Balancing multiplayer

[yudencow]

How can you blance a free for all game between 4 players with them ganging on one player?

[MLaRF]

I'd probably give the power of 3 players to the one everyone's going against, like 3 times the life, or every second turn goes to that player. Maybe givin' 'em 3 times the resource or 3 times the amount of card spaces.

[3XXXDDD]

I'd probably give the power of 3 players to the one everyone's going against, like 3 times the life, or every second turn goes to that player. Maybe givin' 'em 3 times the resource or 3 times the amount of card spaces.

How would that work? Would your resources just magically multiply after you've been hit by each player consecutively without any other players being hit?

One of the best ways to go about this is to shorten the power gap so it isn't 100% obvious that that player is winning (which he most likely is if everyone needs the feel to gang up on him)

[Typherion]

I think you guys have taken the question different ways. I believe the OP is asking about a multiplayer game that is 4 people all fighting each other rather than players fighting together against a boss.

There is no real need to balance a multiplayer game to handle 3 players ganging up on 1 player. The players expect to gang up on people and get ganged up on in return. Players will ally with the losing player in order to take down the winning player. Politics will balance things out.

For example, I've read that in some multiplayer Magic games one player will get attacked by everyone until everyone thinks they are weak, then they end up winning the game because players try to stop someone else becoming too powerful.

If players just ignore attacking the winner and everyone keeps attacking a single player, then either they all think that player is the biggest threat, or they are just being jerks. The way to balance jerkery is to not play with jerks in my opinion.

[Trevor]

Multiplayer often works with one of these methods:

Free for all: Politics guide who you decide to help or attack.

Rotational: You can attack only the person on your left and you will only be defending from the person on your right.

Teams: Form equal teams and your side fights their side. If a team's life is pooled, this has the advantage of all players stop playing at the same time.

One powerful opponent versus a team of all other players. This is tricky to balance. For an example, check out magic's archenemy variant. This has the advantage of all players stop playing at the same time.

[yudencow]

I only meant Free for All games where everyone attacks everyone.

One mechanic that I thought of is to give a temporary resource boost.

Every time you are attacked you get 1 temporary resource which you can spendon your nest turn and will be removed int he end of your turn.

This will basically give an attacked player a switch between options to relative power.

Do you reckon it should be implemented or trust solely on politics?

[3XXXDDD]

That's not actually a terrible idea, it would be kind of a Limit Break mechanic where more times you get hit, more stuff you can do.

[Typherion]

I suggest reading Zac Hill's latest article on developing for multiplayer in Magic.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/197

It shows how a lot of things change when more players are involved. Aggro playstyles become less effective, and so does single target removal. Resource ramping and mass removal become more valuable.

[yudencow]

Another idea I have is Peril Counters. Let's say int he beginning of your game, each player in the Free for All starts with 5 peril counters. every ime you are attacked by another player, he takes one of your peril counters. If you don't have any peril counters, you can't be attacked. in the end of your round, after everyone had their turn. The player with most peril gives 1 counter to the 2nd player with most peril and so forth. Meaning, the weakest player can only be attacked once.

What is better the first one or this? Or there is any other idea?

[DavidChaos]

As far as free-for-all goes, part of the point is that anyone can attack anyone.

One thing my game does, though, is use the Terrain cards as a filter.  You target a Terrain, then you target a player.  If you can attack the person who owns the Terrain, then you automatically attack that player.  Not something that comes up in one-on-one, but in free-for-all, it can come up a lot; what if someone's Terrain has a Combat Reward that you want?  Question is, can you beat their defenders?

[murazrai]

Depending on how the CCG mechanics work, you might want to put scaling to the subsequent attacks on the gangbanged player so that the attacks are getting less effective with number of times attack has been done on the same player.

[yudencow]

New ideas to balance everything. Note that my game has no mana colors, just one mana for everything. Each player starts the game with 1 permenant mana, and gains additional 1 every turn until he has 5 permenant mana.

Every time a player is attacked. He/She recieves optional mana equal to the attacking card level. The levels goes between 1 to 3. At the end of your turn, you lose all optional mana but not your permenant.

What do you think of this one?

[MLaRF]

That sounds like an awesome mechanic. Given the damage points you gain, you could probably get away with an average cost of 2 for normal cards successfully, but of course that's a matter of playtesting. But yeah, looks sweet.