Direct Damage and Its Discontents (A Short Treatise on Direct Damage), by CRFR787

Direct damage effects (or “DD”) are some of the very hardest to design in Epic Duels.  Despite being used by nearly every deck in Hasbro’s original set (only Luke and Obi-Wan have no direct damage effects), DD effects have been controversial, with some players viewing most DD as a “negative player experience” (or “NPE”) and others believing DD is a necessary counter to certain deck styles.  This short post aims to quantify DD and explain why and how custom designers can (and perhaps should) use it in deck design in a way that actually decreases NPE and increases fun.

First, some basic stats about direct damage from the original Hasbro set that I found interesting:

A couple of things jump out immediately from these statistics:

For one, in the Hasbro originals a minor’s life is rather cheap:  both the Vader and Anakin decks can dispose of even the strongest minor (Chewbacca, at 15HP) without having to play a single attack card and in as little as two turns if they get a lucky draw.  Each can also dispose of any minor not named Chewbacca in a single turn, and any non-personality minor in a single action.

Second, the average amount of direct damage a deck can deliver to an opposing major character is rather high, at nearly 7 DD per deck.  Of course, this average is somewhat deceiving because this sort of DD output is concentrated among a few characters; but the average is still higher than you might expect at first glance.  This suggests that Rob and the other original designers believed that direct damage played an important role in the game.

Third, and as a corollary to the second point:  only 1 character (Vader) can definitively deliver enough direct damage in a single pass through the deck to kill the weakest major character from the original set (Han, at 13 HP).  (Though note that both Palpatine and Yoda can potentially do more effective direct damage through YOU WILL DIE or a well-timed FORCE REBOUND (although in Yoda’s case, not to Han directly)).  This suggests that the designers believed the ability to destroy an opponent’s major character entirely with direct damage was an NPE and deliberately tried to avoid this sort of situation.  Likewise, the most direct damage a character can deliver to any other character (outside of YOU WILL DIE or FORCE REBOUND) in a single action is capped at 4; again suggesting that the designers tried to avoid situations in which a character could be quickly destroyed by direct damage.

Finally, it’s interesting that direct damage is not equally distributed among the original Basic deck types: both the Green and Yellow basic decks seem to rely more on direct damage to major characters than the Red and Blue decks (of course, the original Red decks have more minor-directed DD than any other deck type).  This suggests that direct damage works better (or perhaps is even more necessary) for some deck types than others, and there is no “one-size-fits all” solution to deciding how much DD is enough versus too much.

These statistics are borne out by a more birds-eye analysis of what makes a game of Epic Duels fun and interesting.  The core of the Duels gameplay is the excitement and strategy of trying to match the correct defense card to an opponent’s attack card; or vice versa.  Any card that delivers direct damage breaks the game—at least in the sense that it reduces the number of attack and defense cards played and thus the number of strategic choices.  Or, to put it another way, direct damage simplifies the game by constricting the game’s decision space. 

For example, it is very hard to argue that KYBER DART is not a more interesting card than THERMAL DETONATOR.  Boba’s player must decide whether to use KYBER DART against an opposing major (thereby often giving up the bonus 3 card draw) or minor (potentially ensuring the draw bonus but giving up the A9 against a more important target); while Boba’s opponent must decide which defense card to play by guessing when and how KYBER DART might be used.  In contrast, THERMAL DETONATOR just happens—an opponent can mitigate the effect somewhat by positioning their characters, but THERMAL DETONATOR does not invite or require a responsive defense card.  In this sense, it’s interesting that I’ve seen multiple groups who use house-rules to restrict use of THERMAL DETONATOR and other area-of-effect DD cards on the early turns of a game, before an opponent has the opportunity to mitigate the splash damage.

Nonetheless, direct damage remains important because it simplifies the game and tends to reduce the amount of long, drawn out turtling/card-drawing contests.  For example, how often can Yoda (or even Dooku) end a game with a simple FORCE PUSH that would otherwise continue for several more turns?  And certain direct-damage focused decks, like Palpatine and Boba, force opponents to be more aggressive, since simply drawing cards and turtling without attacking will rarely be successful.  In that sense, each direct damage card works as a “timer” that shortens the game and forces players to play more aggressively.  Done right, direct damage increases the overall fun by forcing players to employ different strategies and be more aggressive.

With all this as background, I’ve tried to distill my thoughts on direct damage into a set of “rules” that designers should think about when incorporating DD into their own decks.  As with any “rules,” these are practically begging to be broken—but designers should think about why they are breaking them and the consequences when they do:

1. A Deck That Can Do More Than 14 Direct Damage To A Single Major Character Is A NPE (and 12 is borderline)

My first rule is the simplest.  Add up the total amount of direct damage your deck can do to a single major character in one pass through the deck.  If it’s more than 14, your deck is going to be a NPE for most players.  Why?  Because a deck that can do more than 14 DD to a single character can destroy some opponents without any real engagement in the core attack/defend gameplay.  If you’re skeptical, try it out with some of the originals:  for example, take away 2 of Mace’s BATTLEMINDs, substitute 2 more WHIRLWIND ATTACKs, and see whether playing, and playing against, the new Mace is more or less fun.  Or substitute a Special TAUNTING card that does 4 direct damage and draws a card for each of Dooku’s A7 TAUNTINGs.  My guess is that after the fun of trying something new wears off, you will find each of these decks less fun to play, and to play against, than the originals (despite that they are relatively equal in power), because they are less interactive.

Even dealing 12 direct damage to a single character in one pass through the deck is a borderline NPE.  Of the originals, only Vader exceeds this number, and he lacks the staying power to do that much damage consistently before being destroyed.  Palpatine, who in fact exceeds this number when YOU WILL DIE’s direct damage effect is counted, is often regarded as a frustrating deck to play against, and many groups have revised YOU WILL DIE because they think that card is a NPE.  So, if your custom deck is around 12 DD, take a very hard look at why it needs that much direct damage and whether you can do the same sort of thing with more interactive attack cards.  Odds are your deck will be a better deck if you can reduce the total direct damage to something closer to the original average of 6-7 or so.

One caveat here.  There are certainly good custom decks that violate this rule, however, the decks that violate this rule tend to have one thing in common:  the characters that can do more DD are so fragile that it is highly unlikely they will survive a full pass through their decks.  This is why OG Vader's DD is not generally thought of as an NPE, while Palpatine's usually is:  Vader simply can't last long enough in most games to play all (or even most of) his DD cards, but Palpatine usually can.  So while you can get around this rule by making "glass cannon" type decks, also remember that even those "glass cannon" decks can get lucky draws; so your DD in those sort of decks should be spread around a lot of cards rather than concentrated in a few.

2.  Some Direct Damage Is Better Than No Direct Damage.

If you finish a deck and it has no direct damage effects whatsoever, you probably want to at least consider adding some.  Remember, a deck without any direct damage is a rarity in the original set, and a deck completely lacking direct damage will often be frustrating:  it will be difficult to finish off an opponent (or a pesky minor character) and will encourage turtling.  At the very least, consider whether your deck has sufficient alternative effects (perhaps discard, or perhaps power-ups based on having a lower number of cards) to not need the game-shortening effects of direct damage.

Another benefit of direct damage is that it provides the “scissors” to the Power Combat defense “paper” and Power Combat attack “rock” strategies.  The defense heavy decks directly counter the decks that rely on high attack values, and need their own counter in direct damage decks.  If your group is getting frustrated with defense-heavy decks, including a little direct damage is a great way to combat that sort of meta. 

3. Interactive Direct Damage Is Always Better Than Basic Direct Damage.

In my view, the worst kind of direct damage cards are Special cards that say something like, “choose an enemy character next to [your character]. That character receives 3 damage.”  For purposes of this post, I’ll refer to these cards as “basic” DD cards.

Basic direct damage cards inevitably reduce strategic decision-making, because the only decision to make is when to play the card and who to choose as the target for the effect.  The opponent on the receiving end of the card doesn’t do anything other than watch the effect take place.  In contrast, whenever you play an attack card, an opponent must interact by either choosing a defense card to play, or choosing not to play a defense card—the core interaction at the heart of Epic Duels.

Because basic direct damage reduces interaction, and thus, in my view, reduces fun, the key to making “fun” direct damage cards is to add conditions or restrictions on the direct damage effect to create additional strategic considerations.  My favorite example from the original set is Maul’s BLINDING SURGE.  BLINDING SURGE adds a direct damage effect to a D0 card, thus requiring Maul’s player to make a strategic choice about whether to take damage to give damage; and vice versa for Maul’s opponent.  Compare this with some of the original cards that are less fun:  Vader’s WRATH simply does damage; and Boba’s WRIST CABLE does damage and takes away an action.  These cards create small strategic choices in when to play them, but the opponent has no way to block or mitigate them, making them inherently less interesting than BLINDING SURGE.  In the middle, you have cards like THERMAL DETONATOR and WHIRLWIND ATTACK, which create some level of interactivity by placing an adjacency conditional on the area-of-effect DD effect; thus creating some strategic choices for opponents vis a vis movement and positioning. (But as mentioned, some groups dislike some uses of these cards enough that they have house-ruled their use on early turns).

So, when you think about what sort of direct damage cards to include in your own deck, I would recommend creating more cards like BLINDING SURGE than like THERMAL DETONATOR, and more cards like THERMAL DETONATOR than like WRATH.  One way to do this is to use direct damage as a conditional effect on Power Combat cards; another way is to make the direct damage have some cost or drawback.

As an example, when I designed my Doctor Aphra deck, I knew BT-1 would need a direct damage card, both for strategic and thematic reasons.  I started with a simple direct damage card that gave out damage based on a dice roll.  This turned out to be not very fun and often frustrating because it conditioned the amount of direct damage on something outside all players’ control.  So, I moved to a Power Combat attack card that gave direct damage as a side effect.  This was better, but still exactly not what I wanted, because once again the direct damage just happened without any interactivity.  After some thought, I came up with a card I love, BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP!, which is styled as a Power Combat A1 but functions as a direct damage card because it attacks an opponent a number of times equal to the total number of cards in the opponent’s hand.  This change greatly increases interactivity because an opponent can avoid the worst effects of the card by keeping their hand size low.  (Of course, as I always try to do, I’ve also built in several counters that punish an opponent for having a lower hand size, which further increases interactivity and decision-making).  Moving from a straight direct damage card to one that does damage conditioned on an opponent’s choices made the deck far more fun to play, and to play against.

4. Direct Damage Should Complement Your Deck’s Overall Strategy.

Finally, you should never add direct damage into a deck just to have it:  any DD should complement the deck’s overall strategy and support its path to victory.  Remember here the downside of basic DD to the user:  while it automatically bypasses a defense card, unlike a Power Combat attack it does not force the opponent to expend a defense card, meaning that each and every attack card in your deck is slightly diluted.  And remember the point of direct damage:  to speed up the game (in your favor) and punish an opponent with better defense cards who would prefer to turtle until they have an unbeatable hand.

So, figure out what your deck wants to do, and create direct damage cards that support that strategy.  If your deck is a “glass cannon” that has little defense, then you’ll probably benefit more from area-of-effect direct damage or minor-targeting cards to take out pesky minors and clear the board of potential threats.  If you have an “aggro” deck that wants to win quickly, you’ll probably benefit from direct damage effects on Power Combat cards that don’t necessitate losing an action to play.  If you have a melee “control” deck that aims to slowly win in a war of attrition, you may benefit from targeted direct damage against majors from range; or other cards that dare an opponent to engage.  Here, too, note that certain deck types benefit more from direct damage than others:  Yellow decks and Green decks (which both lack the 5/1 attack cards in the Blue and Red decks) generally need more DD to be effective, while Red decks often need minor-targeting or AOE DD effects to prevent minors from draining their limited defense cards.

Hopefully, this gives new and old designers something to consider when designing direct damage effects.  Thanks for listening!