Capturing Mechanic

[yudencow]

I have this idea. What if your out-of-play pile was at the enemy. When an enmy gets one of your card out of the game it is unaccessable to you, but you can switch with your opponent captives.

[Trevor]

Doesn't sound like a good mechanic. If it was a voluntary trade, the only way that would happen is if both players thought it was in both of their interests to do so, and that would be virtually impossible in a 2 player game. If me having my guy back helps me, but them having their guy back helps them more, well that's a net effect of a bad strategy to exchange for me.

And if it isn't voluntary, then it seems to just prolong the game, and undermine the events leading to have those pieces captured to begin with.

This sort of prisoner exchange is done with real prisoners because we care about our people. And it happens with kids playing games like capture the flag because it's more fun to have people playing than just sitting out. But as far as a CCG goes, people don't have any such motivations for prisoner exchange unless it makes them more likely to defeat their opponent.

It's also not a great idea to use captured pieces as a resource. That makes it harder for the underdog to win, and that's bad game design.
On the other hand, you could do something clever and make it an interesting mechanic. For example, when you capture enemy units, you can choose to execute them, or keep them alive. If you have them alive you can force them to do slave labor and get more resources, but you run the risk of them escaping or rebelling, or something along those lines.

[yudencow]

I thought you could release them for gaining resources equal to their cost, or releasing them as a cost for an effect. There could be effects to force people to trade a certain card, but like othe social games like v:tes the depth is really shown when there are more players on the table, and my game supports 2-9. the capturing just meant as a reveseed out-of-play zone, so if a cost makes you to send a card to be captured as a diversion or something, but then strengthens another one through prison break I see a mechanic even in two player game has some merit. the traidng option just meant to induce more players talking to each other during a match, even if they all come up as failure the fact you are communicating is all that matters.

[yudencow]

I went over again what you wrote, and I am a bit confused, Trevor. From one hand you said it is a bad idea to use the as a resource, but on the same pargraph you say it would be interesting if they werre used for labor. I need to make a few clarifications why captuing is good.

Death is very temporary. Every turn you can return 1 card from your graveyard for its cost +3 mana.

While killing is very easy, capturing isn't. You kill be depleting that cad health to 0 which will occur many times. It is not the main goal though. Unlike magic, not every card gets to be a defnder, and you don't really care who has most cards as long as you do more direct damage to the oponent than the opponent does to you.

Questing s vital to success. There are 3 repeatable missions you can keep doing to gain certain advantage in the cost of removing that card from the field. losing a card advantage by capturing can from hand hinder greatly or not change a thing.

Capturing can only be done through an effect of certain cards.

bottom line is capture is worse than death. You are right i need to spice it a little like being able to interrogate them for information or force another card to seize attacking, and then send it to the other player hands.

There is one main logistical problem. It means every player need to have a different set of sleeves for its card to know which card belongs to whom.

What do you heffes think?

[Trevor]

I was saying that the only way you should implement some sort of utilization of prisoners mechanic is to balance it such that it isn't strictly a bonus. If it's mostly a bonus, then you are rewarding the player already in the lead, and that makes for less fun games. But if you came up with some elegant and simple system where it was a strategic decision whether to keep prisoners or execute them, then it wouldn't be a case where it's clearly an advantage for the player in the stronger position. I actually think it's probably more trouble than it's worth, but if you really wanted the flavor of that mechanic, I was saying you need to balance things so you don't just reward the player in the lead.

I'm not sure a constant rule of being able to play cards from your discard pile is a good idea. That seems like a better idea if you made a card that allowed people to do that while you had it in play. That's just a suggestion. You know your game better than I do.

The more you talk about this, the more things kind of are seeming complicated. Remember that some ideas, while cool, will just not be worth the added complexity to your game. The more complicated, the less accessible the game is. And there is something good to be said about a game that is very strategic and complex, but that has very simple rules. Consider chess, for example. You can explain the rules in a paragraph, but the strategy involved during playing can be extreme. There are tons of books on chess strategy, despite the rules being so simple. That's the sort of elegant game design CCG designers should strive for.

And you don't need a different set of sleeves as long as there is a clear area where your prison is, and you keep all their cards in one place, separate from where your cards are.

[yudencow]

the idea for different sleeves was for each player could capture all the other players' so to understand which card belongs to whom in which "prison". I guess it does over complicate I'll try to revamp it, maybe even had a feature you are submitting cards for the enemy for benefits.

[yudencow]

I just rethought what you said after doing my homework in infi, and I desagree. I played chess a couple of times in my life and every time I was detered top play it again. because of the steep learning curve in the so-called simplicity i never understood how to outwit my opponent because there can be inifnite amount of strategy which is to chaotic. The has to be balncaed so the game will not be frozen for the other hand. I think that writing the rules in a paragraph is doable for every complex games, but to understand it throughly the rules should be longer than that. i don't want a game to become an arms race of knowledge through the metagame so it becomes to feel like a chore rather than picking a strategy you like and honing it.

[DavidChaos]

Chess, Go, and its ilk are games with rather simple rules which in and of themselves breed complexity, due to, as you said, the infinite number of moves available.  And they are also games where strategic moves are rewarded.

And as far as the rules of a game, Magic's rules can, more or less, be stated in a paragraph, because the only rules that really aren't something on a card already are the phases of a turn, what the cards are, and how you play them.  Magic's rules get long because of unique interactions and ambiguous rules within the cards themselves, not to mention the keywords and ability words (Like channel and such, which I don't think should even have an addendum in the rules since the words on their own mean nothing, but that's just me).  But most games do use a longer form, simply because it's easier to describe (my game's rulebook is currently 3 pages, with no glossary, which will have some things in it.).

As far as an actual capturing mechanic is concerned, I feel like the taking of prisoners should be a central part of combat, if you use it.  Every location/player/whatever gets a certain number of "civilians" per turn, which are a resource that primarily gets spent on units/characters/whatever.  If an opponent attacks, they can capture any units they defeat, and if they deal direct damage, they can take civilians prisoner.  Captured units could probably be exploited for various effects on cards (Maybe their damage or whatever would automatically recover, and you could use an "Interrogation" card by dealing damage to them to look at the opponent's hand, or other hidden cards; or even know where they will attack next, or with who.)

[yudencow]

My mindset about the game is different because of the revival mechnic, creating an effect of "better dead than captured", and I tried to capitilize on that the prisoners can be spared for a bonus of some kind. Capturing can only be done through an effect of certain cards, meaning not everything can cpture, and not everything can be captured, but right noe I'm thinking to remove it in favor of an extra deck like yugioh, but that instead of secreifising monsters to summon them, they only need to be ready on your battlefield on top of the usual resource cost.

[yudencow]

I just had a brriliant idea. You guys said to simplify things and Trevor also said to balance the game, so how about reserves. Every time a player gets hit, he can pick a card from a special extra deck as long as its requirements are filled. Short and balancing, like a midget acrobat, so what do you think?

[DavidChaos]

If "capture" is going to be something not everything can do, but will be something on the card itself, then that's complexity from the cards, not complexity from the core of your game.  But this whole extra deck thing depends on the flavor.  Not every game needs an extra deck.  Why on earth you'd make an extra deck specifically for when a player gets hit is beyond me.  But I think you need to think about what you're trying to accomplish with the game, and think about if you're making things too complicated; think about if your game were played with vanilla cards only, would it be very complex?  If the answer is yes, then that's a problem; it limits how much design room you have in the game without sensory overload on the part of the player.

My core mechanics can be described rather shortly; you have 5 parts of the turn; first you draw a card and bring all your resources back.  Then, you play cards.  Then, you make teams and attack.  Then you play cards again.  Then you make teams, and end.  Even going into more details about the combat, and how cards get played, it'd all be very simple without effects.  Do you see what I'm driving at here?

[yudencow]

Yeah I do. Back to the drawing board.

[yudencow]

Okay I got a couple of ideas, so hear me out:

A. The capturing is only through an effect that instead of going to its graveyard it goes to the killer's, and thus it is indoctrinated into the other side, but next time it will die, it will move to its rightful owner.
B. There will be a frame card, like in picking an arena in a fighting game, both players have the same.
C. In the beginning of the game, each players picks 3 special cards called dogmas. Each dogma gives the player 3 unique abilities, like a skill tree you invest in it for a better effect. 

[yudencow]

new idea about the dogmas they will now include: initiative (who starts the game), starting hand size and starting resources, a draw phase effect and instant with a tap cost.

[yudencow]

New idea: you know you always get to mush endgame cards on the start or not getting a strong card when you need one, not anymore. Instead of having an extra deck: i'll have a light and heavy decks. You can pick each turn to weather drawing 2 cards from the light deck or 1 from the heavy deck.

Plus I'm not sure about the frame card. I wanted to make the scenery more alive, more interactible. E.g. I target the arena to activate a rope tied to a log or something which gives 5 damage to all cards on that line, but it didn't work. I removed it, but the dungeon entry I made few weeks back will use something like that. For example, you open a door wich activate that trap or that spills oil all over you making you more vunrable to fire, etc.