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Have you ever looked at Hearthstone? I tried it briefly, and I think it's got its share of problems but I thought that the way they designed around this was rea

Have you ever looked at Hearthstone? I tried it briefly, and I think it's got its share of problems but I thought that the way they designed around this was really cool. https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Mana https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Mana covers it in detail, but the gist of it is that mana is generally an automatic thing, and it's granted per-turn at an increasing rate throughout the game, meaning that most games follow a natural power curve that is immune from flood/screw. There are still actions that affect mana and strategies around those, and some neat concepts like The Coin, the special card always given to the player who goes second that gives you one extra mana for one turn, to help with the disadvantage. But overall it beats what I consider to be a really annoying flaw in MtG.

overcast 8y ago
I've played daily since beta, and stopped about a year ago. The problem with Hearthstone is that they traded mana RNG for effect RNG. The fate of every match revolves around how well a card randomly targets an enemy. Far too much is decided by a coin toss in that game, because it makes for funny youtube videos.
- r00fus 8y ago
  I also liked in MTG how much more responsive the game was due to instants/interrupts & triggers - was far more complex and nuanced. In HS it's simplified - with few exceptions, your stuff happens only on your turn, very little targeting of the player (ie, no discard). The strategies are limited. I still like it, but ... it's definitely not up to MTG richness.
  - overcast 8y ago
    They addressed the instants, far too difficult to direct flow of the game online like that. Look at MTG online, it flows like a pig. The game is constantly interrupted for each phase. Their answer was secrets basically.
  - bena 8y ago
    The game is probably more "responsive" now. Instants and Interrupts were a mess. Batching and determining which had to be resolved LIFO and which FIFO and the various corner cases were an unnecessary labyrinth to navigate. The stack is much better and I'd say more nuanced. Now you can target things on the stack specifically. There's more bluffing and playing with the fact that there is incomplete information.
    - r00fus 8y ago
      I agree, though I still regret they ended up overpowering counterspells by allowing them to target any previous spell in the stack (interrupts could not do this - they had the interrupt stack). However Hearthstone has no such interplay - likely because it allows an easier functioning AI and interplay in a normatively turn-based game online is difficult. I think we agree?
      - bena 8y ago
        Counterspells could target anything on the stack before. Interrupts could be cast in response to other Interrupts. If anything, it nerfed them a bit as now Instants can be cast in response to cards that would have been Interrupts. Interrupts used to work in a fashion similar to Split Second.
        r00fus 8y ago
        Scenario: 1) I cast Armageddon/Wrath of God, 2) in response (instant stack) you cast/trigger effect that allows you to sacrifice (or return to hand) your permanents affected, 3) in response (adding to stack) I counter my own 'geddon/WoG. How would this be possible when interrupts existed?
        bena 8y ago
        Pretty much how you described. You have the original Wrath of God spell. The effect or spell that allows you to sacrifice or bounce those things would be in the Instant batch. The counterspell would be in the Interrupt batch. The big difference is that once that counterspell is on the stack, you can't cast any more Instants. So let's say that instead of countering the Wrath, you counter the spell that's bouncing all of the things. With the old system, that's it. If I don't have any Interrupts, we need to resolve our batches. No one can cast an Instant until we resolve both the Interrupt batch, the Instant batch, then the original spell. Counterspells were even better before. They were effectively the last word. The stack kind of depowered them, but it gave a lot more play to the game.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  More often than not the only randomness that affects the outcome of a game is card draw. There are random effects that can flip a game but that happens less frequently than just a bad draw.
- empath75 8y ago
  They’ve gotten rid of most of the really rng effects and the worst offenders ever where in the game when it started (ragnaros and sylvannas).
Fnoord 8y ago
For Hearthstone players who do like the mana problem there is shaman class with overload. Some warlock cards also destroy mana crystals, while druid plays around a lot with gaining these. Hearthstone has too much RNG for my taste though, and I don't like the business model related to the RNG of packs. Slay The Spire, which has a more fair business model IMO (even though the price is cheap at 16 EUR), allows you to have more strategy and play around the RNG via liberal deck building and a rogue-like game. It has a relatively stable mana/energy resource system which can be modified by game mechanics. But it is a PvE game with ladder system increasing difficulty.

overcast 8y ago

I've played daily since beta, and stopped about a year ago. The problem with Hearthstone is that they traded mana RNG for effect RNG. The fate of every match revolves around how well a card randomly targets an enemy. Far too much is decided by a coin toss in that game, because it makes for funny youtube videos.

r00fus 8y ago
I also liked in MTG how much more responsive the game was due to instants/interrupts & triggers - was far more complex and nuanced. In HS it's simplified - with few exceptions, your stuff happens only on your turn, very little targeting of the player (ie, no discard). The strategies are limited. I still like it, but ... it's definitely not up to MTG richness.
- overcast 8y ago
  They addressed the instants, far too difficult to direct flow of the game online like that. Look at MTG online, it flows like a pig. The game is constantly interrupted for each phase. Their answer was secrets basically.
- bena 8y ago
  The game is probably more "responsive" now. Instants and Interrupts were a mess. Batching and determining which had to be resolved LIFO and which FIFO and the various corner cases were an unnecessary labyrinth to navigate. The stack is much better and I'd say more nuanced. Now you can target things on the stack specifically. There's more bluffing and playing with the fact that there is incomplete information.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    I agree, though I still regret they ended up overpowering counterspells by allowing them to target any previous spell in the stack (interrupts could not do this - they had the interrupt stack). However Hearthstone has no such interplay - likely because it allows an easier functioning AI and interplay in a normatively turn-based game online is difficult. I think we agree?
    - bena 8y ago
      Counterspells could target anything on the stack before. Interrupts could be cast in response to other Interrupts. If anything, it nerfed them a bit as now Instants can be cast in response to cards that would have been Interrupts. Interrupts used to work in a fashion similar to Split Second.
      - r00fus 8y ago
        Scenario: 1) I cast Armageddon/Wrath of God, 2) in response (instant stack) you cast/trigger effect that allows you to sacrifice (or return to hand) your permanents affected, 3) in response (adding to stack) I counter my own 'geddon/WoG. How would this be possible when interrupts existed?
        bena 8y ago
        Pretty much how you described. You have the original Wrath of God spell. The effect or spell that allows you to sacrifice or bounce those things would be in the Instant batch. The counterspell would be in the Interrupt batch. The big difference is that once that counterspell is on the stack, you can't cast any more Instants. So let's say that instead of countering the Wrath, you counter the spell that's bouncing all of the things. With the old system, that's it. If I don't have any Interrupts, we need to resolve our batches. No one can cast an Instant until we resolve both the Interrupt batch, the Instant batch, then the original spell. Counterspells were even better before. They were effectively the last word. The stack kind of depowered them, but it gave a lot more play to the game.
nkrisc 8y ago
More often than not the only randomness that affects the outcome of a game is card draw. There are random effects that can flip a game but that happens less frequently than just a bad draw.
empath75 8y ago
They’ve gotten rid of most of the really rng effects and the worst offenders ever where in the game when it started (ragnaros and sylvannas).

Fnoord 8y ago

For Hearthstone players who do like the mana problem there is shaman class with overload. Some warlock cards also destroy mana crystals, while druid plays around a lot with gaining these. Hearthstone has too much RNG for my taste though, and I don't like the business model related to the RNG of packs. Slay The Spire, which has a more fair business model IMO (even though the price is cheap at 16 EUR), allows you to have more strategy and play around the RNG via liberal deck building and a rogue-like game. It has a relatively stable mana/energy resource system which can be modified by game mechanics. But it is a PvE game with ladder system increasing difficulty.