Designing EtG Coop-Mode
A kinda crazy idea came out in the chat when I popped in: implementation of a Coop mode. In other words, 2 players against some tough AI (or why not against other players, but the idea was sketched against AI).
This theorical implementation is the compilation of the opinions that came in in a couple of minutes in the chat, and I would like to hear what other people think about the idea.
Why a Coop-mode?The main advantage of a coop mode would be to have 2 decks work together when merging them into one would be inefficient quanta-wise. This would bring a bunch of new strategies never used or ever thought about.
Example 1: A player has a deck focused in Voodoo + BB + GP and the other player in Angel spam to heal it.
Example 2: A player focuses in a pure rush and the other one in Cloak, Deflags and other support/denial.
Example 3: A player plays Sparktal when the other one uses a
based deck for the death effects.
Example 4: A player focuses on stalling when the other one draws the OTK cards with no worries.
1- Hands and DecksEach player would have its own hand and deck, so it would draw from its own deck into his hand at the beginning of their turn, naturally.
Each player would be able to see the companion's hand in order to synergize.
Sanctuary would cover both players for a synergized defense.
2- BoardThe board would be the same as the current 1v1 style. The players on the same party would share the same board. This would have to force the creatures have an "owner", wich would be the target of spells like Reverse Time.
AoE spells like RoF would target the whole board of the opponent team, just like in a 1v1 match.
3- Health PoolHere are two options discussed. To have a shared health pool or to have one health pool for each player.
Option 1: Shared health pool. If the players share a health pool (let's say between 100 and 200 HP) then the team would lose when they reach 0 HP.
Option 2: Individual health pools. If the players have individual pools, the AI would have to choose the player it attacks. The player whose HP reaches 0 would have to stop playing and the team would be at a disadvantage under the now "winning" opponent. In a case of 2v2 PVP, this option lets the team "focus fire" against one of the opponents. All in all, it would need more targetting (clicks) and would in my opinion fog the main point of the game.
4- Quanta PoolThere are 2 options about the quanta pool: To make the players share a quanta pool or to have them have independent ones.
Option 1: Shared quanta pool If the players share a quanta pool, it would let them reduce a bad RNG of having too few quanta sources by being the partner able to compensate for it if they have common elements in their decks. It would also affect the balance of some cards like Discord, Black Hole and Devourer, being Discord and Devourer less effective than in 1v1 and BH more effective (more chance of draining more elements, depending on the opponents' decks). It would also be difficult if the players want to use the same quanta, like the first one fractalling something when the 2ns one wanting to play a phase dragon.
Option 2: Independent quanta pools. Having independent quanta pools lets non-well thought decks to act better independently, but would impede the advantages of the common pool. This is another point of discussion.
5- OpponentsAn important factor on this discussion was the opponent that one would face.
Option 1: One super-tough opponent. If a party of 2 players face a single opponent, (like a FG let's say), the opponent can be OPly managed with Sundial, Silence chains, Nightmares... This cards would break the balance no matter how tough is the foe.
Option 2: An opponent with a single deck and multiple turns. If the opponent has multiple turns, then Silence and such would only affect the opponent's first turn and wouldn't be broken. It remains as a viable option of this theorical implementation.
Option 3: 2 decks "designed" to work with each other. This option would be like playing against other 2 players, each one with a different deck that can complement each other. The biggest advantage would be the same advantages of the players: Having a team of 2 decks that probably wouldn't be viable to merge them into one because it wouldn't be quanta-efficient.
Turn SequenceAnother point of discussion was the turn sequance between the players (P) and the AI (A).
Option 1: PAPA "Player 1 - AI - Player 2 - AI - ... ". Imagine that you are one of the players of a team. After you play it starts the foe's turn (or one of the foes' turn with option 3 opponents), then plays your team mate, then the AI again and then you again.
Option 2: PPAA "Player 1 - Player 2 - AI - AI - ... ". I personally think that the flow of the game would be better in this mode. In the case of an option 3 opponent, Silence would block the foe that goes first (I guess that a total Silence chain would have to be blocked for balance issues, so Silence shouldn't affect both opponents), Against an Option 2 opponent, Silence would only affect the first of the foe's turns. A variable of the opponent's difficulty would be the turns in a row it plays.
Any thought of this fun theorical implementation is welcome.
