[Feedback/Suggestion] What is the point of 'bad' legendaries?

Notice how no one actually has serious arguments and is reduced to making jokes this entire thread? If people want to languish in badness, they can have that right, I'm sure this item works well at about the 1k player range in multiplayer.

I simply don't want trash taking the spot of useful legendaries in Randimar's. That's my motivation here. This game has a competitive multiplayer element that depends in large part upon the items you can acquire, and for every worthless legendary that serves no purpose that appears, the quest to be competitive is made harder.

 

I think that has always being the point. Competitiveness is based on your tatical play and strategic deck building. NOT what legendaries you own. This in turn mitigates power creep and pay to win.

 

I can hardly believe you're using the old 'anyone who disagrees with me is a bad player' argument. That's the real joke here.

I think you've got this backwards. As a few people have pointed out in the thread already, if legendaries were the most powerful items then the most powerful builds would all by made of legendary items. That would make the 'quest to be competitive' harder, because you'd need legendaries to compete. As it currently is, some legendaries are powerful, some epics are powerful, some rares are powerful, and so on. You can make a powerful build without needing an armoury full of legendary gear - and some of us think that's a good thing.

My advice to you, Pilgrim Bailey, is to not to worry about whether or not an item is 'rare' or 'legendary' or whatever. If all you care about is getting powerful items, then just focus on what cards the items have and don't worry about whether they are rare or not. It's a deliberate design decision that 'legendary' does not mean that an item is meant to be powerful. The fact that some items in Randimar's Rarities aren't really powerful shouldn't be a problem for you. Rather than thinking of those weak legendary items as a lost opportunity, perhaps you should look at it the other way: there are powerful non-rare items available in the ordinary shops, and you can buy those items easily and cheaply without having to wait for weekly restocking. Surely that makes your quest to be competitive easier. If you like, you can think of those cheap and powerful items as being the real 'legendary' items - just try not to worry about the fact that they don't have a their item names written in a fancy colour.

 

That's only true to an extent. Certain legendaries have the potential to drastically inflate a bad player's rating (prime example: Vibrant Pain) and to be overpowering in the hands of a great player. There are fantastic legendaries that exist in this game, and then there are redundant or terrible ones.

And Karadoc, if you reread all of my posts in this thread, I'm consistently advocating that legendaries be balanced to be powerful and effective. The people defending this item keep challenging my assertion that the item is bad, and I am countering that the item is not a good legendary, and is not used at all at the upper ratings (which, were it a good item, I would expect it to be utilized by good players). It's more circumstantial evidence (if the mechanisms of the cards themselves aren't proof enough) that players that play at upper levels, utilizing priests, value other items over this item; thus, it is not a good item. Reductionism is not becoming. It's obvious based upon the care I have taken to elucidate reasons why I believe the item is bad that I'm not simply saying l2p noobs.

I don't have anything backwards. You misunderstand what I am saying. There exist in this game, legendary items that are so good, that they make or break certain builds, and are the keys to playing well at certain ranges. Then there are legendaries that are so bad as to be worse than common quality items. This wouldn't necessarily be an issue IF Randimar's wasn't randomized to be particular to the player each week. It's hard to have an equal playing ground, particularly if a player plateaus at a certain rating and needs better items to be competitive with other players who already (through sheer luck) have obtained these items.

Its not about a fancy orange color. Its about the useful legendaries being ridiculously hard to obtain and having to wade through ones that are not useful, while farming at absurdly low percentages, or having the luck of the draw of the item appearing in a Randimar's one week. If the common items were superior I would use them, color is irrelevant. What is relevant is that some of the best items in the game are so infrequent, that every opportunity to obtain such item is a big deal, and when a worthless item appears in its place its frustrating (but perhaps the purpose is to keep the hamster on the wheel).

 

It is a function of both.

 

I don't think anyone really wants to take the time to create a special build focused on Cause Fumble just to post here to make their point that the card can be powerful. It'd probably end up being a waste of time anyway because you'd likly just say 'I don't think that build would work well'; and the person would have to do a heap more work just to prove to you that the build can work, and so on...

All that is beside the point anyway. The point, as far as I can tell, is that you think all legendaries should be powerful items. There's no point arguing about whether or not Cause Fumble is powerful, because you could have easily used some other example instead.

I've posted my thoughts about that in this thread twice now, and this will be the third time - but this time I'll try to make my point in a slightly different way.

You're suggesting modifying items so that there are no weak legendaries.

I think that the point I'm trying to make might be more clear if you think about the rebalancing in a different way. Instead of modifying legendary items to be more powerful, lets consider simply identifying which items are already powerful and then we can change the most powerful items to be 'legendary', and change the weak items so that they are not 'legendary'. For example, we could make Hawlic's Surging Shield be a rare, and Slippery Shield be legendary. We can just resign the rarity of various items like so that the powerful items are 'legendary'. That would have the effect you're aiming for, wouldn't it? There would be no weak legendary items, and so there wouldn't be 'bad legendaries' taking up slots at Radimar's Rarities.

But do you think that would make it easier for you to be competitive? Surely it would actually make it more difficult to get the items you want to use, because all the best items would be legendary!

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Obviously it would be possible to change items or change the system to make it easier to get the particular powerful legendary items that you want to get, but would that be good for the game? Would it be good for the game if you could easily get all the items you want, for example by having twice as many items in Radimar's each week? Or do you think that might undermine the treasure-hunting side of the game's appeal?

 

erm, this was messed about in beta. Can't remember who or what race: 3 chars all holding Defender's block + cause fumble + duck + turtle, not as great as draw but still very funny ... except when its my attacks not getting thru.

Just to set things straight. Dev diary on card rarities (http://www.cardhunter.com/2012/10/card-rarities-2/) a year ago state

"Basically, an item is at least as rare as the rarest card in its suite."

as the design philosophy embraced by the devs. After 3 yrs and 9 mths of beta, its a system that works and tcgers have no problems understanding it. Rpgers... well (maybe due to over-exposure to Blizzard) may now be brainwashed in thinking that legendary must = good. Not playing the blame game here, just saying...

erm, you can always buy pizza chests. Basically skips the whole hamster thingy.

ps: no counter-arguments here, just re-inforcing karadoc's post.

 

It would make it easier to get items that you want to use. Instead of having a 5-10% chance on the week of getting a good legendary item it would be 50% chance or whatever.

In a system like that everyone will constantly feel like they're getting a rare/useful item. Right now where only a small % of players feel that way. And the guys that already found the few great useful items? They have little more to look forward to and are more likely to quit. Once you have them what is the point of continuing to grind, really? If there was 100 great ones instead then guys would basically be playing for years.

 

The point is you don't need legendary for either MP or SP. I sit pretty comfortably at 1300 with max rare and a few replaceable epics.
Also, you can't really grind for legendaries . The best way to get them is to get that 20th win chest.

 

That is not the point at all, what pisses people off about legendaries is that your far more likely to get a terrible one then a good one. This creates a situation that is effectively getting coal for Christmas. While there are plenty of terrible common, uncommon,rare and epic items as well the relative amount that you receive dilutes the feeling that you were shafted.

 

1300 isn't what a lot of guys strive for, they want to do considerably better than that.

Also it was covered in a couple different threads now that the best way to farm any items, including legendary ones, is to grind single player campaign missions. That or just buy purple chests with dollar bills.

 

Are you implying that players need legendaries to get above 1300? Or that 1300 is not a good rating? Or both?

I don't agree with either of those things...

 

Legendaries are fun, interesting and/or focused. Requiring something like usefullness in MP certainly over the top. It might be acceptable with different loot system, but under current system Legendaries should not be better that Epic or even Rares. Commons should be competitive.

As for usage agains other blue token items, imagine scenario where enemies have high damage melee attacks and lots off War Cry. Doesn't exist atm, and Impenetrable Nimbus might usually be better, but it doesn't come in tokenless items like Cause Fumble and is hard to find in minor token items so you might have to stick to what you have.

Edit: You also shouldn't underestimate psychological effect in MP. If enemy sees you have Cause Fumble they're much less likely to play their All Out Attack boosted stuff. And since proc chance is relatively low, they might spend quite trying to get rid off it.

Edit2: After rereading the thread, I'm all for nerfing any and all legendaries that are currently used in PvP by players over 1k rating. That should make everyone happy right?

 

The big problem is that certain legendaries are overpowering and imbalancing in multiplayer. Players at the top of the ladder are going to struggle against other players at the top of the ladder without those items due to simply not having the luck of the draw to have a good Randimar draw or get lucky farming. That goes against the spirit of competition if balance is a concern.

Why would someone with a cause fumble make you more unlikely to play your cards? It's not a strong deterrent at all. On 5+ rolls you can block an attack. Okay, so what? This game is about probability. That's not a strong probability in the card being useful. If I'm playing an opponent who used cause fumble, I'd continue to attack anyway.

You can talk about psychological effects and whatever you like that's fine. That's not reality in MP at the upper ranges of the ladder as I said. Nobody uses cause fumble. The real psychological effects, the ones that make you scared are when you see people that use real legendaries (to pick 2 that swing games) like:

http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Items/Vibrant_Pain
http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Items/Godtouched_Mace

 

Phaselock, that's perfectly acceptable if that's the design direction intended, BUT, the problem is that some of the best abilities in the game are more rare, and when you have an item that is so powerful that it is the foundation upon which a build works or fails, and is very inaccessible, and only through sheer luck or through real money chest buying, it starts to conjure a problem in my mind; that legendaries should be balanced. If legendaries end up not balanced, as they are right now, and certain items like Vibrant Pain are so strong as to literally swing hundreds of points of rating for the players that have it, then we begin to have a problem in balance.

It ends up being the very scenario that people claimed they wanted to avoid seeing (pay 2 win).

 

Two big themes of the opposing group in this thread seem to be:

1. Legendary items are not the best and commons are just as good. Problem with this point is that it is plainly wrong. The people saying it either haven't done enough research (most likely) or are not valuing cards the same way the best players are. Yes, some rare or worse items are the best for that slot/purpose. Slippery shield is a great example. However, for many other slots legendary items are clearly superior.

2. That items and ranking are not related, or not related much. I agree that a person can get through the relatively noncompetitive crowd with nothing but commons. However at the top level this does not apply - assuming you agree that some legendary items are much stronger than their more common counterparts. If you do agree with that then is just common sense to say that better cards create an advantage.

 

You know, I like metacognition. I like analyzing a situation and seeing where problems are: not just WHAT is being said, but HOW it's said. I like noticing when such behavior, like my own, causes miscommunication and frustration. And then if it's my own behavior, I like correcting it. If it's someone else's, I'm in a nasty situation: do I step back from the conversation and explain all this "meta" stuff? People often just assume I'm stuffy, cerebral, and looking-down-upon-you. Which is a pity because I'm really trying to help.

So I'm going to point this out. Pointing it out may go nowhere. But I have to say it, because it's still part of the problem.

Of course I didn't notice that, because it didn't happen. For it to be otherwise, you have to say that my every response to you was a joke. In other words, you are insulting me when I came into this thread to speak with you logically.

I noted this sort of thing already (in bold):

You are exaggerating the "badness" of everything, including the cards/items themselves, and, now, the responses of the very people talking to you. It's like you're venting anger, which, well, would explain why you changed the topic on me: you want to be angry. You don't want to be convinced.

 

Ever consider you are taking hyperbole (no one) and twisting it to fit your predetermined conclusions? Hey look, I can psycho-analyze people too, rather than stick to the topic. You personalized a generalized statement and made it about yourself. I will rephrase my statement if it will help your mental emotional hurdle and get the convo back on topic:

"Notice how a lot of people don't have serious arguments and are reduced to making jokes in this thread?"

 

So you agree with me and most of the others? "Bad" legendaries have a place and they should exist. Oquith's Foul Incense is decent enough. Problem is with the "too good" legendaries which should not exist.

Debating usefullness and practical applications of Cause Fumble is rather pointless. Afterall there's plenty of worse Legendaries. But I'd like to know how many high rated players would go for All Out Attack combo when they know that enemy has Cause Fumble in hand.

 

Forduc, here's a better question: how many top players even run all out attack? Very few that I know of, because its not consistently viable enough to trump other abilities.

And as to your first question: I do agree that there are overpowered legendaries and bad ones. I've said that this entire thread. I don't like that. I think legendaries should be more rare, and should be appropriately useful. Even if its a matter of palette swapping and changing rarity rates, I believe legendaries should be the items that legends are made of (maybe I'm just too much of an RP'er at heart) - I alluded to this earlier; powerful or cursed/powerful, I think legendaries should be those kinds of items.

For example: I think slippery shield should have its quality and rarity swapped to legendary and not drop as frequently, and that some of the 'bad' legendaries should be switched to rare frequency.

I wouldn't care what the label is, but the issue is that (bolded for emphasis) the tier of the item effects the frequency at which the item appears.

I've made it very clear I am concerned with multiplayer balance for all players, and also the top-tier being fair and not simply a result of itemization or draw card abuse (I raised this concern in another thread).