Chaos Fighters-Hero Duels

[murazrai]

Hello everyone. This is a card game that I designed as story material as preparation for NaNoWriMo 2013. With that in mind, I decided to not produce card art (and I can't draw at all, afterall)

Introduction

Chaos Fighters-Hero Duels is a card game (tangentially) based on my web serial novel series, Chaos Fighters. The player takes the role of a hero, wielding weapon and armor and defeat opponents using powers. The plot of the novel would be a top player have to win the grand finals of the card game as part of the condition of the planet the game is played joining the intergalactic federation as well as "ascending" the hero in the game world to said planet.

Goal

To reduce opponent's HP to 0.

Card Types&Deck Construction

Hero: A character representing the player. Gives base attack, base defense and speed. Comes in 5 classes:
1. Novice: All round with no specialization.
2. Knight: Strong attack and defense but slow. Powers grant mostly offense&defense boost and attack again.
3. Gunner: Weak attack and defense but quick. Powers grant mostly direct damage.
4. Monk: Weak attack, strong defense and normal speed. Powers grant mostly defense boost.
5. Magician: Strong attack, weak defense and normal speed. Powers grant stats boost depending on power value.
Weapon: A weapon wielded by the hero of the same class. Value adds to attack and gives effects.
Armor: An armor wielded by the hero of the same class. Value adds to defense and gives effects.
Power: Power available for hero's use based on the heroes class. Value adds to power and gives effects.

The deck must have 35 cards, including a hero card, a weapon card, an armor card and 32 power cards. No more than 3 copies of the same card is permitted in a deck.

Gameplay

Before the game starts, both players place the hero, weapon and armor cards along with 2 selected power cards facing down onto the game mat (which I have not designed yet). Both players' hands are maintained at 4 cards. Both players decide who going first by revealing the hero, weapon and armor cards and the player with higher speed starts. If it is the same, a coin toss is used.

When starting the first turn of both players, power cards are either revealed for use or kept faced down for use in the opponent's turn. After declaring attack, the opponent may use power cards faced down in previous turn and damage (cannot go lower than 0) calculation is as follows:

Damage=(attack+weapon+power)-(defense+armor)

HP is reduced from damage. Activated cards are sent to used pile. For subsequent turns, the player may place power cards facing up for activation or facing down for use during opponent's turn from his/her hand. If there are no card in both hand and deck, the used pile is shuffled and placed at the deck pile. The game goes on until a player's HP is reduced to 0, which he/she lose the game.

Speed Usage and Step System

Speed is used to determine step count and by extension, which player gets the next turn. For example, player A and B have speeds 7 and 10 respectively (player B reached the speed cap which is 1.5 times of player A's speed with decimals removed without rounding). The step count for both player's turns (if speeds were unchanged during gameplay) would be:

Player A 0, 10, 20, 30, 40
Player B 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42

The turn order would be 0(player B), 0(player A), 7, 10, 14, 20, 21, 28, 30, 35, 40, 42. This means when player B gets two consecutive turns during step count 21 and 28. Manipulating the step count is important to gain extra turns (limited to 1 every time it happens) and getting advantage.

Concerns
What is your opinion? Also, I am currently considering adding a officer class, which is novice, but with step count determining most of the battle outcome. Is that a good idea?

[nickyinprogress]

There was a time where games like MTG ruled.
Then, deck building games were uber-popular with the release of Dominion.
Ever since Yomi, fighting game turned CCG runs rampant, and this is my first concern.

Interesting games are games with a twist, never done before. I honestly can't give you additional comments unless you do a bit of re-working, cause a hero card, equip him, use powers, fight till a KO? You need something new to the formula.

An easy re-work:
Unique archetype classes. Knights and gunners have been done, especially if it's just a difference in defense & attack & speed. Make them REALLY different to play, check Yomi out, they've done a great job at this. Monks for example, they won't just have increased defense, but they change fighting styles to keep them versatile. Gunners? Let them combo. A successful hit will reward them with yet another.

A hard re-work:
Analyze your theme. Different classes fighters fighting. Now add some flavor, a unique mechanic.
Again I turn to Yomi. It's basically rock-paper-scissors for pete's sake! BUT, they have combos, powering up attacks, and super Ace attacks that can be powered up too.

Find something never done before.

One last thing...
HOLY HELL! NANOWRIMO? Dude I gotta know your forum username, we gonna race this November!! XD

[murazrai]

I am well aware of this and planning to work on new mechanics after the novel is done:

First, after "losing" for the first time, the player would be healed to full with stats doubled while some card's effects become doubled as well. "Losing" the second time gives triple stats with some card's effects become tripled. The player actually loses only when the player "lost" for the third time.

Second, there's a "charge" counter that would increase every time the player takes damage. The "charge", when used, gives additional boost to either attack, defense or HP.

Third, there's a "special boost" ability for weapons and armor which gives additional effects at the cost of being not included in damage calculation for 3 turns.

Fourth, there's "polarity". When the player switches polarity, all stats (except speed) will change signs. When this mechanic is used, negative damage values will heal the opponent. The player wins when HP +200 or -200 is reached. The player still loses when HP reaches 0.

Would these mechanics good ideas (though they might be used elsewhere)?

[DNGR]

Don't like either idea.

So basically this game is Universal fighting system with limited resources and a MMO theme?

How are you going to stop the characters you can use from being forced into a tier-listng?
(For example like if the "Death Knight" Class was piss poor and the Rogue/Knight overpowered him tenfold)

Are the character cards going to be generic?
(Knight, Rogue, Samurai, Whore ect...)

Or are they going to be named and I'm going to see the same person in every deck
(DNGR the Great, DNGR the wise, DNGR the best rehrehreh)

How will you stop players from opening a pack and being like "omg!! these cards are usleless for the deck I'm trying to build!!" sincethe cards are so character specific.

Is there going to be a limit on gaining energy? (Cards that will make you gain energy will be OP since it's so limited, like in Yu-Gi-Oh! where drawing cards is quite a chore, seeing as it's a precious resource which can change the game.)

Class-Based TCGs are not it lmao, esp. 1v1 fighting ones. it's lke trying to replicate an MMO PvP situation with cards, which is impossible due to the fact in games like WOW and RO you dont take turns, and even with a speed rating, there are ways to get around it, which is not akin to MMOs.

Turn-based RPGs like Pokemon have moves like "Trick-Room" and "Gyro-Ball" which deal with faster enemies, but the speed unless by direct effect of a move is not modulated.

[murazrai]

Don't like either idea.

So basically this game is Universal fighting system with limited resources and a MMO theme?

How are you going to stop the characters you can use from being forced into a tier-listng?
(For example like if the "Death Knight" Class was piss poor and the Rogue/Knight overpowered him tenfold)

Are the character cards going to be generic?
(Knight, Rogue, Samurai, Whore ect...)

Or are they going to be named and I'm going to see the same person in every deck
(DNGR the Great, DNGR the wise, DNGR the best rehrehreh)

How will you stop players from opening a pack and being like "omg!! these cards are usleless for the deck I'm trying to build!!" sincethe cards are so character specific.

Is there going to be a limit on gaining energy? (Cards that will make you gain energy will be OP since it's so limited, like in Yu-Gi-Oh! where drawing cards is quite a chore, seeing as it's a precious resource which can change the game.)

Class-Based TCGs are not it lmao, esp. 1v1 fighting ones. it's lke trying to replicate an MMO PvP situation with cards, which is impossible due to the fact in games like WOW and RO you dont take turns, and even with a speed rating, there are ways to get around it, which is not akin to MMOs.

Turn-based RPGs like Pokemon have moves like "Trick-Room" and "Gyro-Ball" which deal with faster enemies, but the speed unless by direct effect of a move is not modulated.

It's conceptually simplified than Universal Fighting System. It's more like a simple RPG combat played as a card game.

All cards would be named and having different names.

I only intend to use the card game as story material, but in-universe, the packs are explicitly sold as cards of a specific type, which means that players can choose what cards to buy. When I create the database, I do take account of this and not wanting to have concept of rarity, thus unless the deck being constructed is too specific, the player would get at least some useful cards.

Energy? You mean the "charge"? The player gains the "charge" only if the opponent manages to cause the player's HP to drop by half of the drop done and only up to a certain amount. If you mean power, power is technically not a resource because it depletes after the turn ends.

There are direct and indirect ways to deal with speed and turns, but step count could be only dealt directly.

[murazrai]

There are also special effects that may trigger:
Skip-The opponent's turn is skipped.
Armor Bypass-The opponent's armor (but not its effect) is ignored during damage calculations.
Weapon Block-Half of the player weapon's value is added to defense power.
Attack Again-The player attacks one more time.
Heal-Adds to HP instead of power.

[murazrai]

After having a broken hard drive and lost the data except an old backup in my email, I decided to redesign the entire card database from scratch but with the rules intact. The hero classes would be:
1. Novice: All-around stats with stat manipulation Weapon, Armor and Powers.
2. Knight: High offense and defense but slower speed. Weapons boost attack, Armors boost defense while powers allows attacking again, boosting speed and bonuses when turns gets skipped.
3. Gunner: High speed but low offense and defense. Weapons boost damage, Armors drain opponent's damage while powers causes damage or HP reduction directly and penalize opponents who use special effects.
4. Monk: High defense, moderate speed and low offense. Weapons boost defense, Armors drain opponent's offense while powers allows armor reinforcement, armor bypass and offense boost.
5. Wizard: High offense, moderate speed and low defense. Weapons boost offense, Armors drain opponent's defense while powers allows weapon block, weapon nullify and defense boost.
6. Officer: All-around stats with Weapon, Armor and Powers uses step count to manipulate stats.

The effects are revised as well:
Skip-The opponent's turn is skipped.
Armor Bypass-The opponent's armor (but not its effect) is ignored during damage calculations.
Armor Reinforcement-Half the player armor's value is added to offense power.
Weapon Block-Half of the player weapon's value is added to defense power.
Weapon Nullify-The opponent's weapon (but not its effect) is ignored during damage calculations.
Attack Again-The player attacks one more time.

Is this considered an improvement over the original idea? Or is there still room for improvement? Also, I revised and expanded the backstory:

Five nations were at war, but the large casualties forced the leaders to stop them. Still at war, the leaders decided to send two heroes each to battle at a war zone. It happened for three years, but during the fourth year when the heroes being sent in the past three years were suddenly disappeared and never heard again while a shrine suddenly appeared. Heroes in the world suddenly found out that they were protected by barriers when fighting other heroes and dreamed of people wearing "weird clothing". Soon, they discovered that those people were playing card games in a different world that allows direct control of the heroes when the players and heroes are in close proximity. Winning card duels continuously or a yearly world tournament allows the heroes to go into the players' world or vice versa.

The game was soon proved popular and improved the lives of both worlds immensely, but other planets criticized the game as slavery and as punishment, the intergalactic federation sent a team of 6 officers to expose the truth about the shrine. They found out that the heroes were sealed with cards surrounding the bodies of the heroes and the officers suffered the same fate too. As a response, both worlds left the federation. 30 years later, realizing the mistake, the federation wants the worlds to rejoin, but as a test of sincerity, one of the conditions to join is to a player sent as representative has to win the yearly tournament, which is easier than done as it requires the player to pass through several qualifiers. However, the player managed to qualify for the yearly tournament and is determined to win.

The idea seemed fine to me, but there are several issues with it:
1. Since that it is based on an original card game, how should I write the story so that the readers won't feel that it was filled with card information? Will uploading the guide, playmat and card database useful?
2. Is it possible to end the card duels smoothly at the end of 1000 word chapters? Also, how long should a card duel be in terms of chapters and turns so that it will be not too long?
3. Since that it is a tournament, how should I arrange the format so that I can control the number of chapters written at 50?

Any solutions?

One last thing...
HOLY HELL! NANOWRIMO? Dude I gotta know your forum username, we gonna race this November!! XD

It's Murazrai. Hopefully we'll make it through this year.