Metronome | Metronome (Lucky! Series)

[OldTrees]

I will try and cut down on the lines.
They would put the card in the deck, because they know that both possibilities are sometimes useful. This however, does not guarantee that at every moment, both effects would be useful. However, if you consider the chimera example, it can become clear that you don't always have equal utility for both effects.
Let me use the example of a card that is already in the game. Mutation. You don't put mutation in your deck because you have a use for every possible outcome of the mutation. You have it because you know that *some* of its possible effects are likely to be useful.

I bet if you were to try and calculate your average, taking into account the cost of creating every possible mutant, stats and abilities included, you would find that the average is more than what is written on the card.     However, mutation is balanced, because you don't always need every outcome, and thus certain outcomes are more or less worthless during the true calculation.

Ok now it seems that you understand the theory of mine. Remember the short and fast averaging that I was doing was under the assumption that there were no cases of uselessness. The default is the short calculation. In cases where the possibilities are more complicated a more detailed averaging of values is needed. Since the Lucky cards allow for more effects in the same deck I think that only large cases of uselessness are important.
The chimera case is a situation where reverse time is worth much more than normal but occurs rarely enough not to warrant an increase in the cost of Metronome, Reverse Time, Eternity, Chaos Seed, Pandemonium nor Crusader.

PS: Thank you for cutting down on the lines.

[joebob777]

so should we put some sort of cost reduction on random effects

[OldTrees]

so should we put some sort of cost reduction on random effects

Only ones that have cases of significant uselessness.
I guess a shorthand version could be created.
For effects that are almost always useful -0 (this includes all effects that do not decrease in value even if the alternatives increased in value)
For effects that are often useful -1
For effects that are rarely useful (assume they are worthless and add the value of the times they are valuable)

[doublecross]

OldTrees, you should look at the discussion  on this card.

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20492.msg278035#msg278035



It is very relevant to the current argument. I put out my logic in a more clear manner... and people agreed.

[Werdbooty]

Wow, people. Just...wow.

Well, let me start by apologizing for that random posting a couple of pages back. After rereading the material I discovered I had (at that time) no useful information to add to the discussion whatsoever. My bad.

Secondly, I like this thread (along with Clover). Not only has it helped me enormously in redefining these cards but it opened a whole new bag o' tricks in my head for card ideas. I'll get to those later.

As for Metronome, I stated at one point this card practically made itself. Fairly straightforward mechanic, easy-to-understand & useful in a variety of situations. But let us take a look at the casting costs, yet again. The overall idea behind the costs in the Lucky! series was to keep it level across the board: the (unupped) spell would cost X, where X would transfer as the (upped) card's ability activation cost. Honestly, the 4 for 1 combo on the upped was based off Hourglass. I'm flexible, it doesn't need to be that way. But let's move onto the activations: the upped seems perfectly balanced to me, but the spell...I know these are prolly wild and inaccurate calculations, but here's the logic. Bear with me, as I'm an intuitive thinker as opposed to a logical one:

I started by looking at cheapy abilities that are somewhat useful: draw a card, mutate, lobos, etc...I further narrowed that list down based on commonality of each ability (no more lobo, no more black hole). In the case of Metronome, again, pretty easy: a simple draw, without the precog, valued at 1 (pulled from the Hourglass); or a random Rewind, also valued at 1. Note both abilities have been watered down, though they are both technically upgraded values (Draw=2 unupped / Rewind=2 unupped). I feel this "dilution" (with a wink) tempers the upgraded values just enough to balance each other out.

I hope I'm making myself clear here

At any rate, this is the same type of logic I applied to all of the Lucky cards, in the hopes that they worked out. I rather think they did, to some extent. I'd also like to point out that the utility of each card is not meant to be game-breaking. I tend to play rather large decks, and I enjoy surprises. I tried to look at each card individually while maintaining an overall uniformity, and part of that uniformity was that no effect should devastate anything; instead it should be a nice little surprise, no matter how the card plays out. The ability to upgrade to a permanent was to have more than a single shot at each effect...I briefly considered a "only=one-of-these-per-deck" scenario but, well, forget that.

I'm off to battle with Crystal Ball. Thank you again all for your input . At the very least, it's nice to see a genuine discussion was generated off my cards, rather than your simple balance-revamp-to the crucible. These are tricky cards to balance and any help is forever appreciated.