For a while, I've been wanting to say this. I believe that the Discover mechanic is flawed. The way its worded would only limit design space when Team 5 is going to design new card.
According to the hearthstone wiki, the definition of Discover is:
"Discover is an ability that allows the player to choose from three different pseudo-randomly selected cards, with the chosen option generated and added to their hand."
Though initially, nothing seems wrong, there are 2 main limitations that go with this definition.
1) The Card that you chose from the 3 pseudo-randomly selected cards will only and always be added to your hand. (More on this)
2) The discover mechanic dictates that one can only generate 3 pseudo-randomly selected cards and that there exists no real way to increase that pool.
and a slightly minor, but an equally important point, is that there is absolutely no interaction with the other 2 cards that you do not choose with the current Discover mechanic.
I will now begin to elaborate on my current points:
1) The fact that the card you get from casting a spell or summoning a minion with the Discover mechanic can only be added to your hand is a rather big limitation to card design. Suppose that someone in Team 5 wanted to create a Discover based card that not only combines Discover and Discard together. Not only would that be troublesome, as the card's effect would have to be broken up into two portions, but breaking it up into two portions destroys the concise definitions that we all like about Hearthstone cards.
For example, if a Team 5 developer wanted to create a card like this:
They could make it, but the fact that the wording is too verbose makes it a turndown for many players, including Team 5, who opted to create this version of Medivh, the Guardian with Atiesh, instead of something like this:
As a suggestion, If Blizzard changed the definition of Discover to: "Choose a card generated from a standard set of 3 pseudo-randomly generated cards." both Team 5 and amateur card designers would have greater leeway in creating different Discover cards that would be the natural evolution on the current mechanic of Discover without sacrificing concise language.
Take the hypothetical card, Siphoned Soul, that I've created. If we apply the new definition of Discover while generating this card, we would instead have something like this:
Not only did we end up creating a much more concise and easy to read version of Siphoned Soul, we have effectively created a completely new form of Discover cards that Team 5 has never touched upon. In addition, this way, if a Blizzard Developer intended to create this card without even adding the Discovered card in the first place, we now hit 2 birds with one stone by applying the fixed definition of Discover.
2) While not as big of an issue as point #1, the current definition of Discover states that you can only discover a card from a set pool of 3 cards. Though it really isn't that big of a deal, there are certain design limitations that comes with this aspect. For instance, why can't we have Discover based cards that, instead, generates a bigger pool of cards such as this:
While creating a card like this would require a UI overhaul in the terms of how Team 5 displays the pool of cards generated from the Discover mechanic, such a card like Adamant Ironheart would definitely open up design space for designing future Discover cards. Perhaps there might even be a card with an ability of " Destroy a friendly minion. Discover cards equal to the mana cost of the minion destroyed."
Now addressing the minor point. There has yet to be any interactions with the cards that you do not choose when you play a Discover based card. Though that can be easily addressed with the current system, here is a card that I'd like to share that does in fact combine the proposed Discover mechanic with interacting with cards that weren't picked in the pool of discovered cards:
while a bit more verbose than preferred, and probably straight up broken (I didn't bother balancing, just came up with it on the whim as a example), this minion not only takes advantage of the Discover mechanic, but also interacts with the other cards that weren't picked, which is a fundamental aspect of Discover that was never investigated before.
Oh, I almost forgot, here is what the current Discover cards would look like if we applied the updated definition of Discover to these cards.
Are you talking about the cards? If so, I believe that the only one you're talking about is Siphoned Soul, and though its not as tempo driven as the other zoo minions Warlocks have, it is a tool that could be used in a sort of control-ish renolock or handlock that helps control the board.
Not in the mood to write alot, so I won't go into much detail..
Discover in general is (atleast in my opinion) a fun, balanced and interesting mechanic that opens up a lot of possibilities and strategies. It doesn't need any improvement, but I see no problem in expanding the Discover mechanic. I really like your ideas and there are many more to think of just by brainstorming 1-2 minutes. Especially Control decks could benefit a lot from different kinds of Discover cards. Ivory Knight and your Druid card are a good example for this. I would really like to see alot more High-Value Discover cards which can turn around board states, Life/Armor difference, Card Advantage etc., just to encourage a "back-and-forth" (don't know how to call it exactly) kind of gameplay, that is a lot more fun, than knowing that you've lost after turn 3.
But I did. 2 flaws were that the card discovered always goes to your hand, meaning that you can never do anything else with it, as of now, meaning that if you do happen to combine Discover and other mechanics, its possible, but the effect will become too verbose and won't be printed. Another one was that there exists no real way to discover more than 3 cards, and 3 cards is the max. This is a flaw, because if the base definition is to discover a pool of cards to chose from, then limiting it to 3 cards is a flaw in of itself. With one of the cards I designed, if one can discover, lets say, 5 cards, then that will not only significantly increase the number of options you can get from 1 discover, but statistically, you have a better chance of getting the card you want .
What you're suggesting (I think) is that Discover shouldn't be limited to adding cards to your hand, nor should it be limited to 3 cards.
Which means every current card would have to read "Discover a card from a pool of 3. Add it to your hand." Then add the specifics on top of that, and it becomes even more complicated. Imagine if Jeweled Scarab read "Battlecry: Discover a 3 cost card from a pool of 3. Add it to your hand."
Which is far, far more complicated than "Battlecry: Discover a 3-cost card."
Alright, that was my bad, I should change the definition to keep the standard Discover pool size to 3. However, what I was trying to say was that the pool size should still be able to be changed, and that we lack cards that do
1. Would it be a bit more interesting to have other Discover interactions? Yes. 2. Should it be as complex as the cards you made? Probably not. HS is just not the game for that. 3. The Discover mechanic is not "flawed", you just have ideas to improve upon it that's all.
A simplified Siphoned Soul that would fit the complexity level of HS. "Battlecry: Discover a demon. Instead of adding to your hand, deal damage equal to its Attack." Discover should not be any more complex than this. Ivory Knight is a well-designed example.
There's also something to note about having a pool of three. Is it limiting? Yes. It's supposed to be. Flexibility is worth a lot in any card game. Look at Choose One effects and how it's worth 1 extra mana just to have the option between two things. At some point, Discovering 5 cards will also be a downside. Imagine if Ivory Knight pulled from a pool of 5 cards but, due to the added flexibility, now costs 7-mana. Would you play a 7-mana 4/4 just for that added chance of getting a good card? Or do you play a 6-mana 4/4 and just say "oops, bad luck" when you don't get any?
Look at your Ursoc. You Discover a card, and use the combined mana cost of the other two you didn't choose. Question is: Why? Why not just use the mana cost of the one you did choose? Sure, it's extra math. Your choice matters more as you also have to take into account the other two cards you're not choosing. Still, Why? Why purposely design something complicated when a simpler solution would suffice? In the design world, it's actually much harder creating a simple card. Look no further than this week's card creation competition where people are piling mechanic upon mechanic upon mechanic.
Being able to design a simple card that's good > a complicated one.
I wanted to create Ursoc the way it is to show an example of a card that makes use of cards that you didn't end up using while choosing a card from the discovered pool of cards. Obviously it wasn't going to be actually a card that I was going to showcase, but the main premise is that here was a card that actually made use of the cards that you didn't choose in a Discovered pool of cards.
To address the flexibility portion of your argument, I literally created a card that only increased the size of the discovery pool once you play it. I did not change the pool of any other card, and the card I created can only help, not hurt the discovery cards.
Also, why does Siphoned Soul become too complex when you just slap on the discard portion? It literally is just one more action that doesn't mean anything if you don't have Malchezaar's Imp on the field. In addition, why can the card not deal damage equal to the discarded minion's health? Is that too complex as well?
I wanted to create Ursoc the way it is to show an example of a card that makes use of cards that you didn't end up using while choosing a card from the discovered pool of cards. Obviously it wasn't going to be actually a card that I was going to showcase, but the main premise is that here was a card that actually made use of the cards that you didn't choose in a Discovered pool of cards.
To address the flexibility portion of your argument, I literally created a card that only increased the size of the discovery pool once you play it. I did not change the pool of any other card, and the card I created can only help, not hurt the discovery cards.
Also, why does Siphoned Soul become too complex when you just slap on the discard portion? It literally is just one more action that doesn't mean anything if you don't have Malchezaar's Imp on the field. In addition, why can the card not deal damage equal to the discarded minion's health? Is that too complex as well?
At the end of the day, remember that you're free to do whatever you want. This is just feedback. Take it if you want. I'm not trying to sound like I'm speaking from a high horse here, I just think your approach to card design is somewhat flawed, it's too complex, and I've seen your other cards. I can see the effort you put into them, the time it must've taken to type everything out, but the approach is fundamentally flawed in that you want a ton of interactions.
Siphoned Soul could simply be "deal variable damage", instead you want it to: 1. Discover a card 2. Break the discover rule and discard it instead of keeping it, thereby adding discard synergy 3. Then you deal variable damage
Plus, It's not just the cards, it's how you present them as well. "Good marketing" is part of selling your product. You could invent the greatest thing known to man, but if you don't know how to sell it, no one's going to buy it. No one's going to read a wall of text, which is a shame because you spent time and energy making it. It's probably better for you to spend time making text that people actually want to take time to read, and cards that are simple enough that people so that people are willing to play it. As for the card itself, good wording is part of "good marketing". If you really want discard synergy with Siphoned Soul, you could word it as: "Battlecry: Discover a demon and discard it. Deal damage equal to its Attack." It might seem minor, but it's consistent with Blizzard's wording style and is not ambiguous. "Discover and discard" could mean 1) Discover a card, then 2) Discard another card.
But again, at the end of the day, who are we exactly? It's not like I'm your boss or anything, consider it a passing suggestion from a stranger.
So much about this thread bothers me. For starters, the definition of Discover (even though it's on the wiki and I want to say actually in the game) is not so restricted as to only adding 1 card out of 3 to your hand. We already have Sir Finley Mrrgglton that doesn't draw any cards for you at all. So, we already have proof positive that this is more of a guideline. Second, as has already been pointed out in this thread by others, the devs have already begun to explore outside the traditional effect with cards like Ivory Knight that not only discovers you a spell but heals you based on the amount it costs. So, Blizzard has already set a precedence that they are not limiting their design space with the current implementation and can effectively do pretty much anything they like with the mechanic.
Many of the issues you illustrate in the original post are in my eyes, not issues at all. Just because Blizzard hasn't designed a card that does what you describe yet doesn't mean they can't do so in the future. While I do believe that there are cards and mechanics that do actually limit Blizzard's design space, I don't believe Discover is one of them. Essentially, they can augment the mechanic any way they see fit (which they've already done) to fulfill whatever creative criteria they require.
But I did. 2 flaws were that the card discovered always goes to your hand, meaning that you can never do anything else with it, as of now, meaning that if you do happen to combine Discover and other mechanics, its possible, but the effect will become too verbose and won't be printed. Another one was that there exists no real way to discover more than 3 cards, and 3 cards is the max. This is a flaw, because if the base definition is to discover a pool of cards to chose from, then limiting it to 3 cards is a flaw in of itself. With one of the cards I designed, if one can discover, lets say, 5 cards, then that will not only significantly increase the number of options you can get from 1 discover, but statistically, you have a better chance of getting the card you want .
Those aren't flaws. It's like saying draw is flawed because you can only add cards to your hand when drawing.
If your convoluted card ideas are so profound that they supposedly show how "flawed" a mechanic discover is, don't they justify the creation of a new mechanic that's not burdened by such flaws?
Having a choice between more cards is not even practical. How do you propose to fit that on mobile phone screen? It would be idiotic and would either slow the game down even more, or look ridiculous.
Just because you can come up with some card idea that is not within the realm of discover does not make discover a flawed mechanic. This thread is just narcissistic click bait.
Hey guys,
For a while, I've been wanting to say this. I believe that the Discover mechanic is flawed. The way its worded would only limit design space when Team 5 is going to design new card.
According to the hearthstone wiki, the definition of Discover is:
Though initially, nothing seems wrong, there are 2 main limitations that go with this definition.
1) The Card that you chose from the 3 pseudo-randomly selected cards will only and always be added to your hand. (More on this)
2) The discover mechanic dictates that one can only generate 3 pseudo-randomly selected cards and that there exists no real way to increase that pool.
and a slightly minor, but an equally important point, is that there is absolutely no interaction with the other 2 cards that you do not choose with the current Discover mechanic.
I will now begin to elaborate on my current points:
1) The fact that the card you get from casting a spell or summoning a minion with the Discover mechanic can only be added to your hand is a rather big limitation to card design. Suppose that someone in Team 5 wanted to create a Discover based card that not only combines Discover and Discard together. Not only would that be troublesome, as the card's effect would have to be broken up into two portions, but breaking it up into two portions destroys the concise definitions that we all like about Hearthstone cards.
For example, if a Team 5 developer wanted to create a card like this:
They could make it, but the fact that the wording is too verbose makes it a turndown for many players, including Team 5, who opted to create this version of Medivh, the Guardian with Atiesh, instead of something like this:
As a suggestion, If Blizzard changed the definition of Discover to: "Choose a card generated from a standard set of 3 pseudo-randomly generated cards." both Team 5 and amateur card designers would have greater leeway in creating different Discover cards that would be the natural evolution on the current mechanic of Discover without sacrificing concise language.
Take the hypothetical card, Siphoned Soul, that I've created. If we apply the new definition of Discover while generating this card, we would instead have something like this:
Not only did we end up creating a much more concise and easy to read version of Siphoned Soul, we have effectively created a completely new form of Discover cards that Team 5 has never touched upon. In addition, this way, if a Blizzard Developer intended to create this card without even adding the Discovered card in the first place, we now hit 2 birds with one stone by applying the fixed definition of Discover.
2) While not as big of an issue as point #1, the current definition of Discover states that you can only discover a card from a set pool of 3 cards. Though it really isn't that big of a deal, there are certain design limitations that comes with this aspect. For instance, why can't we have Discover based cards that, instead, generates a bigger pool of cards such as this:
While creating a card like this would require a UI overhaul in the terms of how Team 5 displays the pool of cards generated from the Discover mechanic, such a card like Adamant Ironheart would definitely open up design space for designing future Discover cards. Perhaps there might even be a card with an ability of " Destroy a friendly minion. Discover cards equal to the mana cost of the minion destroyed."
Now addressing the minor point. There has yet to be any interactions with the cards that you do not choose when you play a Discover based card. Though that can be easily addressed with the current system, here is a card that I'd like to share that does in fact combine the proposed Discover mechanic with interacting with cards that weren't picked in the pool of discovered cards:
while a bit more verbose than preferred, and probably straight up broken (I didn't bother balancing, just came up with it on the whim as a example), this minion not only takes advantage of the Discover mechanic, but also interacts with the other cards that weren't picked, which is a fundamental aspect of Discover that was never investigated before.
Oh, I almost forgot, here is what the current Discover cards would look like if we applied the updated definition of Discover to these cards.
Thoughts?
Too complicated, too slow, that's something HS is never going to be.
Are you talking about the cards? If so, I believe that the only one you're talking about is Siphoned Soul, and though its not as tempo driven as the other zoo minions Warlocks have, it is a tool that could be used in a sort of control-ish renolock or handlock that helps control the board.
Not in the mood to write alot, so I won't go into much detail..
Discover in general is (atleast in my opinion) a fun, balanced and interesting mechanic that opens up a lot of possibilities and strategies. It doesn't need any improvement, but I see no problem in expanding the Discover mechanic. I really like your ideas and there are many more to think of just by brainstorming 1-2 minutes.
Especially Control decks could benefit a lot from different kinds of Discover cards. Ivory Knight and your Druid card are a good example for this. I would really like to see alot more High-Value Discover cards which can turn around board states, Life/Armor difference, Card Advantage etc., just to encourage a "back-and-forth" (don't know how to call it exactly) kind of gameplay, that is a lot more fun, than knowing that you've lost after turn 3.
You wrote like 300 words and didn't identify a single "flaw" in the discover mechanic.
But I did. 2 flaws were that the card discovered always goes to your hand, meaning that you can never do anything else with it, as of now, meaning that if you do happen to combine Discover and other mechanics, its possible, but the effect will become too verbose and won't be printed. Another one was that there exists no real way to discover more than 3 cards, and 3 cards is the max. This is a flaw, because if the base definition is to discover a pool of cards to chose from, then limiting it to 3 cards is a flaw in of itself. With one of the cards I designed, if one can discover, lets say, 5 cards, then that will not only significantly increase the number of options you can get from 1 discover, but statistically, you have a better chance of getting the card you want .
What you're suggesting (I think) is that Discover shouldn't be limited to adding cards to your hand, nor should it be limited to 3 cards.
Which means every current card would have to read "Discover a card from a pool of 3. Add it to your hand." Then add the specifics on top of that, and it becomes even more complicated. Imagine if Jeweled Scarab read "Battlecry: Discover a 3 cost card from a pool of 3. Add it to your hand."
Which is far, far more complicated than "Battlecry: Discover a 3-cost card."
Alright, that was my bad, I should change the definition to keep the standard Discover pool size to 3. However, what I was trying to say was that the pool size should still be able to be changed, and that we lack cards that do
1. Would it be a bit more interesting to have other Discover interactions? Yes.
2. Should it be as complex as the cards you made? Probably not. HS is just not the game for that.
3. The Discover mechanic is not "flawed", you just have ideas to improve upon it that's all.
A simplified Siphoned Soul that would fit the complexity level of HS.
"Battlecry: Discover a demon. Instead of adding to your hand, deal damage equal to its Attack."
Discover should not be any more complex than this. Ivory Knight is a well-designed example.
There's also something to note about having a pool of three. Is it limiting? Yes. It's supposed to be. Flexibility is worth a lot in any card game. Look at Choose One effects and how it's worth 1 extra mana just to have the option between two things. At some point, Discovering 5 cards will also be a downside. Imagine if Ivory Knight pulled from a pool of 5 cards but, due to the added flexibility, now costs 7-mana. Would you play a 7-mana 4/4 just for that added chance of getting a good card? Or do you play a 6-mana 4/4 and just say "oops, bad luck" when you don't get any?
Look at your Ursoc. You Discover a card, and use the combined mana cost of the other two you didn't choose. Question is: Why?
Why not just use the mana cost of the one you did choose? Sure, it's extra math. Your choice matters more as you also have to take into account the other two cards you're not choosing. Still, Why? Why purposely design something complicated when a simpler solution would suffice? In the design world, it's actually much harder creating a simple card. Look no further than this week's card creation competition where people are piling mechanic upon mechanic upon mechanic.
Being able to design a simple card that's good > a complicated one.
If you got the coin, the Mercenaries get going. Vote for The Mercenary for CCC #3.
I wanted to create Ursoc the way it is to show an example of a card that makes use of cards that you didn't end up using while choosing a card from the discovered pool of cards. Obviously it wasn't going to be actually a card that I was going to showcase, but the main premise is that here was a card that actually made use of the cards that you didn't choose in a Discovered pool of cards.
To address the flexibility portion of your argument, I literally created a card that only increased the size of the discovery pool once you play it. I did not change the pool of any other card, and the card I created can only help, not hurt the discovery cards.
Also, why does Siphoned Soul become too complex when you just slap on the discard portion? It literally is just one more action that doesn't mean anything if you don't have Malchezaar's Imp on the field. In addition, why can the card not deal damage equal to the discarded minion's health? Is that too complex as well?
The only thing that is flawed in the discower mechanic is the amount of legendaries it generates. IMHO.
Siphoned Soul could simply be "deal variable damage", instead you want it to:
1. Discover a card
2. Break the discover rule and discard it instead of keeping it, thereby adding discard synergy
3. Then you deal variable damage
Plus, It's not just the cards, it's how you present them as well. "Good marketing" is part of selling your product. You could invent the greatest thing known to man, but if you don't know how to sell it, no one's going to buy it. No one's going to read a wall of text, which is a shame because you spent time and energy making it. It's probably better for you to spend time making text that people actually want to take time to read, and cards that are simple enough that people so that people are willing to play it. As for the card itself, good wording is part of "good marketing". If you really want discard synergy with Siphoned Soul, you could word it as: "Battlecry: Discover a demon and discard it. Deal damage equal to its Attack." It might seem minor, but it's consistent with Blizzard's wording style and is not ambiguous. "Discover and discard" could mean 1) Discover a card, then 2) Discard another card.
But again, at the end of the day, who are we exactly? It's not like I'm your boss or anything, consider it a passing suggestion from a stranger.
If you got the coin, the Mercenaries get going. Vote for The Mercenary for CCC #3.
So much about this thread bothers me. For starters, the definition of Discover (even though it's on the wiki and I want to say actually in the game) is not so restricted as to only adding 1 card out of 3 to your hand. We already have Sir Finley Mrrgglton that doesn't draw any cards for you at all. So, we already have proof positive that this is more of a guideline. Second, as has already been pointed out in this thread by others, the devs have already begun to explore outside the traditional effect with cards like Ivory Knight that not only discovers you a spell but heals you based on the amount it costs. So, Blizzard has already set a precedence that they are not limiting their design space with the current implementation and can effectively do pretty much anything they like with the mechanic.
Many of the issues you illustrate in the original post are in my eyes, not issues at all. Just because Blizzard hasn't designed a card that does what you describe yet doesn't mean they can't do so in the future. While I do believe that there are cards and mechanics that do actually limit Blizzard's design space, I don't believe Discover is one of them. Essentially, they can augment the mechanic any way they see fit (which they've already done) to fulfill whatever creative criteria they require.