Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Tesla: Iteration Again

In our last few looks at Tesla we've been considering ways for players to construct new artifacts. But that question is just one piece of our larger goal of building a set around the theme of progress.

Back in our last playtest we were considering another mechanical expression of progress dubbed, well, Progress 2.0. Today I want to take another look at that and discuss some of its high points and pitfalls.


Progress 2.0 1.0



The original implementation hits us out of the gates with a couple of glaring problems. First off it faces some of the same developmental hurdles a devotion did: things that normally make cards weaker actually make them stronger with this mechanic. Make Henge Guardian's activation cost {5} and it could even become a playable for repeated triggers. But the problems get even more insidious than that. Take Homing Pigeon above. It's actually much, much better than if it were a 3/3. Why? Because instead of always being at least a 3/3, it's almost always at least a 3/5! It's almost trivially easy to get Progress 2.0 creatures to 3 power in short order.

But those issues pale in comparison to the other issue with the proposal. It'll never fly under New World Order. The mechanic avoids all of the usual pitfalls: it doesn't overly complicate the board, a Low Skill Player who reads it can tell you what the card does, and it's not all that long. The sticking point is in the second part. The card seems to make sense, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most players will actually have no idea how this interacts with activating Firebreathing for +4/+0 or even casting Awaken the Bear. We simply can't abide that, which leads us to a simple tweak (which I proposed after the playtest).

Iteration



This doesn't solve the development issue of the creatures growing large or looking deceptively weak with low starting power, but it does eliminate all of our problems with activated abilities by, well, eliminating the activated abilities. Honestly Iteration triggers plenty frequently as it is when compared to something like Battering Krasis.

Five months later that's still the best shot I've taken at this mechanic. I've noted the issues, so why are we still pursuing this? It hits our theme spot on and hard. You, the player, make progress by casting bigger spells. As a result, your creatures make progress by growing. And they all do it together up to a point. One creature starts bigger? The others catch up. You innovate (cast a more expensive spell)? It raises all ships. This plays out a lot like the way an idea or technology spreads through society.

Theming aside, Iteration feels good. Like Landfall, it rewards players for doing what they want to do. It pushes the game forward because players are encouraged to cast their spells and any instants they have are more likely to serve as combat tricks on their casters' turns because they'll have mana open. The mechanic creates new and interesting deckbuilding incentives, encouraging players to run their dragons. It helps eliminate board stalls by keeping the battlefield in flux.

So the question, as always, is how to capture the benefits while mitigating the problems. We can start creatures with naturally higher power, put a greater proportion of our most powerful spells at low mana costs, and keep removal levels a little bit higher than normal, but even better, we can take a step back. Who's to say this is the only approach we can take to this sort of mechanic?

Continued Evolution


It could just as easily be Evolve:


Or not appear on creatures at all:


Heck, it could even ramp up along a completely different axis:


My point is that we've still got a lot to explore before we resign ourselves to development struggles. How would you attack the problem of making it feel like the players and/or permanents are improving as the game goes on?

21 comments:

  1. For Iteration why not either power or toughness?
    Iterate v2 (Whenever you cast a spell that costs more than this creature's power or toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)

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    1. You could argue Evolve checks both because we're comparing creatures and creatures are defined by both stats, whereas improve is comparing with a spell which only has the one number.

      But you're comparing the spell with a creature, so it could arguably go that way too. Maybe that's an argument for patch?

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    2. Evolve needed its present wording for adequate variety among creatures that will trigger frequently enough. Iteration is arguably a little bit too easy to trigger already. I understand the impetus to make it symmetrical, but the same argument could apply to Ferocious and Scavenge.

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  2. Both Patch and Improve are excellent evolutions of a troublesome mechanic.

    A hypothetical question for designers to ponder: Would it be possible to do both in the same set, or are they too similar? How similar/different do you want your themed mechanics to be?

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    1. In the same way that you want some of your mechanics to synergize (and none of them to contradict each other) without overlapping to the point of confusion or where they erode each other's identity, you don't want to represent the same thematic concept with multiple mechanics.

      Mechanically, improve could live alongside any of these other keywords, but we definitely couldn't use any two of the other keywords—they're all representing the same idea. Would the permanent keywords' flavor muddy the game's narrative next to improve's flavor? No? IDK.

      There's no problem with multiple mechanics pushing toward the same overarching theme. Most of Innistrad's mechanics pushed toward Horror. Most of Theros' mechanics pushed toward Heroism. Tesla's mechanics could mostly push toward Progress.

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  3. I agree - Improve seems a very different mechanic to Progress. Especially since Improve is best/simplest as a spell mechanic and Progress is a creature mechanic, I see no reason why we shouldn't at least playtest with both.

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  4. I love improve in theory, but my intuition is that it's undevelopable as-is.
    For instance, "Improve. Draw a card" needs to cost ~6.

    Maybe
    Sample (As you cast ~, exile a card with Sample from your graveyard. Add its effects to ~.)

    Cheaper but harder to use than Flashback. Easier than splice.

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    Replies
    1. I like Sample, but not as a progress mechanic. There's an upgrade from the first to the second, but unless you're curving out (which is rare for non-creature spells), the third is about as rewarding as the second, and so on.

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  5. One option is a threshold-one effect that cares about you controlling a sophisticated permanent. I'm going with artifacts to keep in theme with our set and to avoid CMC. 3, 4 or 5 may be too specific, but it's super grokable.

    Inspired 1R (You may cast this for its progress cost if you control an artifact with mana cost 3, 4 or 5.)

    Another simple option is a take on Extort, also caring about artifacts.

    Engineer (Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may pay 1. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

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    1. Rather than 3, 4, or 5, one could just say "3 or greater". The incidence of that compared to just "if you control an artifact" has to depend on the set it's in, though. "If you control an artifact with mana cost 3 or greater" could also work pretty well unkeyworded as a kicker-threshold on a cycle of instants/sorceries.

      Pushing that to mean "inspiration" or "progress" and not "control a big mech" is down to execution, though.

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    2. Inspired inspired 3 riffs:

      Laser {3}{R}
      Instant (cmn)
      ~ deals 4 damage to target creature.
      Tech — If you control a permanent with the same CMC as ~, it also deals 4 damage to that creature's control.

      Sonar {1}{U}
      Sorcery (cmn)
      Powered — Draw two cards. Then discard a card unless you control an artifact that costs more than ~.

      Armor {W}
      Instant
      Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
      Automate (As you cast this spell, you may tap two untapped artifacts you control. When you do, copy it and you may choose a new target for the copy.)

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    3. Engineer's worth considering.

      Merging it with Iterate:

      Cybearg {1}{G}
      Creature-Bear (cmn)
      Mechanize (Whenever you cast an artifact spell that costs more than ~'s power, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.)
      2/2

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    4. Inspired, Tech, Powered, and Automate all fall into the camp of things that don't quite feel like progress to me with their on/off states. I want to see the cards improve over time. I'm not sure how pervasive that feeling is, but I'm pretty certain that even for people who read the on/off cards as a progression, something like Evolve or Level Up still feels more like progress, so I'd like to start there.

      Iteration was triggering a little more frequently than might be ideal, so Engineer/Mechanize are good places to look. I suspect they'll naturally trigger a bit too infrequently, but with a high enough artifact density, I'm hopeful that we can strike the right balance.

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    5. FWIW, the progress I see in these designs is:
      You start with a 0% chance of getting the awesome version. You play an artifact and now you've got a 20% chance. You play two more and now you've got a 60% chance.
      It's like medical progress. The more hospitals you build, the more likely you are to cure measles.

      But I certainly concede it's not AS progress-y as Engineer, Mechanize or Science.

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  6. Steroids {G}
    Instant cmn
    Target creature gets +X/+X until EOT.
    Science (X is 1 plus the number of cards in your graveyard with Science)

    Penicillin {1}{W}
    Sorcery cmn
    Draw a card and gain X life.
    Science (X is 1 plus the number of cards in your graveyard with Science)

    Magnesium {1}{R}
    Instant cmn
    ~ deals X damage to target creature or player.
    Science (X is 1 plus the number of cards in your graveyard with Science)

    Ritalin {2}{U}
    Sorcery rare
    Draw X cards, then discard a card.
    Science (X is 1 plus the number of cards in your graveyard with Science)

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    1. Alternately

      Scientician 2C
      Creature—Rogue Advisor (unc)
      ~ ETB with X +1/+1 counters on it.
      Science (X is the number of cards you control or in your graveyard with Science)
      0/0

      Note that you control a spell on the stack that you've cast, though it won't be crystal clear to everyone initially that Science sorceries and instants will count themselves.

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    2. Clearly very parasitic, but we get to do that once in a while. Science isn't texty, but it hits the feel we're looking for spot on. I'm a little bit concerned about how many simple options we have (especially because X is already so confusing), but I'm certainly willing to try designing a bunch of commons to see how far we can get.

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    3. Most blocks want one good linear mechanic.

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    4. Non-parasitic:

      Cloaking Technician {4}{U}
      Creature—Rogue Advisor (unc)
      Spells your opponents control that target ~ cost {X} more to cast.
      Science (X is the number of cards you control or in your graveyard that cost as much as this one.)
      3/3

      (but that's a lot of work to track)

      or

      Soul Seep {2}{B}
      Sorcery (unc)
      Target player loses X life and you gain X life, where X is your experience with black. (Each {B} in the mana costs of cards in your graveyard counts toward your experience with black.)

      (but it doesn't count itself)

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    5. Strike that. Reverse it.

      Cloaking Technician {4}{U}
      Creature—Rogue Advisor (unc)
      Spells your opponents control that target ~ cost X more to cast, where X is your experience with blue. (Each {U} in the mana costs of cards in your graveyard counts toward your experience with black.)
      2/5

      or

      Soul Seep {3}{B}
      Sorcery (unc)
      Target player loses X life and you gain X life.
      Science (X is the number of cards you control or in your graveyard that cost as much as this one.)

      Better.
      (But this science is still too much work.)

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    6. I like experience pretty well as another offshoot of Chroma. In particular, you get some of the Morbid gameplay with players not always wanting to keep their own things alive and kill their opponents'. That said, it's somewhat harder to track than devotion, so I prefer it in one-shot bursts rather than continually checking. Given the issues you've mentioned with spells on the stack, we could try wording it as "on other cards" or just limit it to etb and death triggers at common.

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