I remember an old card from my own deck in M:tG... It was a Dark, or a Fallen, if I remember correctly, but the name eludes me for now. Probably Goblin something. My whole deck was goblin, at the time...
Basically, it was used to enchant a land, which wouldn't give mana, but a +2/+0 instead to all your creatures. (Must have been Goblin Caves...)
Another one, which, untweaked, would have made the game completely unfair, was the Mirage extension "Gregarious behaviour", which gave every creature a +1/+0 for every other creature on your side. On a Goblin deck, this meant having, very fast an army of unstoppable creatures on your side.
I remember being able to pull off at least two summons of 1/1 creatures every turn, and still be able to turn them into 5/3 without doing a thing. Using said "gregarious behaviour", it meant that by round four, I had around four or five creatures ranging from 3/3 to 6/4, and an opponent feverishly asking himself how in Hell he could get himself out of it. I remember that the only decks that could regularly kick my butt were "Rack & Vise", which would use my own abilities to kill me, the Turbo-Stasis, which would give my opponent eight turns were I would use one, and the Black Death ones, were my opponent would simply strip my hands and deck from me, and send them to the cemetary, which he would periodically destroy.
Given that you want online PvP games, I would have thought that the levels would be important, because it meant being able to judge from your opponent's levels what and where he'd been. Meaning that it was a sort of history of the player, and of his past games tactics.
As for the synergies, I suppose you should have some cards that unbalance your abilities. Like, if you want to be able to play a different tactic that day, against that particular deck, you should have cards that draw all your levels and add them to a single line of power. Like, if you have lvl 2 Summoning, level 3 Direct Damageing and lvl 1 Mana Drawing, and that day and game, you want to play out your abilities in Mana Drawing, then you use that card, which reduces all your abilities to 1, and gives you the remnant of points in Mana Drawing. (Mana Drawing would be the equivalent of M:tG blue spells Mana Burn and Mana Drain condensed in one ability, which makes you deal damage to your opponent, depending of how much mana he would invest in his spells... A sort of Counter ability...)
Meaningful Magic, or Leveraging Synergies
As for the playtesting of the tick, it's easy enough if you're ready to prepare things a little.
Let's say, for the sake of the demonstration, that you DO use 3x5 paper cards to playtest your game. If you draw a circle at the bottom of your card, and attach a rolling pin to the center, then you have a beautiful quadrant there, which can be used to measure the passing of time. You divide this quadrant depending on your cards needs (that is, six parts if stamina six, or twelve if stamina twelve, or... whatever...) And then, all you have to do, is make sure every card ticks off at the same speed. (Maybe you could add some time slowing effects, or freezing effects, which you could represent with stones, added or taken, which would represent the time frame. A little like M:tG Phasing, I believe. I wasn't playing anymore by the time this ability turned up, so... sorry if I'm making things more difficult by being mistaken...)
The obvious problem with this system is that it may confuse the player, at first, that a low rate is in fact FASTER than a higher rate, but it goes smoothly after game one, because you have seen that the number is simply the number of turns required to wait until you get another action and that's all... You only get your next action when your "meter's hand" gets to the top of your quadrant again....
Let's say, for the sake of the demonstration, that you DO use 3x5 paper cards to playtest your game. If you draw a circle at the bottom of your card, and attach a rolling pin to the center, then you have a beautiful quadrant there, which can be used to measure the passing of time. You divide this quadrant depending on your cards needs (that is, six parts if stamina six, or twelve if stamina twelve, or... whatever...) And then, all you have to do, is make sure every card ticks off at the same speed. (Maybe you could add some time slowing effects, or freezing effects, which you could represent with stones, added or taken, which would represent the time frame. A little like M:tG Phasing, I believe. I wasn't playing anymore by the time this ability turned up, so... sorry if I'm making things more difficult by being mistaken...)
The obvious problem with this system is that it may confuse the player, at first, that a low rate is in fact FASTER than a higher rate, but it goes smoothly after game one, because you have seen that the number is simply the number of turns required to wait until you get another action and that's all... You only get your next action when your "meter's hand" gets to the top of your quadrant again....
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Quote:Original post by FournicolasI wonder, were you playing with cards en français? Because I don't recognize any of those names. I used a similar snake-themed deck with coat-of-arms, which gives a +1/+1 to each creature for each other creature that shares a type with it. So, your opponent gets the benefit too, but they probably weren't running a theme creature deck. In any case, these are exactly the kinds of ideas I want to incoporate, thanks! [smile]
I remember an old card from my own deck in M:tG... It was a Dark, or a Fallen, if I remember correctly, but the name eludes me for now. Probably Goblin something. My whole deck was goblin, at the time...
Basically, it was used to enchant a land, which wouldn't give mana, but a +2/+0 instead to all your creatures. (Must have been Goblin Caves...)
Another one, which, untweaked, would have made the game completely unfair, was the Mirage extension "Gregarious behaviour", which gave every creature a +1/+0 for every other creature on your side. On a Goblin deck, this meant having, very fast an army of unstoppable creatures on your side.
I remember being able to pull off at least two summons of 1/1 creatures every turn, and still be able to turn them into 5/3 without doing a thing. Using said "gregarious behaviour", it meant that by round four, I had around four or five creatures ranging from 3/3 to 6/4, and an opponent feverishly asking himself how in Hell he could get himself out of it. I remember that the only decks that could regularly kick my butt were "Rack & Vise", which would use my own abilities to kill me, the Turbo-Stasis, which would give my opponent eight turns were I would use one, and the Black Death ones, were my opponent would simply strip my hands and deck from me, and send them to the cemetary, which he would periodically destroy.
Quote:Original post by FournicolasThat's an interesting perspective, but I'm sure you could imagine much better ways of representing an avatar's history than levels. My aversion to them is because I want a game of this type to play like chess, where it must be about strategy because of the even playing field. Levels too often remind me of the kind of MMORPG "LOLz n00B, im lv99 wearing 1337 7r0uZ0RZ!!!" I don't want new players with better strategies to get completely "pwnt" by older avatars.
Given that you want online PvP games, I would have thought that the levels would be important, because it meant being able to judge from your opponent's levels what and where he'd been. Meaning that it was a sort of history of the player, and of his past games tactics.
Quote:Original post by FournicolasThat's an interesting idea. I'm using the classical elements as "skills", rather than the types of spells, but I don't know if rearranging a character's affinities really meshes well with my game world. The ratios of affinity in different elements is sort of an expression of the avatar's personality. Although, I'd be willing to bet most players would completely ignore that fact, instead favoring the most efficient game strategy.
As for the synergies, I suppose you should have some cards that unbalance your abilities. Like, if you want to be able to play a different tactic that day, against that particular deck, you should have cards that draw all your levels and add them to a single line of power. Like, if you have lvl 2 Summoning, level 3 Direct Damageing and lvl 1 Mana Drawing, and that day and game, you want to play out your abilities in Mana Drawing, then you use that card, which reduces all your abilities to 1, and gives you the remnant of points in Mana Drawing. (Mana Drawing would be the equivalent of M:tG blue spells Mana Burn and Mana Drain condensed in one ability, which makes you deal damage to your opponent, depending of how much mana he would invest in his spells... A sort of Counter ability...)
Yes, I was playing in French, and I am pretty sure Goblin Caves was the name, because Dark extensions was never translated. (I started spending money on that when still in Beta, though...) As for the "gregarious Behaviour", I only got that one in French, yes. SO maybe it does have another name in English version...
As for the older players throwing noobs out of the window, this will happen anyway. Either you give cards away as a reward for winning a contest, so anyone with most contests has more chances to have more cards, or better cards at least. Or you give cards as a reward for just being there, and therefore, the older players get more cards than the noobs.
And if you decide to give cards against a payment, then as in M:tG, the most favoured won't be the oldest players or even the best, but the richests. Or if you decide to give every single card to every player, then you can never have a decisive deck, and most likely, every combination will end up on an internet site, with preconstructed decks.
You may also decide to preconstruct decks, and then give the players a way to find or get new cards, but that means finding a way to do that without frustrating older players of the fact that THEIR OVERALL POWER ISN'T EVOLVING, which is obviously a bad thing.
Give it your best shot, but be sure of one thing. Either you DO give the players a way to make the noobs feel that being older means a thing, and then you retain your older player base, or you do NOT, and then you retain no one. Feel free to choose.
As for the older players throwing noobs out of the window, this will happen anyway. Either you give cards away as a reward for winning a contest, so anyone with most contests has more chances to have more cards, or better cards at least. Or you give cards as a reward for just being there, and therefore, the older players get more cards than the noobs.
And if you decide to give cards against a payment, then as in M:tG, the most favoured won't be the oldest players or even the best, but the richests. Or if you decide to give every single card to every player, then you can never have a decisive deck, and most likely, every combination will end up on an internet site, with preconstructed decks.
You may also decide to preconstruct decks, and then give the players a way to find or get new cards, but that means finding a way to do that without frustrating older players of the fact that THEIR OVERALL POWER ISN'T EVOLVING, which is obviously a bad thing.
Give it your best shot, but be sure of one thing. Either you DO give the players a way to make the noobs feel that being older means a thing, and then you retain your older player base, or you do NOT, and then you retain no one. Feel free to choose.
Author
Quote:Original post by FournicolasJe parle un peu Français, mais pas assez pour jouer un CCG. Comme vous pouvez voir, ma grammaire française est terrible! [lol]
Yes, I was playing in French, and I am pretty sure Goblin Caves was the name, because Dark extensions was never translated. (I started spending money on that when still in Beta, though...) As for the "gregarious Behaviour", I only got that one in French, yes. SO maybe it does have another name in English version...
Quote:Original post by FournicolasYou're half right. If my game achieves ideal balance, stronger spells won't be better, because they cost more mana to use, take longer to prepare and cool down, and are a bigger setback when countered. So, older players will have more cards, and thus more strategies, but not necessarily better cards.
As for the older players throwing noobs out of the window, this will happen anyway. Either you give cards away as a reward for winning a contest, so anyone with most contests has more chances to have more cards, or better cards at least. Or you give cards as a reward for just being there, and therefore, the older players get more cards than the noobs.
Quote:Original post by FournicolasThe game is mainly a single-player RPG, so spells will be earned by adventuring and completing quests. Summoned creatures can be collected by negotiating with them in battle. The rich players won't have the best cards; I don't know if I'll even use money. In any case, the multiplayer mode is more periphery to the main game than I may have led you to believe. Plus, I don't even have a networking library in my engine yet, so it's a bit premature for me to talk about network play. I would like players to be able to trade spells and items, though.
And if you decide to give cards against a payment, then as in M:tG, the most favoured won't be the oldest players or even the best, but the richests. Or if you decide to give every single card to every player, then you can never have a decisive deck, and most likely, every combination will end up on an internet site, with preconstructed decks.
You may also decide to preconstruct decks, and then give the players a way to find or get new cards, but that means finding a way to do that without frustrating older players of the fact that THEIR OVERALL POWER ISN'T EVOLVING, which is obviously a bad thing.
Give it your best shot, but be sure of one thing. Either you DO give the players a way to make the noobs feel that being older means a thing, and then you retain your older player base, or you do NOT, and then you retain no one. Feel free to choose.
More spells (because nobody told me to stop)-
Summon Spirit Merchant
Effect: Your character crys out for help and an angel with black and white spotted wings appears. You pay him in gold (or some other currency-like material) and he performs magic to help you. He doesn't attack and cannot be destoyed. He may leave if you run out of money or another angel/demon appears.
Magic he may use:
Create food- he creates potions/bread/herbs that restore health. These are just like the ones you might buy at a store, only more expensive and you don't have to carry them into battle.
Channel mana- he provides you with all the mana you need to cast spells, but you have to pay for each unit of mana pers spell.
Heal- He heals your body and can cure almost any status effect, he doesn't have the authority to bring back the dead though.
'All my functions are now yours... take them...'
Summon Spirit Merchant
Effect: Your character crys out for help and an angel with black and white spotted wings appears. You pay him in gold (or some other currency-like material) and he performs magic to help you. He doesn't attack and cannot be destoyed. He may leave if you run out of money or another angel/demon appears.
Magic he may use:
Create food- he creates potions/bread/herbs that restore health. These are just like the ones you might buy at a store, only more expensive and you don't have to carry them into battle.
Channel mana- he provides you with all the mana you need to cast spells, but you have to pay for each unit of mana pers spell.
Heal- He heals your body and can cure almost any status effect, he doesn't have the authority to bring back the dead though.
'All my functions are now yours... take them...'
from TRON said:
Effect: The caster selects one ally and then falls asleep. The ally then receives stat bonuses (mainly strength, defence, magical prowess, etc.) and some health transfered from the caster. If the caster is woken up then the ally receiving the power will lose all bonuese and perhaps recieve a negative status ailment.
Team spirit
Effect: a spellcaster has access to the mana pool of all adjasant allies.
Magic Puppet
Effect: manipulates another unit to cast a spell, usually an ally. The controlled unit casts as if it were at the same level of proficiency as the origional caster and only casts a spell the origional caster knows, though it uses the controlled units mana.
'I'm friendly… honest'
Effect: The caster changes a viewers perception so that they appear to be allies to whoever looks at them. This effect continues until they cast a spell that targets any other creature. AI characters might not attack them, and player controlled characters would see that unit as being of the same color as their own, though they wouldn't be able to control them.
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Skills-
Sceptic
Effect: The character is sceptical of magic effects and whenever targeted by a magic effect, either good or evil. They perform a will-check against the caster and try to make the spell fail. This works for both spells directed at the sceptic specifically or in cases that the sceptic is merely one in a group. They can never cast spells. (Sort of a take on the Final Fantasy Tactics faith system where magic effectiveness relies on faith to work)
Yawn:
Effect: A noise that may make adjasant units fall asleep
Sleepwalk
Effect: A skill that allows characters to move around even while asleep. They can't do anything and their defences arn't improved at all but they can still move away from danger.
========
Magic Block
Effect: Caster spents 1 turn erecting a magical barrier around themselves and when hit by a spell they pay additional mana to disrupt the spell.
Magic Reflect
Effect: When combined with Magic Block, the caster spends 1 turn infusing their barrier with the power to reflect spells to a chosen target.
Channel Boost
Effect: When combined with Magic Reflect, the person redirecting can pay the spells origional cost double its power when redirected. This does stack, so if wizard A casts a spell to wizard B who doubles it and then directs it to wizard C who doubles it, they combined pay 3 times the spells cost but it is 4 times as powerful. But they would all have to spend turns setting up their barriers to get it to work.
Magic Recharge
Effect: combined with magic block, the barrier absorbs magic and converts it into mana. can't be combined with magic reflect
Magic Absorb
Effect: combined with magic block, the barrier absorbs magic and converts it to HP. can't be combined with magic reflect
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Seven Deadly Spirits-
A sort of sacrifice system thing I thought of based on the 7 deadly sins. You invite a spirit to possess one character. They get stat boosts from the spirit inhabiting them but there are demands. If one set of demandsis not met, you have a problem. It another set is met, the spirit leaves. Probably not the best but may inspire some other ideas. only got 3 sins.
Invite Gluttony
Movement: Host moves and attacks normally
Demand: The spirit consumes one recovery item (potion, herb, antidote…) every few turns. This doesn't interfere with the hosts combat ability, though they do benefit from eating the recovery items.
Problem: if they run out of recovery items, host starts losing HP steadily as the spirit consumes them.
Leaves: If the host is in critcal health and there is no more food.
Invite Lust
Movement: They attack and act normally. [or if its like FFTactics they could automatically get 'charmed' by one ally of the opposite sex]
Demand: They stay within a few squares of a living ally of the opposite sex at all times.
Problem: If they aren't near an ally of the opposite sex, you lose control of the character until they get near to one.
Leaves: If there are no more members of the opposite sex alive on the field.
Invite Sloth
Effect: sleepwalking skill, Yawn skill, and gradual HP recovery
Movement: The host falls asleep and begins sleepwalking around the map as controlled by AI. If they stop next to another character, they Yawn.
Problem: If they are woken up, they goes berzerk and starts attacking people randomly until they go to sleep a few turns later.
Leaves: If they can't get any sleep for several consecutive turns.
===================
Sigh, anyway. another bunch of random stuff. Let me know if any of these sound useful.
Author
@The Shadow Nose:
Some of those I can't use, but there are a few very intriguing ideas in there! I especially like the "possession" mechanic. I'm not quite sure what I'd do with it, but that sounds like a gameplay element that could go far.
All of the magic shield stuff is good, but I don't know if I want to have a spell whose sole purpose is to enhance a different spell. Perhaps if I made a single-use "mana absorb" spell that could target the shield...hmmm...
Thanks for all the suggestions, everybody! Hopefully I'll have a working boss battle by the end of this month!
Some of those I can't use, but there are a few very intriguing ideas in there! I especially like the "possession" mechanic. I'm not quite sure what I'd do with it, but that sounds like a gameplay element that could go far.
All of the magic shield stuff is good, but I don't know if I want to have a spell whose sole purpose is to enhance a different spell. Perhaps if I made a single-use "mana absorb" spell that could target the shield...hmmm...
Thanks for all the suggestions, everybody! Hopefully I'll have a working boss battle by the end of this month!
Quote:Original post by templewulf:
what would make a good spell?
I don't know if anyone has ever done this before (I certainly haven't) but a random spell generator would be nice to have. Randomizing all the elements (distance, timing, effects, graphics) to create random (but creative) spells for you. Don't ask me how to do that though...?!
GDnet has given me the ability to create this message, so they are to blame...
Mindswap:
"One of your men switches minds with one of the enemies men, thus giving you control of their man and losing control of your man."
I don't know, I just thought of it... would be cool if your man was about to self destruct... hehe.
Mindswap:
"One of your men switches minds with one of the enemies men, thus giving you control of their man and losing control of your man."
I don't know, I just thought of it... would be cool if your man was about to self destruct... hehe.
Give things common attributes: for example, creatures in MtG had casting cost, colour, power, toughness, creature type, flags (like artifact) and possibly additional special abilities (like banding). Cards in play could be "tapped" or "untapped".
Now you can have effects that react to things based on their attributes.
Have some state: in MtG, you had the cards in your hand, your hand size, the order of cards in your deck (hidden state), the cards in your graveyard and their order, as well as the current phase of play.
Figure out what actions players can do: they can activate abilities on cards in play (and sometimes in the graveyard), and they can pay the cost of a card in their hand to cause something to happen.
Have a default play-flow. "Do upkeep, Draw a card, do stuff, maybe attack once, do stuff, discard excess cards and do end-of-turn stuff".
You could have the above game, and restrict it to spells like "fireball" and "summon ogre". That would be MtG without the meta-magic. It would be a playable game -- it just wouldn't be the same as MtG.
Meta-magic are spells that take a framework like the above, and start playing with the rules. Counterspells allow you to prevent opponent action, spells that cause things to happen based on game state (rack, ivory tower), cards that change your opponent's state or your own state (discard cards, draw cards), cards that change what resources your opponent has in play (destroy land/creature/artifact spells), cards that change the behaviour of other cards in play based on the card's attributes, cards that change the attributes of other cards, etc.
Just make a huge flurry of such metamagic cards. Now you'll want to playtest them -- some of them will form sick combinations, some of them will be gimpy.
But you can't have the metamagic unless you have lots of state for the magic to play with.
Now you can have effects that react to things based on their attributes.
Have some state: in MtG, you had the cards in your hand, your hand size, the order of cards in your deck (hidden state), the cards in your graveyard and their order, as well as the current phase of play.
Figure out what actions players can do: they can activate abilities on cards in play (and sometimes in the graveyard), and they can pay the cost of a card in their hand to cause something to happen.
Have a default play-flow. "Do upkeep, Draw a card, do stuff, maybe attack once, do stuff, discard excess cards and do end-of-turn stuff".
You could have the above game, and restrict it to spells like "fireball" and "summon ogre". That would be MtG without the meta-magic. It would be a playable game -- it just wouldn't be the same as MtG.
Meta-magic are spells that take a framework like the above, and start playing with the rules. Counterspells allow you to prevent opponent action, spells that cause things to happen based on game state (rack, ivory tower), cards that change your opponent's state or your own state (discard cards, draw cards), cards that change what resources your opponent has in play (destroy land/creature/artifact spells), cards that change the behaviour of other cards in play based on the card's attributes, cards that change the attributes of other cards, etc.
Just make a huge flurry of such metamagic cards. Now you'll want to playtest them -- some of them will form sick combinations, some of them will be gimpy.
But you can't have the metamagic unless you have lots of state for the magic to play with.
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