General New Booster

[LadyMapi]

yessss, embrace the sexy powerful cards

Eh, the real powerhouse cards tend to be brutally simple.

...

I think that the nuance that gets lost when people go "wall of text good or bad?" is that not all walls of text are created equal. Sure, Gollum, Scheming Guide has 62 words and Questing Beast has 48, but Gollum only has one ability that's reasonably simple to grasp once you've parsed it — you aren't going to have some gotcha moment when someone forgets a trigger or whatever. Questing Beast, on the other hand, has six different abilities to keep track of, which people can (and do!) forget about.

 

[Seeker]

Eh, the real powerhouse cards tend to be brutally simple.

Yeah, Narset, Parter of Veils has ten relevant words (plus a big activated ability) and how often do people get got by that to this day? (including me.)

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah, Narset, Parter of Veils has ten relevant words (plus a big activated ability) and how often do people get got by that to this day? (including me.)

It's me, I am people

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

I think since everyone here is a cube designer, we have a somewhat skewed view of complexity compared to the average player, specifically because we are (mostly) building with existing pieces and including a lot of rares and complex cards compared to your average limited environment. A new player likes Gollum in a vacuum or in a precon surrounded by less exciting cards (and why wouldn't they, it's flavorful, he asks you a riddle!), but probably would not enjoy the game in aggregate if every card in their precon had that much text and complexity. But they're a new player, so it's unlikely that they would be able to articulate that unless they already have some tcg experience. For us, we're trying to think about that big picture aggregate experience instead of just thinking about cards on an individual level, so we're all a lot more cognizant of the cumulative effects of complexity, because most of us are not running Thraben Purebloods or whatever, we're running cards that excite us.

I also think there is a huge difference between a card like Gollum that uses it's complexity to tell a story vs something like Questing Beast which is not evocative at all and just feels like word vomit. Gollum is more grokable because it is representing something that a player would expect Gollum to do. (EDIT: this point got made for me while I was typing this lol)

I also think that, similar to what LadyMapi was saying, there is a difference between "lots of words" and "hard to understand". Gollum has a lot of words, but it's basically written in plain English in a way that someone with no Magic knowledge can understand. Compared to cards with very little text but that include things like "protection", or "the ring tempts you", or "venture into the dungeon", Gollum has more words, but is easier for a new player to read and get what's going on without help.

 

[Erik Twice]

For me the issue is the disproportionate difference between the amount of text and gameplay value. While not the most egregious example, I think Gollum fails to deliver the latter for the amount of text it has.

When Gollum attacks flips a coin. If the result is heads, remove it from combat. If not, draw a card and Gollum can't be blocked this turn.

Sure, there's no "tricky" aspect to it, but the real gameplay is not going to be different enough to justify five times the text.

Either way, it's no surprise that "low complexity" failed for Wizards because what they mean by that is stuff like Goblin Piker.

 

[Rusje]

Gollum requires a choice everytime. The ability is semi-grokable. But each time the owner gets to shuffle the top two card. The opponent has to make a choice on the outcome they want. And then guess correctly. This takes up quite some time.

Cards to avoid are the ones which are most of the times played incorrectly: e.g. Keyword soup or just for once (please never mention this abomination again):

 

[Seeker]

when I was literally 11 years old I was casting Dead Ringers and having a blast

I'm pretty sure the only reason I was able to cast it correctly was the name, the name does like 95% of the heavy lifting because god knows the printed text doesn't, and nobody else seems to have the same attitude as me (because I am the weird one, I know this for sure, just bragging)

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I'm going to post the part of the original video where Mark Rosewater and Mike Turian are discussing complexity for newer players here. I think this is really important for Cube designers to watch.

I think Mark says it best:
"We've spent years and years trying to figure out how to make a good starter product, and for a long time, our number one driving factor was complexity. We [felt like we] have to make the simplest thing so people can understand it. What we eventually learned is that the thing that makes people want to play Magic is not low complexity, but excitement of the experience. The first experience needs players to want to learn to play more and think "I want to play more." What we've learned is that trying to make it as simple as possible actually doesn't do the best job of getting new players because they're like 'oh, that's there,' where if you do exciting things, even things they don't understand, they if they want to learn because it's exciting to them it pulls them in. So we've really moved away from this model that 'beginning play has to be as simple as possible' to 'beginning play has to be as Dynamic and exciting as possible."

Now I'm not saying people should cut their nice simple Lightning Bolts for the extra lines of text on Chain Lightning. I completely understand the concern of overwhelming newer drafters in a Cube environment. However, from what the people who actually make this game and have the user data back it up say, it sounds like trying to maximize the excitement factor for each card is more important than trying to do this weird complexity min-max game that we have all been trying to play.

Basically, cut the things that don't spark joy, and add the things that do. If you do that, everyone will have fun.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm déjà-vu-ing here!

 

[Jamie]

I'm déjà-vu-ing here!

Is it because of the shoes?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Is it because of the shoes?

Come again?

 

[Jamie]

 

[ellogeyen]

I think Mark says it best:
"We've spent years and years trying to figure out how to make a good starter product, and for a long time, our number one driving factor was complexity. We [felt like we] have to make the simplest thing so people can understand it. What we eventually learned is that the thing that makes people want to play Magic is not low complexity, but excitement of the experience. The first experience needs players to want to learn to play more and think "I want to play more." What we've learned is that trying to make it as simple as possible actually doesn't do the best job of getting new players because they're like 'oh, that's there,' where if you do exciting things, even things they don't understand, they if they want to learn because it's exciting to them it pulls them in. So we've really moved away from this model that 'beginning play has to be as simple as possible' to 'beginning play has to be as Dynamic and exciting as possible."

I want to add something here: Maro and WotC of course have all the data and are undoubtably correct, but their goals might just be the same as ours (at least not as mine). I've played with enough friends who were overwhelmed by walls of text on cards (which is not exclusively a Magic problem). Complexity is a serious barrier for entry for games.

But... those friends would never become Magic consumers anyway. My girlfriend, for example, is someone who plays Magic with me, but would never buy packs herself. She cares more about simplicity than excitement, as in, she'll never play something too complex. Similarly, I have multiple friends who'd like to cube with me but never buy into Magic themselves. They don't care about Magic, so WotC doesn't care about them.

So yeah, from a business point of view WotC is right. However, from an inculsivity point of view I cannot imagine they are. Complexity is a barrier for entry, always. Their goal is to set that barrier precisely high enough to interest someone into exploring Magic. My goal is to set that barrier as low as possible (while keeping it interesting for me).

So: what is your cube's goal?

 

[Velrun]

I would like to ask something that I find interesting:

Are we sure it is optimal for the game that Wizards want to bring as many new players into the game so that they can buy packs and play games instead of trying to keep those players from leaving the game so they can buy packs and play games longer?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I would like to ask something that I find interesting:

Are we sure it is optimal for the game that Wizards want to bring as many new players into the game so that they can buy packs and play games instead of trying to keep those players from leaving the game so they can buy packs and play games longer?

I don’t think Magic has a particularly high player turnover rate (at least in paper). I think the goal is to get more people invested in the game so more people will stay and play.

 

[Zoss]

I think it's optimal for Wizards to do both and I think that they are trying to do both. Things might skew one way or the other depending on how trends are looking, but they're always going to do both. Looking back at the last almost two decades I've been playing (yikes!), it's been clear that sometimes WotC is really pushing product on new players and that sometimes they're optimizing for established players.

Besides, at the rate new product is being released, it won't be long until they throw us some innovation targeted at our side of the market

 

[Seeker]

I don’t think Magic has a particularly high player turnover rate (at least in paper). I think the goal is to get more people invested in the game so more people will stay and play.

I think it has multiple different kinds of turnover rates. We all still post here, but how many of us draft WotC-provided booster packs as often as we did when we were 18 or whenever? Nobody actually quits Magic, as the old joke goes, but they sure as heck spend less etc.

 

[Nemo]

This discussion makes me want to try to design a cube that tries to be both simple and exciting. These new comments on design philosophy have me thinking.

 

[ravnic]

The problem is, exciting is subjective and context depended. Personally, I am excited by something like Roar of the Wurm, which gets me thinking how I can make best use of it. Others are excited by a "just cast me", all upside bomb like Gruff Triplets, simply because it's over 30 power and toughness and one probably has to 5-for-1 themselves to deal with it.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I mean, presumably you have a play group for which you would get your practical definition of excitement from, since those are the people you'd want to execite with your cube.

 

[ravnic]

That's true. Even though it is not always that easy to figure what each person finds exciting. For example, for some people, it depends on which side of the table they sit wether or not they like a card

 

[LadyMapi]

That's true. Even though it is not always that easy to figure what each person finds exciting. For example, for some people, it depends on which side of the table they sit wether or not they like a card

Honestly, I think avoiding GRBS is more important than a card being "exciting".

Like, as a player? Yeah, sure, cool exciting cards are cool. But as a format designer your priority is to have cool exciting play patterns, and cards are just your way of implementing that.