Golden Saucer Card Game Suggestion: Umbral Break

[Lienn]

Card games are collectibles too, not just the game. Part of the fun is also collecting them. ^^

[Valmonte]

What's up with this community and card games?

There are other types of mini-games, ya know.

Sure but Triad is a classic, its made an appearance in few popular games most notably 8,9 and 11. its simple takes no prep time, but at the same time requires you to think and has its own risk/reward system.

as a mini game its quick, fun and just efficient all round...not to mention card games are a traditional past time world round.

[wolfsspirit]

I doubt many will play it as an on its own game..i know i wouldn't .
The golden saucer as an entertainment area with multiple different games could be and probly would be successfull when lots of people gather together however.
Thing is they at least need to bring in at least 5 different games and something for everyone.
A battle Arena (pvp and solo against mobs) would be a good start as would be the chocobo races , i can see both of them very popular especialy if the rewards are worth it.
Thinking of unique items.. unique currency and an unique shop where you can exchange them.. just like they done in the original golden saucer.

[Antanias]

a) Too much HP. Things can be much more strategic if you lower the HP and add ways of healing I particularly like the idea of the strongest attack being able to OHKO the target and the weakest attack being able to take like 10% of target's HP...so seeing you want a base 10 damage/healing I’d say 100 HP would be good enough for the bulkiest cards.

I had thought that if I gave the characters too few HP, the game wouldn't last long and have little to no strategical value. I think I could meet somewhere in the middle as far as the concepts go

b) Remove TP and recast. You already have MP…no need of TP since here they would work the same way. Also, if you adding auto-attack, no need of MP regeneration. It would be, pretty much, you AA for low damage and MP generation or using actions for special effects with MP depletion.

I see your point here, but wouldn't it be odd keeping one or the other as far as mp/tp goes. As far as Recast goes, it's there to prevent a traditional discard pile from existing and thought it was a great way to incorporate the "spamming" of actions from ff14 itself. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not open to other suggestions.

c) Attack order is important. You can’t force the player to attack with left-to-right…letting players to pick the attacking order would favor the strategic gameplay.

Upon looking at the system itself, it does seem kinda silly to go from left to right. When I initially thought of this concept, I was going along the lines of something that the game itself could keep track of easily. The thought wasn't to create a paper game, but rather an online one.

d) Midgame upgrades. If you want players to have a static set of characters then you must support some strategic upgrading after the fight started. An example would be instead of having your “Highlander/Gladiator” with giant HP, you having just the “Highlander” card. Here the card types I’d use:

d.1) Character card. It has HP and clan ability. You pick them prior to fight and place them face down at your character zone. All character can AA so it doesn’t need to be indicated there (pretend everyone knows the AA deals standard 10 damage).

Example: Highlander - HP 60 - Ability: There can only be one! - Deals additional 10 damage against Highlander characters.

If characters start face down, then the game would always begin in a tie lol.

On a serious note, I like this concept too. Still unsure of the lower HP, but perhaps it would be fine for a Light Party game

d.2) Weapon/Gear Card. It often offers you additional effects (like damage increase) or special attacks that replace the AA.

Example 1: Colossal Axe - Requires MRD – Attack: Broad Swing – Deals 10 damage to target and to all foes adjacent to it.

And:

d.3) Class Card. Adds an additional ability or attack to the character.

Example: Gladiator – Ability: Block – If you have a shield equipped, every time you gets attacked you flip a coin and, if heads, you take no damage.

If possible, there should be a way to combine these two in order to successfully mimic the Armory System. eg. the Axe automatically makes the Character a Marauder and gets the ability listed on the card.

d.4) Job Card. Adds signature move and attribute bonus to the class card.

Example: Paladin – Requires Gladiator – HP+ 30 – Ability: Cover – Once per opponent turn you can move the target from one of foe’s attacks to this character.

I had thought of the soul crystals as items that could be used to change jobs, but I think you have something better here

d.5) Action/Weaponskill/Spell Card. Deals increased damage and/or special effects in exchange of MP depletion.

Example: Provoke – Consumes 40 MP to place provoke tokens at half of enemy characters (rounded down). Any target with provoke token can only attack Paladin characters. Remove one token every time that character damages a paladin character.

Like the concept, but I think it would make more sense if Provoke got a bonus from using it on a Marauder (since the ability is learned from that class).

d.6) Food/Medicine Card. Cards that add temporary bonuses.

Example: Grilled Hare – Any damage dealt by this character will be increased by 10 damage until the end of the opponent’s next turn.

Delicious

e) Restrictions. To keep balance some restrictions are important.

e.1) Only weapons flagged as 1-handed can stack with shield or another 1-handed weapon.

e.2) Food can stack with medicines as soon as one is food and the other medicine. You cannot stack 2 food cards or 2 medicine cards.

e.3) One character can have only one class and job attached to it, but you can remove any of them at any time during passive step and, for every card removed, the character receives 10 MP. However, if you remove a card that is requirement of another card, the other cards will be removed as well.

Example: If I have a paladin with a sword equipped, if I remove the gladiator card I’ll also be removing the paladin card and the sword card.

e.4) One character can be upgraded only once per turn (class, job or gear cards only) and the card upgraded cannot attack that turn.

Interesting, I'll definitely consider these. I especially like the food and medicine one.

Most of these points actually are just to add more strategic aspects to it since your game was a bit too “straight” regarding cards…if it was a good character card then it was a good character card…not leaving space for growth and ending like the good ol’ Yu-gi-oh that, when it started, was pretty much “who had the biggest number win earlier.”…

I feared adding items and such was gonna make things complicated, but you bring some pretty good suggestions to the table.

[Lienn]

I left weapon and class separatedbecause weapons are focused on damage, changing the AA specifically, while the class card can change not only the AA but also any other aspect, as adding abilities or even extra attack options. They do can be one, but IMO having 2 is also important for strategy since you do can add weapons/gear at every hierachy point. You can make a ring card that has no restriction, an axe that can only be used by highlanders, a knife that requires GLA, a shield that requires PLD...this would add an strategic flexibility as a counterpart of the straight upgrade the highlander > GLA > PLD would propose.

About cards starting face down, it's exactly what you said...everyone starting in a tie. Making cards only being revealed as they are used or attacked is important to prevent "early gangbang" (the player using AA from all characters at same target to get your most important card down ASAP)...I know you meant a tie as "everyone starting dead" but i meant more like "everyone starting hidden" so to expose a card from your opponent you will need to expose at yours too. But if you want to prevent confusion, add tokens to face down cards...skull token = dead, ninja token = hidden. ^^

About left-to-right attack order, IMo it would limitate the gameplay because if, let's say, you want to use one card to buff another, you would be forced to have that card at most left zones, while your cards meant to just DD at most right zones, what would offer the players a starting prediction of what to attack first. "If you don't know what to do, start hitting the left ones that are the strategic cards"

About actions, i didn't say because you had it already of having them attached to characters instead of being discarded. Merging TP and MP would be just the same as the recast, restricting the rate whose actions are used If you have just MP you make its usage strategic since the player will be required to AA to store MP before attacking...the way you put (MP, TP, recast) you would offer an auto-regenerative mechanic that would require no strategy to use...the dude would just use MP because it would come back at end of turn, forcing exactly what you said...a cyclic spamming of actions based on MP and recast instead of a strategic usage of actions at only the right time.

But this all is just my opinion. IMO a "hide and ambush" always made things more fun than "draw your big sword and run straight to enemies" style of fight. ^^

[Antanias]

About left-to-right attack order, IMo it would limitate the gameplay because if, let's say, you want to use one card to buff another, you would be forced to have that card at most left zones, while your cards meant to just DD at most right zones, what would offer the players a starting prediction of what to attack first. "If you don't know what to do, start hitting the left ones that are the strategic cards"

Read your entire post, but I'm gonna axe the left-right limitation since it won't affect anything major ^^