Post by catone on Aug 28, 2008 17:16:29 GMT -5
Okay, in this I will try to explain what I've figured out by playing the TCG. The in-game tutorial (to me) seems more like SOE bragging about their new toy. I learned the hard way, getting whipped over and over by the AI until I figured out how to survive more than two rounds, so I'll do my best on the terminology and I'll probably still leave out some of the finer points, but I should be able to get enough acrossed that anybody can play a game and not look like a complete noob.
Cards - Trading, buying, and winning
First off, only cards that have been bought (or won in a scenario) can be traded. As for buying cards... I don't recommend it. SOE sells packs from $2.00 range to $100. Do not waste your cash on packs trying to get loot, I was watching the chat and several people bought $100 packs and got a chair... MAYBE. Free packs can contain just as much loot cards as the bought ones.
If you really want to buy cards, give it time, I predict cred farmers selling them ingame before to long. As for trading, if you have cards you can trade, hang out in the TCG chat room, should still be people that are willing to trade.
Decks:
You can build your own decks, and avatars, but its pretty strict on what you have. You have to have 50 cards min for starters. All cards in your deck have to be the same color/type as your one and only avatar, you can also use the white colored cards in any deck with any avatar. If you try to build your own deck, you can check to see what your missing by going to play a game, select the one you built and saved, and click the deck icon next to the red X or green checkmark, it will tell you what you still need.
If you want to add cards, the quickest way is to "open" a pre-built deck, then change it around how you want and save it under a diffrent name.
Card Types:
There are a few diffrent card types:
Units
Equipment
Abilites
Tactical
Units: These cards are on the front lines of the battle field and generally die often (being able to take only one or two hits will do that) however they are useful as damage sponges to keep enemy units from molesting your avatar. If you have units on a quest, you can have them conduct a raid (attack) by clicking the red flag next to the quest card on the board. If there are opposing units, they will attack them, if unopposed they will attack the avatar.
Equipment: All sorts of good stuff here, these items go on the left side of your avatar card. Everything from armor pieces to weapons to neat little items that let you do all sorts of stuff. Most can be used as often as needed but only on your avatar, not for units. You can only have one piece of one type of equipment in these boxes at a time (for instance you can not have two "ranged" type items, or two "chest armor" items, even if they are diffrent cards, one will over right the other if played.
Abilities: These cards are placed on the right side of your avatar, they are used to "win" quest, they can be used to add defense during combat, or some can be used at other times based on the description on the card. They are a must have.
Tactics: These cards are played at a moments notice from your hand, some during combat, some during other times, they usually do not cost energy, and are one use only (for instance +3 attack or deffense). They can be used on both units and avatars.
Stats on cards:[/u]
Every card except tactical have stats, the little icons down the side of the card. The number in the top left of the card is how much power you will exspend to play this card.
Lightsaber Icon: this is the units Attack power, this number is only used when the card it expended while on the offensive of a battle. This number does not effect dmg, only attack value.
Green Breast plate: The opposite of the Lightsaber, this is Defense power, this number is only used when the card is expended while on the defensive side of a battle, this number has no effect on dmg taken, it only matters if it is higher or lower than the attacker's value, so don't bother expending cards to raise this value unless you can beat what the attacker will throw at you.
Yellow Gernade: This value will add actual dmg to the winning side of a combat phase, but only if the card containing it is expended after you have been through the defensive/offensive tapping phase, if you ended with an equal or higher value on attack than your opponent, you can then exert the cards with a value here to do more dmg to the enemy. The more the better.
Red Heart: This value is the hitpoints of the unit/avatar. Most units have a health of about 1-3 and avatars should have about 8-14. It is not always a bad idea to use a unit card with only 1 health, during normal combat you get to choose who takes recieved dmg, so you can always choose to save the little guy by letting the unit with more health take the hit.
Sith holocron: This is the Level value of the card and is only found on abilities and quest. For quest, it is how many level tokens it takes to complete, for abilities, it is how many tokens will be added to a quest, when the ability is played on the quest during a quest phase.
Winning a game:
You can win a game one of two ways, completing four quest, or killing the other avatar. Personally I find it easier to kill the other avatar, this is done by conducting raids with unit cards that are unopposed, or using abilities that kick you into avatar on avatar combat.
Questing:
You will enter a quest phase, only if your avatar was not exerted durning your opponents turn and you have an ability in the boxes on the right side of your avatar with a level value. This turn comes before your actual un-exert phase. While questing, your avatar will NOT attack the other avatar even if they do a quest that has no opposing units, if there are opposing units, your avatar will enter combat with them, and if you win, you will have the option to dump an ability on that quest. This ability will not come back to you, but will add to the Level tokens you have on said quest.
Level Tokens: Level tokens are the little yellow dots in the circles above and below a quest, the Level value on a quest dertermins how many are required to win that quest. To add level tokens you must go through a quest phase, win any combat, and use an ability on it. There will then been added as many level tokens as the level value on the ability applied. You do not have to put them all on at once, you just keep adding until you finish it, and do it before you opponent does. Avatars do not share level tokens, each player has their own. So if your opponent has 4 on a lvl 6 quest, you can still get it first if you defend it well enough with unit cards.
Combat: When in combat, it doen't matter if you are deffending or attacking, you want your attack/defense number to be higher than the other guy's. It doesn't matter how much higher, or how much lower. If it is lower, you take dmg, if it is higher, they take dmg, if they are equal, you both take dmg. This value has no effect on dmg taken or delt, so don't bother exerting units, items, abilities or Tactics if you have no chance of being higher than the opponent or if you are already higher. This being said, you may want to exert a defensive unit, even if you can't win in order to force your opponent to exert another unit or item on attacking (this will prevent them from being exerted to increase the actual dmg). At the same time, do not throw everything you have on the first turn, you can go back and forth during the combat phase, you will always have a chance to add more defense to your value if you have more cards you can exert and as long as you end your current turn with a higher value it will always come back to you before the battle is over. After the battle values have been decided, you have the option (if your value was higher or equal) to exert cards with the yellow gernade on them to add actual dmg delt. This is why you need to choose carefully what cards you exert on the battle phase, save the cards with dmg values if at all possiable until the dmg phase for best results.
Cards - Trading, buying, and winning
First off, only cards that have been bought (or won in a scenario) can be traded. As for buying cards... I don't recommend it. SOE sells packs from $2.00 range to $100. Do not waste your cash on packs trying to get loot, I was watching the chat and several people bought $100 packs and got a chair... MAYBE. Free packs can contain just as much loot cards as the bought ones.
If you really want to buy cards, give it time, I predict cred farmers selling them ingame before to long. As for trading, if you have cards you can trade, hang out in the TCG chat room, should still be people that are willing to trade.
Decks:
You can build your own decks, and avatars, but its pretty strict on what you have. You have to have 50 cards min for starters. All cards in your deck have to be the same color/type as your one and only avatar, you can also use the white colored cards in any deck with any avatar. If you try to build your own deck, you can check to see what your missing by going to play a game, select the one you built and saved, and click the deck icon next to the red X or green checkmark, it will tell you what you still need.
If you want to add cards, the quickest way is to "open" a pre-built deck, then change it around how you want and save it under a diffrent name.
Card Types:
There are a few diffrent card types:
Units
Equipment
Abilites
Tactical
Units: These cards are on the front lines of the battle field and generally die often (being able to take only one or two hits will do that) however they are useful as damage sponges to keep enemy units from molesting your avatar. If you have units on a quest, you can have them conduct a raid (attack) by clicking the red flag next to the quest card on the board. If there are opposing units, they will attack them, if unopposed they will attack the avatar.
Equipment: All sorts of good stuff here, these items go on the left side of your avatar card. Everything from armor pieces to weapons to neat little items that let you do all sorts of stuff. Most can be used as often as needed but only on your avatar, not for units. You can only have one piece of one type of equipment in these boxes at a time (for instance you can not have two "ranged" type items, or two "chest armor" items, even if they are diffrent cards, one will over right the other if played.
Abilities: These cards are placed on the right side of your avatar, they are used to "win" quest, they can be used to add defense during combat, or some can be used at other times based on the description on the card. They are a must have.
Tactics: These cards are played at a moments notice from your hand, some during combat, some during other times, they usually do not cost energy, and are one use only (for instance +3 attack or deffense). They can be used on both units and avatars.
Stats on cards:[/u]
Every card except tactical have stats, the little icons down the side of the card. The number in the top left of the card is how much power you will exspend to play this card.
Lightsaber Icon: this is the units Attack power, this number is only used when the card it expended while on the offensive of a battle. This number does not effect dmg, only attack value.
Green Breast plate: The opposite of the Lightsaber, this is Defense power, this number is only used when the card is expended while on the defensive side of a battle, this number has no effect on dmg taken, it only matters if it is higher or lower than the attacker's value, so don't bother expending cards to raise this value unless you can beat what the attacker will throw at you.
Yellow Gernade: This value will add actual dmg to the winning side of a combat phase, but only if the card containing it is expended after you have been through the defensive/offensive tapping phase, if you ended with an equal or higher value on attack than your opponent, you can then exert the cards with a value here to do more dmg to the enemy. The more the better.
Red Heart: This value is the hitpoints of the unit/avatar. Most units have a health of about 1-3 and avatars should have about 8-14. It is not always a bad idea to use a unit card with only 1 health, during normal combat you get to choose who takes recieved dmg, so you can always choose to save the little guy by letting the unit with more health take the hit.
Sith holocron: This is the Level value of the card and is only found on abilities and quest. For quest, it is how many level tokens it takes to complete, for abilities, it is how many tokens will be added to a quest, when the ability is played on the quest during a quest phase.
Winning a game:
You can win a game one of two ways, completing four quest, or killing the other avatar. Personally I find it easier to kill the other avatar, this is done by conducting raids with unit cards that are unopposed, or using abilities that kick you into avatar on avatar combat.
Questing:
You will enter a quest phase, only if your avatar was not exerted durning your opponents turn and you have an ability in the boxes on the right side of your avatar with a level value. This turn comes before your actual un-exert phase. While questing, your avatar will NOT attack the other avatar even if they do a quest that has no opposing units, if there are opposing units, your avatar will enter combat with them, and if you win, you will have the option to dump an ability on that quest. This ability will not come back to you, but will add to the Level tokens you have on said quest.
Level Tokens: Level tokens are the little yellow dots in the circles above and below a quest, the Level value on a quest dertermins how many are required to win that quest. To add level tokens you must go through a quest phase, win any combat, and use an ability on it. There will then been added as many level tokens as the level value on the ability applied. You do not have to put them all on at once, you just keep adding until you finish it, and do it before you opponent does. Avatars do not share level tokens, each player has their own. So if your opponent has 4 on a lvl 6 quest, you can still get it first if you defend it well enough with unit cards.
Combat: When in combat, it doen't matter if you are deffending or attacking, you want your attack/defense number to be higher than the other guy's. It doesn't matter how much higher, or how much lower. If it is lower, you take dmg, if it is higher, they take dmg, if they are equal, you both take dmg. This value has no effect on dmg taken or delt, so don't bother exerting units, items, abilities or Tactics if you have no chance of being higher than the opponent or if you are already higher. This being said, you may want to exert a defensive unit, even if you can't win in order to force your opponent to exert another unit or item on attacking (this will prevent them from being exerted to increase the actual dmg). At the same time, do not throw everything you have on the first turn, you can go back and forth during the combat phase, you will always have a chance to add more defense to your value if you have more cards you can exert and as long as you end your current turn with a higher value it will always come back to you before the battle is over. After the battle values have been decided, you have the option (if your value was higher or equal) to exert cards with the yellow gernade on them to add actual dmg delt. This is why you need to choose carefully what cards you exert on the battle phase, save the cards with dmg values if at all possiable until the dmg phase for best results.