LackeyCCG

I figured out how many cards my game will have. It's around 7500. Is that too much?

My game, like wowtcg, has rivaling factions, only there are 3. There are 9 elements which you want to build your deck around 1 or 2 of those.also there are 9 plains like in magic, and each plain acts differently and has its own special keywords and effects.

There are champion cards and special artifacts that begin with the champion in the game for special bonuses.

Yes, I believe that is too many for a base set or any game without a fairly decent sized following. In the heyday of ccgs when people really bought and played them a lot (and tried a lot of random ones) games would have maybe 360 cards in their initial release. I feel like that number is reasonable if not a little high for games now-a-days

Well because of its similar structure to magic the first set will have 470 for a first set in a cycle and 2 following sets of 200. There won't be yearly base sets. I'm planning 9 cycles. I could remove the other 2 sets thus i'm left with 4300~ cards. Should I remove them?

I think after the first set, you'll have all the basic cards, so really I'd say each set after the first should be about half as big as the first (barring repeats). I have over 200 in my first set, with 9 separate elements, and there's enough there to make a gigantic amount of decks. I'd say if you start maybe with 300 in the first set and 200 in each after, that would give your game enough variety while still being massively flexible.

I'm revising to lower the importance of elements to really raise the deck building options. I guess i'll lower the entire basic game to 4300~ cards. Each of the plains will have 470 cards.

I actually think what should be done is lowering the amount of attributes (as I'm going to call them), the plains/elements/factions. As we have it, there are 3x9x9 available combinations, or 243. As an example, Yu-Gi-Oh has 21 possible combinations outside of the god cards. The TCG has been running for about 13 years now and has nearly hit 5500 in OCG format, a total of 80 different sets. Now, I'm not trying to appear as if I'm telling you to lower the number of cards, and I'm sorry if it appears that way, I'm just offering a suggestion that I believe would make the game seem less overwhelming.

I can't. The 3 faction symbolize the morality if you will and the sense of constant struggle. the elements behave like character class and define strategy. The 9 planes define the different parts of the universe, this part is the trickiest, easier to think of it as in american superheor comic books that are different levels of heroes fighting different battles but they unite quite often.

You were right to lower the number. I have few ideas to bring its longevity more without the necessary of loads of cards. Yugioh is a good example to show a bloody mountain of useless cards. I want every card to mean something and with all these attributes it exactly can happen.

How many cards in a magic metagame of each format are there?

Let's take a look at some things in preexisting card games for examples, shall we?

Outside of the god cards, YuGiOh has at least 60 combinations of type (Warrior, Beast-Warrior, etc.) and attribute (Element, basically).  Only once did they introduce a new type, and that was so that something that didn't have specific coverage before and normally got grouped into something else.  Add to that the special types (Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Ritual, Spirit, Gemini, Toon, and Tuner), And that's over 240 combinations, not taking into consideration that Tuner could appear on all of those but Xyz, and Toon & Spirit could appear on any of the others!  And consider this; even with 5500 cards on the table, not even all of those 60 initial combinations have been covered.  The closest thing to factions in this game are archetypes, which are cards designed to work together that typically have part of their name in common.

Magic works differently; Factions are not outright defined in gameplay, but the flavor of factions is sometimes still there.  Magic divides creatures by class, which normally indicates race and, on some cards, some form of profession (not likely to find a card that's just a Human anymore, unless it's a token; you're more likely to see a Human Rogue or Human Knight).  Color, Magic's equivalent of element, is dictated by cost.  However, the mechanics and strategy used by the cards are not, by rule, determined by the color of the card.  Yes, there are rules as to the typical behavior of each color, but it is also more loose in what the colors can do; as long as it goes with that color's mindset in some way, it makes sense.

Vanguard keeps things much simpler; it's really only got Faction and Race, and so far, the latter hasn't been used from a gameplay standpoint.  Faction, however, pretty much dictates what's in your deck.

So, here's the questions I have; do faction, plain, and element have an actual affect on gameplay?  If not, then are they created by the mechanics of the game?  If there are rules that regard faction, like in WoW or DBZ, then keep faction.  Plains appear to only have to do with the set/cycle that the cards are released in, so it feels like something that's flavor only.  As far as element, is it just an indicator of strategy, or is there a mechanical reason for, as an example, a Fire character to be Fire?

The plains don't just define cycles, there are special keywords existing in every cycle to give it a unique feel. Also, there are modes where you can use cards only from that plain.

The element defeine that feel as colors of magic. There are perks for playing cards of the ssame emotion though unecessary.

The factions define the flavor. You can only play cards of that faction.

Breaking news. Due to the invention of 2 new card types, giving the smaller neutral factions elements and introducing elementalless cards. I increased the number of cards in a cycle from 470 to 765.

This means I can break it down to different sets.I'm thinking 4. The starter will be twice as big than the following 3.

How many years will these 7500 cards be spread out for release?

I guess 5-9 years.

Then you are going about this in the entirely wrong way as well as planning way too ahead into the future. What if Players "break" card interaction and create some powerful combo you've never seen before? Do you still plan on releasing the pre-defined cards with such effects? That might further improve the initial combo? You can play test all the cards you want before hand but that doesn't mean you'll have perfected it, even Wizards understated Jace and had to ban a card for the first time in the long time.

What you should do is plan 6-12 months ahead say with a total set of 200-400 cards for that time period being released in packs of 50-100. Then take the results from the current meta-game about halfway through that period and apply that to your new set of 200-400 cards and create/modify cards to help lower the consistency of the apparently stronger decks and or improve the over-all consistency of the apparently weaker decks.

Keep it light, simple and adaptable. One single broken combo interaction between cards found by the Players in the first set, may make your other 7000 cards completely irrelevant.

I'd agree; no card game is going to design cards that far in advance.  At most, Magic designs sets 1-2 years in advance, and even then they change if something unexpected happens in the metagame. In addition, they will only design a single set or block at a time.

I'm in the process of designing the first set, and I know mechanics I want to use in the next 2-4 sets, and the flavor of the next 8-10 sets.  That being said, I'm designing a few cards for later sets that I happen to come up with as I'm making the initial set, but I'm not designing the whole game 2-4 years down the line.  I'm taking into consideration what I know I will do later, but I am not designing too far ahead if it's not simply an idea that naturally came about.

In other words, don't design the entire game right off the bat if it's fixed length; you will have to take into consideration how players react to this year's game, and use releases in the next year to contend with things that become too dominant.

There is another thing that worries me. My game is very similar to WOWTCG. The ratio between heroes and other cards is 1:2 and in my game is 1:33. Is that okay, or should I make more heroes?

"Other cards?"

Like, in your game for every hero you have 33 support cards as opposed to WoW which has 2 support cards per heroes.

Sorry typo, in WOW it is 1:12 and in my game it is 1:33 between heroes and deck cards.

Again, the games have some similarities.

Should I make more heroes or remove some of the deck cards, or leave it be?

Well, you don't need to remove them. You could just keep them for support later on.

33 per hero does seem fairly excessive (30 card deck in your game?) but doesn't mean it's bad.

Would you care to show the game and some support of it here, so we know what we're actually dealing with it?

I was misunderstood. I meant in the overall sum of cards not deck size. Well, I can't becuase the game is now cuurently enetering its 4th development cycle.

The main things about the games are:

A. All cards are creatures. This games has is own froms of insats, enchantments and spells though.
B. The resource system starts big and gives a small stream of resource energy overtime. You can get more by Commiting characters, which meand flipping them over, it costs one mana, but gives you 1 every turn.
C. All cards can be resurrected fromt he graveyard. Some effects can stop resurrection. Heroes can be ressurected too.
D. You draw 2 cards every turn.
E. You win from breakthrough damage. not from killing heroes.
F. There is a 3-copy limit, but some have 1 or unlimited.
G. There are 3 factions that cannot mix, and some neutral cards.
H. There are 9 different classes.

If anything else is necessary please ask. After knowing this, what should I do?

Actually you misunderstood me, I was asking how many cards does a player put into a deck?

60 cards.

Hmm, that ratio isn't bad then, just release a different selection of Heroes per set.

I will.
Well, how come both ratios, mine and WOW's, are acceptable?

Cause it really doesn't matter in the end. Provided decks can be played then your sorted. More cards created just give more customisation to the deck, provided their quality is at the similar level.

Should I make multiple versions of the same hero?
Like in VS System but only for heroes. E.g. Superman, Son of Krypton; Superman, Defender of Earth; Superman, Man of Steel. They'll have the same stats, but 2 out of the 3 amilities will be changed. What do you think about this idea?

It really doesn't matter unless your game is good.

We can't help you at all unless you give us a detailed description of the game.

The fact the game is apparently so much like WoW is already starting down a bad road.

It really feels like you are worrying about things that won't be important until much, much later.

Planning to have a game with x thousand cards is pointless if the game fails to get people playing it. Once the game is working properly, then go ahead and make more cards, otherwise it's just a waste of effort.

I have the same problem that you do - most of these questions can be answered by playtesting. There is a limit to how far you can develop a game just by thinking and writing stuff down. The sooner you can get to testing the faster you will be able to solve these problems in my opinion.

I only used the reference of WOW because, it's a surprise. It is infact, only similar in the fact they both have heroes.

My game has a combo led by the hero, and cards around him, which are all monsters. You target the player and not the hero. The resource income is fixed. There also some mechanics unique to my game which I haven't seen anywhere else.

I know I'm worried about it now because I'll be making it either way, it makes no difference to me.

I'll do the 2nd version of the heroes has promo cards. This will work best, and it will rebalance the ratio to an acceptable one.

New idea. One thing in the game's lore is the constant rise of madness. I want each hero to have a sane and insane versions who does that sound?

Sounds interesting, like Limit Breaking/Lentation, if the Hero card is something you start outside of the deck, then you can have two faces on the card and after it's taken so much damage or whatever you could flip it into it's insane version.

I kidna thought that it will be 2 seperate hero cards.

Oh? So how does one become an Insane Hero? Do you just start off as one or do you eventually fall into insanity?

It's like the WOWTCG with traitor/un-traitor heroes, but in my case it's far more basic.

If you played Mass Effect or Jade Dynasty or Knights of the Old Republic, there are 2 lines or morality. Basically one lawful and one chaotic (though in edition 4, they removed that concept and created lawful good-good-neutral-evil-chaotic evil which is much better).

In my lore, living creatures are nearly immortal. Vampire: The Masquerade has Gehenna. I want to do the same thing. Basically the world is about to end in a Ragnarok-esque battle, but you don't know which side will win. One side, uses an addiction, to empower and control the masses. One card is the heroes without it and later on release one on it.

The addicted heroes will be special promo cards. The regular ones will come n the main set mostly.

I am also concern about the ratio between normal creatures, instant creatures and attachable creature which stands now on 9:6:4 respectively.

I think if there should be more attachables and less instances. The game is around the combos the hero and creatures can create. I'm afraid I won't have enough ideas for enchantments, but i'm afraid the instants will be very overpowered.

I think the ratio of instants to attachables you have now seems fine. You'll probably see more impressive combos if people need to replenish their effects and strategies each turn. If you feel the instants are too overpowered, make a deck based on instants and test it against a decidedly "average" deck. But I'd generally say that more instants will help give games more variety on a per-turn basis.

New Idea:

You get 1 point for a breakthrough damage attack. BT damage is done from attacking direactly an enemy player without any other cards stopping it. The playmat is divided into 4 columns, so you can BTD from each of the columns.

You get 1 point for killing a hero. A hero is a very strong card you start the game with.

Also,

You start with 5 power, every tme you are attacked you win 1 power and every time you attack you gain 1 power. Every time you kill, you gain 5 power. Killing a hero grants 3 power. If you have 20 power over any other enemy player, you automatically win (morale victory).

What do you think?

Correction: 1 Power is given if killed a non-hero card.