"Eight - Under Dark Skies" Trading Card Game

[fr0sch]

Hi,

finally I am glad to present to you a new trading card game: Eight - Under Dark Skies.
It's a fantasy TCG with the following key features:

- Players have their turns at the same time. This adds tactical elements to the game.
- There are eight different fractions with eight different ways of playing.
- There are four different and equal winning possibilities.
- A mana-less ressource mechanic that avoids "mana screw" and "mana flood"
- (currently) 240 unique cards.

I attached the current (surely not totally complete) version of the rules.
The plugin can be downloaded with the following link:
www.euds.net/lackeyplugin/updatelist.txt
For more information check our forum at www.euds.net.
We would also appreciate if you left some feedback there or here in the thread.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[magekirbys]

So at what times are you on the server?

[fr0sch]

whenever university and handball leave enough time

I should manage to be here friday evening, probably from 7PM CET, thats 10AM forum time, as well as saturday morning 10AM to 3PM CET (3AM to 8 AM forum time).
I'll post more times as soon as I know

[fr0sch]

So thats not a lot of feedback so far. Noone wants to leave a comment about the rules?

Now this is a picture of how our cards are supposed to look when the game is finished.



At the moment, the plugin includes graphics that are kept very simple, but provide all the information you need. As soon as we get more cardimages done, they will be added to the plugin as well.

[Dragoon]

Image link is broken. Will comment to the rules after I read them.

[fr0sch]

So our website just got updated and you can now view all 240 cards in an image gallery on www.euds.net

You can also read some short parts of the background story, and world maps of the world the game plays in will be added during the next days.

We're still looking for playtesters!

[Arwym]

I will check the rules and see if I can playtest it. 

[Willifred]

Alright! Before I go any further, let me start off with something that's going to seem a bit strange; 8 is a bad number.

There is a geometric reasoning behind why even numbers don't work well with this sort of game. I will go into intense detail if you want, but basically you really want to have an odd number, such as 5, 7, or 9 to help keep balancing factions better. Otherwise, you will end up with a more rock, paper, scissors type game that people will not enjoy.

I admit, I like the idea that both players play at the same time, but loosing the game because you have no cards in your hand??? That seems extreme. Now I can't play half my cards if your deck is designed to take cards from my hand, so I can't win! Also, four victory conditions, 8 kinds of factions. This seems like 2 factions would have the same way of winning one of your four victory conditions.

So...

Faction 1 and 2 Deck the opponent

Faction 3 and 4 Get rid of their hand

Faction 5 and 6 Destroy their location

Faction 7 and 8 Destroy their units

Now, I'm guessing certain factions have ways to block these effects, like maybe faction 7 has cards to avoid decking. But now I'm just playing "what deck will my opponent play?" instead of caring about a deck of my own. If you solve this by giving ALL factions the ability to do everything, why even play a faction at all? Or it could end up worse, and all the factions are so wishy washy with what they do because they can do it all that NO faction is fun.

Now, if you can mix factions that would help greatly, but an even number is still bad. With an even number, you can ALWAYS get what you need for a deck. with an odd number, you have to decide more closely how you want to approach things. I want to make a decking deck, so I know faction 1 can do that, if I mix it with faction 2 that has high risk cards to deck people, it would work if I had luck. But maybe I'll take the safe route with faction 3. With even numbers, combinations are dull; if I can only choose to work with 2, then that deck is stale because I was basically directed to make it already. 

"Usually consisting of 52-62 cards." Now, I see this to be curious, but with your game I would understand why the two is there. My suggestion is to make it an exact number; part of the fun of games is working around a tough rule to form a strategy. All this would take is a wording tweak; "Decks must consist of 52-62 cards." or something similar.

Next, the "Main Player" on the first turn has an extreme disadvantage in my eyes. If I know what her plays as his unit and land, I will pick my cards to be the BEST way to beat that specific start. This could be adjusted by having both players play them face down, and reveal them at the same time. This would allow people to pick based on what is in their hand, and not what they see on the field.

It seems the person who attacks still has a distinct advantage. Being able to choose their target, they can easily pick people who will die if they attack, and still let them live easily. This gives the Main Player who may attack first a very much distinct advantage.

I like the ideas you have, they are certainly unique which is honestly what CCGs need to stand up from the rest, but at the moment I see your game being highly breakable.

[fr0sch]

I admit, I like the idea that both players play at the same time, but loosing the game because you have no cards in your hand??? That seems extreme. Now I can't play half my cards if your deck is designed to take cards from my hand, so I can't win!

I already thought about this as well. And I will probably change it, or at least try it out without this rule. The idea behind it, was, that handcards, cards in the deck, locations and units are all both resource and victory condition. But hand cards do of course have the big advantage to be, well, hand cards as well. so they are your options in what you can do. So playing against a discard deck probably isn't too much fun, that's right.

Also, four victory conditions, 8 kinds of factions. This seems like 2 factions would have the same way of winning one of your four victory conditions.

So...

Faction 1 and 2 Deck the opponent

Faction 3 and 4 Get rid of their hand

Faction 5 and 6 Destroy their location

Faction 7 and 8 Destroy their units

Now, I'm guessing certain factions have ways to block these effects, like maybe faction 7 has cards to avoid decking. But now I'm just playing "what deck will my opponent play?" instead of caring about a deck of my own. If you solve this by giving ALL factions the ability to do everything, why even play a faction at all? Or it could end up worse, and all the factions are so wishy washy with what they do because they can do it all that NO faction is fun.

Thats not the case. The factions are not limited to a certain victory condition. They differ rather in the way they try to achieve a certain victory. For example, let's look at trying to kill your opponents units.
Chaos has some nice events that deal damage to units, and cheap, agressive (but not very tough) units to get out some more damage.
Death has rather expensive, but stronger units that can easily deal with small units, and some "destroy" events to get rid of the tough ones.
Life has a more defensive approach with playing tough units and avoiding losses by healing and protecting the own units, and dealing the damage later in the game, attacking with larger groups.

And so on. So, theoretically, each domain can try every victory condition. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.

Now, if you can mix factions that would help greatly, but an even number is still bad. With an even number, you can ALWAYS get what you need for a deck. with an odd number, you have to decide more closely how you want to approach things. I want to make a decking deck, so I know faction 1 can do that, if I mix it with faction 2 that has high risk cards to deck people, it would work if I had luck. But maybe I'll take the safe route with faction 3. With even numbers, combinations are dull; if I can only choose to work with 2, then that deck is stale because I was basically directed to make it already. 

I don't really see where it makes a difference wheter the number is even or odd. You can combine whatever factions you like.

"Usually consisting of 52-62 cards." Now, I see this to be curious, but with your game I would understand why the two is there. My suggestion is to make it an exact number; part of the fun of games is working around a tough rule to form a strategy. All this would take is a wording tweak; "Decks must consist of 52-62 cards." or something similar.

you're correct, this is meant to be a rule (for constructed, not limited play), and not a proposal. Giving a maximum deck size is necessary, as you could easily avoid loss against "decking-decks" otherwise.

Next, the "Main Player" on the first turn has an extreme disadvantage in my eyes. If I know what her plays as his unit and land, I will pick my cards to be the BEST way to beat that specific start. This could be adjusted by having both players play them face down, and reveal them at the same time. This would allow people to pick based on what is in their hand, and not what they see on the field.

Thats something we're still testing. We tried out some different rules, but weren't totally satisfied with any of them.

It seems the person who attacks still has a distinct advantage. Being able to choose their target, they can easily pick people who will die if they attack, and still let them live easily. This gives the Main Player who may attack first a very much distinct advantage.

You can protect your units by grouping them with tougher ones. On top of this, attacking does actively cost ressources, as you can't exhaust the units you're attacking with to pay for playing cards. And it costs actions/time, what is a really relevant factor in Eight.
And not always being able to play anything you like because it could be destroyed is one of the problems you need to deal with - both while playing and constructing your deck.

I like the ideas you have, they are certainly unique which is honestly what CCGs need to stand up from the rest, but at the moment I see your game being highly breakable.

What exactly do you mean by breakable?

Thanks for your feedback, by the way, we can really use some opinions about the game! 
If you'd like to playtest it, just let me know!