Re: The Official Set Balance Thread

[.Leo]

One thing I want to note is that powerful cards create meaningful interactions with everything around it (bar extreme cases in which they are so powerful that it fails to interact) - having a card pool in which every card everything does so little or with no conviction leads to a drawn out game in which nothing does anything worthwhile. I understand the desire for things to be slow and that is possible, but 'power cards' bring a great deal to the table and should be discussed as a possibility.

Without 'power cards,' player interaction is very basic and doesn't allow for a player to make a big push, forcing the opponent to come up with an out to the card/push, which makes the game more skilled and puts an emphasis on saving resources and outs to cards.

[Ash]

So that leaves the question - what is an acceptable curve for power cards that doesn't force the rest of the game to speed it to keep up? Or the number of power cards that can be kept around to prevent being able to make large pushes on a turn-by-turn basis?

[seattleite]

I'm trying to find the magic formula like anyone else. So taking what Leo and Ash said, I have a few ideas:

* More emphasis on the Field and Lifepoints as a resource. Even start out with 10000 lifepoints?

* Instead of dividing cards into power cards and non-power cards, make all cards moderately useful and instead increase the amount of cards that help you draw (but also limit the number of drawn cards per turn, number of Spells you can activate per turn, etc.)

This allows several things:
----Building up enough resources to make a power play with a few moderate cards.
----Incentive to put more cards in their deck.
----With more cards in the deck, more creative deck building.
----Still allows Beatdown, Burn, Control, all the regulars.

* Field resources need to be powerful enough that the opponent wants them gone, but weak enough that the opponent doesn't need to remove them immediately, and especially, so that it's not Profitable to remove them immediately. For example, something like this:

   "You can tribute this monster to destroy 1 Spell/Trap card on the field"

----Assume the monster has good stats and Mirror Force doesn't exist. The player can keep the monster as a Beatstick where it will be useful, as no Mirror Force exists to totally screw the player.

----For monsters that give continuous resources, many will need to be more sturdy in battle, lots of "Once per turn, This card cannot be destroyed in battle" effects

[That OW Guy]

One thing i've been really wanting to incorporate is banishing cards from the top of your Deck facedown as a cost. Assuming we never make cards to recycle them, it's a pretty legitimate cost that I feel would add a new dynamic to the game as well as be reasonable for something moderately strong. What we COULD do in regards to them is make cards that flip those facedowns up so that they can be recycled by something else, thus making you spend extra resources to grab something you might need.

[Ash]

I'm trying to find the magic formula like anyone else. So taking what Leo and Ash said, I have a few ideas:

* More emphasis on the Field and Lifepoints as a resource. Even start out with 10000 lifepoints?

8000 is fine so long as LP cost scaling doesn't get pushed too high imo.

* Instead of dividing cards into power cards and non-power cards, make all cards moderately useful and instead increase the amount of cards that help you draw (but also limit the number of drawn cards per turn, number of Spells you can activate per turn, etc.)

Having a plain bunch of moderately good cards just pushes stale play, and opens up so many scenarios that are simply 'open more synergetic cards than opponent and win'. Perhaps power cards doesn't describe what I want exactly, but ways of keeping players from pulling too far ahead - similar to the roles of Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. Powerful cards, but not win-triggers exactly.

Additionally, too many draw cards just makes it easier to access combos and that again becomes a situation where the first player to amass their synergetic cards just pushes ahead easily.

This allows several things:
----Building up enough resources to make a power play with a few moderate cards.
----Incentive to put more cards in their deck.
----With more cards in the deck, more creative deck building.
----Still allows Beatdown, Burn, Control, all the regulars.

There will never be incentive to put more cards into the deck - in fact with more draw cards it would make "good stuff.dek" types even more effective by giving them access to core engines and disruptive traps faster. Creative deck building is always an option, but the easier it is to search or draw the better individual cards the quicker the decks will streamline.

It is perfectly possible to fit a creative deck in a compact 40, but the quicker we allow a "x cards makes my deck significantly less than 40 cards" then it just makes it easier for potential meta decks to push away from the main pack. When that happens, creativity becomes pointless because it just can't consistently get results to make the time spent worthwhile.

* Field resources need to be powerful enough that the opponent wants them gone, but weak enough that the opponent doesn't need to remove them immediately, and especially, so that it's not Profitable to remove them immediately. For example, something like this:

   "You can tribute this monster to destroy 1 Spell/Trap card on the field"

----Assume the monster has good stats and Mirror Force doesn't exist. The player can keep the monster as a Beatstick where it will be useful, as no Mirror Force exists to totally screw the player.

Agree with this.

----For monsters that give continuous resources, many will need to be more sturdy in battle, lots of "Once per turn, This card cannot be destroyed in battle" effects

I absolutely cannot condone that - it just serves to drag out games painfully. Put a walling monster out that limits your opponents capabilities and you have Icevale Witch 2.0 and that kind of thing is plain harmful to the game.

[Ash]

Since my reply probably just came across as "I don't want a ton of draw cards", I'll clarify:

I don't want a ton of draw cards.

[seattleite]

8000 is fine so long as LP cost scaling doesn't get pushed too high imo.

Ok.

Having a plain bunch of moderately good cards just pushes stale play, and opens up so many scenarios that are simply 'open more synergetic cards than opponent and win'. Perhaps power cards doesn't describe what I want exactly, but ways of keeping players from pulling too far ahead - similar to the roles of Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. Powerful cards, but not win-triggers exactly.

Additionally, too many draw cards just makes it easier to access combos and that again becomes a situation where the first player to amass their synergetic cards just pushes ahead easily.

I see the problem with this and the other paragraph you posted.

On one hand, you need cards like Dark Hole to stop your opponent from getting a ridiculously synergetic hand in turn 1.

But on the other hand, you can't rely on drawing said card because you only draw 1 card per turn. It's completely up to chance, unless you are able to draw more cards per turn.

And you can't have cards that boost draws because you'll draw them before your opponent and end up with a ridiculously synergetic hand anyway, or even more cards like Dark Hole so that the opponent can never advance anywhere in the game....

Umm, is Yugioh broken beyond repair?



I absolutely cannot condone that - it just serves to drag out games painfully. Put a walling monster out that limits your opponents capabilities and you have Icevale Witch 2.0 and that kind of thing is plain harmful to the game.

Ideally, it would be cards that grants you resources, not harm the opponent and make it annoying like Icevale Witch. Something more like Des Lacooda, without all the need for backup S/T. But i'm not sure that's viable anymore.

[seattleite]

So, am I right? Is it bork? Prove me wrong, please...

[ＤＩＧＩＴＡＬ]

Yugioh is a waste of time.

[That OW Guy]

There's no changing what Yugioh is without changing the core of the game. Doing so would alienate those who we are trying to attract. However, I am not opposed to introducing some new things. Perhaps a new Monster Type or two?

On a much less important note, when we create card art for this stuff, I say that all cards must remain Common Rarity. It's an online custom card game. Rarity does not matter and quite frankly Ultra Foil sometimes obscures a card's name. Common leaves the card much easier to read.

[ＤＩＧＩＴＡＬ]

I guess we would need people to focus on getting card images because most members wouldn't want to find their own card images. But if we task a few people to find images for cards as we post sets it shouldn't be too dificult. (I volunteer as tribute.)

[That OW Guy]

YCM has a handy dandy card art section in the Guide to RC Topic. We can also use Google and DeviantArt, etc as we please. We'll get to card art when the time comes though, out of everything we need to go over with this game, card art is the absolute least important thing. Card art doesn't win the game.

Now, is there anything else we haven't really gone over or something someone wants to bring up?

[That OW Guy]

I have an idea actually. While revival shouldn't be EXCLUSIVE to a certain type, how about we actually make Zombies that are...well.....Zombies? Like Zombies could be mostly weak, but because they have the gift of revival, they can keep coming back and annoying people. I do think that Types in this game should have qualities that make them stand out amongst all the others. i.e. Fairies have many restorative effects, Warriors and Insects act sort of field-swarmy (resembling an army feel), Dragons like to blow stuff up, etc.

[seattleite]

You said it more eloquently, but same idea as what I said in page 1.

List time:

Game Flow
* Drawing as opposed to searching
* DEF more important
* Defense Position more important
* LP more important
* Level more appropriate for power
* Type/Attribute style focus
* Battle focus
* Less generic removal
* Themes move cohesive
* Level 7+ Tribute Summoners more powerful
---
Design
* Common Rarities
* Art is not important

[seattleite]

I guess we would need people to focus on getting card images because most members wouldn't want to find their own card images. But if we task a few people to find images for cards as we post sets it shouldn't be too dificult. (I volunteer as tribute.)

May the odds be ever in your favor. I'm not sure how many new members would appreciate the time it takes for someone to find images for all their cards.

[That OW Guy]

I also have a bit of a crazy suggestion, but one that i'm curious to see. How about a base set with no Extra Deck support? No Fusions, Synchros, or Xyz. Just a basic game with only the Main Deck?

[ＤＩＧＩＴＡＬ]

Agreed.

[That OW Guy]

Another suggestion. How about more of a focus on attack negation and redirection rather than outright monster destruction?

[Ash]

my problem with straight-up attack negation is that it (usually) is a straight neg-1 that does very little to further a gamestate - they need to be able to manipulate the field more or we'd just be sat on a bunch of shitty negate attacks (flash grenade was neat for this reason, it was negation that appears threatening)

[Tungsten Butterfly]

Maybe the base set can begin with all the absolute necessities for balanced play similar to chess, and then additional sets can be different styles or versions of the base cards, so they all have something to be compared against?

Kind of like Negate Attack < Magic Cylinder < Sakuretsu Armor < Dimensional Prison < Mirror Force. (somewhere Threatening Roar appears in there)

i really think though the cards with the least chance to backfire, or are chain-able will dominate either way? maybe?

[seattleite]

Another suggestion. How about more of a focus on attack negation and redirection rather than outright monster destruction?

For decks that rarely attack, we'll still need monster destruction.... although I agree that outright monster destruction should be harder.

I'd also like for more focus on battle - ATK/DEF boost etc.

i really think though the cards with the least chance to backfire, or are chain-able will dominate either way? maybe?

Usually yeah. TCG People like D-Prison over Mirror Force because of how stupidly hard some cards are to get rid of (e.g. Beelze).

There aren't that many "different" battle traps people use, because they are less reliable, or don't address the stupidly-hard-to-get-rid-of monsters, and the extra effects don't make up for that.

I hope ACG won't have monsters like that, expanding use of different battle traps.

[Tungsten Butterfly]

crazy question, the tags i had the idea for on Spirits and Unions and stuff being similar to FLIP, did they work out at all or were they a hassle?

[seattleite]

I really liked SPIRIT: , please do that

[Ash]

sure

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