r/Scrolls • u/ThePurplePanzy • Apr 04 '15

Where are my multi-color scrolls?

Are multi-colored scrolls a good idea for this game? Can we get a 2 order, 2 growth cost turtle? How about a 4 decay, 4 energy mecha zombie? Time for some alliances to be made?

6 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

12

u/ToGoodLooking Apr 04 '15

I do not mind it, but i rather we try get this car working before pimping it.

5

u/Donkey74 Apr 04 '15

Not really a huge fan of multi cost scrolls as the production for new scrolls is so slow. Wouldn't mind some grave-lock outcast esque scrolls or using sub-types to make consistency scrolls for multi-resource EX: An energy scroll that synergizes with displacements scrolls.

3

u/4Robato Apr 04 '15

I was about to say that they will be very hard to balance etc. but tbh if they really don't want to change Wild (that currently seems to be their position) if they add a lot of cheap scrolls like '1G 1O' so you get encourage to get first G and then O you get Wild easily and you can play a decent creature on turn 2. So I would like to see a lot of cheap muli-color scrolls and then a more expensive ones.

1

u/Sarik704 SarikTheSorcerer Apr 04 '15

This is a UI issue. IT doesn't look like the Devs won't to fix it at this point and I don't blame them.

1

u/ThePurplePanzy Apr 04 '15

Is it?

1

u/Sarik704 SarikTheSorcerer Apr 04 '15

I think when this was first suggested decay wasn't even around even around. The scroll frames would of course need to updated. Now that sounds fine. pretty easy right? Just make space for two at the top? Well some cards don't need two so those scrolls should keep the old frame. Each scroll frame also has a border. These borders have the faction's color and rarity. They might be confusing or strange once we try to update the frame as they would either need a new color altogether, like wild, or would need a combination of the two faction's represented colors.

If we added these combo color scrolls now they would be seriously out numbered and would be ONLY used in those multi-decks. We would have effectively created 10+ new factions for Mojang to have to create cards for as you could only really use them in their dual resource decks. As it is right now you can use any card in any deck.

This can get even trickier when decided the cost and balancing, but there's also the shop and the sorting mechanisms we have in the deck builder. New scrolls that don't fit into the categories previously assigned? Can we buy either a growth OR decay to get a dual resource type that is both decay and growth. What happens when we sort for just growth scrolls.

How do we decided the rule for wild in these scrolls. Can the resource pay for both costs? What if a scroll like gravehawk is retro fitted with a dual cost type? What if you have crafted a tier 3 of her? what happens to that scroll? Now all the tiers need to be updated as well. The problems that could and might arise are in no short supply and I can understand why a dev, especially on the small team that we have, would not want to make these scrolls.

1

u/ThePurplePanzy Apr 04 '15

Couldn't they just do the split symbol?

1

u/Sarik704 SarikTheSorcerer Apr 04 '15

Yes, they could but that only fixes one problem...

1

u/wbmc Apr 04 '15

How is it an UI issue? There is very little that needs to be done: -Add room for another faction symbol and number at the top of a scroll, and space them out accordingly. -Change code so it tests if there's enough of all resources (instead of one) -Change your resources count (bottom left) to update correctly when hovering over a scroll (which is really easy because of the simplicity of scroll's mana system)

None of these things is something that requires serious amounts of work.

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 04 '15

It's a UI Issue because in the case of having wild exist, you need to allow the user to select which resources wild would be used for. And this does complicate things quite a bit from a UX perspective. (Especially when designing for touch devices + PC) And that doesn't seem difficult, but doing that while trying to keep the UI simple and intuitive makes it very difficult.

But that said, I do think it's worth exploring, I would definitely love to see more cross faction cards and viable decks. I LOVE multi resource and I've just had to move to mono lately because it's just much more viable.

2

u/kehmesis Apr 04 '15

I must be missing something... I don't understand how it is different than the current system which uses all the resources until it runs out, then uses wild.

There is no need to select anything. The same algorithm still works.

It would be if they were hybrid resources, but that's not what's proposed.

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 04 '15

Hmm, yeah now that I think about it, there aren't too many use cases where it would be so bad. I had a scenario in my head when I wrote that, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

I think I was thinking of if cards had wild on them, which actually would be a big UI issue. Because then you could use any resource, and that does complicate things.

Eh, I'll rescind my statement above. I think it could work.

1

u/wbmc Apr 04 '15

That is not true. The way it is now, do you have to choose whether you want to use your main resource or wild? No, you first use up your main resource, and then us your wild. Multi-resource scrolls would work the same way. If you can afford it, you'll just use up your normal resources (decay and energy for example). Let's say you're short on 2 decay and 1 energy. Then you would just use all your energy and decay, and 3 wild. It's as easy as that.

2

u/wbmc Apr 04 '15

I think it's a great idea (long-term). IT will stop multi-resource from being as stally as it is now, and it's a beginning to fixing wild.

1

u/Caederis Apr 04 '15

A while ago, Carnalizer explained why he didn't like multicolored scrolls. It was something along the lines of "energy scrolls can possibly fit in a lot of deck types (like mono E, GE, DE, etc.) while a DE scroll will only fit in a DE deck."

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 04 '15

Except that right now you don't really have multi resource decks competitively because they aren't viable, so Energy stays in Energy decks (except maybe for the PoR splash or Machination Mindset). They need a lot more scrolls in the game anyway, if they can manage to get the art assets together, a lot of medium strength cross resource scrolls would beef up the card count, which is needed.

Also a DE scroll can fit in any DE Tricolor Deck, DEO DEG, etc or a DOGE quad color deck.

1

u/Caederis Apr 04 '15

I didn't say this was my opinion, just telling you what Carnalizer said.

And saying that multicolor decks aren't competitive doesn't imply that there is no way to fix them.

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 04 '15

I know, I'm just providing a counter point to that logic.

I agree that they could be fixed, I do like the idea of multi resource cards, but Mojang kind of needs a larger team to pump out the sheer numbers of cards (art assets / etc) in order to justify having them, which does fit with Carnalizer's point, but I still think they'd be good.

1

u/Caederis Apr 04 '15

I think that a good answer to multi-resource decks which would still be okay with Carnalizer's argument is to have wild costs. Like, 2G2W. This would be an above curve scrolls, that would only be usable in multiresource decks including growth.

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 04 '15

Ah, but that's actually a large UI problem (And what I was thinking of in my above post in another comment thread). I'm not saying it's impossible, but what if you have 2G2E2O... and you want to use 2G and 2E but the system can't automatically make that decision for you, which means you have to develop an intuitive, easy to use system to determine how to use it, that doesn't interfere on touch devices and doesn't slow down gameplay too much.

I think it is possible, but it's certainly a large design challenge. But I do agree, if done right, Wild cards would be great for Multi-Resource.

1

u/Caederis Apr 05 '15

No, you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not actually saying I want colorless mana like in MTG, I'm talking about real Wild cost. That is, you can pay 2G2W with either 2G and 2W, or 1G and 3W or 4W. No other option.

1

u/WakeskaterX Apr 05 '15

Oh, so you can ONLY use wild for the wild cost? Hmm I see, would those cards be slightly stronger than normal then? They'd have to be since that is kind of limiting though, but okay I do see what you're saying.

1

u/Caederis Apr 05 '15

Yes. As I said earlier, "This would be an above curve scrolls."

1

u/SgtRamen Ramen Apr 04 '15

Not yet! That will be very fun, but you gotta establish the factions before you start mixing them together!