Yugioh Designer Format, survey & looking for organizers

[-Griffin]

I'm looking to make a new format - meaning a fresh set of cards to duel with, started from the ground up, possibly including some TCG cards depending on your guys' feedback.
 
The reason is that the rules of Yugioh are really good, mostly. The main problem with it is that Konami doesn't design cards to make a good game at even a semi-competitive level. They make cards to sell for money - meaning power creep, flashy cards that attracts children, useless cards to pad packs, and whatever card the anime's writers pulled out their behind last June. Also, making cards is fun and more fun when you get to play them.
 
Depending on how many people are interested and their priorities, I could either set it up so cards are automatic via YGODevpro, or just go manual with the 'duel portal' thing on the forums (haven't looked to closely at that, worst case we use YVD) - I might also make a wrapper program for whatever we use that updates sets automatically. I've joined one of these before, and started another myself a few years back, and they fail for various reasons, lack of automation (people are lazy & don't like having to manually do effects), having to download stuff (lots of people here on shared computers, or otherwise don't want to download stuff), poor design, no documentation (no one knows what decent 'staples' are and how to build a deck in general), trouble finding games (it's a threshold thing - if you find 1 other person playing at that time, you can play games against them for hours, if there's 0, you can't play any and lose interest in the format). Those are the main ones, I think, although other things are factors. I think that due to new programs, me being more able to make programs, and general experience, we could alleviate some/all of those and make a format that actually survives and sees play.
 
The current plan is that it'd be fairly strictly managed. I'd be quite vicious about denying cards that don't work towards the format's current goals or otherwise improve the format. Definitely not a free-for-all add-your-cards style thing. I think Duel Portal allows that by default already. The main thing I'm providing is management, possibly an auto-updating client, and Lua scripting, if we go for the automated cards
 
Everyone with interest in the format, please complete this short survey I made to get an idea for what people want out of it: http://goo.gl/forms/26dxGaWFCL Those interested in organizational stuff can either contact me via message here, or I'll get back to you if you put a profile link on the form & ticked the organizational stuff. 

 

 

[Bringerofcake]

Would we also be including the various summon mechanics introuduced (Pendulum, Synchro etc)?

This post is also an excuse to say hi since I haven't seen you for like 4 years

[-Griffin]

Hey Cake, just noticed you as well - glad to see you again.

 

It'd definitely include Synchro, XYZ, or both. I honestly have no idea what Pendulum is, let me google it. 

 

Ok, a quick look at Pendulum Zones/Monsters/Summons makes me think we won't include that for now, but might come back to it several sets down the line - the summon mechanic does look potentially very silly, though, so I might still be against it. 

[Peridank]

This sounds cool... I would like to help...

[-Griffin]

Leaving this up for at least another day, since responses are still quite low. 

 

Some initial observations:

 

* A lot of people feel the TCG has gone to hell, so making the format stable & competitive seems like it will be a priority.

 

* Everyone wants to duel, which is fantastic! It doesn't make much sense to design cards when you don't duel in the format to know about it. 

 

* Most people who want to organize are willing to use Skype, so that'll probably be the main avenue for organizational level discussion. 

 

* Most people consider cards being automatic to be moderately to quite a lot important. No one else is willing to work on the automation so far. On the plus side for this almost everyone is willing to download a program, which is great since it's the only way we can automate things.

 

* The other priorities are more mixed, although almost everyone is indifferent to how we treat TCG cards.

 

How I imagine the first set's development:

 

I think that in this format, we're going to keep a list of 'supported Decks'. A supported Deck will have an example Decklist with a short explanation of how to play it, and if the Deck becomes considered too weak in a meta it will receive new cards to make it more viable. If a Deck sees a lot of use that isn't on the list, we can add it to the supported list, ban some of its cards if it's too strong, or just ignore it we don't see a benefit to the first two. 

 

Ideally, from the first set, I'd like to see at least 7 'supported Decks' - I'm thinking 3 based on type (say, Warrior, Dragon, Insect), 2 based on attribute (Dark/Light?), 1 based on a game mechanic (Flip effects? Trap cards?), and maybe 1 toolboxy Deck/Deck that just uses good generic cards. Most of these would have 6-8 cards designed for that Deck specifically, and would fill the rest of their Deck with relevant cards from the pool and staples. That means we'd dedicate ~50 cards to the Decks specifically. 100 custom cards seems like a good number for a starting set, so I'm thinking ~50 generics/staples, too. The problem is that 100 is still quite a small pool to build a Deck from, and much more would be very demanding for a first set, so I'm proposing ~100 TCG cards in the first set. All reasonably generic - normal monsters, some simple things like Dust Tornado and Soul Release. We might remove these when we add a second set, depending on feedback.

 

Any thoughts?

[JessicaMuddy]

Where do I sign up for this? Also, the whole Supported Decks and Deck Ideas so far seem quite good, but... Insect Deck? They have some interesting cards but I'm not sure what you could do with the Deck (Probably Inzektors, but I have no idea how they work). Hey, that's why we are making Custom Cards!

 

Also, are Qlis gonna be a bad zone? I really hope so because screw those guys.

[-Griffin]

Where do I sign up for this? Also, the whole Supported Decks and Deck Ideas so far seem quite good, but... Insect Deck? They have some interesting cards but I'm not sure what you could do with the Deck (Probably Inzektors, but I have no idea how they work). Hey, that's why we are making Custom Cards!

 

Also, are Qlis gonna be a bad zone? I really hope so because screw those guys.

 

Sign up is in the first post, via the survey.

 

We'll only be including ~100 TCG cards, there will be no Inzektors, Qlis, Heros, Crystal Beasts, or any other archtype.

[Peridank]

What is there is an archetype that isn't... well... an archetype. E.g. Battlegaurd King/Lava/Swamp (only 3 monsters 2 traps and I think 1 spell? Maybe not idk)

[-Griffin]

What is there is an archetype that isn't... well... an archetype. E.g. Battlegaurd King/Lava/Swamp (only 3 monsters 2 traps and I think 1 spell? Maybe not idk)

 

It's possible we include cards that have relations to other cards, but probably nothing that 'relies on' other cards, and there's no assurance that the related cards would come with it. (e.g., it's possible we include Battleguard King and no other Battleguard cards).

[Peridank]

Ok... so the traps would be ok considering they just work on warriors in general or nah?

[-Griffin]

They might make it in theory, but looking at them I doubt either of them would justify a slot in the first set. 

[Darj]

I agree with starting with ~100 generic TCG cards.

 

What doesn't convince me is the ausence of archetypes. Without proper archetypes, the game could evolve into decks built with +1 engines (e.g. HATs and its variants), and I'm not sure if that would be a good thing. Perhaps we could adopt a couple of archetypes, leave out their problem cards, and begin working from there.

[-Griffin]

I'd planned for archtypes to come in once we had a solid base of more generic cards, but I was planning to make the archtypes all custom since that's something people could really enjoy doing. If there's a call for a specific TCG archtype, however, I wouldn't be against bringing over a curated version of it. 

[Bringerofcake]

I'm not sure if making archetypes is something that we should do off the bat. related cards, definitely (something like the "storyline" that Konami did with the Arc-V storyline would be cool, albeit not with broken cards), but I don't think we absolutely HAVE to use +1 engines to play the game, especially if we are rubbing out the several thousand cards that already exist.

[Darj]

I'm not sure if making archetypes is something that we should do off the bat. related cards, definitely (something like the "storyline" that Konami did with the Arc-V storyline would be cool, albeit not with broken cards), but I don't think we absolutely HAVE to use +1 engines to play the game, especially if we are rubbing out the several thousand cards that already exist.

 

I agree. The game shouldn't begin with +1 engines, but I suspect that without archetypes around the game will eventually evolve that way: players will find a way to consistently merge 3 or more engines (even if they don't generate pluses) together, make them work, and dominate the meta.

 

Now that I think about it, as long as said engines don't generate crazy pluses, I suppose it would be fine.

[-Griffin]

So, current plan is to have a skype discussion/debate on which TCG cards to bring over, then make a 'requirements list' for the 100 original cards, a section of it might look like this:

1. Generic level 8 beater / boss monster
2-7. Generic XYZ for Each level 1 to 6.
8. Generic level 4 or lower monster that conditionally draws a card.
9. Generic targeted backrow destruction.
10. Generic costly counter to single large monster.
11. Warrior support spell
12. Level 5/6 warrior support monster
13. Generic conditional searcher for low level monsters.

ect, ect, for 100 cards. Some of these slots would be filled by the first card that the organizers/judges agreed was good enough for the format, others that we wanted to really get right would be brought to card contests, where the winner would make it into the set (and in exceptional cases, multiple cards might be good enough to squeeze into the set).

[Bringerofcake]

when will this skype thing happen

[Peridank]

Ya... I clicked no on Skype cuz I am usually busy with it... But I can join in if reasonable time for me...

[JessicaMuddy]

I'm on Skype most of the time if anyone wants to discuss anything.

[Radiant F.U.R.Y.™]

form submitted

[-Griffin]

The skype call and such will start on Sunday or Monday, after I've finished exams and gone back home. 

[-Griffin]

I'm thinking about starting a blog in the new section for them focusing on card & game design and using this format for most of my examples.

 

Last exam today, & train journey tomorrow, then I can really get cracking on moving this forward. 

[-Griffin]

Since responses to the survey pretty much stopped, I've sent out a set of messages to gather Skype details to discuss the next step. If anyone else wants to join in the organizing at this point, contact me by message here with a skype name.

[Sleepy]

I just found out about this project so in case you are not checking at survey responses I'm making sure by notifying it here.

 

I'm a little worried that the 100 TCG cards added to fill in the gaps might influence the custom part to be made in a way that things stop working quite like they should after the existing 100 are moved back out of the pool. Though hopefully it'll all turn out well.

 

Since this thread is like 4 days old and it is Sunday afternoon, I guess there's a chance that you all might have chosen the 100 TCG temporary base cards already, if so; is there a place where I can look at them? It sounds like the best way to see the level of gameplay intended.

 

Is the base TCG pool gonna contain staples that are in the list in any way (limited, semi, banned)? 

Depending on the level of power desired, many staples of the IRL game have had to touch the list at some point, even cards like MST were at 1 at some point. 

While on this subject, what is your stance on having a restriction list(s) at any point?

 

Also, I have a question about average raw power level of monsters. What's your ideal view on this?

Currently, 2000 ATK no Tribute beaters aren't a huge deal. 1 Tribute ones can reach 2600 (Frostosaurus) to 2800 (WATER) but average on 2500. 2 Tributes are pretty much 3k.

I remember at some point 1600 to 1800 was the biggest no Tribute stuff around, 1 Tribute (other than Summoned Skull) averaged on 2200, and 2 Tributes (other than Blue-Eyes) was 2400 to 2600.

Or would rather settle on a different standard that is lower, or perhaps something in-between? 

 

EDIT:

Nevermind, I found the "stage 2" thread so I have more of an idea now.

[NitroX]

I would like to help because I know most HTML and CSS, I'm learning PHP, Java, MySqL, any other coding format I don't know yet thatt I may learn from! It sounds awesome! Is it going to be similar to DN game format, like making decks to dueling? Except adding new custom cards, or just custom cards people have made?

Anyways, I love to help!