-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
I do wonder how Magic would change (aside form mana denial getting significantly worse) if we had a "land library" and a "non-land library". Whenever you draw a card, you could choose from which pile you draw your stuff. Same goes for search, reveal effects, etc.; this would basically prevent you from ever getting manascrewed/flooded. I'm well aware that it would need safety measures (like a minimum library size to prevent T1ing every turn because a too small non-land library would allow to draw combos every starter hand) and would fundamentally change how certain cards work in terms of power level (e.g. Brainstorm, Bob, etc.), but it's just a silly thought experiement.
Depends on what you mean. If you mean trying to implement that into the game now... I just don't think it would work. For better or for worse, the game's cards have all been made with an attempt at balancing them around mana screw; you can't just throw that out without screwing everything up.
If the game were designed with this idea from the outset, though, that would be a different thing. In fact, there is a TCG out there that very similar Magic but with something akin to what you describe called Force of Will. It's not exactly what you describe (you don't really "draw" from your land deck, you tap your Ruler--sort of like a Commander--to put the top card of it into play) but it carries the same general idea. I thought it was actually a pretty darn good game, but unfortunately some bad decisions cost the game a lot of popularity last year, which is a shame because it was actually growing in popularity at a pretty fast rate beforehand. I've heard the game has been regaining a little popularity over the last few months but it's hard for me to judge because it wasn't popular in my area even at the height of its popularity. Still, for whatever flaws there were in the execution of the game, I think the basic rules were basically just a better version of Magic.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
Depends on what you mean. If you mean trying to implement that into the game now... I just don't think it would work. For better or for worse, the game's cards have all been made with an attempt at balancing them around mana screw; you can't just throw that out without screwing everything up.
If the game were designed with this idea from the outset, though, that would be a different thing. In fact, there is a TCG out there that very similar Magic but with something akin to what you describe called Force of Will. It's not exactly what you describe (you don't really "draw" from your land deck, you tap your Ruler--sort of like a Commander--to put the top card of it into play) but it carries the same general idea. I thought it was actually a pretty darn good game, but unfortunately some bad decisions cost the game a lot of popularity last year, which is a shame because it was actually growing in popularity at a pretty fast rate beforehand. I've heard the game has been regaining a little popularity over the last few months but it's hard for me to judge because it wasn't popular in my area even at the height of its popularity. Still, for whatever flaws there were in the execution of the game, I think the basic rules were basically just a better version of Magic.
Or you could just change the mulligan rule to something like this: Once you decide to keep your opening hand, subtract the number of cards in your hand from 7, and scry x where x is that number. For example, if I mulligan to 3 I'd be able to scry 4.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Sorry -- my point was that Wasteland is balanced in a world where your duals come in for no life -- you couldn't put such a thing in a shockland format because it would severely pressure mana instead of strategically pressuring it. Whether or not Wasteland is on the reserved list is immaterial -- it is too powerful in a world where the duals are anything worse than the ABUR editions. There are similar arguments for Force and several other cards in Legacy.
I agree with you about Modern. In fact the amount of time and energy expended on Modern indicates that what the most vocal and enfranchised players want to do with this game is strategic, competetive constructed, but this is at odds with Wizards' goal of perpetual expansion. What feeds that goal is things like limited and standard, but those don't appeal to the same feelings.
So you have a game whose depth is a key reason that people get invested and stay involved, but that depth also makes perpetual profitability and customer acquisition incredibly difficult. It's not a great equation.
I agree, I don't think Wasteland+Shocks would make a fun dynamic, but Wizards is not limited to the cards currently printed. They can print land-hate stronger than Ghost Quarter but weaker than Wasteland and duals stronger than Shocks but weaker than ABU. Similarly, FoW is also not necessarily the only way you can print playable t0 interaction, Brainstorm+fetches not the only way to design a tool that gives decks card selection / profitable ways to trade off dead cards in hand.
If they want this format they can have it. Modern could conceivably be *better* than legacy. I just don't think they really care - if anything, it's bad for business if formats that don't require constantly spending money are way more fun than formats that do. That sounds kinda conspiratorial and I don't think they purposely make modern bad, but they also really don't spend that much energy finding ways to make it better.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Richard Cheese
Have you played the current iteration of Duels of the Planeswalkers? It's on Steam, iOS, Android, and I'm pretty sure PSN/XBL too. Definitely got off to a rocky start, but most of the bugs have been ironed out at this point, Stainless is getting better at communicating, and updates are showing up on time. Has seasons, has rankings, can grind for cards or spend real money. Pretty decent IMO.
I just don't think a digital version of MtG is ever going to be as good as something that was designed to be digital. Duels does a pretty good job, but they've definitely had to drop some of the more subtle/obscure rules interactions, and you still end up with an awkward "response window" timer and something that just doesn't flow as well as Hearthstone. Hopefully I'm wrong and they'll find some really talented game designers who can come up with really elegant solutions for things like that.
Personally I think they should be leveraging the solid product they already have. Not that a digital counterpart is bad, but I always thought a big part of what makes Magic fun is getting to hang out with other people that have similar nerdy interests and I hardly ever see them pushing that aspect. Their marketing is either some weird ego trip shit like "Here I rule!" and "power up your deck with more mythic bullshit to crush your opponents!", or it's completely focused on plotlines and main characters.
Meanwhile, they exercise no quality control over stores or venues, have fair to mediocre coverage of large events, and seem to be on an active crusade to make those big events as unappealing as possible to physically attend. They're also moving at a snail's pace in response to fairly widespread coverage of buyouts and counterfeiting.
To their credit, they are pushing multiplayer products pretty hard, and getting some reprints in at the same time with the draft-only sets. I just wish they'd put some effort into showing that the game is a social activity. A bunch of kids gathered around a table losing their shit when a player top decks their only out, people laughing and comparing sealed pools, handshakes after a hard-fought match, marathon gaming sessions in the basement with movies and snacks and shit. That's what Magic has that Hearthstone doesn't, and I think it is (or should be) a large part of the appeal of the game.
Yeah I agree with all of this 100%. There is some low hanging fruit when it comes to making MTGO less crappy, but MTGO will always serve the role as 'something you're doing because you can't play magic in real life right now'. The idea that real life games will fully be 'disrupted' by digital is silly, they are different markets. Hearthstone might make exponentially more money than MTGO, but so does Uber, doesn't mean Wizards is a failure if it doesn't conquer the taxi industry.
There are so many things that could be done to make paper tournament magic better. Some of them are super easy - text people their matches. Some of them might be harder and more expensive - ensure that larger tournaments have bathrooms that are regularly cleaned and not-food options, stuff to do beyond buy cards. And some of them are kinda abstract, like improve LGS environments and ensure that the ones that really are 'magic stores' are economically viable in the long-term.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Yeah I agree with all of this 100%. There is some low hanging fruit when it comes to making MTGO less crappy, but MTGO will always serve the role as 'something you're doing because you can't play magic in real life right now'. The idea that real life games will fully be 'disrupted' by digital is silly, they are different markets. Hearthstone might make exponentially more money than MTGO, but so does Uber, doesn't mean Wizards is a failure if it doesn't conquer the taxi industry.
There are so many things that could be done to make paper tournament magic better. Some of them are super easy - text people their matches. Some of them might be harder and more expensive - ensure that larger tournaments have bathrooms that are regularly cleaned and not-food options, stuff to do beyond buy cards. And some of them are kinda abstract, like improve LGS environments and ensure that the ones that really are 'magic stores' are economically viable in the long-term.
talking about making MTGO better, I think that there are a few things that could be done to immensely boost the popularity of it. first of all, make it subscription based, or have cards be priced at low prices depending on rarity(for example: mythics-$2,rares-$1,uncommons-$0.50,commons-$0.25,basiclands-free) getting rid of the secondary market which is responsible for the outrageously high costs of some decks; 2. make the UI and visuals better, this is pretty obvious and they've done a decent job with DotP; 3. get a better coding team to reduce bugs. MtGO, I think would be a very good investment for WotC because last I heard mtgo accounts for like half profits or something like that. The Magic Digital Next thing theyve been hinting at could be a better version of mtgo but it could also be a watered-down version of magic to compete with Hearthstone, hopefully it's the latter...
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Or you could just change the mulligan rule to something like this: Once you decide to keep your opening hand, subtract the number of cards in your hand from 7, and scry x where x is that number. For example, if I mulligan to 3 I'd be able to scry 4.
That would cause big problems with combo decks. I don't think it's feasible.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Yeah I agree with all of this 100%. There is some low hanging fruit when it comes to making MTGO less crappy, but MTGO will always serve the role as 'something you're doing because you can't play magic in real life right now'. The idea that real life games will fully be 'disrupted' by digital is silly, they are different markets. Hearthstone might make exponentially more money than MTGO, but so does Uber, doesn't mean Wizards is a failure if it doesn't conquer the taxi industry.
There are so many things that could be done to make paper tournament magic better. Some of them are super easy - text people their matches. Some of them might be harder and more expensive - ensure that larger tournaments have bathrooms that are regularly cleaned and not-food options, stuff to do beyond buy cards. And some of them are kinda abstract, like improve LGS environments and ensure that the ones that really are 'magic stores' are economically viable in the long-term.
These are all good ideas, especially with regard to MTG-focused LGSs since those are really where Magic differentiates itself from Hearthstone and the like.
As for design and non-rotating formats, which have come up several times in this thread: I think making a statement by firing the folks at the top had value, but it's reasonably likely that firing Stoddard and Rosewater would spawn a competitor that had built-in marketing strength from MaRo's fans. I doubt that fear was the key motivating factor (loyalty and confidence in their abilities almost certianly played larger roles), but it's still worth considering. In terms of how to support non-rotaing formats that people want to play, a potential casual/competitive divide could emerge between Commander and Pauper. Both are somewhat well-established already, have easy-to-follow deckbuilding rules, and Pauper has been spared both the most egregious combo-enablers/interaction reducers and the lion's share of threat power creep that's created problematic Modern, Legacy, and Vintage decks. There are some issues with monetizing it because it's all commons, but explicitly making it pseudo-rotating (with annual/semi-annual B&R action) isn't nearly as onerous for players as doing the same thing in Legacy or Modern.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
I agree with everyone that says the best move for MTG is to embrace its uniqueness and make meeting up in person to play a game, at the store or at home, the core of their marketing or whatever. That is probably better than trying to duplicate what the digital-first games are doing or hoping to make it 1997 again through science or magic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
I agree, I don't think Wasteland+Shocks would make a fun dynamic, but Wizards is not limited to the cards currently printed. They can print land-hate stronger than Ghost Quarter but weaker than Wasteland and duals stronger than Shocks but weaker than ABU. Similarly, FoW is also not necessarily the only way you can print playable t0 interaction, Brainstorm+fetches not the only way to design a tool that gives decks card selection / profitable ways to trade off dead cards in hand.
If they want this format they can have it. Modern could conceivably be *better* than legacy. I just don't think they really care - if anything, it's bad for business if formats that don't require constantly spending money are way more fun than formats that do. That sounds kinda conspiratorial and I don't think they purposely make modern bad, but they also really don't spend that much energy finding ways to make it better.
We're on the same page. My contention is that they wouldn't have to worry about making a slightly-more-powerful-but-not-quite-the-same eternal/non-rotating format if they could simply support the one they have. But we don't have to belabor it.
Funny how you would suggest they may purposely make modern bad... until the bannings I would've told you they were purposely making Standard bad. Obviously I don't believe that, but I definitely think Wizards 2017 would much rather the game was all limited... sells more cards, no secondary market to worry about, easier to balance. Hopefully a few people over there still understand that brewing is a big part of the reason many players love this game for the long term.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
btm10
I think making a statement by firing the folks at the top had value, but it's reasonably likely that firing Stoddard and Rosewater would spawn a competitor that had built-in marketing strength from MaRo's fans. I doubt that fear was the key motivating factor (loyalty and confidence in their abilities almost certianly played larger roles), but it's still worth considering.
I just threw that in to be cheeky. I know why it didn't happen. However I think a lot of players would've appreciated the message. Many players smarter than I had been expressing a lot of the concerns about the game that came to bear, for months if not years. I think new thinking is needed in design and development as the game seems to be losing customers (as indicated by the Standard Showdown and bannings, which never happen unless there's a drop in attendance). Growth in revenue can be attributed to things like Eternal Masters (uh, $10 packs, hello) more than a vibrant and growing player base given the company's own actions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
btm10
In terms of how to support non-rotaing formats that people want to play, a potential divide could emerge between Commander and Pauper. Both are somewhat well-established already, have easy-to-follow deckbuilding rules, and Pauper has been spared both the most egregious combo-enablers/interaction reducers and the lion's share of threat power creep that's created problematic Modern, Legacy, and Vintage decks. There are some issues with monetizing it because it's all commons, but explicitly making it pseudo-rotating (with annual/semi-annual B&R action) isn't nearly as onerous for players as doing the same thing in Legacy or Modern.
I don't think Commander and Pauper solve the non-rotating format issue as it relates to the health of the game. It's all about preventing customers from feeling like their holding the bag from a value perspective. A store literally invented a format to prop up prices last year. The MTG economy is a major shitshow but it's also a major part of the game. I think we'd all be better off if more people would look at cards as sunk cost, like you do with most other hobbies, but that's just not happening. Granted that's easy for me to say as a professional adult and not a high school/college kid. I certainly felt differently back then.
-
Re: The current state
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
I don't think Commander and Pauper solve the non-rotating format issue as it relates to the health of the game. It's all about preventing customers from feeling like their holding the bag from a value perspective. A store literally invented a format to prop up prices last year. The MTG economy is a major shitshow but it's also a major part of the game. I think we'd all be better off if more people would look at cards as sunk cost, like you do with most other hobbies, but that's just not happening. Granted that's easy for me to say as a professional adult and not a high school/college kid. I certainly felt differently back then.
I definitely agree with your assessment of how people seem to feel, though I also don't understand it. I'm certianly not suggesting that WotC drop support for Vintage, Legacy, or Modern to encourage people to play Pauper, I was just trying to point out that paper Pauper is a pretty popular format (at least here) and that it offers a lot of advantages as a competititive format relative to other non-rotating formats. They'd have to get creative to to effectively make money off of it, but that's a feature for the playerbase, not a bug.
If they're serious about trying to make the game itself sustainable, the biggest problems (at least from my perspective) are the sunk cost/player psychology problem wih Standard and the casual/competitive divide. Casual players' distase for having their plans disrupted are the reason that Standard has highly restricted axes of interaction, which necessarily leads to competitive problems when threats (or even just new card types) are pushed even a little bit too much (Smugglers' Copter wouldn't have been nearly the problem it was if Fragmentize were an Instant...or they just printed Shatter in their artifact block). Modern has basically the same problem, but it's magnified by how many of the cards in the format (Tron lands, Valakut) line up extremely favorably with the best answers (Fulminator Mage, Ghost Quarter), and the huge number of non-competitive players who are financially invested in somehing called "Modern" that has little to do with the real, competitive format. Legacy has thornier structural issues (Counterbalance, Chalice, cantrips), but most Legacy players seem to prefer hands-off format management even if it lowers the average quality of Legacy games. Being a less competitive format also helps Legacy, but the barriers to entry are obviously too high to center the commercial game around it. There isn't a great solution; 6 or 7 year Extended may end up being the best lomg term solution, but we've learned that it all but demands an R&D team to look after if they want players to take it seriously as a competitive format.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
btm10
These are all good ideas, especially with regard to MTG-focused LGSs since those are really where Magic differentiates itself from Hearthstone and the like.
As for design and non-rotating formats, which have come up several times in this thread: I think making a statement by firing the folks at the top had value, but it's reasonably likely that firing Stoddard and Rosewater would spawn a competitor that had built-in marketing strength from MaRo's fans. I doubt that fear was the key motivating factor (loyalty and confidence in their abilities almost certianly played larger roles), but it's still worth considering. In terms of how to support non-rotaing formats that people want to play, a potential casual/competitive divide could emerge between Commander and Pauper. Both are somewhat well-established already, have easy-to-follow deckbuilding rules, and Pauper has been spared both the most egregious combo-enablers/interaction reducers and the lion's share of threat power creep that's created problematic Modern, Legacy, and Vintage decks. There are some issues with monetizing it because it's all commons, but explicitly making it pseudo-rotating (with annual/semi-annual B&R action) isn't nearly as onerous for players as doing the same thing in Legacy or Modern.
Maro does have a legion of rabid fanboys for whatever unholy reason. At the very least, they should cut his supply of cocaine to improve the situation (I get that he's enthusiastic about his job, but every time he's on stream, all I can think of is "CALM THE FUCK DOWN!").
Maro I can see, but Stoddard? How has that guy fans? Besides, it seems the current issues are more a problem of development than of design.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
talking about making MTGO better, I think that there are a few things that could be done to immensely boost the popularity of it. first of all, make it subscription based, or have cards be priced at low prices depending on rarity(for example: mythics-$2,rares-$1,uncommons-$0.50,commons-$0.25,basiclands-free) getting rid of the secondary market which is responsible for the outrageously high costs of some decks; 2. make the UI and visuals better, this is pretty obvious and they've done a decent job with DotP; 3. get a better coding team to reduce bugs. MtGO, I think would be a very good investment for WotC because last I heard mtgo accounts for like half profits or something like that. The Magic Digital Next thing theyve been hinting at could be a better version of mtgo but it could also be a watered-down version of magic to compete with Hearthstone, hopefully it's the latter...
MTGO has the problem that it competes with Paper Magic, it least in Wizards' eyes. That's also the reason why WotC tries to double-dip by forcing you to buy the same deck twice instead of synergy effects between paper and online, like other games have demonstrated.
A subscription-based system either is so outrageously expensive that nobody uses it or it's so cheap people would stop quitting Paper in droves to jump in the cheaper, more convenient alternative. I don't think a reasonable middle ground exists due to the high cost of Magic in general.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Anybody right in their mind would put up with MTGO, either.
And yet there are still people who use it. It speaks to how appealing the actual game is, that people would put up with such horrible software at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
I think there is some genius in the distribution model - people like collecting things, that becomes a game in itself and it's easier to spend large amounts of money on Magic when you do it over tons of small purchases. Opening up packs is a more socially acceptable way to play the lottery.
But I agree that it's important to realize how far we are from average consumers. This forum has a dedicated thread where people show off their $20,000 Japanese foil decks and then other people insult them for not spending enough money on their deck.
Genius? Well, in a way, yes, and no doubt went a long way to keeping the game profitable in the early days, since it is definitely a money maker. The issue is though that now there is a lot more competition. Not just competition of other card games, but video games, board games and so on. Also, lets not pretend that the economy (in many places for many people) simply isn't great. So, we have less capital at large and more things competing for it.
So, indeed the distribution model worked then, but the question is how is it impacting the game now? While Wizards questionnaires and surveys which look to identify barriers of entry focus on the game itself, I think the fundamental issue of actually acquiring the cards is something I don't think anyone there is really willing to admit is bigger than any aspect of the game itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
I agree with this. But the difference between this and the RL is that no one in 1994 knew how the internet was going to upend business models. E-commerce has drastically changed MTG by removing the barrier of card availability (assuming unlimited financial resources). That's not even to discuss the very concept of a living card game. Hell they were still issuing straight-up errata that you had to track down in the mid-90s. They had no concept of the potential audience for this game or how the economy would grow around it. So I wouldn't call it an original sin just because it wasn't an unforced error like the RL. If anything, it's amazing that this game and the LGS model has survived to this point when titans like Borders, Tower Records, and Blockbuster, that were similarly dependent on their roles as distributors of leisure content, have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
While I don't really disagree that the Reverse List was (and still is) a mistake, I still think that the distribution model is something that really takes a much larger toll on the game's more widespread marketability. As iatee alluded to earlier, not everyone is looking for the complexity level of Legacy and this is part of why I caution people here as using themselves as an example. We simply are not the average consumer, in any way. So, while the Reserve List certainly is an issue and is a barrier to some new players because of the cost of entry to something like Legacy, I think this is missing the forest for the trees.
There simply is only so many people who are going to be willing to ford the distribution model and make it to really playing, long term. Many more are going to be lost along the way, frustrated by wasting money on packs, Standard metagame shifts/bans/general crappiness, and so on.
We here are largely dinosaurs here, ancient by gaming standards, born and bred into this system, so we know how to navigate it, we know how to allocate our capital to acquire what we really want, we know not waste money on packs, we know when a sealed product is worth opening. A random 17 year old kid doesn't know that. And so, when he or she "gets into the game" the barriers are higher, the burnout is quicker, and they are likely to spend their scant entertainment dollars elsewhere. Video games and board games all are "self-contained" and a one time purchase basically gives you "the whole thing."
Sure, a video game probably isn't going to give you the same "replayability." A board game isn't going to give you the same "depth" of play. But in this day and age of instant gratification, people largely don't care much about that on average. They only have so much money and even less patience. Are you really going to sell them on an odyssey to build a Magic collection that will span months or years, cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars, and take what is (to them) seemingly countless hours? But wait, they still don't know if they actually like the game or not.
Just because we here weathered all that really doesn't mean most people could or would. I'm definitely not saying that simply changing the distribution model is going to "fix" all these things. It's not a simple problem and a simple solution isn't going to fix it. But I think pretending it isn't an issue, even if it is intractable, is short sighted. I would hope that Wizards is looking at these issues, but I doubt if they are interested in fundamental change.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
talking about making MTGO better, I think that there are a few things that could be done to immensely boost the popularity of it. first of all, make it subscription based, or have cards be priced at low prices depending on rarity(for example: mythics-$2,rares-$1,uncommons-$0.50,commons-$0.25,basiclands-free) getting rid of the secondary market which is responsible for the outrageously high costs of some decks; 2. make the UI and visuals better, this is pretty obvious and they've done a decent job with DotP; 3. get a better coding team to reduce bugs. MtGO, I think would be a very good investment for WotC because last I heard mtgo accounts for like half profits or something like that. The Magic Digital Next thing theyve been hinting at could be a better version of mtgo but it could also be a watered-down version of magic to compete with Hearthstone, hopefully it's the latter...
You cant fix the secondary market once taken off the leash. If you mass reprint stuff or just cap the cost like you suggested, people will riot because of their "lost money" by buying R.Ports for 120$ which are 1-2$ in your system. There is no fix for thst broken system without community outcry other thsn letting is slowly die and see who ends up paying the bill
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Of course, without the RL, the necessity to invent Standard never would've existed.
This is wrong. Standard was created because of the realization that Eternal as a tournament format would make most cards worthless and to avoid power creep. The RL is just a shitpile, but wasn't a factor in Standard's creation AFAIK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
btm10
As for design and non-rotating formats, which have come up several times in this thread: I think making a statement by firing the folks at the top had value
Have missed this. Link to news?
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Or you could just change the mulligan rule to something like this: Once you decide to keep your opening hand, subtract the number of cards in your hand from 7, and scry x where x is that number. For example, if I mulligan to 3 I'd be able to scry 4.
I really like this suggestion. It helps un-screw yourself from a bad mulligan, and also introduces an additional strategic angle to the game. It increases the power of sideboard cards quite a lot, as it makes it a bit easier to mull/scry for your hate card, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
H
Sure, a video game probably isn't going to give you the same "replayability." A board game isn't going to give you the same "depth" of play. But in this day and age of instant gratification, people largely don't care much about that on average. They only have so much money and even less patience. Are you really going to sell them on an odyssey to build a Magic collection that will span months or years, cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars, and take what is (to them) seemingly countless hours? But wait, they still don't know if they actually like the game or not.
Hey there, your grumpy old man is showing. I think you need to take a break from telling the kids to get off your lawn and check out what they're actually doing. People are still pouring crazy amounts of time and money into all kinds of gaming, often for completely randomized rewards. Counterstrike, Overwatch, PoE, Hearthstone, maybe DOTA/LoL (not sure what the transactions are like for those), all have randomized loot systems, and some even have a sizeable secondary marketplace.
I guess maybe the one advantage those have is that you can mostly just jump in and start playing after your initial purchase or download. Magic has that to some extent too with drafts, sealed, and fairly decent precons for EDH. I just think WotC needs to put more emphasis on those "drop in and play" events, as a social event as well as a good value. Also maybe dial back on the bomby mythics to make limited a little more balanced, but that's a whole different can of worms.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zombie
This is wrong. Standard was created because of the realization that Eternal as a tournament format would make most cards worthless and to avoid power creep. The RL is just a shitpile, but wasn't a factor in Standard's creation AFAIK.
You may be right. I tend to remember that whole period as a beating to my psyche and a lot of the stuff runs together. The combination of a couple of garbage sets, the excitement of Chronicles met by the horror of the RL, and the creation of Standard where you had to play 5 cards from each set, then of course finally getting powerful cards in Urza's block that were immediately rendered unusable, was a lot to take back then. Reminds me why I ended up leaving the game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zombie
Have missed this. Link to news?
He's talking about what I said I would've done in Wizards' position. Everyone in R&D is still gainfully employed despite what I think is a pretty brutal error.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
H
Just because we here weathered all that really doesn't mean most people could or would. I'm definitely not saying that simply changing the distribution model is going to "fix" all these things. It's not a simple problem and a simple solution isn't going to fix it. But I think pretending it isn't an issue, even if it is intractable, is short sighted. I would hope that Wizards is looking at these issues, but I doubt if they are interested in fundamental change.
Just saying, I agree with your assessment, but that highlights the problem. I'm a business journalist by trade and it is nothing short of a miracle that Magic has been successful enough for so long by distributing packs of paper cards through LGSes, especially in the context of being part of a big company like Hasbro. Hasbro said in its latest earnings report that as much as 80% of Wizards' revenue comes through those stores.
Magic and the LGSes are tied to each other. If the stores go away, a lot of what's unique and exciting about Magic goes with it. I know Wizards likes to talk about how much of their game is kitchen table, but if that's the case why do they entice tournament attendance with special rewards and standard bannings. This game can't survive as a curiosity in the Target checkout line. They need the competitive itch to strike people so that their investment is more than a few packs and a few kitchen-table games. It needs people going into stores and playing the game, and transacting in the singles market, and all that stuff, to keep the momentum going.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Richard Cheese
Hey there, your grumpy old man is showing. I think you need to take a break from telling the kids to get off your lawn and check out what they're actually doing. People are still pouring crazy amounts of time and money into all kinds of gaming, often for completely randomized rewards. Counterstrike, Overwatch, PoE, Hearthstone, maybe DOTA/LoL (not sure what the transactions are like for those), all have randomized loot systems, and some even have a sizeable secondary marketplace.
I guess maybe the one advantage those have is that you can mostly just jump in and start playing after your initial purchase or download. Magic has that to some extent too with drafts, sealed, and fairly decent precons for EDH. I just think WotC needs to put more emphasis on those "drop in and play" events, as a social event as well as a good value. Also maybe dial back on the bomby mythics to make limited a little more balanced, but that's a whole different can of worms.
I think you're really on the right track. Magic can't hope to compete with the digital games for a lot of reasons. I used to think they should try harder to do that but as the gulf grows wider I don't think it can be done. Magic needs to emphasize the IRL aspect of the game. I would love to see their market research because I honestly can't believe they think pushing the hackneyed stories is a winning plan.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
I wish that pushing the IRL aspect of the game coincided with having more legacy tournaments :(
Don't get me wrong I really appreciate the stuff that shops have been doing to keep legacy going, I just want more sweet legacy action. I really hope they throw us a bone in 2018, maybe bring back the non-US gps.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Richard Cheese
Hey there, your grumpy old man is showing. I think you need to take a break from telling the kids to get off your lawn and check out what they're actually doing. People are still pouring crazy amounts of time and money into all kinds of gaming, often for completely randomized rewards. Counterstrike, Overwatch, PoE, Hearthstone, maybe DOTA/LoL (not sure what the transactions are like for those), all have randomized loot systems, and some even have a sizeable secondary marketplace.
I dare say this describes the problem better than it defeats it. There are a *ton* of kinds of games out there, the mobile gaming scene is A Real Thing, getting good at any of the above games is not a small time investment unless you're like the Doogie Howser of Steam or something and you just intuit every game you download -- oh and speaking of Steam, unless you're frugal and cautious as fuck and you methodically play through a game before you buy a new one, your Steam library probably looks like my Netflix library; a ton of titles that you look at over and over and are kind of unwilling to touch. This doesn't directly affect Magic, but it still has to find space and time among a given player's backlog of Humble Bundles that they haven't even cracked yet.
TLDR, consumers have only so much time and trend towards owning an embarrassment of riches in the choices they have at their disposal, so it's only naturally that people would favor activities with the least perceived points of failure. This sucks for Magic because it is not only a terrible video game (it's secretly a real-time game involving very patient people that ignore the rules until they don't want to anymore), but it has always been a lousy one-player game; you need to either have a venue or set a date to have people over for a game or two. Meanwhile, you can reach into your pocket and dick around with Hearthstone (for example) on your lunch break.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TsumiBand
I dare say this describes the problem better than it defeats it. There are a *ton* of kinds of games out there, the mobile gaming scene is A Real Thing, getting good at any of the above games is not a small time investment unless you're like the Doogie Howser of Steam or something and you just intuit every game you download -- oh and speaking of Steam, unless you're frugal and cautious as fuck and you methodically play through a game before you buy a new one, your Steam library probably looks like my Netflix library; a ton of titles that you look at over and over and are kind of unwilling to touch. This doesn't directly affect Magic, but it still has to find space and time among a given player's backlog of Humble Bundles that they haven't even cracked yet.
TLDR, consumers have only so much time and trend towards owning an embarrassment of riches in the choices they have at their disposal, so it's only naturally that people would favor activities with the least perceived points of failure. This sucks for Magic because it is not only a terrible video game (it's secretly a real-time game involving very patient people that ignore the rules until they don't want to anymore), but it has always been a lousy one-player game; you need to either have a venue or set a date to have people over for a game or two. Meanwhile, you can reach into your pocket and dick around with Hearthstone (for example) on your lunch break.
Yeah, pretty much this is what I was trying to say. I mean, in a vacuum the distribution model for Magic isn't really all that bad, but it isn't really conducive to dabbling. You are either in for a lot (you want to play competitively), or not in for much at all (friends at the kitchen table).
I mean, I am grumpy but I am not so old to not know how video games work, :wink:
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Hasbro said in its latest earnings report that as much as 80% of Wizards' revenue comes through those stores.
Hold on a second - are we talking about revenue from paper or total revenue? :eyebrow: If it's total revenue, than MTGO certainly is far away from the former ~40% revenue for Wizards.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TsumiBand
I dare say this describes the problem better than it defeats it. There are a *ton* of kinds of games out there, the mobile gaming scene is A Real Thing, getting good at any of the above games is not a small time investment unless you're like the Doogie Howser of Steam or something and you just intuit every game you download -- oh and speaking of Steam, unless you're frugal and cautious as fuck and you methodically play through a game before you buy a new one, your Steam library probably looks like my Netflix library; a ton of titles that you look at over and over and are kind of unwilling to touch. This doesn't directly affect Magic, but it still has to find space and time among a given player's backlog of Humble Bundles that they haven't even cracked yet.
TLDR, consumers have only so much time and trend towards owning an embarrassment of riches in the choices they have at their disposal, so it's only naturally that people would favor activities with the least perceived points of failure. This sucks for Magic because it is not only a terrible video game (it's secretly a real-time game involving very patient people that ignore the rules until they don't want to anymore), but it has always been a lousy one-player game; you need to either have a venue or set a date to have people over for a game or two. Meanwhile, you can reach into your pocket and dick around with Hearthstone (for example) on your lunch break.
Oh yeah, not saying those things aren't still competing with MtG for attention, just that they aren't currently winning because "kids these days" are all about instant gratification. I just think WotC is doing a fairly poor job at making the idea of investing that time and energy into Magic an attractive option. Quality of experience between LGSs is all over the map. Same for coverage, even for major events. What little advertising they do never speaks to the strengths of the game. Remember this from the late 90s?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svgntEThit4
That still makes me want to play more than anything I've seen on the WotC site in years. Here I Rule? Get the fuck out! Here I bring some janky brew and go for margaritas between rounds to shoot the shit with other aging nerds.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Of course, without the RL, the necessity to invent Standard never would've existed.
I don't know exactly when the Reserved List happened, but it happened sometime after Chronicles' release (as backlash to Chronicles was why it was made). Chronicles was released in June of 1995, whereas Standard was created in January of 1995. Unless some kind of time travel was involved, I don't see how Standard could have been the result of the Reserved List when Standard predated the Reserved List by at least half a year.
The actual reasons for Standard's creation were chiefly:
1) By keeping the card pool small, it made playtesting easier.
2) It created an incentive to keep getting new product without having to resort to constant power creep.
Quote:
(I would've immediately fired Sam Stoddard and Mark Rosewater when the Standard bannings were announced, since that was the pure implementation of their vision of what standard should look like in order to avoid bannings like JTMS and SFM, and they clearly misjudged what to do.)
While I've had my issues with those two, especially Stoddard, this seems as much of an overreaction as the Reserved List itself was (would it even be possible to fire them immediately? I'd expect they'd have some kind of tenure). Getting angry at Rosewater for the bans seems especially odd, as the problems that resulted in said bans seem to have been mostly on the development side of things.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Richard Cheese
Oh yeah, not saying those things aren't still competing with MtG for attention, just that they aren't currently winning because "kids these days" are all about instant gratification. I just think WotC is doing a fairly poor job at making the idea of investing that time and energy into Magic an attractive option. Quality of experience between LGSs is all over the map. Same for coverage, even for major events. What little advertising they do never speaks to the strengths of the game. Remember this from the late 90s?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svgntEThit4
That still makes me want to play more than anything I've seen on the WotC site in years. Here I Rule? Get the fuck out! Here I bring some janky brew and go for margaritas between rounds to shoot the shit with other aging nerds.
Imho one of the worst offenders of all time were the player cards - who greenlighted that shit? Who wants to aspire to become that?
http://940ee6dce6677fa01d25-0f55c912...res/151508.jpg
As for the instant gratification part, here's a little tidbit I haven't noticed before: Look at the number of creatures in AER that either have "enter the battlefield" or other effects that can be used immediately in some way, be it sacrifice effects or crewing vehicle boni. A vast majority of creatures have them aside from a few vanilla/limited filler combat creatures. Tap abilities are almost non-existant due to the 1-turn-delay.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
Getting angry at Rosewater for the bans seems especially odd, as the problems that resulted in said bans seem to have been mostly on the development side of things.
I'm interested in knowing who keeps making the call to not include "safety valves" in Standard. Do Rosewater's enthusiastic, creative "designers" do that, or is it the judgment of the technical, experienced-player "developers"?
It currently costs red 3 mana to kill an artifact and the only available gravehate costs 2 mana to bury one card. Cranial Archive would've been playable against Emrakul and Delirium, and I think lots of decks would currently have playsets of Shatter in their 75 if they could.
I feel like when they push a particular strategy, they should also make hate for that strategy. Narrow, effective answers only punish the greedy. So you can either play the high-risk/ high-reward game, or go where there's less synergy but less risk. Four Smuggler's Copter/ Heart of Kiran is just a target rich environment in a format with Smash to Smithereens...
That's what I like about Legacy, there's always an answer. There isn't a zig that can't be zagged. (Except Miracles, evidently.)
Also, I find the player cards embarrassing as well.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Begle1
I'm interested in knowing who keeps making the call to not include "safety valves" in Standard. Do Rosewater's enthusiastic, creative "designers" do that, or is it the judgment of the technical, experienced-player "developers"?
...
I think it's a deliberate attempt to push cards while avoiding power creep.
Quote:
Look at the number of creatures in AER that either have "enter the battlefield" or other effects that can be used immediately in some way, be it sacrifice effects or crewing vehicle boni.
I think it's part of their 'make creatures good' effort. Another factor is that planeswalkers have displaced creatures as 'efficient win condition' cards.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
I think it's a deliberate attempt to push cards while avoiding power creep.
How does printing Shatter or not effect power creep?
A 3/3 flying artifact creature for 2 mana is power creep, even if it does suck in its format. No matter how powerful artifact or graveyard recursion cards are, if they print good anti-artifact and anti-graveyard cards, then there's a good chance for the format to balance itself.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Begle1
.... No matter how powerful artifact or graveyard recursion cards are, if they print good anti-artifact and anti-graveyard cards, then there's a good chance for the format to balance itself.
Right, but if there are no good anti-artifact or anti-graveyard cards, then even relatively weak or otherwise overcosted graveyard synergies and artifacts can be powerful in the meta.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
I don't play standard, but I do know that older sets used to have deliberate safety valves or straight up powerful hosers for that set's theme. Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, etc. It seemed to start after Mirrodin and Affinity, where Kataki was printed in Kamigawa as an apology to Ravager and all.
I imagine there's been some backlash to putting a super powerful hoser in a set that directly answered the entire theme of the set...so maybe they've changed the recent set designs to limit or remove those answers, allowing the Standard meta to have a bunch of synergy and have the look that Development wanted. So now they have to ban Emrakul and Copter, and the tournament winning card is Chatter of the Gremlins or whatever.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
One issue they see is that if there is a powerful hate card they don't get to show off their new mechanic in constructed as much. The problem is though, they don't need Rest In Peace, and end all be all hate card, but something better needs to exist. Like is a Tormods Crypt or Relic of Progenitus (I know it wouldn't fit the flavor, but a card like it) too much to ask for? I remember when Tunnel Ignus got printed in the format everyone thought it was going to hose Valakut decks. Rest on Peace in Innistrad. Melira in Scars block. also Creeping Corrosion.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
The actual reasons for Standard's creation were chiefly:
1) By keeping the card pool small, it made playtesting easier.
2) It created an incentive to keep getting new product without having to resort to constant power creep.
.
This is false. The first reason was to create a shifting play environment, they feared staleness from a play perspective. The original vision of expansions having different backs was a failed attempt at implementing this. The second reason was to ease any alienation of newer Magic players who never had the chance to get their hands on some of the older, out-of-print expansions. It was to grow the player base.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Wow I don't think I've ever felt so much physical pain for cringing so hard.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Begle1
How does printing Shatter or not effect power creep?
He did say the goal was go "push cards" while avoiding power creep. Having good answers hinders their ability to push the flashy cards.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Hold on a second - are we talking about revenue from paper or total revenue? :eyebrow: If it's total revenue, than MTGO certainly is far away from the former ~40% revenue for Wizards.
Second, it does not capture hobby stores, where we execute more than
80% of our Wizards of the Coast business, including MAGIC: THE
GATHERING.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...nt_Remarks.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
I don't know exactly when the Reserved List happened, but it happened sometime after Chronicles' release (as backlash to Chronicles was why it was made). Chronicles was released in June of 1995, whereas Standard was created in January of 1995. Unless some kind of time travel was involved, I don't see how Standard could have been the result of the Reserved List when Standard predated the Reserved List by at least half a year.
The actual reasons for Standard's creation were chiefly:
1) By keeping the card pool small, it made playtesting easier.
2) It created an incentive to keep getting new product without having to resort to constant power creep.
Yeah, I posted above that I got my dates mixed up. In fairness, they were close enough and I was 11.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
While I've had my issues with those two, especially Stoddard, this seems as much of an overreaction as the Reserved List itself was (would it even be possible to fire them immediately? I'd expect they'd have some kind of tenure). Getting angry at Rosewater for the bans seems especially odd, as the problems that resulted in said bans seem to have been mostly on the development side of things.
I'm not really angry about the bans, I was able to pick up some cheap copters and play them in Legacy last night.
The point is that the current state of the game is the implementation of the vision of the leaders of design and development. Their task was to create a game that didn't have the huge feel-bad of the JTMS/SFM standard. Not only did they fail to prevent that, there are good arguments that there should've been standard bannings at several other times over the course of the past couple years, if the penetration of Copter/Emrakul/Mage was the baseline.
I look at it like a coach and GM in sports. Do you trust these two to rebuild? I definitely don't with Stoddard. Maro is sort of a figurehead at this point but they would benefit from new thinking in my opinion.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Crimhead
He did say the goal was go "push cards" while avoiding power creep. Having good answers hinders their ability to push the flashy cards.
I think it goes the other way. Probably depends on the definition of "pushed".
The 6-mana titans were "pushed" cards, famously defended as "this is what it takes for creatures to be relevant in a format with efficient Doom Blade/ Go for the Throat removal". Creatures can be a lot stronger (more pushed), without dominating the meta, if there are efficient answers for them.
That does increase overall power level of the format, though. And also usually makes things swingier.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
The point is that the current state of the game is the implementation of the vision of the leaders of design and development. Their task was to create a game that didn't have the huge feel-bad of the JTMS/SFM standard. Not only did they fail to prevent that, there are good arguments that there should've been standard bannings at several other times over the course of the past couple years, if the penetration of Copter/Emrakul/Mage was the baseline.
I look at it like a coach and GM in sports. Do you trust these two to rebuild? I definitely don't with Stoddard. Maro is sort of a figurehead at this point but they would benefit from new thinking in my opinion.
Good points. MaRo consistently feels like he's pushing boundaries for the sake of pushing boundaries, because he's a design guy and that's what design guys do. The problem is that it feels like he's basically been running the show for a decade, and it's like an auto manufacturer just taking concepts straight to production every year. I've been saying since Ice Age that the constant push to add new mechanics to the game is unnecessary and hurts more than it helps. I might just be wrong though, since it's a shitload bigger than it was back then, but I'm not sure if it's succeeding because of R&D or despite them.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Yeah, the never-ending quest for new mechanics relates to the path dependency thing I brought up a few pages ago. They do it because...they do it. That's what they do. That's what they've always done. In Maro's head there's some deep player demand for x amount of new mechanics a quarter or whatever. The result is a bunch of nonsense like 'Cohort' and 100 kicker mechanics, the rules get a tiny bit more confusing while the game doesn't actually get better. I think people are excited about powerful cards more than they are about any given mechanic, and the game has so many to recycle already. A good chunk of players playing Shadows of Innistrad probably had never played with Madness before - it might as well be a new mechanic as far as they're concerned.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Not only that but the unwillingness to use old keywords in sets they are not a part of seems odd. Inventors Fair has two instances of Metalcraft, neither are keyworded. Whats the point of the keyword if your not planing to use it?
-
Re: The current state of Magic
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...e-getting-less
truetranssoulalesha asked: Why does it seem like hate cards are getting less printed in standard? is this a shift we should expect to see continue in the future?
Maro: It was a shift that happened many years ago.
From December 6th, 2016
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Yeah, the never-ending quest for new mechanics relates to the path dependency thing I brought up a few pages ago. They do it because...they do it. That's what they do. That's what they've always done. In Maro's head there's some deep player demand for x amount of new mechanics a quarter or whatever. The result is a bunch of nonsense like 'Cohort' and 100 kicker mechanics, the rules get a tiny bit more confusing while the game doesn't actually get better. I think people are excited about powerful cards more than they are about any given mechanic, and the game has so many to recycle already. A good chunk of players playing Shadows of Innistrad probably had never played with Madness before - it might as well be a new mechanic as far as they're concerned.
This also really pisses me off. I've gotten a couple of people into magic and part of that is by having my own Cube that's power level is on the order of what UG madness used to be in Legacy. Thing is, it's insanely hard to come up with a bunch of fun, unique cards for every color without being bogged down by stupid, unnecessary new keywords. I basically can't use any new cards because I don't want to have shit like "crew" "revolt" "ENERGY COUNTER" "Fabricate" "Emerge" "Escalate" "Conspire" and all the other stupid 1-ofs that would be semi-fun to play with but only have one instance and therefore increase the complexity unnecessarily for beginners. Not to even go into all the dumb flip and meld cards that happened and make Cube-play for newcomers impossible.
For the most part I can just completely ignore the new mechanics because they won't hit Eternal, but every once in a while you have to add on more almost useless rules to your knowledge base. Crew and Monarch being two that just came in the last few months, with at least 3x as many that will be lost in magic history once Standard rotates.
-
Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
Not only that but the unwillingness to use old keywords in sets they are not a part of seems odd. Inventors Fair has two instances of Metalcraft, neither are keyworded. Whats the point of the keyword if your not planing to use it?
I think it makes a lot of sense not to throw a keyword like Metalcraft out there if a set only uses it a couple times; people read that and think, "what's Metalcraft mean?" even though it says it right on the card.
I think it's a good sign they're re-using mechanics without stamping the keyword on it; like Deep-Sea Terror out of Origins, if it said "Threshold" it just would've made the card more confusing for new players.
It has been a Rosewater-theme recently, that he thinks they've been cycling through new mechanics too fast. Which I agree is excruciatingly obvious. They've had a "must have X new mechanics in each set" fetish for a long, long time. I think it's largely due to how they do "marketing research"; they'll ask players, "what do you think of Cohort? What about Converge?" If they don't have new named mechanics, I don't think they could get their dumb metrics that they operate off of.
Rosewater will say things like "market research says everybody hates this mechanic, so we don't want to reuse it"; but he'll invariably say that about mechanics that have been utilized on weak filler cards, so it always seems less of an indictment of the mechanic than how they used it.
It breaks my heart that genuine depth-inducing mechanics like Converge and colorless mana are abandoned as quick as they're adopted and hardly fleshed out.
As for not printing hosers, it's a pretty clear decision. Makes deck-building more like dueling solitaire than Chess, but I get the argument that more players enjoy just smashing their over-the-top nonsense against their opponent's over-the-top nonsense. The EDH-ification of Standard... I just wonder if that's Design's call or Development's?
