Ok first post here... so greets all
here's what i'm looking for in this post, #1 thoughts on the mechanics (from a different group of people more in the game design field) #2 trying to figure out why the dice/ccg mechanic has failed on previous attempts
thank you ahead of time for any help or suggestions you might give on this, ^_^
Ok basic concept is this been working on a CCG for about 4 years now, managed to get revision 4 into alpha & beta testing, revision 5 into alpha and now working revision 6.2 so people local to my area (northern california) have tried the game at least a few times in the last 2 years so have a small fanbase (always helpful) here's the jist
No tapping for mana or resources, resource cards raise your maximum control. ie a Capitol city grants 10 resources. Outposts grant 5, then there's minor & major outlying area (1 and 2 resource respectivly)
You start the game with your first capitol already in play. (so no mana shortages for startup)
cards have varying costs ranging from 1-15 resources to put in play. so for example if you have 5 2 cost creatures in your hand you can play them all on your starting hand.
each creature has 1 HP and the resources have their own also (Capitols have 10 for example) which means the creature if defeated in combat will be destroyed.
victory conditions for the game are thus, defeat all opposing capitols (by making 10 successful attacks against a undefended capitol or by gathering 50 resources (2 different routes for player options)
ok so here's the dice part (typing quickly because it's 108f outside and i'm out here smoking)
A creature has 2 stats, Attack Rating & Defense Rating and they come in
4,6,8,10,12 varities. for example "bob the hunter" is a 4/8 creature. if bob attacks a capitol and the other player decides to use "larry the warrior" to defend (lets pretend he's a 6/6) the attacking player rolls his Attack rating (a 4 so 1d4) and the defender rolls his defense rating (an 6 so 1d6) if the attackers roll is higher the defender is destroyed. if there is a tie or the defender rolls higher then the defender survives, and neither one is destroyed (the only affect being that the attacker used his 1 action point for the round. with the mechanic it gives even the weakest defender a possiblity to still stand up to a 12/12 dragon (d4 still has a 25% chance to roll a tie or higher than a d12)
ok, so far so easy i believe... now another card type... spells/effects... Spells or effect cards can only be played if the following criterea are met,
#1 you need to have a creature with the ability SPELLCASTER
#2 that creature must not have used his action point this round.
#3 you must still have the resources available in this round to cast it. (Ah Ha! the resource explanation finally!)
creatures require the resources to remain in play so if you use the earlier example 1 capitol out and 5 2 cost creatures, you are using all available resources, which means you have no extra resources to cast spells because they require the same resources for creatures (just a 1 shot variety)
ok rambling a bit here, i'll try to post more info or field any questions regarding the system as i can. i'm just worried the post is too big now...
thoughts on dice/ccg mix?
more info...
balancing has been attempted in cost vs power... here's the rundown
all cards have a base cost of 1 resource to play. abilities and higher dice affect the cost
d4 -1 to the cost (not to go below 1)
d6 +0 to the cost
d8 +1 to the cost
d10 +2 to the cost
d12 +4 to the cost
so a 4/12 creature with no abilties will cost 4 resources to play, etc
abilities also add to the cost
FLY/BURROW/SWIM (can only be blocked by other creatures with the same ability, or a character with the ability RANGED) add 2 to the base cost.
RANGED adds 1
and so on and so on
so since all abilties have been created (around 140 different abilities so far) with a set cost increase (or decrease for a few smaller ones) every card has the same value no overpowered cards without the cost to factor in.
an example of a decreasing cost ability
UNIQUE (only 1 of this specific card may be in play at any given time, and only 1 of this exact card may be in your deck) actually has a -1 cost involved thus making some of the larger cards a tad cheaper. So you could make a cheaper powerdeck with all uniques which would eliminate doubles of course)
...
so far the baseline set has 385 cards... although only 153 have been converted to the 6.2 ruleset
more to come if anyone interested, and if your designing a similiar mechanic perhaps we should put our heads together and figure why dice/card combos have done... hmmm.... not the best in the past