What the game mechanics should be

[bobcamel]

Four posts in a row just isn't fun.

Also, well, there can be some answers, but not those commonly used cards that already have an use. Maybe some other ones, specialized.

[bobcamel]

I say:

-When you try to make sense and insist magic should hit, this removes the point, as then Drainlifes and Firebolts and so should affect immaterials.
-Rain of Fire is just firing a Fire Bolt at every enemy, compressing up to 23 cards into one at the cost of lack of damage rampup.
-Except for the ones you can't target with the single Fire Bolt.
-Plague is a spam of Infections.

On the other side:

-If RoF hit Immortals, it'd be a cheap roast. This shouldn't be possible, as Immortals would roll even lower in the metagame or so, for the card that counters them has about 2 copies of itself in any worthwhile Raynebow deck.

[bobcamel]

Luc.

Cards, many cards, have different ways of being dealt with. Permanents, generally, are removed by Explosines/Pullverizer. High-on-attack cards usually have not much HP and can be dealt with using a Maxwell or Otyugh. Cards with lots of cost are most preferably reversed, cards with useful abilities can be dealt with either by a Lob or a way described above, and such. Direct damage spells can be countered by a reflective shield, temponary dangerous situation can be countered with a Dimshield, and so on, and so on.

And the counters for Immaterial creatures are what Strategy Guide said. That they can't be countered with "creature control" is perfectly fine, as the creatures cannot gain positive effects, and are not very cost-effective.

Poison is even more broked than the immortals, as it stacks, it damages through each shield and Sundale, and the only thing you can do is excessive healing or Purify.

[bobcamel]

Firestorm hitting immaterial: ever played warcraft 3?  Know what ethereal is?  Can't be hit by physical stuff.  But magic?

I tried a magic spell of Drain Life and it failed. So, you see, magic is ineffecient too.

I say, let's change RoF and Thumperstorm and Plague descriptions to "Targets every enemy creature. Deals 3 damage/1 damage/1 poison to targets."

[CB!]

I think the 'real time' some people are referring to is the client-server communication, which has nothing to do with how the game itself plays.  An example: chess is a turn based game, regarding the game mechanics.  But it can be played over the internet (on yahoo for example) which would be real time, or it can be played via e-mail which would not be real time.  Real time client-server communication and real time game play are two different things.

[Chinook]

Daxx, you can't play M:TG by mail.
The main phase(s) where both players can use abilities and cast spells (one player having a more limited set of possible spells) can't be played by mail, at least not without arbitrarily forcing the game fully into a turn based box.

That's why in the current online version of M:TG available in the XBox Live Arcade, the phase has a timer counting down, and if you want to take an action, you must quickly pause before the game moves on and assumes you chose to take no action.

I'm not simply arguing semantics, but I'll will agree this is a useless discussion, nothing will be served by it.

Ironic though, I only added my "sidebar" comment that it is a turn based real time game to make an easy and slightly humourous end to the discussion, but have become embroiled in it instead.

[Chinook]

Reflective shields should reflect poison

A Reflective Shield that reflects incoming negative effects should also reflect this incoming negative effect.
Decks designed to ignore the ground war and target the player need to be hosed by this card to give it value.
 
Untargeted/AoE spells (like Rain of Fire) should hit immaterial creatures

Immaterial as an ability makes creatures "untargetable". This is a common ability in other games, most famously in M:TG as has been brought up.
The natural counter to not being able to "lock on" to a target is to blanket attack an entire area.
There is no way for a "Rain of Fire" to individually target everything, that's nonsense.
Those in favour of the current implementation have interpretted the ability as a Damage Immunity. That kind of a change would be fine, but that should leave the card open to any removal effects that may not rely on damage. Plague/Infection should then counter these cards.

Bone Walls should stack

Their function is to create a stack of walls, it is non-intuitive that they don't stack. Should only be left as is if no way can be found to balance them as stacking, but I don't believe that would be so difficult.

Canceling a creature's skill should give you quantums back

Yes, otherwise let me see EVERY creature slot/ability so that I'm not experimenting to find out what top level Creature abilities are.

Some abilities should NOT be available to mutants (like Sniper, Queen, ...)

Which abilites are currently in or out and which are truly more powerful is irrelevant, for the purposes of balance, some abilites should be in a set of those available and others should not be. Flavour-wise, it would be easy enough to paint some abilities as mutant/magical and others as Legendary/Divine and therefore not available.
 



sidebar: M:TG is a turn-based real time game. Fencing happens in Real time too, but you still establish priorty. In M:TG, I must wait for my turn to use some cards/abilites and others I can use when it is not my turn, the game exists in both "worlds"

[Chinook]

That's not helpful.

You're right, but then, it wasn't meant to be.

I have pointed this out earlier in the thread, but M:TG operates on the granular scale in terms of passing priority - this is turn-based. I understand this may be confusing in the context of a game which has formalised "turns" which operate as a superstructure to the game's priority passing turn-based mechanic; it does not mean, however, that simply because you can act within your opponent's "turn" (the game construct), that the mechanic is real-time.

It's only confusing if you insist on forcing a hybrid system into one box or the other.
M:TG clearly has a turn based structure, but it is not limited by that. It contains phases when any player can act, react, react, etc to the limit of their resources, not entirely dissimilar to how Baseball functions as both as I mentioned to SG.

[Chinook]

What he said might sound like it makes sense but unfortunately it's false. MtG is not both turn-based and real-time. That's not how you use those terms when talking about games.

Bolding the word false doesn't actually make it false.
That is how I use those terms when talking about games.

Everyone who is confused, please read this Wikipedia article on Time-keeping systems in games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-keeping_systems_in_games).

I'm not confused and I didn't realise that Wikipedia was the authority we had agreed on, excuse me a moment while I "fix" Wikipedia...

It has very clear definitions on both real-time and turn-based.

real-time = players may act at any moment.
turn-based = players are allowed a period of analysis before committing to a game action.

Now which of these two you guys think is closer to MtG?

See, here's the thing, you obviously know that it is both, simply by trying to force others to decide which one it is "closer to" demonstrates how M:TG does in fact exist in both paradigms.
Having played the game for years, it is easy for me to declaratively state that at times, M:TG is turn-based, while at other moments it is real time.

If it was clearly one or the other, this entire discussion wouldn't be happening.

See, we ALL get to be right.

[Chinook]

You cannot just take words, give them your own meaning, and then claim you are right. If I take a ball in my hand and call it a horse (that's how I describe this particular round object), am I right?

You can bash Wikipedia all you want (it's the "cool" thing to do) but that doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia is right. The definition in Wikipedia is a perfect way to distinguish between real-time and turn-based games.

Are you cognizant of how condescending you are whether you are right, wrong or irrelevant?

I didn't make my own meaning, no one was confused about the meaning of the words. You launched an irrelevant tangental argument on the definitions. In retrospect, I should have ignored it rather than mocking it, but it's done.

Using your logic all games are both real-time and turn-based.

Just because one bird is a duck does not make all birds ducks.
Using my logic does not make Chess both real time and turn based.
Your insistence on a false dichotomy by forcing all games to be either real time or turn based won't change the fact that Baseball is also both turn based AND real time.

[Chinook]

Getting back to original topic.. I think the main problem with this poll is that different users have different motivations for choosing their vote.

Group 1
Users who vote based on what would benefit current game balance most.

Group 2
Users who vote based on what makes sense the most.


While we have these two groups, we unfortunately won't get much good data out of this poll. Original question should have had a disclaimer "do not take game balance into consideration when taking your vote", or "take your vote based on what would benefit the game balance most".

I personally belong to group 2, and I think this is how all changes should be made:

1. Change cards so that they make sense (for example nothing physical can hit immaterial creatures).
2. Buff/nerf cards so that you can correct the possible new unbalance that occurred after doing step #1.

I don't think those are discreet groups. I always consider both what makes sense and how that impacts game balance when looking at game dynamics. Besides, using what makes sense to one person as a starting point will not always make sense to the next person though.

[Chinook]

Why are immaterial creatures a problem?

I've seen a lot of new players always complain about immaterial creatures but that is because they come from MtG and don't yet understand that having immaterial creatures is not an automatic win. If immaterial creatures were overpowered, everyone would have either them or Anubis. Right now that is not the case.

There's no answer to a weapon with Protect Artifact either (not even Sundial stops that) which is basically the same as having an immaterial creatures, but I don't see people complaining about that. If we get something that counters immaterial creatures, do we also get something that counters Protect Artifact?

Yes, immaterial creatures are immune to everything but that's the whole point!

Cards with no answer just aren't fun.
Protect Artifact partially avoids that because it must combo with another card to set up the same situation.

I do like the idea of a board clearing mechanism for creatures or permanents though.