The descriptors are kind of in disarray, some characters have a bare 2, some closer to 6. I'll work on tweaking and balancing those later, but first, lets talk about some of the new cards.
Tifa is one of my favorite cards in design. Getting to stand on a whim is just asking for broken combos, but hopefully, the card drawback will keep Tifa's ability on a short leash. You'll get to have fun with potentially broken stuff, but only for a limited time :)
Whoo! My favorite character in FFVIII! Laguna always kind of reminded me of Vash the Stampede. Refreshingly simple, yet extremely dangerous with a little dumb luck thrown in. What other character do you know who does things like toss a grenade into the fray, and follow it on a grappling hook with one hand blind-firing with a machine gun, and yet, can't talk to girls because he gets cramps in his leg when he does?
Anyway, Laguna is going to make heads roll. He can cancel an ability at... the cost of *down*ing all of your characters? Yeah, Laguna and his crew might be clumsy (oops! brought the wrong map!) but they get the job done. Of course the cost might not even be an issue, "all of your characters" might be one character up. And straight up cancelling an ability on a card is huge. Anything with a bolded title is an ability, this means Laguna can cancel anything except for skills, base actions, and summons. Anything!
Hopefully in the game, Kimahri will be true to form. He's designed to be versatile, and he's designed to be your leader's best friend. He lets you use an action your Leader initiates via *down*, and takes the *down* for your leader. This could be their unique ability, moving, attacking, what have you. There's some tricky stuff in there if you think about it. Think about the way this is worded, and think about the way Laguna is worded... SAVE SOME FOR KIMAHRI!
The FFX gang is pretty much all here! Lulu is a card for combo lovers. Players who would rather get some elaborate combo going off than actually win the game. Not to say she doesn't have practical use, she does... but set-up correctly, she may be most dangerous thing your opponent comes against. Get those Gold Hairpins ready!
There are a few other cards up in the margin that you should check out, namely Edward, Bio, Haste, Shiva, and Shuriken. Hopefully you guys get a little more customization with these. Any comments? Requests? Thoughts about the descriptor issue? Let me know, guys.
Wow. That is a solid group of bombs right there (except for perhaps Laguna - I'll have to try him out and see how useful Desperado can be with the high cost).
ReplyDeleteTifa - I'm not going to yell out "broken" yet, but she is definitely a contender for strongest frontliner. Start with a minimalist party for extra upfront card draws, drop some ethers, and Tifa may be wrecking the opposing row unless they take her out fast.
Laguna - True to form (way to nail a character yet agin!), but as I mentioned above, his inconcsistency might be a problem in more serious matches.
Kimahri - FFTCG's version of Shapeshifting/Clone - and Edgar on crack. Works well in any deck to double up your leader, and if you don't have any worthwhile leader abilities, he's got Jump.
Lulu - While not as powerhouse as Vivi, she works similarly. Where Vivi has endurance over the length of the battle, Lulu has raw frontloaded power. She's also less constrained by draws - Vivi will need a mitt full of Black magic to make the most of him, where Lulu can get by with one. And the potential to Blizzaga BOTH of your opponent's rows on a lucky draw on turn one? Yeouch...seafood soup, indeed. Hope your opponent has those dispels ready...
I'm having trouble working out the Laguna-Kimahri interaction. I'm guessing Kimahri could stand in for Laguna, meaning Laguna will still be up when you down everyone else for Desperado?
When Kimahri's ability goes off, he pays the entire cost. That means you would cancel an ability soley by *down*ing Kimahri, and not everyone else.
ReplyDelete...Now that I'm writing that down, it seems a little broken... what do you think? It might not be broken now, but it sure leaves the door open for later.
Summon the Lunar Whale? "LEAVE IT TO KIMAHRI!!"
Thanks for the compliment on Laguna. I was hoping I'd do him justice.
I'm glad you have prior CCG experience, I have no idea what Shapeshifter is :P
(I'm going to assume it's MTG.)
Also, I can't wait to finally playtest this with you. We need to set up a date to do it.
Shapeshifters/Clones in magic are creatures that copy others, either in part or entirely. They essentially use another creature in play, graveyard, etc as their base. Kimahri isn't this precisely, but it essentially turns him into a copy of any other character using a down ability.
ReplyDeleteI noticed last night as I was printing a play set that I may have misread Lulu. On first reading I thought she allowed you to simply double-up any single black card.
My most recent interpretation (and I wager the correct on) is that you're required to have a second copy of whatever black spell she just cast to play it again for no cost. Which makes it a blowout ability when the cards land right, but not the incredibly broken form I originally thought of.
In light of this, Vivi has the advantage in power (where I was arguing the inverse above).
On the subject of Lulu, how does she work with additional costs? Does she cover extra discards, can you still pay them, or does she only allow the base effect?
On the testing front, have you looked into online card game or tabletop engines like OCTGN or the sort?
Yeah! I actually started converting the last iteration of the game into Lackey. I'm not too familiar with OCTGN, would you recommend it?
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right about the way Lulu works. You just get to play the spell from your hand until the cows come home.
You are also allowed to power-up cards played with Lulu. Since she just lets you re-play the same card, their power levels are handled individually.
Lackey would do the job, as would any number of programs.
ReplyDeleteOCTGN's flashier with a few more customizations, and has seen more movement on the development front in recent times, but is a little more setup (XML vs text files).