TL,DR: Broken mechanics abuse the core of the game, which is movement. I think CH would be more fun with fewer step attacks, less encumbrance, and no whirls. Most of the time y'all complain about individual cards and/or items as being unbalanced. Instead, I want to gripe about certain mechanics which I think detract from MP gameplay. This can probably be translated into common concerns about very small sets of cards, but I want to emphasize how they abuse the core of the game: movement. The three mechanics which I think detract from CH's gameplay are (surprise, surprise) step attacks, encumber, and whirls. Also, I'm going to pin the blame for the other two's existence on the first one. (NB: Team moves are not on this list. They are generally undervalued, but WoW is the only broken team move because you can stack a deck full of it.) First off, step attacks. Warriors have a tremendous advantage over wizards, because nearly every card they hold can (and should, in the current meta) function as a move. Step attacks also feed into card advantage, because warriors don't have to decide between damage and movement during the discard phase, like priests and wizards. Finally, the cantrip effect of movement + attack is (as documented) incredibly powerful, preventing your opponent from adjusting his position in response to your movement. Encumbrance, if played correctly, should render one or more characters immobile, and so mostly useless for 2 or more turns. Encumbrance itself isn't terribly broken because team moves are an effective counter, but I think it's still wretched for gameplay. Finally, whirls utterly break movement, and so the game itself. Sure, you might get lucky every once in a while and land right next to the wizard, but most of the time you've just been forced to Sprint away from your opponent. Running 12 NS might ensure you have sufficient movement in hand to recover, but otherwise you're out of luck. My vision for a better CH involves a slower tempo of core gameplay, made possible primarily by decreased availability of step attacks. This would permit tweaks to counter-movement, such as encumbrance effects simply replacing each other rather than stacking. Team moves are okay, but could possibly be more costly. There is no fix for whirls except nuking them from orbit with the death star and the entire imperial armada.
If whirlwind moved ONE character at random (and thus were a targeted spell that required line of sight to that character, preferably with "may self target" too), it would be fine IMO. But yeah I agree with you about all these.
Good post. I agree with everything. I think both step attacks and encumber should be nerfed to make simple and honest 1-range bashing warriors viable. This is a great suggestion. Probably the best one I've seen so far. I love the simplicity of it. I would further develop it a bit though. I think WWE should do what you describe there, and WW would move the target AND the caster. Only downside would be PvE because you couldn't have fun throwing tons of enemies around. I personally couldn't care less, but others might. If BM wants to keep silly cards like WWE/WW around, they should copy Guild Wars and make certain cards function differently in PvE and PvP. It sounds a bit crazy and can be confusing but sometimes it's the only way to make the game balanced.
TL;DR: 1. Overblown rhetoric: "too many" step attacks and encumbrance cards means "too many" broken cards-- NOT a broken mechanic. 2. Confused reasoning: as far as I can understand you, "whirls" is a broken mechanic because of (the degree/amount of) randomization, NOT the movement-- or you would be asking for nukes to telekinesis, bash, etc. (and not to mention nuking "immovable" concurrently, just to maintain balance) 3. Generalized posts starting with "[Balance]" are not necessarily balanced, or about balance...
1. Congrats you understood Neoncat's post. 2. Uh, degree/amount of movement. Also what, slippery slope argument on telekinesis (weak) and bashes (totally fine)? 3. I don't even. Be constructive, Forestal.
That really wouldn't work and would make the problem even bigger (as the point of WW/WWE spam is to isolate a character from the group to bash down on them). One major problem with WW/WWE is that it is not only high random, but it is very map dependent -- more so than any other card in the game. On a large map the variance is huge -- you could be moved 1 spot or 20 spots away. It could cost the enemy 1 card or 10 cards to counter. There is no real counter to WW/WWE except more WW/WWE (reset their reset). That's just bad design and isn't healthy for the game as then everyone has to run WW/WWE. Honestly, if it was just a mass maze it would still be good (breaking tight formation) but not so overly varied from map to map (move 2 or 3 as opposed to move 2 to 20).
Still would be a huge card advantage -- which is the biggest issue in the game (more than movement, but that typically just gives card advantage). Imagine you spend multiple cards to position yourself and finally get a chance to attack... he just uses the WWE on you and now you have to spend X cards to get back into position. He spent 1, you'll most likely spend a lot more.
For sure it would be a variable effect. But it would have far less variance than current whirls, probably to the point of being more or less okay.
I beg to differ. I know if it did what you suggest I'd still run a wizard dedicated to it (assuming I had a VP / Lochaber for my warriors). At worst it would be a weak Maze, but at best it could effectively put someone out of the battle basically permanently (pushing them to a corner surrounded by difficult terrain which takes 3+ turns to get out).
*Cough* Melting Glacier *Cough*. I would leave the items alone in SP but change the items in MP to have different cards rather than just having different effects. So in MP have every item with Whirlwind Enemies cards changed to be "Twister" cards (which would move 1 enemy to a random position, like it has been brilliantly suggested by Flaxative) along with Whirlwind being changed to "Tornado" (Move 1 target and yourself). I would also put a range on these new cards (3 or 4) so they can't be used to grab 1 character and pull them all the way across the map.
You people talking about making Whirls targeted, single-character random moves have just redesigned Maze. Congrats! ^_^ Anyways, I didn't really want to fall into the same discussions about single cards. I wanted to talk about the core gameplay loop of CH and how various mechanics alter it (whether for better or worse). I think a comparison with the turn-based tactical combat game chess would be helpful. Chess has a very tight gameplay loop: movement and attacking are the same, and every character is granted an infinite number of moves. CH has a more complex loop, involving positioning and then attacking. Often, characters will exhaust movement well before a round ends, making the choice of positioning the most critical step in the game - except that Step Attacks offer the equivalent several additional rounds of movement which are unavailable to any other class of character. I'm going to claim that just about everything else you can do in the game should be interpreted as a counter to the movement bonus offered by step attacks. Encumber, whirls, terrain attachments, and even most team moves (WoW and TK) are useful primarily because they require a warrior to move further before he can hit the opponent. Notice that we never argue about healing or armor (excepting Toughness) or blocks or Almighty Hack or even AoA being overpowered - that's because the attacking half of the core loop is (generally) balanced. It's the movement half that needs to be tweaked, and I think it should favor a slightly slower tempo. (Also, please note that I only use overblown rhetoric for amusement's sake, not argumentation. And I'm not terribly invested in the whole balance discussion because I am happy amusing myself with toy builds. )
Ive got an idea about how to nerf step attack since sometimes already. Just make step attack only possible when u can get to the target, meaning you cant use them to move around the map or use 1 then another to reach the target, both gameplay and roleplay wise its just better there is no sense in attacking the wind. I dont think it would be hard to code since cautious sneak and maybe other card already working like that.
Good to know. So from reading various threads I've learned: Movement is the core of the game. Positioning is the core of the game. Consistency is the core of the game. Card cycling is the core of the game. Card advantage is the core of the game. Counterplay is the core of the game. I've been thinking that a twisted, sadistic RNG is the core of the game. Which I found impressive, because these are characteristics not normally associated with inanimate objects. But I guess I'm wrong. What if the game actually has a hollow core? Complaining is the core of the forum. As usual, it's the beer talking. Have fun with your toy builds!
Positioning is a part of movement. Consistency, card cycling, card advantage, and counterplay are core to some popular strategies used to win the game, but are not the core of the game. Ask yourself this: if I take it away, will it be the same game?
I would like to take a moment to propose something for an Encumber nerf. Change the effect of Encumber so that it can't reduce your move points below 1. That means that you can still struggle your way around even while Encumbered instead of being completely immobile outside of a Sprint or push effect.
I considered that change a while ago but ultimately it is just a buff for Dwarves and a nerf for every other race. One thing that might be an interesting change to step attacks would be the change so they can be used either for the attack or the move, but not both. This would apply only to a few and those cards would need to be rebalanced. Just another thought.
I protest many parts of that statement. In particular, does "buffing" one race automatically nerf all of the other races? I don't think so. The simple fact is that the most common step and move cards fall into the 1 or 2 square category. So cards like Frost Jolt (which are also common and widely played) shut down those cards 100% outside of changing facing, making a stationary attack, or cantrip shenanigans. I suggest this change from experiences as a new player where I was completely frustrated by my character's inability to do anything thanks to encumber effects. I have seen several players quit a game right after a Frost Jolt or Cone of Cold hits them. Why? Because most of the time, there is nothing you can do about it. You have to choose to use cards specifically to counter those effects. It just so happens that adding cards like Team Run and Winds of War are useful for many other situations as well, but still. It's frustrating to lose any game because your opponent has pulled off a lock-down combo and all you can do is wait to die.
A neat side effect of this would be that the dwarf wearing Heavy Armor wouldn't actually be such a bad idea. He could have two heavy armor cards on at once, and still move 1 anyway. The current system where the elf is the least impacted by heavy armor doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
