An Unending Recursion

So I've had half the mind to post something a few times since the last post with some of the ideas I had at the time. But then the ideas were still half baked, so I'd put off writing till I had something more concrete. At which time I'd get distracted and another few days would go without coming up with a post.

So now I'm just going to throw some stuff out.

1. Reconsidering card rules and functions, to change combat up a bit. Currently the design has the concept around permanents and energy cards to summon them, but that got me thinking that all that promotes is winning a card through an event, then cycling the deck till you could play that card. Cause vanilla magic rules revolved around a static deck and a discard pile. If I wanted to make this more deck buildy, that means more card cycling. Mage Knight does this by playing with the hand, as do other deck building games. However, I would like to keep some sort of field so there's still a degree of preparation and not relying on the draw. So to do this I'm considering the following
1. All abilities can be tapped twice by default. First tap is normal and keeps the card on the board. Second tap discards the card into the discard pile. 
2. Probably a better idea is to have each ability have separate tap and discard actions, and you can only perform one or the other. Problem here is what kind of space do I have left for an out of combat ability (and should that also get two activation's as well) along with flavor art and all the other card information. 
3. Think I'm going to take out the counterattack part of combat. This was also a thing from Magic with attacking and defending monsters. Rather than a normal occurrence, its will only happen due to special counterattack abilities, like damage shields or on hit triggers. This would cut down on the number of special attributes I can put to an ability, and keep the number of necessary resolutions low. 
4. Energy cards can now be played to the field tapped (wait a turn to use) or active (use now and discard afterwards) instead of having to pay one energy to place one. I don't think that latter plan let players get into the game fast enough. 

This does mean I need to go back through my ability card list, which I had to do anyway to implement out of combat abilities. Those are still good given my resolution types. After I get some better free time I'm going to dedicate myself to writing this out. Have something by Sat. 

Creativity Sure is Hard.

Pretty much a duh statement. Started back up Skyrim for some New comp means adding every graphic mod possible. Yadda yadda not getting work done.

I do have a list of event resolution types, the stuff players have to check for. I have ideas for simple pay events (tap some number of energy to perform) and draw events (reveal top card of the player's deck and the resolution is based on that.

Other thing to do is add event assistance abilities to at least the common and uncommon cards. There shouldn't have to split a deck between in combat and out of combat abilities. Should also stay consistent so no one card is grabbed for only one ability.

The last bit is energy resolution attempts for events outside of the school. Outside of the school, events will become increasingly more random and will check varying types of energy, and a player may not have all the energy type required to complete it. This shouldn't auto-fail the event, however, since this would mean players can corner themselves with events they have no chance of completing. Rather those unprepared should still have a chance of completing an event, namely in the form of rolling for the energy needed. Another idea is to allow the energy cards be used as wild card energies. Need to decide on the dice to card ratio, and what kind of die is being rolled.

Finally getting something

Started jotting down event ideas for the board.

Thinking that all skill cards should have dual use for combat and non combat purposes. Stronger cards may be single utility.

Starting with school events. These should be simple to complete and are only good for common/uncommon skills.

Other locales will have more variety in energy requirements and resolution choices.

Original idea was that if you needed a different energy type to resolve an event, you could tap one other energy type to roll a d4 for a chance of the energy you wanted, or do a roll for a 5 up on a d6 to convert one energy to another. This is to facilitate single energy decks or other energy shortages. Need to decide if this should be a general rule or regulated to specific events.

Boy am I stuck.

I have absolutely no idea on where to go from here. Not a lot of inspiration to work on right now. I feel like I want to just make some cards and try playing the parts I got already. Might just go with that. See what I'm missing then.

Need to remember: Work first, play later.

So it's now November. 

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 really damn heavily the last month. Coupled with what was a pretty seasonal job, yea being really distracted here.

Course now that job is gone I can go back to procrastinating in other ways!

Anyway, did another rundown of the game and realized this game essentially has two phases, three with this current villain deck design, and that first phase, where the players are suppose to be going around collecting cards is COMPLETELY AIMLESS. As in the moment after you set up and decide who's going first, that player is going to go "where should I go first?" And the answer will be "I dunno," cause how are you suppose to know what you need to prepare for? Monsters don't show up till later (and should not show up until later) so that first turn is essentially aimless wandering. And aimless is a pretty detrimental goal to aim for.

So the solution is Episodes. These are goals or effects that can help the player build their deck. Goals would be like preparing for a sports festival, and to do that means gathering and fielding various fitness abilities. Reward could be an advanced card or the ability to swap the cards they gathered for other cards. Effects would be like "social event interactions cost less to perform" or "gain additional energy every time you obtain a skill card from this place." These can persist for a few turns before a new one is drawn.

The point here is to give that first turn something to aim for if they don't already have a goal in mind (like a particular deck build or theme). Because the villains don't show themselves until later, and given that's how that works in anime, I think this fills that gap between fights for something players to do.

Now that idea is down, need to really review what I already have down before moving on.

And going to try and post....maybe this Saturday.

Damn, it's Thursday already?

Annnnnd it's September

Man I did not keep up any kind of schedule at all. I was suppose to update at the minimum weekly and here we are, 3 weeks without a single update.

In any case, let's see where we are now. Started working again, now on a night shift. Been playing both Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2. Been still working on this villain deck, which is been really stuck in just details. Trying to have a respectable number of enemies. Have 9 major monsters planned, 6 of them created.  Getting sort of tedious at this point. Need to do something to come up with more mechanics.

Now what to do about this. Waiting for inspiration is probably not the best idea out there. So arguably I need to start setting time aside for this stuff. Which means working against distractions. Which is pretty hard considering I'm playing GW2 right now writing this post.

Well not worth rushing, so just gonna work on this as it comes up.

I should be doing something, but there's GW2.

Still working on Villains right now. Need to get out all the monsters with their abilities, then Lieutenants and then the ancillary spell cards. Course all work has been stupidly slow. If I'm not doing something I'm procrastinating. This all comes on the heels of GW2 launch in 2 days. Where I'm hoping its 1 for me for pre-ordering.

Coming up with interesting enemy abilities gets much harder once you have them down on paper and realize the amount of redundancy that can happen.

Well now I need to set and stick to a goal if I want to make any kind of serious progress. Which becomes kinda hard if I'm not staying vigilant. Or motivated.

Well try again this Friday, see if something sticks. Only one monster of 7 done. Need to do some research.

Posting later.