For CCGs, first turn advantage has always been a thing. Game developers have used a variety of methods to help mitigate first turn advantage, extra cards in the starting hand for some, extra cards and a coin in the game of Hearthstone, yet statistics still show a clear advantage for the player who goes first in virtually every CCG on the market to date.
So, how do you deal with this if you want your game to be competitive and fair? Nobody wants a match to be determined by a single coin flip at the start of the game. Is there a solution? Is there a way to make it so that neither player has any advantage at all? There is a solution and it’s more obvious than you might think.
Here at Blue Horizon Game Studios we have decided that there will be no first turn in Diamond Hand: Legends. Both players will have a preparation phase where they do not interact with one another and as such can make declarations simultaneously, resolutions occurring at the end of the phase. After the preparation phase both players will have a Battle phase where they declare attacks, use abilities, and once all declarations are complete everything will resolve in accordance with unit and ability speed attributes. Equally fast units or abilities will resolve declarations at the same time. By default, attacked units in Diamond Hand Legends will not automatically damage units that are attacking without a special ability.
So, if two 10/10 front-row units with no abilities are swinging at one another and nothing else interferes then the one with the higher speed stat will destroy the other and will take no damage. If they have equal speed stats they will destroy each other. If a speed 6 unit is swinging at a hero and that hero blasts the unit with a speed 6 ability that destroys the unit, the hero will take damage and the unit will be destroyed. If the ability was speed 7 instead of speed 6 the unit would be destroyed and the hero would take no damage.
Simultaneous turns and speed attributes make Diamond Hand: Legends more fair. No more winning or losing because of a coin flip at the start of the game. This also gives us a new and unique knob to tweak when designing new units. It leaves both players with very little “downtime” during play; no more sitting around for literally half the game waiting for your opponent to finish their turns. It’s a win, win, win design decision and we are very much looking forward to showing it to you all in action.
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Who goes first?
