Great update today that really seemed to flesh out how characters are going to look: Here's Borgo, with all his talents waiting to be spent. I get how "leveling up" works by accruing talents, but it wasn't quite clear to me if I can trade X gold talents for Y silver talents, or vice versa. This: Makes me think yes? Awesome. I suppose this will let you decide between a few really powerful items using a few gold gems, or a wider selection of ok items using a lot of silver gems. And I guess at some incredible level all your talents will be gold! Also, it seems even more so that skills act a lot like additional equipment slots. I actually think this is a good idea. It's clear, clean, and gives more customizability without being cumbersome. Helm of Insight, formatted a lot like the skills we saw last week: Also interesting to note was the mention that most items/skills will provide 3 cards to your deck, and weapons 6. Given no slots were empty (as they were at least filled with their basic cloth variant) I suppose we can assume that all decks will be 36 cards and can't be thinned by electing not to bring that extra sword along. //Edit: for some reason I am counting 37 cards on Borgo... where is that extra card coming from?// Finally, here is Borgo all kitted out: It looks like he has a lot of good cards in there (and very few drawbacks to mention). Again, I wonder if there will be an "exchange rate" between talent levels if I wanted to keep a talentless cloth hat on his head for more talented boots and weapons, or what have you. Still--getting this close to the character creation process is really started me thinking about what I'm going to want that first party to look like!
Yes and no. You can use a gold talent to equip an item that requires a silver talent but you won't get any "change", so you kind of wasted that gold talent. The system will automatically ensure that you don't waste talents this way except when you have to. For example, if you have a gold and a silver talent and you equip an item that requires a silver talent, it will use the spare silver talent not the gold one. The reason we don't give change is for simplicity. That would turn it into a numerical system, which is what we used to have with our numerical item values. That turned out to be kind of pointlessly complicated.
Ah, great to know! So what happens when single player characters level up? Do they keep on accumulating talents one by one, or do prior beads upgrade before you get a new one?
In the early game you tend to get new talents and in the later game you tend to get better versions of your existing ones.
I really like this system better than straight level limits. It feels more organic, that I don't automatically switch all my equipment for marginally better items every time I pass a threshold. The gradual increase of talents means not every slot gets an improvement -- although I can foresee that changing one item may trigger a chain reaction as I seek the best possible card synergies. But I'm concerned about multiplayer parity. At first inspection, this seems like it may be a step backward for the goal of allowing people to bring any item they've collected into MP. Borgo the Brave is level 30 and doesn't yet have any gold talents, barring him from using the most powerful gear. I assume in response that the MP "default level" is even higher, to allow equipping at least one of the highest tier items, but that worries me. Depending on how difficult it is to obtain gold items, we might see a considerable proportion of players unable to battle effectively because they haven't yet stocked the necessary inventory. If you're just starting out, how can you get great stuff? But if the talent pool is reduced, veterans can't use their hard-earned spoils. (Even while writing, I've been thinking of ways around that, one option being to buy stuff at the cash store to skip right into competition. But it is a concern.)
I don't really see a big problem there MightyMushroom. It would be possible to have a system where people setting up PvP matches could specify the level of characters for the PvP match. Players with larger item pools would still have an advantage through being able to create a greater variety of finer tuned decks, but wouldn't automatically overpower players who haven't levelled so far. eg. there could be three tiers of PvP play: top, mid and low.
I'm probably not as worried as that post might sound. It's just that in the earlier point system, the number of points sounded like it was deliberately set low to force a middling deck and then you could choose to trade up in one area by trading down somewhere else. The new system feels like the multiplayer level is quite high relative to the singleplayer levels. (Tiered matches is a good response. ) Without any firsthand experience of the actual power being represented I can't tell if it's a big problem, small problem, or no problem at all. It's just something I'm keeping in mind as we head toward beta play.
Just looking at what cards Borgo is packing, I'd have to think that 30 is a pretty good level. His deck only has one drawback card, and a ton of silver and gold cards. Then there are those emerald cards, and that one purple "perfec------" one.
I wonder: you can choose if you want to get new talents or get better version of your existing one when you level up or not? So if you find in the early game an item that requires a bronze talent (for example) you can upgrade one of your talent (instead of get a new one) and be able to use it immediately (after you level up).
Although i do see this as being complicated for someone who just wants to jump in and play, but thats not what card games are about. As i read the page i looked at how this effects your characters and i think this is brilliant! You dont have the ability to adjust individual cards so the devs can use this to balance strong card suites with cards that can hurt you in return. Talent system prevents stacking tons of "Best in Slot" cards for multiplayer. Provides nice flexibility for someone to say "I dont like sword slash" and take out every card connected to it by changing the equipped item. I absolutely love this system and i endorse it 100%. Good job Blue Manchu. Also, this is just a flavor of life kinda thing, but i think the page would look a little more organized like this. Moved the position of the armor to line up with the helmet, added tabs to filter between armor and weapons so you can see just armor and try to find the card your looking for to read. Edit: also a total card count for gear at the bottom would help with card counters like myself, but this is just flavor of life stuff. It looks good as it is.
Some folks in the blog comments want the cards arranged vertically. I find the horizontal display is very satisfactory. BergTroll complains that the card names are obstructed, but I just don't see the problem. I can easily recognize old friends in Chop, Dropped Guard, Run and more. And it isn't too hard to figure out Sprint from the runner's stance: half a picture is surely worth more than half a word. And seeing that other green cards with pictures of shields on them have been varieties of Block, I have a pretty good idea what the other half of "Perfec ------" is. This view also clearly shows the business half of the card icons: which ones do damage and how much, grant movement, have reactions. And for those worried about counting card types, seeing them in profile, so to speak, gives a good sense of the proportion each color has in the deck. Is the display generated procedurally to fit the display size? Because if it's fixed or something close to fixed, then it would be easier to consider A) putting a bit of a break between the card groups from different items to help the player orient on a given item's contribution, and B) moving the card at the end of the second row so that all three helmet cards are together.
You know, there is something to be said about arranging the cards vertically. I agree that I don't lose a lot from looking at the horizontal layout, but a vertical one could show the entire card name (and possibly the damage/range type of "vital stats") with little loss otherwise. Otherwise, getting half of the name and half of the stats is probably enough to someone who knows their cards.
You have a couple of good ideas there. Setting a break between card typs from weapons, armor, skills would most likely help. Filter could also deal with this promptly though slightly differently. I do like the horizontal nature of the cards. I feel if they went vertical then you would lose the fidelity that they are all radically different cards instead of just "Deck of Fillers" which we have all seen over the past year that Blue Manchu is working hard to not put junk fillers into the game and instead meaningful cards. (holy run on sentence batman!) They could go many different directions with this setup if they even decide to change it at all. The game is looking great and im eager to see more!
I'm not at all opposed to a vertical option, or alternate sorts. To each their own, but please keep this one for me!
I agree that we need a bunch of tools for viewing your deck in different ways. The current layout is really a first-pass where we just spew them all out in rows. Columns would be a nice option and we obviously need sorts by type and power, that sort of thing. Putting gaps between the suites that come from different items is a good idea.
Yeah, the general layout is resized but we don't resize the actual character sheet, which is just part of the deck building screen.
Nope, you don't get a choice. Sometimes you'll get a new talent. More often in the late game you'll get an existing talent upgraded.
