[Balance] Card Discussion

Just wait, there would be builds dedicated to OHK using the new linear stab. You could kill all 3 of your opponents with one good AOA stab.

Well thank you for that Flax! I'm impressed with the discussion so far.

I don't believe that this is an effort in futility. I mean, look at all the cards like Surging Shield Block and Twin Heals and Force Cone and Jump Back that were given new life with a simple tweak. Hopefully when the game destabilizes a bit you can look at this thread and consider some changes that could be made, due in part to a greater understanding of the card and item interactions.

 

And some of us aren't.

Add the Halt from Pinning Spear Toss and a rotisserie effect, and it would synergize famously with lava terrain. Just add sauce to taste.

 

Time for something a little different:
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Card of the Day: Telekinesis
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When this card gained Teleport and +2 range, things changed dramatically. TK is now a really strong card. But too strong?

Being able to Teleport used to be a gold-class ability. (Teleport Self, Reflexive Teleport) Now it's cheap and fairly easy to get.
Remember Teleport Other? Yeah, that card. This card is almost as good!

TK does way more than a Force Bolt or any Push 2 card. By giving this card Teleport, it allows you to put a character more than 2 squares away, costing your opponent 2 cards to get back (if they can get back at all). Now, there aren't many maps in Ranked where this card is particularily overpowered, but there are in campaign.

My biggest qualm is that Telekinesis cheapens the campaign. By teleporting allies or enemies through walls (Maps like: Shieldhaven 1, Compass of Xorr/Lord Stafford/Batford, and many more etc), you can win the map with minimal effort, and minimal token cost.

Suggestion: Change Teleport to Fly. There are so many cool ways you can use Flight, without ruining other maps with thin walls of Blocked terrain.

 

Changing Teleport to Fly would be nerfing Telekinesis just to nerf it. I do enjoy shoving toons through walls, but I really don't see it making a difference on the maps you mentioned. (I use mostly FS and Volcano, and Telekinesis would only slow me down.) The only place I recall it being particularly useful is Lair of the Elder Mind where it can eliminate the need to walk the entire perimeter before killing the boss.

 

I think this thread is heading wrong direction ..

First as @Flaxative said, we cant balance all the cards.. we should start from items .. so only if an Item is OP, then we can speak about nerfs ..

Anyway, I don't think we need any more nerfs .. Imho, we should focus on under powered cards, and try to safely give them some more power to make some unused items more playable .. that could lead to deck diversity which is good .. (spiked mail example was good)

There are tons of topics:
1. We have what.. like ~10-12 warrior competitive weapons
1. Tokenless armors are used over those which require tokens
2. How many different shields are used?
3. Step attacks are so much better than high-damage-non-movable-attacks .. I think some items that have no step attacks can safely get some more power.

 

Great point! I think some items are intended to be bad, but some of the mediocre ones might be built up a little, even if it's only for niche usage.

 

Don't think TK needs a nerf. As simple as that

 

Maybe it could do with having only 3 range?

Edit: That was actually a very good point that telekinesis is moving items with one's "mind power" and it's not teleporting so fly would be more suitable for the card than teleport.

 

I quite like this because telekinesis has nothing to do with teleportation in the first place

 

Nothing wrong with Tele in pvp. It can be annoying but if it was over used you could overcome it by adding range attacks or more movement. Control fails vs dps mages and vs movement warriors so this prevents it coming top tier. I think the focus of this forum should be on buffing the 90% of items i will never use not debuff the 10% I have found a use for. If everything was made equally crap what would be worthwhile grinding to get? If we had more viable options in each slot the diversity in pvp would be better and would make the game more fun.

 

Apple and Orange comparison. True, Teleport Self and Reflexive Teleport are both gold cards. They are also indefinitely reusable as long as you don't use them as move cards. (Side note: Reflexive Teleport is still a lousy card.) Teleport Other is silver with a range of 8 and a teleport of 3. Telekinesis is "almost as good" only in a very, very loose sense. Kind of like the current Punishing Bolt would be almost as good as a version with range 8 and a damage buff from 2 to 3. Really? Which would you pick?
Telekinesis has been buffed from unplayable to playable, which seems like a good thing to me. I don't see any reason to nerf it.

 

Was going to say this, glad I read all the new posts first

 

Yeah, I don't see this as overpowered either. And if you can really teleport enemies outside the board, I really have to try that this evening. I think Drakkan has a better angle, trying to see what can be fine to make more cards viable by making them better playable options.

Only a small fraction of cards are going to be used in competitive multiplayer no matter what, generally. There's going to be done cards sinned at the lower levels of single player that are clearly worse than others, because that helps teach the players how to tell which cards and items are better. Cards and items have different goals.

For balancing items, I think what I'd try to do is actually trim down the number of nearly identical items, but I don't think that's in the cards, so to speak.

 

BTW: You can't teleport characters outside the board because the outside of the board is by default blocked terrain without passable terrain. So cards like cautious sneak and anvil strike can take advantage of this.

 

Yes, but that's the wrong reason. Teleport can go over any terrain (including Blocked), but there has to be terrain there for it to go over; you cannot Teleport over holes in the board. Whirlwinds can move you over gaps, if they're small enough. However, I think I'm the only person who has ever made boards with gaps in the first place.

 

The current cards and balance standards will be the foundation of upcoming content. I believe fixing the base now will end up being less trouble than keep patching broken stuff later on.
However, I see your point and will understand if you deem the task as impossible but it look achievable to me.
There is 632 cards according to the wiki but many of them are AI-only or don't exist anymore. I am taking a rough guess of 400 cards if we exclude those. And most of them are already balanced so we have around 100 cards to modify?
At this rate, it will take about 3 month to cover them all, with changes being released something like once a month.
Now, all of these are just guesses and I don't know how difficult it is to actually code it so I am probably wrong but if my estimates are not too far off, please at least consider it.

 

Well that was a good rousing response! I think we can safely agree that TK is pretty fair at the moment.

I suppose that some veterans remember the flavour of the old TK and Improved TK. I really enjoy using the current version thanks mostly to the increased range, I just can't help but feel that the teleport is a bit "cheap" on some maps. Particularly maps that I was forced to firestorm or make a long trek around like Kobolds. Heck, maybe I enjoy using the new TK for some of these things.
I just feel like with Fly, it would be the same amount of power except without "cheating" on some maps.

Just want to mention, I have about ten cards left that truly warrant discussion. The majority of cards are so close in power or so linear in their abilities that it would be difficult and pointless to change them.

 

This thread is pretty great so far! We're discussing all the controversial cards we didn't even know we wanted to discuss!

(Scuttle, Team!)

 

Just you wait. SO many more controversial cards to come.

 

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Card of the Day: Mystical Wyrmhide
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So you take a Reliable Hide Armor, add a unique (and kind of cool) ability to it, and suddenly it becomes a gold. Problem is, it has such a poor armor value considering it costs as much as a Grounding Plate. The ability is neat but doesn't have the most usefulness at a 50% success rate. While I wouldn't recommend a 100% success rate, this card does need a little help to be more than just a shiny.

Suggestion: Armor 2, Keep. OR success rate increase.

If anyone has any thoughts on Mystical Drakehide, you can discuss that too.