Advanced attributes for creatures

[Cyberdot]

Hi there.

I'm new here and I think that project is awesome . who'd think that actually we could see an open-source CCG? Since I really like open-source philosophy and CCG, I think I could give some hints.

I was thinking about making the game mechanic more complex (in a good way) and I had an idea that would be awesome, if you approve. What do you think about inserting "Damage", "Life Points" and "Dynamic Abilities"?

Here goes a brief explanation:

Life points (LP) - They represent the health of the creature. If a creatures reaches 0 LP or lower, it dies.

Damage - This is the amount of damage a creature deals if its Attack is higher than the Defense of the opposing creature, which is subtracted from the LP of the second.

Dynamic Abilities (DA) - They are triggered by LP changes. There are two types of Dynamic Abilities:
- Negative Dynamic Abilities (NDA): When the LP of a creature decreases lower than its maximum LP, NDA are activated if their limit is reached. If the LP raises above the limit where a NDA was triggered, it is deactivated and will only activate again when the limit for that NDA is reached again.
- Positive Dynamic Abilities (PDA): When the LP of a creature increases higher than its maximum LP, PDA are activated if their limit is reached. If the LP lowers below the limit where a PDA was triggered, it is deactivated and will only activate again when the limit for that PDA is reached again.

That way, the combat would be more interesting and "near-death" creatures would be troublesome. In some situations, the fact of it staying in battlefield would be disastrous for your own side (imagine a fiend who would boost your demons but at the risk of being killed would go berserk), making a whole new dept to strategies and tactics.

[snowdrop]

Hi & welcome to the community Cyberdot...

...who'd think that actually we could see an open-source CCG? Since I really like open-source philosophy and CCG, I think I could give some hints.

We did, and you as well The FLOSS concept can be applied to almost anything.

I was thinking about making the game mechanic more complex (in a good way)

Making a game more complex is not equal to making it better or more strategical. It is however a common and reoccurring confusion that lingers in most game developing communities that complexity in itself adds something. It doesn't. Well, it adds complexity, but that is usually a bad thing. Ideally a game isn't "complex". It should be as non-complex as possible, while still maximizing game depth. For example, you can compare Chess, which seemingly lacks rule complexity and stats/variables, with many modern war board games that have a million stats and variables and rules associated with them.

The problem with your suggestion is that you assumed that complexity leads to something good, but you didn't show/argue how it does so in that specific case.

They represent the health of the creature. If a creatures reaches 0 LP or lower, it dies.

HP:s won't be used in the ORC,or the reaosns specified here: http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/2010/07/ ... -debunked/

Summed up: It is a pain to track on a real table with real cards, and it also means you have to use a combat system where creatures can target each other directly,
.

Dynamic Abilities (DA) - They are triggered by LP changes. There are two types of Dynamic Abilities:

Interesting. Reminds me of Threshold(?) in Final Fantasy and some similar so-called RPG:s. I think it could be implemented as abilities on some cards, even in the current ORC without introducing HP:s. For example:

"When this creature receives >= 3 damage target creature receives 1 damage."

That way, the combat would be more interesting and "near-death" creatures would be troublesome.

I'm not sure why that would be good per se.... if a majority of creatures worked that way in a game it would usually just lock down the game and lead to more passivity. It can also be achieved without tracking HP or damage, by using triggered abilities, for example:

"When this creature dies target opponent must discard 2 cards from his/her army

In some situations, the fact of it staying in battlefield would be disastrous for your own side (imagine a fiend who would boost your demons but at the risk of being killed would go berserk), making a whole new dept to strategies and tactics.

I agree it does, but as showed above, the system need not be altered to achieve the same without switching to another combat system. My experience is that there is more strategical depth in a non-target combat system as the one found in ORC (or M:tG for that matter) than there is in games where you can target the creatures. Such games also tend to centre around getting the heaviest hitter on the table. The one and only thing that speaks for a HP-system is that the amount of cards required for a game would probably become lower, which is good, but not worth it in the end since an HP-model has the other trade-offs (administration being the most problematic one)

[Cyberdot]

Making a game more complex is not equal to making it better or more strategical. It is however a common and reoccurring confusion that lingers in most game developing communities that complexity in itself adds something. It doesn't. Well, it adds complexity, but that is usually a bad thing. Ideally a game isn't "complex". It should be as non-complex as possible, while still maximizing game depth. For example, you can compare Chess, which seemingly lacks rule complexity and stats/variables, with many modern war board games that have a million stats and variables and rules associated with them.

When I said more complex, I meant adding more debt. You have to admit though that sometimes the games are so simple that they turn to be really boring or for younger audience (not saying that is the case of WTactics. It have some concepts that I believe are different from the mainstream games and wich give a fresh perspective to the concept of CCG).

They represent the health of the creature. If a creatures reaches 0 LP or lower, it dies.

HP:s won't be used in the ORC,or the reaosns specified here: http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/2010/07/ ... -debunked/

Summed up: It is a pain to track on a real table with real cards, and it also means you have to use a combat system where creatures can target each other directly,

Personally I think HP usage is a matter of taste, but since we have to stick to one paradigm, let it be no HP.

Dynamic Abilities (DA) - They are triggered by LP changes. There are two types of Dynamic Abilities:

Interesting. Reminds me of Threshold(?) in Final Fantasy and some similar so-called RPG:s. I think it could be implemented as abilities on some cards, even in the current ORC without introducing HP:s. For example:

"When this creature receives >= 3 damage target creature receives 1 damage."

DA would be only for special units. It's a way to show who's the gifted warrior (and in some cases the short-tempered one) or who's the commander or who as born with gods blessing (or cursing).

I'm glad that you liked that approach. We could still include PDA (the example you used) and NDA ("When this creature receives >= 3 damage the creature with less Defense you control receives 1 point of damage. If it's a tie, you choose wich one recieve that damage."). That kind of abilities wouldn't need to be only focused on damage, but also on healing, or faction-oriented, etc.

My concept of DA was based on Magic: The Gathering Planeswalkers cards, but instead being the player putting tokens on them, was the dynamics of the game doing that.

In some situations, the fact of it staying in battlefield would be disastrous for your own side (imagine a fiend who would boost your demons but at the risk of being killed would go berserk), making a whole new dept to strategies and tactics.

I agree it does, but as showed above, the system need not be altered to achieve the same without switching to another combat system. My experience is that there is more strategical depth in a non-target combat system as the one found in ORC (or M:tG for that matter) than there is in games where you can target the creatures. Such games also tend to centre around getting the heaviest hitter on the table. The one and only thing that speaks for a HP-system is that the amount of cards required for a game would probably become lower, which is good, but not worth it in the end since an HP-model has the other trade-offs (administration being the most problematic one)

As you showed above, we don't need to change the combat system to implement all those ideas. Without HP involved, it could be token-oriented, but with low numbers to decrease the quantity of tokens needed.
Example: A card activates a NDA when it have defended two times without dying (post-traumatic war stress, maybe xD), but when it reached 4 tokens, the NDA would evolve to something worse. The same can be applied to PDA.
As you said, it increases the game management, but does it become that unbearable, specially if those abilities are confined to a small number of creatures?

[snowdrop]

When I said more complex, I meant adding more debt. You have to admit though that sometimes the games are so simple that they turn to be really boring or for younger audience...

Sure, can agree on that: Too few variables or to few possible actions usually makes a game less interesting for most people. A good example would be simplest versions of 3-in-a-row. Too simplistic games tend to lack both complexity (per definition) and also strategic depth.

Personally I think HP usage is a matter of taste, but since we have to stick to one paradigm, let it be no HP.

To a certain degree HP is, as you write, a matter of personal preference. What I suggest about HP tracking is on the other hand not subjective. It looks rather objective to me. It does lead to more admin no matter what a person subjectivley feels about performing admin. The same goes for what a HP based system entails for how the figthing/targeting is done.

Also, it's not quite true that we must stick to one paradigm: WTactics is setup so it's perfectly fine for anyone to start working on a brand new (or a forked) ruleset and release cards for it. In the end though, only one of the rule sets will be declared official - the one that meets the most criteria in the GDD in the best way.

My concept of DA was based on Magic: The Gathering Planeswalkers cards, but instead being the player putting tokens on them, was the dynamics of the game doing that.

I played MtG for many years... kind of like 2000 until they "invented" the Planeswalkers. I've never played a game with them though. Without being an expert on that paricular subject my gut feeling tells me we won't have such "chaotic" leader creatures in ORC, nor is it established yet if there should exist such "meta-creatures" at all in WT and what their role would be if they did.

It is an interesting subject though well worth a thread of it's own even when cut free from our original discussion in here.

Without HP involved, it could be token-oriented, but with low numbers to decrease the quantity of tokens needed.
Example: A card activates a NDA when it have defended two times without dying (post-traumatic war stress, maybe xD), but when it reached 4 tokens, the NDA would evolve to something worse. The same can be applied to PDA.... /../ As you said, it increases the game management, but does it become that unbearable, specially if those abilities are confined to a small number of creatures?

This kind of reminds me about "levels" on MtG creatures. While I think such concepts are ok to have in an electronical CCG I think it is often a mistake to have them in a real game. Especally a game that also involves moving the creatures around, like in the ORC, since tokens would make such movement and marking/assigning the cards more cumbersome.

I don't think that having such abilities would be a problem though if they really were confined to a small number of creatures, even if I would rather see that most would just be triggered effects that wouldn't involve token placement at all. Small number of creatures in the core release would equal around 1, max 2 per faction, given we have about 20 creatures in each faction in the core release.

[Cyberdot]

To a certain degree HP is, as you write, a matter of personal preference. What I suggest about HP tracking is on the other hand not subjective. It looks rather objective to me. It does lead to more admin no matter what a person subjectivley feels about performing admin. The same goes for what a HP based system entails for how the figthing/targeting is done.

Also, it's not quite true that we must stick to one paradigm: WTactics is setup so it's perfectly fine for anyone to start working on a brand new (or a forked) ruleset and release cards for it. In the end though, only one of the rule sets will be declared official - the one that meets the most criteria in the GDD in the best way.

That's true. We can just create a new set of rules and the duality becomes solved.

I played MtG for many years... kind of like 2000 until they "invented" the Planeswalkers. I've never played a game with them though. Without being an expert on that paricular subject my gut feeling tells me we won't have such "chaotic" leader creatures in ORC, nor is it established yet if there should exist such "meta-creatures" at all in WT and what their role would be if they did.

It is an interesting subject though well worth a thread of it's own even when cut free from our original discussion in here.

I was not suggesting implement Planeswalkers in the game. Just saying that the counter increasing and decreasing of a Planeswalker made me having this idea. It's better comparable with the level hability of some creatures, though.

I don't think that having such abilities would be a problem though if they really were confined to a small number of creatures, even if I would rather see that most would just be triggered effects that wouldn't involve token placement at all. Small number of creatures in the core release would equal around 1, max 2 per faction, given we have about 20 creatures in each faction in the core release.

Exactly. It would be assigned only to truly unique creatures. Something like the legendary creatures of Magic: The Gathering, but instead behing creatures with a ton of common habilites and/or remarcable attack/defense, they would have those "leveling" habilities.