by abrannan
schmoo34 wrote:
Let me give you an analogy of what this living card game is if it were a boardgame.
I design a game with a warrior, cleric, wizard, and rogue. However, I make the scenarios for the game concentric around the warrior and rogue and the cleric and wizard get the shaft. The two character classes are certainly available and it is possible to win while using them, but why would you ever want to be one when the game mechanics favor the melee classes?
THIS is the analogy that plays in my mind. And if you designed a boardgame that played like this, it would be considered a failed design.
However, deckbuilding games operate this way and thrive with this...I don't understand it. Why build a wizard if there is no merit in using one?
I design a game with a warrior, cleric, wizard, and rogue. However, I make the scenarios for the game concentric around the warrior and rogue and the cleric and wizard get the shaft. The two character classes are certainly available and it is possible to win while using them, but why would you ever want to be one when the game mechanics favor the melee classes?
THIS is the analogy that plays in my mind. And if you designed a boardgame that played like this, it would be considered a failed design.
However, deckbuilding games operate this way and thrive with this...I don't understand it. Why build a wizard if there is no merit in using one?
Except it does happen in boardgames all the time. How many expansions out there add some element that makes some less-used strategy or card or piece more usable? Chaos in the Old World: The Horned Rat Expansion, Puerto Rico Expansion are two that come to mind off the top of my head. Do people call Puerto Rico a failed design? Nope.
There is a progression of cards that come out with LCGs. You can't necessarily throw all the cards out there that fit that theme in one go. You'd have people crying out that they have no interest in a "Lollipop flinger" deck, especially with the "one release per month" schedule of the LCGs. You release them out over time, and try to include a little something for everybody so nobody feels too left out. Of course, it also doesn't hurt your bottom line to make all of your players want to buy all of your expansions, either.
Yes, sometimes cards will become obsolete, as new cards come out that are clearly superior in every way. As a designer, you try to avoid this, but sometimes players come up with new strategies and interactions you hadn't thought of before. Maybe now your methods for determining a card's cost have changed a bit, so the card you thought was balanced is now a little too expensive. So you end up replacing it with a new card that's more in line with what the new costing methods show it should be. Maybe you end up changing other facets of the game so that the card, which was a clear loser before, now has a purpose and a home in some decks.
That's the thing about LCGs, CCGs, and their ilk. The parameters of the game are always changing with each new set. Even with the adventure packs, where each sphere is only getting one or two new cards (and possibly a hero). Those one or two new cards can alter deck strategies radically.
I like to compare deckbuilding to army building in miniatures games. Yes, there's a wide variety of units to choose from, but in the end, you're going to end up with a basic core of an army that's viable, and a lesser number of optional units you add to it to finish the army's shape and how it plays. Some shapes will work better for certain scenarios, and some just won't quite be viable at this point, no matter how you try.
Some people find joy in investigating those nooks and crannies of a game. I suspect you are not one of those people. And, as I've said before, that's okay.