In-Class Playtest 3

Jean's group enjoying the game

In-Class Playtest #3 was held on November 13, 2023 in the B Building with members of Jean's group, and features Iteration 1.3 of the game.

Within the same playtest, each research pair within our development team has different preferences for recording their study and observations. The section in this page are divided by how each pair records their study.

Previous Playtest: In-Class Playtest #2

Next Playtest: Internal Playtest #3

## Franciszek Ryt & Rajat Upadhayaya

### Objective

For this playtest we wanted to make sure that the changes that we have made for the game are understandable. We wanted to see if the balanced Heroes would work well and how the endgame would change without the wall obstructing the final flag. Moreover we required more data on how the new teams would be chosen and we wanted to see if new combos would arise and would be used by players in the game with what success level.

Rules for the iteration:

* Rulebook V.3
* Almanac V.3

The playtest was conducted with four players from our class. All of the players have chosen a team with three Heroes each.

* Essi Team 1: Wind panda, Snow bunny, Lightning crane, 11pts
* Jean - Team 2: Wind panda, Lightning crane, Fire fox, 72pts
* Elizabeth Team 3: Water dog, Snow bunny, Lightning crane, 7pts
* Alkam - Team 4: Fire fox, Lightning crane, Ice bunny, 6pts

### Process

Notes from the playtest (Rajat):

* They placed the final flag down during setup.
* They are taking a really long time to choose teams.
* Player 2 picked 2 Heroes and then waited to see what others picked to pick their last Hero.
* No one picked the monkey, Player 2 said it seemed limited in movement.
* Movement is up to the movement stat of a Hero. - Clarify
* Player 2 claimed the flags at the start of turn 1 since the flags spawned the majority of them in that region.
* Player 1 uses Panda Ability on Payer 2 to drag them away from atop of a 5 point flag.
* Player 4 grouped their Heroes together. Others took note of it.
* Player 3 used a snowstorm on top of Player 4’s group affecting all the heroes.
* Player 4 got 9 points for the flags, using crane ability to swap with another team’s Heroes atop of the 5 point Flag.
* Player 4 did not use the ability while in a snowstorm.
* Player 2 used the gradient tile to respawn.
* Players were not using abilities while in snowstorm making the snowstorm really powerful since the player could just re-cast it in the same place next turn.
* Player 2 has a massive lead.
* They realised you can use abilities in the snowstorm, they still think the movement component of the ability will not happen though.
* Player 4 skips a turn. “Not much to do”.
* Player 1 used a hook through their own character to kill an enemy Hero.
* GOING LAST IS THE BEST.
* Player 2 won with 72 points.

Notes from the playtest (Franciszek):

* Counter choosing people choices in the game as a strategy
* Players opted out from picking the monkey because they deemed it very restricted in its movement abilities
* Little fighting is happening on one side of the board because there are no flags there, one person is Keeping the flags, the rest will try to fight over them
* Flags have spawned once again close to each other and in one heaven
* Silence is very noticeable, the players do not discuss the game at all
* Bunnies ability is confusing, it should specify when it ends better or be reduced to just reducing Movement of infected players
* The bunny is too overpowered with its ability to just wipe out a player form the turn order
* Does the snowstorm goes away when the bunny dies (it should)
* A snowstorm being cast in the middle?
* A lot of skipping turns there was - why
* Initiative puts players either on top or bottom
* A very skewed end point results because of the first flag spawn that was accumulated in one player's heaven
* First player always seem to be the lowest amount of points get
* Panda just standing and taking heroes from the flags

### Results

This was the first playtest with the ultimate flag not being obstructed by the wall. It was now obstructed by the snowstorm stacked on another snowstorm rendering the game unplayable for some players who had to skip their turnes. We wanted to obstruct the ability to obscure the most valuble flag so we have discussed making it a ptotected space where not wall nor snowstorm can be placed.

The crane proved to be very useful and even over useful when all of the players have used it and identified it as the best hero overall. We decided to curb their skill to make it more balanced.

Fia turned out to be also very powerfull and with the set initiative order she was able to wipe out a whole team from the initiative order by freezing them to her next turn. We decided to chage that and try to rethink her entire snowstorm to cause less trouble for the balancing.

It was a very quiet test, it was a total opposite of the previous one. people here were less competetive and less able to make up tactics on the fly, discussing the moves and the events on the board. The gaming experience was rather shy.

### Research notes:

Player 4 have made a high movement team, with a lot of range and big damage. The whole team was moved together and would kill anyone on their path. They got quickly separated and killed of by the other players abilities (bunny snowstorm). They regretted not having any way to push poeple out of the tiles.

Player 3's team was made around their skills. The crane was supposed to be the flag cather and the rest was supposed to heal them/freeze their opponents.

Player 2 opted for crowd control. They wanted to switch heroes already on flags with the crane ability, move people out of the flags by panda's skill and have a heavey hitter - a fox - as a guard to both heroes. It worked really well, and the crane has gained many points, as being the last player in the initiative, player 2 scored all the time and scored the ultimate flag twice.

Player 1 made their team based on the skills of the Heroes that uses high damage and movement. They did not have any iron clad startegy, it was too much for them, to many variables and too little time to think about what to do.

## Igor Sogorovecs & Stan Nguyen

### Previously, on Iteration 1.3...

Iteration 1.3 serves to address frustrating game systems identified from the previous In-Class playtest in the following manners:

* Players pointed out that the game was too punishing when making strategic errors or dying. Mixed color tiles on the board, which previously was unused, had been converted into Respawn Points so that players have a chance to re-engage in closer proximity to the middle of the board.
* Many Quality of Life changes have been modified in the rulebook in terms of sectioning, illustration, and guidelines. This is to aid players in understand the complexity of the game better without resorting to streamlining the game.
* Three heroes receive buffs in terms of abilities and stats to address viability concerns from previous playtests:
	+ Silac's ability receive an addition to also affect allies movement. This is to provide him with an extra use case of rescuing allies in addition to abducting enemies.
	+ Fia' receives a boost in Initiaitive so that players picking Fia are more likely to go first in a round, which is her most effective turn order since she can set up freeze for the whole round.
	+ Luces receives a big buff to her mobility and ability range. We introduce a movement component of 4 to her ability, so that she can both reposition as well as target other Heavens for soulbinding.

### Aim

We wish to continue having the players pinpoint game systems, or lack thereof, which are inducive toward frustrations. The resulting game system can be completely new or a repeat of previously identified ones. We will also continue to monitor their behaviors, whether conscious or subconscious, as these behaviors carry psychological implications that survey response could not properly convey.

### Methodologies

The methodologies employed is a replication from previous playtest with no changes.

### "Negative Remarks" Results

#### Player 1

This player remained mostly quiet throughout the playthrough, with also limited non-verbal communications.

#### Player 2

A total of 6 negative remarks were recorded. Some example of which being:

* "Ok little bunny, you wanna fight little bunny?"
* "You know what? You shouldn't have been merciful."
* "Oh, this is war."

#### Player 3

A total of 2 negative remarks were recorded:

* "I think you deserved that for killing me."
* "Oooh." (in a very sassy tone)

#### Player 4

Only 1 negative remark was recorded:

* (After killing a hero of Player 3) "You need to get used to it."

### Playtest Notes

#### Set-Ups

* P2 waits on what other players pick to counterpick them.
* P3 takes a very long time understand all hero interactions from the Almanac before assembling her team.
* No one picked monkey.
* They question whether you shuffle drawn tile ID back into the deck.
* There were a lot of equal Team Initiative that required breaking even with a D6.

#### Playtime

* Player question whether you have to move exactly as the Mov indicates. (No, only UP TO that amount).
* The same question was raised regarding ability illustrations.
* First flag spawn, the Heaven of Ice was swarmed with flags.
* Alkam attacks Elizabeth and Elizabeth starts attacking back.
* We need a clause for moving through other players and how it is not acceptable.
* Fia ability duration should be considered to end at a round.
* Elizabeth keeps getting icebombed by other players.
* Jean as the last round player wins dominantly with **73** points.
* Last turn players and heroes with movement manipulation is very strong (Violea and Silac).

### Interview Q&A

*What did you enjoy the most in the game?*

* Player 1: "Getting points."
* Player 2: "Going last turn."
* Player 3: "When I managed to reach the flags."
* Player 4: "The mechanics, the movement of each hero."

*One word feeling?*

* Player 1: "Powerful."
* Player 2: "Aesthetically pleasing."
* Player 3: "Satisfying."
* Player 4: "Ice."

*What did you feel most frustrating in the game? If no then what do you think would give other players frustration?*

* Player 1: "Being the first one to round."
* Player 2: "It was managing the Snowstorm because we had a lot of Snowstorm to keep track of."
* Player 3: "When I got killed."
* Player 4: "I don't like the fact that when you kill someone, it respawns right away. I think it really is annoying."

*If you can design this game, how would you make it fairer?*

* Player 1: "Random turn order."
* Player 2: "Who starts and who ends, random turn order. Tweaking the order of the round somehow. Initiative is useful to be able to form your own team in away, some hero works better with certain heroes."
* Player 3: "I would give more health points and have some champions deal less damage. Chance of survival should be better."
* Player 4: "Change the respawning mechanics."

*How much time did you feel like you were playing?*

* Player 1: "1h 14 minutes."
* Player 2: "It was around at least an hour. I didn't look at the time."
* Player 3: "1h."
* Player 4: "1h."

*Did you feel like you really hate what your opponent was doing?*

* Player 1: "No."
* Player 2: "I didn't like the bully that happened to certain people."
* Player 3: "Yes because Alkam was targeting me."
* Player 4: "No. Not really."

*What was your strategy?*

* Player 1: "Causing as much damage as possible."
* Player 2: "Last turn, bitch get out of the way."
* Player 3: "Strategize a bit on the board to spread the character out more evenly to see my chances. It was quite hard to predict other characters and what they will do."
* Player 4: "My strategy was just to move another player from scoring the flag."

*Did you feel like giving up at any point?*

* Player 1: "Sometimes it felt like I didn't have a chance to get points on the flag"
* Player 2: "No because I was hard leading."
* Player 3: "Yes. Because I got killed a lot."
* Player 4: "Yes. I realize I want to give up when the first three flags spawn in the same Heaven of Ice."

### Discussion

Based on the results of the "Negative Remarks" and our Interviews, we discovered that:

* Providing opponent players with too much recovery (fast recovery) make the decision to attack and defeat other players carry less weight and meaningless. All your progress then are too easily undo.
* On the opposite end of the spectrum, too little chance of survival frustrates players as well.
* Complicated rules, this time in terms of token overhead, causes annoyance in players. It was noted that keeping track of Fia's snowstorm token was very overbearing if there are a lot of them.
* First-turn order continued to be a point of frustration for the player, while last-turn order is highly sought after. This problem is even further exascerbated by 1/ this turn order never changes throughout the playthrough and 2/ some heroes with movement manipulation can abuse last-turn order to always deny flags from the opponents.
* Frequent clash between players continued to be a point of frustration.

Iteration 1.4 will serve to address these design issues informed by our playtest - to alleviate frustrations in players.

## Emma Andersson & Sanna Helsing

*This playtest rulebook iteration, abstract character design used. For this playtest, we gathered data by observing players and taking notes and making the players fill out a survey after the game.*

### Notes

They seem to be choosing player colours based on elements. At least one player chose characters based on elements only.

“Reminds me of league of legends.” “I don’t want to be associated with communism (talking about red character tokens).”

One player chose heroes last to counter-play the others.

### Survey answers

#### What made you choose your heroes?

* Damage
* Being able to move other people
* Their abilities
* Colours lol :D

#### What do you think about the character visual? (Character visuals only, not the card background)

* No
* Simple enough, though I thought the dog was a mole and the crane a Toad from Mario. The other ones were very clear
* Their visual were cool, maybe i would have chosen to show the profile of the crane
* I had some difficulties recognising some of the animals (the monkey and dog if I remember correctly) but when I took a closer look there wasn't an issue.

#### What was more interesting about the heroes, the mechanics or the visuals?

Mechanics: 2

Visuals: 2

Both: -

Neither: -

#### What about the heroes you chose is most appealing to you visually?

* Nothing
* The whole aesthetic coherence was really nice
* I think they all have a cute look
* Bright colours

#### Did you relate to any of the heroes? If so, what made them relatable?

* Mmm monkey~
* No
* Not really, but it felt nice controlling them
* Not really

#### Did you feel like the heroes had a personality? If so, do you think the personality comes from the visuals, the mechanics, both or something else?

* Not really
* I called my team "Bitch, move out the way" and that was their personality for me
* Maybe the animals that do more damage are perceived as more aggressive
* Do you feel like the visual design of each hero represents the mechanics?

#### Do you feel like the visual design of each hero represents the mechanics?

* Yes
* To a certain extent
* I do
* Yes!!

#### Would you choose to play this game solely based on the visual design of the heroes?

* No
* I would not
* The visuals were very enticing
* I think so