Gameplay change chapter 1: cascades

Morphis

This is the first post of a series of post about mechanic changes that I think would improve the game experience.

Chapter 1: Cascades and mana gain.
This game is a match 3 game.
That in itself means getting cascades be it pure luck or based on skill.

It's ok.
The mana you gain is related to those gem matched.
Mana gain an currently go from as low as 0(more likely 3) to very high amounts(20 or more).

The variance is too high.
I think the top reasonable amount of mana gained in a turn should be around 15 with peaks higher being really unlikely.

At this very moment, with the power creep we are experiencing, a nerf in cascades could fix the game bringing it back to a reasonable pace.

My suggestion is to introduce diminishing returns on cascades.
Each match after the first gets reduced by an increasing amount of mana.
Of course each gem match would produce at least 1 mana.

How much does this would affect mana gain?
For normal cases it wouldn't or would have little effect.
Heavy cascades could see a nerf of like 6-10 mana. That does not mean those cascades would be pointless.

Let's make some examples:

Kiora gets a 4U, 3G, 3U, 4B, 3U a big cascade.
Normal mana gain is 7+6+6+4+6=29 mana
Diminished would be 7+5+4+1+2=19 mana.

Jace2 gets a 3U, 3B, 3G. Not that long.
Normal mana gain is 8+7+4=19 mana.
Diminished is 8+6+2=16 mana.
You can see here difference is negligible.

Of course the number can be adjusted but I think a way to reduce this variance is indeed needed.
This would also heavily contribute to reduce the impact of the power creeps introduces in last expansions.

Yes I know that reducing variance is going to make ai less likely to win.
That's a problem with ai though(that's getting slowly better at playing).

Please discuss and support if you like.


Coming next: loyalty

P.S. As a side note the planeswalker loyalty gains from cascade planeswalker symbols match won't be necessarily affected.
It could be or not... This is focused more on mana than loyalty gain
Loyalty is anyways discussed in next chapter
Each chapter is discussed as standalone subject.

babar3355

Morphis, love the thoughtful comments, but I tend to disagree on this one. Frankly, I think the game is too easy if anything. Nerfing cascades would only make the AI more inept. The fact that not only do you have to win all 70 games in NoP, but you have to do it quicker than the other 15 people who also had a perfect score is ridiculous. I agree, that its annoying that the only reason you lost and they didn't is because they didn't get a brutal cascade against them, but not sure nerfing cascades is the right approach. Unless you want 200 people with perfect scores racing for timing position.

Morphis

babar3355 wrote:

Morphis, love the thoughtful comments, but I tend to disagree on this one. Frankly, I think the game is too easy if anything. Nerfing cascades would only make the AI more inept. The fact that not only do you have to win all 70 games in NoP, but you have to do it quicker than the other 15 people who also had a perfect score is ridiculous. I agree, that its annoying that the only reason you lost and they didn't is because they didn't get a brutal cascade against them, but not sure nerfing cascades is the right approach. Unless you want 200 people with perfect scores racing for timing position.

As posted this does not take in account ai.
The fact ai is poorly designed shouldn't be excuse for anything.

What if the ai was even worse? Would it be legit for them to choose people at random to lose points?

My idea for most things in life(and for gaming too) is that as long as you make each individual thing work; the whole game will work.
Keeping something bad because it balances something worse is not a good way to develop a game.

Ithilglin

I totally agree with your analysis morphis. Huge cascades make luck too important.

Your proposition seems a good start but you're right when you say that the main problem is AI.

One main problem of the AI, and one of the easiest to correct I think, is its gems matching skills : it shouldn't miss a five match but it does each time when it has to choose between a four in a line and a five in angle. That should not be too hard to change for the devs in comparison to how it plays the cards which require an analysis of each situation.

That way, the AI should win more mana on average and so should we more easily.

@babar3355 I understand your point of view but it applies only to top player and you also need to consider the point of view of the average player.
When you do not own enough cards to build the perfect deck but you still manage to build a deck as stong as you can with your skills and cards, it is very frustrating to feel that luck is all that counts in victory or defeat, even if it is not.
And do not forget that magic is a very tactical and complex game. For that reason, for experienced players with the better cards, fighting an AI will always be too easy. That's why the main weakness of this game is the absence of real PvP. And if there is more people playing the top where is the problem, if it's already a race against time ? If all top players have perfect score, that is a problem itself, and the main one imho. So the solution should be more difficult objectives for those top players.

MTG_Mage

someone else came up with a mana cap per turn idea that I commented on here viewtopic.php?f=36&t=51373 (post 2, here is a quote of my response "I like the idea of having a mana limit per turn. Something like max 10 mana on turn 1, then 5 more max per turn until a max of 30 from turn 5 onward would make the game less susceptible to random super cascades. This would also help with green being too good at mana production and tone down dual colored PWs with green in them making them more balanced.") I think this aligns with what you are suggesting.

alextfish

Ah, now that idea I can get behind. Stop the ridiculous turn 1-2 cascades, but allow them later - that makes a lot more sense. When people have had a chance to charge their removal spells (if they want to), it's fairer.

Imodernleper

I think the game is fine as far as cascades go. I've been playing puzzle quest games since they came out and I'm used to the AI spiraling out of control sometimes. I don't want my cascades changed personally.

MaxMagic420

Ithilglin wrote:

When you do not own enough cards to build the perfect deck but you still manage to build a deck as stong as you can with your skills and cards, it is very frustrating to feel that luck is all that counts in victory or defeat, even if it is not.
And do not forget that magic is a very tactical and complex game. For that reason, for experienced players with the better cards, fighting an AI will always be too easy. .

Took the words right out of my mouth. The a.i. cascade factor is a big problem for anyone who doesn't own, say, Olivia, or exert influence, etc.
What is also extremely annoying is that these mega cascades often come as the result of the a.i making what appears to be the worst possible matches. It's obvious the a.i prioritizes denial, taking a 3 of your color instead of a double match of their primaries, and if you or I played with these tactics, we would lose the majority of the time.
The issue lies with the early game cascades AND the draw algorithm. At higher tiers, they're not tossing out mage ring bullies, they're cascading into triple reinforced decimator of provinces and such. One decimator you can handle. But the a.i draws three of them, just like you always draw three of something.
The people who rank in events because they didn't lose arent just good players with good decks, they were fortunate enough not to get a match where they were cascaded to death by turn four. That's all there is to it. Not taking anything away from anybody, believe me. Anybody who places high earned it. But luck is at least 75% of the equation. In paper magic, it would be comparable to a terrible shuffle most of the time, leading to mana screw and not drawing key cards essential to success. These conditions would be unacceptable for competitive players competing at a high level. And despite the vast sea of differences between the formats, the same principle applies.

Corn_Noodles

MaxMagic420 wrote:

[It's obvious the a.i prioritizes denial, taking a 3 of your color instead of a double match of their primaries, and if you or I played with these tactics, we would lose the majority of the time.

It's not as simple as that. The AI appears to prioritize a match-4 over a denial match-3 unless that denial match-3 contains a player support gem. I have also seen the AI take a match-3 of their own colors over a match-3 of my colors but never if I have a support gem involved. The AI has gotten better at L-5 matches, but it still, about 40% in my matches, takes a match-4 with a L-5 possible. With Koth, I have tested the AI with some of this behavior. I have purposefully left a red match-3 but with a match-4 possible in another color (not a color of the AI). Every single time the AI has taken the match-4 instead of denying me that easy 12 mana. Loyalty gems are a different story. The AI seems to avoid loyalty gems if it can and I have watched it pass up loyalty 5-matches many times.