Hit 200 plays on my homebrew game design and half the playtesters hated it

So I've been working on this dungeon crawler card game for about 8 months now. Finally got enough confidence to run it at 3 different meetups last month. 200 plays total across maybe 30 people. But here's the thing - about half of them said the combat system was too complicated and took too long. The other half said it was the best part. Now I'm stuck. Do I simplify it and risk losing the people who liked it, or keep it complex and scare off new players? Anyone else hit a milestone like this where the feedback split right down the middle?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_william20d ago

Have you tried asking the players who hated it what exactly they found confusing?

the_jason20d ago

Did you try breaking down the combat into phases or something? I had almost the exact same thing happen with a board game I designed, half the group loved the resource management and the other half said it was way too much math for a fun night.