[AotA] Expansion PVP cards discussion and feedback

Just because I spent more time on test than on live doesn't make my opinion any less. fyi: power creep =/= design creep. Find out more about feature creep (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CreepingFeaturitis) In future, if you don't like my playing record, feel free to ignore my posts... Don't make it difficult for others to voice their opinions unless they go and buff their 'playing records'.

I believe Dorian/Jon or whoever that made the card are also not active pvpers. Hence, BM will continue to accidentally design bad cards. Which is why WE need to feedback. It's ok to disagree, its just not cool to make personal attacks.

Back to topic. The question is in its current incarnation, why would you not play IB competitively ? Which aspect of the card is it a failure ? How do we fix that ? Oberon dissected it nicely.

IB:
1) It requires you to play a priest.
2) It requires LOS
3) It's only an attachment, so it has a duration and multiple ways to remove it.

But let's look at Immovable:
a) It requires you to play a dwarf to get 4 max or smthg ele to get max 2.
b) It's also an attachment
c) You don't choose when to use it.

Clearly, the reason is that its not good enough as an answer. So let's move it away from just being an answer. My suggestion to add some heal. Oberon's is to add some armor. There are plenty of other ways like

a) make into an aura for adj allies to become immune to enemy board control.
b) tag it with an existing assist mechanic
c) create a new assist mechanic
d) add a secondary trigger condition

Would pvpers still re-factor IB given any of the above changes ? That's the question, really.

 

Nothing could ever make me play IB because I quit against the types of builds it's designed to counter. But that probably wasn't the answer you were looking for.

 

I agree with you Flax; given that the intent of the card seems to be to provide a solid counter to control builds, I don't think it should be left as a low quality option.

A single target immovable is not going to threaten control builds any more than cleansing cards disrupt control wizards. Yes, they might make a difference if you're facing lots of terrain attachments, but no one runs them at the high level (unless you want Bless or something) because they're dead draws in most match-ups.

If this card is going to affect the meta, it either needs to affect the whole team (making it a less risky investment of deck space), or it needs to have a second effect that makes it useful in other matchups. I like the idea of it giving the target armor...

This card seems to be one of biggest potential game changers in the update; I'd hate to see it fail to make a difference.

[Edit: looks like I'm repeating the sentiments of the last couple posters, didn't see those when I started typing... Well anyway, I generally agree with the above posts...]

 

I don't believe that questioning someone's grasp of the current environment is a personal attack. I honestly wondered whether your opinion of the card was grounded in competitive play. That's something someone should be allowed to ask. And it's also not fair to ask someone to ignore your posts. You're engaging in a debate about something that will affect the game, and I'm invested in the game, so I have to remain in said debate. It's not feasible for me to walk away from the thread just because someone else has posted—that's a surefire strategy to never solve any problems! And it has nothing to do with whether I like your playing record, or you, or anything about you—it has everything to do with the card in question, the design goals behind it, and whether or not those goals are being met.

Some differences these lists ignore:
• Immovable doesn't cost a card
• Immovable doesn't cost an action
It's important to keep these things in mind because the cards really don't function or play at all similarly. I think the only useful comparison between the cards is one that stresses how unsimilar they are. They have the same effect, on paper, but they do very different things at very different costs. I'm not sure why this keeps getting glossed over. I think Immovable Blessing is probably best compared to Healing Presence, if I had to choose a card currently available to players:
• It requires a priest
• It requires LoS
• It can push off an attachment
• It can trigger Altruism
• Most of the time, it has no other effects.

Any of these things could potentially make the card playable, depending on execution. I've "liked" every post in this thread that made a suggestion on this list or a suggestion like the ones on this list. Jon also said he was going to expand the card horizontally, and I look forward to what he decides to do with it.

 

Forum rules do not dictate that opinions/posts need to be made based on competitive playing experience, playing history or elo ranking. If so, devs would have made an announcement to invite only pvpers for testing. Let it be known that this thread is open to discussion for testers regardless of playing history/elo ranking. There will be no discrimination. Frankly, I'm disappointed the number of testers do not reflect in the amount of feedback received. But that is another matter entirely.

IB will never be as efficient as a trait which was why traits were completely left out of comparison. If every card in future expansions is going to be judged against trait counterparts, every new non-trait card is going to be harshly judged. If judged against healing presence, who is to say that players won't play IB when they don't have Immovable in their collection and facing annoying WWs in their pvp rating?

Now, I'm just curious. Look at Pathfinding and Elven Manuevers.

Pathfinding: Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Move card. Repeat until you have drawn two Move cards or your deck is empty.

Elven Maneuvers: Trait. Attach to self. Duration 3. When you take damage from an enemy card, draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Move card. Repeat until you have drawn a Move card or drawn six cards.

I don't see any issue raised for pathfinding yet its clearly in the same vein as Immovable and IB with the exception that Pathfinding contains a counter. Now that EM exists, does that make Pathfinding unplayable ? hmm...

 

And my point was just that the fact that those elements were left out of the comparison tells us that we can't really compare the two cards meaningfully.

But the thing is I'm not judging IB against Immovable—that was the point of my last post. I pointed out the differences in order to discourage the comparison!

Huh?

Uh, no one said anything about rules. You were making claims about the playability of a card in PvP and I wondered what those claims were based on. Is there a rule against that? Why are you so quick to point to rules? Why do you mention discrimination? Do you feel discriminated against?

 

Maybe he means "the pvp rating bracket they play in" or something similar?

 

Oh I understood that part, but I wasn't sure what his question was in the context of the Healing Presence comparison.

 

Ah, ok, sorry.

 

It's all good

 

Actually making my suggestion function as armor is probably a bit confusing and hard to format. Instead I would suggest just making it reduce any damage you take by 1 damage, sort of a reverse vulnerability. Reducing all damage taken by 1 makes it equal to reliable hide which is a paper quality armor, reducing damage by 2 would make it equal to reliable mail which is a silver quality card so probably a bit too good.

Still not sure that offers enough armor, but bronze doesn't offer much. You could always add other armor benefits to it. Adding fire immunity would make it a real weapon against wizards.

I think the name is what pulls it together as a top down design, adding the immovable effect and armor is appropriate for a rock type blessing. SO long as the card design follows the name can help a lot with players understanding it. Personally, I'd also like to see priests get more unique blessing type attachments, I think it's a good design area for them. It's fitting given the old D&D spell lists, I'd even suggest that path of knives may have made a better priest card as path of thorns.

 

OMG yes.

 

What about immovable + unaffected by ennemy encumber attachements?

 

Or Immovable + prevents all enemy attachments like Arrogant

 

If a trait cannot be compared with an assist, why claim that it was unplayable ? If Immovable didn't exist, would IB be playable ? This is the exact part I don't get, how did you come to a conclusion that IB was unplayable as designed ? If it wasn't due to Immovable's existence, then what ?

So did I, I pointed out the differences to show that it has nothing to do with the playability of the card. Its just that in comparison against the current spot answer, ie Immovable, it was not good enough and therefore best to move the design away from just being an answer. Am I wrong ?

Oh, I didn't explain myself here. Its a common mistake of comparing cards based on its quality. Its the 'why is nimble strike silver and impaling stab gold ?' question. Which led me to bring out the situation of a beginner with no immovables in collection, facing WWs in pvp bracket and holding IB items. To said beginner, IB would be gold, right ? Its more of a beauty is in the eye of the beholder thingy. Moral of the story: don't compare cards based on their quality.

Replied via PM. This thread doesn't need another post on this.

 

If Immovable were removed from the game, IB would still be unplayable for me. Because it's card disadvantage in every case except when it's blanking Maze or (unimproved) TK—assuming you have no blocks in hand—and in the vast majority of cases it does nothing, not even a part of a card's worth of effects. That's why.

Right then. Based on what may I compare cards?

 

If there was no Immovable, I would play IB if the meta were board control dominated. And tailor it with card draw to offset the disadvantage. I think we can agree to disagree. Guess no 2 people see/build cards/decks the same way.

Effect for effect, I compared IB against Immovable as stated in OP. But then, we disagree. So I guess for you IB has no effective comparison to go up against. Just like pathfinding has no equivalent prior to expansion, shrugs...

I fully expect this sort of issues to manifest again in future expansions. Cards designed that fail to meet the par alr established or just over the top. Bringing a card down/up is easy, re-designing is hard. Not to mention the manhours lost in re-design, coding and testing. And we don't have enuff testers compared to beta. Every feedback is precious. ...wait, why am i whining ?

 

IB would still be a near-pointless card, even if there were no Immovable. Better answers to WW and WoW are step attacks.
Not sure what's the point of this discussion though, Jon already said he is aware of all this.

 

Rather than Immovable, how about a blessing to prevent enemy induced discards? (SPR, Elvish Trickery, etc.) There isn't a good answer for that yet.