Predicted future problems...

Kinesia
Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
in MtGPQ General Discussion
So... Playing within the new environment and looking ahead there are a few problems lurking on the horizon.

Bringing them up now so Oktagon can adjust steering if necessary!

There are probably others that other people will mention, but on the weekend I noticed 2 things happening more than once.

They are existing problems, but there have always been workarounds (and currently are still) but the existing workarounds are leaving and the last few sets have shown nothing new to deal with these situations, so Oktagon need to be apprised of them so they can decide what the future state should be.


I like the (overall) slower environment that is being planned but there are some problems with it that will NOT go away through sets rotating.

Every single land or mana card has been moved to take at least 2 turns to get out on EVERY planeswalker, but there are situations where this is a huge issue, COMMON situations.

First off...

Lilliana 1.
If she gets a cascade first turn she can empty her hand and then empty yours with her first ability. Depending on how things go she can keep doing this, or her first cards can simply be enough for her to win over time.
Your only way out is loyalty abilities or cards that you can cast in 1 turn, but there are now almost none of these, certainly not any that will overthrow an existing board position and put you back in control.
The current strategies against this are Aftermath spells and Eternalise creatures, both block specific, both going away.
Apart from that you are counting on a lucky cascade yourself.
You used to be able to help yourself get lucky but drawing and playing a land in one turn, setting yourself up for better luck the next turn but now no lands can be played before they are discarded.
It is frustrating and painful to play against, but the main problem is you have very little real hope apart from luck.

Lilliana one owned by everyone and this takes zero cards at all, it's deeply part of her. It hasn't been a huge problem before now because there have ALWAYS been sufficient things to cast that cost 6 or less to fight against her with.



Kiora
Her first can prevent you from casting something unless it's in one turn. Similar problem to Lill 1 but from a different source.
By itself it wouldn't be the worst since the resources stay in your hand and EVENTUALLY you get lucky and get to play something (especially if you have a nice desert, but they are going away too!)... BUT then we hit out other enemies...


Sphinx's Tutelage.
This is seeing a resurgence. Bounce is really powerful and plentiful now, card draw is everywhere, this is a cheap and common card that being Origins will never disappear and is now in most blue decks and rising.
It increases the cost of cards markedly even by itself, but add just a small amount of card draw or drain mana (both in every set) and suddenly you can't play anything that you can't draw and play in one turn and (as outlined above) these are going away completely.
Green doesn't even a support removal spell that costs 6 anymore, 7 minimum (and that is going). The best you get is the Ooze (which is great) but if it's a clean board that Ooze ends up in the first slow and is probably disabled or bounced or stolen before it removes a single shield off something.



So... We've been relying a LOT on playing things within one turn to overcome particular entrenched strategies and, until now, it hasn't been a problem, but what's the future going to look like when Hours takes it's deserts and aftermath and eternals away and we can no longer cast _anything_ within one turn?


The biggest rule for this game, for people starting out, is that the beginning planeswalkers need to be viable otherwise people won't keep playing enough to get anything else.
Since they will be playing from the start against Lill1 and Sphinx's Tutelage there need to be tools _widespread_ to counter these problems from the very beginning of the game at common and uncommon rarity.
And even things costing 6 are too high since they don't get +3 in their main colour until level 58.

So these problems need to be solvable by common/uncommon cards that cost 5 at most. There is no sign in the current sets that there is any allowance for this.


I'm sure there are other issues too (and since I actually _want_ the slower environment, how do you accomplish that without getting trapped by these roadblocks?)



Thanks,
Kinesia.


«1

Comments

  • Rhasget
    Rhasget Posts: 412 Mover and Shaker
    edited May 2018
    Does the game have a future?
    Diminishing player pools, errors are more and more frequent to the extent players can't login. No responses from anyone about the issues.
    Starting to feel like a sinking ship.

    Edit: Cynic in me took over. Not to detract from your issues since you have some interesting points.
  • andrewvanmarle
    andrewvanmarle Posts: 978 Critical Contributor
    Is there a reason for the land cards to cost more?

    slowing down generalist tactics and the pace of the game overall isnt a good thing in my opinion. It's'a casual game in principle so each game shouldnt take too long...
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Rhasget said:
    Does the game have a future?
    Diminishing player pools, errors are more and more frequent to the extent players can't login. No responses from anyone about the issues.
    Starting to feel like a sinking ship.

    Edit: Cynic in me took over. Not to detract from your issues since you have some interesting points.

    I want the game to have a future and more is in place now to ensure that than there was a year ago. Despite the things that seem negative they are on the upturn, they look bad still because they were SO bad before.

    I have wanted this for 20 years, even before I knew of some of the possibilities like carrying it in my pocket! So I will fight to keep it as long as I can.

    So spotting for potential issues further down the track is within my wheelhouse.
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    andrewvanmarle said:
    Is there a reason for the land cards to cost more?

    slowing down generalist tactics and the pace of the game overall isnt a good thing in my opinion. It's'a casual game in principle so each game shouldnt take too long...

    There are a lot things involved in games being fun and being interactive and gameplay going back and forth is at the top. Slowing things down slightly is necessary for people to have proper back and forth games, anything that stops you responding is bad gameplay,  but the problems haven't been lands (Although the deserts are different beasts!) but rather combo pieces.
    There _are_ lands that should cost than "one turns mana", StV would be an example _except_ the requirements to flip it enforce a delay on it regardless and the cost is largely irrelevant.

    Spell mana sources need to exist but somehow they need to not be abusable, that's hard to manage.


    Land supports need to help the basic 5 planeswalkers when they still only have +2 bonus in their main, but somehow _without_ becoming auto-includes for everyone. That's a hard line to walk and I don't know the full answer yet but Nissa's Pilgrimage has existed forever and has never ever broken a single thing...

  • andrewvanmarle
    andrewvanmarle Posts: 978 Critical Contributor
    Kinesia said:



    Land supports need to help the basic 5 planeswalkers when they still only have +2 bonus in their main, but somehow _without_ becoming auto-includes for everyone. That's a hard line to walk and I don't know the full answer yet but Nissa's Pilgrimage has existed forever and has never ever broken a single thing...

    The simple lands wont be auto includes in platinum, just in the lower ranks. I dont think it's'bad if some supporting cards are auto includes to offset  some weakness in the lower ranks
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    I agree the format is slowing down and it makes control decks more annoying, but I don't think its a huge issue.

    Most of your lockdowns are predicated by a massive turn 1 cascade, which doesn't happen often.

    An easy fix, though, would be to just allow the AI to use second and third abilities again, which would clear out the excess loyalty pretty quickly
  • fiirst
    fiirst Posts: 438 Mover and Shaker
    andrewvanmarle said:
    Is there a reason for the land cards to cost more?

    slowing down generalist tactics and the pace of the game overall isnt a good thing in my opinion. It's'a casual game in principle so each game shouldnt take too long...
    An additional shield......
  • FindingHeart8
    FindingHeart8 Posts: 2,731 Chairperson of the Boards
    Rhasget said:
    Does the game have a future?
    Diminishing player pools, errors are more and more frequent to the extent players can't login. No responses from anyone about the issues.
    Starting to feel like a sinking ship.

    Edit: Cynic in me took over. Not to detract from your issues since you have some interesting points.
    I've got a few problems with the current state of things (particularly the lack of communication on important issues)

    however this is still nothing in comparison to the sinking ship when Hibernum was in charge.

    If mtgpq sinks to the bottom, the issues with DOM and the current sets won't be what does it.
  • Theros
    Theros Posts: 490 Mover and Shaker
    dupes, lower rates and rotations will hurt long run. dupes will hurt the most. Despite booster crafting, getting mythic was not that easy. Booster crafting only nets 1 to 2 extra mythic a month than when it was not implemented.
    Whenever you accumulate 5000+ orbs, you're faced with a hard choice; craft a single mythic or craft multiple rares to be competitive/efficient.
    when dominaria becomes craftable, many people will be doing the catch up game, crafting from Ixalan for both rares and mythic. this patterns can cause a lot of problem and frustration down the road. Low rate and high dupe rates should not coexist, it should be one or the other. lower rates result in lower orbs
    This can be exausting, playing at competitive level in a top 10 coalition and seing marginal progress.
    Fast paced moves like like that of guided lotus should end.
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    DBJones said:
    I don't like the move towards longer games personally. I'd prefer a reduction of what can happen each turn (and the option to turn off animations, that'd help a lot) so turns can't go on interminably. Extra swaps and loopy combos both cause more frustration than fun when they become common. Getting a match-5 (without gem-changers) shouldn't happen anywhere near as often as it does, and the spell that gives extra swaps ought to be limited in how many times it can trigger per turn (especially with HUF still in standard). Combos that can last minutes are just a nightmare in the hands of the AI. Of course, what makes all these things really annoying is just how insane the cascading can get in this game. I don't know of any other games where luck can give one player such a huge advantage in a single turn. Well, I can think of a few, but they're all ones where it's much rarer than it is here, as in a player seeing it at all is rare, and most don't. With the number of huge cascades I've seen, I think most players have seen at least one.

    This is complimentary to what I was saying actually... The really slow games from combo decks aren't from many turns but from reaaaaaalllly long very few turns.  A 20 turn game can currently take less time that a 2 turn game and that's _weird_!

    Slowing down the stuff that happens per turn isn't the same as making longer games...
  • Mojo
    Mojo Posts: 44 Just Dropped In
    This post hits home.

    The time it takes now is too much.

    It was in a sweet spot.  Play a match here or there, 5 mins to get a little life break.   An hour each day during the weekend to get my coalition points.

    That 5 mins has become 10-20.

    That hour has become hours.

    Its not just the lands slowing it up.  It's server issues, flaky AI, cascades, sad draws, lack of good cards, high prices, pink dupes, rediculous gem placement.  All this has slowed it down.

    I see all you guys posting about good decks that are fast but I know i will never have the cards they are mentioning.

    To the original poster card denial has been a part of Magic since the start. 
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    And while we are talking about slow games, can we please speed up the gem conversions? Ever since the DOM update the game thinks that I'm interested in watching every gem change color whenever there's a gem converter in play.

    Why did you guys change it?
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    This content has been removed.
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    khurram said:
    And while we are talking about slow games, can we please speed up the gem conversions? Ever since the DOM update the game thinks that I'm interested in watching every gem change color whenever there's a gem converter in play.

    Why did you guys change it?
    Actually, that's the one slowdown change I don't mind.  It makes it easier to see which changers are doing what, and it actually seems to reduce lag when dropping multiple gem converters.  I don't like the slower animations overall, but this one isn't half bad
  • FindingHeart8
    FindingHeart8 Posts: 2,731 Chairperson of the Boards
    Battle of the Four Tribes seems to take particularly long, the rewards are sweet but I feel like I have to devote at least 30% - 40% of my weekend to it to stay on top, an amount of time that I feel is excessive as an obligation to remain competitive in a game.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    This content has been removed.
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    Dobby said:
    Dobby said:
    A thought about PvE events... the first time they are run, such as with A World Reborn, or both Race to Orazca and Battle of Four Tribes (now that the Standard card restrictions on them have changed), the workload on them is particularly heavy because new decks need to be built and tested. BOFT potentially needs as many as 15 new decks to be built! (although, yes, in practice, some players may find some matches so easy that building decks is trivial for them, or players may already own decks which are suitable for a match).

    Are there ways of mitigating that extra work that needs to be done on early events? Maybe... increase the max games in a node to 10 so that they don't top out after a day? Or... something?

    Also, more deck slots would help. People will pay money for those. You guys like money, right?
    Hey, you don't supposed this is what they're actually doing with AWR, do you? That'd be.. a thing.


    Oh, also, I forgot to say earlier: Liliana 1 is most assuredly *not* a timebomb waiting to go off. :P
    Neither is Sphinx's Tutelage. Remember that card?

Categories