New Game Mode Idea: Planechase

ZW2007-

Before we get started, if you don't know what the paper version Planechase is, you can read up on it at the mothership. Or you can read on and I'll lay out my version of it for Puzzle Quest.

In a sense, we already have Planechase-like effects in the game: Enraged and Supercharged events. My idea is to add an entirely new mode of play to the game that utilizes these mechanics and many, many more like them. In this mode, Enraged, Supercharged, and other new game altering effects would change multiple times within a single game.


We're all familiar with the planeswalker symbol which is used for loyalty gems. The other one is known as the chaos symbol.

Planechase games would be PvP and you would start the game under the effect of a random plane. After a set amount of time, a chaos gem would drop onto the board. There can only be one chaos gem on the board at any time and the only way to break it is with a match-4, a match-5 or abilities that destroy gems on the board. Once the chaos gem is destroyed, you planeswalk to another plane. Once you leave a plane, you cannot return to it again during the same game. For example, you start out in supercharge mode where all mana is doubled. After 3 turns, a chaos gem will drop into play. Once this gem is broken, you leave supercharge mode and switch to enraged mode. After another 3 turns, another chaos gem drops. Once this is destroyed, you switch to some other new effect.

This mode would be similar to QB in that you could join games whenever you want and it's always active; except there is no leaderboard. Instead, there are (small) progression rewards that extend quite high. You would still earn runes per game won. It would run for an entire week and "end" on Friday night at 9 p.m. EST. The only reason for it to end is to reset the progression rewards. There can even be daily objectives to win a Planechase game for a small reward and another random daily objective for a slightly better small reward. Examples of random daily objective: cast 8 green creatures in a single game, cast 50 spells (over multiple games), destroy 2 enemy supports in a single game (or 15 over multiple games), etc. Games won would earn 1 ribbon. Daily objectives would earn 5-25 ribbons (or more) depending on the difficulty of the objective. Progression rewards would be runes, basic boosters, small amounts of crystals (5 at a time max), and topping out at some decent reward (set booster pack or 50 crystals, maybe a fat pack or larger amount of crystals once a month).

This would be a casual format with no pressure to win every game. It is simply played for fun (and runes and progression rewards). No win percentage tracking to worry about like in QB. No leaderboard for people to complain about ties or cheaters or luck. Not being an event, those in coalitions won't feel obligated to participate for the good of their coalition. Lasting an entire week gives players plenty of time to reach whatever progression reward they want while still being able to keep up with events. The goal is just a fun format that is fun to play and keep players engaged.

As for the planes, they would have to be implemented like keywords are now. The text at the top of the screen would display a name for the current effect, then you could tap on it to display the full rules of the effect. For example, in enraged it would simply say 'Enraged' (or 'Innistrad' if they actually name them for planes), when you tap it, a plane card or tooltip appears that says 'Planeswalkers take double damage.'

I have a lot of ideas for planes effects:
-The first card you draw each turn is drawn from the top of your opponent's deck.
-You may activate your planeswalker's first loyalty ability for free each turn. (Still limited to one planeswalker ability per turn.)
-Loyalty matches are tripled.
-[Insert color here] gems give +10 mana, all other colors give -2. (Planeswalker's specific mana gains are negated by this effect.)
-Whenever you cast a card, fetch the next card of that type from your deck, it is free. Cards cast for free this way cannot trigger this effect.
-Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under you control, it deals damage equal to it's power to your opponent.
-Creatures can't attack.
-The first spell you cast each turn is returned to your hand and gains full mana.
-Whenever you cast a card, your opponent discards a card.
-Players may have 4 creatures on the battlefield.
-All supports cost 5 less and enter the battlefield with 5 shields. At the beginning of your turn, each support you control loses 2 shields.
-Damage dealt to your opponent by creatures, spells, or abilities controlled by you is dealt to you instead.
-Activate 1: gain 100 life.
-When you planeswalk to [insert name here (Kaladesh if they name planes in this way)] energize the board. Overload 3: something.

At this point I think you get the idea. Keep in mind this mode is first and foremost intended to just be fun. Outrageous, overpowered effects are very much intentional. These kinds of effects will lead to very memorable games. I hope you enjoyed my idea and thanks for reading. Feel free to contribute plane ideas and let's see if we can get this mode into the game!

(Images...borrowed from the article linked above.)

Edited for clarity, post is long but please read the entire thing before commenting.

Edited again to fix formatting thanks to new forum.

THEMAGICkMAN

This sounds absolutely amazing. Best idea I've heard in ages (other than increasing the drop rates of course) this would be awesome.

Mainloop25

These are cool ideas. I would love to hear from JC to see if this would be feasible. It would be a nice change of pace from Quick Battle for sure!

khurram

Do this , Devs.

madwren

Fantastic post.

Mana Burn

I love this. I just hope "It is simply played for fun" doesn't short circuit the dev's brains.

Sorin81

This is something the game needs desperately. Not only do I think this would be great for veteran players, just to have a break from the monotony of QB and highly competative events, but this could also give new players something fun and engaging and help keep them interested in the game.

The last few people I brought to the game all quit within two weeks.

Come on devs. We know you have a lot to do already but now that we've pretty much caught up with paper MtG hopefully you'll have time to catch up on some things and while you are at it put this on your ToDo list.

Mana Burn

Take it from somebody who spent close to a grand on this game over the summer... Any amount of über OP mythics in your collection is never gonna make up for the idiotic structure of this game. The only laid back, "just for fun" mode available right now is QB (Koth/Nahiri fest) and that's become incredibly stale. I don't want ribbons or runes anymore... I just want a game mode that shows me the devs trust the content, cards, and game mechanics. One that doesn't feel like a carrot on a stick competition the entire time. Challenging ≠ Engaging. Creativity = Engaging.

MTG_Mage

what a great idea to incorporate Planechase into mtgpq!

some ideas for the chaos gem:
-how about it is like a support with 3 shields and it looses 1 shield a turn
-it can be matched 3 with PW gems to lose a shield as well as from match 4, 5 and other gem destruction
-it comes into play with 3 'activate' gems, and when those are matched a plane specific effect happens

some Plane effect ideas:
Enraged: damage dealt to planeswalkers is doubled (matching an activate gem deals X damage to your opponent)
Supercharged: gem matches give double mana
blood frenzy: damage to creatures is doubled (matching an activate gem deals X damage to your opponents first creature)
brawl: all creatures gain berserker (matching an activate gem gives your creatures trample)
shield: damage dealt to planeswalkers is halved (matching an activate gem gains X life)
shield wall: all creatures gain defender (matching an activate gem gives your first creature prevent damage until end of turn)
growth: reinforce your first creature each turn (matching an activate gem reinforces your first creature)
wall of denial: all creatures gain reach (matching an activate gem gives your creatures regenerate 4 until planeshift)
offense: all creatures get +2/0 each turn (matching an activate gem gives your creatures haste)
defense: all creatures get 0/+2 each turn (matching an activate gem disables your opponents first creature until your next turn)
spells: spells in hand cost half (matching an activate gem returns your last cast spell to your hand)
supports: supports in hand cost half (matching an activate gem returns your last destroyed support to your hand)
creatures: creatures in hand cost half (matching an activate gem returns your last destroyed creatuer to your hand)
hexproof: all creatures are hexproof (matching an activate gem disables your opponents first creature until your next turn)
deathstrike: all creatures gain deathtouch and berserker (matching an activate gem gives your first creature first strike until end of turn)
slaughter: all creatures gain haste (matching an activate gem gives your first creature double strike until end of turn)
menace: all creatures gain menace (matching an activate gem gives your first creature renown 3)
unsupported: all supports in play lose a shield per round (matching an activate gem gives 1 shield to one of your supports)
evade: all creatures gain menace (matching an activate gem gives your first creature flying)

you can refer to the pause menu or battle log to know what the current plane and activate gems effect is

links to all planeshift cards for ideas:
http://magiccards.info/extra/plane/plan ... -west.html
http://magiccards.info/extra/plane/plan ... akoum.html
http://magiccards.info/extra/phenomenon ... ether.html

wereotter

I like this, but honestly it sounds fun enough that I'd prefer it to be ongoing as opposed to a progression event.

Also I would think they would be able to implement other effects you see on some planechase cards such as "All werewolves get +2/+2" or "All spirits have hexproof" to represent various parts of Innistead.

Potentially for Zendikar they could make "Activate 3, summon 2 Eldrazi Scions" or "Activate 2, Allies you control gain berserker and prevent damage until the end of turn"

ZW2007-

wereotter wrote:

I like this, but honestly it sounds fun enough that I'd prefer it to be ongoing as opposed to a progression event.

If they actually implemented this in the way I suggested, it would always be an ongoing thing and not an actual event. But since there are no leaderboards, might as well toss some small progression rewards in there just for the heck of it. Progression would just reset at the end of every week.

jetnoctis

Please powers that be, can we have something like this! Having completed nearly all of story mode, I don't have much incentive to play the game in between events. This type of week-long mode would give us all a chance to just have fun and earn some rewards for those of us who can't/don't want to go hard or go home in QB (which has been difficult to place well for certain topical reasons...) I'm sure the developers would like us, ideally, to play MtGPQ 24/7, so give us another avenue to do so and I can guarantee that it will engage existing players and entice newer ones ever more in the game! How exciting it would be to have to change your strategy mid event whenever a plane changes, never knowing how the next change will work in your favour.. or against you. Please give us the opportunity to play your game not just for competition (which is great) but also for fun, too!

AngelForge

Not a bad idea, but I feel the luck factor gets even higher with that.

In addition, some of the idea are totally luck based, like activate 1 and gain 100 life.

So, I would be more for general settings like enraged and to happen it with a countdown timer rather than another gem only to crack by a landfall...

And, of course, the ending time should rotate through the timezones this world offers.

Regards!

ZW2007-

AngelForge wrote:

Not a bad idea, but I feel the luck factor gets even higher with that.

In addition, some of the idea are totally luck based, like activate 1 and gain 100 life.

So, I would be more for general settings like enraged and to happen it with a countdown timer rather than another gem only to crack by a landfall...

And, of course, the ending time should rotate through the timezones this world offers.

Regards!

Luck doesn't matter, winning and losing is meaningless in this mode. The entire point here is FUN. End time is also irrelevant, the suggestion is to have no leaderboard. No leaderboard means no prizes when the event ends. I picked Saturday evening (EST) so that the progression rewards refresh on the weekend, which is when most people generally have more time for things like this game. Perhaps Friday night (EST) would be an even better time since the rest of the world will be waking up to the freshly reset progression rewards. (In fact, I will edit my original post to that instead.) Keep in mind, these progression rewards were only suggested for people that feel like everything needs a reward. Personally I think earning runes for a win is more than enough. This mode is to make the game FUN.

Pestilence

I love this idea and the idea of not having it weekly but an ongoing list style progression. Make it a list of objectives each with its own rewards. It could be progression within progression where every 10, 100, 1000, 10000 times you do a certain objective keeping the mode viable for even the hardcore completionists for a long time. Make the very difficult objectives like win in x turns or with less than x life pay out big early to give the "young account" people the drive to build a better deck and persevere three losses too again a mythic that will change their game keep them interested. At the higher level of play a mythic is most likely to be a dupe or never see play but early on even a **** mythic can keep someone interested.

ZW2007-

Hey Brigby or JC, how bout chiming in? Is it at all possible something like this could ever happen? And let's start out loosely with a definition of possible, can the game as it is currently coded handle something like this with minor modifications? Enraged already exists, would it be possible to make that change mid-game?

Brigby

ZW2007- wrote:

Hey Brigby or JC, how bout chiming in? Is it at all possible something like this could ever happen? And let's start out loosely with a definition of possible, can the game as it is currently coded handle something like this with minor modifications? Enraged already exists, would it be possible to make that change mid-game?

I unfortunately can't speak for technological capabilities when it comes to the implementation of this feature, but I can imagine that multiple different game modes bundled into a single game would take a considerable amount of development time. (Not to mention you'd probably want to double that time for proper QA analysis)

Having said that though, I personally like the idea a lot, and would love to see a Planechase game-mode in MtGPQ. I actually already added it to my report earlier this week, and passed it along to the developers for reference.

Mainloop25

Thanks Brigby!!

Kinesia

This does indeed sound fun, I hadn't seen it originally.

Kinesia

This does indeed sound fun, I hadn't seen it originally.

ZW2007-

I linked to this in another thread and didn't originally intend for it to get bumped. However, since it did, I ask that it not get locked even though it is so old.

The only thing outdated here is the fact that QB no longer exists and that TotP and AX do exist in a similar fashion to what is suggested here. The rest of the thread still stands on its own and is relevant once again given recent topics of discussion, i.e.: threads requesting the return of QB, more runes, more things to do... I feel like this checks the boxes of most things people want from QB or changes they've asked for to TG.

The biggest factor here is that the possibilities are limitless. You can't build a deck for the node since you have no idea where the node will start or where it will end up. This could provide endless hours of entertainment that doesn't get old because it would always be different.