Element Breakdown: Darkness

[SnoWeb]

It's boring because it is the same arguments again and again. Two team are clearly separated: (a) those who think darkness is evil and (b) those who don't. There are at least three full thread that shows who is (a) or (b) and the whole debat was starting again here. I personally find it boring and more importantly it never led us anywhere and probably never will.

On the Blue/red thing (if you don't take into account that your choice of colour is very ugly): the red part is actually a discussion about what already exist (or what could easily be implemented in the game) carrying the idea of Fear. It fully the subject of this thread as Nightmare is obviously  carrying the idea of Fear and is a darkness card. No offence taken.

This is a discussion based on what Darkness is in other people's opinions and not so much on the game, at least thats how i see this thread.

The thread is in "Design theory". The global idea in my opinion is to define Darkness in order to find the very background on which some new card Ideas could be generated. Some think that the "evil" background fits, some that the fear one is better, some that the whole void idea is even more awesome. I was obviously trying to show how Fear can be expressed into to game play and what we could to improve this aspect.

[Alzaya-God Of Thunder]

Darkness is about striking from the shadows (cloak), vampirism (vamp dagger, vampire), stealing (steal and devourer) and firin ya lazorz (kidding about that).

[Flayne]

It's boring because it is the same arguments again and again. Two team are clearly separated: (a) those who think darkness is evil and (b) those who don't. There are at least three full thread that shows who is (a) or (b) and the whole debat was starting again here. I personally find it boring and more importantly it never led us anywhere and probably never will.

On the Blue/red thing (if you don't take into account that your choice of colour is very ugly): the red part is actually a discussion about what already exist (or what could easily be implemented in the game) carrying the idea of Fear. It fully the subject of this thread as Nightmare is obviously  carrying the idea of Fear and is a darkness card. No offence taken.

This is a discussion based on what Darkness is in other people's opinions and not so much on the game, at least thats how i see this thread.

The thread is in "Design theory". The global idea in my opinion is to define Darkness in order to find the very background on which some new card Ideas could be generated. Some think that the "evil" background fits, some that the fear one is better, some that the whole void idea is even more awesome. I was obviously trying to show how Fear can be expressed into to game play and what we could to improve this aspect.

the way people talk about darkness in this thread seems totally unrelated to the game, which is why i see that this thread is more about the concept of darkness rather than gaming mechanics, despite it being in design theory.
I chose the colours based on stereotypical relations with blue = Correct/ Red = Wrong, it has nothing to do with my preference of colours thank you very much.

[EmeraldTiger]

Please can we get back to the purpose of the thread, which is to inspire new mechanics.

This is not intended to be about good and evil philosophies.
Many of the other elements still need more feedback.

[Flayne]

Please can we get back to the purpose of the thread, which is to inspire new mechanics.

This is not intended to be about good and evil philosophies.
Many of the other elements still need more feedback.

then it seems that people are just talking about the philosophical aspect rather than mechanics, perhaps next time it should be more specified.

[OldTrees]

Please can we get back to the purpose of the thread, which is to inspire new mechanics.

This is not intended to be about good and evil philosophies.
Many of the other elements still need more feedback.

then it seems that people are just talking about the philosophical aspect rather than mechanics, perhaps next time it should be more specified.

A proper understanding of the philosophy of an element is sufficient for creating appropriate mechanics.

For instance:
Under the philosophy of Darkness as parasitism (taking a resource from the opponent like life, quanta or permanents) leads to the ideas of stealing creatures (Extremely hard to balance. Not really worthwhile considering the effect on the metagame), skills (one of the first cards in the armory) and stealing cards.

So a new mechanic could be a spell that causes your opponent to lose a random card in their hand and you gain that card/that card replaces a card in your hand.

[Flayne]

A proper understanding of the philosophy of an element is sufficient for creating appropriate mechanics.

i know that, but it doesnt specify that in the first post.
it looked to be only a philosophy discussion.

[EmeraldTiger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness

not all that much to go by here, but i thought this was interesting.

A dark object absorbs photons, and therefore appears dim in comparison to other objects.

[cometbah]

Darkness was my first pick when I started; not because it's 'cool', but because it sounded devious and flexible, and I like devious and flexible.

I was kind of disappointed with the element, however. There is too much 'teen-angst' and 'being dark is so cool' stuff in it, and not enough actual game-play-darkness.

Sure, Black Dragons look cool, vampirism is ever-so-popular with teenagers, Dusk Mantle is cool for being a Mantle and not just a shield, liquid shadow is oh-so-sexy-sounding, devourers are dreams-come-true for zerg fans, and twiligh - I mean, Eclipse is awesome for obvious reasons, but where are the really devious stuff?

Black Dragon is just a dragon... I hate dragons. They are big and massive and costly and don't have any special abilities - so totally out of place for Darkness.

Vampires and drain life... drain attack is an interesting concept, but does not provide new game-play styles; it's like the slightly interesting whipping cream on top of a bland, standard cake. I have only seen one actually interesting application of this so far: in a Vampire + Momentum + Adrenaline + Quintessence deck. (S)he lost the match, but I would have given the victory to him/her for being the only interesting vampire user around.

Dusk Mantle... I like the illustration, but how exactly is it different from Fog?

Liquid Shadow... usually used more as creature control and ability-replacement than for the vampirism. And there are so many other creature control and ability-replacement cards that are much, much better.

Gargoyle. Fits the theme, but not the game-play. It really does not belong here in Darkness at all.

The Devourer... now this one is actually unique in Elements, and keeps quite true to the element of Darkness. I will let this one go to the approved category =)

Nightmare is an awesome, awesome concept; unfortunately, it is not particularly usable yet, even with the HP drainage. Voodoo is absolutely awesome. Steal is my favourite card in the game.

Why are there so many massively (pun intended) out-of-place cards in Darkness, and so little cards that allow for unconventional, unexpected, totally devious ways to play the game?

Some examples:

- REVERSE attack and defence values on Nightfall. This actually makes Gargoyle fit, and does something other than giving a tiny little boost (boosting is not Darkness-style anyhow). Think of it as nocturnal creatures waking up and everyone else going to sleep

- hide your HP amount

- invisible spell-casting and land-placing

- hide number of lands and mana

- ability to add effect to a creature before summoning and hide the effect once summoned

- reshuffle and hide your opponent's hand from himself for a turn

- hide the remaining number of cards in the deck from your opponent

- choose a target for a spell, have your opponent choose a target, if you chose what (s)he chose, the spell has additional/stronger effect

- Drain HP based on the number of cards the opponent has in hand

- Drain HP based on the number of cards the opponent discards

- Force opponent to discard

- discard a random card from your opponent's hand

- discard a random card from your opponent's deck

- Switch creatures around on the field

- Cards that appear to the opponent as something other than what it actually is (i.e. actually make Cloak of Darkness do something OTHER than giving untargettability for three turns... that's a Cloak of Aether, not a Cloak of Darkness)

- Switch cards between your hand and the opponent's hand

- Reverse-steal (gifting useless cards to opponent, or simply to fill his field)

- Reverse-steal into opponent's hand

- temporarily reset minimum / maximum hand size for opponent

- trade your life for damage and vice versa

- allow your opponent to sacrifice something of yours, but the better the sacrifice, the bigger advantage you would get (mana + life?)

... etc.

And I'm sure there are much, much better ones, too.

The point is, Darkness was presented as the 'Master of Subtleness' in the account creation screen, but it really feels more like a rawr-look-at-my-massive-power sort of element. There is absolutely nothing subtle about big bad black dragons, or 3 turns of untargettability (regardless of how cool it looks or sounds, that's the only thing it actually does), or weaker fireball with an extra kick (drain) and weaker frogs with a kick (vampires), or a gargoyle with massive HP, or giving +1/+1 buffs.

Yes...

[End Rant]

=P

[OldTrees]

Some examples:

- REVERSE attack and defence values on Nightfall. This actually makes Gargoyle fit, and does something other than giving a tiny little boost (boosting is not Darkness-style anyhow). Think of it as nocturnal creatures waking up and everyone else going to sleep
A reverse Nightfall (all non Darkness/Death creatures lose 1|2 attack would be nice but is mechanically similar to Damage Reduction) the card idea Oppression beat you to suggest this.
- hide your HP amount
A nice topping for a card but not a main effect.
- invisible spell-casting and land-placing
invisible spell casting would create lots of newb false hacker reports.
- hide number of lands and mana
Hiding the quanta pools and pillar counts might be useful for surprise. Add in hiding your hp and this would be a decent card suggestion?
- ability to add effect to a creature before summoning and hide the effect once summoned
Not much you can hide in EtG. They would still see 2 cards played and the effects of the ability would be identified. However which creature has the bonus could be hidden provided it was not given away by stats, damage per turn or attack triggered abilities. I would make this into a spell that targets a creature already on the field.
- reshuffle and hide your opponent's hand from himself for a turn
Not going to work: Silence is better.
- hide the remaining number of cards in the deck from your opponent
Add this to the hide information card.
- choose a target for a spell, have your opponent choose a target, if you chose what (s)he chose, the spell has additional/stronger effect
Cards in EtG can only have input from 1 player.
- Drain HP based on the number of cards the opponent has in hand
Nice. Obvious Nightmare synergy but now they have to choose which threat to risk or balance with a half filled hand.
- Drain HP based on the number of cards the opponent discards
Good ideas.
- Force opponent to discard
- discard a random card from your opponent's hand
You repeated yourself. Forced discarding is a negative play experience and was opposed when Zanz suggested it. with sanctuary the opposition will be less.
- discard a random card from your opponent's deck
Time card with this affect was suggested already. I think it is in the forge now. It discarded the top card.
- Switch creatures around on the field
Not much benefit.
- Cards that appear to the opponent as something other than what it actually is (i.e. actually make Cloak of Darkness do something OTHER than giving untargettability for three turns... that's a Cloak of Aether, not a Cloak of Darkness)
It hides them for 3 turns or until the opponent finds them with Area of effect cards. This would not work very well because the opponent would be able to recognize the card based on the false image. So it would have to look like something in the game already. Like a creature with a active ability to look like you first creature.
- Switch cards between your hand and the opponent's hand
fitting idea
- Reverse-steal (gifting useless cards to opponent, or simply to fill his field)
Search donate or gift
- Reverse-steal into opponent's hand
Nightmare?
- temporarily reset minimum / maximum hand size for opponent
Too situational
- trade your life for damage and vice versa
That feels more like Fire
- allow your opponent to sacrifice something of yours, but the better the sacrifice, the bigger advantage you would get (mana + life?)
No 2 player cards

Your best ideas:
-Card that hides: Hp, quanta pools, counters on permanents and deck size
-Hidden activated skill
-Creature that appears as another of your creatures. (Possible problem:Targeting it would have an effect but would not be shown to the opponent. Thus leading newbs to suspect hacking and revealing the nature of the card to experts.

[Leo]

People also fear the unknown, and will often label it as evil. It's a matter of simple psychology.

God damn, that was deep.   8)

[Sevs]

name one darkness card in game that doesn't look evil...

darkness pendulum