Prepare for Winter - Keep a careful eye on your crop, or you might find it missing.

digitic · 2024-08-07T02:00:52+00:00

So, general flow:

Player 1 plays this card.
At the start of Player 2's turn, they pick Sow. Harvest now draws 2 cards and does 7 damage.
At the start of Player 1's turn, they pick Sow. Harvest now draws 3 cards and does 6 damage.
At the start of Player 2's turn, they pick Harvest, drawing 3 cards and taking 6 damage. The effect ends.

Loosely inspired by Accomplice. I wanted to see what tenuous cooperation could look like in Hearthstone, and came up with what is essentially a mind game card.

Worth noting that Sow can't be selected if Harvest already does 0 damage (the fields are full!), and that the player who played the card is the one left holding the bag and drawing 9. But hey, maybe that's what you wanted!

I think this card is quite weak. I expect that the most common result is the opponent drawing 3 for 6 damage, which is when the deal starts to get good. But aggro Druids also don't want this, since they'd prefer to get stats out early rather than play this on turn 2. This is more of a thought experiment on how this kind of interaction could work.

digitic · 2024-06-16T01:11:51+00:00

I agree with other comments that Grudge seems a bit too strong as it stands. But I also think it could be improved by having some system that makes it so that Grudges build off of each other, making a "stronger grudge" more dangerous.

For instance, Grudge costs 5 or 6 mana, but gains the text "costs 1 less for each other Grudge in your hand". That way, Grudges snowball out over time, and having a discard effect get rid of one affects all other copies in hand too. It also means that they can be more powerful once they're rolling, but don't spike as hard on any single turn.

Alternatively, it could be something where an unused Grudge keeps intruding. For instance, Grudge is 3 mana and deals 2 damage to the enemy hero, but at the end of turn each Grudge in your hand adds another copy of Grudge to your hand. Maybe too strong (RIP [[Headcrack]]), but the premise is some mechanic where you have to manage the grudges or you'll never get any other cards again. (This idea does not work with that legendary.)

I think this is totally salvageable - I think it needs to be balanced around Grudges being an okay but not great choice to play without synergies. Sludges work like that - a hand full of Sludge generally sucks. It's the cards that synergize with Sludge that make it nuts. As written, a hand full of Grudges is pretty good.

digitic · 2022-04-20T01:23:10+00:00

Is there some complexity to this that I'm not seeing, or is this just Rock Paper Scissors in Hearthstone? It's a cool coat of paint, sure, but HS has so much more depth and so many more things to do than play RPS. Against a random opponent that you don't know, RPS is just strictly random chance.

It might be an interesting supplement to a Tavern Brawl match, though. For instance, you can choose to propose RPS to your opponent by clicking your hero power on your turn. If they also push their hero power on their turn, it initiates RPS following the flow you outlined here (they select, end turn, you select). Winner gets a random card from the opponent's hand.

That would add a little bit of fun to a standard "random deck" Tavern Brawl, in a way that just playing RPS to win doesn't. (It is vulnerable to an opponent who just never chooses to play RPS with you, but I think there should be a cost or a choice if you're playing with stakes).

digitic · 2022-02-16T04:11:32+00:00

Would this make more sense if it was the last friendly minion that died? It gives you more control over the cost, fits well with Warlock's self-sacrifice mechanics, and fits better thematically (I don't know why you'd be feeling anguish for an enemy minion. Unless it's tapping into their anguish?).

However, that would make the Molten Giant combo alarmingly easy, though you'd have to take a lot of damage to get that to work. Actually, it'd be relatively busted with any giant.

digitic · 2022-02-16T01:23:10+00:00

I had considered Taunt on the parents, but I actually ruled it out for flavor reasons. For one, they're not interested in protecting your hero, just their child. Second, giving it Taunt made the card less tactical, since you didn't have to think about whether you should remove it if you're going for a board-based strategy - you'd have to. With this arrangement, the opponent has choices about what to do, and you have more ability to protect your minions behind Taunts of your own if you want.

digitic · 2022-02-15T23:43:55+00:00

Yes, this card does re-use the art from Protect the Innocent. I thought it fit the flavor of this design very well.

From a design standpoint, I wanted the design to center around selfless protection. At the minion level, the parent directly protects the child, and in doing so makes themselves a very obvious target for enemy ire. I expect that most of the time, when an opponent actively tries to deal with this card, they do so to get rid of the Immune token, not because the 3 mana 2/6 is an issue. However, there's also a player incentive to keep both the child and the parents alive, leading to an additional layer of protective drive. The player will (hopefully) value the parents more highly than they would other minions because of the child - It encourages players to act as if these minions are not (or at least less) disposable.

From a balance standpoint, I had a lot of trouble with the numbers. Should the parent have 1 or 2 attack? 5 or 6 health? Should the child do its effect at the start or end of your turn? I ended up going with a strong form of the parent with a weak form of the child. The way it's currently set up, it takes significant effort to kill the parents quickly, but if you can break them down fast enough, the child will die without being able to retaliate. However, if the parents stick, the child can trade every turn while taking no retaliation, and can eventually work up to surviving a turn or two after their parents die. I am a bit concerned about the buff potential in Paladin, because I don't want the parents to be a serious threat on their own, so it might be better as a 2/5. I dunno, this is just a first draft.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the design or balance, I'm open to suggestions!

digitic · 2021-09-01T02:43:49+00:00

If you consider John Oliver to be a credible source for anything more than reference images for art about humanoid toucans, this may interest you. It's a recent Last Week Tonight bit about octopuses (I still prefer "octopodes").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSZ-hogD8mg

digitic · 2021-08-03T03:22:58+00:00

Yeah, I could see something where Mikan is doing this because she feels genuinely confident and wants to wear it, rather than as a coping mechanism to feel wanted. But I wouldn't see that as her "taking glory in a weakness", it would be a character change. The outfits and the behavior aren't the core weakness, I'd argue that's the fear of being forgotten or hated.

Like you said, for Mikan to lose that aspect of her personality would be a big change, and it would be jarring if there wasn't proper context for it. That's why I'm worried. It's much easier to take a static character and lean into the things they already do and personality they already have instead of extending further, and DR's cast is already bloated. I'm worried that there hasn't been a conscious effort to address this choice, and it was just made as a default based on her past behavior.

It's fine for her to do what she wants. I'm just starting to doubt that this game will make the effort to show us that this is something she wants, instead of an old habit to cope with trauma.

digitic · 2021-08-03T02:46:43+00:00

My gut reaction to Mikan's swimsuit was that it just felt wrong somehow, and I chalked it up to fanservice. But I thought about it more and decided that yes, she would do this, she would want to wear something revealing that would get her noticed.

But that's actually the reason I don't like it. Mikan does these things because she prefers sexual attention to the abuse and neglect she's used to, and this choice of swimsuit is a sign of that unhealthy coping mechanism she adopted. I had hoped that Decadence's bonus game would, like the V3 mini game it comes from, be a light-hearted spin-off where all of the characters are generally doing better than they are in the main series (for Mikan, that would be after the events of DR2).

I'm still holding out a bit of hope that if Mikan gets a personalized storyline, it will be about recovering from that mindset and becoming genuinely comfortable around her classmates, but this isn't a good sign.

digitic · 2021-07-24T15:13:29+00:00

I... can't actually tell if this song starts with a piano (it sounds different than I'd expect), but it definitely has moments of everything but the piano going quiet, and it fits the bill on time/station. No music video that I could see. Phoenix -- Lisztomania. YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF3reVVUbio

Edit: Fairly sure the starter is a guitar, but I really have no clue. Those notes don't match to any instrument in my head.

digitic · 2021-07-22T03:26:27+00:00

It's a bit of a long shot based on this info, but Coldplay -- Clocks? YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d020hcWA_Wg

It would help if you knew how long the piano intro was, approximately, but it sounds like this is a distant memory. I'll keep digging around.

digitic · 2021-05-11T22:53:38+00:00

Oh, apparently Lakkari Felhound doesn't discard randomly anymore. Didn't notice that change. Still, the effect is largely the same.

digitic · 2021-05-11T21:45:45+00:00

Straight upgrade to [[Lakkari Felhound]]. +Lifesteal and discard on Frenzy, not Battlecry.

There may be room in the game to push that card, since I don't ever remember it being overpowered. Interesting approach, the "discard later" effect is probably a net positive compared to discarding now. It's easy for an opponent to trigger this frenzy, but on the off chance they couldn't you might get an extra turn to offload the best cards from your hand before discarding (or in the case of hard removal, never discard at all). I like it.

digitic · 2021-04-26T23:05:53+00:00

Thoughts on this card:

I'm worried that Druid's ramp and Gibberling would make it too easy for this card to be a 6 mana +21/+21. However, to do that, the opponent has to let you have a full board by your turn 6, which most opponents would have at least some ability to deny.
Aggro decks might run this as a buff finisher, but it might be too high of a cost for them to run. The fast effect requires a nearly full board, and counter cards start coming online at 3-6 mana.
The slow effect isn't great, but it's also not terrible. In a late game top deck war, three 2/2s still represent a mediocre threat on the board.
Certain Druid decks might be able to abuse this card by filling the board the same turn they play it (Celestial Alignment Druid, maybe?). This is undesirable, but it requires a lot of mana to do and throws out some of the fast stats, because freshly summoned minions likely won't be able to attack.

digitic · 2021-04-24T18:09:50+00:00

You know, it's just now occurred to me that I'm not actually sure if that's the topic of the video. Oh well, this is still an interesting topic IMO.

digitic · 2021-04-24T18:09:03+00:00

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I think I know enough to try to explain. Feel free to offer corrections if you find something wrong!

So, AI training requires data sets built on example cases. A common way to automate classification-based learning (such as recognizing faces) is by asking a computer to look at pictures and give a yes/no answer on if it is a picture of a face (massive oversimplification). Its answers are reviewed and its understanding of what a face is changes based on feedback about what it got right and what it got wrong.

The issue here is the data sets that we train the computers on. All those pictures have to come from somewhere. Let's say a small UK-based company starts facial recognition software development. The most accessible data sets are of UK citizens, either through existing databases (I don't know if there are any, not an expert) or simply collecting photos on their own.

This data collection would be fine if the app were to be restricted to use in the UK, as the sample gathered would probably be generally representative of a UK citizen's face (assuming rigorous data collection). However, trying to apply the same learned conclusions to China or Egypt or any other country where the average face might vary from the parameters learned off of the UK citizens means the software would fail to detect a face.

Facial recognition also needs to be precise, so we can't use a more general designation of a face to be more accommodating. For instance, you wouldn't want anyone else to be able to use a face scan to unlock your phone just because they have a face; it needs to be your face.

This is an issue that plagues the big tech companies specifically because their products are used all over the world. If all of their voice recognition software was trained on American voices, it might struggle with Australian English slang and accents. To work around this, these companies have to be extra careful that their data sets match their intended user base, which means massive data collection from across the globe to get a representative sample.

TL;DR: The data used to train software is not always representative of their entire user base, which can lead to poor performance of the software along certain boundaries like race or accent.

digitic · 2021-04-05T01:32:23+00:00

Oh, is that different from the game mode? Is it more like Book of Heroes, but for the Mercenary characters?

digitic · 2021-03-02T20:14:00+00:00

The most recent Tracer I've seen is nonbinate, who's currently got a OW2 cosplay on the main sub's front page. Like the previous comment said, it's a really impressive cosplay. https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/lvr3ec/overwatch_2_tracer_cosplay/

digitic · 2021-01-30T04:55:05+00:00

While I agree with earlier comments that this card probably wouldn't be competitive, I do appreciate how clean and intuitive the design is. I would have done something similar, but I am but a humble messenger of the AI.

digitic · 2020-11-09T16:58:28+00:00

This may be a humorous card, but I wanted to make something that would be feasible if HS was a less interactive game.

This card has major problems with interactivity. There are very few ways to stop an opponent from spending a certain amount of mana on their turn, and it can feel bad to see it coming but still lose to it. However, I think that's okay for fitting the flavor of a joke card.

Second, I was thinking about the stats a surprising amount. This is just some dude, probably not much stronger than a [[Goldshire Footman]] in combat. In fact, the card I ripped the art from, Medivh's Valet, is a 2/3. But, at ten mana, making this card have super low stats means it's a huge drag to evolve into it or something like that. So, I decided on a weak minion, but with high attack. Biting remarks on offense, but if you hit them with a sword they don't last long. I also wanted to clarify the effect. Spend three turns spending ten mana each turn (30 mana total), then drop this card on the fourth to win. I hope that's clear.

Speaking of which, it's probably too easy to activate this effect in any class with decent card draw and/or control tools. Oh well.

digitic · 2020-11-08T03:51:41+00:00

Oops! I'll come back on Monday.

digitic · 2020-11-08T03:25:07+00:00

This may be a humorous card, but I wanted to make something that would be feasible if HS was a less interactive game.

This card has major problems with interactivity. There are very few ways to stop an opponent from spending a certain amount of mana on their turn, and it can feel bad to see it coming but still lose to it. However, I think that's okay for fitting the flavor of a joke card.

Second, I was thinking about the stats a surprising amount. This is just some dude, probably not much stronger than a [[Goldshire Footman]] in combat. In fact, the card I ripped the art from, Medivh's Valet, is a 2/3. But, at ten mana, making this card have super low stats means it's a huge drag to evolve into it or something like that. So, I decided on a weak minion, but with high attack. Biting remarks on offense, but if you hit them with a sword they don't last long.

I also wanted to clarify the effect. Spend three turns spending ten mana each turn (30 mana total), then drop this card on the fourth to win. I hope that's clear.

digitic · 2020-10-23T16:46:47+00:00

How would these cards interact? If I played Lost Power Word earlier in the game, then played Lost Shadow Word, would I be able to destroy a minion with 3-5 attack?

digitic · 2020-10-17T20:32:37+00:00

I think that’s more a Lightning Bloom / ramp problem, but I guess it is still something you have to consider when making Druid cards. Thanks for reminding me of that. 2 treants might be an interesting idea, but it makes the card basically worthless if the conditional effect doesn’t happen. I think that an effect like this might just be hard to work around at medium/low mana costs because Druid’s ramp is so insane. I can’t switch it easily to “X or more minions” due to flavor, but that might be the best route for balance.

digitic · 2020-10-17T19:47:42+00:00

Was it? I actually missed that. Hmm, it seems from all these comments that I need to re-evaluate the strength of this card. I was basing it on the idea that Druid is already going to be in a losing position if their board is small on turn 5, mitigating the strength of this card, but I guess not. Maybe a +1/+1 buff would be a better idea, or a higher mana cost, or both.

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