Can you explain what a typical game state is like? What cards are played "together"? For example, what falls into traps? What do buffs apply to? Does the player have to choose between attack and defense? What's the purpose of colours?
Can you explain what sort of decisions the player makes while playing? In a typical card game doing something useful with random card draws is a large portion of strategy and flavour. If you can play any card in the deck, strategies degenerate.
Even if you make players reveal played cards simultaneously, I'd expect them to guess not the opponent's style, but what cards they have or not in the deck, easily reaching a fairly simple Nash equilibrium in which one player, completely at random, has a superior strategy and the other can only lose because of their card choice.
Balance by making the deck too large to be consistent, as frob describes, is the common approach of M:tG, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Force of Will, and in a different way Dominion because it is flexible, more fun and strategically deeper: any overly powerful card is diluted, any strategy is a general guideline rather than a trivial rule, deckbuilding involves choosing how many copies of a card are appropriate and balancing different needs.
Thank you for these questions. They're pretty comprehensive, but I'll try to keep my answers short while still being descriptive.
The typical game state is the players' hitpoints, and any traps or buffs on the table.
Cards of equal tier are played together, that is, both players reveal their tier 1 cards simultaneously, then their tier 2 cards at the same time, etc.
Buffs apply to other cards, increasing their potency or fulfilling pre-requisites for their use. "Rage: +2 damage for any attack card in this exchange." "Wield Blade: Enable the Use of attacks with 'bladed' keyword until disarmed or withdrawn." They are meant to simulate anything a combatant may do to benefit themselves which is a direct attack or defense.
The player must always choose between Attack, Defense, Buffing and Trapping. They do not have focus exclusively on one, however they will need to balance their options in each category based on the deck they've built and weigh them against what the opponent may anticipate them doing next.
The colors are simply to categorize Atk, Def, Buff and Trap for simplicity's sake or representation, though that may change and they could be used to differentiate keywords/attributes in to categories.
I'm looking for a way to balance the game while giving the player very specific control of what cards they're choosing to play. I understand a large deck creates unpredictability, is it possible that a smaller deck could create a great deal of predictability, and leave the vagaries entirely between the minds of the players? Can I make chess with a CCG?
Though some degree of unpredictability does seem like it'd be necessary so that two people can play over and over with different results, which 'Chess' doesn't always support.
It does sound like, from what you're saying there needs to be some sort of locking in mechanism, either forcing you to pick our 4 cards for an exchange before hand, or keeping cards played in Buff or Trap exchanges out of play until the Buff/Trap is taken care of.
What you describe might work out, or it might not.
A common trap for beginning designers is to make mechanics far more powerful than necessary. The reasoning is that if a mechanic is fun and powerful, why not take it to an extreme? Unfortunately it makes it very easy to destabilize a game. Even in major products like MtG and YuGiOh where designers are careful to constrain power, there are cards that they print and then players discover ways to make them overpowered.
As mentioned, the best part is that it only takes a few minutes with your printer and paper cutter to get you testing the idea.
I see. I think I've really underestimated what is necessary to balance a CCG. You need a really strong framework and to keep cards within that framework, so that you don't have to go back and check every card with every combination (though ideally you should do that too).
One way I'd hope to avoid this kind of power creep is to make every card with an easily accessible weakness at its Tier (based on card types)and a very specific weakness at the tier below (based on keywords). Though perhaps that can lead to the same thing if that specific weakness at the lower tier is also effective against lots of stuff at that tier, then it's more powerful than any other combination at that tier.
In those cases though, what I'm thinking is, if that is now the dominant strategy in an exchange, then the game becomes about anticipating that strategy, it becomes, in a way, a rock paper scissors. Are they playing the new dominant strategy that negates my dominant strategy? I know exactly what that combo is, so I can negate it, or even take advantage of it this round, but what if they aren't playing it because they know I'm abou to play it?
That's the kind of play I want to create.
Rule 9 refers to cards not always being easy to acquire, not find in your desk. While there are 16 kinds of Tier 2 cards, each kind can have multiple Attributes/Keywords that are needed for Tier 3 and 4 cards. Same with Tier 1 cards, for that matter. And so if your Tier 4 cards follow certain predictable paths, then those paths can be headed off or negated by Traps and Defenses. So, I think one thing I would use to 'control' the game and force a back and forth would be the idea of negation. A Def-Def can handle most attacks and a Def-Def-Def can handle most traps and buffs.
A number of interconnected bad ideas here.
- The severe pay to win situation of losing, and not being able to build the desired deck, because you just haven't bought enough cards, compounded by rules that reward extremely specific cards (making them extremely sought after).
- Artificial card tiers and "Attributes and keywords" instead of a meaningful and interesting game metamodel. Think of the mileage Magic: the Gathering gets out of the simple concept of attacking the opponent and defending from attacks using creatures: thousands of cards that are creatures themselves, that become creatures, that make creatures, that damage creatures, that remove creatures, that save and protect creatures, that attach to creatures, that buff creatures temporarily and permanently; cards that affect combat as a whole, that interfere with attacking and blocking, that mess with combat damage, that can only be played during combat; creature abilities that make a genuine difference by altering attacking, blocking, combat damage, power and toughness and other basic creature mechanics; cards that care about genuinely important creature attributes like power, toughness, type, casting cost, abilities. Monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh, although less varied, have an even more central role as an interaction medium between the cards in one's deck.and between players.
- Cards like the mentioned Def-Def-Def that are trivially and obviously too useful to be a meaningful choice. Who wouldn't like a perfect defense as often as possible? Strategy needs insufficient resources: the Def-Def-Def enthusiast must be exposed to some kind of threat because of overspecialization. Playing cards without needing to draw them first can mitigate the consequences of overspecialization almost completely, which is fatally bad for strategy.
Thank you, this is very helpful.
The metamodel I'd like to simulate is a close quarters fight between two people. That is, every attack card, is a specific strike, e.g. "Bumrush" and every defense card is a specific defense e.g. "block". "Block" may be a tier 1 defense, which is effective against tier 1 and 2 attacks with keywords of 'strike.' In a game, if opponents reveal these cards, the player who chose to defend is struck, because blocking doesn't help you against a charge attack. However, at Tier 2, things may be different, as the attacking player may follow up with a striking attack which is ineffective, and the defending player may choose to attack and is successful, OR the attacking player may choose to defend, and so the Tier 2 aspect of the defending player's Tier 1 defense is wasted and their Tier 2 attack is blocked, again, depending on if the keywords match up, simulating the idea of the attacking being applicable or not. That's the kind of play I'm trying to create. You know what the other player can do, just as if you were a martial arts master in a fight with a Samurai, but you don't know what they will do, and your ability to anticipate their moves is most key.
Of course, I haven't really created much of that, so that kinda shows me where I've fallen short of what I'm trying to do.
In the case of cards that are trivially overpowered, the idea of attributes or keywords or all defenses not being the same means that for every particular flavor of Def-Def-Def there is a specific flavor of Atk-Atk-Atk that can overcome it, and worse, that if the opponent anticipates a Defense-heavy play, they can use that play to buff and set up next attack for something that will overcome defenses, or set up Traps that will neutralize any further attacks from the defensive player, thus Def-Def-Def may be a virtually sure bet for this round, but you also risk giving your opponent an advantage next round, if they anticipate what you're doing. And this kind of anticipatory play is what I'd like to happen not just each round, but at every tier.
You also make a good point that tiers aren't as concrete as I'd like them to be. The idea is that when you are fighting, there are moves that are dependent on other moves that come before them, and the "higher tier" a fighter you are, the more sophisticated your strings. A beginner can do any single move on command. An advanced practioner can use a feint to encourage a false defense to set up a stronger attack. A master can launch a counter attack that depends on them being in the proper stance in reaction to a specific anticipated attack from their opponent. That's the insufficient resource, you cannot counter every card they can play, and so you need to counter the most cards and hope for the best, or figure out what card it is they're going to play and counter that.
I think what I'm forming is the idea that the first match between two people, where they feel out each other's fighting styles is very much about testing each other's decks for combinations and ways to overcome them, where as after several battles, the game starts to look more like Chess, with the added caveat that you never know when the opponent has changed their pieces a bit. Of course, this goes back to the game-state question, which means there needs to be something more permanently on the field.
I'm wondering if this is balanceable at this point, it seems as though I'm leaning towards having hundreds of combinations to anticipate, and I have no idea how to balance that. So, I definitely appreciate you pointing out the problems.
One more note on the rule #8 - making the whole deck available for play will create exactly the situation you want to avoid (players look at each other's decks and declare winner). There should be some luck required for any card game (collectible or not) so player with less skill or worse deck can sometimes win. For this reason exists deck building used to draw limited cards to hand for play. Without it each game would be like chess where one of the players has 6 queens and 4 rooks. No amount of strategy or skill can make him loose if he is half-competent player. Even slight visible advantage will be discouraging for other players ("why should I play with you if you win anyway because of that ultra-rare card that you can just play at the best moment"). No hope that just because of slightly worse luck the opponent won't draw that card until it's too late.
Also the deck building is usually very important part of game that players can engage when there is no opponent to play with.
I definitely want luck to be involved. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the system I'm creating though, but I don't think there are any 'queens.' There are rooks, knights, bishops and princesses (move two spaces any direction). No matter how rare a princess you have, the opponent may have some as well, and while your princess may have some rare attribute that allows them to castle, or gain the ability to move three spaces at a time if they get to the opposite side, they don't gain any ability to survive rooks who are out of their range.
But if I am wrong, and that kind of potential counterable play creates readable decks, then perhaps I need to add an unpredictability element, perhaps a third deck of environmental cards, that create and block opportunities in a way that is unpredictable. Sounds like fun in any case, though that makes things insanely more complicated.
But overall, yes, I want deck building to be a big thing. I want players to ask themselves "What do I do about bladed weapons" and "how do I handle grapplers" or if they are specializing "What do I do with people that play keep away from my grappling style"
And perhaps that's the constraint that I probably should clarify or delve into to understand better myself. Keywords and attributes are pretty much meant to evoke fighting styles.
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Overall, these have been really incredible questions, and my idea is changing as I go over them, as you may be able to tell. I still am holding to the design paradigm of the fight, and, oddly of the full deck, though perhaps limiting the player's available cards in a more novel way, perhaps giving them only a dozen or so cards in their 'hand' but allowing them to trade out their hand for another provided they play a hand-switching combination of some sort. I really want to give the players control over their repertoire.
I also am really weighing the nature of card balance in my head. The issue of highly specific cards being highly sought after means a lot, I think, even if there are counter-cards out there, if those counters are also rare, then those playstyles would unbalance the game and put players in a position where there can't afford a rock to beat these scissors.
I also think I should modify the original round pacing to have players place all their cards face down and then reveal tier by tier, allowing them to withdraw their last unrevealed tier card if they anticipate their opponent is going to Trap or Buff the exchange, pulling that card out of play for a while. I'm not sure if that's a mechanic I really want, but it helps drive home the idea that every time you escalate you're risking your advantage and you could just play it save and stay at a lower tier and possibly take a small loss instead of a big one.
Anyway, those are all of my thoughts so far. I hope I'm not coming off as a stubborn idealist because that's exactly what I am. I really appreciate you all taking the time to school me with detail and insight.
