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The Single Most Important Element

by Evan Lorentz
Game Designer

This is the final article in a series analyzing our survey results. If you're reading this, I assume neither my lengthy explanations nor a bunch of statistics has deterred you from wanting to know what people said about a potential new Star Trek™ TCG. It is specifically that topic – a new Star Trek TCG – that the final section of the survey dealt with.

We began with the question "On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being 'small' and 5 being 'large', what role do you think 'problem solving' should play in a new Star Trek trading card game?"

1. 4 (45.00%)
2. 3 (24.04%)
3. 5 - large (23.01%)
4. 2 (5.51%)
5. 1 - small (2.44%)

Our only real surprise here was seeing a few less votes for "5" than we might have expected, given the number of existing Star Trek CCG players likely to take this survey. Still, roughly 2 out of every 3 people responding weighted problem solving at above average importance to the game. That total comes to over 90% when the true middle-of-the-road 3 votes are counted as well.

Of course, "problem solving" is a rather general concept, and can be implemented in many ways. In the Star Trek series, our heroes usually come upon some sort of puzzle by the end of the teaser, and experience additional plot twists before fixing everything by the end of the hour. The existing Star Trek CCG captures this aspect of the series with its dilemma cards, and we're looking to have a somewhat similar element in our new design. (Though based on the feedback given to us by the representatives who got the first look at the early design, it's an element we need to develop a bit more before we get it just right.)

Given that we're dealing with a game, there are whole other levels of "problem solving" to mine. If an opponent plays a card that remains in play imposing some kind of penalty on you, and you later find a way to remove that card from play, you have solved a problem. If your opponent strikes out with an early lead, and you find a way to come from behind, you have solved a problem. Bringing a player into more consistent confrontation with an opponent is a sure-fire way to introduce "problems" to be solved. We are very interested in injecting more of this kind of problem solving in our new Star Trek model.

Next up, we asked "On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being 'small' and 5 being 'large', what role do you think 'combat' should play in a new Star Trek trading card game?" Essentially this is layering a story-oriented bias over the question of problem solving... how much of the interaction and problem solving we have in the game should specifically take the form of "combat?"

1. 3 (34.02%)
2. 4 (32.48%)
3. 5 - large (18.49%)
4. 2 (11.42%)
5. 1 - small (3.59%)

The results of this question basically depend on where you decide to put the people who answered "3", that combat's role should be straight up the middle. Put them with the people who think combat's role should be minimal, and you have a nearly-perfect 50/50 split. On the other hand, if you group the "average" votes with the "above average" votes, as we did in one analysis of the problem solving question, you end up with about 85% of the voters wanting to see "combat" in the game to some degree.

Ultimately these two questions together indicate that most people want to see both elements in a new game. There is a preference for non-combat-oriented problem-solving over combat, but the role of both is important. This dual role is especially important when you consider that many voters likely expressed a stronger preference for one aspect over the other – for example, voting 4 or 5 on "problem solving" and 1, 2, or 3 on "combat." If the game focused on one element to the exclusion of the other, it would alienate those voters who gave the opposite response – 1, 2, or 3 on "problem solving" and 4 or 5 on "combat." Getting both forms of interaction to work well in the game will be a challenging line for us to walk, and I'm sure you'll see things flop back and forth as we play around with trying to strike the right balance.

Our next question in the survey was "How important to you is 'storyline accuracy' (gameplay that closely mirrors objects and events seen on Star Trek)?" A lot of our existing players have adopted the slang "Trek Sense" to refer to this issue.

1. Somewhat Important (42.61%)
2. Very Important (39.85%)
3. Somewhat Unimportant (13.11%)
4. Unimportant (4.43%)

I must say I expected "Very Important" to come out on top here. And though the margin was close, the more moderate "Somewhat Important" once again rose to the top of the heap. What does it all mean? Well, over 85% of those responding hold "Trek Sense" in some regard. And well they should. After all, if a Star Trek game isn't all that faithful to the series it is meant to depict, why call it Star Trek at all?

But really, this wasn't a question about whether we should throw storyline accuracy out the proverbial window. That's just not an option for us, and never would be for a Decipher product. What we really were trying to get at was finding out where the average tolerance level falls – how willing people are to compromise a little bit here and there on rigid storyline accuracy for the sake of improved gameplay. Looking at the results through that lens, you can interpret them to mean that about 60% of you are willing to compromise on story to various degrees where necessary.

In actuality, that number may be higher when you consider some of the different possible mindsets of someone who voted "Very Important" for storyline accuracy. The existing Star Trek CCG allows for all sorts of situations never actually seen on the show. Dr. Pulaski and Dr. Crusher working on the Enterprise at the same time... or on the Defiant. Voyager tooling around the Alpha Quadrant instead of lost in the Delta Quadrant. These situations aren't rigidly accurate to the show. Are they within "Trek Sense?" That depends on the individual's definition of that term. But it's a safe bet that not all of the "Very Important" votes were cast by people looking to play an exact simulation of episodes of Star Trek. Many are looking for a universe that is faithful to the series, but in which they can essentially create their own new "episodes."

If it sounds like I'm trying to justify compromising on story to you, I suppose maybe I am. The fact is, in order to make a balanced, fun game, you have to let "Trek Sense" go from time to time. But not regularly. For those nearly 40% of you who voted Very Important, I hope you'll see that in the past we have not often just thrown story to the wind. There are many big Star Trek fans working at Decipher, so rest assured we won't be allowed to stray too far or too often.

The final question of our survey was a write-in one. "In 50 words or less, what is the single most important element you would like to see in a new Star Trek trading card game?" Since you could literally write in anything, it's rather hard for me to tabulate the results. We are actually still in the process of reading them all. (To those of you who paid attention to the instructions and kept it under 50 words, many thanks!) Still, I can give you a general overview of some common responses.

Several people took this opportunity to caution against a "seed phase", or anything resembling it, pushing for gameplay that quickly gets to the action. Our current model isn't quite "shuffle and go", but requires maybe 5 or 10 seconds of setup where a seed phase in the existing game could easily take 5 or 10 minutes. So I think we're on target there.

Many people were concerned about "cheese" (abusive deck strategies), and especially worried about decks that can win in a single turn. Well, there's always a chance that something overly strong will slip through the playtesting cracks. We're always working to improve our playtesting, but no matter how good we get, we can't compete with thousands of you players making the most of the cards upon their actual release. We'll do our best. The one-turn win concern, however, I can definitely lay to rest. It's not possible to win in one turn in our current game engine. In fact, it's not even possible to clinch a victory in a head-to-head game until it's more than half over.

Lots of you warned against complex rules. The rules that come with the PDF decks may seem tough at first because they aren't in as "cleaned up" a form as you would normally get with a published starter deck. But know that our mandate is "easy-to-learn," and the representatives who got the first look at the game all seemed to pick it up within a few minutes.

Even larger than the anti-complexity sentiment was the anti-simplicity faction. These sound like opposite sides of the same coin, but they really aren't. The anti-complexity people want low rules overhead. The anti-simplicity people want a game that has strategic depth to it – something that strives to be like Chess, not Old Maid. We've said it before, and we'll probably say it many more times, but here it goes: we are not looking to create a "dumbed down" Star Trek game. We definitely want a rich strategic palette. What we don't want is a 70-page glossary. (Sorry, Major.)

[The Major's Note: Heck, I never wanted it to be 70 pages either!]

Many took the opportunity to remind us just how important "Trek Sense" was to them, in essence voting twice that storyline accuracy was "very important" to them. Rest assured we'll take this advice to heart.

Several voters wrote that they want to see some element of compatibility between a potential new Star Trek game and the existing one. First, remember that the main reason we are considering the option of a new game is to have a way to attract new players to Star Trek. Plenty of people out there know about the Star Trek CCG, but have chosen not to play it, or maybe even tried it and given it up. The number one reason we hear for this is the complexity of the game's rules.

In order to achieve compatibility, we would have to take on the burden of those complex rules. Most cards in Star Trek CCG are written very specifically to work within that game's mechanics. Imagine trying to translate cards like Incidents, Objectives, or Tactics to another game, even another Star Trek game like the one produced by Fleer/Skybox years ago. Where would you even begin? Try just translating the personnel cards. How would you get the new card's attribute numbers? Could it be a direct translation? Are the numbers even on the same scale? Do they represent concepts that logically match up between the systems?

The bottom line is, you would likely never succeed in porting all cards over to the new system, which would mean a list of cards you could use and cards you couldn't. That list would be very long, frustrating for existing players and intimidating to new ones. We'd ultimately be swapping the massive rules document that frightens new players away for a massive "how to adapt old cards" document that would do the same. And we'd probably have to compromise on certain design choices in the new game to facilitate that compatibility. The worst of all worlds.

What about retroactive compatibility that would allow a new game to stand on its own, but also allow its cards to come back to the old game? Well, it would still be the proverbial square peg trying to fit in the round hole. Again, you'd have to compromise on design to facilitate translation, and in the end it may not work for all cards. (For a simple example, the new character cards have nothing corresponding to an INTEGRITY, CUNNING, or STRENGTH number at the moment.) A successful translation document would need to be quite long, ballooning the already large Glossary. Existing Star Trek CCG players tolerate the lengthy rules, they don't revel in it, and it's a good bet a sudden influx of rules like that wouldn't help much. Best to let both products, the existing one and the potential new one, each exist on their own. For all the flaws in the existing game that you cited in this survey – the one-turn wins, the complex rules, the lengthy seed phase – Star Trek CCG has just as many truly elegant aspects to it that could be polluted by trying to accommodate totally different kinds of cards.

So there you have it – a detailed examination of the results of our survey. I'd like to extend thanks from all of us in the design team to those who responded. Your feedback is important and appreciated. Stay tuned to the ongoing Star Trek Design Log for more information about the developing game.

May 29, 2002