Upcoming Balance Changes (8 Nov 2013)

I do too. MP and SP are two totally separate animals really, and MP is the revenue generator, or, more accurately, it appears to be the customer retention model.

The proposed 2 damage to 3 damage change would be punishing as well -- it's a 50% damage bump that will be especially punative to low levels/low hp.

I have yet to figure out how to quote somebody. Which button is it?

 

I think Ouch! is fair at 3 damage, but Brain Burn should stay at 2. Wizards have very low health and 2 damage on a Wizard is about the same as 3 damage on a Warrior.

 

The unblockable keyword is one i have spoken about many times so thanks for doing it!

 

I whole heartily agree!!! Considering mages can't equip helmet or shield items, with elves having 17 hp, Brain Burn is more then tamed enough.

 

shields don't give armor, only blocks and occasional attacks.

they can't equip helmets, that's right, and current meta popularised to use boots mainly for movement, while these also carry some armor too.

 

"3 points of unpreventable self-damage." translates into ,"You take 3 points of unpreventable unholy damage", which means that even Ctrl-clicking does not revert the damage away from the caster.

 

What's more it no longer does any damage to the target so that's why it can't be considered an attack in that sense, you can't kill a 1 HP enemy from 8 range with it any more. You can target enemies but you can't "hit" hit them. Unless you consider giving them two free cards "hitting" them.

 

It is a hit, just like Bungled Healing, It will trigger magic block and any block (Most assist card are spell. Assist card have a white background)

 

Sure, I didn't mean the game definition of attack but the "do direct damage" common language definition which I think the guy the quote originally came from meant but I guess this is all getting way too confusing by now and I should just stop and not continue this semantic quibbling any more as surely nothing good can come of it and the possibility of misleading people gets ever so greater not to mention the image one gives of oneself by such endless yammering and not knowing when to stop and

 

Something else that's been bugging me.

BM seem to be trying to figure out an appropriate cost for drawing a new card (in terms of life). The proposed changes to Ouch and Brainburn indicate that you seem to be getting concerned that cards are worth more life than they originally may have thought. For what's it worth, I'd tend to agree with that in principle. Though, I'm concerned that if card draw is linked even further to hitpoints it will be even harder to play low HP races.

So how can they accomplish this balance with more conditional traits? For example, Vulnerable is a more popular negative trait to use. Vulnerable only adds damage if you're being attacked, and even when you are attacked it doesn't add much damage and armor still applies. Especially on mages the theory is that since they can only survive a couple of big hits anyway, vulnerable doesn't add up to much.

Combustible is another example. While it adds more damage than Vulnerable it's much more conditional. Warriors and priests are very limited in being able to do fire damage, having only a single rare attack card available. If your opponent isn't running wizards it's unlikely that combustible will harm you at all.

I appreciate the concern about Ouch! and Brainburn, but it seems to me that these conditional traits are far more popular. I expect they will remain more popular, since in certain games they have no downside at all and in the other games you can still attempt to play around them (with armor or holy nimbus for example). If card drawing traits are a concern, at least when they don't carry a steep enough cost, how do you handle these conditional effects?

 

After reading the latest thoughts on the Nimble Strike/Vibrant Pain brainstorming thread, another thought occurred to me that I think might be important to ask here.
Are any of these nerfs going to also result in a downgrade in card rarity or color? It seems to me that depending on how the system works, we're going to see a few items that will have a lower token cost or level as a result, and this might end up making the problem just take a new shape rather than go away. For instance, if it becomes super-cheap to stack the next best alternative to the current card draw favorites, then you may still be handing a bit too much power back to the player. Like, if this turns Dwarven Cry into a more common color card than gold, I might start seeing some of it's items rated at a tokenless cost, like say Trained or Superb ferocity. Does anyone see what I'm getting at? This might make card draw easier in some ways if any of the changes are also obligated to effect the card's color or rarity as a result. I'm hoping this means those aren't intended to change at all.

 

I don't think any token costs will change as a result of these changes, since all the edited cards are retaining their previous rarity and (nominal) quality.

 

I take it this is in evidence on the test server? I didn't actually see him say this specifically in the post, so it seemed a good idea to confirm now before someone entertains the idea.

 

You know, as much as I appreciate the need for balance in multiplayer, which is what I assume the Brain Burn and Ouch changes are geared towards, I think you're overlooking one simple fact. Almost all of the items with Brain Burn and Ouch kinda suck, and aren't very numerous to begin with. There are six items containing Ouch, and six items containing Brain Burn. Of those twelve items, I'd only ever consider using two of them, and only if I had no other options (although personal taste may vary naturally). Unless you had some near-future plan to implement more worthwhile items with these drawback cards in place, I don't think these drawback cards are going to see any more play than what is already being seen (which is miniscule to none).

 

I'll admit that card cycling is definitely a monster that might need to be dealt with if/when the multiplayer level increases, but at the same time, is there anything stopping you from making another version of Ouch! or Brain Burn that does the three damage like you might want and putting that on more powerful items? Assuming that you are going to have more powerful items in the future, wouldn't it be reasonable to include more harmful drawback cards that will also scale appropriately? Hell, going by that logic, why not simply replace the Ouch! card with a three damage version on the more powerful items you might be worried about?

Frankly, the cards I'm worried most about in Multiplayer are people cycling Squeamish on Runesetone along with either Pearwood Staff or Trembling Staff so they can draw about a million Winds Of War and Wall Of Fire in a deck that is essentially 20 cards.

On an unrelated note, I'm happy to see that you're such an active part of the forums here. It's nice to know that we're being seen and listened to.

 

I'm a big fan of Sorcerery Staff (is that really meant to spell Sorcerery?) for low-level SP so I'm happy Brain Burn stays as is.

@Jon: Have you considered removing "May target self" from Inspiration? That would help reduce self-cycling even further.

Also, it would be cool if on the opposite side "May target self" is added on Healing Presence and Boosted Heal. From the way the cards work I expected it to be there. It's something I've stumbled over repeatedly until I got more familiar with the peculiarities of this game.

 

I like the nerfs (would prefer revaluation). Hopefully firestorm down to 2 dmg and WWE->group maze is next. Then I suggest Nimble strike->2 dmg and sprint to movement 6.