Why Whirlwind is bad for the game.

I agree with above - WW/WWE could be removed or modified if some other cards are changed. Especially Wall of Stone and probably something done to three wizards builds to make them a bit more fun to play against.

 

I dont know if its just me, but that is not the main vibe I got from reading your OP. If that is your main point, then it may be worthwhile to change your OP a bit to reflect this. I think that will win you more supporters.

I dont see the difference between counterplay or counters but I dont think its worth it to dwell on it.

 

Well actually you can counter WW/WWE in two main ways. And they are already commonly used against WoW control decks. These are Immovable and different Team Run versions. Additional counter is Smoke Bomb, which does not allow for caster using WW, to nuke our squishy person of interest. Dwarves have their Toughness etc. So here the spell is fine with countermeasures.
The reason people complain is that it is not in spirit of game and careful planning - it makes you angry, and instead of congratulating your opponent you wish him all the worst. That I can understand but solution is a bit more complex as we already stated.

 

Counterplay is a common concept among game designers. You can google it and find plenty of articles about it. The short version is that it's the idea that an ability should open up interesting tactical choices for the player it's used on, rather than merely being interesting for the person using it. One example of this from Card Hunter might be the block mechanics. Namely, the parts where you can chance using weaker attacks to draw out blocks, or try to flank the enemy to prevent them from using blocks, or try to bait them into moving themselves so as to expose their back, or use attacks that can't be blocked like terrain. When you know an enemy may have blocks, a range of interesting choices open up for you to deal with it rather than just hoping for the block roll to fail, each with their own risks and rewards. Of course, you also could have drawn a Warcry that discards their blocks, but that's not really an example of counterplay. Your didn't really have an interesting array of choices, you just happened to draw the right card at the right time.

I hope that helps you understand the game design concept of counterplay a bit better. Counterplay is not primarily about balance... it's primarily an issue of making something interesting and fun to play against.

I dunno what to tell you about "vibes." I can only tell you what I actually said, and the OP explicitly summarizes its main points thus:

It seems like a lot of people responding here just went "TL;DR" though. I wish people would address the specific things I say instead of "vibes."

I still think that Three Wizards, Walls of Stone, and Firestorm decks aren't too hard to deal with without relying on a lucky WW/WWE, and suspect that those making such claims may not be using an effective strategy against control decks. Decks that just stack all the highest damage cards they can find, for example, will and should lose. Others who've played with me can probably attest to my success rate against Wizard builds (I know StormyKnight would :-p). There are smoke screens, the immovable trait, team pushes, elves, Shrug It Off, Slippery Shields, armor and heals that negates firestorm almost completely, all kinds of things. And I think lava is fun to play against... for example, using mind games to bait out such spells and then just move off of them into an offensive. There's certainly more strategy going on in the use of Hot Spot than in the use of, say, Mighty Spark.

That said, while I wholly reject the claims that you "need" whirlwind to counter any given build, I wouldn't mind there being MORE viable builds, and the way to target that would be to tweak the mass of rarely or never-used cards.

- Stronger wall of illusion (read: Longer lasting. One round is not worth its cost).
- More ways to get in / force an engagement and control the map or status with Warriors and Priests. Imagine, for example, if Barge gave you a step move too. Or if the garbage-tier step moves like Lunging Bash had some extra twist like, I dunno, Free Move. Or if Priests could buff movement. Or if Advanced Training wasn't garbage and could actually let you usefully move abilities from a locked down ally to a freed up one at a meaningful rate and range.
- Terrain cleansing cards made more generally attractive (obviously, they should remove walls of stone. However, they're also a "dead draw" if you're not up against a terrain user, and thus are rarely used in decks. They should have some secondary effect that makes them not be a completely dead draw when not against terrain users... such as being able to target an empty square with Cleansing Ray for its replacement card draw effect, or heaving cleansing burst heal a bit or purge the oldest status effect).

Immovable isn't a trait you can have on all the time, and if it's not on everyone at the same time the formation can still be broken up into something spectacularly disadvantageous. Team runs won't get you out of the north/south corners of that one new map much more quickly than if you didn't have them if you get whirlwinded there. I addressed this already (in the OP, actually) and really don't like repeating myself when people just declare something with no additional reasoning.

 

Well your main point is that WW is one card it is not fun to play against if I understand correctly. That is untrue in my case. I can play against decks with it any time. Change of situation on the game field is just a new occasion and something interesting to start thinking about. It can be good or bad. Many times it is good. Maybe the problem is your deck or many dwarves you use - I don't know. Randomness? So what? Do you play for money here? It is not like you put a lot of effort to position yourself for one hour. And if your opponent was forced to use it as a last resort, then congratulate yourself and finish him off if he lands in bad spots. But if he wins - well... happens. You can use whirlwind too to get out of corners, remember?
It is a bit like Smoke Bomb - wizards can complain that one card changes their whole line of sight and their positioning so far. And removes all lava they were playing on the battlefield... And one team Sprint can change everything too, same goes with Life saving block. It is just not position which is destroyed, but your plans of damage.
You reason that you cannot plan against Whirlwind which is also not true. You plan against it just like against Quick Step or Flanking Move followed by WoW.
I will repeat - I do not feel bad if enemy used Whirlwind - I don't rely on positioning my team for 5 turns, so all changes are acceptable. Maybe others also do not feel like it something bad.

Oh, one more thing - having Whirlwind in your deck means you lost one card. Maybe it could be better? Spamming WW? I do not remember such strategy seen in PvP games I played (I do 1300+ lately).

 

What does that have to do with anything?

People wouldn't want to play Chess or Risk or Stratego and suddenly have an event randomize the locations of all the pieces a turn before checkmate/achieving the campaign goal/capturing the flag.

Heck, your train of thought actually seems a bit backwards... it's actually the more luck-based games that are more commonly associated with playing for money (gambling), because without real stakes they're not interesting. Slot machines are boring. In the case of such game it's the reward schedule, not the game mechanics, that condition volition and drive compulsive behavior. If you want to make a game that's interesting in its own right, you want to have some substance and depth.

Jockeying for advantageous positioning is one of the core conceits of the game's strategy.

Or just get back into them again. Either way, it injects a great deal of randomness into the match that undermines strategic play.

No it isn't. There is absolutely nothing random about smoke bomb, save whether or not you draw it.

 

I believe that there shouldn't be such massively luck-dependant cards. When I got Rod Of Winds I loved it in SP and couldn't wait to use it in MP. The first match WWE got a fighter right in front of my wizard's face, causing his painful obliteration aside from a lost turn. The second match match I ruined my opponent's strategy and landed his healthiest character in the corner of the map, surrounded by difficult terrain he took 3 turns to get out of while I effortlessly murdered the rest of his scattered team.

I removed the item because it simply was no fun: when I lose, I just sabotaged myself, and when I win, I know I didn't deserve it. It is equivalent to a card that has a 50-50 chance to heal 20 or hurt 20 - it's not fun to any of the parties involved to have a coin toss have a dramatic game-changing effect.

If I had to change Whirlwind, I would take randomness away altogether and change the effect to designating a target square, and pushing all characters in a 3-blocks radius towards the center. That way it remains a good defensive ability and a good way to control the whole enemy party unless they're really scattered. The limitation of affecting only a portion of the map is compensated by pushing the enemies towards exactly where you want, giving it a big strategic value.

 

Group or area Maze idea is almost the same as WWE. But again you would complain that just like a WWE, it can put enemy warrior next to your wizard or away. It is the same mechanics and luck based skill as WWE. Of course if you use Push instead of Teleport, then your tanks might block the path in tactic and planned way. But then why would you use unpredictable WWE instead of much better WoW? The nice part about WWE is that it often sends enemies to borders of the map way more than 3 squares from their location. WW on the other hand is unpredictable and this I don't like much *unless* you face wizards heavy volcano team which put fire below your party feet. Saving a step or team run all the time is really impossible. You can usually take one turn of fire damage, but two are a bit too much.
But again, I don't remember playing against anyone who uses WW as a valid strategy. Maybe because many opponents I meet have two warriors?

 

In my view there should be a maximum radius for relocating characters, i.e. 6 or 8 spaces.

 

Hmm.. I like the idea of designating a square. I like it a lot. But wouldn't it make more sense to push people away from that square? For example so that the closer you are at the center, the further you will be pushed. And of you are more than 3 squares from the center, you are safe.

This would not be my first choice but it would be an improvement. It would also be easy to implement.

 

Seams like this thread turned into a 'how much randomness do we like" kind of general discussion.
At the moment I like the game as it is but since I am new that may change.
Towards WW(E). A maximum of moved tiles seams good. 3-4 tiles seams right for this idea.

Another idea could be that each character gets pushed in a random direction until it hits a solid.
That would eliminate the possibility to end up to far away, around multiple corners from where you where.
In confined space WW would have almost no effect.
This would then be similar to Winds of War but in all directions.

Another idea could be that it only effects characters within 2-4 squares of the caster.
That way it will most likely not effect the opponents long range units. I favor this idea.

 

This does not solve Stone Wall build unless you do want to fix stone walls somehow. But I wonder how.

 

How come?
When WW works like a SLIDE then a unit should not get stuck or can it.
eee I have not been following this closely so what is the precise problem with Stone Walls?

 

Could be too. I'd expect a whirlwind to have a "sucky" effect rather than pushing you away, and it would certainly be nice to be able pull the whole enemy party into a big lava pool. But both effects can surely find a lot of strategic potential. A "wind burst" as you say could be great for those maps that have a big victory area filled with enemies, when a squishy enemy wizard needs to be separated from his group, or to get your own party out of the lava pool!

 

That's brilliant. No, really, that's the best suggestion I've heard for Whirlwind so far.

Have the Wizard point to a square that's the center of the Whirlwind, then slide all characters in the same direction as if they were caught in a tornado. I wouldn't slide them directly into the center, but around it and closer to it. The slide would still be random, but all targets would move in the same general direction.

 

And why would anyone want to use such card instead of WoW which has a lot more potential?

 

Frankly, I don't know why anyone would use Whirlwind but in MP you always meet people who do...

It's like Ugg boots. Brown LV bags. Kanji tattoos. Kanye West records. The Twilight series. Nobody knows why people are into that sort of thing but they won't stop.

 

I find it a tad odd that you're comparing WWE and WoW like they should have equivalent potency. WWE is a bronze card. WoW is a gold card. It just doesn't seem like it because everyone gets it from Runestone and Squeamish is better than most non-drawback cards.

 

Exactly! Like, um, nerdy CCGs...

I really expected someone to comment on this comparison before now. Moving an opponents pieces is clearly a violation the rules in those games. CardHunter offers many ways to move an opponent's pieces, some available to every class, and doing so is clearly an expected aspect of the game.

I've used WW exactly once. I didn't expect to use it at all, but it was on an item I carried, and it turned out to be handy in that instance. Still, I don't think WW or WWE are bad for the game, and would prefer them not to be nerfed. In a game where someone can make you forget you're wearing armor (or anything else) and it will magically disappear, I think it's a good fit. Tactical positioning is often crucial, so I think there should be a suitable monkey wrench to drop into those gears. Counterplay be damned.

If players don't think it's fun, it will eventually go the way of Twin Heals.

Please feel free to disagree.

 

Whirlwind actually ignores all the rules for moving pieces that every other forced movement card uses (including random forced movement like Maze). This is why, for example, the north and south corners of That One Map (you know the one I mean) never come into play by any means save WW/WWE.

Tactics are crucial, so you should have a monkey wrench that undermines tactical play? Wha?