My latest project -- a digital collectible card game

[Ravana]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Really appreciate it. I put a new update out with some more fixes

Seems that destroy creature card can target fortifcations, but weaken creature cant.

Neither should be able to unless it specifically says so. Which card are you talking about and what could you target with it?

Used Smite the Defilers(worked) and Weakness(didnt work) on Guard Post.

Window size setting could be kept. Also, during ai turn I got some kind of assertion failed that made game stop responding.

Oh, did you get the text of the assertion or can you reproduce it?

Esc removed that before I could take screenshot. I suspect that was related to memory issue as it happened shortly after I killed off previous instance.

[Andrettin]

Yes, next up is to work more on the campaign, and add more diverse maps with various differences!

Good to hear

I finished that mission where the player has to send their creatures on a long path, being pit against guard posts. That was an interesting map to play.

Yes, definitely! Do you have any suggestions for decks to add?

I'm afraid I'm not skilled enough as a deck-builder to make a good enough card list. As a more broad suggestion, it would be interesting to see a mono-school deck for each of the various schools. It might also make players have a greater sense of achievement while they progress when they finally get the amount of cards necessary to form a particular deck.

It would be nice to see cards that made use of creature types. I personally like trolls, and would enjoy seeing troll whelps being added as a card, so that a troll-themed deck can have them as low-level creatures.

I'm not sure about whether the way the "Ancient Alliance" subcampaign is handled is the optimal one. While it is nice to stimulate players to play with others, I don't think they should be forced to do so to experience a particular part of the content; I think that it would be nice to have the option of playing with an AI player alongside you, instead of having to play with another human player.

[Ravana]

Seems there is limit of 3 of same card per deck, I was trying to beat the map where ai has 40+ income.

If that allied mission works then we could do it now. Once it starts working again... memory usage even higher than last time and doesnt start anymore.

[Andrettin]

Seems there is limit of 3 of same card per deck, I was trying to beat the map where ai has 40+ income.

If that allied mission works then we could do it now. Once it starts working again... memory usage even higher than last time and doesnt start anymore.

Ok, sounds good. I'm in there and queued for alliance play. I'll wait there for 30 mins or so.

[Ravana]

Queued too now. Also, I am on wesnoth irc as Ravana_ so you can ping me when its suitable time.

Doesnt seem like it works.

Code: Select all

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Latest log.

[Andrettin]

Apparently, Ancient Alliance doesn't seem to work yet

[Dave]

Ancient Alliance should work. Are you sure you guys were both queued at the same time?

Multiplayer should also work right now.

I'm not sure about making Ancient Alliance playable with an AI, since people tend to get frustrated by AI companions, however I definitely don't want to make campaign progress depend on playing co-op -- it'll be more like an optional side quest than something mandatory.

[Andrettin]

Ancient Alliance should work. Are you sure you guys were both queued at the same time?

Yes. We did successfully start the scenario, but what happened is that the screen became blank. If I pressed ESC then Concede/Close buttons (IIRC) would appear.

[Dave]

[
Used Smite the Defilers(worked) and Weakness(didnt work) on Guard Post.

Oh yes, you're right, Smite the Defilers was bugged to work on buildings. Fixed that!

[Dave]

Some things I would love help with if anyone is interested:

- Campaign scenarios -- want to write storyline and design scenarios for campaigns? The engine supports full map customization, and some storyline elements. The level of complexity is about the same as WML for Wesnoth. If anyone is interested in getting into this I can get them set up!
- Cards -- suggest ideas for cards, and we can try adding them! Adding new cards even with most special effects is pretty easy
- Balancing multiplayer -- Would love to get more multiplayer games played and feedback on balancing it.

[Velensk]

So I gave it a try earlier. I'll give my initial impression first then a bit about the project.

The summery of my impression is that I like a lot of the ideas behind this game but thus far I don't actually find it that enjoyable to play. Not that the time was horribly spent or that there isn't the potential but it wouldn't merit longevity of interest in its current state. As I'm well aware that it will in no way remain in its current state I am definitely interested in the project (for what it's worth the first few versions of Wesnoth would give the exact same impression and Wesnoth has had the most longevity of any game I've played unless you count Starcraft I/II as the same game).
-It feels like a nice combination of a tug of war style game and a collectable card game. I think a collectable card game setup is a decent way of getting the best strategic elements out of tug of war so I certainly have no objection to the combination. As a collectable card game I think that the ability to cycle cards so easily is an interesting innovation but one that has the potential of being really hard to deal with.
-The game is lacking in polish but that's to be expected. I'm sure if it gets a community, the polish will come.
-I found the tutorial was very good at explaining how the game is actually played in a match but very confusing and/or silent on things outside the matches. I'm fairly certain that some of the decks I played had cards that I did not own after I was done playing the match with them. Then there was one match after the tutorial where I somehow ended up with a deck which I'd never built at all with hardly any creatures in it.
-The cardplay is decent enough. A decent system of counters and balances already exists and there's plenty of room for more. I feel like there should be a few more limits on exponential growth effects, especially considering how powerful some of the high cost cards are. I feel like if you don't rein those in, you'll find yourself in a position where you have to balance the game so that it has to be over quickly.
-Speaking of the high cost cards: A lot of them feel not just too strong but wrong. I can understand how they'd need to be, particularly with the tug of war setup, anything that you have to save up for needs to be able to cause a swing but even so the fun of using them is sheerly overwhelmed by the though of having to fight against them. Maybe it's just me but I don't get a huge amount of satisfaction from mowing down an entire lane of enemies with an invulnerable 12 attack creature with cover but even worse, I really don't want to have to face such a creature (especially as both cycling cards and ramping mana is relatively easy). Same applies to the Lich who makes all enemies die instantly and gives life drain (which also feels wrong in the way it works), that one human hero who gives all your creatures +2,+2 and all enemies -2,-2. Even when I use these things it isn't particularly fun for me.
-Facing several story missions in a row that are nearly identical is a bit bland (especially as there is no actual story). The first several forest missions in particular had this feel.

For the project as a whole: I am interested in trying my hand at campaigns/scenarios and will give my input on balancing (I don't have consistent enough available time to take any responsibility for it but I can give my view whenever) however a number of things work against my inclination for something that is not my own project. Also a few notes:
-I'm disinclined to work on something until I feel I understand it very well. Right now I'm not even confident I understand the rules of this game let alone am expert at play. At the end I'll ask about some rules but this point will be constant.
-I feel at the moment that in many ways the game feels a bit too... free (I'm not talking about the price I love that). There are few boundaries on what a player can do in terms of deck building (that I'm aware of) on what cards they can bring into any scenario, on how much mana/cards they can potentially have, ect. This feels to me like it'd be really hard to design things for.
-It seems to me, if one actually wants to write a campaign (especially one that has an actual story as opposed to being just a series of engagements between two powers) that it'd be ideal for the campaign designer to isolate the campaign playspace. Have some influence (if not control) over which cards the player has access to and the ability to write cards specific to the campaign both for the player and his adversaries. This will give a much greater opportunity to create characters and events and also to distinguish the challenge presented.
EDIT: It might actually be a good idea to have some kind of limiter for multiplayer too. Obviously the game is young enough that it doesn't need one yet but if it keeps growing and expanding with user creations it may need one eventually.

Rule Questions
A lot of these questions are things that normally I'd just test however I can't open the game (for reasons explained in my message to you) so I'll ask them here.
-In the tutorial I seemed to never run out of cards nor my opponent. This despite reaching a point where we were cycling cards rapidly and I was certain that one of our libraries read 0 (there was that one enemy with a very small deck). Later in the forest missions my enemy seemed to run out of cards and not get anymore. Am I misremembering my tutorial experience or not understanding a mechanic?
-What are the limitations on deck building? Number of copies of a card (if so is that dependent on the card?), size of the deck? If there are multiple copies of a card (like an animated vs a still card) do the different copies count differently for limitations?
-Do the villages count as lands (can other land types be placed under them?)
-As I understand it, at the start of your turn you draw up to your hand size if you're below it. Am I incorrect?

[Dave]

The card doesn't seem to be displayed properly.

This should be fixed now!

[Dave]

So I gave it a try earlier. I'll give my initial impression first then a bit about the project.

Thank you for your feedback! It's very much appreciated. I will answer some of your points below.

The summery of my impression is that I like a lot of the ideas behind this game but thus far I don't actually find it that enjoyable to play. Not that the time was horribly spent or that there isn't the potential but it wouldn't merit longevity of interest in its current state. As I'm well aware that it will in no way remain in its current state I am definitely interested in the project (for what it's worth the first few versions of Wesnoth would give the exact same impression and Wesnoth has had the most longevity of any game I've played unless you count Starcraft I/II as the same game).

This is definitely true. And honestly when I started Wesnoth, things were so much easier for starting a game. There weren't that many great great games around, and most commercial games were centered around a few themes. Nowadays there are SO many great polished games, commercial ones, even freely available that are highly polished and great experiences. Making a new game that holds a user's interest is hard. Argentum Age definitely needs lots of polishing before it gets to that level!

I'm certainly putting this out there looking for people who would love to make a game like this to help me. I don't expect a "regular user who cares nothing for the design or creation of games" to have a very satisfying experience at this point.

-I found the tutorial was very good at explaining how the game is actually played in a match but very confusing and/or silent on things outside the matches. I'm fairly certain that some of the decks I played had cards that I did not own after I was done playing the match with them. Then there was one match after the tutorial where I somehow ended up with a deck which I'd never built at all with hardly any creatures in it.

We do have to work some more on the tutorial, for sure. After the tutorial missions though you just have a set collection of cards and choose a deck. What is the mission with the deck you didn't build with hardly any creatures?

-The cardplay is decent enough. A decent system of counters and balances already exists and there's plenty of room for more. I feel like there should be a few more limits on exponential growth effects, especially considering how powerful some of the high cost cards are. I feel like if you don't rein those in, you'll find yourself in a position where you have to balance the game so that it has to be over quickly.

Well, to begin with I will say that this is designed to be a fast game which features sharp play. Designed to last 5-15 minutes for a game, with 'serious' matches between players being best-of-3 or even best-of-5 (possibly with deck adjustments after each round).

That said, I'm entirely open to rebalancing of things and nothing is set in stone.

-Speaking of the high cost cards: A lot of them feel not just too strong but wrong. I can understand how they'd need to be, particularly with the tug of war setup, anything that you have to save up for needs to be able to cause a swing but even so the fun of using them is sheerly overwhelmed by the though of having to fight against them. Maybe it's just me but I don't get a huge amount of satisfaction from mowing down an entire lane of enemies with an invulnerable 12 attack creature with cover but even worse, I really don't want to have to face such a creature (especially as both cycling cards and ramping mana is relatively easy). Same applies to the Lich who makes all enemies die instantly and gives life drain (which also feels wrong in the way it works), that one human hero who gives all your creatures +2,+2 and all enemies -2,-2. Even when I use these things it isn't particularly fun for me.

So, it is possible that the high cost creatures are overpowered, but on the other hand the (fairly little) multiplayer testing I've done so far indicates that decks with plenty of low cost aggressive creatures tend to be more dominant. The high cost creatures used to be less powerful and nobody played them. So I amped them up pretty dramatically in power to see "okay so when will people play them?"

Now this isn't to say they will stay that way. Naturally if all games end up with players ramping to their high cost creatures we'll do something to temper that. I will say that most of these creatures do have weaknesses/ways to deal with them. For instance,. Rihn Incarnate is a powerful creature, sure, indestructible, cover, 12 attack. You probably won't kill her and she dominates her lane. But she only dominates one lane. You've just spent all this mana on a single lane and your opponent can still win in the four other lanes. In fact, that card specifically is in response to a premise that I threw around with another developer: "in this game, a card that expensive can't possibly be good if it only affects one lane". So we made a super powerful card that does only effect one lane. Is it too powerful? Maybe. Maybe. It could lose the cover and keep the indestructible perhaps.

I am really hoping to bootstrap a little multiplayer community for Argentum Age soon to test things out more thoroughly and get feedback on what is overpowered and what isn't. And of course what is fun and what isn't.

-Facing several story missions in a row that are nearly identical is a bit bland (especially as there is no actual story). The first several forest missions in particular had this feel.

Yes, for sure! I do wonder if the current way of telling the story is good enough and if there is a more effective way to convey things.

We do have the capabilities to make mapes different and I want to work on this.

-I feel at the moment that in many ways the game feels a bit too... free (I'm not talking about the price I love that). There are few boundaries on what a player can do in terms of deck building (that I'm aware of) on what cards they can bring into any scenario, on how much mana/cards they can potentially have, ect. This feels to me like it'd be really hard to design things for.

Well, it is an intentional design to allow players to have a good deal of freedom for designing their deck of cards. To be able to use your imagination to combine decks in different ingenious ways.

However, I do think that an individual campaign should be able to allow for more limitations. That you should be able to create a set of scenarios if you want that forbids certain types of cards, or only allows a certain set. Or even requires the player use a specific deck. I'm all for this.

And of course the game is full of 'soft' limitations. Like the way the mana system works, it's unlikely you'd want to play Rhin's Anointed in a deck with no other Aether cards.

EDIT: It might actually be a good idea to have some kind of limiter for multiplayer too. Obviously the game is young enough that it doesn't need one yet but if it keeps growing and expanding with user creations it may need one eventually.

For sure, I do want to have several different multiplayer modes. (Including a 'draft' mode).

-In the tutorial I seemed to never run out of cards nor my opponent. This despite reaching a point where we were cycling cards rapidly and I was certain that one of our libraries read 0 (there was that one enemy with a very small deck). Later in the forest missions my enemy seemed to run out of cards and not get anymore. Am I misremembering my tutorial experience or not understanding a mechanic?

In the tutorial you can't run out of cards, and the tutorial actually intentionally feeds you the 'right' cards to keep things on track.

I do need to educate players on deck exhaustion though. The way things work right now (and this is open to change), you can make your deck of any number of cards. However when you run out of cards you are done. You don't draw any more cards. I do need to make a mechanic for actually losing if you run out of cards but I haven't done that yet.

-What are the limitations on deck building? Number of copies of a card (if so is that dependent on the card?), size of the deck? If there are multiple copies of a card (like an animated vs a still card) do the different copies count differently for limitations?

Right now the only limitation on deck building is three copies of each card maximum. This is done by the name of the card, and so cards with variations but the same name are considered the same.

You can choose any deck size you want as well. Most CCG's require a certain number of cards in the deck such as forty or sixty. However I want to try allowing any number. This way a player can make an aggressive tight rush deck with only a dozen cards in them if they want, but they run the risk of exhausting their deck.

This is definitely not something committed to though. It may turn out that this forces everyone to try for pitifully small decks with too limited variation.

Note that the mana system does encourage you to play cards of the same school in your deck, so making a deck up of all five schools is unlikely to play out well.

-Do the villages count as lands (can other land types be placed under them?)

Villages are regular lands like any other. You can't place another land on a village. Any cards which affect lands also affect villages. Campaign designers can make maps of various shapes and can put any lands on a map at the start of the game, and can create new lands with different effects. (Imagine e.g. a land which you fight to control and gives all the controller's creatures +1/+1).

-As I understand it, at the start of your turn you draw up to your hand size if you're below it. Am I incorrect?

This is exactly correct.

[Velensk]

Just a quick question, is the AI supposed to be able to use blink to move my creatures into a lane that doesn't exist?

EDIT: Just noticed your response, I'll address points later.
EDIT2: Later turned out to be a lot sooner than I thought. Since my time is suddenly free...

What is the mission with the deck you didn't build with hardly any creatures?

It was one of the forest missions. I have no idea how it happened but I ended up with a deck that consisted entirely of Gaia (sp?) cards. I died pretty quick so maybe there were more creatures in it but I only drew one (and after the first two turns I began cycling rapidly).

Well, to begin with I will say that this is designed to be a fast game which features sharp play. Designed to last 5-15 minutes for a game, with 'serious' matches between players being best-of-3 or even best-of-5 (possibly with deck adjustments after each round).

Perhaps I should rephrase. I could tell that the intention was for fast games. What I meant was that if you make that kind of growth possible you will probably need to balance the game in such a way that such late game strategies are not reliable to the point of being nonviable as the rest of the game isn't built to work in that fashion.

So, it is possible that the high cost creatures are overpowered, but on the other hand the (fairly little) multiplayer testing I've done so far indicates that decks with plenty of low cost aggressive creatures tend to be more dominant. The high cost creatures used to be less powerful and nobody played them. So I amped them up pretty dramatically in power to see "okay so when will people play them?"

This may sound odd but I'm actually not worried about them being too strong in multiplayer. I just don't find them fun. I can understand that the game needs things something like them, and that given the games overall dynamic, anything so expensive needs to be able to affect the whole board, or at least guarantee a lane but I still find the way they do it jarring. I wish I could give more productive feedback here other than 'these' cards feel jarring in play but that's really all I have here.
-Regarding the Incarnate: It's not so much that a card that will automatically win you a lane in (lane size) turns that costs 12ish is too powerful so much as the fact that (personal take on it) there's not a lot of tension/fun/counterplay to it; It's both invulnerable and untargetable and with an attack of 12 you'd have to work really hard to even delay it.
-The others tend to bother me for different reasons. I'll use the lich as an example. Unlike the Incarnate, trying to fight against this guy is interesting (or at least seems like it would be) but at the same time although I find his effects more mechanically interesting, they don't feel right. It doesn't quite feel right that just because he's on the board that all enemies die at a feathers touch. All your creatures draining life can also feel odd depending on what creatures you have, but it's even odder the way it plays out because drain life actually makes you nearly impossible to kill in conventional combat (unless your opponent has high armor or you're a real wimp) and in fact can frequently mean that you come out with much more health than you came in with. Now for all of this, the lich could easily not be overpowered for his cost (I don't really have any idea) but the effect he has on the field still feels strange. Also, like the Incarnate, I don't think it'd be fun to fight against (especially as the various auras take effect the moment he enters the field so much of his effectiveness effectively has haste.

But for both these complaints, I don't really have a suggestion for a good fix. I don't think the Incarnate losing cover quite fits (though thus far there isn't a ton of hard removal in the game so maybe it wouldn't be too bad).

If I have one concern for balancing them, it's actually less to do with themselves and more to do with card cycling and mana. As the number of cards you draw is dependent on the number of cards you play/discard, the penalties for having 'dead' cards in your hand is relative to the amount of mana you have (early there isn't too much of a penalty to holding one). Thus it isn't too much of a commitment to have a couple of these floating around in your deck even if you're playing a very aggressive deck. A lot of these could allow you to win if you can get them out before your enemy can get out their equivalent even if your enemy generally has a better lategame deck. In fact, I think in general the draw system is the reason why you're finding aggressive decks to be dominant as it gives inherent card advantage to the person with cheaper cards. When you can both get that running and not be penalized too hard for having a couple board breakers.

Well, it is an intentional design to allow players to have a good deal of freedom for designing their deck of cards. To be able to use your imagination to combine decks in different ingenious ways.

However, I do think that an individual campaign should be able to allow for more limitations. That you should be able to create a set of scenarios if you want that forbids certain types of cards, or only allows a certain set. Or even requires the player use a specific deck. I'm all for this.

And of course the game is full of 'soft' limitations. Like the way the mana system works, it's unlikely you'd want to play Rhin's Anointed in a deck with no other Aether cards.

Fair enough. I like the mana system. In fact, in some ways I wish some of the penalties were harsher.

Right now the only limitation on deck building is three copies of each card maximum. This is done by the name of the card, and so cards with variations but the same name are considered the same.

You can choose any deck size you want as well. Most CCG's require a certain number of cards in the deck such as forty or sixty. However I want to try allowing any number. This way a player can make an aggressive tight rush deck with only a dozen cards in them if they want, but they run the risk of exhausting their deck.

This is definitely not something committed to though. It may turn out that this forces everyone to try for pitifully small decks with too limited variation.

You may wish to consider making the number of copies a quality of the card as opposed to a fixed number throughout. Both fixes the 'having multiple copies of a named character' problem and gives you another balancing tool.

I can see the deck size thing going both ways. If you provide ways to defend against rush decks that can also stall less aggressive decks, everyone may be forced to play a very defensive sustainable deck. That said, I actually don't think that this is an untenable approach and it is interesting to require your players to balance between consistency and sustainability. Hopefully balance won't necessitate specifying a deck size because it'd be interesting to see this succeed.

[Velensk]

As a note: I recently finished playing the available campaigns and am now looking to check out multiplayer. I can see that there's another player online but I have no idea who it is and they're likely involved in the campaign.

If anybody reads this within an hour or so you can look for me online for a game.

As a side note, it's help to be able to communicate with people in the lobby I believe. Right now the chat window only pops up when one is queued for a game.