NodeCraft
- 28 Oct 2016 11:52
#189788
I love that the TCG is added finally, but I do have some concerns that I'm not sure plan on being addressed. I'll admit that all of my info comes from this site's wiki instead of hands-on experience, so if something already is able to do what I want (such as the boxes on the right of the printer that have no description in the wiki), then I apologize ahead of time.
As of reading the wiki entry, it feels like the only way to craft the cards you want is to have a wiki open that tells you the rarity and Pokemon needed. I don't know if it'd be preferred to have a reservoir of info available to the user from the start of if it'd be preferred that they need to see a card in order to unlock it's info, but I see a couple of ways this matter could be addressed in-game. Perhaps there could be a utility (either its own item or even added to the Pokedex) where you can see what all cards are available for each Pokemon. You don't need to provide detailed info about each card, just enough info to produce it would be enough (ie 1. Charizard Rare 2. Charizard Holo). As mentioned earlier, this could be added into the Pokedex which would also require players to have that Pokemon be seen before you could find the card info, or it could be its own item like a book players could craft and read. If you take the "you must see a card before you know how it's made," then that adds an additional layer for completionists and could open up additional avenues for achievements and pseudo-exploration.
I see that despite only having 2 sets implemented currently, there are already potential duplicates. For example, Electrode has the same type and rarity in both current sets, so will the card generated be random between the valid options? This doesn't feel like much of a problem now, but as more sets get added it feels like it will be harder and harder to get specific cards. I could see this being intentional as getting specific Pokemon for your team is also a feat, but a player doing the right thing 20 times and getting bad RNG could be very unsatisfying if there is no way to control the card printed. My suggestion would be that either the card printer would have slots where you can put already-printed cards that would prevent the system from printing cards already in the slots, or have the card printer check a character's inventory before printing and automatically print unobtained versions of the particular Pokemon if one is available. If you don't even want to go that far, it could be done so that if a card has multiple similar versions, putting an already printed card with the same basic traits into the printer again would shuffle it into another valid version of that Pokemon.
As of reading the wiki entry, it feels like the only way to craft the cards you want is to have a wiki open that tells you the rarity and Pokemon needed. I don't know if it'd be preferred to have a reservoir of info available to the user from the start of if it'd be preferred that they need to see a card in order to unlock it's info, but I see a couple of ways this matter could be addressed in-game. Perhaps there could be a utility (either its own item or even added to the Pokedex) where you can see what all cards are available for each Pokemon. You don't need to provide detailed info about each card, just enough info to produce it would be enough (ie 1. Charizard Rare 2. Charizard Holo). As mentioned earlier, this could be added into the Pokedex which would also require players to have that Pokemon be seen before you could find the card info, or it could be its own item like a book players could craft and read. If you take the "you must see a card before you know how it's made," then that adds an additional layer for completionists and could open up additional avenues for achievements and pseudo-exploration.
I see that despite only having 2 sets implemented currently, there are already potential duplicates. For example, Electrode has the same type and rarity in both current sets, so will the card generated be random between the valid options? This doesn't feel like much of a problem now, but as more sets get added it feels like it will be harder and harder to get specific cards. I could see this being intentional as getting specific Pokemon for your team is also a feat, but a player doing the right thing 20 times and getting bad RNG could be very unsatisfying if there is no way to control the card printed. My suggestion would be that either the card printer would have slots where you can put already-printed cards that would prevent the system from printing cards already in the slots, or have the card printer check a character's inventory before printing and automatically print unobtained versions of the particular Pokemon if one is available. If you don't even want to go that far, it could be done so that if a card has multiple similar versions, putting an already printed card with the same basic traits into the printer again would shuffle it into another valid version of that Pokemon.
