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Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 13:33
by snowdrop
Victory Points: 5
Type: Assignment
Completion counters required: 0

Announce two ally creatures during the same turn that have both been in combat with enemy creatures. If the enemy creatures were both of greater gold value, were both dealt damage and both were discarded that turn then Glorious Victory us achieved.

Reward: Draw one card.

Re: Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 15:02
by tex
Looks good to me. : ]

Re: Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 23:38
by aspidites
Given the current text, the semantics seem a bit odd. I always viewed quests as things that must be attained after first commiting to them. In its current form, this quest seems to be used after the fact. I suspect that the past-tense voice here led me to that presumption.

Even my wording needs a bit of work, but I think it sounds more like a quest than the original:
Choose two ally creatures. This quest is complete when, during the same turn, both ally creatures are dealt damage by enemy creatures of greater gold value, dealt damage, and discarded.

Or maybe:
Designate two ally creatures> If both ally creatures are involved in combat with enemy creatures of greater gold value, dealt damage, and discarded during the same turn, this quest is complete.

Maybe add an explicit failure condition:
If either of these two ally creatures is discarded before the quest is complete or you abandon this quest, discard one card.

or:
If either of these two ally creatures is discarded before the quest is complete, abandon this quest and discard it.

Re: Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 15:38
by snowdrop
Given the current text, the semantics seem a bit odd. I always viewed quests as things that must be attained after first commiting to them. In its current form, this quest seems to be used after the fact....
There are currently 3 quest types, each with it's own characteristics. While more or less any type can indeed be "finished/solved" by any creature that has not been pre-commited/assigned to deal with it specifically there is especially one quest type - the contract - where you always will have to commit something, kind of like an escrow, and which you will lose if you fail completion of the Quest. While that is still not the same thing as you're discussing, I think it is headed in a similar direction.

Originally my intentions were to do it the way you mention: I wanted the players to assign which creatures were on the quest, mark it out somehow, either by moving creatures around in the table so it's clearly visible what quest they're on or by using a certain colour of tokens for each quest that are put on it's participants to show the same thing without moving them around.

After playing with the thought for a while I realized that the moving-cards-around solution had some serious implications on the attack / defense system and that the game risked becoming too fragmented and that quest cards would probably not play much of a huge role ever if one single player decided to ignore them altogether and just keep attacking the other one. In addition, moving cards around is also something I want to minimize to a level where it is done from time to time due to us using a spatial aspect, but doing it all the time would be an issue since it isn't easy to do it on a a table due to the shape/flatness of the cards, not to mention that it will clutter the playing area even more.

That left quest assignation done by token usage. While probably way smoother than moving cards around, I eventually decided against that as well. For starters, it still adds administration, and the game should avoid having basic rules that rely on token usage in every game played since some cards will generate tokens anyways, leading to an overall higher amount of tokens that need to be handled.

The main reason to abandon it is however a totally different one that relates to what you also capture in your suggestion "If either of these two ally creatures is discarded before the quest is complete or you abandon this quest," Since the game will have many opportunities to kill off a creature by cards, abilities or in an attack or defense, it seems to me that we are likely to make quests in general too hard to accomplish since whatever creatures they assign to the quests will have a hellish time to survive as it is already. In return it will probably skew the meta-game away from quests, and we don't want that if quests are to be a viable way of winning.

So, I ended up with quests that are "open" and that usually any player can resolve (in theory and to some degree practice), and that are not bound to a specific creature. As a result we get easier handling of quests and also the insurance that you can probably finish the quest even if x happened to die in combat.

This is all how I imagine that it would work in general. There is still nothing hindering us from designing a couple of quests, for example contracts, where you actually did announce a creatures name and where the quest could only be solved by that creature. That said, I think it's best to keep the amount of quests that worked that way low.

Re: Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 21:12
by aspidites
"quest cards would probably not play much of a huge role ever if one single player decided to ignore them altogether and just keep attacking the other one"

I seem to remember saying this months ago and you disagreeing... ;-)

Anyways, My issue with the "open" system is that "quests" are then no different than any event card, and as such, it doesn't make sense (to me) to designate them as a special card type that warrants them having their own dedicated section in the rulebook.

In short: the card as written doesn't sound like it even needs to be implemented as a quest.

PS with respect to your administration/moving concerns, how much of that has actually been play tested? I mean, an issue in theory isn't an issue until people complain about it in practice.

Re: Quest - Neutral - Glorious Victory

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 16:30
by snowdrop
aspidites wrote: I seem to remember saying this months ago and you disagreeing... ;-)
asp 1 - snow 0

:ugeek:

...honestly, I don't recall the details but know we did discuss something I didn't agree about.. lol. Won't recap now due to me having had a change of heart/mind. Generally speaking I am a very very slow learner, so might be it.
Anyways, My issue with the "open" system is that "quests" are then no different than any event card, and as such, it doesn't make sense (to me) to designate them as a special card type that warrants them having their own dedicated section in the rulebook. /../ In short: the card as written doesn't sound like it even needs to be implemented as a quest.
Yeah, I guess quests could very well be implemented as Events if events were extended in some ways, but here is what i think differs Quests as a cardtype from Events right now:
  • (Accepted) Quests stay in play and are permanents. Events can not and therefore are not.
  • Quests is the only card type that can leave your deck before the game even begins and which the opponent will be able to see. Events, as all other types, are secret until you play them in the game or are stupid enough to tell your opponent what's in your deck ;) and they can't leave the deck before the game starts.
  • Quests never cost anything to put into play. Events would typically cost > 0.
  • Quests always(?) relate directly to one of the win conditions (Victory Points). Events don't and are more flexible.
  • Quests can usually be accepted by any player, regardless of who's quest it is, creating a race and a potential conflict. Events don't work that way, can't/don't have to be accepted.
  • Quests are mandatory to include in your deck. Events are not.
In theory we could ditch plenty of card types and just use 2 - events and creatures. It's doable, but I don't think it's desirable, even if it is indeed desirable to keep the amount of card types down. Reasons are that we lose design control or must create it other ways, ad hoc, if we have to few types.

Then again, you are right that types that are too similar should be one instead of two. A year ago, and some times since then, I have tried to answer a question I haven't really solved, the one you are asking here, basically "When is it warranted to create a card type? Why do we have card types? When should something be incorporated into another type instead?"

Only answer I can presently give is that it's about a) design control b) design space c) rules, making it easy to identify what (meta-)rules apply for the card type. For example, Equipment and Enchantments could be seen as very similar, yet they have very important differences, probably warranting own card types.
PS with respect to your administration/moving concerns, how much of that has actually been play tested? I mean, an issue in theory isn't an issue until people complain about it in practice.
Not much or none at all, in the shape of WT.

However, and this is a big however, it doesn't mean it isn't an issue until people complain since it can be evaluated from identical or more or less equivalent cases with other games. For example, I saw it as a major drawback and failure when we finally decided to apply our current resource system. Not that it's flawed, it's not. It's been playtested a trillion times in many games, however, while it solved some issues found in for example MtG it didn't lower administration while handling said resources.

Now, that I can understand even if it hasn't been playtested with WT cards, mainly because pricing + resources work very similar (as it does in most ccgs).

The moving concerns have on the other hand been tested. What I did was to develop the cards as digital photos, cut, and sleeve. It was superb quality and fully playable just doing that, and fairly cheap considering all. My first versions of WT were heavily based on moving around cards between slots in a 4x2 row system. What I noticed then was that cards were flat. I di not recognize that facts importance until I had to actually sit down and play a couple of games, where I noticed that it is a physical problem, one which isn't smoothly solved (and no, using tools to play a game isn't smooth in my book and a problem. Hero Clix is a great example of such a bad design - you have to have a ring on your finger to be able to adjust how much damage your miniature took... ehrm...)