Jorlem wrote:
Personally, I find that to be unintuitive and immersion breaking.

Immersion and RPS card systems don't get along very well.

It's just how card counter systems work. You can't make each card counter one other card, as the counter system would then be useless. You need to take both pieces of information into account when choosing a card, just as you would in a CCG.

Jorlem wrote:
he sees an anti-missile card beat a beam boosting card

Meh.

That's a reading comprehension issue easily solvable by reading the card. It says on it, "Counters Offense." NOT "Counters Missiles."

Draco18s wrote:
They performed a weapon disruption. It disrupted your target lock. I fail to see the issue here.

The issue is that 'level' thing I mentioned. He looks at a card, and sees it as an anti-missile card, while you look at the same card, and see a sabotage card. So while you are fine with the sabotage card beating the offense card, he gets confused and annoyed when he sees an anti-missile card beat a beam boosting card, especially if there were no actual missiles being fired.

Shivetya wrote:
It should still not declare him the winner for using a card which has no listed effect. As in, if he is using an anti-missile card and I have ZERO missiles he should never be able to win the card challenge. That is why the system while neat generally comes off amateurish. It has little if no connection to the fights taking place. Against the AI you just have to pray he would use a card that might have an effect on a weapon being used in the combat but it does not do this far too often.



The cards are not intuitive which means they fail

They performed a weapon disruption. It disrupted your target lock. I fail to see the issue here.

Draco18s wrote:
You misunderstand what the "Block:" does.



If he played Weapon Disruption and you played nothing, your missiles (if any) would do 25% less damage.

But you didn't play nothing, you play Target Locked, so your card was blocked (ZERO effect). But what does his card do?



"Why, 15% less missile damage," you say, "Worse for him than when I played nothing."



WRONG. It's 40% less. The "block" value is added to the card's normal effect.*



So for your Target Locked card, which normally does 20% more beam damage, if it BLOCKS a card (which it does not in this scenario) then you get 30% more damage instead of the usual 20%.



Now, the AI choosing that card when you had no missiles is a problem, but currently it just picks a card at random with no consideration given to its own weapon and defense modules, or your own.



*This is particularly important for some cards, where the normal effect is -20% X, and the block effect is +20% X. Essentially the base is a penalty, but if you block the other guy, it's a free ride.

It should still not declare him the winner for using a card which has no listed effect. As in, if he is using an anti-missile card and I have ZERO missiles he should never be able to win the card challenge. That is why the system while neat generally comes off amateurish. It has little if no connection to the fights taking place. Against the AI you just have to pray he would use a card that might have an effect on a weapon being used in the combat but it does not do this far too often.



The cards are not intuitive which means they fail

Do we have confirmation that the AI actually picks random cards? Because when fighting the same types of fleets, I'll often see the same opening card from the AI 3-4 times in a row. As this happens frequently, I made the logical assumption that the AI picks a card based somehow on its own fleet strengths/weaknesses (but definitely with no regard to yours).

Shivetya wrote:
Okay, what does the card for Weapon Disruption say? "-25% damage from enemy missiles, -15% block" and target locked it +20% beam damage and +10% block.



So... I had no missiles, I had no kinetics... I had only beam weapons. How does his card even affect my attack or my ability to resist his?

You misunderstand what the "Block:" does.



If he played Weapon Disruption and you played nothing, your missiles (if any) would do 25% less damage.

But you didn't play nothing, you play Target Locked, so your card was blocked (ZERO effect). But what does his card do?



"Why, 15% less missile damage," you say, "Worse for him than when I played nothing."



WRONG. It's 40% less. The "block" value is added to the card's normal effect.*



So for your Target Locked card, which normally does 20% more beam damage, if it BLOCKS a card (which it does not in this scenario) then you get 30% more damage instead of the usual 20%.



Now, the AI choosing that card when you had no missiles is a problem, but currently it just picks a card at random with no consideration given to its own weapon and defense modules, or your own.



*This is particularly important for some cards, where the normal effect is -20% X, and the block effect is +20% X. Essentially the base is a penalty, but if you block the other guy, it's a free ride.

And this is a game designed heavily around multiplayer, so the mixup/mindgame situation I described is perfectly in line with the game's focus. I don't know how you can play this game and think 'immersion' at all, when that's clearly not its focus.



I agree that it's somewhat unintuitive if you're focused completely on the card's active effects and not its class and counter type, but you're always going to have a few of these no-effect-but-block situations when you have a class-counter card system, unless you give every card at least two-- if not three- weapon/defense-system effects (which is bland and takes all of the uniqueness out of each card).



Again, the point of a card system like this is to provide a variety of ways to affect the outcome of the battle, and countering solely for purposes of preventing your opponent from getting bonuses is an important aspect of that. Pay more attention to card counter mechanics on your next playthrough, and make choices that you think are either A) safer and less likely to be countered, or B) more likely to counter your opponent's cards (each AI does seem to have 'favorite' cards, although this may just be a byproduct of how it chooses cards based on its fleet composition).

Especially cards that have no application for combatants.



The one failing of the system to me is that there are too many choices. I would have preferred that techs introduce a few new unique cards and the rest simply be replacements for existing cards but simply better.



but it fails spectacularly at times.



Weapon Disruption beat my Target Locked.



Okay, what does the card for Weapon Disruption say? "-25% damage from enemy missiles, -15% block" and target locked it +20% beam damage and +10% block.



So... I had no missiles, I had no kinetics... I had only beam weapons. How does his card even affect my attack or my ability to resist his?

Mikey wrote:
This is goofy, but it's how card counters work in, well, everything that uses cards, including CCGs etc. I've had this same situation happen to me a bunch as well, and you might argue that it's a problem that the AI is playing an anti-missile card when you have no missiles, but since the card is countering yours, then I'd say they're doing exactly what they should be doing.



In multiplayer, this creates a mindgame - you want to use Target Locked, but if your opponent knows you only have beams, he might play this card that otherwise won't do anything for him just to counter yours, sacrificing any positive effect for himself to remove your positive effect. Or, you choose to play a non-offense card, he misses his counter and gets no positive benefit, and you profit.

Personally, I find that to be unintuitive and immersion breaking.



To expand, the countering operates on the level of card types, like offense, engineering and defense. However, ship design (and card bonuses) operate on the level of tech types, such as missiles, shields, and flak. The result of this is that your ships are built while thinking about what types of armaments or defenses you have available, so you might build a ship outfitted with nothing but beam weapons, and when attacking, it is most intuitive to think "I am attacking with beams, so I should pick a card that boosts beams", or "The enemy has kinetics, so I should use a card that helps defend against that". However, because the cards operate on a different, meta level, you get things like what happened in the opening post, where a card that has no stated effect on a certain tech type is able to somehow neutralize a card that does effect that tech type, because the first card defeated the second on the meta level. This forces you to play the game like a game, instead of imagining that you are ordering your ships to perform the actions described on the cards.

This is goofy, but it's how card counters work in, well, everything that uses cards, including CCGs etc. I've had this same situation happen to me a bunch as well, and you might argue that it's a problem that the AI is playing an anti-missile card when you have no missiles, but since the card is countering yours, then I'd say they're doing exactly what they should be doing.



In multiplayer, this creates a mindgame - you want to use Target Locked, but if your opponent knows you only have beams, he might play this card that otherwise won't do anything for him just to counter yours, sacrificing any positive effect for himself to remove your positive effect. Or, you choose to play a non-offense card, he misses his counter and gets no positive benefit, and you profit.

Shivetya wrote:
Uh, you read it backwards. I had the Target Locked, he had Weapon Disruption and he won the round... well I still kicked his ass because DNs with 20+ beam weapons eat what they want.

then reverse it. The enhanced locking wasn't enough to make up for their disruption. It really can go either way for a flavor standpoint. As for it still beating you when you don't have the weapons their card targetted, that's not the point. The point is in the rock-paper-scissors of the cards, not the weapons. Tactics counters Engineering, Defense counters Offense, etc. etc. If his card counters yours, it doesn't necessarily matter if the card is that useful vs you, since he basically stopped your card from working, which in some cases is good enough.

Apheirox wrote:
Very much disagree with this criticism. The card system is smart, well thought out and works well. For instance, notice that the Camouflage card (the one that increases missile defense) in the early game can only be countered by the Short Circuit card - which Camouflage counters (in other words Camouflage has NO true counter in the early game - which is one of the things that helps balance missiles). These things aren't random - a lot of thought went into the battle cards, I think, and it paid off.

Yeah but it will beat you even if you don't have the weapons systems it lists. That is the beef of my problem. Cards are still winning when they do not apply to the weapons either side is using.

Scubasage wrote:
You try to disrupt his weapons. He has an enhanced target lock on you, making your disruption useless.



Seems pretty simple to me.

Uh, you read it backwards. I had the Target Locked, he had Weapon Disruption and he won the round... well I still kicked his ass because DNs with 20+ beam weapons eat what they want.

I agree, it's now very hard to find any significant loopholes or single overpowering cards in the system, especially earlier in with a lack of variety or hero card access.

Very much disagree with this criticism. The card system is smart, well thought out and works well. For instance, notice that the Camouflage card (the one that increases missile defense) in the early game can only be countered by the Short Circuit card - which Camouflage counters (in other words Camouflage has NO true counter in the early game - which is one of the things that helps balance missiles). These things aren't random - a lot of thought went into the battle cards, I think, and it paid off.

You try to disrupt his weapons. He has an enhanced target lock on you, making your disruption useless.



Seems pretty simple to me.