The Most Loved TCG Mechanic Designs | TCG R&D
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
- Lets take a look at the most loved TCG Mechanics for all the card game designers out there and see what it is about them that make our homemade trading card games so much fun to play. Join me as I browse Reddit for discussions on TCG mechanics as we open up about TCG design and why these mechanics are our favourites.
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0:00 Intro
0:27 Share Your Hated Mechanics!
0:44 Dual Purpose Cards
2:20 Resource Debt System
3:29 One Card Per Turn Mechanic
6:02 Discard Pile Tapping
7:22 Counters Used As Alternate Play Costs
9:21 Delayed and Alternative Resource Costs
11:18 Paying to Draw a Card
14:27 Card Zones - Навчання та стиль
Naruto CCG had hand costs but only on big cards. Basically you had to send 1(occasionally 2) cards from your hand to your chakra zone of the same element(color). You could then spend cards from the chakra zone later on jutsu(instants). This encouraged everyone to run proper interaction as you were always going to be generating some chakra in almost every deck. In fact used missions(sorceries), jutsu, and squaded(evolutions) cards would all go there as well so most well built decks would never have to hard charge for jutsu. So on the rare occasion you did hard charge from hand it telegraphed removal hard.
Interesting.
Is this a mechanic you like or hate?
@@ShardTCG They don't seem to speak negatively about the mechanic. They don't hate it because they would have spoken negatively. They aren't indifferent to it either because they took the time to type all that.
I think it's safe to say they like the mechanic they spoke about.
I'm sad I missed out on this thread to contribute to this video. I played a ton of different TCGs in my youth, and currently I enjoy studying and designing them (since I don't have time to play). Here are some of my favorite mechanics through TCGs or game mechanics that could work in TCGs. These are ones not mentioned in the video, because things like Tokens in both the counters (ie +1/+1) or Tokens of "cards" like the Goblin token.
Passing actions instead of turns - When you're passing actions you're never disengaged from the game. Your opponent plays a card, then you get to do something. There isn't much time between it being your turn. You don't get the opponent playing solitaire for five minutes doing some combo that might not work out and still take just as much time. I've used this a lot in my games. I've started to do this by default for me designs. If I'm going to do a full turn, it's more intentionally.
'Reconcile' - Draw back to Hand Size at end of the turns. The first game I played with this was Lord of the Rings TCG. Then it became the main driving mechanic behind Deck Building Games, which has become one of my favorite genres of Non-TCG card games. The main game I'm designing (A fan game for All Elite Wrestling based on WWE Raw Deal CCG)
Life Force from Star Wars CCG (Decipher) - Your resources are your draw deck. You begin your turn by moving N cards from the top of your draw deck into your Force Pile, those are your resources. Using them will put them back under your draw deck at the end of turn. You can draw any number of those at the end of turn, or save them. Creates a lot of hard draw choices.
'Pitch' resource from Flesh and Blood TCG - A discard for resources kind of mechanic. Those cards will go under your deck to be drawn in the end game. Cards come in 3 strengths, weaker gives more resources. You can use your strong cards for cheap things to set up the final turns. This and the SWCCG Life Force are also some of the most unique, and I haven't seen anything do SWCCG's system or anything close since.
These are great mechanics.
I may end up making a part 2 in the future based on what every has contributed by just commenting on this video.
But do you have any mechanics you can't stand? I really want to do a video on the opposite side of mechanics and learn why some mechanics are hated so much.
I hope you share your story.
Thank you!
@@ShardTCG For one's I can't stand, they're a lot fewer.
Coin flipping/dice as the main mechanic in the game. Pokémon sits on this line with how many status effects have coin flips, but the worst offender of this to me is the Star Wars TCG (WotC). I know the math, I've listened to Rosewater talk about it. But the first time I saw some of the 12 dice someone had to use for an attack fall of the table I was out. I can barely watch Team Covenant play that game and they love that game. The exception is Warlord, that game rules.
I'm not a fan of single card per turn mechanics. The biggest two to use this that I know of are Star Trek TCG (Decipher) and Yu-Gi-Oh. I feel it forces all the cards into an even worse power curve because they're all equal deploy wise. Then you have to plan your entire design around that and ways to cheat those cards out. Games like the two mentioned have some very broken stuff in it and I feel that is a big reason why. The exception is Flesh and Blood TCG, though that isn't their resource system. They just give you one action point.
Those are the two that come to mind.
You might be someone who would be interested in the design discussion comparing Flesh and Blood to UniVersus (formally UFS). Both use the Reconcile mechanic I mentioned, but one has their draw at the beginning of your turn, the other the end. They're both one on one fighting games, I find the dynamic fascinating. Since UFS has you draw at the start it encourages attack because your hand is full. Where FaB is the opposite the first choices you're faced with is defense after you draw your new hand. So you have to choose how much damage you're willing to take before retaliating. The two games are close to mirrors of each other in many ways.
@@ShardTCG I forgot one more mechanic I can't stand, at least in tabletop. Random discard. Every way to determine what's being discarded is ANNOYING. You're either rolling a die, or looking like you want to perform a magic trick for your opponent using your hand. In digital it just happens, so cool
See: Marvel Snap. But in tabletop, I hate it.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that Yu-Gi-Oh chaos monsters was really cool, and even though they were kind of broken, I think if they were properly balanced and used in Way to incentivize more unique deck building, I think they would have a lot of potential
For those who don’t know, basically, chaos monsters, were monsters that you could summon out of your hand by vanishing two or more monsters, with specific attributes in graveyard, such as a light, and a dark monster
Precisely only light and darkness monsters. They pidgeon holed you into play exclusively light and darkness monsters which are already the best attributes in the game so you were effectively rewarded for playing what's broken. They should've made it at least with other attributes such as earth and wind or fire and water.
So many TCG mechanics I'd love to talk about but there's definitively 2 mechanics I would love to see more in TCGs which are more related to game feel and pacing.
1 - No Shuffling once the game starts:
I think this is self explanatory. I really only noticed how much I like not having to shuffle and cut decks 20+ times in a game after playing Digimon.
2 - TCGs where you go through at least 50% of your deck or even your whole deck multiple times:
I don't know how to explain it but it makes you feel like that 1 of you put in your deck as a tech or the sideboard you put in matters because you know you'll eventually get to it. Some TCGs on top of my head that I've played that does that are Digimon, FaB, Weiss Schwarz.
... I guess I could turn this around and also say I hate search effects and not getting a card I need when I need it
I like how flesh and blood handles resources where you pitch cards in hand to play other cards. It touches on the duality cards you talked about. I also like how the cards you use for resources in FaB will come back around and aren't just lost forever. Stacking your deck and lasting until second cycle rewards skilled players and gives an out to unfortunate game starts.
Thank you so much for doing all of this
This gave me some HUGE ideas for my game i am working on and i am going to have to totally revamp some things about it but for the better, Thank You So Much i think this may just have made my game a winner
Awesome to hear!
Best of luck with your game.
My favorite mechanic is deffinitely searching: Terraforming searches any fieldspell. Normal summon Aluber searches any Branded spell or trap. Normal summon Elemantal Hero Stratos searches any Hero monster. (It's the Stratos of the Hero deck.) Put Magical Abductor in the pendulum zone, for 3 spell counters she searches any Pendulum monster. I totally love that one. Those crazy combos in Yu-Gi-Oh, where it doesn't really matter what you draw, since you search your entire deck anyways ... Ah, just wonderful.
Btw, to answer the question: Yu-Gi-Oh nowadays doesn't really have one theme. Every deck archetype has a different one. And there are many, although often they are just random combinations of themes because of silly wordplays: We have dinosaurs that are also steam engines (the Dinomysts), also dinosaurs, who are also Wrestlers (the Dinowrestlers), beasts who are also airplanes (the Mecha Phantom Beasts), giant battle ships that are also sushi (the Suship archetype), goblins on motor cycles (the goblin bikers), a crossover of Star Wars and the Wizard of Oz (the Kozmo archetype), Power Rangers and secret agents (Superquant and S.P.Y.R.A.L.), a girl who dreams of giant monsters made of desserts (the Nemleria archetype), witches who are also crafts people (the Witchcrafter archetype), an entire archetype of cards that have to do with tears and card names like "CRYme" (the Tearlament archetype), a deck of poltergeists that are also cyberhackers, for some reason (the Altergeist archetype). We have even cards that depict other cards (the Flowercardians, that are inspired by the japanese "hanafuda" cards) and like 300 more of those deck themes.
OMG! They're just going full steam ahead with any idea they get. It makes for a more unique experience/flavour for the game, so I say yugioh can go for it. Dinomysts would catch my interest if I still played the game.
This is an awesome video! Especially as an aspiring designer.
I’d say that my favorite mechanic (which I’ve incorporated in my current game) is to start with a setup of cards already on the board. Like having a Hero with equipment cards on it and then being able to activate their effects, but also to change their loadout with other cards that you kept in your deck. I’ve found that to be a very fun rpg-like function.
For your follow up video about worst mechanics: costs not being costs. Griping a bit with Yugioh lately, because paying costs just triggers more effects and snowballs out of control.
I know exactly what you mean with the costs triggering other effects. It can be fun if there is a limit and you're the one benefiting from it. But it is horrible to see your opponent benefit when the should have suffered a little.
Look mom, it's me!
But yeah I overall like external resources so they don't harm your deck that much.
OMG, hello!
Thanks for your insight.
If you really want a certain mechanic in your game, just try it. Try them all! Play the hell out of it and ask yourself which ones are working or not. Fix any mechanic that makes the game not fun or too slow/fast. I don't know why people either don't know something is bad in their game of won't fix it for some reason. (Part of it is people are in too much of a hurry to get their game out there and they don't playtest adequately.)
As someone who has not played a lot of TCGs (I have played Hearthstone for years, and am only just trying Lorcana) what is the first thing that draws in players to a TCG? I have studied video game design before and I know the aesthetics are the first thing that draws a player in or they notice, at least. So is it mechanics? The theme of the game? The price? Is there a primary attractor?
First the theme, aesthetics, price, then mechanics in that order Imo.
In order I'd say:
1. Theme/Aesthetics. (This is what first gets a player to pick it up off the shelf)
2. Accessibility- (1.Price of base product. 2. Availability of product/community. 3. Easy to learn mechanics.) I've listed them in the order of importance imo.
3. Mechanics. (This is more what keeps players invested rather than what draws them in. They're important for maintaining a player base, but not for building it.)
This is a good point.
Not only do you need good mechanics, but they need to be easy to pick up because players will commit hours to a game but only 5 minutes to a rule book.
So make sure the basics can be learned as quickly as possible, but make your game elaborate enough for them to continue playing for years to come.
There lies the CHALLENGE.
Your pfp reminds me of those NPCs that go "WHYAYAYAYAM!" From Spyro 2.
For me it was the flavor text and art on Magic the Gathering cards. Piecing together worlds and stories from little snippets and having a little mystery to it is what kept it in my mind for so long even when I didn’t play yet.
I really like Buddyfight's Impact cards, which I rarely see in other TCGs. Though, they're simultaneously frustrating. Impact cards are cards that you can only play during your "Final Phase", which, as the name implies, is the last phase in a turn. Impacts are generally meant to be finishers, and it feels great to finish your opponent off just as they thought they managed to survive the turn, with a card dedicated for that one purpose. Impact cards are also landscape to highlight them. On the other hand, it also feels bad to lose to them, especially since even on release, Impacts cutting off 40% of your starting life was pretty common, and it took about 3 years for one single Impact card to cut off 80% of your starting life (with the only real condition being to draw the cards that you're already tutoring for) (though, it was banned). But if they weren't so strong, it wouldn't be worth running such an inflexible card and it wouldn't feel as good to play, so idk.
This one sounds really good.
A last-minute twist at the end of the turn is good to help keep players engaged. That unpredictability is what has us coming back to play again (Providing it isn't too frustrating for the other player)
DoomTrooper had the player make two decks: one for the heroes and one for the villains and had players play both sides of the war against each other, with your heroes attacking his villains and your villains attacking his heroes.
How about a 3 way duel card? Thanx for the inspiration I was trying to spice up my TCG. So now in my game, the cards you got can be used in 3 ways:
As they are, play them.
Resources (You may pitch a card once per turn to the RCC zone, if your card has a level to or below the amount of RCC in that zone you may play that card, every card is a one cost so "tap" that RCC card to play a card. And colour matters to, if there's a card in that zone that has a colour, you unlock colours in your hand, so if you have a yellow in there, you can play as much yellow cards as you want as long as you have cards to tap, if a multi colour is in your hand, you must have exactly 1 or more of those cards in the RCC, if you are missing atleast one of them you can't play that multi coloured card. Oh and key words bends and warps the rules in interesting ways like playing a unit from the RCC but it will cost you a RCC from that pile permanently, let's say, I tap one RCC to play this unit from the RCC, it's now on the battlefield and no longer in the RCC, now I have one RCC short but this guy needed battle presence real badly.)
Or, Barriers: Much like duel masters but not mandatory, to play a card as a barrier you must use up your RCC choice, meaning you either pitch a card for RCC or protection, can't do both, lag behind but be protected or ramp up and be risky, you can do this despite battle on the first turn being non existent (oh the fun I'll have with tension, I'll make a card just for that moment, a player on their first turn goes barrier mode, and doesn't go for the typical RCC, "What's wrong with these dude? NANI! Only ONE card does that in this game, no, HE can't have THAT, NOW! Why did he pick that card! Anyway his hand is still randomized." Ohohoho yes he does, even though I let players choose 1 card from their deck and add it to their hand no Matter what it is (unless I say it's limited in the ban list), there is still downsides for doing this.
These barriers are a 1 time use, once attacked they are discarded, they protect your HP, up to 3 can be there at a time, and oh boy there will be a keyword that goes beyond that limit. They are also face down, so if they do go on that limit, I want to build tension, aka, you can't say what you put down, but because you go over that limit, the other player trusts you're aren't cheating, there's a rule for concealed cards like this, a trust clause, and if you violate the trust clause you lose the game, match, tournament, whatever, cheating is punished severely. I want to build tension like this, this is but one example, if they realize they went over the limit, there's only a few cards that can do that but which one did he play, they may even shuffle their barriers for more drama.
And the best part, they can be used as RCC! BUT! They don't affect the RCC zone, meaning if your zone has 5 cards and 2 barriers, you cannot play level 6 or 7 cards, only 5 and below, the barrier colour can't affect it either, it's face down, so there's a risk and reward here. Either that or I Retcon it and instead use a keyword that says "this card may be tapped for RCC, don't violate the trust clause now, HeHeHeHe."
I want them to keep guessing, to build tension, to THINK and grow their brain skills. These cards aren't only entertainment, but also education and brain games to help your brain grow, but casual at the same time.
I would say, MtG combat system. It's simple, engaging for both players, and mostly fair no matter what kind of deck you're playing.
Although I mostly say this in comparison to much more (in my opinion) flawed Hearthstone-esque combat systems, which seem to be more common in the board centric TCGs. I dislike them cause they heavily favour aggro decks, and overal feel bad, because often you have very little control when your opponent attacks (Or you somehow do what Lorecana did, and f*ck it up in completely opposite direction.) Additionally your opponent not being able to kill your creature in Mtg by just ramming bunch of stuff into it, means it will stay on board longer, allowing the game designers to actually give them cool effect aside "When this card is summoned/dies do X."
The lack of counter play when your opponent is attacking in Hearthstone is to simply speed up gameplay. No stops for checks or anything like that. I think for online play where you are lacking that in person player interaction, it's better. But for physical TCGs, I am more on the side of mote intricate combat, featuring counter spells and last-minute twists that get the players off their seats.
5:07 hes probably also taking a further dig at mtg by referencing how much of a mtg deck has to be dedicated to just fixing the inherent problems mtg has.
In commander, you run 10+ ramp, 10+ card draw just to be able to play. ~36 lands and thats over half your deck predetermined for you just so that you can play
When ygo still respected its normal summons as resource mechanic, it was the best tcg
Yugioh was clever for its time to invent a summoning limit and allow their decks to be fully customisable.
Whenever I played with friends, I found our decks to be quite unique from one another, which is really the feeling you want in a TCG. "This is my deck that I made the way I want"
I'm so sorry I said "card" so many times lol
It's good.
I became self-conscious about it while editing, so I had some fun with it.
It's hard to talk about card games without mentioning cards.
do u have a video on how to start and finish a tcg in terms of kickstarter/ fulfillment / future sets and more
Hmm... the closest thing I have to that is my "kickstarter vs. TheGameCrafter" video.
Sorry, I don't have exactly what you're looking for.
Hi!I love your videos so much!I'm making an homemade tcg based on a videogame.I would be very pleased if you could do a look to this project and share your opinions!
Dual purpose cards *suck*. People want to be able to play their cool cards. Having to constantly give them up feels terrible for casual players.
True, I do want to play my favourite cards.
But if the game has good card draw and I have multiple copies of cards with effects that don't stack on each other well, then it's not a terrible resource system to use.
I disagree, not all cards are created equal and some cards are useful in some phases of play compared to others. Dual purpose cards make every card useful in one way or the other.
The problem with dual purpose cards, IMO, is that solve a problem that can be solved in a million other, better ways. Like how Force of Will does. It is only a good mechanic for games that lazily copy MtG.
I will also note most of these games are p stingie on card draw in their base mechanics. Draw 1 card a turn, but you are expected to play at least 2 on average.
Pandemonius is going to have blind access. Braille is my favorite mechanic I guess. Sorry for the rizz
Drinking game: Take a shot every time he says "card".
Magic the gatherings black destruction is the worst, a disable ability would be better 😊(stop creature from attacking or defending for X ammount of turns
You mean "death touch"? Because I absolutely hate that keyword mechanic.
Plot Armour? May I introduce you to Plot Weapon...
You make that sound like a... plot twist!
A card game where you can never remove anything sounds horrible.
Put it back in their hand, or their deck if the graveyard is not used as a summon area