Upcoming Balance Change (7 Jan 2014)

Oh, and HuggyBuns was using it in close quarters with 2 melee priests. Proper positioning, even on small maps, makes it possible to minimize the downsides when you know you're about to go off. A control/FS wizard would make positioning even easier.

 

A) My suggestions are inelegant because I haven't had much time to think of them and only had baout an hour two pull them together. But, for your negativity (sorry, "Critiquing"), I don't hear you offering up any solutions or alternatives to the impending nerf, nor offering any guidance or even suggestions which might smooth out my ideas. Convoluted, yeah. Inelegant, yeah, but at least they're something.
B) The decks are boring for you, sure, but they ARE fun for me and other people who hold The Great Toaster (see video at bottom for out wee lord and master) as our spirit animal, whose anthem is "I Just Want to Set the World on Fire."
C) Frustrating for you, sure, but so what? If they're not an actual problem, just frustrating, then it doesn't matter and shouldn't be bothered with, especially since you don't run into many of them at higher ELOs, because they're not a reliable deck build, but they're fun as hell for those of us who like putting them together.

 

He's talking about WWE when only one guy (the guy without immovable) gets thrown.
Yes, though, you can move your own guys with WoW, even if they have immovable.

 

That's because I don't feel the nerf is *that* bad. Granted, it could be handled better, but whatever. Here's my suggestion: I'd much rather see it changed to Only Heal Allies or something (maybe keep the enemy card draw in there). Healing 5 to everyone and only drawing attack cards (for enemies too) makes Team Heal (Silver Rare) almost always a better alternative over Inspiring Presence (Gold Rare).


You'd still have to be in range for the heal, but it would be much more viable in team fights outside of simply Firestorming.

They are frustrating for anyone facing them if they don't have the exact cards they need (long range movement or WW/WWE). Just because you find it fun to aggravate people (who would have guessed it) doesn't mean it is healthy for the game. I find it hilarious running tons of Wall of Stone + Imp Nimbus, but I think both of those cards should be changed for the sake of the game. It isn't just about what is "fun" to one person, it is about what leads to interesting games and meaningful decisions. When the enemy has Firestorm your decision is "hope I get a super fast run card or WW/WWE" -- that's it. That's boring, leads to no choice, and is heavily reliant on luck.

 

I really think the devs need to get to the balance fixes *now*, or there will be less player base left to fix the game for. They are playing with fire, as people get frustrated and take a break/stop, by hoping they will come back with the next expansion. Hotfixes can always be undone if they don't work!

 

I vote for more dev-created SP campaign content. That's still not happening, though there have been a bunch of MP-oriented updates since release.

I'm fine with MP as it is. I think that most people are. It's a just a small, vocal segment of the playerbase that's doing the complaining.

There's a Chinese proverb that applies here --- "Always remember, what's central to you is peripheral to everyone else."

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Late Edit: To put it another way, there are now 79 non-dev comments on this thread, posted by 29 individuals. 37 of the 79 comments (46%, basically half) come from 6 individuals.

It's a pretty small boat.

 

I'd wager the heavily active player base is also small too. Also, the vocal minority is also consisting of some of the most active and best players. PaladinGP is rated #1 or #2 on the ladders and definitely knows something is wrong with the current balance. Seeing more SP content would be great, but I'd love if MP became at least slightly fixed... it is currently in a horrible state due to WW/WWE and NS.

Seeing as that's really the only interesting thing to do in the game once you complete the campaign and finish most of the challenges, it should be a heavy priority. Making MP fun and dynamic is going to net you a lot more hours of fun than a few more campaign levels.

 

Yeah? Well *I'm* the best SP evar!

Who's to say really? (Though I think I'm likely among the more vocal of the SP-oriented playerbase. As a group it seems to be a quiet bunch.)

The real question of course is: Which content will cause a player to plop down money, at least once, and ideally in large amounts? Is that balancing high-end MP? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's a big, lush SP campaign...

 

Well, the basic monetization mechanism in f2p MMOs is usually cosmetics/seasonals-- based on the premise that players want to look cool/good to OTHERS... not to mention that Card Hunter is essentially (a version/hybrid of) Table-top Miniature/Card Gaming-Collectin gone virtual/online-- and Table-top Miniature/Card Gamers-Collectors can be pretty obsessive about how their collection looks to THEMSELVES.

E.g. the $500 (real money) "Gold" skin being sold by a MOBA released late 2013 (I was in their open-beta and I can confirm that their devs have firmly torn their community apart into FOTM "cosmetics-variety" factions vs the Old-school "content-balance" factions).

Sure, I'm kinda of sick of looking at the same 3 dudes representing my party (and will probably switch them out for some pretty gals as soon as I find some, 8^P), but Blue Manchu probably has a better idea about whether the Pizzas slices are flowing in from Treasure-Hunt adventure packs or Costume Shops...

 

And I'm just the big lush to play it.

 

That's the problem with dwarves, they just can't find a flattering dress!

 

Hey, they already shaved their beards for you. What else do you need??

 

These are mostly Holy and Unholy cards. So only these could be discarded.
Beside them we have dwarven War Cry which is not being used as a main drawing strategy, because Toughness or Duck are more powerful in a lot of scenarios. We got Traits too. So you probably would like to add a rule that Traits should also be discarded. Anything I missed? I would do it this way:

Every character within 3 squares of you, including yourself, draws a card and Heals 3. Discard each such card drawn if it is either Holy, Unholy or a Trait. Unblockable.

 

I was thinking it would make drawback traits even more harmless and easy to abuse, but now that I think some more about it, I feel traits should get this Draw keyword. That way it would block trait chains as well as draw chains.

MP players are louder because they're the ones who chose to interact with others all day long. Also, there isn't as much to complain about in SP right now, so us SP folks just sit quietly making more content for ourselves to play.

Unfortunately, you can't buy either of those things.

When I started, I promised myself I wouldn't spend any money on this game (I usually don't have any trouble keeping this promise). But when they offered 9 free figures to everyone who spent money in the beta, I gave in and paid $10. (That and Gary's free pizza gave me the treasure hunts and 3 starter decks, but I kinda regret the decks). And when I won the first contest, I decided to start collecting figures. So now I'm trying to decide if I want the winter figures badly enough to spend another $10....

 

Let's get the obvious out of the way.
The 'particular deck that could be problematic' is the firestorm deck that is fueled by inspiring presence powered by savage curse.
I am talking about Snorre's deck, or a variant thereof, of course.

Once more, the problem wasn't the card. The problem was the fact that an item (Skull Of Savage Iljin) was designed that gave both inspiring presence and 2 savage curses, at the cost of no tokens.

The fact that such an item made it into the game is forgivable. After all, it is impossible to predict for every item how powerful it will end up to be.
In fact, it can be guaranteed that powerful items, like the skull of savage Iljin, vibrant pain and runestone, will keep popping up, for as long as new items are being added.
Balancing is difficult and even more so before the player base has been able to test items and provide feedback.

However, the fact that balancing is difficult doesn't excuse the poor judgment on the strategy being employed.
(Let me note that I think a nerf to Inspiring Presence was, in a way, reasonable; I am not complaining about the nerf itself)
When I first started playing this game, I highly praised it for it's ability to have powerful cards, yet balanced items.
That is, you can have a powerful card, if you are willing to accept a few slightly less powerful cards as well (extra baggage).
To me, this aspect is what sets it apart from every other card game, where players can just stack powerful cards and win by virtue of having a bigger and more expensive collection.
With the current strategy of balancing cards, rather than items, this aspect seems to disappear.
This makes me sad.

I am very surprised to read about the strategy for a number of other reasons:
1) Up until now, the existence of powerful cards appeared to be acceptable. Obliterating bludgeon is probably the best example. Nothing says powerful like a sudden 17 damage hit to the face.
2) Nerfing the Skull of savage Iljin or Vibrant Pain, rather than the cards that appear on them, would increase the overall satisfaction of the player base much more compared to nerfing a card that would otherwise require a decent amount of sacrifice to get. (Let's not kid ourselves, most items featuring inspiring presence are of arguable quality at best. Auric Charm probably being the most commonly used.)
3) People are expecting certain items to be nerfed. Someone was asking if he should buy Vibrant Pain or not, because he feared it would get nerfed soon anyway, so it might be a waste of money. Beside the fact that this means that even the owners of unbalanced items tend to concede that a nerf is due, it also means the dissatisfaction involved with the nerf is highly overestimated. Even if an item gets nerfed, it doesn't mean it will end up worthless. In all likelihood, players will still prefer a nerfed vibrant pain over many other legendaries that they could have looted.
4) Nerfing cards has a huge impact on the game, of which the ramifications are much more difficult to predict than nerfing single items.

In short, for the love of this game, please nerf items, rather than cards.

 

I have a Skull of Savage Iljin myself and it is extremely strong. Not so much for the Inspiring Presence or Savage Curses, but more for the fact it costs 0 tokens (it should 100% cost at least 1 blue, if not 1 gold).

The nerfing of Inspiring Presence isn't that problematic. Yes, it is a bit weird to see this as the only card being changed, but whatever. I don't think it is just due to Skull Of Savage Iljin or Knife Of St. Blenko -- it is a fairly problematic card in general.

Nerfing items would most likely change their level and/or rarity -- which is a lot more work than simply balancing problematic cards (putting the cards more inline with their rarity / quality). Yes, some weaker versions of items that use those cards would be hurt too -- but it would definitely be overall an easier fix in fitting with their in-game power allocation curve.

Honestly, the best approach would be some combination of both. There are a few outlier items that are just bad for the game. Hitting those items and allowing players to sell it back to the store for full price (for a short time afterwards) would be the best fix. People might be angry that their favorite item or whatever got hit, but at least they can re-sell it and buy something else.

 

Here's a quote from Marc Merril (president of Riot Games, maker of "League of Legends" (LoL)) on them changing Champion balance that I think might be important (sorry for all the LoL references, but I was heavy into that game state for 4 1/2+ years):

Considering the insane success of LoL I think they are doing something right and that buffing / nerfing shouldn't be "forbidden candy" if it improves the overall game. I'd be willing to wager that more people play Card Hunter for a fun and engaging experience than simply to collect things (especially considering that almost all collection is very random, so losing power to some item you randomly found isn't as hurtful as losing something that you specifically went for like a Champion in LoL). Sure, you'll lose some players who feel alienated that their item lost some of its value (thus my suggestion about allowing full value re-selling for a limited time after the change), but you'll gain and sustain more players by having a healthy and balanced game.

 

One other thought: If you are concerned that nerfing a card or item will be received poorly by users, consider compensating users who have that item to dull the blow.

Specifically, any item that has been nerfed should be able to be sold for its full "buy" cost in gold for some period of time after the nerf.

In other words, if say, Vibrant Pain gets nerfed, anyone who owns a Vibrant Pain can sell theirs for 2500 gold for the next 30 days.

I am pretty sure this would make most owners of nerfed items feel much happier about the nerf, knowing that they can at least buy another Legendary item they like better instead.

(btw this is what Hearthstone does when they nerf items, and it's extremely well received, and most players have been very supportive of balance nerfs overall).