In my perfectly balanced card game, each player gets one card that deals one damage. Both players only have one health. The player who wins a coin flip goes first. The coin must be flipped in an extra-universal vacuum.
Fun fact: According to the designers of Magic, an ideally costed counterspell would be 2 and a half mana. To counteract that, counterspells tend to be 2 mana but not hit all card types, or cost 3 and have a small bonus effect.
(U)(U) Spell Shatter. Instant - Counter target Spell. This can be the only spell you've casted this turn. /There I just managed to make one, your move WotC/
@@iilvii_official funny enough this is literally unplayable, as another spell needs to be cast before you can counter it, and the wording implies only one spell can be cast. You'd need to make it: "you cannot cast spells this turn" or similar.
You don't mention an important aspect - business. Designers don't want new cards to be balanced with old cards. They want new cards to be a tiiiiny bit better, to keep players buying new sets.
Great video! IMO, the focus should be less on perfect balance and more on each card having its own purpose, even if it's niche or not optimal. I think what's most important to avoid is "strictly worse" cards. That's a big part of why I'm not a fan of vanilla creatures. Cards can be weaker than other cards, but still have their own purpose in the right deck. That's what I'd shoot for if I were designing a TCG.
Making vanillas interesting is indeed VERY hard. Most recent example of a vanilla being useful I saw is in Yugioh. Some people used White Duston due to it being a easy to summon light fiend. (thanks to broken normal monster support) However, vanilla specific support means that effects need to be good enough (ignoring detrimental effects on overstated creatures), otherwise you'd rather use a vanilla.
One other thing to be taken into consideration, TCGs are more often than not a commercial product. By having rare, powerful cards and lots of useless trash, and by making newer sets stronger than older ones, it incentivizes sales of new products in a way that's not dissimilar to lootboxes. I wouldn't consider the Pokemon TCG to be a perfect example of balance (DO THE FUCKING WAVE!), but it did manage to stave off power creep for a long time, which each set maintaining a relatively average power curve (in fact, the original Team Rocket set could be considered negative power creep as the cards in that set, apart from a couple trainers, were consistently below the average power curve at the time). Some new card types were added that did bump things up a bit, but those powerful cards (EXs and LvXs) came with severe drawbacks. The severe power creep we see today in the Pokemon TCG is a relatively new thing.
Also fun exploration of concepts: The only real tangible difference between loot boxes and the way trading cards games are sold is that a trading card game comes with a physical object that you can maintain ownership of for life and pass them on while a loot box is purely digital and will inevitably be deleted in a server purge or so that even if it's stored on your machine you can't re-download it to a new machine or do so if the game needs to be reinstalled... unless you count subscription boxes as "IRL loot boxes", but I don't since those are curated each month instead of being random. The sellers can typically predict what any given customer will get out of a subscription box while a loot box is a lottery.
Sorry, late: note that one innate mechanical reason is that Pokémon is better for not having power creep issues compared to certain other trading card games. This is due to how Pokémon actually functions. I doubt they cared about power creep or not -- it was just a by-product of their design choices, informed by the anime. The ceiling is high, but it has decent linear structure over time, and a stable cost-to-power system. On the other hand, certain games have balance issues at early-game, where others have balance issues at late-game. It depends on the power curve shape, the granularity, and the ceiling height. Heartstone is an example of a game that can easily become overpowered at either low- or high-level cards. It requires more effort to create overpowered cards, but it's easily possible. On the other hand, it's difficult to make Pokémon overpowered almost anywhere; hence, it remained stable for years. Due to the way Magic's system works, you have way more mana after 6 turns compared with the early-game. This impacts how power creep happens. And due to the granularity of Magic's mana system, it offers way more balance compared to just a single value as with many trading card games, such as Heartstone. Yu-Gi-Oh!, on the other hand, is somewhat linear at base level, but due to the way the system works (manaless), it's impossible to fully balance and is innately open to power creep over time. I assume they could keep power creep down a bit, but it would require serious work, and the company might actually like power creep. Some players are evidently fine with the way Yu-Gi-Oh! has ramped up over the last 20 years. It's difficult for new players to get into the game, though -- and it's more even more complex by the fact you can pretty much use any card, since it doesn't have a strict rotation system like Magic. Magic's system allows them to force players to keep buying new cards/sets every 6-12 months, whilst also ensuring decent balance over time, and to control power creep more.
@@VestedUTuber Exactly, which is more about the integration of the TV show and the card art or how much they can make the new cards feel like a cool kid club vs whatever you used to use on the outside. The game's base rules were too fundamentally simple to ever avoid this one avenue of making things fresh. One way they might have been able to do so is if they had split the deck into 2. I could see Yugioh game design working very well if there was a monster deck and a spell deck (magic cards since I'm that old school), and the player would draw a card from each. Trap cards could be put into either deck. Let me explain: Pots of Greed could have specified which deck to draw from, and since a player draws 2 cards each turn a card that grants +1 draw, or even a +2 or a +3 wouldn't be so impactful. The monsters could have also benefited more often from equip spells since players would draw a card from the spell deck. Some cards could empower you to choose which deck you draw from on your turn instead of 1 from each, such as "You can draw 2 cards from the monster deck this turn", and this mechanic could also be used to limit the power of Pots of Greed as well. In the end the combination of spells and monsters would have let them maintain a more Legends of the Blue Eyes style of base game cards while even cards such as Hitatsu Me Giant might be useful today by making spell cards that are more specifically catered to them since the specified spell card wouldn't replace a monster draw and is only half of your draw each turn. Individual monsters with no effect could have been given spell cards that are especially powerful for them to turn them into effect monsters except slightly better than native effect monsters. Cards could allow you to search your spell deck for a card associated with a 4 star or less monster on your side of the field and put it into your hand so allow up to 3 targeted searches each game. With this single established base game rule set shift they could have made the entire game play out differently and maintained their balance and original cards without needing all the nonsense monster types that have been born out of their lack of meta since. Heck, even fusion could have been done better since you could pump your spell deck with Polymerization style cards.
They make a broken archetype, give the archetype more and better support, ban the archetype once they've milked it enough, then print a new powerful archetype, rinse and repeat. With this model, they don't necessarily need to print more powerful cards in EVERY set, but they'll creep up the power during the period in which it's too early to ban the current best archetype, which is what causes the overall power creep increase in the long term.
Sometimes designers seem to forget to balance in a way that is fun for all players in a given game, not just the one playing that specific effect. Magic seems to be slipping into a period of doing this with its removal effects; dealing damage is easier to interact with using cards that one would already like to play than destruction and exile effects are and thus encourages more interesting play patterns. Unfortunately, the last year has seen the design team acting as if the opposite was true. The results of this are plain to see in the decline of the Standard format which, when they focus more on damage based removal, is the most interesting and varied format in the game. Yugioh is absolutely rife with this type of issue in its 'balance', either you have a 'meta' deck that can play through a whole board of anti-interaction or you don't get to play against many decks and against many others it feels like the opponent is stronger after you destroyed everything than they were before. Then there are floodgates...
I think the problem is also tied to how the game is made. Magic is a game where you cannot attack a creature directly, but rather the other player decides whether that creature defends attacks or not. There are powerful cards at a low mana cost, that are dangerous for the opponent in the medium and long term, so there are low-cost removers to respond to them. Also a problem comes when removers are so effective that they also work against high mana cost creatures. All this gives too much value to removers because they are cheap and powerful, making them essential in any deck. So It can be fixed? Yes, but it requires eliminating existing removers from the game and adding new ones with counterbalancing effects according to the benefits they provide.
@@johnmacoAbsolutely, this is one of the reasons I prefer damage based removal (such as Lightning Bolt) over "destroy/exile target creature" effects. You often, in later stages of the game, need two or even three such damage based effects to remove a major threat. A single toughness buff may completely stop all of those resources without the need for anti-interaction effects like Indestructible or Hexproof. The primary reason those are so common is the reliance on Fear and its relatives, which often have minimal or no downsides (and occasionally extra upsides) at this point in the game's history.
@@johnmaco But they already solved this with "creature fights target creature" effects which falls into what Matthew was talking about. That was a power/toughness comparison version of "destroy target monster" allowing you to attack a specific monster.
Oh man, I love that you had the Herbology lesson card from Harry Potter. 😆 I had a deck and a couple of boosters from that card game, but I gave away a bunch of cards to a homeless shelter when we had a massive financial ruin and had to move into a house that was 3 and 2 kids to a room. Didn't have the space anymore. Brought back some memories. I kept the Yugioh and Magic and most of the Pokemon, and Mobil Suit Gundam cards though.
You're having a discussion nobody else is having. Basically nobody is advocating for close to equal card-by-card balance. What people are generally are looking for is that no single piece dominates the meta and that powerful cards and decks have ways to play around them. With this definition, balancing is fairly straightforward, if still difficult; Playtest in development, buff and nerf outliers, ban cards that warp the meta around them.
I think he refers to a set/expansion. In Magic: The Gathering weak cards that don’t see play in competitive decks are used and pretty good in limited environments like draft/sealed or in low power formats like pauper(Only common cards allowed).
The only way for a card game to be balanced is to be a single set with no further expansions. Imagine a card game that is a single purchase and is a box of, say, 500 cards, and you can build whatever you want with them, just like a Cube in Magic the Gathering.
2:20 or you could multiply all damage, health, and defense by 10. You don't deal 3.6 damage, but rather 36 and instead of starting with 20 health (assuming Magic for this example) you start with 200.
@@RemptonGames I appreciate the reply 😁 I’ve been working on a card game for about 3 years so I like this type of content to help out. My last break lasted for about a year so I definitely want this new version of my game to be way better so I’m trying to do better research
Easy way to balance: the weak cards are necessary stepping stones for the strong cards. Strong YGO monsters require tributes. Strong Pokemon cards need to be evolved. Strong spell/trainer cards require discards. Etc. Just like a capitalist society requires a working class and a bourgeoisie, so do card games require weak cards that are easy to play and strong cards that are difficult to play. One is not "better" than the other; they depend upon each other in an interrelationship like predator and prey.
I find Tech Cards (Answer Cards) to usually be a poor attempt at balancing. If they are all around useful PLUS shut down an otherwise op strategy, then they themselves become op. So instead they are weak against any other strategy, making them insanely swingy. If they face one type of deck, they rule, if not, they suck. That's only worthwhile if that one single deck type is used to a tiresome degree over all others. And if one deck types predominates like that you have lost variety and need something better than one clumsy patch.
Good Video but I think you forgot to mention, that the companies don't have an interest in creating a balanced game because that wouldn't be good for the sales. They much rather power creep with every new set
I would consider a card balanced if in practice it would see play and not completely prevent another card from seeing play. It is absolutely ok for some cards to see play more than others, so like as the others are at least situationally valuable enough that you would sometimes pick them over the more generalist card.
There's also a question of skill level balance. At low skill level, the queen in chess is a hilariously busted piece. The 9 points of material often quoted way underestimates the threat level posed by it when it can often just wreck an opponent's position and clear half their board while completely shutting down their attack. Meanwhile, at high level, that 9 point value is probably completely accurate. Another example is Chinese in AoE2. They start with less resources and more workers meaning that you need excellent early game mechanics and civ specific build orders to play them even remotely well. Masters of the game win above average playing Chinese, but most beginner and intermediate players struggle.
Even video games where you can use updates to balance characters and abilities aren't even close to being balanced, so it's impossible to produce an idealized "balance" game. In fact, the only way to produce a "balanced" game is to have every single characters and abilities do the exact same thing, which means the game isn't very interesting at all.
Short term "Balance" is a myth. In a system with multiple moving, easily exchangeable parts like CCGs there will be better and worse strategies. It's also fact that different players want different experience so it's hard to point what is "strong enough" for everybody. Also card designers are just people and may just not see "broken" interactions that players may find. Instead of "right now, right here" mentality designers should think more about long term ideas and balance - Aggro strategies just got multiple toys and can easily squash any control-based decks? In next set buff midrange by giving them tools to prey on small creatures and throw one or two new toys to control. There's combo deck ruining game for everyone? Focus on what kind of plays it makes and release set of cards punishing it. The game is literally falling apart due to powercreep and broken interactions? Introduce banlist or press the magical reset button and note errors you made.
In my experience, it's VERY easy to see which cards are broken in a whole format after playing a couple of months. A creature that increases its power based on the number of permanents in the graveyard, flies, has a low cost, and is in a game where I can freely use cards to send dozens of permanents to the graveyard, is obviously something that will get out of hand. And this is just an example (from Magic). There are clearly effects that you know will break the game. If developers ignore it, it's because they have vision problems or they don't care.
DAMN IT!! I wished i seen this when it dropped. I'm a mathematician not even the best one but any thing involving numbers can be balanced. There are no card games that bring unique mechanics that regular chess hasn't all ready done.
Ah this is the reason why I stop playing TCGs. No TCG is balanced. There will always be cards that just too useful not to use in decks. There will also be cards that wont ever see play because there are better alternatives. Bans, errata, and restriction lists are infuriating on the wallet (I paid for these cards, so I should be allowed to use them). Errata, and clarifications in general are a pain to need to keep in mind, and having to print out a tome to refer to is extra tedious. 13:14 I disagree. Strongly disagree. It's a money scheme to fill tcgs with garbage. There is no other resaon for it but money. Fill a TCG with enough cards to get players to buy more of them. That is the primary goal there. I feel it is a waste of resources to have bad cards in any card game. I also highly desire balanced games. It is mostly to make the game accessible to anyone, not just those with money to throw at a hobby. It is also so any deck could beat any other deck based on skill more than randomness.
@@mujigant My wallet is certainly happy. To say I've completely quit the scene would be a lie. I have at least one reviving TCG around that nobody locally collects which provides me with the greatest power to control what decks to make iso they are roughly equal in terms of strategy without being samey. Proxies are the best considering I can edit them before print so they reflect all changes/errata that was done to them. Tabletop Simulator is also a great boon for playing against people not local, which also grants access to all cards. I've actually been looking into TCGs and CCGs no longer in retail print. There's about 4 so far that have caught my interest, and non of these are being played locally in any broadcast way. Deck building all for myself to enjoy!
@@RemptonGames Modern fighting games balance fighters out against the pool of other fighters in a best of 10 games. So character A wins against character b 9/10 times and loses against character c 9/10 times. Sometimes this is more complicated than I'm placing it. For example a fighter by be considered balanced 50/50 win loss but is considered slightly stronger against the selectable options. Or a character may have a 7/10 game ratio against everyone but most likely loses to the bottom 2 worst characters of the game. Ultimately the characters have a 50% win ratio - not because they're balanced - but because they just have answers to them. If MtG was more closely balanced this way, then the cards would look more like rock, paper, scissors. Instant beats sorcery, sorcery beats creatures, creatures beats instants. From there it doesn't matter what ratio you play looks like. - You would have to replace the concept of "character" in a fighting game. Against the idea of balance in a tcg. By using the same formula as a fighting game, you just significantly reduced the effort need to balance a tcg.
I'm even later to the party - it is impossible balance a tcg like this because decks are mutable. If I make a Dragon deck that beats a warrior deck 9/10 times, and the warrior deck beats another deck 9/10 times, and so on... This all goes to waste then dragon cards are combined with the warrior deck and creates a crazy interaction. When a tcg gets like 100+ cards, it gets to a point where you cant balance them anymore unless it is through reprints. But constant reprints kind of kill the essence of a tcg
@@nkm7489 I think that is mentioned in the video although it is not discussed in depth. In cases like the ones you mention, they can be solved by restricting the use of cards to more specific groups, and this is achieved through synergy. For example, you could combine dragon decks with warrior decks for sure, but if you make a full-dragon deck, the dragons could have more synergy and bonuses with each other because they are dragon-type cards.
The biggest reason is that the number of fighters in a fighting game is relatively small - maybe a few dozen - whereas a TCG can have thousands of cards, and an even greater number of decks. This is a bit more feasible with factions (such as balancing the various colors of Magic), but even that is nearly impossible due to the way that different formats favor the playstyles of some factions more than others
It is not a good idea to balance a TCG, LCG, CCG game nor board games in general! If you want to play a boring unenjoyable balanced game, go ahead and play chess! If you want a game to be exiting and fun, keep it unbalanced, and keep the random in it! I don't like board games with 0 random factor.
I don't think the point you make, about bad cards being good for draft is valid. Look at cubes. People design these cubes intentionally, to ONLY contain good cards. And they are incredibly fun to draft, because suddenly you are faced with wondering which of these good cards you want to play. I think your point is the equavalent of limiting options during a game. Or showing the solution or a hint if the player dosen't find it after a certain time. You might just wanna help the player not being stuck, but in reality, your taking the players option away, to be stuck and really using their brain to solve a difficult problem. Giving a player ONLY good cards will increase their creativity, because they don't HAVE to pick the one obviously good card in the pack, and thats now the only way they can play. They have more options and can therefor explore more what they actually want to play.
I think there was a misunderstanding. I wasn’t trying to say that drafts need bad cards - I was just saying that cards have different values depending on format. Some cards might not be good in constructed but are good in draft, while some constructed cards are bad in draft because they require building around.
I disagree with all this rambling nonsense. Balancing cards is irrelevant. Balancing decks is the only thing that matters. In most new formats (and I have seen hundreds) all the good decks are discovered in one day. All they need to do is run the new cards on digital for a week then re-balance for final release. Would solve 99% of the bs one deck formats we have been forced to ensure.
Full agree that perfect balance isn't even desirable. True perfect balance means uniformity. Imagine a deck of 52 but every single card is the Ace of Spades. Pretty useless for playing. That said, I despise thoughtlessly broken cards ruining games. I tilted out of MTG thanks to trash like Scute Swarm and various auto-win decks that don't let you play the FKin game. Get that garbage outta here.
@@vonakakkola Perfect balance (Thanos meme goes here) would require ZERO difference between all the options, simultaneously removing the options. There will never be a fun game that has 100% "balance" -- with balance here representing "every option is equally viable." A game in which every option is equally viable without any differentiation between the options is not interesting nor worth playing, and I would argue that in the process of making more options and interesting decisions to choose from, the game will inevitably have some options be superior to others at least a majority of the time.
@@danielpayne1597 that's not what balance mean, if a character is characterized by speed and another character is characterized by raw power, they can be both balanced withouth having the same skill, but what you said is that they would become both speed based or raw power based which is not true and the fact that ususally unbalancing happen, doesn't mean it's a good thing
@@vonakakkola There are different definitions for game balance. My statement is a commentary on a particular viewpoint. I similarly prefer to treat proper game balance as a curation of generating options while making sure most options are viable (as equally as possible) and also fun. Just like if you play a fighting game and some moves are 1-frame OHKOs while others are 20-frame gimpy hits, the only true options are the 1-frame OHKOs. Gotta avoid that kind of thing.
The dark magician has always been bad The main monsters a garnet from DM era to now he has had no relevance Blue eyes had 1 YCS and that’s exclusively due to Konami forcing it through a generous support release time
Well, I really like your videos but then I saw the one on Quidditch. It's a prime example of maybe it's okay to say nothing at all. I probably can't see myself subscribing considering the vast majority of people seem to have a fairly spineless take on a very nuanced conversation that actually seems to point towards the invalidation of individuals who both menstruate and give birth. I believe... there used to be a term for them... but I can seem to recall it. This is a an unfortunate case where, much like fans of the sport "Quidditch" do I still enjoy the artist (in this case your very wonderfully put together and thought out videos that I do enjoy) even though I strongly disagree with blanket statements that invalidate a very valid argument that most people in the opposing camp seem to have only read cliff notes of? Sheesh, I don't know what I'll do and I hope this is received with an open mind rather than a "fear the woke mob" response.
Right. One would think that someone that could use logic very well in one part of their life could use it equally well in every way. Unfortunately it rarely seems to happen. A lot of people are under the impression that progress is tied to deconstruction and look right past the part where some of the things they’re dismissing have essential functions which are worth the downsides. Conversely some of the new proposed concepts have downsides that are outrageously steep for the potential benefit or just downright unacceptable for civilization. Something proposed as progressive and benevolent is enough to initially fool a lot of people because they don’t expect the Trojan horse. It’s less about intelligence than an ability to be cynical enough to see the other side. Don’t be afraid to have your opinion there might be someone who feels something is off who’s just waiting for someone to say it out loud.
@@wtfox8206 A lot of folks had a very chicken take on JK's comments and a very narrow view. As someone who's beliefs wouldn't sit neatly into one category I know I run the risk of painting myself a certain color by even engaging in discourse on the internet but here we are. People think Rowling said stuff that was transphobic but I read what she wrote and what she's said. It wasn't transphobic and to denounce her is just silly. BUT I agree you may feel differently and you have the right to voice your own opinion. I won't keep you here all day but I was trying to voice my opinion without clogging up this guys comments because I don't like his take on it but I see he does good work. I hope he keeps making videos but I can't get behind him on this issue and there's too many other creators that fit what I'm looking for.
I think you are being too harsh to yourself. It's okay to not know for sure what to do and even contradict oneself with your stance and actual behavior. People aren't perfect and make mistakes all the time. If this were a court that passes a law, that justifies a critical look. Otherwise in this platform of sharing and bouncing off ideas, we should allow for growth. For an extreme take, one could say your comment is a prime example of maybe it's okay to say nothing at all. I'm sure your intentions are not full captured in the 2 paragraphs. I personally see this youtube channel as the same. I think in this imperfect world with imperfect people, we can make it better with grace and understanding. Cheers
In my perfectly balanced card game, each player gets one card that deals one damage. Both players only have one health. The player who wins a coin flip goes first. The coin must be flipped in an extra-universal vacuum.
Just buy starter or structure decks. Play for fun
@@ChosenOne-il4bm but even those are not that well balanced. some are stronger than others.
reality of the world, some people are stronger than others. then its a battle of out thinking your opoment @@FrancisYorkMorganFBI
Games don't need to be 100% balanced they need to be fair to both player and seem balance. At the end of the day as long as players enjoy the game...
I prefer quantum state. Much less biased. Probably.
Fun fact: According to the designers of Magic, an ideally costed counterspell would be 2 and a half mana. To counteract that, counterspells tend to be 2 mana but not hit all card types, or cost 3 and have a small bonus effect.
(U)(U) Spell Shatter. Instant - Counter target Spell. This can be the only spell you've casted this turn. /There I just managed to make one, your move WotC/
Goes in my Moderation deck. @@iilvii_official
@@iilvii_official who let bro in the kitchen
@@wigglytuffgamingwait. Lemme cook.
@@iilvii_official funny enough this is literally unplayable, as another spell needs to be cast before you can counter it, and the wording implies only one spell can be cast.
You'd need to make it: "you cannot cast spells this turn" or similar.
You don't mention an important aspect - business. Designers don't want new cards to be balanced with old cards. They want new cards to be a tiiiiny bit better, to keep players buying new sets.
Right. There's no other reason they HAVE to make so many cards with similar effects that you can't use them all.
Great video!
IMO, the focus should be less on perfect balance and more on each card having its own purpose, even if it's niche or not optimal.
I think what's most important to avoid is "strictly worse" cards. That's a big part of why I'm not a fan of vanilla creatures.
Cards can be weaker than other cards, but still have their own purpose in the right deck. That's what I'd shoot for if I were designing a TCG.
Making vanillas interesting is indeed VERY hard. Most recent example of a vanilla being useful I saw is in Yugioh. Some people used White Duston due to it being a easy to summon light fiend. (thanks to broken normal monster support)
However, vanilla specific support means that effects need to be good enough (ignoring detrimental effects on overstated creatures), otherwise you'd rather use a vanilla.
One other thing to be taken into consideration, TCGs are more often than not a commercial product. By having rare, powerful cards and lots of useless trash, and by making newer sets stronger than older ones, it incentivizes sales of new products in a way that's not dissimilar to lootboxes.
I wouldn't consider the Pokemon TCG to be a perfect example of balance (DO THE FUCKING WAVE!), but it did manage to stave off power creep for a long time, which each set maintaining a relatively average power curve (in fact, the original Team Rocket set could be considered negative power creep as the cards in that set, apart from a couple trainers, were consistently below the average power curve at the time). Some new card types were added that did bump things up a bit, but those powerful cards (EXs and LvXs) came with severe drawbacks. The severe power creep we see today in the Pokemon TCG is a relatively new thing.
Also fun exploration of concepts: The only real tangible difference between loot boxes and the way trading cards games are sold is that a trading card game comes with a physical object that you can maintain ownership of for life and pass them on while a loot box is purely digital and will inevitably be deleted in a server purge or so that even if it's stored on your machine you can't re-download it to a new machine or do so if the game needs to be reinstalled... unless you count subscription boxes as "IRL loot boxes", but I don't since those are curated each month instead of being random. The sellers can typically predict what any given customer will get out of a subscription box while a loot box is a lottery.
Sorry, late: note that one innate mechanical reason is that Pokémon is better for not having power creep issues compared to certain other trading card games. This is due to how Pokémon actually functions. I doubt they cared about power creep or not -- it was just a by-product of their design choices, informed by the anime. The ceiling is high, but it has decent linear structure over time, and a stable cost-to-power system. On the other hand, certain games have balance issues at early-game, where others have balance issues at late-game. It depends on the power curve shape, the granularity, and the ceiling height. Heartstone is an example of a game that can easily become overpowered at either low- or high-level cards. It requires more effort to create overpowered cards, but it's easily possible. On the other hand, it's difficult to make Pokémon overpowered almost anywhere; hence, it remained stable for years. Due to the way Magic's system works, you have way more mana after 6 turns compared with the early-game. This impacts how power creep happens. And due to the granularity of Magic's mana system, it offers way more balance compared to just a single value as with many trading card games, such as Heartstone. Yu-Gi-Oh!, on the other hand, is somewhat linear at base level, but due to the way the system works (manaless), it's impossible to fully balance and is innately open to power creep over time. I assume they could keep power creep down a bit, but it would require serious work, and the company might actually like power creep. Some players are evidently fine with the way Yu-Gi-Oh! has ramped up over the last 20 years. It's difficult for new players to get into the game, though -- and it's more even more complex by the fact you can pretty much use any card, since it doesn't have a strict rotation system like Magic. Magic's system allows them to force players to keep buying new cards/sets every 6-12 months, whilst also ensuring decent balance over time, and to control power creep more.
The Yugioh path to balence is more power. Every new set is like an episode of dbz.
Yu-Gi-Oh "balances" around how much money Konami can make with new releases.
Cough fire king snake eyes
@@VestedUTuber Exactly, which is more about the integration of the TV show and the card art or how much they can make the new cards feel like a cool kid club vs whatever you used to use on the outside. The game's base rules were too fundamentally simple to ever avoid this one avenue of making things fresh. One way they might have been able to do so is if they had split the deck into 2. I could see Yugioh game design working very well if there was a monster deck and a spell deck (magic cards since I'm that old school), and the player would draw a card from each. Trap cards could be put into either deck.
Let me explain: Pots of Greed could have specified which deck to draw from, and since a player draws 2 cards each turn a card that grants +1 draw, or even a +2 or a +3 wouldn't be so impactful. The monsters could have also benefited more often from equip spells since players would draw a card from the spell deck. Some cards could empower you to choose which deck you draw from on your turn instead of 1 from each, such as "You can draw 2 cards from the monster deck this turn", and this mechanic could also be used to limit the power of Pots of Greed as well. In the end the combination of spells and monsters would have let them maintain a more Legends of the Blue Eyes style of base game cards while even cards such as Hitatsu Me Giant might be useful today by making spell cards that are more specifically catered to them since the specified spell card wouldn't replace a monster draw and is only half of your draw each turn. Individual monsters with no effect could have been given spell cards that are especially powerful for them to turn them into effect monsters except slightly better than native effect monsters. Cards could allow you to search your spell deck for a card associated with a 4 star or less monster on your side of the field and put it into your hand so allow up to 3 targeted searches each game.
With this single established base game rule set shift they could have made the entire game play out differently and maintained their balance and original cards without needing all the nonsense monster types that have been born out of their lack of meta since. Heck, even fusion could have been done better since you could pump your spell deck with Polymerization style cards.
They make a broken archetype, give the archetype more and better support, ban the archetype once they've milked it enough, then print a new powerful archetype, rinse and repeat. With this model, they don't necessarily need to print more powerful cards in EVERY set, but they'll creep up the power during the period in which it's too early to ban the current best archetype, which is what causes the overall power creep increase in the long term.
Sometimes designers seem to forget to balance in a way that is fun for all players in a given game, not just the one playing that specific effect. Magic seems to be slipping into a period of doing this with its removal effects; dealing damage is easier to interact with using cards that one would already like to play than destruction and exile effects are and thus encourages more interesting play patterns. Unfortunately, the last year has seen the design team acting as if the opposite was true. The results of this are plain to see in the decline of the Standard format which, when they focus more on damage based removal, is the most interesting and varied format in the game.
Yugioh is absolutely rife with this type of issue in its 'balance', either you have a 'meta' deck that can play through a whole board of anti-interaction or you don't get to play against many decks and against many others it feels like the opponent is stronger after you destroyed everything than they were before. Then there are floodgates...
I think the problem is also tied to how the game is made. Magic is a game where you cannot attack a creature directly, but rather the other player decides whether that creature defends attacks or not. There are powerful cards at a low mana cost, that are dangerous for the opponent in the medium and long term, so there are low-cost removers to respond to them. Also a problem comes when removers are so effective that they also work against high mana cost creatures. All this gives too much value to removers because they are cheap and powerful, making them essential in any deck. So It can be fixed? Yes, but it requires eliminating existing removers from the game and adding new ones with counterbalancing effects according to the benefits they provide.
@@johnmacoAbsolutely, this is one of the reasons I prefer damage based removal (such as Lightning Bolt) over "destroy/exile target creature" effects. You often, in later stages of the game, need two or even three such damage based effects to remove a major threat. A single toughness buff may completely stop all of those resources without the need for anti-interaction effects like Indestructible or Hexproof. The primary reason those are so common is the reliance on Fear and its relatives, which often have minimal or no downsides (and occasionally extra upsides) at this point in the game's history.
@@johnmaco But they already solved this with "creature fights target creature" effects which falls into what Matthew was talking about. That was a power/toughness comparison version of "destroy target monster" allowing you to attack a specific monster.
Oh man, I love that you had the Herbology lesson card from Harry Potter. 😆
I had a deck and a couple of boosters from that card game, but I gave away a bunch of cards to a homeless shelter when we had a massive financial ruin and had to move into a house that was 3 and 2 kids to a room. Didn't have the space anymore. Brought back some memories.
I kept the Yugioh and Magic and most of the Pokemon, and Mobil Suit Gundam cards though.
Thank you, your videos are great sources of information helping me day after day on my own game project, keep the good work.
You're having a discussion nobody else is having.
Basically nobody is advocating for close to equal card-by-card balance. What people are generally are looking for is that no single piece dominates the meta and that powerful cards and decks have ways to play around them.
With this definition, balancing is fairly straightforward, if still difficult; Playtest in development, buff and nerf outliers, ban cards that warp the meta around them.
in making my own tcg I found this also to be true. What I realized is to not solve this problem but to play around it.
You give me different take why 'bad' cars need to exist even in competitive deck.
To give that moment of drawing power card
I think he refers to a set/expansion. In Magic: The Gathering weak cards that don’t see play in competitive decks are used and pretty good in limited environments like draft/sealed or in low power formats like pauper(Only common cards allowed).
The only way for a card game to be balanced is to be a single set with no further expansions. Imagine a card game that is a single purchase and is a box of, say, 500 cards, and you can build whatever you want with them, just like a Cube in Magic the Gathering.
You brought up a bunch of stuff i had to figure out through trial and error.
2:20 or you could multiply all damage, health, and defense by 10. You don't deal 3.6 damage, but rather 36 and instead of starting with 20 health (assuming Magic for this example) you start with 200.
Great video! Excited to learn more about balance :)
Awesome video, I learned a ton!
Is there a game you created and if so I’d like the story behind the idea to its “birth” to the changes you made over time and the lessons you learned
This vid is 💯 correct. Great information, thanks!!
Which is the best ways to balance cards? exist a tool or a way to proceed?
That's why I play ECGs instead of TCGs. They tend to be more balanced.
Ecg?
@@OdelyxRa TCGs without rarity or booster packs. you just buy whole sets as they come out.
I like this series, please make more content.
I’m working on it haha, I work full-time so it take longer to make videos
@@RemptonGames I appreciate the reply 😁 I’ve been working on a card game for about 3 years so I like this type of content to help out. My last break lasted for about a year so I definitely want this new version of my game to be way better so I’m trying to do better research
This channel is dope. I'll give you 1.2 subscriptions (rounded down, of course).
Easy way to balance: the weak cards are necessary stepping stones for the strong cards. Strong YGO monsters require tributes. Strong Pokemon cards need to be evolved. Strong spell/trainer cards require discards. Etc. Just like a capitalist society requires a working class and a bourgeoisie, so do card games require weak cards that are easy to play and strong cards that are difficult to play. One is not "better" than the other; they depend upon each other in an interrelationship like predator and prey.
Great points!
I find Tech Cards (Answer Cards) to usually be a poor attempt at balancing. If they are all around useful PLUS shut down an otherwise op strategy, then they themselves become op.
So instead they are weak against any other strategy, making them insanely swingy. If they face one type of deck, they rule, if not, they suck. That's only worthwhile if that one single deck type is used to a tiresome degree over all others. And if one deck types predominates like that you have lost variety and need something better than one clumsy patch.
>red-eyes darkness dragon in the intro
do you... play yugioh??
He might have meant to put Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, which was a real menace
Great video info. I found the background music very distracting tho
Ok but what is the audience for linear or simultaneous equation canon
I know you might not answer but what are those books on the top left under the camera
extremely subscribed!
Good Video but I think you forgot to mention, that the companies don't have an interest in creating a balanced game because that wouldn't be good for the sales. They much rather power creep with every new set
Why did the mic quality drop ?
I would consider a card balanced if in practice it would see play and not completely prevent another card from seeing play. It is absolutely ok for some cards to see play more than others, so like as the others are at least situationally valuable enough that you would sometimes pick them over the more generalist card.
7:45 : Side Boarding is a very bad mecanic IMO. I disallow it in every game I create xD .
There's also a question of skill level balance.
At low skill level, the queen in chess is a hilariously busted piece. The 9 points of material often quoted way underestimates the threat level posed by it when it can often just wreck an opponent's position and clear half their board while completely shutting down their attack.
Meanwhile, at high level, that 9 point value is probably completely accurate.
Another example is Chinese in AoE2. They start with less resources and more workers meaning that you need excellent early game mechanics and civ specific build orders to play them even remotely well. Masters of the game win above average playing Chinese, but most beginner and intermediate players struggle.
Even video games where you can use updates to balance characters and abilities aren't even close to being balanced, so it's impossible to produce an idealized "balance" game. In fact, the only way to produce a "balanced" game is to have every single characters and abilities do the exact same thing, which means the game isn't very interesting at all.
One word: Money. Money at the expense of literally everything else.
Short term "Balance" is a myth. In a system with multiple moving, easily exchangeable parts like CCGs there will be better and worse strategies. It's also fact that different players want different experience so it's hard to point what is "strong enough" for everybody. Also card designers are just people and may just not see "broken" interactions that players may find.
Instead of "right now, right here" mentality designers should think more about long term ideas and balance - Aggro strategies just got multiple toys and can easily squash any control-based decks? In next set buff midrange by giving them tools to prey on small creatures and throw one or two new toys to control. There's combo deck ruining game for everyone? Focus on what kind of plays it makes and release set of cards punishing it. The game is literally falling apart due to powercreep and broken interactions? Introduce banlist or press the magical reset button and note errors you made.
In my experience, it's VERY easy to see which cards are broken in a whole format after playing a couple of months. A creature that increases its power based on the number of permanents in the graveyard, flies, has a low cost, and is in a game where I can freely use cards to send dozens of permanents to the graveyard, is obviously something that will get out of hand. And this is just an example (from Magic). There are clearly effects that you know will break the game. If developers ignore it, it's because they have vision problems or they don't care.
DAMN IT!! I wished i seen this when it dropped.
I'm a mathematician not even the best one but any thing involving numbers can be balanced.
There are no card games that bring unique mechanics that regular chess hasn't all ready done.
Chess doesn't have randomness and hidden information lol (unless you bring up some fan variants)
Ah this is the reason why I stop playing TCGs. No TCG is balanced. There will always be cards that just too useful not to use in decks. There will also be cards that wont ever see play because there are better alternatives. Bans, errata, and restriction lists are infuriating on the wallet (I paid for these cards, so I should be allowed to use them). Errata, and clarifications in general are a pain to need to keep in mind, and having to print out a tome to refer to is extra tedious.
13:14 I disagree. Strongly disagree. It's a money scheme to fill tcgs with garbage. There is no other resaon for it but money. Fill a TCG with enough cards to get players to buy more of them. That is the primary goal there.
I feel it is a waste of resources to have bad cards in any card game.
I also highly desire balanced games. It is mostly to make the game accessible to anyone, not just those with money to throw at a hobby. It is also so any deck could beat any other deck based on skill more than randomness.
I'm glad you quit
@@mujigant My wallet is certainly happy. To say I've completely quit the scene would be a lie. I have at least one reviving TCG around that nobody locally collects which provides me with the greatest power to control what decks to make iso they are roughly equal in terms of strategy without being samey.
Proxies are the best considering I can edit them before print so they reflect all changes/errata that was done to them.
Tabletop Simulator is also a great boon for playing against people not local, which also grants access to all cards.
I've actually been looking into TCGs and CCGs no longer in retail print. There's about 4 so far that have caught my interest, and non of these are being played locally in any broadcast way. Deck building all for myself to enjoy!
Late to the party - but why not balance in the same vien of fighting games. 5/10 system?
I’m not sure I understand the question, could you clarify what you mean?
@@RemptonGames
Modern fighting games balance fighters out against the pool of other fighters in a best of 10 games.
So character A wins against character b 9/10 times and loses against character c 9/10 times.
Sometimes this is more complicated than I'm placing it. For example a fighter by be considered balanced 50/50 win loss but is considered slightly stronger against the selectable options. Or a character may have a 7/10 game ratio against everyone but most likely loses to the bottom 2 worst characters of the game.
Ultimately the characters have a 50% win ratio - not because they're balanced - but because they just have answers to them.
If MtG was more closely balanced this way, then the cards would look more like rock, paper, scissors.
Instant beats sorcery, sorcery beats creatures, creatures beats instants.
From there it doesn't matter what ratio you play looks like.
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You would have to replace the concept of "character" in a fighting game. Against the idea of balance in a tcg.
By using the same formula as a fighting game, you just significantly reduced the effort need to balance a tcg.
I'm even later to the party - it is impossible balance a tcg like this because decks are mutable.
If I make a Dragon deck that beats a warrior deck 9/10 times, and the warrior deck beats another deck 9/10 times, and so on...
This all goes to waste then dragon cards are combined with the warrior deck and creates a crazy interaction. When a tcg gets like 100+ cards, it gets to a point where you cant balance them anymore unless it is through reprints. But constant reprints kind of kill the essence of a tcg
@@nkm7489 I think that is mentioned in the video although it is not discussed in depth. In cases like the ones you mention, they can be solved by restricting the use of cards to more specific groups, and this is achieved through synergy. For example, you could combine dragon decks with warrior decks for sure, but if you make a full-dragon deck, the dragons could have more synergy and bonuses with each other because they are dragon-type cards.
The biggest reason is that the number of fighters in a fighting game is relatively small - maybe a few dozen - whereas a TCG can have thousands of cards, and an even greater number of decks. This is a bit more feasible with factions (such as balancing the various colors of Magic), but even that is nearly impossible due to the way that different formats favor the playstyles of some factions more than others
12:00 Yogg PTSD
A simple answer: Chase cards and filler cards.
It is not a good idea to balance a TCG, LCG, CCG game nor board games in general!
If you want to play a boring unenjoyable balanced game, go ahead and play chess!
If you want a game to be exiting and fun, keep it unbalanced, and keep the random in it!
I don't like board games with 0 random factor.
Or make it so no one can attack until turn 4
I don't think the point you make, about bad cards being good for draft is valid. Look at cubes. People design these cubes intentionally, to ONLY contain good cards. And they are incredibly fun to draft, because suddenly you are faced with wondering which of these good cards you want to play.
I think your point is the equavalent of limiting options during a game. Or showing the solution or a hint if the player dosen't find it after a certain time. You might just wanna help the player not being stuck, but in reality, your taking the players option away, to be stuck and really using their brain to solve a difficult problem.
Giving a player ONLY good cards will increase their creativity, because they don't HAVE to pick the one obviously good card in the pack, and thats now the only way they can play. They have more options and can therefor explore more what they actually want to play.
I think there was a misunderstanding. I wasn’t trying to say that drafts need bad cards - I was just saying that cards have different values depending on format. Some cards might not be good in constructed but are good in draft, while some constructed cards are bad in draft because they require building around.
Play spades
I disagree with all this rambling nonsense. Balancing cards is irrelevant. Balancing decks is the only thing that matters. In most new formats (and I have seen hundreds) all the good decks are discovered in one day. All they need to do is run the new cards on digital for a week then re-balance for final release. Would solve 99% of the bs one deck formats we have been forced to ensure.
Full agree that perfect balance isn't even desirable. True perfect balance means uniformity. Imagine a deck of 52 but every single card is the Ace of Spades. Pretty useless for playing. That said, I despise thoughtlessly broken cards ruining games. I tilted out of MTG thanks to trash like Scute Swarm and various auto-win decks that don't let you play the FKin game. Get that garbage outta here.
why a balanced game should allow a deck of 52 Ace of Spades? i don't understand the point
@@vonakakkola Perfect balance (Thanos meme goes here) would require ZERO difference between all the options, simultaneously removing the options. There will never be a fun game that has 100% "balance" -- with balance here representing "every option is equally viable." A game in which every option is equally viable without any differentiation between the options is not interesting nor worth playing, and I would argue that in the process of making more options and interesting decisions to choose from, the game will inevitably have some options be superior to others at least a majority of the time.
@@danielpayne1597 that's not what balance mean, if a character is characterized by speed and another character is characterized by raw power, they can be both balanced withouth having the same skill, but what you said is that they would become both speed based or raw power based which is not true
and the fact that ususally unbalancing happen, doesn't mean it's a good thing
@@vonakakkola There are different definitions for game balance. My statement is a commentary on a particular viewpoint. I similarly prefer to treat proper game balance as a curation of generating options while making sure most options are viable (as equally as possible) and also fun. Just like if you play a fighting game and some moves are 1-frame OHKOs while others are 20-frame gimpy hits, the only true options are the 1-frame OHKOs. Gotta avoid that kind of thing.
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The dark magician has always been bad
The main monsters a garnet from
DM era to now he has had no relevance
Blue eyes had 1 YCS and that’s exclusively due to Konami forcing it through a generous support release time
First.
Well, I really like your videos but then I saw the one on Quidditch. It's a prime example of maybe it's okay to say nothing at all. I probably can't see myself subscribing considering the vast majority of people seem to have a fairly spineless take on a very nuanced conversation that actually seems to point towards the invalidation of individuals who both menstruate and give birth. I believe... there used to be a term for them... but I can seem to recall it.
This is a an unfortunate case where, much like fans of the sport "Quidditch" do I still enjoy the artist (in this case your very wonderfully put together and thought out videos that I do enjoy) even though I strongly disagree with blanket statements that invalidate a very valid argument that most people in the opposing camp seem to have only read cliff notes of? Sheesh, I don't know what I'll do and I hope this is received with an open mind rather than a "fear the woke mob" response.
Right. One would think that someone that could use logic very well in one part of their life could use it equally well in every way. Unfortunately it rarely seems to happen. A lot of people are under the impression that progress is tied to deconstruction and look right past the part where some of the things they’re dismissing have essential functions which are worth the downsides. Conversely some of the new proposed concepts have downsides that are outrageously steep for the potential benefit or just downright unacceptable for civilization. Something proposed as progressive and benevolent is enough to initially fool a lot of people because they don’t expect the Trojan horse. It’s less about intelligence than an ability to be cynical enough to see the other side. Don’t be afraid to have your opinion there might be someone who feels something is off who’s just waiting for someone to say it out loud.
What are you two even talking about?
@@wtfox8206 A lot of folks had a very chicken take on JK's comments and a very narrow view. As someone who's beliefs wouldn't sit neatly into one category I know I run the risk of painting myself a certain color by even engaging in discourse on the internet but here we are.
People think Rowling said stuff that was transphobic but I read what she wrote and what she's said. It wasn't transphobic and to denounce her is just silly. BUT
I agree you may feel differently and you have the right to voice your own opinion.
I won't keep you here all day but I was trying to voice my opinion without clogging up this guys comments because I don't like his take on it but I see he does good work. I hope he keeps making videos but I can't get behind him on this issue and there's too many other creators that fit what I'm looking for.
I think you are being too harsh to yourself.
It's okay to not know for sure what to do and even contradict oneself with your stance and actual behavior. People aren't perfect and make mistakes all the time. If this were a court that passes a law, that justifies a critical look. Otherwise in this platform of sharing and bouncing off ideas, we should allow for growth.
For an extreme take, one could say your comment is a prime example of maybe it's okay to say nothing at all. I'm sure your intentions are not full captured in the 2 paragraphs. I personally see this youtube channel as the same. I think in this imperfect world with imperfect people, we can make it better with grace and understanding. Cheers
Na I hurt my brain reading this