CARD GRADING (Post v1 Testing)
The following is an assessment of each card in the expansion post-testing. Each card will get a grade and that grade will indicate whether a revision is necessary. I will post one card at a time and wait for comments (if any) and then make final revisions, push the card to a Silver Lining v2 - Beta thread.
Once all 25 cards have completed the process, I will test again, actively working to bring the set to completion by the end of the second set.
Here is how each section in the report breaks down:
GRADE:A simple grading system, that does not judge the POWER of the card, but rather the overall balance, utility and design. It breaks down this way:
- A - Card tested well, seems perfectly balanced with great utility and cost, will stay the same for future tests. The only caveat will be minor cosmetic changes or semantic changes to the card's overall text.
- B - Card tested well and was generally a well-balanced card. Card's that rate "B" might have some red flags in testing and might have very minor adjustments, but those adjustments will likely be cosmetic, semantic or just the tiniest of revisions.
- C - This is the grade I give cards I am unsure about. Testing might have revealed some issues with the card, or the card seemed just a tad too powerful or weak, but I am unsure just what to do with the card.
- D - This card had some utility at rare times, but was mostly broken in some way or clearly needs an adjustment.
- F - This card failed. It was disliked, or was utterly broken and needs a complete overhaul.
RATINGThis is the card's rating after the 100 games of testing. It is a fairly crude formula that was used to calculate it. It was a hybrid of the card's win-loss rating, (with a small bonus if the card was in both winning and losing decks, so it would not score entirely neutral if that happened). It also gave a very small bonus to the most popular cards (the assumption cards that were purchased often, must have had utility).
The ratings are expressed like this: 1.0 +/- 0.11.
1.0 is essentially "perfectly balanced" while 2.0 is a card that "always wins and never loses" and 0.0 is a card that "never wins and always loses". The variance is a crude calculation to give me a range of error. The more games the card was active in, the less the variance will be. In the above example, the card could be rated as low 0.89 or as high as 1.11.
RATING POSITIONDenotes where out of the 25 cards this particular card's rating ranked. A card that was the WORST ranked card gets a rating of 25 out 25, while the BEST card in the set gets a rating of 1 out of 25.
POPULARITY POSITIONDenotes where out of the 25 cards this particular card's popularity ranks. Popularity is calculated as getting one point every time a player bought or gained at least one copy of the card of their own volition.
BEST COMBOThis highlights which card combination produced the highest percentage of victory for the card. It is a simple calculation of win-percentage of this card combined with all other buys/gains it was combined with in a winning/losing deck.
ASSESSMENTThis is some general notes from my wife and I (who play tested with me) about the card's utility, value and general balance.
RECOMMENDATIONThis is the summary of what I recommend I do the card, it usually breaks down into whether I keep the card as is, adjust the card very slightly (usually just technical changes to the rules/verbiage of the card, or whether I completely overhaul the card.
SUGGESTED VARIANTSIf the recommendation required a small adjustment or a complete overhaul, I'll list the change(s) here. There are sometimes just one variant to look at, other times several. Comment is most welcome on which variant you feel will produce the best results or appear to be the most balanced.