Hello!

Since last week, I have begun working on the next major update. This means I can finally make significant changes and overhauls that wouldn't be feasible for a regular update. During this period, I like to address any hidden or unreported issues, as well as fix other minor things that I believe need attention. Today, I want to discuss something that I have noticed for some time now...

Soul-Card Rarity

I'm not referring to the existence of rarity itself, but rather the drop rates of different card rarities and the overall progression feeling during a game. For some time now, I have observed that the chances of obtaining certain cards are a bit too high. It's not uncommon to come across 1 or 2 heroic cards in a single card selection or find 10 heroic cards by level 20. To gather more precise data, I wrote a small script to calculate the drop chances for each rarity. Here are the results I obtained:

• Tainted - 10.58%
• Normal - 31.10%
• Uncommon - 22.63%
• Rare - 9.89%
• Epic - 16.26%
• Heroic - 6.98%
• Ascended - 0.05%
• Evolution - 1.74%
• Synergy - 0.76%

These percentages represent the drop rates for each card rarity. It's worth noting that the rarity of a card is not determined first, followed by a random selection from that rarity. Instead, I calculate the total weight of all valid cards available and randomly select a card based on its weight. This approach provides flexibility and prevents issues where a rarity is selected but no cards are available within that rarity.

The problem

The main issue is that having a large number of cards in a certain rarity greatly increases the chance of that rarity being dropped. While this may not have been a significant problem initially, as more heroic cards (which typically have interesting effects) were added to the game, the drop chance for heroic cards, as well as epic cards, significantly increased. While this may not seem like a problem in itself, it can disrupt the progression rhythm of the game. Based on my observations, players quickly accumulate the heroic cards they desire by using rarity rerolls, and by levels 50 to 70, they end up with fewer interesting cards to choose from. This has two negative effects:

• Players often reach their full power relatively early in the game, which can make subsequent runs feel less engaging and exciting.
• Leveling up becomes less rewarding and less interesting as players progress, as they have already acquired most of the good cards. This also renders artifacts like Gilgamesh and talent points relatively pointless.

Solution?

After careful consideration, I believe scaling the drop rates of cards with player level could lead to a better sense of progression in the game. This would make obtaining heroic cards feel like a special event early on and increase their drop chances as players progress. To test this approach, I created a curve for the drop chances of each rarity at different levels. Please note that the drop chance for Rare cards is still lower due to a smaller card pool, but I plan to address this by adding more rare cards in the upcoming update. Here is the curve:
I understand that this is a significant change to the game, and I wanted to discuss it with the community before implementing it. Please feel free to share your opinions on this change in the comments, as your feedback will greatly help me. Since this change is experimental, it may be subject to removal or significant modification based on the feedback received during the beta testing phase. It's worth noting that this change may also have an impact on avatar balance, potentially resulting in an indirect nerf to the Shopkeeper. To address this, I may consider implementing a multiplier or exploring other options. Additionally, I may need to track the player's level when selecting cards during manual level-up or provide players with the choice to spend their levels later for better drop chances. These are all possible options that I will explore further. Speaking of the beta, I do not have a specific date yet, but I hope to start the beta testing in less than two weeks. I will provide a detailed announcement with the precise date for the beta.

[ 2023-06-08 14:17:35 CET ] [ Original post ]