Ok so that we can get started sooner rather than later (and to make my life easier with not having to sort through each thread for rules suggestions) All rules suggestions are to be posted here.
As it stands we will be using the framework that the previous WPL put in place to work off of. So for your suggestions to make it easier for everyone, don't just say, "hey maybe X should be changed" with no reasoning and expect everyone else to come up with a way to do it, because that doesn't help anyone. Make a definitive suggestion such as, "i think that the cost to level up a skill set from X level to Y level should be increased/decreased by Z amount". In addition have a reason for it, as I'm not going to start throwing rules out or adding new ones in without a good reason.
If you aren't sure about your specific idea feel free to ask in this thread about the issue. Suggesting with reason is never a bad thing.
That being said, lets get this party started!
-psycho
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig Legacy RUBFaithless Dredge
Crossposted from the other thread, here’s a summary of some of the issues raised in the first thread, updated with suggestions from the second thread. Provided that whoever ends up as WPL doesn’t want to do a major rules overhaul, here’s some things that should probably be addressed by them. My suggestions follow each issue. The suggestions are not meant to all be implemented at the same time, nor are they mutually exclusive. Some subset of suggestions may be best. There are also a number of flavor issues that must be addressed. (What is the state of summoned creatures? What is the cost associated with planeswalking? How are minor uses of mana and natural abilities (like breathing underwater) handled?)
Issue: Mana regeneration system encourages walking around with four of each creature summoned at all times, in order to be maximally prepared for combat; kind of silly, plus it grossly advantages summoners, who can begin combat at full mana but with tons of guy on the field.
Potential solutions:
- You can only have one of each thing summoned at a time out of combat. (Potential exceptions in extreme circumstances; preparing for impending combat is not extreme circumstances.)
- Having a creature summoned outside of combat requires “reserving” mana equal to that creature’s cost. That is, having a Trained Armodon summoned ties up three mana as long as it is summoned. Once the creature is dismissed or killed, the mana can be recovered as normal.
- “Tether” creatures to a reasonable distance from where they were summoned.
Issue: The ability to effectively use creatures with certain keyword abilities arbitrarily requires a greater expenditure of points than comparable creatures that have abilities that aren’t keywords.
Potential solutions:
- Simply eliminate the keyword points system. If a player wants to specialize in creatures with a certain keyword or have the benefits of the keyword, they can invest in options that improve those creatures some other way or just give them that ability.
Issue: Artifice is pretty weak and vulnerable. Artifacts that are destroyed cannot be easily repaired on the fly. Artifact creatures - which are already weakish and vulnerable in general - require an additional surcharge to be good for adventuring.
- Eliminate some of the restrictions on artifacts, allow for more rapid recovery.
Issue: With the ability to cast the same spells over and over again and without the hassle of having to deal with drawing them, it’s easy to put together degenerate combos.
- Deal with out-of-line stuff on a player by player basis. If a player intends to work towards something combotastic, it behooves them to check it out with the WPL ahead of time.
Issue: Some cards have major drawbacks that do nothing - Boldwyr Heavyweights, for example.
- It’s not worth the time to define what every effect in the game does. If a card’s drawback doesn’t do anything, the card is either unavailable or costs an appropriate amount given that its drawback doesn’t exist.
- Define what drawbacks do on a case-by-case basis, as players express interest in using a particular card.
Issue: Cards with cumulative effects, such as Oran-Rief Survivalist" target="blank">Oran-Rief Survivalist or Hankyu" target="blank">Hankyu can be built up to absurd sizes/powers outside of combat.
- Outside of combat, creatures and equipment do not literally have their mechanical abilities. The survivalist is a guy who is good at surviving in the wilderness and working as a member of an expedition team. The Hankyu is a bow you can shoot stuff with.
Issue: Cards that enhance other copies of themselves, such as Oran-Rief Survivalist" target="blank">Oran-Rief Survivalist, are proportionally more powerful in a system where people mostly cast the same spell over and over.
- No easy fix; these cards might just have to be more expensive. They may also not turn out to be a big deal.
Issue: Lots of abilities don’t do anything.
- That’s probably going to have to be the way it is. It’s not worth the time to define what everything does. If a player is just dying to use a particular creature, they might work something out with the WPL. Or not.
- Creatures and artifacts, outside of combat, don’t have any mechanical abilities; they’re just “themselves”, behaving as you would expect the thing they are to do. So an Extraplanar Lens lets you see other planes or whatever.
Issue: It requires fewer character points to be able to summon a seven-mana rare dragon than a one-mana uncommon elf.
- Alter the system so that the CMC ranges are upper bounds, not upper and lower bounds. Might also be worth simplifying it so that after the third level, additional ranks of “summoning” are just “any normal creature”.
Issue: There are brutal and arbitrary penalties applied to things that cost 9+ mana.
- Get rid of them. Just lump them in with 6-8 mana stuff.
Issue: Rare and Mythic Rare creatures randomly cost 1 more to summon and are treated as being 1 more expensive for learning purposes. The first aspect makes many of them very unappealing.
- Eliminate the first aspect. The second aspect - where for purposes of learning the summon, they are treated as 1 mana more expensive - can be left in place, or eliminated for simplicity. The same applies to artifacts.
Issue: There’s not much available equipment at rank 1, especially if stuff from Mirrodin is disallowed.
- It’s possible that the equipment requirements should be relaxed a hair, but equipment seems reasonably popular without it.
Issue: Creatures with CIP abilities are frequently just better than the corresponding spell.
- Make them roll to hit like the spell would. (This should definitely happen.)
- Scale their costs, particularly in cases where the spell emulated is one that costs more in the WP, such as Kami of False Hope" target="blank">Kami of False Hope’s Holy Day.
Issue: The actual cost/magnitude of effects like “Burn 1” or “Empowering 2” are undefined.
- Someone’s going to just have to come up with numbers. If the numbers are wrong, we’ll change them later.
- Perhaps they could all be X spells, more or less, with the maximum number of targets, value of X, and ratio of damage to mana limited by level.
- Note that unlike creatures and artifacts, most spells do not involve casting actual cards; you just cast “Burn 1” and it has some effect on one or more creatures or players. I personally feel that the distinction between damage types is sort of an unnecessary complication.
- Note that while the system already looks pretty complex, once these things are all defined, things will be even more complex. We really do need to keep an eye on simplicity.
Issue: Stuff is unbalanced.
- Probably. We’re using cards for something they weren’t designed for. Really egregious stuff can be adjusted or banned, but some stuff is just going to be a lot better than other stuff.
- Just plug in stuff that seems reasonable and roll. We're not going to get everything perfect with no experience; there'll have to be an understanding that stuff that's out of line might get hammered down.
ISSUE: Activated abilities are... weird.
- If we make them consume your instant-speed action for the term, then most of them are really terrible. If they don't, then many of them are really powerful. In-game, activated abilities of creatures tend to cost a lot for their effect because they don't consume a card. (For example, nobody would consider playing an instant that just gave a creature +1/+0 for R in limited most of the time, but creatures with Firebreathing are pretty nice in limited.) In our game, activated abilities are better than normal because they don't use an action, but worse than normal because their "don't use a card to get this effect" property is no longer an advantage, because no effect costs a card. These properties might balance out in many cases. It may actually be safe to ignore this for now.
I agree with pretty much everything in this list as well as have a few ideas of my own, I'm going to look over things in a little more detail and start implementing and posting solutions to these problems once yukora has selected the WPLs officially
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig Legacy RUBFaithless Dredge
Join Planar Chaos, A Colo clan
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
The one important rule change I have been sitting on for a long time is the removal of the half-damage to planeswalkers rule. Characters could be given 40 life instead of 20 to produce the same effect w/out halving damage and rounding numbers.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
I actually like that as a rules change quite honestly. I kind of think that the nature of the game where you don't have to draw into cards makes the damage output probably a little higher so we don't want people blowing out another with about 5 seconds of effort.
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig Legacy RUBFaithless Dredge
Just a few things i was curious about
1: How important will the current mtg storyline be in this WP? Will we get to interact with planeswalkers such as jace and garruk?
2: Is there a date/event that will allow us to go to mirrodin?
3: What, if any, rules are you considering changing?
4: Is it safe to assume that M11 and Rise of the eldrazi are legal sets?
As for Suggestions as to what probably needs finished/worked on, aside from the things that joyd brought up I have a few things:
1: Talents: Im not sure what should be done with this. As WPLs, do you want to create the talents yourselves or do you want them to be user created and submitted to you?
2. The addition of dual/tri color abilities: It will probably be a while before anyone will gain a second/third/x color, but it wouldn't hurt to think ahead
The people that play legacy / vintage always amuse me. They want their formats to be represented more. They want more tournaments. But when anyone suggests allowing more people access to the formats by reprinting cards, the same people start screaming about the reprint policy.
I was just wondering why the point-costs for abilities have risen sharply from the original outline of 1:2:3?
1:4:7 seems ridiculously overpriced to me. Saving up 4 points would take 2 levels, and saving up 7 would take 4. And during the time you're trying to save up for better abilities, your character wouldn't grow in strength.
It seems counter-intuitive to me that in an RPG (where character growth is everything) a character would have to stagnate for multiple levels just to get a single ability. And not even a new ability. Just an upgrade of an old ability.
Even 1:3:4 seems too high compared to the current amount of ability points-per-level.
Unless I'm not understanding the rules changes and there's something I'm missing.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
I was just wondering why the point-costs for abilities have risen sharply from the original outline of 1:2:3?
1:4:7 seems ridiculously overpriced to me. Saving up 4 points would take 2 levels, and saving up 7 would take 4. And during the time you're trying to save up for better abilities, your character wouldn't grow in strength.
It seems counter-intuitive to me that in an RPG (where character growth is everything) a character would have to stagnate for multiple levels just to get a single ability. And not even a new ability. Just an upgrade of an old ability.
Even 1:3:4 seems too high compared to the current amount of ability points-per-level.
Unless I'm not understanding the rules changes and there's something I'm missing.
I was going to comment on the same thing. Besides forcing characters to wait several levels to get a new ability, such a steep system really discourages specialization. If anything, there should be more things that look like 2:2:3 or something. That's not to say that "specialize on X" and "take lots of different abilities" shouldn't both be valid approaches. If the concern is something like, "With a 1:2:3 progression, a character who focuses entirely on X can be the best at X at only level 2" - which is a valid concern - it might be good to tie "skill at X" to something besides just "Level in X", although that's a complexity bump.
If the concern is mastering abilities too early, a character level-to-skill ratio could easily be established.
Maybe make a minimum character level that is required to master abilities.
At level 1, you can only access (and therefore spend points on) Tier One.
At level 2, you can access Tiers One and Two.
At level 4, you can access all tiers.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
At the moment, Nakamura and I are working on a fix for the very undercosted skill leveling. When we have one, we will let you know...
You mean "overcosted"? I think the concern is that, as written, characters go several levels without making any non-talent progress mechanically in order to afford level three of many skills.
i think its semi-feasible that it is possible to get ability points from things other than leveling, such as certain quests, events, etc. Also getting bonus ability points from , say every 5th level, could also be possible
Well thats what i figured when i saw some of the costs of the abilities.
The people that play legacy / vintage always amuse me. They want their formats to be represented more. They want more tournaments. But when anyone suggests allowing more people access to the formats by reprinting cards, the same people start screaming about the reprint policy.
Question regarding cards that read "Whenever an opponent discards a card...":
If no-one can discard, surely those turn into "This card doesn't do anything."?
How will that be resolved?
I can give you a completely different rules set that may fix a lot of these problems. I have been working on it for a good year and have been trying to get rid of most of the complications, and so far I believe that I am doing a good job. If one of the WPLs send me a message I can explain it all to one of them.
Have you guys ever heard of the I, Planeswalker multiplayer format?
Some geniuses in the Wizards Community Forums in the Flavor & Storylines made it. You should look for it in the Groups amongst them.
You could make only the abilities like Surgical Extraction for discard viable, though.
The spells discarded this way would be unusable until after the battle, I guess.
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Special thanks to Argetlam of Hakai Studios.
Loads of <3s from the West Side.
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As it stands we will be using the framework that the previous WPL put in place to work off of. So for your suggestions to make it easier for everyone, don't just say, "hey maybe X should be changed" with no reasoning and expect everyone else to come up with a way to do it, because that doesn't help anyone. Make a definitive suggestion such as, "i think that the cost to level up a skill set from X level to Y level should be increased/decreased by Z amount". In addition have a reason for it, as I'm not going to start throwing rules out or adding new ones in without a good reason.
If you aren't sure about your specific idea feel free to ask in this thread about the issue. Suggesting with reason is never a bad thing.
That being said, lets get this party started!
-psycho
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig
Legacy
RUBFaithless Dredge
Issue: Mana regeneration system encourages walking around with four of each creature summoned at all times, in order to be maximally prepared for combat; kind of silly, plus it grossly advantages summoners, who can begin combat at full mana but with tons of guy on the field.
Potential solutions:
- You can only have one of each thing summoned at a time out of combat. (Potential exceptions in extreme circumstances; preparing for impending combat is not extreme circumstances.)
- Having a creature summoned outside of combat requires “reserving” mana equal to that creature’s cost. That is, having a Trained Armodon summoned ties up three mana as long as it is summoned. Once the creature is dismissed or killed, the mana can be recovered as normal.
- “Tether” creatures to a reasonable distance from where they were summoned.
Issue: The ability to effectively use creatures with certain keyword abilities arbitrarily requires a greater expenditure of points than comparable creatures that have abilities that aren’t keywords.
Potential solutions:
- Simply eliminate the keyword points system. If a player wants to specialize in creatures with a certain keyword or have the benefits of the keyword, they can invest in options that improve those creatures some other way or just give them that ability.
Issue: Artifice is pretty weak and vulnerable. Artifacts that are destroyed cannot be easily repaired on the fly. Artifact creatures - which are already weakish and vulnerable in general - require an additional surcharge to be good for adventuring.
- Eliminate some of the restrictions on artifacts, allow for more rapid recovery.
Issue: With the ability to cast the same spells over and over again and without the hassle of having to deal with drawing them, it’s easy to put together degenerate combos.
- Deal with out-of-line stuff on a player by player basis. If a player intends to work towards something combotastic, it behooves them to check it out with the WPL ahead of time.
Issue: Some cards have major drawbacks that do nothing - Boldwyr Heavyweights, for example.
- It’s not worth the time to define what every effect in the game does. If a card’s drawback doesn’t do anything, the card is either unavailable or costs an appropriate amount given that its drawback doesn’t exist.
- Define what drawbacks do on a case-by-case basis, as players express interest in using a particular card.
Issue: Cards with cumulative effects, such as Oran-Rief Survivalist" target="blank">Oran-Rief Survivalist or Hankyu" target="blank">Hankyu can be built up to absurd sizes/powers outside of combat.
- Outside of combat, creatures and equipment do not literally have their mechanical abilities. The survivalist is a guy who is good at surviving in the wilderness and working as a member of an expedition team. The Hankyu is a bow you can shoot stuff with.
Issue: Cards that enhance other copies of themselves, such as Oran-Rief Survivalist" target="blank">Oran-Rief Survivalist, are proportionally more powerful in a system where people mostly cast the same spell over and over.
- No easy fix; these cards might just have to be more expensive. They may also not turn out to be a big deal.
Issue: Lots of abilities don’t do anything.
- That’s probably going to have to be the way it is. It’s not worth the time to define what everything does. If a player is just dying to use a particular creature, they might work something out with the WPL. Or not.
- Creatures and artifacts, outside of combat, don’t have any mechanical abilities; they’re just “themselves”, behaving as you would expect the thing they are to do. So an Extraplanar Lens lets you see other planes or whatever.
Issue: It requires fewer character points to be able to summon a seven-mana rare dragon than a one-mana uncommon elf.
- Alter the system so that the CMC ranges are upper bounds, not upper and lower bounds. Might also be worth simplifying it so that after the third level, additional ranks of “summoning” are just “any normal creature”.
Issue: There are brutal and arbitrary penalties applied to things that cost 9+ mana.
- Get rid of them. Just lump them in with 6-8 mana stuff.
Issue: Rare and Mythic Rare creatures randomly cost 1 more to summon and are treated as being 1 more expensive for learning purposes. The first aspect makes many of them very unappealing.
- Eliminate the first aspect. The second aspect - where for purposes of learning the summon, they are treated as 1 mana more expensive - can be left in place, or eliminated for simplicity. The same applies to artifacts.
Issue: There’s not much available equipment at rank 1, especially if stuff from Mirrodin is disallowed.
- It’s possible that the equipment requirements should be relaxed a hair, but equipment seems reasonably popular without it.
Issue: Creatures with CIP abilities are frequently just better than the corresponding spell.
- Make them roll to hit like the spell would. (This should definitely happen.)
- Scale their costs, particularly in cases where the spell emulated is one that costs more in the WP, such as Kami of False Hope" target="blank">Kami of False Hope’s Holy Day.
Issue: The actual cost/magnitude of effects like “Burn 1” or “Empowering 2” are undefined.
- Someone’s going to just have to come up with numbers. If the numbers are wrong, we’ll change them later.
- Perhaps they could all be X spells, more or less, with the maximum number of targets, value of X, and ratio of damage to mana limited by level.
- Note that unlike creatures and artifacts, most spells do not involve casting actual cards; you just cast “Burn 1” and it has some effect on one or more creatures or players. I personally feel that the distinction between damage types is sort of an unnecessary complication.
- Note that while the system already looks pretty complex, once these things are all defined, things will be even more complex. We really do need to keep an eye on simplicity.
Issue: Stuff is unbalanced.
- Probably. We’re using cards for something they weren’t designed for. Really egregious stuff can be adjusted or banned, but some stuff is just going to be a lot better than other stuff.
- Just plug in stuff that seems reasonable and roll. We're not going to get everything perfect with no experience; there'll have to be an understanding that stuff that's out of line might get hammered down.
ISSUE: Activated abilities are... weird.
- If we make them consume your instant-speed action for the term, then most of them are really terrible. If they don't, then many of them are really powerful. In-game, activated abilities of creatures tend to cost a lot for their effect because they don't consume a card. (For example, nobody would consider playing an instant that just gave a creature +1/+0 for R in limited most of the time, but creatures with Firebreathing are pretty nice in limited.) In our game, activated abilities are better than normal because they don't use an action, but worse than normal because their "don't use a card to get this effect" property is no longer an advantage, because no effect costs a card. These properties might balance out in many cases. It may actually be safe to ignore this for now.
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig
Legacy
RUBFaithless Dredge
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Outbreak
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
If not, I can update the RL today.
Mafia Stats 2016-2017:
Town: 1-0 | Scum: 2-0 | Neutral: 1-1
The one important rule change I have been sitting on for a long time is the removal of the half-damage to planeswalkers rule. Characters could be given 40 life instead of 20 to produce the same effect w/out halving damage and rounding numbers.
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig
Legacy
RUBFaithless Dredge
1: How important will the current mtg storyline be in this WP? Will we get to interact with planeswalkers such as jace and garruk?
2: Is there a date/event that will allow us to go to mirrodin?
3: What, if any, rules are you considering changing?
4: Is it safe to assume that M11 and Rise of the eldrazi are legal sets?
As for Suggestions as to what probably needs finished/worked on, aside from the things that joyd brought up I have a few things:
1: Talents: Im not sure what should be done with this. As WPLs, do you want to create the talents yourselves or do you want them to be user created and submitted to you?
2. The addition of dual/tri color abilities: It will probably be a while before anyone will gain a second/third/x color, but it wouldn't hurt to think ahead
1:4:7 seems ridiculously overpriced to me. Saving up 4 points would take 2 levels, and saving up 7 would take 4. And during the time you're trying to save up for better abilities, your character wouldn't grow in strength.
It seems counter-intuitive to me that in an RPG (where character growth is everything) a character would have to stagnate for multiple levels just to get a single ability. And not even a new ability. Just an upgrade of an old ability.
Even 1:3:4 seems too high compared to the current amount of ability points-per-level.
Unless I'm not understanding the rules changes and there's something I'm missing.
{Magic: The RPG}
Maybe make a minimum character level that is required to master abilities.
At level 1, you can only access (and therefore spend points on) Tier One.
At level 2, you can access Tiers One and Two.
At level 4, you can access all tiers.
{Magic: The RPG}
DCI Judge L2 - Minneapolis
Thanks to Megabug/Sgt Chubbz and Kracked Graphics for the Sig
Legacy
RUBFaithless Dredge
Well thats what i figured when i saw some of the costs of the abilities.
I have yet to decide.
They must just end up dead cards.
Mafia Stats 2016-2017:
Town: 1-0 | Scum: 2-0 | Neutral: 1-1
There won't be any discard styled spells/abilities?
(Siggy adapted, DarkHunter1357 (deviantART))
Some geniuses in the Wizards Community Forums in the Flavor & Storylines made it. You should look for it in the Groups amongst them.
You could make only the abilities like Surgical Extraction for discard viable, though.
The spells discarded this way would be unusable until after the battle, I guess.
Special thanks to Argetlam of Hakai Studios.
Loads of <3s from the West Side.