Community Balancing Act

Then I'll damn sure stay on topic. You know I was about to start my only post in this thread with "WTF Flax I'm used to respecting you due to your community leader involvement. WTF kind of influence are you under to make this kind of immature decision ????!!!!"
But then I decided to tone down my post thinking this should be over by now. I guessed not

- Protests: You know what kind of protest video game player usually do and are the most effective ? Quitting the game and threaten devs with their own money. The kind of protest that actually damage public property or endanger other people (or in the case of video games, endanger the play experience of other players) are usually illegal.

- Philosophy: Flax, this isn't about the philosophy of your movement, it's not even about balance. It's about the method in which you decided to take this movement. You are doing it the wrong way thinking your influence power as the leader of the biggest public guild should push this "protest" into changes immediately. (And I guess you kind of did, since Jon already responded. So maybe it's a good time as any to stop ?). Not to mention that the biggest "public" guild is still nowhere a major representative of the game's entire population. The Play To Win book is about how to push yourself further to win at competitive gaming, using all that the game can offer. These players do nothing wrong to be harassed by reports from you guys. Now since you won't be using the report function, escalation might lead me to report you guys back for chat abuse.

- Problem: Now come to the actual balance problem, which I think you already missed in the original posts. The problem isn't Nimble Strike or Whirlwind Enemies. The problem is the abusiveness of these cards. What's the problem with having 1 of these cards in my deck ? The game is fun for having such cards. I'm gonna get harassed whenever I use one ? That means my gameplay experience is negatively affected.

Ok so you can sort of see which items in my decks by looking at the cards. By seeing Vibrant Pain you can conclude that I'm abusing Nimble Strike. What if I only have 1 VP ? Can you tell if I have 1 or 3 of them ? 3 VP is definitely abusive uses of VP, but until you can determine that, there's not enough evidence for you guys to put a verbal warning against other players. 1 VP with 6 NS is , imo, expected maximum number NS a player is allowed to have, which is the amount I expect to see when this balance issues is fixed.

Until then, If this continue, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to start a movement to report you guys whenever we got a warning. Reason for reports: Negatively affect gameplay experience via chat.

Edit: Maybe with all of this effort and power, you might want to push Jon to add an official Peasant mode to the game. Or custom game with custom card/item restriction to make sure you can be on an even playing field with people who finds that a single copy of WWE/NS is unfun.

 

Throughout the history of multiplayer games, there have always been house rules enforced by peer pressure. Some games vastly favored a rushing or camping strategy, so it was quickly looked down upon as newb'ish if you actually did it.
In this game, the problem is mainly WWE/WW. It's not that the card is overpowered, it's that the card sucks the life out of the game.

But anyway: Applying peer pressure in a 1-on-1 situation never works. Because in a 1-on-1 situation, many players enjoy annoying others.

Leaving the game doesn't work either. You're just 1 person. Nobody cares.

But you know what does work? Severely abusing the strategy which you hate the most. Abuse it to the point of ridiculousness.
Tank your rating as much as you can, and go beat up on new players with WW/WWE decks. Write strategy guides for it, and encourage others to abuse it.

And if anyone complains, then just say: "Hey, the game lets me do it, so it's ok. You need to adjust your strategy."

 

The dogs can be given a new emerald card called "Old Nimble Strike" that does what the current NS does.

 

I thought myself fortunate to get 1 vibrant pain. And now that awesomeness is going to be taken away from me? T.T

 

You seem to completely misunderstand Flax's goals (and I hope to understand them better).

Nobody likes to harass other players for whatever reason. We just want to make the game better (as we think, at least), and we believe that it would become better without Vibrant Pain and Whirlwinds. Actually, Flax is creating a slightly another game, only for the players who want to play it - and obey its rules. If you're so inclined to play the "forbidden" things, we won't play that game with you

I strongly disagree that the *quantity* of NS and WW/WWE makes the difference. Such cards simply shouldn't exist IMHO, as NS trumps all other strategies and WW/WWE completely disable any tactical defenses and bring too much chaos in the game. They are also completely "unrealistic" in the terms of any RPG: moving a long distance with a decent strike in one turn? Without any penalties or restrictions? Or randomly shuffling all creatures on the table? Can you imagine that in any RPG?

 

I support creating new rules to make the game more fun, and even fostering a competitive environment within those rules. "Play to win no matter what" is a much more common philosophy and not something I'm totally opposed to, but I've seen a surprising number of gamers shoot themselves in the foot by assuming its the only option.

That said, some of your balance arguments are strange. I like talking about game design so I'll reply, don't take it personally.
*One card doesn't trump all strategies by itself. The Nimble strike deck might, but item changes could make Nimble Strike infrequent or even unplayable without ever changing the card. AotA also put more cards in the game to counter NS, and it's easy to imagine a world where the "hate cards" were enough to break its dominance, even if it didn't work out in practice.
*Most RPGs are balanced for single player or cooperative play, and PvP breaks them in half.
*The "move + attack" concept is extremely common in RPGs, often with good damage. (Hard to compare, but Spring Attack:full attack beats Nimble Strike:16-20 damage attacks at some levels).
*Be wary making statements about what an RPG hasn't done! There are soooo many sourcebooks I'm sure "randomly move everyone" has been done a dozen times.
*Every card comes with restrictions: you have to use it with certain other cards, you use a slot and maybe tokens, and you have to draw it. This is why quantity and item changes do make a huge difference, and why a broken ability in most RPGs can be fine in Cardhunter. (E.g. a card that requires a lot of support cards to break but only appears on one or two decent items.)
*Cards that don't belong in RPGs are fine, this game is different from them and the overall feel still strongly suggests tabletop RPGs. "Unrealistic in an RPG" is a pretty vague and hard to understand criterion, anywhere.
*You're right about Whirlwind effects being inherently problematic. There's not much overlap between competitive players and players who like random effects, so effects that are both random and high-powered tend to cause more harm than good.

 

Without (A) total cooperation of all players, or (B) a "House Rules" arena, the only way not to play with those who play the "forbidden" things is to resign. I know of some who would resign at the first WW or firestorm, but this seems self-defeating (literally) to me. Trying to build a concensus is good. Expecting people who genuinely disagree with your point of view to cave-in and do things your way is unrealistic.

If we're talking RPGs like D&D, both exist. Admittedly, the whirlwinds are from air elementals and also cause significant damage. I don't know about other card games, because this is the only one I've ever played. The RPGs I've played were consistent within their own artificial realities. If CH conforms to any sort of reality, I've been unable to detect it so far. The weirdness seems virtually unbounded. I still like the game, for some reason.

 

I guess this is where we differ. I much prefer CH to be a game where such card exists. The charm and fun of CH is where these type of cards comes into play. The Parry, Elvish Maneuver, Toughness, Almighty Hack, Dwarven Cry etc... If there is a petition to keep WWE in the game, I'll join that in a heartbeat.
Let's look at Toughness, a card that make you impervious to damage for a single hit, then draw a replacement. It seems much more OP than NS. You can never win a fight with 2x NS vs 2x Toughness. Why isn't toughness cried out OP ? It's simple, you can only have at most 2 Toughness in your entire deck. While the opposing warrior can have 15 NS. That's abusive. Same situation with WWE + WW.

Whatever the solution is, I don't think it should be the removal of these cards. It will definitely reduce my enjoyment of the game.

Let's consider the situation: There's a game we both loved and both wanted it to get better. But our vision differs. And we do not know what the vision of the developer of the game is. Is it such a good idea to start a campaign rallying people to disrupt the gameplay experience of others until you got exactly the vision you want ?

 

Or I can WW you away, NS to a victory square and you can sit in the corner with 10 Toughnesses.

 

Lord Feleran, how do you get so lucky? If I tried I'd WW him to the victory square, WW myself to the corner and somehow loose my NS in the wind storm.

 

Just my two cents, and this has probably been suggested before - but why not a MtG - style ban- and limit-list for cards?
Example: Any single deck may not carry more than 6 NS, any player may not carry more than 9 NS. That sort of thing.
It would solve the SP-issue, since the banlist would only be for MP, and you could always do custom games without a banlist.
It would also give the devs a tool to rebalance the meta easily and in a non-disruptive way.
Everybody gets to keep their VP, we can still balance the meta.
Disadvantage: The devs need to implement it. However, we do already have a function that checks for certain cards in decks - see drawback quests. Could that serve as a basis?

 

VP would still need a nerf though But good thinking.

 

Well, card-bans or similar limitations have a meaning in traditional (physical) TCGG, because the designers can't simply patch cards which have already been published and distributed.

Also, bans or other deck restrictions are typically only applied in the context of very specific tournament formats. I.e. regular play (and many tournament formats) don't usually feature any sort of restriction (are you lucky enough to own Black Lotus and heaps of other notoriously OP cards? go along and trash your opponent with those!).

In the context of CH though, being it an electronic game, the devs can patch imbalances out of the game whenever the need arises, which is likely what they're going to do relatively soon.

Now, if balance stuff ever gets seriously bad (and I mean, something much more serious than what people is screaming about now), and the MP balance can't be restored w/o screwing SP over, BM might even go the extreme route of altering offending cards in a way their functionality would differ between MP and SP (out of this world example: imagine WW/WWE would remain the same when used in SP, but casting it made you discard 2 cards upon use in MP). This is something which is often done (most notoriously by Blizzard) for MMORPG featuring both PvP and PvE content.

Lastly, the community has already been devising all sorts of additional rules and deck-building restrictions for multiple game-formats. I guess Paesant and Aristocat would be the most notorious example. For instance, I see no reason why a tournament organizer couldn't set some specific deck-building rule ("you can't have WW/WWE in your deck", "you can't have more than 2 NS in your deck", ecc.)

While adopting special rules for one-shot competitions and alternative formats is all good, but regular play should be balanced in a way which is consistent with the basic gameplay-rules, and patching imbalance out of the game altogether is much more preferable than imposing arbitrary restrictions.

 

Programmer-people DO complain about toughness. All the time. But it's just a strong two-for-one, and you can only have two in your deck. It isn't a constant disruptor of the game, and it has plenty of answers!

 

And that is a large part of why I hate whirls.

 

6 NS is a lot, specially when you can fulfill that goal with just one weapon. Players that have a VP rarely use more NS in their warriors, as they don't need more. And since if we reduced the limit number to less than 6 NS players wouldn't be able to equip an already existing weapon, I don't see that as a solution here.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't easy. Hate cards like Pushback Parry may be good, but you cannot have them in the needed quantities. Moreover, AotA added a new card to empower NS and the other step attacks: Elven Maneuvers. Can you imagine drawing a NS every time your char gets damaged?

Please don't take my RPG sentiment too seriously. I just wanted to say that in D&D and Pathfinder you can either perform a full attack (without moving) or move and perform just one attack. Moving + full attack would be too much, though I know some sourcebooks with that.
So, if that is too much even for a tabletop RPG where people are playing vs mobs, it's certainly too much in PvP where players should have some time to react to the opponent's actions.

Cardhunter isn't an RPG, but it tries to keep the RPG flavor, and that's important. Personally I enjoyed most scenarios both as a CCG and RPG player - but NS and WW were extremely rare there. I would definitely hate any scenario with a lot of them.

 

None of these cards is overpowered. Parry is a powerful "block melee" card, but it blocks only melee, and you cannot kill anyone, even a warrior, with just Parries - which is quite easy with just NS. Elvish Maneuver can be OP only with a host of step attacks... 'nuff said. Almighty Hack was *designed* to be extremely rare, and look: even the players who have The Hackmaster generally prefer the weapons with step attacks! Dwarven Cry is very very far from being OP, as it can be blocked. Moreover, it isn't universal as NS, since your opponent may have little or no blocks. Would you play 10 Dwarven Cries if you could? I guess no.

Are you kidding? Toughness prevents one source of damage. It gets discarded even on Cone of Cold or WoW, which doesn't prevent the primary effect of these cards. While this card was specifically designed to be limited in quantity, it wouldn't be as overpowered as NS even if you could put 20 Toughness in your deck. A simple wizard control would encumber you and move out of the victory area. There are *NO* such easy and playable solutions versus a deck of 20 NS.

That's the problem: no other deck can find a reliable and playable solution to NS without building an "anti-deck", and even that anti-deck is likely to use NS You cannot encumber a mass-NS char with a single card, it will easily recover after WW/WWE. Even if you block NS with Parry or prevent its damage with Toughness, it still serves as a movement card, and Move 4 is quite good for the dwarves. Restricting the number of NS won't make much difference. Even a deck with one NS can still abuse it if he draws it; the outcome just becomes more chaotic.

There are always people who like chaotic and unbalanced things. I just hope such people aren't the majority.

Yes, it's such a good idea, since it's the democracy! Every person can create "a party" and recruit the other people there. Then we'll see who will get more votes

 

This is not true. There are manybody the like like to harass other players for any reason.

 

Aota are pretty much designed to be an effective method to most of the problems of NS. However, since these important cards are in such abundance, it's easy for NS users to also have these counters without effecting there previous build detrimentally. Infact alot of them actually increase it's effectiveness (IMO). I'm just going to throw a modernised revision (aota) of an NS Warrior that isn't too unrealistic in it's *rarity* for meta play (expecting whirlwind wizard to be apart of the party)

Dwarf warrior---

Vibrant Pain
Lochaber Axe
Rageblood Dagger
Perilous Ringmail
Twisting Shield
Crusty Helm
Sliding Boots
Apprentice Ferocity
Savvy Attacker

Or for the total effect of warrior (more unrealistic)

Vibrant Pain
Vibrant Pain
Rageblood Dagger
Perilous Ringmail
Twisting Shield
Crusty Helm
Turquoise Boots
Raging Battler
Savvy Attacker

I'm pretty much suggesting this- The aota counters to NS are cards that makes NS a potent and better formula. Sparkling Cloth Armor allows a bridging of gap if ever attacked from a distance beyond your own move/steps.

Twisting Shields are [ALMOST] literally a free version of Slippery Shield's. It's not that these are better, but almost as effective (since step attacks dominate most party decks). Freeing up one token is crucial to adding savvy attacker without compensating a weapon slot token.

I didn't even add Quickness Aura that also increases range for NS users. If I wasn't too fussed on Team Run, adding Necalli Cap would be a 'gimme'. Max damage without any buff from a priest is 14 for NS, just with the All Out Attack and Blind Rage combined.