[Suggestion] Simplify traits: Remove triggering from hand mechanic.

I don't see any benefit to having traits trigger from your hand yet, I believe there is benefit to having them not be triggered in this way. In response to Jon's comments on reviewing cards triggered from the hand, I'd like to suggest removing traits being triggered this way.

Currently some traits trigger from your hand while some do not. This seems like a somewhat complex mechanic without adding anything to the play experience.

I understand, from a realism/logical view of traits such as Vulnerable being immediately applied to a character, but I don't think it's at all inconsistent when considering the temporal nature of turn based play if the trait simply doesn't get applied until the player is forced to play the trait. To the players this would be no different than a character drawing a trait and becoming Vulnerable mid turn. No continuity is lost, yet simplicity and consistency is gained.

If traits were only active once they have attached to a character, aside from simplifying and clarifying how traits work I believe it opens up an interesting dichotomy when it comes to the trade offs of passing first. If you get to go first, you have to play your traits and drawbacks and should you want to attack/kill someone before they've had their chance to take a turn it may actually be less advantageous to do so. A case where an opponent's party member is holding Superstitious , or a character is holding Mind Leak are good examples of this.


The triggering from hand 'reaction' mechanic is an interesting mechanic. Removing it from traits, doesn't limit the design space because there are plenty of other hand triggers such as blocks, armor, Raging Strike and many others. There is plenty of room for the mechanic without having to apply it to traits as well and doing so treads on complex situations like the Superstitious potentially discarding itself before it gets played.

 

On a side note, I'd be really interested in knowing the rational/evolution behind having traits triggered from the hand.

 

So long as you keep in mind cards that trigger from your hand and are then attached with a secondary effect like Hit The Deck, Stuck Arrow and the like...

This change would make the attach mechanic more consistent as well, Attach effects are not active until it's actually attached.

 

Wait....you want to make an exception that trait cards bearing reactions never trigger from hand ? That would affect:

a) Combustible
b) Festering Guts
c) Mind Leak
d) Squishy
e) Superstitious
f) Vulnerable
g) Death Meld
h) Mindless Battlerage

Its kinda a double standard for the definition of reaction. Not to mention another re-balance pass required...hmm. edit: removed firestarter and kindler.

 

It wouldn't be a double standard, because it wouldn't be a reaction. It would simply be a trait who's abilities augment play when active(attached). It would be changing (slightly) the definition of a Trait by removing the reaction from trait cards. It does not change how trait abilities interact once played. (Very similar to M:TG where active cards apply their rules to the game.)

It should not (based on my understanding of the timing) affect Firestarter or Kindler. It would affect the rest of the cards you mentioned, for a maximum of one turn. (okay more than one if a character takes multiple turns. ) To be affected the following must occur:

1. Character draws a trait.
2. Opponent goes first.
3. Opponent plays a card on a character that drew the trait. (Superstitious is an exception on this step)
4. Card played must have previously interacted with the trait drawn. (ie. damaged, or killed the character)

(I'm not entirely sure if you draw before you take damage effects from attached cards or terrain... which may add an additional situation)

That said, it would be uncommon for this change to change the way the game is played, while simplifying the handling of traits and making the traits consistent. It will be even less apparent to players because they won't know about any traits until they are played, and thus active.

That is a change from another rare situation where a player sees a trait trigger on an opponent and so wants to wait to play any duration cards on them because they now know the trait is going to be played and might push off one of their spell effects. Without this sort of foreknowledge I believe it's much more simple and straightforward for all.

Because of the limited number of situations where this actually impacts the game, and the duration of that impact, I don't see a large need for a major re-balance here. Certainly cards will still be used, tested and tweaked during beta, but not changing something in order to improve it because you might have to change it again later -- even when you are currently in a situation where you need to resolve issues anyway -- is counterproductive. Thinking the change through and having these discussions though, are key to understanding the cascading changes something might have, so thanks for your input!

I believe this would resolve the current issues encountered with traits triggering in hand as well, avoid potential future problems, and improve the clarity of traits (and attached cards) all while not impacting a players game experience.

Do you feel this would negatively impact gameplay in any way?

 

Now you are defining trait to be a variant of a reaction that has a user play effect or a play effect with a restriction reaction criteria. Say, take combustible...remove its reaction. It becomes: Trait. Attach this card to yourself. When you take fire damage, add 3 to that damage. Duration 3. In that context, should the effect text be grey backgrounded (like a reaction) or paper (like a play effect) ? Or introduce another colored box ? And then Gary has to talk about it and explain that traits are not quite reaction/play effect etc... hmm, seems like a whole lot more work...

oh, you are right. Doesn't affect firestarter or kindler...since DOT procs b4 card draw. My bad...

Using Combustible as an example. Say, a tree is at 4 hp with combustible in hand and I have 1 wizard at 1hp. The old way:
a) I play Burning fingers on tree, combustible procs and tree suffers 4 damage. Dead tree.
The new way:
a) I play Burning fingers on tree, tree drops to 3 hp. Tree's turn comes around, it plays combustible plus another attack. Attack kills me instead.

The overall effect is the new trait mechanic would make battles swing the other way round than it used to be...as far as PvE is concerned. Festering guts wouldn't proc from hand so no fear that I might accidentally kill myself. Death meld would mean easier slimes....etc... In pvp, the impact is minor, players just hold for a turn...meaning games get a trifle longer. No biggie.

Re-balance pass is just a pure observation...nothing was implied. Normally, I just try to assess impact of variables....yh, well..bad habit...

 

Ah see, there's something to think about! Good thinking. Knee jerk reaction I'd say yes, it's a different type of card. Thinking about it, I don't think it necessarily has to be. Could still be a reaction in that sense. The grey reaction could read: If attached, when you take 3 fire damage add 3 to that damage. ...or some better wording to that same effect.

But since you don't even know the tree has combustible in hand, does it matter? Why are you tactically going to cast a burning fingers unless you expect the wizard to die and just want to get the damage out. The fact that the tree has combustible in hand is unknown and is (I'd think generally) not considered tactically. The outcome to the player would be the expected outcome, the death of the wizard, instead of the unexpected one.

Same thing with all other cases (that I can think of currently). The tactical play based on known data will more often result in the expected outcome providing a rewarding experience to the player.

In these very specific situation where the trait is drawn at the beginning of the round, characters have the correct amount of health, correct character attacks correct monster, yes. Given that result is different, you didn't specify if you felt that was a bad thing.

It seems that the question of this quibble comes down to whether or not you feel that unexpected results from tactical decisions is more or less rewarding to the player than expected results. I would argue* that when playing a tactical game, you are carefully planning your moves achieve a sense of reward based on the success of your choices. Unexpected results, I believe, detract from the reward feedback loop of smart play.

(*I've done a fair amount of research on user experience, user feedback, motivation, rewards, etc. While I don't have that research in front of me I believe what I've stated is true. Surprises entice players in various aspects of the game (like randomized rewards a la loot chests, diablo drops etc.) but detract when careful planning is needed. But since I'm not writing a paper on it currently, I'm not going to dig up and cite sources! )

 

I don't imply anything... What you claim to be tactical play, I simply attribute to the fact that it will incur a shift. Players don't have to worry about 3 x vulnerables in deck, someone could build a deck of 5 vulnerables which would make it equivalent to 5 extra card draws while suffering at most +1 from an attack. Is that a bad thing or a good thing ? I dunno, just an observation...still needs playtesting to validate. Does it affect deck build? Yes... Does it affect gameplay? Yes. I don't care about rewarding a player, that's not the point of this thread...

Now THIS is the best suggestion so far. It will solve the reaction wording of the card. Hope it helps.

 

Personally I think that's another thing this change would fix. I doubt the intent was to allow Vulnerable to stack and is a side effect of them triggering from the hand. The change here, if you are extremely unlucky*drawing 4 Vulnerable still only the difference of 3 damage on a single attack, given a 4 card draw as you get at the beginning of a game. Yes, over the course of the game drawing more than one may come up more than once adding (under normal circumstances) an additional 1 damage to a single attack.

* Extremely unlucky meaning if you have 5 Vulnerable cards in your 37 card deck (not sure if having 5 is even possible) and drawing 4 of them on your first turn is (if excel has does it's math right!) a 0.00008% chance (when rounded up!).

Playtesting is not the end all be all of game design. The playtest will be ongoing, but the chances of this situation even coming up as is, or after the change, is highly unlikely. So it may never GET playtested. That's why when discussing designs you have to work through what would happen that 1 in 100,000 chance occurrence and decide what you want the outcome to be.

So I understand now that you are just trying to poke holes in the suggestion (not an entirely bad thing!) without offering a solution or judgement on the change itself. While I think this can be very useful when the current state of the code is working as intended and a change for improvement is suggested, I don't feel it is very valuable when we are aware of a problem and the chance suggested is a possible solution to that problem. Things ARE going to change, playtesting WILL continue, ongoing tweaks MAY be made. These are not reasons to not use this suggestion to resolve the current problem.

The way I use the term that's entirely the point of this thread actually. Players are "rewarded" with enjoyment by a good play experience. Bugs and unexpected rulesets detract from this enjoyment and undermine the feelings of a solid, polished, well made game that people enjoy playing.

Actually this is one implementation of the ONLY suggestion I've made in this thread -- removing the triggering from hand mechanic from traits.

 

Are you allowed to pass when you have unplayed traits? I'd be tempted to skip a round to discard a Traveling Curse or Dropped Guard.

And I agree with the suggestion to have traits only trigger when attached, since that seems most intuitive. Do we need to start coloring the rule text boxes to distinguish React In Hand, Play Action, and React When Attached?

And speaking of cards reacting without being played, is Arcane Feedback the only card that reacts to the end of round while in your hand?

 

All traits have to be played when it is your turn. You can't skip them.

That could happen for clarification, but it's a lot more work than just rewarding the ones you need to say If attached: ... Just depends on priorities of devs etc.

Nope, there are a few. Arcane Curse comes to mind as one other example. You can search the wiki to see if there are any more. But these aren't traits so they just fall into the triggered from hand category.

 

Hmmm, I'm not sure whether I'm in favour of this, against it or have no opinion. But for the sake of discussion there are a couple of things (possibly two aspects of the same thing) that I would regard as negatives were this change to be made.

One is that I think having the first turn should always be an advantage. I think the decision of passing first to begin the next round is already interesting and tactical enough as it is and shouldn't give the player who chose to continue to play in the previous round the opportunity to skip the effects of some of his or her drawback cards.

Second is that drawbacks should be bad cards to have in your deck, to balance out the presumably more powerful cards that you are getting off an item or that are in a monster's deck. It might not come up too often but in some cases I'd feel like there would be an opportunity to weasel out of some of the bad effects. To use the example discussed above, hitting the tree with a hidden combustible card would annoy me no matter what the health of the tree or the wizard. It has a drawback in its hand, that should be bad for it regardless of when it is hit.

Just a couple of thoughts, I'd be interested to know what you think. And like I said at the start, those two points don't necessarily make me against the idea as a whole.

 

(Nested quotes don't seem to work here.)

Searching for "card round -attach", I only found one more: Wizard's Hat. And I notice that Curse is also an attack card and Hat is also armor, but Feedback is only a drawback. So why isn't it a trait? Slowed and Unfortunate Surge would probably make more sense as traits too; all the other Category:Handicap_Card are traits except Demonic Pain.

 

Erm, you are completely missing the point... I'm not concerned about the probabilities and have never stated/implied anything with regards to it. I don't care about drawing multiple vulnerables in a single turn. It impacts item builds...get it ?

I am absolutely flabbergasted at how you came to this conclusion that I'm trying to poke holes... You seem to like passing erroneous subjective judgement on what are simply pure observations (yet again! ). From my very 1st post, I objectively state (a) what cards will be impacted by the change (this is for devs and other interested readers to promote awareness) (b) gameplay impact past vs proposed (c) rebalance pass (meaning mob decks re-evaluation) (d) deck build impact (meaning player and item impact).

What I'm doing is presenting the case from as many possible angles as necessary. I do not make any judgement, it is not mine to make. Your suggestion is all heartily well and good and it resolves an inconsistency. But, when you say that it rewards the player for tactical play...that becomes a subjective statement. Who is to say that the player cannot be pleasantly surprised by a tree holding combustible in hand which conveniently died due to burning fingers ? Who is to say that the player cannot luckily cause an opponent who has mind leak in hand to discard a wall of fire in pvp ? Cards that trigger from hand give THAT element of surprise...yes, tactical play is missing...then again, so what? This game is about having fun....not playing chess, right ?

 

I think that our only disagreement here is the level of impact. It may or may not impact the areas you've enumerated. The probabilities were stated only to suggest that should there be an impact, that impact is minor (low amounts of damage) and rare (very low percent chance of impact). Combining those to elements, it is unlikely that any impacts will be recognized as statistically significant by the game math, nor impactful by the players.

Sorry, it's just come across that way when you say things like "Its kinda a double standard..." which has a negative connotation and then follow up with "Not to mention..." suggesting a similar stance on additional topics.

That's not subjective at all, but this is now conversation about conversation and totally off topic.

 

Agreed. To me it looks like there are three possible solutions:

1. Have all Traits be able to trigger from your hand, figuring out how to deal with Superstitious if it trying to discard itself is a problem.
2. Have no Traits trigger from your hand. Any that currently do are made so that they only function as attachments as per Blindsight's suggestion.
3. If you wanted more options you could maybe have all Drawback Traits trigger from your hand but not Boost Traits (or vice versa). This could be potentially confusing for new players though. As an aside why is Festering Guts a drawback when Mindless Battlerage is a boost?

I'd probably prefer number 1 because it means that having the first turn doesn't have any disadvantages, but it's marginal. I suspect in reality the difference between 1 and 2 is less than it seems when I'm deliberately thinking about it like I am now.

 

I don't really care as long as all traits work the same way.

In case of activation from hand, Kindler and Firestarter should receive some special attention and start of turn ordering might need clarification. Accelerated Thought might make things hairy.

Edit: Hmm, activation from hand could cause plenty of nasty surprises in the campaign... Well, coming up with another card type or rule exceptions might work.

 

These wouldn't actually apply in these situations. Kindler and Firestarter wouldn't trigger from your hand if you just drew them because of the timing of effects. They have to wait a full round (and thus be attached already) to be active. Accelerated thought isn't a trait and would never be triggered from the hand anyway.