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I think at least with Duel Masters the game making each card playable as mana lessened the issues of some cards being more useless against certain strategies. The game had overcosted spells that could turn the tides if they ended up in your shields that really worked because you could always use them as mana if you drew them naturally.

I find it interesting in three and a half years no one's figured out a good number of games have keyword blocker from a design perspective. Even MTG has keyword blocker as an evergreen mechanic, you probably just didn't realise it. I'm reminded of a digital TCG whose name I can't recall and is certainly dead now that riffed heavily off MTG but no one realised because all the mechanics were renamed and reshuffled around obfuscating it. One of the core mechanics was Speed. Every card had a speed rating of 1-5. Typical speed was 2. You attacked with which creatures you wanted at the opponent, who could then decide blockers. A creature could only block other creatures with equal or less speed than its own. Some creatures gained speed on your opponent's turn (better blocker). What MTG mechanic is speed expanding on? Here's a hint: think of it the other way around -- what mechanics allow a creature to sidestep blocking? Yes, FLYING creates a two-tier system: fliers can block (almost) all creatures but in turn can't be blocked by non-fliers. Blockers can block anything, but can't be blocked by normal creatures. (also, gaining speed on your opponent's turn? That's Reach) Notice it's perfectly symmetrical. When you realise this you then notice the question is not "is this a universal mechanic?" It's "how many creatures are fitting into each speed tier" (and perhaps more importantly, how many RELEVANT cards are in each speed tier). The difference is that games might put creatures into the speed 1 on your opponent's turn tier.

Reason 1: it adds an extra mechanic that needs to be balanced. Reason 2: it removes one type of decision point in the game, adding a decision point to deckbuilding Reason 3: game restrictions limit deck building choices, ignore reason 2 Reason 4: letting every card do everything be default increases creativity and counterplay. So haste is bad for card games. You have to balance the creatures with haste against the cards that dont have it. It removes your decision point of if you are going to attack or not with the creature you just played, and instead you have to choose in deckbuilding if you want to include more cards with haste. If you want to play a more aggressive deck you need to add more cards with haste, these cards are worse at defending so you are locked in and it is harder to play the deck slower. Open game mechanics are better, so every card should be able to attack the turn it comes down and cards should have effects that stop/limit that instead. It adds more chances for counterplay of we make combat l Choices less restricted and let everything attack right away. This comes off as you prefer the kind of game flow magic has, so different types of decision making are worse and harmful. Of the big 3 tcg, only mtg works this way. The others dont have Blocker, but you still dont get to pick how or when you defend

I agree with your take on this wholeheartidly. Digimon has some great design elements to it, digivolution with drawing and inheriting is a king design choice, the memory management is great too. But not having universal blocking leads to really bad play pattern consequences such as rookie rush and cards designed to combat those play patterns at the expense of a more intuitive playing field. It was a purposefully design that way to make games speedier and less crunchy for 2 reasons; 1. For the player to want to play more games and interact more with the deck building aspect of the game, and 2. To prime the meta into accelerating card and booster sales, with the advent of tying abilities to sets that you need to buy into to get access to them on the basis of more deck building. The problem is that this is at the expense of the game as a whole and at the utility of each card. Removing universal blocking in a game about combat is removing the most important vector by which to interact with your opponent and stem their advantage, having a basis tempo wall for the opponent to get over, the only other way to protect yourself is by racing, improving your tempo, or removing your opponent's cards, degrading their tempo.

I'm running into a similar opinion over Star Wars Unlimited. The sentinel/saboteur dichotomy is really not working for me on a design level

Duel Masters is a really good game and it makes good use of blocker cards. Duel Master sought to give cards a specific role and that adds tactical value to the gameplay and character to the cards themselves. Meanwhile in MTG, stalling is the name of the game, specially for blue and white players, which are aspects that ruin the fun imo. This put, I really don't see blocking as an ability that damaging. Duel Masters is not big in the west and is a great game, however it is popular in Japan. Another good example is Yugioh. It has no blockers as every card may block, something good in your opinion because makes the game more ballanced, however everyone knows Yugioh is a bad game and even worse when it comes to ballance AND its very big in the west. I honestly don't think you have a point.

My idea is extra block

I know this is 2 years old, but I just wanted to say that I'm not quite sure how you're defining "blocker" here. Hearthstone doesn't allow you to decide who blocks, rather letting the attacking player decide, be it attacking a player or a creature, though there is a keyword that forces the attacking player to be able to attack only that creature. I think this constitutes a blocker keyword. However, I don't think this a problem. Hearthstone and other digital CCGs do tend to appreciate being able to have less manual interaction. But aside from that, since Hearthstone has summoning sickness, instead of blocking enemy attacks, it's usually just as effective to remove the enemies that would want to attack you. Instead of choosing who blocks who and being at a stalemate because every time someone attacks, you can block it with your best blocker and trade evenly, in Hearthstone, you can retaliate, and while you can't stop your opponent from trading unfairly, it's fine because your opponent can't stop you, either. So instead of going one-for-one, maybe it's more like your opponent goes one-for-zero but on your turn you can also go one-for-zero, and it's basically the same. This is best facilitated by the Rush mechanic, where creatures can somewhat circumvent summoning sickness - the turn it's summoned, it still can't hit face, but it can attack enemy creatures. So you don't need to block the attack: just remove the attacker. In Shadowverse, which has a very similar playstyle to Hearthstone, you have Evolution Points which you can spend to "evolve" a creature, once a turn, with a limit per game. The most common effect when evolving a creature is to give it +2/+2 and Rush, making this "remove the attacker" playstyle even more accessible to all decks. In fact, the "blocker" mechanic in Shadowverse is typically only useful in the early game, or summoning multiple of them or a particularly strong one as a tool against OTKs. Even decks that have a lot of Haste-like creatures that ignore summoning sickness also have removal options so one or two weak blockers aren't going to help. (as a side note, this is what makes a certain aggro deck in the "can use all cards" format kinda busted because it just got a card that made a bunch of creatures that got a Haste-like effect on a condition, basically have no condition. But if you make sure you don't have enough cards that ignore the summoning sickness effect, or alternatively ensure that you don't have removal alongside these effects via systems similar to Magic's colors, that won't be a problem) This also means that while the defending player has less options, the attacking player has more. For example, do you kill off the enemy creature with 10 attack when you have 11 health? Or do you pray that he has no burn damage so that you can hit face and win next turn? Or, in Hearthstone, there's a card that steals an enemy creature on death. Your opponent could try to damage or kill off any of their own creatures before killing said card, to make the stolen target have less health, or lower the chances of a powerful card getting stolen. There's something similar in Shadowverse. There's a deck I like to play called Chess Rune, who gets a massive power spike once 8 tokens named Pawns have died. Pawns are 1/1 Rush creatures that can attack creatures on the turn they're summoned. It's a common play pattern for the opponent (and myself though that's rarer) to trade ineffeciently, such as bumping a 1/1 into a 1/2, then trading in the 2/1 into the same 1/2 (though now damaged to a 1/1). This is because, say I have 7/8 pawns dead right now. If my opponent let his 1/1 stay alive, I can trade a pawn in and get powered up. But with nothing on his field, I have a hard time killing off my own pawn.

Vanguard doesn't do Universe guard otherwise ALL grade 3 would be able to block but that's not the case

The first point being, it's harder to balance is silly, like obviously balancing cost is the most important and difficult part of a game and every ability has a cost, the second point is basically blocker will get cut if it doesn't match your win condition which is once again fine, digimon offsets it with the security stack, they introduced a defensive mechanic that allows blocker to specialize in slower decks which is actually a highlight, Infact the security stack is strong enough that the slowest deck doesn't even run blockers and blocker becomes more mid tempo

Blocking is a main mechanic in my new TCG!

I like the way you think its a good convo as someone who tried both ima roll with universal blocking due to agressive decks

No in magic i Pop all defender keep the Bord clear do 20 damage over time in hearstone Not That ez to do. Also If all Monster can Block the Game is Slow and Boeing becurse Noting Happens in Duel Master you can only Block If you are Attacke direkt wen Not Monster Need to Pfight so Byby your op 1-2 Mana Card you Need infinit amounts of Removel to keep dead

I always find it weird that you can’t block when you have a another card on the field that’s like seeing your friend get hit but you can’t help because you’re not allowed to

Blocking should be preemptive not something done on the fly. Doing otherwise takes away the pre-planning aspect of strategy which defensive decks are more known for and why people choose defensive decks.

in my tcg, creatures attack similarly to ygo, where they target and attack other specific creatures, or attack directly if the opponent controls no creartures. The "Blocker" mechanic in this game doesn't stop a creature from being aggressive, but it does enable it to defend other creatures, because it allows them to automatically switch the attack target to it, at instant speed. making this skill universal would make it so you would effectively always have to just have a creature good enough to attack whatever the opponent's strongest creature is in most cases, which is not how i want the design to be.

I can understand where you are coming from with this, but also fell that you are so off base by saying that having inherent blockers is better and not just a different design decision. The biggest issue being that you have completely neglected the difference in core mechanics between a game like MTG and DCG. In Magic players declare attackers, all attacks are either directed at an opponent or their planeswalker. There is basically no decision making as to WHAT you are attacking on field. In Digimon you declare attack TARGETS meaning you decide when you want to try to run your monster into your oppnent's security or if you want to instead attack a resting target. A monster can only be attacked if it is resting though, this means that you have plenty of defensive decision making on your own turn simply by deciding when to risk tapping out a digimon at all. You also mentioned adding blockers to your deck as some mandatory thing you have to do and how it limits deck building. This couldn't be further from the truth though. In MTG all agro decks have an innate defensive ability as long as they run monsters, in DCG you have to make a decision as to HOW defensive you want to be. Plenty of top decks forgo blockers entirely and instead build around rushing their strategy with out them. Other decks build specifically around having and utilizing blockers. You get a ton of deck building decisions specifically for including Blockers, not less, and it is up to the player to decide if they want to sacrifice some aggression for defensive utility, or if they just want to try to play around the lack of defenses in their deck. There are also more than one way to defend your life in Digimon. In MTG your life is a static resource with no abilities of its own. In Digimon your life fights back, you never know when you are going to attack into Gaia Force, or a big 15k body. Blocking is only 1 way to defend yourself. There is also the threat of you making a body to swing into their mon on the crack back. In MTG your units are at the same risk level regardless of if they are tapped or not. In DCG simply attacking can leave you in an unsafe position and deploying your attacks at the wrong time can end in defeat. All in all I really didn't find your points very compelling and read it more as someone who couldn't separate themselves from MTG enough to really understand how different the games are and as a result keyed in on one aspect of the game they didn't like. Blocker as a mechanic is fine, and it is another key word just like the hundreds of key words MTG has played with over the years. Saying that it adds an element of design that breaks the game is just doomsaying.

In Yugioh you choose what you attack, not what you block with. This allows the "Goblin Attack Force" mechanic, where there is a monster with high ATK but 0 DEF, and it switches to Defense position after attacking. It would be very difficult to incorporate this mechanic into MtG.

I think that ultimately it depends on health mechanics of particular game. In Duel Masters for example you have only 6 or less hits to defeat opponent and Shield recovery effects are rare. There's also no trample-like offensive abilities and "cannot be blocked" is rare. Having blocker on every creature in setup like that would create very slow, non-dynamic game where any form of attack would be discouraged. Having game where players are afraid of being offensive unless they can ensure overwhelming field advantage sucks.

Most of the tcg's I've seen have you attacking creatures first, and only after clearing those creatures from the board are you aloud to attack the player. Magic the Gathering however has you attack the player first. Magic doesn't need a blocker mechanic because blocking IS the mechanic in that games combat system. If the game has you attack the player first and the defender has to choose how to defend against incoming attacks then you have to make blocking a game mechanic. If you attack creatures first than you can make a blocker mechanic, creating a priority as to which creature needs to be defeated first, but you don't HAVE TO.

Blocking is an excellent mechanic, it gives the defending player an advantage which creates a design space for cards to break parity and end games. An absence of blocking (or selective blocking like the blocker mechanic) usually means that there is a bigger design space for cards to prolong games or answer threats. Hearthstone has this problem with its "attacker chooses" combat system. There are hyper aggressive decks that burst people down or hyper controlling decks that weather games out for an eternity because the design space of the game doesn't have a stop for when one player starts snowballing their board out of control.

As a game designer myself, I'm happy to learn something about game design and learn what to avoid/fix for my games.

Honestly you just made it sound like Digimon is a terribly designed and balanced game.

Basically why make balancing harder than it needs to be. I agree just keep it simple.

Im not sure whether blocker is bad as a skill in digimon because depending on the games your playing if you brick or your opponent spams out units like rookie rush (when prevalent) blockers assist as the counter for aggression and a lack of blockers can be the determining factor if you loose or survive I do see the point if your blocker gets popped but i think thats a good mechanic to have in order to balance them.

i spent 4 hours playing and it has been 99% dialogue. I requested a refund but I doubt steam will approve it. So disappointed. The screenshots on the steam page are all of battle like digimon world 2003 on PS1. However I've been in maybe 20 battles which lasted 10-20 seconds each within 4 hours of gameplay... It's not a good game imo.

*Not why you received this many dislikes but I thought you made a valid point*

U must deplore the Transformers game

very cool video was the audio desynced from the video or was that just on my end? also a lot of great points never heard of the game before nice learning opportunity as an aspiring game dev

I do think that Blocker limits some design ideas with "offensive" cards when it comes to deck building. Although Blocker in Digimon, in my opinion, fulfills the purpose of not getting "rookie rushed" but using blocker should definitely be more limited. I do think It depends on the design of the game and the win con. As an example, Imagine if in Digimon it was designed similar to pokemon, where your opponent prize cards from destroying units rather than attacking security. In this senario blocker would be horrible, unless it said "units with blocker do not give prize cards. Point is is that there are ways of meta-gating it's impact, but as a designer you make those dissensions. Saying "Blocker" is bad for game design I feel is not the best title for this video but rather, "Why I think "blocker" should be Used Carefully" Because not just anyone can use this mechanic successfully. I don't wanna ramble to long, Point is, I think this video made me think of something I had not thought of before and for that thank you. I specifically didn't speak of Vanguard because I am unknowledgeable of the game so will not speak on it.

Great idea.

I like the consent and idea, I do feel like the script was repudiative. Idk if that’s a bad thing but I tune out after hearing the same words in the same order a third time. I like to watch your other stuff, because these are interesting topics. Keep going

Probably one of the most respectful comment sections I've ever seen. Almost nobody is straight up hating and saying stuff like: "I disagree with your opinion and therefore you are indeed trash." and everyone is actually giving constructive criticism and presenting their opinion without acting like yours is wrong or bad.

Nice profile! I guess can you cover tips for Nirvana vs Seraph Snow also including after set 2? Been testing, and it feels impossible for me especially when they can imprison more cards and thus more resources. I know getting full backrow with trickstar is key, but I am not always lucky enough to land it as early as I need to. Overdress is the first time I've really gotten into Vanguard, so maybe there is something I'm missing in terms of piloting I guess?

When balacing a game you want to balance card vs each other and vs TIME How long do you want a game of your game to last? 10min, 15min, 30min, 45min? Magic have creature power creep in the 2000 because they wanted faster game More you make your kill condition strong, less time its gonna take to player to kill each other... More you make your defensive mecanic strong, game are going to last longer...

Intro is amazing!

I think I've seen a demo of this system. Wasn't there a Naruto set in this game?

Also Arcs is life!

I came here after watching game 2 lol

The editing is pretty cool! I love that the effects fly on to the screen

it really feels like they made a game out of JUST filler

Good Video fam!

In the TCG I'm designing winning happens by gaining a type of point, rather than defending a health pool. So in this there is nothing to block other than other cards, so the blocker cards in my game basically mean that they have to be prioritised when being attacked. Do you think this has the same problem? Do you have any angles on this?

You silly

Persona fans be like "This game isn't like persona, is it bad?"

I don't agree with you fully, but is a great and valid point of view, keep up the good content

Honestly, I don't know what you were trying to achieve with this video. Trying to make a case for blocker as a universal mechanic versus a keyword is so ridiculously broad in scope that it generalises so much about card games. It's like saying that having shuffled decks is bad for TCGs because it ruins the consistency of the play-style. Your first point is honestly just trying to view a natural part of TCGs in the weirdest light possible. Yes, Blocker as a keyword makes balancing cards more difficult, obviously, because you're increasing the amount of design space in a card. That doesn't mean it's bad! That's like saying any new keyword or mechanic is a bad thing because it makes cards more complex! Sometimes, blocking opponent's attacks is completely necessary for a card game, but sometimes it's an important part of deck design; weighing up the safety blockers give you versus the consistency that not including them brings. Again, completely futile to try and generalise the mechanic. Your second point just seems very poorly worded, and doesn't help your argument at all. I would argue that universal defensive mechanics is a bad thing. The 'trade-off' of ignoring your opponent's cards while attacking is handled differently in every game, but giving every card the ability to block enables passivity and poor decision-making by giving yourself the 'panic button' of blocking attacks. To intertwine your third point into this argument, I wouldn't say that giving the option to include blocking stifles deckbuilding; in fact it stimulates deckbuilding choices. Your previous point was in FAVOUR of forcing important choices in game, and the inclusion (and frequency) of blocker inclusion does exactly that. It forces you to think about how well your deck handles aggression, and whether or not that needs to be addressed. Just because it makes YOUR deck less consistent, it doesn't mean that it won't also make your OPPONENT'S deck less consistent, as they ALSO have to consider how their strategy falls apart if blockers are included in the opponent's deck. Your fourth point is funny in how backwards it is. How is the ability to remove blocking in a game with universal blocking any different than the ability to block attacks in a game with universal direct attacks? In fact, block-removing abilities are a LOT more destructive in card games, and usually force an include-or-lose environment in the card games that include a lot of them. "No matter what, I can guard against things, but if they have a skill that shuts off my guarding, NOW I have to think strategically." Is a really funny quote, since it works exactly the same in the favour of blocker as a keyword. "No matter what, I can attack the opponent directly, but if they have a skill that stops me from attacking, NOW I have to think strategically." I hope this shows how flawed the point is. Finally, having a wide design scope and narrowing it through effects seems to be a poor design choice versus having a narrow design scope that is widened through effects. In the former case, you will reach a point where the narrowing of effects forces long, unfun grinds of matches where the negation of mechanics is a necessity in order to have a functional deck. Look at Yu-gi-oh, with its prevalence of effect-negating effects forcing interesting cards into the realm of non-viability. Eventually, that scope will become too narrow, and you will run out of design space. The opposite case, at least, will have the space to introduce new things to the TCG without stepping on the feet of pre-existing cards. Neither strategy is dominant of course, but nothing you've said in the video looks at examples of specific cards, strategies, etc. in specific card games to build up your case! You're just shouting into the wind about how you don't like it when your opponent doesn't play the way you play.

You are so right!

I love this video! And I totally agree!

So you made this? Sick!