Unwritten Rules

[Essence]

True that.  We're cut from similar cloth.  Neither one of us likes to back down.  The biggest difference is that SG consistently manages to stay just this side of disrespectful, whereas I admittedly cross that line on occasion.

[Avenger]

ScaredGirl for president (totalitarian dictator...)

Actually, it is Essence who appear to dictate something.
When i read his post, i had the same objections as SG made.
Why not actually ASK Zanzarino about these?
Discarding a revolutionary idea, just because there is nothing similar implemented yet, seems dumb.

[Wisemage]

I love the fact that the one rule SG is going off about is the one rule that I DID actually get directly from a conversation with Zanzarino.

That said, I don't care about your reasoning one whit.  Turning a Photon into a Wyrm is not killing it, it's turning it into something else.  There is no death, because it doesn't trigger Vultures, Boneyards, or Bone Walls.  Period. 

Shockwave I've already discussed.  Zanzarino told me outright that kill-spells that didn't take HP into account were a no-no.  He apparently believes that Shockwave is complex enough and difficult enough to pull off that it is allowed a unique exception to that rule -- but that doesn't mean that the rule isn't still firmly in place in Zanz' mind. 

And that's really the point of the whole thread -- if you can figure out what unspoken ideas are in Zanz's head and work around them, you'll be better off in terms of meaningfully contributing to the game.  Anyone getting caught up in any more detail than that has missed the entire point.

He said he talked to him (about one atleast)

[Scaredgirl]

He said he talked to him (about one atleast)

Zanz never said there is an unwritten rule like what we see in the first post. What Essence is talking about is an incident in chat were Zanz, after getting feedback from the players, simply nerfed an overpowered card. This lead to a misconception that it was because of some unwritten rule, and not a more logical explanation: game balance.

Think about it. If there was an unwritten rule against instant-kill cards, then why did Zanz make one in the first place? Seems a bit weird, huh?

[danieldubois]

"If there was an unwritten rule against instant-kill cards, then why did Zanz make one in the first place?"

He didn't.  That's the whole point.  There is no simple "Kill target creature" card.  To use Mtg lingo, there's no equivalent to Terminate/Terror/etc. card in Elements.

The fact that it doesn't exist is pretty telling.  Its omission is glaring, because it's a glaringly obvious idea.  Why isn't there one in the game?  Did the designer fail to think of it?  Did "3B  Kill target creature" elude his imagination?  Or did he decide against it?   A little bit of logic allows you can infer that it's the latter.

The title of the thread could have been more precisely written as "Things I perceive to be tenets of Zanz's design process based on what we've seen so far" instead of "Unwritten Rules", but the latter combined with the content of the post was more than acceptable (or at least should have been!) to get the idea across.

OP's point is that it would be futile for one of us to come into the card suggestion forums and post specifically: "OMG, I got this great idea for a card, it should cost 3B and say 'Kill target creature'.  That would be awesome!"  It might be awesome, and it might be doable, but unless something drastic happens, that card probably won't be made no matter how awesome of an idea you and the respondents think it might be.  Because it's reasonably clear that the designer already decided against the idea.  And I didn't need to have a conversation with him to deduce as much.

[Scaredgirl]

"If there was an unwritten rule against instant-kill cards, then why did Zanz make one in the first place?"

He didn't.  That's the whole point.  There is no simple "Kill target creature" card.  To use Mtg lingo, there's no equivalent to Terminate/Terror/etc. card in Elements.

Yes, he did. He made that card and it was available in beta. Players tested it, it was overpowered, so he changed it. It was just regular game balancing. Had there been an "unwritten rule", that card wouldn't have been available in the first place.

As for simple "Kill target creature", like I've said, Mutation does exactly that. Mutation makes the original creature disappear regardless of its HP (not even a 1000/1000 creature is safe) which contradicts what the rule on this thread.

There's a big difference between instant-kill card and overpowered instant kill card. It's only the latter that there's an "unwritten rule" against.

[Essence]

Except that that's not what happened.  Literally, what happened is this.  Everyone thought the card was just fine when Infect made the cells spawn every other turn instead of every turn and the cells were 1/1.  Zanz thought it was fine, and so did the players.  Then, I pointed out that it was an instant-kill card, and Zanz decided to change it.  In order to compensate for the slowness of the Poison, he made Infect work every turn. 

That's not an overpowered card being corrected -- it's an unwritten rule being enforced.  You need to stop making assumptions because you weren't there to see it go down. 

You are, straight up and unequivocally, wrong.

[Scaredgirl]

Except that that's not what happened.  Literally, what happened is this.  Everyone thought the card was just fine when Infect made the cells spawn every other turn instead of every turn and the cells were 1/1.  Zanz thought it was fine, and so did the players.  Then, I pointed out that it was an instant-kill card, and Zanz decided to change it.  In order to compensate for the slowness of the Poison, he made Infect work every turn. 

That's not an overpowered card being corrected -- it's an unwritten rule being enforced.  You need to stop making assumptions because you weren't there to see it go down. 

You are, straight up and unequivocally, wrong.

Well, that's only your highly subjective interpretation of the situation. I personally think Zanz had two good choices from which he chose the one we have now. You said it yourself, he was fine with the first one.

I'm saying this once more: If there is some unwritten rule against "instant kill" cards, then how did an instant kill card make it past designing, coding and alpha, all the way to beta?

I feel like I'm repeating myself here, so I think I'll move onto other things. Again.

This guy had a good idea:

Actually, it is Essence who appear to dictate something.
When i read his post, i had the same objections as SG made.
Why not actually ASK Zanzarino about these?
Discarding a revolutionary idea, just because there is nothing similar implemented yet, seems dumb.

Now that would actually make sense and give unwritten rules a meaning. Now it's just speculation by a regular player.

[BluePriest]

That's not an overpowered card being corrected -- it's an unwritten rule being enforced.  You need to stop making assumptions because you weren't there to see it go down. 

Agreed. Zanz knew from the beginning that it was an instant kill card. so why would it make it that far. When it comes down to it, i think he just decided it was OP. Just a plan instant kill card isnt that bad in all honesty. However, an instant kill card that also either
a)gives you an army
or
b)makes your opponents field completely unusable with the assistance of mirror shield, is.
And another way to look at it is zanz just wanted it to fit into the death poison setup

[Kael Hate]

I think you're all off the rails here.

Unwritten Rule = Common accepted guideline, not LAW.

As said its an Unwritten Rule that you don't Stab your opponent in the back, only in the front. It isn't going to stop you in anyway and you might have a hard time getting it accepted but in the end it isn't a Law you have broken, its a view of the community or environment you have offended.

[Essence]

If there is some unwritten rule against "instant kill" cards, then how did an instant kill card make it past designing, coding and alpha, all the way to beta?

Simply because Zanz was so focused on the malignant-cells aspect of the card and getting that part right that he literally never stopped to notice that it was an instant-kill card until I mentioned it to him.  When I did, he essentially replied with "Oh...wow, I guess you're right.  That'll have to change."

Why would it 'have to change' if there wasn't a specific intent on his part to avoid instant-kill cards? 



Mutation is not an instant-kill card.  It's 40% of an instant-kill card with some potentially very bad repercussions if the kill part fails on an enemy creature -- so much so that players often voluntarily play it on their own creatures (which you would almost never do with an instant-kill card, Antimatter being the exception that proves the rule).

Aflatoxin isn't an instant-kill card anymore, because instant-kill cards weren't part of the designer's intent at the time.

Shockwave can be an instant-kill card -- again making it the exception the proves the rule -- but the specific convolutions you have to go through to make it work as an instant-kill card are profound and often pointless.


Conclusion: Designing an instant-kill card and putting it in front of Zanzarino is going to be a waste of time in 99% of cases.  Thus, the unwritten rule: no instant-kill cards.  Can you go ahead and try for that 1%?  Sure.  Just do it knowing that your chances of any form of recognition are slim-to-none.

[Mastermind79]

BTW Druid doesn't have the mutation ability it has the improve ability which gives no chance of turning it into an abomination or dying it just mutates it.

It's not "Improve", it's "Improved Mutation". It says "Improve" on the creature because there's no room for "Improved Mutation".

Looking at those cards, it's clearly the same effect because even the name is identical. Only difference is that Improved Mutation creates and elite creature while Druid doesn't, and that is to prevent having only one upped card in your deck which you could use to create an army of upped creatures.

Wait, what? Improved mutation does not create elite creatures. It doesn't even create creatures. It just changes a creature into a mutant, guaranteed, instead of a chance of abomination or death.

PS: If you look on the info box after you mutate a creature, you can see mutation. What does that do?