Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: echephron on April 16, 2016, 03:38:40 PM
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Lets say you the player were making version 2.0 of mage wars. you can remake it from the ground up and aren't bound by old cards or rules. What might you change?
To start us off. I don't like how a player can chain a bunch of actions together. So:
1) Non-Creatures with attacks(wizards tower) use action markers.
2) Player with initiative can have last creature action of round(superseding the rule of having to take an action when opponent has same number of actions left; rather than having to have the most creatures to get the last action.)
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Personally, I would have wanted to make the game shorter. Something between Academy and Arena, like a customizable apprentice mode, would have been great. Of course, this sort of Mage Wars would probably have very different gameplay from both Academy and Arena. Would also need its own Mage abilities and spells.
Another thing that bugs me is that despite the really high number of possible decks you can build in a particular metagame, new expansions will be introduced before you have the chance to explore them all. This wouldn't be a problem except that people don't seem to really play block formats much, at least not on OCTGN or at tournaments. If I made Mage Wars, I would find other ways to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting with the cards that already exist besides just introducing new cards to the card pool. For instance, when an expansion gets released, I would set up block-format events for it. Like, what if Druid vs Necromancer had come out before Forcemaster vs Warlord? What would the metagame have looked like? This way you could actually find that out. I would also be focusing more on the setting and story of Mage Wars. Nowadays if there is no expansion for a few months, interest at least on OCTGN dies off until the next release. Since the organized play results are supposed to have an impact on the story, producing and publishing the story material that results from organized play would provide more incentive for people to play more often because they want to find out what happens next.
I would also get a bunch of people to figure out what if anything is going wrong with the wizard by doing the tests that Wtcannonjr and I proposed in another thread.
Also, I would have designed the priestess to have a more combat ready stance instead of looking like she's performing a bit of dirty dancing. And I would create blank Mage cards so that artists could buy and sell custom Mage art to put on them. I mean, in miniatures games you can paint your minis, and since the mages are all different people (I.e., no two warlocks in the story look exactly the same unless they're twins), there's no reason not to be able to have custom Mage art.
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I would make a neutral/grey sort of school. This would contain the must-have utility and toolbox spells any mage needs (what we currently consider the position of Dispel, teleport, nullify, etc), as well as what are basically the novice cards currently. This Neutral pool never costs more than face value for any mage drawing from it as it is a universal pool.
Other customization card games have this sort of equally shared pool for any deck build, so I was a bit puzzled when I first got into Mage Wars why it didn't, especially when it seems there might've been the idea there with the universally 1 cost novice cards in the main schools anyways.
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@Sailor Vulcan
but -how- would you do these things, like make the game shorter? would it have less zones, lower life, damage over time, reduced healing, ect? Maybe you are saying tear it all down and try again, which would take time to figure out.
And meant more of rules/cards change than a change in promotional method. If I understand block format(which I dont since I had to google it), block format has nothing to do with the rules of the game.
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@Sailor Vulcan
but -how- would you do these things, like make the game shorter? would it have less zones, lower life, damage over time, reduced healing, ect? Maybe you are saying tear it all down and try again, which would take time to figure out.
And meant more of rules/cards change than a change in promotional method. If I understand block format(which I dont since I had to google it), block format has nothing to do with the rules of the game.
Oh. Sorry I misread the question. Thought it said if I made mage wars, not if I *remade* it.
Basically the idea is customizable apprentice mode, with its own spells and its own mage abilities. You do know what apprentice mode is right? I didn't realize you meant specifically rules changes. I thought you meant ANY changes that I would make if I were the one who was making mage wars.
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Damage dice would be 1-3 not 0-2. Stats would have to chance accordingly.
Piercing that's higher than target's armor deals critical damage equal to the difference between armor and piercing values.
Both changes come from the fact that in current version buffed [mwcard=MW1C06]Brogan Bloodstone[/mwcard] can deal 0 damage to incapacitated [mwcard=FWC05]Goblin Grunt[/mwcard] with his attack.
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Yeah I know apprentice mode. An expanded apprentice mode. Got it. Like how miniature games have different Pointcaps. the smaller caps make for simpler shorter games.
Your apprentice would have its own spells not valid in academy or arena? That seems unusual. Or academy which can be used in apprentice|arena and apprentice can be used in arena. How would you decide which spells go where?
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Damage dice would be 1-3 not 0-2. Stats would have to chance accordingly.
Piercing that's higher than target's armor deals critical damage equal to the difference between armor and piercing values.
Both changes come from the fact that in current version buffed [mwcard=MW1C06]Brogan Bloodstone[/mwcard] can deal 0 damage to incapacitated [mwcard=FWC05]Goblin Grunt[/mwcard] with his attack.
I'd also thought I'd mess around with the values on the dice to eliminate the extremes.
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Sometimes Brogan shows up to battle after a night of partying and misses his attack. I don't think I'd change anything with regards to dice or the way damage is dealt. My biggest change might be to make it even more thematic. I just had a match in the ADMW tournament where for the 3rd time in 4 matches against 3 different styles of mages, I had to deal with the same 3 exact spells beating me (Magebane, Ghoul Rot, & Poisoned Blood). If I had faced 2 warlocks and a necro, that's somewhat acceptable but to me a Priest, Beastmaster, and Druid shouldn't be running dark books.
The meta has them running it because it clearly works but it just feels wrong to me so I'd make it so each mage has their own actual strategy instead of everyone following a pack and all basically running the same books with minor tweaks. More mage specific stuff or even higher costs to run out of school. And I've mentioned my Wizard issues in another threat but that would be nerfed entirely.
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Yeah I know apprentice mode. An expanded apprentice mode. Got it. Like how miniature games have different Pointcaps. the smaller caps make for simpler shorter games.
Your apprentice would have its own spells not valid in academy or arena? That seems unusual. Or academy which can be used in apprentice|arena and apprentice can be used in arena. How would you decide which spells go where?
The idea is that it would be between Academy and Arena. So Academy cards would be playable in the expanded apprentice mode as well as Arena. The expanded apprentice mode cards would be playable in the expanded apprentice mode and arena, but not Academy. Etc
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Sometimes Brogan shows up to battle after a night of partying and misses his attack. I don't think I'd change anything with regards to dice or the way damage is dealt.
I would be okay with that if there was neither daze or defense roll to completely avoid an attack.
Damage dice would be 1-3 not 0-2. Stats would have to chance accordingly.
Piercing that's higher than target's armor deals critical damage equal to the difference between armor and piercing values.
Both changes come from the fact that in current version buffed [mwcard=MW1C06]Brogan Bloodstone[/mwcard] can deal 0 damage to incapacitated [mwcard=FWC05]Goblin Grunt[/mwcard] with his attack.
I'd also thought I'd mess around with the values on the dice to eliminate the extremes.
Another result of my change is that currently it takes anything between 15 to infinity of dice to defeat naked mage that's not healing himself. With dice without 0 damage there would be a maximum amount of dice needed to defeat enemy mage. This would also reduce the need for DOT curses for all mages.
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Well with the die I would just change one of the blanks to a normal 1, leaving just one blank side each die.
I guess 0,1,1,2,Crit1,Crit2
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i would make fewer conditions.
for example: burn, bleed, rot, etc. would be an "agravated damage" that gives damages every turn.
for example: stun, daze, stuck, etc. would be an "uncapacitate" that make you loose your actions.
i think having all these conditions make the game more complexe but not more interesting.
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These are my thoughts.
* I would probably make sure all Mages had an equal cost for mobility spells such as teleport, force push etc.
* Make sure all Mages have triple cost schools.
* Not being able to use duplicate armor equipment cards, so no one stacks Dragon scale hauberk cheap, they've to go out of their school to get another chest armor.
* Add +3 mana cost reveal on Mage Bane
* Add a decision timer: 5min in the planning phase, 2min/creature action. I hope this would speed up the game + add some extra pressure so that players will make more mistakes.
Overall I think Mage Wars is a fantastic game, I just feel that some mages are a lot stronger than the rest.
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These are my thoughts.
* I would probably make sure all Mages had an equal cost for mobility spells such as teleport, force push etc.
* Make sure all Mages have triple cost schools.
* Not being able to use duplicate armor equipment cards, so no one stacks Dragon scale hauberk cheap, they've to go out of their school to get another chest armor.
* Add +3 mana cost reveal on Mage Bane
* Add a decision timer: 5min in the planning phase, 2min/creature action. I hope this would speed up the game + add some extra pressure so that players will make more mistakes.
Overall I think Mage Wars is a fantastic game, I just feel that some mages are a lot stronger than the rest.
That would be bad for the Forcemaster.
Forcemaster pays triple cost for non mind creatures not for a particular school. Would you change that then?
Giving epic to all armor equipment cards? What is the purpose of that? It sounds like an attempt to nerf armor stacking because the wizard uses armor stacking and he's OP. But that doesn't mean that armor stacking itself has anything to do with why the wizard is OP. I find it hard to believe that leather gloves would need the epic trait, for instance. Also, what about rhino hide and barkskin?
+3 mana to magebane's reveal cost? You think it should cost as much as or more than ghoul rot?
Please be honest, do you really believe that these "fixes" would actually improve the game in the long run? Please please don't take this the wrong way, but for a high level competitive player to suggest that those things would make Mage Wars better seriously is very very surprising to me. The only explanations for this that make even a bit of sense to me are either
1. I must still be an amateur at the game who has no idea what he's talking about. The kinds of things that I think would obviously cripple the game beyond repair might actually improve it instead.
2. You want the quickest and most efficient ways to balance the mages, even if it means errataing the hell out of a gajillion different cards and making the mages less specialized to the point where you almost might as well not have different mages at all. Not certain how nerfing armor equipments by giving them all the epic trait fits into that though.
3. None of us have any idea what we're talking about when it comes to the design of Mage Wars because we're all just relying on a combination of personal experience/intuition and abstract theory rather than systematically playtesting with our "fixes", recording the results and comparing it to how the regular game is. Perhaps personal experience/intuition and abstract theory are good enough for being able to play the game really well, but not for explaining why certain things about the game are the way they are and what it would be like if those things were different.
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I might add an optional rule to spellbook design called Advanced Training.
Each mage would have a training chart that listed schools (i.e. Holy, Dark, Air, ...) by row and spell type (i.e. Attack, Equipment, Incantation...) by column. Then the cell at the intersection of each school/spell type would contain the multiplier for spell point calculations. (x1, x2, x3, x4, ... X) Each cell could include multiple rows to account for level of training in a school like the Druid and Water school. An 'X' in the cell would mean that this mage could never learn that spell allowing the designer to tailor mages more specifically. This is similar to mage specific spells that we have in the current rules but would provide more options for expanding the spell pools for each school in future expansions. For example, Dark Enchantments could be much harder to learn for some mages and not available to others.
It would be for advanced players only and could even be issued as a Battlegrounds Expansion using the current card pool.
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* Add a decision timer: 5min in the planning phase, 2min/creature action. I hope this would speed up the game + add some extra pressure so that players will make more mistakes.
:D that's the eternal question in all the games of all the univers! Some prefer quick games played under pressure, others love long games played with beer...
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some posted ideas I like. All non-novice equipment effectively being epic sounds pretty cool. It would make them feel like powerful artefacts. counter balances would need to be done of course.
Something like a priestess being unable to use a dark school spell is something I've been thinking about. I'd like it to go well, but I'm not confident.
More theme reinforcement(like prohibited spells being inaccessible, costing more mana, or something like that. I don't know if the current extra sp cost does the job.) would be worth the decrease in customizability maybe. might actually increase the variety of books present.
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I might add an optional rule to spellbook design called Advanced Training.
Each mage would have a training chart that listed schools (i.e. Holy, Dark, Air, ...) by row and spell type (i.e. Attack, Equipment, Incantation...) by column. Then the cell at the intersection of each school/spell type would contain the multiplier for spell point calculations. (x1, x2, x3, x4, ... X) Each cell could include multiple rows to account for level of training in a school like the Druid and Water school. An 'X' in the cell would mean that this mage could never learn that spell allowing the designer to tailor mages more specifically. This is similar to mage specific spells that we have in the current rules but would provide more options for expanding the spell pools for each school in future expansions. For example, Dark Enchantments could be much harder to learn for some mages and not available to others.
It would be for advanced players only and could even be issued as a Battlegrounds Expansion using the current card pool.
The Forcemaster already pays triple specifically for out of school creatures. Tbh I suspect that making the Mage training that specialized would require each Mage to have many different variants and each variant would have fewer options than the regular mages we already have.
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I would add a rule to reduce some of the randomness of the dices.
Something like:
You can convert 3 blank dice into a 1 hit and you can convert 3 hit into 1 crit.
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man, nobody likes the dice.
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These are my thoughts.
* I would probably make sure all Mages had an equal cost for mobility spells such as teleport, force push etc.
* Make sure all Mages have triple cost schools.
* Not being able to use duplicate armor equipment cards, so no one stacks Dragon scale hauberk cheap, they've to go out of their school to get another chest armor.
* Add +3 mana cost reveal on Mage Bane
* Add a decision timer: 5min in the planning phase, 2min/creature action. I hope this would speed up the game + add some extra pressure so that players will make more mistakes.
Overall I think Mage Wars is a fantastic game, I just feel that some mages are a lot stronger than the rest.
That would be bad for the Forcemaster.
Forcemaster pays triple cost for non mind creatures not for a particular school. Would you change that then?
Giving epic to all armor equipment cards? What is the purpose of that? It sounds like an attempt to nerf armor stacking because the wizard uses armor stacking and he's OP. But that doesn't mean that armor stacking itself has anything to do with why the wizard is OP. I find it hard to believe that leather gloves would need the epic trait, for instance. Also, what about rhino hide and barkskin?
+3 mana to magebane's reveal cost? You think it should cost as much as or more than ghoul rot?
Please be honest, do you really believe that these "fixes" would actually improve the game in the long run? Please please don't take this the wrong way, but for a high level competitive player to suggest that those things would make Mage Wars better seriously is very very surprising to me. The only explanations for this that make even a bit of sense to me are either
1. I must still be an amateur at the game who has no idea what he's talking about. The kinds of things that I think would obviously cripple the game beyond repair might actually improve it instead.
2. You want the quickest and most efficient ways to balance the mages, even if it means errataing the hell out of a gajillion different cards and making the mages less specialized to the point where you almost might as well not have different mages at all. Not certain how nerfing armor equipments by giving them all the epic trait fits into that though.
3. None of us have any idea what we're talking about when it comes to the design of Mage Wars because we're all just relying on a combination of personal experience/intuition and abstract theory rather than systematically playtesting with our "fixes", recording the results and comparing it to how the regular game is. Perhaps personal experience/intuition and abstract theory are good enough for being able to play the game really well, but not for explaining why certain things about the game are the way they are and what it would be like if those things were different.
I wanted a faster-paced game where armor stacking in your spell book would be punished, and instead encourage you to use other cards to avoid this "armor meta-thinking". The epic trait would only be applied to chest pieces because of their armor + something bonus, another reason is to nerf the spell book efficiency of chest armor swapping to counter corrodes.
The reveal cost on Mage Bane is mainly to nerf the direct damage builds that I tend to see from Wizards and Necromancers who tend to casually cast one at the first chance and gain a huge momentum swing because of it.
They do this because when the spell is so cheap it gives you a huge benefit in the game. You either deny planned actions because they are scared of the damage starting to stack up, or get a value dispel from them.
Since most mages don't run a lot of dispels it's very beneficial to make them "waste" one on Mage Bane + even if they do you would've already "won" the trade just by making them take damage and react to you instead of you reacting to them.
However if you can afford to reveal Mage Bane it will also make it a lot harder to deal with since it would be 8 mana to dispel instead of 5, which might also make your opponent less likely to dispel it and giving you more "bang for mana" out of your mage bane that it would in other cases.
Regarding your concern about the Forcemaster.
I've seen a lot of builds with her; either you buddy up with the bear, play the invisible stalker or go at it alone.
However the force master I've seen with the most success in our group is the one that goes for channeling and thought spores.
The Thought Spores use utility spells and attack spells to help the mage control the board while she smashes things with her sword or by controlling the enemy with her abilities. This force master that uses creatures from her school has always been a huge pain to deal with regardless of which mage I've played, not counting the Wizard.
I do believe it's very hard to punish the mages who go for these "safe builds" with armor and direct damage. And by increasing the cost of these armors maybe the meta would change.
Also by trying to deal with the Wizard by increasing the other schools spell book point cost could be a way to make him less op. I do believe the Wizard Towers is an extremely strong card, but I don't think targeting that card alone would fix the Wizard. I think the issue is about the huge spell books they can create and how they almost always seem to have an answer to your game plan.
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man, nobody likes the dice.
I think it's the large prevalence of zeros. In an earlier post I would have made the die with only one blank side. But two (aka, 1/3rds) blank sides makes 5 blanks out of a 6 die roll more frequent than I'm comfortable with.
My die would be 0,1,1,2,crit1,crit2.
Could be fixed even now. They could release a new set of die as a stand-alone accessory, like the extra action markers packs, or spell book design packs. Or if they want it to be much more mandatory, in a major release they could include the new dice. Or if to cut costs, then they could just release in the upcoming packs a sticker sheet to stick onto the die's blank sides.
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-Employ a rules lawyer to pick apart wordings on each of the cards, down to the comma placement on text/effects.
-rejig costings on some of the cards. gate to hell costs 24 mana, in total, to cast and use?
-either every mage gets 10 channelling or those with more powerful abilities get channelling 9.
-wizard pays triple cost for every element that is not his.
-unmoveable means no pushes and no teleports.
-a variant format where creatures play a bigger role, as part of the main rules.
-make teleport epic and arcane only
-Label arena as a starter set only, release core tome 1+2 as upgrade sets, which with a few of these a full core set can be achieved. Make this very clear in the rulebook, as part of the spell building section. "This set is a starter set and contains the spells to make the four starter books listed on p. xx. To get a full set for maximum set coverage you can buy core tome expansion 1+2, which give you additional copies of spells to create a fully customisable set."
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-rejig costings on some of the cards. gate to hell costs 24 mana, in total, to cast and use?
-wizard pays triple cost for every element that is not his.
Why 24 mana for Gate to Hell? I've not used this card yet, but from what I've seen others post about this card I get the impression it's not used often.
Wizard paying triple cost for every element other than his own is a brilliant idea in my opinion.
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man, nobody likes the dice.
this 0-1-2 system is allready a lot better than other systems!
I would make it more predictable by having only 1 or 2: with x dices you are sure to make x to 2x damages.
letting a 0 face opens the possibility of a big attack making 0 damage it's even more unluck than with two 0 faces!
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1) Customizable Wizards:
Have a point-based system to add abilities to your basic mage: School Specialization, Base Mana, and a bunch of ability cards for the 'special' stuff.
2) Limited dice:
Have each spell do a guaranteed base damage and a fixed base effect. Instead of rolling many dice only ever roll two dice to have some limited randomization.
3) Limited Spellbooks:
Basically, you can (or have to) put every spell only once into your spell book. Then add multiple ways to reuse spells that have already been cast. Extra-powerful spells would be exempt from reuse.
4) Limited game time:
Have one or several of the following:
- Limited number of game turns
- Limited number of creatures/enchantments that can be controlled at any one time
- Have different/additional victory conditions (e.g. not just 'kill the opponent mage)
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-rejig costings on some of the cards. gate to hell costs 24 mana, in total, to cast and use?
-wizard pays triple cost for every element that is not his.
Why 24 mana for Gate to Hell? I've not used this card yet, but from what I've seen others post about this card I get the impression it's not used often.
Wizard paying triple cost for every element other than his own is a brilliant idea in my opinion.
[mwcard=MW1J06]Gate to Hell[/mwcard] Is basically a totem (like [mwcard=MW1J03]Tooth & Nail[/mwcard] or [mwcard=MW1J01]Rajan's Fury[/mwcard], or half an [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ04]Armory[/mwcard]) for 12 mana, then costs another 12 mana for what's about equivalent to a zone attack (that generally hits you and your creatures to, albeit most demons are either Flame Immune or Flame -X) and turns the Gate into a [mwcard=FWJ04]Garrison Post[/mwcard]... which is quite expensive given you may or may not need a Garrison Post by the time you've committed to spending all that mana. So... it's usually kind of like a totem + Firestorm that your opponent sees coming a mile away.
If it costed 8 to cast (totem) + 9 or 10 ([mwcard=MW1A05]Firestorm[/mwcard] with -1 die/Garrison Post), then it *might* be worth it in some sort of a Demon Swarm book... but then you have to figure out how you plan to summon all your demons, and Pentagram isn't exactly the best spawn point in the game.
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-rejig costings on some of the cards. gate to hell costs 24 mana, in total, to cast and use?
-wizard pays triple cost for every element that is not his.
Why 24 mana for Gate to Hell? I've not used this card yet, but from what I've seen others post about this card I get the impression it's not used often.
Wizard paying triple cost for every element other than his own is a brilliant idea in my opinion.
[mwcard=MW1J06]Gate to Hell[/mwcard] Is basically a totem (like [mwcard=MW1J03]Tooth & Nail[/mwcard] or [mwcard=MW1J01]Rajan's Fury[/mwcard], or half an [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ04]Armory[/mwcard]) for 12 mana, then costs another 12 mana for what's about equivalent to a zone attack (that generally hits you and your creatures to, albeit most demons are either Flame Immune or Flame -X) and turns the Gate into a [mwcard=FWJ04]Garrison Post[/mwcard]... which is quite expensive given you may or may not need a Garrison Post by the time you've committed to spending all that mana. So... it's usually kind of like a totem + Firestorm that your opponent sees coming a mile away.
If it costed 8 to cast (totem) + 9 or 10 ([mwcard=MW1A05]Firestorm[/mwcard] with -1 die/Garrison Post), then it *might* be worth it in some sort of a Demon Swarm book... but then you have to figure out how you plan to summon all your demons, and Pentagram isn't exactly the best spawn point in the game.
Its also a level 6 spell, so its very spellpoint inefficient, and its the only conjuration in the game that is a 0-0 range full action to cast making it very action inefficient.
In all honestly, even in a Demon focused book, I feel like you get more mileage spending those spellpoints on 3x Bear Strengths.. its the same investment of spellpoints and 15 mana total, and generates +6 melee more efficiently and on your own terms (Youd need 6 demons on the table for Gate to produce the same +6 melee)
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The Gate to Hell was changed in the latest printing. The attack now effects every zone in the arena. Still a steep cost but it is the only arena wide attack that exists at the moment. It works best in a Demon focused spellbook.
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The Gate to Hell was changed in the latest printing. The attack now effects every zone in the arena. Still a steep cost but it is the only arena wide attack that exists at the moment. It works best in a Demon focused spellbook.
??? is there an errata somewhere?
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The Gate to Hell was changed in the latest printing. The attack now effects every zone in the arena. Still a steep cost but it is the only arena wide attack that exists at the moment. It works best in a Demon focused spellbook.
??? is there an errata somewhere?
Not that I have seen. This may be on Aaron's list of updates for the Resources section but I don't recall it being discussed recently.
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Gate to Hell was a card that was updated in the 4th Printing, and yea it's on my list. :)
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Gate to Hell was a card that was updated in the 4th Printing, and yea it's on my list. :)
After failing to find a picture of it online, I've put a note on my to-do list to post a side-by-side image of the old and new Gate to Hell tonight.
Sadly, I don't own a copy of the new [mwcard=FWC04]Goblin Builder[/mwcard] to show that it can now repair Walls... and if memory serves, there's an unfortunate typo "...Corporeal conjuration in or boardering his zone" or something like that.
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the new [mwcard=FWC04]Goblin Builder[/mwcard] to show that it can now repair Walls.
???
we realy need a new official rules supplement!
(am i the only player who didn't buy a new box?)
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the new [mwcard=FWC04]Goblin Builder[/mwcard] to show that it can now repair Walls.
???
we realy need a new official rules supplement!
(am i the only player who didn't buy a new box?)
I bought a new box partly for the new board, so we can have 3 matches going simultaneously in 3 different looking Arenas - Westlock (first printing board), Straywood (4th printing board) and Salenia (play mat). And more cards (some with new text and art) never hurts.
But Goblin Builder is in Forcemaster vs Warlord, and I don't have a pressing need for a new copy of that expansion.
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The supplement is one of the items that's going to be updated as soon as I'm past the current project.
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the new [mwcard=FWC04]Goblin Builder[/mwcard] to show that it can now repair Walls.
???
we realy need a new official rules supplement!
(am i the only player who didn't buy a new box?)
sounds like I got into this game at the right time. ;) Will there be a reprinting of Druid vs. Necro? My buddy can't seem to find one for sale. Fortunately, I grabbed the last one our local game shop had in stock.
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the new [mwcard=FWC04]Goblin Builder[/mwcard] to show that it can now repair Walls.
???
we realy need a new official rules supplement!
(am i the only player who didn't buy a new box?)
sounds like I got into this game at the right time. ;) Will there be a reprinting of Druid vs. Necro? My buddy can't seem to find one for sale. Fortunately, I grabbed the last one our local game shop had in stock.
If you mean "will it be reprinted with changes" the consensus is "no" other than to put the word "Arena" on the box.
If you mean "is it going to be reprinted (rather than discontinued / out of print)" the answer is "yes;" it's probably between print runs, but the intent is to have it available again in the near future.
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I'm not gonna lie to you guys, but some of the ideas i see coming out here are gobsmacking! Im not judging, everyone likes something different, but a vast majority of these changes would likely ruin the game that i love. I see that many folks dislike the dice, but i see random probability as a good thing not a chore. It makes the game more cerebral. If there were no blanks on the dice (or even fewer blanks to a certain extent) the game becomes a slug fest out of the gate. Why bother trying to out think your opponent, or weave an ellaborate plot to completely disable them then crush them? Every book would have 2 Hawkeye 2 akitos favor and 4 hurl boulders 4 fireballs 4 lighting bolts 6 acid balls, hurl Rick's, and flame blasts. I like that there are very few "100 percent effective with a certain number" ( a la MtG where lightning bolt always does 3 damage) spells. This way one cannot count on his meteorite dealing 10 damage every time. Why not just play 1 of those and 3 boulders? Game over in 3 rounds then shuffle up and deal again?
I throughly enjoy the act of playing this game, win or lose i learn another tactic or another mistake to not make again. I just don't want to build hyper focused "60 card decks" that only do one thing over and over. The beauty of a mage wars spell book is that it needs to be flexible enough to handle anything but focused enough to kill the enemy. Theres never enough points for everything (unless your a wizard maybe) so the challenge is in minimizing weaknesses instead of being able to eradicate them.
Theres no hard answer to anything in mage wars,but there are many many soft ones. Its a cerebral game and i like it that way. Again not judging, just thought id say something about how cool i think this game is. Lol!
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I'm not gonna lie to you guys, but some of the ideas i see coming out here are gobsmacking! Im not judging, everyone likes something different, but a vast majority of these changes would likely ruin the game that i love. I see that many folks dislike the dice, but i see random probability as a good thing not a chore. It makes the game more cerebral. If there were no blanks on the dice (or even fewer blanks to a certain extent) the game becomes a slug fest out of the gate. Why bother trying to out think your opponent, or weave an ellaborate plot to completely disable them then crush them? Every book would have 2 Hawkeye 2 akitos favor and 4 hurl boulders 4 fireballs 4 lighting bolts 6 acid balls, hurl Rick's, and flame blasts. I like that there are very few "100 percent effective with a certain number" ( a la MtG where lightning bolt always does 3 damage) spells. This way one cannot count on his meteorite dealing 10 damage every time. Why not just play 1 of those and 3 boulders? Game over in 3 rounds then shuffle up and deal again?
I throughly enjoy the act of playing this game, win or lose i learn another tactic or another mistake to not make again. I just don't want to build hyper focused "60 card decks" that only do one thing over and over. The beauty of a mage wars spell book is that it needs to be flexible enough to handle anything but focused enough to kill the enemy. Theres never enough points for everything (unless your a wizard maybe) so the challenge is in minimizing weaknesses instead of being able to eradicate them.
Theres no hard answer to anything in mage wars,but there are many many soft ones. Its a cerebral game and i like it that way. Again not judging, just thought id say something about how cool i think this game is. Lol!
^^ AGREED!!
I've posted a bunch of times in this thread, but only to answer questions and such. I haven't answered the question because frankly a lot of peoples' suggestions would ruin the game.
The dice are fine. In fact, I think they're great because the expectation value IS the number of dice (e.g. average roll on X dice is X, where X/2 is critical and X/2 is normal damage) which is very convenient. The distribution narrows with the more dice you roll (which is why Academy is a little more swingy than Arena regarding dice).
I could get behind a rule change where conjurations with attacks get an action marker, as per the OP. You could still quickcast a Conjuration (like Wizard's Tower or Corrosive Orchid or Nightshade Lotus) and use it immediately, but you couldn't quickcast an attack spell AND flip your mage's action to cast an attack spell AND have your Wizard's Tower cast an attack spell ... all without allowing your opponent to react (besides reveal enchantments)... which we all know is a *very powerful* play. That wouldn't even require "Mage Wars 2.0" - it could be done as errata to the rule book and a handful of cards.
All equipment being Epic would be terrible for a lot of mages. Want to beat a Priest? [mwcard=MW1I07]Dissolve[/mwcard] his ONLY [mwcard=MW1Q29]Staff of Asyra[/mwcard]. How about a Johktari Beastmaster? Crumble her ONLY Kajarah or [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]. Sure, it can be annoying to be a Warlock and come up against somebody running 3x [mwcard=MW1Q06]Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard] out-of-school... but then you just [mwcard=MW1I11]Explode[/mwcard] them and move on. I could see a compromise, that maybe all chest armours should have been level 2... in which case a Beastmaster or Druid is paying 6 sbp for Dragonscale and most other mages are paying 4 (but Beastmasters/Druids will get cheap access to Chitin Armor if/when it ever comes out in a set, so it will balance out). Unfortunately that means the Wizard gets a little better, but that's hard to avoid when manipulating spell point costs.
As I suggested, Gate to Hell is still terrible (albeit slightly less terrible) even after the errata; it could stand to cost 4 less up front and 2 or 3 less later, or be a quick spell, or let you open it before or after a creature action rather than as your Mage's full action (argh!!), or some combination of these. But whatever. One thematic card that doesn't see play isn't as big a deal as some of the other quibbles I have with the game. It would be like #15 on my priority list. It just seems fairly easy to fix compared to other issues.
"Novice" fills the need for a "neutral" spell school, but somehow I don't love how it works. A very large fraction of War School spells are Novice, which means the Warlords lose out on what might otherwise be an advantage for them. If everybody else paid the standard double for cards like Leather equipment, Brace Yourself and Defend, and if Veteran's Belt were "War Mage only", then the Warlord would be improved by comparison. I think this (e.g. other mages having relatively cheap access to War spells) is one of the reasons that the Warlord feels a little underwhelming, even though it has 2 full schools of training and some interesting mage abilities and powerful (albeit highly conditional) mage-type-only spells. Well, that and paying triple for Arcane, which is like tying one hand behind his back. I often wonder if the game would actually be better if no spells were "Novice."
I agree that the total number of conditions and key words could be brought down. Bleed/Burn/Rot are very similar; Daze/Stun/Slam/Sleep and Incapacitated in general are all flavours of the same thing, and I have to look them up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. because somehow I can't keep them straight (and I'm a frequent Forcemaster player, so you'd think I'd remember them all by now). Teleport and Push could have been the same thing (e.g. get rid of Teleport the card, but add a more powerful Push ("Shove"?) that can double-push something 2 zones, and make it that Teleport Trap does a "shove") and it wouldn't change much - except make it that cards like Astral Anchor wouldn't have been necessary, and Tanglevine and Force Hold would be a lot more powerful because you couldn't just Teleport out of a vine or drag a Force Hold with you (e.g. you'd have to kill the vine or Dispel the Force Hold, as per what seems like the intent of the cards). But what we have works, and it's a little late to change it now (and I don't see how you could at this point).
I must be missing something because I don't find Mage Bane or Ghoul Rot (or Plagued) to be too strong. They're good, and they solve the problem of dealing with heavily armored opponents (which solves the armor-swap issue, by the way) but it only takes a Dispel or Disperse to get rid of them. Oh, except against the Necromancer, since he's immune to them... so you have to deal with the armor on a Necromancer since you can't just Ghoul Rot him.
I agree - and am somewhat shocked by - the number of grammar errors on cards. Why, are there, so many, unnecessary, and, incorrect, placements of, commas, ?, Didn't a native English speaker* proofread the (English) cards?
*William Shatner doesn't count.
If you're still worried about game length, try Domination. It will speed up your games.
(Unless the problem is "analysis paralysis" in which case try a different opponent - or play faster)
(I'm guilty of this myself on "crucial turns" but our 1-on-1 matches are still ~ 75 minutes with rare exceptions so not ridiculously long)
Unless you want a 20 minute game. Then play Academy or any of the many MANY many 20-30 minute LCG/CCG type games out there. It's OK to admit that Mage Wars Arena/Domination just isn't your thing if you aren't into 1-2 hour matches with a really epic feel that involve some commitment to spell book building and the time it takes to play them out. But I wouldn't be happy either if 1-on-1 matches were taking 3+ hours, so... try Domination.
Note: 2-on-2 team Domination might take 3 hours; and 3-way matches might take 90-120 minutes. But I'm OK with that. It just might not be for everybody.
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I didn't mean this post to be "wizards are/aren't OP", "this spell costs too much", or randomization is bad and/or the greatest. Keep at it, if you like, but there are other more specialized thread already covering those. Respect how different people prefer different things and all that.
Following this discussion on destruction of equipment, what if all(or non-novice) equipment got the cantrip trait? Dissolves would still be an option, but you wouldn't need more than 1 copy of equipment.
A possible addition to this first idea would be adding an overpriced epic dissolve which obliterates(to cancel out cantrip).
As for conditions, downsizing would be crucial for me. Outright removing daze and replacing with slam for example would simplify without reducing depth. Stun ==incapacited as well, so just call incapacitated "stunned". The burn random damage versus the rot steady damage is something I'd like to preserve. Bleed, rot, and tainted could all be one condition though. Not to mention the time tax of combing through all those condition markers looking for another burn and all you can find are crippleds.
And subtly making 2.0 have a more narrow expected timespan would boost accessibility.
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The Gate to Hell was changed in the latest printing. The attack now effects every zone in the arena. Still a steep cost but it is the only arena wide attack that exists at the moment. It works best in a Demon focused spellbook.
But still, we determined (here in another thread) that you still need LOS to each zone that it attacks.
My own list would include making Gate to Hell more usable and/or not cost so much (even with the Arena-wide attack), Wizard's Tower should require mana to swap out the spell and be Legendary or somesuch, and spell point costs should be done a little differently... instead of a level 2 water spell costing a Druid 4, I feel it should cost her 3 (one level with training and one without).
The one more radical idea is to play on a hex map... maybe three hexes out from center. (That actually reminds me of an ancient PBM game that I played... Wizards got mana for "converting" hexes to their own power base, and there was a cost to move through each hex, etc.) Anyway, a hex map would allow for 2 or 3 players very readily.
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Bleed, rot, and tainted could all be one condition though.
They are three completely different things though, so it is not clear to me what you would do here. Rot and Tainted are Poison, one of these deal damage and the other reduces Life. Bleed is bleeding, however they are all conditions that cause damage (or Life reduction) in different ways during upkeep.
I understand the desire to make things a bit more simple. All that will end up happening is the same thing that happened in Academy, the condition goes away, and instead it effect is written again and again and again on the card. So instead of having a simple concise location to read generic rules and their effects (i.e. the condition) they will be written on to cards and then your will have to review the FAQ to understand the ins and outs of it.
It really is a conundrum in game design for this particular game. If there were no new conditions implemented since the release of the core game, the design restrictions for new mages would be quite limiting and we would never get Frost (even though it Frost doesn't appear to need that design restriction in the first place.). New conditions are good for the game, they provide a single point of reference for players to understand game rules. I personally have no problem with them, other than the ones duplicated on spells in Academy to make things "simple".
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RE: Sike
I meant Bleed, rot, and tainted get reduced to a typeless "DOT" condition. If the attack deals any damage, and the effect roll passes, they get the DOT marker. every upkeep they take 1 damage. removal cost of 2.
Hunters bow (bleed) would have an effect: 7+ dot. Darkfenne bat (rot) would have an untyped melee attack of 2 dice with a effect: 8+ poison DOT. If the target is immune to the type, they are immune to the DOT. Untyped DOTs have the same type as the attack roll they come from.
Something simple like that.
You lose the ability to have an uptyped attack deal an untyped condition which could only effect certain typed targets(bleed and non-plant living), but not much else. Its well worth the removal of clutter to me.
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All equipment being Epic would be terrible for a lot of mages. Want to beat a Priest? [mwcard=MW1I07]Dissolve[/mwcard] his ONLY [mwcard=MW1Q29]Staff of Asyra[/mwcard]. How about a Johktari Beastmaster? Crumble her ONLY Kajarah or [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]. Sure, it can be annoying to be a Warlock and come up against somebody running 3x [mwcard=MW1Q06]Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard] out-of-school... but then you just [mwcard=MW1I11]Explode[/mwcard] them and move on. I could see a compromise, that maybe all chest armours should have been level 2... in which case a Beastmaster or Druid is paying 6 sbp for Dragonscale and most other mages are paying 4 (but Beastmasters/Druids will get cheap access to Chitin Armor if/when it ever comes out in a set, so it will balance out). Unfortunately that means the Wizard gets a little better, but that's hard to avoid when manipulating spell point costs.
I didn't say all equipment would be epic, just the chest pieces.
And this is only to punish people who choose to stack chest pieces, and swap them to deal with corrodes. This would still be possible, but the armor pieces would cost more spellbook points.
I must be missing something because I don't find Mage Bane or Ghoul Rot (or Plagued) to be too strong. They're good, and they solve the problem of dealing with heavily armored opponents (which solves the armor-swap issue, by the way) but it only takes a Dispel or Disperse to get rid of them. Oh, except against the Necromancer, since he's immune to them... so you have to deal with the armor on a Necromancer since you can't just Ghoul Rot him.
It's just me personally thinking Mage bane is stronger than the five mana cost it has.
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RE: drefan
i said "All non-novice equipment effectively being epic sounds pretty cool" after you, so thats what he was addressing.
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All equipment being Epic would be terrible for a lot of mages. Want to beat a Priest? [mwcard=MW1I07]Dissolve[/mwcard] his ONLY [mwcard=MW1Q29]Staff of Asyra[/mwcard]. How about a Johktari Beastmaster? Crumble her ONLY Kajarah or [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]. Sure, it can be annoying to be a Warlock and come up against somebody running 3x [mwcard=MW1Q06]Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard] out-of-school... but then you just [mwcard=MW1I11]Explode[/mwcard] them and move on. I could see a compromise, that maybe all chest armours should have been level 2... in which case a Beastmaster or Druid is paying 6 sbp for Dragonscale and most other mages are paying 4 (but Beastmasters/Druids will get cheap access to Chitin Armor if/when it ever comes out in a set, so it will balance out). Unfortunately that means the Wizard gets a little better, but that's hard to avoid when manipulating spell point costs.
I didn't say all equipment would be epic, just the chest pieces.
And this is only to punish people who choose to stack chest pieces, and swap them to deal with corrodes. This would still be possible, but the armor pieces would cost more spellbook points.
I must be missing something because I don't find Mage Bane or Ghoul Rot (or Plagued) to be too strong. They're good, and they solve the problem of dealing with heavily armored opponents (which solves the armor-swap issue, by the way) but it only takes a Dispel or Disperse to get rid of them. Oh, except against the Necromancer, since he's immune to them... so you have to deal with the armor on a Necromancer since you can't just Ghoul Rot him.
It's just me personally thinking Mage bane is stronger than the five mana cost it has.
Honestly not being snide here, but that feels very unthematic to me. Might as well be playing another plain and boring CCG. Being Poisoned results in Poison based damage, Bleeding means your Bleeding out (damage). Just simplifying the game to genericisms is very dull to me, why do this?
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After failing to find a picture of it online, I've put a note on my to-do list to post a side-by-side image of the old and new Gate to Hell tonight.
(http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16763.0;attach=808;image)
So...
- Lost "Hydro +3" trait (e.g. isn't so susceptible to water damage)
- Hits everything in the arena (but still needs LoS to each creature it attacks)
- Also works as a Garrison Post for demons your Pentagram summons... which will presumably be nice when we get a bunch of cheap demons in the Academy Warlock expansion
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All equipment being Epic would be terrible for a lot of mages. Want to beat a Priest? [mwcard=MW1I07]Dissolve[/mwcard] his ONLY [mwcard=MW1Q29]Staff of Asyra[/mwcard]. How about a Johktari Beastmaster? Crumble her ONLY Kajarah or [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]. Sure, it can be annoying to be a Warlock and come up against somebody running 3x [mwcard=MW1Q06]Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard] out-of-school... but then you just [mwcard=MW1I11]Explode[/mwcard] them and move on. I could see a compromise, that maybe all chest armours should have been level 2... in which case a Beastmaster or Druid is paying 6 sbp for Dragonscale and most other mages are paying 4 (but Beastmasters/Druids will get cheap access to Chitin Armor if/when it ever comes out in a set, so it will balance out). Unfortunately that means the Wizard gets a little better, but that's hard to avoid when manipulating spell point costs.
I didn't mean to say that all equipment would be epic, just the chest pieces that give +2 armor and X.
And this is only to punish people who choose to stack chest pieces and swap them to deal with corrodes. This would still be possible, but the armor pieces would cost more spellbook points.
I must be missing something because I don't find Mage Bane or Ghoul Rot (or Plagued) to be too strong. They're good, and they solve the problem of dealing with heavily armored opponents (which solves the armor-swap issue, by the way) but it only takes a Dispel or Disperse to get rid of them. Oh, except against the Necromancer, since he's immune to them... so you have to deal with the armor on a Necromancer since you can't just Ghoul Rot him.
It's just me personally thinking Mage bane is stronger than the five mana cost it has.
Honestly not being snide here, but that feels very unthematic to me. Might as well be playing another plain and boring CCG. Being Poisoned results in Poison based damage, Bleeding means your Bleeding out (damage). Just simplifying the game to genericisms is very dull to me, why do this?
I can get that people disagree with mage bane being more expensive to cast. For me mage bane does two things; pressure by applying damage and the mind game aspect where you might get them to rethink their moves simply because the damage is starting to stack up. However, I don't see how it would make the game more plain and boring if you added +1 - 3 mana cost to that card, unless you're referring to the armor change?
And I guess here is where we disagree. I personally don't think stacking up on armor is very "creative" and that it hinders the progress you could see in tournament books.
Watching the Thunderdome tournament, pretty much everyone used the Wizard with a heavy armor spell book. I personally did not enjoy watching those game since they took hours even thought the participants would play very well.
When my group plays locally we've the most fun when we're not running these armor heavy books and still our matches can be very long.
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After failing to find a picture of it online, I've put a note on my to-do list to post a side-by-side image of the old and new Gate to Hell tonight.
(http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16763.0;attach=808;image)
So...
- Lost "Hydro +3" trait (e.g. isn't so susceptible to water damage)
- Hits everything in the arena (but still needs LoS to each creature it attacks)
- Also works as a Garrison Post for demons your Pentagram summons... which will presumably be nice when we get a bunch of cheap demons in the Academy Warlock expansion
Is the requirement for LOS still present?
I recall this was discussed previously when the "2 zone" restriction was in the card text which implies a range to target calculation. However, it no longer references zones or a range and simply states EVERY creature in the arena receives an attack. The card would have more power if it did not have the LoS requirement.
Thoughts / ruling ?
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So...
- Lost "Hydro +3" trait (e.g. isn't so susceptible to water damage)
- Hits everything in the arena (but still needs LoS to each creature it attacks)
- Also works as a Garrison Post for demons your Pentagram summons... which will presumably be nice when we get a bunch of cheap demons in the Academy Warlock expansion
Is the requirement for LOS still present?
I recall this was discussed previously when the "2 zone" restriction was in the card text which implies a range to target calculation. However, it no longer references zones or a range and simply states EVERY creature in the arena receives an attack. The card would have more power if it did not have the LoS requirement.
Thoughts / ruling ?
Yes, I brought it up after the change. The ruling was something along the lines of 1) it's an attack, and 2) attacks always require LOS.
Kharhaz responded with the reasoning in this post (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15661.msg53071#msg53071).
I felt that it was odd that something like a Fog Bank could prevent the attack... but there is no such thing as a Line of Effect in this game... which is a good thing :)
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I haven’t read the whole thread so I might repeat somethings already said, but here are my thoughts on the topic:
First I would have tried to make the game shorter. It is not only for new players the duration of one play is very intimidating, personally I would like the game to be half as long so that I could try out more Mages, strategies and play styles in the same time. As it is now I think mid game is not necessary. I’m not saying I have the solution for this but here are some ideas:
- More attack dies and less armor and health. As it is now viable tactics are to muster tons of armor and just stall the game.
- More efficient mana generators and channeling effects. The game always turn slow after turn 3.
- Not as many counter options. In the last expansions I have felt that many enchantments and incantations are only there to counter a particular card, and later a second card appears that counter that card and so on.
[Edit] I'm not a big fan of Acadamy, and I don't want Arena to go towards that. If one game could be max 1h it would be great!
Second, I would make more vanilla creatures, or with just some basic traits like “lightning +2” etc. Yes it is cool with all abilities and effects but it also makes the game unnecessary complex. I would rather make more simple creatures and shift over all crazy effects to global conjurations and instant incantations. In that way you can control the difficult level by limiting the amount of conjurations or say “this is a level 2 conjuration game”. Same goes with all the effects and tokens. Right now it is too much, and many have basically the same effect like Bleed and Rot.
Third, I would make creatures degrade with damage. As it is now the last damage is so vital for a successful game. If you roll that last damage you don’t have to spend that extra action and mana for a later overkill (at a creature who might be able to act in between). My thinking is something like this: If a creature have X damage left its max amount of attack dice could only be X no matter what. So a Timber wolf with Bear Strength that only has one health left only roll one attack die. This is also thematic since a half dead creature could not possibly fight as well as a fresh one.
Just my 0,02 $.
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Thanks for the ideas fas723. You didn't miss much in the thread :P. Unless you really like gate to hell.
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I disagree with all the people saying that conditions should be (or should have been) simplified to reduce complexity. While some conditions are similar, they aren't exactly the same, and eliminating the differences between them would seriously damage the theme of the game. That strong sense of theme is a really important factor that contributes to my personal enjoyment of the game.
As for what I would change, if given the chance? Hmmm......
1. Replace effect roll die with something more consistent. I'm not a huge fan of the variation in regular attack die either, but at least that doesn't usually lead to all-or-nothing situations that might single-handedly determine the game. I strongly believe that most players avoid using a lot of utility-based attack spells solely because of this inconsistency. People don't want to risk an entire game around whether [mwcard=MWSTX1CKA01]Surging Wave[/mwcard] will actually push a buffed [mwcard=MW1C06]Brogan Bloodstone[/mwcard] away from your mage. So instead a lot of people just spam the highest damage attack cards (force hammer and hurl boulder) and ignore the effects. There are other ways to balance out powerful effects like stun: you can either have extra target restrictions on the card itself or just make it cost more mana.
2. Create a movement stat for creatures. This would have gotten rid of the necessity for a couple of keywords (fast and slow) and also allowed for more creature variety as well as more effective kiting strategies. Imagine a creature which had 4 movement (balanced out by low health, perhaps), allowing it to run around and pick off weakened creatures.
3. A split online / tabletop focus. Bear with me, this one's a bit weird. I love playing Mage Wars in person, but a lot of the people who I would regularly play with either don't live near me all of the time or are too busy to drive to my house (or vice versa) just to play a board game. So I would have added a way to keep track of exactly what cards players possessed, and let them use those cards to play online matches of the game (either with their friends or in ranked tournaments). For example, Arcane Wonders could have included a serial code in each box of the game that would unlock the cards in that set on a player's online account. Then players have the best of both worlds: they can play in person or online, whichever they prefer. Creating such an online/offline system would also have had advantages for the game itself: the devs could set up playtesting events online to help balance cards before they officially come out (and are annoying to errata). Yes, technically players can use the fan-supported OCTGN system, but that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place.
4. Double-sided Domination tiles that come standard with Arena. In hindsight, the variable terrain introduced with Domination makes the game a lot more fun (as a semi-casual player). Packing that into the base game instead of the traditional board could only have helped its initial popularity and portability. What I still don't understand is why the new tiles aren't double-sided. When everything else about the game from a component standpoint feels so polished, the waste inherent in only using 1 sided tiles is really bizarre. Two-sided tiles would also have allowed the devs to make every tile have one unique effect side as well as a regular side. That way players could choose to have an all normal board, complete chaos, or anything in between. Sadly, I don't expect this to get rectified any time soon, since new Battlegrounds releases will probably need to be compatible with Domination tiles.
5. Regular Release Schedule. Yeah, I'm being a bit cheeky, but I also know that the long, LONG wait for Paladin vs Siren has seriously hampered my enjoyment of the game. The smaller releases just haven't been the same, and the lack of new mages makes the game more boring. There are still SOOO many possible mages that the game hasn't covered (*cough* frost mage *cough*), which makes it even more frustrating that we'll have been waiting 3 YEARS for new mages by the time PvS is roughly estimated to finally come out (DvN released Nov. 2013). That should never have been allowed to happen. At some point you just need to lock certain stuff down and move on to only minute balancing instead of constantly redesigning everything because it isn't absolutely perfect (which is what I'm betting has at least contributed to the delays). I can't speak for others, but I'm not willing to wait another 3 years for Barbarian vs Sorcerer (or whatever it will end up being) to roll out. I'm not asking for monthly releases or anything crazy like that, but getting a new set of Arena mages out the door at least once a year (along with 1-2 minor Academy releases and perhaps a Battlegrounds or other expansion) should be considered the bare minimum.
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I disagree with all the people saying that conditions should be (or should have been) simplified to reduce complexity. While some conditions are similar, they aren't exactly the same, and eliminating the differences between them would seriously damage the theme of the game. That strong sense of theme is a really important factor that contributes to my personal enjoyment of the game.
As for what I would change, if given the chance? Hmmm......
1. Replace effect roll die with something more consistent. I'm not a huge fan of the variation in regular attack die either, but at least that doesn't usually lead to all-or-nothing situations that might single-handedly determine the game. I strongly believe that most players avoid using a lot of utility-based attack spells solely because of this inconsistency. People don't want to risk an entire game around whether [mwcard=MWSTX1CKA01]Surging Wave[/mwcard] will actually push a buffed [mwcard=MW1C06]Brogan Bloodstone[/mwcard] away from your mage. So instead a lot of people just spam the highest damage attack cards (force hammer and hurl boulder) and ignore the effects. There are other ways to balance out powerful effects like stun: you can either have extra target restrictions on the card itself or just make it cost more mana.
2. Create a movement stat for creatures. This would have gotten rid of the necessity for a couple of keywords (fast and slow) and also allowed for more creature variety as well as more effective kiting strategies. Imagine a creature which had 4 movement (balanced out by low health, perhaps), allowing it to run around and pick off weakened creatures.
3. A split online / tabletop focus. Bear with me, this one's a bit weird. I love playing Mage Wars in person, but a lot of the people who I would regularly play with either don't live near me all of the time or are too busy to drive to my house (or vice versa) just to play a board game. So I would have added a way to keep track of exactly what cards players possessed, and let them use those cards to play online matches of the game (either with their friends or in ranked tournaments). For example, Arcane Wonders could have included a serial code in each box of the game that would unlock the cards in that set on a player's online account. Then players have the best of both worlds: they can play in person or online, whichever they prefer. Creating such an online/offline system would also have had advantages for the game itself: the devs could set up playtesting events online to help balance cards before they officially come out (and are annoying to errata). Yes, technically players can use the fan-supported OCTGN system, but that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place.
4. Double-sided Domination tiles that come standard with Arena. In hindsight, the variable terrain introduced with Domination makes the game a lot more fun (as a semi-casual player). Packing that into the base game instead of the traditional board could only have helped its initial popularity and portability. What I still don't understand is why the new tiles aren't double-sided. When everything else about the game from a component standpoint feels so polished, the waste inherent in only using 1 sided tiles is really bizarre. Two-sided tiles would also have allowed the devs to make every tile have one unique effect side as well as a regular side. That way players could choose to have an all normal board, complete chaos, or anything in between. Sadly, I don't expect this to get rectified any time soon, since new Battlegrounds releases will probably need to be compatible with Domination tiles.
5. Regular Release Schedule. Yeah, I'm being a bit cheeky, but I also know that the long, LONG wait for Paladin vs Siren has seriously hampered my enjoyment of the game. The smaller releases just haven't been the same, and the lack of new mages makes the game more boring. There are still SOOO many possible mages that the game hasn't covered (*cough* frost mage *cough*), which makes it even more frustrating that we'll have been waiting 3 YEARS for new mages by the time PvS is roughly estimated to finally come out (DvN released Nov. 2013). That should never have been allowed to happen. At some point you just need to lock certain stuff down and move on to only minute balancing instead of constantly redesigning everything because it isn't absolutely perfect (which is what I'm betting has at least contributed to the delays). I can't speak for others, but I'm not willing to wait another 3 years for Barbarian vs Sorcerer (or whatever it will end up being) to roll out. I'm not asking for monthly releases or anything crazy like that, but getting a new set of Arena mages out the door at least once a year (along with 1-2 minor Academy releases and perhaps a Battlegrounds or other expansion) should be considered the bare minimum.
+1 for Ganpot's post.
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People realise that gate to hell was only one example of many crds which either require more stats or less cost. All the big angels fall under this category imo as well. They are far to weak for their mana cost and he inly big creature that warrants its casting cost is Adramelech Lord of Fire.
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People realise that gate to hell was only one example of many crds which either require more stats or less cost. All the big angels fall under this category imo as well. They are far to weak for their mana cost and he inly big creature that warrants its casting cost is Adramelech Lord of Fire.
right!
these angels are made of paper!
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And think about Sardonyx the poor dragon that never sees play. Losing 2 life each round for only a standart 5-die quick-melee-attack is hard but maybe okay at the right moment. But level 8 is just too expensive in a spellbook.
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And think about Sardonyx the poor dragon that never sees play.
Sardonyx is nothing but a Timmy (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03) card. For everyone else, it's completely unplayable.
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People realise that gate to hell was only one example of many crds which either require more stats or less cost. All the big angels fall under this category imo as well. They are far to weak for their mana cost and he inly big creature that warrants its casting cost is Adramelech Lord of Fire.
right!
these angels are made of paper!
Have you tried Crown of Protection with them? A nice combo to buff holy creatures for half the mana cost of an enchantment.
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I haven't found the Angels to be made of paper myself, the main thing is you can't run a Angels books (Guardian being the exception) as they don't hinder ground pounders unless on guard, which then they loose flying which is one of there strengths.....
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I haven't found the Angels to be made of paper myself, the main thing is you can't run a Angels books (Guardian being the exception) as they don't hinder ground pounders unless on guard, which then they loose flying which is one of there strengths.....
Just wait for the Victorian Griffin. That should help the holy school with their flight inspired strategies.
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I haven't found the Angels to be made of paper myself, the main thing is you can't run a Angels books (Guardian being the exception) as they don't hinder ground pounders unless on guard, which then they loose flying which is one of there strengths.....
Just wait for the Victorian Griffin. That should help the holy school with their flight inspired strategies.
that's good news!
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If I remade Mage Wars, I would not have added the Dissipate trait to Enchantments, but kept it limited to conjurations. I liked the simplicity of Instant vs. Persistent effects comparing an enchantment to an incantation. Now that we have enchantments with Dissipate 1 it reduces the value of similar Incantations.
If I wanted to expand the magic system to include duration based spells I might have added a new spell type like Hexes that included a new icon for duration and placed it where life is shown for creatures/conjurations.
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Except even enchantments with dissipate 1 are cast face down. The enchantment does not begin to dissipate until it is revealed. Incantations still can't do that
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Mandatory reveals. I'm not sure how I'd balance it but I'd like to option to choose when to use a Block or Reverse Magic, etc.
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I think I would have made the game better transportable. Or added a travel version (did this on my own now). Use small dice for damage, cards instead of condition markers and a tiled board like in battleground.
If staying with markers, I would make front and back always the same... It's annoying to search as it is and it is not sortable.
Also I am not interested at all in the world of etheria. Instead of thinking about names of gods and how orbd function I would concentrate energy on balanced mechanics and up-to-date apps, fixed release- and promo timeline and so on.
In the game itself I would try to keep descriptions and conditions simpler. Texts like “if target creature is minor reduce cost by one“ are too long and unnecessary slow to use.
And I would focus on 1 game. That is arena (no battleground, no academy). I would try to get the beginner version (apprentice mode) more popular and also played in tournaments by pros. I would also try to get 2v2 and maybe other goals working smooth in arena.
In arena O would not change much. It is simply said a great game. Just tower (zone exclusive, spellbind + pay to change) and maybe wizard itself (pay triple for something) need errata :)
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And I would focus on 1 game. That is arena (no battleground, no academy). I would try to get the beginner version (apprentice mode) more popular and also played in tournaments by pros. I would also try to get 2v2 and maybe other goals working smooth in arena.
Or just Domination (rather than Arena), as originally envisioned (http://www.arcanewonders.com/arcane-wonders/the-designers-desk).