rilifon
commented
6 years ago I like the ideia of fixed damage and armour. I vote we test them.
About focus, I like the way you are heading. For me it made using cards more of a frustration to spend them once in a while not to lose my hand. This way of all cards spending focus could prove fun, but then I would suggest reducing (or plain removing which I prefer to test first) walking spending focus. Also, cards with fixed focus costs could make some choices of picking more interesting (picking several high cost strong cards could give and advantage, but you risk having a hand that you can't fully cast). Here I give once again the ideia that buying a new have discounts the amount of cards you already have.
Em Sáb, 4 de ago de 2018 19:54, Wilson Kazuo Mizutani < notifications@github.com> escreveu:
Backdoor is about twisting RPG/dungeon crawl/roguelike tropes into card game tropes, yet I feel our card mechanics are currently shadowed by other features or complexities. Here I propose a series of changes that should (again) make the game design more lean, but with a focus on making cards more important and fun. The idea would be to have all proposed changes together, but we can alternatively pick up only a few of them. Change 1: Constant damage
Not a single card game I know deals random damage predominantly (either from the MTG family of games or the deck-building archetype). I guess the fact that cards are drawn from a shuffled deck already provides enough randomness to a game, so having an additional layer of complexity by dealing random damage by default doesn't add to the chance-based fun. In fact, I fear it might only shroud things more.
With this change, all effects should usually cause a constant amount of damage (given the card's base power and the actor's attributes). We can think of cards with random damage effects, but that would be specific to those cards. Change 2: Defense as temporary hit points
Once we have constant damage, a new problem comes up. If your damage output is lower than your opponent's DR (damage reduction), you are simply screwed. I've actually tested it (using average damage as the constant basis): arcanists can only deal 1 damage to slimes from the get go. So, again, I looked to other card games (and related games). I realized that Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, and even D&D (5th edition) rely on temporary hit points as a means of mitigating damage.
With this change, bodies would have a pool of defense points, which absorb incoming damage. Once that pool is depleted, damages carries over to hit points as usual. The DR attribute still exists, but can only be applied while a body has defense points. For instance, if a body with 5 defense points and DR 3 takes two 6 damage attacks, first it will take 3 damage and lose 3 defense points, then take 4 damage and lose the remaining 2 defense points.
This change forces us to think of armor-flavored effects differently. An armor does not provide a passive bonus, it has to somehow provide timely defense points instead. Maybe "gain 10 defense points whenever you focus" or something. Slightly related to the following change. Change 3: Have EFC increase focus duration instead of reducing stamina cost
The focus system did a great job of making card hands more meaningful, but it still doesn't feel like a "card game turn", which makes in turn makes cards less important. I feel like we "forget" cards exist far too easily. There is no convenient solution in other games this time, so I don't have much to go on.
The change I came up with is to stop regenerating focus whenever a card is used, and have cards cost "focus turns" instead. This way, when you begin focus, you draw 5 cards as usual, but anything you do, even playing the cards, will count towards the end of your focus (some actions more than others). The EFC attribute would not be responsible for boosting the focus duration, and stamina can be greatly simplified: we'd have at most five stamina points to spend, each food would recover exactly one point and entering focus (and drawing a hand) would always cost one point too.
We can have cards that cost zero focus (e.g. equipping something) and effects that restore or prolong the focus (e.g. a condition that makes your next 3 moves not consume focus). I'd also suggest adding a "focus only" flag to conditions and/or equipment, so we can, for instance, avoid buying cards with Seedling Sap outside of focus.
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Kazuo256
Backdoor is about twisting RPG/dungeon crawl/roguelike tropes into card game tropes, yet I feel our card mechanics are currently shadowed by other features or complexities. Here I propose a series of changes that should (again) make the game design more lean, but with a focus on making cards more important and fun. The idea would be to have all proposed changes together, but we can alternatively pick up only a few of them.
Change 1: Constant damage
Not a single card game I know deals random damage predominantly (either from the MTG family of games or the deck-building archetype). I guess the fact that cards are drawn from a shuffled deck already provides enough randomness to a game, so having an additional layer of complexity by dealing random damage by default doesn't add to the chance-based fun. In fact, I fear it might only shroud things more.
With this change, all effects should usually cause a constant amount of damage (given the card's base power and the actor's attributes). We can think of cards with random damage effects, but that would be specific to those cards.
Change 2: Defense as temporary hit points
Once we have constant damage, a new problem comes up. If your damage output is lower than your opponent's DR (damage reduction), you are simply screwed. I've actually tested it (using average damage as the constant basis): arcanists can only deal 1 damage to slimes from the get go. So, again, I looked to other card games (and related games). I realized that Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, and even D&D (5th edition) rely on temporary hit points as a means of mitigating damage.
With this change, bodies would have a pool of defense points, which absorb incoming damage. Once that pool is depleted, damages carries over to hit points as usual. The DR attribute still exists, but can only be applied while a body has defense points. For instance, if a body with 5 defense points and DR 3 takes two 6 damage attacks, first it will take 3 damage and lose 3 defense points, then take 4 damage and lose the remaining 2 defense points.
This change forces us to think of armor-flavored effects differently. An armor does not provide a passive bonus, it has to somehow provide timely defense points instead. Maybe "gain 10 defense points whenever you focus" or something. Slightly related to the following change.
Change 3: Have EFC increase focus duration instead of reducing stamina cost
The focus system did a great job of making card hands more meaningful, but it still doesn't feel like a "card game turn", which makes cards less important. I feel like we "forget" cards exist far too easily. There is no convenient solution in other games this time, so I don't have much to go on.
The change I came up with is to stop regenerating focus whenever a card is used, and have cards cost "focus turns" instead. This way, when you begin focus, you draw 5 cards as usual, but anything you do, even playing the cards, will count towards the end of your focus (some actions more than others). The EFC attribute would now be responsible for boosting the focus duration, and stamina can be greatly simplified: we'd have at most five stamina points to spend, each food would recover exactly one point and entering focus (and drawing a hand) would always cost one point too.
We can have cards that cost zero focus (e.g. equipping something) and effects that restore or prolong the focus (e.g. a condition that makes your next 3 moves not consume focus). I'd also suggest adding a "focus only" flag to conditions and/or equipment, so we can, for instance, avoid buying cards with Seedling Sap outside of focus.