@Willows.
There is quite a lot more circumstances than the one listed that aren't obscure. If they target it with a kill spell before blocks, this version means it can't block when it comes back. If the creature has haste or another card is giving it haste, it still can't attack. If it's killed during your turn and has any tap ability or is being given a tap ability, it can't use that on the next turn. There is more.
The tapped versions is generally safer developmentally as well as being flavourful and continuity preserving. There is still an argument for the untapped version, but I think the tapped version is a safer bet generally.
The mechanic, as Silvercut put it, looks set to print. I seriously have only one thing to say that might undermine it being good enough to be the new regenerate, and that is that it doesn't capture all of the flavour of regenerate. For black it does as black regenerate is flavoured as resurrection, but green is flavoured as fast-healing, Wolverine style. This doesn't really capture that.
To be honest, I don't think we as an audience have enough information about this issue yet to really solve it, as we haven't been told exactly why regeneration warrants replacing, and not just removing, and exactly what kind of replacement is needed to fill the slot. Unless, of course, we can figure it out ourselves.
I'm still confused as to why would WoTC choose Menace over the obvious "Fearsome" ability (as named here). Imo Menace isn't particularly flavorful and I don't personally really like the game play style of "swarming" your opponents it enforces (playing a lot of creatures).
Ie: "One baloth can't block this creature, but two can." They need a pal to "back them up" so that they can muster the *courage* to block that goblin... really? (I'm referring to the goblin of the article) It would make much more "sense" if the blocking condition would be related to power as one would have a reason to fear something that's more *powerful* than you are (like the "retro" orc designs and the "fearsome" ability).
Also, "slippery" or something akin to that seems to match the flavor of it better than "menace" as a name. To me the keyword suggests that you need more than one individual to "corner" and "catch" the creature.
Menace isn't just flavourfully represented as being fearsome, that's a component, but it's also a physical component of the creature being strong and fast so you need to group together. The reason why Menace is being used over the "Fearsome" ability is because "Fearsome" has development issues. As soon as the creature gets bigger than 6/6, it might as well be unblockable in most games. It scales poorly, especially with so many ways to increase creature power in the game. Menace is pretty consistent on the other hand and simpler too.
Especially with Menace in the game, Fearsome doesn't stand very well at all.
Solitaire looks like a solid keyword and especially fitting for white.
To me the second (wording) version of fearsome is worse as I had to read it multiple times to get it (could also be 'cause I'm not a native speaker, but whatever).
As far as card designs stand, these look standard (not the format). Work well as examples.
"Solitaire" appears in 8 green cards, 1 artifact, 1 red and 1 white card; the later two being Portal Three Kingdoms, so not a reliable reference for modern colour pie. This would suggest that "Solitaire" is in fact very much a green ability and perhaps secondary or tertiary in white.
Solitaire is a good mechanic in every way except one, it just isn't very relevant. Double or triple blocking is not very common, so it's really not much of an effect. It's most relevant on medium sized creatures, where it's not so big that you can't normally kill it by double blocking, but not so small that you don't need to double block. This is reflected on the cards with the mechanic currently, being in 4/5 - 2/2 range. Maybe it would work well, but I am sceptical it would be worth it.
That seems to be the burden of the person giving the criticism, rather than the person receiving it, is it not? The mechanic in question may have its genuine shortcomings, but the way the person giving the criticism phrases it may make those shortcomings either too diminished or too magnified.
A lot of the time, the reasons given for deviations aren't compelling to many. I know many people disagree with the reasons that I give for my mechanics. Often times, a pure "because I can" reason can just be scoffed at and dismissed entirely. But a "because I can" should never be confused with a "because I can, and I am making these for experimental purposes"; a simple "because I can" means "because I can, and I genuinely believe these cards will be good because of that reason", not the experimental reason.
Specifically, though, I'm talking about those changes that Lord of Atlantis mentioned. Those mechanics that were given their reasons upon conception by a designer, and given negative criticism as a result, with Wizards releasing information on a product with that exact same mechanic with the exact same reasons, and given positive criticism as a result. The negative-positive discrepancy is a result based entirely on the designer's lack of authority, which is extremely unfair for the designer.
As I said, if you want to use "because I can" as the reason for a design component, that has to be consistent with this rest of your design. You can't rigidly design a set then break all the rules for any one card or mechanic and just say "because I can", that's an inconsistency.
It's well-established that Wizards' rules aren't always right. Yet there are still people who insist that Wizards' rules are correct all of the time, and any deviations from them result in wrong things.
Personally speaking, I try to see whether the design in question is trying to think outside of the box or if it's just something that still abides by Wizards' guidelines that Wizards just hasn't done before. If it's the former, then I critique according to what I think, with less regard to the guidelines. If it's the latter, then the obvious approach would be to give criticism based on the existing guidelines.
Which is what I meant about consistency. If your design is out-of-the-box, that's fine. If your design is as close to WotC as you can get, that's fine. But be consistent. I think sometimes people can be unclear to others or uncertain themselves about where they lie in this range, and that causes problems.
As this recent change shows, one of the messages to take home is that when designing mechanics and cards, Wizards' guidelines do not have to be followed too strictly.
I think Lord of Atlantis sums it up pretty nicely. It seems that in general, changes to guidelines aren't accepted when custom designers make them, but when Wizards makes extremely similar changes and publicizes them, it suddenly becomes okay. There's no reason for this discrepancy to occur, especially since the only difference stems from the fact that one party is Wizards and the other party is not. Just because one party is the authority and one party is not doesn't make the idea that the non-Wizards party comes up with bad at the time of the idea's onset. Why does this happen, despite there being no difference in the ideas whatsoever?
A few reasons:
Misunderstanding.
Sometimes criticism of something is taken as "this is just bad" and not "this has issues, but might be workable". Sometimes the reasoning behind criticism is misunderstood. Sometimes people misunderstand someone's reasoning behind a change. A surprising amount of social controversy is explainable simply by misunderstanding.
Lack of Reasoning.
The "rules" of design established by WotC have a firm basis in experience and testing. When something deviates from that, it has to explain WHY to be a good decision. It's not enough to break the rules and just say "because I can" unless that is the attitude for all of your design. When WotC makes a change, they have good reasons to do so and the experience to back it up as well, a lot of CCD is much looser, so major changes should be criticised more heavily.
Simplicity
WotC's rules are known and accepted, so often it's easy to just follow them. It may not always be right, but it's a good basis.
-
There have undoubtedly been people who were too firm on WotC rules in their arguments, and there will continue to be, but there is also people who are the opposite and break rules without sufficient reason. It's never a simple matter with such an issue and the best solution is to simply take everything with a grain of salt and also to treat people with the assumption that they are saying things for a substantial reason.
In any case, I disagree with some individual assessments (our versions of what is "too complex" tend to be different), but overall kudos for taking on this task with gusto.
I will now see that in my nightmares . Japan, I just don't get it, why are so many things just more abstracted?
Unoly (sic) Thrall: Typo in name, 4/7 stats are a bit weird for a clearly very aggressive creature, 5/6 or 6/5 would seem more appropriate.
Keeper of the Grove: memory issues, but nothing necessarily unjustifiable.
Tyrael: "can't cast permanent spells"
Ashenvale Dryad: Seems a bit weak, 2/2 maybe?
People here though, custom designers? Most of us always tried to find new (evergreen) keywords, but shot down because of "traditionalists" who say it's not allowed because of Wizards' standard operating procedures. Now you're accusing the same group of forward thinkers for not accepting changes?
The whole outrage has exactly to do with following too closely Wizards' dogma. Anything not what Wizards wants or tells is forbidden. Now that Wizards finally goes outside the box, they are automatically lauded as champions of change?
There have been many threads and ideas, not just these forums, but many other as well across the internet, that tried many new things, including many attempts at finding an evergreen keyword for UR. Many of these ideas are identical or similar to Prowess, but have been shot down for one reason or another because at the time they didn't seem to be what Wizards allowed. Now this turnabout for some who attempt to hold on to "what would Wizards do" are somehow criticized for being too afraid of change? Ironic.
For me at least, I am never truly certain about design and rarely close to being it either. The reason suggestions in the same line as the changes being made have received criticism is the same reason why it takes has taken time to find these solutions and implement them, because game design is not a science. It's a subjective thing like that "high" art, it means different things to different people and is judged in different ways. Hence, finding a correct solution is impossible, it's about finding the best possible solution, which is not easy to find and is debatable.
I don't think anyone was criticising people for being afraid of change, I certainly wasn't, I was mostly just arguing in favour of giving it a chance before passing any significant judgement and having some trust in WotC to do the right thing (not absolute trust by any means).
One thing that I have been thinking about is how Prowess will affect and be affected by artifacts. In sets with an artifact theme, will prowess work well in an artifact deck? Will artifacts be a reasonably common way to trigger it, generally?
Out of all the new keywords, I think the most interesting is the addition of scry. How will we (and by extension, Wizards) balance out cantrips and scry-trips in a single set? It seems like it'd get awfully confusing having both in one set.
There will be probably be a good mixture. Look at Theros, half the number of scry and add some more cantrips and other similar effects, that's probably about where the norm will be set. We've already have both in one set, as is the same with cycling and other mechanics that do similar things.
What is the significance of "traditional evergreen principles"? Why should we follow them, why are they better than other principles?
Because people get comfortable and get used to stuff, and stuff outside it feels "wrong". Look at the freakouts about the card frames. That backlash is a negative part of the player experience, and you can't brush it off by saying it doesn't make sense.
The question is, of course, whether the benefits outweigh the costs. With the specific design issues in mind, I believe they do.
@Legend.
What is the significance of "traditional evergreen principles"? Why should we follow them, why are they better than other principles? Prowess represents a slight shift in the thinking of evergreen, but it's not an innate property of evergreen mechanics that is changing, it's just the thinking about how to do them best. There is certain conventions that are being broken but that's just because WotC decided they didn't matter enough.
@Stairc.
I agree. I don't think this is an issue that warrants further discussion other than of the theoretical kind. Discussing potential problems and how they might be solved is interesting and relevant but anything more is not viable considering how little information we have on the implementation of this mechanical change.
@Lef.
Thank you.
My point has nothing to do with them being some kind of undeniable power, not at all. My point is basic logic. Twenty people, with years of experience versus a few amateurs on the internet, which has the evidence to back up their point of view? It's doesn't matter who they are, it just matters that they know what they are doing.
@Legend.
Prowess was made evergreen because players liked it, hence, it would sell sets better, but also hence, it makes better sets. You can argue all day about corruption and selfishness and corporate thinking, what sells Magic is the same as what player's want, that's the point. Yes, they are business, they are not entirely concerned with making the best possible game, but they are not concerned with making every single cent they can either, they are decent and reasonable human beings and don't absolutely always prioritise business 100%, just very close to that. Which luckily works fine for players as business for them IS making what players want.
Prowess is evergreen because it works. It fits into a relevant space, it plays well, it's sufficiently versatile in flavour and design. Being evergreen isn't some special quality, it just means that the mechanic has to work in every set, there's no extra quality. What it means to work in every set is debatable, but Prowess fits in several different perspectives on this.
You can argue with it all you want, but it doesn't matter all that much compared to real experience, corporate bias or not. Questioning it, fine, saying it's wrong before it's even happened, foolish. Nothing more to it.
@Legend.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with questioning their decision, what I was saying was that you were very quick to say "This is a bad play". This is a complex issue and Wizards may not be perfect (as I already admitted) but they are as good as anyone, if not better, to evaluate this change. The most logical thing to do is assume that it will work out reasonably, it's not logical to assume that the change will be perfect or even really very good, that is not what I was saying, but it is illogical to assume it won't work out. If it doesn't work out, that will be because of a good reason on their part, not to say that they are without flaw, but that they are good at what they do. What I am saying is nothing personal or against critical discussion, only that critical discussion should be more uncertain and open in perspective than people often are about it.
@Apoquallyp.
"As I have asked you before, please stop using these appeals to authority for your arguments. They are in no way constructive, and they kill any discussion." I consider improperly founded arguments un-constructive. If using an objective argument that experience and testing on WotC's part makes them a good judge of these things is going to kill an argument, it wasn't a very good argument. Bringing up the point that I did acts to say that discussion about WotC's decisions are mostly academic and shouldn't be taken as containing very many rigid arguments. I brought it up because I think players underestimate how difficult design is and think that decisions are as easier than they actually are, all of the arguments against prowess so far are almost certainly things that WotC considered and decided did not significantly devalue the argument for prowess.
There is quite a lot more circumstances than the one listed that aren't obscure. If they target it with a kill spell before blocks, this version means it can't block when it comes back. If the creature has haste or another card is giving it haste, it still can't attack. If it's killed during your turn and has any tap ability or is being given a tap ability, it can't use that on the next turn. There is more.
The tapped versions is generally safer developmentally as well as being flavourful and continuity preserving. There is still an argument for the untapped version, but I think the tapped version is a safer bet generally.
The mechanic, as Silvercut put it, looks set to print. I seriously have only one thing to say that might undermine it being good enough to be the new regenerate, and that is that it doesn't capture all of the flavour of regenerate. For black it does as black regenerate is flavoured as resurrection, but green is flavoured as fast-healing, Wolverine style. This doesn't really capture that.
To be honest, I don't think we as an audience have enough information about this issue yet to really solve it, as we haven't been told exactly why regeneration warrants replacing, and not just removing, and exactly what kind of replacement is needed to fill the slot. Unless, of course, we can figure it out ourselves.
Menace isn't just flavourfully represented as being fearsome, that's a component, but it's also a physical component of the creature being strong and fast so you need to group together. The reason why Menace is being used over the "Fearsome" ability is because "Fearsome" has development issues. As soon as the creature gets bigger than 6/6, it might as well be unblockable in most games. It scales poorly, especially with so many ways to increase creature power in the game. Menace is pretty consistent on the other hand and simpler too.
Especially with Menace in the game, Fearsome doesn't stand very well at all.
"Solitaire" appears in 8 green cards, 1 artifact, 1 red and 1 white card; the later two being Portal Three Kingdoms, so not a reliable reference for modern colour pie. This would suggest that "Solitaire" is in fact very much a green ability and perhaps secondary or tertiary in white.
Solitaire is a good mechanic in every way except one, it just isn't very relevant. Double or triple blocking is not very common, so it's really not much of an effect. It's most relevant on medium sized creatures, where it's not so big that you can't normally kill it by double blocking, but not so small that you don't need to double block. This is reflected on the cards with the mechanic currently, being in 4/5 - 2/2 range. Maybe it would work well, but I am sceptical it would be worth it.
Yes this reason was mainly about the critics.
As I said, if you want to use "because I can" as the reason for a design component, that has to be consistent with this rest of your design. You can't rigidly design a set then break all the rules for any one card or mechanic and just say "because I can", that's an inconsistency.
Anyone who insists on absolutes is usually wrong.
Which is what I meant about consistency. If your design is out-of-the-box, that's fine. If your design is as close to WotC as you can get, that's fine. But be consistent. I think sometimes people can be unclear to others or uncertain themselves about where they lie in this range, and that causes problems.
A few reasons:
Misunderstanding.
Sometimes criticism of something is taken as "this is just bad" and not "this has issues, but might be workable". Sometimes the reasoning behind criticism is misunderstood. Sometimes people misunderstand someone's reasoning behind a change. A surprising amount of social controversy is explainable simply by misunderstanding.
Lack of Reasoning.
The "rules" of design established by WotC have a firm basis in experience and testing. When something deviates from that, it has to explain WHY to be a good decision. It's not enough to break the rules and just say "because I can" unless that is the attitude for all of your design. When WotC makes a change, they have good reasons to do so and the experience to back it up as well, a lot of CCD is much looser, so major changes should be criticised more heavily.
Simplicity
WotC's rules are known and accepted, so often it's easy to just follow them. It may not always be right, but it's a good basis.
-
There have undoubtedly been people who were too firm on WotC rules in their arguments, and there will continue to be, but there is also people who are the opposite and break rules without sufficient reason. It's never a simple matter with such an issue and the best solution is to simply take everything with a grain of salt and also to treat people with the assumption that they are saying things for a substantial reason.
I will now see that in my nightmares . Japan, I just don't get it, why are so many things just more abstracted?
Unoly (sic) Thrall: Typo in name, 4/7 stats are a bit weird for a clearly very aggressive creature, 5/6 or 6/5 would seem more appropriate.
Keeper of the Grove: memory issues, but nothing necessarily unjustifiable.
Tyrael: "can't cast permanent spells"
Ashenvale Dryad: Seems a bit weak, 2/2 maybe?
For me at least, I am never truly certain about design and rarely close to being it either. The reason suggestions in the same line as the changes being made have received criticism is the same reason why it takes has taken time to find these solutions and implement them, because game design is not a science. It's a subjective thing like that "high" art, it means different things to different people and is judged in different ways. Hence, finding a correct solution is impossible, it's about finding the best possible solution, which is not easy to find and is debatable.
I don't think anyone was criticising people for being afraid of change, I certainly wasn't, I was mostly just arguing in favour of giving it a chance before passing any significant judgement and having some trust in WotC to do the right thing (not absolute trust by any means).
What are you guys thoughts?
There will be probably be a good mixture. Look at Theros, half the number of scry and add some more cantrips and other similar effects, that's probably about where the norm will be set. We've already have both in one set, as is the same with cycling and other mechanics that do similar things.
Absolutely.
What is the significance of "traditional evergreen principles"? Why should we follow them, why are they better than other principles? Prowess represents a slight shift in the thinking of evergreen, but it's not an innate property of evergreen mechanics that is changing, it's just the thinking about how to do them best. There is certain conventions that are being broken but that's just because WotC decided they didn't matter enough.
Revenue for WotC = Player desires (99% of the time)
This is a moot point, unless you can demonstrate that this falls under the 1%
EDIT: You also originally said "This is a bad play" and now you have said "I don't have a problem with this" so what is going on with that?
I agree. I don't think this is an issue that warrants further discussion other than of the theoretical kind. Discussing potential problems and how they might be solved is interesting and relevant but anything more is not viable considering how little information we have on the implementation of this mechanical change.
Thank you.
My point has nothing to do with them being some kind of undeniable power, not at all. My point is basic logic. Twenty people, with years of experience versus a few amateurs on the internet, which has the evidence to back up their point of view? It's doesn't matter who they are, it just matters that they know what they are doing.
Prowess was made evergreen because players liked it, hence, it would sell sets better, but also hence, it makes better sets. You can argue all day about corruption and selfishness and corporate thinking, what sells Magic is the same as what player's want, that's the point. Yes, they are business, they are not entirely concerned with making the best possible game, but they are not concerned with making every single cent they can either, they are decent and reasonable human beings and don't absolutely always prioritise business 100%, just very close to that. Which luckily works fine for players as business for them IS making what players want.
Prowess is evergreen because it works. It fits into a relevant space, it plays well, it's sufficiently versatile in flavour and design. Being evergreen isn't some special quality, it just means that the mechanic has to work in every set, there's no extra quality. What it means to work in every set is debatable, but Prowess fits in several different perspectives on this.
You can argue with it all you want, but it doesn't matter all that much compared to real experience, corporate bias or not. Questioning it, fine, saying it's wrong before it's even happened, foolish. Nothing more to it.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with questioning their decision, what I was saying was that you were very quick to say "This is a bad play". This is a complex issue and Wizards may not be perfect (as I already admitted) but they are as good as anyone, if not better, to evaluate this change. The most logical thing to do is assume that it will work out reasonably, it's not logical to assume that the change will be perfect or even really very good, that is not what I was saying, but it is illogical to assume it won't work out. If it doesn't work out, that will be because of a good reason on their part, not to say that they are without flaw, but that they are good at what they do. What I am saying is nothing personal or against critical discussion, only that critical discussion should be more uncertain and open in perspective than people often are about it.
@Apoquallyp.
"As I have asked you before, please stop using these appeals to authority for your arguments. They are in no way constructive, and they kill any discussion." I consider improperly founded arguments un-constructive. If using an objective argument that experience and testing on WotC's part makes them a good judge of these things is going to kill an argument, it wasn't a very good argument. Bringing up the point that I did acts to say that discussion about WotC's decisions are mostly academic and shouldn't be taken as containing very many rigid arguments. I brought it up because I think players underestimate how difficult design is and think that decisions are as easier than they actually are, all of the arguments against prowess so far are almost certainly things that WotC considered and decided did not significantly devalue the argument for prowess.