Discussing Life - Hoping to Address a few Concerns

[willng3]

I feel a bit out of place posting in this section, but I've had this idea building for weeks and just need to get it out and into the open before I go insane.

I have huge issues with the current condition that is in.  It's piteous to consider that this Element has such terrific damage potential and yet is so easily thwarted in its attempt by almost any form of Creature Control or Shields thrown in its way.  Nothing irritates me more than playing with my favorite Element and watching it get countered so easily by a few cards splashed in for a bit of added vitality.

However, this is not to say that this consequence of such raw power is unjustified.  In fact, Life would be arguably too powerful if this were not the case.  Permanent Control, Creature Protection, quanta bursting...all of these would remove a great deal of Life's weaknesses, but probably should not be added due to the mechanical as well as thematic problems that they present with the game.

I've seen numerous posts describing what Life is and what it should deal with, but I have a few beliefs of my own regarding what the Element is and its purpose that I'm sure I'm credible enough to base my ideas off of.  Firstly, the most important aspect of Life is how it's defined according to the game itself:  "Life elementals rely on a wide variety of powerful and different creatures; they can heal themselves and improve their ability to summon creatures using skills like “photosynthesis”."  However, this leaves much to speculation which is understandable considering the idea of "life" is very difficult to put into words.  To add to this and above all else, I also believe Life to involve growth, vitality, wildness, ferocity, instinctive behavior, and unity.

The negative aspect of these traits means that it's somewhat difficult to provide Life with a method of offense that fits its theme.  Life's not destructive, not by choice at least, but at the same time it shouldn't just be a punching bag for other Elements to do with as they wish; that's not allowing it to be competitive in the slightest.  Thorn Carapace is about the greatest destructive power that Life possesses, and at the current moment it would seem that this will not change in the future.

At the moment Life's 2 greatest strengths are fast, cost effective creatures and fast healing.  However, when you examine both of these strengths you should realize that this means Life's ability to stall is limited.  This would not seem to be the case at a first glance, but allow me to more closely analyze a few cards to demonstrate where the problem lies.

• Mitosis - An exceptional card, very novel.  It has the potential to swarm the field quickly and should possess incredible synergy with Empathic Bond.  So where's the problem?  It's incredible vulnerable to Creature Control and Life's assortment of creatures don't help this problem much either.  About the only creature that you might expect to last long enough to really put this card to good use would be the Emerald Dragon, but it's so expensive that it reduces the novelty of Mitosis significantly.
• Empathic Bond - The potential amount of healing this card allows is tremendous.  The first problem with this card is that it requires quite a few creatures to hit the field before it can really be used effectively.  Anything less than 6 creatures makes this card an overpriced Shard of Gratitude (with Life Mark), and that causes an even greater weakness to Creature Control within the element.  Secondly, Permanent Control removes the threat entirely and given that Life has a limited assortment of truly powerful permanents at its disposal, this is definitely high on the target list.
• Heal - It's fantastic for fast healing, but doesn't work very well in a Life based stall.  Reason being it restores 20HP once rather than being regenerative like Druidic Staff, Sanctuary, or Shard of Gratitude.  This means that the card will see its best use in extending your HP so that you have a bit more time to kill the opponent off before they manage to kill you which is more of a rushing tactic than it is stalling.

Despite this, Life has the distinct advantage of synergy with other Elements, but it disturbs me that Life's cards work noticeably well with other Elements while lacking a great deal of that same powerful synergy with itself.  So if it can't control, isn't very effective at stalling, then that leaves it with either rushing or hybrid stall-rushes/weak control-rushes.  This makes Life extremely predictable; a punching bag.

Now.  The common problem to Life's greatest weaknesses are usually addressed by stating that it needs Permanent Control, a way to bypass Shields, more effective Creature Control, Creature Protection...the list could go on.  Each of these solutions comes with the price of not following the theme of Life at all should they be too aggressive, and therefore will likely not be added unless their effects are weakened.  However, Thorn Carapace is a somewhat weak, or I suppose slower would be more appropriate, form of Creature Control and people still want more control.  Oftentimes the card is even neglected completely, making it seem as if Life is unable to control at all.  So how long will it take before all of the weaker forms of control finally stack up to "complete" Life?

I would like to solve these issues by first reevaluating what fits thematically with Life itself.  Depending on what connections you make between the card and Life in reality, you could realistically make almost any type of connection between the card's title, its effect, and the Element.  In certain circumstances Life could be very aggressive, but with limitations of course.
So now we finally start getting down to my idea.  Let's take an example to demonstrate my point of view here.  Say you're a wolf and you witness another wolf within your pack become injured by a bear.  What would you feel after witnessing this?  Remorse, anger, vengeance, blood-thirst?  Or say that you're a mother bear whose cub is threatened by a hunter, would you feel these same emotions? 

The whole purpose of Life, I feel, is to allow things to continue to exist in a continually, expanding state of, for lack of a better word, living.  Does it make sense that when this state of living is threatened, the Element has no form of self-defense against it?  A great deal of beings in nature have a defensive response when threatened and Life should be no different.  There should be consequences for trying to bring harm to Life's creatures.

Now how would the card itself function?  Well...
1.  The effect would activate after a single creature is targeted by an opponent's card.  This means that mass CC cards such as Firestorm or Plague do not trigger the ability.  If this ability were able to be activated by the controlling player then it would defeat the purpose of it entirely, therefore it is restricted to the opponent's card.
2.  The effect would be made more powerful based on the number of creatures you control at the time.
3.  The effect would be detrimental...but exactly what it would do I'm not sure of.
a.  Possibilities:

• Permanent Destruction
• Opposing Creature Control
• Direct Damage (X amount of damage for each creature you control)
• Hand Disruption (Discarding, etc.)
• Deck Disruption (Discarding, etc.)
• Grant Momentum to allied creatures
• Increased Attack/HP
• Other

b.  Balancing issues
Depending on the ability, the number of creatures would likely determine how drastic the effect becomes.  For instance, destroying a permanent for every creature you possess would be a bit extreme; one for every 2 or 3 would be more reasonable.  Card cost is also variable.  The effect would not be able to stack.
c.  Coding issues
It is currently impossible to hand select and pick which of your opponent's cards to destroy on their own turn, therefore some of these effects would either need to be random to a degree or you would pick which cards to destroy at the start of your next turn.
4.  Card type - Not really sure what to choose for this one.  I feel like a Permanent would make it too weak.  A spell would be completely underpowered unless it had an effect similar to Shard of Sacrifice.  It might be possible to turn it into a creature status, but that's kind of a stretch.
5.  Card title - Haven't really given this much thought, but it's not a priority anyways.

But an example.

I feel like this has the potential to do some good for the Element, but I could be delusional.  Any other thoughts on this subject?

[Xenocidius]

Welcome to the Card Ideas and Art board! This is where all the cool people hang out.

I assume you've seen this, but I'd like to mention Vines | Vines (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=18812.0) as possibly the ultimate way to bring more power to Life - by giving it permanent control AND permanent protection in one go, as well as being thematically fitting.

As for your idea ... well, how about a permanent that, when one of your creatures are killed, generates a base copy of that creature? Not exactly a 'detrimental' effect, but nevertheless.

Alternatively, you could create some sort of 'mother' creature which deals its ATK in damage to your opponent whenever one of your creatures is harmed - just like a real animal mother protecting her young.

[OldTrees]

Great opening post. I have read it once but I feel I will need to sleep on it and read it again to give it the response it deserves.

Preliminary notes before sleep:
Great analysis of the situation.
I agree that aggressive life would be advantageous but I think that aggressive non destructive life can readily fit preexisting theme.
Consequences are not the only way to discourage/prevent/mitigate CC.
Very detailed and deep card suggestion thought process. Mind sticking around the CIA more both to produce suggestions and as another example?


Post sleep:
A summary of your problems section would describe Life as too vulnerable to Creature Control and Permanents. This vulnerability shows up in a few ways:
1) Life requires more creatures to survive
2) Life's creature generator is an activated creature skill
3) Life has no evasive damage
Solutions:
1) Field advantage
1 card -> more than 1 creature
2) Creature protection
1 creature + 1 card -> more than 1 CC required
3) Evasive damage
Swarms bypasses miss chance, High attack bypasses DR, Creature Protection evades CC, growing damage bypasses healing

Steal my idea:
1 spell -> 2 Frogs but less cost effective quanta wise than frogs [1]
1 spell -> 2 layers of vines on target creature. Active ability usable but thorns deal damage to controller each turn [2,3]

Your idea:
I come from MtG. There each color had a philosophy/personality but most people had character traits and motives that spanned the 5 colors. Retribution, revenge, and blood thirst are motives I would ascribe to other elements. I think the consequence of added expense (see creature protection) would be more life like. That said the more passive option of each creature gaining +1|+2 before the targeting effect hits would work reasonable well. It also is an easy way for it to grow with the size of the pack. A permanent would force the opponent to replace some CC with PC. Which is good.

[The_Mormegil]

How about this:

*NAME*
4 | 3
Permanent

Every time one of your Life creature dies, creatures you control with the same name gain +2/+2.

Or this:

*NAME*
2 | 1
Spell

Creatures you control start defending each other from harm.

Explained effect: all creatures you control gain the passive "Pack". When a creature with Pack is targeted by an effect your opponent control, that effect has a chance to fail equal to 5% times the number of creatures you control with Pack.

[willng3]

I assume you've seen this, but I'd like to mention Vines | Vines (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=18812.0) as possibly the ultimate way to bring more power to Life - by giving it permanent control AND permanent protection in one go, as well as being thematically fitting.

Aye, Vines is quite a revolutionary idea.  My only concern with having it added to the present game at the moment is that it doesn't directly tackle the CC issue that I loathe so much.  But it's hard addressing each and every weakness at once.  Unfortunately I fear that it will require more than 1 new card to be able to bring about the balance I seek, but that's what brainstorming is for.

As for your idea ... well, how about a permanent that, when one of your creatures are killed, generates a base copy of that creature? Not exactly a 'detrimental' effect, but nevertheless.

Alternatively, you could create some sort of 'mother' creature which deals its ATK in damage to your opponent whenever one of your creatures is harmed - just like a real animal mother protecting her young.

The first idea intrigues me and it could work.  I would still be frustrated to see Mitosis or Adrenaline not reappear with the creature, but in retrospect this is better for balancing purposes.
The second idea seems a bit lackluster if only because the damage could be insignificant unless it's played on something like Emerald Dragon.  In other words, if I played this card on a Rustler or a Horned Frog then I'm not sure that my opponent would be bothered by the 1 | 3 damage hitting it every time they blow up a creature.  It adds a mind game aspect to Life though which is useful in its own right.

I agree that aggressive life would be advantageous but I think that aggressive non destructive life can readily fit preexisting theme.

Agreed.  The effect doesn't necessarily need to be destructive, but if the effect solves enough problems simultaneously then I would like to see that enforced.  I suppose the real question is if it's more important to stick to the preexisting theme as closely as possible or to add new mechanics to tie up several various loose ends that stand out.  I'm finding myself somewhat neutral towards them both.

Consequences are not the only way to discourage/prevent/mitigate CC.

Also true, but it seems like a characteristic that Life is currently lacking.  I do have other ideas for tactics that don't deliver consequences for actions made by the opponent, but this one seemed the most interesting.

Post sleep:
A summary of your problems section would describe Life as too vulnerable to Creature Control and Permanents. This vulnerability shows up in a few ways:
1) Life requires more creatures to survive
2) Life's creature generator is an activated creature skill
3) Life has no evasive damage
Solutions:
1) Field advantage
1 card -> more than 1 creature
2) Creature protection
1 creature + 1 card -> more than 1 CC required
3) Evasive damage
Swarms bypasses miss chance, High attack bypasses DR, Creature Protection evades CC, growing damage bypasses healing

Steal my idea:
1 spell -> 2 Frogs but less cost effective quanta wise than frogs [1]
1 spell -> 2 layers of vines on target creature. Active ability usable but thorns deal damage to controller each turn [2,3]

Your idea:
I come from MtG. There each color had a philosophy/personality but most people had character traits and motives that spanned the 5 colors. Retribution, revenge, and blood thirst are motives I would ascribe to other elements. I think the consequence of added expense (see creature protection) would be more life like. That said the more passive option of each creature gaining +1|+2 before the targeting effect hits would work reasonable well. It also is an easy way for it to grow with the size of the pack. A permanent would force the opponent to replace some CC with PC. Which is good.

I agree with most of these points.  In hindsight the more passive the ability becomes, the less likely you're going to find yourself playing Russian roulette against the opponent and the deck that they choose to play against you.  It seems better to focus on your own strategy rather than having the consequence depend on what type of a deck your opponent is playing.  As far as character traits go, I would imagine devotion and protectiveness to fit better than the ones I had given in my example.

How about this:

*NAME*
4 | 3
Permanent

Every time one of your Life creature dies, creatures you control with the same name gain +2/+2.

This is promising.  Increased synergy with Mitosis is very good.

Or this:

*NAME*
2 | 1
Spell

Creatures you control start defending each other from harm.

Explained effect: all creatures you control gain the passive "Pack". When a creature with Pack is targeted by an effect your opponent control, that effect has a chance to fail equal to 5% times the number of creatures you control with Pack.

Hmm.  I think this would face the same issues as Empathic Bond - It's incredibly powerful when you have half to a full field of creatures, but the speed at which it gets set up is problematic.  Even with a deck like USEM I can sometimes find it difficult to generate more than 5 creatures during a duel, but I doubt that increasing the miss percentage would help the situation, similar to how raising Empathic Bond's regeneration amount would make it too powerful.
I have a few more ideas of my own I might as well throw out there.
From my previous idea, the three that currently seem like they would work the best would be effects that either 1)  Deal direct damage 2)  Disrupt the opponent's hand 3)  Buff the creatures present on the field.
1)  The idea of direct damage would likely be best as preset.  If this preset damage would be dependent on the number of creatures on the field then this would fit better thematically.  But again, the problem with this idea lies in that it's dependent on having numerous creatures present on the field - a problem that we're trying to solve.  It doesn't make sense to apply a logarithmic scale to this idea therefore I couldn't see the damage ramp as being anything but linear.  Currently I believe a number around 4 would fit well for direct damage purposes; I believe this isn't overpowered since it's dependent on the opponent destroying the creatures themselves, but how exactly do you gauge if this type of creature protection is overpowered?
The only other alternative I could see is for damage to be inflicted depending on the sum of the total attack of all creatures on the field, but there seems to be a problem with this version that I can't quite put my finger on.
2)  I don't like the idea of discarding cards from the opponent's hand.  It seems too manipulative and I honestly can't picture Life's creatures doing something to cause this behavior.
But what if instead of discarding cards the opponent's hand became "silenced" instead?  In this case I would picture this as the creatures encircling the opponent, causing a standoff scenario where the opponent freezes for fear of causing the creatures to attack.  An intimidation tactic, if you will.
I'm not sure what this would fix though.  It honestly might not solve much since the opponent will just play another form of CC the next turn to destroy creatures if they're available.  Perhaps the control congestion would be enough to allow for ample setup time.  However, unless this effect was instead changed to cause the opponent's turn to immediately end, this does nothing to stop permanent/creature CC.
3)  I like this idea.  You simply give your creatures additional Attack/HP and then hopefully put them out of the range of most CC.  It's simple, effective, and fits the theme of Life in a way similar to Adrenaline.
An additional idea of mine (very old, but not posted):
*Some kind of vine (like a passionflower)*
2 | 2
Creature
0 ATT | 0 ATT
6+ HP | 7+ HP

Absorb the effects of one targeting effect used by the opponent each turn.  HP of this card is fully restored at the end of each of your turns.  This should probably be an active ability to make it more balanced, but I would be ecstatic if it were able to be passive.
Note:  Values are hypothetical at the moment.

So for example, if this card were on the field at the same time as a Giant Frog and the opponent used Rage Potion on the Frog, the effects of the card would be directed to the plant instead.  However, if the opponent played a second Rage Potion then it would affect the Giant Frog like normal.

Idea behind this card is that the creature is hiding beneath a wall of vines.  The vines absorb the first threat that comes towards them, but after this the defense has been penetrated and the creature is now visible again.  The vines are capable of regrowing so quickly that they return to their former condition by the end of the next turn.  It might require an increased cost or an absorption cost to ensure that other elements (and Speedbows) don't splash it easily.  It does not stop mass CC and in the event that multiple copies of this card exist on the field at the same time, the effect functions like Gravity Pull where only one of the effects can take precedence during the same turn.  I would imagine that the plant targeted would be determined by creature slot order (the effect is not activated in the same way as Gravity Pull).

I'm still unsure of how the community would react to this idea (part of the reason why I never created the card in the first place), but it's out in the open now.
Last idea rattling my brain right now is a card similar to Cloak.  My only concern with this is that the idea isn't exactly original and I'm not sure that we want another copy of Cloak, just in the hands of a different Element.  You'd have to revise it considerably to remove the major correlations between the two.

Very detailed and deep card suggestion thought process. Mind sticking around the CIA more both to produce suggestions and as another example?

I can do this.  The only reason I really don't stick around at the moment is because it seems like at some point feedback and suggestions can become arguments, and I really don't enjoy arguing.  But I enjoy discussions all the same, and these types of discussions are very interesting to me.

[dragonsdemesne]

One thing that's always bugged me about life is that it doesn't really have any midrange creatures the way some other elements do.  Giant Frog and Elite Cockatrice are very nice with 5 attack and very cheap, but it doesn't have anything between cockatrice and the dragon, except the nymph.  Forest spectre is there, too, but in monolife, that's obviously not an option.  I'd like to see something in life around maybe 7-8 attack, but cheaper than cards like shrieker or archangel.  That would get around the issue of at least some shields; right now, a permafrost or diamond shield will pretty much own life decks because the creatures, while efficient, are tiny, and easily stopped by shields.

As already mentioned, the Vines||Vines card in the ideas forum is an excellent idea, powerful but not overpowered, and something like that would be a wonderful addition to life.

The other thing about life is that most of the creatures are vanilla attackers.  A little variety would be nice, even if it were little more than flavour abilities.  Right now, there's forest spectre (which is useless in mono) scorpion, which is a decent card, rustler, which is weak, and useless in monolife as well, and the nymph, which most people won't have.  So, considering mono, there's just the scorpion that isn't a vanilla attacker.

When I think of life, I think of lots of creatures, both big and small.  The only big one is the dragon, and everybody gets a dragon of similar power.  Look at earth with shrieker, or fire with lava golem, or time with GotP; life doesn't have anything like that, and it should, more so than any other element, because Life, in my mind, is the element that should have the most efficient creatures.  And it does have the most efficient SMALL creatures, but other elements have better BIG creatures.

[I8SumOrangesNItWasK]

I think something similar to your idea of the vines "absorbing" some damage is a good idea. I think it would be a good or clever idea to make the card Immaterial. Like, think of it as the first attack "destroying" the vines, but you can't destroy the roots. I think it should have more HP than you say, possibly 11 | 13, so it's more resistant to Fire Bolt and Ice Bolt. Also, being Immaterial, it can't be targeted by Blessing, Acceleration, etc. but theoretically could by your OWN Rage Potion (however, it's HP doesn't restore until the beginning of your next turn so this makes it more vulnerable to attack from your opponent during their next turn).

I don't think your concerns can be solved with one card though, but a card like that would really help. Another concept for a card could be a creature like Vulture that gets stronger every time one of your own creatures dies, but not your opponent's. Because of this, give it an advantage over Vulture...possibly high HP (6+) and a gain of +2 | +0 every time one of your own creatures dies. Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea for THIS creature to be Immaterial either. I don't mean to suggest Immaterial for Life creatures but it may be a good concept to help with some of Life's weaknesses. If the community thinks this would make a card like this too overpowered, it doesn't need to be Immaterial. A mother bear may acctually be a good choice for this card, but I can't justify that being Immaterial. If Immaterial, possibly it should be Mother Nature herself, or something. I'm thinking of your tpyical Mother Nature, but in "battle gear" like a sword, and some light armor to show she means business and wants to get revenge on you hurting her children.

These are just a couple ideas off the top of my head. You may hate them or love them or it may spark an even better idea. I agree that needs a boost and if it had one, I may try using it more. Right now, it's sort of a dull element to me.

[darkrobe]

cockroach  creature

ability: adaptation- if cockroach was previously killed by skill or effect. cockroach now immune to that skill or effect.

Im not sure how to help you deal with lifes problems. ive been playing elements for a while and Im just not attracted to it. But I did post this in steal my idea section a while ago. maybe it might inspire you a bit.

Its a life theme appropriate way to counter creature control i think.

EDIT: although i was thinking a creature. looking back this could have been a permanent with a wider applicability.


Edit 2:  More thinking has brought me an idea. Im thinking zebra stripes. Im going to develop it in my mind for a bit. hmmmm creature or permanent.....

[Sevs]

Life is very 2 dimensional with its 2 directions being fast damage and healing. There actually isnt anything else mono life can do. it could use a card that does something a little different. Every life card idea somehow revolves around creature spam or healing. I think card designers should focus on something other than those things

[Eleahen]

Some random thoughts:

<brainstorming mode>
poison, thorns, creature rage when damaged, creature regeneration, circle of life - all fit the Life theme

cards:
1) A permanent card which increases any creature stats (for ex. +1/+0) when they are damaged but not killed.
2) A creature with 5 poisonous spores. each time it is trageted OR damaged, remove 1 spore counter, apply 1 poison counter to enemy player (i.e. if it's killed in one shot it applies 2 counters).
3) A spell which adds X poisonous spores to a single creature.
4) A low stat pack hunter creature that recieves +1/+1 for each each creature of the same type in the neighboring slots. buff is lost when creatures leave slots.
5) A creature that recieves +1 attack and is healed when a creature dies in a neighboring slot.

6) A buff to graveyards - If your mark is Life, skeletons that spawned by it recieve +1/+1. (via deeper understanding of Life and Death ^^)
7) A "buff" to Ash - If you control Ash, next your Life creature that enters play recieves +4/+4, remove Ash. (nice fertilizer!)
8) A night hunter creature that changes it's element to Darkness when it enters play (should return to hand as a Life creature when targeted with RT; Mitosis... can be problematic as it should cost Life quanta).

...
probably I should stop now.
</brainstorming mode>

Not saying that all of these are balanced suggestions and can be useful. But I think at least some of them can be explored further by deeper analysis.

[EmeraldTiger]

In simplest terms: What does need?

[Eleahen]

In simplest terms: What does need?

IMO, more versatility in general. Maybe more variety in theme.
Answer could be - "More versatility in opponent control" - however control doesn't fit current and themes.

More versatility would, in turn, open more combos and increase survivability.

There isn't much dual purpose with - you just try to spam creatures (and their attack damage with adrenaline) and survive opponent attacks (with shields, heals and bonds).

There seem to be lack of some "trick" would uniquely define 's ability to exert force to defeat an opponent. Somehow ability to heal and survive doesn't count. That's where more variety in theme might help.


P.S. While writing that I kept thinking about "More versatility in opponent control".
Ok - no CC or PC. Quanta and hand control?
Also, giving more ability to spam would most likely make it OP, so maybe it needs even more versatility in survival options?
I mean, now it's more about heals, heals and yet more heals. What other other options can have?

P.P.S. Weird idea - temporary (de)buff for pillars to change produced quanta to .