Countering Game mechanics. Opinions

[wonoz]

Well I`ve been thinking about how we almost no cards that counter out or punish player mechanics instead of Plant/Zombie mechanics. We have KIND of seen this on Dragonfruit with the trick denial but I was thinking more basic things than that. 

I would like to know if you think it would be fun if cards like that existed or if you think they would be toxic:

Examples would be;

Players cannot draw more than one card each turn. (or you get something when your opponent draws more than the first)

Players cannot gain life (or you get something when your opponent gains life)

Superpowers cannot be played for free the moment they are aquired.

Hand-size is decreased

Players can only play one card per turn.

aso.

now these effect seem quite powerful in their own right but these usually need quite a lot of deckbuilding and thought put into them if they are applied to both players. Effects that hit both side of the board require both players to adjust their playstyle while only one can adjust their deck which is where the power of this is. Think re-gifting zombie on crack 

[RedPlanitMars]

The reason why there arent many cards that counter playstyles is because it makes the game frustrating. The developers didnt add durian (zombies cannot be played here) because it makes the game pretty boring for both the plant and zombie hero.

[wonoz]

You see just because an example (which doesn´t involve the fact that the effect should be global and focused on player-mechanics) is boring or frustrating it doesn´t mean they all have to be.

Additionally: frustrating for others is most of the time just things peope loose to. take gravestones....gravesstones were annoying and frustrating for the longest time as counterplay was limited to the, back then, arguably weakest plants class. so yeah...frustration comes with lack of counterplay. I am personally more concerned about the rumors about the upcoming invulnerability to tricks

[Azombioso]

I think that EA will eventually develop a way to counter everything.

For example: 

We have gravestone and gravestone counters.

Trick favorable cards (like Paparazzi Zombie) and trick counter cards (Black Eyed Pea).

Bonus attacks and bonus attack deniers.

etc

I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually released an anti-freeze mechanic, for example. (Like Hot Potato in PvZ 2)

Next expansion we are going to see plants and zombies that are untrickable (immune to tricks), so there's that.

I think that the game is based more on a "demand-supply" effect. For example: many people complained about gravestones, they released gravestone related plants.

People complained about bonus attack plants (like Re-Peat moss) and released Bonus Track Buckethead.

People complained about tricks and released Dark Matter Dragonfruit , etc.

If healing or card draw eventually becomes something to complain for, you can be sure that EA will develop a card to counter that.

[wonoz]

To be honest I think card draw is already a problem. It´s almost impossible to actually run out of cards because there are so many good cantrips and draw tricks available.

[BlazinsZ]

I like them, are good ideas for the next legendaries, as long as they are balanced, it seems good to me. For example a weak plant but have the ability ''Hand-size is decreased'' . Something like that

[zdarcon]

hand size decrease = upgrading mill deck :3

counter game mechanic means more codes in-game, lead to more bugs. i like your ideas, but not for now

[wonoz]

Wait...There is a Plant mill deck? 

on top of that...a decreased handsize is something that fits the less-controll-y classes such as kabloom, sneaky, megagrowth or beasty. 

While I must agree that things like that are not on the easier side to balance I think that especially the decreased hand size should be very easy to implement code-wise.

They would just make that plant and/or zombie decrease the "handsize" paramenter and/or the threshold that stops the player from drawing more than "handsize"-cards and reset it to default when the instance of that card is destroyed/deleted. From a code design POV its very likely that this would be very easy to get going

as for things that require the game to count how often a certain thing happend each turn (say you only can play one card each turn).....these counters are probably not in use or don´t exist yet so they might be a little harder to make without creating a bug somewhere. Although we got trick-or-treater already which does a simliar so that would be a good basis for these kind of things.

[zdarcon]

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@wonoz wrote:

Wait...There is a Plant mill deck? 

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no, i give opinion as zombie player :3