Combo-cards

[Pilchard123]

I know this has kind of already been suggested, but how about a card mixer?

It takes two cards, and, well, mixes them. It would choose what the card does by what you put in, for example:

If you were to put in a Lava Golem, and a Dragonfly, it would have a casting cost between 1 and 4, an attack power between 1 and 5, health of either 1 or two, and either no ability or the growth ability. It would also be cast with either Fire or Air.

Boring?

Well, the fun happens when you combine different types of card. For example, a Phase Dragon and a Miracle. You could have an Immortal creature with the ability to cast Miracle! Or you could have a Phase Dragon, and a wasted Miracle, because it would have a chance of combining that is proportional to the power of the card.

A Phase Dragon with Miracle could perhaps only appear once in every 20 tries. That's a lot of Miracles.

Everything is determined by power. A combination of Lava Golem and Dragonfly would have a higher chance of not getting the ability that getting it.

A card that is immortal lowers the chance of good combos, or may even lose its immortality. Pillars, Permanents, Spells, and creatures can all be combined.

Pictures would be fairly easy, a mix of fire and air would have a picture of half of the fire symbol and half of the air symbol. If you were to combine that with entropy, then it would be 1/3 fire, 1/3 air, 1/3 entropy, etc.


It would probably be hellish to code, though.

[PuppyChow]

It would also be OP (Phase Dragon with Miracle. I don't care how hard it is to get. It would still be OP). I don't know about anyone else, but for veterans, getting 20 miracles isn't really that hard. I know I've sold at least 30.

What about Phase Dragon with stasis? Or Ruby Dragon with vampire? There's a reason that liquid shadow is set to poison for giving you the vampire ability.

Ruby Dragon combined with Vampire: 15/2 Attack with Vampire, 12 Fire Quantum (possibly).
Ruby Dragon with Liquid Shadow put on it: 15/2 Attack with Vampire and 1 Poison Counter, 12 Fire Quantum + 6 Dark Quantum.

So basically, there's too many OP combos. While a Ruby Dragon CAN have vampire (with the new cards), it also costs 6 more dark and it will only survive for two turns.

Immortal Ruby Dragons? Massive Dragon with Immortalize? Basalt Dragon with Destroy?

In my opinion, letting people make their own cards, even with set parameters, is a bad idea.

[Avenger]

Well, the combination could be 'unstable'. And the creature explode after its time is gone. (Like it gets poison).

Some other ideas how to dampen this:
1. Maybe the combination should be an actual card. You need two of the cards in hand plus the combination card.
2. The combined cards would take up 2 slots in the deck. You may not have more than 3. etc.

[bobcamel]

Let me think...

If you wanted to make combining every single one possible, then this'd give like... well... Enough possible permutations to blow your mind. And every single one would have to be programmed in as a different card. Even if we all became developers, we wouldn't have enough lives to do it, and even if we did, the game wouldn't run. So... forget it.

[Avenger]

I don't see why do you need an actual combination card object. You use the graphic of one of the cards.
And in both of my ideas, the two cards making up the combination are separate entities.

Even the original idea could be done by simply marking the components as a combination. But this would complicate things, because you would need to mark the combo in the deck somehow.

When i said combination card' it would be a card named like Fusion/Combination whatever. It would be all the same for any combinations.

[bobcamel]

Look.

Fusion Puffer Fish Shrieker is already a new card and would have to be programmed in. And so on.

[Avenger]

It is a puffer fish card and a shrieker card in your deck.
In the game, it is a mutated creature with either graphics, the combined stats and one of the abilities.
Mutated creatures in game are not programmed one by one.

Btw, i'm not especially fond of this idea. I just say, it doesn't require a different object for every combinations.

[bobcamel]

Then at least put it a normal way.

Fusetach: 0/1 (Free, Gravity flavoured)
Fuse (4 any): Target two creatures. They both die and Fusetach gains the stats of both, as well as one of their activated abilities and all the passive ones. Both of those creatures have to be yours.

[PuppyChow]

Bob, you wouldn't program in every possible permutation (with Pilchard's idea). You might have to rework the whole card system, though.

For instance, you would take the card a (let's say Photon) and card b (let's say Skeleton). Now what the game would do is
a) Randomly choose between Photon and Skeleton for the picture. Let's say the game chooses Photon.
b) Randomly choose a number between each  card's attack for the new one's. So in our example, it would be 1.
c) Randomly choose a number between each card's defense for the new one's. In our example, it would also be 1.
d) Check if either creature has an ability. If one does, use it. If both do, randomly choose one. (Our example would be neither).
e) Create the new card with those stats.
f) Save the "new" card into your database.

I'm not sure how f works, but yeah. That would basically be the method. It *might* require to rework the card system so there is a "Card" class with its own variables, but that's basic object orienting stuff and I think it might already be like that.

But you definitely wouldn't need to program every single permutation. You would just have the game create it. At least, that's what I would do (but I'm only an amateur programmer, so :|).

I still don't like the idea. Just saying it wouldn't be hard to program if it's already programmed like I assume it is.