[Study] The Deadly Sins of Card Design, and how to avoid them [WIP]

[Solaris]

(Note: This Study is a work in process at the moment. I will remove this notice when it is completed.)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my study, The Deadly Sins of Card Design. I will be outlining what things are outright taboo in Card Design, and things that may just be merely discouraged. Without further delay, let us get started.

Sin One, Overload

"What the Zanz is overload?", you may be asking. Overload is when a Card Idea has too many components to it's mechanics. Generally, when you create are card idea, you do not want it to be a Jack of All Trades. If this card were to be implemented into Cygnia, or Elements, it would throw the balance of the game off, you'd create a wormhole, and Elements would be destroyed, forever. Alright, maybe not literally, however, it would not be healthy for the meta of Arena and PvP. Let me show you an example of an overloaded Card Idea.

Spoiler for Click me for a card:

Test Dummy is a 8|4 creature, much akin to the Shrieker, who is 8|3. However, compare the costs. Test Dummy costs 4 quanta for an 8|4 creature, whereas Shrieker costs 8 quanta for a 8|3. . Test Dummy is VERY quanta efficient compared to Shrieker. However, it does not stop there. Test Dummy is also immaterial, so it is nigh impossible to kill Test Dummy. Shrieker also has a form of invulnerability, but it halves it's attack. But wait, Test Dummy also has Momentum, Spell Damage and Adrenaline! And it can steal a permanent for 1 ! This is an example of an overloaded card. It has too many effects/abilities, making the purpose of Test Dummy a bit muddled.

How to prevent submitting an overloaded card

There's a few ways you can prevent yourself from submitting a monstrosity like Test Dummy and making yourself look a fool. You can look at other cards similar to it in the game, for example. Let's compare Test Dummy and the card "Psion".Psion is a 4|4 creature who deals spell damage. One similarity between Test Dummy and Psion is that they both deal spell damage. However, Psion has half the attack value of Test Dummy, but they have the same cost, and Psion doesn't even have half of the effects of Test Dummy, nor can it use Steal. You may think to yourself "Hmm, maybe Test Dummy is a bit too overloaded after all..", and decide to rework it. Alternatively, you can show the card idea to a friend before you post it, and ask for their opinion. They may tell you that Test Dummy is just a wee bit overloaded, and they may even give you suggestions to make it better!

Sin Two, Imbalance

The dirty cousin of overload. Generally, overload and imbalance go hand in hand. Like they've been wedded together; what a beautiful couple. However, there are two forms of imbalance. There's overpowered, and then there's underpowered. Imbalance is when a card is either too strong, and it'll see way too much use and completely throw the balance of the universe into whack, and bad things will happen, like Singularities, or when a card is too weak, and it won't see enough use in the game. Test Dummy is a great example of an overpowered card. Let me show you an example of an underpowered card.

Spoiler for Click me for a card:

Test Dummy's Wife is an underpowered card. It costs too much quanta, for very little stats. Let's compare it to Photon. Photon is a 1|1 creature, like Test Dummy's Wife, however, there is a very large discrepancy between them in terms of quanta. Photon is free to play, whereas Test Dummy's Wife costs a whopping 20 . Can you imagine a deck where Test Dummy's Wife would be used? It's not very likely, thus I shall deem the card underpowered.

How to avoid submitting an imbalanced card

The way to avoid imbalance is much of the same as avoiding overload. You can compare your card idea with a card already in game, like we did with Photon, or you can ask a friend to give their opinion on it. This will ensure that it's not totally overclassing another card, and also ensure that it's not too weak to be used in the game.

[AD TienzuStorm]

I'm assuming this is going to have seven to match the Seven Deadly Sins? Or is this completely unrelated and just happens to have a similar name?

Anyways, I'd have to disagree with the "ask a friend". I mean, or you could just post it on the forums. It's not like it's super bad to post imbalanced cards on the forums, even good designers make total screw ups.

And also, showing it to a friend is basically the equivalent to posting anyways, so.. meh?

Although me lieks this topic vurry much, also posting to follow the progress.

[OldTrees]

I would not list Imbalance as a sin. While Balance is an important leg in good card design, it is slightly less important in good card idea design. We assume card ideas will not be perfectly balanced at the end of the CIA process(since perfect balance requires lots of playtesting and that is what we get when a card is added to the game). If that is our assumption at the end, then we should sometimes see imbalance at the beginning of the process. I think what you were looking for was something along the lines of "you need to be willing and able to fix imbalance in your idea".


I think the "ask a proofreader if one is readily available"(aka "ask a friend") is a good point but don't forget posting is merely an extension of that proofreading stage.

[seulintse]

if you don't have it on some sort of "card design sins: to-do list", then eventually add on to the list "too complex to program"... mmmm perhaps just "non-programmable"... yeah, that sounds nice

(also, posting just to follow, this seems interesting  )

[OldTrees]

if you don't have it on some sort of "card design sins: to-do list", then eventually add on to the list "too complex to program"... mmmm perhaps just "non-programmable"... yeah, that sounds nice

(also, posting just to follow, this seems interesting  )

This is a category that is hard to know before hand for most people since it requires programming knowledge and an intimate understanding of how EtG is coded. So it might be wise to list known examples(instead?).
1) There was a fast clicking/cancel exploit that gets in the way of implementing multitargeting(I don't know how hard the workaround would be).
2) The way the database was setup(easy for single element costs) it does not allow multielement costs(Not a hard workaround, just a massive amount of time and overhauling a central part of the code).
3) The game is sent to one player and then sent to the other player. This makes real time reactions from the opponent impossible.


Something I suggest adding: Don't X the unXable.
We do not need to get the childish "I have a forcefield." "My shots can go through forcefields." "My forcefield can block shots that can go through forcefields." Notice how that last sentence was a contradiction. Since the shot cannot be blocked by forcefields, then anything intending to block it should not be a forcefield. This might be more familiar in the "don't target the untargetable" form.

[Solaris]

@AD Storm Bolt: I intend to have about 7, but there may be more or less than 7. It seems that imbalance is heavily debated on a good/bad thing within this topic; I'll update the topic to reflect that.

@OldTrees: " I think what you were looking for was something along the lines of "you need to be willing and able to fix imbalance in your idea"." Yes, that was my intention, but it appears that my meaning might have gotten a bit muddled in translation from my mind to the topic itself. I will also update the topic later today to clarify my meaning. Additionally, I agree with your statement on adding "Don't x the un-x-able" as a design sin. I will add that in the near future, most likely today.

@seulintse: As OldTrees stated, that might be a bit of an "iffy" thing to include, but I won't entirely count it out.

Thank you all for your support, I will take your feedback to heart and alter the topic as it needs to be in the near future.

[OldTrees]

@seulintse: As OldTrees stated, that might be a bit of an "iffy" thing to include, but I won't entirely count it out.

Question: Is this thread about taboos for EtG or for card design in general(I expect the first)? Because the difficult to program issue is a collection of EtG taboos/discouraged mechanics. In contrast Overloaded is not an EtG taboo, just discouraged due to general card design principles.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I'd just like to point out Curators had a similar issue when discussing how much we should've emphasized things card designers should avoid in the tutorial; there's a very clear split between taboos and discouraged mechanics but some concepts sit on the fence between them (e.g. difficult to program could vary based on how difficult the mechanic in question is to program them). I think at this point, though, both groups seem to have enough possible differences that we could feasibly split this into two threads (this thread seems more oriented towards taboo overall).

The following points from the Tutorial might also be worth noting here:

- Having the upgraded the same as the unupped. What's the point of the upgrade?
- Things that require a graveyard. Elements doesn't have one, and Zanz has specifically stated he doesn't want one.
- Vanilla cards, or cards with no special abilities, such as blue crawler, since they typically add nothing new to the game and virtually anyone can make them.

[Solaris]

I apologize for my seeming inactivity, I've been working on a separate copy in a Word file, so I can push it all out in one fell swoop. Expect to see the update, in perhaps 2 updates, over the weekend.

[Solaris]

Alright, so, this project is... not going how I wanted it to, so I'm going to lock the thread until I can figure out how to get everything in shape. If anyone wishes to continue the subject, go ahead and use the OP/idea for your own use.