ARC Playtest Round 3 : a summary

[ngoeminne]

Hi Folks,

Last Sunday I had another playtest run with a close friend and a long time MtG player.
First impression 'hey, you made it even more complex then Mtg', yeah said, 'wel ehh, lets just try and see'. And it actually went rather smooth. He played the gaian defensive deck, I played the uneasy alliance offensive deck. Rather strange cause I'm usually the defensive player and he's the offensive player most of the time.

We sat down and started a game, it lasted about 2 hours before the offensive deck made the win. Although it was nearly close to defeat rather soon (one city left with three def points left on the last). Also the defensive deck was close to a win on VP (around 25 VP's, and you need 30 to win).
There were of course some tactical mistakes, and without it, the def deck could have won (perhaps).

The win came of with the combination of 'Besiegde city', 'dark portal', and more creatures in the army. So the I could always send his creatures back to the locked down city. He tried to break out using a Falconer and birds (who now have sudden, and could be cast into the army directly).
He almost turned the tide with a 'call to aid' and let a city help defend an attack on the army, it almost left my army with less creatures than his, breaking the city's lockdown.

So the conclusions, I'll start with the con's

* It was a long long game, (as in the previous playtests, they tend to be longer then the average mtg game)
* the decks were balanced just right, maybe to even to tight, hence the long game
* we might want to speed up the gameplay, maybe by lowering the casting cost (when we calculate the cost we might round down instead of up)
* there isn't to much direct damage, or things to destroy enchantments in the decks.
(I wouldn't say they are badly build, but our cardpool is low, so no destroying enchantments just yet)

The pro's.
* New mtg player could easily play, sometimes wanted to use a tactics phase after play (cast creature), but after some turns, that was gone
* The ARC 2,1 or zero card draw versus the 0, 1 ,2 resource drops was liked a lot. It really adds to the gameplay.
* The cities tactics were used a lot, movement to and from was clear
* hand-card depletion was as normal

Neutral:
* the possibility to block/counteract the tactics of the opponent was barely used. (Although it was taken into account when deciding to go for a tactics advantage)

In the end it was a good game, but way to lengthy. Should we aim for a 20-30 min game?

Kind regards,
Nico

* The resource visualization system worked well

[Peter]

I occasionally play Rummikub and Pachisi. Both 15-40 min games (normally 20-25 min). So I play these games.
And Monopoly takes 2 hours or so. So I don't play it (despite the fact that I actually love it). Similar with "Alhambra", a board game.

So a 20-30 min game I would play; an hour-long game I wouldn't. A short game fits better into the time you have for playing. And people with lots of time could play 2 or more rounds of short games.

So go for 20-30 min!

[Pistos]

For what it's worth, I'm coming from Hearthstone, where games are usually just 6 to 12 minutes or so (I never really measured). I'd rather play several short games than one long one. This lets you leave a gaming session without annoying your opponent because you left mid-game. When scoring, ladders or leaderboards come into the picture, you wouldn't have to worry about forfeiting.

[snowdrop]

So a 20-30 min game I would play; an hour-long game I wouldn't. A short game fits better into the time you have for playing. And people with lots of time could play 2 or more rounds of short games.

coming from Hearthstone, where games are usually just 6 to 12 minutes or so (I never really measured). I'd rather play several short games than one long one.

I won't speak for ARC, but I myself am not going for such a game:

That genre of CCG:s is what I would call "light" ones. They are fun, fill a niche, yet lack full features of a conventional CCG that takes more time to play (most often real depth/design space/creative possibilities et.c, which is actually limitations that are all captured excellent by strict class-deck system in Herathstone and small card compatibility... )

It comes down to what a player wants - as a person I enjoy both worlds, but am not interested in investing thousands of hours in a light CCG:s compared to what I'd get doing the same in a full featured one. It's just a matter of taste and what one prefers - I'm not stating "I have the correct taste" here ; )

The General Design Document of the project doesn't say much about the topic, meaning you're welcome to create such a game using our resources here - it's even perfectly legal to just take every single mechanic in an already existing game like Hearthstone and re-create it using our own text/graphics, should one want to do that.

A thing worth mentioning in passing by though is that much of the speed in these games comes, besides from simplicity/"lack of features", the fact that they are administered by a computer, electronically. Playing them in real life on a kitche table would still be way way faster than conventional CCG:s, but, would actually probably double the playing time.

As for out visions with this project as a developers meeting place and platform, it is not to just create a computer game - it's to create a game that is first and foremost playable with real paper cards primarily. Secondarily to port that to electronic form, if there's an interest.

This lets you leave a gaming session without annoying your opponent because you left mid-game. When scoring, ladders or leaderboards come into the picture, you wouldn't have to worry about forfeiting.

Leaving mid game is either bad game design that made players leave mid game, bad tempered player, or both ; ) Honestly, a successful game doesn't have leaving i mid as a goal or something that is really common. If one has then one should incorporate it into the design more clearly, which most games to my knowledge don't, and neither does Hearthstone.

In conventional card games you also play best of 3 or even best of 5 using the same deck, which also truly puts your deck matchups and skills to the test. Last time I saw in Hearthstone all of this was also not there, pretty much making a casual game something of a fluke and guestimations about what you are facing. However, this isn't a serious issue in the world of HS due to short games, so I guess there isn't too much grief.

[Pistos]

I get what you're saying. I think the best thing might be to have multiple rule sets, so that you can cater to different audiences. I have no objection to the first official rule set of WTactics to be geared towards a more complex game, and where games will last 30 to 60 minutes.

[xarn]

I also think it strongly depends on the kind of decks. Pick a good fast aggressive red deck in MTG and the game is usually over in 5 to 10 minutes. Take a defensive blue/white deck and it may drag into hours. I'm also in the camp who would favor game sessions of about 10 to 30 min, but not more.

[Peter]

Maybe we make rules for 4 cities for 40-60 min and give the players the option to play with just 2 cities so it takes only 20-30 min.

[ngoeminne]

Hi folks,

An other option is to have a fixed deck size at 45 cards and the unique card limit to 3.
With three unique cities (so the deck has actually 42 cards)

There are a couple of advantages:

- The ratio of unique cards is about the same (60 / 4 = 15) compared to 42 /3 = 14
This means that the same distribution is upheld, so in terms of card draw it should give about the same randomness

- The current ARC games draw into 70% to 80 % of the deck, reducing the deck to 42 will close it to 100%, which means towards the end of the game other choices, and a different tempo is need (in game strategy variation goes up)

-The 3 card limit is more symmetrical to the 3 cities.

- For DIY printing 45 card deck can be printed on 5 A4 pages (9 per page)

- Lowering the deck limit makes the clock ticking faster (when you cannot draw you lose the game)

We'll playtest with these settings, and see if it speeds up things.
By the way, although the playtesters are seasoned MTG players, they still need some time to get into the differences and to adapt to the different strategic possibilities. It might as well speed up the gameplay by a factor 2 (once you are used in playing).

Kind regards.
Nico

btw. Anyone already played online using untap in?

[Peter]

...Anyone already played online using untap in?

Nope, not yet. Is there an AI opponent?

[ngoeminne]

Hi Peter,

No, there's no AI.

Kind regards,
Nico