Card Design: An attempt at a comprehensive guide (A community effort I hope)

[doublecross]

Catapult's mechanic:

- Goes through reflective shields

- Damage follows the formula (75 * HP of creature) / (75 + HP of creature).

- Poisons the opponent if an infected creature is thrown.

- Freezes the opponent’s weapon when a frozen creature is thrown, extra 30% more damage.

[OldTrees]

I think you may have to include a new factor OldTrees, seeing that with the inclusion of Catapult, HP becomes more relevant, a new formula I'm sure will rise that gives understanding to the current cost of playing a Massive Dragon for example.

Yeah I though catapult would require some change to the HP valuation however strangely enough it did not make GirlGeneration stop her campaign to buff massive Dragon. (nor did it make Armagio or Doll OP).

Then Overdrive came along. I will have to wait to see how it impacts HP valuations.

[doublecross]

Honestly, if you look at the damage formula for catapult, a massive dragon HP buff wouldn't be tragic.

Also, it seems most people really don't know about the synergy with freezing and catapult...

[Boingo]

First off:  This guide is very good.  I applaud your efforts at getting something this complicated in one place and understandable to the average player.  It will no doubt be a mostly solo effort, but don't let that discourage you from its importance.  +karma

[OldTrees]

First off:  This guide is very good.  I applaud your efforts at getting something this complicated in one place and understandable to the average player.  It will no doubt be a mostly solo effort, but don't let that discourage you from its importance.  +karma

Thanks. I am working on a second version of this from a design side approach rather than this derivative approach.

[Midnar]

Wow. I can see an enormous amount of work here. It's really well-done, anyone wanting to balance the cost of a card idea should definitely refer to it. Of course, it could be improved. Giving everything a decimal value and then do the rounding at the end would make it more precise, but make the math much more complicated, which we do not want.

However. WTF with momentum being worth MORE on creature with LESS attack  ? It looks like you decided this just to make it work with Elite Charger (no offense intended). Let's analyze the effects of momentum:

-Prevent the creature from being frozen by Permafrost S. or delayed by Turtle S. This is worth more on a creature with overall high value (high attack, important active skill...)
-Prevent the creature from being killed by Fire S. or Thorn carapace. This is worth more on creatures with high attack/good skill, but low hp (if I spam Massive Dragons, I really don't care about this Fire S.)
-Prevent the attack from being blocked by Dusk Mantle, Fog, Phase S. and Bone Wall. This is worth more on high attack creatures, and on creatures with a skill triggered by succesful attacks.
-Prevent static damage reduction from lots of shields. This is like giving the creature +X attack, where X is the damage reduction of the opponent shield. According to your formula, this is worth exactly the same on all creature : X attack is worth X quanta.

As you can see, there is absolutely no reason for momentum to be worth more on low attack creatures. I think that the correct formula would be something like :
0 if the creature's attack is 0 (obvious)
Otherwise, a*(creature's attack)+b*(total value of activated skills)+c*(total value of skills triggered by a succesful attack)+d
Where a, b, c and d are constants worked out from shields usage statistics.
And then, you could add Elite Charger to the list of discrepancies.

The main other formula to rewrite is the one for HP's cost. HPs are worth more on a creature with an important skill, or a creature with high attack. I don't think a 0/10 without a skill would be worth 3, as your formula suggests.

Oh, here's what I think of the Formula-Card Discrepancies
Where the game is wrong:
Elite Charger: indeed, slightly OP
Flesh recluse: idem
Graboid/Elite Graboid: OP
Graviton Mercenary: UP
Ulitharid: clearly UP, most people keep Mind Flayer unupgraded

Where the formula is wrong :
Pest: both drain quanta and generate quanta are slightly underrated (maybe 1.2 or 1.3 each), and then 4 hp is worth maybe 0.4 or 0.5, making for the total 2 quanta cost.
Deathstalker: since it's a Death creature, it is mass-boostable with Nightfal/Eclipse, therefore atk=0 is not such a problem. Same reasoning would go for any skill triggered by succesful attacks on any Death or Darkness creature with 0 attack.
Maxwell's Demon: Same problem as pest. Paradox is slightly underrated (maybe 3.3 or 3.4) and 5 hp is worth maybe 0.6 or 0.7.
Massive Dragon: Well, 30hp is obviously not worth the same as 15hp, as your formula suggests. It was slightly UP, but the addition of catapult to the game made it balanced (fully upgraded Armaggio/Massive Dragon/Catapult rush has a ttw of about 6).
Leaf Dragon: Non-duo photosynthesis isn't worth 2: it allows infinite mana generation, which is an invulnerability when coupled with Dissipation Field, and is therefore worth about 100, maybe more. Duo photosynthesis being worth 2 seems fair to me.
Dune Scorpion: Neurotoxin is underrated.

I can't say for the other cards.

About Growth: I think that it is underrated. A cost of 3 would account for the Forest Spirit discrepancy. Then, Forest Spectre is slightly UP, and Lava Golem/Lava Destroyer slighlty OP, so it's all good.

Well, I hope this will help 

[OldTrees]

Thank you Midnar for you reply. This is the kind of criticism that I wanted when I opened the thread.

Originally My strategy was to find patterns (hence the Attack and HP at simple addition)
Then I used those assumptions to find the current cost of skills (here I had hoped for some discussion about Growth vs Ablaze)
Next I check for which creatures were considered OP, UP and balanced and tried to understand why that might be (hence Devour, Deja Vu, Momentum)

My reasoning is that a small attack creature could be locked down thus ignoring shields would be more important. However you are right that Momentum should be much more complicated even if that means Elite Charger (or Sapphire Charger are unbalanced.)

Thank you for your help.

So: ( Attack + Skill Value ) ( Resilience ) is your suggestion for a new formula. I agree it is better. I will go test this out with the Vanilla Creatures.

Edit:
Update: Cost = Constant * Attack * (HP)^(1/2) is working better than the current theory. However it does not explain the Dragons.

[Midnar]

I just noticed you estimated the cost of Ablaze at 3, and the cost of growth at 2. I can't understand this, since growth is strictly better than ablaze. A cost of 3 for both (as suggested in my previous post) seems fair to me : a lava golem will usally be taken down on the turn it is spawned, so the +hp part of growth really doesn't matter.

( Attack + Skill Value ) ( Resilience ) is somehow what I had in mind, even if I didn't put it like this. Right now I'm trying to find a good way to calculate resilience, but it's hard. Note that some skills (Burrow, Immortal, Poisonous, ...) should count toward resilience, *not* skill value. Momentum counts both toward resilience (because of Fire Shield and Thorn Carapace) and skill value.


EDIT: Wow ! I tried a formula and was amazed by how well it works with every vanilla creature ! First, the ideas behind the formula:
- The more HP a creature has, the less important it is to give it more hp. Therefore, resilience is not a linear function of hp's, but rather a logarithmic one.
- Many vanilla creatures are X/5 with a cost of X quantas, suggesting that resilience of 5hps creatures is 1. I thus tried the base-5 logarithm, but it was no good. This is because...
- All creatures (except 0hp creatures) have a "base resilience", because it's possible that the opponent will not have any creature control, making hp's uninmportant.
- In other words, resilience = (chance to survive despite CC) + (chance to survive because the opponent lacks CC) = logarithmic part + static part

And now, the (temporary) formula:
Resilience = (log₅(hp)+1) / 2
With only one adjustment to make: Life creatures get one free hp.

Here are the theoretical costs of all unupped vanilla creatures, using this formula:
Abomination: 5
Purple dragon: 10
Flesh Spider: 2.52, rounds up to 3 (not taking Web into account)
Mummy: 4.27, rounds to 4 (not taking it's passive into account)
Bone dragon: 10
Skeleton: .5, rounds to 1 (version 1.27 will boost it with a new ability, making it less UP)
Graviton mercenary: 3 =/= 4
Colossal dragon: 9.39, rounds to 10
Hematite golem: 4.23, rounds to 4
Gnome rider: .72, rounds to 1 (this one will generate quanta with next update)
Horned Frog: 2.15, rounds to 2
Cockatrice: 3.37, rounds to 3
Emerald Dragon: 10
Ash Eater: 1
Crimson Dragon: 10.10, rounds to 10
Blue Crawler: 2.52, rounds to 3
Ice Dragon: 9.51, rounds to 10
Photon: .5, rounds to 0
Golden Dragon: 12.15, rounds to 12
Dragonfly: 0.72, rounds to 1 (same as Gnome Rider)
Azure Dragon: 9.51, rounds to 10
Devonian Dragon: 10
Black Dragon: 10
Phase Spider: 2.86, rounds to 3 (not taking Web into account)

There's only one discrepancy : Graviton Mercenary. Now just look at card usage statistics: Graviton Mercenary is underused. Meaning that it is probably UP, which is what the formula suggests. The only non-rare creatures used less than Graviton Mercenary are Blue Crawler (also slightly UP according to the formula) and Hematite Golem (balanced, but overshadowed by the OP Graboid).

About upgraded creatures: using either -1 or -2 depending what we need to match the actual card cost isn't the good way to do. We could take inspiration from spells. Low-cost spells get a 1-quantum reduction to their cost when upgraded. High-cost spell get a 2-quanta reduction. I'll work on this later, time for dinner now 

[rohlfo]

Interesting is that cards can become unbalanced (and therefore their casting cost/ability cost) due to other cards already in the game or new additions. I think this makes it difficult in the sense that one might need to re-evaluate each time a new card is added to the game.... , but also poses the question of whether costing should even consider other cards within the game/specific element or seen just as a stand alone card?

I guess in the end you could make an incredibly complicated formula in the strive for perfection (and why not!) but I think a simpler/general outline would be important to keep for people just starting out in the card creation world.
But I do look forward to seeing the second version and wish you best of luck (and little headache) with it

[Midnar]

According my previous formula, a vanilla 0|499 is worth 0. This is wrong, because the usefulness of a creature is determined not only by its attack and skill, but also by it's hps: Acceleration, Chimera and Catapult will make good use of a creature's hps. I found that adding hp/50 to (attack + skill value) is a good approximation for that. It can be ignored for creatures with hp<15, because it wouldn't make any difference anyway. Since all cards making use of hp are in Gravity, a non-Gravity creature with high-hp is like a creature with a duo-skill.

So far, here's what I came up with:
Creature Value = Usefulness * Resilience
Usefulness = Attack + Skill Value (+ hp value if high-hp)
Resilience = (log5(hp)+1)/2 + resilience added by skills
Skill Use = Skill Power * Skill Usability
Skill Usability is 1 (maximum) for a free skill that doesn't require any conditions. It is lowered by any cost or condition in a way that is still to be determined (a duo-cost will of course reduce it more than a mono-cost).

Since Attack is pretty well defined and hp-value rather unimportant, the notions that should be studied further are Resilience, Skill Power and Skill Usability. The deepest one is Skill Power, because there are so many different skills that all have to be studied individually.

[The_Mormegil]

Awesome work that eluded my sight until now. Gratz to OldTrees, who is as awesome as always.

[OldTrees]

According my previous formula, a vanilla 0|499 is worth 0. This is wrong, because the usefulness of a creature is determined not only by its attack and skill, but also by it's hps: Acceleration, Chimera and Catapult will make good use of a creature's hps. I found that adding hp/50 to (attack + skill value) is a good approximation for that. It can be ignored for creatures with hp<15, because it wouldn't make any difference anyway. Since all cards making use of hp are in Gravity, a non-Gravity creature with high-hp is like a creature with a duo-skill.

So far, here's what I came up with:
Creature Value = Usefulness * Resilience
Usefulness = Attack + Skill Value (+ hp value if high-hp)
Resilience = (log5(hp)+1)/2 + resilience added by skills
Skill Use = Skill Power * Skill Usability
Skill Usability is 1 (maximum) for a free skill that doesn't require any conditions. It is lowered by any cost or condition in a way that is still to be determined (a duo-cost will of course reduce it more than a mono-cost).

Since Attack is pretty well defined and hp-value rather unimportant, the notions that should be studied further are Resilience, Skill Power and Skill Usability. The deepest one is Skill Power, because there are so many different skills that all have to be studied individually.

Stop beating me to presenting the idea. 
CPR theory: Cost = Power x Resilience

Cost:
Casting Cost
Draw Cost

Power:
Attack
Skill Value
High hp
Deck Slot Value (aka card advantage)

Resilience:
Speed of Casting Cost
HP
Death or Darkness?
Water or Other?
Immortal/Burrowed?
Immortality/Burrow?
Momentum/negative attack

I like the idea of splitting Skill value into usability and power.

Midnar you have definitely earned more karma than I can give.

I think we should start to coordinate our actions now because some of the calculations rely on eliminating previous variables.
I will have the resilience due to Casting Cost done by this weekend. (it was too big for excel to handle in 1 document)
Could you work on a good estimate for Draw Cost in units of quanta?