Thank You! (for Nissa2's design)

Delnai

Thanks for the explanation, JC!

The fact that the planeswalkers were designed to be played against each other seems like a hint that we'll be seeing something like a KLD block format, where you face decks with restricted pws and card pools. That would be cool; it's something that clearly needs to be introduced to the game someday to make sure it stays fresh in the long term.

Hibernum_JC

Ohboy wrote:

You mention you did pvp tests that required setups. Does that mean you actually have an engine to do actual pvp? Are we going to see it?

btw, if energy destruction is what you're going for with chandra, may I suggest skills 2 and 3 read "remove all energised gems from the board" instead of "remove x gems from the board"

Don't read too much into me saying "PvP" - I use that term in our game to mean "playing against someone else's deck with an AI opponent". Actual synchronous PvP is a huge undertaking that has a lot of challenges. I won't say we'll never do it, but it's not something that's coming any time soon.

The problem with skills 2 and 3 removing all the energy from the board is that they immediately become impossible to reuse. There are some cards that are energy board wipes, but they are few and far between.

Ohboy

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

You mention you did pvp tests that required setups. Does that mean you actually have an engine to do actual pvp? Are we going to see it?

btw, if energy destruction is what you're going for with chandra, may I suggest skills 2 and 3 read "remove all energised gems from the board" instead of "remove x gems from the board"

Don't read too much into me saying "PvP" - I use that term in our game to mean "playing against someone else's deck with an AI opponent". Actual synchronous PvP is a huge undertaking that has a lot of challenges. I won't say we'll never do it, but it's not something that's coming any time soon.

The problem with skills 2 and 3 removing all the energy from the board is that they immediately become impossible to reuse. There are some cards that are energy board wipes, but they are few and far between.

It was the setups part that got my hopes up and hoping you were developing something awesome in secret.

Hibernum_JC

Ohboy wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

You mention you did pvp tests that required setups. Does that mean you actually have an engine to do actual pvp? Are we going to see it?

btw, if energy destruction is what you're going for with chandra, may I suggest skills 2 and 3 read "remove all energised gems from the board" instead of "remove x gems from the board"

Don't read too much into me saying "PvP" - I use that term in our game to mean "playing against someone else's deck with an AI opponent". Actual synchronous PvP is a huge undertaking that has a lot of challenges. I won't say we'll never do it, but it's not something that's coming any time soon.

The problem with skills 2 and 3 removing all the energy from the board is that they immediately become impossible to reuse. There are some cards that are energy board wipes, but they are few and far between.

It was the setups part that got my hopes up and hoping you were developing something awesome in secret.

What I meant is that the Planeswalker(s) require conditions to be set up for them to be effective

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I'm glad you folks are realizing her potential. I was actually worried her ultimate might be a bit too strong (in PvP, it can one-shot people pretty strongly but it does require setup) but after testing it seems to make sense.

And now that Dovin Baan, C2 and N2 are out, I can share a bit the philosophy behind their design, the energy/overload relationship and their design themes.

These 3 Planeswalkers were designed to be a rock/paper/scissors type of deal, with Energy as the central mechanic. Basically, this is what it's meant to look like:

Dovin Baan: Energy generation/Overload (the most straightforward one)
Chandra: Energy removal/destruction
Nissa: Energy scaling

With this, the goal is as such: Dovin Baan beats Chandra who beats Nissa who beats Dovin Baan.

Dovin Baan is strong against Chandra because while she can remove energy efficiently, he is self-sufficient and will always put out more than needs to survive, but is weak against Nissa because since she scales with Energy, she will easily dispatch him as he generates a lot of it.

Chandra is strong against Nissa because she actively works to REMOVE the energy that Nissa works to put on the board. All 3 of her abilities are designed around removing Energy (although the first one will also put some out to ensure that she can fuel herself). Building a low-cost deck with her (and with red that's not necessarily too hard) lets you effectively remove Energy, keeping Nissa in check. She is weaker to Dovin Baan since he doesn't scale with energy, he just needs a bit to be able to survive and use his stronger abilities.

Nissa is strong against Dovin Baan because she scales ridiculously strongly with Energy, making her a force to be reckoned with. With Dovin Baan's huge energy generation potential, all Nissa needs to do is build up her third, get 3 creatures on the board and she wins. However, against Chandra, it's a much more uphill battle, as Chandra will actively remove the Energy Nissa feeds off of, severely weakening her.

That's the design *intent* behind these three Planeswalkers. The execution might be a bit off (especially in Chandra's case) but that's the idea.

Thanks for the explanation, it's fantastic to get some insight into their development.

DaisukeK

I think the reasons C2 is not collecting as much favor as the other 2 are

a) She being meta-dependent. Dovin and Nissa are self-sufficient while Chandra need to fight against right opponent

b) even with right opponents, her 3rd ult ability is out of focus. For something that is triggered by any player "playing cards" to work you need to have variety of ways to play a lot of cards in a given turn (or make the opponent play cards, but who wants that to happen?), but currently that is limited to a narrow collection of Mythics combo (harness the storm, atherworks marvel, and what else?) This doesn't really inspire the rest of have-nots to get creative with this.

To alleviate a), why don't at least make the 2nd ability "do damage, and destroy energize gems IF there's any". This way it can trigger even against non-energize opponents.

Solving b) is way beyond my creative mind, though

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The idea also was we were hoping players would actually enjoy the Kaladesh set, but the response has been pretty cold so far, sadly, so I think the plans didn't fully pan out. There is a pretty large backlash against Energy I personally was not expecting - feedback on Ingest/Process/Devoid in BFZ was that players liked the idea, but there wasn't enough cards that took advantage of the mechanic to be of any use, so we made sure there was plenty of Energy generators and Overload cards in Kaladesh to remedy this problem. What ended up happening is sort of the opposite - there's a lot of these cards, but players don't like them for multiple reasons. This is a big learning experience for me as I design the future sets.

The point many of us have made is that the biggest problem with energy is that in general, it's too slow to compete with the big hitters of previous blocks. It doesn't mean the design itself was necessarily flawed in a vacuum--it's that in lieu of any sort of deckbuilding restrictions, people will gravitate towards faster/more powerful cards and setups.

Hibernum_JC

madwren wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The idea also was we were hoping players would actually enjoy the Kaladesh set, but the response has been pretty cold so far, sadly, so I think the plans didn't fully pan out. There is a pretty large backlash against Energy I personally was not expecting - feedback on Ingest/Process/Devoid in BFZ was that players liked the idea, but there wasn't enough cards that took advantage of the mechanic to be of any use, so we made sure there was plenty of Energy generators and Overload cards in Kaladesh to remedy this problem. What ended up happening is sort of the opposite - there's a lot of these cards, but players don't like them for multiple reasons. This is a big learning experience for me as I design the future sets.

The point many of us have made is that the biggest problem with energy is that in general, it's too slow to compete with the big hitters of previous blocks. It doesn't mean the design itself was necessarily flawed in a vacuum--it's that in lieu of any sort of deckbuilding restrictions, people will gravitate towards faster/more powerful cards and setups.

This is completely understandable, and I think that the set would have likely performed much better if it had been restricted. This is, again, something we are looking into.

Alve

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Alve wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I'm glad you folks are realizing her potential. I was actually worried her ultimate might be a bit too strong (in PvP, it can one-shot people pretty strongly but it does require setup) but after testing it seems to make sense.

And now that Dovin Baan, C2 and N2 are out, I can share a bit the philosophy behind their design, the energy/overload relationship and their design themes.

These 3 Planeswalkers were designed to be a rock/paper/scissors type of deal, with Energy as the central mechanic. Basically, this is what it's meant to look like:

Dovin Baan: Energy generation/Overload (the most straightforward one)
Chandra: Energy removal/destruction
Nissa: Energy scaling

With this, the goal is as such: Dovin Baan beats Chandra who beats Nissa who beats Dovin Baan.

Dovin Baan is strong against Chandra because while she can remove energy efficiently, he is self-sufficient and will always put out more than needs to survive, but is weak against Nissa because since she scales with Energy, she will easily dispatch him as he generates a lot of it.

Chandra is strong against Nissa because she actively works to REMOVE the energy that Nissa works to put on the board. All 3 of her abilities are designed around removing Energy (although the first one will also put some out to ensure that she can fuel herself). Building a low-cost deck with her (and with red that's not necessarily too hard) lets you effectively remove Energy, keeping Nissa in check. She is weaker to Dovin Baan since he doesn't scale with energy, he just needs a bit to be able to survive and use his stronger abilities.

Nissa is strong against Dovin Baan because she scales ridiculously strongly with Energy, making her a force to be reckoned with. With Dovin Baan's huge energy generation potential, all Nissa needs to do is build up her third, get 3 creatures on the board and she wins. However, against Chandra, it's a much more uphill battle, as Chandra will actively remove the Energy Nissa feeds off of, severely weakening her.

That's the design *intent* behind these three Planeswalkers. The execution might be a bit off (especially in Chandra's case) but that's the idea.

I'd say that the biggest problem with your scenario in Chandra's case is that we're rarely matched with KLD-themed decks in pvp. Not only some players tend to actively avoid this set, because simply OP SOI/EMN cards make intricate KLD mechanics seem quite underwhelming, you're matched against every possible deck from a player's roster and let's face it, some of those decks haven't been touched since BFZ. They won't generate Energy, I'm sure. So you spend a long time saving loyalty for Chandra's ultimate and in practice it's good for two or three shots at best.

If in events decks were locked once you picked a pw (preventing sideboarding and changing your decks to something outright mean when you're not playing them) and you were matched only against decks that actually entered the event, Energy would be much more useful, at least in some events (like IF). You wouldn't be depending only on yourself to generate Energy, which is what makes Chandra's skills pretty useless or underwhelming at best in most battles, and sabotages many KLD cards.

It'd be even more fun if you introduced the above solution with an equivalent of a Standard format. If I couldn't Deploy Olivia, Decimator and Emrakul (or whatever combination of OP cards I pick), I'd probably spend more time playing around with KLD mechanics in real pvp. We could have set-specific events for every set, plus an all-out battle like NoP. This way we'd get to experiment with both old a new mechanics. Furthermore, it'd benefit old and new players alike and alleviate some concerns of the current reward system or selling cards like Olivia. Old and no longer dedicated players would be able to stay partially competitive with their BFZ decks, new players wouldn't have to face decks full of SOI mythics/cards from coalition rewards/cards collected because someone has been playing for a year longer all the time and everything would be more fun for everyone (IMHO).

This is an actual issue (matchmaking/Standard format) we're looking to resolve at some point in time (I can't give specifics because I really don't have any).

However, what I can say is that there are upcoming events where C2 should be able to shine a lot more, especially on the PvE side of things, where there are enemies that Energize quite a bit, use Energy-generating cards and typically are a lot better.

The idea also was we were hoping players would actually enjoy the Kaladesh set, but the response has been pretty cold so far, sadly, so I think the plans didn't fully pan out. There is a pretty large backlash against Energy I personally was not expecting - feedback on Ingest/Process/Devoid in BFZ was that players liked the idea, but there wasn't enough cards that took advantage of the mechanic to be of any use, so we made sure there was plenty of Energy generators and Overload cards in Kaladesh to remedy this problem. What ended up happening is sort of the opposite - there's a lot of these cards, but players don't like them for multiple reasons. This is a big learning experience for me as I design the future sets.

I talked about KLD recently with someone and I noted that if KLD came out just after BFZ, it'd be super fun, so it definitely isn't horribly designed. The problem with KLD is that right now it directly competes with SOI and EMN. KLD requires an intricate setup and can be pretty slow to get going, especially if your opponent is not playing Energy (most of the time). In that time, I can just Olivia/bacon/Deploy/Emrakul someone to death. Many SOI cards desperately need a nerf or you need to introduce a Standard format that excludes them from some events.

What's more, Dynavolt Tower, the card that could instantly make Energy more relevant in every color, is an event exclusive, so most players won't see Energy at its best. If it could be earned from several events, or pulled from KLD packs aside from just being an exclusive until AR comes out, some of us would probably like Chandra better. I love the idea of event exclusives, but yeah, they will make KLD a little bit less attractive to some players.

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

madwren wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The idea also was we were hoping players would actually enjoy the Kaladesh set, but the response has been pretty cold so far, sadly, so I think the plans didn't fully pan out. There is a pretty large backlash against Energy I personally was not expecting - feedback on Ingest/Process/Devoid in BFZ was that players liked the idea, but there wasn't enough cards that took advantage of the mechanic to be of any use, so we made sure there was plenty of Energy generators and Overload cards in Kaladesh to remedy this problem. What ended up happening is sort of the opposite - there's a lot of these cards, but players don't like them for multiple reasons. This is a big learning experience for me as I design the future sets.

The point many of us have made is that the biggest problem with energy is that in general, it's too slow to compete with the big hitters of previous blocks. It doesn't mean the design itself was necessarily flawed in a vacuum--it's that in lieu of any sort of deckbuilding restrictions, people will gravitate towards faster/more powerful cards and setups.

This is completely understandable, and I think that the set would have likely performed much better if it had been restricted. This is, again, something we are looking into.

Excellent. You should also put "don't gate the best energy producer away in a limited event" on your list, because I guarantee if a lot of us had Dynavolt Tower, energy would be far more popular.

DaisukeK

I like Standard idea, it's good for devs (lot less tweaking, can go wild with new design) and for us players (get to play with new mechanics, which is refreshing and fun, saying goodbye to age old op cards we're sick of playing).

Deck slots features must come before that, though

ZW2007-

I appreciate the info on the design decisions. Honestly C2 is not bad if you can generate enough energy on your own. The biggest reason I wanted Dynavolt Tower was to make C2 shine. I failed in earning Dynavolt Tower so I doubt I'll ever use C2 again but really only you (JC) know what AER has in store for us. Making C2's 2nd and 3rd abilities remove that much energy but not require the energy would be a huge boon to C2. It makes her self-sufficient in the same way that DB and N2 are while also maintaining her position as 'paper'. Also, like madwren said, why lock away the best cards for energy behind an event that maybe 50 players in the entire game now have? If you guys want it to be an event reward, great, it guarantees some people will get it but it should still be available in the set packs or be sold as an exclusive as well. "Didn't get it in your packs? Now you can try to win it!" or "Weren't able to win it? Now you can buy it!". The only saving grace with those two exclusives is that they will be cycled into KLD & AER mixed packs (assuming you stick to the big set/small set combo). If those cards were event reward exclusives in AER, almost no one would ever get those cards. Even still, my chances of getting either are very slim and that is disappointing.

tm00

Aww but my most hylarious energy deck is using the season past/nissa's renewal/harnessthe storm engine to feed architect of the untamed( with some help from aethertorch renegate) and I can only imagine how absurd the engine will be with the new hydra.

I have another one in the making but I think I need era of innovation for that one.

I'd also add that while the two mana module is cool it feels that in general the uncommons offer some decent rewards but no generous generation of energy as opoosed to void gems where the rewards were rare/mythics, but you had devent source at lower rarities to make the rares and mythic shine.

Also waiting for aether revolt to see if I finally get some more repeatable energy sources for new chandra.

hawkyh1

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The idea also was we were hoping players would actually enjoy the Kaladesh set, but the response has been pretty cold so far, sadly, so I think the plans didn't fully pan out. There is a pretty large backlash against Energy I personally was not expecting - feedback on Ingest/Process/Devoid in BFZ was that players liked the idea, but there wasn't enough cards that took advantage of the mechanic to be of any use, so we made sure there was plenty of Energy generators and Overload cards in Kaladesh to remedy this problem. What ended up happening is sort of the opposite - there's a lot of these cards, but players don't like them for multiple reasons. This is a big learning experience for me as I design the future sets.

it's the usability of accessible cards with both energise and overload
that I feel is the problem. take thriving turtle. it costs 11 mana for
a 1/3 defender, which will probably be dead before it's overload 2
ever gets triggered.(your opponent will have already cast a creature
while it waits for you cast thriving turtle over maybe 2-3 turns)
(thriving, as it stands, it's days may well be numbered) it compares
to similar starter deck cards that players stand little chance of
winning with. energise and overload go hand in hand, cards that
only offer one are a nuisance. the reason why everyone uses aether
hub and not much else highlights the problem with many accessible
energy focus cards.

HH

madwren

ZW2007- wrote:

Making C2's 2nd and 3rd abilities remove that much energy but not require the energy would be a huge boon to C2. It makes her self-sufficient in the same way that DB and N2 are while also maintaining her position as 'paper'.

QFT. Her dependency on previously generated energy is really what pushes her into an undesirable niche. She would be far, far more interesting.

Chavez303

I think the idea of doing a Standard type restriction on events or even QB's would be a great idea. Similar to how there are Modern/Standard tournaments. This would let new players with small collections of the previous sets have a realm in which they will be competitive as well as provide some playgrounds for the older players with the large collections.

I can tell you right now, My main go to for any black or red deck is Olivia. If its white, Gisela is my staple. Its not that these cards need to be nerfed (selfish reasons as well as valid mechanical reasons), just limited in their use. I guess what I'm saying is i'd like to see things:

1. Introduce some kind of rolling standard like paper Magic (Origins + Current set or Origins + last two expansions)

2. Introduce some events that limit the types of cards that can be used (Origins + SOI/EMN, Origins + BFZ/OGW, etc.)

3. Make deck creation and management easier with the ability to save decks for certain types of events. I see this not being to hard if everything is table driven as I'd suspect. Maybe 5 slots for each PW. That should be enough to create decks for each for multiple scenarios.

Like Alve said, KLD is good in a vacuum. However, with the OP cards that have been published prior, they are just too slow and outmoded.

Ampmp11

madwren wrote:

ZW2007- wrote:

Making C2's 2nd and 3rd abilities remove that much energy but not require the energy would be a huge boon to C2. It makes her self-sufficient in the same way that DB and N2 are while also maintaining her position as 'paper'.

QFT. Her dependency on previously generated energy is really what pushes her into an undesirable niche. She would be far, far more interesting.

Want to second this. C2 wouldn't be as bad if her abilities would still activate without energy being on the board. Removal should just be an additional bonus not a requirement.

N2 is by far the best pw because her ultimate is self sufficient, though tbh it's probably overboard (at minimum +20/+20) to each creature? Basically N2 would be far worse if it didn't auto include 5 energy gems in the ultimate. Just like how C2's abilities are unplayable if you don't have Dynavolt Tower or Aetherworks Marvel because it doesn't auto include energy to remove.

wereotter

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I'm glad you folks are realizing her potential. I was actually worried her ultimate might be a bit too strong (in PvP, it can one-shot people pretty strongly but it does require setup) but after testing it seems to make sense.

And now that Dovin Baan, C2 and N2 are out, I can share a bit the philosophy behind their design, the energy/overload relationship and their design themes.

These 3 Planeswalkers were designed to be a rock/paper/scissors type of deal, with Energy as the central mechanic. Basically, this is what it's meant to look like:

Dovin Baan: Energy generation/Overload (the most straightforward one)
Chandra: Energy removal/destruction
Nissa: Energy scaling

With this, the goal is as such: Dovin Baan beats Chandra who beats Nissa who beats Dovin Baan.

Dovin Baan is strong against Chandra because while she can remove energy efficiently, he is self-sufficient and will always put out more than needs to survive, but is weak against Nissa because since she scales with Energy, she will easily dispatch him as he generates a lot of it.

Chandra is strong against Nissa because she actively works to REMOVE the energy that Nissa works to put on the board. All 3 of her abilities are designed around removing Energy (although the first one will also put some out to ensure that she can fuel herself). Building a low-cost deck with her (and with red that's not necessarily too hard) lets you effectively remove Energy, keeping Nissa in check. She is weaker to Dovin Baan since he doesn't scale with energy, he just needs a bit to be able to survive and use his stronger abilities.

Nissa is strong against Dovin Baan because she scales ridiculously strongly with Energy, making her a force to be reckoned with. With Dovin Baan's huge energy generation potential, all Nissa needs to do is build up her third, get 3 creatures on the board and she wins. However, against Chandra, it's a much more uphill battle, as Chandra will actively remove the Energy Nissa feeds off of, severely weakening her.

That's the design *intent* behind these three Planeswalkers. The execution might be a bit off (especially in Chandra's case) but that's the idea.

Thanks for the explanation! I can see now where you were going with this and appreciate the thought put into it.

However, I feel like the biggest problem is if you make one planeswalker set to shine when her abilities depend on the cards your opponent played, then it's too much of a wild card and will go unused. It's not really fair to the player to ask that Chandra be built with facing Nissa in mind. Yes her abilities are incredibly strong, but with the weak energize abilities in red, and with cards like the hellion and harnessed lightning also actively removing energy, she seems to have strayed too far into the energy removal category. It feels like she should have been made a little more self-sufficient for the purposes of both long-term use and for the 99% of the time when she's not paired off against Nissa.

Ampmp11

Also want to add Green/Blue has plenty of options of for energizing the board, while Red has Lathnu Hellion and Maulfist, one of which actively removes energy while C2's abilities depends on energy being on the board.

I like the thought behind how these colors should play out, but in actual practice, you missed on red.

The_Cheater

The only problem with Kaladesh and energy is how powerful SOI in EDM were. A Kaladesh only event would be fun AF, grossly impractical maybe, but fun.