Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: Moonglow on July 25, 2013, 08:09:29 PM
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Just curious if anyone can shed any light on the decision to make the quick action only allowable after movement (if moving at all) during an action phase?
Its one of the only parts of the battle sequence that feels artificial,;that a mage, or creature can move and act (quick), but not act (quick) and then move seems rather arbitrary.
I'm guessing it was set that way to maintain a certain balance. It would seem at least that ranged weapons are made more viable (or at least quick attack melee are less viable) if you can't hit and run with a melee attack.
I guess it also would slow down the play a little also; this way you have to run in an attack etc, but can't run attack and run away. But I guess some players would seem to warrant a hit and run approach..
Just curious really.
Sorry if this has been answered/discussed elsewhere - I did a bit of a search and read through all the clarifications on quick action, but didn't find a rationale for why it was like that.
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Just curious if anyone can shed any light on the decision to make the quick action only allowable after movement (if moving at all) during an action phase?
Its one of the only parts of the battle sequence that feels artificial,;that a mage, or creature can move and act (quick), but not act (quick) and then move seems rather arbitrary.
I'm guessing it was set that way to maintain a certain balance. It would seem at least that ranged weapons are made more viable (or at least quick attack melee are less viable) if you can't hit and run with a melee attack.
I guess it also would slow down the play a little also; this way you have to run in an attack etc, but can't run attack and run away. But I guess some players would seem to warrant a hit and run approach..
Just curious really.
Sorry if this has been answered/discussed elsewhere - I did a bit of a search and read through all the clarifications on quick action, but didn't find a rationale for why it was like that.
Well, most ranged weapons/attacks have a minimum range, so you want to be as close as possible, not hitting and running back into range...
Anyway, my guess is that it was to make melee combat more interesting and to balance the Fast/Elusive trait combination.
A Fast and Elusive creature, if it weren't for the current rules, would have a ridiculous amount of control over combat. I mean, they already do, but if you could move whenever during an Action phase, I could see that being an overwhelming trait combination.
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I guess what I would prefer - minding you comment about maintaining the correct range for ranged weapons - is the option to shoot if I'm in range, and move further away. Perhaps they're chasing me, whatever, but it just seems non-thematic and counter intuitive to say you can move and shoot but not shoot and move....
I differ on you call about making melee combat more interesting, to me it seems the opposite. It limits it to charging, staying and taking it or running away..
Balancing fast and elusive, probably, I guess it essentially makes them swattable, they've moved, taken a nip out of you, you've got the chance to splat them before they run off again.... but then if they're all that fast and elusive, it still seems like they could take a nip and then run off...
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I guess what I would prefer - minding you comment about maintaining the correct range for ranged weapons - is the option to shoot if I'm in range, and move further away. Perhaps they're chasing me, whatever, but it just seems non-thematic and counter intuitive to say you can move and shoot but not shoot and move....
I differ on you call about making melee combat more interesting, to me it seems the opposite. It limits it to charging, staying and taking it or running away..
Balancing fast and elusive, probably, I guess it essentially makes them swattable, they've moved, taken a nip out of you, you've got the chance to splat them before they run off again.... but then if they're all that fast and elusive, it still seems like they could take a nip and then run off...
Well, to my knowledge, all non-spell ranged attacks require a full action so you can't move and shoot without extra spells to move your creature. You can move and cast a non-zone attack spell, but you also have to pay a premium of mana each time you do. It's just two different ways of approaching ranged attacks, each being better a different situation.
Overall, i think it just comes down to the fact that the way the rules are set up now in terms of moving are more intuintive than you think. It provides structure to a game that has a lot of ways of manipulating movements and action order to begin with (with QuickCast).
And really, you can accomplish the same goal of avoiding melee and forcing opponents into range using the QuickCast action anyway, what with the multitude of spells like Force Push, Repulse, restraining spells, and so on. Just activate your mage or whatever creature that has a ranged attack, QC one of those, and attack.
Your view on combat is clearly an exaggeration. In a match between opponents who are well-versed in manipulating Action Phase order, there is a lot of moving around. Sometimes you charge in and attack, other times you need to retreat; if you're consistently running away and not pressuring your opponent, there's probably something wrong with your build.
Finally, it's pretty easy to rationalize how ranged attacks work in a thematic sense; you need concentration to aim and fire, unless you spend some more mana to help you do that. I don't see how it's anti-thematic to need to actually take the time aim and fire a bow, really. If anything, it makes less sense if you imagine someone trying to shoot a bow while running. I mean, I've done archery before and it wouldn't be practical to run backwards (or any direction) if you have even a remote interest in accuracy.
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The ranged attack was probably a poor example, it was just me trying to think of options that might explain why the direction of move-> quick action might have been set the way it was.
Focusing on that one point doesn't really answer my question. My question isnt really about ranged attacks, its the whole uni directional split between movement and actions.
I think your call that the design is more intuitive than I can appreciate is a bit of an oxymoron. If it was intuitive then I'd be able to appreciate it.
The main call on the rules has been that things work the way you think they should. That you can move and act but not act then move seems like an arbitrary rule imposition that doesn't seem to fit this guideline. I can't really see that it makes a huge difference to game play to let a player act then move. Which is why I was interested in some of the design decisions that went into this rule. Especially as it seems to be one of the few rules that stick out in the game in this manner.
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I do understand attacking and then moving, I really do. However I feel it would have caused extensive changes to the rules of the game. Full attacks would be absolutely negated, seeing as whoever got into range first would never stick around long enough to use them. Then suddenly every build needs twice as many positioning spells just to keep some advantage, really limiting on the flavor the game does retain by setting the rules as they are. At that point as well, elusive plus fast does break the game because you can hit and never really be attacked back without range or the opponent packing the same traits, or once again half a book of movement manipulation. This is all speculation of course, however i would not be opposed to a keyword that allows specific creatures to do that.
My rationality is that once something commits to an attack, they decide to use all their focus and energy on that attack.
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I really love this rule... gives u the chance to actually do some strategic planning and learningon when to battle and when not to... (wich i havent learned xD)...
But i have played other games where u could just hit and run.. rinse and repeat giving you "effortless" advantage, especially if you have intiative...
HIT & RUN can me something really frustrating to play against, and this game makes it possible, but not for free...
And i dont think it takes away flavor... being in a small arena in a mage deathmatch... i dont think theres room for cowards!
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Finally, it's pretty easy to rationalize how ranged attacks work in a thematic sense; you need concentration to aim and fire
Hmm I wonder if the American Indians bareback on horses, Sumerians rolling in chariots, or the Huns coming full gallop across the steeps of Asia, Robin Hood firing arrows would "thematically" be a full action.
I have wondered why Ranged attacks are only full actions and not a mix. Like a quick action(sharp eye) at a shorter range with a small amount of damage and a full action(volley) at a longer range doing more damage.
Just my two cents.
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I was thinking about that last night. It could make a cool new creature that you (the mage) can ride, reduce all ranged attacks to quick actions. Or perhaps newer equipment that isn't as strong dice wise but allows faster shooting times. It's card to know when the game space is still very much developing...
Finally, it's pretty easy to rationalize how ranged attacks work in a thematic sense; you need concentration to aim and fire
Hmm I wonder if the American Indians bareback on horses, Sumerians rolling in chariots, or the Huns coming full gallop across the steeps of Asia, Robin Hood firing arrows would be "thematically" be a full action.
I have wondered why Ranged attacks are only full actions and not a mix. Like a quick action(sharp eye) at a shorter range with a small amount of damage and a full action(volley) at a longer range doing more damage.
Just my two cents.
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My interpretation is: They decided to handle things like this (quick action only after movement, not before) in order to constrain the possibility space and make for more interesting decisions by the players. Just like the restriction that you can take two move actions or one move and one quick action, but not two quick actions. I don't think there is, nor should be, a thematic explanation for these things, they're the timing framework the game is built (and balanced) around.
Kind of like physics are based on a couple of inexplicable (to us, right now) constants.
I have wondered why Ranged attacks are only full actions and not a mix. Like a quick action(sharp eye) at a shorter range with a small amount of damage and a full action(volley) at a longer range doing more damage.
Heh, an interpretation would be that you can indeed shoot as a quick action - it's implemented in game terms as "not taking a quick action when you could", and you don't hit your target.
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Technically there are Full and Quick action ranged attacks, it's just that up until this point, Ranged Attack Spells are the only ones that can be quick, and non-spell ranged attacks are exclusively full actions.
The point about mounted archers though does give me an idea for a Trait...maybe the "Mounted" or "Rider" trait I thought up could somehow allow for a creature to use another creature (horse, etc) as an equipment that would allow for moving and shooting...
Or maybe there could be a conjuration, like a Stables, that allows for units to temporarily gain that kind of ability.
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I understand that ranged attacks that are "spell cast" are mostly Quick Attacks however all bow based attacks require a Full Action, I am wondering what part of game balance was affected by bow based attacks being Quick Actions.
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Probably the fact that, for non-spell ranged attacks, you typically only have to pay the mana cost once (be it a creature or equipment) whereas with an Attack Spell, you get to use it as a quick action but have to pay mana each time. Perhaps in testing, AW discovered that having access to a quick ranged attack that is free after the first payment proved overwhelming or homogenizing for builds.
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If you could quick action + move, it would be far too easy to melee someone and then move to another square. Right now, if you do a melee attack you commit yourself to being in the same square as your opponent. Combined with the Hindrance mechanics, this makes melee feel like a true engagement, you're not just swinging at someone as you pass by, they are tying you down in close quarters combat.
From a spellcast perspective - curse+kiting strats are already strong enough as it is, can you imagine how ludicrous it would be if I could throw a curse from 2 range, step away to 3 range, and still have a quickcast marker that I can use for nasty things?
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Most people's comments are just rationalising that allowing QA then movement would break the game. But that's because of the existing game space and rule structure, which is as it is because it was designed that way. Almost every objection could have been addressed through the game development if QA+move was part of the original design space. It either wasn't, or got knobbled as a short cut to try and balance address other problems. The later seems the most likely. I'm not saying it was a bad decision, but it does stick out a bit.
Again, as iI said in my original post, if the arbitrator for rules in MW is that things should happen the way you think they should, then there isn't any rationale for preventing QA+move. I can move then do x, so I should be able to do x and then move. You can't. Why not, you just can't the rules say so. To me that's an arbitrary rule that just looks like it was stuck in place to fix something that couldn't be fixed more elegantly.
My question isn't what are all the reasons that make it bad to change this rule now. I am asking about the design story and challenges that resulted in this approach to the rules.
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PS stop trying to defend MW as perfect. Its unnecessary. I love the game, it's totally captured my imagination and enthusiasm. I'm just interested in understanding some of the design decisions that underpin the game. I guess I've always enjoyed things like Donald Vaccarino's secret histories of dominion, which were just his thoughts and challenges bringing together a coherent rule system over years of play testing and card development.
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It forces players to think deeper than just trying hit and run tactics. A rule doesn't seem arbitrary if it effectively fixes a balance issue. As long as the rule is understood and widely accepted, what is arbitrary about it? It may not be a perfect rule, but it works, and constrains the game in an interesting and thought provoking way.
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I gues thats getting into a more interesting discussion - was it a design decision that hit and run was a play style that was bad for the game? I think it would have supported a wider range of typical fantasy arch types, assassin style etc.
I guess my argument that its arbitary is that it seems a patch rather than woven into the fabric of the design. I mean I appreciate that MW isnt a simulation, which is an argument that comes up on BGG often, is a rule thematic etc. But the impression Ive gotten from the demo videos etc has been that the designers intent was to try and create a realisic ebb and flow of a batle between mages...
So why cant I act and then move? At the moment it seems its cause it was the only way the designers could balance the cards and cause they consider that made for a more thoughtful game.
As a play tester are you able to comment on whether the game was ever tested with both options? What stage of the desgn process, what was some of the thinking?
It does constrain the game, but I find it more of a frustrating and annoying way... The trouble is the more I ask about it and try and understand it, the more it annoys me; god dammit, why'd I ask ;)
It forces players to think deeper than just trying hit and run tactics. A rule doesn't seem arbitrary if it effectively fixes a balance issue. As long as the rule is understood and widely accepted, what is arbitrary about it? It may not be a perfect rule, but it works, and constrains the game in an interesting and thought provoking way.
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That would be an interesting piece of information to know. Maybe we'll get an answer when the "story bible" comes out sometime in the future.
The problem with how I think you're interpreting the realism in Mage Was is that such a notion is idiosyncratic to the designers; that is, subjective. We aren't so much seeing what magic would be like if it were real as much as what magic would be like if it were real from the perspective of the game designers. Mage Wars is Bryan Pope & friends interpretation and expression of "real" magic, not necessarily yours.
You can really only take the rationalization of the marriage of reality and fantasy so far. Eventually, just like in real life, you need arbitrary rules to create order from chaos.
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Reddawn, totally appreciate that this is the world of the designers imagination. Although I think that they've done a masterful job f building on or echoing many of the archtypes and memes common in fantasy fiction. Which is why this rule bugs me. I mean they can create a plausible rule system for lightning attacks, summoning angels, throwing curses etc. all of which has an excellent internal consistency and balance. Much of which I think captures how most fans might have imagined it working...and then thow in a rule that says I can walk and then talk, but not talk and then walk (just as an analogy).
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I guess a possible solution is to allow a quick action then move in your games and see how it impacts gameplay. If it works fine then house rule that it's allowed in your own games. In all honesty I was wondering the same thing when I read the rules.
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Much of which I think captures how most fans might have imagined it working...and then thow in a rule that says I can walk and then talk, but not talk and then walk (just as an analogy).
As I've said before, I think this interpretation is backwards. Changing the game to allow having not just move+move and move+QA, but also QA+move (and also QA+QA, there's as little thematic justification for not allowing this as there is for not allowing QA+move) would break so many things that this can't have possibly been something that was added late in the game development. It must have been added early. It's part of the very foundation of the game that everything is built upon, just like physics are built around arbitrary numbers such as pi, e and g.
So asking "why can't I QA+move" is, to me, akin to asking "why didn't you make a completely different game instead?"
As for what the reasons were for this early decision, only the designers can possibly answer that. This sounds plausible:
A: "Hey, let's make a game, where two mages battle each other"
B: "That sounds neat! They can move, and summon, and cast spells"
A: "Yeah, but summoning should take longer than casting, right?"
B: "Descent has these neat half-actions, where you can move+attack, or attack+attack, or attack+move, we can take that and have complex spells take both half-actions"
A: "Hm, that sounds cool. Let's see how this goes, I've made this prototype"
...some playtesting...
A: "Yeah, that looks good, but we should make it impossible to cast two spells for non-mages, and movement didn't feel like it was actually important because you could just attack and then move away"
B: "I have this neat idea: We allow just one cast, but mages get this QuickCast marker thingy, and everybody has to move before casting to make movement actually have an impact on the game"
A: "That sounds neat, the game will actually work if we do that, movement will be important, quite unlike in our playtests! Let's start building this thing and make thousands of people happy!"
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A: "Hey, let's make a game, where two mages battle each other"
B: "That sounds neat! They can move, and summon, and cast spells"
A: "Yeah, but summoning should take longer than casting, right?"
B: "Descent has these neat half-actions, where you can move+attack, or attack+attack, or attack+move, we can take that and have complex spells take both half-actions"
A: "Hm, that sounds cool. Let's see how this goes, I've made this prototype"
...some playtesting...
A: "Yeah, that looks good, but we should make it impossible to cast two spells for non-mages, and movement didn't feel like it was actually important because you could just attack and then move away"
B: "I have this neat idea: We allow just one cast, but mages get this QuickCast marker thingy, and everybody has to move before casting to make movement actually have an impact on the game"
A: "That sounds neat, the game will actually work if we do that, movement will be important, quite unlike in our playtests! Let's start building this thing and make thousands of people happy!"
Best answer. End of discussion.
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There're a ton of games that require move then action, including Warhammer and Warmachine, right? This is pretty standard game design for games that have to balance melee and ranged combat, especially if melee is supposed to be primary (because melee maneuver is more fun). I suspect it's a deliberate anti-hit-and-run decision. Simulation probably never comes into it.
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From the Pope himself!
We seriously considered allowing skirmishes (attack, and then move), but because of the changing initiative order, it created some weird anomalies. If you act last, and then gain the initiative for the next round, you can act again with the same creature. A creature could move up and attack, then attack again on the next turn and run away, all before the other player could react. In some cases they could do this right under the cover of your archers or your Mage standing watch! Players would ask “How does that fast cat run past all the archers, then attack TWICE, and then run away, and no one can get a single strike in?”. It was not very realistic, and it left a bad taste in some players mouths.
We decided it was better to have creatures move up and finish their attack or action at the end of their action phase. This leaves them in place and vulnerable for a counterattack by the opponent. You can still manipulate the initiative order to gain 2 attacks in a row, but you can't do this and also run away unscathed from all of the enemies forces.
At the same, time, we thought it was very cool to be able to do that on occasion. The Mage is currently the only creature who can do this, if he uses his quick cast action to cast an attack spell and then run away. And we have no problem with that. The Mage is supposed to be a cinematic superhero on the battlefield!
We also plan to create some skirmish creatures who can move after they attack with a trait called “skirmish”. This is a very cool and useful ability. By keeping it rare, these characters will be very special and stand out on the battlefield. A Swashbuckling or Barbarian Mage might have this trait built in. We had a Centaur who could move and then make a range attack. That is extremely powerful, but he was priced very high to compensate for it.
Hope this proved useful!
Thanks!
Bryan
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Thanks heaps Bryan, that's exactly the kind of thoughts I was interested in. I hadn't even stopped to consider the iniative implications! I love the sound of the skirmish ability. Which as you say, with its rarity will become a point of strategic and tactical innovation.
Thanks!
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Wow, i was wondering if you guys were working on something like "skirmish." Sounds very cool, lots of good info, thanks very much BP.
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Ha! You are welcome. Thanks for the support and enthusiasm! :)