Dwarven Batle Cry

So I have been following Card Hunter since Total's video about it, which impressed me greatly. I am a long time CCG player with a great deal of accomplishments, as well as a avid fan of tactical based combat.

How do you justify this card at common? At worst, it cycles a card and thins your deck. At best, you draw 3 cards.

Additionally, you mentioned that there are multiple cards containing Dwarven Battle Cry. Having a few of them, on each character in your party, is pretty scary.

Let's say for example, you have 2 Dwarf Priests and a Dwarf Mage. You have access to ( assuming again ) 6 Dwarven Battle Cry, 2 per character, and the maximum number of Inspiration you can possibly stack on Priests. On any given turn, you have the ability to "Go Off" and feed your mage upwards of 10 cards that turn. This can lead to rather short games, and while effective, is degenerate in nature.

Even if Martial skills cannot contain Dwarven Battle Cry, I assume class based, you could likely find a few extra Inspirations on the priests, and while not as powerful as DBC, still leads to bad things happening. I also can safely assume that there are more abilities that will allow for card draw/cycling.

This also allows you to spend the majority of your mages items/talents on the most damaging abilities you can find, without relying too heavily on defensive abilities, while having your priests serve as tanks, since they are essentially throw away characters anyway.

Personally, I don't see DBC at common. Hell, I don't see it at Uncommon for the effect it generates. You are looking at a lot of snowball effects. I imagine its even possible to run 3x Dwarf Priest and just stack the one with the most health on the turn you wanna "go off".

 

Rarity has nothing to do with power did you miss that part?

 

Power isn't just power. This isn't a vacuum.

Power also is attributed to how often you see the card. In traditional CCG's, you are face with limitations on the number of cards you can play in one deck. There are no such limitations here.

If you could play a Priest deck with 39 Inspiration in it, despite it being common, would be overpowered. Your trading one card for one, but your getting deeper into one deck allowing for those powerful cards to come up far more often.

DBC is literally 3x better then Inspiration.

Put them together? They get exponentially stronger. Inspiration gets you DWC, which gets you more Inspirations, which leads to less then fun turns for your opponent.

 

I am all for useful or powerful cards not being rare. I do like that they are making the more complex cards rare. It is the complex cards that really make a CCG interesting. That is where all of the fun interactions take place. That gives you a reason to hunt for the rare items. Also it make sense from the viewpoint of player skill progression.

 

Even Magic: The Gathering's card rarity system isn't entirely based on card power. There are plenty of good common cards and more than a few crappy rares (even the occasional Mythic Rare that sucks).

In a game where stat-altering loot is available I believe it is important to offer not only good rare cards but bad ones too. For the sake of argument let's say that every dungeon's end-chest contains one rare card. It would be nice to have some not-so-great rares in the pool of possible rares in order to give the player incentive to play the dungeon again. A lot of people would probably say that is annoying but implementing a system like this ensures that every dungeon has at least some replay value regardless of other factors (challenge level, player interest, etc).

 

So what your saying is the game needs a round timer basically? Also unless i missed something with those cards while you are drawing in to potentially more draw cards or move cards they get a chance to pound one of your guys for each card draw you use and that is just assuming there are no cards that hate on card draw.

 

Not sure where you're getting this. I don't think he's saying that at all. Although you bring up a good, if off topic, point. While I would not want turn timers in the solo game they will be necessary in the multiplayer version. Otherwise you'd find yourself in the situation where a losing opponent decides to annoy you by not doing anything - sitting there without passing the turn.

 

"Inspiration gets you DWC, which gets you more Inspirations, which leads to less then fun turns for your opponent." tells me he sees people taking long turns drawing card after cards as a problem which means the game needs a round timer in that case.

 

I admit that the diary didn't make perfect sense to me. It sounds like the devs have used card complexity to assign rarities without any clear relationship to what might be a desirable rate of "how often you find them." (Maybe they are waiting for beta data?) Instead, they control "how often you find them" with the item rarity. But the diary example is incomplete without knowing all the items that include a card: if, for example, Dwarven Battle Cry only appears with rare skills then you won't actually find many copies of this "common" card.

Frankly, if the rarity icon is just a measure of a card's "complexity" then I could play happily without seeing it.

----

I admire your card-drawing plan. I would like to try it myself. (Someday...) But it might not be as powerful as you think. Did you notice every Dwarf draws a card? Including opponents? Even if the opponents are not Dwarves, nothing stops them from having some other powerful trick. Balance is not about raw power, but the ability to bring competing powers into play. Evaluating one card on one side is not enough to presume overpowered-ness.

Actually, there are: by limiting what items we can equip, the deck builder enforces "soft" regulations on the number of cards we can take of any given type. If Inspiration comes from specialty priest items, then at 3 slots/priest and 3 cards/item, that's a maximum of 9 Inspirations, not 39. (Only 36 cards per character!)

The claim doesn't add up. I'm not sure you correctly interpret the round/turn structure. Both players draw at the beginning of a round, then take turns playing one card at a time until both pass and a new round starts. I don't think it's all that easy to play your card-drawing abilities one after another without interruption.

Let me do some numbers. To start with, we only have one dwarven skill slot per dwarf, and even with three copies of "rare" Trained Ferocity, that's only 3 Dwarven Battle Cries. Similarly, I'll assume that cards like Inspiration come from Divine items at 3 items per priest, and again 1 Inspiration per item. Let's take three dwarf priests: we have 12 card-drawing cards to load up for a one-round slaughter. But first we have to draw those 12 cards out of decks totalling 108. The odds are a bit slim that we get them all at once, so we have to save up for a few rounds. We can keep two cards/character to hold over the end of the round, so that's 6 that we can accumulate and store. So that's 6 plus however many we draw in the round that we make the move (including any extras we can get from drawing with the card-drawing cards). The Chosen One gets typically 6-8 extra cards and goes on a rampage. Woo!

Only, how long did it take? I estimate (though my probability theory is a bit rusty) drawing about 0.5 of our card-drawing cards each round. To accumulate six of them takes 12 rounds, but this can be reduced if we use some of them early knowing that we'll never get all of them at the same time anyway. We'll say it takes 6 or 7 rounds to get enough to make the big move. Previous reports from the PAX demo vs. AI noted that those matches averaged 2-4 rounds. A round 6 strategy can indeed be a great finisher, but not in my opinion an early overpowering finish.

 

Oh. I see. I didn't read it that way at all. I read "less fun turns for your opponent" as a statement that simply implies that you're making the same moves every turn which results in boring gameplay... not that you're taking a long time doing it.

I understand now.

 

While I understand what you're getting at regarding card cycling, I'm not certain I agree. I'll leave aside the realities of card distribution (and enemy action) for the sake of discussion.

Inspiration (or card drawing) by itself isn't overpowered at all. A cleric using it on itself won't benefit past a certain point (drawing a non card-cycling card). Assuming you even could make an "Inspiration" deck with the goal of using one powerful card repeatedly, given the initial hand size of three, you're limited to three uses of that card (or more generally, three cards). Even in the ludicrous case of three Inspiration deck clerics, you'd still only have nine uses of a card. In fact, Inspiration basically allows a cleric to give one of its (potential) card plays to another character. But, if that repeated card is DBC? That's overpowered. Then you're basically gaining two free (potential) card plays for DBC. Cycling that basically stacks the decks of the other characters until they draw their whole deck.

However, and this is the important part, that all presupposes that card distribution is not a factor, and it is. Take Trained Ferocity - you get DBC, but you also get two other cards. So right there you can't have just DBC and Inspiration. By grouping DBC with those cards, there's now a 100% chance you can't cycle DBC as described. In fact, it guarantees that you'll only ever get one DBC out of that cycle, since the other two Inspirations will pull Charge and Blind Rage. So in the end you've traded any sort of effectiveness for no additional effect.

We'll take it back into the realm of actual deck building. Yes, DBC is a powerful card - it grants an effective two extra plays. Let's assume that you can get two copies of DBC per character (six per team). Inspiration by itself is a zero-sum card: cleric loses a play, character gains a (potential) play. Let's assume a perfect case scenario: Each character is at the end of their deck, two DBCs and an Inspiration (to help ensure DBC is drawn) in hand, and when the deck reshuffles, the DBCs is redrawn with Inspiration rather than another DBC. In that absolutely perfect situation, you'd get 24 extra potential plays. Now, how often is that perfect situation likely to happen? Not often. In fact, if deck size is 37* (per here) you only have a 5% chance** of drawing one DBC. You might be able to bump that up to 15% if you have four Inspirations. Getting that on all three characters is statistically unlikely. So vastly more often than not, you'll be drawing something that doesn't cycle.

In the end, while playing multiple DBCs per round is quite powerful, it's so unlikely to happen given how decks are constructed that it's not really a concern. It can certainly turn a battle around, but luck has a way of doing that both in games and in real life.

* Six per weapon, three per other slot, one default move. May have changed since then.
** Math is meant to be approximate, not exhaustive.

 

While it does take time, it is not the time I am concerned with. Feeding one character will naturally be stronger then have 2 characters doing damage, based soley on the variance of random draws. Feeding cards gets you deeper into the deck which will reduce variance and give you a overall more powerful team.

They also gave a example where multiple rare cards were featured on one item. It's far more plausible that we will see multiple commons on a particular card as well. If DBC is one of them, that is my concern.

If you are referring to the 36 Inspiration deck, I doubt that will ever be possible. Additionally, it would allow for infinite combos. 35 Inspiration 1 DBC means you draw infinite cards, and thus do infinite damage, on turn 1.

I doubt it allows the opponents to draw as well. If it did, it would almost certainly lead to 3x Dwarf teams all day, if only to combat the card itself.

You are incorrect, If you take a look at some of the pax videos, the priest has 5 Inspirations equipped. That means we have a minimum of 5 that we can achieve.

You ideally would not attempt to go off until later in the round, and as I said, on the character with the highest health, making it unlikely that you are interrupted.

Again, You have a minimum of 5 Inspirations per Priest, and 1 DBC. Minimum. It is entirely possible that you could find a skill that has 2 DBC or a set of gear that allows for 8-10 Inspiration.

 

A single inspiration deck will allow you do draw infinite cards and deal infinite damage. You inspiration yourself until you reach your DBC, then cast DBC ( drawing yourself a card as well ), and then inspiration yourself some more. Your deck recycles, and this continues forever.

Now for inspiration and DBC, by itself with no wackiness. You have 36 cards in your deck. Lets say, 20 of them are good, 5 are amazing, and the rest ( 11 ) are average. If you have a priest casting Inspiration on you once per turn, you are getting deeper into your deck, and thus have a much higher chance of reaching your good and amazing cards. There is no drawback for this, aside from handing a action to your opponent, though I don't imagine anyone with a brain will Inspiration in the first few actions of the round.

That is correct. It was a example, extreme, but a example. As I mentioned before, We know that DBC appears on other skill cards. They said so in the rarity blog. It is entirely possible that a DBC-DBC-Random card is possible. Additionally, you start the game with 4 cards, meaning that even your counterargument to my extreme argument, is invalid.

You are roughly accurate. The chance of drawing DBC is low, but every inspiration activation increases that likelyhood, along with any other cantrip cards ( Blocks, parries, etc ) will also allow for cycling through your deck. The point is, that cycling abilities like inspiration and DBC are going to be exploited the same way Combo players do in other CCG's. If you can get to say, 20 cycling abilities in a deck, that means that you are playing your big bad skills MUCH more often then your opponent.

 

3 cards and a basic move card meaning 3 cards worth mentioning for card draw purposes.

 

You get the idea. If there are 2 worthless cards in your deck *charge and blind rage in his example*, then the third card will always be a cantrip card, or DBC, and you still go infinite. It's irrelevant though as its not possible to do. It's a extreme example used to explain the powerful effect cantrips have.

 

I too have been watching the level of card draw and cantrip abilities with keen interest, with a similar mindset. With decks being so small, it seems possible that one character could be built as a draw engine to "go infinite" or at the very least allow their teammates draw so deep into their own decks that answers are plentiful.

The only ways I see this being stopped given our limited understanding of the card environment as it stands are twofold:

1) Items that give cantrips/draw will always be paired with non-draw abilities, slowing down a deck enough to prohibit it from recycling each turn. Trained Frenzy only gives one draw card out of three in the set. Maybe something will have a better draw:notdraw ratio, but I figure if something is 100% draw, it's equip level will be high.

2) Drawback cards. If your deck plays any drawback cards (and it appears most will have to, to meet level requirements or have access to powerful cards) they have to be played when drawn. Fishing for answers could also force you to draw into a number of drawbacks which balance out the quality of your draw. One "discard all cards in hand" should be enough to stop a ton of shenanigans. And we've already seen Dropped Guard which appears to be close to that sort of drawback.

Still, card draw is probably going to be a powerful ability--just hopefully not a broken one... Unless I'm the one doling out the pain in multiplayer!!

 

I prefer to count deck size as 36, becase the Default Move isn't shuffled in with the rest. It's a bit tricky, because they do show it there with the other cards.

The card reads "Every Dwarf draws a card." I take that to mean every Dwarf. Compare to Magic In The Air described in the holiday beatdown, which let each wizard draw a card in an all-wizard battle. Yet they didn't use 3x Dwarf Wizard card cycling teams exclusively.


A Bear, there's also
3) Cards that do harm for drawing. Hypothetical "Mind Burn", 2 psychic damage for each card a target draws.
4) Good old-fashioned mayhem. If you can knock a character off the board, all those cycling cards are lost. Attack the cycler first!

 

Two good points--although I wonder how robust the AI is with regard to countering the power of card draw. In multiplayer. #3 would be the silver bullet against draw-heavy decks, IMO. And very easy to add into the card environment if draw decks get out of control!

 

I still don't see any drawbacks that hurt you enough to even consider not running cycling cards.

Magic in the Air is good, but naturally weaker then DBC. There are more races then classes, and who here doesn't want at least 1 mage on your team :-P. Dwarfs on the other hand are generally shunned :-P.

Having a 3x Dwarven Wizard team is actually quite interesting. Stacking both what I will now refer to as Ancestral Recalls, means a lot of potential for damage, and likely very quick games. Farming exp/gold/whatever in the fastest possible time will almost certainly be this strategy. You either win or lose in the first three turns almost certainly, lol.