Ok, well, clearly there are some very different camps when it comes to magic in a story. I'll stop trying to impose my own ideas onto other people. My ideas currently are largely based on the way I'm using magic in Season of the Witch, and it represents the unconscious there, so it behaves in certain ways. It's irrational and ungovernable, in fact it'll govern you instead, but always in certain ways. As I said above, it's in the form of punishment or reward depending on how the person has been living their life, but it's very specific and works within a pretty narrow band of choices. And it causes changes in the physical realm, but of particular kinds, and they take weeks to fully manifest, it doesn't happen immediately. That fits the world of my story, but it wouldn't fit in other kinds of stories. It fits mine because my story is based on psychology.
How about chess against Death? Because that's not the way the story works. If Athena turned Paris into a bug and trod on him, she would be the goddess of revenge, not the goddess of wisdom.
I apologize in advance if what I am about to bring up is not allowed but this topic seems to be dancing around it and I seriously doubt all of you could have so many deep thoughts and opinions on magic without knowing about the most famous writing tips on the subject. I am of course speaking of Brandon Sanderson's Laws of (writing) Magic. This topic seems to be a direct exploration of his first law An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic. The missing opening line to it (although I guess it is implied) is "A magic system is satisfying when...." My personal opinion doesn't matter, what I see as the problem is the OP had was, readers not understanding his magic. Without knowing how he used magic I can't say for sure if it was a hard magic vs soft magic, I doubt it matters, Or maybe the showed his work to the type of readers who wanted something else (probably that), but for me when readers don't understand my writing I ask myself 'was I being as clear enough.' Not necessarily telling them everything they want to know, but did I tell them everything they needed to know. With Magic I feel that is the key, regardless of if the system is hard or soft. Although I personally have a preference in how I like magic systems I don't think one is inherently better than the other, I have read stories that are too soft so it becomes DEMs, and others too hard so it becomes a video game, as a reader (and writer) I am not a fan of either extreme but I know of many good stories that know how to ride the balance in-between.
Write it how you want to write it. If you want to make it soft, go ahead. If you want to make it hard, you can do that too. For some people, soft floats their boat. But just don't start off with a preconception that "I have to make it hard/soft da interwebz says so". If you want, you can even start soft and gradually get harder as the action hots up. Make it work.
That's good. A few of us did say more or less the same thing in different words, that the reader needs to understand or be able to intuit the 'rules.'
"So what can this One Ring do?" "Anything you want. Anything you can imagine. But to use it, you have to pay a price." "So all I have to do is find it, put it on my finger and make a wish?" "...who said it was a finger ring?"
One ear-ring to rule them all? One toe-ring to find them? One navel-ring to bring them all? ... because if I have to keep going, it'll quickly become very R-rated, not to mention NSFW. (Ahhhhhhh! Won't somebody please Think Of The Children!!!) </Helen Lovejoy>
