[Pod 0] Ozuul (Eldrazi Ruiner) - Playtesting

[NecroBlade]

It's supposed to be all-or-nothing, though. He's so massive and his pull is either on or off. It's not something finely tuned and targeted. Plus, that would eliminate the need to be careful with your own figures. Much more interesting if you have to consider sacrificing one to the Vortex in order to hit a bunch of opponents.

[caps]

Just trying to think of ways to simplify the power.

[Astroking112]

Here's a quick stab at a more limited Gravity Pull to see how it looks:

GRAVITY PULL
After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. One at a time, choose a non-adjacent small or medium figure choose up to 3 non-adjacent small or medium figures within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul. The Each player that controls that a chosen figure must place it on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Continue choosing figures until there are no non-adjacent figures within 2 clear sight spaces or there are no empty spaces adjacent to Ozuul. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack.

GRAVITY PULL
After moving and before attacking, choose up to 3 non-adjacent small or medium figures within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul. Each player that controls a chosen figure must place it on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack.

That definitely looks much simpler and more appealing to me for a Master Set. Removing the loop of choosing until X conditions are filled also makes it more immediately understandable for newer players.

If we want to tweak it to make it feel more powerful, we can increase the number of figures. Heck, we could even go so far as to say that he can Pull up to 8 figures--the maximum number of empty spaces that can be adjacent to him--even though that's pretty unlikely. That effectively still lets him pull all of the same figures that he would've been able to anyway, with the only mechanical change being that you can choose to not pull your own units.

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

It's supposed to be all-or-nothing, though. He's so massive and his pull is either on or off. It's not something finely tuned and targeted. Plus, that would eliminate the need to be careful with your own figures. Much more interesting if you have to consider sacrificing one to the Vortex in order to hit a bunch of opponents.

I agree that being able to selectively avoid pulling your own units is less interesting, but I don't have any thematic problem with Ozuul being able to control his gravitational pull. He's a giant magical space being, after all.

The question is whether we feel that not being able to avoid pulling in your own figures is interesting enough to warrant the additional complexity here. Personally, I'd say no, but I'd like to hear from the other pod members as well.

[caps]

I think the theme loss of him being able to control which figures he pulls closer is a price worth paying for simplicity.

The mandatory use of the SA after using it keeps him from being Mr. Super-Pod. That was a good addition. I think that means we still need the "may use Gravity Pull" wording.

Which reminds me that he already has some control over it, so it is an even smaller theme loss than it seems at first.

[Pumpkin_King]

I do agree with caps, I think a cap of 3 is perfectly fine. How often will he find himself wading into a much larger fight?

[NecroBlade]

Having to strategize around pulling your own units is a major draw of this design for me. Selective gravity is not. If you're going the selective gravity route, then why wouldn't Vortex only hit enemy figures, too, like Heirloom's Force Orb? The whole point is he's a wrecking ball, like the Ogre Warhulk's Flail. He's not a thoughtful, cunning strategist, he's an elemental force.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

The mandatory use of the SA after using it keeps him from being Mr. Super-Pod. That was a good addition.

That's always been there.

[caps]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

Having to strategize around pulling your own units is a major draw of this design for me. Selective gravity is not. If you're going the selective gravity route, then why wouldn't Vortex only hit enemy figures, too, like Heirloom's Force Orb? The whole point is he's a wrecking ball, like the Ogre Warhulk's Flail. He's not a thoughtful, cunning strategist, he's an elemental force.

I'm not arguing about the theme. You're right. I'm arguing that we're better off with a simpler power that doesn't deliver the theme quite as strongly.

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

That's always been there.

Well it's a good thing we added it at the beginning then

[Astroking112]

I completely agree with caps. The slight hit to theme is definitely worth the reduced complexity here as far as I'm concerned.

[NecroBlade]

I prefer there being nuance to how you have to play him, rather than nuance in how his powers play.

What about Force Orb then?

[caps]

Force Orb?

[flameslayer93]

Yeah, I dunno if capping it is better or worse than what we already have.

At least it looks more legible on the card:

[Captain Stupendous]

This is going to be a longer post, so thanks in advance for sticking with me!

Seeing the proposed changes to Gravity Pull has made me do some thinking about the difference between powers that are easy to understand and powers that are easy to remember. Usually the two go hand in hand, but not always. In my opinion, the new choose 3 wording makes Gravity Pull slightly easier to understand initially, but also slightly harder to remember in the long run. As far as this project goes, I think it is important to do our best to keep both these goals in mind, along with the acknowledgement that making a power easier to understand doesn’t necessarily make it easier to remember, and vice versa.

In my opinion, designing cards that are intuitive with easy-to-remember effects may be even more important than reducing the complexity of wording as much as possible. The reason for this is that new players have two hurdles to clear before they’re able to enjoy Heroscape (or any game for that matter) to the fullest. First, there is the initial step which involves reading and understanding what all of the cards do. This is where the goal of low complexity is helpful. However, even after a player has read and understands conceptually all the information in the set, they still won’t be able to fully enjoy the gameplay experience until they have been able to commit *most* of that information to memory. This is where the goal of designing highly intuitive and memorable powers is helpful.

In my experience, it is this second step of memorization that actually serves as an even larger barrier to entry to new players than the initial steps of learning the rules. I have two housemates, and we’re all experienced boardgamers, regularly playing modern strategy games like Root, Scythe, Imperial Settlers, etc. I’ve also taught them Heroscape; however, we don’t play it nearly as often as I’d like. When I ask them why they don’t want to play, they’ve basically said “It’s more fun for you because you already have all the cards memorized, but it's just not fun to have to always be asking you what your figures do, and we can’t make as good strategic decisions because we haven’t memorized the nuances of how all the abilities work and interact." I think it's important to note that neither of these guys had any problems at all understanding any of the cards individually. It’s remembering all the specific details and numbers that proves to be a barrier until a player has passed the memorization curve and everything finally “sticks.” (I can easily picture them asking “Wait, do you get to choose 3 or 4 figures for Ozuul’s Gravity Pull?”, whereas it is somewhat easier to remember that Ozuul just pulls everything.)

All that being said, I think that the original wording for Gravity Pull can be simplified further while still keeping the easier-to-remember effect of pulling everything. For ease of reference, I’ll post the original wording, the proposed “choose 3” wording, and finally my new suggested wording.

Original:

After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. One at a time, choose a non-adjacent small or medium figure within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul. The player that controls that figure must place it on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Continue choosing figures until there are no non-adjacent figures within 2 clear sight spaces or there are no empty spaces adjacent to Ozuul. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack. (101 words)

Choose 3:

After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. Choose up to 3 non-adjacent small or medium figures within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul. Each player that controls a chosen figure must place it on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks, but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack. (77 words)

CaptainStupendous Suggestion:

After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. In the order that you choose, each non-adjacent small or medium figure within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul must be placed by its owner on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks[, but will take any falling damage that may apply]. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack. (76 words including bold words)

I think my new suggested wording would retain the mechanics of Ozuul pulling everything, while also reducing the word count to less than the proposed “choose 3 figures” version.

I also think that the clause about falling damage is unnecessary and actually goes against the precedent set by classic scape for how “placement” powers have typically worked. I would want someone with more knowledge of the rules to confirm this, but I don’t think that special powers that cause figures to be directly “placed” rather than allowing them to “move” have typically been affected by falling damage. As I was talking with Necroblade about this in the discord, he pointed out that “Placing is considered movement for the purposes of triggering powers (Engagement Strike) but not for game rules (falling).” The R&C for Drow Chainfighter specifically highlights this. The fact that “placed” figures do not receive falling damage also seems to be implied in the mechanics of powers like Jotun’s “Throw,” Theracus’s “Carry”, and Emirroon’s “Summoning” (Elf wizards don’t roll for falling damage if Emirroon summons them off a cliff, etc.).

Now, if we want to intentionally make figures placed by “Gravity Pull” subject to falling damage, we could explicitly specify that in the power. However, I personally think “Gravity Pull” would be better without this wording, since we are already looking for ways to reduce the power’s word count and the additional wording could also lead new players to incorrectly assume that abilities like “Carry” or “Chain grab” would also result in falling damage.

This post has already turned out to be far longer than I intended, so I’ll stop here before becoming any more of a hypocrite for suggesting a less wordy version of a power in the longest way possible