Guest posts by Chinook

13

General Discussion / What the game mechanics should be

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:28 pm »

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.

14

General Discussion / What the game mechanics should be

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:28 pm »

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"

15

General Discussion / What the game mechanics should be

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:28 pm »

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.