[Feedback] Upcoming Balance Change MEGATHREAD

Purge is getting a heal? Haven't heard.

 

I thought just Cleansing would get heal effects.

Regarding encumber, the latest change allows for much more counterplay, seeing as having any move card gives you options. It's not free, it still costs you a card and a turn, but at least you aren't having your hand shut down by a single range 6/8 spell.
I've already said enough on the subject, but the change is good.

 

Exactly. There is a fine line between balanced and OP. Right now NS is a bit weak with damage 4. If it was reverted back to damage 6 I think it would be fine in the current environment (assuming MF gets the nerf it needs to get).

Punishing Bolt is another story. I'd probably reduce it down to range 6 from 8 as right now it can out range nearly everything and zone hard.

 

That was my bad it isn't Purge that is getting heal. Cleanse is the one getting a heal added to it. I always get the two mixed up

 

I'm aware that even in their current state halt and encumber are different - my point was not so much that they are two effects doing the same thing, but that thematically something called halt should indeed lock someone in place, while encumber by the definition of the word should slow or hinder movement, not stop it.

 

And they don't do the same thing.
Halt does exactly what it says it does it causes you to halt. It doesn't matter how you are set up if it lands you can not move under your own power.

Encumber does exactly what it says it does it encumbers, it causes movement to be difficult. Potentially to the point where you are so encumbered all you can do is turn around. Tho that is all entirely dependent on how they player has set up the effected character and to some degree their team. If Encumber doesn't stack even a dwarf can be equipped so encumber 2, likely the most common encumber encountered, won't significantly effect them.

The kicker is that planning to have extra mobility is almost always a win/win. If you encounter encumber its effects are significantly diminished if not outright negated. If you don't encounter encumber then your team is simply more mobile. In a game that would seem to me to be about balancing the costs and benefits of things, the new encumber feels like a cheap get out of jail free mechanic. Not the fact that you can move while encumbered but the fact that ANY movement card is sufficient.

 

Punishing Bolt is about right even after the upcoming harness change. It is when the same character receive 2 PB in a row at range 8 that does not feel balanced. The recipient should automatically gain a filmsy block (or reflect missile) when he got PBed. There is a chance that he can block the next PB (when it hit he got 2 more damage due to Filmsy).

Good to hear that NS will be back to 6 Damage.

MF is alright, as priest is so weak. No need to change that.

 

This is the bud of an unfounded rumor. I'm nipping it.

 

Spent some time testing with Stexe today, and after our testing I can definitely see his points on armor stacking. It may be item dependent, but warriors can easily get a guaranteed shield of 8 or 9 damage pretty early in the game. Earlier than you can kill them at least, and by the time they can guaranteed block that much damage you must have an answer for armor.

Cause fumble just needs to change. You run enough of it, and melee attacks simply can't survive the wall of blocks each turn.

It makes for some odd test games at the moment. it's all about area control because you end up in a lot of situations where the warriors won't die (except to a deadly spark wizard), but also can't do much if any damage. Given these issues it's hard to tell what's going on with the encumber changes or where the balance is between wizards/warriors.

Deadly spark is going to be interesting. It's probably a bit too good, but much like VP it's tied to the legendary item with 6X of em. When you can put 12 deadly sparks on a wizard it's messy. If that item changed it may not be so bad.

 

OK so when you make a legendary item that is too good ... what do you do?
Do we just say, hey that player earned this armor and that staff so they get to have that edge? Or do we say, no, they might be very rare items but the cards themselves are way too strong?

 

Hunt for the Deadly, Deadly Staff? I even had it once in Randi, didn't buy.
The more armor there is, the better Deadly Spark will be. In pre-balance meta Mighty Spark is definitely better card but can't get too many of those in 1 deck. Staff with 3 of them also has 3 regular Sparks.
But all you other harness-haters, what do you suggest could happen with harnesses? Without stacking remove 1 from needed die rolls to proc?

Edit: Ah, I know read that suggestion of being able to keep only 1 extra harness outside of OH. Complicated rule, but definitely a step in right direction. I like my idea more

 

Or just balance the card so stacking them isn't overpowered or underpowered, like Blue Destruction.

 

There did need to be big changes. WW/WWE needed to go, but by removing them the entire balance shifts. With no WW to break the formation, wizards with SPR, WoW, and encumber would be too strong in a lot of maps. I don't think even an unchanged nimble strike would have beaten that. So even though I used a lot of SPR, I fully support it being nerfed. The trickiest thing is encumber and step attacks. I was thinking something along the lines of nimble strike moves 3, dancing cut 2, and all encumber spells in the game are reduced to 1 encumber. It would then be impossible to encumber someone more than 3 (and to do 3 would require 3 different spells). Elves would always be able to move. Dwarves would have a penalty for their slowness (it feels wrong that humans are rendered = to dwarves by a frost jolt). The ideas of encumber not stacking, or a move always being able to go at least 1, are also interesting ideas and might be better though.

Anyone that has played with the new rules: when you attack someone and they dodge it, that doesn't ignore encumber does it? I hope not.

I don't think unlimited harnesses works as a rule. Allowing a single harness not to count for your hand would probably make it powerful enough and allow a tank build; imagine having 2 enchanted harness and a barbed platemail for 8 guaranteed armor plus penetrating damage against the attacker. Should that setup only take 1 card slot (in reality you would have many more harnesses too, but this is to illustrate that it would be playable even with only 1 extra slot)? Unlimited harnesses seems like it would result in a less than fun gameplay where there is greatly increased randomness effect (both in getting the harnesses early, and getting your armor removal which presumably you haven't filled the entire deck with).

Deadly Spark... well, on first glance hard to block, penetrating, ranged, and buffable seems far too good. It also seems like another thing to greatly increase the randomness effect; you can only have 1 grounding plates or resistant hide in a deck, but those single cards would take on an enormous meaning. Being dependent on a single card isn't good. On the other hand, you could have a deck completely full of deadly sparks.

 

Dodge ignores encumber now.

 

Oh no. I'd definitely suggest that, if all moves can go at least 1 while encumbered, at least the rule should be "when you play a move card, you can always move at least 1", like a permanent aura each character has. No way should "keep" cards like dodge get an infinite number of encumber-proof moves.

 

Armors that don't have keep are nearly unplayable and defeats the purpose of harnesses. I don't think ignoring hand size limit was a necessary change but harnesses are not unbeatable.

 

Sorry for the late answer, but I've used that time to think about what "would be good for the game in general". See the last part of this message.

After having thought a bit about that, I've decided that CH could easily have the same variety of items as Diablo, since if the CH items would have the "optional slot", the number of different cards that could be applied to that slot would be very large. Weapons could have 4 fixed cards + two optional slots, other items - 2 fixed cards + one optional slot. This would allow two modifiers for the weapons like "Keen Vibrant Pain of Freezing".
Moreover, the modifiers could be "virtual" (not tied to adding any cards on the item). For instance, Piercing = "25% chance to add Penetrating to a melee attack card from this item".

I'd say that you can "print your own money" in the real world as well as you can farm gold in CH, probably even better. Work is trading your time and energy for the money, as well as farming is trading your time and energy for the gold. Moreover, working is generally much better investment of your time and energy, since you can usually earn $10 per hour, which is equivalent to 330 pizza = 1650 gold. I really doubt that somebody can farm 1650 gold per hour
The "uncontrolled availability" would never be a problem if the game had a lot of different playable items. Unfortunately, it doesn't, and that's the real problem. How many different weapons are used at the top levels of the current metagame? 8-10 at best. The situation with boots, armor, and skills is even worse. So we have a very limited set of "good" items, some of which are extremely hard to obtain (which is bad for the game since people are losing their hopes and leaving), and the 99% of the looted items (both in SP and MP) are unneeded, which is even worse for the game.

OK, let's talk about the loot chase game design. What do the players want from a loot chase design game? They want the interesting, difficult, mind-breaking challenges that are going to be rewarded with the real treasures. What do they have in CH? The SP scenarios are mostly trivial for an experienced player, and they bring the pathetic treasure (an unwanted epic costs just 20 gold, 5 gold for a rare), but require a decent time. The MP wins are mostly the same, and you need to make 20 wins per day to get a free epic chest. Only the leagues really reward the players for their time.
So what should be done to improve the situation? The players should get the hard challenges with the great prizes. The easiest way to create such challenges is to allow players to play the SP scenarios at the lower levels. The lower level you've played, the better reward you should get if you win. Just once per day per scenario, as usual. I'd create the special currency (Fame) that couldn't be achieved for pizza, and moved that 10 legendaries per week (or per day) section to a separate Fame shop. But the shop wouldn't have enough copies of the items for everybody! It would be an auction, where players could bid their Fame for each item. When the shop contents would change (at 00.00 am every day), the highest bidders would get their items.
This Fame shop could have even more than 10 legendaries per day You want to buy something? Go farm Fame, and eventually you'll buy. And as long as the total number of items for all players will be quite low (compared to the potential 10 legendaries per week for each player), the game as a whole wouldn't raise in power that fast.

 

Dodge completely ignoring encumber is definitely an unintended consequence of the encumber nerf. Again, no guarantees, but it's something we're looking at.

And I don't think removing keep from the harnesses is the answer—they would instantly become unplayable. But hey, doesn't mean we can't make'em work. Thanks again for all the feedback, people. We're still listening.

 

Yeah, removing keep doesn't sound good.