Cycling

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  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,237 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The AI's abuse potential is only one facet of game balance, however.  Let's hope they don't start putting up "win this in 3 turns" objectives again because a small percentage of players have all the good cycling cards.
  • blacklotus
    blacklotus Posts: 589 Critical Contributor
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    Ohboy said:
    EDHdad said:
    Why on Earth would anyone insist on Nerfing a card which the AI can't abuse?

    Because some want to play good games, which does not equate to winning flawed AIs? 

    There are dozens of us. 
    And like you always like to emphasize, about 20,000 other casual players that just want an easy mobile game. Why should D3 nerf something that the majority enjoys, and which does not cause 30minutes per turn non-interactive AI loops like Baral?  
  • Delnai
    Delnai Posts: 187 Tile Toppler
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    madwren said:
    The AI's abuse potential is only one facet of game balance, however.  Let's hope they don't start putting up "win this in 3 turns" objectives again because a small percentage of players have all the good cycling cards.
    Yes this is the nightmare scenario. Release something broken and, rather than fix it, adjust the rest of the game up to match it. Ugh. 
  • blacklotus
    blacklotus Posts: 589 Critical Contributor
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    For those of you that want a harder challenge, you can always stop using this cycle deck. stop complaining anout cycle decks being OP when you are actively using them yourselves. It's totally hypocritical. 
  • Delnai
    Delnai Posts: 187 Tile Toppler
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    blacklotus said:
    Ohboy said:
    EDHdad said:
    Why on Earth would anyone insist on Nerfing a card which the AI can't abuse?

    Because some want to play good games, which does not equate to winning flawed AIs? 

    There are dozens of us. 
    And like you always like to emphasize, about 20,000 other casual players that just want an easy mobile game. Why should D3 nerf something that the majority enjoys, and which does not cause 30minutes per turn non-interactive AI loops like Baral?  
    Are you seriously saying that you think most players want a game in which they easily win their matches? I can't believe that. That's just not how anyone I personally know experiences games.
  • Mainloop25
    Mainloop25 Posts: 1,940 Chairperson of the Boards
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    For the health of the game? 
  • blacklotus
    blacklotus Posts: 589 Critical Contributor
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    Mainloop25 said:
    For the health of the game? 
    I think the Dev has more immediate things to fix in v2.1 compared to trying to balance the cycle mechanics, which isn't broken. See the bugs subforum for details. 

    top of my head, fixing Lili1 and J1 abilities from freezing the game. 
  • Mainloop25
    Mainloop25 Posts: 1,940 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2017
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    I forgot "long term" but whatever. Even if they do deem if a problem (and I am not entirely sure they will), they won't make changes to it for at least another month anyway. 
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
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    blacklotus said:
    Ohboy said:
    EDHdad said:
    Why on Earth would anyone insist on Nerfing a card which the AI can't abuse?

    Because some want to play good games, which does not equate to winning flawed AIs? 

    There are dozens of us. 
    And like you always like to emphasize, about 20,000 other casual players that just want an easy mobile game. Why should D3 nerf something that the majority enjoys, and which does not cause 30minutes per turn non-interactive AI loops like Baral?  

    I'm not sure how out of touch I am with the common man, but I imagine anyone who spends 5 minutes cycling cards to play solitaire grows bored relatively quickly. 
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Laeuftbeidir said:
    Because it makes the game boring, not balanced. That's banana.
    If you're bored playing it, but don't have to face off an OP AI piloting the deck, the solution seems simple. Stop playing the infinite cycling deck, and use something else.

    As I stated before, there are far more pressing issues in this expansion than cycling. Mostly the Gideon 1 + Oketra and the Mantle of Webs + Rhonas issues. These not only break the match entirely, but also are abusable by the AI, as others have reported. 
  • UweTellkampf
    UweTellkampf Posts: 376 Mover and Shaker
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    The other issue on the hand is this: People will "abuse" the cycling scenario to win their games and match some objectives in an easy way, the same they did with Baral. I bet many of those who consider prolonged cycling as tedious, will do it anyway, because they don't want to fall back behind those who don't mind the mindless grind. In other words the game doesn't force you to use cycling, but many will feel forced for the sake of the competition.

    As far as I can tell, cycling lets you win fairly easily against pretty much anything out there, and it will be "(ab)used" no matter how the community feels about it. I am just really glad the AI is not able to instrumentalize it in the awful ways it did with Baral.
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,237 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It's more like an arms race. Not abusing mechanics becomes a disadvantage.

    For example, when Runaway Carriage was taking over the meta, everyone used it.  Of course, there were some people who insisted on the twin pillars of myopic defense  (1. haha you just need to run disable and removal I never have a problem with it just play better; and 2. if you don't like it don't play with it).  However, a lot of players, even while using it, recognized that it was not healthy for the gaming environment.  Using it isn't hypocritical; it's smart gamesmanship. I'm not going to deliberately limit myself in competitive events. That would be foolish.

    It's a very interesting case, though. Since the AI doesn't seem to abuse it (yet; let's see what Trial of Zeal or Nissa3 bring), its impact is indirect--as opposed to cards like Baral and SP, which directly impacted player experience. Someone prone to d3go conspiracy theories, like myself, might even think the devs did this on purpose, because OP mechanics and cards drive sales.  Perhaps they said, "Ok, there was a big backlash against Baral because of the looping..let's find another way to motivate people to spend cards."

    After all, it's been previously demonstrated that they care more about money than game balance.









  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    This is different than the Runnaway Carriage scenario in the same way it's different from Baral: the AI can't abuse it.

    I didn't own Runaway Carriage during that whole debacle and would rage quit any match I saw it come out because it always meant game over. So in that regard, the other issues I mentioned are more in line with that strategy, and as a result have more need of addressing than cycling. 
  • Formulator
    Formulator Posts: 31 Just Dropped In
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    Put me down for "If the AI can't abuse it, it doesn't need to be fixed."
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
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    How is durdling with cycle cards any worse than durdling with a creatureless Ob Nixilis deck with 10 kill spells?  Or one of those "awesome" events where the secondary objective is to cast 6 vehicles and win the game with 10 or less life points?

    If cycling bores you, don't play it.  But what I'm hearing is that other people shouldn't play cycling because it personally bores you. 

    Maybe your play style bores some other person.  What if the combo players insisted that nobody play control?  What if the control players insisted nobody plays aggro?  What if the aggro players insisted nobody plays combo?

    Perhaps D3 could eliminate all Magic cards other than vanilla creatures with no abilities.  The commons would all be 2/2's, the uncommons would all be 4/4's, the rares would all be 8/8's, the mythics would all be 16/16's, and everything would cost 12 mana to cast.  No synergy, no strategy. No ramp or draw.  Just big dumb vanilla creatures.  Then, as long as you like the big dumb vanilla creature strategy, you, along with dozens of others, will love this game until the day it ends.  Which wouldn't be too long to wait.
  • Furks
    Furks Posts: 149 Tile Toppler
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    The game can still be fun and you can still build powerful decks without cycling loops. It's just so strong compared to all other mechanics that you have to use it if you want to stay competitive. 
    I hated playing baral 1.0 because it was tedious but incredibly overpowered. This is exactly the same situation with a card that reads practically the same as baral 1.0: new perspectives. 

    'gain mana on draw' is a recipe for disaster 
  • morgue427
    morgue427 Posts: 783 Critical Contributor
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    sure it  will get nerfed at least partially since they need to fix so many other things while they are at it anyways. unless the ai cant manage it then game on.

  • Formulator
    Formulator Posts: 31 Just Dropped In
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    Furks said:
    'gain mana on draw' is a recipe for disaster 
    No joke. I don't know why JC and company can't learn their lesson when i comes to designing cards that promote looping. Season's Past, Harness The Storm, Animist's Awakening, Baral... They always get whacked with the nerf bat. There's enough loop cards in the game as is. New ones always seem to be either game braking or generally unattractive like Rashmi.

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