MArcomage

As a minor change... can we have 'if #(insert card trait here) in hand' instead of 'if #(insert card trait here) in hand>0' in the card descriptions? The >0 is redundant and many times just lengthens the card by a line for no reason.

DPsycho wrote:
Persistent cards not having a New flag is going to be hugely different in hidden mode as you'll have no indication from what position such a card was played. This is unrealistic as, in a face-to-face game, you'd be able to see from which spot the card was played.

I've tested the situation you described and it doesn't work that way. The played card position is marked as new, because the new card is drawn to that position (unless the target position was the same as the played card position, i.e. the persistent card stays on its position).

The system change effects only the persistent card (so it won't be marked as new when moved to another position).

Example (new system):

1 - Ninja on position 7
2 - Played Ninja in mode 2
3 - Ninja on position 2 (not marked as new), New card on position 7 (marked as new)

Example (old system):

1 - Ninja on position 7
2 - Played Ninja in mode 2
3 - Ninja on position 2 (marked as new), New card on position 7 (marked as new)

Yep, you just need to look the mode in wich the card was played to have full information about a persistant in hidden mode.

But there is a problem with durable in hidden mode: there is no way to tell where they are once played because there isn't the "mode" information.

I would suggest that given the changes affect many synergies of whirlwind with other cards, it will be needing a buff/revision. An Aria keyword would be appropriate, maybe with an increase of the stock drain

Also with the loss of whirlwind synergy, the Emissary of the afterlife, which is not much used anyway, becomes totally useless. The very least to do would be to remove the cap of "up to 4", but I believe the card needs a total rework, such as adding a second mode, for example "replace up to 3 non-undead cards with undead"

sq wrote:
I would suggest that given the changes affect many synergies of whirlwind with other cards, it will be needing a buff/revision. An Aria keyword would be appropriate, maybe with an increase of the stock drain

Also with the loss of whirlwind synergy, the Emissary of the afterlife, which is not much used anyway, becomes totally useless. The very least to do would be to remove the cap of "up to 4", but I believe the card needs a total rework, such as adding a second mode, for example "replace up to 3 non-undead cards with undead"

Yes please, give "Aria" to whirlwind: I like when things make sense.

Mojko wrote:
The system change effects only the persistent card (so it won't be marked as new when moved to another position).

Ah, ok then. It was unclear before. But...

Mojko wrote:
- Durable and Rebirth keyword effects no longer set the new card flag on the played card

...what does this mean exactly? Because it looks like it means playing a Durable card won't flag itself as New, and you just said the opposite. So I'm still not sure what the change actually implies.

DPsycho wrote:

...what does this mean exactly? Because it looks like it means playing a Durable card won't flag itself as New, and you just said the opposite. So I'm still not sure what the change actually implies.

Let me clear things up:

- Persistent cards should be OK, because the game mode indicates where the persistent card was placed and the newly drawn card is marked as New

- Durable and Rebirth cards will not trigger new card flag which is a problem in hidden mode as you pointed out. I plan to solve this problem by revealing the played card in this case. After the correction, playing Durable and Rebirth cards will result in played card being revealed (if effect was triggered).

Thank you for card balance suggestions as well. I will carefully evaluate every suggestion.

That's exactly the problem I was asking about in the first place, yeah.

New changes implemented:

- Durable and Rebirth keyword effects corrected in Hidden game mode (if card stays in hand it is revealed)
- Dark green skin layout improved (hyperlinks are now more visible)
- updated opening post with up-to-date balance changes and new cards

I have a question to this card effect:

Player(s) with highest facility suffers
Highest facility: -1
Player(s) with lowest facility gains
Lowest facility: +1

What would you expect it to do when all facilities have equal value?

Well, i would say that in this case at first a random facility of both players get reduced by 1 (Because it says "Players(s)" and because each facility has equal values ) and then that both players lowest facility, wich is the reduced one, gets increased by one. This leads that the card does in this case nothing.

It depends. If the "lowest" facility is defined after the "highest" facility has been reduced, or if it is defined in the beginning of the execution. If the "highest", "lowest" facilities are defined in the beginning, then it leads to one random facility increased and one random facility decreased for both players. It could still be the same facility which is defined as both "highest" and "lowest", leading to the same result Lord_Earthfire described, unless the code specifically does not allow that.

Currently, it works as dimitris described, so it will choose both facilities before changing them. This results in either doing nothing (the same facility was raised and lowered) or raising one facility and lowering another.

This is the reason why I asked for your opinion on the matter, because I think this random behavior may not be transparent for players. I can change the effect to do nothing in this case, if it makes sense.

Now playing Rebirth or Durable cards reveals them.
How about making Persistent cards revealed after playing too, since opponent witness playing of such cards?

and what about revealing Palisade after discarding a card by Horde (i always write the position of palisade to notes to avoid discarding palisade one more time) its zero cost so its not any use for Far sight

This behavior is a feature of the new system. I don't want to make specific keywords related exceptions, so for now this feature won't be changed. I also don't think that because the information is available, it has to be displayed explicitly.

EDIT: I'll make a more detailed analysis of the issue later.

I argued years ago that any information the player has and would benefit from writing down is information that the system should show. It's better game design.

But the other side of the coin is that there are card effects that are decided by the number of revealed cards, and this should be taken into consideration when deciding whether known things should count as revealed things.

In this specific case, however, I'm with Antichroust. Planting a known card into the opponent's hand should reap the benefits of having revealed that position.

I did a quick survey of replacing cards and compiled this list of cards that would be affected if this were standard. (That is, a card effect that places a KNOWN CARD into a KNOWN POSITION that could be considered functionally Revealed)

Persistent and Durable cards are ignored (because they already do this) except when they perform an additional replacement. Cards that summon from a list of potential candidates are rightfully ignored.


Cards that place known cards into the opponent's hand:
Air nomad
Harpy queen
Wind witch
Conscript army
Cursed amulet
Goblin intruder
Elemental storm
Desert traveler
Thug
Steelbeard
Balrog
Cerberus

Cards that place known cards into your own hand:
Vampire lord (the selected card becoming Vampire)
Heresy
Road to Tartarus
Doppelganger (when targeting self to copy matching card)
Jungle river
Flame obelisk
Harvest fairy
Hydra
Mirror elemental
Arcane tome
Mason
Forge master
Steam golem
Hydromancer

The following keyword effects do the same:
- Holy
- Burning
- Flare Attack
- Horde, as previously discussed
- Dragon (if summoning a Dragon egg, which the opponent would know by observing whether gem production was multiplied)

Special considerations:
- (I had originally discussed Dragon here before realizing that the effect is wholly transparent.)
- Goblin regiment looks like it should be valid, but in a hidden game, the opponent would actually not know from which position the card was played. For example, playing it and having NEW cards in positions 2,5,7. It's possible that the replaced cards were in 2,5 or 2,7 or 5,7 with the remaining position being a normal draw. Therefore, it should be disqualified. That is, UNLESS we want to apply real-world logic to this and consider that in a match played across the table from one another, the opponent would actually watch the player play the card from its position. (Also, there's the possibility that the replaced Commons were revealed prior to the effect and the opponent does know precisely which positions were affected.)

I love obsessing over small details such as these.

I had some time to make a more detailed analysis of the proposed changed:

Persistent cards

Persistent effect is not handled as a standard keyword effect, but from the last update, the effect isn't coded into individual cards, but fortunately is coded in one place. Therefore, the individual persistent cards do not need to be changed, only the persistent effect code needs to be adjusted.

Holy, Horde, Burning, Flare Attack, Dragon keywords

Replacing effect can be changed in keyword effect code, individual cards do not need to be changed.

All the other cards that DPsycho listed need to be changed individually.

Exceptions:

Flame obelisk - it replaces neighbouring cards with Burning, which are randomly chosen, so they shouldn't be revealed
Goblin regiment - I would prefer to reveal the Goblin flankers for the sake of transparency (all cards work the same)

Overall, I now think that these changes would be positive for the game and are reasonable to implement.

This detailed analysis also gave me and idea for a new keyword that was in my backlog for more than 8 years, but it wasn't possible to implement it reasonably within the system back then. This was changed by the new log based system and I think it should be possible now. I'll be posting the idea in a separate thread later (in the case that it really works as I think it works).

EDIT:

My new keyword concept was "Invincible" - card can't be discarded. This effect was present in the original Arcomage. This can be implemented, however in a way, that card effects will simply do nothing if they target such card instead of ignoring the card. I think that would not be transparent for the player, so I don't think implementing Invincible keyword is a good idea.

Ah, you're right about Flame obelisk. I was going through quickly and I must've misread the replacement as Searing fire.

Also, it occurs to me now that Heresy produces the same situation as Goblin regiment, but you said you're OK with that one.