MaRo has gone over this in his "everything is kicker" explanation. The problem is that kicker is too broad, and it helps the flavor and design of a set when a more narrow variant is used. See here (scroll down to Kicked When You're Down). Note, this was written in 2007! And people are still asking the question: "Why isn't this kicker?" Point proven, I think.
No point not proven. It could be that it is more flavorful (Is it really? If you have to use a name of the mechanic to sell flavor you are doing something wrong). However, it brings unnecessary mental load. In standard it won't matter at all, but for cubes or eternal formats it is an unnecessary burden.
Uh... wow. There's a lot to pick apart here. Just because it works for you (or you think it works for you), doesn't mean it's better if they called everything kicker.
Yes. The word "kicker" conveys no flavor at all. It's a word that mechanically describes what happens (using this meaning of the word: an extra clause in a contract), but it doesn't even convey a lot of information, just that there is someway to have the card do... more? Compare this, for example, to "entwine", which literally is just kicker. The word "entwine", however, conveys that you are winding or twisting something together (in this case two different effects).
I hard disagree with this notion, both the conclusion, and the way you try are throwing mechanic names under the bus. The thing is, WotC isn't using just the name of a mechanic to sell the flavor, it's also using the name of the mechanic to sell the flavor, in conjunction with other things. First and foremost the way the mechanic works, obviously, but also through art direction, for example. MaRo has talked a lot about grokkability, in particular in this article, from which I will quote this important section:
What this comes down to, is that every little bit that helps players to more readily 'grok' a card, makes that card easier to play. There are a lot of things WotC can do to make a card more grokkable, and one of those things is using mechanic names that match with what the mechanic does. The problem is that that only works if the mechanic isn't too broad, which is one of the points MaRo makes in my previously linked article.
Debatable. Remember that kicker is very broad, and doesn't convey a lot of information beyond knowing the card has some additional cost anyway. You don't know what cost (could be mana, or sacrificing something, or paying life, etc.), and you don't know what the benefit is going to be. Heck, there are even actual kicker cards where paying the kicker removes a negative quality rather than adding something (looking at you Skizzik). In short, the keyword kicker itself doesn't reduce mental load by a lot to begin with. And sure, we can't expect people to know every keyword by heart, but if someone does know a mechanic (that is not kicker), they can grasp what that card does a lot quicker than with kicker. E.g. if I see 'entwine' on a card, I immediately know that it's a modal spell with two options, and that I can choose both if I pay the entwine cost. Had it been kicker, I would have had to read the entire card to see what the kicker does.
That's a cynic take that ignores all the arguments (which you call excuses) in favor of not using kicker (or split cards) for almost everything. Even if you are right, and having unique mechanics actually sells sets (which is a debatable statement, looking at the success of Time Spiral, Dominaria, and Modern Horizons, just to name a few sets (years or even decades apart) that feature a lot of reused mechanics), isn't it a good thing if Magic sells better? Obviously that's a different discussion, but I kind of hate the argument "this is just WotC trying to sell more cards" when we are talking about a design/development choice that doesn't even increase the price of Magic. There's lots of things this argument can be applied to (like the mythic rarity, or the Universes Beyond line), but unique mechanic names isn't one of them in my mind.
I mean, this is a fair sentiment to have...
...but that doesn't mean unique mechanic names that are subsets of kicker (or split cards) are useless. Sorry for the rant, nothing personal, apparently it's just something I care about
For what it's worth, I do think 'cleave' looks pretty ugly.
Where to begin?Uh... wow. There's a lot to pick apart here. Just because it works for you (or you think it works for you), doesn't mean it's better if they called everything kicker.
Yes. The word "kicker" conveys no flavor at all. It's a word that mechanically describes what happens (using this meaning of the word: an extra clause in a contract), but it doesn't even convey a lot of information, just that there is someway to have the card do... more? Compare this, for example, to "entwine", which literally is just kicker. The word "entwine", however, conveys that you are winding or twisting something together (in this case two different effects).
I hard disagree with this notion, both the conclusion, and the way you try are throwing mechanic names under the bus. The thing is, WotC isn't using just the name of a mechanic to sell the flavor, it's also using the name of the mechanic to sell the flavor, in conjunction with other things. First and foremost the way the mechanic works, obviously, but also through art direction, for example. MaRo has talked a lot about grokkability, in particular in this article, from which I will quote this important section:
What this comes down to, is that every little bit that helps players to more readily 'grok' a card, makes that card easier to play. There are a lot of things WotC can do to make a card more grokkable, and one of those things is using mechanic names that match with what the mechanic does. The problem is that that only works if the mechanic isn't too broad, which is one of the points MaRo makes in my previously linked article.
Debatable. Remember that kicker is very broad, and doesn't convey a lot of information beyond knowing the card has some additional cost anyway. You don't know what cost (could be mana, or sacrificing something, or paying life, etc.), and you don't know what the benefit is going to be. Heck, there are even actual kicker cards where paying the kicker removes a negative quality rather than adding something (looking at you Skizzik). In short, the keyword kicker itself doesn't reduce mental load by a lot to begin with. And sure, we can't expect people to know every keyword by heart, but if someone does know a mechanic (that is not kicker), they can grasp what that card does a lot quicker than with kicker. E.g. if I see 'entwine' on a card, I immediately know that it's a modal spell with two options, and that I can choose both if I pay the entwine cost. Had it been kicker, I would have had to read the entire card to see what the kicker does.
That's a cynic take that ignores all the arguments (which you call excuses) in favor of not using kicker (or split cards) for almost everything. Even if you are right, and having unique mechanics actually sells sets (which is a debatable statement, looking at the success of Time Spiral, Dominaria, and Modern Horizons, just to name a few sets (years or even decades apart) that feature a lot of reused mechanics), isn't it a good thing if Magic sells better? Obviously that's a different discussion, but I kind of hate the argument "this is just WotC trying to sell more cards" when we are talking about a design/development choice that doesn't even increase the price of Magic. There's lots of things this argument can be applied to (like the mythic rarity, or the Universes Beyond line), but unique mechanic names isn't one of them in my mind.
I mean, this is a fair sentiment to have...
...but that doesn't mean unique mechanic names that are subsets of kicker (or split cards) are useless. Sorry for the rant, nothing personal, apparently it's just something I care about
For what it's worth, I do think 'cleave' looks pretty ugly.
They all do very similar things, with some small tweaks. Maybe kicker is broad, but having many different functions which are similar makes reading programming code a pain. Especially if you revisit the code for the first time after a while. Many times it is easier to code 2 lines which are easy to understand than to have 10 very similar, but just a tad different, functions. Costly mistakes are easily made by misremembering one of the functions.
Extremely used programs and many programmers disagree with you (Excel has 8 functions for just standard deviation variants rather than 1 that mashes those "tweaks" together). Because at the end of the day, things like this are really quite different, not so much "tweaks". You can have another opinion on that of course, but Cleave is very mechanically different to me than Overload and other "this could be kicker"
I think this is the first time we've seen him not in his armor and without his sword nearby or in his hand. I guess even Sorin lets loose a bit for a wedding.
You mean stdev.p, stdev, stdev.s and many others? I will not whine about excel, but this naming, and the minor difference is exactly what I mean by mistakes will be made...
Look, I'm not saying that I'm definitely going to include Chandra in her wedding attire regardless of her textbox, but a whole set of sexy vampires in formal wear is going to require the bonking stick basically constantly.
I appreciate the thorough response, and I agree, communicating is much easier when it's done in person! I feel your pain, but if we are going to compare this to programming, kicker is like a function 'math' that just does everything math-related. That would make using it so hard that it's better to split the function into multiple functions that are more clearly defined (and named), like 'add', 'substract', 'multiply', and so forth. The only problem, as you well spotted, is that WotC has long had a policy of adding a lot of new mechanics in each new set. They should (and in fact do, nowadays; I can again point to Dominaria as a recent example) more often recycle mechanics, but we are talking about a game that is closing in on 30 years of existing. There are so many sets, and thus so many mechanics, that it becomes almost impossible to know every mechanic by heart.
As a math person... your professor is full of shit.
Correct. Technically, substraction is negative addition, and division is fractional multiplication. However:
