I did explain how it can go wrong though - someone makes a card that interacts with a pair of other cards in a way they didn't think of, and this combination allows turn 1 KOs again.
So you're saying that since the staff isn't perfect, the idea is bad. This is why I kept asking for more specifics: every suggestion for the game suffers from the flaw you are citing
. No, not the exact flaw, but a failure to notice card interactions. That is can and does happen anyway: it is on
the designers, not governing principals of card design. If your worried that such constraints will make card design more difficult and
that is why more mistakes will be made, please say so. I'd counter that point by explaining that a well developed set of design principles, taking the new rules into account, eliminates more potential problems than it creates.
I realise this isn't very specific, but that's only because - as you say yourself - your idea isn't any more specific in the first place. Unless I'm mistaken, it's simply "design all cards so you can never attack for massive damage turn 1". The only way I could be more specific against that is if I predicted every possible card they could possibly make ever in the history of mankind, and pointed out the flaw with every single one...
Actually you only need to plan out cards for a format... I am pretty sure they actually do that. They don't release everything at once, and I am quite sure there is fine tuning going on, but I believe they at least have a rough idea of what they are shooting for. I am literally just asking the designers to do their job, provided they adopted such guidelines. This is part of R&D for TCGs.
Actually, no I don't. >.> I am leery of Evolving Basic Pokemon with Ability based Energy acceleration. If there is such a Pokemon, then the designers must make sure that any Energy shifting cards do not undo the work of avoiding first turn damaging attacks. There are multiple ways to do this. Off the top of my head:
1) Make sure that Energy Types compatible with the combo have no attacks that can be powered first turn even with the combo.
2) Make sure the Energy transferring effect is not on a Basic Pokemon or available via a Trainer.
3) Make sure the combo cannot be used more than once per turn.
So first turn Ponyta ends up with (RR). The designers again must do their job, and not make a "broken" Rapidash with some amazing stats and attacks due to the speed with which Rapidash can be powered up. Since you added a clause preventing Ponyta from Evolving the turn it uses its Ability, that means turn two you can have a Rapidash with three Energy attached, so Rapidash must be designed with that in mind.
Moltres KOs whatever it is using to "heal" itself, yes? So... a Basic Pokemon with 140 HP that hits for 100 points of damage for :fire::fire::fire: and discards a Fire Energy from itself can KO one of the controlling player's Benched Pokemon to heal 20 points of damage for every :fire: Energy attached to the KOed Pokemon.
So if I don't KO Moltres, you're KOing something on your Bench to keep it alive... but whatever you're KOing has to have some serious Energy on it. So you're no Prizes ahead, and not even any Energy ahead unless you're leaving out a part of the combo.
Something I wish to make clear:
we can't come up with a foolproof system. Nor are we trying to. The suggestions I am making are about improving fundamental aspects of the game so that it is easier to have an evenly paced format. So when compared to how things have always been done before, an aggressive deck is still only going off on the players second turn. Compared to the "no attacks first turn" we are still allowing set-up attacks and not taxing new players with learning that. Set-up attacks are very important for Evolutions, please remember. Compared to the "no damaging attacks" first turn rule, this one has a hope of being instituted: keeping track of that sounds hard enough for average players, let alone new players.
In many ways, a deck running has inertia: once you get your deck going, it wants to "keep going". Shortcuts for setting things up are fine so long as they aren't accessible those first few turns of the game: by the time a Stage 2 can, for example, can attach extra Energy from hand to a Pokemon via an Ability, your opponent has had at least two turns to set-up, and that second turn might have already begun their offensive.
A deck built on Basics will focus on different strategies than one based on Stage 1 Pokemon than one based on Stage 2 Pokemon (fully Evolved in each case, I mean), and decks built around multiple Stages will be a little different as well.
By the way, I never did experience Neo Discovery. I played this game a little when I was little and the first three or four sets had been released, but I didn't find someone else who played it, so I stopped trying. I didn't learn of leagues until recently, so I haven't been collecting or seriously playing before BW.
So... did you do your research now? This is a discussion where knowing the history of the game is important; many of the suggestions on this thread want to return to things that were done before... ignoring that they didn't really work then either (or if we thought they did, TPC mandated a change in them anyway, like the first turn rules).
So... yeah Neo Discovery Tyrogue was a threat the entire time it was out, and almost any time you looked at a Fighting Weak Pokemon, you were thinking "Oh, Tyrogue is going to put the hurt on this". There have been many other Pokemon that exploit Weakness or other aspects of the game with a seemingly small damaging first attack.
That first turn of "safety", especially combined with my other proposals, is no accident, but neither is keeping an opening attack. I am intentionally designing the rules so that there is a turn of building. Fully Evolved Basic Pokemon can be designed to make use of it, and of course actually Evolutions
need it.
This also allows cards like PlusPower to exist (unless something stupid is done with it, like making it easy to spam). In the Base Set, you had to worry about an opponent, sometimes by exploiting Weakness, sometimes not, spamming up to four PlusPower first turn. That was back when PlusPower attached to the Active Pokemon. That a big part of Base Set Electabuzz and Hitmonchan's success.
I did have the privilege of getting donked by a HGSS Tyrogue once though, but I chalked that up to my own damn fault and took Solosis and his line out of my Zekrom deck (I did get to see the full force of Reuniclus+Zekrom+Cofagrigus once though, 'twas a great feeling).
Yeah... not the same thing. You had a deck specific Pokemon with 30 HP. That Tyrogue existed at a time when almost every Evolution line that began with something Fighting Weak had 60 HP or less. That means most Lightning and Colorless Pokemon had a problem. Before that, of course, we had Hitmonchan. Adding a coin flip does not automatically make something balanced; usually it just increases the luck factor which is
not the same thing.