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31

CCG Design Forum / Re: Chosen CCG - A game of hero vs hero combat

« on: May 27, 2012, 10:46:54 AM »

I feel that the amount of strategic decisions you make in a game decides how interesting that game is. Since it's primarity trading blows, there has to be + and - in every decision so it doesn't turn into a button masher (in this case, card masher).

Defences
Defences seem varied enough to keep it interesting. Let's look at the pros and cons of each choice:

Blocking:
(+) Negates a set amount of damage, % to negate the entire damage
(-) Maybe blocks are cheaper or more reliable, safe to use
Dodging:
(+) Negates the entire damage
(-) More costly to use than blocking, maybe even a coin flip to decide a successful dodge
Interrupting:
(+) If I understand correctly, negates the entire damage as well
(-) Returns card to player's hand

I think interrupt can be made even more interesting, maybe something like a counter? Not exactly negating damage but a free small hit. Or maybe something from Digimon World 2's Interrupt moves, like a counter, but you hit first. If you want to keep it purely defensive, perhaps it's a safer dodge in that it negates damage, returns card to the player's hand BUT the energy is refunded, sort of postponing the damage instead of blocking it.

Speed
Speed reminds me of this game: Elemental Duel. His game is similar to yours in that you're trading blows instead of summoning creatures, and an attack's speed will decide who's will hit, though in his system, slower attacks just don't hit at all instead of being second to damage.

Perhaps speed is a nice addition, adds more strategic choices, but different from Elemental Duel it just decides who goes first. A slow block will be useless against a fast attack, and so will a fast weak attack that kills you off before you deal a strong slow attack.

Secondary Resources
How about taking inspiration from Torchlight 3? Where different classes have a different charge bar that fills up as you fight. Berserkers get to deal 100% crits when his bar is full (and ONLY when full), while the Engineer's skills get a buff depending on how full his bar is, but even a 1/4 full bar already has an effect

More here: Torchlight 2's Charge Bar

Maybe each class has a different charge bar. A rogue gets an energy discount, warriors deal extra damage, priests have reduced damage, mage's have magic attacks boosted, etc.

I'll just post this for now, you have a LOT of things to read here.

EDIT: I still haven't read everything, but that last post about Meteors inspired me.

If you decide to implement a Charge Bar, maybe Mage's will be a class that relies on this bar. Instead of charging the spell itself, the Meteor spell can only be used at a certain Charge level and reduces it by a certain amount (the casting cost). That way, you don't need extra stuff like charge counters for the card, just on the mage.

Other than a casting cost, maybe spells become more powerful when you have even more Charge, and so effectively playing the mage means maintaining your Charge Bar, just like you would maintain mana in MMOs

32

CCG Design Forum / Re: Heroes of the Fallen

« on: May 27, 2012, 04:14:39 AM »

I'm not much of a CCG player, so I can't really say that I know what I'm saying. Just take this as a layman's opinion.

First thing that stuck me was the number of cards needed to play this game. 50 for the equipment deck sounds too much, unless of course a majority of that high number WILL be used (Though this strikes me as a really really long game to play).

Second thing was the equipment rarity. I assume rare equipment will be better than everything else, perhaps enough to turn the tides of play. With only a 2% (1 out of 50) chance of getting it at all, that may leave too much to luck.

Third, a question. Do you get pre-made (from the game) decks for each race (and you can only pick one to play), or do you build your own but only allowed one or two races in the same deck, or a free-for-all?

Fourth thing was, what kinds of strategic decisions you make. MTG has you knowing what to put down at what time, their targets and the lands you must have for mana, for example. Here, the ability memorization is interesting, especially if discarding an ability will have + and - consequences. The rest however, feels just like simple combat, a battle of "who has the better stats".

Hope it helps

33

CCG Design Forum / Re: Research & Development: CCG centered around fusion [Working Title]

« on: May 26, 2012, 10:28:14 AM »

Will the game have instant-type cards? If so, when you gain a level you could place an instant on top of the stack, and now you can play it every turn instead of just once. Does that make sense?

As far as card halves I think making a bunch of generic ones for each side and letting people literally build their own attack force would be cool (so you could do strong + strong, or strong + evasion, or evasion + utility, etc).

Cool ideas! Hope to see it go far

That actually sounds like an awesome idea, kind of like how you craft your experience points into Characters in Strategy games (like various MMOs)

Alright, I'll address that one by one. Really excited about the feedback btw

Instant-type cards as level up powerups
I wanted to make a new type of card called Philosophy. To fit the theme, Philosophy is basically one of the gods, and since they oversee the test conditions of the battle, they would decide extra effects that happen in battle. A card will have 3 effects, each will trigger according to which level pile they put this card on. You're not allowed multiple copies of this card.

However, adding another type of card makes the game harder to balance. These cards will be outside the deck though, but that still means you cannot use instant effects as level up powerups. If I do use instants, I have to balance them so that it won't be overpowering when it can be used every turn.

Any suggestions on this? Keep the new Philosophy cards or just use instant effects as the powerups.

making a bunch of generic ones for each side and letting people literally build their own attack force would be cool
So if I'm correct, you're suggestion the cards just be illustrations, but players decide their stats and abilities? That is a possibility, but I'd like to avoid tokens and such. The game already plans to use dice, and that's complicated enough. Though if you're worried about how interesting the cards will be, I'd like your suggestions on that.

The cards have an element, health, attack, defense and an ability. Stats may be as low as 0, and a creature may not have an ability. Since there are no restrictions to combine cards, you're free to create a tank (hi-atk, hi-def, but no abilities), or mix abilities that let you be an attacker that heals, an attacker that drains health, an attacker that sacrifices itself to save other cards, etc. Would that be interesting enough?

Since creature halves have elements, you don't end up with just a fire creature, but perhaps a fire-water, fire-light, but also fire-fire. There has to be a strategic element to choosing what element goes with who at what time. A simple solution is to have abilities or effects that rewards certain combinations, but maybe a card type acts sort of like equipment, a skill you teach a creature. Example: the Fireball skill is equipped to a fire-water creature, and only does standard damage, but when equipped to a fire-fire creature, you get a chance to burn the opponent.

Evasion
I see a new stat being mentioned. The current combat mechanic is as follows:

Creatures have an attack & defense stat.
In the battlefield, attackers are upright and defenders turned upside down.
When it's your turn, you choose the target for each of your attackers, either attackers of the opponent or the player. You cannot attack your opponent's defenders directly.
When you attack attackers, it's your attack vs. their defense.
When you attack the player, it's your attack vs. the defender's defense.

How these stats damage, I'm thinking of borrowing the die roll mechanic of Summoner Wars.
If the attack stat of a creature is 2, he rolls 2 dice when he attacks.
Only rolls of 3 or higher is a hit, less is a miss. Defender also rolls to see how much damage he's blocked (so a creature with a defense of 5 will not shut down the attackers).
With evasion, it could be another stat in that it decides the minimal roll value to count a hit.

Questions:
- More stats = more work to do. Will it be too much work to balance?
- The same evasion value for attack AND defense or separate? Cause separate means double the balancing work

34

CCG Design Forum / Re: [HELP] CCG where creatures are halves instead of whole

« on: May 25, 2012, 06:55:57 AM »

I'm trying to avoid grade-ups. I played Pokemon a lot and know how Vanguard is played. An issue there is that if I end up with higher grade cards in my hand, it's a dead hand.

FIRST POST REVISED.

35

CCG Design Forum / Research & Development: CCG centered around fusion [Working Title]

« on: May 25, 2012, 04:24:04 AM »

Research & Development (RnD) [Working Title]

RnD is a game where players take the role of god-like creatures who spend their lives creating, testing and destroying universes, using unique creatures with combined traits to battle under grueling test conditions.

Main Mechanics
RnD's different playstyle includes several features:

• Creature Halves: Single creature cards are not single creatures, but half. Combine left-halves with right-halves to create a whole creature, or risk putting a cripped half-creature into battle.
• Level Up: Once each turn, you may put one card from your hand to the level up zone and turn it sideways. When you have 5 in the level up area, you may take a card with a level up effect and put it on top of those 5 cards. That effect is now available permanently (unless otherwise stated). There's a maximum of 3 levels, and after advancing a level you create a new stack of 5 below it.
• Deck as Life Points: When damage hits the player's life points, it discards that amount of cards instead.

Full rules here: Download Rulebook v.0
File also attached to this post.