[Suggestion] Lizard 's Laboriously Longwinded Rebalance Report (218 Cards Reviewed!)

Looks like it got confused with Unholy Wellspring which does 2 damage.

 

Bash to wall for extra damage. Count me in, too!
And fly for step attacks. Sure if steps get a nerf like they do I hope. Gives flying a point outside leagus too.

 

What are your thoughts on the Wall spells? I'm assigning values to Magic Attacks right now, and I was thinking of leaving Wall Of Fire as Silver and rearranging the others around it (Bronze for Wall Of Illusion, Gold for Illusory Barrier, Emerald for Wall Of Stone, all of them Uncommon). What is it that Lizard and I are not seeing?

I was also thinking of changing Wall Of Stone and Smoke Bomb to Utility and the illusions to Assist, since none of them are capable of dealing damage. Comments, anyone?

 

The hard part is Wall of Stone is merely mildly helpful on most maps (which is why it doesn't get a lot of play), yet amazingly powerful on others - so how do you make an accurate assessment for it, do you judge it on it's minority occasions, or on the more common scenarios where it gets less play? On the other hand, Wall of Fire is strong on virtually any map (and has great synergy with WoW).

 

It is by my own admission a kludgy mechanic, certainly more complicated than Charge whose explanatory text is already bordering on novella-length. I could be fine with changing it to "deal X flat damage to all affected characters." What would really take a lot of the burden off the player is a mouseover indicator showing where the target will land at the end of the Slide Back (with a red highlit square maybe), but of course that doesn't so much remove the burden as it shifts it over onto the devs. And as for elegant buffs, it would definitely be simpler to just up the damage or Slide Back effect on most of these cards and call it day. But the flavor called to me, and I was too weak to resist its siren song.

A thousand sorries, you were the guy who suggested the burst thing after all. My issue with extending the range on Cyclone any further is that it already extends to Range 6 when you factor in the burst - a guy standing at that range will get almost guaranteed flung forward anywhere from 0-4 squares. I feel that's a good range for an effect at that quality - moreover, it means the opposite effect that you can create with it, namely Pushback 0-4 against near enemies, is limited to a panic-button range 2, which again seems suitably limited for a bronze card that can move multiple characters up to 4 squares distant - and easily do it without LOS thanks to Burst. And keep in mind, you can always cast it on yourself to full effect (a 0-4 push by placing yourself on the burst border) for a desperate escape attempt. Or any combination of the aforementioned in certain situations. And (and and and) I think everyone underestimates to what extent a savvy caster can manipulate the burst area to stack the odds towards a desired outcome in a delightful, subtle, nuanced way they never could with WW/WWE.

Yarg! I'll address some of these complaints quicklike (disclaimer: this will not be quick):

• Cyclone: see my feelings about it above
• Winds of War: I was totally wrong about Push! I'm a dummy, because Push is on Team Move cards and it's not like they restrict movement to linear. No clue why I had it in my head that way. All the same, I meant what I meant even if I said it bass-ackwards - WoW should be Slide 3, Linear. (or some equivalent keyword/long-format stipulation). I will fix this in the doc shortly.
  
• Illusory Bubble: I'll give in to this one. It is quite good enough as "immunity from targeted spells, duration 1" and potential speedbump x2 against warriors if you cast it and step out the back end. I wanted range 1 so you could cast it forward and get the utility of an instant speedbump (no need to walk out of the bubble), but that's probably honestly too good.
• Teleport Self: Definitely a slice of sky pie. I added "affects all Move effects" at the last minute and I kind of knew it was probably unworkable, both balancewise and enginewise. If I was going to nix that, I'd probably drop the Move Point nerf too and just leave the card unchanged, though.
• Force Cone: Even in a meta of nerfed step attacks, Slide Back 1 is not liable to foil many warriors' advances. And rarely will you hit more than one guy in those first three affected squares, where Slide Back 1 is even remotely inconvenient to the target. One could complain about the Damage 2, but in light of, say, Arcane Beam I don't think that objection would hold any water.
• Wall of Fire: WoF is 3x the effect for just one step in quality. That's its advertised utility - its actual utility is almost always less. Moreover, stacking walls helps with draw consistency but it doesn't raise the power of your deck in a linear fashion because the usefulness of lava squares rapidly diminishes after you have 3x out on the field. For these reasons, I think Wall of Fire is quite strong, but fine as it is. And bear in mind things like the 'ignore encumber' buff to Free Move is a nerf to encumber wizards and, consequently, damaging terrain.
  
• Squeamish: Say what you want, but the drawback is uniquely D quality, and is meant to be (slightly) net useful to the player. I tried variations of "can't target anyone with X health or less, Duration 1," to help it scale more linearly as you add copies to your deck - all of those felt too drawbacky or not drawbacky enough, though. There is probably a magic number that makes it work in that capacity, but I wasn't able to suss it out. I might go back and change this one, though.
  
• Parry: I am really torn. Unlike with its new analogue Block Missile, rare is the team you'll encounter that doesn't have a a melee attack for you to cycle your parry on. I feel - maybe, just maybe - it might be OK bumping Parry's roll to 3+, keeping it consistent with Weak and Pushback. and I feel really weird that this thought never crossed my mind before - Parry was just so familiar, you know? It's like your own parents - you never stop to consider they might be shapeshifting reptoids from the fifth dimension until it's too late.
  
• Flimsy Block / Weak Block: The reliability of the rolls on these low quality cards informs me that the game considers the max damage limit to be a drawback, not a benefit. Taken as a drawback, I felt it was too severe and so I eased up on the numbers - but I can understand some people value the cards exactly because they're so restrictive in what they block - namely, no/low damage magic cards like WWE and WoW (and Punishing Bolt? never tried it). But I buffed Missile Block and Stuck Arrow to be vastly more appealing now as specific anti-magic options, so I figured these cards were fine losing that niche.
• Impaler: What are your feelings about Crusher? I think the wide scope and long duration of (B) Crusher perfectly justifies Frenzy 2 for a niche series of attack cards. It's not like Frenzy 2 is multiplicative with Penetrating, like it is with Chop cards (surprised you didn't object to Slicer!).
  
• Unholy Frenzy: Another good catch, thanks - I did confuse the self-damage with Wellspring's. With a little more consideration I think I probably would be fine raising/'keeping' it at 2 self damage after all - taking 3 successful attacks to break even with the utility of (D) Bludgeon.
• Sparkling Cloth: You're really good at calling my BS! I'll admit I keep animspeed at 10 and never paid attention to what order my armor's triggering - I took it as a god-given truth that armor triggers from right to left - I don't know, that always seemed intuitive to me, but looks like I was living a lie. I'm just as cool with it working this way for Sparkling Cloth - probably a buff to my nerf (still a nerf overall), as you can rely on it more for early move triggers then throw it away to make room for sweet melee attacks once you close distance.
• Crafted / Solid Mail: it's really hard to differentiate armors at that quality level while maintaining a roughly equivalent average mitigation value, so I took the coward's way out and undershot the target in exchange for nifty and superflous effects. I am a lesser man for it. They at least have some precedent with Hide Strips.
• Superstitious: It'll rarely trigger in MP? What carebear, I-Nimbus, VP-camping teams have you been playing against?
• Fly: Fly is vanilla Free Move + Ignore Impassible, as I understand it. Is that not right?
• Attach Cards Multiple Times: Might easily be unworkable or too confusing, admittedly. I am really into using the duration as a timer, actually. I'm a little mad I didn't think of that.
  
• Some Cards Should Suck: I viciously disagree with this! At least as I understand your saying it. A card should suck if its power level says it sucks - if it's E or D quality, broadly speaking. Saying we should keep some cards performing below what they're rated to perform at, to keep particular items in check is a byzantine, circuitous, forest-for-the-trees, kill-a-mosquito-with-a-hand-grenade heap of intolerable poppycock. Item balance should flow from card balance, period. If we elected to keep Unreliable Block gimped for fear of buffing Lochaber Axe, then we condemn every other underused, vendor-trash item with UB on it to an even worse place. And we need more build options, not less. So, again: Every card should perform at its rated power level - no 'sacrificial cards' allowed.

You had really good critiques - I am really thankful for them.

 

Mark Rosewater, part-time clown and full-time most important card game designer in the world, has a few things to say about designing bad cards:

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/164
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/218

I think he makes some really good points. It's incredibly difficult (and boring) to create a flat power level—even within a single 'quality' in the context of Card Hunter—and there are many advantages to having some cards be better than others. Not all examples and points are relevant to CH as it's a slightly different beast, but definitely worth considering.

 

Cards should be balanced around what they are classified as (Quality and Rarity). But how is Unreliable Block underpowered for a paper block?

 

Punishing Bolt - yes, Flimsy Block will stop Punishing Bolt

When it comes to bad cards/good cards, I stand by that the point of the cards isn't to be boring.
I'm not saying that cards should suck!
I'm all for buffing Unreliable Block from the ungodly awful card it is into something new. Do I have a laugh the odd time it works? Yes.
Do some "underpowered" cards actually have a hidden purpose? Yes.

 

Parry to Weak Parry: +1 to die roll needed, -1 card draw

Block to Unreliable Block: +2 to die roll needed

If anything Weak Parry is underpowered and should maybe be considered something like 4+ block melee, draw a card.

 

Here's my thoughts on Parries:
Pushback Parry: Block Melee 4+. Add 2 to rolls against Step Attacks. If this card blocks a step attack, Push 3 the attacker.
Parry: Block Melee 3+. Draw a card.
Weak Parry: Block Melee 3+. If this cards blocks an attack with 4 or less damage, draw a card.

*EDIT* Pushback Parry upped from 5+ to 4+.

 

I think that Parry being 3+ might be a buff... I like the fact that I know I can remove it most likely than not. Having it 3+ would make it just riskier and more luck based.

 

A smart player will do everything they can to mitigate luck and increase their odds of winning. On one hand, with two attacks and one Parry, having Parry trigger on a higher roll like 3+ would make the bigger attack more likely to hit, assuming the player will always play the bigger attack last. On the other hand, in any situation where you only have one attack, or you have multiple attacks against one Parry, it definitely becomes a minus.

 

I will read the full wall of text if I ever get the chance... but for the Dirty Dozen
Relevant Keywords:
Interruptable: Best single idea (although not new).

Fleet: Interesting not sure about how you choose to use it.
Cardhuntria's Most Wanted:
(C) Whirlwind: Place all characters on a random unoccupied square. Interruptable. Right on
(C) Whirlwind Enemies: all copies become Cyclone. Right on again

(C) Cyclone: Range 4. | Burst 2. Place all affected characters on a random unoccupied square within the burst area. Interruptable.
(D) Firestorm: Damage 4. | Burning 2, Duration 1. Firestorm targets every character on the board. Interruptable. If this card is interrupted, you still take 3 Fire damage. Not sure about this. FS is lame but not really OP. Also if you do this it comepletely ruins it for SP... I have thought about it the real issue is the spamming. Add a clause if FS is attached to you take no additional damage from FS
(A) Winds of War: Damage 1. Range 6. | Choose up to two targets. Push 3. I would nerf it more make it push 2
(B) Nimble Strike: Damage 3. | Step 3, Fleet. mmmm No. completely changes the card. I think there should be an encumber element to it. My suggestion is attach card, add 1 encumberance for each step above racial base step duration 2 and maybe trim it down to 5 or 4 points


(B) Mass Frenzy: Target every Ally you have line of sight to, including you. Frenzy 2, Duration 2. Too much of a nerf, either reduce the frenzy OR make it require LoS
(B) Resistant Hide: Armor 2, roll 3+. If this armor would prevent fire, electricity or frost damage, prevent twice that much damage instead. Keep.
I love it.
(A) Toughness: Armor 9. If this card prevents less than 9 damage, draw a card. I like it but why 9? I insist this should also be subject to penetrating. as you have written it is should. I think it should be armor 8 as 8 is the mid range melee and an oblit spark would still do 1.
(B) Impenetrable Nimbus: Range 5. | Attach two copies of this card to target. That character cannot take damage, Duration 1. May Self Target. || When this card prevents damage, discard it. Doesn't work with the game mechanics (can't have 2 copies of anything attached) IF this needs to be nefred I say a simple reduce all damage from a single source to 1 point.
(D) Blind Rage: Trait. Attach this card to yourself. Frenzy 2. At the start of each round, take 3 unpreventable Psychic damage for each attack card in your hand. If you take damage this way, discard this card. Duration 2. I kinda like it, but don't think this needs to be done
(B) Short Perplexing Ray: All copies become Perplexing Beam.
(B) Perplexing Beam: Range 3. | Linear. Affected characters discard a card at random. IF you are are going to do this make it range 5. I still like my idea of range 4 discard 1, if used in touch range (range 1) discard an additional card
(B) Surging Shield Block: Move 3. | Block any, roll 4+. hmmm does it need help or just reclassified as an uncommon card?
(B/A) Hard to Pin Down: Block any, roll 4+. If this card blocks, you move 2. WAY too harsh... I think you should be required to move to use as a block, but losing it as a movement card is tough and making it a lame 4+ block is lame.
Obviously not reading the full ~200 changes I cant fully comment, but this seems to be a ridiculous exercise as there is no way there are 100+ cards that need buffs. Not all items should be good. not all cards should be good.

 

I just want to throw Reflexive Teleport out there. It should either NOT require you to be attacked from the front (it is a reflex after all!) or the roll should be upped to 4+. Now, before anyone starts to cry out, this card is worth 9 points unlike Dodge which is usually 3-6 points depending on the item type. It would be nice to see people use it by choice you know?

Also, there have been better ideas regarding HTPD/Surging made in the past.

My thought on Nimble Strike is, just add the effect: "Discard your oldest move card when you play this". You still get to zip around like a ninja but you can't totally abuse it without some strategy.

 

Why do you want to KILL Pushback Parry?
5+ Melee makes it as lame as an Unreliable Block.
I'm all upset just thinking about my Twisted Shield and Staff Of Chask becoming lame. I do like the buff for Weak Parry.
But why screw with Parry at all? Jeez I'm like if they change Parry can they still call it Card Hunter? Maybe call it Card Hunting then change the fundemental nature of the game Hunter. Too far?

 

This Weak Parry drawing when blocking a weak attack sounds very good to me. A successful parry is supposed to give an edge in a duel
And I misread the MF change at first. LoS requirement is too much if it already lost 33% of its strength anyway.

Edit: Also, @doog37 - you misread the suggestion for Toughness, it seems to me.

 

No, no, I just wanted to make sure that I said I want Toughness to be subject to penetrating.

 

I read some of Maro's stuffs back when I used to play magic and designed cards for the MTGS forum's daily card challenges - somehow this series of articles has eluded me though. Thanks for linking, it was illuminating - and I can agree that 'bad cards' in the most general sense have a place in the game (or put even more generally, I think 'bad choices' should exist, both on the battlefield and in the Keep), though I continue to disagree that some cards at the same tier should be objectively (vs situationally) worse than others:

1. Quantity of cards in the play environment - Maro insists it's OK for bad cards to exist because, for instance, in the Standard environment there are 1500 cards at any given time - it's enough for there to be 300-400 'top tier' options and for the rest to serve other purposes as either flavor cards or 'puzzle cards' (cards that look good at first glance but perform poorly - essentially instructional material to train the player's deckbuilding chops on). But in CH, there are 300-400 playable cards, period - out of which it might be generous to say there are 100 viable card for competitive play. With a vibrant enough base of viable cards, it's true we could dump oodles of inferior cards/items into the game and it wouldn't deteriorate the meta any (though it would slow loot progression) - but I argue the card base is not that vibrant, not yet. To fix it, we could just inject new good cards into the game ala AoTA, or we could fix the jank cards we already have sitting around. Certainly the latter option is more respectful to players who have invested time in building their collections.
2. "It's futile to balance cards to a certain power level; they all have different power levels in different play environments" - A very reasonable observation that translates well to SP and league matches, but not so much to MP, except inasmuch as particulars of the map render a very narrow subset of cards more or less powerful in any given rotation. So I'll grant Wall Of Stone is tougher to assess than Obliterating Bludgeon for that reason - but fundamentally, the card base is static (save for when an expansion lands - and even then, nothing goes out of rotation), and is much easier to make an objective judgment call on (or as near as one can hope) for that reason. Also, this game is online - it does not need to be an inevitability that an evolving play environment renders some cards unplayable - cards can be changed if they get out of line.
   
3. "Weak Cards assist decisionmaking" - As for weak cards serving as guideposts in Limited play, well... we don't have limited play! Though (shooting myself in the foot) I think it'd be radical if we did, the reality right now is that we can spend as long as we want sitting in our keep deciding whether we prefer to use Blood Locket or Runestone. The structure of the game is already oriented towards letting us take our time choosing between one of a number of equally powerful items - so we may as well roll with it and give people more of those tough choices. The complexity of this game is sizeable but nowhere near problematic enough to necessitate the hand-holding functionality that bad cards serve in Magic ("Necropotence or Volcanic Hammer? Hmm...")
4. Level progression already affords us enough in the way of 'bad choices' - You never pick Aranak's Chain Web if you've got access to Juniper's Jumper - this is just a reality of how card power, power tokens, and item levels work out. It's true these 'bad choices' are rarely instructional the way more complex bad cards in Magic could be, but they still serve the purpose of providing that sense of progression for players
   
5. Bad cards in CH are compoundingly bad - because of CH's item-based deckbuilding - a bad card (again, bad for its quality level, not just bad absolutely) is not just bad in and of itself, but it additionally ruins every item it touches. The process of deckbuilding in this game doesn't just involve sussing out which (making up numbers here) 100 cards out of a base of 400 are trash, but it then involves taking the 3000 items out of 4000 which have any of those trash cards on them, and tossing them out the window as well. So having a dud card around limits deckbuilding choices far more egregiously than it would in a game like Magic.

For the aforementioned reasons (the fact that the card pool is relatively tiny and static, that there's only one meta to balance around for competitive play, that item choices are made in the context of a time-insensitive Constructed format, that the scheme between power tokens and item levels gives us enough sense of progression and enough objectively bad items already, and that bad cards are doubly bad in the context of how items work) I still feel it's enough to for cards to be balanced (as much as humanly possibly) to set standards according to card quality, and for the functionality of 'bad cards' or 'bad choices' to be realized via the application or mis-application of a card's niche functionality. To that end I'm more in favor of generously buffing weak cards' niche mechanics (eg adding Fly to Improved Telekinesis) rather than more general-purpose buffs (like adding extra range or Slide distance to Improved Telekinesis), so that they can be strong when used correctly while still fulfilling the role of a bad card when used poorly.

 

Incorrect, though. Death March had a different meta from normal play in which Wall of Stone and Teleport effects were much better. Wicked Waterways made flight a serious thing, whereas flight cards are basically unplayable in normal PvP. Even Chess Madness had a slightly different meta from normal ranked play: Parry became better, Hard to Pin worse, Vicious Thrust marginally better, etc. etc. There are multiple metas, and cards (and thusly items) have different valuations depending on what you're building for. I don't disagree with you in general but I do think this wasn't quite right—especially since Jon sees constructed league play as a really good way to introduce more environments.

 

Well, I said the observation that there are different power levels for different environments "translates well to SP and league matches, but not so much to MP." I was referring to standard MP exclusively as competitive play because there's ELO at stake - which is not very fair, as I'm sure plenty of people put a lot of stake in league matches too. I personally think of them as environments to mess around in and not take too seriously so I'm never too wrapped up in whether I win or lose, and the 50g entry fee is pretty inconsequential to me. But yes, it's true that weird maps in open-deck leagues can shift power balance enough to constitute a genuinely new play environment. Given how zany and infrequently scheduled they tend to be, I don't think they're enough a part of the state of play (yet) to take into consideration while considering overall card balance (league-specific card bans could take care of anything too egregious). I don't think anyone wants league play to be balanced, anyways - not in the sense that we want standard MP to be balanced, anyhow - it's fun for something like Flanking Move to suddenly have more utility than Team Run (in Death March - for turn 1 point caps / stonewalls - until some jerk plays WW, anyway).