When words don't mean what they should mean: Summon vs. Cast

Corn_Noodles

The most recent event, Trial of Ambition, had 3 different creature summoning bonus objectives. In these objectives, the word "summon" is clearly used. "Summon" used to mean placing onto your side of the battlefield by any means, whether directly cast, created via ability, stolen from opponent, etc. It does not appear this is the case anymore. In Trial of Ambition, I created numerous zombies via different methods, but only directly cast zombies counted for the "summon" bonus objective.

We've been through discussions similar to this before, and before, and before, and before. In fact, we're still waiting on an answer from Brigby after promising to check with the development team back in February. The last we heard, "play" and "cast" were the same thing while "summon" was different. Is consistency (or at least clear answers) too much to ask? I hope not.

Sarahschmara

The imprecise language is very frustrating @CornNoodles!

Corn_Noodles

I suppose they could say that summoning tokens never counts, but it does not state that anywhere. If that's the case, I'd suggest they put "non-token" in the objectives.

Sarahschmara

Agreed. I know they're working with limited space but they desperately need someone to proofread things.

If creatures (tokens) summoned by spells/affects don't count towards objectives, then don't use the word "summoned" to describe that action. 

I mean, we figure it out eventually BUT I'd rather no go through a Trial of Errors each time!

Corn_Noodles

I always wonder what it's like for a player who doesn't visit the forums to understand all this. The developers should be wondering that as well.

Sarahschmara

Corn Noodles said:

I always wonder what it's like for a player who doesn't visit the forums to understand all this. The developers should be wondering that as well.

It's probably very difficult for a new player to tell which "bugs" are intentional, isn't it?

Delnai

Yes! This frustrates me to no end. I felt a brief glimmer of hope when they ran an event a few weeks ago (I forget which one, maybe BP?) that used the language "play" in the bonus objective description instead of "summon". I thought, "Okay, so the old events are still on `summon' language, but maybe all future events will use the correct word." Then we got this nonsense this week. Very frustrating.

srfin

What really burns me is that lots of cards also say "summon" on them. So you have an objective that says "summon X" but if you play a card that says "summon X" it doesn't count.

Ohboy

Actually I think that after a few games anyone can figure out the pattern of hard cast vs soft cast creatures. 

Yes the language is badly imprecise... But I don't think players not visiting the forums will take long to figure it out. 

Delnai

Ohboy said:

Actually I think that after a few games anyone can figure out the pattern of hard cast vs soft cast creatures. 

Yes the language is badly imprecise... But I don't think players not visiting the forums will take long to figure it out. 

I don't disagree, but whether every can figure it out is beside the point. There shouldn't be anything to figure out. The fact that haven't spent the 2-3 minutes it would take to runs "replace string" command and change "Summon" to "Play" is frankly disappointing, and I personally (and I suspect many others) see this as a manifestation of a poor attitude toward players.

Irgy

As best I can tell the words aren't correct because the entire behaviour is not as intended. My understanding of the history (including a large amount of speculation) is this:
* Originally summon meant summon
* Someone was addressing an obscure case that counted as summoning even though it shouldn't
* The end result globally changed the meaning of "summon" to "cast", without it ever having been the intention
* The developers couldn't (and probably still can't) agree on how they want it to work
* Until they sort themselves out, "summon" will continue to mean "cast", though it could change back at any time with no notice or information.

Ohboy

Delnai said:

Ohboy said:

Actually I think that after a few games anyone can figure out the pattern of hard cast vs soft cast creatures. 

Yes the language is badly imprecise... But I don't think players not visiting the forums will take long to figure it out. 

I don't disagree, but whether every can figure it out is beside the point. There shouldn't be anything to figure out. The fact that haven't spent the 2-3 minutes it would take to runs "replace string" command and change "Summon" to "Play" is frankly disappointing, and I personally (and I suspect many others) see this as a manifestation of a poor attitude toward players.

I don't disagree. Especially a game like Mtg where wording is incredibly important. 

I was just addressing corn noodle's musing that people who don't visit forums would find it hard to unravel the conditions of what triggers an objective and what doesn't. 

blacklotus

Irgy said:

As best I can tell the words aren't correct because the entire behaviour is not as intended. My understanding of the history (including a large amount of speculation) is this:
* Originally summon meant summon
* Someone was addressing an obscure case that counted as summoning even though it shouldn't
* The end result globally changed the meaning of "summon" to "cast", without it ever having been the intention
* The developers couldn't (and probably still can't) agree on how they want it to work
* Until they sort themselves out, "summon" will continue to mean "cast", though it could change back at any time with no notice or information.

it was not obscure. summoning/fetching critters and tokens used to count. but when enemy ai mooned or frogged your critter, it counts as a summon too, and may make you lose objective points. after that, it was changed to the current "only critter hardcast from critter card hand counts" as an actual summon in mtgpq. 

madwren

Which, mind you, was a positive change in many ways, but it still sucks that Hibernum's Razor was employed in such a haphazard way.

wereotter

They made this change back during the Innistrad block. I sympathize with you that it's incredibly frustrating, especially on your first run through and seeing you failed your summon objective because you brought out tokens. I learned this myself in a Terror in the Shadows (I think...?) even to summon enough spirits while I was relying on Nearheath Chaplain, Daultless Cathar, Not Forgotten, and Vessel of Ephemera to create my spirits in previous objectives.

We've asked over and over and over and over for them to update the verbiage in events to "cast" rather than "summon" as that would clear things up immediately, and then in the long-term to update cards like the ones I mentioned above to say "create" instead of "summon" both for consistency with the paper game, and to clear up confusions like this.

jetnoctis

Hi @Brigby, any news on this? 

Mickleberry

As a Rules Adviser for paper magic, I definitely understand the importance of wording for magic cards, and the differences between "cast", "play", "create" are very different.

It would make the most sense to use the wording in paper magic and translate is best as possible to the puzzle quest counterpart. If that were the case, everything that is specific to actually playing cards from your hand would be "cast". Everything that makes tokens would be "create", no matter if they're creatures (Like Foundry of the Consuls) or tokens (such as Accursed Witch). If "summon" is used instead, that's fine, but I agree completely that there needs to be 100% consistency.

While "play" is no longer used the way it used to be before Core Set 2010 wording changes, in Puzzle Quest it could be used as a word that refers to anything that is either a creature entering the battlefield (token or not), a support entering the board (token or not) or a spell being cast. While this wouldn't be ideal in my opinion, it would allow for less wordy cards or abilities and make for a cleaner game.

If these changes were made and streamlined throughout all the cards in MtGPQ, I think the game would be a lot more intuitive.