil look to them for an example from art to actual stat b...

 A text wall can be different in it's wording and style of telling the player info but at the cost of having to do a bunch of reading, this can be helpful for players new to the game but at the same time gives too much repeat of info. Ability based names to remember on the other hand have to give a brief overview for new players and at the same time have it where said ability names are telling players a lot of nothing unless they remember the said ability in question. Doing both Hearthstone does both; put your mouse cursor over the name and you get fed the info of what does what. This is only possible on the computer. Both systems have their pros and cons; so choose wisely on how you feed info to the players.

MTG A system where the defender chooses to respond to an attacker making it where the opponent is given an advantage on stopping the first player from steam rolling the match with having control over what is or isn't targeted but does slow down the game requiring your opponent to make responses timely for when to strike or not. Shield counters exist making it where it's like the HP system of Hearthstone and having to keep the said creatures blocking in order to protect you from taking damage. The management of shield counters being helpful in stopping your creatures from dying. This kind of system allows for active response play. YGO The game system having it where all or none creatures for being blockers on the field end up punishing players who are setting up too many defensive parts of the field or too little offense with change where players are given a chance to react but rather sit there and hope their opponent doesn't end them just right then and there. On the other ...

Defining it for video games; random set of objects within the room that's given a random place and or value. Pros Easy to code No need for level design Simple Addictive Cons Harder to find bugs No iconic levels The seed being too good or too bad

 Systems where you have to discard cards for mana often have it where you get all your cards back from the discard pile once you hit zero and why would that be? It's because the game can be sped up or slowed down under this system but the other issue being running out of cards too quickly and having it where the game has to have a lot of cards in play for the game as in 100 card decks to stop this from being an issue and avoid the bring back all your cards mechanic but make the game harder for a casual setting.

 The regen of mana having it where the game is given an even tempo with the only issue being not having anything to spend said mana on and having to pay close attention to how mana balance your deck is. In theory having a mana balance deck on a bell curve should work most of the time, from my play time with Hearthstone it could be because of bad luck but more often than not I personally had my mana draws not fall on the bell curve for cost to bell curve with having to switch a strat of lower mana value cards for the given match. The speed of the game which becomes dictated by your cards, not by your mana. This seems to be a common trend that comes back around to this very issue.

 The land system allows for players to gain an advantage over time with having it where you want two to three lands on average with other strats requiring more or less lands where the resources being tied down and made more limited in what it can cast for it's effects allowing a slow build up of power for the game with having the game be slower but taking time to actually pull out a victory. On the other hand getting mana dry slows down the game too much making it where a victor could be not declared after an hour of play. The same with getting mana flooded where having little to no actual cards to cast is going to make it where you have less choices in hand for play. The removal of a limited hand size making this less of an issue when using a draw power heavy strat.

 For card economy you have it where card advantage and disadvantage is the cost in the game with having cards that give you a + or - with YuGiOh being one of these card games where you have to find the resources, the time and place for acting and reacting with limiting your ability to act based on your cards within the game for play, where you must milk the resources to it's fullest potential. The limited ceiling this creates in a system is it's biggest downfall as well with players having to not brick or getting a god like hand stopping the resource disadvantage within play, also making it where draw power in of itself is a resource at your disposal leading to cards that would normally give you more cards a huge advantage if they don't have a downside to go along with it.

 The problem with zones in card games is the limit factor is both a blessing and a curse, with things like zone locking you have to avoid strats that allow players to entirely lock the other player out from playing; otherwise they'll be unable to act or react. You need some off board states, in other words states of the board where you can trigger effects without having your opponent lock you out of playing.