How We Test and Improve Game Design

Here at Forever Interactive, we believe strongly that evidence of what works is infinitely better than decisions made purely on gut reactions and instinct. To that end, the Design team is constantly trying out new ways to revise the game, to make it even better in the end. If a change is deemed necessary, we embrace it, even late in development. Our resource system is a perfect example of this.

For quite a long time, the resources in Visions of Zosimos worked as follows: your resources were determined by which cards you chose when creating your Homunculus, and they remained largely unchanged for the length of a match. Thanks to our Flux system, those resources shifted as cards were cast, attacks were made, etc. All seemed well- our card costs seemed appropriate, people could cast their cards. However, a member of our Marketing team brought up a major flaw with this system. Drawing upon his years of experience as a player of Magic: The Gathering, he proceeded to point out that while we had resources, there was no resource management. That may seem like a subtle distinction, but it is important. Managing resources is a layer of strategy that was both intended from the beginning, but a core appeal for the type of player we want to play our game. As it stands, the player rarely has to even consider their resources, much less strategically manage them. This team member went on to explain a full revamp he had in mind.

The suggestion was a big shift, but radically changed how we would give resources to the player. First, the Homunculus would start with a very low number of dice at the beginning, gaining a die to the pool of the player's choice every round during the Transfer phase. This would allow the player to adapt to the match not only based on their deck composition, but based on what they had in their hand and what the opponent was doing. Additionally, card costs would need to be altered considerably to allow play to continue; the current ones were much to high to fit with the suggested model. Finally, Elemental Dice were to be removed- in their current state, they serve as an extra complication the player does not need, and a crutch that helps enable the kind of play we've been seeing — ignoring resources in favor of simply casting everything you can, every round.

The next step was to test it out, which took us roughly two weeks. After several matches with the updated rules, several things became apparent. First, the initial numbers for the Homunculus were too low, and the resources trickling in too slowly. We'd made the Homunculus incredibly vulnerable and fragile to boot- it essentially shut down the game entirely. After some tweaks, the numbers were less dramatically low, but we discovered that our lowered costs were creating the same problem we had before; we could play out our entire hands every round with impunity. By sheer dumb luck, our original costs worked perfectly within the new system, forcing players to consider their choices when building their forces during a match. The last tweak was to gaining new resources- one die per round was simply too slow. After some trial and error, we settled on giving the player two dice each turn, but restricting them to placing the new dice in separate pools (Body, Mind, or Soul). After the first five rounds, the player would receive no further dice automatically.

Our final step, believe it or not, was more testing. The difference, however, was in whom the players were. Up until this point, our testing had been strictly in-house. After getting a set of rules we felt worked, we took the paper prototype on the road. Not only did we try out the new rules with players familiar with the old system, but also brand new players. Surprisingly, the new system was universally preferred over our current rules. Armed with this new information, it was an easy decision to approve, and this new resource system is now in the backlog to be implemented into the full game.

So, to sum up the new rules — Materia cards will determine what abilities and Life Points your Homunculus has, not its dice pools. Every Homunculus will start with 2 dice in both attack and defense of all three pools, for a total of 12 dice. For the first 5 rounds, the player will be given 2 dice to distribute to separate pools as they choose, prior to being able to transfer dice as normal. Finally, Elemental Dice will no longer be used. With these changes, the game has its intended layers of strategy-deck construction, resource management, and battlefield tactics.






- Dave Brown, Lead Game Designer