What would your Alteil 2 look like?

[DanTheTimid]

So not that long ago the Japanese Alteil unveiled Alteil 2, its update to the original Alteil. Although there was a lot of hype coming up to its release, it turned out to be pretty disappointing. Basically it was normal alteil, except with an observer mode and slightly different look to the GUI (Graphical User Interface). Making matters worse the original Alteil sets weren't compatible with it even though the game worked exactly the same way.

The actual Alteil 2 may not have been all we hoped for, but I got to thinking, it might be fun to talk about how, if given the ability to program an update for Alteil and make an "Alteil 2" for the english game, what features you would implement to revamp the game. Here's some of what I would do:

Change 1: Add an Alteil 2 only arena

Reason: First of all, all old cards would transfer to Alteil 2 and still be compatible for the normal arenas. Players invested alot of money in their virtual collections, they shouldn't just go to nothing. That said, there is something to be said for getting to start over fresh in a more limited card environment so there would be an arena for players who would like that experience.

Change 2: Every player who transfers from alteil 1 to 2 gets a free alteil 2 starter.

Reason: Old players shouldn't have to create new accounts to check out the Alteil 2 only arena, this is a small reward for being long time players.

Change 3: All Grimoire now have AGI and all Open Skills now activate in order of fastest AGI first.

Reason: Well first off, from a logical and lore stand point, every grimoire should have a different casting time. This better represents it. Whats more, I don't like unnecessary randomness. Some times randomness needs to occur, such as if both grimoires have the same AGI, but by giving grimoires AGI we dramatically decrease the number of times that luck decides which grimoire goes off first and add another layer of depth to the game in deciding "well this spell WOULD be useful, but if he uses the spell I think he will his will go off first making mine less useful so I think I'll play this instead". This applys to all open skills, which also changes things a tiny bit on old cards too, salamanders open skill for instance will usually go second do to his AGI of 1. Of course there are times when going second can be a good thing so its all about strategy, which I think is a good thing.

Change 4: AGI now goes from 10-59 instead of from 1-5 and all AGI increases are now x10 so +1 agi is +10 AGI.

Reason: Again I like to eliminate unnecessary randomness from my games and make skill and strategy as strong a factor in determining the winner as possible. Even with the greater range of AGI your still going to have units or grimoires with the same AGI force a random roll to decide who goes first, but thats necessary randomness. With the numbers more broken up like this the odds of having 2 units of the same speed are MUCH lower and thus its much easier to plan out how a turn will actually play out. I'd actually rather it go from 1-59, but 10-59 is just easier for converting old cards to the new system, since you can take any old AGI and just add a number between 0-9 onto the end of it. So for example Zagar becomes AGI 28, Blessed Accolyte AGI 25, etc. Obviously some thought would need to go into exactly what values to assign but this is Alteil 2, not Alteil 1.5, I think some real work should be expected for such an upgrade.

(note: We COULD scale AGI back, so 1 AGI becomes 1-10, and 2 becomes 11-20, 5 becomes 41-50 just so we don't start from 10, but I still think having the AGI start with the number they classicly started with would be a bit more elegant for long time players so I'm not sure)

Change 5: There will now be special fields, instead of just the square with 1-9 mini squares in it on a white back ground, you'll have that square and mini squares on a drawing of a land scape. There will be a basic one (probably just grass or something) with no special bonuses like we have now, but there will be many where certain squares give special bonuses. For example on one map field spot 3 might have a picture of a forest and units on it get +5 defense. Spot 5 might have a poison swamp and units on it lose 5 hp at the end of every turn. Another spot might reduce AGI, or decrease range, or a combination of things. Both sides fields will always mirror each other so no player ever has an innate advantage based on the side of the field they are on, but it is possible certain fields might favor certain strategies more then others.

Reason: Its funny, I just said I don't like randomness and here I am adding more randomness by having the game choose a random field for you. The thing is, this is randomness you can prepare for. You should build your file having a plan for every one of the fields that might show up. Both players deal with the same bonuses and negatives, and while there might be some bias with certain fields for certain files, the field bonuses should never be so large as to make a match unwinnable for a certain file. For tournament play we could even change things so that you are told before hand what field you will be playing on so that you can choose your file you feel is best suited to it.

Change 6: Small animations are added for every card. When a grimoire goes off you see a brief animation of the spell going off. Unit attacks, you seem a simple animation of it swinging its weapon at the opposing unit and the unit look hurt.

Reason: I haven't played a yugioh video game in years but I seem to recall atleast one version of the game had unique attack animations for every single card. It makes the cards seem more alive and the battles more intense and it something that would truly upgrade Alteil.

Change 7: Much more character conversations.

Reason: If every unit talked it would probably get annoying really fast, but as things stand it seems like characters don't talk enough. I love seeing them interact but their conversations are too few and with too few people. Heck I think it'd be cool if your character always talked when he took an action even if there wasn't another character out, maybe saying something generic. I really want to get to know my characters.

Change 8: Voice acting <--(Iffy)

Reason: This ones probably a bit unrealistic since this is a game you play on the server, not on your computer, but in theory it would be cool to hear your units grunt when they attack and say their abilities when they use them. It might be a little rushed but it'd be really cool to hear them talk during character conversations too.

Thats just some initial ideas. What kind of stuff would you add or change if you made Alteil 2?

[Harion]

holy crap, you get 5 stars for imagination

i too, would like more character conversations
but i want an option to turn it off
it gets really old, really fast once you know what they say

i too. hate randomness deciding games
as much as possible, i want a non-random arena
where randomness isn't a factor
agi numbers would roll right at open phase (for those with open skill)
and would roll again at turn phase
any units with same agi would roll their agi numbers again

it's still random. but at least it's a randomness you can predict
since you'll be seeing every card's agi once the rolling stops
and know exactly which cards will go 1st

beats the hell out of shouting at the top of your lungs when you and your opponents both got same agi units:
make me go 1st, make me go 1st!

and it really craps the hell out of me when both of us have all agi 2 units
and yet every sigle one of his units go 1st and kills every unit i have
i mean, what's up with that? somebody up there hates me?

i also really like the idea of special fields
but i would like special fields to be customizable
and should be like soul card slots
wherein you would put cards on it for it to have an effect
and of course, that would mean special field cards

wouldn't it be yummy if you can make front row fields buff def or atk?
or 2nd row fields add agi or rng

there would be a mad scramble for special field cards
and planning your field effects would take just as much time as building your deck to suit it
and there can be soul skills that disable or multiplies field cards' effects

[Romdeau]

Taking the luck out of Alteil is like taking the cream out of coffee-making it bland, tasteless, and boring. Alteil's luck helps me really get into a duel-thinking of the possibilities and odds-what's the worst case? What are the odds of it happening? If so, how can I prepare/counter it? I'll keep my luck based Alteil in a heartbeat over this control freak version.

[DanTheTimid]

The thing is I'm not taking the randomness out, I'm just decreasing its frequency a little bit in an area where luck currently can play a VERY huge factor in giving one player an unfair advantage over the other. Even with more AGI values, there are still going to be many cards with the same AGI values, not to mention mirror matches of the same cards where randomness is going to come into play.

I also didn't remove or even reduce the frequency of randomness as far as choosing attack targets, something I admit as a fan of strategy over mindless luck, I've spoken out against in the past. Its true, I prefer a more strategic game to a game of "lets roll the dice and see who rolls higher", but I do understand that randomness does give weak players hope that they can succeed against stronger players, and it does add a little spice of uncertainty to repeat match ups. Whats more the game already does provide players who hate luck some ways to control their fate via skills like pinpoint, so I didn't feel this was an area that needed to be messed with.

So yeah, I'm not completely against randomness and would never completely remove it, but I do feel AGI is an area where having large AGI values could decrease unnecessary randomness to a level thats less frustrating while still leaving some things to chance, and that having AGI for grimoires would not only make sense from a lore stand point, but add another layer of strategic depth that is currently lacking, replacing the current system of mindless coin flipping contests.

[lupos]

I have to say I do like the concept of making grims have agi, though I think I would confine it to 1, 2 or 3. Giving to broad of a spectrum might make some way to powerfull or other useless. Also this way you could basicaly have 3 version of the same card with dif agi for dif sp costs. I've no idea if this would be fun in practice, but it's an intriguing idea.

[DanTheTimid]

Well keep in mind most of the time grimoire AGI means nothing, and even when it does mean something your only ever going to be comparing 2 cards, their AGI only comes into play if 2 open skills are activated at the same time to determine which grimoire goes off first and which goes off second. Whats more, based on the grimoires ability it can often be BETTER to go slower (for instance I'd usually rather use a healing open skill second so I can heal any damage my opponents open skill did) so its hard to say that one AGI value is better then another.

Having a card you could play at various levels (aka paying more or less sp to play it to increase or decrease its effectiveness) as you suggested would be a pretty interesting card trait for a future grimoire or unit to have, but I think it might be a little unnecessarily complicated for making it something every card can do. Its always important that any change you make to add depth to a game is a very simple and elegant change because overly complicated depth reduces ease of use and can actually make a game less fun.

[lupos]

I actually mean literally having 3 different version, i.e. different cards, that have the exact same power but dif agi. Though the idea of pumping more sp into something to control its agi is interesting it would require some sort of interface for it. By having separate cards you would actually have to pick the ones that suited your play stayle best. Though I don't think I want open skills competing with grims, just with each other and vice versa. Hard to say. Would certainly require a lot of play testing to see what actually works best.

[Illyasviel]

Something I think an Alteil 2 could use is a place for people like me and our wacky theme decks to goof off. That and about 30 times more hot girl cards. That, and the thirtieth day of each month would be very special... (Roman numerals XXX!)

[shikazu]

I seriously want the option to watch matches >_>

[DanTheTimid]

I can't believe I forgot this thing, if I made an Alteil 2 and left this out I'd be very angry at myself as it was the thing I asked for most even prior to Alteil's original launch (as some of the GMs can probably attest).

Change 9: Single Player Campaigns <--- (Single most important addition to me)

Explanation: I only even remembered this because I recently played another online card game called Warstorm. All though they're not the only one to have them (Mysteria has them as well) they do do them in a VERY cool way. Aside from having a beginner campaign to help teach new players the ropes, like Warstorm my Alteil 2 would have purchasable campaigns. These campaigns would cost slightly less then a box (lets say 2000 gran) but once you complete the campaign you'd have recieved a boxe's worth of cards (though which cards you got would be random the rarities would be handed out at a fixed amount per battle so that in the end you'd have gotten the same amount of each card rarity you would from a box, but you wouldn't get your guaranteed 5 star until after the final battle). Each campaign would correspond to a specific set (helping to encourage purchase of old sets by veteran players although I admit players with playsets of old sets probably wouldn't be to fond of this idea) and upon beating it you'd get a little symbol on your profile showing you'd beaten that campaign. Before and after every fight would be a little bit of story explaining why your fighting the computer opponent that you are and what happened after the fight. Once you've purchased a campaign you can play through it as many times as you want but campaign battles never have treasure battles, don't count toward your weekly gran, and once you've beaten it the first time instead of getting cards as rewards for winning you'll just get FM for winning instead.

Reason: First off its just nice to have computer opponents to try out strategies against when human opponents aren't available in the training area. Next, campaigns allow a way to inject more life and story into a game that can quite honestly be pretty lifeless and mechanical right now. You get to really see and interact with your cards through a story that can endear them to you. Campaigns also give you something to play for beyond just getting more gran, you've got a goal to aim for (completing the story and winning your 5 star rare). Since you have to work for it they should cost a little less then boxes, but you can only play through them and get cards once so you'll still need to buy boxes to continue getting cards beyond the campaigns. The beginner campaign that everyone has will give players an idea of what to expect from a campaign and thus a better idea of whether or not they feel its worth it to them to invest in one (especially if its for a set they already own all of or most of). At first it would take a while for the campaigns to catch up as each one would be released for an early set but eventually once they caught up to the latest set the campaign could be released like a month or so after the set itself is released allowing it to also be a way to pick up extra sales in that lull between set releases.

In the end it doesn't discourage playing humans, it just gives you another option of something to do with the cards you have. The computer AI doesn't have to be brilliant, if the programmers feel things are too easy because of the weak AI they can even give the computers special computer AI only versions of cards (like Lapierre has a Shin Lapierre card that only she has which for the same level as normal Lapierre does something completely different and possibly much stronger then normal). In this way human players will really have to think about how they make and use their files to get around tricks the computers have they normally would never have to face.

I don't know, to me this just sounds like a REALLY cool idea that I know I for one would be all over in a heart beat if it was ever implemented.