Community Balancing Act

I totally agree with Scarponi!

I don't like the Whirlwinds also but you can't say the people using them are "abusive" players.
They are just using a standard item in the game.
They are not using cheats/hacks like increasing their attack/health points by 100.

But the way, you are now running a season league which encourages the player to use the most effective deck for winning.
It is quite predictable that people will use a similar deck, with whirwinds/firestorm as they ignore "positional play" and it's easy and fast for the win.

Even you may not like them, you should not CONTROL how the other players play the game as long as they don't use cheats/hacks.
You should not force the players to use the cards/items you wanted only.

 

We learned several things.
One, Jon is actively working on balance right now.
Two, Jon sympathizes with the frustration of the players.
Three, Jon prefers that we not use the in-game tools in the prescribed manner.

Of course he didn't start work because of this thread, but he was galvanized to speak about the issue.

Did this thread halt balance work?
Did it throw off any release schedules?

"Counterproductive" is a strong word. It means getting in the way of progress.

I don't think that happened here.

And don't worry, Scarponi. I know which users are attacking me personally and which aren't. There are people in this community who actually flame me. You and me? We're cool.

 

I don't agree with using this action, as far as I consider I want these cards to be changed, and my only protest is to not use them at all. I find it difficult to comprehend that despite refutes, arguments, large divides in meta and finally a reaction that has the general consensus of pro nerfing, not a thing changed. It's a rough and rocky little thread here, but jon 's looking into this, we all hope for a happy conclusion!

 

hey Flaxative, a few isolated info-bits in the lobby mislead me to believe that you pulled some shady operation to your own advantage, but this is a pretty straight forward cause i can get on board with. 'Resist. Refuse. Reject.' is certainly the attitude i met the mentioned cards or rather strategies from the very start, and that mindset didn't soften with my first vp and the second that dropped yesterday. If this is an articulation of discontent and a petition for change, add me to the list of your supporters.

 

Yeah, a couple people in lobby chat seem to be smearing me for this. Classy situation. Thanks for the support, Robauke, I thought you'd be on board.

 

What?! Robauke doesn't like whirlwind, I never knew....

 

It definitely was that, in part, and still is that, in whole.
As far as I'm concerned, I will continue my protest, and I'm still maintaining the list of people who have joined the pact to reject whirls.

 

You are abusing the report system for your own gains. Reporting people for things you feel are "abusive" when in reality they are simply part of the game. Then calling others to single out people who don't follow your wishes. Finally, you're calling for OTHERS to do it too -- which only escalates the problem.

Jon told me he was working on balance changes a few weeks ago. I relayed that message but apparently no one believed me. Glad to see him come out and say it himself.

And as for people who "want to play boring single builds and be stressed about fighting for the top" -- that's only there because of the season rewards. I didn't care if I won or loss as long as my Elo was above 1500 (I liked the purple badge), but when you bring exclusive rewards into the mix then I will fight for them. That's a huge problem with the season. Going forward we need to fix that.

 

How about we collect and prepare some snippy statements to unease the trespasser.

 

Truth be told, I don't think "shaming" players who use WW/WWE/Vibrant Pain is going to do anything that wouldn't have been done before. Players who want to win will use those cards and those items.

It's the theory of Strategic Dominance, where an abundance of Nimble Strikes and Whirlwinds can trump just about anything that any other player can come up with (not allowing for super bad draws on the part of the player using dominant strategy). Simply put, if you give players the option to use a tank as opposed to a slingshot or a firecracker or a pellet gun, they will use the tank.

Disappointing? Yes. But that's part of human nature. And I admit I'm guilty of it myself. If I owned a pair of Vibrant Pain, I'd use them. Not because I like being unimaginitive or I enjoy trolling people with weapons that are far and away stronger than anything else in the game, but because winning a match I invest 12-15 minutes in playing feels much more gratifying than losing a match I invest 12-15 minutes in playing.

As Jon said, it's on the developers to adjust the game so that Strategic Dominance isn't quite so glaring and obvious, not the players to pretend that it doesn't exist or try to tiptoe around it.

With all that said, I still love you Flax. <3

 

Philosophy!

Just for whatever it's worth, I'll say this: the basic premise of essentially every society or organization of people throughout history has been a rejection of human nature, to varying extents. Claiming that something is inherent or natural is an explanation for a situation, never an excuse against progress. Any appeal to human nature as justification for any kind of movement—forward or backward—is an illogical cop-out. A lot of truly horrific things are natural for people. We're just animals, after all, self-important animals.

Of course, it's nice when The People In Charge take care of us and manage our animalistic urges by providing paradigms that allow us to do as little work as possible without returning to the jungle... but it's not necessary. We can adopt principles we believe in and act on them. The notion of equality, or that of fairness? Totally artificial, yet whole institutions are built upon them. Look at any social justice organization, look at any rights/liberty movement, and then tell me that people can't self-regulate in the interests of the greater good

 

You are doing an excellent impression of a circle. /ducks

 

Does anyone have a guess at what percentage of "abusive players" are even aware of the nine month forum protest? Typically, the large majority of game players never visit the forum or participate in chat, and it's neither fair nor productive to interrupt a player's non-community-based enjoyment of the game with accusations that mean little to nothing to them. I recommend thinking carefully about your audience for this sort of thing.

I know my noobish self used to fit a ton of Whirlwinding into my multiplayer deck, because I thought it was fun. I'm sure I would enjoy playing it again, because I don't play often enough to get bored of it or competitively enough to care about the random element.

The Venn Diagram category of "Multiplayer competitors with Vibrant Pain" admittedly overlaps much more with "People who know Vibrant Pain is busted", at least in my uninformed understanding.

 

I applaud to Flax for starting this.
Personally I never used Vibrant Pain (as I don't have it), and never used WW/WWE even though I have it. The game would be much better without them. All strategic planning is impossible when the opponent can shuffle your chars with just one card.

 

It would just become Nimble Strike through Lochaber Axe and Mass Frenzy spam then. It is already extremely strong depending on the map -- it would just be even stronger without WW/WWE to disrupt it.

The problem isn't Vibrant Pain, the problem is Nimble Strike. Although WW/WWE is just problematic in general so yeah.

 

Lochaber Axe is more or less balanced: you take two bad cards. Vibrant Pain is completely unbalanced.

Vibrant Pain alone could be defeated by various strategies, like building some walls and burning your opponents with Firestorms. But Vibrant Pain + WWE is just absurdly strong.

 

Lochaber Axe costs only 2 blue tokens. It isn't balanced at all due to the strength of Nimble Strike. If VP didn't exist people would just stack Lochabers (PaladinGP did this and got to 1800+ Elo).

I've detailed changes that would need to occur in my balance thread if WW/WWE was changed. NS, MF, WoW, and a few others would need to be nerfed to balance the elements.

 

I feel that's because he is PaladinGP, not because of the strength of Lochaber

I don't feel that MF and WoW need any nerfing. MF is just a strong melee boost that would be OK without NS. WoW is a powerful placing effect, right, but not absurdly chaotic like WW/WWE. Just imagine a very powerful Firestorm deck able to burn enemies from behind a wall. Will MF and WoW help the opponent?