Here it is...the post that everyone has been waiting for. We are finally releasing the initially planned gameplay mechanics for Steem Monsters! The stats for all of the individual cards will be released shortly as well on the revamped website, and then the Monster team building and strategizing can officially begin!
Please note that everything posted here is potentially subject to change. We have tried to think through everything as much as possible before publishing it (which is why it has taken so long!) but the top priority is creating a fun and balanced game. If anything here turns out not to work towards that objective, we will not hesitate to change it. We're in alpha! We expect some of this to happen.
So, without further ado, we are extremely excited to present the Official Steem Monsters Gameplay Mechanics!
Splinters
Each card in the game originates from a certain part of the Splinterlands, known as "Splinters". The emblem in the center of each card denotes which Splinter it is a part of, as well as the overall color and design of the card itself. The currently known Splinters that together comprise the Splinterlands are as follows (symbol, element/color - name of the people - name of the land):
Fire/Red - Ferexians- The Burning Lands
Water/Blue - Azmarians - AZMARE Islands
Earth/Green - Lyverians - ANUMUN
Death/Black - Dark Eternals - MorTis
Life/White - Khymians - Khymeria
Dragon/Purple - Gloridax - Draykh-Nahka
Teams
A "Team" is a group of cards consisting of one Summoner card and one or more Monster cards. Each Monster on the Team must be different. That means that even if you own multiples of a card, you can only use one of them on each Team. When entering into a 1-on-1 PvP battle, each player will submit their Team of cards that will fight to determine the winner.
Summoners can only summon Monsters that hail from the same Splinter as them, so that means that all of the cards on a Team must be a part of the same Splinter, with the exception of Dragon/Purple summoners (more on that in a minute). For example, if you choose Malric Inferno as the Summoner for your team, then he can only summon Monsters from the Fire/Red Splinter.
Selenia Sky, the only currently known Gloridrax (Dragon) Summoner, can summon Gloridrax Monsters as well as Monsters from any other Splinter currently known. However, Monsters from the other Splinters will not fight on the same Team as Monsters from a different Splinter, except for the Gloridrax. That means that a Team with Selenia Sky as the Summoner may contain a combination of Gloridrax Monsters as well as Monsters from exactly one of the other Splinters.
Battles and Mana
Once you have created a Team, you can then enter it into Battles. Battles will be 1-on-1 fights between two opposing Teams. Battles may be PvP or PvE, and they may be either individual, one-off Battles or part of a larger group of Battles such as a Tournament.
All of the cards in the game (Summoners and Monsters) will have a cost in Mana, denoted by the number in the blue circle at the top left corner of the card. Every Battle will have a Mana cap, which provides an upper limit on the total Mana cost of each Team that is participating in that Battle.
For example, if your Team consists of a (3) Mana cost Summoner, two (5) Mana cost Monsters, and a (7) Mana cost Monster, then the total Mana cost would be (20). That Team is then eligible to enter any Battle with a Mana cap of (20) or higher.
Stats
All Monster cards will have the following stats, each having a value of 0 or higher, that determine's that Monster's "strength" in different areas of combat:
Melee Attack
The Melee Attack stat denotes how much damage the Monster will do when it hits an opponent. Melee attacks can only be performed from the first position and reduces an opponent's Armor before their Health.
Ranged Attack
The Ranged Attack stat denotes how much damage the Monster will do when it hits its opponent. Ranged attacks can be performed from any position except the first position (unless the Monster has certain abilities which allow this) and reduces an opponent's Armor before their Health.
Magic Attack
The Magic Attack stat denotes how much Magic damage the Monster will do to an opponent. Magic attacks can be performed from any position. Magic attacks cannot "miss" like Melee or Ranged attacks can, and ignore an opponent's Armor, directly reducing their Health.
Speed
The Speed stat determines both the order in which each Monster will take its turn during each round of the Battle, as well as the chance that the Monster will hit its opponent when attacking or evade an attack when defending.
Health
The Health stat denotes how much damage a Monster can take before it is killed.
Armor
The Armor stat denotes how much Melee or Ranged Attack damage the Monster can absorb before its Health starts to get reduced. If a Monster has at least (1) Armor, it will absorb an entire Melee or Ranged attack from an opponent, even if the damage from that attack exceeds the Armor value.
Examples
- A Monster with (3) Melee Attack hits a defending Monster with (4) Armor and (5) Health - The result of the attack would decrease the defender's Armor to (1) and the Health would remain at (5).
- A Monster with (3) Melee Attack hits a defending Monster with (1) Armor and (5) Health - The result of the attack would decrease the defender's Armor to (0) and the Health would remain at (5) because the Armor absorbs the entire attack.
- A Monster with (2) Magic Attack hits a defending Monster with (4) Armor and (5) Health - The result of the Magic attack would decrease the defender's Health to (3) and the Armor would remain at (4) because Magic attacks do not affect Armor.
Abilities
Monsters may have one or more of the following abilities, which allow them to do different things, give them additional powers, or modify the typical rules of battle:
Flying
Monsters with Flying will have a higher chance of evading Melee and Ranged attacks unless the attacker also has the Flying ability.
Trample
When a Monster with Trample kills its target, it performs an additional Melee attack on the next Monster, in order, on the opposing Team.
Heal
Monsters with Heal will restore a portion of their Health at the start of each round.
Group Heal
Monsters with Group Heal will restore a portion of all friendly Monsters' Health at the start of each round.
Void
Monsters with Void take reduced damage from Magic attacks.
Shield
Monsters with Shield take reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks.
Dodge
Monsters with Dodge have a higher chance of evading Melee and Ranged attacks.
Poison
Monsters with Poison have a chance of poisoning their opponent when hitting with a Melee or Ranged attack, which causes the poisoned Monster to take damage at the start each round. Poison damage directly reduces a Monster's health.
Stun
Monsters with Stun have a chance of stunning their opponent when hitting with a Melee attack, which causes the stunned Monster to skip its next action.
Slow
Monsters with Slow cause the Speed stat of all enemy Monsters to be reduced.
Blast
Ranged or Magic attacks do "splash" damage to adjacent enemy Monsters.
Inspire
Monsters with Inspire provide a Melee Attack boost to all friendy Monsters.
Protect
Monsters with Protect provide an Armor boost to all friendly Monsters and makes them immune to Fear.
Fear
Monsters with the Fear ability have a chance to cause their target to move to the last position on the enemy's Team. This ability can only be triggered once per Battle.
Retaliate
Monsters with Retaliate, when hit with a Melee attack, have a chance of performing a Melee attack against the enemy Monster that attacked them.
Enrage
Monsters with Enrage will receive a Melee attack boost when they are below full Health.
Sneak
Monsters with Sneak will attack the last Monster on the opposing Team instead of the first, and may Melee attack even when not in the first position.
Snipe
Monsters with Snipe will attack the first Monster on the opposing Team that has Ranged or Magic attack. Only Monsters with Ranged or Magic attack can have the Snipe ability.
Magic Reflect
When hit with a Magic attack, Monsters with the Magic Reflect ability will reflect a portion of the Magic damage back to the attacker.
Thorns
When hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with the Thorns ability will do guaranteed Melee damage back to the attacker.
Piercing
Melee or Ranged attack damage beyond the amount of Armor of the defending Monster will reduce hit the defending Monster's health, as opposed to normally where Armor will absorb the entire attack.
Weaken
Monsters with the Weaken ability will reduce all enemy Monsters' Melee attack and Health.
Resurrect
Monsters with the Resurrect ability will bring the first friendly Monster that dies back to life with (1) health. This ability may only be triggered once per Battle and a Monster cannot resurrect itself.
Summoners
Summoners do not take part in the fighting directly and as such they do not have any of the stats or abilities that Monsters have. Instead they each indirectly influence the fighting in their own unique way.
Some Summoners may give all Monsters on their Team a stat buff, while others may give a debuff to the opposing Team. In the future they may also influence the Battle in all sorts of other ways that we probably haven't even thought of yet. Check the details on each Summoner card to learn what they do!
Levels
All of the cards in the game (Monsters and Summoners) can gain experience points (XP) through combining duplicate cards or participating in Battles. Once a card has gained enough XP it will "level up".
When a Monster "levels up", its stats may increase and it may also gain new abilities. Cards cannot level up while in the middle of a Battle or Tournament. All XP gained from a Battle will be awarded once the Battle or Tournament is over.
Unlike Monsters, Summoners do not gain any increased influence over the Battles as they level up. Instead, the value in leveling up Summoners is that they can only summon Monsters at their same level or below.
This means that if you use a level 1 Summoner in a Battle, then all of the Monsters they summon in that battle will be level 1, even if the Monster card itself is at a higher level.
The level limits for Summoners will scale linearly for Monsters of different rarities which have different max levels. For example, a level 4 Rare Summoner (which is half-way to max level) will be able to summon Common Monsters up to level 5, Rare Monsters up to level 4, Epic Monsters up to level 3, and Legendary Monsters up to level 2. Max level Summoners
of any rarity will be able to summon max level Monsters of any rarity.
Team Ordering
Most other collectible card games use "decks" of cards for the battles which are shuffled into a random order before the match starts. In Steem Monsters, however, there is no random shuffling and the order in which the Monsters are placed in a Team is very important and a key component of the skill involved in the game. For this reason we have chosen to use the term "Team" instead of "Deck" for the list of cards each player enters into a Battle.
The position of each Monster on the Team will determine what it can do and which enemy Monsters will target it. Only the first Monster on each Team will be able to perform a Melee attack, and it will target the Monster in the first position on the opposing team, unless otherwise specified.
Monsters with Ranged attack may attack from any position except the first position (unless their target is not the first Monster on the opposing Team due to having the Snipe or Sneak ability), and Monsters with Magic attack may attack from all positions. Ranged and Magic attacks will also target the Monster in the first position on the opposing team, unless otherwise specified.
When the first Monster on a team is killed, then the next Monster in order on that Team will move up to take its place. Thus, it will be generally advisable to place Monsters that are "tanks" (i.e. have high health, armor, or abilities that help them survive many attacks) in the first positions of a Team, and Monsters that are "support", in the back positions.
Keep in mind, though, that some Abilities (as described above) can affect the order of Monsters on the opposing team, or allow certain Monsters to attack Monsters that are not in the first position. So the best Team ordering may not be as simple as "tanks" in the front and "supports" in the back!
Attack Ordering
The order in which Monsters attack within a battle is primarily determined by the Speed stat. The Monster with the highest Speed stat value on either Team will attack first and so on down to the Monster with the lowest Speed stat value on either Team.
If one or more Monsters are tied for Speed, then Magic Attacks will go first, followed by Ranged Attacks, and lastly Melee Attacks. If there is still a tie, then the order will be randomly decided.
Battle Preview
I've saved the best part for last! Here's a video of what the actual battles will look like in the game. Obviously this is a very early preview, so much of the art is placeholder or missing entirely. Also all of this is subject to change as we work to build the best gameplay experience we can given our time and resource constraints.
Nevertheless, here's what we have so far!
Stay Tuned for More!
We tried to explain everything as clearly as possible, but we know that was a lot to take in so feel free to post your questions in the comments below. We will try to answer all the questions as soon as we can, but please be patient with us! Also we want to remind everyone that these are just preliminary gameplay mechanics, and everything in this post is subject to change as we go through play testing and potentially beyond.
The next 30 - 60 days are going to be really exciting times for Steem Monsters and everyone involved. As we mentioned at the start of the post, we are planning to release our revamped website design which will include the initially planned stats for all of the cards in the very near future. We are on track to have a first version of the 1 on 1 PVP battles live by the end of September, and tournaments will be launched soon thereafter.
As always, we want to sincerely thank the amazing Steem Monsters team, and everyone who has supported us by upvoting our posts, voting for our witnesses, or buying Steem Monsters card packs! We are extremely lucky to have the privilege of working within such a wonderful and supportive community of people here on the Steem platform!
Sincerely, @aggroed and @yabapmatt
I got my army of summoners and monsters fully geared up and ready for war. Planning to assemble even more armies and I sure can't wait for the real action to kick off. Prepare and brace yourselves for some serious war.
great
Yes it is !!
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Don't forget about the game jam or the kickstarter either. Game Jam starts in a few days. Kickstarter starts in early september. We have a lot going on!
Kickstarter itself has the potential of bringing in 1000+ new players. But the real potential is of using the idea of the kickstarter to give you newsworthy message to share with all places and it's news which is low cost promotions.
So hope you spend even more time setting up a system of which people to contact as you do making the kickstarter content itself. Or get all of us to help out.
Can you explain the kickstarter and Game Jam what it is???
kickstarter is a crowd-funding platform
Could you please give more details where how when to join to play the game?
You obviously underestimated me! muahaha
This looks very promossing, even more promosing than i hoped for!
Nice! Looks amazing, keep on the great work!
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This is purely exciting game and a team effort to win battles! Better to upgrade all our fighters to gain some advantage over the enemies.Cant wait to be in the battlefield! 🤗
I am so excited and cant wait to play.
How I love to play this game but looking at it, looks not easy to play? Is it so confusing or so hard to play?
I think it'll be just like any good card game - once you learn the rules and try it out a few times, you'll get the hang of it. But it's got to be a bit complex with enough variables to allow for ample strategy and technique, otherwise anyone could win if they just had the right cards.
It's about thinking it through. The real question will be whether or not you can see your opponent's lineup before the match, and modify if so. I'd be curious to see how teams are organized.
Way to go guys.
Now it's time to min max the game.
Looks very cool. I applaud you guys for trying at the very least :D
If this is well designed, this will be massive for the Steem ecosystem. I wish the best for Steem monsters.
I am extreamly excited about this
#whenthegamesbegin #soonwefight #kings
lol!😂😂😂
lol Yes!
Thanks it's overwhelming 👌👍😊
Posted using Partiko Android
My only suggestion is probably something somewhat easy to do. It would be nice to have a 'select all' button or check box for combining cards instead of having to scroll through and check each one, that's a pain in the ass!
Can't wait for the games to begin!
If you want to combine all of your cards you can just click the "Combine" button without checking any of them.
gotcha, thanks!
awesome... I'm happy to resteem this and love to see the progress you guys have made! I'm very happy to be a participant and an early adopter and wish you all the greatest of success!
This is going to be great, I can feel it! (love the gameplay) :D
I resteemed as well! It’s coming along
I really need to get into this, can anybody recommend a good tutorial? And how the progression system works with some later level strategy?
This is amazing!!! Thanks for all the work you have done, this is so exciting!!!%20(1).gif)
Kaboooooooooooooooooooom!
YESSSSSSS!!!!
It sounds so awesome And a lot of fun @clove71 ! but overwhelming for someone like me that has never played these types of games before! So much to know, wow! ✌👌😵😍
Its owesome.
YESSSSSSS YOU GUYS! Not dissapointed at all with how this sounds/looks. Really impressed with the vast range of abilities and combinations therein. One clarifying question: You choose your summoner, creature order, and get into a game. Past this point (during the actual game), are all actions automated until someone wins? Like, the creatures target others on their own, do their attacks on their own, etc. It is hands-off while playing, the skill is in choosing your lineup correctly? Thanks in advance, and great work on continuing with this groundbreaking blockchain game. As I’ve said before, there is huge potential for onboarding massive amounts of new users to Steem through SteemMonsters.
Yeah i like to tell people it's a game you spend 10 seconds clicking on the order of your team and hitting submit and you come home after work to see how it went... meanwhile you spent ALL DAY thinking about strategy.
Love it!
The theory is it’s automated game play after you decide an order before you see an opponents team. Then there’s a time delay of 60 secs to switch up your line up if you choose prior to the automated battle.
The Magic The Gathering of crypto!! Hell yeah! The good ol days :)
very cool game just like yugii ohh game concept. nice
Whoa this is sick--thanks for the brief opening of the window to the candy store!
@yabapmatt @aggroed Encha imba
Thanks for the update! The Steem Monsters team is doing an awesome job. It’s like an infusion of fresh air into this platform. Looking forward to seeing the revamped website and card stats. Thanks SM!
First off, the graphics are pretty awesome. I think I could tell the type of attack based on the move. Pretty awesome.
I'm wondering, will the playback of each game be saved so players can go back and review them? That would be pretty cool.
Also, if I'm understanding the Summoner right, we can play higher level monsters than the Summoner, but they will be limited to the same level as the Summoner for the game. In other words, if the Summoner is Level 3 and I have a Level 5 monster, I can play the Level 5 but he will be a Level 3 in the game. Is that right?
Yes, absolutely! We also plan to add pause/rewind/fast forward features too so you can really analyze everything that happens.
I was wondering whether it'd be possible to also save battle logs (in text form) for us to read through and analyze later, without having to keep pausing/rewinding/forwarding the animated battles. It'd be particularly useful to me because I'm visually impaired and can't see the animated battles :P . Not sure whether many other people would like this, though.
The battle logs will be in JSON format, so it will be possible for anyone to parse them and display them however they want!
Thank you for the info! So, battle logs were already in the plans? Great to know! I really hope to be able to play this game :D .
thanks for pointing out this conversation
hi bro you havegreat blog i like it😗
Is that the json i got to see or is this one with just who played and how it ended up? Because i'm guessing that's what our service is probably most interested in.
Seeing how many times a card was used in battle
How often that card was on a winning team
However i guess knowing what placement he's usually used in
And how early it usually dies
Those are a bit more advanced. haha
No, no one has seen battle logs yet. From the sm_team_reveal you can see what cards were used and what placement they are in, but that's it really.
But everything will be fully available once it's ready to launch so don't worry!
Awesome! Looking forward to doing this. Already thinking about my teams.
Make sure you have play on slow speed as well. I watched that game a couple times on .25x speed. haha
This sounds cool, and has such possibilities for video creators! Thanks for this.
Agreed! Though I’d consider a horizontal linear row of cards in a line vs another line below for battle presentation
this will be a great feature when trying to figure out what happened in a battle and then tweaking your Team..!
that's roughly correct. It's a little more complex with rarity mixed in, but in spirit you can play the maxed level monster with a non-maxed summoner and they will appear at lower level.
So it is best to level up the Summoners I take it.
I never use this gif, but feels appropriate
Hahahah well done dided!
Amazing! Have been looking forward to this. These mechanics remind me of a few turn-based games I've played, only they were single player. This has so much potential! You guys have done an amazing job preparing this!
It’s going to be great agreed! Linear based automated fighting
This post has been resteemed from MSP3K courtesy of @aggroed from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).
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Whats your thought on others creating spinoffs of the game? Like for example, someone made a VR game which has users log into their steem account, uses that to find out what steem monsters card they have and then they can play a different style game using the same monsters? Maybe one can be a game where users control their monsters directly and have to fight off the enemy monsters.
Would you guys allow that or is everything copy-written and can't be used to make anything else?
I built the UI for the Justice League VR game on htc vive last year, if you need help lmk
We are very excited for and supportive of third party sites and games built around the Steem Monsters brand. While all of our art assets and the Steem Monsters name are owned by us, anyone is free to use them as long as they are used in a way that promotes the original Steem Monsters game and does not compete with us commercially. What you are suggesting sounds like it would be fine, and really really cool!
Awesome, while I don't develop games myself(maybe I will in a year, I like to learn new things), I think that this might lead to some amazing creations. There are some I really want to see that mimic the vr games played in yugioh, and this might be the perfect way to do it. Something similar to whats explained here: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_World.
Also, while searching for the episode, I ran into this:
Now that would be cool with steemmonsters.
And for anyone asking, yes I binge watched yugioh on netflix recently. I was bored.
I was a card game designer on yugioh
Speaking of the art assets @yabapmatt, could I please have access to the new artwork for the cards and the interface, especially the backgrounds of the fighting arenas? I'm keen to play with them again, and make more remixes. Thanks.
Yep they're very supportive of third party sites ;) haha
we're hosting a game jam- You could make some money for making something like that
https://itch.io/jam/steem-monsters-1000-invitational
fantastic work and spectacular creativity, superstellar levels!
Thanks for the update! Awesome! Good work !
@aggroed @yabapmatt frankly speaking reading the blog i needed two hours brainstorming to the fullest, reading it very slowly finding and connecting each and every meaning from it. still i had a vivid picture of it .thank you for explaing so beautifully. i am excited to lay my hands on the game to get the real feel of what you explained and what i understood.
What type of game is it?
#alexKARKI
Crypto-based CCG mixed with fantasy sports -like lineup drafting
Resteemed baby! I am so Hyped for this game! Big howl from the wolfman!
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLL
Oh yea! I'm ready for the War to End all Wars, Steemmonsters War!
Most exciting and anticipated update I have been looking forward too. Well done...No suggestions from me atm...still trying to comprehend it all and want to delve and be able to recognize the abilities in the game. Thank you for all your hard work @steeemmonsters
I love this update. Gonna jump into buying Steem Monsters tonight!
Well I hope you'll be making some videos of that experience right?
I have a brief DTube video showing the highlights. But my full reaction will be on a dlive video (if it ever lets me upload it)
This is a nice game, it's not popular around me, I guess I'll be the first to know about it in location.
Cool game with incredible features, can't wait to check it out. Keep up the good work!
People who are good at heartstone will be good at this too, maybe even kripp comes to play :D
The game it is amazing& excellent but the game not easy it looking colourful and excellnt design keep on great work thank u for sharing
I have to admit, I've been excited about steem-monsters for a while, but mainly as a use for steem, an example of a dapp, and a nice way to explain some math. I'm now officially interested in playing it as a game. This looks fantastic.
it looks good the video game hopefully it is better than it looks
Oh yeah!
Wow, the post was very good. There is a complete match with reality. Thank you very much for sharing the post among us
I loved to resteem this.
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This is Really amazing Thankew for being updated..
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Always looking for that one but can't find how to do that...😂
great, Finally, we can see how this exciting game will be. Kudos!
Great, Finally, we
Can see how this exciting
Game will be. Kudos!
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