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TCG/CCG Play to Win difficiency and possible solution

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Tbone
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Joined: 02/18/2013

Hello everyone. I've been on this forum for awhile now and love some of the discussions.

I was hoping if you could humor me in my quest to create my card game: Monumental Resolution, and talk about one of the fundamentals of TCG's: Rarity.

I have a proposition and I've implemented this into my game... what if instead of (for lack of a better phrase) booster rarity, the rarity was formed within the deck.

Explanation:

Instead of lets say Magic: The Gathering (I'm not saying magic is a bad game...) where rarity is based on the occurance of that card throughout the market, the rarity is based inside of the deck.

Im not sure if this has been implemented yet and I am in no way saying this is an odea that hasn't been thought of but lets say you have a really rare card. This card is therefore balance through this occurance system. Where in Magic you can have up to four of any given card, what if the card itself gave you a max amount you can have in the deck?

Firestorm Dragon has a crazy ability that can give any nearby card +5 attack. What the... well instead of having four of these maximum in the deck the card states its maximum abundance is 2. Awe shucks. Well at least its balanced. This way even if you have a kick butt card you still have to strategize with it.

Heres another idea that actually makes this work much better and for me is an annoyance in TCG's: mana/resources/action points, whatever you call them, having to wait for resources to show up is annoying sometimes.

What my game allows the player to do is use any card as a resource. But everything in the game essentially cost resources, even attacking and defending. Which increases the demand for it.

Some cards may be worth one resource others two and even three. Although, to use cards as a resource with higher than one you must discard that many cards from your hand. Almost like a double resource system.

Also, when a card is killed the enemy will be able to use the card as a resource - similar to Summunor Wars but its renewable every turn.

How do these two ideas correlate?

Well to make sure players don't flood their entire deck with rares (which is a poopy idea anyway because of the demand for luck and lack of control of the deck) rares typically are have higher resource values. Which means two things: its harder to get resources (because of so many discards to cast them as a resource) and they will give the enemy a huge advantage if it gets killed. But you have to consider how powerful they are. Really freaking powerful. So its a give an take system.

Suggestions and discussion would be great!

Tbone

laperen
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Joined: 04/30/2013
sounds pretty much like "Duel

sounds pretty much like "Duel Masters", or at least the first 12 boosters before the new cards became extremely overpowered.

Duel masters was created to be, and marketed as, an entry level version of Magic before it took on a life of its own.

Tbone
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Joined: 02/18/2013
interesting

I had never really looked into Duel Masters. But yes it is very similar to Magic except for mana of course.

Monumental Resolution has a very different feel than most TCG. You actually use tactics in positioning and moving cards. This game is pretty much a clash between Magic and Summoner wars. But the combat system is very unique.

I just like the feeling of not having to wait for resources; the player chooses his/her mana climb.

X3M
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Joined: 10/28/2013
Strange how no one had this

Strange how no one had this idea before amongst the game designers.

I implemented this rule for my own friends 10 years ago, when playing MtG.

The same effect can be found in any game that I make. I always considered the rare cards as if they are the tanks in the game. I do not like the blitzkrieg effect (without counter) if it can be done right from the start. Which can be found in normal MtG games.

DifferentName
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Joined: 09/08/2013
Money

In games like magic the gathering, rares imbalance the game in a way that players who spend more money get an advantage over those who pay less. This can seem like an obvious flaw in the game design, and balancing it with something like you suggested would allow rares to be powerful without completely throwing off the balance of the game. But for the designers of magic the gathering, I think the advantage to players who pay more is completely intentional, so the game makes more money.

Tbone
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Joined: 02/18/2013
True

That is definitely a factor as well. My game is almost going to be marketed (if it gets that far) as if it were a Living Card Game but there will be booster packs.

What will be interesting is that cards with a large abundance in the deck such as a whooping 8, you would need to collect all eight to get the full strength of the card. But you have the choice in how many you would like in the deck.

So the collecting aspec is not forgotten but promotes balanced play. Although cards will not be as dramatically price for each card. Maybe the rare abundance cards could also be hard to find in boosters.

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