u/RobbertGone

Math wasn't invented/discovered out of thin air. Usually theorems in textbooks are provided and immediately followed by the proof, then an example or a consequence. Repeat for next theorem. All good, but in history it wasn't anything like this. Where is the motivation for the definition? Why should we care? What were the problems that might arise with other definitions, what problem were we trying to solve in the first place? Also, what insight led to a proof? Proofs often skip over the actual thinking, they are presented as polished works but that means I can't see how someone would think of that (some books have 'scratchwork' which I like, or a motivation or chain of thought before the formal proof starts). All this stuff seems left out every time. Maybe the book is more elegant this way, but it lacks in flavor as a result. I think it would be much more interesting if textbooks had more content. Also how to deal with this?

Context: rogue deckbuilder games (in particular: grid battler if that matters). What are the pros and cons of a system with relic slots? In slay the spire you can have unlimited relics, which leads to lategame being wacky and fun but also more complex (which is neither a pro nor a con, it's subjective I think). But what about relic slots? I'm not sure which system to go for in my game that's why I ask. I'm thinking of giving the player N relic slots and if they have more than N relics they must make a choice which relic to put in their 'inventory' and which in the slots and they could change it at specific nodes. In theory it sounds fun and forces the player to think about the relic system and how they want to define their build whereas unlimited relics is no choice, you just get the relic and deal with it. But maybe relics being unlimited is also the point of that system, like, maybe 'dealing with it' is exactly what makes a relic system good, I don't know atm, there are too many thoughts running through my head regarding this topic that I don't know what to prefer.

One clear benefit of the slot system is that the UI is easier to manage since I don't need to reserve space on the screen for 10+ relics.

In my deckbuilder, some cards, I just know players will always have to read the tooltip and I wonder if that's a problem. An example is this ability on one of my cards: "Any time this attacks, it also deals its attack damage to a random surrounding unit". They will read the tooltip because some cards have "surrounding unit" while others have "surrounding ENEMY unit" and I expect it will be impossible to remember, so players will not know precisely what this card does until they reread the tooltip quickly. This reading will ofc take only a fraction of a second if you have used the card many times, but still, not sure if this is to be avoided or if it is fine.

In my (card battler / rogue deckbuilder) game, enemy encounters have a modifier sometimes. For instance normally a player draws 2 cards per turn, but in that specific modifier it is "draw cards until hand is full". That applies to one specific encounter. But there's also a relic that does "draw cards until hand is full". The relic would apply to all encounters and of course you will not have that relic each run. Is it fine if a modifier and relic intersect like that?

Are there downsides? I don't see the issue. Rather than having a fixed deck of weak cards at the start, why not randomize the cards a bit and then let player replace N cards if they want to? The randomized cards would still be weak, taken from a specific pool of weak cards, and subject to some conditions, for instance atleast 1 defensive card, atleast 1 offensive, etc.

(Yes players can just restart the game until they get a good starting hand but this is easily preventable, e.g. if you lose or abandon in the first 3 fights then you can't mulligan next run)

I didn't know how to word 'final' better, but I mean: I have gone over my cards a few times and I always change things. The first time I just went for interesting abilities, but I forgot synergies, so the second round introduced synergies. But now I'm thinking that yeah it feels good in theory, but maybe I forgot other aspects, just like I forgot synergies. But those are unknown unknowns to me, I don't know if there are other aspects I should think about...e.g. I don't want overpowered cards, so I tried to fix that too, and same for underpowered cards. But it feels like I could do infinite iterations, like, there is nobody that says "ding ding ding, the problem is solved, this card is FINAL AND COMPLETE!"

If yes how many is too much for each? I know some players want to play around it, as in, if you know that act 2 has only 5 events you can kinda predict the next event. If act 2 has 50, you cannot do that. So some of the skill is gone (although IMO this type of skill is boring) and traded for more variety. This question arises after I saw that StS has only 50 ish events but 150ish relics and I don't understand why.

My game is years away from completion, but at some point I will have to start promoting it. I've read "social media" but that is so vague. Do they mean blogposts on niche subreddits? Or 5 second tiktok clips (I don't think that'll work for my game?)? Or substack? I can also create a discord but that sounds like something to do once you actually have a following already.

I'm making a deckbuilder and the card art is really important. I want to go for a gwent type of card art, which would fit well with the game. However, I have 300 cards and I looked it up, apparantly a single card costs like $500, which would mean $150k for everything. This is unaffordable for me, I can't spend $150k on something I don't even know will make a single penny.

As a result I can either make the art style cheap instead, but that would make the game less fun if you enjoy looking at card art, or I can go with AI art but that obviously also has downsides. I can't reduce the number of cards. What should I do? Or is there some way that my $150k estimate is off? Maybe I should have cheap beta art? But at the same time the first impression is important so if it looks cheap that will also not be received well.

It's in the same pool as the other gemini models but what is the use case for it? I always default to flash and then now we got the option to switch between low/medium/high. I don't even understand the difference between the models if I'm being honest.

I always have a special interest that lasts for months where I'm really intense with it but then it completely dies down and I couldn't care less about it. This is super frustrating because I want to commit to goals but I can never stick with them. And then there's the imo awful advice that "motivation is fleeting, so just keep going" which leads to burnout. I need the motivation itself to last, I don't mean it needs to be like the super intense motivation but there needs to be some motivation. How do you handle this, if at all?

It's an online friendship, I will try to summarize. She joined our discord a few months ago, we hit it off, great banter, lots of similarities between us and talked about deep stuff in DM after the first month occasionally. But she has occasionally been getting annoyed at some of my questions, thinking they are bad-intentioned when they were not. I then try to explain my side but she interprets a lot of things negatively or in a wrong light. For instance if I ask her why she said X she would assume I am ridiculing her for saying X while I'm just curious, so then it leads to a conflict and then eventually it is resolved but this has happened a few times in the span of a month and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I have learned my lesson though: I shouldn't ask questions of a certain type, or atleast not yet, because she doesn't know me enough, or because I don't know her enough, for it to be comfortable. But so right now, after a few conflicts it feels like I don't know how she sees me, is the relation permanently damaged or not? We are both overthinkers as well. I just want it to be like it was again. Maybe just give it time? Maybe I need to be silent, or maybe I need to address it? I don't know the best approach.

So of course, I can attempt to introduce variety in my voice, but that comes at a price: energy. But MAYBE by forming a habit of talking with more intonation and energy in my voice, after a while it becomes the new normal and it doesn't cost energy compared to monotone voice? Does anyone have experience with this?