User testing is important here. Take it with a grain of salt. Players are often children who want chocolate for dinner. There's no substitute for testing and feedback.
And user testing is so different than developer testing. Users have to learn from scratch and undergo the friction of learning a mechanic without context in basic and then more advanced forms. Whereas the game developer can often play their own game half-blindfolded and can correlate any particular game change with a section of code in one’s head.
Additionally, when you're talking about something novel, users usually play games through tropes. Violating their expectations is almost a crime. It has to be done carefully.
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