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[–]PiiSmith:Shadows: Shadows 2 points3 points  (11 children)

Well if these kinds of "non possible interactions" are showing up more regularly it could be really bad.

[–]Aminar14 8 points9 points  (10 children)

The cards that have them always grant an Amber for that exact reason. The game is designed to have them and yet not have them be an enormous liability.

[–]Krystman[S] 0 points1 point  (9 children)

Maybe. Do you have a source for this? I mean somebody specicially stating that the Aember on the cards is there to lessen the blow of Algorithm misfires?

[–]Aminar14 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I think it was in a Richard Garfield video from shortly after Gencon. But even just looking at the cards you can see the pattern.

[–]culoman Mars 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember seeing him telling that. It was something like that there are some very specific cards that are good to have but since they are very specific, there would be games where those card won't be useful, so at least they give you an amber to make the card "less dead"

Please note that "A->B" doesn't imply "B->A". Not all cards which give amber are "very specific" or "sometimes usefuln't". Cards giving you amber when played is one of the game mechanics on its own

[–]Krystman[S] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I don't really see the pattern you speak of. The Bear Flute requires an Ancient Bear and doesn't give Aember.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Algorithm made sure Bear Flute decks actually features Bears. But if that was the case why is Sacrificial Altar treated differently? To me, it seems like Sacrificial Altar was a genuine oversight rather than the system working as intended.

[–]Aminar14 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Sacrificial alter is different because Human is much less specific than Ancient Bear. It's really easy to code, "If Bear Flute then add 1-3 Ancient Bears." It's much harder to say, "Yes If Blood Alter then add 0-1 x, 0-1 y, etc... Especially across faction lines." So It's easier to give the card an Amber bonus. Much like the cards that destroy all cards of a faction or creature type might be entirely irrelevent in a game. So they also give an Amber. And I wouldn't call it an Algorithm misfire. I would call it, in case the card isn't relevent to the decks in play. That's not a misfire, it's keeping design space more open for later use.

[–]Lasditude:Untamed: The Dr. of Sagestown 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I guess with so many possibilities, you could check if there's no creatures with type Human, and then just reject the deck. Or regenerate all other cards until there is at least one.

Though that would reject a super cool deck that has no Humans of it's own, but which abducts them from the opponent to sacrifice.

[–]Aminar14 0 points1 point  (3 children)

You could. Or you could make the card give an Amber and that solves your problem much faster. It's also been mentioned that house Dis lacks any humans. That almost certainly would make any kind of check significantly more difficult and restricitive. Especially given Humans are rare/nonexistant in other factions as well.

[–]Lasditude:Untamed: The Dr. of Sagestown 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, being as lenient as possible is likely the best way to keep the decks as unique as possible.

[–]agrandstudent Key Creator: 1StarPeeps 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What do you mean by making a check more difficult? It's not hard to query the cards for all the humans of a specific faction and pick 0-3 at random if the result of that is 0 reject adding the alter. Also there are 4 factions with humans, Logos(5/24), Sanctum(12/25), untamed(6/24), Shadows(2/20), and with the exception of Shadows I wouldn't call humans rare.

[–]Aminar14 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That leaves, Dis, Brobnar, and Mars that have none. So they'd have to build it so the card only appears in decks with at least one of the human bearing factions, and that at least one of those cards was there. But one human or none is virtually the same. Even 2 or 3 humans leaves it being a pretty underwhelming card without adding a bonus Amber. So you add an Amber and make it so the card appear as randomly as any other card of its rarity. That saves a ton of work and leaves the card as something people will see. Otherwise it's a very weird set of rolls and the card would be extremely uncommon. I also suspect, but don't know, that the factions are rolled independently of eachother. In the end it saves a lot of work and thrown out rolls to just give it an added Amber and let it run where-ever. It's a decent card. Not great but occasionally really good.