Development Thread - (11/15/16)

Corn_Noodles

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I can answer the balancing concerns, as this is more of my ballpark.

What is your goal when it comes to balancing in regards to new players? There are many cards considered "must haves" that came from Origins and BfZ. Those cards are much more difficult for new players to acquire, so it puts them at a very large competitive disadvantage. We need new players to keep this game healthy and I worry that new players will feel they cannot compete and will be less likely to continue playing the game when they aren't able to get the "chase mythics" from older sets.

Nitymp

GrizzoMtGPQ wrote:

Have you ever considered soliciting early beta play from top players/coalitions? We'd love to give you early feedback on what the issues will be.

This would be good and ties in with the "overpromising" aspect. I think it would be much better for you guys to table specific ideas and then get external feedback on them before actuallt implementing, which would stop issues like runaway carriage or pre-seasons past nerfs etc.

Hibernum_JC

GrizzoMtGPQ wrote:

How about making Deploy only work on Allies or maybe only on meldable cards? Letting us deploy Bacon, Twins, and Olivia is just auto-win and no fun. There are too many dual walkers with White. I'm in NoP with Ajani, Nahiri, and Sorin running almost the same deck for all of them and I am winning in 2-3 turns. It breaks the game. It caused a massive ramp in the points/hr in QB too which means if you don't have it you're at a massive disadvantage to winning.

Have you ever considered soliciting early beta play from top players/coalitions? We'd love to give you early feedback on what the issues will be. We saw the problem with Deploy when the Eldritch Moon set details first came to light. Without even playing it, we found it by inspection.

From what I understand, the problem with Deploy the Gatewatch isn't necessarily with the card itself (it is very costly), but more with the combo with Mirrorpool, which lets players play a very cheap spell, get Deploy for free then play 3 huge creatures. It's a different venue we can look at, also.

As for direct communication and beta players, it's something we've been discussing. I don't have anything to announce, obviously, but it's something we'd eventually love to do (as with everything, we have choices to make!)

Corn Noodles wrote:

While exact details are always welcome, I would be very happy with posts explaining design principles and gameplay goals. We don't need to know every stop on the highway, but we'd like to have a good idea of where the highway might be going.

That is the purpose of this thread, actually, and we plan on making this a bit more regular. I'll also see and ask if I can discuss more nitty-gritty with you guys with the design philosophy.

Corn Noodles wrote:

What is your goal when it comes to balancing in regards to new players? There are many cards considered "must haves" that came from Origins and BfZ. Those cards are much more difficult for new players to acquire, so it puts them at a very large competitive disadvantage. We need new players to keep this game healthy and I worry that new players will feel they cannot compete and will be less likely to continue playing the game when they aren't able to get the "chase mythics" from older sets.

For new players, we typically work towards pushing them to the new sets. There's always ways to grab cards from older sets, but there's a definite problem with new players having to learn all the mechanics from Origins, BFZ, SoI and whatever is to come. That's a LOT of information to digest all at once, so it's much better for them to focus on the current set and learn how it works. The next set is actually a lot more straightforward in this way - it's mechanics are less complex (remember, lower complexity does not mean lower depth) and a lot easier to grasp.

BFZ was a first try, and we learned a *ton* from it, notably that by having so many mechanics spread across that many cards, it ends up diluting them, making the game harder to understand for everyone and forcing players to learn a ton of weird stuff that is on very few cards (Converge is one such mechanic that, in hindsight, we could have easily cut and the game wouldn't really have suffered). SOI has less mechanics overall and the focus on Transform/Madness/Delirium made the game a bit easier to understand (Investigate is another mechanic but it is a simple and straightforward ability that we could have just written as card text instead of putting a keyword there). We learn as we go, we have a direction we want to go towards but we're nowhere near perfect. The important thing is to learn from the mistakes we make and move forward, trying to make sure we don't make them again!

yunnnn

Hibernum_JC wrote:

From what I understand, the problem with Deploy the Gatewatch isn't necessarily with the card itself (it is very costly), but more with the combo with Mirrorpool, which lets players play a very cheap spell, get Deploy for free then play 3 huge creatures. It's a different venue we can look at, also.

It may seem like it, but that is not the real problem. The Mirrorpool combo is janky in reality and getting Pool + Deploy + Spell in hand does not happen that often. In the hundreds of QB games, I've maybe pulled it off in <5% of games. Think about it: In this game, you only get 4 cards in your opening hand. The odds of eventually assembling the full combo are very low in most games.

It's much more likely that you just get Deploy or a Fatty, and use Nahiri's incredibly strong mana to rush it out in 2 turns. That's the real problem: Deploy can be hardcasted very easily by Nahiri. Her mana is so powerful that I almost always get Deploy off in 1-3 turns. Once it is out, the game is effectively over.

Deploy fills up the board with too much power at once (60 haste damage is way too much, 49 flying berserker lifelink damage is also way too much). The card itself creates decks that are multitudes better than decks without it: The QB deck that uses it is 15-20% faster than other competitive decks, and this combo is much easier to pilot.

Note: Mirrorpool's real power is that it can reinforce the creatures. If it was only for making Deploy cost less, I would not play it at all.

khurram

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Deploy the Gatewatch is strong and was designed to be a strong ramp tool for White. It might get changed, but we prefer to use a data-driven approach to changing cards, so we will carefully inspect our data sets to see if it is indeed problematic.

I personally dont have a problem with deploy, it is not as easily exploitable by the AI as runaway carriage was.

But if it has to be nerfed than making it fetch only white creatures, as suggested before, will mostly address the concerns since its the cards like olivia, deso twins, decimator that makes deploy extremely powerful. And you said it was meant to be a ramp tool for white so fetching just white creatures makes sense. Avacyn seems like the only deployable creature atm.

Alternatively maybe you can make it fetch creatures that are the same color as the pw using it? Like if its being used by sorin it fetches the next 3 black or white creatures.

GrizzoMtGPQ

I do not have Mirrorpool and always hard cast Deploy. It's too over powered.

Ohboy

Deploy by itself is too overpowered. Adding mirrorpool makes it insane.

But while we're talking about overpowered cards, are there plans to change drowner of hope? It's been a while since people have complained about him, but it's still obviously overpowered.

If we're going to use the route of colour flavor to explain the lack of removal/support removal in certain colours... What's blue doing with cheap bombs and mana ramps like startled awake?

GrizzoMtGPQ

I agree that Deploy is just the start of talking about the issues.

Startled Awake gives 13 mana? That's a black lotus. This card should not exist.

How about Imprisoned in the Moon? A kill spell for 3? 3? Are you kidding me? Why does it cost 3 when Turn to Frog costs so much more? How is that not power creep?

What about Sanctifier of Souls? Why does he cost 7? No other set has a creature like that for so cheap.

I could go on and on but we've already done this exhaustively. You need to really read these forum posts. Yunn already said all of this in his set review of EMN.

You're responding to us, which is great, but giving us the same old answers is not the right response. Acknowledge that you've made a mistake. We don't want a broken game.

Ohboy

GrizzoMtGPQ wrote:

I agree that Deploy is just the start of talking about the issues.

Startled Awake gives 13 mana? That's a black lotus. This card should not exist.

How about Imprisoned in the Moon? A kill spell for 3? 3? Are you kidding me? Why does it cost 3 when Turn to Frog costs so much more? How is that not power creep?

What about Sanctifier of Souls? Why does he cost 7? No other set has a creature like that for so cheap.

I could go on and on but we've already done this exhaustively. You need to really read these forum posts. Yunn already said all of this in his set review of EMN.

You're responding to us, which is great, but giving us the same old answers is not the right response. Acknowledge that you've made a mistake. We don't want a broken game.

Actually I'm OK with sanctifier of souls if people are OK with priest of last rite and desolation twin.

But yeah, I missed out on the imprison also being anti blue flavor.

I also want to raise the issue of bfz cycling in and out.

As someone mentioned, some bfz cards are seen as "must haves". They make up a third of the current card pool, and cycling them out puts new players at a severe advantage.

With just 3 sets out now, there really no reason to cycle them out at all, but cycling it out while allowing players to use bfz cards seems just nasty to the new players.

I would like to propose a system where the if cycling sets must be done, the cycle frequency be shorter(2 weeks?), and cards from the cycled sets be unusable when its not in circulation. That evens the playing field a little more, and keeps the game fresh as every cycle permutation (in future when we have more sets to cycle) would require players to give new thought on deck construction.

GrizzoMtGPQ

I'm not ok with Desolation Twin being a rare. That card is better than most Mythics.

The priest got too cheap but I never play him or see him anymore. He got eclipsed. I refuse to take damage from my own creatures.

madoddvibe

OK I'm just going to put the other big issue at the moment up for discussion since everyone is distracted by card balancing.

Drop rates for mythics/rares in card packs.

There's been a lot of complaints by a lot of people, and a lot of different suggestions (including fixed numbers of mythics/rares per big box), but at the end of the day, we're kind of sick of grinding crystals/shelling out money to buy big boxes and getting nothing but dupes (if we're lucky).

Yunnn put it best - gameplay should be rewarding. Everyone's got a point where they'll have spent enough hours or dollars for nothing but a punch in the face for their effort, and after that point they won't spend any more.

What possible solutions are being discussed internally, and what sort of timeline can we reasonably expect the situation to be remedied within?

madoddvibe

madoddvibe wrote:

Everyone's got a point where they'll have spent enough hours or dollars for nothing but a punch in the face for their effort, and after that point they won't spend any more.

... and I just reached that point. Bought an Origins Big Box, 3 rares, no mythics - that makes 1 mythic total in my last 8 big boxes. One of the rares was Jace's Sanctum, which makes 3 copies total in the last 2 big boxes alone.

I give up. Fix this game. At the moment it is pointless playing - both runes and crystals are effectively worthless because there is nothing that I can buy with them which provides any progression or value whatsoever. Why exactly should we spend time playing events or quick battles for worthless rewards?

GrizzoMtGPQ

What special new gameplay are we getting with Gisela? 8/8 for 12. In origins and most other sets it was 8/8 for 20. First Avacyn for 18 now Gisela for 12. Will Kaladesh have an 8/8 for 10? Exclusive Mythic get it now!

bk1234

Hibernum_Will wrote:

What’s up next for Events?
The community feedback on Events has been awesome. For competitive events, we want to move towards shorter Events with fewer matches and improved optional objectives. We also want to release more PvE Events with hand-crafted opponents. In the long-term, we want a larger variety of Events. There have been a lot of great suggestions from the community!

So... yes we still have to play EC or no???

I'm trying to decide whether to quit or buy Gisela.

madwren

yunnnn wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

From what I understand, the problem with Deploy the Gatewatch isn't necessarily with the card itself (it is very costly), but more with the combo with Mirrorpool, which lets players play a very cheap spell, get Deploy for free then play 3 huge creatures. It's a different venue we can look at, also.

It may seem like it, but that is not the real problem. The Mirrorpool combo is janky in reality and getting Pool + Deploy + Spell in hand does not happen that often.

Disagree. I get it all the time. I also use multiple draw engines, however, to ensure that occurs. The only thing that keeps it somewhat sane is that you can't Pool a Deploy into a second Deploy because it'll reinforce the first creature instead of triggering off the casting of the initial spell.

Corn_Noodles

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Converge is one such mechanic that, in hindsight, we could have easily cut and the game wouldn't really have suffered

I like the idea of the converge mechanic, but I'd like to see you go a little bit further. One way to help control cards with a high power level without just raising their casting costs (such as with Deploy) could be to require some of the mana be paid with a specific color. This would help bring MtG:PQ more in line with the paper game as well. Cards would have their generic cost and then their specific mana color cost. This might also help with PWs that have such huge mana gains (Koth and Nahiri come to mind). Worried about Deploy in Nahiri? Make Deploy require 10 of the 23 come from white mana only so the bonuses from red matches aren't helping as much.

James13

Deploy tweaking thoughts. Feel free to disagree, just brainstorming different distinct ideas:

1) Remove the creature-specific bit to eliminate the mono-fat-creature problem. Just plays the next 3 drawn support/creature cards free regardless of what they are. I hesitate to say spell because looping another call might be a problem.

2) Alter it so that it can only fetch a specific creature once. So it will get UP TO the next three distinct creatures.

3) Simply reduce the effect from 3 creatures to two. The mana cost makes it a discount and draw effect for two fat creatures still. 2 is still powerful without being overwhelming.

Corn_Noodles

James13 wrote:

Deploy tweaking thoughts. Feel free to disagree, just brainstorming different distinct ideas:

1) Remove the creature-specific bit to eliminate the mono-fat-creature problem. Just plays the next 3 drawn support/creature cards free regardless of what they are. I hesitate to say spell because looping another call might be a problem.

2) Alter it so that it can only fetch a specific creature once. So it will get UP TO the next three distinct creatures.

3) Simply reduce the effect from 3 creatures to two. The mana cost makes it a discount and draw effect for two fat creatures still. 2 is still powerful without being overwhelming.

1) That goes against the spirit and purpose of the original paper card.

2) The original paper card lets you look at the top 7 cards in your library, so perhaps instead of taking the next 3 creatures, it could let you view the next 3 creatures in your library and choose one to put onto the battlefield. I would want a cost decrease from 23 down to something like 17 or 18 at most if you're only going to get one creature, though.

3) Paper card is two planeswalkers, so two creatures instead of 3 seems to be a good compromise. Perhaps a cost reduction from 23 to 21 or 20 and it puts out two creatures instead of 3 is something people would be OK with.

Splizwarf

Corn Noodles wrote:

3) Paper card is two planeswalkers

In this vein, would it help tone down Deploy if it only pulled the next three Humans?

jackvett

Splizwarf wrote:

Corn Noodles wrote:

3) Paper card is two planeswalkers

In this vein, would it help tone down Deploy if it only pulled the next three Humans?

Or "you gain X loyalty "