Sorry this is part of the game. If it's mediocre and you don't need it, don't buy it. It's as much about push your luck and knowing what your oponent wants as it is about efficient deck building.
It's all about creating the feel. Consistant spelling has only existed for a few hundred years, and having a character named 'Samuel' or 'Mary' in a fantasy world without monotheism is linguistically absurd anyways. So giving characters fancily spelled names is a translation convention saying 'these characters come from a culture that is similar to, but not the same as, the culture that produced those names on Earth'. I'd argue that in some cases it's the most accurate way of naming characters in cultures inspired by Earth cultures.
We were playing Ascension with 3 new players (one me) and my friend who loves deckbuilding games is trying to teach the game (which takes forever) eventually I got the gist and explained to the other newbs, but eliminating any game terms and calling things blue points, red points and star points, and they got it.
I ruined the game for my friend by doing that.
A lot of pasty themed games the theme detracts from the game, and simultaneously saves it, by making it seem more complex than it is, which prevents people from seeing the basic design isn't very good.
Well, okay, the same applies if you buy a good card which reveals a card that's much better for your opponent than the card you just bought was for you. The choice of "mediocre" was to strengthen the point a bit. It would be silly not to buy a good card just in case it reveals something better, but I always feel that risk is there and that makes the game less fun for me.
And if the board has a bunch of cards that neither of you much want, you're stuck with a game of chicken with neither of your prepared to risk the other flopping something good.
I think I'd prefer a bit less luck, personally, so your plan doesn't get messed up because of the random card flop. I've seen a variation of Ascension where you have two rows of six cards - you can only buy from the bottom row, and the cards in the top row slide down to replace them. I like that idea better because you can make interesting decisions about whether a particular card is worth buying based on what it will make available to you or your opponent, rather than just gambling on random draw.
I like Netrunner. Netrunner is a game I enjoy. But gods, is it guilty of this. Not only do hand, deck and discard pile have fancy names, but they have different names depending on which side you'e playing! So the Runner has heap, stack and grip, while the Corporation has R&D, Archives, and HQ. It drives me mad.
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I'm a fan of Star Realms over Ascension. I agree that they are quite similar overall but Star Realms has a few advantages that lead to more interesting choices:
- Pairing up cards of the same color is a much bigger deal in Star Realms, so there is more of a shift to card valuation over the course of the game. However, this cuts both ways - if the blue card is good for me and bad for you, you should pick it up (unless you can blow it up) just to keep me from getting it. So it doesn't change the purchasing decisions as much as it could (in a 2P game, which is where Star Realms shines) but in situations where there is a mediocre red card vs. a good green card but one of you are heavy red...
- It seems that the card balance is slightly better overall in Star Realms
- The "trash this card for a benefit" mechanic is very prevalent - when do you pull the trigger?
You can say the same thing about science fiction. You need a balance, and if you're going to make up words, you need to present them in a context that makes it easier for the reader to infer the meaning of the world and not rely too much on exposition.
You also need to make up words in a smart way. Ins’tead of the us’ual 'dumb wa’ay.