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GBC - Shield exploit and behaviour

2 replies [Last post]
Mon, 05/08/2017 - 21:46
tikey
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Joined: 03/31/2017

I've been doing a bit of solo playtesting on my game (game thread: http://www.bgdf.com/node/19513)and I've realised that the current attack and defence mechanic can be exploited.
Currently the system is as follows:
Player A attacks, picks a card from his hand and places it face down
Player B defends, picks a card from his hand and places it face down
Both cards are revealed, bonifications are added. Highest value wins (and in case of a ties the attacker wins).
Now, defence can have a shield active, which allows the player to use all card values to defend. If the attack is successful the shield stays in place. If the defence succeeds the shield is removed. And there lies the problem. A player can call for an attack, use a very weak card in order to force a defence success and once the shield is removed attack with higher value cards.

This is obviously not optimal, so I need to find a solution. I've been thinking of fixes like making that the shield be removed only when the defence succeeds by a narrow margin for example, but I find those solutions lacking "elegance".
I also have been thinking about a complete overhaul of the shield mechanic, like removing penalizations to defence without shields and making it so players can "spend" shields to force the attacking player to use another card to attack after seeing the resolution, but it seems to make combat just more complicated with the attacking player having to spend twice the cards in an attack, seems to be more annoying than the previous system. Maybe the spending could be used to add a bonification to the defence, allowing a player to increase their defence value at the cost of removing the shield.

I could use some help with this.
Thanks!

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Mon, 05/08/2017 - 22:13
#1
let-off studios
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Shield Options

Here are a few options. I have no idea what would work best with your theme, so take that into consideration.

- Allow the Defending player to allow the shield to drop after the next attack, deciding only after the Attacker has placed their card face-down.
- Attacker chooses a card at random from the Defender's hand, and resolve as you indicate
- Defense always succeeds as long as the Defender "locks" a card under the shield each time it is used.
- The shield has limited charges and each time it successfully defends it loses one charge, disappearing after the final charge is used regardless of the card used to Defend.
- The Defender must reveal their hand to their Attacker, then mix their hand and pick one to Defend. Doesn't necessarily address your issue but depending on when and how many cards are drawn the Attacker may gain an advantage of learning additional information.
- Defender must discard a card from their hand after successfully defending or the shield is removed.
- Defender cannot draw additional cards to their hand while shield is active, unless another special ability allows them to do so.
- Defender needs to replace cards from their hand to the top of their deck equal to the difference between their Defense card and the Attacker's card.
- The shield can only protect as you describe from a specific kind of Attack/Energy/Creature/etc.

Hopefully some of these will be useful, at least to start your brain thinking in different ways. Good luck!

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Mon, 05/08/2017 - 22:26
#2
tikey
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Joined: 03/31/2017
Wow, thanks! Those are all

Wow, thanks! Those are all great ideas. I think that discarding a card in order to keep the shield up is probably the one that will work best with the current mechanics. I'll think about how to make it work and maybe mule over the other ideas.

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