[Experimental Update] - 353413

[Kevin]

Hey Grifters,

Card XP is an important mechanic in Griftlands, but it incentivizes players to draw out fights in order to farm as much XP as possible. Taken to the extreme, a player could fully upgrade all of their cards through just a handful of very boring, very drawn-out fights and negotiations. This throws the balance ramp of the game off the rails, and makes optimal play un-fun.

In negotiations, Impatience is used to ratchet up the tension over time to help counter farming. In combat, we have previously reduced the efficacy of defensive cards to prevent farming through attrition. These strategies (mostly) work, but they block out some interesting deck archetypes, as players have mentioned in the feedback and here on the forum.

This update limits the amount of XP you can get in a given encounter by preventing XP after the start of the 6th turn. 6 turns is (from our data) a little more than the median for fights. Ideally, the impact upon players who aren't farming will be minimal - most fights will naturally end before fatigue kicks in. If you build a slow, defensive deck, you'll hit the fatigue limit after a point, but won't be otherwise penalized. 

Now that we don't have to worry as much about optimal farming strategies, we can ease up on impatience and allow for more effective defensive cards! 

Here's the changelog:

• Players get a "fatigued" condition on the 6th turn of battle or negotiation, and stop earning new card XP until the end of the fight.
• Increase base Feint value from 3 to 4.
• Slow down Impatience growth from 2 turns to 3 turns

 

 

View full update

 

[Yufgh]

Excellent changes. Not sure if I'm going to jump into experimental but these plus the earlier overbear changes are a step in the right direction.

[deathofbarney]

Seems like a good ideA

[TheOwl]

Those seem like great changes to me! Hope they'll be effective enough at making the game more fun to play to get to the regular release soon-ish!

[5rJoud]

Oh lordy, again I'm the oddball out please don't bash me too hard guys.

Fatigue is a terrible idea for several reasons.

1. Optimizing the deck and its winning strat is so much fun, doing it in real time w/o a constructed format. Now with the fatigue I have to focus my attention away from the cards in my deck, to the confrontation at hand which suddenly becomes just an obstacle to overcome.

2. Drawing out the battle, either courting death or bullying an opponent into submission is so much fun. Now with the fatigue there is no incentive to even try that.

3. Using cards to level them up was such a good idea, and a bold move because of course it invites a farming exploit. But so much fun to get op early and then just reap the rewards in the next battles. The satisfaction I felt... Now fatigue punishes me for wanting to cycle and get to know my deck.

4. Fatigue mechanic is a cop out. An artificial limitation just does not feel good at all. Feels like setting the inventory space to something low, so the player has to grind more to finally afford the backpack, while in the code it's just a matter of setting an integer from 6 to 60.

5. Where is the fatigue coming from? Can I cardio to be able to fight longer, join a debate club? And I should not worry about that at all, this is not a stats juggler like Diablo, it's a card game. Let me play my cards please w/o making me feel bad about it. It's so arbitrary, and I guess my point 5 is the same really as my point 4.

6. Sometimes I just want to level up my card to get rid of it. Which brings me back to my point 1, optimization of my deck. I should be able to do that since buying cards or removing them is woven into the story line, which is awesome. How game breaking is xp farming really? Not as game breaking as fatigue in my opinion.

 

I just had to write this down, because I was so unhappy with fatigue when I played today and saw it for the first time.

[Lightraf]

I am totaly agree with my neighbour from below ...

It was very fun to level-up the cards farming a little bit
I played long duration of time only for that and it was satisfiying ^^

The upgraded cards are not so powerfull to avoid farming in my opinion.

And when you play "normally" the fatigue appears too quick ... For me 2 or 3 (or even more !) added turns should be a minimum.

I dislike the fatigue mechanic :/

[flaminghito]

I think fatigue is great. The point of these games is to promote meaningful decision making under scarcity and risk. If you can reach a holding pattern where you just need to click around for guaranteed powerups at the cost of tedium, it's not a meaningful decision. There's no point in having card upgrades if you can get them all upgraded for free in the first low-damage fight you find, and I like that this change allows them to improve some defensive options.

If you just like watching your power increase in a safe way, there's nothing wrong with that, but roguelikes just aren't the genre to scratch that itch - it would trash the entire dev philosophy to have that sort of thing. Nicholas Feinberg has a great talk about exactly this issue:

 

This is a case study about exactly this issue, of what a hypothetical optimal player can do in risk-free situations. There's a lot of history supporting Klei's decision here.

[SoM]

For those like farming/grinding and getting op: yeah it could be fun (why would it not), but if it's the only way for you to have fun, then that means not farming/grinding/getting op is unfun, and the devs have to make choice between the two.

[PuffinBy]

I like this fatigue thing. You actually have so many chances and time in game to build up you decks, grinding for levels is just a waste of time.

The implement of this mechanic, along with tuning down Impatience, helps/encourages new players to learn about their decks and make meaningful decisions.

[BanditR3D]

Problem:  Klei is determining what is "fun" for the player and forcing it on the entire player base.  
Question#1: Is early game grinding the only way to win?
Answer#1:  At least at the early prestige levels, no, it is not.  The game can be won by organically playing out the encounters.
Question#2:  Does early game grinding guarantee a win?
Answer#2:  No, it does not.  It might increase your efficiency and your chances but the game ultimately comes down to the random cards generated to build your deck from.

Since you can only end your run through death, death only comes during combat, and combat is guaranteed at the end of each day in the form of a boss battle, the only deck that really matters is combat.  Even if you cheese every negotiation (20+ card Negotiation Deck anchored by Scorched Earth), you still die at the end of the day if you did not build a synergistic combat deck.  The nerf to both battle and negotiation "stalling" only hurts combat decks.  There are very few combats (fleads encounter) you can infinitely stall to farm cards.  You can drag out multiple combats but you are also risking going in too low of HP for the boss at the end of the day.

By day 3, enemy HP will force at least 6 turns regardless in combat.

Edited July 21, 2019 by BanditR3D

[deathofbarney]

So after playing the branch, I think the fatigue cap needs to move back a few rounds. Especially while playing prestige difficulty's not getting credit for using cards in normal fights is a bit painful, maybe keep the fatigue but move it back at least 2-3 rounds from where it is now.

[Therlun]

I agree with Puffin. I like fatigue.

I'm slightly sceptical that gaining XP from usage is the best choice for card upgrades but I feel fatigue as implemented right now deals well with some of the inherent problems. There is still some room for decisions between optimal output and gaining XP in the first six rounds. 

Fatigue creates freedom and potential in other areas. The additional space to implement and play long term cards and decks alone makes it worth it. 

[TheOwl]

1 hour ago, Therlun said:

I'm slightly sceptical that gaining XP from usage is the best choice for card upgrades but I feel fatigue as implemented right now deals well with some of the inherent problems. There is still some room for decisions between optimal output and gaining XP in the first six rounds.

I personally like that you gain XP by using cards. Means you can upgrade more cards than in Slay the Spire, which is especially interesting because the cards in Griftlands have two possible upgrades, out of a larger pool, so two identical cards don't always have the same upgrades. Having as few upgrades as you get in StS would be a shame in my opinion. It also encourages you to use every card you have and, when safe enough, go for unoptimal plays: should I use that upgraded Overbear and get this argument plus a good chunk of damage to core resolve, or should I use this unupgraded card that will only deal with the argument so I can upgrade it soon?

[Officefan55]

On 7/19/2019 at 10:35 AM, 5rJoud said:

Oh lordy, again I'm the oddball out please don't bash me too hard guys.

Fatigue is a terrible idea for several reasons.

1. Optimizing the deck and its winning strat is so much fun, doing it in real time w/o a constructed format. Now with the fatigue I have to focus my attention away from the cards in my deck, to the confrontation at hand which suddenly becomes just an obstacle to overcome.

2. Drawing out the battle, either courting death or bullying an opponent into submission is so much fun. Now with the fatigue there is no incentive to even try that.

3. Using cards to level them up was such a good idea, and a bold move because of course it invites a farming exploit. But so much fun to get op early and then just reap the rewards in the next battles. The satisfaction I felt... Now fatigue punishes me for wanting to cycle and get to know my deck.

4. Fatigue mechanic is a cop out. An artificial limitation just does not feel good at all. Feels like setting the inventory space to something low, so the player has to grind more to finally afford the backpack, while in the code it's just a matter of setting an integer from 6 to 60.

5. Where is the fatigue coming from? Can I cardio to be able to fight longer, join a debate club? And I should not worry about that at all, this is not a stats juggler like Diablo, it's a card game. Let me play my cards please w/o making me feel bad about it. It's so arbitrary, and I guess my point 5 is the same really as my point 4.

6. Sometimes I just want to level up my card to get rid of it. Which brings me back to my point 1, optimization of my deck. I should be able to do that since buying cards or removing them is woven into the story line, which is awesome. How game breaking is xp farming really? Not as game breaking as fatigue in my opinion.

 

I just had to write this down, because I was so unhappy with fatigue when I played today and saw it for the first time.

I agree 100%! I'm someone who loves to take their time with games, which is why I enjoy Slay the Spire and Griftlands so much. When I first started playing, I loved the fact that I could upgrade my cards, and after a while, realized I could upgrade my cards by not ending a battle too early, if the circumstances were right. (Of course, I was gambling that doing so wouldn't mean lose me too much Resolve/Health later in that fight, a loss that I could have saved by simply finishing off my opponent.)

I also completely understand the purpose behind the Fatigue mechanic, both in-universe (Fighting and Negotiating can become wearying), as well as out-of-universe (it forces players to consider more carefully the cards they want to use right *now* vs those they want to upgrade for *later*).

If Fatigued has to stay for all players, I'd second those who've said they'd prefer it to kick in a little later on than Round 6, as well as those who'd like the opportunity to spend Money/Health/Resolve in order to increase our character's Stamina. Doing so would provide me (and players like me) the opportunity to continue playing the game in a way that we like, in a way that makes in-universe sense, and that doesn't affect players who are fine with it as-is.

Or, just add a checkbox somewhere in the Settings to let players adjust it themselves (whether that's a binary On/Off choice or something like Easy, Normal, Hard (Round 10/6/3). Some players want to adjust text speed (Me), some want to adjust Prestige levels to make battles more difficult (not Me), some people want to be able to turtle/play around with their cards to their heart's content (Me again).

[jasconine]

 Fatigue is a problem for me playing in prestige 7 experimental build.

While I don't farm card XP, early combat is almost impossible to kill/surrender most opponents within the fatigue time limit. Fleeds are the most painful if you get 6 shield ones as you can't do much damage against them with your limited offensive cards as you don't have much bleed (maybe wounds as well) early game. Fatigue late game is usually even worse as you can easily lose your life if you have enemies that stack power. I would be in favour of pushing fatigue 1-2 rounds as this would have a minimal effect on XP gain (low level is all about struggling to survive unless you gat a super card early) and this should not affect significant XP card gain for players. The main problem would be if cycling/engine decks became more common for combat as they would allow some degree of card XP exploitation early which can be done if you get super lucky in negotiations.

Negotiations have it harder if you encounter opponents that start resolve/composure gain on fatigue and nothing short of luck (or skill) will see you losing negotiations and dignity but still walking away with your like (most of the time.) Getting the cycling deck is very hard early on (only managed it once out of ~60+ playthroughs) so I don't really see that as overwhelming odds in favour of that negotiation deck.

The only benefit of the early game is that you have such a small deck and can therefore upgrade starter cards (which may turn into rubbish and then good luck discarding them.)

TL;DR: fatigue is a harsh penalty, please consider pushing it out a round or two to give us a chance of survival =D

[SoM]

I'm now actually half wanting card experience to just be 1 battle for each card (or so long as you used it once you get 1 experience) and maybe some extra to distribute. The reason being with current fatigue (which pretty much means what the devs envision to be an ideal/normal combat experience) you are already unlikely to play cards more than 2 times, and those that can be played more than that are usually gimmick ones (0 cost or can return to your hand etc.) The balance can be done by redoing required level to upgrade, which is already different for various reasons. 

This way you have a more organic deck, and don't have to worry about wasting exp points too much. New cards already have existing exp progress so I don't think it'd be a big problem.

I don't think it'll actually make the game too casual or something, because the end result isn't much different (if we go with the "use it at least once to have 1 exp, and have extra points to distribute depending on combat difficulty/significance"). Would mean redoing the whole exp system though.

Edited July 23, 2019 by SoM

[jasconine]

I don't actually know what fatigue is a solution to so it makes it hard to comment on the design intent.

If the problem is that some people are drawing out battles to level up their cards, using an existing solution like that enemy power ramp after x turns already exists in some negotiations (and is more painful than fatigue because it is permanent and cannot be dismissed through resolve damage.) To have fatigue on top of that is just beating a dead dog with twice the penalty even if you are trying your best to crush your enemy. To add insult to injury, if the opponent has that composure add to arguments from unmitigated damage the previous round, then not only are you beating a dead dog, you are also spitting on it's grave. (Not sure if you can get all 3 events occuring at the same time.)

So there are already a number of options to solve percieved delaying tactics which all hurt regular players to the extent that optimised decks are going to outweigh organic decks, not a good or bad thing in itself, but it certainly makes casual play and experimental deck builds harder given the RNG of cards, difficulty of the game at higher prestige levels and RNG of survival itself from random 4-star encounters.

[Shalcker]

As there exists potential for infinite loops "farming" is still sometimes possible within 6 turn limit.

Perhaps you could just award fixed number of upgrade points per fight, and for those finishing it faster (or using cards that were already upgraded and so not draining the "upgrade pool") remainder becomes "free" upgrade points coming to any card of player choice after fight?

That would make upgrade pacing entirely predictable (and adjustable on per-enemy/per-quest basis), shorter fights entirely equal to long and drawn out, remove "penalty" of using upgraded cards while you still have non-upgraded, and remove any need for stalling.