Ways to Balance the Game without Banning Cards

[Nurvus]

Sollution #1: Card Stat - Rank

TL;DR - This is a budget for deck creation (this assumes a 20-card deck), where each card has a Rank, and each deck has a max total Rank, wich is the limit the sum of all card Ranks in it cannot exceed.
Cards above 20 in the deck, add points to the max total Rank, and characters such as have their Rank multiplied by the number of characters they count for.

The goal is making it so that you can't just fill your deck with just Rank 3 cards.
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This works perfectly with my Elite card Stat suggestion presented below.

It also allows Rooms and Tournaments to be created with ranges of Deck Rank.
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[The Suggestion] - The numbers here are Hypotetical...
- See Rank as a Deck Budget or Deck Cost.
- Each card (characters included) has a Rank, between 1 and 3, according to it's usefulness/power
- Characters may have a bigger Rank range, between 1 and 6, allowing the developpers to distinguish characters and make even the weakest character useful in a way by giving him a low Rank.
- Each deck can have a max total Rank of 50.
- Each non-character card above 20 in the Deck increases the max total Rank by 3.
I think it should be 3, because as a deck becomes bigger, the chances of drawing intended cards are reduced, thus allowing a higher average card Rank is decent compensation.
The argument towards making it 2, is that it's closest to the average card Rank of a 23 card Deck (~2,17, see Math below).

[Math]
- The minimum amount of cards a Deck can have is 23 cards (characters included)
- 23x3 = 69 -> Maximum Rank
- 20x3 + 3x6 = 78 -> Maximum Rank if characters have between 1 and 6 Rank
- 23x1 = 23 -> Minimum Rank

[Result]
- A deck can only have a maximum average card Rank of ~2.17, wich means you can't fill a deck with Rank 3 cards.
- Acording to the above math, you can only use at most 4x Rank 3 cards in a deck without needing to use Rank 1 cards.
- If Character Ranks go all the way to 6, you can either use 4x Rank 3 cards; 2x Rank 3 cards & 1x Rank 4 character; 1x Rank 3 cards & 1x Rank 5 character or 1x Rank 6 character, in a deck without Rank 1 cards

[Conclusion]
Even less need to ban cards or decks - you just wouldn't be able to shove countless Legendary, awesome Rares, insane Uncommons and incredible Commons in your decks.

To dismistify your tainted ideas, you would have ALOT more customization power, not less.
Right now you are forced to use certain cards to be competitive. Little room for inventiveness.
With this, cards being given proper Rank, you would be able to build dozens of competitive decks for each Caste, and would see less mirror matches, would feel more unique, and your genius would be more rewarded.

Sollution #2: Card Stat - Elite

I thought I'd put this suggestion out here to be more visible, as well as clearing it up a bit.

So there have been going around complaints about certain decks or cards being overpowered; Legendaries being too expensive and otherwise unfair for competitiveness; your favorite cards/decks being banned for too long; etc.

In most if not all cases of "overpoweredness" there isn't a single card at fault, but rather a whole combo that is too effective.

The suggestion below is about branding certain cards "above average" so that u can only have a maximum amount of them in the deck, rather than banning cards.

[The Suggestion - Elite Cards]
- Certain cards are given the Elite stat when considered too strong.
- You can only have 3 Elite cards in a deck.

What it is:
- A "visible" card stat just like Unique.
- A way to keep balance in check.
- A way to keep all decks alive by not banning any cards.
- A way to promote deck variants - thanks to GKZhukov (http://forum.eredan.com/viewtopic.php?pid=362748#p362748)


What it is not:
- A "hidden" property like "Banned from ELO".
- A way to nerf my most hated and/or buff my favorite deck

[How does this work/fix anything?]
Note: The example below is not a rant against Discard decks, just an hypotetical situation.
Let's just pretend , , , and are considered too powerful when together in the same deck.

Then imagine that:
The Prestige, Mental Syphon and Treacherous are Elite.
That means you can have one of the below combos in your deck:
- 1 The Prestige + 1 Mental Syphon + 1 Treacherous (+ 3 Theft + 3 Panic)
- 1 The Prestige + 2 Treacherous (+ 3 Theft + 3 Panic)
- 1 Mental Syphon + 2 Treacherous (+ 3 Theft + 3 Panic)
- 3 Treacherous (+ 3 Theft + 3 Panic)

Or, imagine that:
Treacherous and Theft are Elite.
That means you can have one of the below combos in your deck:
- (1 The Prestige + 1 Mental Syphon +3 Panic) + 3 Treacherous
- (1 The Prestige + 1 Mental Syphon +3 Panic) + 2 Treacherous + 1 Theft
- (1 The Prestige + 1 Mental Syphon +3 Panic) + 1 Treacherous + 2 Theft
- (1 The Prestige + 1 Mental Syphon +3 Panic) + 3 Theft

This is just hypotetically speaking!

Above you can see many variants for the same theme: Circus Discard.
As pointed out by GKZhukov, you would see similarly themed decks taking on completely different directions - not because of your Crystal/Feez limitations, but because of your own preference and creativity.

Result?
- Feerik is able to "tune" a deck without banning cards.
- If a deck needs further tuning, all that needs to be done is change wich and how many cards are Elite.
- The bottom line is that it allows Feerik to remove the O from OP without banning cards by instead creating a system that limits how many "OP" cards are put together in the same deck.

Sollution #3: Card Stat - Ranked Elite

This new idea is a mix of the Rank Stat and Elite Stat - a budgeted Elite Stat:
- Certain cards are given Elite (X)" stat
Example: Elite: 3
- Each deck can only have a total maximum of Y Elite value
Example: limit is 10, you can have 2x "Elite (3)" and 2x "Elite (2)" OR 3x "Elite (3)" and 1x "Elite (1)".


Feerik could implement #1, #2, #3, #1 + #2 or #2 + #3, as they work perfectly okay.

With any of those combinations, Feerik can finally balance decks without the need to ban cards at all. Period.

This way you:
- have more deck variants because you can't just shove everything into a deck
- know all your favorite cards will never be simply banned

Any of the above ideas can solve the current balance issue, permanently.
Discuss.

[Xabelius]

It seems to me that all your proposals are the same and not really different from the current system. Current system is: Deck containing listed cards is invalid. Your proposals are: Deck containing (some calculation of card ranks) is invalid. And you need someone to decide card ranks.

So you enable more fine-grained banning , but you need additional complexity and the system does not balance itself, you need someone to keep the balance.

I think any real solution would need more radical change such as (just an example, likely not working): for each deck calculate similarity to recent successful decks. If all characters in the battle are dead, the winner of the game is the one with more innovative deck.

[Nurvus]

Thanks for your eloquent reply.

It seems to me that all your proposals are the same and not really different from the current system.

Current system is: Deck containing listed cards is invalid. Your proposals are: Deck containing (some calculation of card ranks) is invalid. And you need someone to decide card ranks.

4/10 for the effort.
1/10 for the grammar.

So you enable more fine-grained banning , but you need additional complexity and the system does not balance itself, you need someone to keep the balance.

Complex in paper, extremely simple and intuitive in practice: You fill your deck until you can't fill it any longer.

Does it accomplish something different?
It balances decks without banning cards - directly or indirectly. No combos are forbidden, only limited.
It makes many more decks capable to compete in high elo.
It doesn't penalize players who spent time, energy, medallions, crystals and/or feez to acquire cards.

Funny enough, the current ban system also requires someone to determine wich cards are banned, when, in wich formats, and for how long.

Unlike my suggestions, because the lack of balance of the game hasn't and isn't been addressed, that ban list needs constant upkeep.

The only negative side to my suggestions, is the need to retroactively change cards, wich is understandably time consuming.
However, it's impossible to balance the game without heavy changes.

In terms of how hard it would be to implement my suggestions, the hardest would be Ranked, and the easiest would be Elite.

They would be easier to implement than you might think, since, even for Ranks, you would give all cards Rank 2, and then give exceptionally bad cards Rank 1, and exceptionally good cards Rank 3.
Minor tweaks would occur for a while, but eventually it would settle down at a very balanced level - permanently.

I think any real solution would need more radical change such as (just an example, likely not working): for each deck calculate similarity to recent successful decks. If all characters in the battle are dead, the winner of the game is the one with more innovative deck.

That would do nothing to address the current lack of balance, where certain cards and combos are vastly superior, while also penalizing those that acquire those cards because they're not being creative.

[Xabelius]

Yes, I cannot follow you.

Banning cards hurts their owners - agreed.
Even the most powerful card loses its power without other supportive cards, so we might just to ban certain combinations - great idea.

But the claim that you can filter out overpowered combinations, permanently, by adding one extra parameter, that sounds like magic.

[Nurvus]

But I don't suggest to ban certain combinations.
I only suggest to restrict them.
Imagine certain 2-card combos are too strong, like Multitasking + Port.
Now imagine max Elite in deck is 4, and both Multitasking and Port are Elite.
This means you can have one of the following combos:
3x Multitask + 1x Port
2x Multitask + 2x Port
1x Multitask + 3x Port

This doesn't ban the combo, but makes it less OP.

[McKeu]

I like that idea... reminds me a bit of the table top strategy games:
You have a certain limit of 'points' to spend on your deck and if you want to have your powerful card combo in it, you will be forced to make some decisions. If half your deck worth of points is already made up by 4 or 5 cards you will have to add weak stuff for the rest to make it up to the minimum of 20 cards, etc.

[Nurvus]

Indeed.
And just like in table top games, you can go and say "let's play a battle of X points", there could also be Rooms for diverse ranges of Points.
So Room A for Decks between X and Y Points, Room B for Decks betwee Y+1 and Z Points, etc.

[nervous.one]

I like these ideas, but they are not fixes that will last forever and ever.

For instance, I think the best option you listed is Option #1 ("Rank"). That system sounds a lot like a game Im fairly certain you have played before, one with a name that shall not be printed on these forums, one that begins with "U" and ends with "ivals." While the "Rank" system works pretty good in that game, people are constantly complaining about balance issues, and how the higher "ranked" cards have a disproportionate effect on the game.

That said, if I had a yes/no decision on "Rank" in this game, I would take a "yes." It is just too demoralizing how powerful the legendaries are and how difficult they are to acquuire.

[Nurvus]

It's deceptively distinct.

The only thing I liked from the game you mentioned, was the fact that having a deck with lower rank lets you pick who starts first, to compensate the disadvantage in card power.

However, Ranks (in that game) are essentially a lie.
Within any given rank, there is an insane fluctuation in power - a card there can be 50% better than another of the same rank - that's the opposite of what I suggest.

And the fact you can bluff your opponent seems cool in concept, but in the end it's not skill - just luck.
Guessing you guessing me guessing you, isn't exactly very fun.
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What I suggest for Ranks, is such that cards with similar Rank have similar usefulness, regardless of rarity.

[McKeu]

Basically it could be easily implemented by taking the list value in crystals for a card as measurement. So instead of using 'point' values you agree in crystal values for the decks.
So the listed crystal value (not the current market value, since it changes nearly hourly) determines the 'frame' for a fight, tournament, etc.