Card types - tag approach

[Q_x]

That's a part of this discussion
http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/forum/vi ... ?f=2&t=205
I feel like it's the right time to take some topics out of it and prepare a separate discussion.

My idea is that instead of having factions and card types, we can join those two into one.

How would it work:

Imagine a card -
Name: Young Orc Scout
Type: Orcish, Ranged, Fighter, Rider

Looks pretty much like what we have (apart from Ranged, but it's just an example)

Now we have yet another card, Goblin Shaman, that text says:

[m] Goblin Shaman can boost all Orcish and Goblin units with First Strike
[m] Goblin Shaman scares all enemy Flying and Rider creatures on a given front (kingdom, whatever), they flee and can't attack. They still can be attacked and killed.

I think you already see where it goes - we can eliminate fully faction belongings, we can make easily multifaction cards (for example a card that would be Goblin, Dwarven, Rider), we can also very easily add more types or precise things when such need arises.

What is the problem, and the only problem, is how we would make the use of multifaction decks easier, so how to execute threshold.
The answer is - just the same. Take first tag and it serves as a "threshold meter".
You want to play Goblin Fighter card with the threshold of 1 - you have to have another Goblin card on the table.

That's pretty restrictive threshold, and there is plenty of option how to make it a bit easier, starting from exhaustion rule (paying "extra" to avoid threshold requirement), or making something as fancy, as looking for two cards with the second tag (two fighters in this case), or three cards with the third tag and so on.

What this will change? Most probably it will break down factions a bit. But at the same time, it will add some more scope-awarness while designing cards to what we have already.

Finally we may want to leave the factions intact, and just use not card types and subtypes (and subsubtypes), but tags instead. Of course we can have some kind of heritage here, so that every Ranged unit is a Fighter and a Creature, which leaves us with pretty much what we have, just structured.

Any thoughts?

[snowdrop]

I probably don't follow this fully, as we can already do everything you suggested. The tag-stuff removes something, and brings nothing

Let's check out the current layout:



Arguably, cardtypes and factions could change places.

Nevertheless, what's shown is two high level categories: Factions & cardtypes, that are finite and will never change once determined, which is good and supposed to bring compatibility in the future with new expansions, among other reasons for having them around.

We also see a system that allows us total flexibility should we need it. The current subtypes we have are equivalent(?) to your tags, are they not? We can create any subtypes we wish, for whatever (balancing) need.

Cardtypes are around mostly because they are associated with how that particular type of cards generally work and is played. They say something about how the card is played and how it usually ends up being used. From my point of view, the only thing that motivates them being around except us needing meta-categories (yes, will show soon) is that they tell us how they are played. They contribute to game flow. Whole point is to quickly identify them without having to hunt for the info. (Arguably, we could that even better graphically in our templates, but let's not keep altering them for now - I'd rather create some rules than keep revising the templates more at this stage.)

Factions are mainly around for balancing, but also because they are a secondary/primary meta-category. In addition, and really not relevant, they add flavour and identity in simple way. In the long term they also tell the player what he can expect or not from the card.

So, whats the talk about meta-categories? This is:

With current design you can create a creature that is immune to the card type Magic.. or you could design a creature that is immune against any damage that originates from Shadowguild sources. By just using card type(s) or faction(s) in a cards effect text, we can cover vast amount of cards, yet still easily create reasonable cards with pretty precise results. Look at the following examples and variations:

a) Elvish Shaman can't be targeted by Magic.
b) ---- .. ---- Noble cards.
c) ---- .. ---- Noble cards except those that are Magic.
d) ---- .. ---- Noble cards or Magic.
e) While Elvish Shaman is in play it costs 1 gold less to play Magic.
f) All Gaian creatures get +1/0 until end of turn.

If you take away factions and cardtypes one of the consequences will be that the above constructions will become impossible. You will get much much smaller scopes of the card effects. What happens in return is that card compatibility will plummet like a rock in the ocean... unless you start using tags that re-occur very very often... and if you do, then you actually have started doing so to just solve this problem, which was caused by the tags system in the first place.

Here is a silly example of first, but using tags:

a) Elvish Shaman can't be targeted by spells, enchantments, magic, wizardry, potion effects, elemental fire, mana stealing,,, etc etc etc...

List above goes on as you have to discover every single card in the whole game that shaman can't be targeted by and tell the player about it here in many words. Also, every time you release a new expansion and add new tags, you have to check and see if you have to revise the Shaman by adding or removing tags... which just isn't doable.

[m] Goblin Shaman can boost all Orcish and Goblin units with First Strike
[m] Goblin Shaman scares all enemy Flying and Rider creatures on a given front (kingdom, whatever), they flee and can't attack. They still can be attacked and killed. // we can also very easily add more types or precise things when such need arises.

That's doable right now: Just use them as subtypes somewhere (orc, goblin, flying, rider) and it works just the same. I'm all for having plenty of subtypes, even if I'm against having hundreds of them. Subtypes allows you to be as precise as you want. Actually, they are tags.

The answer is - just the same. Take first tag and it serves as a "threshold meter".
You want to play Goblin Fighter card with the threshold of 1 - you have to have another Goblin card on the table.

Interesting. It's called "tribal" synergy in MtG, or "Affinity". Problem with it is that you would have to limit e.g. Goblins from appearing in any other faction and/or make sure to never develop Goblins with certain skills. Each subtype would have to be planned "as if" it was sub.faction of a faction, even if you wouldn't have factions around. It is a massive amount of work...

What you create is a system where it becomes cheaper and cheaper to play one and the same "faction" (or subtype in this case - the Gobos). It is worth keeping in mind.

What I liked even more is the significance of where a subtype is placed, in what order it is slapped on the card. I wonder if we could go further and find even more usage for it... hrm. hrm....

[Ravenchild]

The system sounds interesting but I'm afraid that this will make deck building a nightmare because if you like to have card X in your deck, you need at least to have (with a threshold of 4) 4 cards of a specific type in your deck and then you need to multiply these 4 cards with 4 to ensure that you draw the right cards to play card X. And now you've spent more than 25% of your deck capacity for putting one card in it.

Of course there may be other cards of the same type as X who are also nice to have, but this won't probably always be the case.