Study: How close is too close?

[Drake_XIV]

Brought up by moomoose's reply, this begs the question.

When is a card too close to another design-wise?

[Hyroen]

Thank you for bringing this up Drake.

Without a question there is a hypothetical Grand List of Card Ideas. In this list, there is each and every card idea that you can have with every permutation possible, within the limits of the game. Each card that is designed only reveals one such case.

As more and more card ideas are brought up, we reveal more and more of this hypothetical list. I think it may be a good time to begin a thread where these cases (Crucible submissions being too similar to Cards already in the Smithy) should be judged.

I don't believe all cases should be shot down as some similar cases, such as Dagger and Short Sword are already included in the game.

[moomoose]

im not a fan of the argument "cards similar to other cards are already in the game, so card suggestions can be similar to those already suggested".  the cia forum is here to submit ideas to zanz.  if the mechanic has already been submitted, what reason is there to resubmit it?  the cia forum has been around for years (2, 3?) and ideas are continuously being pumped out, there are fewer and fewer novel mechanics left out there, which makes them more special and should be encouraged.  saying "yeah, its similar, but its not thaaat similar' waters down the forum and hurts the search for new ways to improve/expand the game.

that said, i recognize that some people enjoy making cards 'for the fun of it', and don't want to hear 'simpsons did it.', so a less stringent section of 'just for fun' may be warranted.  going further than that, i have long said that the cia forum is in need of fundamental restructuring, and even moreso now with unused ideas being harder and harder to come by as time goes on.  but thats probably beyond the scope of which you were interested in discussing.

[Anarook]

Other issue is that opinions and game mechanics change as time goes on and some of these older ideas that have already been brought up may very well be seen in a different light.
Problem is - as new ideas come out - we further limit what is viable as a new idea(based on the Grand List of Card Ideas) and many of these old ideas actually hinder development of newer ideas.
I'm in favor of recycling some older ideas.
However, I do agree that making cards that are similar to other cards already in-game is terrible for design.

[OdinVanguard]

A related, but also important question is: How soon is too soon?
What I mean is that often a card that may not have been viable at one point in the past but may become viable at a later time.
So along that reasoning:
When is it worthwhile for someone to try and bring back an old card / mechanic?

To start off, I can see a few scenarios of where this could be useful:
1) Changes in the latest version could make it viable now.
2) Someone sees a way that it can be made viable with small but impactful modification
3) It is relevant to spark discussion as part of a new card or series.

There can be more reasons for reviving an old card than just seeing if it can pass and make it into the game.
The CIA section, and most particularly the smithy area, is basically a giant crowd sourced brainstorming resource. So bringing up an old mechanic that has fallen by the wayside may spark new ideas and lead to discovery of novel concepts.

Sometimes a mechanic may be over or underpowered when first presented, but when combined with other concepts or modified appropriately could yield viable fruit.

We get new members all the time. Sometimes even a new user can spot or pick up on something that the community might not have noticed in the past.

I definitely agree that at the higher levels, cluttering the boards with too many cards would be detrimental. However, at the crucible and smithy levels, a certain amount of recirculation could provide a very useful litmus test for what kinds of ideas are in demand and / or could be made into a viable card.