I don't want to make a game where the winner is determined by how willing the player is to spend money or play my game. I would rather have a game where the most important factors are how capable the player is, how prepared they are, and how good they are at adapting during play.

You want a game in which experience in the game does not dictate how well you do, but only how adaptable you are during play and how capable you are? Again, you are wanting entirely conflicting ideas... You wish for the experienced player to not have a huge advantage over a new player, while wanting a deep enough strategy that someone good at preparing and adapting can defeat an experienced player.

I dont believe thats true. It should be deep strategy and anyone capable of strategic thinking should have an edge. The rules should be easy to learn and master, and even a new player should be able to play relatively well.

Chess is pretty balanced and it is considered fun

Go is a better example, as that is actually very balanced and is definitely fun. However, comparing perfect information two player board games to a TCG is a very poor comparison.

Anyway, so far, it sounds like you don't have much of a game to be honest. My suggestion is to go and make up some mock cards and play-test them (even if that means sitting playing on your own or forcing friends to play it all evening against their will. Hint: Bribe them with beers). You might then have some ideas upon what exactly you want, rather than this mess of conflicting ideas and vagueness.

I meant from player to player, it is balanced. The only imbalance being who starts. WIthin my game not all cards are of equal value, just they all have the same constraints. everything in reality operates under the same laws but they aren't all the same. I cant honestly tell what you are suggesting, it seems you are suggesting to not have a system at all and just make things up. But that would result in a total mess... and given how inherently unfair it is, no player will have fun for long.

That is not what I am suggesting.

Also, your understanding of 'game balance' is flawed if you fail to see the difference between symmetrical gameplay and actual value of individual pieces. Once again, as per a TCG, chess is drastically unbalanced in the pieces it fields. It is only because the environment is controlled (symmetrical in this case) that this does not hinder gameplay.

Another way to explain this would be: you have 16 pts to spend, each piece costs you 1 pt. There is a dominant strategy if you choose to go for 15 queens and a king (and your opponent goes all pawns for example). In this regard, chess is highly unbalanced, but the controlled environment circumvents the need for an actual economy balancing.

In other words, bringing chess into a TCG argument is very clumsy at best.

As for suggesting chaos, let me quote my original reply:

Having every card answer to an intrinsic 100 points system would be a baseline,

As I mentioned, having a system in mind is the ideal goal, but you have to know you'll need to break your own rules for it to truly work. And that's assuming your original system handles true value, not theoretical value.

One of the TCGs that I've designed used a point system on each card that both determined its value, and was somewhat related to its cost. Most of the original pts cost was theoretical (and flawed). Through playtesting it extensively, I've adjusted on a card-by-card basis based on what appeared flawed and dangerous. Some cards ended up overpriced if only by fear that they could've broken the game altogether.

As a starting rule I've set out to avoid this. So while many tcg's are operated under this model, it doesn't have to be so. And it will not be so in my game. I will make an ethical game that is enjoyable. And players will want more cards to offer them more and deeper strategies, and stronger more optimised decks to face their opponents with, not just buying new boosters to get the newest overpowered cards. I want every card I ever design for the game to have a place regardless of how much time passes and how many new cards are introduced.

When I say that Pay2Win is an inherent part of TCGs, I did not necessarily mean that everyone set out for it to be that way. I've known of several attempts at TCGs that are 'fair' and provide more sidegrades than actual power curves. My assessment was simply that, to this day, I have yet to see one that works.

Studies indicate that a lot of TCGs' appeal has to do with this power creep, and so, while it may appear like an undesirable outcome of money hungry corporations, it is to be noted that it is also core to the appeal of the genre. In fact, removing all form of pay 2 win from TCGs altogether would risk alienating the genre to the point that the target audience would not longer feel it works.

What I think you are overestimating is the will of players to invest in 'new ways' when they already have found an optimal way. Without certain powercreep, the metagame will remain largely unchanged, and this can quickly hurt your game ecosystem (people will leave the scene by lack of change).

In a nutshell, there's a lot more to 'pay 2 win' in TCGs than you might think, and choosing to do 'without it' may not reconcile fully with making a TCG in the first place.

The idea of giving each card "100 stat points" implies that all cards have the same type: for example, all cards are creatures that can be sent into battle with other creatures.

This should not be the case: a more complex game should have vastly different and incommensurable card types. For example, along with minor types, Yu-Gi-Oh has monsters and "traps", Magic: the Gathering has permanents (including creatures and other types of useful things) and two (formerly three) types of one-shot spells, and many games have "resource" cards that are necessary but usually don't do much, like lands in M:tG, energy in Pokémon, stones in Force of Will, etc.

Varied cards allow for more complex strategies, which would be compared against each other on more abstract grounds: how many turns and how many cards to win, how easily can the plan be disrupted, what popular/likely deck types are strong or weak against this deck, and so on.

Even within a single card type there's ample room for strong and weak cards.

A typical pattern, common in M:tG, is that powerful cards cost more to play and there's a tradeoff between playing big spells to amortize the cost of spending a card by having that card do more, and playing cheap spells to make an impact in the early turns; M:tG deck design usually consists of fitting the most suitable cards to a list of how many cards there should be at a given cost.

Another pattern is using weak cards as a stepping stone towards playing strong cards; for example, many great monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh are played faster or exclusively by assembling, replacing, sacrificing etc.the appropriate entry-level monsters.

You want a game in which experience in the game does not dictate how well you do, but only how adaptable you are during play and how capable you are? Again, you are wanting entirely conflicting ideas... You wish for the experienced player to not have a huge advantage over a new player, while wanting a deep enough strategy that someone good at preparing and adapting can defeat an experienced player.

Thats not what I said. And it is conflicting in what way? I said I want the main factors to be the players abilty to adapt and evolve their play style and strategies throughout the course of a match. Rather than the main factor being how much time they spend playing. Though of course experience will improve their skills at the game, but a player who has spent 100 hours playing against easy opponents and spending money shouldn't dwarf a player who spent 20 hours playing very skilled players, and designing an optimal deck for various stratagems and opposing deck types.

Relative to what?

Relative to other players. As in starting off you get a major boost, but becoming increasingly skilled is far more difficult? balance for skill, the 80/20 rule, and all that jargon. It shouldn't be a linear progression.

Go is a better example, as that is actually very balanced and is definitely fun. However, comparing perfect information two player board games to a TCG is a very poor comparison.

IT was just a proof of concept, I could think of many games that are fun despite being balanced.

Anyway, so far, it sounds like you don't have much of a game to be honest. My suggestion is to go and make up some mock cards and play-test them (even if that means sitting playing on your own or forcing friends to play it all evening against their will. Hint: Bribe them with beers). You might then have some ideas upon what exactly you want, rather than this mess of conflicting ideas and vagueness.

I have the main concepts I think, but I keep trying to simplify things without effecting the complexity too greatly. My main issue is in making field cards fairly. If I can get that down I will be able to prototype the game and such.

As for playing with friends, I don't really have any these days. As for what I want, I want the game to be similar to how I imagine it now, only problem is coming up with cards in a reasonable way, otherwise it will just be a mess. Thats why I need some system, otherwise I cant make the field cards and thus the rest becomes pointless, as victory is determined by holding the field.

Also, your understanding of 'game balance' is flawed if you fail to see the difference between symmetrical gameplay and actual value of individual pieces

both players in chess have the same pieces. The only difference is who starts.

And I only brought it up as it proves that balance can result in fun. THough yes, I do appreciate that a pawn and a queen are different in value... not sure why that even needs to be said. The field is balanced, each player is almost exactly equal. The rest is entirely besides the point.

As I mentioned, having a system in mind is the ideal goal, but you have to know you'll need to break your own rules for it to truly work. And that's assuming your original system handles true value, not theoretical value.
One of the TCGs that I've designed used a point system on each card that both determined its value, and was somewhat related to its cost. Most of the original pts cost was theoretical (and flawed). Through play testing it extensively, I've adjusted on a card-by-card basis based on what appeared flawed and dangerous. Some cards ended up overpriced if only by fear that they could've broken the game altogether.

I would play test the cards after initial design, and adjust through initial stages of testing, the point cost associated with each of the main components. And through further play testing, the cost of unique abilities and the likes.

Studies indicate that a lot of TCGs' appeal has to do with this power creep

can you cite this study?

The idea of giving each card "100 stat points" implies that all cards have the same type

this system would be for cards of the same type. There are several cards types in my game. This is for the field cards, the cards that are played to the grid. THe other card types are support types, such as items,equipment, elemental, etc. For the field type there would be beasts, grand beasts, characters, war machines etc but they would all fundamentally behave the same way.

Another system would be used for designing support cards. The main cost would be turns it takes to use.