Hello everyone, first post. On the "Edge of the Wood" map, "Into the dark forest" quest there are 4 Tall Beech Trees. They are large enemies - 2x2 tiles. I used Acid Spray to hit a tree, marking 2 tiles underneath it as acid. Then, on the next turn, I used Hot Spot to create a hot lava tile under a 3rd tile underneath the tree. End turn, and... only 1 acid is applied. The log doesn't say anythin about hot lava being applied. The same thing happened during the next turn (the tree didn't move). Well, I understand that even though the tree was standing on 2 acid tiles, only 1 acid tile does damage. That sounds sensible, perhaps it was intended But what happened to the fire damage from the hot lava tile? Liosan
See http://www.cardhunter.com/how-to-play-card-hunter/#zeeter How terrain attachments affect large figures Some large monsters in the game occupy a 2×2 square area of the game board. What happens when they are standing on multiple terrain attachment squares? They will only be affected by ONE terrain type. This is determined by counting along from the bottom square they occupy as shown below: In example B, the first terrain attachment in square 1 is Lava, so that is the one that affects the Dragon. In example C, the first square with a terrain attachment in the order shown is square 3, containing Spike terrain. In this case, it is the spike terrain that affects the Dragon.
This seems a bit arbitrary (just had it happen to me). If you're that big and you've got one foot stuck in acid and the other in fire, it seems fair that you get both feet burned. Or, at least, the stronger damage should override the weaker damage.
Yeah, in a perfect world that would happen (highest damage triggers, and multiple negatives occur like armor removal from acid). But they'd have to recode a lot of calculations (doing a pass for acid removing armor, then doing a pass for lava, then doing another pass for spikes, then doing another pass for acid damage). Even better of a fix would have it not count from bottom left to upper right -- as some maps (essentially problematic in multiplayer) give an advantage to one team over another based simply on tile calculation. It is super minor, but it has determined a game or two before for me. There are some other weird instances too where cards are counted in a specific order and result in one player winning over another simply due to damage calculations and the lack of a "tie breaker" type situation.
Having the stronger override the weaker: maybe. Now consider the definition of "getting both feet burned." How can someone define that logically? Say, "suffer full damage from acid" and then "suffer full damage from lava"? We used to have that. And if you dropped four lava tiles below an enemy, then the enemy suffered an absurd four times the damage (the sort of issue you noted with your two acid tiles). So when you speak of "arbitrary," note this current rule was an attempt to improve on an even-more-arbitrary version which used to imbalance combat. But did you instead mean "the enemy should suffer a logical combination of the two, like if we imagined a normal one-tile enemy standing on a special terrain type of 2/3 acid and 1/3 lava"? That would be "logical," yes. But as Stexe says, even the simplest implementation would require a lot of recoding. Not to mention mental gymnastics.
It shouldn't require a lot of mental gymnastics -- just acid removes armor and then the highest damage one (acid, spikes, laval) deals its damage. It would require re-coding though so it probably isn't worth it for development bandwidth purposes. Plus, it really only affects large monsters which are single player exclusive -- which I think should be much less of a priority for balance changes than multiplayer.
There's only a certain amount of development time available -- it is all about resource allocation. Large monster fixes are super minor, especially because they are predominately only found in half of the game. Changing cards affects both SP and MP which requires a lot more focus and attention.
I don't see a great need to change large monster terrain interactions as I don't see it as a big issue, but I also don't agree that the argument that it's a low priority because it's only for half the game holds water - heck balance changes are being made for the sake of only half the game (MP). The fact that they may have to be tweaked because they also potentially effect single player adversely means they actually use more "resource allocation" while still only for the sake of "half the game."
I think the large monster/terrain thing might be worked at the same time as a large monster counting once for each victory point it covers, and I see both as pretty low priority. Once the new build hits 'Live', I hope both MP and SP tweaks will be addressed.
That only sounds simple because you are able to provide a quantitative summary of qualitative effects . . . this time. Consider: what logical rule are you using to say "remove the armor"? "Highest damage" is a very easy rule to code. But "remove the armor"? So is your rule "apply one copy of every special rule listed on each Terrain"? Thus Blessed Terrain will Heal 2 (and give a card), acid will remove Armor, and so on all together? You know, maybe that's okay now. But it might not be if they started adding more Terrain types and the rules got contradictory. And now think about the other parts of the card. Imagine using Resistant Hide while standing on both lava and spikes. What now? Check the highest-damage card, then ignore it if it were resisted, and instead go down in sequence until you hit a non-resisted one? Okay, maybe that works. But what about the triple combination of acid, lava, and spikes while using Resistant Hide (or Tough Bark/Only Bones)? My point isn't to say that you can't figure it out. Oh, not at all! Especially since that's what I just did! It's to point out that you must figure it out, and it takes this much thinking in order to come up with decent rules. And to get players to understand them. Which, depending on your point of view, I just failed to do (on one or both counts). Thus leading to more annoyed players.
Single player players are well over 90% of the total Card Hunter players as revealed by the new interview. Shouldn't SP balance be much higher priority than MP balance as it affects a lot more players?
I think so. I believe the theory is that once MP is balanced, campaign opponents in SP can be adjusted to compensate for the changes.
It is easy to factor because the "mental gymnastics" is "terrain non-damaging effects apply first, then damage applies." That makes sense thematically (if you're in acid your armor is going to take damage, if you're in lava you're going to take a lot of damage) and is less reliant on outside rules (counting squares from bottom left to top right).
I think that splitting up the effects of cards, rather than resolving them one by one, would implicate a lot of new code. And yes, SP balance is important to us. @Sir Veza has it right.
Let me just clarify. I'm not saying SP balance isn't important (it definitely is, especially after the removal of Wall of Stone) -- I'm saying that minor things like terrain calculations that only impact a small subset of extreme conditions is not important (multiple terrain conditions, large figures).
