State of the Game

December 23rd, 2021 (Happy holidays!)

Gameplay Changes

Sectonia

Enrichment - Effect changed.

Old - (1) Draw a card. (2) You may sacrifice an Insect Token. Draw card. You may activate this effect 2 times.

New - (1) Discard a card. (2) Then create and summon three Insect Tokens.

Carapace Currency - Gained Enrichment's old effects (see above).

Old - (1) Draw a card. (2) You may sacrifice an Insect Token. Draw card.

New - (1) You may sacrifice up to two Insect Tokens you own. Draw a card for each Insect Token sacrificed.

These two cards were changed. I created a problem when Carapace Currency lost its ability to chain. Both cards had similar effects, but Carapace Currency was worse. I decided to change them so they would be different. It's poor form for a card game to have two cards with unique names do the same thing. The wording on Carapace Currency may be different, but it is the same as the old Enrichment.

Lastaesha

Blazing Witch Avina Sheterfeld

Maximum life reduced by 10 (from 40 to 30).

Old 1st Effect - When you play a Spell that deals damage, increase its damage by 1.

New 1st Effect - When you play a Spell, increase its damage dealt to enemies by 50% (rounded up).

Avina's 1st effect was buffed significantly because I want Lastaesha Burn to be a thing. +1 damage falls off incredibly fast in Innomination, I felt it needed a boost. A +25% damage boost was considered, but Innomination's damage doesn't scale that well. It wouldn't be significant. We'll see where this goes.

Avina's 2nd effect is incredibly good. I've been fiddling with this by making it better, making it worse... Nothing really sticks because I'm trying to not make Avina worse. I just don't want her to be so much better than the other leaders in Lastaesha. Almost all of my playtesters pick Avina over the others. Maybe because she's easier to understand. Who doesn't like more damage? I don't want to nerf her 2nd effect, so I reduced her health instead.

October 21st, 2021

Major Gameplay Changes

In my game design, I intend for Innomination to last until about turn 10.

With how the game is right now, games are often going to turn 13-15. This turns a 40 minute game into a 60 minute game or a 60 minute game to a 90 minute game.

This is not okay.

• The average max health of Leaders has been reduced by 10, from 50 to 40.

Over the course of all of these prototypes, I have discovered from my many playtests that it's rare to finish a game. I try to make a new player's tutorial and first game of Innomination less than 3 hours. To put it simply: Games last too long when average Leader health is 50. That seems a like a no-brainer doesn't it?

I was hesitant about doing this. It's been on my mind for years. One of the first things I had cemented when it comes to anything doing with numbers in Innomination was how much health Leaders had. Every other card in the game was scaled to Leaders with 50 health. Leaders have enough life to take risks. As I continue to playtest Prototype 4 with more people... know that right now we have some Leaders with less health. When other players chose Leaders with less health, those games were a LOT more fun, because there was more urgency to act instead of stalling and waiting.

I think it's best to think of it this way: If Innomination's games last too long, the game wears out its welcome and it stops being fun. I don't want that.

This also helps out the intended Aggro strategies. 20% less health is significant.

As of this writing, I have not changed the health of Leaders on the cards directly. This health change is very appealing will probably be permanent.

• The minimum Main Deck size has been reduced by 10, from 50 to 40. Default decks have been set to 40 cards.

• The Source Deck size has been reduced by 5, from 20 to 15.

• The Named Deck size has been reduced by 5, from 25 to 20.

Let's talk about all of these deck changes together.

A conversation I continued to have with playtesters of all prototypes until now has been if the deck sizes are too big. If I think the deck sizes are too big, then other people must think so as well, right? Well no. A lot of playtesters couldn't tell me this. They just felt that some nations were better than others. That doesn't help me, but it is up to me to find out why. And for a long time now, I knew it had to do with deck sizes.

Verivusin, the control deck? They win. They win a lot. And that's not good. I couldn't grasp it at first. I look at their cards through my spreadsheets and I think: "They don't LOOK overpowered. On paper at least... so what's wrong?" Well, I think it has to do with deck sizes. All of these changes actually do something interesting: They indirectly nerf Verivusin, the control deck. It DOES make sense, they are all about stalling and having more resources to play the long game.

Control decks in other games often suffer the worst from something players like to call "40-card Syndrome". As I understand it, a control deck wants every single tool as its disposal but can't have it. You can't fill your deck with just removal, that doesn't win you the game. The bigger your deck, the more you can "afford" to have these types of cards in your Main Deck. With the Main Deck at 60 cards, the control player can have as many of these tools as they want. But with the Main Deck lowered to 40 cards, every other Nation is going to beat them in consistency. This should cause the control player to want to also run 40 cards for consistency, but that means they lose tools. What're you going to choose to lose more of: Removal to not lose in the early and mid game, late game cards for actually winning, card draw to actually get the cards you want, or consistency to actually get the first two when you'd most want them? If a control player doesn't also run the least number of cards possible, they often will not get the cards they want at the times they want them. Thus, 40-card Syndrome.

My fear was this: If the main deck drops to a maximum of 40 cards, it causes decks to be come too consistent. At this point, I felt like I was borrowing too much from other card games like MTG and YGO where the standard deck size for their metas is 40 cards. The Main Deck size in these games is variable like Innomination is right now, but almost nobody plays decks with more than 40 cards because consistency is so important.

I originally felt by dropping down to 40 cards, Innomination would lose it's concept of "war" and needing strategies that focus on long term gains to win. I do NOT want Innomination to be the type of card game where players do everything possible to get one win condition as fast as possible. But what does this sound like? Long term gains? Longer games? A control deck's wet dream! 60 card decks cause enough inconsistency so players can't rely on a single tool to win. However, this causes Innomination to be a slow game because every nation is experiencing inconsistency in their card draws. Games got painfully slow if card draw RNG is not working out for both players, which happened more often than I thought. This right here, isn't fun.

And that consistency problem I thought would be bad? So far it has helped other nations significantly. Only time and more playtests will tell.

Not to mention: Do you know how unwieldly it is to pick up and/or shuffle 60 cards with sleeves? My players and I keep dropping them! 40 cards is much easier.

The Source Deck was reduced. I felt like this was something Innomination has needed for awhile. You shouldn't ever need 20 Source cards. I think 15 is still too much... I don't know. I've played with 12 and I think the limitation is a good thing, but only time and more playtests will tell. The intent here is to make player choice of what Source cards they choose to bring more impactful. At 20 cards, you can bring everything and who cares, it's fine. At 15? You have choices with room for options. At 12? Now you really have to pick, because you'll run out of Basic Source and Nation Source cards fast, while having to go net negative in early turns just to be net neutral in later turns.

The Named Deck was reduced. With a 40 card Main Deck, 25 named cards is too much. When I was making the new default decks, I couldn't even fill 25 with a lot of them. We will see what happens here. I am conflicted, because the Named Deck is the reason to play this game.

November 3rd, 2020

Prototype 3.1 has released.

Major Gameplay Changes

• • • 1. The prototype format for cards was redone. The actual changes are minimal, but this helps with printing.

      2. PSCT clarification for many cards. It's a never-ending battle.

      3. Nation Breakdown, Full Details:

         • Sectonia

Nfferphgn, Slypha of Bad News

• • • 3. • • • • Card type changed from Creature to Spell.

               • Aether Cost increased from 0 to 1.

Why? The body was already worthless since Nfferphgn sacrifices itself the instant he gets named. I just turned it into a Spell. It gets the same job done. It's actually better because the Dependence Rule lets the Search Bug survive.

• • • 3. • Vesuvion

General Varsunja, At Your Side

• • • 3. • • • • New effect: Aura - Enemy creatures cannot attack your Leader.

Why? Varsunja doesn't get summoned often. Playtesting comments say he wasn't worth considering because he doesn't have enough impact for a lategame defensive named card. It's rare for Vesuvion to get such a defense-oriented card, but if they're going to get one, it needs to be powerful so players will actually name him instead of continuing with what many considered better choices.

CHANGED - Death in Glorious Combat

• • • 3. • • • • Named changed to Glorious Combat

               • Old Card:

Spell - Cost: 1 Aether

Chain - Give an allied creature Invincible until the end of the turn, then destroy that creature. (The destruction is a Lingering Effect. This effect suspends its activation until a later time, despite the card it came from resolved. When a card is named or transforms, lingering effects on that card disappear.)

• • • 3. • • • • New Card:

Chain Attachment - Cost: 1 Aether

Chain - To a creature you own. Give it the effect: Contact - This creature's life cannot be reduced below 1 until the end of combat.

Cost - You may sacrifice this card. Name the attached creature. It cannot activate any Enter effects. (You must still pay its Aether Cost and meet the Naming Requirements.)

Why? Since Prototype 1, Death in Glorious Combat has been a nightmare for PSCT. Innomination makes an effort to minimize any Lingering Effects, too. DoGC (the card's old name for short) was initially intended to introduce players to Lingering Effects. However, the execution of this card has always been lackluster. Playtesters have consistently commented they couldn't find a good chance to ever use this card, so it was never worth playing. New players would look at DoGC and not understand how in the world they were supposed to use it. With this new version of the card, it's significantly more of an upside, tells players exactly what it's supposed to do, and gives you a free name to use on the card that survived, and actually makes the creature survive battle without destroying it. The Invincibility will be missed, but now it is clear how the card is designed to work.

• • • 3. • Verivusin

Patient Meditator

• • • 3. • • • • Countdown: Card draw reduced from 2 to 1.

               • New effect added to Countdown: Then restore 3 life to your Leader and gain +2/+0.

Why? Playtesting has shown the draw 2 to be too good. I don't think Verivusin should be getting that so early in the game. In lategame it's quite powerful as well, since there are so many bigger threats on the board, attacking the Meditator seems like a waste of time. I didn't want to nerf the card completely, though. Now this card has a reason to stick around instead of being a card drawing machine.

Daily Meditation

• • • 3. • • • • New subtype added: Law

Why? Future proofing the game.

Shrao, Sacred Tome Keeper

• • • 3. • • • • Aether Cost increased from 0 to 1.

Why? This has been in consideration for awhile. Shrao is incredibly good already. Forbidden Tomes are rather expensive for a reason.

Hunchedback of Zierdre Notus

• • • 3. • • • • Aether Cost increased from 0 to 1.

Why? This was done to make him a little more difficult to name. It's already so easy, it's practically got no Naming Requirements.

Healing Water

• • • 3. • • • • Only targets one player's Leader and creatures instead of all allies.

Why? No one has played any alliance battles yet, but players showed consistent concern for a "heal all" Spell that costs 1. In order to prevent any potential problems in the future, this will be softly nerfed just in case.

Aerial Lance

• • • 3. • • • • Aether Cost changed from LL to 1L.

Why? Better casting consistency.

Vhant Knight

• • • 3. • • • • Attack reduced from 5 to 4.

Why? This has been in consideration for awhile. I think this card already significantly over performs for what could cost 2. This stops Vhant Knight from walling certain named creatures in other Nations.

Diviner of the Rested

• • • 3. • • • • Attack reduced from 11 to 8.

               • Life increased from 9 to 12.

               • Effect removed: Chain - Negate an enemy creature's effects.

               • New effect: Chain - Expedite(1AL) - Play this card as a Spell. Negate an enemy creature's effects.

Why? A lot changed here. Expedite is a newer keyword I've been wanting in the game for awhile. There are already cards in A-Set that used Expedite mechanically, so it's best to standardize this as a keyword now instead of waiting on B-Set. I wanted this card to be more defensive, so it lost some Attack for Life. I consider it a fair trade, as its new Expedite effect makes it *far* better than it used to be.

• • • 3. • Lastaesha

Star Flare

• • • 3. • • • • Effect removed: Reserve - Cost - You may pay 3 Fire Aether. Destroy an enemy creature. This effect can be activated once per turn.

               • New effect: Reserve - Destroy a nameless enemy creature. Discard this card.

Why? Because I'm an idiot who thought the old effect was a fair price. Playtesters made it clear it's not.

• • • 3. • Asweigald

Mortar Team

• • • 3. • • • • Reserve - Damage increased from 2 to 3.

Why? A small adjustment for an underperforming creature in Reserve.

Inspirational Adventurer

• • • 3. • • • • Effect removed: Aura - You may name an additional card every turn.

               • New effect: Reserve - Aura - You may name an additional card every turn.

Why? This is more consistent towards what Asweigald wants to do. Beforehand, I constantly noticed no one played it as a creature, because while the Aura was good, it wasn't good enough and too risky since it would get destroyed soon afterwards. It never lives a turn. And it had no Reserve effect before, which is an artifact for how Asweigald used to play without the Reserve Zone.

• • • 3. • Kalua

Death's Lease

• • • 3. • • • • Keyword removed: Chain

Why? Never used. I'm not sure why I made Death's Lease chainable to begin with. It doesn't have any business being one.

Immortalize

• • • 3. • • • • Effect buffed. You can choose not to put the card on the bottom of your Main Deck if it's removed from play. If you do that, you gain 3 Fate.

               • Aether Cost increased from D to 1D.

Why? You could always choose not to put the card in the Main Deck, but there was no point since you gained nothing from it. Now you do. The Aether Cost increase has been in consideration for awhile. Immortalize was reworked to be significantly easier to understand in P2. As a result, its significantly increased usage in P3 makes me think Kalua will be fine if its Aether Cost is increased. This used to cost 3 in P1!

Mummified Corpse

• • • 3. • • • • Life increased from 3 to 4.

Why? This stops this creature from dying to Frilltip Strike, Punishment Pillar, and a non-Avina Coldseeking Flame.

Naeyah on Sitar

• • • 3. • • • • Effects added to Summon and Death: Add 1 to your Fate.

Why? This card didn't match my design notes on consistent design of archetypes. This helps that.

Red Rose

• • • 3. • • • • Second effect was changed into Expedite.

Why? PSCT. Future proofing the game.

Orange Lily

• • • 3. • • • • Second effect was changed into Expedite.

Why? PSCT. Future proofing the game.

The Osaw's Haunted Mansion

• • • 3. • • • • Effect removed: Countdown(5) - Summon a nameless Ethereal creature from your Banish Pile. At the beginning of your turn, summon a Spirit.

               • New effect: Countdown(3) - Summon a nameless Ethereal creature from your Banish Pile.

               • New effect: At the beginning of your turn, create and summon a Spirit.

Why? The old effect was confusing for new players. But why not separate the effects into two different Countdowns? I really don't want to give a single card multiple Countdown effects. That could get confusing. This card eventually lost too much value, so now it creates a Spirit every turn permanently. The Countdown was originally very long so you would get more Spirits out of it, but that's no longer needed.

Ma'ani Kut'ani

• • • 3. • • • • Naming Requirements: Required Count reduced from 4 to 3.

Why? Future proofing the game.

Gargenwar, the Destroyer

• • • 3. • • • • Gained Blitz.

               • Effect lost: Fate(8) - Gain Blitz. You must pay this Fate if able.

               • Naming Requirements: Required Fate increased from 12 to 15.

Why? To this day, as far as all of my playtesting sessions have gone, Gargenwar has not been named. Not once. Everyone knows. This is that lategame card no one uses because it's too hard to summon. Previously you needed Fate(12) and then Fate(8) to even smack Leaders with it on Turn 10. And it's already risky to name because it has no protection. Many Kalua playtesters were disappointed, because they *really* wanted to name this card. Now it already has Blitz. The initial cost is higher at Fate(15), but you are paying 5 less than before in total. I hope someone actually names it, now.

• • • 3. • The design team (me) carefully monitors how cards operate in gameplay. When I am able to play and watch others play Innomination, I carefully watch how cards are used. All playtesting and reporting of experiences helps immensely. Please, never be afraid to send me messages or e-mails of your experience playing Innomination. If you can, use the Innomination Feedback Form, which can be found here.

I am happy with where Innomination is in terms of gameplay for all Nations right now. After two years! There will be very little major changes to cards made from here on out. Now I am merely concerned with numbers. We're getting closer to the "final" version of the game. I want to thank every single playtester I've had the experience of playing and watching them play Innomination. The day of the game's Kickstarter is getting closer...

Crossroad Decisions

1. About out the Neutral cards that are currently in the game... There is a high chance they will either get replaced or are outright removed. No one uses them, because they suck. I think they *should* suck. If any Neutral cards are *better* than anything Nations have right now, they become auto-includes in decks. I don't want that happening in Innomination. Especially right now. It would be better to change them into better cards everyone can share for utility, but I have to be very careful with how that's designed for A-Set (Alpha Set).

2. Countdowns might be "removed" from the game and be combined with Count. Both are counters, but function differently from one another.

August 5th, 2020

Prototype 3 has received some significant changes. I suppose we could call this Prototype 3.1, but we won't (for now, at least).

Major Gameplay Changes

• • • 1. A lot of mistakes on card images were fixed.

         • NOTE: In LackeyCCG, when you scroll over a card, you can press and hold the "~" key on your keyboard to view the database version of the card. This is the best way know if the card image and card database conflict with each other.

      2. PSCT clarification for several cards.

      3. Nation Breakdown:

         • Sectonia seems to be in a good spot so far. No changes, but further playtesting is encouraged.

         • Vesuvion seems to be a good spot so far. No changes, but further playtesting is encouraged.

         • Verivusin has had two specific cards nerfed:

           • Temple Guard - Attack has been decreased from 2 to 1.

I want to talk about this in particular. I've been thinking about this change since Prototype 1. Temple Guards are supposed to be an effective deterrent in the beginning of the game for Verivusin so they have a safe option for getting to the midgame. However, over many playtests with this nation, I've observed many playtesters actually use Temple Guards offensively. Not my intention. My alternative was to give them Restraint, but that locks Temple Guards out of ever being their own archetype.

• • • 3. • • Solar Blessing - No longer draws a card. Still produces 2 Light Aether, but it can only be used to play cards that cost Light Aether.

Solar Blessing was a card I made when Verivusin didn't have a lot of card draw and would get stuck with high cost cards in their hand. This would help them get unstuck. Just like the Temple Guards above, this was too easy to use offensively and not what I want Verivusin to be doing early game.

• • • 3. • Lastaesha's changes have proven excellent for them... perhaps even too much so. Their ability to snowball has increased significantly. This is one of the main highlights of his nation. Their mechanics are working as intended, but they may need to be toned down just a little. At this point, I believe it's just numbers tweaking.

         • Asweigald has been... bad. The Reserve works for them, but there was near universal agreement that they simply are not strong enough to compete with any of the other nations. While they have excellent defensive cards, their offensive ability is incredibly limited and deals too little damage. This was not my intention, but it is readily obvious it is incredibly difficult for them to win games. Many cards were given new or different Reserve effects as a result. This is very much a work in progress still. More playtesting needed.

The new changes are very good, but more playtesting is needed.

• • • 3. • Kalua seems to be a great spot. No changes, but further playtesting is encouraged.

April 2nd, 2020

Phase 5 has officially begun. Phase 5 revolves around playtesting Prototype 3. I need to share this prototype with more people. That's proving... a bit difficult right now.

What happened to Phase 4? Phase 4 was transferring all of my files and work over to Adobe InDesign and making Prototype 3 in that.

I missed April Fools Day. Oh well. This update is definitely not a joke, though.

• • • Innomination Prototype 3 is ready for playtesting. The Downloads section has been updated with the newest version.

      • A handful of the less desirable prototype art has been redone. I think it was 6 cards? Don't remember as of this moment.

      • More cards have been trimmed from the game. From 354 cards to 327 cards. I feel REALLY good about what we have now. Another trim is unlikely to happen.

      • A physical version of Prototype 3 is currently in development. With the COVID-19 pandemic happening as of right now, I'm unsure what's going to happen, but it's better to be prepared than not. I still want to share the physical version, even though I know I can't. Have to find a way somehow...

    • The Beginner's Guide has been updated. Not by much as it's starting to shape up into a real manual for the game. As a living document, it will change as Innomination gets closer to a real product. See below for major changes.

Major Gameplay Changes

• • • 1. Yet more changes to cards. Based on my notes, about 86 cards were changed.

      2. PSCT clarification for some cards. Phase 3 fixed most of the game's PSCT. This time was mostly missing words instead of missing sentences.

      3. Nation Breakdown:

         • Sectonia's endgame cards have gotten a little stronger. More cards have had their power ceiling increased by sacrificing Insect Tokens. Phase 3 changed Leading Drone into a Token-production ender and it was very well received, as Sectonia was hurting in the endgame department. Beyond this, Sectonia has been doing very well and hasn't changed that much.

         • Vesuvion's Frilltip Strike has been made more versatile. Playtester feedback in Phase 3 told me it was underwhelming, especially considering how Lastaesha had a similar card at the same cost being far more versatile. It was also weird how there was only one card (Precise Bowzian) that revolved around a card that looked like it was supposed to be used frequently, but couldn't be. A few cards that were on the chopping block have been changed so they can do something with Frilltip Strikes. Other than this, a handful of cards were given slightly high effect values. Beyond this, Vesuvion is pretty much finished.

         • Lastaesha has proved underwhelming. This makes me sad. This isn't something I want, so Lastaesha has received some significant changes. Many named cards were turned into incredibly powerful Spells, it's easier to recycle cards in their cards in Reserve, and now several nameless Spells can be named. I'll be paying close attention to playtesting and feedback regarding this nation.

         • Asweigald's overhaul surrounding the Reserve Hand has been incredible. It works so much better than it used to. Very few changes were given to Asweigald, because more data and feedback is necessary before any bold changes are made.

         • Kalua received the least changes. Players who have played this nation picked up it's combo plays easily and I'm very happy about that. Only two cards were changed: Pink Splendor and Yellow Orchid. And their effects were only reduced by one point. At this point, it's safe to say Kalua is on its final draft.