resource system & other input

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Bobit
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Joined:Wed Apr 06, 2016 05:04
resource system & other input

Post by Bobit » Fri Apr 08, 2016 04:48

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edit: This topic was split and broken out from another by snowdrop on 9:th of april 2016 
About the Kingdoms+Regions: After re-reading the rules I see the purpose of them (there's a LOT to read xD), and they seem like they could be neat. However, this particular rule can potentially cause mana-screw: "A player can not play any cards that belong to a faction which is not supported by the active region." This makes it so that if you have a two-faction deck and your opponent doesn't attack you (until he has lethal, ofc) you won't be able to play with one of your factions. It's not random mana-screw, but it's still a little clunky. Perhaps region-switching should be time-oriented rather than damage-oriented? Also, the rules don't specifically state the Region deck size; is there a maximum or minimum, or is it undecided?

About mana. From my experience in Spellweaver "discard a card to gain a mana crystal" usually makes cards that let you discard a card to draw a card useless, so I don't like it. You could just not make those cards, but that reduces deck variety; I like the idea that some decks don't have as much control over what they play. It's not a big deal though. The "loyalty" system also makes regions causing mana screw somewhat redundant, although not completely.

About making your game a porno (or so it will seem to some people), well, it seems way too preachy to me. Wesnoth is an example of a game that would be pretty bad if it was preachy, regardless of what it was preaching. But you probably know all that already, so there's nothing else worth saying for me.

About what I said about Ranged = First-Strike+Reach, I thought this might be a good idea if and only if First Strike wasn't a keyword. So Ranged's keyword text could be "This unit attacks first and can block flying creatures". But if First Strike was actually an official keyword, my Ranged keyword shouldn't exist since it would be redundant, of course.

About 75% of the focus being on gameplay. Again, making art for the sake of art (and programming for the sake of programming) is cool, but ppl wouldn't play this game mainly for the game's art when MtG's is amaaazzzinnng. And I don't see why programming a card database is necessary; it could be pure text-based and would be fine imo.

About me being rude, I knew I was, I just didn't bother to tone it down. Hopefully my Start of Rant and End of Rant helped bring some humility to it.

About playtesting, it's impossible without cards o:
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Peter
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by Peter » Fri Apr 08, 2016 14:10

I still think the things are not as negative as you say.

We have a card database with cards and we have rules. We have a site for playtesting: Untap.in. So we are fine, aren't we?

Despite the fact that I like two-colour decks in Magic I personally think we should leave two-faction decks out of the first versions of the game.

Showing some content may indeed push away the mainstream audience from the game, especially from some countries which tend to be prude. But in RPGs (pen and paper and MMORPG and others) you usually see a lot of naked skin, so it's not that shocking I guess.

And I, too, love Magic's art. But I personally love WTactic's art even more. Just a question of taste, I guess. If the art would be lousy I would ignore this project.
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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snowdrop
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Re: resource system & other input

Post by snowdrop » Sat Apr 09, 2016 08:34

Bobit wrote:About the Kingdoms+Regions: After re-reading the rules I see the purpose of them (there's a LOT to read xD),
True, and that's an issue that will be addressed later by creating "quick start rules" (the page you read is wrongly named so though, causing confusion, I'll correct that..)

However, this particular rule can potentially cause mana-screw: "A player can not play any cards that belong to a faction which is not supported by the active region." This makes it so that if you have a two-faction deck and your opponent doesn't attack you (until he has lethal, ofc) you won't be able to play with one of your factions.


These kinds of points are interesting, and the handling of them has to be in place somehow. The way I imagined it is actually not announce anywhere, so here goes one way of solving it: By design.

More correctly, by the design of the region cards.

Initial setup solution, like this:
  • You have a pile of i.e. 3 region cards.
  • They must be set in a specific order, printed on them.
  • This region pile is designed to support x factions, i.e. 2.
  • As card designers we can make it so that the pile allows you to play BOTH factions, guaranteed, during your early game/directly from start by allowing it on the 1:st region card in pile, the top one.
  • Or we could set it up any other way, i.e.. allow it to happen when you reach the second pile only.
So, the "tempo" or rather the possibility of when in the game you can play what faction will be determined by how the region pile is composed. There is as you say, nothing random about it. It can all be controlled, and it does something interesting also: It manipulates the flow of the game and allows a 3-step-rocket. In practice though it seems more of an issue than something beneficial if there would be a 2-faction deck, but only one single region of 3 that supported both factions in it, really causing something akin to mana-screw.

Coherent faction support - Hence the solution is again by design: Most of the time all regions in a pile will have to support same faction(s) in a coherent matter.

(In theory, in rare cases there could be some instances where a region remove support for a faction while all the others allowed it, but I reckon such a thing would have to be balanced out by looking at the benefits of that region and what it gives the player...creating a risk and reward dilemma. I wouldn't want those kind of regions to be common in the game though)
Perhaps region-switching should be time-oriented rather than damage-oriented? Also, the rules don't specifically state the Region deck size; is there a maximum or minimum, or is it undecided?
Another thing I thought about while reading your feedback is that it might even be of use to have a rule that simply states:

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"The player may discard his/her active region during a play-phase".
Region switching is however only an inherent problem if all regions in a players pile don't support the same factions. If they do that, no time rotation is needed of regions, nor can a player mana screw the other by not attacking his regions and allow a rotation.

In general I really want to avoid all kinds of "timers" that need to be tracked which are a result of the core rules in themselves. It's a design decision made to keep admin of the game as smooth as possible at it's foundation, and to leave such stuff that will be around anyhow in some way in some decks due to card design.

About mana. From my experience in Spellweaver "discard a card to gain a mana crystal" usually makes cards that let you discard a card to draw a card useless, so I don't like it.
I installed Spellweaver and am looking forward to see what innovation it might bring to the world of CCG:s and what, if anything, we can learn from it. :)

Hrm. I don't follow here: How does transform a normal card into a permanent resource card negate the function of card fetch cards like discard a card to draw a card?

Even if we do have resource system where you may transform any card in hand into a permanent resource, gold in our case, the card fetch still serves it's purpose. ¨

Example: I have 3 cards in hand - A B and C. I lay down A as a resource card. B is a card I can't use for long whatever reason and C is my card fetch/draw. I now use C, and I discard B. Suddenly I have card D in my hand.

Clearly i was able to fetch a card (actually draw the top one, while card fecth is terminology usually used for getting to find specific cards in deck..), and clearly there is a tempo advantage here. That is by design the only purpose with the card that you suggested - discard one, draw one. Is the purpose fulfilled? Indeed it seems so.

You could just not make those cards, but that reduces deck variety;
I just did above. Leading me to the conclusion that I maybe missed out on one of your real points. :P

About making your game a porno (or so it will seem to some people), well, it seems way too preachy to me. Wesnoth is an example of a game that would be pretty bad if it was preachy, regardless of what it was preaching. But you probably know all that already, so there's nothing else worth saying for me.
If all depictions of naked human beeings, or other animals for that matter, are labeled as "pornography" by somebody solely because of that, then I guess that person percieves our game as porno. But hey, I'm then glad to be in the porn-industry, if that is what it takes to use artistic freedom and creating a game that I envision where we don't take five steps back every time somebody doesn't like what we show for whatever reason they may concoct. To me this is a non issue and I will not ever conform to such views or try to cater to a wide or young audience with the game.

The game is supposed to be something which isn't already around. And, it will be in part by rules, but mostly by it's open sourceness, gratisness, and because we don't care if we're seen as controversial in any way. Heck, it's even good if we do - we get free pr, albeit that is not the point with having two elves kissing each other or a naked merfolk. (Actually, it would be kind of strange if there were no elves kissing in elven lands, and whats stranger is merfolk wearing clothes to begin with, but let's not get into the we're-creating-a-life-simulation-of-reality-discussion here, since we are not),


As stated earlier: If somebody is offended by nudity, then he/she is free to avoid using his/her eyes to watch it, and avoid acquiring and playing a game where nudity isn't seen as the work of the devil...
About what I said about Ranged = First-Strike+Reach, I thought this might be a good idea if and only if First Strike wasn't a keyword. So Ranged's keyword text could be "This unit attacks first and can block flying creatures". But if First Strike was actually an official keyword, my Ranged keyword shouldn't exist since it would be redundant, of course.
Ah, yeah, agree. :)
And I don't see why programming a card database is necessary; it could be pure text-based and would be fine imo.
I'm not following the topic here, but I believe that you think that is the wrong way of using developers time. Yeah, that may be so, as could me replying to you, et.c. With that written, what isn't seen in public is a mail by the Nico, that was kind to coded the db to begin with, where he also raises the issue. He is aware that we need to do other stuff. What he created allows us to do so in an easier and nicer manner, and it also invites more people to do so.

Hungry? You can light a fire with sticks and stones. Or, you can first create a lighter, then easily create fires in the future. In both cases you'll get to eat...however, there seems to be a reson for humans developing tools, even if they are not necessary.

About me being rude, I knew I was, I just didn't bother to tone it down. Hopefully my Start of Rant and End of Rant helped bring some humility to it.
It did, it's cool. It's just provoking some. Just like merfolk naked breasts seem to do ;)
About playtesting, it's impossible without cards o:
That's what the card db allows you to do - contribute to create them.
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