"Card"-style battle systems

[Jackolantern]

I was wanting to get some feedback on this. The idea is that an MMO-style game has basic classes selectable at character creation, but rather than defining a list of abilities for the player to use, it gives a large portion or skills. The player gets several "scrolls" or "tactics" at the beginning. Each tactic requires a certain level on 1 to 4 skills to use. The combination of skills required could make it a class-specific tactic, or could make it neutral for everyone. At various points through the game, players can undergo extensive questing/missions/whatever to unlock other classes' skills to essentially multiclass or build their own unique class.

The tactics themselves would be used in combat in sort of a live turn-based system where the player can enter a tactic to use every so many seconds. Indecision will basically cause rounds to pass with the player not reacting. Usage of the tactics award skill points to the skills required on the tactic scroll, roughly equal to the ratio of the required skills (the higher the requirement of the tactic, the higher the reward for that skill). The tactic scrolls' usage would scale with the player's skill levels, so no "Fireball I", "Fireball II", etc. However, the tactics can be traded, sold, found from killing monsters, quest rewards, story rewards, created through crafting, etc. So they would basically be collectible. Some may be considered rare and cannot be traded, but the majority I envision could be. Maybe players could only queue up a certain number of tactics of which they can use in combat at a time, giving the game a Guild Wars style feeling of selecting which abilities are appropriate for certain situations.

I have been thinking about the impact of a system like this. The more I think about it, the more I think queuing a certain number of tactics would help to prevent wealthier players from having a huge advantage in PvP by overwhelming the poorer player with sheer ability count. While one player may have 120 tactics and another player has 24, both can only bring in maybe 8.

So what do you think? And thanks for reading and any feedback!

EDIT: The only other game I know of like this is Phantasy Star Online Episode III for the GameCube, which did decently but was short-lived due to few people having a reason to have the GCN internet adapter (there was only 1 other online game for the GCN) and some other technical issues. There may be some other examples of this type of game elsewhere in the form of F2P games that I am unaware of.

[Callan S.]

If the concern is wealthy player Vs noob/poorer player, I've wondered why automatically mix them to begin with. You could simply have scaled matches and open matches. Scaled matches makes wealthy player/poor players equal, while open matches involve whatever you have. The trick is you don't just get to choose which you do - after doing a scaled, you either have to A: wait a time period or B: do an open match, before you can do another scaled match. The more scaled matches you've done today, the longer the wait period.

Really, I think if you actually managed to always balance the wealthy player to the new/poor player, what you've done is eliminate wealthy players from existing. Which is fine - the question is, do you actually want some players to have wealth over other players. If so, such balance simply screws up your own design goal.

[Jackolantern]

Could you explain what you mean by "scaled matches" and "open matches"? It sounds like this could be terminology from a game(s) I have never played.

[Xaos]

Could you explain what you mean by "scaled matches" and "open matches"? It sounds like this could be terminology from a game(s) I have never played.

I think what he is saying is a "Scaled Match" would be where all the cards and etc. will be the same level, so its almost a pure "Skill vs Skill" match, whereas the open matches keep them at face value and whoever has better cards wins.

[Jackolantern]

Thats what I was thinking he meant too

[Callan S.]

Yeah, like that. Chess is scaled, as in both sides are perfectly equal. Where as an open match, you might have extra pieces on one side, or one sides pieces can do a few different things than the other sides equivalent pieces.

As I said, I really don't think you can have 'Earn <i>more</i> cards!' and yet think the game will still be a series of perfectly equal matches. You will end up with underdogs (and that can be quite fun, except with players who, looking for an excuse for their own lack of skill, like to blame 'a lack of balance'). I'm not knocking anything about that, just saying you can't think such a game can be like chess/can be made to always have perfectly equal sides.

[Jackolantern]

Oh, yes, that is what I thought you meant. I guess the question at the core is "What is a worthy investment to get an advantage?" With a system that centers around collectible cards, and if some of those cards are extremely powerful, is grinding for enough gold to buy it on the open market a worthy exchange for grinding the monsters/doing the quests/whatever it takes to get the card dropped yourself? When it is worded like that, it feels like it is since they sound like almost doing the same thing.

I had initially written this post to be saying something along the lines of "I don't want players to be able to buy a huge advantage", but the more I wrote it, the more it started feeling like grinding for gold vs. grinding for items is basically the same thing. The only real reason I can think of now to make them untradeable is to keep players moving through various content. When players can buy what they want versus getting it themselves, a lot of players seem to fall into that routine, since they know how to make gold, and can earn it at a predictable rate. But then should you just let them play the way they want to? Or should you feel like you need to save them from themselves so they are not staring at the clock while playing, endlessly doing the same tasks to make gold?

Sorry if it seems like I have gone in a bit of another direction with the conversation, but I guess I changed on my initial knee-jerk reaction of not wanting them to be able to buy powerful items (an idea ingrained in us from modern MMORPGs).