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CCG card design

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CIDIC
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Joined: 12/31/1969

I'm getting into the part of my game where i have to create the cards and have them balanced and such. I'm familiar with all the basic balancing techniques you can use from reading and my own experience. I'm looking for any advanced advice on card design and balance, I have a few differing factions that i want to all have a differing feel, with different strenths and weaknesses, but still be very balanced, I still want cards that vary in effectiveness and interest. I don't want a bunch of calculated balanced cards with no wildcards in ther. how do i balance between keeping all the cards fair but not too bland?

Anonymous
CCG card design

Im my self constructin action cards right now. I think you have to think in new ways. Creating a battle card instead on making a card

Fury+2 damage you might go with
Ambuch in a mountain square +4 damage since its going to be less ofen its possible to use
Maybee you dont have territories at all but you get the point

Give all your charkters or attacks a booster
Fury+2 damage pay 2 mana for an additonal +1
Ambuch in a mountain square +4 damage pay 2 mana for "fisrst strike" or "No counter attack"

Im not the best wrighter but i hope you like geting some "less good" response then none...

Sitting up late at night

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
CCG card design

If you want to give a unique flavor to each faction, you can give some common special abilities which can only be available for this faction. For example, in MTG the "regenerate" ability is mostly found in green and black cards. "First strike" and "Banding" is generally used by white cards.
In this way, the player will chose their faction according the way they want to play.

Anonymous
CCG card design

I think the best method here is to focus on some of the fundamentals of CCG design when it comes to faction-based games. However, you have to ask yourself a few questions:

Does some kind of costing prohibit the player from mixing the factions with no disadvantage. If I can use cards from any faction in my deck with the only objection being "flavor or storyline problems" then costing becomes difficult. I'm assuming that there is some kind of enforcement to get players to have to choose one dedicated faction or pay a cost to get cards of multiple factions (something as basic as the colored mana in Magic does this very nicely).

Here are your basics:
Decide on what the generic card can do if every faction had access to it. In general this will be a starting point. If every faction has a generic soldier, what are its stats (in Magic, for example it is widely held that a 1/1 with no abilities can be had for one colored mana.)

Now make a list of what each faction excels at and what each faction does poorly. In Lord of the Rings, for example, Elves are good at Card/Deck manipulation while Rohan cards tend to focus on posessions.

You can assign accurate costing and balancing based on that. If, for example, one faction excels at card manipulation, perhaps determine that the cost for them to draw two cards would be one of their specific resource. A faction that does card manipulation very poorly may not even have a way to draw extra cards, or may need to pay 3 of their resources to draw two cards.

The key is to not give every faction every ability. If everyone can draw cards, it just becomes the player's responsibility to determine what combination of abilities are the most valuable and which faction has them for the cheapest. In Magic, Black has virtually no color-specific way to remove enchantment cards from the table. This forces the player to choose to either live with that disadvantage or extend themselves into another faction to regain that ability (Possibly in white where it is generally accepted that one mana will get rid of an enchantment).

You won't want to have cookie-cutter creations...but don't discount them. Draw up some charts of each faction's costing scheme for certain abilities. In magic, this would lead to a chart where it shows blue paying little (maybe 1 mana) to add flying to a creature, red paying paying more (possibly 2-3)--and ONLY when it is very much in flavor for the card--and very infrequently. There are exceptions, of course, and that leads to interesting designs. If something that strictly by chart definitions would cost 4 of a resource is printed to cost 3, it becomes very playable.

For cards with non-generic abilities, you need to take into account how it impacts the game in the areas of:
1) card advantage
2) tempo advanatage
3) board position
4) overall gameplay

Depending on how your game works, card advantage may not be an issue (in lord of the rings, drawing a card means a lot less than in Magic because in Lords you draw till your hand has 8 cards at the end of every turn and magic has you only drawing 1 card a turn).

Tempo advantage depends on how your resources play into the pacing of the game. For example, in Magic a 1/1 creature can be had for one mana. That means he can come out on turn one and attack on turn 2. With no other cards being played, the game is then over in 21 turns. However. If you can play a 5/5 creature on turn one, the game can be over in a measly 5 turns. Thats a big tempo jump. The same as if you have a card that increases resource development. It doesnt matter if you cost your creatures that end the game at 5 mana if you can get them out on turn 2 after paying to get 4 extra mana producers on turn one. This was the issue with the magic card Dark Ritual (it could be played once using 1 mana and generated 3 mana)-- it traded card advantage for tempo, and often that tempo advantage could drop down a creature that wasnt costed to see play until the third turn or later. Be careful with cards that modify tempo (generate extra resources, extra turns, or can be otherwise played early or disrupt the opponents tempo)

For board position, evaluate how the card effects the cards the player has on the table. If one card destroys all the opponents cards in play, it better be costed so that it takes work (a few turns of resource development) before it could see play. Similarly, if a card does somethng that cannot be stopped, realize that it is the same as making a fundamental rules change in the middle of a game and make sure it isn't too dramatic.

Lastly, overall gameplay. Just think about how it works within the game.

If a card's abilities have a huge effect in any of these areas, take a note of that and cost appropriately. It is generally a better and safer idea to overcost than undercost.

CIDIC
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Joined: 12/31/1969
CCG card design

thanks for all the useful info, I will use all this as reference when i'm designing my cards, thanks again.

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