A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were looking at alternate ways to begin battles, rather than the AI deploying three cards and then the player placing three of theirs.
So this week I thought I’d explore what some of the alternatives would actually mean to the game and how it plays, but, as I pointed out a while ago, just because this blog discusses something doesn’t mean that feature is imminent (or in fact confirmed at all). Consider these posts a ‘what if’ design discussion rather than a firm commitment.
Implications
We originally had the opponent place all their cards first so players could enjoy the puzzle of working out how to use their current hand of cards in the optimum way. The side effect of this setup is it gives players an advantage over their opponent, but as everyone has the same advantage (and the AI opponent doesn’t get upset about it) that doesn’t matter.
But over time we’ve noticed that the opponent always deploying first rather limits some of our future gameplay options, and it makes deck Initiative less important than it could be (as you can see your opponent’s initial setup and so always deploy to counter whatever a faster opponent is going to do on turn one).
So, as mentioned we’re experimenting with alternate deployment options we might perhaps use, each of which has implications which are interesting to consider…
Flexibility
One option is to say the player (or AI) whose deck has the lower Initiative value must deploy their cards first. However, if one side has to deploy all three of their cards first then they have no information on what they might be facing in that battle, which is a considerable disadvantage. As a result we might need to say that the person deploying first also chooses the first attack type, though this is more along the lines of attempting to counter their opponent who was using deploying second to attempt to counter them!
If we took this approach I predict we’d see decks built around flexibility to counter your opponent’s initial advantage, and high Initiative to try and secure that early advantage.
Slower
Another option is to have players taking turns to deploy a card at a time, presumably beginning with whoever’s deck has the lower Initiative. This approach will slow each battle down, as players take time to look at their hand of cards, what their opponent has on the table and whether to move any of their currently deployed cards with their new ones.
However, the slower initial phase of each battle could be worth it for the much more interesting challenge of working out which of your cards to lead with (beginning to reveal your deck setup to your opponent) and how to respond to what they’re putting out.
Compromise
A halfway balance between the two options would be to require the slower Initiative player to deploy one card, then the other player to deploy two cards. Finally, the slower player deploys their other two initial cards and the faster deploys their final initial card. This approach would be a little faster than a full ‘I go, you go’ but tones down some of the advantage of having the faster Initiative, so could make for an interesting compromise.
If we took this approach I wonder if people would include a couple of ‘all-round’ cards in their deck to hopefully be dealt into their hand if they have to deploy first (so they can react to their opponent and give as little as possible away about their own deck setup).
Conclusion
There are other possibilities for start of battle deployment, plus questions about deploying additional cards mid-battle (such as who deploys first when both sides lose cards in the same turn?). But hopefully this post has shown some of the interesting options open to a change like, and how any game design decision can ripple out into all sorts of areas and affect elements you might not have expected.
If you’d prefer a slower, more reactive initial deployment, or more emphasis on Initiative when deck building, or even something radical like deployment based on Initiative followed by a coin-toss to see who goes first, let me know in the comments and I’ll pass any feedback on to the team who might make any changes to this area in the future. You can get in touch by leaving a comment below, through our Facebook page or by mailing [email protected]. Also, if you’d like to follow our posts through RSS you can use this link: https://www.combatcards.com/feed/
Thanks,
Stu
For a future QA. Would you consider adding sub-faction abilities? Space Marine Chapters, Chaos Legions, Eldar Craftworlds etc. I noticed you added a bonus to playing Goff Orks in last campaign. Would there be a way to translate that into ranked or casual?
Providing sub-faction bonuses is an interesting idea, but I’m not sure we’d be able to apply them to every faction (for instance the Tyranids have a lot of Hive Fleet Leviathan and some Behemoth, but Necrons are pretty much all Sautekh Dynasty. The risk is we might actually reduce variety by ‘forcing’ players into using a smaller pool of cards from each faction.
I don’t actually remember us ever discussing using the card bonuses from Campaign battles in ranked or casual mode. Thanks for the suggestion – I’ll pass it on to the team!
Are You planning real PvP mode? That would be something bringing me back to the game.
Apologies if this is an annoying response, but the answer is complicated. In the immediate term, no, we’re not working on realtime PvP at the moment. However, work on updating our battle system and changing how cards are deployed both mean that we could work on it in the future if we wanted. Basically, it would be pretty difficult for us to add realtime PvP to the game as it’s currently set up, but we’re gradually adding the ability to experiment in that area, so who knows what might happen in the future.
I think one option could be to incorporate the card types in deployment as well. AI selects three cards but the player and opponent cant choose order. They have to be deployed by type or individiual inititive. For example monster-bulky- infantry -fast. Or 21-33-43-53.
Meaning highest total inititive goes first but not necessarily deployes all cards first. Meaning a slow lord or high cost monster could give low total inititive and making you start second but individual cards can still affect deployment order and change the first phase dynsmics.
Intriguing idea. It would definitely add another angle to consider when deck building, but would likely need quite a bit of work to explain the concepts to players so they understand what’s going on. This is why game design is fun – many possibilities, all with pros and cons, and you need to prototype and experiment to find the ‘best’ one.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll mention it to the people working on this area of the game.
Even slower battles…
Are you kidding??
Right now this dull, pathetic animations take 60% of a time battle. From pressing battle/war button to deployment yyour 1st card it take 40 seconds¡ 40 seconds and if I could understand 10s of connection but other 30s are totally waste time and insult for players activity. Not mention you can’t change WCC to be inactive window so this 40 seconds period load in background, You need watch OVER and OVER and OVER the same animations. And that is only opening animations, what with deployment cards, attack, destroying cards. If you try achive terra you will be feed up with this time waste animations.
So many times players ask for option to disable/speed up this unneded animations and again instead fixing your product you WASTE time of employee for redoing them not mention disrespect players Time.
I’m asking you Stu do you play even this game because for sure you don’t read in game forum.
HOW more arogant you can be more to propose even slower battle? You want change deployment method FINE but you don’t need drag this and slower already slow product.!
Do you really get bonus paycheck for players being on product???
Thanks for the comments. First up, I did try to point out that slower battles might be worth it for the more interesting and challenging deployment decisions, plus extra time taken during deployment has no real effect on the rest of the battles – deployment and attacks playing out are quite separate.
And that’s why I’m happy to discuss the experiments we’re performing in this area, because the people involved aren’t the same ones working on other areas of the game. As it happens I’m not sure we do have anyone looking at speeding up battles right now. It’s definitely high on our list of work to do, but it’s not as simple as ‘making stuff go quicker’. We need to ensure all the visual and audio effects cope, that no results get skipped over by accident, and because our game is run from a server, that needs to be able to cope with much faster player commands coming in. Not to say it’s an impossible task, simply that it’s not quick.
Finally, yes we do listen to player feedback, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it, or even if we do that we can action it immediately. Unfortunately I don’t get a bonus paycheck for being on product – I’m a designer so it’s natural I discuss the design work going on right now (and not the art, code or production work happening).
Hello again,
didn’t expect answer after 2 days since i saw you replay to 3 people and didn’t to me even if i wrote comment 2h before your respond. Going back to subject of speeding up battles. I remember what you done in January when UNINTENDED change the attack/radiate animations and made them longer by 100% and You manage fix it according to DEV on forum in 1-2 days but we wait 10 days until patch was applied. So or it was done in 1-2 days or in 10 ?
And you manage reduce by 10s initial deployment animation in yesterday patch 28 April 2020 so it can be done. But there is a lot to do still with destroying animations, etc
I would like to know how was responsible for this season matchmaking?
Hi there, I didn’t reply to your original message for a while as it was quite aggressive, which isn’t usually the best way to have a discussion with a developer.
Re. the 10 days for the patch, while the work to fix the issue may have taken 2 days, that work then has to be tested by QA (plus other work may have been added at the same time which also needs to be tested) and then every update needs to be approved by Apple / Google before it can be launched, which can add extra time.
Not sure what you’re asking re. this season’s matchmaking. We tried a different approach which worked well for the majority of players but had some side effects for the highest ranked players. You can see the reasons why we made the changes in this post: https://www.combatcards.com/2020/03/31/developer-update-v29-12-ranked-season-4/
Hello,
I understand your point of view and i will try explain more so You understand mine as well so maybe that will justify a little bit more my aggressive point. WCC is SLOW really SLO. Yesterday during 2 campaign battles i manage make food for my dog, make 4 toast, scramble eggs with bacon and wash the dishes meanwhile playing. Worst part is there is only 6 cards on board comparing to others games it speed is just to slow. We should be able to make quick match but because of this long animations we play less active comparing to other products. Ask your team while game doesn’t run in background as inactive window, it would be much more efficient. Would not be better if we hit play button, change to web browser and come after 40s to fully loaded battle screen instead like now we MUST watch the same thing OVER and OVER in loading screen, battle animations, etc ???
You maybe by thinking this unnecessary but multiple that vs each campaign, each ranked and casual it WILL give TREMENDOUS WASTE of TIME.
Thanks for the feedback. As noted earlier, we do have speeding up of battles on our task list but as also noted it’s not super simple to do and so has never risen to the top of the priorities list.
As for being able to ‘alt-tab’ away from the game and then come back to it, I’m pretty sure that’s a technical ‘this game runs on a server’ issue, where we need to shut down active battles if we don’t hear from the player’s device after X time.
I’m fine with players having a deployment advantage, frankly, considering the other advantages the AI gets, namely
1) Having nothing to lose
2) Getting absurdly better forces (in campaigns) than the player
If you’re thinking about taking that advantage away from players then I’d like to see something given in return, like the ability to choose at least some of our cards after seeing what opponent we’ve been matched with. Right now taking something like Servants or Ghosar vs Kaptin Badrukk with that plane is basically an auto-lose.
Hi, thanks for the feedback. I actually think alternate deployment methods would help with the situation you’ve described because you’d be able to see what your opponent is doing and react with your own card deployment (and of course it opens the possibility of them seeing what you’re deploying and changing which cards to put out first). As far as I know there are no plans to hide which Warlord your opponent is using, so you’d still be able to plan around that and their likely builds.
Right, but I’ve had to construct my deck before the game starts. So I’ve picked a deck with many weak cards, say for a Servants build or Zephyrblade or whatever. I get matched against a Kaptin Badrukk deck with only a few cards all with 60+ ranged attack that one-shot pretty much every card in my deck. I’ve basically already lost this match before the game starts because I’m locked in to my deck, how I’m allowed to deploy or in what order isn’t going to help.
Yes, this situation happens in the opposite order (although not often in practice because there just aren’t any high-ranked Servants decks) but in that case, the AI just loses, with no penalties. They don’t go down in score, don’t lose campaign energy, etc…
Overall this is a pretty engaging game but this is definitely one of my biggest frustrations, other than the campaign AIs with all of their factions big HP units (think necron ranged warlord sitting behind mephetran, emberresh, and engine of murder).
Thanks for continuing the conversation. The situation you describe of having to pre-build your deck and therefore being unable to counter your opponent is basically true of any deck-building card game. Where I think we can improve is A) continue to balance our Warlords and cards so more ‘deck builds’ become viable, decreasing the odds of seeing that one particular matchup, and B) add more Warlords, traits, special rules, etc. to shake up the current meta.
We’re working on both those areas right now, with people looking at the next balance pass and final testing on our new battle system (which will allow us to roll out new Warlords, etc.).
What about everyone chooses the first 3 card before the battle? When you select your deck, the first three slot are automatically deployed and then initiative determines who goes first. It might be necessary to see the opponent’s trio at the start of the battle probably. Just to have a clue of what is about to happen. This way everyone can a build an efficient deck and can be aware of how the deck is going to perform when other players are facing it.
Interesting idea. It might need some work to make it clear to players how that system works but it would help with keeping the start of battles fast. I’ll pass it on to the people looking at this area, so thanks for the suggestion.
Hello, I am coming back to you about this idea. I have been “simulating” a lot of scenarios in my head and I am now wondering if it’s really a good idea. It might make some deck absolutely unbeatable right from the start. If you consider the fact that some decks are strong if they deploy x card very early and some are strong if they keep y good card very late in the game then this idea is just favoring them. Though fact number 1 : I didn’t do any real maths about it, fact number 2 : consequently I am not certain about this being a problem and fact number 3 : It was obvious in my mind when I first told you about this idea but both players should always select the trio before the battle. Not just the opponent that you’re encountering. Both shall have their trio deploying automatically. This should solve the problem I was mentionning earlier. I hope that I am clear enough, have a nice day!
Hi there, thanks for the further feedback.
It’s true that allowing players to place the ‘perfect’ card out early gives them an advantage but that of course applies to both players. It’s also possible to see what your opponent has deployed and change your plans to react to it.
We’re playtesting a variety of card deployment options and have one that we’re fans of and so will likely push to the game so you guys can try it. However, we’ll do so in a way that lets players submit feedback on the potential change and can then adjust it or even roll back to the current deployment system (and then try another approach).
So, yes, changing deployment will definitely lead to different tactics becoming powerful, but we want to see what players do with it in the wild before making any sort of final decision.