Designing an idle gacha as a solo dev — how do you make the strategic layer deep enough that skill beats spending? Looking for design feedback.
Been designing an idle gacha for a few months, building it alone. The core question I keep wrestling with is how to make the counter and composition system deep enough that a smart F2P player can genuinely beat a whale running the wrong team.
What I landed on: 6 elemental types in a loop plus two sovereign types that only counter each other. On top of that a dimensional bonus for stacking same-faction heroes versus a type bonus for mixing best-in-class across factions. The meta shifts every time a new faction drops.
Does this kind of dual-layer strategy system actually work in practice or does it just create analysis paralysis for new players? Have you seen this done well or badly in games you've played?
Also genuinely curious how other solo devs handle the gap between concept art and real commissioned art when you're pre-revenue. Do you ship with placeholder art and replace it post-launch, or is that a dealbreaker for players?