[Feedback] Balance in MP.

Guys, let me just start this by saying you have made an incredible game. Its fresh and innovative and you have had me captivated for roughly the last 2 weeks.

The single player campaign was exceptional, loved the characters, loved the difficulty, stages were well thought out (was a tiny bit disappointed that only a small portion of the map is utilised but I understand you wanted to build something substantial and you have done that). I couldn't help but think "if they could add co-op to this experience they could really take this to the next level". From what I can tell your already working on this and I look forward to it.

Multiplayer for me has been a bit of a roller coaster and ultimately why I am giving you this feedback. It is currently both seriously fun and extremely frustrating. Seriously fun when you have 2 teams that go back and forth, seriously frustrating when you have combinations that you simply cannot play against.

As an indie game developer myself I am both incredibly impressed by what you have put forward so far, but also a little dumbfounded as to why you haven't nerfed some of the clearly OP but more importantly, 'fun-breaking', strategies that the higher rating players rely on.

There are a lot of cards that could be considered OP but (imo) the biggest offender is Nimbus and here is why:

Situation 1.) Draw decks, the whole concept behind them is to mass cards and only move in when you know your character is invulnerable. Sure it makes for some boring first rounds as they stack cards but only when combined with Nimbus does it become downright frustrating to play against. Why? Because there is simply nothing you can do other than run away or hold your position and take punishment.

Situation 2.) Move cards, you have a ton of them! I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but when you combine it with Nimbus it is horrible to play against. There is nothing worse than trying to run away from a nimbus warrior who either, sprints right next to you, uses free moves, lunges etc.

Here are some possible fixes to nimbus.

Change it so that you can take damage, you just cannot go lower than 1 for the round.
Why? : at least this way players can do something other than stand there feeling helpless - I think even if you did this the card would still be OP but its a step in the right direction.

Make it more of a spell shield that either blocks a set amount of damage or set number of attacks.
Why? : Because it gives the other player a chance (and more strategy options than simply running away). Nimbus would still be incredibly powerful. 2 nullified attacks, 2 turns forfeited while breaking the shield.

Add stun to nimbus.
This was actually suggested by someone else I was talking with in the lobby. Why is it a good idea? It still gives you ultimate power to protect a character - it just turns it into a defensive card. Which at its current level of power would be a step in the right direction for balance.


Conclusion.
Decide what you designed the card for, was it's purpose defensive? or offensive? Because right now it is the ultimate of both and not only promotes boring play in game but also boring theory crafting for party creation. "Should I have one priest or two?".

I know your busy with adding content, advertising the game etc etc. But I am afraid I will move on from this game fairly quickly if 80 percent of matches over the 1000 rating revolve around this boring strategy.

Im not against having strong cards, but when you can nerf a card (like the suggestions above) and still have it be op it shows that you have a serious problem that I hope you will act on quickly. To restore some of the fun that is sucked out of matches at the 1000+ rating.

I don't want to be a drama queen, I just want to make you understand that balance at higher levels is what will make or break your success (for player retention) and should be given top priority at this stage (imo).

Sorry for the essay.

 

Don't apologize for the essay, Genki, good points and I hope the others reading this thread receive them well. The issue with card draw builds is well-documented. The devs are working on it. I'm sure your input will prove valuable

 

Cheers Flaxative. I appreciate the kind words.

I really hope the CardHunter team get the recognition and player base this amazing game deserves.

 

Thanks for the quick response Jon.

Great to hear its on the radar. Really looking forward to seeing the proposed changes. Keep up the good work!

 

Nimbus can be pretty rough, but there are several ways to deal with it:
- Purge!
- Stack on enough buffs to push it off. Not too difficult if you're playing with an Ice Mage, for example.
- Freeze them, or Whirlwind, or Winds of War so they're away from you. Wall of Stoning them off works too.
- Have enough defense/distance to survive, then pass first so your first attack is before they can re-Nimbus.
- Attack someone else.

It's only really a problem in combination with draw decks.

 

My view on nimbus is that it is very strong, but not TOO strong.

For multiplayer teams, each class brings certain strong points to the table:
-Warriors: highest damage potential in the game bar-none, good mobility, good team move choices
-Wizards: highest (non-buff) utility; Winds of War, Whirlwinds, Terrain effects. Also mediocre long range damage
-Priests: very good team buffs, heals, purge, entangle, nimbus, card draws

In my opinion, out of the 3 classes, priests bring the least to the table in terms of game-winning cards for PVP (if you aren't counting the super common card draw spam priests). Nimbus is one of the only things they have available that makes them worthwhile to bring instead of an extra warrior or wizard.

From my own anecdotal experience, my average pvp rating went up by about 200 when I switched away from using a priest in my team (War/Pri/Wiz to War/War/Wiz).

I don't like it that a specific spell is the main reason a certain class is viable (see also: Winds Of War for the wizard...). If nimbus is changed/nerfed/reduced, I would be a serious proponent of buffs to other elements of the priests' kit to allow them to have a stronger presence on the battlefield.

 

One specific way to balance nimbus a bit, as either part of, or all of the solution may be to give it charges. I don't know if the mechanism to absorb x amount of attacks exists (I guess it does on toughness, if you can remove the card draw), but if nimbus only had 2-3 charges of invulnerability that would make it more balanced.

 

I am quite happy to discuss this further. Thanks for the input guys.

It is true that there exist cards that will either hard counter nimbus i.e purge, or hinder the character enchanted with cards that slide, walling etc.

It is also true that ice mages are in effect a hard counter to teams that do rely on this strategy with encumbers and slows (though to be honest I question the effectiveness of stacking buffs on said character to push off the oldest one. 1 reason is that you still have to waste 3 cards/turns in order to achieve this, all the while your opponent is still invincible). To be fair, that kind of counter is a good strategy to kill a stalling nimbus user but I wouldn't consider it counter-play to a nimbus enchanted on the offensive.


It's not easy to explain exactly why I feel with overwhelming conviction that Nimbus is clearly OP but I will try with a psychological analogy that involves what I like to think of as 'the spirit of the game'.

You have power, and you want to use it. You build your party of 3 adventurers, equipped to the teeth, ready to go into battle and go toe-to-toe with the enemy. Your warrior meets the enemy at the front line and you exchange blows, your mage hits him with an encumber spell, "your not getting away from me!" and his priest replies by healing his frozen friend close to full life again. Now he is frozen in place, but far from helpless!. At this point you think to yourself, "Hmm, should I pull back my warrior? With his life higher than mine I'm not sure if he can go blow-for-blow now..." or perhaps your warrior is equipped for this situation, "My warrior does have a good amount of blocks and parries, he might be stronger for now, but I can stick this out!".

This is the essence of what I mean by the spirit of the game. Players having the power to choose a course of action from a number of 'viable' options based on the current situation / party they are running. Going back to the prev example, you think to yourself, "What will be the result of my decision?, I am confident with my move but I wonder how this will end". And this is the key point. The wonder, (or magic if you will) is present.


Unless you are holding a hard counter, Nimbus gives a character so much power that it reduces your reactive choices to either,

1.) Stay and take punishment - hope you can survive the round, try to end first and at least get in 1 hit before nimbus is reapplied again.

2.) Give up your position (and the capture point quite possibly), attempt to flee (providing you haven't already used your free move card) and hope that he or she doesn't chase you down with lunges, pushes etc. All the while your frontline character has a bunch of powerful cards that are just going to be discarded because your opponent is too careful to let his other characters get close enough to allow you to easily rush past him.

All of your strategy in equipment and party selection has been nullified. Both of the above examples have stripped you of your power and are simply no fun, the spirit of the game is lost.

I am not suggesting to nerf the card into oblivion, lets just make things a little bit more interesting by opening up additional avenues of counter-play (while still retaining the essence of the card itself and what players might use it for). If nimbus was to be reworked into stop 'x' attack moves, or charges in Bailey's words it opens up more strategic choices for the opponent without a hard counter, and that is what the spirit of the game is all about. Making choices.


You could argue that getting locked down by encumber decks also breaks this 'spirit of the game' idea. For example imagine your warrior is trying to chase around a mage, the mage stacks encumber on him and you know he will be stuck for the next 2 turns (without a status removal intervention of course). This can be frustrating for some as often this kind of play can delay the game - turning it into a very long one. To me though this is the big difference: while this kind of strategy is annoying to play against it still allows you options for viable strategic play that doesn't rely on having a heavy counter handy.

Quick example.)

"Hmm maybe when I'm free enough to move I should try to rush onto a capture point? I have armour. Go ahead freeze me here!"

"Should I ditch the armour and stack 2 move cards? I'll chase this guy down!"

"Should I pull one of my other characters over here to double team?"

To conclude my second essay I would just like to add that cards like whirlwind, enemy whirlwind, winds of war, terrain effects and encumbers are not even close to the level that nimbus is because they have a focused purpose. Some are random in nature and will just as likely work against you - which is fine. Some are defensive, blocking your path or halting your movement - which is fine as long as your not helpless in the area that your confined (i.e you can still hold the point and defend yourself). Others control positioning and this is fine because it also has a single purpose.

Nimbus is currently (imo) a defensive/offensive card that imposes no restriction or drawback on the enchanted for the power gained, which without a hard counter, effectively makes him an invincible force that renders any character within its movement+attack range helpless. And while I agree that balancing card draw will go towards making this card less problematic, the fact is that card draw will still remain. And if you leave nimbus as it is, even 1 or two extra cards while in this superman state is enough to push it into the no fun zone again.

(I hope no-one finds my use of bolding offensive I am just trying to make a long post a little more readable.)

 

If the effects you're stacking didn't also have another purpose that'd be true -- but they do. Generally you're stacking several different kinds of ice or fire, perhaps combined with a Path of Knives, Curse or Snare. Occasionally you might use something "beneficial" as the 3rd effect to push off Nimbus, but that's not the usual case. I stack 3 effects all the time even when I'm not facing Nimbus, and as such countering Nimbus often costs me zero cards -- i.e. I gain card advantage, not lose it.

I see Nimbus pretty often, but it's rarely a problem. Doesn't even make my list of cards I fear -- unless it's combined with card draw abuse as then they'll just play it again.

This I just disagree with. The "hard counters" you're talking about are normally useful cards, things like Fire, Ice, Move, Push, Whirlwind, Winds of War, Slippery, etc. The only true hard counter is Purge -- all the others are just making good use of general purpose cards that most players over 1400 use anyway, even without considering their utility against Nimbus.

Heck, worst case all you have to do against Nimbus is attack someone else. Much like you often have to do if you know they've got Parry or Hard to Pindown, which also give card advantage and can catch you by surprise.

 

Nimbus is getting a little ridiculous. Before when folks had less items or ability to get them into the deck it wasn't as bad. But right now it seems like some guys can basically chain cast a new one every round. Unless you are holding a purge - or a few lol if they have a bunch - then this card gets pretty stupid.

Basically I think the problem isn't that the card is OP in itself. Just that the quality of it is too low for budget purposes. This should clearly be a "gold" quality item, with items that have it being nerfed accordingly. That would fix the issue with this card IMO. This is sort of in line with my thinking on a lot of other cards, too. For example, sprint ought to be higher quality and team sprint even higher. Meanwhile there are a bunch of other cards that should probably have their rating lowered. Examples of this might be battlefield training - although that card has its own problems of just not being nearly powerful enough... maybe let the user dice roll for drawing a new card like 2/3rds of the time.

 

Nimbus is out of control with deck draw builds. Invulnerability for an entire turn is extremely powerful and has no drawback. You can't run enough purges reliably to counter the number of nimbuses that someone will likely have, and even if you could, this mandates your build to have a priest or two or three in it and reduces build diversity.

 

I've played about 25 matches with a draw deck and I still lose sometimes despite running impenetrable nimbus. Cards like counterspell and random discard used on my preists or encumber effects used on my warrior can shut me down in the first couple of rounds. It's just like Magic: The Gathering, if you aren't running any disruption you are going to lose to combo.

 

The entire turn AND the beginning of the next turn. So attachments and terrain can't hurt at the beginning of the next turn. Which probably should change, IMO.

 

We went through a similar discussion at PoxNora early on in development there around a card called Truce. Basically, it made all characters on the field invulnerable for two turns. The issue was that the effect was one-sided, in that the player that played the Truce got the first attack coming out of the gate. As a result, that player could stockpile resources and then unleash a ferocious assault after the Truce wore off.

The biggest issue was that it couldn't be dealt with at all. Here, it's a little different. On the one hand, it is a one-sided effect. On the other hand, it's one turn's worth of invulnerability. I carry Purges anyway in every single build. And not because of Nimbus. But now that I've seen some situations where I couldn't compete with Nimbus, I've changed my strategy a bit. There's nothing funnier than Barge-ing a Nimbus'd warrior off the victory spot. This is also why I pack so many Force Bolts and Whirlwind Enemies and the like. Warriors are strong, but only if they can get to you and stay there. I had an opponent the other day discard three Obliterating Bludgeons and an All-Out Attack because he couldn't get close enough to do anything to me.

I'd even go so far as to say that a team of three wizards packed to the hilt with Freeze and Push abilities could reliably beat someone relying on only Nimbus. I think it's a powerful effect, but also remember that we're only at level 20. As new cards get introduced, Nimbus' power will decrease more.

 

Nimbus is good, but not at all game-breaking. For the reasons others have mentioned, you can play around it and save your cards for the next turn. Or better yet, switch targets, outmaneuver or purge. The options are many and there is no build that can nimbus every character every turn. Not even close.

 

A lot of people theorycraft about nimbus, but at top levels, let's just say 1400+, nimbus/draw deck spam controls most of the games.

 

I've realised from talking to 1200ish players and below that what they experience is significantly different to what happens at the top of the ratings. Everyone at the lower levels make massive positional mistakes and overextend way more and so they don't see what we see in terms of a decks potential to dominate.

 

I think what Kardnel said about the sheer quantity is very relevant. Ultimately, if nothing is done to the card mechanics itself this would help it become less of a problem. However rare though, the card may not break the game per se but it does something equally bad in my eyes. It has the potential to break the fun by severely limiting party options.

To expand on Bailey's last post, lets shift the discussion to party creation at it's core. You have 3 characters to choose from and 3 slots to fill. I hope we can agree that it's important for the game to be centred around a simple notion that you can form any party you would like to and still 'have fun' (because this is the basis for my view). Don't take that the wrong way, I'm not saying that every party option should be viable or have a 50 percent win ratio.

With this in mind, I am not satisfied with the suggested counter-play to nimbus. It's fine to have the opinion that because one can run with 1 or more utility based wizards and effectively shut down nimbus heavy strategies that it is not a problem - but I think you may be missing the bigger picture. Encumber and utility strategies will by default work well against any teams that are reliant on killing you with melee, but as for it countering nimbus as well? I would argue that it's really just a side effect of the control this matchup already gives and that's why its a non factor for you but still a problem in the grand scheme.

The other suggestion is to simply attack someone else! But at what cost? A common situation will be that you cannot get within range of someone else (any smart nimbus player will of course factor in this as well). In this situation do you just completely break your line and charge forward? Don't you think that by doing this your leaving the charging character very open to range attacks and the possibility of being triple teamed and killed in 1 turn (if the nimbus enchanted turns around)? Plus the fact that charging forward can also leave your back line vulnerable to the strategy that your opponent is going for anyway. This kind of approach can backfire in so many ways.


I guess what I am trying to say is that with the strong cards in particular, there needs to be a system in place so that varying builds have some way of dealing with it through reactive choices.

For example, another possible suggestion is to make nimbus actually function as a shield in the sense that it would protect 3 sides while still having one weakness. It would still be a worthy card but the most important point I feel is that it fits the spirit of the game.

 

Fixing it requires the fix of draw decks for without 10+ cards in a persons hand the card is rather limited card that few would use as it shines in draw decks.

Once those get fixed nimbus will largely fade away except in very specialized decks and this card can be avoided in most cases easier then and no reason to adjust this and other cards that are mainly used for draw decks as they alone are not overpowered, with the exception of Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle, such as firestorm and many of the step weapons.

With possible exceptions to make the card only block damage from opponents and not damage you cause to yourself.