[Suggest] Generic Monster Destruction [Finished]

Well nerfing Light and Grey spells would be one way to make dark seem better in comparison. The Problem is I neither remember ever to have heard that Light should be worse than dark at monster destruction nor do I thnk any of these white spells to be overpowered. They are all quite powerfull in some situations and quite useless in others.
If you believe light destruction spells to be overpowered you should make a Suggest thread for them later on.
I actually do still think that grey is supposed to be better at producing mana and it is easier to gain a little more mana on average in a grey deck than in a dark one except if your dark one uses some special strategy to gain more mana and to gain it faster.

We're dealing with generic monster destruction; they're the baseline, so we should worry about stuff like MMW and Weak Pt after dealing with this.

If we lower the cost of Crush, then it'll solve the problem of Heroic Strike being better than it as well, since it would be 8 mana and no additional requirement (and a higher speed, unless we lower Crush's speed in addition to the cost drop) vs. 8 mana with an additional requirement.

It comes down to either nerfing both Alien Lawyers and Heroic Strike, or boosting Crush. I'd prefer to change one card instead of two. They'd be in line then, and if Crush proves to be too powerful at 8, we can nerf all three together and have them still be in line with each other, rather than having to do both that and balance them according to colour identities in the same balance.

In other words, let's fix one problem at a time. Colour identities is the simplest thing to deal with in this balance because unlike overall balance, the solution is easy to see - just boost Crush. If a nerf is needed afterwards, we'll give the same (or a similar) nerf to all generic monster destruction.

(03-25-2009 09:58 AM)Ultros Wrote:  We're dealing with generic monster destruction; they're the baseline, so we should worry about stuff like MMW and Weak Pt after dealing with this.

If we lower the cost of Crush, then it'll solve the problem of Heroic Strike being better than it as well, since it would be 8 mana and no additional requirement (and a higher speed, unless we lower Crush's speed in addition to the cost drop) vs. 8 mana with an additional requirement.

But it won't solve the problem of Heroic Strike being better than Alien Lawyers. It's supposed to go Heroic Strike < Alien Lawyers < Crush.

(03-25-2009 09:58 AM)Ultros Wrote:  It comes down to either nerfing both Alien Lawyers and Heroic Strike, or boosting Crush. I'd prefer to change one card instead of two. They'd be in line then, and if Crush proves to be too powerful at 8, we can nerf all three together and have them still be in line with each other, rather than having to do both that and balance them according to colour identities in the same balance.

In other words, let's fix one problem at a time. Colour identities is the simplest thing to deal with in this balance because unlike overall balance, the solution is easy to see - just boost Crush. If a nerf is needed afterwards, we'll give the same (or a similar) nerf to all generic monster destruction.

Actually, to keep color identities on all 3 cards, we'd need to either boost Crush and Alien Lawyers (Crush more than Alien Lawyers) or boost crush and nerf Heroic Strike, or nerf Heroic Strike and Alien Lawyers (Heroic Strike more than Alien Lawyers). There's no way to fix them as they are with just one change. I'm of the opinion that Crush should be used as the base line, to avoid unnecessarily scaling up the game. When in doubt, nerfing a card hurts the game less than boosting it. Alien Lawyers gets -1 speed and Heroic Strike gets plus one mana and maybe -1 speed.

Light has no straight destruction and should not even be considered in this thread. I was just making a note for myself to ask web later.

Similarly, we don't know where light fits in the destruction realm so deciding on it's balance is pointless. It shouldn't be in a generic destruction thread regardless and none of the points made will be relevant until there's definitive proof of the way things should be. I haven't used this line in a while, but it's back to the "jacking off into the wind" concept. I'm sure if feels lovely, but you're not getting anything done and just making it messy.

It's also worth reminding people that the concept behind balancing generic cards is that we don't necessarily need to balance them off of their variant forms. Rather, we later balance the variants off of the benchmark. Obviously I'd hope that everyone is taking reclamation into consideration, but worrying about Heroic Strike would be pointless for this reason if it weren't already pointless for the reason above.

I was thinking B speed crush, 9L Heroic Strike.

I actually prefer "being worse at" to be either conditional or mostly (noteworthy) speed-based. Otherwise you won't really see it played. 1 mana is a pretty large difference.

Dark has an easier time of it.

I'm interpreting "less likely to fail" as counting towards "having an easier time of it".

Dark has an easier time because it doesn't need to worry about Arm Breaker and Dissipate (which I've found through experience to be the more common counterspells used).

If we feel that's not enough of a difference, I could see them not having to worry about Crack Under Pressure and Snowball.

"Having an easier time of it" doesn't necessarily mean "can cast them more easily to begin with".

And as Mus said, 1 mana is a pretty large difference.

(03-25-2009 08:06 PM)masamunemaniac Wrote:  Dark has an easier time of it.

I'm interpreting "less likely to fail" as counting towards "having an easier time of it".

Dark has an easier time because it doesn't need to worry about Arm Breaker and Dissipate (which I've found through experience to be the more common counterspells used).

They make up at least 2/3rds of the counter spells I use.

Really, the question of how much better Crush should be than Alien Lawyers is a flavour issue. Personally I don't think it'll be superior enough to make Dark really stand out unless it costs less; a few speed ranks, to me, doesn't cry out "This is the colour of monster destruction"; it only makes it better against specific cards. I want it to be better, period.

Do you suppose we should ask webrunner to decide this one for us? It's really more a question of the game's design than of balance.

i'm for boosting most if not all monster D so a speed increase on crush sounds great

also i'm not sure who was talking about it but i kind of liked the idea of grey being THE generic monster destruction, light being the conditional destruction, and dark being the destruction with an addon

(03-25-2009 08:23 PM)Ultros Wrote:  Really, the question of how much better Crush should be than Alien Lawyers is a flavour issue. Personally I don't think it'll be superior enough to make Dark really stand out unless it costs less; a few speed ranks, to me, doesn't cry out "This is the colour of monster destruction"; it only makes it better against specific cards. I want it to be better, period.

Once it starts to effect the balance of the game, it becomes a balance issue. Dark already cries out "This is the color of monster destruction" with the various forms of monster destruction it has that other colors don't. If a spell or ability kills monsters, there's a good chance it costs dark mana. And don't forget, boosting isn't the only direction we can go. If Crush is compared to the rest of the game, but not better than Alien Lawyers enough for you, we can nerf Alien Lawyers without creating cards that are better than they should be.

Along those lines...

(03-20-2009 07:50 AM)masamunemaniac Wrote:  : Cannabalize, Crush, Empty Void, End Disk Two, Fleshbomb, Punishment
: Alien Lawyers, Fire The Main Cannon!, VOIP!

Looking at the spells collectively, they do cry out "this is the colour of monster destruction" to me.


Also: http://www.cardmasterconflict.com:8000/w...:Monster_D
Excluding trophies/hammers/donations/gigas, and excluding spells (as we've been talking about those in this thread already), we have the following:

• 14 dark cards with destruction abilities
• 14 part-dark cards with destruction abilities
• 6 non-dark cards with destruction abilities

And if you look at them, the tendency is for dark ones to have a cost, and non-dark ones to have a limitation.

So I would also say that, looking at the colour as whole, Dark still cries out "this is the colour of monster destruction" to me.

No, it's a flavour issue for the same reason that Shooting Star is. webrunner has said in the past that Shooting Star is 'exactly where he wants it to be'. I think we should ask him to make a similar decision for Crush. He should be choosing how much to emphasize colour identities, not us.

Once we've got that, then if it's necessary to make a change in order to put the two cards where webrunner wants them to be in relation to each other, we can hold a vote between nerfing one and boosting the other. For now, though, this is a game desgn issue that shouldn't be done through the balance process.

Web also initially thought that 10 Smash Hopes was appropriate.

And he changed his mind about that. He didn't change his mind about Shooting Star.

I know he's said that Shooting Star is meant to be worse than Kelar Tremorcall/Smash Hopes, but I can't find him saying that it's exactly how he wants it (separate forum searches for 'shooting star' and for 'exactly').

Weird; I know I remember him saying that, and I've found old forum posts of other people saying he said that, but not of him saying it himself.

Well again, it might be worth clarifying. Is the level of difference between Tremorcall and Shooting Star meant to be exactly as much as it is, or just a marked difference?

And is the difference between Crush and Lawyers meant to mirror this exactly, or is there just meant to be some obvious difference?

As you said, might be better to ask webrunner to decide, rather than for us to try and interpret the scraps of information we have. If he says there should be a 1mana+1speed difference, we can work out where each card should be from that. If he says it's up to the balance forum, then if we decide that 1 or 2 speed ranks is enough, then it is.

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An interim tally for tally's sake...

Dark
Boost: NOLDER, Sol, Louda, Aldgar, aperson, Serith, Ultros, POW1415, DarkSouled, Andriex (10)
Fine: masa, Nacho, bubbleman, ChrisAsmadi, Cor, Enatai (6)

Grey
Boost: NOLDER, Louda, Aldgar, aperson, Serith, POW1415 (6)
Fine: masa, Nacho, bubbleman, ChrisAsmadi, Cor, Enatai (6)

Changing Shooting Star to speed at 5 mana would really help the card. while keeping the arbitrary "light sucks at destruction" bit. But that's an issue for another thread.

Alright balance forum- I bugged web with all the questions I saw here. Some stuff is cut out, as we started talking about splash and video games.

Quote:sXeAndriex> 1) You have mentioned the Grey to Dark situation with monster destruction. People were wondering where light would be. Is it meant to be flat out worse at it than both of the other colors? Just conditional destruction (ex. heroic, MMW) rather than having the ability to straight destroy?
webrunner> generally, yes. light damage+destruction is about punishment and heavenly justice, and divine intervention, not about blowing the shit out of some jerk
sXeAndriex> yes to which? conditional or flat out worse?
sXeAndriex> Or both, I guess.
webrunner> both
webrunner> conditional is a downside

sXeAndriex> 2) People are blathering on about Shooting Star (again), so I was hoping you could help explain something there. Is the one mana increase essentially where you want it or would the card be ok if it were at the same cost as Smash Hopes but E speed versus C, or what not.
webrunner> i wanted the L mana version of straight effect D to suck.. remember, the original comparison was beacon, they got falling star later
webrunner> the idea is this:
webrunner> if you have L mana, but not much G or D, then something that costs L mana is less of a cost
sXeAndriex> I think people were more curious if they could change the downside to something else, so they all cost the same.
webrunner> I would prefer it to stay more expensive.. if it could be brought up to slightly below it's price that is fair


sXeAndriex> 3) Kinda similar to the last question, people are wondering how different generic destruction should be for dark and grey. Currently the difference between the two (Crush and Alien Lawyers) is that the grey card is D speed while Crush is C, which is about as small a difference as you can get on CMC (IMO.) The question is if you have any recommendation for how big the difference should be (one cost difference, one speed different, one cost and one speed difference, one should have flavor text, etc.)? If you don't, is there any bare minimum of difference you'd like, so the forum has some idea of how big the gap should be?
webrunner> the gap.. should be smallish, but not mostly-trivial
webrunner> a full mana may be too much, but a mere speed change is too little
webrunner> maybe if it was faster but more expensive...
webrunner> er, same price as it is now, but more expensive then G or L
webrunner> G or D

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Aren't I lovely? You should all go buy something from my store.

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Anyway, can we now keep Shooting Star, Light destruction, and all this other crap out of this thread? Maybe be on topic for a change?
We can deal with light destruction after the generic cards are set in stone, so we actually have a baseline to balance them off of.

webrunner Wrote:maybe if it was faster but more expensive...

speed 10 mana?