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Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, I've been meaning to write an article around this general topic for a long time. Design is much more about making sure the strong things are fun than making sure the strong things are balanced. Balance is relatively easy to achieve. The entire sword conversation kind of misses the point for me. The question is less about how strong they are, and more about whether you want people winning games this way or another way. Each game will only have one winner. What we control are the way games are won.

In the conversation it sounded like an entire 3-game match came down to whether the person drew removal for a Sword. That is (in my opinion) pretty weak design, compared to other designs you could use. Games that end "he played a Sword on Turn 5 and I just scooped" are some of the lowest quality Magic games I've seen. They are very unsatisfying for both parties. These are the types of things we should talk about.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
yeah, unhappy people get prickly when you suggest that they're not really happy, though. they want direction from authority and it's infuriating that wizards encourages this kind of pretend-happy self-abnegation with the way it treats its player base.

your comment on 'strong cards' is something i feel, like if you design something dumb like jwari shapeshifter it's just a stupid bulk rare that players are mildly upset to crack, it's not gonna ruin any games or anything. jace, the mind sculptor, on the other hand ... so then they have to be careful with those cards, but then they have to push some of them, but then they have to be careful ...

i agree that balance is pretty easy to achieve. the self-correcting mechanism of 'the metagame' is one of the most ingenious features of magic. you see something like it in poker and starcraft and finance but those mechanisms are far less robust.

last point: mtg is fun because it's challenging. cube is the best format because it's the most challenging. good players punt inveterately and good players are supposed to punt inveterately. how else would one learn stuff?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Starcraft is a really good example of game design. Anyone can see Starcraft and immediately know that the goal of design is not to power max. It's to put the power in interesting places.

The main challenge of designing something like Starcraft is to create the most enjoyable gameplay you can. Balance is simply one of the variables that can detract from the quality of the game. But so can boring units, frustrating strategies, Carrier movement physics, tech trees, research times, expansion layouts, mining speed, unit acceleration, Brood Lord HP, etc. Obviously these all are interconnected. Ultimately there are sacrifices made to have a really fun 45 - 55 matchup instead of a less cool 50 - 50 matchup.

The impact the "metagame" has on balancing a competitive environment is far more pronounced in constructed Magic than in any of the other examples given. Even in draft Magic it's not as big as some designers would lead you to believe.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
i played brood war for several years and though 'progress' was always being made in both technical skill and game knowledge, the matchups were so exquisitely and elegantly balanced that you could just tweak it to where you wanted it to be by making a nice map. of course on lotem -- which disappeared as soon as inertia was no longer on its side -- i'd win 80% of PvTs and 15% of PvZs. case in point: bad design can end up being so much more influential than it ought to be

i agree that the meta is far bigger in magic than any other game (i can think of) but in draft magic it's huge too. i'd go so far as to say each format would be dysfunctional without it, as the balance issues would never self-correct. at the very best, replay value would be limited and edges infinitesimal (compared to variance). terms like 'signaling' and 'what's open(ed)' suggest this too, as does BenS murdering everyone every pro tour with whatever strategy he identifies is undervalued.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Well, I meant in terms of cube. Even if there are more players in one color (blue), it's very well possible to have archetypes that are so weak they are beyond the range of self-correction.

If the self-correction was stronger there wouldn't be years worth of articles about <insert archetpe> being underpowered.
 
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CML

CML

Contributor
i agree.

i kind of like how you can't really be 'cut' in my cube. or you can be, but then you don't have to scrap what you have. or you can draft whatever you want and have it be competitive. or you can not use your first picks and have your deck turn out great. or so on.

it's the opposite of the execrable design of "lozl i got a batterskull"
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
So, one of the joys of being a first-time website owner is poking around in Google Analytics to see what actually brings people to your site. Our search traffic has been rising by the day up from 5% of our traffic last week to over 10% now. Most of the search queries are hidden, but some are given:


"quit killing own babies"

Hmm... why on earth would that lead to our site?



Thanks Eric!
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Got wrangled into a Standard tournament today. Scrapped together a couple friends' spare cards to make a Naya Blitz style deck, which was the only viable option given the card pool. Round 1 on the draw I keep a 2 Burning-Tree hand, and draw Burning-Tree Emissaries Turns 1 and 2.

Champion of the Parish, go.
BTE, BTE, BTE, BTE, swing, go.

The deck took about 0 skill to play, but it was a little fun to just turn off my brain and have the game play itself. Never want to play the deck again though. I can't imagine spending money to build that kind of deck.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Outta curiosity, why is the cube talk forum CubeTalk5? :p
Also, do we have any plans to make subforums for cube lists, Card/Archetype Discussion, or other headings?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
We'll make subforums eventually. For now you can click on the thread tag and it will load all the threads of that tag as if it were a subforum. We're trying to keep all the activity in one place so it doesn't feel too barren here.

As to the CubeTalk5 thing? I dunno. Eric?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
This is true. Do you guys find it hard to navigate around here? I kind of like having a one-click shop for all my forum needs. We're going to reach the tipping point eventually, it's just a question of when really.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
The only hard times I find is when I'm looking for a really old thread and I'm not sure what it's called :p
Coincidentally, how do you make mana symbols? I've just been using UUGBB, but it seems there's a way to make them look like actual mana symbols
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I think it's fine having all threads here for now. The worry with subforums is they end up with very few posts in them and it just looks awkward.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Chris Taylor said:
Has anyone here tried conjurer's closet? I'm running a custom card which is remarkably similar (3 to cast 1 to use, still only during your turn etc) and I think it might be worth testing.
Click to expand...

Hmm... interesting card. I imagine it's pretty slow at 5 mana. For comparison 5-mana in my cube buys you artifacts like:
Image.ashx


Then again, Venser is 5 mana. Then again sometimes people don't even play Venser because he's pretty weak.
 
Lucre

Lucre

I had a real bad habit of taking solemn simulacrum and epochrasite early and venser always made me feel even more excited about those picks.
 
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