Feedback on a CCG (WIP)

[Nande]

Hai there.
wall of text incoming

I just wanted to drop by and fish for some feedback on CCG i've been working on for a few weeks on and off.

SKIP THIS UNLESS YOU WANT SOME STORY HOW THIS CAME TO BE 

The back story behind all of this would be that I've been working on a Sci-fi game idea for quite a while as well with a player driven economy
(EvE online and Terraria was a big inspiration, think of it as a what Terraria is to Minecraft, and This game would be to EvE Online, funky, fast paced etc).
So one day I decided to play Final Fantasy 7 again, and quickly ran into the card game in there again, and thought it would be neat to have a Card game inside
that sci-fi game I've been working on, which drew inspiration from the player base and what happened in the universe to develop the card game further.
Wont go much more onto details on that game idea, but you get the drift I hope.

START HERE IF YOU SKIPPED 

This is my first try on making any type of card game and i'm heavily inspired by M:tG, so have that in mind.
It's another Sci-fi CCG, wooh.

I'll do a short breakdown on how the game would be played, if you want more details, check out the WIP Rule Book.
Goal is to destroy your opponents Space station aka the player. It has 30 hull(life).
Units have three stats, Attack, Shield and Hull.
Shields regenerate at the end of each turn.

The different card types:
Ship                             http://i62.tinypic.com/2r5agxf.jpg
Drone                           http://i57.tinypic.com/2r6cnma.jpg
Building                        http://i60.tinypic.com/2ilk8zk.jpg
Condition                     http://i58.tinypic.com/16hrgqe.jpg
Resource Base             http://i59.tinypic.com/2d9y6gw.jpg
Instant                         http://i62.tinypic.com/dbseqe.jpg
Ability                           http://i59.tinypic.com/10oodww.jpg
Alliance                        http://i57.tinypic.com/2qi42ub.jpg
Commander                 http://i58.tinypic.com/2u95r4g.jpg
Character                     http://i62.tinypic.com/282ffye.jpg

Resources, where your resource units/buildings go, same for Buildings and the Buildings zone.
The twist if you will with the resource mechanic is that atm there's two types of resources which is Metal and AP. M used to construct your units.
You may sell this metal, by marking your RB(Resource base) at the end of your turn, meaning it grants you AP(it's temporary name for now)
on your next turn instead of M(metal).
AP is mainly used to pay for Character, Instant, Condition and Ability cards with a few exceptions, look at it as money.

We got three different 'Battlefields' where you will face your opponents units in battle.
Construction site, is where your new units will spawn in, or rather, get constructed which takes a turn.

Units in your front field, may attack your opponents front field or Space station.
Ships in your Co-op field may attack buildings and units that are being constructed.
Ships in the Flank field may attack the resource structures and/or the Co-op ships.

^ La rule book.

The reason for more then one battlefield is my RTS gamer background to blame, I want some movement (warp mechanic here) and some means to attack and
defend your resources, which hopefully results in more depths and complexity. We'll see how that pans out.

Board


Once you're out on a battlefield, attacking may begin, you may attack units straight on, or try and surpass them
and target what ever is behind them, Space station if you're in the Front battlefield as an example.
Defending attacks may only be done if one of two conditions are met, your unit has Intercept, or your opponent
is attacking your Space station, Resource Base or any Building.
If the latter is met, you may defend your ie space station and battle that unit. If your opponent attacks one of your
units, you may only defend it if another unit has intercept, and take the original targets place instead and battle the opponents unit.
Both units deal damage at the same time.

I think that might be enough as an OP. Questions are happily answered, and i'll show some more cards later on.
Think I've got about 100 different cards atm and it's growing.
I have only done LIMITED testing with 2 decks I've printed out, and that was with only the one 'Front' battlefield, so it's really Alpha
when we tested it, not even the complete deal if you know what I mean.

Also, if someone has the know hows and the free time to maybe get a rough beta working on Lackey, that would be sick. I sadly
don't have the time to learn how to make the module/mod and then do it


Sample of some of the early Ship alpha/beta cards I printed way back. http://i57.tinypic.com/rrkzr8.jpg
Some editing have been done on them since then.



Rule book.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gNXuirBC-vWLZIdCJNZurInRwNtvONjQ3FzGNf_PLa4/edit?usp=sharing

Keywords.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Klfu8HXRt2lSFCnw78qNxTuJVd2Ft2D6kqGc76D4qT4/edit?usp=sharing

Disclamer, I don't own the ART, it's borrowed until if this project takes of the ground at any point!

Aight, thanks for me!

[Nande]

Just wanted to add that any form of constructive feedback is appreciated, even if its just, I don't like it for X reason or like it for Y reason, as long as you guys say something, i'm happy

[Dan55]

Actually it's a bunch of information. I haven't gotten through all of it yet, sorry.

[gwago]

I skimmed over the general rules quickly and wanted to leave some quick feedback.

The biggest thing that strikes me is that this could definitely use some simplification. You have 10 (10!) card types right off the bat, and I'm sure a few of those can be merged. Keep in mind you can keep subtypes, for example having Ability be a subtype of Instant (Instant - Ability) in order to keep the distinctiveness but make the game simpler.

The battlefield can be boiled down a bit as well. Unless your system hinges on having all these separate spaces, why not just make front line / rear? You can still seperate your attackers from your home base this way. That said, I do like the general system and think there's a lot of potential in it. I'd urge you to check out the Mechwarrior CCG published by Wizards in the 90s, as it has a similar system and could give you some inspiration.

The subject matter is interesting, and I can see you're very involved in this game. The problem is however is that that generally leads to tunnel vision, where you end up cramming as many ideas as you can. I know Ive gone down that path a few times! What I've learned is to try an experiment: try to simplify the game as much as you can, even if it means sacrificing aspects you hold dear. From there you'll have the bare bones and you can add back in anything you really want to see, but it'll help you see what you can do without. As it is now, the game seems overly and needlessly dense, and you could have the same game experience with half the moving parts.

For example, while making your first cards try to make them as vanilla as possible. Keep their abilities on the shelf, but simplifying things will help shape the system before you add the flavour.

Like I've mentioned, you're off to a good start, and the field system has a lot of potential, especially if you intend to have units quickly warp around it. Good luck!

[Nande]

Actually it's a bunch of information. I haven't gotten through all of it yet, sorry.

That's true, sorry for rushing it ^^

I skimmed over the general rules quickly and wanted to leave some quick feedback.

The biggest thing that strikes me is that this could definitely use some simplification. You have 10 (10!) card types right off the bat,
and I'm sure a few of those can be merged. Keep in mind you can keep subtypes, for example having Ability be a subtype of Instant
(Instant - Ability) in order to keep the distinctiveness but make the game simpler.....

Don't wanna quote everything, it's long =)

Thanks for your feedback, just what I need to keep going and improving.
You're right about the card types, 10 is a bit to much and I could probably merge at least one or two, I could rename Ship to
something like Vessel or Craft and add Drone as sub type to it, and same with Condition, have it be, Instant - Condition or Ability - Condition
meaning Condition would be a sub type as well.
Alliance imo doesn't count as a card type in your deck since you atm choose one, and stick with it for that round, it's there to add some distinct
difference between how decks are build since i'm not using different resources doing Aggro deck, late-game decks etc to either focus your deck
or make up for what it lacks.
That would make it 7 Card types, a lot more manageable don't you think?

And on the three battlefields, it's kind of key in my mind since it provides the mobility I wanted to have.

And yes, you're right on the tunnel vision part, that's why I'm reaching out for feedback here I'll look over a few of the more "complex"
mechanics and keywords and see if I really need them at the get go, or rework them, although I do want to have some new and odd mechanics
to make the game different from others, but I might be over board with it atm since you pointed it out.
Lately I've been saving new mechanics I've come up with for a future expansion with a theme to it, or at least make them feel cohesive.

And yes, I want units to be warping around the battlefields
But yeah! Awesome feedback, gave me loads to think about thanks mate! Throw me more bones if you got anything else on your mind!

[gwago]

Alright, took a look at the rule book. Here's some more impressions:

I'd invert the Activate/Deactivate wording as it feels like it's more intuitive that way (a card that's active seems like it's ready to do something, whereas something that is deactivated is dead and used). Or just change terminology altogether.

I'm trying to warm up to the different zones. Let me see if I'm getting this clearly: The FRONT can attack the opponent's FRONT (and Space Station, although I'm not sure what/where that is), CO-OP can attack BUILDINGS and CONSTRUCTION SITE, and FLANK can attack RESOURCES and CO-OP. A question: Is the CO-OP immune to attack?

Also, why this terminology? It's a space battle game, it seems like you've got a golden opportunity to use cooler terms for your zones, like Quadrants (Alpha/Beta/etc.) for example.

The whole zone system is a nice idea, but could be a bit more symmetrical (unless I'm understanding it wrong). How about something like:
You have a FOUR QUADRANTS (Alpha / Beta / Delta / Gamma). There is no Front Line or Construction Zone. You can build units in any quadrant, and ships in a given quadrant can only attack the corresponding quadrant on the opponent's side. I realize this might nerf a few concepts you were going for, but this would lead to much less memorization (who can attack what), is a more elegant solution, and it would lead to some interesting game situations that reflect what would actually happen ("The opponent is massing forces in the Delta Quadrant!"). You could have cards that blockade the quadrant they're in to stop an opponent from building something there, etc. You could also have a rule that prevents building in a zone unless you have a Base there already, so that you need to establish a presence first.

Another random idea that I think would make for cool gameplay: I don't mean for you to copy this CCG, but the Battletech game I brought up in my earlier post had the concept of building units by playing them face down, then paying resources to add tokens over however many turns you want. Once the tokens = its cost, you could turn it face up and have it in play. This led to players being able to attack cards being built by taking tokens off. This seems like it'd be a good fit for the feel of the game you're trying to go for, should you wish to go that route. I also suggest you check out the Battletech game is you haven't already, it was also clearly built with RTS games in mind and might give you some inspiration.

Onto some individual card types:

-Why have Commander cards? They're obviously patterned after Planeswalkers, but they just seem like super-powerful ships. You might be able to fold that into character cards, whereas they give those abilities when onboard a ship.

-Alliance cards start the game in play and help define a player's "colors", if I'm getting this correctly. The example you've given us has waaaaay too many abilities... maybe try to boil it down to the original concept. Have the card say "You may play cards of Faction X" (again, if that's what you were going for), then maybe limit the abilities to one static and one activated that represent the given faction. As it is now, there are just too many options on the card.

-Ships and bases have three stats (attack/shields/hull). I get that it's a space sci-fi setting and you want to have shields in there, but how about simplfying the game a little bit by making shields a bit more rare, and just have attack/hull stats on cards? Some (or most) ships would have the Shields ability (SHIELDS 2 (Whenever this unit is dealt damage, prevent 2 of that damage)).

-Conditions: essentially the sorceries of your game, yes? Why call them Conditions?

Anyway, just some more food for thought. Keep it up!

[Nande]

Alright, took a look at the rule book. Here's some more impressions:

I'd invert the Activate/Deactivate wording as it feels like it's more intuitive that way (a card that's active seems like it's ready to do something,
whereas something that is deactivated is dead and used). Or just change terminology altogether.

I'm trying to warm up to the different zones....

Alright, more stuff to change and think about, thanks!

So yes, that makes sense changing that to something more logical, maybe, Activate means you simply use that card and flip it, Activated means
its already been used, and Resetting means you get to reset your board.

So yeah, you're reading the rules correctly, the issue is there was an error in it where CO-OP was immune which it isn't, so my bad.
I changed the rules and made you a picture, http://i58.tinypic.com/2jdjprr.jpg
I don't know if I want to keep the concept of attacking units getting Constructed since that could lead to some problems where you can get locked
down once someone has a few units with Afterburners or Microwarp where you could just hammer that zone down and that's kind of a win condition.
Maybe if just SOME units had that ability, idk yet.

The names for the zones are the first names I came up with and they kinda stayed since then and are absolutely a subject to change.
The Flank to me made sense that they were attacking the CO-OP (Covert operations would be what it stands for), flanking that and resources.
But yes, the names are absolutely changeable.

Blockade cards seems like a neat idea, i'll deffo make some use of that thanks

Alright, Commanders (and yes they are clearly modeled after MtG Plaineswalkers), I stumbled onto that topic too once and quickly lost my train of
thought and change them into Characters would make more sense and add more design possibilities to Ships.
Having them as Ships now once you pointed this out I ask myself, why even have 'normal' ships when you can have these, even if you only could
have one commander with the same name out at a time.

The original thought was that you would choose either to use its abilities or the 'ship' per say, attack with it instead of using the abilities.
Having them be Characters makes protecting that ship a high priority which might be fun.

Alliance cards.
Yes you're right, to either focus your deck or to make up for weaknesses in it.
And yes that Alliance might have to many, haven't really tested the Alliance cards yet so don't know how it plays out yet,
but you might be right, here's another cards with less options on it
http://i57.tinypic.com/2ezn2x4.jpg

Shields.
While I think that's interesting mechanic, I don't think it transfers the same 'feel' of a ships shield, where it's gone once you take X damage and recharges with time.
Although it could definitely be a new mechanic or keyword for later. Also If it were as in your example weaker units would just never get through a shield making more units attacking the same ship useless. Bigger is always better in that case I think, which I don't really like too much.

Conditions.
No, the closest comparison would be Enchantment, Ability and Buildings would act more like Sorceries unless the card itself states that it breaks the rules
So I figured the name Condition was fitting if there's something changed/modified/altered which ever word you want to use fits, no?
Another Ability card: http://i59.tinypic.com/144a9t.jpg
Another Condition card: http://i60.tinypic.com/2093yc5.jpg

Does it makes more sense now?

Also im checking battletech out, thats its name right?
cant find any with the one you wrote Reading the rule book some and it looks pretty neat tbh, need to read more tho and watch some vids

Anyway, thanks again! Keep adding more if you come to think of anything else!

[Nande]

Alright!

Time to update this, got some cards for you guys and some explanations of what this set focuses on and some combos.
So in this first picture of cards you'll see some of the basic mechanics in the game, mobility via Microwarp and Intercept and the use
of Rapid when combined with other cards or just the Abilities the card has itself ie White Plauge which has Microwarp and Rapid.







The set will also be focusing on Characters and how they can impact your Ships, although i've shown you guys some more complex
Ships, there are still vanilla ships on all spectrum's of the scale where Characters shines even more.

These three Characters all focus on different ways to build a deck where Zel is the might be both longterm and shortterm Char, Akasha
will be a longterm investment where you would want to protect that Char/ship for as long as possible since you lose all your counters
once she dies. Lastly Lani, which grants your ship mobility via Microwarp.

Same goes for the three ships as well, Scimitar allows you to build up a massive powerhouse to hammer down your opponent eventually
since you can stack three chars on it, The Jabou could be used to stack utility Chars on it and then just Disrupt heavy hitters until you
can overrun it. Lastly Yung which is just a big ramper to your economy where you can add some utility chars to make sure it stays valid longer.









So this second picture we have some Abilities, Instants and Conditions.
Since we can attack units and not just the opponents Space station I figured at least one card which allows you save
yourself when you're out of interceptors is Against all odds.
Since Characters are a pretty big deal, we also want to be able to keep them in play for as long as possible which lead
me to Evacuate, just a good card in general but makes sure that you think twice about your Ships loaded with characters.
Plan B combines nicely in two ways, defending big attacks where you're not ready for them and with units that have Rapid,
aka allows you to attack at that turn with them.
And to stay on the char and mobility focus we got From Within and Leena, two condition cards that affects ships in different ways.
Shield Transfer used seemed cool to me so wanted to show it of ^_^
Also, if you check the first examples of every cardtype out up there, we learned that Conditions can target a number of different
things and Meteor shower shows just that. And to me it plays nicely with the mobility theme, where you might want to get out of that
Battlefield with your low Shield/hull units.



Also want to note that I've changed Commanders from a Ship into a Character which makes more sense and adds to the character focus as well.

NOTE
If you got any ideas for the game in general or card ideas just spew them here, i'm checking this and other forums out on a daily basis.
Use the keyword list if you like or make up your own ability.

I'm happy with any feedback, ideas or tips, thanks!

Keywords.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Klfu8HXRt2lSFCnw78qNxTuJVd2Ft2D6kqGc76D4qT4/edit?usp=sharing

[Koziu]

I would like to comment on two aspects of the game you are designing.

The first one is looks.
I must say that I like the way your cards look in general very much! I would however remove the "cost" caption. For me it is pointing an obvious thing . I really like how you describe the keyword on a card (using smaller font). Most CCGs I have played is using italics in braces (like this). You can also consider using smaller distance between lines in a flavor section. It just looks like the flavor is strethed in some way.
When it comes to card gametext and cost in M / AP. Why are you using 3M / 2AP notation? Why not M³? Like in the card cost?

Now for the gametext wording - abilities.
You must work on unifying how the cards are described. Look at Zel and Lani. Both are providing some kind of a bonus for their ship, but you are using different sentence construct. Try to unify things.
As for abilities I have always loved the following patter:
<cost of an anction> : <action effect>
which I see you are using in some cases and in some - you are not
The other aspect (somehow related to this issue) is that some cards are not quite clear for me. For example Selpher (or intercept in general). Is there a limit to the ability?

In conclusion - keep up the good work It would be fun to see game like this. Since the only sensible ccg with action in space I can recall is EVE

[Nande]

I would like to comment on two aspects of the game you are designing.

The first one is looks.
I must say that I like the way your cards look in general very much! I would however remove the "cost" caption. For me it is pointing an obvious thing . I really like how you describe the keyword on a card (using smaller font).
etc etc!

Hi and thanks for your feedback!
Yes maybe the 'cost' thing is stating the obvious, might remove it actually, which also makes room for longer names etc
Good point, the flavor text thing, will do that!

Alright, wording, yes, that's pretty much what i'm doing as we speak, since the progress is pretty slow am trying to clean things up.
In more ways then just text! Reworking some cards, add some purpose to others, and try and make them have different roles.
Also trying to differentiate all cards from each other. Slowly but steadily.

Thanks mate, i'll be tinkering away and maybe i'll learn how to make modules for Jackey andtry it out here!

[Koziu]

From my personal experience I can advice you NOT to waste your time by creating Lackey plugin - this should not be your high priority.

I have created "Clash of Kingdoms" card game. It took me some time, a lot of testing with my friends and after that I have created a plugin... no one even downloaded (sorry if this is not true, last time I checked -no one did and now the plugin location may be obsolete).

Try to polish your game as much as possible. Try to make it fun for yourself and anyone playing it with you and most of all enjoy the process of its creation (which I am sure you do).

[Koziu]

Can we expect any update?

[obakachantachi]

I would like to comment on two aspects of the game you are designing.

The first one is looks.
I must say that I like the way your cards look in general very much! I would however remove the "cost" caption. For me it is pointing an obvious thing . I really like how you describe the keyword on a card (using smaller font).
etc etc!

Hi and thanks for your feedback!
Yes maybe the 'cost' thing is stating the obvious, might remove it actually, which also makes room for longer names etc
Good point, the flavor text thing, will do that!

Alright, wording, yes, that's pretty much what i'm doing as we speak, since the progress is pretty slow am trying to clean things up.
In more ways then just text! Reworking some cards, add some purpose to others, and try and make them have different roles.
Also trying to differentiate all cards from each other. Slowly but steadily.

Thanks mate, i'll be tinkering away and maybe i'll learn how to make modules for Jackey andtry it out here!

The only thing I would suggest is that in making cards have different roles, make sure that those roles aren't...dominated by other things too, if that makes sense. Like, in the Tekken Card Tournament CCG, one character has the ability to hide his cards from the opponent, but it shows the opponent a) the cards when they are drawn, and b) the point where his special effects activate, complete with colored flashes to tell which kind of effect it is, so it ends up being a useless ability.

At the same time, you want to have different cards doing different things, so that people will have reasons to choose one card over the other. I also like the use of your flavor here, as well as how simple and understandable each card is from just a glance. Good luck with work, and I'd also like to see an update once you have one! -obct