Designing Our Battle System

Posted Aug 3, 2024

Different CCGs have different battle systems. Some let minions attack other minions (Hearthstone), some have you declare attacks and let the opponent declare blockers (Magic: The Gathering, Legends of Runeterra) and some have lanes where minions can only attack the opponent's minions in the same lane (Tyrant).

In this article, we will discuss why Orbs CCG decided on its battle system, and why we think it is the best system for our game.

First, while I don't think there is a "best" battle system for all games, I am pretty negative on Hearthstone's battle system where one minion can attack another specific minion of its choice. It gives the attacker too much snowbally advantage, because you can pick off your opponent's minions more easily. Yes, there are ways to protect your minions like their taunt keyword mechanic, but this battle system is still too powerful in favor of the attacker. It also makes combo decks difficult unless you perform the combo entirely on one turn (a "one-turn kill" or OTK), because if you give your opponent a turn to respond, they can just kill your important combo pieces with their minions.

Lane systems are good for mobile games because they are easier to visualize and play on a small screen with your fingers, however I find them less interesting than a more open-ended system. More meaningful choices make games more interesting.

The disadvantage of a system like Magic: the Gathering's, where the defender chooses who to block, is that it can lead to board stalls. By giving the defender the advantage, you disincentivize attacking. Board stalls are bad because they make games drag on and take longer, which is especially bad for tournaments where rounds have to finish within a specific amount of time. Board stalls are also bad for players, because they are generally perceived as boring. However, there are ways to design cards that help prevent board stalls. In practice, it's less of a problem than it might seem. Magic: the Gathering has incentivized attacking too much in recent years, in my opinion, which has led to limited environments that are too fast and aggressive, and favor the starting player. I think it's better to have a balance and try not to favor the starting player too much.

When I first made Orbs CCG, it had an open-ended battle system where you simply attacked with minions, and the other player could decide how to block. This system is similar to Magic: The Gathering, but in the original Orbs CCG, it was a two-turn system where you declared attackers during your turn, and your opponent declared blockers on the following turn. This was important for asynchronous play.

I always thought asynchronous play was really cool, and I still do, but I have come to realize that it is not as important as I first thought. In the original Orbs CCG game, the majority of games played were live, not async. I was a little surprised by that, because it's so convenient to play async games one turn at a time. You can play lots of async games simultaneously. I thought async play would be a big selling point. The data showed it wasn't as big as I expected. I'm not saying async play doesn't have its adherents, it's just not quite as important as I thought.

That's why as I've been rebuilding Orbs CCG, I've been focusing on making the game better for live play, and I've come to the conclusion that the battle system should all happen on one turn. This is just better for live games, because it lets you play cards after the battle that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. It's also more intuitive for players. However, I can still support async play by having different async rules. In async games, the battle system will span multiple turns just like the original game. It's just a twist that async players will have to adjust to.

The other decision I made even back in 2012 was to have multiple minions able to block a single minion. Many games, like Legends of Runeterra, don't allow this, but I think it's a good feature because it makes the game more tactical. If a large minion is attacking, and you are considering blocking it with multiple smaller minions, you are at risk of losing your minions to a combat trick. This is a good risk/reward decision that makes the game tactically interesting.

Legends of Runeterra (and Hearthstone for that matter) have permanent damage (damage that doesn't reset at the end of the turn), but I found from playing those games that it makes your minions more disposable. I haven't enjoy that. I like the idea of minions sticking around longer. Incidentally, that's part of why Legends of Runeterra can get away without multiple blockers, because damage will persist. If you just block a big minion with a small minion in one round, then finish it off in the next round by blocking with a different minion, it's kind of like you double blocked in the first place.

Since Orbs CCG doesn't have permanent damage, this means multiple blockers is important in order to be able to take down a single attacker in a single turn, otherwise the damage would clear from the minion.

In summary, I think the Orbs CCG battle system is the best system for our game because it best promotes the type of gameplay we want to see.