The Card Game The MGS Deserves

[Callback]

Triple Triad is iconic, well-recognized, and fun for a little while, but it has its problems.

Balance is rough until you unlock unlimited 3*, but against appropriate difficulty NPCs you are ok.

Later on, many cards become worthless. Most notably 4* cards never have a real use, and otherwise there is a small set of "optimal" cards. The only time other cards see play is in rulesets that benefit them.

And of course "random" rule NPCs are just bull. Applying a detrimental rule to you while the NPC proceeds to further cheat with 3 hero cards...

But the biggest problem is the lack of PvP appeal. Outside of throwing on random with a friend, the game gets stale fast.


We need another card game. One with the same joy of collecting, but one better balanced for engaging addictive PvP action. One with a real power curve so that players aren't seeking objectively stronger cards, but rather new options for combos and strategies. We need the most addictive online PvP card game to ever appear in a Final Fantasy title.


We need Pop-Up Duels. That amazing card game from the Chocobo series.

The duels would be in an instanced environment, similar to how LoV does it. Players would select an avatar to duel for them, possibly with some unlockable/collectable. Heck, why not pick one of our minions as an avatar? That could work nicely.


Cards would ideally be unlocked through fixed challenges. The RNG of TT drops tends to be off-putting. Challenges would range from beating NPCs in duels similar to LOV's missions, or doing challenges around Eorzea. such as running a certain dungeon undersized as a solo party, clearing a trial under a time limit, scoring well a number of times at the small MGS attractions, or won from GATEs.


Here's an example match I dug off of Youtube.
https://youtu.be/XCfGrPOM86M

Sound quality is low but it gets the mechanics across clearly.

[Callback]

For those unfamiliar with the game, I will explain here.

Both players start off with 20 life and draw a hand of 3 cards from their 15 card decks. Cards have 4 colored circles around their border: red, green, blue, and yellow, and the card itself may be any of these colors or gray. In these circles there may be icons for either attack (sword), defense (shield), guard break (spear), or nothing. Cards may only have 1 offensive (attack or break) icon. Defense icons vary by card, some having none and others having them as their only type of icon.


Both players select a card from their hands in the pop-up phase. Whichever player selects their card first will have their card act first that turn. Cards act by comparing their offensive icon to the corresponding zone on the opponent's card (so a red attack checks the opponent's red zone). Attacks succeed against empty and break zones, and succeed with only half damage against another attack zone. Breaks succeed only against defense zones. Purely defensive cards do not act, but retaliate if one if their defense icons blocks the enemy's attack. The card's effect lists any damage and additional effects that take place when the card succeeds. Half-damage attacks still apply any additional effects in full.


At the end of the turn, cards generate CP. You gain 1 crystal point (CP) of the same color as the card you played that turn, provided it was not gray. Gray cards tend to be more powerful in exchange for not generating any CP. Some cards have crystal abilities as their effect. A crystal ability only activates if the user has the required crystals in their crystal gauge, which stores up to 10 crystals (replacing the oldest when more are added). An attacking crystal ability which fails due to lack of CP (or silence) does not trigger guard abilities, but still count as a sword icon for the sake of half-damage against another attack.


When selecting your card, you are able to see the color of the opponent's hand. This allows for some prediction. Almost all offensive cards attack the same color that they are. Additionally colors have general advantages over one another: red>green, green>yellow, yellow>blue, and blue>red. This means that red, if it blocks anything at all, it will typically block at least green. Likewise, green almost never blocks red, giving red the clear dominance in that color relationship.


Finally there are status effects. Status effects apply immediately and last until the end of the following turn. Burn, poison, freeze, and paralyze all double the damage taken from a certain color attack icon the next turn. Haste and slow decide who will attack first next turn, ignoring how fast players select their cards (if one is applied to both players speed still matters. If both are applied to one player, the second one will override the first). Silence blocks crystal abilities as if the user had no CP. Finally, protect halves the damage taken next turn. (damage rounds down at every step, so a 3 damage attack matched against your attack for half-damage would end up doing 0)

Other than that, it's all up to the individual card effects. It gets crazy and really fun. I hope they put it in so you all can enjoy this amazing game.

[FunkyBunch]

Or they could just do a game like hearthstone. They have enough cards.

[Callback]

Or they could just do a game like hearthstone. They have enough cards.

What do you mean enough cards? They don't have any cards for something new. Pop-Up Duel, on the other hand, already exists, was featured in multiple Final Fantasy games, and has 134 cards already designed.

Plus with Pop-Up Duels Online never making it around to become a thing (last I heard was a JP-exclusive beta back in '08), adding it to XIV would be the best way to being Pop-Up Dueling back into the world.

[FunkyBunch]

I mean with 120 Triple Triad cards they would just have to give them some attributes and make the cards serve dual purposes.