This build contains the balance changes that we've been discussing and testing for the last month or so. Thanks for all your feedback on them and help testing them! You can read about them on the blog, so I won't detail them here. However, this build also contains a bunch of other additions, changes and bug-fixes including a new edition of Mauve Manticore, a new premade party and more! Finally, this build is now ready for beta testing on Kongregate and we'll be opening it up to users from there shortly. Items White Star diamond won't drop from random chests. Fixed Candied Nauticorn name. Dodge is valued as a bronze card on all items. Cards Rule wording changes on Soldier cards. Some more flavor text. Made Violent Spin and Smashing Spin unblockable. Added unblockable keyword to all charges, spins and muscle through (to clarify existing rules). Removed a few extra spaces from Card text. Multiplayer Fixed the ranked board rotation algorithm. Premade Parties Added Stormbringers party. Archives Fix retrieving of archives mid adventure. Co-op Added confirmation dialogs for various team management operations Fixed co-op post battle adventure progression Added the core of a ready-flag system for entering co-op adventure battles Pulling team members into adventure at adventure start Adventures Added Mauve Manticore 5. Reduced use of qualified adventures system, improves response times in some campaign interactions. Tutorial Fixed tutorial prompt about Unholy Frenzy to match the rebalanced card. Chat Tweaked room entry announcements to not announce battle participants Story Disabled story prompts in unprimed adventures. API Removed total record counts from API in an attempt to improve performance Hints Removed the hint about Wavering Faith. Battle Use respawn filters to determine whether to declare a winner when all characters defeated. Monsters Added new monster large portaits for chef, kobold avenger, high priest, spearman and melvelous. Kongregate Tweaked kongregate profile bounce url Added profile button to user popup, links to [META], Steam, Kongregate profiles Show a button on Kongregate screen root to allow users to login to Kongregate if not logged in. Patch purchase log in metrics DB to allow for 4 figure purchases (via Kreds). Display purchase receipts in Kreds if purchased in that currency. Display the basic edition and AotA expansion properly in the pizza menu when using Kreds. Audio Music and ambient volume changes are applied instantly instead of when next played.
Is there going to be a place where the final changes are listed in a simplified format, i.e. Wavering Faith becomes Surestrike Blessing Dodge triggers on 5+, instead of 4+ etc. The changes as they stand are spread across half a dozen blog posts, affecting dozens of cards, and often with two changes to each. Pretty excited about playing these. For example, Surestrike seems like a massive upgrade on the basically useless Wavering Faith, making items like the tokenless Vigun's Blessed Blade pretty damn powerful. It'll also teach me to sell items with previously 'useless' cards (luckily, I tend to hand onto rares and above with these).
Oh, I didn't want to dump more work on you guys, I thought there might be a list already and I couldn't find it (common occurrence). Leave it, I'm sure one of us will post a full list in this thread. I'd do it right now, but I better do some real work today or I'm going to end up a full-time Cardhunter.
I'll be doing a blog post with • complete list of card/item changes • description of new content Should hit within a few hours.
http://www.cardhunter.com/2014/12/card-hunter-release-2-72-mauve-manticore-balance-changes-and-more/ Blog post live! Full list of card/item changes here, I believe. If I'm missing something, let me know and I'll fix it.
"our changes targeted making priests more interesting to play and easier to grok in the early campaign" ?
Yeah, that one is in http://live.cardhunter.com/data/gameplay/Hints/Hints.csv: "Enemy armor cards a problem? Try using cards that force them to discard, like Wavering Faith." "If a black drawback card is a Trait, it replaces itself. This can make up for the drawback!" Should "drawback" be "handicap"? "Hold down the control key and right click a square to see lines of sight from it." Ah, this very important and too-little-known-especially-by-newbs one has been added at some point, great!
Aren't "drawback" and "handicap" used interchangeably? The black cards seem to be referred to as "drawbacks" everywhere (e.g. the How to Play Card Hunter page) except for in quests, where they are referred to as "handicap" cards.
The quests used to say "drawback", but then it was pointed out that the cards themselves only have "handicap" as a keyword. (I still think the "Usable" filter should check quest restrictions when appropriate.)
Ah yes, that'll be it. Thanks. I remember there being some strangeness between how the quests were labelled and how the cards had to be filtered. The wiki refers to them as "handicap" cards, which would seem to make sense if that's the keyword that they have. I guess references to the term "drawback" are places where this hasn't been updated, unless there's some other reason to distinguish the name of the card type from the keyword it possesses?
As far as I know, 'drawback' is no longer a game term. Players may still refer to drawbacks, as in, "Squeamish is the drawback of Runestone" because it is literally a drawback in plain English. But black cards are handicaps, and all references to them should properly label theme such. If anything in the game refers to them as drawbacks, by all means, bring this to our attention and we will fix it. Thanks!
Hints.csv, line 28: "If a black drawback card is a Trait, it replaces itself. This can make up for the drawback!",, (The word also appears in the card database as a sound effect for Heavy Armor. )
The only place I've come across it (besides where Kalin said) is on the How to Play Card Hunter page, which unfortunately was the first place I went to check what the cards were called! The first is in the section Reading the Cards in the Card Color Guide box. The second is in the Types of Card section.