Mortdog on hidden mechanics

I was listening to Mort's latest AMA and heard this interesting question and answer: YouTube link

Question

Do you think there is a way to add a system that increases your odds to see a unit you bought from the shop compared to units you skipped? Rolling would still have RNG but be more rewarding to people who rolled with more gold.

Mort's response

I love this question, the answer to this is yes. Is there a way to do this? Absolutely. But the way to do it isn't popular... This is a legitimate question and is something we should be doing to err on the side of players having fun. The problem is, the way to do this would be a hidden mechanic.

It would absolutely be a hidden mechanic, like behind the scenes we slightly increase the odds you hit units already on your board so that you try to hit things you want, but we try not to tell you because as soon as we tell you, you try to manipulate it.

So I actually agree with this question. The most recent case we discussed was: Tim came to me with a complaint, "I don't like level 9 right now because sometimes when you roll for 5-costs, you just don't get any 5-costs so it feels like level 9 isn't worth it." I love this complaint, and I think when you take a step back and analyze what's going on, take 50 games you hit level 9 and capture your rolldowns. My guess is around 33% of the games you're hitting a bunch of 5-costs, 33% you're hitting an average number of 5-costs, and 33% you're hitting a really low number of 5-costs and it feels like absolute garbage.

I believe what we should probably do is for level 9, we need to normalize 5-cost distributions and say low-rolls aren't allowed because players reach level 8 for 4-costs and level 9 for 5-costs. That's the player intent and we need to normalize the distributions so that players aren't having a shitty experience. But, this would be a hidden mechanic. How would players feel if we showed 5-cost odds as 10% but secretly it's 10% normalized to never be lower than 10% but sometimes can be higher? Some people would complain. But the reality is it would be a better game experience which is why I would say I would do something like that. Because hidden mechanics that make the game experience better are better for the game.

I guess I'm probably talking about something that maybe will come out some day but that's the kind of thing that is important for the game and I think can be good, and where hidden mechanics can be valuable for TFT. That's why I'll keep defending hidden mechanics.

Discussion

  1. Do you agree with Mort's point that hidden mechanics can sometimes be good for a game? Or are hidden mechanics always bad?

  2. Do you think a system that increases a player's chances to hit units they want (for example units already on a player's board) is good for TFT and for player experience?

  3. Do you think that a system that normalizes 5-cost odds on level 9 specifically to reduce lowroll games is good for TFT and for player experience? What about normalizing 4-cost odds on 8, 3-cost odds on 7, etc.?