Hi everyone!

Today we wanted to start a section that some of you (just Insiders) might recognize. Today is the beginning of the "Question by the Devs". What is this? It will be a series of threads to ask to you, the community, for specific feedback about certain topics. Even though we have been reading all your feedback, we think it could be a nice way of gathering all the feedback of certain topics, not only for us but also for all of you to generate cool ideas that perhaps you didn´t think of (some kind of brainstorming).

Let´s dive into the first topic.

STATION CARDS

As you know, last week we released Wild Cards Update, and on this first "Question by the devs" we wanted to get your opinions and thoughts about this new feature we bring to the game.

Here are some "open" questions that we think could be nice as an starting point and to help people some guidelines or starting points

• What is your overall experience with the Station Cards? Are you happy? 
• Do you think this makes your game more significantly interesting? 
• Do you consider there are enough Station Cards, or do you keep seeing the same ones over and over. ?
• Are you happy with the synergies that it generates by the Station Cards? 
• Does this feature make you want to play more? 
• Do you have any ideas for other Station Cards? or other things that can interact with the feature, like a Beverage, chips or unlocks ? 
• Do you have in mind some Station Cards that need some love (buff), compared to others? > Balancing of the different effects 
• How do you feel about the usability of the feature User Experience? Was it clear for you? Do you have any suggestions to improve it? 

As I mentioned, those are some questions as example, but please do not hesitate to share any additional feedback you have about the Station Cards.

We will be having around some members of the team reading all your feedback :)

Have a nice day ^-^

I like this cards as they are introducing variations to the play.

From my side the least useful cards are the ones giving resources +50. I would replace them to do like +1 or +2 to the resource per door opening.

Copy pasting the feedback I sent on the steam forums

Hi, feedback time

These are actually notes I took while playing. I couldn't try and unlock everything yet, but those are some thoughts I had. , sorry,  I tried to shorten it and organize by cards groups, but sometimes I comment on specific stuff. Anyway...

Crystal Shove Effects:

Cool addition, very useful overall and can be a real run saver. I just played with the one that makes you invulnerable and only once, but my feeling is that it's effect should have a visual feedback of when it is active. Maybe a vfx on the turret bot or changing the border of the screen. Or Visual feedback on the effects it create (if they aren't there already), idk. But I felt it was confusing of wether some of its effects were still going on. I didnt see if this shove effect is applicable when bot is mining or interacting with the bosses (like red dead eye boss fight), that is something I wanted to check but didn't have the opportunity to.

Special Turret Slot:

♥♥♥♥♥♥ loved these ones. The -70% construction cost on special turret slots is soo so good (but kinda OP, actually). The special turret slot thing was an awesome addition. It actually creates another approachable way on how to play the turrets game. It alters your gameplay and rewards you for adapting. It has great synergy and interaction with other cards and cool interactions with district debuffs too. The special turret slot cards are by far the best ones for me. Individually they are very good, but synergy and interaction wise they are great. They enable (kinda) new gameplay but don't limit you to it. Very happy about it. *chef’s kiss*

About the +1 level on turrets built in special turret slot. This one feels good. I don't know how valuable it actually is because I don't really understand all the aspects of how levels buffs every turret (besides the obvious visual ones, like range). But, if I already pick the -70% construction cost card I tend to pick this one as a complement and they actually feel very nice together.

Resource On Pick Cards:

I think this is good as a last option if the other cards don't seem that useful. This could be a priority pick if there were resource% based buffs in game, like the kip cannon from dote. So I could prioritize a burst in science (for example) to try getting a window advantage early game exploiting the resource% based mechanic. The one that appeared to me was the +50 industry. This allows me to hard focus on another resource early-run since industry is a must later on. It also could potentially save your run with the don't choose generator beverage if you got really unlucky. It also helps counter the -2industry” district debuff. If this would have appeared to me late-run I think it would be useful, but not as much as other type of cards I have seen. I also think this could be useful if you plan on buying stuff on the merchant, now that I know merchant currency is tied to district (if I understood it correctly) - A little of topic, having this merchant currency thing explained in game could be cool too. Also, an idea for a saloon passive you unlock with scraps: Allows you to use another currency to buy with the merchant, with a % conversion fee.

Explosive Tanks Cards:

Didn't try it, although they seem interesting. But I think the respawn one is a must If I wanted to go this way, since the explosive tanks are rather unreliable. But those cards try to give the tanks another tactical layer and this is very very welcome. I’ll try those in the future and be back with more feedback

Medikt Usage Perma Buffs:

the permanent buffs on medikit usage is also super refreshing, it actually altered my gameplay because mid-run I found out that I had enough food to buy a ton of medkits to superbuff my char in a way that spending this amount of food on upgrades wouldn't achieve anymore. I would really love to see more things like this one. Maybe one around doors opened or doors closed, so you have a nice buff early-zone and as you progress through the level you get weaker. Kinda like a Powerspike window of opportunity. So if you find any hard encounters (research modules and mining are the only things now), for example, you would want to trigger it as soon as possible. I would also enjoy “mission cards” that only activate after completing said mission.

Research and Vendor Cards:

I didn't use them and I didn't really knew why until I wrote this note. One reason is that I think other cards I could choose were more meaningful in their direct effects or possibilities they could open. The second reason is the low viability of 90% of turrets. So picking a card that will give me a random turret is super not worthy imo. Third one is that the vendor is not that expensive and not that reliable too. If there were at least one SUPER ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GOOD item somewhat guaranteed on vendor this would be different. If, for example, when you redraw the vendor options, the tier of the items was guaranteed to increase every reroll (alongside with their price), this could be interesting. This would create a scenario where you could spend a ton of dust on the vendor to buff the options and then use the card to get a huge discount on something. Kinda of gambly, but anyway, just a random thought

Turret Tankiness Cards:

They look good overall. Especially the regen one. I heavily prioritize this ability, one of many reasons why I love sweeper. I think turret tankiness could be super broken, because (theoretically, I still didn't test it) you could use this as a way to slow down and break the wave in two (the ones that go for turrets and the ones that ignore it). Kinda of a jelly but way more effective. But again, still have to test it. At the same time, these could be indirect buffs to squish characters that don't have hard cc or survivability (or have it dependent on turrets) but need to hold a point by their own. I enjoyed these cards, they open some good possibilities for future content.

Also, about the +15ReturnDamage on turrets: I don't think there are many things that heavily exploit this in the game besides bunker, so having this appear in turrets is refreshing, but I would love to see more things that use this. Maybe a passive that applies armor shredding, small explosions, elemental crit effects, roots or other things triggered by return damage. This could lead to more build diversity.

And about the 5hp/s regen on turrets: I found it when playing with the “pepper punch” beverage, so it was extremely useful alongside with sweeper's turret regen. Having it on the entire zone rather than only on rooms really made my last level easier (when I got it). But even without the beverage or the zone debuff with similar effect, I think it's very useful overall. It makes turrets way more tanky and so makes wit characters more tanky indirectly. It is one of those cards that only changed my gameplay cause I was on pepper punch, but it is still very useful even on “normal” conditions, just not super game changing out of those few scenarios, what is super super ok, it has its place, a strong one and not everything has to be awesome in every situation (acid long-range turret reading this ).

Turret Boost (the shove thing) Cards:

I didn't take them, I usually only remember to shove my turrets when they are low hp and always with the healing aspect of the shove in mind. And I’m a sweeper lover. I think that a lack of understanding (quality and quantity wise) how shoving buffs the turrets is a main reason. Another one is that I usually have to micromanage a lot as I play solo, so I don't prioritize shoving for the boost, just for the heals. I think this could change with more understanding of boost numbers (and maybe more visual feedback, idk). I would say that more boosting mechanic related builds could help too, but that's exactly what those cards propose to do and I still didn't use them. I couldn't play much before giving this feedback, so this is an important thing to keep in mind. I’ll try doing a turret boosting run in the future and come back with more.

Usability Questions:

some things that weren't clear to me in the beginning but I figured out, but other may not have the time to, and questions that are still unclear for me.

-Do cards stack?

-Do debuffs stack?

-How can I check what is currently active or not?

-Medikits usage permabuffs are for the character that takes the medkit or entire party?

-How RNG is it? Cards appears or not if other cards are picked? Are there district or level especific cards? (maybe if the game had zone especific mechanics we could have zone especific cards, an idea)

-What happens when I have a lvl 3 turret researched, install it on the special slot with +1lvl card and in addition I upgrade it from combat experience? Does it go to lvl5? What does it even mean in numbers?

Almost ending, I promisse:

I think it did make the game better. Like, Way better, I even turned my review to positive (yaaaayy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ). But it also made the game easier, I will try to do a run choosing the most scary zone debuffs to see how I handle it. But, I would love to see more difficulty levels or challenges. Would Love to see this applied to an endless mode too. Maybe stacking cards but having more district debuffs challenges. Thoughts for the future.

I think the card system has a huge potential to be build defining. But, I don't think it would handle being the only build definer system in the game. Part because its rng, part because the more builds you try to implement in the game, more cards you would need and harder it would be to actually build the character. At the same time, if you give enough control to choose the cards, the system loses its “wild card” aspect.

Buuuuut, if you guys actually want to give more control over the cards that could appear, you could put a “choose a card” thing in the Quioske (?) vendor (the guy who sell chests for scraps). Maybe we could redraw cards using scraps during the run too if its ok to use scraps out of the saloon, idk. But, again, I do think the cards system is awesome and I do think it shouldn’t be the main build defining system in the game. This last part is heavely personal and a highly biased opinion :

Anyway, very very happy with this patch!! Thanks for it  thanks again for being open to feedback and have a nice week everyone!!

The end… for now :evillaugh 

Station cards add an amount of variance to gameplay, but there is not enough options to choose from within the pool now due to a lack of strength in some of the options. Some options are just that much of a clear choice over others.