[Suggestion] IF Dwarves are ever deemed too powerful and Elves too weak...

Perhaps editing the number of the classes' inherent power tokens would suffice.

Maybe dwarves could be given one less major power token by level 18 and elves one extra minor power token by level 18, just for example. It might not hurt dwarves by that much considering their amazing health pools (except they could no longer run 2 Vibrant Pains, but let's face it 12+ Nimble Strikes on a dwarf shouldn't be a thing anyway, ever), and Elves would have better all-around equipment making them more reliable despite their poor HP.

To me buffing or nerfing the classes by means of their power tokens makes enough sense from a lore standpoint. Dwarves are known to be somewhat clumsy, so they've always steered clear of more complicated weaponry; in most fantasy realms, the most often seen weapons wielded by Dwarves are axes and maces, so it's believable that they would be poorer at wielding more potent equipment considering that even if they were to wield it they might not even use it optimally. Elves on the other hand are not only most often known for being agile but flexible as well; they've been known to wield a loads of equipment with finesse, sometimes simultaneously.

Also from what I'd assume would be a more casual player's standpoint, collecting practical cards with major power tokens both inside and outside of multiplayer is much more difficult than finding ones that demand just minor power tokens. On top of that, there are so many great minor power token items (case in point: Silver Healing Ring) that no one can use because they don't have enough minor power tokens to make room for them in the first place. For players who aren't interested in continuously collecting cards until they find their precious Bejeweled Swords but still want to optimize their team, these changes would help scratch that itch without more items needing to be created, if only for two of the classes.

However, I do foresee one downside if this change went live: a lot of cards on items with fewer/no power tokens are cards whose flavor text and drawing embrace the idea that the user is weak (Weak Chop), or flat-out broke (Rusty Armor). Dwarves aren't known for being either of these things, at all (well, maybe one Dwarf theif from a fanfic or something (but whatever, right?)), but with fewer power tokens to work with those cards would be more relatable to the dwarf class than any other. Same goes for elves - elf attacks aren't often relatable to Almighty Bludgeon, but cards in that vein are what you see a lot on more popular weapons, and in elves' case they're often the only reason people pick the race right now, because of potent Attack cards' shared synergy with having a Dash every turn.

I suppose, then, that for this solution to be overall optimal...the decision to do so would be a matter of the game's desired direction as a whole rather than one of whimsical preference. Would you want to change weaker weapons' cards to have implications of clumsiness instead of weakness? Would you want powerful Attack cards on weapons with demanding power token costs be more based around finesse than raw power? If your answer to both is yes, then this would probably be the best all-around solution for balancing the races (if we find them to be unbalanced in the future). Otherwise, if it were up to me I'd probably stick with modifying classes' max HP, revolving around the class+race combo that I'd wish to bring everyone closer to...but it would inevitably take away from the races' defining elements for the sake of easy balancing.


(I'll put up an avatar later that you can relate me to, I promise! Probably something akin to Link. I just really wanted to make this thread first.)

 

Wouldn't this just make things unnecessarily complicated? If there was a balance issue with races, wouldn't it make more sense to fix that simply by tweaking their HP?

 

There're probably a lot of ways to tweak the balance of races. Could edit their racial moves, could code in rules about them (e.g. "Elves can't be encumbered"), could edit their card draw/turn and max hand size. Since hp differentiation is one of TWO things that define the races, I don't think I'd start there. Editing token availability is interesting... I'm ruminating

 

Sure, but I think hp tweak is the easiest and fastest way that does not affect anything else, like cards. Add or remove 1 hp from a specific character and the whole balance would change. Subtle, yet effective.

Things like "Elves can't be encumbered" would be bad because they add to the whole rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game. For example if you play wizards with encumber and face a team of elves.. you just played rock and your opponent played paper. That reminds me of the really bad Dwarven War Cry nerf that the devs are planning. Current version of the card is not 100% rock-paper-scissors because it triggers block. New version would not trigger any blocks, meaning it's effectiveness is based on what races the opponent chose, therefore it's basically a game of rock-paper-scissors.

Card draw/turn and max hand size.. sure, something like that could work but it would be a bit complicated and it would affect lots of things. Drastic changes like that should probably have been tested during beta. I think simple changes are better.

I'm not sure if any adjustment is even needed, but I wouldn't mind seeing all elves get 1 more hp

 

Just look at the race choice among the top ranked players, anyone will immediately notice there are some issues in race balancing.

Below is one of my previous posts about the race balancing issue:

Tweaking the elf hp by 1 is definitely not enough to make elves a competitive choice for top ranked players I'm sure, but if all races have but 1 hp difference in their HP pool probably everything will be more balanced a bit. lol

 

Thanks for yall's input so far!

Yet another (totally off-topic) idea for a buff for Elves is to buff their movement options, and perhaps a way to increase the potency of their block and movement card rolls. Case in point for the latter: a trait that grants you a second roll for your movement and block cards (including Dodge and Jump Back) if you don't succeed the first with a minimum success roll of 4, Keep Until 4. I can see Lightning Reflexes being a shoe-in name for it.

Other than that, maybe buff Dash to Move 5 from 4, and buff Elvish Mobility to Move 3 from 2 (still Free Move and ignoring Encumber effects). Even right now it seems hard to find a good time to use Elvish Mobility over just picking a Human and using ____, Team!; this would definitely give more incentive to using it if your team consists mostly or entirely of Elves. If all Elves get over the other races is mobility then shouldn't they be able to dominate in that regard to some extent considering the 12 Nimble Strikes a Dwarf Warrior can run?

But I digress...sorry, after what all of my losses have consisted of this past week it's hard for me not to emit a biased aura.

 

One idea that I sometimes think about is that there could be a race that keeps 3 cards at the end of each round rather than the usual limit of 2 card. (They'd still draw the usual number of cards, but they could keep an extra card at the end of the round if they hadn't played all their cards yet.) It would be a pretty powerful effect, but maybe it would be interesting.

I guess there are lots of possible ways races could be differentiated. The main reason I can think of for not doing stuff that like is that it's good to keep things simple. Adding complexity to the game makes it harder to learn, harder to balance, harder to program, and so on. It really isn't worth it unless it also makes the game a whole lot more fun — and that can be difficult to predict.