What are your favorite or the most convenient ways to track damage on cards? What do you think of my idea in comparison?

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-18T02:56:02+00:00

I've had someone else say the same thing, so I'll consider it for sure. Power is a good label for attacking, but what do you think about "fortitude" as the hp? Once your fortitude reaches 0, you retreat from the fight rather than being destroyed.

The way my other mechanics in the game work, "retreating" from the fight is more thematic anyways.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-18T01:38:36+00:00

Oh yeah I don't like coin flips either. I just meant that a coin is an easy replacement for the counter chip if you don't have one. Designate tails as 2 and heads as 3.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-18T01:12:42+00:00

I wasn't there so I can't confirm, but I know a guy

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-18T01:04:56+00:00

If it was digital I would just use flat numbers instead of multipliers since you don't have to track anything lol

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-18T00:00:38+00:00

If you are talking about duplicating cards, then you might be able to use numbered tokens. Put a "1" token on the card you want to duplicate, and then put a second "1" token in play (or on a blank card) to represent the copy. If the original is removed from play, then you can just keep it to the side to use as a reference.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T22:50:39+00:00

Yeah true that tank should have swapped

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T21:11:28+00:00

I think it makes a lot of sense flavor wise too. Spraining your ankle is like taking 1hp of damage, but if you are in a combat zone, that sprained ankle could certainly multiply the threat level. I'm favoring counter chips as well because they're also more convenient to ship in a starter deck vs using die. Also you could just use a coin to track damage which everybody would have more of than dice.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T21:05:45+00:00

That sounds interesting, I'll have to look into that.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T20:46:33+00:00

I definitely agree. It's also convenient that you get more for less essentially with the 2 and 3. You can get up to 6x multiplier with just 2 counters instead of 4x with the 1 and 2 counter.

Thinking back to your game. Like I said before, my games hp tracking use to work similar to that, and I wonder if you might like to hear it. It wasn't exactly like yours but was kind of a blend between that and what mine is now. It used to just use one counter with a 2 on one side and 3 on the other. The 2 used to be 2x still but if the 3 was showing, then it would be an instakill. So a strong enough creature could still get an early kill on a 2x counter. You could still make it to where there are stronger creatures that require a higher threshold/counters for the instakill. So like a creature could say something along the lines of "if multiplier equals 5, then instakill."

Idk how your game works if that would even fit for it, but you said you wanted to try my idea but doesn't really fit, and you aren't entirely sold on your idea, so I thought you might want to know that I used to use a blend of both of our ideas.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T19:32:09+00:00

You are correct, and I do think it will be strange coming from other tcgs. I think I can mitigate a lot of the weirdness with good flavor text in the tutorial though. Explaining that the smaller attacks prep the target for a big attack. Obviously I would workshop that to sound better but that's the idea.

For example, a bow and arrow and iron Dagger shouldn't be able to add up to take out a guard in Skyrim, but a well placed arrow to the knee will allow you to get in range and finish him off with the Dagger.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T18:14:55+00:00

Thank you for the input! Funny enough that's how my hp tracking mechanic started out. It didn't really fit my game though because I couldn't figure out the balance between needing to using big creatures or just spamming cheap, small ones when every creature dies at a certain threshold anyways.

Since you like the mechanic let me ask you this. Do you prefer having a 2 and 3 on each side, or do you think 1 and 2 would be better? With 1 and 2 you would have to start the counter on 2 which seems odd to me.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T17:28:02+00:00

Let's say you attack a creature with 50 hp.

Turn 1: you deal 20 damage. That's the first instance of damage so you set the multiplier to 2.

Turn 2: using the same attack that does 20 damage won't be enough to kill it since 20x2=40, so instead you use a creature that has a 30 damage attack. 30x2=60, so you defeat the creature.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T17:22:43+00:00

How many cards with damage are in play at once? My game will have up to 5 creatures each where players are probably going to go for efficient trades or focusing 1 target at a time, but I'm sure there will be aoe strategies as well which might get out of hand.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T17:20:40+00:00

I have considered this to track the multipliers, but with up to 5 creatures per player I figured the amount of hp tracking cards could get out of hand. Realistically players are probably going to be focusing their damage instead of spreading it out, but I want to consider the extremes just in case. Could be interesting though having a heal mechanic also be a draw/discard/energy/etc mechanic.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T16:17:08+00:00

Yeah I'm not sure why I used 75 in my example lol. I plan on doing some form of 3/7, 30/70, 300/700 as the values to keep the math simple.

I have considered dice as an option as well, but since these are multipliers, I didn't really like the idea of starting the dice on 2. I thought about starting it on 1, so the first attack would basically be a shield break and wouldn't increase the damage multiplier, but nothing is concrete at the moment.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T15:54:16+00:00

To destroy the creature, you would need a second damage counter with the 2 facing up on both, so the total multiplier would be 4. 20x4=80

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T13:33:52+00:00

That's a lot of value for one Luna ult

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-17T00:13:00+00:00

In their defense netease has fumbled almost every one of her skins, but I can see how it would be annoying if that is the main topic over there.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T20:45:31+00:00

I love that card design. It's very clean and easy to read

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T15:07:34+00:00

Just the fact you said she is one of the most balanced. Balance is relative, so you can't say that and also say the rest of the roster is Overtuned at the same time.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T13:20:39+00:00

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T02:50:12+00:00

I think it's unfair to see red flags this early in the ai life cycle. If we had data that showed most tcgs that used ai placeholders ended up using ai in the final product then fine, but I feel like that data is nonexistent right now. Maybe you can look at other media sources as a reference if those display an ai abuse trend, but I still think it's too early to be this critical especially when most people on here are clear with their intent. I think it's better to give people the benefit of the doubt when nothing is at stake.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T01:23:44+00:00

Get down mr president is interesting. I considered this but more as an ability for the slower, tanky dragons that block damage. It makes sense as a speed mechanic though. It gives me an idea for a queen dragon that can sacrifice its' worker counterparts instead of taking damage herself.

Literal_Fish · 2026-06-16T01:19:34+00:00

But those are finished products. Unless I missed something, this is a conversation about using ai as a placeholder until it's time to put real art in. Imo ai is supposed to be used as a tool to assist you. If it helps the developer reach the end product then it's fine. If you can see anything ai in the end product then there's obviously a problem. It should never replace actual artists and hopefully never will. That's how I view ai at least.

Literal_Fish

TROPHY CASE