Brainstorming on Enjoyable Objectives

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

With the new and poorly received Race to Orazca event, my general sentiment about the game has soured further. The objectives are a rehash of the same boring and tedious objectives that we have been living with for well over a year. It honestly reminds me of those DirectTV commercials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RpmwqaxrwA. “Some people like banging their head into low hanging beams, spilling coffee on themselves, or ending a match with 20 or less life in MTGPQ… for the rest of us…”

Not only are many of these objectives insanely tedious, they also encourage one of the most tedious methods of accomplishing the goal in the entire game (cycling). Beyond that, and as mentioned in other threads, the insanity of combining “Creatures get…” game overlays with “Cast x or less creatures” and similar contradictory objectives ruins the intent of the overlay in the first place.

However, there is a big problem here. Because we have 2 conflicting conditions that force objectives to be a certain way.

  1. They must be challenging for veteran players.
  2. They must be manageable for newer players.

Here in lies the problem. The answer for the last year has been to use luck based (kill x creatures) and tedium based (win with 20 or life left) objectives. Unfortunately, I was sick of these the first day I played them. And now it has been over a year! This has made the game not fun, and I will not waste my life on playing a not fun game.

So, to the point of the post. Can we as a community come up with some good ideas that will be both challenging for veterans and approachable by newbies? Which objectives do you already like? Which really need to go? Are there other ideas that might help with this issue?

One idea I have is segmenting the objectives by mastery level. As an example, in the blue node:
Platinum: Cast 3 or more merfolks and cast 5 or more spells.
Gold: Cast 2 or more merfolks and cast 5 or more spells.
Silver: Cast 3 or more blue creatures and cast 5 or more spells.
Bronze: Cast 2 or more blue creatures and cast 3 or more spells.

Perhaps those objectives are too easy, but just putting some ideas out there.

Another idea would be to make Greg better as you increase in color mastery. Why not just have fun objectives but a challenging opponent that prevents 300 players from tying for first prize? Using tedium and luck to increase dispersion between outcomes does not lead to a fun player experience.

Anyway, let me hear your thoughts. I will be ignoring my last 16 games because the potential for 80 jewels is’t remotely worth the 2 hours it will take me to potentially win them.

2

I haven’t minded the “Cast x or more [creature / support / spell]” as it encourages building the deck in new ways. Adding in tribal objectives seems an intuitive next step.

An interesting idea I just had… what if they brought back the old magic mechanic of tribal spells / supports. There could be Merfolk / Vampire spells and supports, so that there could be a “Cast x or more vampire cards” which could be spells, supports or creatures. Other nodes could specify creature or spell etc.

3

I like your blue node and Greg difficulty suggestion. As a Platinum player, I do believe objectives should be easier for lower tier players.

If players want to restrict what cards they can play with for easier awards, well they’re paying the price for the shortcut (less fun and options for easier objectives).

Greg should play like his old clumsy-self for Bronze/Silver players.

I know this game doesn’t have a pay wall per se; but if I was a new player starting this game at this point in time, I’d have a hard time believing these new event objectives weren’t a substitute for that.

At least there’s Across Ixalan, the bountiful temple surrounded by a jungle of “meh”.

4

In general, I broadly divide the secondary objectives into 2 categories: “Play well” (win in X or less turns, take X or less damage, etc.) and “Play badly” (lose X or more life, finish at below X life, lose X or more creatures). “Play well” objectives are generally enjoyable as long as they’re not totally unreasonable (e.g., kill Exquisite Archangel in 4 turns or less) but “Play badly” objectives are pretty consistently unfun, and I really wish the devs would stop using them.

Special mention needs to made of “kill X or more creatures”: objectives that are entirely out of our control (assuming we don’t have Dowsing Dagger yet) need to go away forever right now. Might as well just have a coin-flip animation and RNG to determine whether we get the extra points or not.

“Summon X or more creatures”, “cast X or fewer spells” type of objectives are a little more borderline, depending on the exact specifics, but in general, casting more stuff is more fun and casting less stuff is less fun. It’s game-design-101 right there: reward your players for playing the game and doing stuff.

The only exception is that sometimes restrictions on “cast X or less [card-type]” can lead to creative deckbuilding (at least could before cycling became a thing). But there’s no point in doing that when you could instead just have the optional objectives go straight to deckbuilding - win with more than X [card subtype] in your deck, win with less than X [card type] in your deck. That would also cut out cycling from the equation, and pave the the way, coding-wise, for something players have been asking for since forever: pauper-type objectives - “win with fewer than X [mythics/rares] in your deck”.

5

I like the idea of objectives per mastery level – I also have always been a fan of either or objectives. Maybe like 4 possible with a combination of any 2 for maximum points. Almost – choose your own adventure.

6

I’m thoroughly hating when I build a deck to obey the “laws” yet my opponent is running rampant with a deck that does not in any way shape or form.

7

I love the mastery level idea for objectives. Always have.

I like having objectives that promote different play styles. The worst part of this game is being pigeonholed into a specific strategy to meet limited, RNG-driven objectives.

One of my favorite objective types is the “either/or” method such as Avacyn’s Madness 1.2:
3 pts - 3 or less spells
2 pts - 6 or more spells

Or even 1.1:

3 pts - 10 or less damage
2 pts - 25 or more damage

Now, keep in mind I hate damage nodes, because they’re ridiculously random–I’ve seen Samut empty her hand, including herself, on the first turn, after I start the game with a 3-mana match, and cost me a damage objective. That’s not challenging, that’s just stupid. But if they insist upon stupid objectives, having a backup objective would lessen the blow of losing to pure RNG.

Or perhaps we could dispense with the either/or and just have laddered objectives that provide player agency and stimulate deck/pw diversity. Just off the top of my head:

Win game - 4 pts

Cast 5+ supports - 3 pts
Cast 3-4 supports - 2 pts
Cast 2 or less supports - 1 pt

Cast 5 or more spells - 1 pt
Cast 3-4 spells - 2 pts
Cast 2 or less spells - 3 pts

Then, the person building a support-heavy low-spell deck could score just as many points as the person playing a spell-heavy low-support deck, depending on the path they took.

8

Something I would like to see more of is objectives based on what you include in your own deck, rather than what an opponent may or may not have in theirs.

I’m not talking about “X or more/fewer creatures/spells/supports” objectives either. Rather, I think they should make objectives where you get points based purely on what’s in your deck, and then as a way to inject some level of competition into it, they could also pair those deck restrictions with event objectives that make it more challenging to use decks of certain builds. So you could be incentivized to make a deck that will be more challenging to achieve full points with. Sort of a high-risk, high-reward scenario.

I’d give more thought to this and flesh it out, but my afternoon caffeine hasn’t kicked in quite yet.

9

I just don’t want to go back to another Fate is Rarely Fair. One of the most tedious and boring events to date (though the most recent one might be worse)

10

I can see why you might have mistaken my intent, but I agree completely that that event was garbage. I wasn’t talking about that.

To further clarify, what I was suggesting (but neglected to include, due to my waning caffeine reserves) is that there is a reward structure (personal or coalition, or both) that is tiered, and whose payout rises in concert with deck building restrictions that get more difficult.

So maybe there’s a restriction that says you can’t use MPs, for instance, or you can only bring one creature in your deck, or you can only have one mythic of each type (creature, spell, support). Things like that. Those might be terrible ideas; I’m not a game designer, and I don’t claim to be an expert. But I would have a lot of fun trying to find ways to make difficult concepts into decks that will also get me more rewards.

11

The big problems with FIRF were:
Vehicle requirements in EVERY node
Awful secondary objectives like win with 20 ore less life.

Amazing that they repeated the same problems.

12

This thread is a great idea and I like all the suggestions so far. There were many good suggestions on past threads and I hope they find their way here. The most frustrating thing is that there are so many possibilities, which makes it even more maddening that we have to suffer through the same stupid objectives again and again.

13

Maybe there should be two objectives:
First: given on the basis of deck build: (no spells > 10 mana, no cycling cards, no creatures with evasion, no more than x rares/mythics )
One regarding strategy during match: play less / more than x. No deliberate matches of xxx colors (unless there is no other colors left). Draw more than x cards on your turn. Summon x…

14

How about color-based objectives (maybe better for Nodes of Power, but still)

Green: Have a creature with X power or more (20, 25, 30 probably good)
Summon X or more creatures (don’t mind this one as long as its no more than 5 or 6)
Win a match using only Common/Uncommon creatures

White: Destroy X or more disabled creatures (1, 2, 3 enough, note doesn’t have to be opponent’s)
Create X or more tokens (15+ probably, maybe less)
Have 3 creatures out with both flying and vigilance at the same time

Red: Deal X or moredamage with spells (30, 40, 50, maybe more? maybe only to players?)
Destroy X or more gems in a match (make this super high, it’ll be fun)
Something Berserker based (Drawing a blank here)

Blue: Attempt to draw X or more cards in a turn (3, 4, 5)
Drain X or more mana (20-40 probably)
Cast X or more spells/supports (don’t mind this one either, again as long as its reasonable)

Black: Bring X or more creatures from your graveyard to your hand/field (2, 3, 4)
Force a player to discard X or more cards
Give creatures total -X/-X or more (makes Languish and stuff useful)

15

Mostly I enjoy objectives that deal with my choices in deckbuilding, such as “cast 3 or more dudes with embalm” or “cast 2 or less spells” than objectives that depend on the opponent (“20 or less life”, “lose 3 or less creatures”). Even “x or more damage” is tons less tedious than “x or less life”.

I do understand though that it would probably be too easy and there should be an element beyond your control. But when you get paired to a red deck on the “x damage or less” or a black deck on the “lose x or less creatures” it just feels a bit unfair. You basically know from the start you won’t have a chance at those points.

16

Is the game locked in to two objectives?

Otherwise, why not have two achievable objectives like (could be tiered for mastery levels also):
Cast 4 Dinosaur Creatures
Cast 4 Spells

And then add a third, harder objective, as a divider for the top competetive players.

Enrage 6 Dinosaur Creatures

Rewarding points like:
3 for win
3 for first two objectives
1 for the ‘kicker’
Total 10 pts.

Building a deck only for easy wins will be less rewarding and a themed deck will be more rewarding.
And a deck that can meet the first two objectives will be possible for most players.

17

The idea of a third objective seems a bit risky to me. For each objective , you loose some flexibility in your deck … And flexibility is the better way not to get bored.
Besides, the more objectives you put, the more the cycling filtering might become (or more likely remain) the more intuitive or reliable option … And it looks like no one wants that.

I realy like the either A or B concept, it offers more flexibility to the decks and may lead players to try diferent decks for the same nodes from an iteration to another.

The tribal option seems to seduce a lot of players. As each node is related to 2 factions it could be something like:
→ first objective “play X merfolks AND/OR pirates”. More cards available, more sinergies to find, and so on …
→ the secundary could be an option related to each of the two tribes : cast X spells AND/OR find X treasures.
It would allow players to build full tribal decks but they could also think about interesting hybrid decks …

The problem of difficulty remains … But if the objectives that are supposed to be difficult mostly rely on luck as it has been said before it doesn’t seems a better option to me.
There must be a way to make this challenging without them. (Actually, the across ixalan effect that gives a better boost to oponent could be an easy way to enhance difficulty).

18

I want objectives that encourage tribes rather than restrict to them.
I want people to want to play dinosaurs without it saying “play 5 dinosaurs”
They need to match the colour too.
I am convinced that the event was tested and designed WITHOUT objectives and they were slammed in at the last minute.

They should never contradict the colour unless it’s very deliberate inblock and commons can make it work.
Green should never ever have “cast < X creatures”
Blue should never have “cast < X spells” (Well, ok, blue can do either spells or supports, but there are way too many cast < X spells, sick of it) And in this case it was the opposite of what the merfolk node wanted.

To encourage dinos just “Have your creatures take damage 10 times”

Match 5 supports

Do not destroy any creatures with spells

19

I am not absolutely convinced by the need to have different objectives in each tier. After all the objectives are shared by everyone in the tier, and if it’s difficult to cast 3 merfolks in silver, then it’s difficult for everyone there and the average scores are lower.

But I completly agree we should really have "cast X [insert creature subtype] " objectives in the event.

They really missed the chance to make us use our new cards. It is a pity because the tribal bonus for each node was a great idea.

In current Emrakul’s Corruption you face vampires, werewolves, Eldrazis. In Race to Orazca I faced a single pirate deck (a fun one, with treasure generation and Marionette Master) and one Merfolk deck. But no Dino, no vampire (and the event had a high number of games though…)

20

I don’t like the idea of differing objectives per tier, mostly due to the difficulty of conversations. Today, we can all chat on forums and Discord about the challenges of the HoR red node. Imagine the complexity if the objectives were different based on tier! In practice, it has been the case that lower tiers don’t require you to make the objectives as much to do well, so it’s not really needed anyway.

That being said, I’ll second whomever talked about more open ended objectives (can’t find the post right now). For instance, one objective could be “Find all 4 treasures”. Doesn’t have to be pirates, but I guess that helps. In AKH/HoU, it could have been “create at least 20 creature tokens” - could be solved by zombie tokens, embalm guys, etc. Basically create objectives that are supported by the cards in the set (thus encouraging players to use them), but not requiring (“Play 5 dinosaurs” would do that, “have your creatures be dealt damage to at least 5 times” does not).