infinity deckbuilder things

[Infinity 324]

hi i'm making a digital deckbuilding game

will update the op later but basically you will have a certain amount of passive/activated powers each game

gimme your favorite dominion card designs or advice if you feel so inclined

i need advice for how to make interaction

edit: ok here's how it's gonna work

it's based on the DC deckbuilder, specifically a version i play with my friends where you draft the powers

at the start of the game there's a method of choosing powers. my favorite one i've come up with so far is this:

powers are divided into S, A, B, C, and D tiers. you're first shown a random set of powers (~4) from S or A tier and you get to choose one. then you do the same thing except from A or B tier, etc.

i guess the powers could also be balanced but who does that

during the game, there's a lineup of (~5) cards that players can buy cards from. this gets refilled from a shared deck at the start of each turn.

i'm currently thinking there'll be "slots" for cards that must cost 2 or must cost 7+ to decrease variance a bit. in the actual DC deckbuilder there's a deck of all the same 2 power card you can always buy from but that's boring.

i also like the idea of being able to "veto" a lineup at the start of your opponent's turn by replacing it with a new one. you'd be able to do this ~twice a game.

card types will probably be pretty important in terms of synergy with the powers. i'm currently not sure how to make this work with the rarer card types.

card types:
regular cards (idk maybe i should divide these but idk how to do so in a way that makes sense. these cards give you currency or draw you cards or gain you other cards and sometimes give you more actions)
locations (when you draw these you can play them and they stay in play and have effects)
attacks (hurt your op in some way by ex. making them discard)
defenses (stop attacks)

you have 2-3 actions by default each turn

you'll start with a deck of ~5 cards that give you 1 energy and the rest useless cards that are worth 1 VP. these cards don't cost an action to play.

each card has a victory point score on it, the more expensive ones tend to have more VPs and the game ends when the deck runs out

More info, card and power designs
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fold ... pPBVjBWE0x

[Something_Smart]

Interested to hear about the mechanics. I could rant all day about my favorite Dominion cards, but small mechanics choices have a big impact on the balance so I'd probably want to hear those before giving any specific ideas.

I'm a deckbuilder enthusiast and amateur board game designer (I haven't published or anything, but I hope to one day) so hmu on discord if you want to chat about anything.

[Infinity 324]

updated the op

[Something_Smart]

So each person will start the game with 4 unique powers?

Seems like it would be pretty hard to balance those, since there are generally a few things in deckbuilders that are critical (drawing cards and thinning your deck, usually), and lack of access to those could put someone at a disadvantage early on. Can you give some examples of what you would want the powers to do? (e.g. how strong they are, how much they impact the game)

I'm generally not a fan of deckbuilders having a rotating lineup, but it can be made to work. The big problem is when a key card comes up such that an opponent gets the first chance to buy it. This can be solved by not having any key cards that are insta-buys, or by having lots of cards that do any particular thing, but the former is boring and the latter is complicated. I like your idea of letting someone wipe the lineup if a card comes up they don't want an opponent getting, which addresses this issue and also the issue of the lineup getting clogged with trash nobody wants. Maybe you could also have some kind of mechanic that would allow people to reserve cards? That could be interesting.

The deckbuilders I'm most familiar with all have some kind of action economy that restricts which/how many cards you can play on your turn (most notably Dominion). I haven't played the DC deckbuilder (I read through the rules), but I would be surprised if the card design space didn't suffer because it doesn't have this; for instance, with no action limits, anything that draws two or more cards is kinda really good. Have you given any thought to whether you want to have something like this?

[Infinity 324]

So each person will start the game with 4 unique powers?

Seems like it would be pretty hard to balance those, since there are generally a few things in deckbuilders that are critical (drawing cards and thinning your deck, usually), and lack of access to those could put someone at a disadvantage early on. Can you give some examples of what you would want the powers to do? (e.g. how strong they are, how much they impact the game)

a couple examples from DC:

at the end of your turn, draw a card for each [cardtype] you bought this turn

vulnerabilities give you +1 currency (your starting deck in DC is 5 normally useless vulnerabilities and 5 cards that give you +1 currency)

these are some of the stronger ones

4 powers may ambitious to balance but i like the idea of being able to shape your strategy depending on what powers you're offered

I'm generally not a fan of deckbuilders having a rotating lineup, but it can be made to work. The big problem is when a key card comes up such that an opponent gets the first chance to buy it. This can be solved by not having any key cards that are insta-buys, or by having lots of cards that do any particular thing, but the former is boring and the latter is complicated. I like your idea of letting someone wipe the lineup if a card comes up they don't want an opponent getting, which addresses this issue and also the issue of the lineup getting clogged with trash nobody wants. Maybe you could also have some kind of mechanic that would allow people to reserve cards? That could be interesting.

maybe, i want to limit the amount of stuff you have to wait for your opponent to do before you can take your turn, and i could see it being frustrating if your opponent reserves a card that was really important for you.

not having key cards that are insta-buys is probably my plan, the powers should keep things from being too boring

The deckbuilders I'm most familiar with all have some kind of action economy that restricts which/how many cards you can play on your turn (most notably Dominion). I haven't played the DC deckbuilder (I read through the rules), but I would be surprised if the card design space didn't suffer because it doesn't have this; for instance, with no action limits, anything that draws two or more cards is kinda really good. Have you given any thought to whether you want to have something like this?

forgot about that, probably tbh. part of the appeal of DC to me is that you can really go off if you build a strong enough deck, but maybe i shouldn't be enabling people to take 10 minute turns

also importantly there's no analogue to gold/silver in DC so a lot of the cards just give you currency (often with another small effect)

[Something_Smart]

Having played Dominion online and in-person a lot, the fact that it's a digital game makes long turns a lot less of an issue because people can click through them fast (as long as there aren't a ton of tough decisions in every turn). And, even though Dominion has action restrictions it's still possible to have big turns. Slay the Spire is also that way.

My worry is that "strong enough deck" in a game with no action economy just means "hoard all the draw cards". It looks like DC solves that by having conditional draw, so to draw a lot of cards you need to build your deck around combos. This seems like a good design space for powers to essentially give you +1 card when something happens, though that feels like it might be hard to balance. Is that the kind of thing you were going for?

I'm happy to help balance/brainstorm card ideas, but I would want to see some of your ideas for the cards and powers first to get an idea of the power level you're aiming for. The powers seem like the most important thing to generate ideas for, since they have such a huge effect on game balance.

[Infinity 324]

And, even though Dominion has action restrictions it's still possible to have big turns. Slay the Spire is also that way.

yeah this is why it's probably better to just have action restrictions. probably 2-3 actions per turn with your starting deck not costing actions (since, again, there's no silver/gold)

My worry is that "strong enough deck" in a game with no action economy just means "hoard all the draw cards". It looks like DC solves that by having conditional draw, so to draw a lot of cards you need to build your deck around combos. This seems like a good design space for powers to essentially give you +1 card when something happens, though that feels like it might be hard to balance. Is that the kind of thing you were going for?

yes

though there are some unconditional draw spells in DC they're just more expensive (like 5 for 2 cards) and rarer. you generally want to try to synergize with your powers but you don't have to.

i'll probably post some power designs later today

[Infinity 324]

or now

the currency is gonna be called energy for now

clone

each turn, you may pay 1 energy to have clone become a copy of another power in the game until end of turn

notes: this was one of the stronger powers in 4p (2v2) DC, and would probably be mid-high tier here.

jack of all trades

whenever you buy a location, draw a card
whenever you successfully defend yourself, you may destroy (trash) a card in your discard pile
whenever you play an attack, gain 1 energy

notes: this might have to be nerfed depending on the frequency of these card types. i'm not planning on making any of them very prevalent.

frantic researcher

(assuming 2 actions/turn) when you take your third action each turn, draw a card

notes: this one is gonna be hard to balance and potentially very swingy

detective

whenever you play a [cardtype], look at the top card of your deck. you may put it in your discard pile

notes: the cardtype is gonna have to be very prevalent

garbage collector

At any time on your turn, you may discard two cards to draw a card.

notes: this is one of the weaker powers we play with in DC

[Infinity 324]

another weaker DC power design i could use here is:

whenever you play a [cardtype], gain 1 energy

[Infinity 324]

oh! another thing that helped balance our DC games was that you could ban one power from your opponent after they chose their powers

i liked that system, it gave an interesting tension in power selection

[Isis]

jester

[Infinity 324]

you can get pretty far coding a game without really having to care about the design

will probably be working on this a decent amount in the new few weeks

[Infinity 324]

idk if anyone can help with this but how should i code the cards? should i just pass in the name of the card to the constructor and configure the class variables and "play" function based on the card name? should i have a separate subclass for each card?

[Ythan]

Deckbuilderbuilder ego

[Isis]

I would think you'd want a card superclass, with a function "on-play" that gets overloaded by child subclasses so that each card has a different on play effect. That's slightly faster execution but also much more readable code.

[Infinity 324]

is there a 3-5 cost card in dominion that gives you power and also cantrips?

-ace

[Something_Smart]

idk if anyone can help with this but how should i code the cards? should i just pass in the name of the card to the constructor and configure the class variables and "play" function based on the card name? should i have a separate subclass for each card?

Subclass is probably the "proper" way to do it, but either will work. Whichever you're more comfortable with, I guess.

is there a 3-5 cost card in dominion that gives you power and also cantrips?

-ace

"Power" = money? There are a lot of cards that are some variant of +1 card, +1 action, +$1.

[Infinity 324]

yeah, i'm trying to get a sense for how you'd balance a card like that.

[Infinity 324]

given the card slot restrictions and the difficulty of making synergies based on card types, i'm thinking of having a bunch of powers that care about cards' cost

the potential downside to this is that it's impossible to stop your opponent from getting a card of a certain cost if they need it, not even sure if that's a downside though

[Isis]

There are lots of the cantrips that give you a dollar in dominion are weaker than the things that give you 2$ before the average card in your deck is worth a dollar, and then stronger after that point. Kind of. Since you can't remove cards from your deck once you've outgrown them and cantrips don't bring a card that's average 2.4 dollars per card down any whole a 2$ card does, things skew in favored of the cantrip dollar card. As a result dominion has the vague goal of putting cantrips dollars on a similar accessibility tier to a 3$ card but giving it a bonus compared to a 3$ card.

Dominion isn't the only way to do things, playing lots of different deck builders could be helpful. In puzzle strike you focus on either attacking or strengthening at different places of the game, so the notion of cards that don't impede you when your deck is doing something different is kind of accentuated and cantrips are at even more of a premium. I haven't played a ton of star realms but iirc I think it also has to cost it's cantrips harsher because they (similarly) are able to replace themselves with economy early and then replace themselves with Monument effects late and that's kinda powerful.

[Infinity 324]

interesting, our friends probably won't want to play new deckbuilding games but we might try out ascension since it has a digital version

do you know of any other digital deckbuilder

in DC the +1 power cantrip for 3 is maybe too good, but that's probably cause there's no action economy.

[Infinity 324]

im not sure defenses should be in this game, i don't want to make the attacks powerful or prevalent enough that they're necessary

[Infinity 324]

i updated the op with a link to a google doc where i put more card and power designs

[Infinity 324]

i've been using this stupid button class i found online and i really just should've stopped using it and written my own a long time ago but i didn't. guess im doing it now

[Isis]

The ones I named had an online version. Most deck builders do. I think I named all the deck builders I know except like slay the spire and nonboardgamey ones