Matching gems - what constitutes a match?

Tremayne
Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
edited August 2020 in MtGPQ General Discussion
I have just discovered that The support created by Teferi, MOT’s 3rd ability does not consider matching loyalty gems as a match.

Now, that was a surprise! Since the data push “effects may cease to trigger” so it is difficult to know when something is a new bug, an old or WAD.

Having gone through the zendesk there is nothing that clearly define this simple mechanism in MTGPQ. Therefore, shall we make a joint effort in creating a common description of what constitutes the meaning of the game term “Match”?

Below is my attempt to define it.

Comments

  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2020
    1st version.
    Match - to line up any 3 or more gems on the gem board. Any effect that refers to a match will trigger when making (a specific coloured) match.

    2nd version.
    Match - when a player switch position of two gems on the gem board, in order to create one or more lines of at least 3 gems on the gem board. Any effect that refers to a match will trigger when making a match.
  • TomB
    TomB Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    Hangerback Walker counts loyalty gem matching as it pertains to Thopter generating, IIRC.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    @critman - fair enough. That was my best description since English is not my primary language. The important part of defining fundamentals is to remember that this is the whole foundation which the rest of the game is founded on. So it had to be precise.

    The funny thing is that the devs are using fundamental definitions, but they haven’t written them down, (The players can’t see them anyways) which I conclude is the main reason for the huge amount of bug they produce. Not out of malice or incompetence, simply due to assuming slightly different than the next developer.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2020
    @TomB - Good example. Which is illustrates my point above about slightly different assumptions by each developer.

    So maybe HW is doing it correctly and Teferi, MOT is also doing it correctly, sadly due to missing terms, both effects use the same term to describe different things. No wonder the players and the devs can’t understand the correct behaviour from one card/PW to the next.
  • Nyarlathotep
    Nyarlathotep Posts: 92 Match Maker
    It's 2020 and we still don't have clear rules for this game.
    It's magic. 😁
  • TomB
    TomB Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    I find the gem matching secondary on the top node of ATV to be another example of the inconsistency of swapping rules, since it seems like it only counts gems you swap directly and not the stuff that matches during cascades, or gem changing from land supports, etc.
    This is all very confusing... :/
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    @TomB - yes there is something really weird going on on the top node of ATV.
  • Magic:PQ Support Team
    Magic:PQ Support Team ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 3,444 Chairperson of the Boards

    Hi everyone

    Sorry about the delay in answering this!
    I was investigating what was the case to see how to proceed.
    I will provide an explanation about "what constitutes a match" according to what happened lately that caused these misunderstandings.

    Thank you for your patience,
    Marcela.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    @Oktagon_Support - Where is the mentioned explanation posted? I don’t seem to recall seeing an answer to this?!?
  • Magic:PQ Support Team
    Magic:PQ Support Team ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 3,444 Chairperson of the Boards
    Hi @Tremayne ,
    We apologize for the delay in bringing this here!
    I'm working on this with one of our Game Designers and we don't want to let anything pass by unnoticed.
    Also, he's always super busy so we are trying to gather around as much as we can, but it's not always possible!

    But thank you so much for the interest, and for your patience!
    Marcela.

  • Firstofhisname419
    Firstofhisname419 Posts: 133 Tile Toppler
    I notice we never got an answer. Not sure how it's SUPPOSED to work, but if anyone's confused, matches only count in DvK if you match the gems yourself. Cascades don't count. Matches made during gem conversion don't count. It's asinine. But that's what it is.
  • Narcoticsagent
    Narcoticsagent Posts: 203 Tile Toppler
    Firstofhisname419 said:
    I notice we never got an answer. Not sure how it's SUPPOSED to work, but if anyone's confused, matches only count in DvK if you match the gems yourself. Cascades don't count. Matches made during gem conversion don't count. It's asinine. But that's what it is.
    It got answered in the questions and answers thread for this month.
  • TomB
    TomB Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    Narcoticsagent said:
    Firstofhisname419 said:
    I notice we never got an answer. Not sure how it's SUPPOSED to work, but if anyone's confused, matches only count in DvK if you match the gems yourself. Cascades don't count. Matches made during gem conversion don't count. It's asinine. But that's what it is.
    It got answered in the questions and answers thread for this month.




    Oktagon_Support said:

    Q&A September - Answers

    7. How does MtGPQ define a “match”, as in gem matching (not a set of games)? This, and other basic definitions, would be very useful in helping players know when a card is working as expected.
    Answer: A match is a combination of 3 or more gems that can give a variable amount of mana or Loyalty to the player, according to the type of the gem, or to their mana bonuses. A match can happen either by a swap, a cascade or by converting gems.
    A swap, on the other hand, is the active input of the player to intentionally make a match by swapping gems from place.
    A cascade match is (usually) a non-intentional match that is sometimes caused when the board replenishes itself, whenever one or more gems are removed from the board.
    A gem conversion match is caused whenever a card or ability converts gems to a specific color, in a spot where two or more gems of that same color can form a sequence of three or more gems.
    I will make sure to add this to the Magic: Puzzle Quest - Gallery of Abilities, Mechanics and Rules on the FAQs.


    You're right, @Narcoticsagent , they did answer the question but it seems like it's still not working right since they said A match can happen either by a swap, a cascade or by converting gems, and that's clearly still not happening... :/

  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    @TomB - thank you for inserting the answer from the Q&A, that was on my todo list for today.

    Completely true that the DvK objective is still not counting correctly, but now we know that is a bug, which we didn’t the last time we encountered this problem, so I think that is good we now know that it is a bug.

    Now we just have to report yet another bug on the bug forum. Sigh!
  • Magic:PQ Support Team
    Magic:PQ Support Team ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 3,444 Chairperson of the Boards

    Hi guys, 

    I added the fix for this issue on the Release Notes 4.5.
    "The Adamant and Identity objectives will consider any type of Gem Match towards the objective: swap, cascade, and conversion."

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