Reality Check

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

We have a lot of upset and outrage at the moment due to multiple different problems.

I just wanted to deliberately say…

If we didn’t love this game, if we weren’t passionate about it, if the basic implementation wasn’t so engaging, then we just wouldn’t care, we’d give up and go away and never play again.
The fact that we are speaking up is because we can see how great it can be and we are frustrated and upset when it falls short.
It’s only so very very painful because it’s so close to being right.

I’ve played Puzzle Quest games since the very very original one on PC, this is absolutely the best.
Matching gems to create mana is a perfect combination, it makes it so much more interesting than the paper game (where they need mana but the implementation is horribly boring).

We are upset at d3go for lack of proper testing, for terrible customer support decisions, for refusal to engage with us properly, for not balancing/testing the elements they’ve added(1) to Wizards standards…
…But we love the game and we want these things fixed. The original vision for the game was wonderful, it’s more the company decisions and processes that are going to kill things.

It’s time for d3go and Wizards to sit down and work out how all of these points will be fixed in the next few months and to provide the customer base with a transparent timeline. There is no space left for hidden plans, we need reassurance and honesty now.

Thank you.
Kinesia

(1) The number of shields on supports is completely added by d3go but it hasn’t been implemented evenly or reasonably. It certainly hasn’t been tested and finetuned like paper magic now is. (I remember the old days with paper magic, which is where MtGPQ currently is)
Some things like:
a) The disabling supports like Claustrophobia only have 1 shield because you are meant to be able to destroy them through gems as well as spells. This is good for gameplay and fun. (not being able to play is not fun.)
b) “Part the Waterveil” has 10 shields because it is meant to work in a cascade deck and would otherwise die too easily. Again, gameplay has been thought about.
c) “Captain’s Claws” costs 18 which is a bit extreme to start with, but it also has only 1 shield. There is an extremely high chance that this only goes off once which means you are paying 18 for a 1/1 kor ally and +1 damage once. This is not even vaguely cost effective. This is nothing like equipment in the paper game is meant to feel. Gameplay has not been thought about.
d) “Mana supports” need recosting, especially the more expensive ones. How is “Sunscorched Desert” ever worth playing in any possible sense?

2

A lot of cards could certainly do with a review, but for (c), I want to point out that people don’t say “hixus lasts for just one turn”.

And rally decks can get really insane if it gets going.

3

I think support removal really needs looked at. Should have been looked at a long time ago. If we can not get targeted support removal, the removal should at least destroy the support that has been on the board the longest and should never include token supports like clues, fabricate, embalm or aftermath. Or maybe token supports if there is no regular supports on the board.

4

Agreed.

i’m constantly surprised every time a new set is released and there isn’t a 10-12 mana spell that removes a shield from every support in play.

5

Being able to target supports and choose blockers are two ideas that should have been implemented from the get-go.

6

Choosing blockers is something I’d be back and forth about. Give the higher life totals, if you could block with anything like you can in paper magic, it would mean encounters would last much longer. However, I would like to be able to chose not to block if I have a creature with a defensive ability, or chose which one to block with if I have more than one.

Being able to target supports, however, is absolutely something I agree the game needs if for no other reason than Starfield of Nyx exists and will just keep bringing them back unless you strategically are able to randomly target that support when you cast your support destruction spell. I’ve seriously had my Demolish target a clue token over that support before and it’s maddening.

7

I thought that was the point of token supports. Secondary function to protect existing supports.

I do wish there were more support wipe options though. Like release the gremlins.

8

They deliberately overcost common cards because

  1. They think we’re too stupid to notice that the mythics are good unless the commons are rubbish, and
  2. If they make cards that nobody ever plays with, they don’t have to make sure they work properly. Hey, come to think of it, that’s probably another reason why they don’t make story modes any more.
9

Which is one of the mistakes immature game designers make, original Magic started with that kind of thing but got over it mostly. I’m just a player but I’ve read most of Mark Rosewater’s design columns on magic and I get the strong sense that the d3go designers need to desperately, there is a lot of established wisdom they are ignoring.

Escalation of power and making rares strictly better is one of the reasons Pokemon is such a terrible terrible game compared to magic. 10 years on you can look at both of them and clearly see the results of the different philosophies. Paper Magic fixed most of the biggest problems but Magic Puzzle Quests is doing a lot of the things that were rejected long ago.

10

There’s a lot going here with “assymmetrical gameplay”.

One of the philosophies you need is “Being locked out of the game, not able to act, is not fun”.
There are cards that are fun to play but not to play against.
But also, we aren’t playing real people, we are playing an AI. We do not need to make sure the AI is “having fun”, so this becomes a bit different from the paper game in some ways.

Having all your creatures locked down is not fun and black and blue need ways to deal with supports that they don’t need in Paper. Hence the low shields for some things and a few gem manipulation tools.
In Paper you can also mix colours more easily even with mono Planeswalkers.
In Paper there aren’t just 3 stacks of creatures and ‘enchant creatures’ only affects 1 thing, not a stack.
In Paper generating 10 thopters lets you get around the ‘support’ but here it escalates the problem.
So the rules on what is fun and acceptable change because there are different restrictions and the ways to deal with things have changed.

If you are playing against Hixus you need a way to be able to get rid of it. You might not have any other options at all.
If you are playing Hixus you want to protect it, but it’s not the same degree of disappointment. It only costs 6, and there are a lot of potential other things you can do.
(Similar for some other cards, but Hixus is a good example here)

Captain’s Claws, sure you can try and protect it, but it costs 18, that changes things a lot, that is potentialy 3 or 4 turns of NOT PLAYING ANYTHING ELSE to get it out. If it dies straight away then you are gutted in a way you aren’t with other things.
There’s a huge psychology element involved.

If you pay 20 and get Tyrant of Valakut out then it does damage, so even if they kill it straight away it’s done something.
If you pay 20 and get out a 10/10 flier instead, if they kill it straight away it hurts more because it hasn’t done anything yet.

There is a huge amount in this game about “managing disappointment” that isn’t necessary from the AI side.
Yes, there is a spike of joy in doing something cool or getting a cascade or finally removing “Cruel Edict”, but most of the game isn’t about the spike of joy, it’s about keeping the ongoing disappointment down so it doesn’t drown the spike of joy.

The psychology behind the mechanics needs to be evaluated and the cards adjusted so that everything is “fun to play” on even a small level.

11

Great points but I wonder how much of it is considered when 5-30 minutes per card is spent on design.

12

Definitely. But they can stop, step back, evaluate these general principles and then apply them more generally after that, the “per card” part comes after they have adjusted their general approach.

I think they have been doing things “per card” to some degree in a vain attempt to “keep up”, but long term it gets you further behind so they need reevaluate that approach and plan long term better.

There are definite signs in the basic design that they used to think more about how to appeal to people, the basics are there, they’ve just been abandoned in the last little while.