Our very own Dorian talks to Edge Online about balancing in Card Hunter!

Excellent summary by Oberon, IMO.
Nimble strike is the card that keeps warriors competitive and stops it being a control wizards' game.

 

But Flaxative makes a good point that it would be nice to have multiple ways to keep things balanced, rather than one key card.

 

Encumber should be a counter against step attacks, not the other way around, because warriors already have many ways to deal with encumber, like Team Run etc. Halt is pretty much the only thing that counters Nimble Strike well, and wizards have zero cards that I would consider a great counter. Sure you can stack encumbers (and pray he doesn't have team movement) to stop the warrior, but the simple fact that you have to use multiple of them, tells us something about the insane power of Nimble Strike.

That's how balancing works. You keep tweaking the cards until acceptable balance is found. It takes time and is not easy, but eventually you will get there. The fact that it's difficult does not mean we should just give up and have unbalanced cards.

Also here's another quick lesson on balancing: you do not keep cards like Nimble Strike overpowered just because they act as counter to some other overpowered cards, for example ones used by control wizards (WoW etc). What you do is nerf ALL of them. It's as simple as that.

 

I believe you're strongly mistaken in thinking it's all about that one single card. Just because it's the card you may see the most of, the best warrior teams are actually using many other cards along with nimble strike to give their teams movement. Players don't need more options like purge and shrug it off because they are bad options. They are bad options because they are dead cards if your opponent isn't running encumber, where as nimble strike and team move cards are almost always good (Halt effects do cancel out step moves after all). Replacing a very good (and important in terms of the metagame) card with a bunch of poor options isn't much of a fix.

Because Wizards are able to layer so many encumber and movement cards into a build, Warrior teams must do the same. Otherwise they won't have enough answers in their decks to face a wizard team. To do so, the best Warriors don't rely on just nimble strike, they also include other effects like the push move cards, arrogant armor, and others. However, you have to realize that by design warriors get most of their cards from their weapons. So in order for warriors to be able have enough answers for the best Wizards, the answer card/s need to be available on weapons. Due to the game design that tends to make it an attack card. Make no mistake nimble strike is not the only card you need for a good warrior team, other movement options like Hard to Pin Down and Run Team or Team Sprint are also needed, which is why an item like Slippery Shield is so popular (is that not also a balance issue to you?). Due to how items work, nimble strike can simply become the most numerous answer a warrior has at their disposal.

You're also missing the overall balance of designing a top tier warrior. Step moves are key, but they do less damage for the power tokens. So most players want to also include more powerful attacks along with the step move cards, otherwise they'd still be at risk of losing the damage race. A warrior with all step moves is at a major disadvantage against a warrior using the higher damage bludgeons. Designing a good warrior for the current metagame is a balance of damage versus movement. Much like in competitive CCGs, changing a single card or two can be beneficial depending on the metagame.

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I've layed out a very lengthy rational for the importance of nimble strike. In return you've already started laying out numerous changes to other cards that would be needed if you changed nimble strike, which is precisely what the article is warning about. If you don't seem to understand the importance of nimble strike at the moment, can you understand why some of us may not see much logic in your call for changing it? Especially if that change will end up requiring a bunch of other changes which we also don't probably fully understand? Balancing CCG type games requires strong understanding of the metagame and how the small selection of the best cards fits into that metagame.

Don't feel bad though, this is really hard stuff to do well. Guys with tons of experience mess it up all the time. Welcome to the challenge of balancing a CCG.

 

No it's not. Honestly, that's not the job of a game developer/designer. You want to identify the problem and make as few changes as needed to fix them. Making numerous changes to fix a single issue just makes it look like you don't know what you're doing. Never forget this is a business, you don't endlessly tinker away hoping to eventually get it right. You use your knowledge and experience to make the best decisions you can.

I've never said I don't think any cards should be changed. I don't see a need to change this card because your arguments are unpersuasive.

 

Wow. I don't know how I could disagree more. It's like you are saying the exact opposite of what my gaming experiences have taught me. You even start by saying that it's not the job of the developer/designer to balance the game I mean.. what the..? Wow.

Making tons of small tweaks is exactly how BM should balance the game. Why? Because it works and it's the only way to get the game balanced in a relatively short time. As an added bonus, those small tweaks would change the metagame, giving us some great deckbuilding challenges.

What you suggest (over-thinking and deep-analysing) is really bad because:
1. It takes way too long (like it did with the card draw fix).
2. It won't work because in order to see if a change is really for the better, it needs huge amounts of playtime, something the devs don't have the resources for.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that they should do a bunch of quick fixes and just see what happens. Then make some more changes and see what happens. This way we will slowly move towards balance. If something goes bad, it's not the end of the world, and can be easily fixed since this is a flash game. And I doubt anything really bad would happen if the tweaks were small enough. I mean the world wouldn't explode if for example Nimble Strike suddenly did 1 less damage.

And making small tweaks wouldn't make BM look like they don't know what they are doing. This kind of balancing is done in many games and the response that I have seen has always been very positive. It's positive because it shows the community that the game is constantly moving forward and that the feedback posted by the community is taken seriously.

Worst thing they could do is be scared of making decisions and over-thinking everything.

 

PB- There is no plateau, only a thin ledge on the side of a mountain. Perhaps the orange dagger (despite not being necessary to break the top ten, even running warriors) is worth +100 to your rating? Then what? You'd be content and MP blissfully thereafter? Equipment can only carry you so far, and thereafter it's skill, and that's takes effort to improve, and cannot be bought.

OTOH no one likes being peppered with nimble strikes unless they can return the favor, and when it happens we all know what's to blame. It becomes a focus of our frustration at losing (~50% no matter what in the long run, but whatever) and we would always prefer to blame our losses on something external. So I think it would be wise for BM to nerf it. And whatever the next scapegoat is as well.

 

I have no issues against play balancing games. I simply don't agree with your proposed solution or approach for doing so in this specific instance. They are different things.

While I appreciate your opinion I don't agree with it in this case, for reasons I've already explained. There are numerous forum topics calling this card or that card overpowered, but they aren't all accurate. This is the internet after all, everyone has an opinion, but that doesn't make them right (myself included). You see, I'm not interested in playing a game that tries to balance their game just based on the complaints in their forum. I expect the talented and experienced individuals on the development team to examine and test any proposed problems or fixes. While I want them to listen to the players, I don't expect them to act on every post.

I wouldn't continue to take my car to a mechanic that constantly needed multiple attempts to fix things. He may be learning and having a great time, but it would be a very negative experience for me. Instead, I would find a more competent mechanic, who could properly diagnose a problem and fix it the first time. In terms of CCG game design, physical CCG design teams don't need or get multiple do-overs to fix a mistake, so I don't see why it's any different for an online CCG.

 

I get what you are saying. I agree that developers should not listen to each and every whine on the forums and cater that vocal minority. However this is not a case of a couple of forum whiners complaining after they have been owned in the game. Majority of players think that Nimble Strike is overpowered, and even more think that Vibrant Pain is overpowered.

Also we have to understand that the developers are humans just like everyone else, and humans make mistakes. Lets take Brain Burn as an example. I personally think it's one of the worst cards in the game. Wizards have low HP to start with, and to have a card in your deck that does 6-8 damage to you, is just insane. I would never use that card in any any build. The funny thing with the last patch was that instead of buffing Brain Burn (for example so that it does only 1 damage), BM was actually going to nerf it so that it does 3 damage instead of 2!!! That's right, they were going to make one of the worst cards into the worst card. Now I don't know how it is even possible that it almost happened, but luckily they listened to the community and quickly changed it back.

This Brain Burn example does not of course mean that the devs don't know what they are doing, but it does tell us that not everything they do is the perfect solution. While they are, like you said, "talented and experienced", so are many members of this community. We have players with 20+ years of CCG/boardgame/online gaming experience. It doesn't of course mean that the community is always right, but it does mean that what the community says, should always be taken seriously.

Um.. I don't think that car mechanic analogy works here. If we wanted to use cars, we should talk about Formula 1 (or Nascar?), where cars are tweaked a million times before a race to get everything perfect for that particular track/weather/etc. Formula 1 teams do not hire one demi-God engineer to make the perfect tweaks 5 minutes before race. They have to keep tweaking it over and over again, while observing results, until it's where they want to be. This is exactly how card balancing should be done.

While it might look like that physical CCG design teams get the card just right on the first go, in fact they probably test their cards 1000+ man-hours before releasing them, during which the card changes a lot. They have to do it like this because it's too late after the cards go to print.

It's different with online gaming. Being able to make multiple changes is an advantage that online games have, and they should exploit that advantage, not ignore it and just copy physical CCG development process.

 

(Apologies if this takes the thread to far off-topic)

Funny thing about Brain Burn, I've been using both the Sorcerery Staff and the Lavender Staff a lot. I've used them in my all-Wizard party, I've used them at level 1, and I even have one on my current MP Wizard. I've won quite a few fights through a timely Sorcerous Bolt, but I have yet to lose one for Brain Burn. Wizards usually avoid melee, so losing a few hp isn't such a big deal. If you don't keep spell cards in your hand between turns, you'll hardly ever take more than 4 damage. With Ochre Robes, you stand a good chance to prevent the damage with armor.

Compared to that, my drawback party cleric keeps committing suicide with Traveling Curse, Demonic Revenge, Loner, Raging Strikes and Vulnerable, despite a deck of heals and vampire attacks

 

I agree that the two dominant types atm are Control Wizards and Step Warriors and that nerfing Nimble Strike would hurt the balance.

However, I'm all for doing one of the below:
1. Nerfing BOTH Nimble Strike and Encumbrance (and throw in WWE while we're at it)

2. Offering other counter cards
- More options for Warriors to Self-Purge
- Better Purge options for Priests
- ... Something for Wizards

3. Changing the encumbrance/move systems as has been suggested before
- Max # of move based on race (no more flying dwarves)
- Max # of encumbrance based on race (no more statue dwarves)

 

IMHO the main problem with nimble strike is that you have to be very lucky (or grind like a madman) to get the nimble strike über-item Vibrant Pain. Competitive Control Wizards and other archetypes can be built with more common items. If everybody had access to good items with nimble strikes, it would be much less of a problem. As of now you're either a lucky 6+ nimble strikes guy or you're not.

 

This thread has really gone far off topic so I'm going to shut it down. Mostly because we can create new threads devoted to talking about specific types of card balancing (of which there are already several). If Dorian wants to reply to specifics here, he can definitely do so