[Feedback] Upcoming Balance Change MEGATHREAD

I'm very concerned that encumber will still be OP with the changes. It's simply boring to play against, and surely that's the main concern.

 

Vuln's Duration 2 on Live.

I'm starting to think if that encumber change were made to minimum Move 1, Encumber could probably have its stackability back. Maybe.

The outright buffs to cards that "just aren't rare enough yet" really get my goat (they also make my lizard languish). There was an argument earlier in the thread about we can't convert Charge to Brutal Charge because (a) Charge is uncommon and Brutal is rare, which justifies the 100% power differential between these cards and (b) that'd make Novice Ferocity so very OP - such hogwash (that really washes my hog). If a certain combination of cards on an item makes the item OP, that speaks to the OPness of the cards and they need to be toned down - not reserved for Epics and Legendaries and not switched out for a trashier version of itself to use in peasantly uncommon items. For the record, I don't think Brutal Charge is OP. I think it's in a good place. But whatever place it's in, there shouldn't an objectively worse card than it floating around, rendering a whole heap of items into vendor trash because they weren't rare enough to warrant switching it for the "cool card."

Power tokens buy power... Levels buy power... Rarity buys novelty. That's a maxim for this game I will never be dissuaded of, even if the devs were to explicitly state otherwise.

Great... now my goat's gone, my lizard's sad and my hog is squeaky clean. Thanks, BM.

 

Not really 8 damage is relatively average when it comes to PvP anything less outside of the pre-nerf step attacks tends to be an attack that tagged along on an item with better attacks. Which tends to be relegated to preforming checks or a desperation attack

Assuming their deck is stacked with harnesses that means it would be possible to get their full set of armor without any assistance in ~3 turns luck permitting, more realistically probably 4-5. The whole time getting harder and harder to do any damage to if you even notice before it's too late. It isn't incredibly unusual for nothing interesting to happen in the first turn so that can potentially be a freebie. Assuming they travel with a priest and or some draw assistance that could speed things up. It is quite plausible that they could be set to pretty much ignore most damage by turn two and they don't really need the best attack cards if people are playing them positionally to prevent you from getting to their actual damage dealers. Even if they are doing laughable damage ~3-5 if you are doing a guaranteed 0 it really doesn't matter.

It would effectively be the polar opposite of what firestorm used to be instead of doing a shameless amount of damage they will simply absorb everything you can throw at them. Plus like others have pointed out when they get all the harnesses that means their deck has been thinned out and they will be that much more prone to draw block, attack and trait (I suspect immovable) cards.

Plus it is going to be boring as hell watching that armor stack resolve :/

It just seems like a poor idea to me that is just asking to be abused. Who knows I could always be completely wrong and it could go off without a hitch.

 

Since Encumber doesn't stack that means the only ones that will be regularly locked in place will be dwarvs and they have shrug it off in addition to whatever block all cards they bring with them. Plus a ton of hit points.

The only encumber card that will be able to really do anything to elves or humans will be Freeze. It would have locked dwarvs anyhow and there are only three cards in the game with freeze. The most on any of them is 2x and otherwise the staff isn't terribly useful especially with encumber nolonger stacking.

 

What they said. I don't speak for all casual players, but I only farm when there's something really good in Randimar's. The new Randimar will wave a bunch of things in my face then immediately take them away before I can earn the money for them. And that will not encourage me to farm money for unknown stuff I may be offered in the future.

One week was a great idea: that's enough time for a newbie to earn enough for a Rare or a casual player to get an Epic. And a casual player who hasn't purchased anything in a while will likely have nearly enough for a Legendary.

 

I think Jon is trying to do too much at once. Yes, you do have to balance around the whole system, but most of these changes are super dramatic and over the top. Why go from Step 4 to Step 2 on NS without testing Step 3? Why not test non-stacking Encumber before making Frost Jolt Encumber the user? There are a ton of changes that seem to be way far in the spectrum when the game is fairly well balanced minus a few key things. Yes, this does give some under appreciated things buffs, but ultimately it is way too much going on to properly analyze easily even with testing. Maybe a full time designer with a small group of avid testers could test all these systems and figure things out, but honestly this is a bit much. I've tried a lot of the things on the test server already and the game feels VERY different.

Why not step back, take a look at everything, and really evaluate what needs to be changed and why. Because right now it is like throwing everything up in the air and seeing what sticks instead of carefully crafting each change and then re-evaluating the system in whole.

 

This is an extremely unfair assessment of what I believe BM are trying to achieve with this change.

The term "Pay-to-win" means that players with more cash to spend on the game effectively get an advantage that players who don't spend cash cannot match. This means that players who vow never to spend a cent will always be at a disadvantage.

Some games like hearthstone lean more towards pay-to-win because they severely limit your ability to get better cards without spending real money by making excessive play-time next to worthless. Card hunter on the other hand does not.

Time = Money. Either you have plenty of time to play and gather items the traditional way OR you work more so have less time to play and more money to burn (essentially allowing them to compete with play-to-win players).

The point in playing to get items remains exactly the same as it was. Through play-time alone ftp players can achieve an equal footing with anyone who just spends money to make faster progress. That is the defining characteristic of what makes a game pay to win or not.

The changes to randimar's ultimately benefit both paying and ftp players in the same way by allowing you to broaden your collection faster - thus giving you more meaningful ways to customise your party in MP. That being said I think 5 legendary items per day is better than 10.

Its fairly logical isn't it? Expecting balance changes not to affect SP is what doesn't make sense to me to be honest.

I disagree that these changes will lead to less variation but its not like this is the be-all and end-all of balance patches. Jon already acknowledged that its impossible to foresee how every one of these changes will affect the game and that's also why he said its likely any changes may need further tweaking.

The most important thing to me (and a lot of soon to be returning players I assume) is that BM are making a commitment to improve the MP experience by balancing the game. I personally have faith that they can do it, especially if they work with the community like they appear to be doing now.

 

Encumber does not encumber the user, this has already been clarified.

 

Ah, okay. It is weird because the wording is different from all other cold encumber spells. That's good to know. Still, I feel like there are way too many changes to accurately determine the balance.

 

Idea for a middling buff to the harness cards: rather than not counting towards your hand size, they could set your max hand size to 3 cards (or -possibly- 4). This way, you couldn't spam harnesses (since they -set- it at 3, and thus don't stack). This would also keep Officer's Harness interesting, since it would still be the only harness that doesn't count towards hand size. For example:

Leather Harness

5+, Armor 1, Keep

You may retain 3 cards at end of round.

Whenever you roll a die for armor, add 1 to it.

 

These changes will clearly make wizards the best class of the game. I mean, even with the limit draw, the SPR nerf and the Trembling Staff change, the harm they did to warriors and priests is so big that it doesn't even compare to that. Why we have to accept that there is still a slide 3 card (ITK) to 2 targets but the best step attack is step 2? How is that fair? Slide 3 shouldn't exist anymore. Toughness? Still OP. Wall of Fire? Still very strong. Encumbrance? Very strong, despite the "nerf".

But now not only 3DC will be very strong. No, that wasn't enough. Now, with the amazing buff to the rare sparks (penetrating) and the fact that they didn't touch Punishing Bolt, they can even do a very significant amount of ranged damage. Heck, now they even can use Flesh Flood for an awesome defense against melee atackers. Really insane and unbalanced.
Edit: In addition, I realized now that the best shield to fight wizards with a melee team, Slippery Shield, isn't so good anymore.

I feel very bad about priests. They already were the weakest class, and now they have to deal with a 5 limit draw per player? Altruism, Martyr's Blessing, Inspiring Presence, Accelerated Thought, Demonic Power, and many more priest's cards will now be very hard to use to get a benefit from them. Mass Frenzy is OP and they didn't nerf it, but in a new environment crowded with wizards, most melee teams may choose (with a good reason) to stack Arrogant Armor, so even MF won't be enough to keep them in the meta. The only good use for priests could be vampires now, and maybe a 1 priest and 2 wizards for a direct damage team, but not much else. It's sad.

 

Man, I'm having the hardest time seeing how most of these are good for the game. So the vocal minority that complains about everything is getting there way, and what we're left with is a dull husk of the original game.

Draw limit? Is this actually serious? I can't even fathom some ****ty rule like this being applied in any other game (MtG, Hearthstone, Sol Forge, etc.) and it going over well, but for some reason we need it here? Why? Because it takes some thought to decide how to play out your traits to get the most benefit? Maybe it's because the players are given a 10 minute timer and want to use all of it to their advantage? Maybe because poor players don't grasp the concept of card quality?

Firestorm? This is also a joke, the easy fix would've had it damage your team first. Also, RIP single player.

WW? Also a joke. The best part of deck building is breaking symmetrical effects (MtG does this very well). Obviously WWE does this much better, but there was no need to change just WW. Simple fix: remove WWE.

SPR? I now believe BM has no concept of balance. They're changing the core function of the card and several items (which we were explicitly told that this was very unlikely to happen) instead of more direct approach, which would be to further limit the range of the spell, which would've kept the original intention intact, and quite frankly, while at the same time not make it feel "unfair" or "overwhelming" to play against.

All step attacks have no range longer than 2? Why run any of the 1 steps over the clearly superior stabs?

And many more examples of unneeded changes to cards just for the sake of changing them, or again, because the vocal minority of terrible players think they're "overpowering."

All of these "balance" changes are just going to rotate a new wave of "OP" cards in for the vocal minority to complain about, and BM will pander to them again like they are doing now. But these players don't care if they waste time, because the end result is that they can feel superior for a week until they find the new "OP" cards to cry to mommy about. When all the pandering to the complaining does is create a doubt about whether it's worth your time as a player to collect more items, because who knows, by tomorrow they could be worth less than the pixels they're comprised of.

Which bring me to my next point; most of these card "balances" could potentially have never been needed if BM had just made all of the races equal health and equal movement, with the differences being the racial item and appearances. This current system is why dwarves with Nimble Strike were seen as "overpowering" by lesser players, because the same effect wasn't as potent on a human or an elf.

If BM really wanted "balanced" gameplay, not only would they have extended the beta to discover more of these "unbalances" but they would've looked at any competitive game in a similar vein to the game they wanted to make. For instance, let us make an analogy to Street Fighter. In SF, all the characters have the same HP, all the characters have the same base movement speed and what makes them different, are their movesets (analogous to CH's items). Yet somehow, despite being 24 years old, SF2 remains a competitive game, and excluding an obviously broken character, has no other bannings (in Card Hunter's case, unnecessary "balance" changes), because the community didn't ***** and moan about other "overpowering" characters (Old Sagat is to SF2 as NS is to CH), but learned to adapt, counter, and outplay their opponents. But somehow, the Card Hunter community cannot handle that approach (the approach an actual competitive person would take), and has instead taken the "complain about it until it goes away so I can then complain about the new problem" approach, or that of a scrub. And this is where BM has gone horribly wrong, by listening to the complaints of the community and pandering to them, instead of doing (and if they have, never released any) research on if anything was truly "format warping" or "overpowered."

A similar example (according to the CH community's overwhelming opinion about certain cards) to situation this would be when Survival of the Fittest was banned in Legacy. When it became the dominant strategy, over half the field was playing the card, and various decks built around it, becoming a clear and present danger to health of the format (important note: 50%+ of the field in prize winning tournaments). From personal experience in Card Hunter MP, NONE of the cards being changed are anywhere close to being in HALF (again, that's 50%+)of all the decks being played in ranked Card Hunter. In the 150 games of MP I have played (an obviously very small sample size) I have never once seen, read in chat, or read on the forums that Firestorm (for example) was a problem. Nor did I ever feel oppressed by WW, WoW, NS, or any of the other "broken" cards that are currently being neutered. I certainly read many opinions on why they felt their opponents were scrubs for using the cards (a clearly humorous oxymoron might I say) they felt were "overpowered," and why they were the true champions for playing their homebrews that went out of their way to pride themselves on "no netdecking" and "I have a mental block in my head that says I can only win by the rules I have formulated for myself and not the rules the game laid out for me."

In conclusion, I feel that BM needs to seriously reconsider these changes, or remove the ELO rating system so that CH can have a system similar to American Little League, so nobody's feelings get hurt when they "lose."

 

Rowspower, I hear what you are saying, but I couldn't disagree with you more.

This isn't MTG. You don't just buy the most powerful combos of cards and play to win for a while because that's the best way to win. Card Hunter has been alive for a year now, and we don't have any significant changes in the number of cards or items that we started with, nor are these cards different. So after a year of playing, it's pretty clear what's the most powerful and it starts to get stale and boring. You can have a lot of fun playing random decks like vampires or fire wizards but if you want to be really competitive you have to play some of the best cards, the best decks. And you know what? Not everyone even wants to be competitive. It doesn't really matter how you win at this point. You play to have fun and win new items. Even during the PVP season there was only a small % that you could consider "competitive" and their decks WERE using the same core concepts.

Your solution is to change the game into a different game, a one that you like better because it's "balanced". Well if you don't like Card Hunter play something else that you do like. Why not?

And BTW, you can draw maybe 3 cards at once. If you can't figure out how to play the bad traits first and the good traits last, then I don't think this game is for you.

Back on topic... to be continued...

 

I'd like to start by making a shout-out to Lizard's last post. In particular:

^That. I'd like to say that. Also, I worry that Frost Jolt is still going to be OP. Encumber 2 Will still shut down any step warrior.
I agree with Lizard on the Encumber effect. I've always wanted Encumber to work like this- you can encumber someone but NOT PREVENT THEM FROM MOVING AT ALL.

Staff of Chask is a brutal item at this point.
I would also agree on Electroporter Novice still being too cheap.
Twin Heals at Heal 4 to 2 targets, may self target? Are you crazy? Heal costs twice as much but only heals one target. I would suggest that Twin Heals can't self target.

Crazy Sal's Halberd concerns me. It was one of my favorite items... and you can't do 4 Polearm Slash without making it a level 20 legendary...

My problem with daily resets X10 legendaries is that all it will take is a single day of Heartripper or Vibrant Pain (not that Vibrant Pain will be a huge problem anymore) and everyone with any money or sense will buy it.
My suggestion? Make randimar give out 8 Legendary, 8 Epic and 8 Rare items per week. The Rare items can change every day. But the Legendary items change once per week. Also, if I am guaranteed a fixed number of Legendary items every week, I want different items from everyone else. Please! **

Lastly, I would like to say that so far, the changes made have been quite extreme. Some things definitely need to be thought about and tested.

**I think the point of all of these changes is to give the game a fresh life and encourage more variety. Which is good!

 

ShadowTitan may have been too direct, but he does have some solid points. The Randimar's daily restock with 10 legendaries and 10 epics IS part of a pay-to-win strategy, because nobody has the time to gather the gold for everything they want that fast, not even close (and even more now with the FS nerf), so if you want to purchase things regularly from Randimar's, you would have to spend money to get some pizza that you can exchange for gold. This also comes hand to hand with the buff of the rare cards. So now a lot of the legendaries won't only be different, as it was intended firstly, now they will be strictly better than the commons and uncommons, leaving the players that play ftp and can't buy the goodies from Randimar's at disadvantage.

Is it a huge disadvantage? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't mean the ftp players can't win, and I don't know what happens in other games, but you can't deny that this is a plan to persuade players to put more money in the game. Is that bad? Well, you have to pay the bills, this is how life works. But this kind of attitude can be disappointing for some people anyway. It's like that rock band you liked that swore that they didn't care about the money and that they would never sell themselves for money. Then they come more popular, get some sponsor and do that mtv commercial. Some fans will understand it, some won't. In this case, it's not like BM made such a promise, but the rare ftp aspect of the game that allows players to compete without spending lots of money in the game made it quite unique; we got used to it, so you have to understand why so many players have raised their voices about this Randimar's possible change. It's something big.

 

I also think it would be better to have Randimar's contents be different for everyone. This promotes more variety of builds and excitement in opening the store each day/week/whatever.

It also makes you less anxious about missing something good when you have no access to the game. It's very different to know for a fact you missed Ben's Sno-Cone Melter because you had to go to a wedding when everyone and their pet kobold is now gushing about their new favourite item than it is to just fret you might have missed something great but don't know it for sure as no one else knows what was in your store in a particular day.

With the system under test it would be almost the same to just put every item into a permanent store. Here, have everything. Just buy what you want. I get trying to give people more access to items but these changes radically push the game away from being a loot chase game. This is fine if that's what Blue Manchu wants, but it's a very different game to what Card Hunter has been for more than a year.

I suspect it will also radically curtail SP player interest with faster completion of a collection and/or the difficulty in farming gold. Usually about 90% of players are SP-only players. I don't know what the ratio is for Card Hunter but you might be making the game less sticky for the majority of players and increase churn a lot. With next to no marketing -> no incoming grist for the churn mill it could kill the game in short order. Something to think about.

 

Please don't. Please please please These cards were just stupid and should never be created. If they will become unplayable now, to hell with them!

Please don't do that. Warriors should NOT have the step attacks with more than 2 step, or we will have the same NS problem as before. And yes, encumber should completely shut down all the step attacks, to make the warriors counter it somehow (Arrogant Armor, Purging Burst etc.)

 

You got me there.

 

Bashes are still underpowered compared to step attacks, the best ranged attacks and the best damaging attacks. Moreover, as long as the armor is getting improved now, I feel that the bashes will be even less playable after the change So if at least Pressing Bash would be playable, that would be really great.

Please don't. Please please please We didn't see the electro mages for a long time, both in MP and in SP, and we aren't going to see them with the proposed "balancing".

I simply fail to notice any problem here. Some previously unplayable cards will become playable - why it's bad? Some cards will become the no-brainers... really? Considering the value of Arrogant Armor to prevent encumbrance and Grounding Armor to prevent the penetrating electricity, I strongly disagree that the mentioned armor will become "no-brainers". So please leave the change as planned.

No it isn't. It's used to move the opponent from the victory area and grab it for yourself. It's just a special kind of a block.

Oh really? I strongly disagree here. A Mind Worm on turn 1 will be really devastating, as you have to keep only one card for turn 2.

I am so tired about the Randimar's complains that I have to state that I'm totally agree with the proposed change.
Why do I agree? Because CH will not become a "play-to-win" game even after the change. I can spend some money on the items I need, but I know that I will never become a Top10 player even if I get all the legendaries I dream of, since I'm just a bad player and make too many mistakes. We all know that the better gear doesn't guarantee the top place in this game.
To me, the best part of CH is the variety of different strategies, which is impossible to exploit without the certain items. So 70 potential legendaries per week is a blessing for the game. You aren't forced to buy them, are you? After the change, every player will adopt his own strategy of cardhunting: "farm and wait for Vibrant Pain", "spend $20 per week on the best Legs" and so on. This will allow the new players to get the top-tier items without waiting for months. Believe me, after the month of this change you will look at the legendaries and say: "I don't need any of this crap"

Let's say openly and plainly: there is no need in any "card draw limit" after the proposed trait changes. The price of trait cycling becomes too steep to abuse it, as it should be.

This is an interesting idea, but I disagree, since this will force all warriors to be dwarves and use only step attacks. Current changes are meant to encourage all races, as humans will be hard to freeze, not even talking about the elves.

 

The encumber has never been "OP", as I can call "OP" only something that directly wins the game. The new encumber will never completely pin down the elves and rarely the humans, so it isn't going to be "OP" by any means. But it will be popular for sure - until people will start playing the elven warriors. Then the metagame will be filled by various strategies, which is great.