Vultures and Rain of Fire

[Yuntaek]

Scenario:

Two vultures, both 3/3 on opponent's side.
I play Rain of Fire, dealing three damage to both.
Vulture #1 dies, but Vulture #2 lives by gaining +1/+1, after the damage has been dealt.

Is this intentional? I don't see why there should be an hierarchy to an effect that deals damage to multiple targets.

[lava golem]

I think the fire storm hits like 0.5 second after the first.

[Malduk]

Firestorm is nothing other than single target damage that is applied to all targetable creatures on the opponents field. It doesnt hit simultaneously all creatures, it hits them one by one. Thus Vultures grow.

[Yuntaek]

So is it intentional? If so, why?

[Malignant]

Malduk already told you why...

In creature slot 1: 3|3 vulture, another 3|3 vulture in slot 2.

Rain of Fire does a 3 attack hit on the 1st vulture, making it die, the 2nd vulture gets the 1|1 boost and then the Rain of Fire hits the 2nd vulture.

[Malduk]

It is intentional. Why? Because Zanz wanted it to be that way. Its like asking why growth gives +2|+2. It is the way card was designed to work.

(On the sidenote, its much easier to code it this way.)

[Kuross]

With my uber-limited understanding of coding...

When you code something like this, you sort of cycle through all instances one at a time. Something along the lines of...

RoF deals 3 dmg to creature in slot 1
if health =/<3, dies
if health =/>4, lives, subtracting 3 from health
-goes to next creature slot-
Vulture checks to see if any creature has died this turn.
Creature in slot 1 died, so vulture gains +1/+1
RoF deals 3 dmg to creature in slot 1
if health =/<3, dies
if health =/>4, lives, subtracting 3 from health
-...
-...
rinse/repeat.

I believe this same situation occurs when you have a large amount of plagued creatures set to die on your turn with your opponent having a Bone Wall in place. The algorythm just cycles through each creature slot in turn, doing the subsequent math for the wall at each instance (-1 wall, +2 wall).

As to whether or not it's intentional, I believe it is. Arguably, its possible to have the code do each check of the creature slots but delay in applying the effect until all slots have been accounted for then apply the damage simultainously. However, I am not sure because as I stated I have a limited understanding in coding, it may be that a few more extra steps are involved to do this and in a lot of cases those extra steps can really slow down preformance. If it's a preformance issue, I've noted a few times that when large effects occur in game, is can slow down the game considerably during the effect. Any extra work the code must perform would dramatically increase this lag. It may even be possible that such an increase in lag could freeze the program. If so, then the coding would be intentional to keep it simple and therefore keep the game's speed more fluid.

Like I said, I am not a programmer, so don't take my comments under a scope, but this is the best reasoning I can come up with.

[Yuntaek]

It is intentional. Why? Because Zanz wanted it to be that way. Its like asking why growth gives +2|+2. It is the way card was designed to work.

(On the sidenote, its much easier to code it this way.)

Is it possible that he overlooked it? Perhaps it was an unintentional mistake. That's what I wanted to know.

Don't take this the wrong way, but isn't it a bit naive to assume that Zanz knows every little thing about his game? Sure, he may have designed and coded each and every card, but there could be bugs that don't seem like bugs at first glance or products of combinations that were never meant or thought of to be combined. I probably couldn't count past the number of possible scenarios and combinations in this game.

I apologize if this sounds pretentious, but it's really bugging me.

With my uber-limited understanding of coding...

When you code something like this, you sort of cycle through all instances one at a time. Something along the lines of...

RoF deals 3 dmg to creature in slot 1
if health =/<3, dies
if health =/>4, lives, subtracting 3 from health
-goes to next creature slot-
Vulture checks to see if any creature has died this turn.
Creature in slot 1 died, so vulture gains +1/+1
RoF deals 3 dmg to creature in slot 1
if health =/<3, dies
if health =/>4, lives, subtracting 3 from health
-...
-...
rinse/repeat.

I believe this same situation occurs when you have a large amount of plagued creatures set to die on your turn with your opponent having a Bone Wall in place. The algorythm just cycles through each creature slot in turn, doing the subsequent math for the wall at each instance (-1 wall, +2 wall).

As to whether or not it's intentional, I believe it is. Arguably, its possible to have the code do each check of the creature slots but delay in applying the effect until all slots have been accounted for then apply the damage simultainously. However, I am not sure because as I stated I have a limited understanding in coding, it may be that a few more extra steps are involved to do this and in a lot of cases those extra steps can really slow down preformance. If it's a preformance issue, I've noted a few times that when large effects occur in game, is can slow down the game considerably during the effect. Any extra work the code must perform would dramatically increase this lag. It may even be possible that such an increase in lag could freeze the program. If so, then the coding would be intentional to keep it simple and therefore keep the game's speed more fluid.

Like I said, I am not a programmer, so don't take my comments under a scope, but this is the best reasoning I can come up with.

Thanks for the perspective. I'm still fighting level 3's, so I haven't come across any cards that noticeably slow down the game, but I doubt it's a load issue, since it can be worked around by separating the functions or by other means. (e.g. dealing the damage first while keeping the cards in play, then discarding the cards at once, or just a card-specific trigger negation [if vulture defense/HP = 0, negate effect]). Assuming this isn't the way it's supposed to work.

I just feel that the wording is misleading; if the card is supposed to deal three damage to all creatures, it should deal three damage to all creatures at once, otherwise you have the random factor of monster placement waiting to screw you over.

[Malduk]

It is intentional. Why? Because Zanz wanted it to be that way. Its like asking why growth gives +2|+2. It is the way card was designed to work.

(On the sidenote, its much easier to code it this way.)

Is it possible that he overlooked it? Perhaps it was an unintentional mistake. That's what I wanted to know.

Don't take this the wrong way, but isn't it a bit naive to assume that Zanz knows every little thing about his game? Sure, he may have designed and coded each and every card, but there could be bugs that don't seem like bugs at first glance or products of combinations that were never meant or thought of to be combined. I probably couldn't count past the number of possible scenarios and combinations in this game.

I apologize if this sounds pretentious, but it's really bugging me.

I just feel that the wording is misleading; if the card is supposed to deal three damage to all creatures, it should deal three damage to all creatures at once, otherwise you have the random factor of monster placement waiting to screw you over.

As I AM programmer, I can answer that easily - there is no way Zanz "overlooked it". When you want to make a card that deals damage to all creatures, you pick the way you want to do it, and code it that way. It is possible he didnt care at the time what effect that might have on a gameplay (ie Vultures survive the storm and grow), but Firestorm picking targets one by one is 100% intended mechanic.

If the card is supposed to deal three damage to all creatures, and the card really does three damage to all creatures, then everything is working as intended. "Random factor of monster placement" is a "feature, not a bug", or in other words - mechanic of the game.

Similar mechanic is present with Boneyard too, where Skeletons are generated in turn other creature dies (from poisoning for example), dealing more overall damage than visible when pressed space. Or with growing Bonewall under similar condition where Bonewall survives turn, even if it had less counters on it than opponent had creatures on the board. It is the way game works.

[ArtCrusade]

This is just like Pandemonium. It targets one creature at a time, inflicting a random effect. That's why Pandemonium looks so EVIL

Stop discussing like "what if". We don't know. But it's quite possible that Zanz chose FS to be like that. Like Pandemonium.