[Feedback] Comments on Balance Changes AFTER Playtesting

I'm gunna throw out a few ideas here, feels like there's some useful discussion in this thread.

Team Run? With the nerfing of WW, anyone have thoughts on this card? I sorta feel like it could stand to lose 1 movement across the card. Dunno, though. Mentioning Whirlwind, is Maze 2 the right number?

Here's an idea for fixing Dodge now being unaffected by Encumber. Make a new triggered card type with dice rolls, called Reaction or something. The Encumber ability gains "subtract the total encumber value from dice rolls for Reactions." Move Dodge into this new category. That would mean a character trying to Dodge with a Frost Jolt on would have to roll a 6 to succeed, instead of a 4 or better. Ill-fitting armor would make it a 5+ to succeed. Freeze, or stacking Encumber to 3 or more, would mean you ain't dodging ****.

To me, Reaction would represent a more active triggered action, unlike Block. I feel like thematically it would work very well for it to be affected by Encumber, and would fit people's expectations without too much new explanation. And with Encumber no longer being a complete lockdown that power bump to it might be okay. Other cards could also become reactions. Quick Reactions, Reflexive Teleport, Jump Back would be obvious ones. Perhaps some of Cause Fumble, Acrobatic Flip, Parry, Pushback Parry, Weak Parry, and the new Catch Arrow could be moved to Reactions also, since they represent a more active effect, and are generally more powerful. I feel like thematically it would work very well, and with Encumber no longer being a complete lockdown that power bump to it might be okay. The ones currently blocks being able to be affected by encumber would be a larger balance and gameplay consideration though.

Cause Fumble could also be moved in another direction. Change the name to something like Reflexive Shield, and have it do something like this. "4+ Reaction Range 4 - When ally in LoS is targeted by a damaging attack and your roll succeeds, reduce damage of that attack by half rounding down, then heal 3." An 8 damage Strong Bludgeon would be reduced to 4 damage, then 3 of that healed back up, for a total of 1 damage taken. Obliterating Bludgeon would do 9 damage, then heal for 3, totaling 6 damage. A 4 damage Frost Jolt would be reduced to 2 damage, healed for 3 and therefor gaining 1 health overall, but the Encumber effect would still go through. Order of operations can be important here, and it's a variable that can be tweaked. With the heal happening after the damage, hitting a character who is starting at full health will do less damage over all, but a character at low health just might die from the damage before the heal lands. Putting the heal first would go the other way around, making the card more useful with low health allies. Also, with the way the game is currently built, the reduction would likely only apply to base damage, so damage buffs like Blind Rage or Savage Curse would apply after the damage reduction and still have their full affect. Cards doing zero base damage, such as Punishing Bolt or Touch of Death, would also sail right on through, making them useful for finishing someone.

Design wise, that moves Cause Fumble onto the health system and into a much more variable success or failure state, instead of a pure block. The purpose of the combined half damage and heal is to help small attacks be countered, but let big attacks still matter. I'm not sure how armor would apply, haven't thought about it yet.

On the subject of Harnesses, perhaps a simple fix is this? Remove the recent "does not count for hand discard size" thing, and give Leather, Chain, and Enchanted Harnesses all boost armor rolls by 2, instead of just Enchanted Harness. Then boost Enchanted Harness from a 5+ base to a 3+ base. Overall, one Leather Harness becomes 1 armor on 3+, one Chain Harness becomes 2 armor on 3+, one Enchanted Harness becomes 2 armor on 1+, same as Reliable Mail. Combining Harnesses with some regular armor becomes much more attractive. With 2+ Harnesses in hand, both Leather and Chain would become no-fail armor also. You could get a nice draw some rounds, and have high enough effective armor to be immune to damage for that round, but you couldn't keep that up indefinetly anymore.

Last thought for now, how is Wounded Block doing? Bloodied Block was added in the expansion and is a higher rarity, but it seems to overshadow it substantially. There's also a handful of low level shields with it that just seem unplayable to me, and I think that is a slot with very little variance in the items in it. Wounded Block just feels too conditional to be useful. Perhaps adding 1 to it's base, making it 4/2 instead of 5/3? Or adding one to it's trigger, making it 5/2?

Alright that was a lot of stuff I probably should have broken into separate posts, but there it is. Any thoughts? Good, Bad? Takeoffs using these as starting points?

 

Wounded Block isn't too bad I think for a paper card. But nice interesting idea for Dodge and another reactions. Jump Back and Refelxive Teleport allow user to move 2 squares though when they activate so they would get two downside effects from encumber then.

 

Yes, Team Run could probably use a nerf -- if it stays the way it is it will be one of the best cards in the game simply due to the lower amount of movement available through step cards and WoW / GoW and others.

Your "Reaction" idea is interesting, but it probably a bit convoluted and complex for what it tries to do.

I think we need to do more tests with the new Encumber rules after some big problem areas are fixed. But yes, Dodge as it stands is insane (it was good before, now it is just one of the best cards with the new Encumber rules). Probably change it so it discards on a 6 and only works on a 5 or 6? Not sure on a fix yet.

There is one idea that's I've been throwing around in my head about movement that might be interesting. Basically, the old Encumber rules are in effect (stacks from difference sources and if reduced to 0 you can only spin), but a player can use multiple basic movement cards to add their values together. So a Dwarf might not be able to move for a single turn due to Frost Jolt, but then he could spend 2 movement cards to get a total of 4 movement. Would probably require a lot of work in recoding movement to test though. I just always thought that might be a really neat idea to explore.

 

waow get your own ideas Stexebro

 

Different idea. I'm saying movement cards with no other factors can be combined to add their movement totals together. You're saying it reduces Encumber amounts. That might work too, but they are completely different things.

Unless you mean combining too. Then the idea of using movement to "reduce" Encumber might be a viable one as well.

 

To keep things simple, how about:
"If encumber reduces a Move card to 0 or less, discard the oldest attached encumber card."
So basically you're burning Move cards as your char struggles to get free. Note that this would help the AI a lot.

 

Just ran a number of Quick Draws against the AI - I like the change with 7 different cards, it makes the decks still small, but not nearly as hit or miss by doubling up cards.

 

Possibly decent, although it probably reduces the amount of interesting effects that Encumber + something else on same card could bring. If the game was being re-coded from the ground up I think maybe a system like that would work where it didn't remove attachments with Encumber, just reduced your "Encumber" total that cards added to.