Nasuverse Card Game!

[I3uster]

Simple: remove the sacrificing mechanic, or integrate it as equivalent exchange possibility to get more prana (that needs certain conditions, since if prana mechanics are introduced there shouldn't be another limit to creature summoning)

[Nanaya]

Cards are actually pretty cool. This is like Yugioh kinda?

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Cards are actually pretty cool. This is like Yugioh kinda?

Yeah it's based on the idea of Yugioh, right now we're discussing applying other mechanics from other card games to it.

So about the Sacrifice vs Mana. I originally thought we would use sacrifice for Units and Mana for effects.

Now we can remove the Sacrifice mechanic, that's possible. I3uster do you think if we remove the sacrifice mechanic, require mana for invokes, that would interfere with the balancing since we have no 'power system'. I have a feeling that making higher level units not need sacrifice to put out will make it too easy to put them out, and screw things up.



We can also have a compromise/combo system. 3> unit invokes are free, 4> costs 1 prana. 5> yugioh style sacrifices?

[I3uster]

OK, I will tell you my problem with sacrificing as a mechanic:
Mana in Magic lets you basically fine tune the cost of a card. The amount of colours used, the amount of mana in general, the amount of colours required etc etc. You can basically translate that in some kind of point system, that I will call "cast difficulty". For example: a card that costs 1 colorless mana has a cast difficulty of 1. It is easy to get 1 colorless mana in magic. 1 colored mana would mean a casting difficulty of 1-1,5, because it is harder to get one specific color of mana (IF your deck is not mono colored, that's what the - sign is for). 2 colorless mana would be a difficulty of 2. 2 different colored mana would be a casting difficulty of 4, because it is harder to draw 2 exactly right lands etc. etc. You can basically go crazy with it, that means cards can be balanced quite easily, you can also add drawbacks to the cards (you lose two life every turn) to increase the casting difficulty and keep the whole thing balanced.

But Yu-gi-oh suffers the following problem:
Casting difficulty can only be 0, 1, 2, without drawbacks. A sacrificed monster is a sacrificed monster. It does not matter how strong that was.
A vanilla card which needs 1 sacrifice and is, for instance a 2000/2000, is in every aspect inferior to a card that needs 1 sacrifice and is a 2100/2100. There is a top limit for power in each of the sacrifical levels, but that just means every vanilla card that does not reach the top is inherently inferior. Of course, you can tweak the whole thing with drawbacks and effects, but they have to be really severe or it wouldn't make an impact and the card therefore broken/useless. I do not even want to begin with the problems of every spell being practically free.

So in my opinion, what Yu-gi-oh does, MTG does better, at least in the cost sector. But feel free to discuss.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Casting difficulty can only be 0, 1, 2, without drawbacks. A sacrificed monster is a sacrificed monster. It does not matter how strong that was.
A vanilla card which needs 1 sacrifice and is, for instance a 2000/2000, is in every aspect inferior to a card that needs 1 sacrifice and is a 2100/2100. There is a top limit for power in each of the sacrifical levels, but that just means every vanilla card that does not reach the top is inherently inferior. Of course, you can tweak the whole thing with drawbacks and effects, but they have to be really severe or it wouldn't make an impact and the card therefore broken/useless. I do not even want to begin with the problems of every spell being practically free.

I get what you're saying here, but it is possible to balance with effects and classes. If you look at yugioh players, not every deck is just made up of 1800 or 1900 ATK cards. High level players have varied decks with low ATK cards, and middling ATK cards as well. I don't feel like the problem is as pronounced as you're making it or else YGO itself would be completely broken, and millions? of players is a testament to the fact that it is not.

Having every card be of equivalent value is not really a necessary and desirable goal.

But but, we can still get very close to having extremely well balanced cards by using classes and effects.

For example:
http://dulst.com/#!game/4/Nasuverse/251/Lancer - Cú Chulainn

at first blush looks completely superior to

http://dulst.com/#!game/4/Nasuverse/536/Divine Bull

Well ok, maybe. But if you're going for an Animal deck the synergistic effects of having a lot of animals in your deck might make Divine bull more valuable for certain players. We would have to consciously construct cards which balances out the two cards but it's not impossible. And it's totally OK for me if 99% of the time Lancer is the better card, so long as there is that 1% of the time where Divine Bull is.

Also rarity. Like I said in earlier pages I see that 'meta-game' value as another way to balance the game, though it is of course secondary.

[I3uster]

Yeah, I didn't go to that part.

This just means that you are forcing players who want to play thematical decks into an unnecessary disadvantage at a vanilla vs vanilla fight, making some cards sit on your hand until you finally have a way of overcoming the stronger monster of your opponent (that is also one of the major design flaws in Yu-Gi-Oh, that there is pretty much always a clear distinction between a player who is forced into defense and a player that is in the offense). Finer cost tuning allows players to run synergistic decks WITHOUT them having to run inherently flawed monsters. I mean, this is a pretty glaring inherent design flaw, besides it is obvious that you are ripping of Yu-Gi-Oh that way. I think story-wise and mechanic wise you couldn't go wrong with mana. Also you do yourself a favor balance-wise. And spell cards...oh god spell cards...those will be a pain to balance without mana, trust me.

In the end it is your decision.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Hmm that being said though, I'm still OK with going with a pure mana system it would just be a BIG change. Does everyone support this? I honestly think how it is currently is pretty good, I've been having a lot of fun even using non-optimal decks.

This just means that you are forcing players who want to play thematical decks into an unnecessary disadvantage at a vanilla vs vanilla fight, making some cards sit on your hand until you finally have a way of overcoming the stronger monster of your opponent (that is also one of the major design flaws in Yu-Gi-Oh, that there is pretty much always a clear distinction between a player who is forced into defense and a player that is in the offense). Finer cost tuning allows players to run synergistic decks WITHOUT them having to run inherently flawed monsters. I mean, this is a pretty glaring inherent design flaw, besides it is obvious that you are ripping of Yu-Gi-Oh that way. I think story-wise and mechanic wise you couldn't go wrong with mana. Also you do yourself a favor balance-wise. And spell cards...oh god spell cards...those will be a pain to balance without mana, trust me.

In the end it is your decision.

I don't want to make a unilateral call over other designers, I'd be ok with changing to a mana system. However just from what I know of YGO there is no problem in top tier decks with inherently flawed monsters.

What do you think about a combo system?

And how would you envision Prana cards be gained?

[Tangerang]

OK, I will tell you my problem with sacrificing as a mechanic:
Mana in Magic lets you basically fine tune the cost of a card. The amount of colours used, the amount of mana in general, the amount of colours required etc etc. You can basically translate that in some kind of point system, that I will call "cast difficulty". For example: a card that costs 1 colorless mana has a cast difficulty of 1. It is easy to get 1 colorless mana in magic. 1 colored mana would mean a casting difficulty of 1-1,5, because it is harder to get one specific color of mana (IF your deck is not mono colored, that's what the - sign is for). 2 colorless mana would be a difficulty of 2. 2 different colored mana would be a casting difficulty of 4, because it is harder to draw 2 exactly right lands etc. etc. You can basically go crazy with it, that means cards can be balanced quite easily, you can also add drawbacks to the cards (you lose two life every turn) to increase the casting difficulty and keep the whole thing balanced.

But Yu-gi-oh suffers the following problem:
Casting difficulty can only be 0, 1, 2, without drawbacks. A sacrificed monster is a sacrificed monster. It does not matter how strong that was.
A vanilla card which needs 1 sacrifice and is, for instance a 2000/2000, is in every aspect inferior to a card that needs 1 sacrifice and is a 2100/2100. There is a top limit for power in each of the sacrifical levels, but that just means every vanilla card that does not reach the top is inherently inferior. Of course, you can tweak the whole thing with drawbacks and effects, but they have to be really severe or it wouldn't make an impact and the card therefore broken/useless. I do not even want to begin with the problems of every spell being practically free.

So in my opinion, what Yu-gi-oh does, MTG does better, at least in the cost sector. But feel free to discuss.

I rather agree with this

I definitely agree with this. Almost the only reason you might use a weaker vanilla card is if it could become stronger through the use of some effect in a way the other card couldn't (eg a field effect).


On Prana -- one thing that would need to be clarified is how Prana is gained. In mtg, you start out with no mana. You first have to play land cards which can then be used once each turn to give you mana of their type (this is overly simplified). In the example cards KaoruAoiShiho posted, I see two types of prana gain: one-use items (the jewels) and constant-gain (the temple). With one-use items you again have the problem that those that give more are simply superior to those that give less, unless you either add side-effects or additional costs to play. constant-gain cards seem somewhat easier to balance, at least if you lose all prana at end of turn like in mtg.

For compromising between sacrifice and prana mechanics, you might consider having things cost prana, but allowing cards to be sacrificed in exchange for prana with higher-level cards yielding more prana.

The problem with the allowing cards to be sacrificed in exchange for prana is that I feel like that might be easily broken.

Also, are we going to have constant-gain prana items be like lands? Because that's going to cause a huge shift in deck construction, which is at the core different from YGO and MTG. For instance, in YGO without that system, the entire deck is basically filled with creatures, spells, traps, ect. But for MTG, you need to balance in the additional resource of prana/mana/lands as well, and it's general for at least 1/3 of the deck to be taken up by lands from my experience. For instance, in a 60 card deck, that's 21-24 lands, which is 21-24 cards that a YGO player would have to cut in order to make space.

About the shift to pure mana, like you said, it would be a big change. I feel like we should have much more discussion and try to come to an unanimous (is that the right spelling?) decision

[KaoruAoiShiho]

The problem is that at present players simply don't have the cards to create something like an Animal Deck. This is partially because they haven't built up their available cards, but partly because there aren't enough of the relevant cards created/released. If you're going to balance things by having 'weaker' cards be useful in themed decks, you need some way to make it easier for the cards necessary for those decks to be obtained.

Yep I agree, we definitely need to create more cards based on class-synergies and themes and strategies of all types.

Anyone have any ideas for other ways for players to obtain cards?

[Tangerang]

One way is to have each match sort of give out points, and players can spends pts on specific cards or 'boosters'?

[KaoruAoiShiho]

One way is to have each match sort of give out points, and players can spends pts on specific cards or 'boosters'?

This does seem to be like the best solution right now.

Btw this is the currently MEoDP that already exists.

http://dulst.com/#!game/4/Nasuverse/220/Mystic Eyes of Death Perception

[lethum]

Maybe you can earn cards by achieving certain things? Like, winning a battle without attacking with a monster (provided that its possible), or winning in a single turn, or using a six card combo.

Has trading been suggested yet?

[hero]

I so love you for this.

I have a weakness for CARDO GEIMUS

[I3uster]

And how would you envision Prana cards be gained?

Depends. I do not want to rip off the Magic system but instead go for something else, taking into account the factors that I stated before (balancing issues). Do you want a conservative approach or something unorthodox?

And just to clarify: Yu-Gi-Oh top level play isn't exactly that well balanced, at least compared to Magic. The problem with Magic is that the player base freaks completely out when one card gets played in 4 Top 8 decks, and declares that card a "ban candidate". But the developers know what they are doing, especially regarding the philosophy behind the colors and game balance.

[Tangerang]

Random Note:
Maybe make loyal followers a Servant as well?

[Milbunk]

Well I made that card for Alexander and it kinda made sense since they are familiars but now that I think about it they are all Servants so that would be fine with me.

[Tangerang]

*glitch/question

I made a deck of 40 cards, but when I started it said I didn't have 40 cards.
I then refreshed and it said I had like 32 cards.
I then counted, found I still had 40, and than removed all the cards from my deck.
It now said I had -8 cards.

???

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Btw guys this is a way to play with yourself. Open this URL in 2 tabs:

http://dulst.com/#!game/4/Nasuverse/test/test

You won't win/lose points here.

Tangerang what does the deck count say in terms of how many cards you have in your deck?

That's the correct answer, I don't know why the count in deck would be incorrect.


By the way, feel free to make any kind of change, just make a note of it in the comment.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

OK everyone try to answer these questions, some are Aye/Nay/Middle, some require answers:

1. All effects, even ones that really have nothing to do with Prana in the story, should require Prana to use.
Middle/Nay, because making sense in Nasuverse is at least a little important to me.

2. We ditch the sacrifice system entirely.
Aye-Middle. While I3uster, you are very convincing, YGO is the most popular card game in the world, and I don't think it's as broken as you think it is. Even though it lacks fine value tuning, its simplicity may be part of its appeal. This essentially turns YGO into MTG, which is lol. Lastly again, I don't think all cards need to be good. I see this more as an RPG rather than a fighting game like Melty Blood, where every character needs to be 'balanced'. You can start out with crappy pokemon and slowly work your way up to better stuff, you don't need every card to be viable at tournament play. This is an important point and might be the source of some miscommunication.

3. We allow players to sacrifice cards on the board to get back their Prana value, as proposed by Gauss.
Middle. Added complexity both in creating this feature and in the game. I don't think any game has this feature currently and it'll be hard to understand. But this could be very useful feature.

4. How do players get Prana?
Fuyuki place cards should definitely generate prana. Every turn each player gets some free Prana? I don't know if this is sufficient.



Gauss thanks for the report on childhood happiness

Depends. I do not want to rip off the Magic system but instead go for something else, taking into account the factors that I stated before (balancing issues). Do you want a conservative approach or something unorthodox?

Both? :P Brainstorm, I'm interested in ideas.

[Tangerang]

I don't see how -9 could possibly be the correct answer to the deck count in any circumstance though?

http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/y...dulst-Copy.jpg

Unless my deck somehow broke the laws of match and had negative cards.

*Is YGO the most popular Card Game in the world? I often see people play MTG more than YGO.