A Discussion on limits in MagicDuel

Recently someone came to me with a question about the combat system

Dear Chew, 

I have a question. As I remember, the minimum limit creature Vit to create a fight ritual was 300. But the fact I was able to create a ritual with Single level 1 Pope that only had 290 Vit – and the result was of course the ritual goes random. So, why the system let me created the ritual?

Its a good question so I thought I would write about it here rather than just reply to the player.

Is it too hard to code in?

I guess the first question to ask is whether its possible to code a check. Actually it would be relatively easy to check if rituals meet the requirements of not going random.

We already have easy access to the creatures you are placing in the ritual and their max ve. Then checking the full potential max ve in a ritual is as easy as summing up the max ve of each creature.

So Why not code it in?

One of the reasons why its not coded in is because its a learning experience. To quote a favourite book of mine:

People learn from their mistakes and failings much better than they would from any teacher explaining a concept.

By creating a ritual which then goes random it stimulates a dialogue with others. Questions are asked about how the combat system worked, why this ritual in particular went random.

While initially jarring the hope is that the discussion it provokes trains the player to ask more questions. Each time they see something strange they ask why, which in MagicDuel is the most important question.

Obviously this kind of teaching has always the possibility to backfire. The chance that it merely frustrates the player as they don’t understand how it works. This is an ever present concern with these kind of situations which we always consider.

Summary

The simple answer to the question is that while  we could probably pop up a warning that the ritual will always go random, for now we won’t.

Stimulating asking questions and the social aspect of MagicDuel is an important part of the game and something we must encourage.