Combat Systems

[Dragoon]

Generally, what the best and most useful combat systems are there to use.

Generally, I divided between two types, static and chance.
Static is just comparing two stats (or even one stat) between cards while chance has a random factor. Generally, i find the static method easier and more tactical to use, but random combat is more fun.

What do others think? Are there any combat systems out there that are generally awesome?

[Ascent]

First off, randomness, contrary to the belief of those not experienced with it, does not inhibit strategy. It's all dependent upon the game's system and card design, not the random damage. While random damage introduces a random factor that can win or lose a game, overall, it has little bearing upon the actual strategy. That's why, no matter what the system, whether random or static, you still end up with the same type of cards and the same selection of stats. Though randomness does add additional fun in that you have to try to make up for deficiencies caused by the randomness and to take advantage of windfalls caused by it. That said, more emotional people and more control-oriented people tend to dislike it. Yes, static cards are easier, but not more tactical. Being easier to play, the tactics appear more straight-forward, which gives the illusion of being more tactical.

The most important factor to the use of strategy is the number of cards drawn (with some reliance upon the build engine). The greater the selection of cards in hand, the better a player can adapt to changes in the board position and the more chaotic play becomes. Inversely, the fewer the cards, the more random and uncontrollable the play will be, potentially relying solely upon deck construction and random card draw. Striking the balance for the game system involves finding that sweet spot in which deck design, card choice and playing strategy produces the best possible means to outsmart or overwhelm your opponent and for which limiting your opponent's draws and increasing your own draws with specific cards is not too inhibiting or too predicating upon deck design. A good balance will mean a wider variety of deck types, beyond simply the shear number of cards available.

For instance, Dragon Ball Z lets you draw only 3 cards, unless you have a card that lets you draw more. To produce cards that inhibit your opponent from drawing is a pretty unfair advantage in that situation, while it becomes almost essential to have cards that increase your card draw in order to gain some advantage. To cope with this, all cards are free, increasing your reliance upon the strategy of the card itself and deck construction than upon actual play, though some play strategy may still be evident...at times.

I have no example in mind of a game that draws more than 7 cards, so I'll just address the sweet spot for most games of 7 cards using my own favorite, Star Wars TCG. SWTCG starts with 7-8 cards and uses other cards to maintain approximately 7 cards. Though SWTCG uses a random rolling mechanic, the number of cards you have in hand is very valuable. In fact, one extremely influential player/designer for the game has put cards in hand (card choice) as more valuable than build points.

The opening setup is important to games that rely upon attrition. How many units get played in the setup adjusts how well each player can get their engines set up. More cards played means better engines. Few cards played causes a greater randomization in getting engines set up. (By "engine", I mean the build/draw[/other resources]/discard engine.) Thus a greater draw/build ratio in both setup and play reduces the random quality of the game. So it's not a good thing to have too few or too many. Again, it's about the sweet spot.

So it basically comes down to cards in hand and cards on the board are what make any game more or less strategic.

[Cyrus]

Good response, although I think you answered the question and then started answering a whole bunch of un-asked ones

I do second what Ascent said though. I think people get too scared of random combat systems (or random anything systems, really) and think that it takes away from all the strategy in the whole game. Obviously that isn't the case. If anything, systems with random elements capture the actual feel of combat better than non-random systems.

Ascent, I know you're really involved with the SWTCG, but have you ever played the Decipher game? In it your resources and cards you draw come from the same pile, so you can choose to either have more choices in hand or more points to play them with. Hands with 10+ cards aren't that uncommon (although there are cards that punish you for having so many cards in hand).

In the Decipher SW game there is a really interesting randomizing mechanic for battle. During battle each player reveals a card from the top of their deck and it becomes their Destiny draw for the battle (and you can add more of them with card's effects and such). Every card in the game has a Destiny number, and better cards usually have lower Destinies. As you can probably imagine this really affects a lot during deck construction. So its sort of random, but essentially all up to the player

[Ascent]

I have played it, actually. Yeah, the draw mechanic was good. We've actually tried to emulate that on occasions as an alternative random mechanic not limited by 6-sided dice and is somewhat controllable. It hasn't caught on, but we could still explore it further in the future. Though we have a few cards that can control what goes on top of a deck. We even just finished an expansion a couple of weeks ago that will utilize stacking the deck on 5 of the cards. So if we make more cards that use the cards for a randomization mechanic, then we'll need to make sure the person shuffles first, which is kind of a hassle. But yes, it's a good randomization mechanic as long as you don't have cards that let you stack the deck.

My whole argument was for balancing the number of cards drawn to maintain a strong tie to strategy and tactics. SWCCG wasn't really my cup of tea, but it's a decent game. I'm not a fan of having more stacks than your deck and discard pile. I've also fought to make sure we don't bring back cards that have been removed from game. There's no point to having 2 discard piles and little way to actually remove a card permanently in that arrangement.

[Dragoon]

Thanks for the insights.

Currently I am working on a dice system. (I believe this was discussed with cyrus) You roll five d6's and assign them to cards. You can assign all d6 to a single card or spread them. Certain cards will want low dice roll for most powerful effects, while others may want higher rolls. Anyway, each dice you roll will have an effect, though it might not always be the one you want.

comments?

[Malagar]

@Dragoon

I had a game concept quite similiar to your idea. have to search my notes, then i could show you some designs and rules. the basic concept was a fantasy wargame where the units have six small rules boxes, each tied to a die result instead of attributes like attack or defense. sorry, the explanation is fuzzy - but maybe you get the idea:

when you attack, you roll as many d6 as there are attacking units. then you distribute the dice on your units - usually only one d6 on one unit, but there are larger units that let you roll 2 or 3 dice - and you may place more than one die on them.

instead of attributes, the text boxes defined the results - labelled from 1 to 6. example:

dwarf warrior
1 - counts as 1 movement point
2 - counts as 1 defense point
3 - counts as 1 defense point
4 - counts as 1 attack point
5 - counts as 2 attack points
6 - counts as 3 attack points

depending on what you are doing (attacking, defending or moving) you have to allocate dice to the cards to gain maximum benefit. when attacking you have to allocate die faces 4, 5 or 6 to the dwarf to be effective. when defending you have to allocate 2s or 3s. when moving 1s. otherwise the allocated die is wasted.

so when you have 2 dwarf warriors, a elf archer and a war-machine in a group and you attack. you roll your dice and allocate them to the cards to get the maximum effect out of them (preferably attack point results). then your opponent rolls and allocates to get the maximum defense points in order to negate the attack. any excess attack points deal damage to his unit cards.

there where also special results like: "roll the die again" or "force your opponent to roll again" or whatever.

the system is very random and resulted in a "dice fest" game with little strategy, but it works fast and is easy to learn once you got the idea.

i have to check my notes, maybe i put the rulebook and a template up on my website to give you more insights.

BTW: my new website is up and i keep filling it with information about my projects, maybe you like to check it out (see sig).

EDIT: just found a sample card on my external HD, please note that some fonts are missing and things are slightly out of place:

[Ascent]

Sweet card design.

[Cyrus]

Ha, glad I took this mechanic out of my game

I'd love to play a game that uses it though, or be part of a design team perhaps?

That card design is pretty effin sweet

[yudencow]

Malagar, What if the player has a replenishing resource pool of let's say: 5 mana. Instead of rolling dice, you assign mana before he attacks. each card responds differently to how much mana it can gather. You can stack mana on one card by not attacking with it. You can also place mana to defend a card from being destroyed by romving mana out of it instead of health. what do you think?

[Cyrus]

Malagar, What if the player has a replenishing resource pool of let's say: 5 mana. Instead of rolling dice, you assign mana before he attacks. each card responds differently to how much mana it can gather. You can stack mana on one card by not attacking with it. You can also place mana to defend a card from being destroyed by romving mana out of it instead of health. what do you think?

This might actually be a really cool idea for a resource mechanic... the more I think about it, the more versatile it gets.

[xchokeholdx]

Another system is the "point-buy-in" system.

Haven?t really seen any game using it, but it basically converts all your possible actions you take in a game (card draw, card play, movement etc) into points.

these points can be used in combat as well to increase a card's stats. So at the cost of limiting other game actions, you can increase your combat results. Static, but much more rewarding strategically than simple add+add numbers.

[Dragoon]

Interesting. Sounds pretty good.

Currently, I managed to buy a old copy of Netrunner, and it's pretty awesome I'm thinking to convert some of it's mechanics to a own game. (assymetrical play styles)

Another idea to tie in with those 'point' systems. Generally, you have no actions, but you can 'force' cards to do something, generating tokens. You can remove some of these tokens, but if you don't get rid of them all, they will hurt you a bit. Well, have a chance of hurting you then, making it a bit risk management systems.

[Malagar]

@yudencow

very good idea actually. it would totally screw my old design, but you could build a new game around this concept. this takes out random chance completely and replaces it with a fast, clean and very strategical resource management system.

@cyrus / @all

Hey guys, has anyone thought about a community project already?

[Ascent]

Define "community project".

[Dragoon]

I do believe we tried to make a card game with the whole community once. Emphasis on 'tried'.

Anyway, are there people who are interested in designing a asymmetrical ccg? PM me if you are interested and have spare time. (Contact me between 10 am - 9 pm GMT +1)