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Pokémon TCG mod

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Exactly what do you want? I can make / Design Cards (Big and Icons) and everything, but i don't understand the english very well :( so i am not understanding what do you want
 

DaSpirit

Mad Programmer
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Hey Maruno, can you update your first post with all of the information about this?

I'm wondering, is this an addition to Essentials, or at least an editable? I thought you said earlier that it wasn't going to be, but now I see you talking about others adding stuff in (maybe I'm making stuff up lol).
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
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Exactly what do you want? I can make / Design Cards (Big and Icons) and everything, but i don't understand the english very well :( so i am not understanding what do you want
The PBS file tcgdecks.txt contains all the premade decks, such as:

Code:
1,STARTERDECK,Starter Deck,0,BASEDIGLETT,3,BASEMACHOP,4,BASEMACHOKE,2,
BASECHARMANDER,4,BASECHARMELEON,2,BASEGROWLITHE,1,BASEPONYTA,4,BASERATTATA,2,
BASEDRATINI,1,BASEBILL,1,BASEENERGYREMOVAL,1,BASEENERGYRETRIEVAL,1,
BASEGUSTOFWIND,1,BASEPOKEDEX,1,BASEPOTION,2,BASESWITCH,2,BASEFIGHTING,14,
BASEFIRE,14
I was asking if people wanted to make their own decks like this, to be included with the project.


Hey Maruno, can you update your first post with all of the information about this?

I'm wondering, is this an addition to Essentials, or at least an editable? I thought you said earlier that it wasn't going to be, but now I see you talking about others adding stuff in (maybe I'm making stuff up lol).
I'm calling it an extension to Essentials. Essentials itself remains untouched, and the TCG scripts are maybe a dozen additional script sections you can throw in. They're as editable as any Essentials script.

What I was saying is that, if you want to play a regular Pokémon game and have the TCG as just a mini-game within it (rather than having the TCG be the main focus of the game), I'm not going to help you. I've said before that I don't think it should be a mini-game, so I'm not going to support anyone who tries to turn it into one.

There's a huge difference between that and asking for new premade decks.


In other news, I've finally added prize card functionality, including being able to take prize cards for knocking out Pokémon. Once I've added in the win condition checks, you'll be able to play properly! (Except that the AI is a vegetable that does nothing, many card effects don't exist, and there are no restrictions on actions per turn. Apart from all that, though, the only real things left to do are cosmetic.) Of course, there's also still many out-of-duel things to do (Card Dex, summary, booster packs, etc.).
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
141
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  • Seen Jun 9, 2016
Code:
1,STARTERDECK,Starter Deck,0,BASEDIGLETT,3,BASEMACHOP,4,BASEMACHOKE,2,
BASECHARMANDER,4,BASECHARMELEON,2,BASEGROWLITHE,1,BASEPONYTA,4,BASERATTATA,2,
BASEDRATINI,1,BASEBILL,1,BASEENERGYREMOVAL,1,BASEENERGYRETRIEVAL,1,
BASEGUSTOFWIND,1,BASEPOKEDEX,1,BASEPOTION,2,BASESWITCH,2,BASEFIGHTING,14,
BASEFIRE,14
I was asking if people wanted to make their own decks like this, to be included with the project.
Maybe you are interested in adding the decks from the GBC game?
Spoiler:
And do you plan on adding the tcg decks like "Blackout", "Overgrowth", "Zap!" and "Brushfire"?

EDIT
A suggestion how to manage the AI:
Why not add some check for strategies to the prefabricated decks in the PBS file?
For example you could make a check if the deck is an "Evolution deck" or if you mainly use Basic cards.
And because the AI can only use prefabricated decks you have to make different AI for "Evolution decks" and "Basic Card decks".
For example "Evolution decks" should concentrate to evolving their pokemon as fast as possible and using them and "Basic Card" decks (with cards like Electabuzz) should try to overwhelm the opponent at the beginning of the game.
This way you can even combine different checks.
As an example lets use the both strategies above. If you have selected "Evolution deck" and "Basic Card deck" the AI should try to overwhelm the opponent with strong Basic cards at the beginning and try to evolve their other Basic cards as fast as possible. After the weak Basic Cards are evolved the AI should stop using strong Basic cards and start using evolved pokemon cards.
You see that if you combine strategies you need a priority for each one. In the above example the "Basic Card deck" strategy should have a little bit higher priority then the "Evolution Deck" strategy. This way the AI should use the "Basic Card deck" as its main strategy but it doesn't ignore the "Evolution deck" strategy.
Of course you need conditions for each strategy when to get higher or lower priority. For example the "Basic Card deck" should have a condition that this strategy gets lower priority when you have evolved cards. And because the "Basic Card deck" strategy has now lower priority then the "Evolution deck" strategy the AI starts to use evolved pokemon.
And you need to determine which cards can be called "strong" Basic cards so the "Basic Card deck" AI knows with which cards it should try to overwhelm the opponent.
Of course there are more Strategies you can determine for each deck and there are a lot of more ways to combine them. This way you can make a lot of different AI behavior! There are restrictions as well. This way each deck has just one combination of strategy that you can determine. If you want more you have to copy past the deck in the PBS file and change the checks i think. Maybe there is a better way thought. :)

Hope the stuff i said makes sense. I am not a programmer so i don't know how programming actually works. So sorry if i talked nonsense. :)
 
Last edited:

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
5,285
Posts
16
Years
Maybe you are interested in adding the decks from the GBC game?

And do you plan on adding the tcg decks like "Blackout", "Overgrowth", "Zap!" and "Brushfire"?
I've already added the Blackout, etc. decks that came alongside the first 3 sets (9 decks in total). As for the decks in the GBC game, some of them use cards that aren't included in this project, so they'd need to at least be altered accordingly by someone who knows more about deck-building than I. They're all listed on Bulbapedia.


EDIT
A suggestion how to manage the AI:
Why not add some check for strategies to the prefabricated decks in the PBS file?
For example you could make a check if the deck is an "Evolution deck" or if you mainly use Basic cards.
And because the AI can only use prefabricated decks you have to make different AI for "Evolution decks" and "Basic Card decks".
For example "Evolution decks" should concentrate to evolving their pokemon as fast as possible and using them and "Basic Card" decks (with cards like Electabuzz) should try to overwhelm the opponent at the beginning of the game.
This way you can even combine different checks.
As an example lets use the both strategies above. If you have selected "Evolution deck" and "Basic Card deck" the AI should try to overwhelm the opponent with strong Basic cards at the beginning and try to evolve their other Basic cards as fast as possible. After the weak Basic Cards are evolved the AI should stop using strong Basic cards and start using evolved pokemon cards.
You see that if you combine strategies you need a priority for each one. In the above example the "Basic Card deck" strategy should have a little bit higher priority then the "Evolution Deck" strategy. This way the AI should use the "Basic Card deck" as its main strategy but it doesn't ignore the "Evolution deck" strategy.
Of course you need conditions for each strategy when to get higher or lower priority. For example the "Basic Card deck" should have a condition that this strategy gets lower priority when you have evolved cards. And because the "Basic Card deck" strategy has now lower priority then the "Evolution deck" strategy the AI starts to use evolved pokemon.
And you need to determine which cards can be called "strong" Basic cards so the "Basic Card deck" AI knows with which cards it should try to overwhelm the opponent.

Hope the stuff i said makes sense. I am not a programmer so i don't know how programming actually works. So sorry if i talked nonsense. :)
I really don't think such strategies need to be separated. It all boils down to "use the best cards", and what constitutes a "best card" depends on the environment (i.e. what other cards are in play, etc.). This can certainly become convoluted very quickly as the AI develops, as there'll be all sorts of checks and evaluations. This is especially true when you start thinking of combos.

Of course, the AI is going to cheat. That is, it'll make its choices while knowing about cards it shouldn't be able to know about (e.g. cards in the player's hand, which prize card is best to take, whether it'll draw something good because of Professor Oak). However, it won't influence the outcomes of coin flips or whatever, so it'll be fair that way. I think making the AI omniscient is the only way it can be made to stand a chance against players.

As for how the AI will actually work, I have a vague idea. At the start of its turn, it looks around the duel and lists everything it is able to do (play a card from the hand, use an in-play effect such as a Pokémon Power, retreat, etc.), and then assign a desirability value to it. Calculating this value for each action depends a lot on the environment, and is the convoluted part. Once all the values are calculated, it will do the most desirable action and repeat (recalculating the values for what's left). Once there's nothing left to do, it will attack if possible and desirable - the good thing is that an attack is always the last thing in a turn (and there's always just 1 attack per turn), which makes it a bit simpler.

It sounds simple when I write it in just one paragraph, and some actions will always be desirable (e.g. play Bill) and some will never be worth using (e.g. Mankey's Pokémon Power, as the AI will know all those cards via cheating anyway). However, when is the best time to play Energy Removal, and which Pokémon/energy should be hit by it? How about Super Energy Removal, which involves a cost to the user and may not be worth it (and if so, which card should the AI pay)? There's a huge amount of thought that needs to go into the AI for even a single effect, and I think that such thought needs to be done in order to make the AI worthwhile.

Tuning can come much later, e.g. deciding the threshold desirability value below which an action shouldn't be done, and how much randomness to involve in the choices.

As you can see, any emergent "strategy" will depend entirely on the make-up of the deck. It can only depend on the cards you've got available ("work with what you've got"), and it's up to the AI calculations for each card to decide how useful (and therefore desirable) it is. The overall behaviour of the AI will simply look like what it does the most, which depends on what it's got (e.g. an energy-controlling strategy will appear if there are a lot of energy-controlling effects in the deck). I don't think there's any need to include deck-specific AI profiles (particularly as it would tend to rail-road and hurt decks which could sometimes benefit from profiles they don't have), and instead throw every situational calculation into the one AI used for everything.
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
141
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I've already added the Blackout, etc. decks that came alongside the first 3 sets (9 decks in total). As for the decks in the GBC game, some of them use cards that aren't included in this project, so they'd need to at least be altered accordingly by someone who knows more about deck-building than I. They're all listed on Bulbapedia.
Yeah the list is on Bulbapedia but you shouldn't mix up the Auto Deck Machine decks with the decks not available in the Auto Deck Machine! The Auto Deck Machine decks are meant for players and the other decks for the AI. There are cards that make the AI harder to beat and cards that need a strategy which the AI cant come up with.

Can you tell me some cards that aren't included but are needed for a deck? Maybe i can come up with a replacement. ^^

Of course, the AI is going to cheat. That is, it'll make its choices while knowing about cards it shouldn't be able to know about (e.g. cards in the player's hand, which prize card is best to take, whether it'll draw something good because of Professor Oak). However, it won't influence the outcomes of coin flips or whatever, so it'll be fair that way. I think making the AI omniscient is the only way it can be made to stand a chance against players.
You should be careful so that the "cheat" is not to obvious. :D

As for how the AI will actually work, I have a vague idea. At the start of its turn, it looks around the duel and lists everything it is able to do (play a card from the hand, use an in-play effect such as a Pokémon Power, retreat, etc.), and then assign a desirability value to it. Calculating this value for each action depends a lot on the environment, and is the convoluted part. Once all the values are calculated, it will do the most desirable action and repeat (recalculating the values for what's left). Once there's nothing left to do, it will attack if possible and desirable - the good thing is that an attack is always the last thing in a turn (and there's always just 1 attack per turn), which makes it a bit simpler.
So the AI will do anything that it is able to do before attacking? Isn't it sometimes better (smarter) if the AI skips some actions if it doesn't need to do it? For example saving an Energy card for next turn is sometimes better then putting it on a Benched Pokemon that doesn't need any more energy. Or saving Professor Oak until you have less cards in your hand.


It sounds simple when I write it in just one paragraph, and some actions will always be desirable (e.g. play Bill) and some will never be worth using (e.g. Mankey's Pokémon Power, as the AI will know all those cards via cheating anyway). However, when is the best time to play Energy Removal, and which Pokémon/energy should be hit by it? How about Super Energy Removal, which involves a cost to the user and may not be worth it (and if so, which card should the AI pay)? There's a huge amount of thought that needs to go into the AI for even a single effect, and I think that such thought needs to be done in order to make the AI worthwhile.
Energy Removal should hit the active Pokemon if it has enough energy to attack or if it will get enough energy to attack next turn. If the active pokemon will not get enough energy to attack next turn the AI chooses the pokemon with the most energy on the Bench. This is the simple way you could do it. If you want it smarter you should make it check the attack power of the benched pokemon and if they have enough energy to do this attack. If there is a benched pokemon that has a much stronger attack then the opponents active pokemon and enough energy to do this attack and if your opponents active pokemon have/will get enough energy to retreat next turn choose the benched pokemon. Which energy to choose is easier then choosing the pokemon i guess. "Color" energy should always get priority over "colorless" energy. "Color" energy that has the same type as the card should always get priority over other "color" energy.

Super energy removal should first check if you have more energy then you need in game. There is an order you can check this. First control the active pokemon. If AIs active pokemon doesn't has enough Energy to attack there is no need for other checks because you don't have enough energy.
If the active pokemon has enough energy check your bench for the amount of pokemon with energy cards. If its zero super energy removal would target AIs active pokemon and it is not worth it. If you have pokemon with energy on your bench check if you have at least one energy on your hand. If you dont you should check if your active pokemon has enough hp to survive next turn. if it has or you have an energy card on your hand there is no problem using super energy removal and choosing the weakest pokemon on the AIs bench. Colorless energy is preferred to pay of course. :)

You are right that the thoughts need to be done! But not by you alone you know. :D

As you can see, any emergent "strategy" will depend entirely on the make-up of the deck. It can only depend on the cards you've got available ("work with what you've got"), and it's up to the AI calculations for each card to decide how useful (and therefore desirable) it is. The overall behaviour of the AI will simply look like what it does the most, which depends on what it's got (e.g. an energy-controlling strategy will appear if there are a lot of energy-controlling effects in the deck). I don't think there's any need to include deck-specific AI profiles (particularly as it would tend to rail-road and hurt decks which could sometimes benefit from profiles they don't have), and instead throw every situational calculation into the one AI used for everything.
Yeah an AI that can handle any situation is much better but much more complicated as well. I thought a deck-specific AI is more intelligent and easier to do and that is why i suggested it. After all the AI can't use any other deck then the specific decks you give it. And any prefabricated deck you can give the AI has most likely a strategy that would benefit that deck. Instead of hoping the AI comes up with the strategy itself you can guide it a little right? :)
 
Last edited:
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well the template i posted in the tcg section on here has decent deck icons and energy icons (different sizes)
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
5,285
Posts
16
Years
Yeah the list is on Bulbapedia but you shouldn't mix up the Auto Deck Machine decks with the decks not available in the Auto Deck Machine! The Auto Deck Machine decks are meant for players and the other decks for the AI. There are cards that make the AI harder to beat and cards that need a strategy which the AI cant come up with.
There is no Auto Deck Machine, so that's not a problem (and in any case, the available decks would be defined by the Machine itself). Every single premade deck, no matter how it's used or where/if it's available to the player, is defined in the same way.

I linked to that Bulbapedia page because at the bottom there's a list of every single deck in the game.


So the AI will do anything that it is able to do before attacking? Isn't it sometimes better (smarter) if the AI skips some actions if it doesn't need to do it? For example saving an Energy card for next turn is sometimes better then putting it on a Benched Pokemon that doesn't need any more energy. Or saving Professor Oak until you have less cards in your hand.
That's all part of making the AI. It's all calculations about whether it should play a particular card. Whether it is able to play that card is only the first (easy) step.


Energy Removal should hit the active Pokemon if it has enough energy to attack or if it will get enough energy to attack next turn. If the active pokemon will not get enough energy to attack next turn the AI chooses the pokemon with the most energy on the Bench. This is the simple way you could do it. If you want it smarter you should make it check the attack power of the benched pokemon and if they have enough energy to do this attack. If there is a benched pokemon that has a much stronger attack then the opponents active pokemon and enough energy to do this attack and if your opponents active pokemon have/will get enough energy to retreat next turn choose the benched pokemon. Which energy to choose is easier then choosing the pokemon i guess. "Color" energy should always get priority over "colorless" energy. "Color" energy that has the same type as the card should always get priority over other "color" energy.

Super energy removal should first check if you have more energy then you need in game. There is an order you can check this. First control the active pokemon. If AIs active pokemon doesn't has enough Energy to attack there is no need for other checks because you don't have enough energy.
If the active pokemon has enough energy check your bench for the amount of pokemon with energy cards. If its zero super energy removal would target AIs active pokemon and it is not worth it. If you have pokemon with energy on your bench check if you have at least one energy on your hand. If you dont you should check if your active pokemon has enough hp to survive next turn. if it has or you have an energy card on your hand there is no problem using super energy removal and choosing the weakest pokemon on the AIs bench. Colorless energy is preferred to pay of course. :)
I only mentioned those cards to give an example of how there's a lot of calculations involved in deciding whether to use them; I wasn't actually looking for help with them right now. However, your large paragraphs show that there are a lot of things to consider.

I disagree with your last sentence, though. The only Colorless energy is Double Colorless, which can be very useful (for any Colorless Pokémon, or Charizard, etc.). I'd say figuring out if there's an excess card anywhere is a good place to start (the level of emergency can allow alternatives, of course).


Yeah an AI that can handle any situation is much better but much more complicated as well. I thought a deck-specific AI is more intelligent and easier to do and that is why i suggested it. After all the AI can't use any other deck then the specific decks you give it. And any prefabricated deck you can give the AI has most likely a strategy that would benefit that deck. Instead of hoping the AI comes up with the strategy itself you can guide it a little right? :)
Possibly, but you'd need to do it over and over for each AI profile (not the entire thing, of course, but significant amounts). I imagine strategy is the hardest thing to make an AI do, and that it's probably actually easier to let it deal with each card on its own merit rather than teach it how to follow a strategy. There's the added bonus of being able to adapt to changes in the game, such as shifting to an aggressive style when you can afford it (e.g. when you could win by being aggressive rather than following a stall-type AI profile).

The one big thing needed for creating a half-decent AI is testing. That means the game itself needs to work first, so I can throw out a release and let you all report on how the AI worked (noting any particular cleverness or stupidity), which then lets the AI be modified and improved. This is one of the reasons I'd like to concentrate only on one AI rather than a variety. It's also easier to troubleshoot.
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
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II disagree with your last sentence, though. The only Colorless energy is Double Colorless, which can be very useful (for any Colorless Pokémon, or Charizard, etc.). I'd say figuring out if there's an excess card anywhere is a good place to start (the level of emergency can allow alternatives, of course).
Colorless Energy is useless for Charizard. Any Colorless energy card can only be used to pay for Colorless energy requirements on a Pokemon. For example, if a Charizard required a Fire energy for one of its attacks, you cannot use a Colorless energy card for it.
However, any energy card can be used to pay for any Colorless energy requirements.
That is why it is much easier to pay for Colorless energy requirements and that makes the Colorless energy worthless/dispensable. Double Colorless is a useful card because it provides two energy at once and that is good for some cards with more then one colorless attack requirements.

Possibly, but you'd need to do it over and over for each AI profile (not the entire thing, of course, but significant amounts). I imagine strategy is the hardest thing to make an AI do, and that it's probably actually easier to let it deal with each card on its own merit rather than teach it how to follow a strategy. There's the added bonus of being able to adapt to changes in the game, such as shifting to an aggressive style when you can afford it (e.g. when you could win by being aggressive rather than following a stall-type AI profile).
You are right about it taking more effort and time to create AI profiles. But IMO its worth it. I know a guy who is improving the AI from the good old "Age of Empires 2" because the included AI was dumb. You could beat the computer opponent in minutes in "extreme" mode. But after i updated with his patch i cant even beat in "middle". You know what he did? He made an independent AI for each Civilization! This way he maximized the use of their advantages in battle and minimized their wasteful behavior in terms of resources. If you are a AoE2 player i can link you to his site if you want. :)
The point is that in some games it is smarter to make an specific AI which can handle a situation perfectly instead of making an general AI that can handle any situation average. I don't know if the TCG is one of these games but i think so.

The one big thing needed for creating a half-decent AI is testing. That means the game itself needs to work first, so I can throw out a release and let you all report on how the AI worked (noting any particular cleverness or stupidity), which then lets the AI be modified and improved. This is one of the reasons I'd like to concentrate only on one AI rather than a variety. It's also easier to troubleshoot.
This is a good point! I can imagine that troubleshooting would be more time consuming if you have more then one AI which uses the same broken part. On the other hand you would know where to fix the other AI before you even look at it.
But like i said i don't know much about programming myself. I just see interesting stuff people do and i try to apply it theoretically on other things. :)

p.claydon said:
well the template i posted in the tcg section on here has decent deck icons and energy icons (different sizes)
Could you post them here again if it doesnt bothers you? :)
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
5,285
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Colorless Energy is useless for Charizard. Any Colorless energy card can only be used to pay for Colorless energy requirements on a Pokemon. For example, if a Charizard required a Fire energy for one of its attacks, you cannot use a Colorless energy card for it.
However, any energy card can be used to pay for any Colorless energy requirements.
That is why it is much easier to pay for Colorless energy requirements and that makes the Colorless energy worthless/dispensable. Double Colorless is a useful card because it provides two energy at once and that is good for some cards with more then one colorless attack requirements.
I see you're forgetting Charizard's Pokémon Power. I know how energy works, and I still say that Double Colorless Energy is great in the right deck.


You are right about it taking more effort and time to create AI profiles. But IMO its worth it. I know a guy who is improving the AI from the good old "Age of Empires 2" because the included AI was dumb. You could beat the computer opponent in minutes in "extreme" mode. But after i updated with his patch i cant even beat in "middle". You know what he did? He made an independent AI for each Civilization! This way he maximized the use of their advantages in battle and minimized their wasteful behavior in terms of resources. If you are a AoE2 player i can link you to his site if you want. :)
The point is that in some games it is smarter to make an specific AI which can handle a situation perfectly instead of making an general AI that can handle any situation average. I don't know if the TCG is one of these games but i think so.

This is a good point! I can imagine that troubleshooting would be more time consuming if you have more then one AI which uses the same broken part. On the other hand you would know where to fix the other AI before you even look at it.
But like i said i don't know much about programming myself. I just see interesting stuff people do and i try to apply it theoretically on other things. :)
AoE is a bit different because a given civilisation's units are always the same, and the progression between ages and tech trees and all that are fixed. TCG decks can contain many different cards, and cards are drawn randomly in a duel. I think it's far too much hassle to make multiple AIs, given this randomness which would need to be accounted for.

As I've said, all you can really do is work with what you're given, and what you're given is some random cards from your deck. Now, you can go into any amount of detail you like when it comes to making the AI for a particular card (e.g. defining circumstances in which it will prefer one target over another), but it would get very convoluted if you get too invested in it. Even so, taking each card as it comes is a modular system, and easier to manage and tinker with.


One thing I'd like to hear from someone who knows about AI is: is my idea any good? Is there an alternative system to calculating desirability for each action that would be more suitable for this kind of game?

As for how the AI will actually work, I have a vague idea. At the start of its turn, it looks around the duel and lists everything it is able to do (play a card from the hand, use an in-play effect such as a Pokémon Power, retreat, etc.), and then assign a desirability value to it. Calculating this value for each action depends a lot on the environment, and is the convoluted part. Once all the values are calculated, it will do the most desirable action and repeat (recalculating the values for what's left). Once there's nothing left to do, it will attack if possible and desirable - the good thing is that an attack is always the last thing in a turn (and there's always just 1 attack per turn), which makes it a bit simpler.
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
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I see you're forgetting Charizard's Pokémon Power. I know how energy works, and I still say that Double Colorless Energy is great in the right deck.
I cant believe i forgot its ability. xD Maybe because I always preferred (and played) Blastoise over Charizard.

And i didn't said Double Energy is a bad card. I said that it is better to remove a Colorless Energy from your Pokemon with "Super Energy Removal" then removing a Basic Energy because every Basic Energy can be paid for a Colorless energy requirement.

And you once mentioned that you will make boosters for energy cards right?
Maybe instead of this you should give an infinite number of each Basic Energy to the player. Basic Energies are always needed in mass and its bothersome to open boosters (even if they are for free) to get them.
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
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And you once mentioned that you will make boosters for energy cards right?
Maybe instead of this you should give an infinite number of each Basic Energy to the player. Basic Energies are always needed in mass and its bothersome to open boosters (even if they are for free) to get them.
I said it will be possible, eventually. I may include an energy-only booster set as an example of how to create mix-'n'-match booster sets, but it certainly doesn't need to be a feature. Mix-'n'-match booster sets will cause problems with throttling rarities, though, so I may ditch throttling and have booster pack contents be entirely random.

If you want to give the player 60 of each energy card, you can do that yourself. It makes finding energy cards in booster packs pointless and annoying, though. Besides, I think the need for energy cards encourages the player to duel more in order to get more booster packs.
 

Ayutac

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The point is that in some games it is smarter to make an specific AI which can handle a situation perfectly instead of making an general AI that can handle any situation average. I don't know if the TCG is one of these games but i think so.
That depends on the AI. If it's really good, it will develop a strategy according to the cards in the deck. I.E. In YGO there are effects that make you discarding cards as a effect, not as a cost. For most cards that doesn't changes a thing and you would want to avoid it, but in certain decks it is the main strategy to discards cards because of effects (because that will activate their effects respectively) or to have an empty hand.
On the other side, we may want to have different difficulties for AIs.

the__end said:
And you once mentioned that you will make boosters for energy cards right?
Maybe instead of this you should give an infinite number of each Basic Energy to the player. Basic Energies are always needed in mass and its bothersome to open boosters (even if they are for free) to get them.
Personally, I would include that as a feature.
 
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I just came across this thread today when I was thinking of making a Pokemon TCG, I thought 'Why bother if someones already making one right?' So how far have you actually got with this whole project, in terms of programming and such?
 

Ooka

[font=Maven Pro][color=#A75EE2]Cosmic[/color][/fon
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Sorry, I'm replying without reading the thread yet, I'll get to that later this evening probably.

I'd like to contribute (inb4 fullmetal stabs me xDD). Is the interface going to be an exact clone of the old games, or are you trying to reinvent it to a nicer, newer interface?

I could help with that (I'm a graphic designer by trade), or with coding.
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
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I just came across this thread today when I was thinking of making a Pokemon TCG, I thought 'Why bother if someones already making one right?' So how far have you actually got with this whole project, in terms of programming and such?
That was my thought when I made this thread. Turns out I started making my own anyway.

I've already put an alpha out which includes a library/deck builder and half of a duel, plus many background scripts which support it all (like the compilers). There's a link in here somewhere, and I'll get round to editing the first post to include the latest information.


Sorry, I'm replying without reading the thread yet, I'll get to that later this evening probably.

I'd like to contribute (inb4 fullmetal stabs me xDD). Is the interface going to be an exact clone of the old games, or are you trying to reinvent it to a nicer, newer interface?

I could help with that (I'm a graphic designer by trade), or with coding.
That's very nice to hear. Your skills will be very welcome, as soon as I come up with an actual list of what needs doing.

As far as the visual style goes, I'm replicating the Asobikata game, albeit with a few tweaks to suit a single screen and keyboard controls. That game doesn't have any visuals for anything other than duels, though, so I'm making up other screens (e.g. Library, Card Dex) as I go along - they could certainly use improvements, if you want to have a go at them.

Have a play with my alpha first, see how things work.
 

Ooka

[font=Maven Pro][color=#A75EE2]Cosmic[/color][/fon
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Had a read through some of the thread. I made a little mockup, let me know what you think.

ibv0h6VkufeU2P.png


iIlrOrS1jeJMI.png
 
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