CCG Forum Card Game Discussion Thread

[Aix]

A Forum Card Game.

 

I've been thinking about the concept for a while (since this morning... well actually, I've been barely thinking about this at all during the day) because no one's custom card games ever get realized (almost no one's, I will conveniently ignore anyone who claims to have the programming skills or money to pull stuff off).

 

"What is that?" You might ask.

 

What I'm talking (or typing) about is a card game that is played right here on the forum by posting what you do each turn.

 

No, I'm not talking about your Yugioh RPs (I don't have anything against them, I'm the RP mod after all).

 

Yugioh doesn't work since neither player can confirm what the other player plays from their hand is legit and it's too much of a hassle to do anything luck based and there's no way you can conveniently keep track of everything (too much work doesn't work).

 

I'm talking about creating a brand new CCG that would work to play by posting (and maybe have post count disabled?).

 

I haven't solidified the idea yet. I will think about it more (probably).

 

But, I'm here to hear your input (I will not tolerate people with different opinions).

 

[hr]

 

First of all, we must eliminate the luck factor as well as the unknown. All cards will be in the hand and all cards will be visible to both players as well as the spectators OR you get to choose what you draw each turn and each player knows the contents of each player's Deck.

 

It will be a purely skill-based game.

 

There will be no Setting cards.

 

Let's try to keep the number down here, so each player will have some number of cards less than 20.

 

[hr]

 

All Cards In Hand Route

 

If so, some sort of limit must be put on how much a player can do. This can be done with some sort of resource cost and either a by-turn resource limit or simply resources that you can save or spend and you earn a certain amount each turn.

 

[hr]

 

Visible Deck Route

 

We need to establish a starting hand size.

 

Resources are still possible.

 

I've been entertaining the thought, but what about deciding what you want to draw at the end of your turn? Just for added difficulty.

 

[hr]

 

Other than that, there'll be the typical Graveyard, field, monsters, spells.

 

However, counters/responses/traps would not work (very well at least, I'd rather not go with them) so let's keep turns short.

 

Since this is post by post, you aren't pressured to make your move and can think about it.

 

[hr]

 

Since I don't intend on creating all the cards for this game, people will be creating their own Decks.

 

And for tournaments, I will approve Decks.

 

This brings me to the topic of Archetypes. A lot of the hate against Archetypes is that they are pre-created Decks, but since this is custom, almost all Decks are pre-created.

 

Are we going to have stuff like colors instead like MtG?

 

Will we use keywords or Yugioh-like effects? Maybe both?

 

[hr]

 

That's all I can think of at the moment. Going to sleep now. If this idea goes off, we might be able to create a whole new forum/section for it.

[vla1ne]

Designing a new game sounds like fun, my favorite thing about card games is their mechanics, so If people come up with ideas about it, they can bounce them around here right?

[Aix]

[quote name="vla1ne" post="6330630" timestamp="1388720851"]Designing a new game sounds like fun, my favorite thing about card games is their mechanics, so If people come up with ideas about it, they can bounce them around here right?[/quote]oh yes, go ahead and suggest any.

[Delibirb]

I very much like this idea. I would prefer having small Decks and selective drawing to a full hand.

 

There would probably need some sort of post formatting established (how your post looks so one can glance and immediately know which monsters you control without reading the whole thing)

 

But yeah, whole new CCG by the whole community, played right here? Count me in. Interested in what meta will arise first.

[Sleepy]

The idea sounds interesting. I wanna see what this turns into.

 

The hard bits about such a project are the short-comings it comes with.

 

Since one can't trust everyone to be honest about their resources, it can't possibly work for "Random Draw" and "Set backrow"

Since it works by posting, it can't have too much to keep track of.

 

Then there's the design problem. Will the YGO card maker be used for lack of templates? will a new card maker somehow be made for this? will only those with graphic skills be able to do it, and/or will that cause them to have an insane load of work? will it be all just written text? This last bit will have to be put on hold until the end, to see if the actual meat of the project actually takes off to begin with.

 

 

Ok.... everything needs to be visible, but I'd say "controlled draw" with an open hand will be best. That way, even though you don't have to worry about consistency at all, you still have a limited and slowly replenishing pool of resources.

Once everything gets a little bit more solid-looking, we'll be good to suggest limited moves per turn, energy/mana systems, etc that are really not possible to pin-point right now.

 

I assume the concept will be battle, like it is in Yugioh, MTG, and most card games. Based on that, one important thing to be addressed early here is what the possible win conditions are for the game. Without that, it's too broad to make clear enough suggestions. 

There's prize cards/mana shields like in Pokemon/Kaijudo, there's Life Points like in MTG/Yugioh, there's deck-out and alt.wins which are almost a given. Pokemon loses beforehand if the field is emptied. Prize cards could be bonus draws or something, or could have a zone to be placed in (face-up) and your opponent giving you that damage could select and give you one (a la Painful Choice), IDK.

 

There's a lot of possibilities. I wonder what would be best.

[Aix]

Oh yes, speaking of Deck out, another idea I had was to, instead of damage, you draw cards. Maybe your opponent got to choose to make it different from your normal draw. You would then lose by Deck out. In this case, if we do the end phase choose next turn's draw idea, we could also choose how many cards we draw, maybe choose from 1 to 3 cards. The draw from damage idea also counters slippery slope and your opponent choosing cards increase s player interaction.

[Brinolovania]

This looks like an awesome idea and I want to help with this :o

 

 

Oh yes, speaking of Deck out, another idea I had was to, instead of damage, you draw cards. Maybe your opponent got to choose to make it different from your normal draw. You would then lose by Deck out. In this case, if we do the end phase choose next turn's draw idea, we could also choose how many cards we draw, maybe choose from 1 to 3 cards. The draw from damage idea also counters slippery slope and your opponent choosing cards increase s player interaction.

This seems like a good idea...i was thinking about opponents getting to choose some draws, when I looked at this earlier.

 

Anyway, imma come back later and actually say something insightful...can't think of anything amazing ATM. Well, I guess I'll throw in the random point that there'd have to be a requirement for all players to put their cards in their sig or something so they don't have to copypasta them into every post. 

[Toffee.]

This idea sounds fimilar.
But as far as this goes, the logic behind card design alone would be pretty crazy, since we would have to force people to tweak the cards they made for this, so that we don't end up with someone making something brolen, then everyone just makes copy+pasta versions of it.

[Sleepy]

There's a new question.

If the deck is open, and also the Life Points, does that mean that losing life will come in a controlled mill chosen by the player that's causing the damage?

 

That will bring 2 things to note for.

-Graveyard and Wulf/Dandylion effects will have to be kept to a minimum.

-How grave would it be if your opponent just chooses to eradicate all the copies of your best cards?

 

If it works like Prize Cards in Pokemon do, and it's actually more advantage for you, at the same time, that'll bring the question of what the standard damage will be. 

Going 1 by 1 might take too long.

Giving something like 3 Prizes in a single attack for the sake of not making it too long also sounds iffy.

It also sounds weird to all of a sudden get 15-card hands because of damage taking. It'd be somewhat going against keeping it simple enough to be easy to keep track of.

[Maeriberii Haan]

...I have a question. Will the mechanics, overall gameplay, and design be completely new, or will it borrow some from existing card games? I didn't quite get it from the OP and replies.

[Sleepy]

...I have a question. Will the mechanics, overall gameplay, and design be completely new, or will it borrow some from existing card games? I didn't quite get it from the OP and replies.

It's probably gonna share many traits that other already existing games have. 

If something original and interesting can pop out though, it's gonna be welcomed.

 

The idea is not to just be Yugioh, or just Pokemon TCG, or MTG, but something of it's own.

Preferably if it can be played in this forum through posts without complications (because Yugioh needs to keep track of face-downs and hand size and needs to depend on trust from your opponent to not just decide that face-down was suddenly a pro-heavy. Etc.)

[Aix]

A mill controlled by your opponent would be too powerful, especially if it happened on a regular basis. I'd say either opponent controlled draw or a mill controlled by you. [quote name="Armadilloz" post="6330744" timestamp="1388738429"]This idea [url=http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/138115-five-card-blind-looks-hilarious/]sounds fimilar[/url].But as far as this goes, the logic behind card design alone would be pretty crazy, since we would have to force people to tweak the cards they made for this, so that we don't end up with someone making something brolen, then everyone just makes copy+pasta versions of it.[/quote]Well the requirements of a forum card game are the same. I suppose we can have formats for any serious tournaments? Each card will have to be approved. On the other hand, people dueling each other can do as they will.

[Aix]

Updated the poll.

 

There's a new question.

If the deck is open, and also the Life Points, does that mean that losing life will come in a controlled mill chosen by the player that's causing the damage?

 

That will bring 2 things to note for.

-Graveyard and Wulf/Dandylion effects will have to be kept to a minimum.

-How grave would it be if your opponent just chooses to eradicate all the copies of your best cards?

 

If it works like Prize Cards in Pokemon do, and it's actually more advantage for you, at the same time, that'll bring the question of what the standard damage will be. 

Going 1 by 1 might take too long.

Giving something like 3 Prizes in a single attack for the sake of not making it too long also sounds iffy.

It also sounds weird to all of a sudden get 15-card hands because of damage taking. It'd be somewhat going against keeping it simple enough to be easy to keep track of.

Depending on the size of Decks, 1 by 1 won't be too much.

[.Rai]

On Skill: Eliminating luck is a terrible idea. It's pretty much why most games are fun (although there is too much of a good thing, hence the state of many games). Angry Birds has a random algorithm written in to vary your throws, Scrabble demands you get letters from a lucky dip bag, There are only a few examples of pure skill games (chess being the best example), and CCGs are not the right format. Card pools need to be identical, otherwise the results are just always massively tilted in someone's favour. You can weight a game towards skill (which is what most CCGs do), which you've already done by creating smaller, what are essentially microdecks. No need for each player to have perfect information though.

On Actions: Regarding limiting how many actions a player can do a turn, I saw an interesting take in a board game called Takenoko. Long panda-based story short, you can take a max. 2 actions a turn out of a potential 5 or so (roughly akin to drawing cards, moving a chess piece and things like that). It's certainly different to other TCGs, and adds a slight tension to a game.

On Colours: Colors will only matter if you introduce a resource system. Frankly, your decks are so small, I don't think a resource system à la Kaijudo/Duel Masters or Magic is the right way to go. Alternatively, employ a resource system like Hearthstone where it's automated each turn (not taking deck space), and from there on in, you could choose to either employ a colour system or not. Both work. Or stick to YGO-style Attributes, but only if they actually matter frequently.

On Archetypes: Probably one of the worst things that YGO actually does, in honest opinion. Thematic synergy is good, but outright naming everything is doubly silly in a game where tightknit synergy is already strongly encouraged anyway.

On Keywords: Considering that Magic uses both keywords and 'YGO-style' effects, use both.

[Aix]

On Skill: Eliminating luck is a terrible idea. It's pretty much why most games are fun (although there is too much of a good thing, hence the state of many games). Angry Birds has a random algorithm written in to vary your throws, Scrabble demands you get letters from a lucky dip bag, There are only a few examples of pure skill games (chess being the best example), and CCGs are not the right format. Card pools need to be identical, otherwise the results are just always massively tilted in someone's favour. You can weight a game towards skill (which is what most CCGs do), which you've already done by creating smaller, what are essentially microdecks. No need for each player to have perfect information though.

I honestly don't know a good way to incorporate luck into this though.

[.Rai]

I honestly don't know a good way to incorporate luck into this though.

Have a 15-card deck. Draw a card each turn. And absolutely no fancy 'you can see their hand and deck' perfect information thing. I guess it's harder on a forum, but there are probably ways of making it work. Maybe.

Simplest way would to pre-shuffle each player's deck, but give them the order of their decks for reference. It doesn't matter a lot, due to the scale of the decks, and eliminates the whole 'randomness on the cheaty internet' thing.

The chance is there, but so much of it comes down to skill and deckbuilding that it never actually overwhelms the game. Perfect information is bad mostly because, unlike chess, each action in a CCG is so much more complex outside of 'move [piece a] by vector (x,y)'. It's not that the number of probabilities are bigger (because chess is always bigger), but the illusion of that for no good reason.

[Aix]

Alright, so this is what I've decided so far to push us along. Feel free to say what you think should change.

 

So Deck size will be the same for everyone, between 10 and 20, this needs to be decided, preferably after looking at some cards that will be made or after playtesting.

 

Decks will be shuffled at the start of the match using random.org. For tournaments, this will be done by a third party.

 

Standard 5 card hand to start off with (draw off the top of the Deck).

 

Turn can go like this to keep it short:

- Prep Phase (Draw/Standby/Upkeep) - drawing and maintenance costs. gain your resources

- Main Phase - where you do your stuff

- Battle Phase - target stuff to attack, also any stuff that interacts with your opponent.

 

Stuff will have a mana cost. You gain 5 mana per turn and have a max mana capacity of 10.

 

Most stuff will cost 2 mana, probably. Some can have other costs like discards.

 

Monsters will have an ATK and DEF. Attack is used when attacking and pitted against the target defender's defensive stat.

 

Battles can be done with double teaming, where two monsters attack the same monster to overcome a particularly large defensive stat.

 

Damage is calculated only when attacking directly. For 1-2 damage, one card is chosen by the attacker from the defender's deck for the defender to add to their hand. 3-4 damage, 2 cards and so on. Win con is decking your opponent out.

 

Common effects will use keywords. More complicated effects will be just written on the card.

 

Some Example Keywords:

• Defender - must be destroyed before you can attack other monsters. If there are multiple monsters with Defender, the attacker can choose.
• Flying - can attack directly if opponent has no Flying or Ranged monsters. Cannot be targeted, except by Flying or Ranged while you control non-Flying monsters.
• Ranged - opposing Flying monsters cannot attack directly and can target Flying monsters.
• Boost - increase either ATK or DEF of a monster you control by a specified number (e.g. Boost ATK 3)
• Cripple - decrease either ATK or DEF of any monster by a specified number (e.g. Cripple DEF 1)

For monsters, they will either have a cost before an effect or they might do the effect upon something (e.g. Boost ATK 1 on Summon, Cripple DEF 4 after Attack)

 

Magic Card Maker should serve our purposes for card creation.

 

All rules are subject to change after we get started and I've likely missed something here. Any suggestions/objections/comments?

[.Rai]

Damage dealing seems clunky. Damage dealt to players being totally different than to creatures is unintuitive. Doubly so since the number of cards drawn corresponds not just to one point of damage, but a range (1-2, 3-4, and who knows what). Also, it means that creatures with a high ATK aren't strictly better than than those with a low ATK, confusingly.

Combat: If you attack a creature, do they deal their ATK stat to your attacking monster's DEF stat? Is there summoning sickness? Does damage wear off at the end of turn?

[Aix]

Damage dealing seems clunky. Damage dealt to players being totally different than to creatures is unintuitive. Doubly so since the number of cards drawn corresponds not just to one point of damage, but a range (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10... you see the pattern?). Also, it means that creatures with a high ATK aren't strictly better than than those with a low ATK, confusingly.

Not entirely sure what you mean here.

Combat: If you attack a creature, do they deal their ATK stat to your attacking monster's DEF stat? Is there summoning sickness? Does damage wear off at the end of turn?

No, just compare ATK and DEF and unless specifically stated, it's not like Yugioh where the difference is inflicted as damage.

[.Rai]

I see the pattern obviously but it's unintuitive. A game where the damage you deal is actually half what is written on the actual card (rounded up) is far more complicated than a world where the printed stat is the same as the damage dealt (apparently in the form of card draw - although I'm on the fence with this).

And I still don't understand combat. So your attacking creature can never die in combat since the defending creature's attack doesn't matter? I'm not referring to whether the remainder damage is funnelled to a player, but whether a 2/2 and a 2/2 colliding kill each other in combat?

And, since I still am unsure, does damage wear off at the end of turn from creatures? If so, that's silly because defensive decks will overwhelm your format, and if not, the combat system is almost identical to Hearthstone (except worse because you can't attack your opponent directly which is kinda bad in a fast, small deck game; hence why Hearthstone lets you attack your opponents directly whenever). It seems like your combat is just borrowing from various TCGs but it's neither this way nor that. The combat systems of every TCG is tailored towards their deck restrictions and game speed. You've ended up with a very slow combat system for a very fast game.

[bury the year]

I think I get the gist of this. Some thoughts. - For attacking/defending, one stat may make it easier, a la Duel Masters. - I like the idea of the mana system to keep track of things more easily. - The "damage = card draw" system is unintuitive. Maybe a prize card system'd work better.

[Aix]

I see the pattern obviously but it's unintuitive. A game where the damage you deal is actually half what is written on the actual card (rounded up) is far more complicated than a world where the printed stat is the same as the damage dealt (apparently in the form of card draw - although I'm on the fence with this).

 

And I still don't understand combat. So your attacking creature can never die in combat since the defending creature's attack doesn't matter? I'm not referring to whether the remainder damage is funnelled to a player, but whether a 2/2 and a 2/2 colliding kill each other in combat?

 

And, since I still am unsure, does damage wear off at the end of turn from creatures? If so, that's silly because defensive decks will overwhelm your format, and if not, the combat system is almost identical to Hearthstone (except worse because you can't attack your opponent directly which is kinda bad in a fast, small deck game; hence why Hearthstone lets you attack your opponents directly whenever). It seems like your combat is just borrowing from various TCGs but it's neither this way nor that. The combat systems of every TCG is tailored towards their deck restrictions and game speed. You've ended up with a very slow combat system for a very fast game.

 

I admit I did not spend much time thinking on the combat system, it's closer to Yugioh than MtG. How about, each time a monster is destroyed its owner gets a card? That would be a lot faster. Also, if the DEF is greater than ATK, it could destroy the attacker which results in the owner of the attacker getting a card.

 

I think I get the gist of this. Some thoughts. - For attacking/defending, one stat may make it easier, a la Duel Masters. - I like the idea of the mana system to keep track of things more easily. - The "damage = card draw" system is unintuitive. Maybe a prize card system'd work better.

One stat could possibly work. I'll put it up to vote. I don't know what you mean by prize card system.

[.Rai]

Prize cards would be similar to Pokémon or Duel Masters. In Pokémon, each time you knock out your opponent's pokémon, you get a prize card (first six cards are taken from your deck and placed face-down before each game, you take one of your choice and add it to your hand). If you take all six, you win the game. The equivalent would be dealing damage to your opponent directly 6 times.

Alternatively, the flipped prize card system is that in Duel Masters. Instead of life points, you take 5 cards from your deck face-down and use them as shields. You have to break all five by attacking each one, then hit your opponent directly which OHKOs them. However, whenever a shield is broken, that card is added to that player's hand. Little bit of (good) tension, since it also alleviates slippery slope but also adds some chance to the game.

[Sleepy]

I'd say I would follow the Kaijudo shield system rather than Pokemon's. In Pokemon, you get a prize for a move that already puts you a bit ahead on it's own, so I'd rather go for preventing slippery slope.

 

The mana system seems a bit off to me. You have maxed out mana from turn 2, and the options available for all stages of the game (early, mid, late game) seem to not  escalate because there is a max mana.

 

 

There's also another question

Is there a field limit? Like, Pokemon is 5 benches + 1 active. Yugioh is 5 s/t + 5 monster zones + 1 field spell zone, MTG is infinite.

 

 

The battle system does look off. Players will probably deck out by going through their decks with their normal draws at that point.

 

Which I think 20 cards is a decent minimum. Assuming you have 5 to 6 starting your turn, and will assume at least 5 more through normal draw, there needs to be around 10 to 11 damage through it. Also, in this case, you shouldn't allow bigger numbers. Looking at how it's essentially more life.

 

 

I just thought this for life:

What about controlling the options given regardless of damage? Like, limiting it to 1 prize for the losing player per turn.

What do I mean? If for example, your opponent attacks you and damages you 3 times this turn, yo put them in some sort of damage zone, and choose strictly 1 of those damages for your prize to go to your hand at the end of the Battle Phase, discarding all other damages.

 

Which going back to battles, I don't think you should make a complicated damage translation system like 1-2, 3-4, etc. Just have monsters strictly do 1 attack = 1 damage, with the occasional equivalent to Kaijudo's "double breaker" (x2 damage), made in key word.

 

You should also allow for direct attacks and blockers to happen. After all, it's a 10 turn game at best per player.

[bury the year]

Upon second thoughts, a mana system may not work with such small decks, but I still believe the "looser" system present in YGO wouldn't work either. Would a rank system similar to Vanguard work if properly developed?