Core Mechanics and Gameplay

 The more core mechanics you add the more refinements to the core mechanics and gameplay that you must perform for the sake of the balance of the game and for the gameplay itself in order to make the game fun and keep it enjoyable to play still.

Not the obvious stuff but how well does it synergize with the rest of the game and what of value does it add to the game itself. If you're having the game mechanic be better than the others then it's value is too high, rather if you design a mechanic or a set of core mechanics to have value in their own way and not overshadow the other, you create a strong game loop. This means it's better to have less but more tight nit game mechanics than it is for you to have more game mechanics that are less refined.

The more I expand upon the concepts I've made the better, however the more core elements I add, the more of a headache I'm going to give myself or you'll give yourself along with the player. The said game mechanic feels out of place when you have it where you have a bunch of strong core mechanics but have a weak element or two, even simple things like the shop system.

It's not even core mechanics this feels bizarre with but rather a lack of strong mechanics in general seem to do this sadly. As long as the game mechanic doesn't hold it's weight is what I mean, not every game mechanic needs to go hard, though you should if able.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Psychological manipulation #2 Big numbers

 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...
Read more

Power Creep

 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...
Read more

Deck Size matters

 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.
Read more