[Feedback] Upcoming Balance Change MEGATHREAD

So I waited a little till you posted all your notes, I actually think that a lot of these changes are awesome and now a lot more items are going to be viable. Elves will never truly be fully encumbered which is nice cause they need the movement at all times, all the harness changes are going to be pretty cool and now it's going to force for more deck variation instead of deck consistency (i.e. no more frost, frost ,short perplexing ray, frost). Sub-zero staff is now viable again. I'm glad there was a massive amount of changes instead of a few short fixes. I know there are some cons also, but I wanna see how this plays out.

 

Because I like my idea so much I'm cross posting it here too, my apologies for those who read it twice!

So I want to see the new content get plenty of test before going live, but there's not enough action on the test server to really do so. One can get a feel for new cards playing the AI, but the AI just can't create a feel for the meta.

What if there was a short PvP Season on the test server with good prizes that are awarded on the live server to the winners?! I'm thinking something like a 7 day span. All test server accounts could have their elo and win totals wiped just before the season starts so it could even begin everyone on the same page. I think this would give enough motivation to both get the numbers needed on the test server, and the dedication to build that winning team that actually will mimic the meta. I think this would be superb for feedback and a way to reward those who choose to help test. Just make sure to give people a couple days advance notice so 1) the word can get around, and 2) people have time to craft that "winning build."

 

Yeah, I don't see myself playing more than 1-2 games a week on test server for no prizes.

 

You may be right. One of my first thoughts when I read they were planning on changing Cause Fumble was "Man, I wish I hadn't sold two Relic Of St. Darqars!"

Just Antioch's Figurine is my mental go-to for a crap legendary. But yes, that might be playable now.

 

Ring Of Bifurcated Healing isn't a total write-off anymore either. Trained Tactics still is.

 

OK so I loaded up an old PVE loadout with Elvish Maneuvers, didn't realize it until halfway through the game when both of the traits rushed me at the same time. Which would be two draw cards down. That round my warrior took a hit and since I had retooled her to not be bristling with step cards since they are getting nerfed into the ground, I watched her draw and discard 5 cards as per Maneuvers draw until you get a move or draw 5 cards stipulation.

So not only are Step moves not really worth it anymore since they now lack the range to justify their low damage output but Elvish Maneuvers can now burn through all of your extra draws for the round. Potentially in one hit unless you hoard Step Attacks.......... which puts it up there in the category of as useful as Squeamish or Superstitious.

Also I heard that the 5 Draw limit is for the team not per character ..... please tell me that isn't true.

 

It is true.

Seems like a good idea!

 

I'd be willing to participate just to help. Someone has to represent the no - low ELO people!

 

We definitely need to get either more people on the testserver or install some sort of schedule that brings the active test account players together at the same times. Theres certainly no more sense in playing the AI.

 

"From now on, Randimar’s will stock at least 10 Legendary, 10 Epic and 10 Rare items at a time."
"Randimar’s will now restock daily instead of weekly"

Blue Manchu are you ok????!!!!

People had to farm for months to get one item they wanted and most of the time they don't even get it and now you put randimars resetting every day with 10 legendary and 10 epic which makes much easier to get a specific item because there are much more epics and legendaries at the randimars and it is daily reset!

What about the effort that people had to do to get that itens? They will get desmoralized with this being so easy now.

What's the point in playing to get itens now? With this randimars change, you can just go to your randimars every day and see if the item you want is there and spend your real money to get it. Is that you guys want, isn't it? Money above everything. I think cardhunter was different from other games but I think it is turning into a pay to win game like almost every other game.

Nerfs that are suppose to change MP are affecting SP players and that doesn't make much sense.

You are nerfing a lot of cards and forgetting that the cards that are being nerfed are counters to other overpowered cards and with this nerfs you will have other problems in game that can be worse that the ones we have now and can cause almost every people to play the same type of deck. There isn't much diversity in the game and with this nerfs you are ending with some of the possible builds.

 

Proof-of-concept level 18 warrior: Duncan's Chain Cap, Juniper's Jumper, Clowen's Boots = 8x 2-armor harnesses for just 3 minor power tokens (and getting the legendaries). (If dwarf, add either Apprentice Stoutness or Trained Toughness for another harness for a minor power token). Optionally, add weapons that provide a total of at least 2 Polearm Slash (only 1 needed if dwarf).
Given time, and if the enemy lacks armor removal or forced discards, it is possible to hold a guaranteed 16-20 armor (18-22 if dwarf), effectively becoming invulnerable except for penetrating or some punishing-type attacks. In this case, after the deck has been cycled once, the harnesses have the added benefit of significantly reducing the effective deck size.

 

Sounds like they definitely need to rethink the whole harness plan or add in a punishing sunder.

I know even back when I was using a bunch of Step attacks I ended up always carrying a few sunders because I found that almost any armor really tanked my damage output and left me swinging in the wind.

 

I also hate the idea of not being allowed to pass since opponent may hold harnesses (better ones than 50% of 1 armor) and get progressively better hand the next turn.
50% of 1 armor is a VERY weak card on its own and that's why it has this "always fits in hand" speciality. I'm not against Arcane Shell either but all other harnesses.. no!

 

Draw limits are really really dumb. The infinite draw deck died the instant Demon Charm of the 2nd circle was nerfed, no additional rule changes were needed here.

 

It still exists if you watched deckbuilding contest not too long ago
But a round limit of 10 extra draws (not 5!) would kill it equally well.

 

Just to be clear:
The draw limit is based on net gain, so every time Elven Maneuvers is activated it counts at most as 1 against your draw limit (the one card you keep), and if you don't find a move card it will count as zero.

But yes, at the moment the 5 draw limit is shared by the team.

 

Preface: Yes, you are doing the most thankless of jobs. So, thank you BM: for caring about the health of the game, for thinking hard about how to fix the meta, and for voluntarily sticking your head through the pillory for the playerbase to take potshots at. Thanks for going the distance.

With that said, I have a few tomatoes to throw too:

The Big Stuff

Whirlwind/WWE: For firsties, I'm not keen on WWE still being explicitly better than WW, but I say that in the same breath as I say that neither of these cards will see much play anymore IMO (I suspect most players won't have any grievances with that outcome, admittedly...) There will be niche uses for WWE for maybe flinging a fleeing enemy behind a warrior's ZoC, or maybe flinging an approaching enemy behind a line of blocking or stopping terrain (1/4 chance at best, if they're standing next to the terrain line - but 1/2 chance of helping them approach, if that terrain is blocking). For WW, I'd see no conceivable reason to use now it over new (C) Telekinesis or even (D+) Maze, where you can at least choose the target if not the direction. I would even say if you're going to keep them as mass Mazes, consider switching WW to WWA (Whirlwind Allies), possible with a boost to 3 squares range, to keep it from being the 100% crapshoot it now is (at least old WW was a genuine reset button). But seriously, please go a different direction with these. Please please.

Also, their only lingering strength remains where most people would rather not have it, which is as a block revealer and three-for-one-block-drawer. I still feel keeping them more akin to their old forms but having a single block cancel the entire effect would be more balanced, not least in the sense that it would help revalue blocks-that-aren't-Parry.

Firestorm: Dedicated firestorm builds are dead: certainly dead vs. Wizards with their Range 6+ attacks, and dead as well vs. warriors who can sniff out a firestorm deck from a player's first few moves (if the team comp isn't already a giveaway), then turtle several turns for their armor cards and Obliterating Bludgeons before they jump into the fray - whereas before there was at least a little dramatic tension about whether to turtle or to rush. As a splash in some other type of deck, it is again not too useful: true that enemies may choose not to keep armor vs. a non-dedicated Firestorm team, and true that it still reveals blocks and armor so you can target out the weakest link in the team (a function I don't think any D quality card should have), but also true that you will rarely get more utility out of the card than you would with Flash of Agony (which you can at least finagle to sometimes not target your allies.)

Step Cards: Pretty OK with these changes, though I feel in particular that placing Vicious Thrust in the same sequence as the Lunging cards just further highlights how all the Step 1s could use a light buff. I am on the fence about denying Step 3 to warriors - though I do appreciate how it revalues other Move cards even moreso than changes I've thought about before. I disagree that Step 1 cards will be any more valuable than they were before (hence why I think they could all use a little buff) - being exactly 1 square away from the target will be as rare as it ever was before, and Encumber effects were effectively not nerfed at all against Step 1. Also, I feel if you're going to deny base Step 3 to warriors, they should at least get to have access to it now with the move-enhancing cards - Quickness Aura, Energizing Move, etc. - just have these cards stipulate only +1 Move Point for step attacks rather than +2. Ideally, find a way for the Fly boosters to work with them too.

Short Perplexing Ray: I would disagree that the last two cards in an opponent's hand for the round are the most valuable - it is just as often a jank armor or an Unreliable Block or a Parry or a Weak Chop. Usually a wiz gets around to SPRing an enemy when they have 3-4 cards in hand, and 1-2 of them will usually be trash, so it tends to be a poop shoot even at the best of times. Not that I think old SPR isn't too strong, but I suppose I disagree that it's so strong it needs guaranteed card draw to balance it. I don't think this keeps its primary effect anywhere but on par with Perplexing Ray now, which is a card nobody ever goes out of their way to pack in their deck, because 1-for-1 discard is freaking boring. Except if you catch an ally sitting around with an empty hand, new SPR becomes a Short Inspiration, which is neat - but really a very weird effect for a wizard to have access to IMO, even if it is situational.

Flash Flood: I never thought WoS was so very OP - just problematic in certain Turn 1 exchanges on certain maps. One bears in mind that Wizards already had an anti-Wizard terrain option (illusory), and now they have an explicitly anti-Warrior option as well. But that said, warrior response will be to keep to the sidelines or behind pillars until the duration runs out, which is no different than it's ever been. That all said, the only places this card becomes problematic are the places it was already most problematic - situations like Death March where a normally frustrating situation becomes a veritable shooting range. So, I'm not so confident about this change, though I think in normal play it'll be a wash (cue canned laughter).

 

Card Tweaks

TK/ITK: Sad that ITK wasn't changed to Teleport, but otherwise, decent changes. I think Teleport on TK may prove to be too strong on some maps with long lines of blocking terrain... though it's unclear to me whether that's even feasible, if it needs sight to the destination or not (full disclosure: too lazy to test atm)

SSB/HtPD: OK. Nice to see rare SSB getting the more interesting effect.

Forgetfulness/Counterspell: The Block Magic component is arguably a drawback, as you get half the utility out of the card if it blocks before you get to use it. If you are going to reverse the range on these two cards, then I still feel the block works better as an unreliable Reflect Magic effect, which would still have a net card advantage commensurate with the main effect's advantage of +1.

Bashes: Going in the right direction! But if all we're buffing is raw damage, then surely we can go even further (compare (B) Powerful Bludgeon, 11dmg vs (B) Able Bash, 6dmg Slide Back 1). Also, Pressing Bash is uniquely useful among the bashes for being able to replace a guy sitting on a VP - moreover right now it's explicitly better than Able Bash. Regardless what buffs get made, I feel Pressing Bash should get less of those buffs to reflect its enhanced utility.

Spark: The Sparks were all arguably a little on the weak side, but in comparison with each other they were all pretty well in line (more than I can for the Stab series). They progressed linearly with power level. Now you want to go give the rare cards in the series a direct buff and totally mess up that nice progression, not because the cards needed buffs but because their effect just weren't rare enough? I find that seriously problematic. Few if any of CH's rare cards were objectively better than their common counterparts (most that were, you nerfed in the previous blog post) - so please explain why you want to go now and make these rare cards more powerful rather than more interesting as has been the case (or at least the intention) in the past? If you're going to make them penetrating, you should please subtract 2 damage from them (which I take to be on the low side of the damage premium you usually charge for adding Penetrating to a card).

Harnesses: Many players enjoy stacking Officer's Harnesses, because while they are mostly dead cards even given their being exempted from discard, it can be useful to hold back a turn or two at game start and gather up a few OHs for some free damage reduction and/or SPR insurance. That said, while the Harnesses (at least Leather and Chain) are arguably dead/undesirable cards as is, giving them OH's discard exemption turns them into absolute must-haves! Tokenless 2xChain Harness items like Hawlic's Glowing Shirt and Frog Strapping will become no-brainers. You say "Stacking these should get interesting!" - all stacking them is going to be is easy, predictable, and tedious to play against. At best, I can appreciate the bump it gives to armor removal cards, but there are better ways to revalue those - like buffing the Harnesses' +roll effects and leaving them to still count against hand size, so that it's still an effect you need to consciously build around and so keeping them or not keeping them is still a choice you need to consciously make. Making real choices - that sounds more interesting to me. Also, in its new form LH is explicitly better than OH.

Please, seriously, more than anything out of all the drivel I'm spouting, please reconsider the changes to Harnesses.

Scuttle: Good! But if Scuttle was weak enough to warrant adding Cantrip to, then surely Scamper and Quick Run could use buffs as well? And... oh god... not to mention Quick Step...

Draining Attacks: Great!

Non-Trait Drawbacks: Great! Although Slow might be too easy to get rid of now, and yes, Staff of Chask just got even OPper.

Advanced Battlefield Training: Nice try, but still so situational as to be useless IMO. It might be fun to use to build up a stack of Harnesses on a dude before sending him into battle, but I hope that never comes to pass!
Arcane Shell: Great!
Grounding Plates: Great! But where's the rest of the armor tweaks...?
Unholy Energy: Great!
Stuck Arrow: You didn't explicitly state that the encumber got dropped. Given that it did get dropped, it seems good (though confused as far as flavor goes). But given that the encumber did get dropped, why the crap would we ever want to use Block Missile now? (not that we ever wanted to use it to begin with...) This is another change that reeks of "it's rare, so let's buff it indiscriminately."
Cause Fumble: Stacking CFs is amazingly easy - up to 9 on one priest - the roll + facing changes might in combination be too good of a buff. Still, it's melee only, which maybe keeps it in line.
Defender's Block: The card draw component does not appear to have made it to Test. I would argue this card is way too good with it in (reliable - block any, for anyone - doesn't require facing - guaranteed card draw), although still maybe rather weak without it.
Twin Heals: Self-Target did not make it to Test. This is too much of a buff! Nothing in the Heal series currently justifies this power level for a bronze card. Light Heal is Heal 3 to a single target, FFS (even though I think that should be buffed to Heal 4, it's still just single target)!
Triple Heals: Ditto! Compare, again, to Light Heal.
Soothing Darkness: Possibly good enough to justify the encumber now, in some situations. Especially it won't stack with frost jolts now. I would prefer to see it as a dual-use "encumber or heal" depending who you use it on (enemy/ally). I suppose that invites needless complexity, but it is a rare card...
Acrobatic Flip: Still fairly inferior vs. new Surging Shield Block.
Mind Worm: Still worthless, sorry. So very, very worthless.
Force Cone: Good! Maybe too good. Honestly, why ever use Force Blast now? (oh wait - we never used Force Blast anyway, because Force Cannon - why not convert all Blasts to Cannons?)
Shrug It Off: Better! It could still use a conditional card draw of some sort IMO.
Flame Spit: Better! But aside from it showing on staffs exclusively, why would I want to use it over Flame Jet?
Toughened Hide Strips: This is now strictly better than (D) Weakened Armor and (D+) Mail, and arguably better than (D) Reliable Hide and (B) Spiked Mail. If you're willing to buff this and the Harnesses so significantly and knock the Armor series' progression so much more out of line than it already is, why aren't you touching other armors that so desperately need(ed) buffs like Spiked Mail and Solid Mail?
Mighty Hack / Mighty Bludgeon: Why in god's name did you touch these? You're ruining such a beautifully linear progression in the Bludgeon line (D-4, C-8, B-11, A-14, AA-17). Why, why, why?
Weak Parry: Yes, yes, yeeesssss....
Energizing Move: Yeeessssssssss.....
Reaching Swing: OK, I guess. I still think Range 3 would have been more rad.
Ill-Fitting Armor: Changes to the Non-Trait Drawbacks make this the only drawback card I'm aware of now that has no secondary discard option. Why not make the armor a reliable non-Keep armor of some sort?
Defensiveness: Still horrid - still one of the worst, up there with Superstitious (why didn't you touch Superstitious!)
Vulnerable: The issue with vulnerable was that its badness did not increase linearly as you added more to your deck - having 4 is about as detrimental as having 1 or 2. Doubling its downside is probably too punishing, unless you reduce Duration to 1 IMO (which would help with the linearity as well.) Also, Vulnerable is a lot worse to have on than Wimpy because Vulnerable makes you a target for 3 peoples' concentrated ire whereas Wimpy debuffs damage from just you - so why wasn't Wimpy nerfed?

Cards I'm amazed you didn't look at for first-pass nerfs: Resistant Hide, Toughness, Illusory Barrier, Punishing Bolt, Mass Frenzy, Elven Trickery, Dodge (given the nerf to attacks-from-behind), Pushback Parry, Sparkling Cloth Armor, Lots of Drawback Traits
Cards I'm amazed you didn't look at for first-pass buffs: Barge, Heals (in light of your changes to Twin Heals and Triple Heals), Raging Strike, Cleansing Effects, Bad Medicine, Thinking Cards, Missile Block (in light of changes to Stuck Arrow), Almost All Armors, Many Many Drawback Traits That Still Spell Instant Death If You Draw Them
Cards I'm confused about why you didn't convert to their AoTA upgrades (and/or revise cards in the same series to match the new power level, where applicable): Illusory Wall -> Illusory Barrier (granted IW is B and IB is B+), Force Blast -> Force Cannon, Sparks Buffed (in light of Jumpspark/Arcing Spark), Fire Cones Buffed (in light of Magma Spray), Skillful Strike -> Feinting Strike, Healing Presence -> Healing Benediction, Spiked Mail (in light of Barbed Plates), Rushing Aura -> Quickness Aura, Charge -> Brutal Charge

Other Changes (Item / Rules)

Randimar's: I think maybe possibly someone's already mentioned this - I can't be sure - but, you know, maybe this is a little overmuch. Weekly refreshing with a guaranteed 10 personalized legendaries would be a good compromise between availability and personal relevance (they're your legendaries and a week gives you time to grind for one if you really dig it).

Card Draw Limit: I really, really read this as 5 cards per character at first, to which I thought "Hmm... seems about right - maybe I'd drop it to 4 - I can see trait cyclers getting screwed sometimes but not always, which sounds about right." Then I read it's 5 per player! That's freaking nuts. I feel it should be character-specific: first, it feels weird that if my Dorf A cycles 5 traits that my Dorf B somehow loses the power to draw for the turn. Second, for really the same reason, it lets the punishment feel relevant when it happens: You (Dorf A) broke the law, so you get hosed now. Adjust the per-character draw limit to whatever hits that "sometimes but far from always" breaking point for heavy trait cyclers.

Encumber: Whenever you move, subtract X move points from that move, to a minimum of 1. This effect does not stack with other Encumber effects. There, now all moves are still minimum Move 1s that can still sack-hop their way out of damaging terrain and towards the enemy wiz. And now Halt has newfound utility, being the effect that actually stops people in their tracks. This would also help dramatically buff the Step 1s, as they'd become essentially Encumber-proof (if this came to pass, I'd drop my argument about the lower-tier Step 1s needing a buff)

 

Woah, I agree with almost everything Lizard said and he said a lot.
Duration reduction for Vulnerable (3 -> 2) would make it more reasonable.
Edit: that's done already!
That encumer idea of not going below 1, hmmmm. We can't be 100% sure yet that encumber will be OP. And that would be a HUGE nerf.
WWs can still be used as a block removers, that's also a valid point.
And yea, what happened to the logic that rares cards should be more interesting not necesserly better. Now these rarer heals or armors are so much better than common ones of same quality.

 

Doesn't sunder already punish? It deals 8 damage, ignoring armor, and often nets you a whole ton of card advantage.

Keep in mind that to get 8 harnesses in your hand, you have to draw 8 harnesses, which means 8 non-armor draws: no blocks, no attacks, no moves, no assists...