Battleground | Battleground

[stereohelix]

NAME: Battleground ELEMENT: Other COST: 5 TYPE: Permanent ATK|HP: TEXT: Creatures battle with nearby enemy creatures instead of attacking the opposing player. Lasts one turn.	NAME: Battleground ELEMENT: Other COST: 4 TYPE: Permanent ATK|HP: TEXT: Creatures battle with nearby enemy creatures instead of attacking the opposing player. Lasts one turn.

ART: the battle of Quetzelcoatl by FM Era (https://www.flickr.com/photos/42331254@N02/8538185875/) IDEA: stereohelix NOTES: This card is a permanent similar to Sundial in that it lasts a full turn and prevents creature attacks -- but it also adds a mechanic for creature attack called "battle" in which creatures pair off and deal damage to each other. Battles generally favor more defensive creatures, which should have an interesting impact on gameplay and card design. Spoiler for Battle Mechanics: Battle: creatures pair off and deal damage to each other. Each creature deals damage based on its attack, and takes damage to its HP. "Targetable" considers skills such as Immaterial and Burrow, but not Evasion. The Airborne skill gives a creature a 25% chance to evade battle damage. Creatures with status effects such as Delayed and Frozen remove a turn of status effect, but they do not actively battle or deal damage when targeted for battle. Nearby: creatures battle the targetable enemy creature nearest to the top row in their column. Ties for "nearest" are resolved by reverse slot order: highest first. "Top row in their column" refers to the one or two hexes at the top of the column that the creature occupies. Spoiler for example images of target priority: These are pictures of the game board. The bottom green slot is a creature targeting the "nearest" enemy. The upper slots show targeting priority: Lighter slots are chosen first, then darker slots if the lighter slots are empty. Targeting priority for slot 1: Targeting priority for slot 2: Targeting priority for slot 17: Spoiler for Current Card Clarifications: Gravity Pull: As a defender, this essentially counters the Battleground, forcing all creatures to battle one enemy creature with gravity pull. Because they are battling instead of attacking normally, the gravity pulling creature would potentially (considering things like airborne and immaterial) deal damage to each attacking creature. As the attacker, gravity pull has no impact on battle targets, since the idea is that the attacking creatures would seek out their targets. Shard of Freedom: Since airborne is already quite powerful with this card, I suggest that SoFree be limited in its synergy here by not counting the attack bonus for battles, and by making a separate check for target evasion (airborne creatures already have a 25% evasion bonus.) Shard of Patience: SoPa effectively skips half of the battle -- because SoPa is a delay affect (see above) creatures under its effect do not actively battle or deal damage when targeted for battle. This means that creatures under the effect of SoPa do not deal or receive any damage at the end of their own turn. When an enemy creature battles them, however, they respond normally. Phoenix: Ash would remain a potential target after a Phoenix is killed, and could be destroyed by another creature in the same turn that the Phoenix is killed. Voodoo Doll: Voodoo Dolls battle, even with zero attack. Each time they take damage without dying, the opponent also takes damage. See OdinVanguard's Field Based Combat Series for discussion of columns, "nearest" and other related and inspiring ideas. See OdinVanguard's Contested Bridges for a slightly different mechanic of "battle." SERIES: Key card of Battlegrounds.

[CuCN]

And what happens if there are no valid targets?

[OdinVanguard]

I've been working on prompting this sort of thing myself.

I recently posted a series to try and spur use of field effects to do so:

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,48038.0.html

There are some important points of note in there about field setup that you may find worth looking over.

Long story short, proximity is tricky to define because what one player sees as their "top" row will appear as their side's "bottom" row to the opponent.

"Opposing" rows, and slots, and column effects seem to be fairly easy to pull off, but proximity only makes easy sense within one side of the same side of the field. Between opposing sides, the topology is a bit wonky.

E.g. "the enemy nearest to this card's opposing slot" is well defined. Unfortunately "enemy nearest to this card" is not.

If you look at the field slot diagrams what I'm saying will make a little more sense.

[stereohelix]

@CuCN: If there are no valid targets, everyone goes back to the tavern to get some ale and split up the loot.
Or you could just say that nothing happens -- I think that's generally what the game does when there are no valid targets.

@OdinVanguard: Wow, very cool stuff. I have at least one other idea for your series, or at least playing off of it.

That's an interesting problem with regard to proximity. I was thinking that what would make the most sense is if the tops of each player's boards were considered adjacent -- but as you pointed out (I think) -- it isn't rendered that way. This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker (you could just consider the tops to be adjacent, or some other arbitrary fix), but it would be more interesting for "battle" field effects if there were a visual "front lines" and "back ranks" to play with.

[OdinVanguard]

@CuCN: If there are no valid targets, everyone goes back to the tavern to get some ale and split up the loot.
Or you could just say that nothing happens -- I think that's generally what the game does when there are no valid targets.

@OdinVanguard: Wow, very cool stuff. I have at least one other idea for your series, or at least playing off of it.

That's an interesting problem with regard to proximity. I was thinking that what would make the most sense is if the tops of each player's boards were considered adjacent -- but as you pointed out (I think) -- it isn't rendered that way. This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker (you could just consider the tops to be adjacent, or some other arbitrary fix), but it would be more interesting for "battle" field effects if there were a visual "front lines" and "back ranks" to play with.

Indeed. I was actually planning on using that to make "front line" type effects until I realized the issues with it.

Feel free to add to the series or to incorporate any of the ideas, etc. into your own cards.

The slot priority diagrams can be very useful for illustration in your notes as well. Just make sure to give Hyroen credit for making the image.

For this card, you could use something like:
"Creatures fight the enemy nearest to their opposing field slot instead of attacking.
Lasts one turn."

You could still try doing some kind of visual based proximity, but its going to be tricky.

At any rate, I think this should be a fun spell if you can get all the details worked out.

[GamerJL]

i could think of immaterial creature combo and pheonix...
seems like its a powerful card...

[blarp]

tldr. Card is too confusing as is. Fix that up and then I'll call it OP

[OdinVanguard]

This card is also very similar to the Contested Bridges card I posted a while back (which is currently 2nd in my line of card pairs to be put into crucible polls).

The discussion for that card will probably have a lot of relevant information for this one.

I believe it started as type other card but it was ultimately decided that it should be made an element specific card.

There was no duration limit though, so maybe that will help.

Personally, I would love to see more creature combat like effects and cards in the game. Whether its one of my cards or not isn't so important to me... I just want to have my wyverns beat up crimson dragons

[stereohelix]

@GamerJL:

My intention is for this to be a damage/CC card that synergizes with creature stats and skills -- particularly HP and defensive skills. Seraph and Phoenix are both good here because they can deal enough damage to kill something, and also have defensive skills. They are already powerful and popular cards that happen to work well with Battleground -- but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. Remember, you are trading damage to the opponent for the damage/CC effect.

Also consider that Graviton Guard and Cockatrice are generally good, as is a burrowed Antlion. Because the battle mechanic here deals damage simultaneously, it actually tends to favor defensive creatures with just enough damage to kill something, rather than just favoring creatures with high attack, as the regular attack mechanic does. For example, when a Battleground is down, a Giant Frog is usually worse than a Cockatrice. This is the different from the current game priority and addresses something that many people consider to be a balance issue. In fact, it indirectly balances against purely offensive creatures such as Lava Golems, and gives Shriekers a good reason to burrow.

@OdinVanguard:

That thread is definitely relevant and helpful! Looks like you've put a lot of thought into this kind of thing. I like the idea of giving flying creatures a chance to evade -- it gets the point across in a simple way, and doesn't require introducing the "ranged" skill to rationalize combat.

I edited the main post to integrate some of your terminology, mechanics, and ideas. Please let me know if you have any specific suggestions.

• Changed card text: "Creatures battle with nearby enemy creatures instead of attacking the opposing player. Lasts one turn."
• Simplified targeting: Creatures battle the targetable enemy creature nearest to the top row in their column. Ties for "nearest" resolved by slot order.
• Airborne now gives a 50% chance to evade battle damage.
• Changed card title: Skirmish | Battle changed to Battleground | Battleground
• Updated notes.

@blarp: hopefully more readable now. You might want to skip the spoilers.

[stereohelix]

...
There was no duration limit though, so maybe that will help.

There are a number of drawbacks to this card (that are probably clearer with the new writeup) that I think make it not OP, and also a really good candidate, IMO, for an "other" card. The drawbacks also hopefully make it fun, not just because they allow more varied play, but also because the ways that you might have to compensate for the drawbacks allow a lot of room expansion -- for example, more use of burrow, healing, damage reduction, or "stealth." It could be central to a series, which is sort of how I was thinking of it.

Other than lasting just one turn, the differences/drawbacks are:

• Attacking creatures are damaged whether or not they kill their target.
• Attacking creatures don't damage the opposing player.

The first drawback is interesting because it makes the defensive stats/skills of the attacking creatures very significant to the usefulness of the card. There are just a few spells currently in the game that emphasize creature defense -- Gravity Pull, Overdrive, and Pandemonium (unupped.) But this doesn't seem to be a significant enough influence on the meta-game to encourage players to use low attack/high hp cards. There are a number of creatures that are easily overshadowed because of this (*ahem* Cockatrice) that would be made more viable by the introduction of a card like Battleground, or just more accessible damage/CC cards.

The second drawback is interesting for a related reason: That when playing Battleground, it's not necessarily any better to do more damage. In the turn that Battleground is played, the only thing that matters is the amount of damage done to each creature up to their hp total, with no consideration for damage that goes beyond killing all creatures. Overkill has no effect, and extra creatures attacking has no effect. This means that a deck that includes this card or considers strategies meant to respond to it needs to consider the attack of all of its creatures as related to the defense of each creature on the board or potentially on the board -- not just "higher is better."

These drawbacks even open up tactical considerations for playstyle, not just deck design -- should you bless your 7/7 Pegasus again and go for the kill in two turns, or throw it on the Ray of Light so you can kill both Lava Golems and ensure victory later on? If you have a Battleground in your hand, you have different and unique, flexible, and intricate tactical options available -- while still maintaining the core gameplay and the "fire and forget" interface.

[OdinVanguard]

One amusing strategic consequence to this card:
It makes it most beneficial to spam either weak cards (like photons) or very high hp cards (like armagios) to the center field, then put stronger ones on the edges. This allows the central cards to act as a buffer against attacks since they will be closer to the opposing enemy slots that are most likely to be occupied.

That could make for some interesting duos, it would also make fractal a very valuable asset.

This card would also make healing effects more valuable as well.

One question, what happens if you also have SoPa in play? Do your creatures still battle enemies or not?

[stereohelix]

One amusing strategic consequence to this card:
It makes it most beneficial to spam either weak cards (like photons) or very high hp cards (like armagios) to the center field, then put stronger ones on the edges. This allows the central cards to act as a buffer against attacks since they will be closer to the opposing enemy slots that are most likely to be occupied.

It also fits with the theme: tanks and fodder go front and center.

That could make for some interesting duos, it would also make fractal a very valuable asset.

The only element that doesn't have an obvious way to synergize with Battleground right now is Life -- except indirectly through something like Mitosis + FFQ. Something to consider for element balance within the series.

One question, what happens if you also have SoPa in play? Do your creatures still battle enemies or not?

SoPa is a delay. SoPa'd creatures would not attack at the end of their turn, but they could battle enemies in the counterattack if the Battleground is still in play. I'll update the notes.