Balance Changes: Round Three

Looks good so far and definitely headed in a much better direction. Also, looks like Leap has some photoshop artifacts (some weird white dot in the bottom middle).

 

Great ones! First I didn't find anything to nag on so I re-read it and I think that Cause Fumble is now worse than it was at the beginning. Nothing bad with it though.
Can't wait for them to hit live server

Edit: Now when NS is nothing compared to what it used to be, buffing Barge to do 5 damage was possible although it's not very good for moving one's own characters now

 

Barge will have 5 dmg now? Interesting, some of the items like Bynzer's Weighted Club won't be totally useless now.

 

With the changes to card draw limit and step moves I essentially already abandoned Elven Maneuvers. It might be slightly more viable now with the draw ceiling being raised but with the low damage output and sevearly reduced utility of Step attacks.... meh. I usually ran one Elven Trickery on my mage because there are other more desireable elven abilities especially with the nerf to step moves, which make Quickstep highly desirable. With the change to Trickery I don't even think I'll bother running one. It was pretty darn situational before and now its still pretty darn situational and probably not going to change the outcome of said situation anyhow, unless they have not but the one obliterating bludgeon.

For me the most disappointing thing about Trickery was that it came saddled with two tepid movement cards or a tepid moment card and a severely crippling negative trait card. Flanking move wasn't bad but most of the time ended up being little more than a "No I get first move next round" card. Now it is rather pedestrian and it still comes saddled with largely terrible cards. I mean really elves already have the lowest health why is it that the second most common negative trait for elves Vounerable (which is getting buffed to 2 extra damage) and preceded by Cowardly. So it isn't fun that elves can force people to discard their attack cards but totally OK that so many elven traits come with a card that forces them to discard their own? Why don't elven traits come with more dual use cards like HtPD? That way if I'm going to draw a hand full of movement cards at least one of them might stave off an attack.

Another failing is that it isn't passive, you have to take the initiative. So to get any benefit out of it I either have to stay in harms way (choosing to not move away) or move into a potentially dangerous situation with the hope that they only have the one melee attack card. It was really only worthwhile to hold your position or to move into a situation that could have been deadly when you were guaranteed that the enemy wouldn't be able to attack you for that turn. And that is what it buys you, one turn. Admittedly that one turn could have landed you the final star but so could Impenetrable Nimbus and Nimbus works on far more than melee attacks from attackers who need to already be surrounding you to use.

Why not just change it into the elven equivalent of Toughness, so it is a passive omindirectional and instead of drawing a card as with Toughness, the attacker discards one attack or card. In the spirit of being an elf card let it retain its three movement but like nerfed Hard to Pin Down you only get one or the other. Then change the items that it comes with so they are more utilitarian, like quick run or slippery on the token version and lose cowardly across the board.

I do get that it wasn't fun to play against when it worked out because I have pulled off some fine bouts of trickery and had some pulled on myself by others. Still it just seems with how it has been changed it is just a really bad gamble with the odds in the houses favor that if you use it how it you are going to take more damage than you can afford.

 

@Soltis - I think you'll find that people will still run elves, based on what I've seen on the test server. Of course, nerfing Trickery will affect things, but it still seems like a good card and elves' other advantages are more relevant than ever. I do like your idea for a passive take on Trickery, but it sounds like enough of a different card that maybe someday there could be both...

(Elven Maneuvers is still getting used on the test server, by the way, and it still seems effective.)

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting people wont play elves. I've played them pretty much exclusively since the start of the game and will probably continue to do so regardless. It just feels like they keep getting the short end of the stick especially when it comes to racial skills. Dwarves have one racial skill that actually has a flat out negative trait (trip). Other than that the closest they have to negative traits are Blind Rage, Hit the Deck and jarring block if you can really count those as negative traits since they all potentially do something beneficial. Yeah it might suck to have halt when you need to get somewhere but you also just blocked an attack, same with jarring block yeah you might have taken 2 damage but odds are you blocked significantly more.

Elves on the other hand have a plethora of terrible traits attached to their racial skills A lot of which either cause damage directly or indirectly which seems counter intuitive for the race starting off with the least HP. That or they prevent you from being able to do anything. Cards like Loner, Vulnerable, Cowardly, Superstitious, Obvious Maneuver (at least it doesn't cause damage or force you to discard...) Usually those negative traits also accompany a card like cautious sneak or dangerous maneuver, do you have any idea how many times I have drawn full hands of nothing but movement cards? ........ Not even helpful movement cards like HtPD or Thick hide armor that would actually maybe block some damage or a quick step that might give me some positional advantage, just a bunch of movement cards that don't even really compare to my base racial movement. Heck it might be petty but I've even forfeited games because at a crucial moment when pretty much any attack would have been crucial to the outcome of the game, I literally drew nothing but useless movement cards across all three of my characters. In large part because the Racial Skill they had included a bunch of pointless movements on it so I still had to supplement some movement off of decent boots. There isn't a single elven skill with a block on it, not HtPD or Acrobatic flip the closest thing to a block are dodge and jump backwards and they come with vulnerable, walk, cautious sneak, dangerous maneuvers or cowardly... Woooo!

Oh well I apologize that sorta got rantier than I had intended and I need to go run some errands and thankfully my copy of Disgaea 4 just came in so I'll probably be lost in that for a good week or two.

 

Eh, I think you can get away with some of the old art. I honestly really like the art you did for Blunt Missile. =)

 

The bolded section is the whole reason these balance changes are grating to me. Who is determining what is fun and what isn't? I'm betting it's a small vocal minority, and as a result of their incessant complaining the majority gets to be subjected to their changes. I have faith in BM to not completely screw up their game, but at the same time some of these changes seem to be heavily influenced by certain people who don't want the game to be a truly competitive outlet for whatever reason.

 

"Fun" is subjective, but there are some key tenets that can be followed. I very much want the game to be a competitive outlet and I agree with a decent number of changes (especially the recent ones).

• No single choice should be dominantly strong as to be a non-choice
• No single card should be powerful enough to completely shut down the opponent from any meaningful decision making
• Builds should determine how someone wants to play and to cater to their play style, but should not determine who wins or loses before the match
• There should be the ability to make choices during a match to counter certain builds by valuing strategy and tactics over simply having good builds or items

There are a few more but that should give you a general idea of what should be striven for as ideas of balance and fun.

 

Good job on the changes.

The encumber still does not feel right though.why not just lower the encumberment and / or duration?
Or a particular amount of cards that is effected, like two cards encumbered with 3.

(me ventilating some loose idea in a major complicated process)

 

I think that if heal is stronger now, you should buff healing blessing too, because a instant 5 heal is much better - at common rarity - than 6 heal over 3 turns, at uncommon rarity.

 

2 things—
1) Heal isn't strictly better than Healing Blessing, even with the bump up.
2) We've made a lot of changes, and we don't want to make many more. The point isn't to boost every card to competitive status, or to create a flat power level.

(Yes, Healing Blessing isn't fantastic. Heal isn't either.)

 

Eh, I'd say each card should be valued at near other cards based on quality and rarity. For example: Healing Presence (Bronze Common) vs. Healing Benediction (Bronze Common); Heal 2 adjacent allies vs. Heal 3 allies range 2.

Plus, having each card valued more closely to similar cards (but with unique flavor and interesting choices) means modes like Quick Draw are more inherently balanced.

 

Yes, that's definitely a goal, though again, we're not going to change every card already printed to match.

 

Rgds to the change of electricity (i.e. deadly / potent spark), does all 'other' electrical remains penetrating?
I would much prefer same attribute for electricity that either all or none of them are penetrating. Common attribute for the same element make it more elegant.

Can see if you can make 'all' eletricity penetrating OR linear by balancing their damage/range values.
And give it a new series of names, if become linear; like Jet for acid, beam for arcane; maybe Current for electricity.

I did not play in test server, so I don't know how abusing when it is penetrating

 

Cause Fumble will not see any use as of now.
Probably add a 'Saving Roll 5" to keep the card (like altruism) from time to time. Those are gold/silver card which should be somewhat powerful.

 

I like the sound of Deadly Current. Or maybe Potent Surge would be better?

Overall, the changes seem good. Although, I can't help but feel that Cause Fumble has been pushed back to risky/unplayable status.

 

I don't see it. What made Cause Fumble playable before but unplayable now? At worst it's a Weak Parry now. With the increased success rate it is much more likely that people will hold off from using their most powerful attacks but it isn't so high that it'll block all the weak attacks used to draw it out. Keeping the draw and the increased success rate made it too powerful. Personally I'd rather have it block more often.