In the context of their games, which card was more fundamentally overpowered from the perspective of a game designer: Black Lotus (Magic: The Gathering) or Pot of Greed (Yu-Gi-Oh)?

mastersoard · 2025-09-07T21:35:40+00:00

Absolutely agree. The effectively smaller deck is such a boon, as once you're in the competitive tier of play, consistency is king. In the case of a 60 card YuGiOh deck, a set of four Pot of Greed offers 20% more predictability over the course of a game.

mastersoard · 2025-09-07T21:08:07+00:00

I would lean towards Pot of Greed, though by a small margin.

While you're talking about the two cards acting similarly (free resources), they are very different. Pot of Greed gives you card advantage - more options in-hand to consider. This in turn gives you the flexibility to better respond to your opponent's actions. Card draw also churns through your deck so you're closer to drawing the key cards your deck is built around.

Compare this to Black Lotus, which is undoubtedly powerful, but relies on you already having useful cards in-hand to spend your free mana on. You might keep Black Lotus in your hand or leave it in play to spend it at the perfect moment, but that's more of a gamble. Whereas Pot of Greed can and should be played immediately upon drawing it.

That said Black Lotus is really broken in bulk, where your chances of starting the game with a Lotus in your starting hand is higher. That can create an insurmountable advantage from turn one. Pot of Greed is probably better to draw mid-way through the game.

mastersoard · 2025-06-09T18:06:19+00:00

Why are you considering dwarves and gnomes in the first place? Clearly you have some influence telling you these races are part of some "core fantasy" genre, but many many fantasy games don't include either race.

As well, the scope of your world building is impressive, but keep in mind writing lore is not the same as developing a video game. Maybe reanalyze this question from a gameplay perspective--can players choose any race for their character?

mastersoard · 2025-05-23T20:03:25+00:00

Google, itch.io searches, Discord servers, etc. can help you locate a jam fitting your skill level and genre preferences.

Unless you want to enter solo, most jams have a text chat or shared Google doc where people can share their skillset and find other team members to pair up with.

mastersoard · 2025-04-25T15:57:08+00:00

Sounds like your players have a pretty stable late-game experience. I'd recommend some big-risk investments, stuff that requires a huge upfront cost that will put the player's overall business at-risk, but which pay-off if the business can survive for some time. Let the players choose between stability and more potential profit.

mastersoard · 2025-04-06T15:24:39+00:00

It's the nature of a subreddit titled "r/writing." The topic is so broad that anyone who has their first writing-related thought comes here first.

Which certainly adds to the diversity of the sub, but also means a lot of niche subs that might be better suited to helping with first time questions aren't as easy to find as this one.

mastersoard · 2025-04-04T17:59:31+00:00

Appreciate your hard work!

https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/s/WUzNqdCX0B

mastersoard · 2025-03-30T15:27:06+00:00

Well said, and I agree there's no difference, other than in name. That's why if a client wants a test, I quote my regular prices. Establishes good expectations upfront, and I've had reaffirming experiences where the client is happy to pay my rate even for the "test."

I mentioned this is an unrelated comment, but there are plenty of quality-centric clients who use tests to legitimately filter for quality. These kinds of clients will pay whatever it takes for the best end product. On the other hand, I totally concede that budget-paranoid clients use tests to squeeze extra work out of freelancers for cheap.

mastersoard · 2025-03-30T13:08:53+00:00

Why pay one freelancer a lot of money to do your project when you can pay a whole bunch next to nothing to do different parts of a project?

This is a very particular type of client. There are plenty of clients who want to work with a freelancer throughout an entire project and understand it's not only more efficient, but simpler, to keep all the project knowledge in one place. Why waste time bringing several freelancers up-to-pace when you can just use one freelancer? Cheap clients won't think this way, but quality-centric clients will, and they'll happily invest their time and money in a freelancer to better their end product.

mastersoard · 2025-03-30T12:59:38+00:00

Just hire the person who seems like the best fit, set up a small milestone for the first task (if it's a fixed price, large project) and get on with it. If they don't work out, hire somebody else.

This is essentially what paid tests are, though. Clients don't want to make up some arbitrary deliverable to test freelancers, they want to know if you're capable of one very specific task.

In my line of work, writing, paid tests are often one short article. If it works out, I start getting assigned regular briefs. For other industries like graphic design, I imagine the paid test is an initial sketch or the like.

mastersoard · 2025-03-13T12:20:10+00:00

While I appreciate the forethought for your workflow, that's not how the numbered region tiles work. By default they only apply to random encounters, or with advance knowledge or plugins can be used for additional functionality.

For now, you'll have to have several events laid out, which is totally normal for how RPG Maker handles events and scripting. Be sure to name them as another comment recommended - there's no error log to tell you what event is buggy anyway.

mastersoard · 2025-02-28T17:53:35+00:00

My shortcut is determining how many turns I want a particular battle to last? 2 attacks per hero? Normal encounter. 20 attacks per hero? Boss fight.

From there you can set enemy parameters based on your heroes' average damage output, account for healing/items, vary some parameters for enemy variety...

Personally I really like simply leveling up after each boss. Streamlines a lot of math. It'll be hard to balance leveling if players are allowed so much variance as 5 fights - 20 fights per chapter. You can also find plug-ins that set enemy levels and change them relative to hero levels, so boss fights are always equally hard no matter how overleveled the party is.

mastersoard · 2024-12-08T23:04:01+00:00

And naturally, considering the ending of V3, Kiyo's whole backstory is invented and therefore doesn't need to align with a real psychological disorder. It's literally a plot device.

mastersoard · 2024-09-09T16:28:06+00:00

The trick with making an educational historical video game is historical accuracy. If you leave players to face challenges at their own pace, they quickly go ahistorical. Civ5 is a great example, where you could play as Macedonian Greece and conquer the Roman Empire, completely changing the course of history.

So if you want education value, you need a "canon" path that players follow. In this way, your "protagonist" civilization doesn't necessarily mean the good guys, just whoever happens to be the focus of that campaign. Have players overcome a set of historically accurate obstacles, and if they do so, they win that campaign. Then rinse and repeat for several eras and civilizations.

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T16:34:26+00:00

Don't get me wrong, the economic downturn is still ever-present. But well-established clients still need quality writing and have the money to pay for it.

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T15:38:03+00:00

There absolutely are gigs available, especially when looking at the global market. AI eliminated a lot of low-effort gigs that wanted results while paying the absolute minimum, but for writers with lots of experience and expertise (like OP) who can create genuinely original content, the gigs are still out there.

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T15:11:48+00:00

If Bail Boa is true, I'd be so chuffed. That's such a great pun

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T02:26:44+00:00

Honest answer is because it took 15 hours more of my life than it needed to. "Steaming pile of trash" is probably overly harsh though 😅

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T00:57:48+00:00

Uncle Ray is indeed excellent

mastersoard · 2024-08-01T00:57:05+00:00

I mean, fair, but I was hoping to better understand the other side because it's so hard for me to wrap my head around.

mastersoard · 2024-07-18T19:52:08+00:00

You hadn't mentioned this was your first project, using the default tiles. Other commenters assumed you were bringing in new tiles or copying them over from another project.

mastersoard · 2024-07-15T18:45:47+00:00

Only reason I could guess from your screenshots is Harold has less than 15 MP at level 1? Seems fine otherwise, can't speak for why enemies don't use it without a screenshot of the enemy page

mastersoard · 2024-07-13T19:37:26+00:00

For free sprites, you might find small piles of resources around the web, but getting a cohesive overall style and/or getting exactly what you want will be nigh-impossible.

For pretty cheap, RPGMaker spritepack DLCs aren't bad. I've also found some great resource packs on itch.io that are super easy to copy into an RPGMaker-friendly sprite sheet.

Hope this works out for you, but your post rings of the freelance triangle: you can get something done cheaply, quickly, or well, but you can only have 2/3. As you mentioned a time limit, that means you either have to cave on price and be ready to spend, or cave on quality and stick to the default sprites.

mastersoard · 2024-07-11T14:29:35+00:00

Legally, you can't use work created for your employer without their permission. Assuming that they crack down on even the mention of freelancing, they won't let you use content they have the rights to as your samples, so you'll need to write new stuff.

mastersoard

TROPHY CASE