Draft

[kitsunekit]

One of the primary reasons people play magic online is for drafting. Is there any chance Alteil will ever see a draft system implemented?

The basic idea is that players buy booster packs and don't open them. Instead they sit around a table and take 1 card from their pack. At the end of the draft they play with whatever cards they drafted.

I can see it being a programming headache, but there are some good third party draft programs that you might be able to get some ideas from?

Its a good source of revenue as even players who own all the cards in Alteil will want to participate and spend money.

I'd see an alteil draft function thusly:
-1,000 Gran gets you into the draft. This pays for 5 packs and the entry fee (required as there are booster prizes).
-A draft is 8 players. The draft doesn't begin until 8 players sign up for it.
-Players get 4 random booster packs. (Or boosters from the set of the tournament they signed up to play in.)
-Players are organized around a virtual "table" or "queue" for passing packs.
-Each player is given a choice of 5 cards from their pack.
-Then all players down the queue is given a choice of 4 cards (one of the cards having been taken; these 4 cards are selected from the 4 cards not chosen by the player in the queue above them).
-Players have 5 minutes to build a deck and then are paired randomly.
-Single elimination.
-Since 1,000 was paid for 5 packs, there is effectively 250 extra "gran" worth of prizes per player. We can round that down to a pack and a half in the prize pool per player, with the extra 70 or some odd gran going towards profit for Alteil. That's 12 packs in the prize pool. So first place gets 5 packs OR a free draft token; second place gets 3 packs; third and fourth place get 2 packs.
-Alternatively, first gets 1 free pack + 1 free draft token; second gets a free draft token; third gets a free pack.

[Xovian]

That was tried before, and it failed miserably in my opinion.

Unlike magic, Alteil more often the not requires 3 of a given unit to be even remotely successful.
With "luck of the draw" which is used for draft, it basically comes down to which person managed to get more play sets of everything compared to everyone else.

Even in the round robin use you're suggesting, it will still come down to that principle.
And frankly its not fun to constantly loose just because you had a bad draw.

[kitsunekit]

You can just make it so that if you pull a unit, you get multiple copies of that unit for use in your files.

So all 1-3 star units you get 3 copies of if you draft.
4 star units you get 2 copies of.
5 and 6 star units you get 1 copy of.

But after the draft is over, you only get 1 copy of each card you actually drafted. So you only get ACCESS to these multiple copies in the draft game, not in the real game.

This would also help us draft smaller sized packs, and solve the issue of drafts either being too expensive (750 gran for 5 packs; 5 pack drafts are awkward), using off-sized packs and/or having smaller file sizes. The other problem with Alteil drafts is simply the fact ALL of your file is going to come from your drafted cards. In Magic or L5R drafts, around half your deck is going to be cards like Land and Holdings (resource cards). But you draft upwards of 45 cards, so more than half the cards you draft you don't use.

But having 1 card = 3 cards in a draft means even if we only draft 3 "5 card packs", its more like drafting 3 "10-15 card packs". Extra flak is needed to hate/counter-draft.

And yes, the limited pool should probably be restricted to a specific set of cards, making a custom set of cards to choose from that work well in draft. I'd hate to be the guy who cracked a "Pirate King" in draft...

Finally, as this is a virtual game, cards can do different things in draft than they do in the real game. I'm not a big fan of this as draft is a good time to discover and practice weird stradegies you can't do in regular games...but effects like Phoenix's regeneration might be too strong in a limited format.

This is the solution I suggested for "Nissa Revane" in our "Cube Draft" (cube draft is a limited draft format in magic in which you draft using cards from a pile you make in advanced to assure good synergy). She searches your deck for a specific card, making her useless if you don't also draft that particular card. So I was like "just put 1-2 copies of that other card along with Nissa. If you draft nissa, you get 1-2 copies of nissa's chosen for free!"

[Phenoca]

But after the draft is over, you only get 1 copy of each card you actually drafted. So you only get ACCESS to these multiple copies in the draft game, not in the real game.

For a tournament, yes.

I do not like "competing" with other players for cards, unless (in this case, myself and the other drafter) can agree before-hand that one of us gets first-picks from all cards of whichever sphere we choose. I.e. Other player cannot pick cards from your sphere until the two non-chosen spheres are out of cards.

I'd rather have 'loot'.

You know how MMORPGs have loot at the end of a quest? Well, then you can place your pick on which "card" you want (I think even BattleForge uses this method). In fact, I would be very pleased if treasure battles used this - players get two cards in a treasure battle, and the winner picks which one he wants; loser gets the leftover card.

But that is coming from the perspective of a non-meta. If I have a meta (and can therefore get more than 2 consecutive wins no matter what hour of the day I am playing) then loot/treasure "priority" does not matter.

So basically, I'd like to see treasure battles treated in the same way that other MMOs treat dungeon loot. BattleForge's method made sense, but I did not stay to memorize the system. Again, if treasure battles included two cards, and the winner chose which one he/she wanted, then that would be fair for non-meta players.

Edit: Just an idea. I do not mean to insult Alteil's game mechanics, but merely provide my thoughts on kitsunekit's post. I really have never done a draft before in any card game that does not involve a dealer.

[Visfarix]

You can just make it so that if you pull a unit, you get multiple copies of that unit for use in your files.

So all 1-3 star units you get 3 copies of if you draft.
4 star units you get 2 copies of.
5 and 6 star units you get 1 copy of.

But after the draft is over, you only get 1 copy of each card you actually drafted. So you only get ACCESS to these multiple copies in the draft game, not in the real game.

This is actually a pretty good idea, and can solve the "3 copies of a card" dilemma, though this probably cannot apply for grimoires. I've been wanting to suggest draft for awhile but you beat me to the punch and with a better solution too. I salute thee Kitsune

The only things I don't like about your suggestion are minor details like entry fee, total packs to draft, and prizes.

I do not like "competing" with other players for cards, unless (in this case, myself and the other drafter) can agree before-hand that one of us gets first-picks from all cards of whichever sphere we choose. I.e. Other player cannot pick cards from your sphere until the two non-chosen spheres are out of cards.
...
Edit: Just an idea. I do not mean to insult Alteil's game mechanics, but merely provide my thoughts on kitsunekit's post. I really have never done a draft before in any card game that does not involve a dealer.

I'll give a quick lecture about what draft is kind of like and you should see why players HAVE to compete with each other. If you have any questions about the finer points of draft, you can pm me or something.

Draft is a multifaceted game format which allows you to pick cards you want from a random pool to build the best deck/file you can and play in a quick tournament to see who has the best deck/file/is the most skilled. The format is usually spiced up with a decent to large prize for the top players in the tournament.
Players have many options in this format from picking cards a.k.a."drafting" for their draft tournament deck/file (picking cards that will help your deck/file the most whether they are rare or not (most often not)), rare drafting (picking up all the rares that come to you whether they help your file or not), hate drafting (picking cards that don't necessarily help you, but you know will help your opponents), and/or just picking cards you want to use outside of draft. Whether you want to try and pick all the best cards you can get your hands on, or just pick the cards that can support your file the most are entirely up to you.
The skilled players know when to pass up on rares and go for the solid commons/uncommons that will make them win the tournament, since the tournament prize is almost always better than anything you can pick up. The expert players will know how to read the draft and pick which color/sphere to go into so that others won't/can't interfere with their picks, and, by the end of the card selection, they will know what color/spheres the surrounding players are in. The BEST players will kick everyone's butts with whatever deck/file they drafted, even if it's filled with common cards only cause they're just THAT good.

It's true that draft uses a random pool and that means luck of the draw is a large factor, but the cards you get are the cards you picked and that's what makes it so much fun.

[mghost]

Draft is a multifaceted game format which allows you to pick cards you want from a random pool to build the best deck/file you can and play in a quick tournament to see who has the best deck/file/is the most skilled. The format is usually spiced up with a decent to large prize for the top players in the tournament.
Players have many options in this format from picking cards a.k.a."drafting" for their draft tournament deck/file (picking cards that will help your deck/file the most whether they are rare or not (most often not)), rare drafting (picking up all the rares that come to you whether they help your file or not), hate drafting (picking cards that don't necessarily help you, but you know will help your opponents), and/or just picking cards you want to use outside of draft. Whether you want to try and pick all the best cards you can get your hands on, or just pick the cards that can support your file the most are entirely up to you.
The skilled players know when to pass up on rares and go for the solid commons/uncommons that will make them win the tournament, since the tournament prize is almost always better than anything you can pick up. The expert players will know how to read the draft and pick which color/sphere to go into so that others won't/can't interfere with their picks, and, by the end of the card selection, they will know what color/spheres the surrounding players are in. The BEST players will kick everyone's butts with whatever deck/file they drafted, even if it's filled with common cards only cause they're just THAT good.

It's true that draft uses a random pool and that means luck of the draw is a large factor, but the cards you get are the cards you picked and that's what makes it so much fun.

One thing to note about this is that, hate drafting would be nearly impossible to pull off in alteil compared to games like MtG because of print order. You guys may already know this but boosters in MtG have a certain order they print them in (mostly the commons) so you kind of have a feeling of what cards were in the pack already (and now taken out), thus being able to figure out what color your opponent is playing (choosing). On the other hand, from what I know Alteil just spits out random cards. Has no apparent print order so it would be nearly impossible to figure out what your neighbors are playing as you have no previous history in what was in the pack (unless its your own pack). By the time your pack comes around though, so many cards would be taken out that you wouldn't know who's playing what.

Knowing what color (sphere) your neighbor is playing is what really allows you to make a good deck (file) in drafts, and its just something we don't have.

[Logress]

Well, if you use bigger sized packs, on average you'll have about = numbers in each color, so you still might be able to figure out what colors the other players are using. Also if you generate a bunch of random cards at once, you can have them sorted by position in the card list, which might create a similar effect.

[exemplar]

A magic draft deck really only uses about 22-23 cards you draft.

If Alteil made "draft boosters" with: (395 gran each?)
1 rare/mythic rare (4 star / 5 star)
3 uncommons (3 star)
11 commons (2 star / 1 star)

You could probably find enough playables as long as its restricted to certain card sets. Also, there needs to be 8 to a "draft pod" at least. 88 commons should yield some playable complete sets.

[harvest4god]

Actually I already had a plan for something like this I was going to try. I was going to print the cards list out for each sphere and cut each into a piece of paper and put into a bowl. IE. Four bowls with all the 1* and 2*. Then you state what sphere you want and I pull 5 random pieces out. You must make a deck with those 5 cards. Must use 3 copies each card. This will leave each person 15 cards they can personalize their deck (including soul cards) but still have a random factor involved. I was going to run it in a few weeks. This was close to a "Booster Tourney".

[kitsunekit]

There's a couple draft programs out there that'll let you accomplish the same thing without paper. They are for magic but you can easily enter in your own card names. Draftnet is the most popular, I believe.