New scoring system guide: how to calculate score

Go read playtest report #3 here, for how the separate point system worked for scoring: https://phylomon.forumotion.net/phylomon-f1/playtest-report-3-much-better-with-new-scoring-system-and-no-habitat-cards-much-much-better-t71.htm#696


Having played with it I'd adjust the base pointing just a little as we were finding plants were ending up a little overvalued compared to everything else. The most valuable card thus ended up being the Chinese Hibiscus at 9. That seemed a bit much...
(we ignored Spread as a Keyword for points since it was depend on other cards to use at all. Movement 1 was also barely useful)


new score key:
Base =9
Every species gets 1 Climate and Terrain for free. Beyond that you subtract one for each.
Add the Food chain Rank on everything EXCEPT rank 1 species (so if its 2 or higher)
Subtract 1 for each point of Movement
Subtract 1 for each Keyword
Subtract 2 is it has the Invasive Keyword.

Example: Raccoon 9+ rank 3 -2 Move -2 bonus terrian -2 bonus climate -2 for invasive Keyword = value 4
Chinese Hibiscus 9 - one bonus climate= Value 8
Common Raven 9 +Rank 3 - Move 2 - Keyword Flying 1 -3 bonus Terrain -3 bonus climate = Value 3
Horse 9 + Rank 2 - Move 2 - 1 bonus climate = 8


Thus the higher ranked Raven balances out by being playable on practically anything and can be moved easily to avoid most Events. It's practically impossible to get rid of. The Horse ends up valuable because it's harder to play in first place and can only move to a few places. That Chinese Hibiscus is still really valuable, but if not very resilient. it's easy to get rid of.


Score would be printed on card itself, this is just the key for HOW to arrive at the score that should go on the card.

Looks cool. If possible I'm going to translate the scoring system down to things being worth 1, 2, or 3 points (will make adding things easier and scoring should still work overall).

With respect to this, do you have suggestions for what your current system range should equal "1" and so on. I.e if it's less than X then it's a one pointer, etc...

I'm kind of iffy on reducing it all the way down to 1, 2, and 3 as it narrows the scoring options a lot and would flatten out the difference again between things that are otherwise very similar. Then you start to run into same issue again of "why would I ever play a Badger when a Raccoon is worth as much?" Narrower the value range the harder it becomes to balance cards.

If 10 point scale is too wide a range, we could narrow it down to 6. Right now you'll see there's some stuff that's already scoring out at a 3. If the initial scoring value was reduced down to a 6 (from current 9), that would then make Raven worth 0. It'd basically only make it useful as a connector species, not valuable in and of itself. It's basically preserve all the differentiation between the values that has been tested (and currently is known to work) while lower the total number kids have to count to.

You should have a file with the scores for all the species currently made.

Ooh.

I'm with Dave on this - it's not particularly easy to count up 15ish cards of 6-10 points, but 1,2 and 3 is comparatively easy (especially since this is aimed at children, not necessarily even geeky children).

You could, however, have a bonus system. The most obvious is:
Player with most different species - 10 points.

Maybe it's just because I have to count cash a lot, but I total by pulling pairs to 10 and then counting those. So at end game, pick up a 7+3, 5+5, 6+4, etc, stack 'em as tens, then count those. Much easier and less likely to have mistakes.

I sent Dave a recalculated sheet that did both original values and recalculated with 6 as the start score. That resulted in a 7 point scale with only a few outliers scoring out at 7 or a zero. You pretty well got a bell curve with majority ending up as 3 or 4.

Even though that's a larger scale, that should probably result in scores around 50. I'd say up in the 60s with very skilled players, probably in the 40s for less experienced players.

Now, keep in mind, most kids are taught to count change in 1st grade, roughly age 6-7. That means they're expected to be able to add multiple small values together. Counting with a physical representation (coins or cards) is a pretty standard method of teaching adding at that age.

So by age 8, when we can expect they're able to READ the cards, they should be able to add the score as if was pocket change.

(exact grade age and grade where counting change is introduced will vary by state, municipality, teaching method, individual children, etc, but I'm finding a lot of lesson plans listed for 1st grade and age 6-7 that involve change and counting to over 100)

I'm going with Fenris on this one, that reducing the score range to 3 values negates the point of changing the scoring in the first place. I also think you underestimate the ability for children to be able to tally up score. If anything, we want the score to be high in every game, since it is an arbitrary measure of how fun the game is. Kids will (wrongly, but we'll let them) think that a game where the scores are 60-70 a person is more interesting than a game where the scores are 30-40.

Game on! I'll use the 9 scale point system (wil try to get them done before Sunday), and if a 1,2,3 system is doable down the road, then we can always re-evaluate.

Working my way through the list... (my primary school class is about to arrive).

I know that they aren't always easy to play and that they can be destroyed etc. But has anyone considered changing plants and other bottom trophic level species so that they aren't worth anything? Hear me out on this. Let's imagine a completely hypothetical card game which is in no way the intellectual property of a sorceror by the sea. Let's call it Tragic the Smattering. In Tragic, players use certain cards(we'll call them Territories) to pay for other cards(let's call them monsters and incantations) which actually do the work of winning the game for you. The territories are incredibly useful, but they don't in themselves contribute anything to winning the game. The value and pay off for playing plants etc. could be the same way. They aren't worth any points, but their value is nonetheless substantial as you wouldn't be able to play anything else without them. This encourages players to play animals and not build plant only decks(which seems to have been a problem at one of the playtests).

Spoiler alert, I was talking about Magic: The gathering.