Celestial Forge Rebalance Info Discussion Thread

Everything looks very interesting, and overall excellent! That said, a question/caveat or two:

Will this affect all Forms, or just the three listed? CM's 7-card Zombie pool (6 now?) wasn't mentioned, let alone EC additions.

Speaking of card counts, I see you changed the magic 13 (aw shucks) from the CM pools down to 10—and changed the Form cards from creating a random card from the Form pool to "You draw cards from the {Form} deck." I've requested for years that the difference be delineated better between drawing and creating; does this new statement and keyword mean Forms will now have a lack of repeats until it shuffles (or reaches a pretend end), or is it just another instance of mixing draw and create with the keyword maybe-hopefully explaining how the pool works?

I'll miss the lovely synergy of Ethereal Form + Travelling Curse, but Vampiric Form losing Loner is beautiful, Form-Handicap balance-wise—edit: well, minus the fact that now it only has one Handicap, but that's more symmetrical balance than gameplay balance, which time will moreso tell I guess.

The damage thresholds are an awesome idea. You know I'mma be all over that Elven Maneuvers testing. Lol. $X^ b (Well, some of you know. Anyway! heheheh)

I'm interested to see if Boo! becomes too disruptive. Hopefully not. The flavor's definitely awesome.

I could discuss All Out Attack at length—and I could discuss every card you listed, for that matter—but the main thing I want to ask is for clarity. In the bullet point text, you said it'll gain Hard to Block 3, but in the card image, you've given it Easy to Block 3. What's the goal, please?

Thank you, folks! $:^ D

 

It looks like Medium's Garb and Shifting Block will be all the rage. Honestly, that's so opposite of the current metagame that if it ever happens, I would find it funny.

Given that Shifting Block is available in multiples, we're not going to have triple Shield Block shield, but something that gets close.
Medium's Garb was always free card advantage, but now with "real" control spells like Telekinesis, anyone without ranged armor removal is going to have a big problem. Maybe that means we'll see more of Flametouched Spear and maybe Kathon's Steel Helmet!

Buffs are cool and all, but with such a continuous card advantage there may as well be a balance problem. I'd suggest making Medium's guaranteed Armor 1, so that when you do get to play Sundering Strike at it, it's gone for good. Or possibly remove the Keep and adjust the dice accordingly.

I think casting Surestrike Blessing on All Out Attack user should still work. I would miss that combo. Do keep Easy to Block effect though.

So, currently it's not perfect, but I think you can get the cards decently balanced. Looking forward to see the expansion roll out.

 

A couple people in Discord are talking about Boo! getting nerfed even further. I believe these folks are missing the whole point.

Boo! is an Attack card.

Its original purpose was control. Shut down an enemy for a round. Could you use it for alternative purposes, like any other card? Sure.

It was overpowered in testing, though, and thus it got overnerfed in print. Whoops. It could still create some clutch saves on occasion, but it wasn't the control powerhouse from before. Well, what about alternative purposes? Ah, yes, using it as a conditional Assist for your own allies was still an option. Mind you, the card's not an Assist, and it's not a Utility—it's an Attack.

Now, it's being changed. Although I haven't heard explicitly why the naysayers are naysaying right now, I've heard the reasons given in the past whenever it's been discussed. It always boiled down to "but you'd nerf my alternative conditional Assist usage!" $:^ | It's an Attack. It's intended for Wizard control. That should be the standard by which to judge it. What shall it do soon? 1. Create a Panic in target's hand. 2. Create and attach Fright to target. <- For a non-hybrid Attack, this sounds like a straight-up buff to me, regarding the objective to help control Wizards—specifically, the disruption archetype. Years ago, Whirlwind and Whirlwind Enemies were nerfed to a small radius. Panic has no such nerf. Panic is also Mandatory Action. Good grief. You catch an enemy from behind, give a Boo!, and your opponent has to spend the next turn popping off to parts unknown, still Frightened. Your turn again. (Panic is not Cantrip! You just made your opponent lose one's turn. Ouch.) Is it random? Yes. Can you help yourself? Barely. Will it be nerfed from its current state? The Attack against your enemies surely won't.

Regards,

 

Typo in blog post fixed, AoA grants Easy to Block. Thanks for all the comments Stay tuned for actual playtesting!

 

So... any changes to Zombie Form? It's the only Mitternacht form without a passive boost. What if we gave it:
"If a character within 2 squares dies, create a Morsel card in your hand."
---
My problem with Boo! has always been the fact that my opponents are almost always facing me (because I only play PvE), so the card is literally unplayable. So what if it had a weak effect usable even if the target is facing you, and a cool bonus effect if target is facing away (like Cowardly Attack)?

Like:
"Place target on a random square within two squares. Set its facing randomly. If target was originally facing away from you, create a Fright card and attach it to them."

 

Zombie Form is at its intended power level currently.
Other changes are, of course, pending playtesting; folks should feel free to weigh in once they've had a chance to play with the new versions of the cards (and the new cards themselves).
That's a very valid point about Fright, Kalin.

 

The more I think about it, the more I like the Bless nerf. It's a bigger nerf than it looks, yet it's also certain that Bless will remain viable (mainly in maps where Victory squares are not spread out).

Clamping three characters together has many implications.
First, it will signal the holding Bless in hand, making the opponent prepare against it.
Second, it leaves the Bless user vulnerable against Chops, Bursts and everything else that can affect multiple characters, possibly causing these cards to see more play. In return, many non-Bless supports like Inspiring Presence and Defender's Block improve as well. Cards like Violent Spin will be great card to draw from or against Bless, while Elven Trickery will effectively undo the card advantage from Bless.
Finally, it means that whenever a Bless party is flanked, the whole party is flanked, and moving one character will not get them out of back-attack threat. You can combine that with the new Boo!, throwing Bless user all over the map.

I also noticed that Unreliable Block is now a hard-counter to AoA, so that might see more play as well. Whether you get it from Dwarf Skill, tokenless Shield, Weapon or Wind Dancer, it's great insurance to have in an otherwise low-block party.

The point is that what seems like a small change can have cascading effect on the metagame, especially when the changed card is/was highly popular.
Today, no competitive player enters a ranked match without some answer to Bless warriors or AoA. Maybe these cards become rare enough to the point of people ignoring it, that's one possibility as well. I suppose we'll see that in a few months.

 

Probably a bigger Bless nerf than duration 1.

 

First of all I think thanks are in order for revitalizing the game just a little more. Rebalancing and new expansion to boot make this announcement a pretty exciting one. I realize we have two separate threads for the two things so I suppose I'll stick to that and only mention the buffs and nerfs here.

My first comment is that I'm happy that fire damage is getting all that better. I don't think that pyromancy was a bad archetype before, but the massive armor values of werewolves, Vengeance, and several other factors probably adversely affected the viability (I say probably because I haven't played PvP in earnest for a long while).

I'm glad about the changes to Vampiric Form as well. In fact, I'm a little surprised that Ethereal Form wasn't changed. I don't think that Vampiric Form was underpowered due to the passive ability, but it was simply not flavor-appropriate. A creature that can only sustain itself by feeding on others should not have passive self-healing. I'm glad this was rectified, and was just wondering about Ethereal Form by extension because as it is, their ability grants them high resistance to many forms of magical attacks while granting no protection whatsoever against physical attacks, which I feel should be the other way around.

As a unifying remark about forms, again mainly from a flavor perspective, it was a little strange that apparently a preferred way of battling creatures of the night is with torches or fire in general, and yet two out of the three major forms just laugh it off entirely. I guess now that's just one out of the three, so that's pretty good progress.

I think it was also a good idea to change All-out Attack. Not necessarily due to its power level, but because of its frustration potential. I absolutely have no problem with the card itself, really, when it's used strategically. Using a second character to draw out blocks, attacking from behind, basically planning around the thing. But I've seen too many games decided by it when someone just decided to leave it up to fate and blast it in the opponent's face from the front anyway, and they landed the hit because the blocks decided not to work. It's just really unsatisfying either way, and leaves the outcome of (potentially) an entire game up to one die roll. I think it's better this way, in that it heavily punishes you if you don't appropriately plan around the card.

The damage thresholds on Vengeance, Martyr Blessing, and Elven Maneuver are a pretty great idea. We'll see how they play out in practice, but I think this looks a good change.

Regarding the nerf to Bless, the range was reduced to four, which is quite short as far as support cards go, and it doesn't bypass line of sight anymore if I read it correctly - quite a nerf indeed, but I think it was warranted entirely. To people who were suggesting reducing the duration to one, that can be a straight-up buff if the card's used in a situation when the user doesn't plan to hold the squares for an additional round, and it eliminates the danger of the opponent taking them over. In other situations it's a nerf, of course, but I don't think it would've been severe enough to seriously hinder the card.

Shifting Block drawing a card is a good move. Now there's actually some incentive to use the card in the first place.

Acid Leak is a lot better now, I don't get why it wasn't that way from the start. No further comment on Boo!, more flavorful but we'll have to see how it plays.

I have one odd remark about Perplexing Ray. You say it should've been arcane and so it became that now, but personally I don't think it should have been. Along with a couple of others like Short Perplexing Ray, Forgetfulness, Memory Leak (and I might have forgotten a few others) - why are these Arcane and not Psychic? In addition to feeling more appropriate (they quite obviously muddle with the mind of the target), I think it would be helpful in setting up a new type that's almost unavailable as of now while at the same time having precedent (Hypnotic Beacon is Psychic, is it not?), reduce the number of Arcane cards a little which doesn't really seem to have a definite theme anyway, and just make them feel a little more distinct. Sure, they'd lose the hard to block from Spark Inductor and Spark Generator (but why are specifically and explicitly electrical traits buffing non-electrical cards anyway?), but Psychic cards could eventually get their own trait if they stick around.

Either way, just a few thoughts. Until next tim!

 

No changes to altruism?
Instead reigning in Allout attack, a solid counter to gheal spam?

Some easy to block on allout attack might be flavourful, but the proposed change is way overboard. With the new werewolf deck, allout is once again welll balanced by the itemization. No need to restrict armor bypassing and unblockable (= surestrike) combos.

If you leave it like this, better make it a free card. Or add massively to its own base damage, so you can choose between a normal mode attack and a sure to fail high damage maneuver.

 

Just a quick opinion from me: Most of the changes I'm pretty neutral towards. I'm not into PvP so I will find my way around the changes when I face some AI-opponent and I can't judge if these changes restore the PvP-balance. But I'm not really happy with the changes that prevent me from getting a form card from now on. Or at least some of these options. I get why you want to exclude the form cards from the form card pools. But for each of the initial four forms there was one way to get the form without having to equip a specific race skill. Howl for Werewolf, Vampire's Kiss for Vampire, Medium's Garb for Spirit, and Spark of Undeath for Zombie. Plus Shifting Block and Walpurgis Night for any of these four. And I'd argue that having a chance of obtaining a form card that way never was a problem on its own. Because five of these six ways are one-time events (one-time self-Assist, one-time Attack, one-time Block, one-time Attack-Assist-hybrid, one-time Utility). Only Medium's Garb can in theory give you more than one form card. But Medium's Garb is an armor card so (in PvP) if you wanted to prepare against this you would simply bring some armor-removal. And Spirits never were the best form in the first place so having the possibility of your deck being replaced with Spirit cards was your own choice.

I see the problem that you can't make all those six card still work as they do right now, because Vampire's Kiss is in the Vampire card pool (so a unlimited circle is still possible). But then again you can't use Vapire's Kiss on yourself (or at least not on the same character). So, whatever you change, please at least consider to preserve these three cards (Howl, Kiss, Garb; the other three guarantee a form card) with their current effect (having a chance to draw a form card). Because otherwise forms are even less likely to influence a match. Having Howl, Kiss, Garb, and Spark was what made forms interesting for me because the form specific skills are at times hard to come by (rare and expensive) and you are limited to one slot for each character to have a chance of becoming a form.

PS: And if you don't want to get a Spirit form card, then don't equip Medium's Garb!! I really don't get people who complain about getting a form card when equipping one of these cards on purpose. At least "and that Medium Garb will no longer randomly stop you from drawing cards from your deck" sounded like some players had complained. That's what more or less balances these items.

 

Ah sorry, one more thing I wanted to say: Are you sure that replacing Dash with Panic on Boo! doesn't buff this card too much? Boo! already makes you unable to attack. If you add Panic you on top of that also potentially lose any positional benefits you managed to accomplish. For example if you are on a Victory square and someone Boo!'s you, you not only lose the ability to attack anyone coming near the VS, but also (most likely) lose control over the VS. I'd argue that you would also have to up the card's quality in order to buff this card that much (this isn't a silver-effect anymore, from my point of view).

 

Boo! Remains silver quality because it is so hard to use, at least in PvP. You rarely get the chance to hit someone with something that can only be used from the back.

 

Sorry, but that's BS. For the same reason I could argue that every pure movement card should be of paper quality, because "In the end it's just yet another move card". Sure, the requirement of "being behind the target" gives you some wiggle-room for the quality, but just because it has a requirement on its use doesn't mean you can do literally anything while still being in the same rank of cards.

If you add Panic to Boo! it adds a board control component to the card that it didn't have before. And board control is usually a pretty good reason to increase the quality of otherwise poor cards. Just take Blast and Force Blast as one example. The latter is even more restrictive in terms of range (range=5 instead of range=6), but still it is of higher quality BECAUSE of the board control aspect.

I can see that it isn't possible to change the quality of an existing card without potentially affecting all items with this card. So you had to be okay with changing items, too. But my point still holds (from my point of view), if you don't want to mess with the quality, Panic is not within the range of options that Boo! can be changed towards. It combines board control with a pretty severe handicap-attachment. Without any purging cards, this character is effectively dead for one round.

 

The question for Boo! is the same as that for Anvil Strike: Why effectively kill someone for one round when you can actually kill them instead?

Control cards are typically used to shut down enemy offense, but if you have already outmaneuvered your foe, you don't need control. Cards like Boo! need to be used early in round, before the target spend their cards. So you turn to Cantrip moves, but even so Boo! does not stand out from other options. Against a warrior, Boo! ends up being glorified Entangling Roots. Against a wizard, denying attacks for one round is much less appealing, since they suffer less from being thrown somewhere random, and they can always attack you the next round.

Alternatively you can play high damage warrior to punish the positionally disrupted, but the target can still run away or Telekinesis the incoming warrior, on top of the randomness.

Until further playtesting I believe Boo! is fine, but I can see an argument for limiting Panic range to something like 5 squares, since some maps can be really big.

 

Hey, not sure if this would be better suited in the Bug report sub-forum but as we were discussing forms either way: Is it intended that Shifting Block can make you become Pixie? Because I just did turn into a Pixie. I mean, I wouldn't mind, but the new forms were never intended to be playable by humans, so Shifting Block being able to draw from the new form cards seems off to me. The same (probably) for Walpurgis Night.

 

Walpurgis Night cannot create the new forms. Shifting Block, however, can. They weren't intended to be player usable, but were through both cards that created random forms upon release. Since then, they were removed from Walpurgis, but were left on Shifting Block, where they will probably stay.

 

So, in Early MtG, people joked that Richard Garfield must have
liked to play Blue, because blue was so strong.

After seeing the nerfing on the "Rebalencing", I'm guessing
people at Knights like to play (poorly-equipted) Fire-Wizards,
because they seem have have gotten by far the biggest buff.

 

Actually, unless it's nerfed, priests have probably gotten the biggest buff.