A Balanced Discussion of Balance (Errata Text, The Seven Deadly TCG Sins)

[@NerdySatyr]

That Draw 2 example was absolutely fantastic haha

[@Welank]

I think there are some general things to look out for when balancing cards. Repeatable effects, cost lowering effects, cards that cheat the resource system, and cards that are not easily interacted with can tend to be under valued/overlooked and create broken cards.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Like the video said, this can only go so far. Cost and cheating the resource system don't mean anything in Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! where balance is more about synergy and once-per-turn actions. Repeatable effects is the bread and butter of Pokémon (attacks). Cards that can't be interacted with is pretty fair, though. I would say Digimon made the mistake of having very little Tamer removal by the time they were the stars of a set and are just now trying to adapt to it.

[@clayxros576]

@@fernandobanda5734 In fairness, most of the early Tamers were pretty worthless. Only a few really were worth the Memory, and the ones that were flat out gave you more memory.

[@fernandobanda5734]

@@clayxros576 Sure, but in BT7 Tamers matter for their mere existence much more than for their effects. Specifically for being potential attackers that can't be interacted with. Answers to those, even if they weren't very good, would have saved a lot of frustration.

[@clayxros576]

@@fernandobanda5734 True. They went from near worthless to a 2 cost Qliphort Towers, which is quite the shift.

[@zachall1573]

When you brought up the draw 2 cards and how, in each game they have such varying value and power reminded me of a thought i'd had. It seems to be that in every TCG, in the very first expansion/set, half the cards are utterly underpowered or otherwise useless, and the other half are the most broken effects in the game. In fact it seems to be even more specific where the spells are overpowered but the minions/monsters/creatures are terrible. MTG had bunch of understatted creatures and then the power nine. Yu-Gi-Oh had a bunch of terrible normal monsters with no effects and then stuff like Pot of Greed , Dark Hole and Raigeki. Hearthstone had a crap ton of useless minions and class spells so good they're still staple cards to this very day reguardless of Power Creep. I think it's like Kohdok said, until your game is out there it's hard to really know how valuable any given effect is. Until you have thousands of players all trying to compete for money or prestige, you don't know how powerful stiff really is. Sometimes designers think an effect is more powerful than it actually is (see Taunt in the Classic Set of Hearthstone), or they don't think an effect is as powerful as it really is (see Time Walk from Magic the Gathering)

[@fernandobanda5734]

Some of the Power Nine were identified or designed as very powerful cards, though. The idea was that it didn't matter because most people wouldn't even ever see them or own more than one copy. Of course a lot of things were still too pushed unintentionally. Just saying that they weren't *that* clueless about Ancestral Recall or Time Walk.

[@clayxros576]

I can't speak for other designers, but as I've worked on my card game I've noticed a huge difference between versions, and between power levels of creatures and spells. Version 1 was the roughest by far (2 years ago). Creatures were either too weak or too hard to use with the limitations, and spells were just stupid strong or worthless. This was at a time I knew the vibe of the game and baseline mechanics, but not how I wanted things designed. Version 2 was still rough but more streamlined. Creatures got a huge power boost and spells were taken down a peg, but some were notably OP. At this point I knew I was designing Creatures to either take control of the board or gather more Creatures, but spells I still wasn't sure. St this point I figured out to give each card a baseline amount of Stats based on cost, with the effects subtracting from that. Creatures were weaker than spells, but that's fine since spells are 1 use anyway. But the actual application of stats was....rough. Version 3 I'm now very confident with design and creation. Creatures benefit most from their cost, spells focus on either reinforcing Creatures or creating more of them. Sometimes they'll more directly impact the board, but that takes card advantage to do. The first set of card games almost feel like they either stopped at Version 1, where I was, and settled into either Version 2 later or never get a chance to. I think the only game that felt right in the start was Chaotic

[@LibertyMonk]

​@@fernandobanda5734this, but also, most of the power nine actually aren't *that* overwhelming in a low power environment like the first year or two of the game. A single Moxen is actually basically just a land, or a Black Lotus just means you get your Shivan Dragon out on turn 3... Which is actually entirely terrifying to be fair, but Terror and Blue Elemental Blast still kill the thing.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

2:18 In Magic, the bonus draw is called a "cantrip" effect which happens as the spell resolves, named after a similar mechanic in D&D, itself named after small little charm-like spells in pagan witchcraft. "Cycling" is a separate mechanic where you can pay mana to discard the card entirely to draw another card.

[@16kauffmanh]

Thank you, I couldn't have said it better!

[@nothingatall544]

I think as a followup to this video, a video talking about how important "balance" really is would be cool - How much does "Balance" matter to casual players? - How much does it matter to competitive players? - How many strategies need to be viable for competitive players? - How do various corse corrections (banning, restricting, ...) impact different player types?

[@greedtheron8362]

I like this idea, this video just felt like saying balance is unique to each game, which needs to be said but makes a short video. Not even each game, but each format to, or at least with mtg with different formats. What is powerful in standard might not even see play in modern. I've had the most fun playing a cube balanced around playing nothing but 4+ mana junk rares. "various course corrections" Also need to look at erratas and rules changes, Master Rule 4 and how the Legends rule has changed over time comes to mind the most.

[@heinokunzelmann8967]

I think these are fairly self-explanatory questions, no?

[@gmradio2436]

@@heinokunzelmann8967 Not really. As this topic is complicated in specific games, a general discussion becomes harder.Yu-Gi-Oh! vs. Magic: The Gathering just on counter play could take pages of text.

[@duelme1234]

@@heinokunzelmann8967 you'd be surprised. For example, some top level yugioh (tcg) players actually LIKE tier 0 formats as long as it's technical/skillful for the fact that you are actually able to check everything with your side deck (most case just that 1 deck with some options to cover rogue/anti-meta), it gives the player complete control over their victory/loses, and it rewards you for digging into the vast card pool to some very obscure tech/spice that would only work in this very centralized format. How everyone else would reactive...you probably know already.

[@gamerbear84]

Cards with an effect that additionally replace themselves with a "draw a card" are not called "cycle cards", cycling is a thing of its own that usually produces no further effect on its own other than drawing a card, they're instead commonly called "cantrips".

[@cephery8482]

Also (only in yugioh but just to add variety here) drawing 1 with the rest of the effect not touching your card advantage is called an ‘upstart’. Seen as even stronger than magic because in a game where consistency is king you basically get to play with 1 fewer card in your deck

[@revimfadli4666]

Perhaps some deckbuilding fans spilled over here?

[@ivandekad7249]

1:55 99% of people: “Ok” Average Yugioh player: “W u t?”

[@williamsimkulet7832]

Re: Draw 2: MTG: I think you overlook at Ancestral Recall (Draw 3 for U) and Expressive Iteration (Effectively Draw 2 for RU) are both highly played and powerful cards in their respective formats. Pokemon: Before the "one supporter per turn" limited, Bill was a insane in Pokemon. You'd run as many as you could. They key here is how much of the game's resources do they cost. Mana, [once per turn slot], or nothing in the case of Pot of Greed.

[@gamerbear84]

Basically every early competitive Pokemon deck ran full playsets of Bill and Professor Oak, as I recall. lol

[@Glowmus]

I think you're missing his point a little bit. He's talking about how a good a balanced version of the effect is in the games as they currently exist. I haven't played Pokemon in years so I won't weigh in on it, but I know both the examples you list for Magic are costed well below the standard draw two rate. Ancestral is banned in everything except vintage and is indisputably one of the best Magic cards ever printed, and Expressive Iteration is more than just blindly drawing two, since you actually get to look at three and determine how they get allocated (and is banned in several formats).

[@amatheuslc]

@@Glowmus Actually, Expressive Iteration is only really banned in two, Pioneer and Explorer, but the latter is just the online version of the former, with the caveat that it doesn't have all the same sets in the game and one card (Tibalt's Trickery) being banned due to the daily win rewards making unfun and inconsistent turn-one-or-bust decks plague the game. It's still a fantastic card in other formats. I also think it's worth mentioning that, in Magic, a card costing two mana of different colours can generally have a better effect than even a card costing three mana but with only one of a specific colour. The "Mythos of" cards from Ikoria especially illustrate this.

[@RotatingMagnetGuy]

I think the point he was illustrating that the same effect could be very different between games. With Yugioh having all spells cast for free unless said otherwise draw two is very good. In MTG, one mana draw 2 would be insane, but it has the additional balancing effect of mana cost so at three mana it isn't op

[@bestaround3323]

@@RotatingMagnetGuy And of course if it were zero mana draw 2 it would be insane.

[@Spirit_of_Yubel]

Adding on the Yu-Gi-Oh's point... There's another reason why the basic "Draw X Card(s)" effect sees a lot of drawbacks post-Pot of Greed. A small, niche archetype that few people know by the name of "Exodia, The Forbidden One". Likewise, it's because of Exodia that any cards with what amounts to "Free Draw" power will have some restriction to ensure Exodia Draw Engine decks never rise to prominence. Either by forcing it to have an Archetype restriction (Fortune's Future is restricted to Fortune Lady decks, and requires a banished Fortune Lady monster), or milling/banishing the top card(s) of your deck or Discarding from the Hand to the grave as part of the activation cost (If it's an Exodia deck, then having any pieces in the grave or exiled basically shuts down the deck) to make it impractical to run in a typical Exodia deck. That's like...The biggest reason why Pot of Greed is forever regulated to the Banlist.

[@ich3730]

the reason its banned is because it would be auto-include in every deck. Playing with a 38 card deck is the problem, not exodia

[@Spirit_of_Yubel]

@@ich3730 That's another strong reason, yes. But then apply that same exact reason to an Exodia deck: 38 Card deck, with 33 of them also feeding into looking for Exodia and the limbs. Remember: Exodia's Win Condition is only "Have all 5 Pieces in your Hand". Pretty easy to do when you can draw your deck. A game isn't very interesting when the only meta deck is "Playing Solitaire with an Audience"

[@bruhbruh4329]

@@Spirit_of_Yubel Every single exodia deck ever is just based around repeatable draw power loops, pot of greed would be essentially redundant

[@Spirit_of_Yubel]

@@bruhbruh4329 But you get to draw 2 cards. That's it. No cost. No Lifepoints. No drawbacks. No set up. You draw 2 cards from the deck. That's still a useful effect. 4 dead cards but you have 1 Pot of Greed? 2 new cards and now you can do something. Looking for the last piece of Exodia and you just draw Pot of Greed? 2 quick cards, and one was the last piece of Exodia. Saved the Pot of Greed and now running low on other cards to play? Pot of Greed for 2 new cards, and can now get a new string going. Redundant or not, Pot of Greed has a lot of function and utility that Exodia decks thrive on. Likewise, a lot of modern Exodia decks are basically working with what they have, with Draw cards that usually have some prerequisite (Golden Bamboo Sword requires a Broken Bamboo Sword on the field), or even risk (Cup of Ace, bad flip means Opponent draws 2 cards) or setup (Royal Magical Library needs 3 Spell Counters on it) just to get the pieces. I recall Chicken Race basically got Banned almost immediately after being introduced, even *With* its 1000 LP price because Exodia decks started overtaking the game again.

[@DimensionPlant]

There's a lot to talk about in terms of common pitfalls to avoid. For instance circumventing a fundamental system of a game resulting in a pushed card or high power environment (phyrexian mana ignoring color restriction, free spells in mtg or how everything ignores the original of only one normal summon in yugioh.) I wished you had atleast mentioned it.

[@bignerd7683]

Normal summons are not circumvented. Special summoning was an intended mechanic. It is very disingenuous to say yugioh has dropped normal summoning or that the design philosophy is somehow a wrong choice because the game evolved into monsters that special summon a lot.

[@DimensionPlant]

@@bignerd7683 Not what I intended to say nor is it what I said. What I did say is that entirely circumventing the basic rules of a game leads to either busted cards or high power environments. (paraphrased a bit.) To elaborate: Do I believe it is a pitfall? Yes, but in the way that designers need to be aware of it to intentionally design their game that way or prevent their game from becoming such. iirc, this is like 3 months ago, it wasn't meant to be a harsch critic of yugioh, but too voice the lament that such design decisions weren't discussed. In any case I wasn't implying anything about yugioh, sorry if it seemed that way. I don't write often and when I do, I do without considering any form of subtext. EDIT : phyrexian mana was also intentional, but it still circumvents the resource system. Same with normal summon being a limit that is ignored using card effects. Intention is no indicator if something bypasses basic systems in a game or not.

[@Cassapphic]

A good way in a game to see how powerful "draw 2" can be is often tied to the other mechanics, can aggro decks combo off well enough with an average starting hadn that they'd rather not waste tempo on the card advantage, or do they need some draw to give them the final push? Do control decks have enough other ways of gaining advantage?

[@Rumu11]

I want to mention “counterplay” (I believe kohdok talked about it but can’t find the video). If a strategy has no good ways or options for interacting with that strategy, if it turns out to be too strong, it can be very hard for the meta of a game to adapt to it. It can also end up creating very polarising matchups between different decks.

[@warpvector]

Disney Villains video

[@revimfadli4666]

Also the minisode collection video?

[@zyro7756]

Somethings I’ve just accepted when it comes to card games is that you inevitably create something that breaks balance, intentional or not it’s more so a matter of how often you do it ( Yugioh ) Bloody Bombazar in Duel Masters, Original Alice in Shadowverse, Firewall Dragon in Yugioh ect

[@Luna_Everywhere]

im gonna plug the book Characteristics of Games by Richard Garfield, a really thorough textbook exactly about specific mechanics of games and game design. I own a copy and its absolutely wonderful if a dense read.

[@demonicbunny3po]

I would say a good piece of advice for balance is to check if multiple deck types/archetypes each have an even chance of winning a tournament style setting. To take an example, in Yugioh there was a format called dragon rulers, named for the archetype that was winning all the tournaments. This was an unpopular format because there was one deck everyone was playing competitively. The game was unbalanced because no other deck could really shine at the time and massive changes had to be made, including banning a ton of the Dragon Ruler cards. To this day, there is concern that if they are fully unbanned without errata they would once again become the top meta deck. This time hurt Yugioh, but eventually the game was able to recover. If one playstyle or deck is viable, the game is not balanced and needs to be corrected. If the game has two to about five meta decks that play differently and several rogue level ones that have favorable matchups against the at least some of the meta, then the game is balanced.

[@TravisPilgrim]

Kohdok flexing with that Mega Man Star Force Pegasus and Battle Network PET, a true man of culture.

[@PlasticSiding]

Good video, thanks for addressing a common request despite there not being much to actually talk about. Have you looked into a discussion of action points like in netrunner and how limiting the amount of actions a player can make per turn affects game design? Thought it might be interesting as a topic.

[@Ixidora]

This is going to be interesting!! Psyched to watch!!

[@fernandobanda5734]

How to balance your game: Who knows? Hire pros and they'll tell you.

[@grantflippin7808]

"Draw two cards" Ohh this is gonna be good

[@Slappydoo]

We need more Kohdok! More videos! More videos!

[@alantliang]

Hey Kohdok! I really enjoy watching your content. I was wondering if you would consider making a tier list video of all the tcg games you've played based on fun. Thanks!

[@Bakutalk]

I still can't remember what Pot of Greed does

[@MrZer093]

Another thing I’m surprised hasn’t been discussed is well, don’t bother trying too hard to balance your game. The work to perfectly balance your game tends to go up exponentially as you get closer to doing so as you would then have to go into tiny little details that don’t matter too much. A game should be fun before it is balanced as balance is supposed to be in service to fun after all. It can also provide an amazing gameplay experience. Say for example, deck A is the best in the format, hardly broken but definitely the best. It feels good to beat it over just whatever deck is only kinda good right? And you can always just ban cards. It isn’t a big deal to eventually do so. Just don’t do it too often or you’ll tick off your player base. If your players are mostly happy with a ban then good. Every game has to ban cards eventually anyways so don’t get too hung up on it. Just as long as one singular deck isn’t far and away the best one, you did good

[@TapDat52K]

Most card games are never truly balanced. But I think many people consider a game to have good balance if it has replay ability for members outside the core fanbase. Good vid as always Kohdok, and sauce on the art at the end of the vid?

[@fernandobanda5734]

It does help that card games put out new comment enough so that people don't even get to maximize each environment.

[@Slimstudio]

oh, oh! My game is on the table. Thanks for showing scattered nexus up there.

[@tipulsar85]

[The following was written about half way through the vid.] Balance is more of a "as you playtest" and "second set plus/first reprint set" as far as I can tell on a gameby game . And that is not only as a long time brewer of eternal formats for Magic, but also as someone who played L5R, keeps up with the shakedown time for FaB, and tried many other games that crept up the power ladder.

[@kingvire]

Yeah balance is so hard like make a card too good and it will get banned cause no one plays anything else make a card too week and it just gets forgotten. Also balancing support for different card types and archetypes is a biggie. i think rotation in magic and Pokémon let them keep and redo power levels as the game goes on without harming more eternal or extended formats. I think you did well on elaborating that balance and power creep is based on the game itself.

[@guftders]

I think the point you missed when discussing those 3 cards with "draw 2 cards" are the costs and restrictions to using them. With Bill, its pathetic because you can only use one Supporter per turn. With Divination, it costs 3 mana at sorcery speed, so its incredibly medium. There's other cards that draw more or just cost less. Pot of Greed on the other hand has no cost, no drawback. Nothing. Not even a restriction on what decks can run it. The equivalent in magic is if they printed a colourless 0 mana Sorcery with "Draw Two Cards". It would instantly see play everywhere or be banned. Cards are balanced by: their cost to use (mana, discarding etc), the restrictions on which decks can/can't run them (eg colours of mana, clan/archetype specific), how many copies you can use per turn etc, how "fast" they are (ie can they be used as a response?) And in draft/limited formats, their rarity. I'm real surprised you didn't cover any of this...

[@Petrico94]

I've heard the best games have subtle exploits that make the game interesting and give an avenue to win, something is going to be overpowered so long as it doesn't break the game or narrow out other high rank strategies or B tier counters. You also want the game to have a fair pace where both players are working towards winning, this can be subjective as what Yugioh describes as a fair paced game is different from MtG or other games that take things slower or don't rely on pulling the right removal. You really just have to design your own game and test it on 1000 people to see what's working and what's too slow or doesn't actually have counters to keep it manageable. Draw 2 cards is common in tcg, Yugioh proves how it can be broken or subvert what drawing even 1 card entails, MtG sets the fair base price at 3 which is why no one ever plays that they look for conditional 2 mana pulls or 3 mana in a style red can use or draw 7 cards but at the end of this turn return a creature and discard your hand (of course because you're also playing black that's just another hand at this point). Again players expect something above curve to gather around, just be careful not to get too far above curve or powercreep your average to where your 'base line' is just draft trash in a set you don't want blue drawing this time.

[@kleedrac]

This video is a great starting point for a discussion on balance. I do feel you can discuss parts of balance without making the advice too specific to a given game. The discussion would more take on the form of examining the meta-game and looking at balance from that perspective. If a card is seeing ubiquitous play in your meta-game (copies in 60%+ of all decks) then this card is obviously suspect and should be examined. If a particular deck is becoming the "winning-est deck" in the meta-game you should examine it to see if there's just a bit too much synergy or perhaps not enough answers to its strategy. Note that this discussion will (mostly) be framed with the competitive meta-game as that's where it's easiest to draw data from but there is value in considering these concepts for casual meta-games as well. These talking points would still be useful in a look at Magic's EDH format for example, it just makes data gathering more difficult.

[@DuelingShade]

I think a good thing to keep in mind is that simple doesn't mean weak. It's often the simplest effects that are the most powerful, and can forever alter the way the game is played by warping play around it. Take the perpetual "dies to doom blade" argument. Removal is often so cheap and easy in MtG that creatures need significant, often instant added benefits when being played to be worthwhile.

[@brockmckelvey7327]

5:25 good pun 👍

[@duelme1234]

procrastinated for 3 days so....here I go While I understand that game balance can be a giant rabbit hole involving many many different factors, I would personally love to see a series that looks at each factor (be it resource, deck building restrictions, battle/attacking system, etc...) and dive into what restrictions/dynamics having x system will affect how you can construct the rest of your game (sorry for the blatant bias, i'm very much a pvp game design guy :) ). I just find it cool that games from wildly different genres can have the same balancing philosophies (like "Broken checks broken", marvel vs capcom and yugioh)) and I think examining the different factors and balancing philosophies that would be very informative (granted it will take a long time and touch way too many concepts so I get it if it doesn't happen). While I haven't made any games myself (so grain of salt), I very much believe that to understand balance you need look at multiple different games, understand the dynamics/purpose/problems of the system at a "decent depth", than compare back to what you want to make, and analyze what the differences are and how the impact the game WHEN ABUSED. Also I like having a vision at the beginning for stuff like pacing and how much each aspect will be focused in your game (what should be the ceiling of the tactical mastery? strategic foresight? etc) and have all your mechanics support that vision. I know my method is probably impractical for creating new stuff than it is for refining said stuff, so apologies and please correct anything above if i'm wrong.

[@sergeantconagher]

It is arguably more important to make sure that every strategy is equally viable, rather than making every card viable; the latter of which is basically impossible. There should be, ideally, smaller strategies that may not be as powerful but are not as hard to cast, with mechanics that are harder to pull off but have insane rewards when you pull them off i.e. more powerful moves require more resources, either cards, hp or something else. The reason why magic the gathering and Pokemon's implementations of draw 2 are not as broken as pot of greed is simply down to the cost. In magic, you need to use resources that you need to acquire over multiple turns. In pokemon, you can only play one supporter card per turn, so that supporter card better be really good to consider playing it. Back in the olden days when drawing two cards in Pokemon was extremely easy, it was very broken. It let you dig through your deck while not really losing anything other than the card you just played. Pot of Greed is in a similar scenario; there is no downside to playing Pot of Greed. All you do is draw two cards; there's no restrictions on cards you can play, there's no resource you needed to deplete, it's just a free two cards in your hand. I will admit, the subject of balance is very subjective from game to game, and depending on how the designer wants to specifically balance their game. Ideally, a multitude of strategies are all equally as viable as each other. There may still be one strategy that is the best, but you can play around with it. With tcg's especially, much like how with the big three do it, add support to types that are normally not that good. Make sure everybody is on an equal playing field; if you want to play a fire type deck you should be allowed to play a fire type deck you know? The instant that one play style is far and above the best way to play, and the only way to counter it is with the same strategy, that is when you need to balance your other play styles accordingly.

[@revimfadli4666]

The nice thing about balance being a case-by-case basis is that each game's balance analysis can be a whole video's worth of material. Potentially becoming a series perhaps ;)

[@rolvirata9003]

Coo video. PS. How are you finding Kill Team?

[@vladspellbinder]

2:20 CANTRIPS, they are know as CANTRIPS. Cycling is an actual named mechanic in the game. Thanks for the video Kohdok.

[@drearydoll6305]

Funny how this apply a lot to rush duel. In most games, hand destruction is considered like one of the most toxic playstyle ever as it leaves people with absolutely no way to play. Meanwhile in rush duel "I draw until I have 5 cards in hand at the begin of my turn because its part of the rules and its better to just vomit my hand on field because that s how i can gain the most card advantage"

[@chainfire9001]

I'd love to see a review of the Weiss Schwarz TCG

[@leohunchu6497]

Buen video chabon desde argentina

[@DJDadJoke]

Ooh! A Kill Team starter set in the background? I'd be interested in your thoughts of that game.

[@ProjSHiNKiROU]

For balance in general: Some games place guardrails to their effects to limit their peak power output in case a new card released making an existing card overpowered. YGO has “you can only summon X after this” and hard once per turns. For matchup favourability, there’s a linear programming problem I encountered in 3rd year comp sci that describes how meta shifts to equalize win rates for any deck.

[@sebreezethelegion8793]

I can't say i fully agree with you on a board with cards moving like chess pieces is a deadly sin. I think the main issue i see is boards being too big, and if you want it to be a tcg, focus heavily on the cards aspect. Most of the cards should interact more with other cards and resources than the board itself. A 5x5 board like 2 yugioh mats pushed together should suffice for size and make it accessible. But i do see your point on the grid causing people to NEED a mat/board to play.

[@pillowtalk7460]

What is everyone’s thoughts in card games being pay to win? Or rather do card games even have pay to win?

[@thomasbriggs6667]

it's not really analogous. Card games are a collectible/"luxury hobby," and part of that just means that the best decklists will usually have more expensive cards. Pay to win is more applicable to video games that have totally free players (which don't really exists in TCGs) and then "premium players" as different classes of players entirely

[@ich3730]

@@thomasbriggs6667 There is no way to "earn" a playset of murktides or force of will through gameplay, you literally HAVE TO buy them with money if you want to play delver. Thats the very definition of pay to win.

[@thomasbriggs6667]

@@ich3730 so two people that pay for both of those sets of cards are both paying to win then? how does that make any sense? and can one person keep paying "more" after they get the decklist to get additional advantages over someone else? seems like they "aren't paying to win" lmao

[@jdniemand]

"And now I play the sorcery card Divination! This allows me to draw two MORE cards for my hand!" "Uh... OK? I guess if you wanna spend three mana on that, go ahead, Yugi..."

[@nicodemvs3015]

Your videos are awesome man keep up the great work. An idea I'd love to hear from you would be card types or too many card types in a card game. I mean simple is always better how many is 2 many when does it become too convoluted I'd love to hear your opinion.

[@selenaphobia]

i'd love to see kohdok giving his thoughts on NISEI Netrunner sometime

[@jaceg810]

og mtg card draw was 3 cards for 1 mana, it is banned everywhere, and among the most powerful members of the power 9

[@fybso3057]

I'm keeping track of how many "Stat points" every card should have according to thier cost and how much stats every kind of ability costs

[@fernandobanda5734]

This is a very good way to set a base but remember some of these too: -Some effects are more than the sum of their parts. -Some effects are, similarly, not synergistic or even contradictory in a way that it is better to think of them as a split card. -Versatility (choose one of these two effects) is much more valuable than it appears -Some effects are better in different moments of the game -Some cards will inevitably end up at least relatively weak because of their design and you shouldn't push them to try to have them be good -Some effects aren't that good but pushing its power might cause it to be a noobstomper

[@fybso3057]

@@fernandobanda5734 thank you so much for all the advice! You can try it out of your interested, i have it in tabeltop

[@39Lords]

The Balancing Act joke was pretty good.

[@dawafflesupreme]

Really liked the ideo of this vid.

[@pumkinswift8263]

I really dislike your discussion of the "draw 2 cards" effect. You didn't explain anywhere near enough about these cards any the context surrounding them. All 3 games have different resource systems and the cards interact with those resources systems in different ways. The reason why the effect is at different power levels in different games is because the effects t isn't the same at all. A 0 mana draw 2 in Magic or a draw 2 on a generic item in Pokemon would be just as good as in yu gi oh. There are some concrete statement sources can make about card games, and card advantage is one of them, unless your deck has a wildly different card desig than literally evert other tcg I know of

[@Kohdok]

Bill is awful once per turn, Pot of Greed is broken once per GAME.

[@pumkinswift8263]

@@Kohdok Right, but that's a function of the things I was talking about. Draw 2 for no cost is always good, and I'm unaware of any card game where it wouldn't be too good. Draw is even good in slay the spirit, qnd youbdraw a whole new hand every turn in that game. Saying that you can't make some general principles about card balance because of the complexities just robs us of an interesting discussion. The reason why generic Draw is always good, and how it can be balanced is something that we can tall about with, I feel, a reasonable amount of confidence.

[@ich3730]

@@Kohdok OP literally just explained that WITHOUT the once per turn...

[@niceguy66alain]

I would have to say power scaling is the best way of balancing a game; table top and digital. where you start with a standard card then add and subtract from it for variation.

[@VieneLea]

When I started out trying to become gamedev I felt like balance is the most important thing to focus on and get right. But the more I'm into this the more I'm thinking balance should just be an afterthought, done mostly by tweaking numbers. The most important thing is that the players can do cool and interesting plays in your game. If they're not having fun doing that then they won't be playing your game, no matter how perfectly balanced it is. The only problem with the lack of balance is that there are circumstances where it stops players from having fun, but even then those are pretty easy to avoid for most players.

[@McCrispyBread]

Can you pls make videos talking about online tcg games like Hearthstone, or some unknown ones like Duelyst? Thx for good content :)

[@petersmythe6462]

Pot of Greed is not broken because it's in Yu-Gi-Oh. It's broken because it's Pot of Greed. The card that rewards you with no cost card advantage. It's not exclusive with other cards like Bill. It doesn't cost resources comparable to a halfway decent creature like Divination. It just rewards you with draw 2 for putting it in your deck, drawing it, and having its effect resolve.

[@Cronos804]

The best approach i have seen is to have very strict rules for your early game where you as the developer go through literally any scenario and at a certain point you just allow players to enter a 'fun zone' where they get to play absurd effects that can end the game easily. Look at high mana cards in magic the gathering vs low cost cards. Blightsteel colossus does not obey any design rules. Shock can literally never be changed because the design rules are so strict.

[@razielhamalakh9813]

4:00 That's not a very good argument. A card that costs 1G is different from a 1R, and I wouldn't say that a 2/2 for 1G is strictly better than a 2/1 for 1R, because those cards are played in different contexts. However, that same set has Gray Ogre (vanilla 2/2 for 2R) and Uthden Troll (2/2 for 2R with R: regenerates). Why would I ever pick a Gray Ogre to put in my deck over Uthden Troll? That's the numerical "strictly better" advantage.

[@Snowmon89]

Dude, you didn't discourage me. Quite the opposite. It's because of your seven deadly sins about Lifedecking, I abandoned a very poorly designed game (a bit more akin to Chaotic (attack cards) mashed together with Vanguard (a main creature surrounded by units)) and made a much better one. This time with Lifedecking as an important mechanic instead of only being a negative. If anything, your video motivated me to make something that I honestly love working on (even though I could never hope to profit from it, I love the challenge of creating "Grave Mistake".) I'm just about ready to order some proxy cards for play testing a pair of decks I designed. I can't wait to send you a link when I'm a tad more confident (also I don't want to share in the comments section.) I may be doing this for the fun of it, but that doesn't mean I want to risk people stealing it.

[@burningandrew1062]

I see the starter set so I gotta ask, how're you liking kill team/warhammer in general? I had been into 40k for about a year before you posted your first video about and I'm thinking about trying kill team since I already have a few game legal teams

[@masterduelzero1795]

As a YGO player, I literally burst out laughing the moment you said draw two cards. There's a card on the ban list and on the limit list that says draw one card, and they cannot be at more than one max. A card that requires you to banish 1/4th of your deck to draw to draw two, and you can only use it once that turn, is so strong, it got limited, semi-limited, and some people want it limited again. The idea that a draw two can be considered weak in other games baffles me, but it's also cool that the same effect can be extremely strong or weak depending on the game

[@EnderPryde]

TBH, you didn't even need to bring MTG or Yugioh into that draw 2 example. *Waaaay* back in the day, in Base Set 1, the Supporter card subtype didn't exist, so Bill was literally Pot of Greed. Basically every deck that wasn't aiming for the mill-out strategy ran 4 ofs. Once the Supporter subtype got stapled onto Bill? Absolutely joke of a card.

[@paultapping9510]

me, about to argue that tokens and stuff don't make it harder to play a game: 😡 me, remembering 1 game of Arkham Horror lcg is a whole evening affair: 🙈

[@KingUnKaged]

Does anybody know what that poster is directly behind him and to the right? The one that looks yellowed and has a bunch of symbols on it? I'm just curious.

[@josephxp96]

Ah Draw 2 in Yu-Gi-Oh! A broken effect unless it’s on a trap card (then its ok). Say what you will about Pot of Greed but at least it has inspired some awesome card art such as other Pot Spell cards and the like.

[@KGKSkull]

The best times to ignore balance are for single player video games. Because that’s when things get funny

[@Lcngopher]

Even magic has problems with balance. Oko is a spectacular example. Only legal in vintage and commander from the formats wotc runs or makes cards with directly in mind

[@dimmusdongus6596]

Really wish I could see more of this attitude toward balance among players. Nearly every day I see an MTG-only player try to apply MTG balance philosophy to other games and it makes me mald

[@duelme1234]

yugioh "player" (I'm pretty bad so I don't really count), but from what I can see this is a problem with most non party pvp games and not just magic (mostly committed game designers and players that only play the most popular game in the genre). To my knowledge (which I can be very wrong with), games like magic and league (sorry for the non tcg example) follow a very "traditional" philosophy of accessibility, easy to understand hard to master, and interactivity in very straightforward ways (please correct me if i'm wrong). While these elements/framework can be good guidelines for certain/most games, the contextualized nature of pvp games dictate that any general answer will be painfully wrong in the right conditions, and the way they fixate on these principles makes it really annoying as we try to explain stuff like "broken checks broken" to them but no bueno. I mean most people would hate touch of deaths in their street fighter but in marvel vs capcom that can be completely fine. tl;dr: just expanded on your statement using useless supports in the most long winded way possible. apologies

[@cydra_infinity1423]

I subbed.

[@mthsdcs]

So THAT is what Pot of Greed does... 🤔

[@SBroproductions]

He's not even exaggerating the power of Draw 2 in Yu Gi Oh. Pot of Desires, one of the many retrains of Pot of Greed, requires you to remove 10 cards from your deck from the game, with a limitation that you can't play Pot of Desires again that turn.

[@petersmythe6462]

Bill argues +1 card advantage is worth your 1 per turn supporter. Divination argues +1 card advantage is worth 3 mana, 1 of which is colored. About the same as a 4/2 creature with no effect. Pot of Greed argues +1 card advantage is worth... Nothing.

[@gmradio2436]

How does someone identify imbalance? How do you respond to it?

[@shawnjavery]

Play testing mostly. You can do things like look at the win rate of certain cards, and for responses I'd say generally you just need to design answers for cards you print.

[@gmradio2436]

@@shawnjavery Well I am asking for a bit more than win rate. If a card is in 70% of all decks and has a 55% win rate, is it imbalanced, or a staple? If a card is a win condition with a native win rate of 30% but a combo allows it to creep up to 55% is the card imbalanced or is another combo peace to blame? At what win rate is a card imbalanced? If Red Cards are weak to Blue, Blue is weak to Yellow, and Yellow Weak to red. If Red had a 55% win rate, does Red need to be brought down, or does Blue need a buff? Is Yellow too weak to Red? Is a card functioning as intended? Is it doing to well? Is something interacting with it? This is the short version of my question. Sorry if it is wordy.

[@ich3730]

@@gmradio2436 Again, playtesting. You are asking some internet rando to give you the fucking balance bible xD

[@gmradio2436]

@@ich3730 Honestly I was asking Kohdok. Other people's insights are a bonus. Playtesting is an answer to trying to catch some balance issues, but it will never match the insanity the players can think up.

[@shawnjavery]

@@gmradio2436 I would say defensive cards/answers tend to see wide spread play while it's unhealthy if a threat has play rates anywhere near that high. I don't think you should really look at a winrate of a card to see if it's unbalanced or not, what's more important is how it feels to play with and against those cards. Card games are never balanced, but the good ones have interesting choices to make.

[@crogat2298]

idk if im just crazy but I dont actually see a video about board gaming

[@windwaker0rules]

If Pokemon had a generic trainer card that said "draw 2 cards" it would be broken

[@wissen5410]

music of part 3 ples around 3:50

[@CaigeWolf1270]

Whats the picture during the end screen?

[@Kohdok]

It's an old end-slate from when I did a bunch of Yokai Watch stuff.

[@bretrubash4847]

kinda funny you have footage of Exodius tcg i have aome cards and promos and stuff from like 3-4 years ago but seems that game never took off it looked too simple in my eyes and boring after a few matches

[@jellewijckmans4836]

It's incredibly easy to talk about balance objectively what is hard is talking about it generically. The only solid generic advice you can give is that if within the game there is a card that to be optimal must be played by all decks that card shouldn't exist.

[@supremacyecg6815]

Balance of the game cannot be created with math. For example, if we have two nations and each has a magic card that gives monster +10 attack, then that magic card lands in the graveyard. But the difference is that the first nation can take cards from graveyard, second nation not. Seemingly both nations have same magic card, but first one is better.

[@mex_I.M]

3:40 some Danganronpa music remix ?

[@Reluxthelegend]

4:25 "Wanna P?"

[@michaelturner2806]

"Magic has a lot of cards known as cycle cards, which have the effect of drawing a replacement card." Magic does have a mechanic called Cycling, where you usually pay mana, discard a card from your hand, and then draw a replacement card. It's a named mechanic. Maybe you're thinking of the mechanic nicknamed a 'cantrip', which is an effect so small that the designers don't think it's worth just a card on its own so they add the rider 'draw a card' which you do as part of resolving that card's effect when you play it. This is just slang and the word 'cantrip' doesn't appear on the card. At 2:20 you mention cycling but instead of showing a card with cycling you show a 'cantrip' card.

[@Kohdok]

"Cantrip" was the name of the one-cost cards with a three-of effect like Bolt and Giant Growth. Everywhere I've gone has called cards that replace themselves with a draw effect have been called "Cycles".

[@greedtheron8362]

@@Kohdok I'm pretty sure that's called the boon cards. I've never heard them called cantrips before. Does any other game refer to their 'effect+draw a card" cards as cycles?

[@ich3730]

@@Kohdok literally just check the wiki xD

[@bruhbruh4329]

@@Kohdok Cycling is the mechanic wherein you discard the cycling card and pay a mana cost to draw one, cantrip is a shorthand term for a card that draws 1 and has another, usually minor, effect. Also a cycle of cards refers to various cards that have some form of connection. The most obvious ones being the gatewatch oaths and artifact lands

[@Always.Smarter]

whats the game at 1:18?

[@Envy_May]

i'm hearing danganronpa music in all kinds of youtube videos these days

[@brandonrodriguez9761]

Hey just wanted to say thanks for this series!! It really has been invaluable for me. I’ve been working on creating a TCG called VanquishersTCG for a while now. And your videos have provided a lot of information that has helped me tremendously! Thanks again and keep up the great work!

[@gravitymonkey9300]

danganronpa's opening theme hidden in the background though……

[@revimfadli4666]

Tbf in a 2-player game, VPs and damage can essentially be the same

[@Kohdok]

Not quite. The thing about Life Points, is they are a resource as much as they are a win condition. Most games that have Life Points have ways to spend those life points to do things like play cards and advance board progress. Victory Points can rarely be used that way.

[@revimfadli4666]

@@Kohdok rarely, but still _can?_ And rare in the realm of TCGs perhaps? In Eurogames it seems much more common(either giving VPs to an opponent, or spending your own VPs as resource/treating money as VP and vice versa). Both "spending your LPs to do stuff" and "giving the opponent VPs so you can do stuff" bring them closer to victory

[@Shenaldrac]

Eeeeeh. Yeah every game is different and not everything applies to everything, sure. But I feel like there's some general rule of thumb stuff that you could have gone over. Yes, anything involving a resource system won't apply to a game without resources, but that's kind of self evident. Meanwhile telling aspiring game designers (and shmucks like me who just enjoy hearing about the stuff) about common issues and pitfalls, with the understanding that they should always look to their own game and its own unique systems and styles first and foremost, would I think be very helpful. I can always choose to disregard advice that I think does not apply to what I'm making, or for which there are extenuating circumstances. But I can't avoid a pitfall I don't even realize is there.

[@codenamexelda]

Did you delete my comment?

[@wibulabu777]

Balancing is utopia, because is very subjetive. I remember riot talk about balance and Tyler say it is bullshit

[@Evereghalo]

You conflate the objective v. subjective dichotomy with the global v. Individualized analysis

[@pyredynasty]

Checkers is balanced. Chess is not. Okay, each player starts the game with the same pieces but those pieces are not equal. That said there's a whole discipline of mathematics dedicated to game balance. Anyone designing a game should look into it or possibly hire a mathematician.

[@ich3730]

As a noob, how is chess not balanced? Same pieces for both players in the same positions. Its literally mirrored no?

[@pyredynasty]

@@ich3730 Because a Queen is more powerful than a pawn. I realize I didn't quite get to the point I was going for but I realized it would take more work than I had time for. I guess I was trying to say the more complex a game is the harder it is to balance. Also maybe perfect balance isn't what is most fun. I still need to think about it more. Just ignore my rantings.

[@ich3730]

@@pyredynasty Yeah i think it comes down to definitions here. A queen being better then a pawn doesnt make the game "unbalanced" since both players have the same amount of pawns and queens at their disposal.

[@LuvzToLol21]

One thing both of you are forgetting is first player advantage in chess. Chess is at its core a balanced game with both players having the exact same set of pieces, and because of that the white player controls the early game from the very first turn and black often has to play defensively against white's actions.

[@pyredynasty]

@@LuvzToLol21 That’s a very good point. I don’t think any game has solved the first turn problem. Maybe that could be an interesting video. But to reiterate: I'm not talking about balance between players I'm talking about balance between pieces. It's about game complexity. I thought aknowledging the fact that both players start with the same pieces would avoid people telling me the same thing I've already said but I guess I was wrong. I expressed myself poorly in my first comment so I apologize.

[@JaimeAGB-pt4xl]

What good is a video about making a game having dinamic and deep deck building with ecision making... when the game is YGO 🤣🤣🤣 ... But yeah, discussin balance in general makes no sense

[@hyperjukencardgameofficial]

Still beating the life decks are bad drum huh? Oh well. I spent time researching the emotions they elicit vs life points in the same engine, testers thought Life Decks were a far more dynamic system that made the game more engaging. Then I spent a long time getting to the exact pacing that kept the damage feeling like it had oomph but didn't feel bad on the receiving end. I coupled this with quality discard pile interaction that varied by colour. I don't think it suits everything, but I do think it does suit the fighting games it's been used in, including Hyper Juken. Truth be told, I did nearly include an alternative format using Life Points due to you, but over time I came to realise doing that ran counter to all the work I did to get Life Decks on point, showed a lack of confidence and truth be told, no one trying it out wanted to bother. As Hyper Juken has developed, we're currently working on Y2 product, I've learned to dislike the term 'balance'. Sometimes effects you consider to be balanced on paper are either unfair or unplayable. A lot of the time a balanced game is a boring game because nothing exciting happens. I prefer to focus on the words 'fair and with a point'. Now this is partially because Hyper Juken is an Action Card Game, not a TCG, I have no need to make dud cards, but I think the idea still applies. How does this make your opponent feel? What can they do about it? Is it worth the effort? Not that everything you make should be easily dealt with and feel ineffective, it's yeah, all a balancing act.

[@BlUsKrEEm]

You keep saying board gaming is bad, but man I got to say some of my favorite games have been card board games. I've spent many good nights playing the Aliens vs Predator game

[@ccggenius]

He isn't saying board games are bad, he's saying games that use cards as board pieces are bad. Moving a flat piece of cardboard around a bunch of other flat pieces of cardboard on top of yet another piece of cardboard is fiddly as heck.

[@LuvzToLol21]

@@ccggenius moving a card around with a bunch of cards stacked underneath it is annoying enough, such as moving a Pokemon with a ton of energies attached to it between your bench and active spot on Pokemon TCG. It becomes even more annoying when you have to move those cards around on a field every turn.

[@KaoruMzk]

There is no such thing as "balance"; that's just (one of many) buzzwords budget players toss around when their old/crappy decks can't compete and they don't want to buy new cards

[@foyoGames]

Nothing wrong with Life Decking, great video otherwise