[Suggestion] Slashes

Discussion in 'Feedback and Suggestions' started by Dingding123, May 14, 2015.

  1. Dingding123

    Dingding123 Orc Soldier

    CH has too much axe, spear and club and not enough sword.

    So Slash attacks! In short: weaker Chops, but single-target. So long as the first attack deals damage, the same target takes damage twice!

    Parries and Armor would both be very effective against them, but Slashes deal a lot of single-target damage otherwise; in this way they are extremely good against Mages. Slashes would help make Armor cards, Armor-shredding cards and Block cards more valuable. The art for Slash cards is a close-up of a diagonal or overhead swing with a sword; they look similar to Chops but the swords in the art of Slashes are swinging at a different angle.

    Workarounds:
    Like Bashes, the lowest rarity of Slashes are Bronze. If there were Paper rank Slashes, they'd either be worthless or almost strictly better than most other attacks because of how inflexible low-level attack number values are.
    If the first hit is Blocked, the second hit doesn't happen. The additional damage dealt from Slashes cannot be Blocked as it is recoil damage.
    If an Armor card has an on-hit effect, it only triggers once after the first attack.
    A Trait could be added that gives all Slash attacks and additional damage from Slash attacks one more damage per hit, but tokenless Martial Skill items that have this Trait also have a less valuable Attack card paired with it, similar to the tokenless Martial Skills that the Bruiser trait is on.
    Frenzy only gives the Attack bonus to the card's base damage, not the additional damage.
    Toughness blocks the first hit, then the opponent draws a card The second hit does not happen as the target did not take damage from the Slash.

    standard card ideas:
    Slash (Bronze): 4 damage, 1 range; When this card deals damage, the original target takes 4 Slashing damage.

    Strong Slash (Silver): 5 damage, 1 range; When this card deals damage, the original target takes 5 Slashing damage.
    Bonus: Add 1 damage to Slashes you play, as well as the additional damage dealt by Slashes. Keep.

    Obliterating Slash (Gold): 8 damage, 1 range; When this card deals damage, the original target takes 8 Slashing damage.

    silly card ideas:
    Clumsy Slash (paper):4 damage, range 1; when this card deals damage, the original target takes 4 Slashing damage. If Blocked by an opponent, attack yourself with this card.
    Tearing Slash (gold): 5 damage, range 1; when this card deals damage, the original target takes 5 Slashing damage twice.
    Hack N' Slash (silver) (not a Slash): 4 damage, range 1; when this card deals damage, draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Slash card. Repeat until you have drawn a Slash card or you have discarded 6 cards.

    TL;DR:
    add swords to gaem pls ty

    edit: Tweaked the workarounds and the text in the card ideas
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2015
    DunDunDun likes this.
  2. Robauke

    Robauke Guild Leader

    A "on card - two consecutive melee attacks" mechanic has some appeal in the context of bypassing blocks WHEN both attacks happen... as comparison, choping a group with 1 defenders comes to mind. But since it had to be kept way simpler then you formulate here, i dont see much future for it - frenzy effects alone are a huge problem. Right of my mind i would suggest to give each attack solid base damage and make them "un-frenzy-able". A bronze version would be 2x5dmg (un-frenzy-able).
     
  3. Dingding123

    Dingding123 Orc Soldier

    It's things like this that I added a list of workarounds for!

    I take it you're behind this mechanic, that's coolio. I was thinking the baseline bronze Slash would be 2x4 damage by the way, not 2x5+, because that much single-target damage can invalidate bronze bludgeons and whatnot, and it makes Chops look really bad in comparison.
     
  4. Robauke

    Robauke Guild Leader

    I need to emphasize my basic point again, that all this needs to fit on a card and be comprehensible for players. So elaborating a long list of conditions wont help you take that basic hurdle for a new idea.
     
  5. DunDunDun

    DunDunDun Thaumaturge

    It's an appealing twist to the basic combat formula, and it solidifies both a weapon type, as well as providing a firm single-target 1-range, non-mobility melee form [of which there's primarily only bland hacks and bludgeons, with notable exceptions such as Anvil Strike, which obviously is rather an unusual expectation for a sword to possess].

    But, there's an added benefit:
    Just like how spear attacks are a dominant attack form shared between warriors and priests, sword attacks can be shared between warriors and rogues [presuming such an addition to the class roster ever occurs, of course].

    With mobility cards, double-attack cards, backstab/steal cards, and poison cards, rogues would have enough playstyle pools to dip into to be distinct from the other classes.
    More specifically, while warriors would emphasize higher-damage double-strike cards, rogues would emphasize low-damage, penetrating ones.

    I kinda already see a 'good against armor, weak against blocks [lacking unnerving strike/war cry type cards] emphasis for rogues.

    Okay, okay, getting too into that tangent.

    Point I'm trying to make is, whether to an immediate boost to weapon diversity, or to potential future class complexity, the idea has merit :)
     
    Dingding123 likes this.
  6. Robauke

    Robauke Guild Leader

    Rogues - "i want to believe".
    I really, really like the idea of giving 2-in-1 melee attacks to Rogues on a thematic level, because it implies dual wielding (two short swords, daggers etc.). Gameplaywise, yes, it would set their melee capabilities apart from the existing archetypes, and it would be pretty good against blocks.
     
  7. Dingding123

    Dingding123 Orc Soldier

    How about this, then?

    Slash (Bronze C):
    Attack card
    1 Range
    4 Damage
    Text:
    When this card does damage, the original target takes 4 Slashing damage.

    The second "attack" could work the same way that Backbiting Strike's recoil does, but the Slash's target takes it instead.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2015
  8. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    That's a very nice templating of the effect you want that solves most of the issues discussed in this thread.

    The big problem here is that by dealing with all these issues, you've effectively made the effect indistinguishable from single-damage attacks. Armor applies twice, as written. Vulnerable and Curse of Fragility apply twice, as written. That's about it, right? I guess it gets through Lifesaving block sometimes. These are basically corner cases. The vast majority of the time, the card you have described here is exactly the same as Strong Hack. So... yay flavor?

    Also, Slash is a bad word for it (Slashing is a damage type, and you don't want to confuse people with similar words—Bruising and Crushing is bad enough!).
     
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  9. Robauke

    Robauke Guild Leader

  10. Dingding123

    Dingding123 Orc Soldier

    Cutting is synonymous; how does it sound if Chops, Hacks, Lunging Hacks, etc. become Melee Cutting attacks? Alternatively, Piercing is synonymous as well. What if Penetrating was its own attack type in order for everything that is currently Slashing to become Piercing? Penetrating could be its own attack type specifically for all attacks with the Penetrating keyword. I like this idea less.


    As for Hacks and Bludgeons of the same damage value as Slashes, there's no real workaround; obviously they're very similar. But what if a lot of Hacks and Bludgeons were changed to Slashes? That's why I thought of Slashes in the first place: Hacks and Bludgeons are on a lot of items that players don't necessarily enjoy seeing as often as they do (Bejeweled Shortsword for example). By themselves Slashes aren't very different, but considering that they could deserve their own Martial Skill and attacks that benefit them like my suggested Strong Slash or Hack N' Slash, it might be an interesting balance change in that these things would encourage decks chock full of Slashes. And then people with decks based around Slashes would deal damage twice with the majority of their attacks, making Armor cards a much bigger deal than they currently are.

    I think what you want could be for the better of the game as its own thing, for sure; in order for them to be different from Slashes they could be something like Cantrip attacks or attacks that genuinely happen 3 or more times.

    My concept behind Slashes however is that they're only one attack, but in order to emphasize the effect of Armor (or not having it) the damage is split into two instances. But I do see a lot of good coming from legitimate multi-attacks.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2015
  11. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Sorry to nitpick, but no, Slashing, Cutting, and especially Piercing are not synonyms of each other. Also, making penetrating a damage type instead of a keyword would break a lot of existing cards (Penetrating Zap/Bolt, Jumpspark, Hot Flames, etc.).

    And this doesn't feel like a balance change so much as a flavor change... and replacing cards—messing with existing items—is something we basically only want to do if there's a balance issue on the line. Hacks are like, the measuring stick of damage in the game. They don't need to be replaced by more complicated effects for balance's sake. :)

    Anyway I'm just giving you feedback on my impression of your suggestion. It doesn't really matter what I think, because in general the dev team owes nothing to people making suggestions, but I try to be responsive so people have some idea of what suggestions might or might not get listened to. ;)
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2015
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  12. DunDunDun

    DunDunDun Thaumaturge

    I suppose we should really figure out what it is we're hoping for from the attack style :p

    My expectation was, and thereby the tangent to rogues, that they'd inherently be weak attacks, but if both get through/amplified, they'd do decent damage. And in the case of rogues, have options that are slightly less raw damage oriented, but benefit from penetrating and unique boosts.

    My thoughts:
    It'd essentially be a follow-through attack, which means if the first attack is blocked, the full attack is blocked, making it just as susceptible to blocks as normal attacks. [This may need to be changed to be more favorable- there's merit to keeping all slashes as lower damage attacks (with a wider difference to 'normal' cards at higher tiers), but being able to use them as block-eaters / versus trying to use them as damage-amps.]

    It'd 'eat' armors without 'keep' when not penetrating, since both attacks hit armor [unfortunately, this makes them weaker to ones with the keep keyword].
    When penetrating, it's mostly a matter of flavor, basing amplification over initial damage stats. In either case, it's useful against armors, in different ways.

    A 3+3 damage slash would be equivalent in value to a 8 damage hack- slightly weaker, but potentially better with the right boosts. [just a fragile curse would even it out with the hack at 10 damage each].

    Rogues wouldn't get rage/berserk cards on their items, so they'd be reliant on priests for frenzy, or the following:

    If we have cards added in line with Sparkling Cloth and Holy Armor [the latter one actually being a good defense against double-strikes], we can further extend that flavor for rogues, ala:
    "Exploit Vulnerability: Boost, Keep. While in hand, each time you damage an enemy, you have a 33% chance to attach this card to your opponent. If this card is already attached, your damage is increased by 2."
    "Vampiric Leathers: Armor: Each time you deal damage, heal 1."
     
  13. Dingding123

    Dingding123 Orc Soldier

    Aye it is partially for flavor, partially a balancing, and both for which I prefer or I won't post of it at all. There are no expectations here of glory, kindred or any personal gain from the development team of such fine a game, only my thoughts on what would be expansive additions to it, in all forms of the word; the next steps toward an imagined new renaissance, broad or petty as they are.

    At some near later date, I'll post something on a concept of Rangers, or I will not, whether I enjoy my own producing. I bid thee good night and good morrow!
     

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