Development Thread - (12/15/16)

Hibernum_JC

murtagon wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

I actually quite like the energized mechanic. I'm just not enjoying it because none of the cards that help cement the mechanic are actually available to me yet.

I like the energize mechanic as well. Comparing set mechanics I think it is the best one so far, however as a mechanic I would rate Energize as okay. The "fatal" flaw to the energize mechanic is you need to go all in to really use it - ie it is a linear mechanic and pushes you hard to dedicating a significant portion of your deck to really use them effectively. Currently cards that use energy effective enough to justify using the card is fairly limited. At this point my primary use of Energy is really to just lock up the board to either protect my supports or restrict gems that can be color changed or restrict gems that can have a support cast on them. The Overload cards are pretty underwhelming right now and it takes a while to setup an energy deck so you need defenses to protect you from any real competitive deck, especially in the Platinum tier. But as a mechanic to play against Story quests it can be fun.

As it stands most of the available OL abilities are pretty weak. My personal preference is to us the Mana and Draw OL:1 cards. Overload:3 are very difficult to get and really quite underwhelming especially when you consider how much of the deck you have to focus on energy creation to have a chance of making OL:3. When looking at cards OL:3 can just be ignored as an ability it is more likely the card will be destroyed before the OL:3 will trigger. OL:2 are more consistent so you can expect it to go off a few times. OL:1 are dependable.

OL really only shows value if you have several OL cards in play so a single energy pop triggers multiple OL effects. We just do not have many OL effects currently available that have the power to compete with any serious platinum decks.

Really the best Energy card is Saheeli's Artistry you throw that in a harness deck and your creatures will get huge in a hurry. The worst part of energy is the effect on the nodes. It is much better now but I have color sensitivity issues and the energy effect still makes it difficult to see the colors. Visually I admit I like the effect but it does make the game harder to play. This latest update was a huge win to my eye strain though...the black background for the gems really helped. THANK YOU.

Overload was designed like this: OL1 is pretty easy to get (at 3-4 energy on the board you're almost guaranteed to be able to proc it), OL2 needs a bit more investment, and OL3 is very difficult to get. This is why a lot of the OL3 effects are either very powerful or essentially have no effect on the card cost (OL3 effects are typically essentially free on a card).

Planeswalkers like Dovin Baan really help with Energy generation, there's a few cards that have exceptional energy generation (Aethersquall Ancient is one of these). As for good OL cards, I personally consider the following to be quite good (regardless of their exclusive status):

Aether Hub (easy to activate and good mana generation on a colorless support)
Aetherstorm Roc (OL1 on a +1/+1 permanent buff and a disable on non-disabled creature is amazing)
Aethertorch Renegade (huge Energize + free damage on OL1)
Aetherworks Marvel (OL2, but ridiculously strong, and infinite potential on energize)
Architect of the Untamed (guaranteed energize every turn, and OL2 to summon a 6/6)
Bristling Hydra (like all Hydras, super strong, OL1 for permanent +1/+1 and also does Energize 2!)
Deadlock Trap (great Disable ability on OL1)
Dynavolt Tower (obviously)
Longtusk Cub (OL1 and permanent +1/+1)
Servant of the Conduit (like Aether Hub, great ramp tool on OL1)

And that's just stuff without using the PW abilities (Dovin Baan does +6/+6 permanent to each of his creatures on OL1, which is ridiculously strong). You don't *really* need to go all out on Energize (or OL stacking) for it to work, really.

Hibernum_JC

JopeX37 wrote:

Volrak wrote:

Mainloop25 wrote:

Finally have you guys given any thought to standardizing the language you use on cards? The paper game had to do this at some point and it seems like you guys are due. For example, as of KLD, there are 4 green spells whose primary function is to destroy an opponent's support, yet they are all worded differently, and as follows: Appetite for the Unnatural-A support your opponent controls is Destroyed, Root Out- 1 support controlled by your opponent is Destroyed, Creeping Mold- Destroy 1 support your opponent controls, and Reclaiming Vines- Destroy 1 Support gem your opponent controls. This kind of thing is sloppy, confusing, and will eventually cause problems. Seems like the sooner you get on it the easier it'll be to actually finish what must be a huge project.

There's less and less of this popping up, honestly, and when it gets pointed out I will gladly change the card text. Sometimes errors will slip through, unfortunately, but they are rather easy fixes.

Theros

Hibernum_JC wrote:

So there is a bug that slipped through with Hexproof - you should be able to replace your Hexproof creatures. We're working to fix that asap.

As for the Hexproof change in general, we're still discussing the change. We'll keep you posted.

Remember it's all about the players, let them enjoy their gameplay. Changes to hexproof looks like a personal opinion. As other mentioned, it was never an issue to begin with

span_argoman

I like the Energize mechanic:


I would like to draw into cards with better Overload abilities to improve it further, but if a new mechanism can make Tezzeret interesting I think that's quite good news.

And from what I've seen of the cards, it is possible that a primarily Kaladesh deck can beat older decks, but due to the nature of Energize/Overload they will take longer to set up and that is to their detriment in the current meta. Chances are most people don't have the right cards to warrant using a Kaladesh-heavy deck for now but we'll see.

buscemi

Hey! Maybe if you guys hadn't cut the drop rates in half, we'd be able to get hold of some of the energize cards that don't suck?

DISCLAIMER: I still think they all suck.

Ampmp11

To the Energize/Overload mechanic, it seems like it takes a bit long to execute effectively. But once you do you're doing a lot in one turn if your deck is OL optimized. The set up for it to be effective though may be too long for it to be actually used though. I think the problem is that on their own the cards aren't good enough to win on their own and need other cards for them to really shine, which can be hard to do with so much removal.

I'm reserving judgment until Dynavolt and Aetherworks Marvel come out, which will energize the board constantly from a support rather than from just creatures.

Mainloop25

Era of Innovation/Tamiyo's Journal has been the quickest way for me to set up energized gems so far, without the mythic supports. Following up with Saheeli's Artistry on Cultivator of Blades has been my favorite way to utilize Energy at the moment.

DuskPaladin

The problem with Energy and Overload is that they can't stand alone.

Compare them to Activate cards, like Evolution Leap or Drana's Chosen, you need no other set ups, if you pop them you get an effect, they also refresh themselves after your opponent or you have popped them. With energy, after you've gotten your energy from casting the card, that's it, you don't get more energy each turn from the same card, you won't be able to potentially activate them each turn.

You may say that's why you combine them with other energy cards, but for that you're forced to play with just Kaladesh cards, they don't have a good synergy with the other cards of your collection at all. For Evolution Leap, there'a good synergy with your green ramp, that you would be playing anyways. That's why Landfall is a better ability, just like in paper Magic, it rewards you for something you're encouraged to do anyways: matching 4 gems, potentially creating cascades and generating more mana.

The higher the number of 'activations' on Activate cards, the more frequent it will trigger. The lower the Overload cost, the more frequent it will trigger. But, as I explained earlier, an Energy 4, Overload 1 card (which would be a card with the best trigger rate from all the Kaladesh cards) won't be the equivalent on an Activate 4 card. Because it won't be repeatable, and you can't trigger multiples Overload 1 the same way you could 'activate' an ability multiples times in a turn.

Energized gems prevent gems from being converted, which would be the number 1 way to trigger their destruction, and thus their activation, so they are quite anti-synergistic.

Overload 1 is hard enough to activate, with not really good reward for your effort, now think about how much harder and non repeatable it is to trigger Overload 3.


You say that Bristling Hydra is really powerful. Let's just compare it with Ulvenwald Hydra and see how it fares.

Mana cost: 12 mana vs 14, comparable but Bristling is better.
Static ability: none vs reach.
Enter-the-Battlefield Ability: Energize 3 vs convert 6 gems to green; useless ability if you can't combine it with something else versus always useful ability no matter your deck.
Activated/Triggered Ability: +1/+1 and Energize 2 when you Overload 1 vs +2/+2 when ANY players match 3 or more green gems. So a really situational ability and underwhelming payoff compared to a trademark of green. Even if you made no effort, there's a good chance that there will be a green match on the board, not so much for energized gems.

I could keep comparing Energy/Overload cards versus more universal cards with stronger effect, but I think you get the idea.

I gotta say that Energy and Overload is an improvement of abilities like Merge, Converge, Devoid, and I salute the developers for that, but unfortunately, it's too parasitic and underwhelming.

Last thing, I praised Activate cards over Overload cards, but the truth is, while they are quite better comparatively, even Activate cards remain quite unreliable, and are rarely played because of their Activate abilities alone. Yup, despite being much easier to trigger than Overload cards, they are still not good enough in a real game of MTG: Puzzle Quest. You said it, the cards have to stand alone even without considering their Overload abilities, which none does at the moment.

wereotter

To the discussion on energize, it's a mixed opinion from me, but leaning positive.

My only real complaint is energize works too much like activate, since you have only limited control over if/when it activates since gems have to align, and if you're running energize without the right cards, your opponent can and will match your energized gems even without and cards with overload to use the energy, and then that energy is just gone.

On the plus side, when you do match it, especially with the right effects on the field it's incredibly powerful. I put together a deck to take advantage of energize in Dovin Baan and once I have out his third ability support, and an empyreal voyager, it's basically game over as I can start energizing 20 gems per round.

My only thought so far is when you have cards with overload 2 in colors weak on generating energy, then you have an issue. I'm thinking initially of Thriving Grubs. Red doesn't have much yet to energize the board, so it's not likely you'll ever trigger their +1/+1, ditto Thriving Rats, if not more so since there's currently only two cards in black which leave energy on the board, and no planeswalker that can combine black with the good energy generating colors, blue and green. Maybe once Tezzeret from Aether Revolt comes to Puzzle Quest black energize will be useful...

JopeX37

Have you given any thought to the idea of giving us something to do with runes/dupes other than level planeswalkers? At some point they both become useless and it would be nice to be able to do something with them other than stack them in piles of 100k.

SpaceDuck

I really like the energize mechanic unfortunately there is another game mechanic that may be keeping a lot of players from really giving it a try: Mastery.

My cards aren't good enough to jump up to the next tier of events, but I'm nearly over the threshold for a couple of masteries...in fact thanks to the last event I can no longer even safely play around with new colorless cards.

I know that there is an UBER Nahiri energize deck that can be built, but for the foreseeable future I can't afford to experiment.

NDZahmbie

Given Energize/Overload can't really stand alone, how about creating a Kaladesh-only Event? That would drive some really interesting deck building. Same concept as a Standard tourney in MtG CCG.

PastrySpider

Any plans for significant amounts of card rebalancing coming up soon? If so, it might be worth alerting the community earlier rather than later and indicating at least the candidates cards or even sets so we can make purchases appropriately. Also, soliciting feedback on changes earlier would be a good idea.

Finally, it's probably a good idea to address whether purchased mythics will ever get adjustments and, if so, is there a guaranteed period before they get changed.

bk1234

Can you please put up the weekend event?

James13

bken1234 wrote:

Can you please put up the weekend event?

Unless I'm mistaken, events don't usually appear in-app until ~24 hours till start time. So it should come up in a little over an hour from now.

MrMoustache

Hibernum_JC wrote:

JopeX37 wrote:

Volrak wrote:

Mainloop25 wrote:

Finally have you guys given any thought to standardizing the language you use on cards? The paper game had to do this at some point and it seems like you guys are due. For example, as of KLD, there are 4 green spells whose primary function is to destroy an opponent's support, yet they are all worded differently, and as follows: Appetite for the Unnatural-A support your opponent controls is Destroyed, Root Out- 1 support controlled by your opponent is Destroyed, Creeping Mold- Destroy 1 support your opponent controls, and Reclaiming Vines- Destroy 1 Support gem your opponent controls. This kind of thing is sloppy, confusing, and will eventually cause problems. Seems like the sooner you get on it the easier it'll be to actually finish what must be a huge project.

There's less and less of this popping up, honestly, and when it gets pointed out I will gladly change the card text. Sometimes errors will slip through, unfortunately, but they are rather easy fixes.

Cool. I'm pointing out every single use of the word "it's" on cards (and also at least one use of the non-word "its'", with a random apostrophe at the end). I don't think I've seen a single use of it where it should actually be there; every use should actually use "its" ("Return to its owner's hand", "deals damage equal to its power", etc). This was done correctly for the Eldritch Moon release, but every release prior had it wrong, and Kaladesh also went right back to using the wrong "its". I submitted this as a bug last June or July, and was assured it was being looked at, but there have been no fixes since. Please fix them, as you say they are "rather easy fixes".

tony424

hey guy can I ask smt ??
I just finished the rank game at rank 234, but i didnt get any reward for it? is it a bug or i will receive it later?
Thank you

m3mnoch8

This is about Liliana the necromancer and the corrupt ability.
unless I am reading this wrong it says you discard last 2 cards and opponent discards last 2 cards.
now its VERY FRUSTRATING when you are playing this game, never seeing your mana match and trying to match any mana to get a card out, then Liliana uses the corrupt ability and the first card in my hand disappears as well as the last card.
not just once during the match but every time its used.
when I use the ability my opponent doesn't loose their first card, but their last 2 just like myself.
THIS BUG NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!
when I read the opponents ability it says the same thing as mine so if they are over lvl 40 or something and it changes to first and last it sure doesn't state that.
its bad enough all the duplicate cards there are and I mean I have only been playing this game for 4 months and have more duplicates than anything, but when in battle and loosing because of a glitch is frustrating. VERY FRUSTRATING.
When it takes 10 rounds to get a card out because the mana matches are you negative matches ALL THE TIME and
your card at the TOP OF YOUR HAND disappears NOTS JUST ONCE BUT MULTIPLE TIMES during a match because the
corrupt ability takes the top card not the bottom 2.
there are so so SO many things about this game that are frustrating like always fighting someone 5 lvls or more, seeing a few of the same mana matches of your color in a game, spending crystals on packs that are all duplicates of cards I already have or playing other planeswalkers whos abilities somehow make up their own rules.
sure I would love to get my hands on some cheap casting cards that are high power rather than some 4/4 that costs 18 mana to get out and I already have 7 copies of, but getting all these bugs fixed would improve the play of this game and be more enjoyable.
its like trying to get into the lower 1000 of quickbattle.

madwren

m3mnoch8 wrote:

This is about Liliana the necromancer and the corrupt ability.
unless I am reading this wrong it says you discard last 2 cards and opponent discards last 2 cards.

At the third level of the Corrupt ability, it discards Liliana's last 2, and the opponent's first and last cards. This change happens at level 38.

If it doesn't actually say that (because of a text error), then you should take a screenshot and submit it.

hawkyh1

m3mnoch8 wrote:

This is about Liliana the necromancer and the corrupt ability.
unless I am reading this wrong it says you discard last 2 cards and opponent discards last 2 cards.
now its VERY FRUSTRATING when you are playing this game, never seeing your mana match and trying to match any mana to get a card out, then Liliana uses the corrupt ability and the first card in my hand disappears as well as the last card.
not just once during the match but every time its used.
when I use the ability my opponent doesn't loose their first card, but their last 2 just like myself.
THIS BUG NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!
when I read the opponents ability it says the same thing as mine so if they are over lvl 40 or something and it changes to first and last it sure doesn't state that.
its bad enough all the duplicate cards there are and I mean I have only been playing this game for 4 months and have more duplicates than anything, but when in battle and loosing because of a glitch is frustrating. VERY FRUSTRATING.
When it takes 10 rounds to get a card out because the mana matches are you negative matches ALL THE TIME and
your card at the TOP OF YOUR HAND disappears NOTS JUST ONCE BUT MULTIPLE TIMES during a match because the
corrupt ability takes the top card not the bottom 2.
there are so so SO many things about this game that are frustrating like always fighting someone 5 lvls or more, seeing a few of the same mana matches of your color in a game, spending crystals on packs that are all duplicates of cards I already have or playing other planeswalkers whos abilities somehow make up their own rules.
sure I would love to get my hands on some cheap casting cards that are high power rather than some 4/4 that costs 18 mana to get out and I already have 7 copies of, but getting all these bugs fixed would improve the play of this game and be more enjoyable.
its like trying to get into the lower 1000 of quickbattle.

my liliana works as the text describes. she can be harder
to play at lower levels. you need something like kalastria
nightwatch(common) for a decent chance in the event.
(madness cards like maurer twins(common) can work well
too). maybe try shuffling you deck a little to include more
lower mana cards?

HH