Nahath

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.

 

So I was thinking about how to better align the rewards system with game longevity and maximum fun, and I think I came up with something good: a once-per-map reward for your first expert clear. For players who aren't amazingly good at this game, the first clear of an expert map is often a many-hour project with LOTS of failures and unrewarded time on the way there. This offers benefits to players for pursuing much more of the breadth the game has to offer, rather than excessive grinding on whichever map they believe is optimal.
If you really want to encourage variety you could even layer on additional rewards for each clear with a totally unique deck (i.e. no overlapping cards with any of the other decks you cleared it with). This really pushes players to try different things and move away from the easy-win strategies that rely on specific cards. Though this might be tough to implement on multiplayer maps.
Anyway, what do you think?

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.

 

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.

 

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.

 

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.

 

Nailed it on both points.

To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.