Aloyzo's Arsenal #15: You make the card! Part 4: Card Effect!

I wonder if we could get a Utility/Boost card. Seems hard to imagine without any current examples, but it doesn't seem impossible to have a Utility card that also has a beneficial reaction while in the player's hand.

 

Dodge, Soldier! =p

 

Aloyzo happily accepts your challenge. But first, let's vote on target quality

Poll 2 closes in about an hour, then I'll open Poll 3.

 

Fog of Warrior
At the start of each round your square and all adjacent squares become Smoke Terrain. Keep.
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[5+] Armor 1 Magic

EDIT: That's Utility/Armor, obviously. I need to search to card database to see if we have any hybrid utility cards at all yet.

 

Thanks everyone for voting! Boost & Utility won, so in the final poll the options will be one or both of those types.

In the meantime, you have 3 days to democratically decide how strong a card Aloyzo will make! Remember, the better the card, the worse its itemization!

 

Notable concepts for referencing quality tiers:

Paper: Savage Curse, Maze
Bronze: Telekinesis, Hover, Altruism
Silver: Quick Reactions, Arrogant Armor
Gold: Jump, Soldier!, Reflexive Teleport
Emerald: Negative Energy Being, Accelerate Time
Amethyst: Uncanny Dodge, Festering Guts

My Run-down of the tiers:

Paper cards can be creative, but offer low potency, low control, low versatility, or notable downsides in exchange for such.
Very accessible, but very low appeal.

Bronze cards are where you start getting decent control and baseline power, with minimal downsides. Versatility still tends to be a bit low. Still very easily slottable, but can still be quite functional.
Very accessible , but still low on appeal.

Silver cards are where potency firms up, and you tend to stop seeing downsides at all. Power is just above average, and cards tend to be firmly versatile or potent in specific circumstances. These can easily be slotted at low token costs, while still holding good utility for higher level items.
Great balance between accessibility and appeal.

Gold cards are firmly potent, conditionally powerful, or very versatile. They tend to have no downsides, and tend to have a good balance between potency and versatility. They're still quite slottable at lower token costs, but expect to see them mostly focused on higher level items.
Strong appeal, but a bit low on accessibility.

Emerald cards are where potency becomes notable, and cards tend to be extremely versatile, extremely potent in niche circumstances, or very strong all-arounds. The only real downsides of emerald cards tends to be their cost and intended level range emphasis, which makes them quite prohibitive to slot at low token costs. Expect to only see a few high level items with this card if this quality gets selected.
Very strong appeal, but low accessibility.

Amethyst cards are overwhelming potency niche cards, very high potency all arounds, or game-changing versatility. These cards tend to spit on downsides, or in the case of Festering Guts, have ones that are easy to build around. However, Amethyst cards are pretty much verbotten to players, so expect to see very few of these on items, and likely all of the items at max token cost (and even then, likely only alongside low-appeal cards).
Extreme appeal, nearly no accessibility.

In summary:
Personally, I find Silver and Gold to be the most functional options, followed by bronze, followed by paper and emerald, followed by amethyst, if our aim is to boost the appeal of helmets as an item class.
Silver or Gold will allow for a good range of emphasis for the card between the token tiers, allowing the cards to be lightly slotted on low level items (likely alongside some handicaps, for Gold), and more firmly slotted on higher level ones.

If your aim is to boost the breadth of helmet options, Bronze or Paper are good calls- they won't change helmet appeal or game concepts any, but will offer helmets a consistent increase in their variety of flavor.

If you want to add in high-cost, high-potency appeal to helmets, Emerald is an excellent choice. Much like Accelerate Time, this could have game-mechanic-changing outcomes, while still remaining reasonable to slot (albeit only through higher level items).

If you want to see the world burn, Amethyst will give you the rare opportunity to do so. This is a great pick for those who don't care about overall helmet appeal, but prefer to add something uniquely potent (and thus presumably game-meta-changing) to the game. Much like Festering Guts, don't expect to see this on more than one or two items, however.

Spoiler

There's more utility/boost-relevant options I could have put up as examples (Swap might be the most notable of those concepts), but they're all on monster cards and not yet properly balanced to a quality tier.
These given examples seemed the best ones for expressing the creativity possible at each tier, as it might be reflective as to what is possible for utility, boost, and hybrid cards.

 

Examples of Utility cards:
Non-damaging terrain (Smoke Bomb, Wall Of Illusion, Pillar Of Stone)
Moving chars without harming them (Whirlwind Enemies, Telekinesis, Ooze Barge)
Destroying attachments (Purging Burst, Cleansing Ray)
Manipulating time (Everlasting Ground, Accelerate Time)

Currently the only hybrid Utility card in the game is Prestidigitation, though I think Flax said Walpurgis Night will be changed to Utility/Handicap some time in the future.

 

As a wise dwarf used to say, the only thing better than gold, is more gold.

 

The best card we have a hope of seeing multiple copies of is probably the gold quality. Getting multiple copies of a card on an item gives you more focus, and makes whatever this new card will be more interesting.

 

On that note- for the time being, we should continue to assume max level for items as 21. The card is going to be primary to helmets. This means:


Paper: Can be slotted 3x on tokenless (or better) helmets

Bronze: Can be slotted 2x on tokenless helmets, 3x on minor token.

Silver: Can be slotted 1x on tokenless, 2x on minor token, 3x on major token.

Gold: Can be slotted 1x on tokenless (alongside a handicap), 2x on minor (with handicap), or 2x on major token.

Emerald: Can be slotted 1x on tokenless (alongside 2 handicaps), or 2x on major token (with one handicap).

Amethyst: Can be slotted 1x on minor or major token.

 

In a democracy, political parties inevitably form. I would like to found the Moderation in Quality Party. (MQP for short) Our platform involves not making this card Amethyst or emerald, as these are very inaccessible rarities. Currently we are in the primary phase of the election, meaning we'll vote for our personal favorite sub-emerald rarities. On the last day of voting, we will consolidate our votes into the most popular and promising sub-emerald quality card. There are no qualification requirements or background checks necessary to join the party. Please support us with your vote.

 

I support your cause Potato Priest. But we don't really need political parties since we can change our vote based on how the voting is going. That's how they should run political elections too!

 

Yeah, the creation of the party was mainly to remind everyone that they could change their votes to defeat the things that we think are bad. Thank you for your support.

 

I hearby announce the official formation of the Gnome Ruination Efforts Activism Team, dedicated to stopping those evil blighters once and for all.
Make a difference! Make your vote count! Vote for the party that is GREAT!

Spoiler

Complimentary cakes to all who vote on behalf of the party.

 

Does the G.R.E.A.T. have a position on the issue at hand, or just on the slaughtering of gnomes? It seems to me you're more of a special interest group than a party.

Your voter base will, of course, be welcome within the MQP.

 

Poll needs more Aubergine!

(edit: In the meantime, vote for Silver!)

 

@Flaxative can I vote with a + or - for this? How about you add it to the poll allow people to vote for 2 things.

 

Oh, we're most certainly one hell of a party...

Spoiler

Also, we have a strong affirmative position on the following issue...

Spoiler

..which makes it blatantly clear that we're the party to vote for.

Assuming you're talking about upvoting/downvoting multiple things, I've asked for that kind of poll functionality quite a bit in the past- but now that we can freely edit our votes, I can't say there's any real pressing need for it anymore.
Your approach definitely'd be more precise, but we do still get a fair deal of control with the ability to vote swap as things progress.

 

No thanks. I'll + or - the card at the end to make sure itemization is fair.

 

No, I was talking about the card quality which has a + or - along with a letter like "AA" or "D". Actually it comes with 7 series of letters for all the class, race, and a default one (used for QD).