Star Trek

Everything's Good in Moderation

by Evan Lorentz
Game Designer

Welcome back to our examination of the survey results. For those tuning in late, when we announced that we were exploring the possibility of creating a new Star Trek™ trading card game, we offered a survey where you could guide us in the creation process.

Last time, we looked at the results in Part I of the survey, dealing with Star Trek as a series (well, a series of series). This time, the subject is trading card games in general. This nuts-and-bolts section was the longest of our survey.

First up, we asked "On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being 'low' and 5 being 'high', how would you rate your level of interest in your favorite Trading Card Game?" Note this is a somewhat general question. One can probably assume that for many of the people responding, the existing Star Trek CCG ranks as their favorite card game. For others, however, the favorite might have been The Lord of the Rings™ TCG, or Young Jedi™ CCG, or Star Wars™ CCG.... or even (I shudder to think) a non-Decipher game. For whatever the individual's favorite game was, this was how they rated their interest level:

5 - "high" (52.07%)
4 (33.31%)
3 (9.89%)
2 (2.94%)
1 - "low" (1.79%)

We weren't expecting any surprises with this question, and didn't get any – unless you count the 28 people who rated their interest level in their favorite game as "low." New to trading card games, perhaps? If so, and you're reading this, welcome aboard to you!

Anyway, over half of those responding put themselves in a rather fanatic category, while over 85% put themselves at essentially "above average" interest. This just goes to show the level of devotion fans of TCGs have – this is not a mere casual hobby for the vast majority of you. This is why we're bringing you inside this creation process to an unprecedented degree.

Our survey didn't dally long in such "obvious" questions, however. Next up we asked "How long do you think a TCG should last between two players who are both familiar with the cards?" Hopefully everyone who responded read this question carefully. We weren't looking for how long a multi-player game should last, nor were we looking for how long it should take to play a game involving a brand new player. We wanted to know how long you think two experienced card floppers should spend on a single game. Here's what you said:

30-45 minutes (41.54%)
45-60 minutes (33.12%)
15-30 minutes (19.85%)
Over an hour (3.89%)
Under 15 minutes (1.60%)

Interesting results. Clearly the rapid-fire, under 15 minute sparring match is out. Likewise, people don't seem to enjoy an hour plus battle of wills. Overall, roughly 3 out of 4 people responding want a game somewhere between a half hour and an hour. Given the not-enormous margin between the first and second place results, one might hypothesize the ideal length for a TCG is between 35 and 50 minutes.

Now really, the length of most TCGs could easily be adjusted through "house rules." For example, a longer or shorter game of the existing Star Trek CCG could be obtained by playing to a total of more or less than 100 points. The model we're working on now is similarly flexible, and could be adjusted through house rules to change the length. Still, we're now armed with a statistic telling us what most people prefer, and can set the "official" game length accordingly.

As I said, that question assumed a one-on-one game. Our next question addressed the possibility of multi-player games: "How important to you is the option to play with more than two players?"

Somewhat Important - 3 (47.25%)
Very Important - 4 (23.82%)
Somewhat Unimportant - 2 (16.77%)
Unimportant - 1 (12.16%)

There you have it. While multi-player was a major consideration for only about 1 in 4 people responding, over 70% of you felt that it should play some role. Enough said. Multi-player's in.

In the design studio, we deal with gameplay so heavily that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that TCGs are also collectibles. Our next question was aimed at finding out just how heavily that aspect of the genre appeals to you: "How important to you is the collecting aspect of TCGs?"

Somewhat Important - 3 (37.72%)
Very Important - 4 (31.91%)
Somewhat Unimportant - 2 (18.66%)
Unimportant - 1 (11.51%)

Although the margin between "somewhat" and "very" is tighter than in the last question, the overall result is about the same – around 70% of you feel collecting is an important part of the genre.

Turning back to the game element of the equation, we asked "To enjoy playing a game, is it important that you win?" Here were the results:

Somewhat Important - 3 (49.84%)
Somewhat Unimportant - 2 (28.43%)
Unimportant - 1 (15.46%)
Very Important - 4 (6.26%)

Notice the emerging trend of "somewhat important" being the number one response to these questions. Everything's good in moderation, right?

You might say this question was originally designed to find out how many "power gamers" were answering our survey, though upon reflection we may not have been entirely fair. Many power gamers (people who delve heavily into the strategic aspects of a game) don't mind losing a game if it was a challenging matchup with a worthy opponent. By the same token, a very casual game player can still really hate it when they lose – maybe that's the reason why they're only a casual gamer. So take from these results whatever you will. About half of those responding find it "somewhat important" to win a game in order to enjoy playing it. However, only about 1 in 16 of you responded that winning was "very important" to have a good time.

Next question: "Do the TCG decks you build tend to focus on a single theme/game element, or do you tend to include a diversity of themes/elements in a deck?"

Focus (42.80%)
Both Equally (37.43%)
Diversity (19.77%)

Again, this question was pitched slightly at identifying our percentage of power gamers, as these players tend to build highly focused decks. Across multiple different decks, they might explore just as many game elements as a player answering "diversity", but within a single deck they find one thing they want to do, and do it well.

A fair number of power gamers may also fall into the "both equally" block, as that response could match up with a power gamer who likes to plan for a way out if their planned path to victory is blocked. Whatever you choose to read into this result, it would seem only about 1 in 5 people responding always prefers to sample multiple concepts in a single deck.

Next up was a really important question for us, "Do you tend to focus more on deck-building strategies (decisions made before a game) or "run-time" strategies (decisions made during a game)?"

The existing Star Trek CCG heavily favors deck-building strategy over run-time strategy. The best players spend more time building their decks than they do actually playing them, with hours and hours of revising before a big game. The relatively low emphasis the game places on run-time is the reason why it's possible to throw together a deck you found somewhere on the internet, and more often than not do well playing that deck, without instructions from the original designer (or without deviating from any instructions they did provide).

By contrast, take the game of chess. I know, not a trading card game, so definitely no deck building there. But there is a certain amount of preparation a player can undergo before a game. They can read books outlining classic chess offenses and defenses. They can seek out transcripts of famous chess matches. The bulk of chess strategy, however, is run-time. The best players are able to analyze multiple different moves, and multiple likely counter-moves in response to that – oftentimes many turns deep.

Back to the question at hand, then. How did those responding to the survey feel about strategy?

Deck-Building Strategy (44.44%)
Both Equally (37.72%)
Run-Time Strategy (14.96%)
Neither (2.88%)

First off, a word about "neither." We wanted to be sure that those players who just like playing and really don't care much for strategy had an option to pick here. As we expected, that was a rather small group. Also not terribly surprising, given that many people taking the survey were veteran Star Trek CCG players, deck-building strategies came out on top of the heap.

What was perhaps a surprise is how many people responded that they value deck building and run-time equally. Over 1/3 of those responding chose this option. While the under 15% response of those preferring run-time strategy does indicate we should probably not create a trading card game that seriously devalues deck building, the "equally" response would seem to indicate there is room for more on-the-fly decisions than the existing Star Trek CCG allows. At least, so long as it doesn't come at the expense of the power of a well-built deck.

We think our next question yielded the most surprising results in the survey: "Do you prefer organized play (tournaments) or casual play (at home with friends)?" We expected our survey takers to be quite hip to the tournament scene, and that while plenty of casual gamers were out there, they would not be quite as likely to be the people visiting our web site and taking the survey. Check out these results:

Both Equally (26.62%)
Strongly Prefer Casual Play (26.17%)
Somewhat Prefer Casual Play (21.31%)
Somewhat Prefer Organized Play (14.59%)
Strongly Prefer Organized Play (11.32%)

It turns out almost half of those taking the survey have little to no interest in tournament play. Even among those who sought out tournaments, half rated them no more important than casual play. Tournament Directors, fear not – we still need your help to make our games successful. But for those of you who regularly attend tournaments, it is very interesting to think that you've never even met between 50% and 75% of the people who play the game. In fact, if you agree with our initial thinking that not as many casual players would take this survey, that percentage of players is higher still. Tournament play will always be important to Decipher, but it is worth remembering as we go through this design process that it is only a part (and a smaller one, at that) of a greater whole.

To close out the TCG section of our survey, we asked "How important to you is Sealed Deck and/or Booster Draft playability?" Perhaps these questions should not have been lumped together in this manner. After all, Booster Draft is a format fairly unique to the tournament scene. Sealed Deck, while a tournament format, is also essentially what a brand new player of the game faces when they buy their first starter deck, with maybe a handful of boosters. In any case, the question was asked and answered:

Somewhat Important - 3 (31.39%)
Unimportant - 1 (25.75%)
Somewhat Unimportant - 2 (22.49%)
Very Important - 4 (20.37%)

Again, "somewhat important" emerges at the top of the heap, though the remaining answers fall in an order different than usual.

First off, let me offer a reassurance. We're going to take it on faith that the 1 in 4 people saying that Sealed Deck/Booster Draft was "unimportant" weren't suggesting it's okay to produce starter decks that aren't playable. After the lessons learned from some of Decipher's earliest, fully randomized Starter Decks, we're not likely to go down that road again.

With that out of the way, this is one of the most interesting results in the survey as it is the closest. Where other questions routinely saw gaps of 20% or more between the top and bottom responses, just over 10% separates those answers here. Group together the "very importants" and "somewhat importants", and the "unimportants" and "somewhat unimportants", and you end up quite close to a 50/50 split. In essence, this result suggests that while Sealed Deck and Booster Draft playability is not something we should highly prioritize in our product design, neither are they considerations to be dismissed out of hand.

Thus concludes this look at the TCG portion of our survey. Next time out, we'll conclude the examination of the results with the section about what people would like to see in a potential new Star Trek TCG.

May 28, 2002

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