Palatinus' OverPower Forum

QuoteMHC: Point made, and conceded on this end.

Justa: please don't take my argument personally (if you have, my apologies for coming off that way). 

Until recently, I was only annoyed a minor amount by the OP rules and the errata that existed for various cards and mechanics (e.g., meta-rules).  Having played MtG competitively for a very long time (which has a lot of errata), the rules for OP seemed relatively tame in comparison.  However, I have been teaching other people how to play OP and that experience has revealed that there are a lot cards in this game with ambiguous wording. 

Here is one example that has come up with every person I have taught: Cable's Body Slide ("Avoid 1 Attack") versus Beast's Analyze ("Negates the effect of any 1 special played by opponent").   Experienced players know that Cable's Body Slide can only be used to defend Cable and that Beast's Analyze can be used to defend anyone on Beast's team.  This is partially because we have seen specials like Spawn's Protector of the Innocent where the special states "Spawn or teammate", i.e., we have intuited that Cable's Body Slide only protects Cable.    However, there is nothing on Cable's Body Slide or Beast's Analyze that makes the distinction between those two specials obvious.  Consequently, every person I have taught has at some point thought that Cable's Body Slide can defend anyone on the team (because it would then act like Beast's Analyze) or they have thought that Beast's Analyze can only be used to defend Beast (because it would then act like Cable's Body Slide). 

Given the wording on the cards, the above confusion is completely warranted. Yet, it could easily be avoided by changing the text on Cable's Body Slide to "Avoid 1 attack made against Cable".  For some of us (myself included), those extra three words are going to seem redundant.  However, those extra three words are a very minor cost to pay for making it easier for other people to pick up the game and understand how cards work.  I also think that adding more precise wording to cards would remove the need for much of the errata that exists.  For example, if Mr. Sinister's Cloning Process was changed to "Play in current battle. In the next battle, Mr. Sinister's team does not discard duplicates during the Discard Duplicates phase", then we would avoid the confusion about discarding duplicates if a Draw 3 is played in the next battle. 

Unfortunately, we cannot replace the wording on old cards (not counting creating a large text file of errata'd text or getting the game rebooted).  So, I think our best option it to make the wording on new cards as precise as possible so as to avoid creating the need for more errata or meta-rules.  This is easier said than done, but I think the effort is worthwhile since it will help keep the game going.

\StepDownFromSoapBox

No offense taken, interpreted, or even considered on this end.  After reading your post and reconsidering, I agreed with you.
I was always a "for fun" player, not a "tournament" player.  So I never had to deal with the "sea lawyer" types looking to do something not intended, just because "the card doesn't say you can't".  If people are more comfortable by adding extra wording to "clarify" specials, I can't say I have a problem with that.

I tend to agree with clarity, but otoh, you want to keep the text as minimal as possible.  that being said, it seems the goblin queen text is the way to go on the onslaught card

here's one of the first cards created for this set.  finally puts doom in the game!

Quote from: breadmaster on March 29, 2015, 04:09:58 PM
I tend to agree with clarity, but otoh, you want to keep the text as minimal as possible.  that being said, it seems the goblin queen text is the way to go on the onslaught card

here's one of the first cards created for this set.  finally puts doom in the game!

Doesn't this card break one of the rules in designing OP cards, namely 'don't give 8-stat characters a negate'?  More importantly, it seems to me that by giving Dr. Doom such a card, you are in effect creating a new Dr. Strange.  My reasoning for why Dr. Doom is analogous to Dr. Strange is below: 

Dr. Strange is one of only two 8-stat characters in the game that has a team-wide avoid (the other being Spawn, who we all know is a very powerful character).  In addition, Dr. Strange is the only 8-stat character that can play a good defensive special from reserve (all other characters with such species are max-6 characters; Sabretooth's avoid does not count as a "good" defensive special).  This means that Dr. Strange fills 3 very useful niches (team defender, reserve defender, and 8-stat character) and no other character in the game can fill those three niches at once.  (In fact, Spawn and the Inhumans are the only characters that can be argued to fill 2 of those roles; all other characters fill 1 or zero of those roles.)   Yes, it is true that Dr. Strange's avoid is a weaker form of Spawn's or Spider-Woman's avoid, but that only slightly diminishes how powerful of character he is.  In total, Dr. Strange can protect teammates, has an 8-stat, and he can do this from the reserve.   He is the only character that can do this, which is why he shows up in sooo many decks. 

Let's now compare this to Dr. Doom and his negate.  We now have an 8-stat character that fills a particularly important niche (negator) and he can fulfill that niche from reserve (reserve negator).  There are no characters in OP that fill two of those roles (i.e., there are no 8-stat characters with negates and no characters that can play a negate from reserve).  The closest we can get is the Inhumans, who have a pseudo negate and an 8-stat, and they are already considered a strong character. Yes, it is true that Dr. Doom's negate is a not a full negate (e.g., Beast's Analyze), but that doesn't really limit how useful or powerful he is.  In total, we have an 8-stat character that can defend his teammates and he can do it from reserve.  Again, no other character in the game can do this.

Combining all of the above, it seems to me that by giving Dr. Doom a negate special, you are in effect creating another character that is by far more powerful than most other characters in the game.   This worries me because doing so is very likely to reduce team diversity even more than it is now (just look at what percentages of decks play Dr. Strange).  One option to reduce his power level would be to remove the "may be played from reserve" clause.  However, this still does not fix the issue that Dr. Doom would be the only 8-stat character in the game with a negate, which would keep him at the same power level as Spawn.

MHC does make some good points, 8 Stat characters shouldn't have negates, even if they are limited.  It's one of the many unwritten rules in OP.

As a "for fun" player, I don't have a problem with Doom getting a non-numerical negate.  But it was my understanding that this UE set was intended to be the "universally accepted" equivalent of The Marvels.  How could the thought of violating this "unwritten rule" have even made it to the design floor, never mind to posting?
No offense is intended by this post.  I honestly don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not.  One of my earliest observations about OP (back in 95) was that the higher ranked characters usually didn't get a lot of "choice" cards, supposedly to balance out characters between grids & specials.  (edit. note - my original interpretation; but Onslaught changed that)  But for this case, the card isn't an AO or even an LO.  Doom, the character, has shown the ability in comics to justify this card, at least as much if not more so than, oh, say Mole Man?  And does it make Doom "overpowered"?  I don't think so.  Yes, he fills multiple slots, as do many other characters once you start defining the different types of "slots".  Maybe the game needs more "multiple slot" type characters to widen the variety of characters that are on winning tournament teams.  I don't know, I played for the fun of it.
And quite honestly, I don't like the excuse/reason that "well, this is the way it's always been done".  If we can't expand & explore the game, if we lock into only what has been done before, doesn't that tend to strangle and kill off the game?

Whichever way you guys go, breadmaster, OP LIVES!!!

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  No 8's with negates....but an AO from reserve is exciting   Maybe a clone/variant with IA that lets 'em play AO from reserve.  Velocity and Flash can 'blow up stuff' from reserve sort of a pre-emptive negate.  That would add permutations to usual reserve peeps.

this is a game that literally breaks its written rules.  I find it hard to get concerned about the 'unwritten' ones.  the card was made to balance the game/character, and it fulfilled those criteria well

on the other hand, if the card is broken it should definitely be axed.  testing has revealed that to be far from the case.  but as always, it's hard to examine with so many permutations, so if anyone has results that indicate otherwise, they can post them here

I defer my opinion to the play testers, breadmaster.  It does make Doom more attractive to use.

Quote from: AO user on April 02, 2015, 07:48:15 PM
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  No 8's with negates....but an AO from reserve is exciting   Maybe a clone/variant with IA that lets 'em play AO from reserve.  Velocity and Flash can 'blow up stuff' from reserve sort of a pre-emptive negate.  That would add permutations to usual reserve peeps.

I understand your hesitation at acceptance of the card.  You site Velocity & Flash above.  While you could justify an AO for these characters through use of speed to reverse time, both already have Reserve capabilities.  I guess this would "add permutations to usual reserve peeps", but its still the "usual peeps."  Why not expand the list of Reserve capable characters?  That might add more permutations of winning decks, and really create more deck variation.

here's a beaut for goblyn queen.  I'm not sure, but this may be fanart

that's by Ebas, Eric Basaldua, he's a comic artist but I don't think that image ever made it into any comics..

ah yes.  I see the signature now at the bottom left

thanks chuu!

Makes me want to say "ooooooooh".  I can see why OPD.
Justa wondering.... If it was just a reverse-NN (see Landslide Appetite For Destruction, and then reverse the effect to only allow non-attack specials), would it be non-OPD like a regular NN, or OPD like this card?

that would be an interesting one.  my first thought is that it should be opd, but you never know what testing reveals.

cant use avoids
cant use negates
cant use power leech
cant use use D O W

i can see why its OPD