Filter Removal in Ranked Play

[PoxVega]

As many of you have noticed, the filter options have been removed from the ranked play. My goal is to touch on some of the reasons we decided to make these particular changes.

First, in my opinion, players shouldn't be allowed to create a defined match-up in ranked play. It is a competitive environment that's primary goal, in some ways, is to determine who the best players are - regardless of faction, BG type, etc. (I will address 15/15 vs. FF at the end.)

We certainly want players to be able to play with game-options they prefer and against a particular BG as well. This is where the casual lobby comes in. Granted, the casual lobby doesn't necessarily make this easy since there aren't any options to choose a BG type. I will bring this up with my colleagues, and hopefully in the future, we can make it easier for players that want to use certain option types.

15/15 is better than FF. This is a misconception, especially for this expansion. Now that there are a lot of new runes with bonuses for FF and the ability to run two heroes... I believe FF is on par or better than 15/15. In fact, a lot of players thought FF was better than 15/15 last expansion. Regardless, we will begin to find out, and it is our goal to have 15/15 and FF equally viable and balanced options.



____

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POXVEGA!!!

[Rodin]

Are there plans to fill out the remaining factions with a second hero? It seems like a major advantage for IS and UD to be the only two who are able to do this. I think that you may get a bit less flak if FF folks know that we're getting that coming down the pipe.

[Radial]

While I agree with the "Every one should be on equal ground" sentiment, I feel that the stronger option would have been to provide 2 seperate ranking systems. One for 15/15 and one for FF.

In the case of Highlander, I suspect a 3rd grouping would work. I know people fear that the queue times would be outrageous to play in such a grouping, but I think Pox is headed toward a population boom. Highlander should be able to self-sustain a full queue in the future.

[PoxVega]

Good point.

We are definitely planning to have all factions with at least two heroes.



POXVEGA!!!

[Filena]

Sorry poxvega but i wanna play full vs full, i prefere it. i dont like at all the 15/15 thing or the 10/10 before.

And you said you have two hero, not all faction have 2 hero, not all player with luck to have 2 hero either... i have buy for more then 1000$ in pox and i can tell you i have no faction with 2 hero.... so sorry but you wrong 15/15 still better for 99% of the player base.

But 2 separate ladder could be done no ? all will be happy, and we will see what room have more player. if you so sure full vs full will have no play why not try and see ? and if not work remove it..

And more highlander is gone forever in rank play now, sux really hard.

[ssez]

Thanks for posting that.

I have some initial "shock" and knee jerk reaction to change, but I dotn have any problems with this. I think any issues can be ironed out in due time.

I did love highlander though, but with all the new stuff I probably wouldnt be playing it anyway.

As for every faction not having two heros, well I wish that wasnt the case and could have been planned a little better so this would have at least been more fair to factions but War isnt fair so if your faction doesnt have 2 heros -oh well, fight the good fight and hope for next expansiion. Enjoy your factions time in the sun because a nerf is coming lol

[PoxVega]

While I agree with the "Every one should be on equal ground" sentiment, I feel that the stronger option would have been to provide 2 seperate ranking systems. One for 15/15 and one for FF.


That option was certianly discussed, but I don't think we can justify creating two more buckets. Now, that doesn't mean in the future we won't add those because it is a possibility. Right now though, with the amount of players we have playing rated games, just one ranked match type is a better choice, in my opinion.



POXVEGA!!!

[LordSerkan]

I think it is very interesting that (at least from what I've read in the General Chat forums), the folks that want to play FF decks are generally against the filter removal while the folks that want to play 15/15 decks are generally for the removal. This suggests, I believe, that there is at least a very real perception on the part of all players that 15/15 decks are stronger than FF. Even though you have 15/15 players saying FF is the stronger deck style, I honestly think they're just lying (or possibly delusional). WHY would such a preponderance of 15/15 players be happy with this change while such a preponderance of FF players are against it? The simplest answer (which is normally the right one) is that FF is weaker than 15/15, or at least FF was weaker than 10/10... I'll grant you that 15/15 may now be more equal to FF with the changes in this expansion, but that is still not the *perception* that the players (especially the FF players) are under, and as they say, "perception is reality"... thus you have a lot of very unhappy FF players at the moment.

However this pans out, I would like to suggest that SOET take more effort to anticipate these types of reactions and have information ready to post explaining your rational. That will, I think, curtail much of the negative responses. Most people are hesitant to experience change, especially in something they've grown used to such as 20-rune decks and FF/10/10/Highlander filters. Making changes to things that are so core to the game is always going to generate negative responses... but a lot of people will be more accepting if you have a post like above ready to go as soon as the change is made (not 5 hours later when people have had a chance to work themselves up into a blood frenzy :) ).

LS

[Zalithian]

I disagree with you in some aspects. I think people should have the choice to play whatever they enjoy. Previously, this was allowed in DoW. Now it's no longer an option unless people are willing to accept that they have to play less than enjoyable matches vs 15/15's or they have to forego ranked play altogether. I think the old system was fine, but a better option would be to have separate rankings for FF and 10/10. People should not be forced to play vs 15/15's or not play at all.

While it may have been somewhat annoying for 15/15 players to find games previously, they still had the ability to do so in a ranked arena. By removing the filter ability people are forced to play vs FF or 15/15 and that's it. Play, or go to casual as said by Kaervas and Hawkfain.

Why did people want the FF filter in the first place? If 10/10's were balanced, why would people want to intentionally not play against them? I do admit progress has been made in making them less cheap, but I still don't feel it will ever be balanced where FF and 10/10, 15/15 etc will be equal. Another issue with this is that in a lot of cases it is tough to balance a rune based on 15/15 and not harm it in FF play. The only recent time this has happened that I can think of was BBND where banish was fixed without ruining it for FF.

I don't think it's possible to balance both game types without interfering with one or the other negatively. This change alienates a fair amount of players who prefer to play vs FF only and gives them no choice at all. I do not consider "just go play in casual" to be an adequate response because people usually play ranked games to either rank up, or CP, and if you're not playing in competitive you can't rank up, and you also get inferior CP by playing in AG.

I strongly urge this be reconsidered in favor of an alternative approach.

[Zoltor]

Wow, it really is beyond the greens understanding, Isn't it?

They are "completely" different formats, and thus not only shouldn't be ranked together, but will never be equal in power level. Greens this is hardly a new issue to the industry(which is why every other game has seperate ranking hor each format).

Can you imagine if MTG ranked Type II, and Type I together lol, well that is more or less what you are doing, except in this game, there is far less of a veriety.

[Filena]

That option was certianly discussed, but I don't think we can justify creating two more buckets. Now, that doesn't mean in the future we won't add those because it is a possibility. Right now though, with the amount of players we have playing rated games, just one ranked match type is a better choice, in my opinion.



POXVEGA!!!

So why dont have make a e-mail poll and see what player prefere, maybe FF would have win and 15/15 removed :p

SOET doing poor job at communication.... how can you remove something a lot player like and not even tell us.... bad bad move...

And i want more a FF ladder then craftpack reward back, and you know how much i want it poxvega ? :D

Btw nice campagn :p

[Radial]

That option was certianly discussed, but I don't think we can justify creating two more buckets. Now, that doesn't mean in the future we won't add those because it is a possibility. Right now though, with the amount of players we have playing rated games, just one ranked match type is a better choice, in my opinion.



POXVEGA!!!

I'm happy to hear that it was considered, and still on the table. Hopefully, with some Sony advertisement money, Pox will be grow enough to fill one or two more "buckets". As long as you continue to watch the pop, and still consider that as an option, I'm happy.

And if the runes with the "if your faction is full faction" clause become more abundent, I'm happy with FF being in the same bucket as 15/15. With just the Faction bonus', there wasn't much incentive to play FF instead of 15/15 - now there is.

[Radial]

Wow, it really is beyond the greens understanding, Isn't it?

They are "completely" different formats, and thus not only shouldn't be ranked together, but will never be equal in power level. Greens this is hardly a new issue to the industry(which is why every other game has seperate ranking hor each format).

Can you imagine if MTG ranked Type II, and Type I together lol, well that is more or less what you are doing, except in this game, there is far less of a veriety.


It's actually more like saying mono colored decks cannot play with multi colored decks. Magic had more than enough players to fill all forms of play. Pox cannot boast the same thing, so is forced to drop all of their ranked players into one pool.

[SeraphNora]

it would have been really helpfull if you warned community in advanced that you were going to do something like this so we could have some discussion before you mess things up for everyone.

[Filena]

Yeah maybe here we have less players, and guess what, remove filter will make less ranked play from player like me, who wont do any 15/15.... not a great win or it is ?

[Mirior]

I think it is very interesting that (at least from what I've read in the General Chat forums), the folks that want to play FF decks are generally against the filter removal while the folks that want to play 15/15 decks are generally for the removal. This suggests, I believe, that there is at least a very real perception on the part of all players that 15/15 decks are stronger than FF. Even though you have 15/15 players saying FF is the stronger deck style, I honestly think they're just lying (or possibly delusional). WHY would such a preponderance of 15/15 players be happy with this change while such a preponderance of FF players are against it? The simplest answer (which is normally the right one) is that FF is weaker than 15/15, or at least FF was weaker than 10/10... I'll grant you that 15/15 may now be more equal to FF with the changes in this expansion, but that is still not the *perception* that the players (especially the FF players) are under, and as they say, "perception is reality"... thus you have a lot of very unhappy FF players at the moment.

LS

I agree with you that FF players perceive 15/15 as being more powerful, hence their displeasure at the change- but I think that it is more likely that 15/15 players are generally happy because they can now find games without a long wait time than that they're all either liars or delusional.

[Zoltor]

It's actually more like saying mono colored decks cannot play with multi colored decks. Magic had more than enough players to fill all forms of play. Pox cannot boast the same thing, so is forced to drop all of their ranked players into one pool.


Even if that was the case(which I completely disagree with), so what if there are less people ranked in each format, atleast they will be rightfully ranked.

[ssez]

To me its ranked play - If you dont like it dont play it.

It will also help balance the game in way because now we will have time to see if all top builds are ff or 15-15.

Just let it play out and see its now 15 -15 with avatars ont he first day of launch and people are saying well i wont play cause its jacked - it has so much new stuff just go fight for awhile and see, you have access to 50 percent more runes in game - thats a huge change and avatars.

[Filena]

Even if that was the case(which I completely disagree with), so what if there are less people ranked in each format, atleast they will be rightfully ranked.

/Aplaud :)

[ThePlumber]

Dear Greenies,

Have you ever though about buffing FF bonuses and nerfing 15/15 bonuses a bit? What if FF UD got +6 damage, and 15/15 got +2? I do not know how this would work for KF, but maybe 20% cooldown reduction for 15/15 FW, 16 def for FF SL, while 7 DEF for 15/15, etc.

The reason 15/15 works better together is because some factions have weaknesses that are supposed to be there, because that faction has strengths elsewhere. People playing 15/15 can have the best of both worlds (2 factions strengths) as well as combos that the devs might not have wanted a faction to have. FW does not have drive, while in 15/15 it can have drive. I think this versatility of faction strengths being incorporated into 15/15 will warrant a 15/15 faction bonus nerf, while FF players should keep the same bonus or have a little bump.

[Mirior]

Even if that was the case(which I completely disagree with), so what if there are less people ranked in each format, atleast they will be rightfully ranked.

Less people playing in ranked games equals longer wait times while searching for a game, equals greater customer dissatisfaction.

[SeraphNora]

Essentially what you done you are forcing FF or highlander players to play against the 15/15 decks which they dont want to how is that at all fair? How is this going to be fair on new players playing with newly bought faction decks playing against the 15/15 cheese?

[Arundel]

I'm actually in agreement with this change, only so long as potentially abused rune combinations (BBND, etc.) are nipped in the bud quickly after they arise. If 15/15 combinations are being abused and nothing is being done about them, I think that tilts the balance too far away from FF.

[Mirior]

Essentially what you done you are forcing FF or highlander players to play against the 15/15 decks which they dont want to how is that at all fair? How is this going to be fair on new players playing with newly bought faction decks playing against the 15/15 cheese?

So, you'd rather force 15/15 players to suffer long wait times that they don't want to go through? How is that any fairer?

[LordSerkan]

I agree with you that FF players perceive 15/15 as being more powerful, hence their displeasure at the change- but I think that it is more likely that 15/15 players are generally happy because they can now find games without a long wait time than that they're all either liars or delusional.

If 10/10 players were so rare that you had a hard time finding someone to play doesn't that tell you right there that FF is the preferred playing style of most players and not 10/10? I still think the 10/10 players are just lying to themselves if they don't honestly believe 15/15 decks have the potential to be far more powerful than FF decks.

LS

[Filena]

So, you'd rather force 15/15 players to suffer long wait times that they don't want to go through? How is that any fairer?

The fair thing its lets player making self choice on what they want play and not force them.

Force ppl will not make poxnora better. some will be happy some not. and true me when a game start have less choice, its not going in the right road, well its like every time SOE buy a game it alway go wrong... but i am not surpised at all. Eq1, vanguard and many game i played was ruined per them.

[Sackett]

Thank you very much for this post which respectfully explains why you've made an unpopular decision.

Earlier statements about just playing in Causal Lobby were I think generating even more hostility.

While I see your point and understand it, I think that you should consider the fact that such a large portion of your player base is upset by this change.

I want to be clear too, I didn't use the filter, and for the last 2 months or so have played primarily Full Faction. Nor do I believe that 15/15 is stronger than Full Faction.

However I was fine with the filter, and think you should consider carefully the option of a compromise of some sort. It never bothered me to play whatever, but it does bother a lot of players, and for whatever reason this lessens their enjoyment. I want the other players to be happy, as I think you all ought to as well.

Probably the best solution would be to have at least a Full Faction only ladder in addition to the current Ranking.

I'd like to point out that the filter was originally introduced so as to make running tournaments possible- and was specifically used for the Highlander Tourney (which I participated in). The way I remember it working was that only when you choose FF Highlander in the filter, did your win or loss count for the Highlander Ladder.

Could not a similar ladder be instituted for Full Faction? Just start out with two options: 15/15 and FF which is "Ranked" and FF only.

Only if you selected "Ranked" (meaning 15/15 and FF) will your match earn you EXP for ranking purposes.

However, if you select "FF Only" then your match will be counted for your points on the FF Ladder (which like the Highland ladder can be based off of faction points).

These are the two big "buckets" that are popular. Now I know you think that there really isn't any point to dividing them like this, however- a very large percentage of your player base does. Perhaps later as the player base expands you can add a Highlander Lobby, or even a Circus Lobby, but right now the player base is expressing a need for a separate FF Ladder.

Obviously such a thing can not be coded immediately, but even if you just tell us that you're hearing the need for something like a FF Ladder, and that you're working on producing such a thing, most players will be satisfied.

I think the reason a lot of players are angry is because frankly this was instituted in a high handed manner. That doesn't mean the change was incorrect, it just means that the presentation of the change was in a way that made players feel that you don't care about them. I know that's not true, but it sure felt like that. Especially when it came on top of the removal of Circus which has also done in a highhanded way- and the hard feelings about the closed Beta.... well these things start to add up you know?

There have been a lot of unpopular changes, and some of them we never got the least bit of warning or explanation.

[ssez]

Essentially what you done you are forcing FF or highlander players to play against the 15/15 decks which they dont want to how is that at all fair? How is this going to be fair on new players playing with newly bought faction decks playing against the 15/15 cheese?

its fair because you can play ff or 15-15 if you want, no one is saying well you have to play highlander but they dont - that would be unfair.

I agree with you in that I dont like it taken out, but hey its ranked.

War is hell

[Zoltor]

Less people playing in ranked games equals longer wait times while searching for a game, equals greater customer dissatisfaction.

It's better then the frustration of having to fight cheese, losing not becuase your BG Isn't good, but becuase you're forced against someone playing a different format.
The effectiveness of a BG(or the BGs that can be made) are drastically different between formats.

[PoxVega]

Essentially what you done you are forcing FF or highlander players to play against the 15/15 decks which they dont want to how is that at all fair? How is this going to be fair on new players playing with newly bought faction decks playing against the 15/15 cheese?


So, are you saying that this change is bad because FF and highlander BGs are inferior to 15/15?

Hypothetically, if ALL BG types were equal in balance, would this be a problem?

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

[Mirior]

I keep hearing people saying "10/10 BGs are so much stronger than FF BGs."

Could someone provide an example of a 10/10 BG that was stronger than FF BGs at the time the change was made?

[SeraphNora]

thats not what im saying at all, i dont care about whats better or not i dont like playing against mixed BGs and i resent not having the choice to play competitively in the same format. Ive dumped enough money into this game to deserve to have an option to play the way i liked or at least my feedback taken into consideration before such change is instituted so i know in advance not to spend money on a game i will no longer enjoy.

And vega its not about whats stronger or not sure mixed BG are way more versatile if not powerfull since you can draw from 2 distinct factions utilising their most powerfull spells / champs and with 30 rune deck its like having 2 entire bgs vs one FF one. Its not 100% better But you have twice as many options and my main point is that playing against mixed BG is completely different than against FF they are 2 different formats and FORCING people to play in a format they dont like isnt a recipe for good community relations.

[Radial]

Only time will tell if 15/15 is stronger than FF or vice versa. The game is drastically different as of today, and they had a good reason that is easily measured to make the change into a single bucket queue. Let them have the time they need to measure the other reasons before screaming bloody murder.

It not like they said seperate buckets is never going to happen - they just need to know if it needs to happen(for imbalance reasons), and if it can happen(for population reasons), first.

[ssez]

So, are you saying that this change is bad because FF and highlander BGs are inferior to 15/15?

Hypothetically, if ALL BG types were equal in balance, would this be a problem?

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

I think we as players have to give it a chance actually for the benefit of the game actually - consider it balance testing.

Lets find out in the ranked room just how powerfull ff or mixed is, a few months and lights of things will come to light.

If you have been around this game You know it changes, just go with it.

I am someone who liked highlander and liked having the option to fight only ff was great when you wanted to sorta test things out and wanted to match up ff or mixed, but i do think this will help the game figure out a better sense of balance. Then they will open more lobbies when we can fill some good buckets.

I may not like a lot of poxnoras decisions sometimes but i do see these guys trying to respond to issues so i tend to give them the benifit of the doubt - but still complain lol

I will be neg repping every green, cause of this though lol

[ThePlumber]

No one has any thoughts on my suggestion?

[Alrikor]

15/15 inherently allows for more combos, for one, and second, allows for better runes to be used. If a combo is not possible within your own faction, maybe it's possible with your faction and one other faction. Also, 15/15 allows you to pick and choose the best and the best from two worlds.

Imagine you have two countries. Each country has some very good workers, some good workers, some average workers, some below average workers, and some very poor workers. Say you can employ 30,000 people from your country. You're naturally going to use up the very good and good workers first, then throw in average workers to fill in the gaps. Now say you can pick from two countries. Obviously this gives you a wider selection, and you probably won't even have to rely on your average workers at all (or at least, much less so).

As far as faction bonuses go, let's imagine you get an income bonus for using all workers only from your country (an imaginary faction bonus); however, because if you use workers from two countries, allowing you to pick the best of the best, you're actually making more money in the end (not that I'm saying 15/15's get a better deal on faction bonuses, but a better deal overall). You're still getting only a little less than half of each bonus, so it's not even that bad.

On paper, I'd say 15/15 is superior to full-faction. Maybe not extremely significantly so, but enough to be better.

[Zoltor]

So, are you saying that this change is bad because FF and highlander BGs are inferior to 15/15?

Hypothetically, if ALL BG types were equal in balance, would this be a problem?

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

Highlander is inferrior to every other format, if you can't see why, you should just drop out of the industry all together(you are limited to only 1 of any rune, no way in hell could they stand up to 15/15 or even FF).

There are a lot more options in 15/15 then there are in FF, and nomatter what you do, will always be stronger then FF.

It's a moot point, becuase It's impossible for those formats to be balanced with the other formats(runes can only be expected to be balanced with the format it is in, against the same format. Format Vs a different Format will never be balanced).

PS. There are reasons why certain faction got some amazing support runes, to help out their weaknesses, but combining such runes with a faction that is strong in an area, increases power level 10 fold.

[goldmonkee]

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

I think the "problem" is that people are being yanked out of their comfort zone a bit.

I'm looking forward to figuring out the new deck types, how to play/beat them...and I think most others will enjoy it too, once they actually give it a try and get used to it.

[Alrikor]

Oh... another thing... 15/15 allows for more anti-equip and anti-relic possibilities. Being a FW player, I'm very much not in favor of that :(.

[ThePlumber]

Trying to play any type of disease or FW/tomb bg against 15/15 FW/XX bg's is absolutely terrible. Thats the ONLY reason I filtered FF when it was available. I do not look forward to facing 1/2 FW bg's.

[ssez]

now to answer poxvegas question about if all bg's were equal would it fix it.

I dont think so because even if all was equal we still wouldnt think it was, sometimes i would sit down to play and not want to play some new hot 10-10 combo in ranked that everyone was running, so then I would play ff and the reverse is true also. So i think we feel limited and having the shock of knowing at some point some semi broken combo is going to come up and everyone is gonna be running it and if we want to play ranked we are going to have to face it.


so poxvega your fighting human nature - we just like to complain good luck.

[Radial]

Imagine you have two countries. Each country has some very good workers, some good workers, some average workers, some below average workers, and some very poor workers. Say you can employ 30,000 people from your country. You're naturally going to use up the very good and good workers first, then throw in average workers to fill in the gaps. Now say you can pick from two countries. Obviously this gives you a wider selection, and you probably won't even have to rely on your average workers at all (or at least, much less so).


Now imagine that some workers work better as long as they are working exclusivly with workers from the same country. Ala Humble, Rugolth's Fist, and nearly all banners and heros.

There are certain combinations and permutations that are only possible in FF. And this expansion suggests a trend in that direction.

I see no reason why FF cannot compete on equal ground with 15/15 with the tools they have available. The challenge is to make it happen. Balance isn't easy.

edit- The only way to make it perfect, is to only allow factions to play mirror matches.

[PoxVega]

Highlander is inferrior to every other format, if you can't see why, you should just drop out of the industry all together(you are limited to only 1 of any rune, no way in hell could they stand up to 15/15 or even FF).

There are a lot more options in 15/15 then there are in FF, and nomatter what you do, will always be stronger then FF.

It's a moot point, becuase It's impossible for those formats to be balanced with the other formats(runes can only be expected to be balanced with the format it is in, against the same format. Format Vs Format will never be balanced).

PS. There are reasons why certain faction got some amazing support runes, to help out their weaknesses, but combining such runes with a faction that is strong in an area, increases power level 10 fold.

If you are going to quote me, at least answer my question. I know that they cannot be balanced, I know the individual factions cannot be balanced. I have worked on many, many strategy games over my career ranging from Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Halo Wars, etc. I think I know a little bit about balancing. :) You are right though, with the amount of variables throughout all the strategy games, they cannot be perfectly balanced.

Regardless, the question still stands... and it's hypothetical. :D

[Sackett]

So, are you saying that this change is bad because FF and highlander BGs are inferior to 15/15?

Hypothetically, if ALL BG types were equal in balance, would this be a problem?

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

Actually, I don't think this is the real issue.

I played FF and I never used the filter. (I also sometimes played 10/10 but I usually play them in spurts and the last couple months were mainly FF) I don't think 10/10 was more powerful that FF (we'll see how 15/15 turns out).

However, I can not deny that there is a strong feeling among a lot of players that they don't want to play against 10/10.

To me that's a good enough reason to consider a filter of some type.

My guess is that a lot of people just don't like playing against 10/10 because they don't like combos, and I would vastly prefer that they be divided off on to a different ladder then to keep nerfing 10/10 combos that are not overpowered simply to satisfy the 10/10 haters (my poor Leech/Banish deck).

[ssez]

Poxvega my question to you is why not jsut post like a month ago that in new expansion this is how lobbies are gonna work, and let everyone freak out then and perhaps solve problems before hand.

I think just giving people notice would have helped - we cant deal with too much change in bulk.

a lil noise is ok - too much noise and you panic the herd.

[Alrikor]

I think this would be a good time to utilize the poll feature and allow the community to decide :).

Poll: Should 15/15 and full-faction be on separate queue lists?

If you get, say, a 3/5 majority in favor of them being on different lists, then allow them to be on different lists. If the results are any less than that, keep it how it is now.

[ssez]

I think this would be a good time to utilize the poll feature and allow the community to decide :).

Poll: Should 15/15 and full-faction be on separate queue lists?

If you get, say, a 3/5 majority in favor of them being on different lists, then allow them to be on different lists. If the results are any less than that, keep it how it is now.

Like that sounds good and fair or whatever but lets look at it this way.

What if we have to all play in one ladder and because of it we see that 10-10 is way more powerfull - and because this issue is forced in ranked it has the effect of helping balance the game - thus making a better game.
Dont you think that is actually likely ? then maybe later when there is more balance and more players we get different ladders.

[PoxVega]

Actually, I don't think this is the real issue.

I played FF and I never used the filter. (I also sometimes played 10/10 but I usually play them in spurts and the last couple months were mainly FF) I don't think 10/10 was more powerful that FF (we'll see how 15/15 turns out).

However, I can not deny that there is a strong feeling among a lot of players that they don't want to play against 10/10.

To me that's a good enough reason to consider a filter of some type.

My guess is that a lot of people just don't like playing against 10/10 because they don't like combos, and I would vastly prefer that they be divided off on to a different ladder then to keep nerfing 10/10 combos that are not overpowered simply to satisfy the 10/10 haters (my poor Leech/Banish deck).

Well said.

My personal opinion is that people don't deal with change well, but I also would like to make the casual lobby a better place to play custom games.

[SeraphNora]

Well said.

My personal opinion is that people don't deal with change well, but I also would like to make the casual lobby a better place to play custom games.

How about asking the "paying" customers opinion first before you change the way game works in such a drastic way? Was it really so hard to ask players opinion a month in advance? Can you explain why you have not considered this option? Octopi has been all about working together with the players on any changes and now this.

[PoxVega]

Poxvega my question to you is why not jsut post like a month ago that in new expansion this is how lobbies are gonna work, and let everyone freak out then and perhaps solve problems before hand.

I think just giving people notice would have helped - we cant deal with too much change in bulk.

a lil noise is ok - too much noise and you panic the herd.

Good point.

Man, I was hard at work... sometimes stuff slips through the cracks with the community. My job isn't to talk to the community... I don't have to if I don't want to, but I like to. Just something we can work on together for next time. :D

[Xiape]

The easiest way to see 2 faction decks are stronger than full faction decks is by noting 2 faction decks have access to runes from 2 factions. Using a rune within its own faction, you usually can do less than with any rune from any faction.

There are upsides to filter removed, but they not as big as this downside.

If you read the forums about 10/10 being unbalanced, you would see a common thread -- "That's why I play only full faction", and this lead to many more full faction players.

[Alrikor]

Like that sounds good and fair or whatever but lets look at it this way.

What if we have to all play in one ladder and because of it we see that 10-10 is way more powerfull - and because this issue is forced in ranked it has the effect of helping balance the game - thus making a better game.
Dont you think that is actually likely ? then maybe later when there is more balance and more players we get different ladders.

Though the problem is that it's very difficult to work out individual balances. Instead of saying "FS is too powerful," we'd have to go, "FS/FW is powerful... but FS/KF is not" (just a random example, don't try to seek accuracy there). It would take too long to make these individual tweaks. Just like how FS has been the top faction for a long time (since the game's release, practically), wouldn't it just make it more difficult to balance for 15/15's?

Further, it always sucks to get your runes nerfed because of 15/15 groups. I can remember several times where FW was nerfed because of 10/10, when the rune within its faction was quite alright.


Anyway... there's not much of a way to know on paper. I guess I'll just wait for it to play out.

[SeraphNora]

The best example i can think of is : dwarfen kings + mobilization. Is playing agaisnt FW / IS fair to the FF IS player ? NO . Is this fair against FF FW player ? no again. Mobilization and dwarf king are both balanced runes when taken in FF but in combination they make for extremely powerfull combo, instead of nerfing perfectly good runes because the combos are too powerfull in mixed play leave the option for players who want to do silly combos play against anyone who wants to play against them but dont force people who dont want to do it to play against them.
And again the fact that you change things without playerbase opinion just shows lacks of respect for players and breeds resentment. IT would be fine if this was collectable card game where you could just take your cards and play however you wanted with them but since the only way to play is through the existing service you have to be more carefull with what changes you do to our virtual property.

[Mirior]

The easiest way to see 2 faction decks are stronger than full faction decks is by noting 2 faction decks have access to runes from 2 factions. Using a rune within its own faction, you usually can do less than with any rune from any faction.



I promise you, I can do more with Talgar, the IS warbanner, and Rugolth's Fist in FF IS than in any 10/10.

[Alrikor]

I promise you, I can do more with Talgar, the IS warbanner, and Rugolth's Fist in FF IS than in any 10/10.

And now that IS can use both Talgar and Euan, that certainly does strengthen the full-faction argument. The problem is how only two factions have two heroes :/. It's a bit unfair in that regard.

[CPKZ]

The reason I'm upset is because I enjoyed playing FF in an environment against someone of equal skill to me, in a match up that would be less likely to be cheese (15/15). Simply put, I did not enjoy 10/10 play as I felt it was often unfair or annoying.

Unfortunately, Casual play does not have an auto-matcher. I no longer have the option to go against an equal opponent in FF unless I go out of my way to set it up. Part of the fun was the random battles, not knowing who my opponent was going to be.

Personally, I'd rather wait 15minutes to find a game, and have it a game that isn't intrinsically going to up set me.

[SeraphNora]

Also Casual play doesnt let you gain faction points if i remember correctly which is another issue in addition to lack of automatcher.
The game no longer gives me its value for money if its going to be restricted in a way that doesnt allow me to play in a way that brought my interest and money into the game as well. Why should i buy new packs etc if i can only play the way i like casually ? If it doesnt matter any more why bother get new runes then?

[Terezar]

is there anyway that circus could be reallowed in casual play? I know that the whole avatar thing might be difficult to code around but set it to give the bg the avatar of the faction with the most runes or highest combined cost in the bg would work. I only mention this because as far as casual play goes it would just appease a few people, such as me. I used to have fun making all kinds of circus decks, including a dragon deck that used every dragon in the game but now with the avatar system that is completely impossible.

[ssez]

Though the problem is that it's very difficult to work out individual balances. Instead of saying "FS is too powerful," we'd have to go, "FS/FW is powerful... but FS/KF is not" (just a random example, don't try to seek accuracy there). It would take too long to make these individual tweaks. Just like how FS has been the top faction for a long time (since the game's release, practically), wouldn't it just make it more difficult to balance for 15/15's?

Further, it always sucks to get your runes nerfed because of 15/15 groups. I can remember several times where FW was nerfed because of 10/10, when the rune within its faction was quite alright.


Anyway... there's not much of a way to know on paper. I guess I'll just wait for it to play out.

Valid points,
as far as your last point - the thing is that this game is both ff and 10-10 so if a rune doesnt work in both it just doesnt work. if its fine in one but not the other its not fine, to me its that simple.

i would imagine that if lobbies stay this way we will see a 10-10 build rise to the top - then we will look at it and see why it is doing that then be able to alter that one thing - then after that does another one spring up ? does ff never make it to top 20 does only Lizards make it to top 20 and so on.

If we keep wanting to keep them seperate we might end up with a game that is only ff - so in my opinion having all one ranked lobby will definately help iron this out.

[Daner04]

It all comes down to this:
I had fun playing in a competetive enviroment against other players with my FF BG against their FF BG.
I did not have fun playing in a competetive enviroment with my FF against their 10/10.
I did not have fun playing 10/10 BG´s.

So in effect your change to remove FF filter in ranked, removed my intencetive to play!

[SeraphNora]

It all comes down to this:
I had fun playing in a competetive enviroment against other players with my FF BG against their FF BG.
I did not have fun playing in a competetive enviroment with my FF against their 10/10.
I did not have fun playing 10/10 BG´s.

So in effect your change to remove FF filter in ranked, removed my intencetive to play!

exactly what i mean. Short and to the point thanks

[ssez]

see it seems many in here are ok with the idea of ff and 10-10 not being balanced as long as they can avoid the other.

this to me is not the way to go - its like saying well ok its not ever gonna be balanced so lets just chalk it up and not even try to balance it.

i want ff to be able to be balanced within reason of 10-10 it adds more variety to the game. if we push towards the solution of not even bothering to make them semi even then this game would have lots of trouble.

[Daner04]

see it seems many in here are ok with the idea of ff and 10-10 not being balanced as long as they can avoid the other.


Not for all of us. To me it´s not at all about wether its balanced or not. It´s about wether it´s fun. Games should be fun after all, especially if they cost you money to play.

[Zoltor]

see it seems many in here are ok with the idea of ff and 10-10 not being balanced as long as they can avoid the other.

this to me is not the way to go - its like saying well ok its not ever gonna be balanced so lets just chalk it up and not even try to balance it.

i want ff to be able to be balanced within reason of 10-10 it adds more variety to the game. if we push towards the solution of not even bothering to make them semi even then this game would have lots of trouble.

You don't get it, Einstein him self couldn't balance one format Vs another, it is mathmatically impossible with both formats using the same rule set for each rune.

PS. It technically could be done, if each rune had different rullings depending on the format they are being used in, but do you really want SOE to mess with such a complicated change, they'll just mess up the game even more.

[Mirior]

PS. It technically could be done, if each rune had different rullings depending on the format they are being used in, but do you really want SOE to mess with such a complicated change, they'll just mess up the game even more.

See: Rugolth's Fist, Heroes, etc.

[PorkSoda]

I just hate the playstyle that so many 10/10 bgs have.

Instead of a battle between two armies, they try to find a way to kill your shrine by doing something like dumping a bunch of fish (for fuel rage) and two summoned yetis on your shrine.

Or two greenhouses, + mobilization shrine kill, etc.

Or a thousand other stupid combinations.

10/10 trick BGs just have nothing in common with regular pox

It's nearly impossible to balance 10/10 to remove this stuff, but you could avoid it by playing FF.

There should be 3 ladders, 10/10, FF, highlander.

And letting us run two heroes before all factions had two heroes was really poorly timed. You should put that in... in the patch where the factions get two heroes...

[MBasse]

The real reason why there's a lot of positive response from people who play split BGs isn't because they are clapping their hands in joy of getting to jump on FF BGs en masse.

The reason there is positive response for this is threefold:

First of all many of the split (get used to that word :P) BG players either have enough runes themselves or are able to borrow from others so they may be dabbling in several BGs - some of which are FF, some of which are not. They see no reason why these two should be split, because they generally don't see much difference in power. You could call it an esthetic objection to the ability to pick your play-form.

Secondly the whole notion of a competetive environment where you're allowed to pick your opponent is pretty preposterous. Having 2 rankings is equally silly as one will never be truly valid as long as the players there are still refusing to address every aspect of the meta, also where would you put FF players who play vs both?

As a third point it is not particularly funny for high ranked split BG players to sit around for ages waiting for a game only to be matched up vs some rank 4000+. It further demotes the notion of a true competitive environment.

EDIT. It'd be alike to a moga player getting the option to not face FW or something similar.

[Primitive]

I just hate the playstyle that so many 10/10 bgs have.

Instead of a battle between two armies, they try to find a way to kill your shrine by doing something like dumping a bunch of fish (for fuel rage) and two summoned yetis on your shrine.

Or two greenhouses, + mobilization shrine kill, etc.

Or a thousand other stupid combinations.

10/10 trick BGs just have nothing in common with regular pox

It's nearly impossible to balance 10/10 to remove this stuff, but you could avoid it by playing FF.

There should be 3 ladders, 10/10, FF, highlander.

And letting us run two heroes before all factions had two heroes was really poorly timed. You should put that in... in the patch where the factions get two heroes...

man you sound like a pubbie

15/15 is for real studs

one rule set to rule them all

[PoxVega]

The real reason why there's a lot of positive response from people who play split BGs isn't because they are clapping their hands in joy of getting to jump on FF BGs en masse.

The reason there is positive response for this is threefold:

First of all many of the split (get used to that word :P) BG players either have enough runes themselves or are able to borrow from others so they may be dabbling in several BGs - some of which are FF, some of which are not. They see no reason why these two should be split, because they generally don't see much difference in power. You could call it an esthetic objection to the ability to pick your play-form.

Secondly the whole notion of a competetive environment where you're allowed to pick your opponent is pretty preposterous. Having 2 rankings is equally silly as one will never be truly valid as long as the players there are still refusing to address every aspect of the meta, also where would you put FF players who play vs both?

As a third point it is not particularly funny for high ranked split BG players to sit around for ages waiting for a game only to be matched up vs some rank 4000+. It further demotes the notion of a true competitive environment.


Good points all around.

(Not pointed to anyone in particular): Keep it on topic and don't spam us with any boo hoo threads. They will be deleted.

[Uccisore]

It seems reasonable to me to expect that split-faction battlegroups will be stronger in comparison to full faction than they were before. From what I've seen, none of the 'added benefit if full faction' runes are auto-includes, and there's certainly no full-faction strategy that I know of that requires 15 runes to play out. Even Moga/G'hern, probably the closest example, is typically going to run no more than 15 champs with some spells and a warbanner. Your split faction BGs are going to be a complete IS equip deck plus a complete moga swarm/totem of muses deck, for example. It was really hard, before, to build a strong 10-rune 'fire' component or a 10 rune 'moga/ghern' component.
Sure, full faction is going to get 30 runes, but I don't forsee any emerging strategies that NEED like 23 runes of the same faction in order to pull off- and if there was such a strat, it would be completely non-competitive considering you'd almost never get to field all the components. Full faction is going to be the same thing- two complete deck types from the same faction- but you'll have the classic weakness of that faction (no cleanse, low damage, fragile champs, whatever it may be). A 15/15 build doesn't have to have any holes. Even the edge that full faction groups had before in warbanners is getting mitigated, as we get closer to the point where including a warbanner in a 15/15 BG is a viable option.

On the other hand, Octopi continues to release runes that are obviously intended for 15/15 play, so this has to be a part of the ranked experience- it's a nice area of design space that would suck to cut back on. I LIKE the idea of allied factions, it makes sense to the game.

I don't have a lot of confidence in FF being balanced against 15/15, but if we absolutely have to try it, I would ask that careful watch is put on the 'ally' runes and other runes going forward that encourage certain split combinations, so that the encouraged alliances don't completely cover each other's weaknesses (SL/SP seems good, KF/IS would probably not be good).

[frogshine]

Dear Greenies,

Have you ever though about buffing FF bonuses and nerfing 15/15 bonuses a bit? What if FF UD got +6 damage, and 15/15 got +2? I do not know how this would work for KF, but maybe 20% cooldown reduction for 15/15 FW, 16 def for FF SL, while 7 DEF for 15/15, etc.

The reason 15/15 works better together is because some factions have weaknesses that are supposed to be there, because that faction has strengths elsewhere. People playing 15/15 can have the best of both worlds (2 factions strengths) as well as combos that the devs might not have wanted a faction to have. FW does not have drive, while in 15/15 it can have drive. I think this versatility of faction strengths being incorporated into 15/15 will warrant a 15/15 faction bonus nerf, while FF players should keep the same bonus or have a little bump.

Sums it up for me.

[Kurisukun]

Ranked play had an Incentive to win. An incentive to play the game period. If you played the game, you had a chance of winning. If you won, you could gain rank. If you gain rank, you get that blue name, and fame, and renown, and other little perks of being the best.

Casual play does not have that. What do I earn by winning in Casual play? I get to play a game... But there is no real REASON for me to play. I have no goal to work for. I'm even penalized by reduced CP gain (which is necessary to prevent abuse)

People do not want to play a game if they do not have something to show for it. They want rewards for winning. The rewards could be anything. But without a reward, without incentive, without no prize to gain, No one wants to play in Casual. They have more fun when playing in Ranked, where they have something to gain (or lose)

With the removal of the filter, you have left players Without the ability to play the game they want (A game of FF vs. FF) for rewards. If they wish to play the game they enjoy, they have been told they get nothing from it.


That is the flaw in the thinking of removing the Filters. Do I support the change? Yes. But in order to make players happy, the casual lobby needs to have some form of incentive to use it.

[frogshine]

I'd like to point out that 10/10 was responsible for a lot of cards getting nerfed that were completely viable in FF but broken in 10/10. See sacrifice for recent example. Forcing 10/10 or 15/15 to play FF is going to result in more of these nerfs. And these nerfs can completely limp a faction like the sac nerf did.

[Calaster]

I did use the filter, it is important to me. I have made the conscious decision not to invest further into the game at this point, even though I intended to go premium for a warbanner, and consider the IS Avatar, as it is my primary faction.

Why:
1. CP in Anything Goes (Casual Play) is far less then in ranked.
2. I like FF ranked play regardless of a separate ladder due to the matching system, to set me against an opponent of an appropriate skill level.
3. Rank while meaningless, is a cool factor to track one's skill level against the greater community with.
4. I want to avoid the issue of having to match a game myself with an opponent, or face a Circus deck in AG (Casual Play)

Therefore you should note, your decision is the primary cause of my decision not to spend any more money at this point.

Thanks.

[PoxVega]

CP gained in casual play should be the same as ranked.

If not, that sounds like a bug to me.

[Calaster]

CP gained in casual play should be the same as ranked.

If not, that sounds like a bug to me.


It may be now, I have not been in Anything Goes for some time (months), however I do remember that it was at one point not equal to ranked, perhaps around the time DoW and ranked play was introduced.

EDIT: No, just confirmed that it is half that of ranked play...

[Zalithian]

The real reason why there's a lot of positive response from people who play split BGs isn't because they are clapping their hands in joy of getting to jump on FF BGs en masse.

The reason there is positive response for this is threefold:

First of all many of the split (get used to that word :P) BG players either have enough runes themselves or are able to borrow from others so they may be dabbling in several BGs - some of which are FF, some of which are not. They see no reason why these two should be split, because they generally don't see much difference in power. You could call it an esthetic objection to the ability to pick your play-form.

Secondly the whole notion of a competetive environment where you're allowed to pick your opponent is pretty preposterous. Having 2 rankings is equally silly as one will never be truly valid as long as the players there are still refusing to address every aspect of the meta, also where would you put FF players who play vs both?

As a third point it is not particularly funny for high ranked split BG players to sit around for ages waiting for a game only to be matched up vs some rank 4000+. It further demotes the notion of a true competitive environment.

EDIT. It'd be alike to a moga player getting the option to not face FW or something similar.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Nobody is allowed to pick their opponent in anything except maybe highlander because barely anyone plays it. You can't just queue FF and know who you're going to play. The only way that would happen is if two people very close in rank filter FF and queue at the same time. I'm pretty confident you don't need a filter to set that up, so if that's a reason for the removal of the filter it's not a very good one.

There's a difference between picking your game type, and picking your opponent. It's nothing at all like a moga player choosing not to play FW. Why? because it's the same gametype vs the same gametype. There's nothing the same about running a mono deck against a dual colored deck.

[Mirior]

There's a difference between picking your game type, and picking your opponent. It's nothing at all like a moga player choosing not to play FW. Why? because it's the same gametype vs the same gametype. There's nothing the same about running a mono deck against a dual colored deck.

Could you elaborate on the differences between playing a different faction and playing a different pair of factions?

[Zalithian]

Could you elaborate on the differences between playing a different faction and playing a different pair of factions?

It's a different game type. To the best of my knowledge, the game has been primarily balanced around full faction.

It's like playing a one color deck vs a two color deck. The two color deck has combos which can be exploited which are not available in a one color deck. Also, the rune pool for the two color deck is obviously better when you only need half as many cards per faction to make the deck. This is especially important in a game like Pox where the amount of playable runes is quite small comparatively to other card games. If there's a broken combo in mono, then it's usually fixed quickly but if there's a broken combo between two factions/colors instead of one it's generally not dealt with and even if it is dealt with it's usually much slower than a mono problem would be.

If you saw BBND and other broken combo decks I think you would agree that they probably aren't on equal playing fields with a normal FF deck. It just opens the door to other possibility a FF player is not open to and I do not feel it's fair.

I think FF is overall fairly balanced, but 15/15 is not.

[Mirior]

It's a different game type. To the best of my knowledge, the game has been primarily balanced around full faction.

It's like playing a one color deck vs a two color deck. The two color deck has combos which can be exploited which are not available in a one color deck. Also, the rune pool for the two color deck is obviously better when you only need half as many cards per faction to make the deck. This is especially important in a game like Pox where the amount of playable runes is quite small comparatively to other card games. If there's a broken combo in mono, then it's usually fixed quickly but if there's a broken combo between two factions/colors instead of one it's generally not dealt with and even if it is dealt with it's usually much slower than a mono problem would be.

If you saw BBND and other broken combo decks I think you would agree that they probably aren't on equal playing fields with a normal FF deck. It just opens the door to other possibility a FF player is not open to and I do not feel it's fair.

I think FF is overall fairly balanced, but 15/15 is not.

I did see BBND. I also saw BBND get nerfed. I've been around since Necromoga's days- and Necromoga's nerf.

Let's use the FW vs. SP matchup for an example. FW has access to combos that SP does not, just like 10/10. 10/10 BGs have, in my experience, only taken longer to nerf than DFF BGs since the filter was instigated- when the game was in the state it is now, 10/10 was nerfed just as quickly (or slowly, I should say) as FF. And if the delay persists, isn't that a problem with the balancing problem, rather than with 15/15? I will concede the size of the rune pool- however, as long as their are incentives for limiting oneself (which do exist), I disagree that that alone constitutes a separate format. To use an M:tG example, multicolored decks have a larger card selection than monocolored, but sacrifice consistency to do so- and as such are placed in the same format, despite the fact that M:tG is larger than Poxnora and can more easily support a larger number of formats.

[Zalithian]

Of course it has access to combos, but they're not broken combos like half decks try their best to exploit. Think of any broken combos in MTG, and think how many were multi colored decks, and how many were mono decks? In MTG, don't forget.. They don't separate mono/colored decks, but they still do separate expansions in game types.

[Mirior]

Of course it has access to combos, but they're not broken combos like half decks try their best to exploit. Think of any broken combos in MTG, and think how many were multi colored decks, and how many were mono decks.

Carrion Colossus + Sirens
RMH
Slags + Seers
UD firedecks
FS Double Drown

As long as the developers are willing to nerf broken combos that arise in 15/15, which I assume they would be, I still don't see what makes it so much different than FF.

As for the MtG example, MtG is pretty good at never creating combos that completely wreck the metagame. The only deck that I am aware of that was enough of a problem in recent history to warrant banning is Affinity- which was traditionally monocolored, I believe. (I'm not as knowledgable about MtG history as I am about Pox.) As for top-tier decks in the current metagame, which I do consider myself knowledgeable about, two of the top five decks are monocolored- RDW and White Weenie.

[Calaster]

As long as the developers are willing to nerf broken combos that arise in 15/15, which I assume they would be, I still don't see what makes it so much different than FF.

Because combos get abused for some time in ranked play before anything ever happens.

Honestly, what is the argument for not letting someone choose how they want to play the game? If the issue is its not "ranked". Then create two ladders. The fact of the matter is, that the flexibility afforded by 15/15 is far greater then in FF in terms of rune pool variety, and synergy. They are not equal play styles.



I can ask it perhaps this way instead: Do you want to play against an opponent who does not want to play (takes no pleasure in it) against your play style?

My answer: No, it just leads to pissed off opponents and nasty conversations more often then not.

[Zoltor]

Carrion Colossus + Sirens
RMH
Slags + Seers
UD firedecks
FS Double Drown

As long as the developers are willing to nerf broken combos that arise in 15/15, which I assume they would be, I still don't see what makes it so much different than FF.

That is one of "many" problems. They shouldn't nerf anything in half/half BGs, every time they do, it shoeboxes something in FF, becuase in FF it Isn't even OPed, let alone actually broken.

PS. Yea this game is going to crap real fast with this not thought out at all idea of removing filters, while not even making seperate ladders.

[Mirior]

That is one of "many" problems. They shouldn't nerf anything in half/half BGs, every time they do, it shoeboxes something in FF, becuase in FF it Isn't even OPed, let alone actually broken.



That's only a problem if you see 15/15 as an entirely separate format. Example: Cyclops Seer was great in SP Slag decks before they were nerfed, but balanced in Cyclops builds. Does that mean that nerfing Afflict to prevent it from being abused in Slag builds was a horrible thing?

One does not look at the lowest denominator when determining a rune's overall powerlevel. To balance a rune, you assume that it is in the deck most able to utilize it- if a rune's too good in 15/15, and 15/15 is in the same format as FF, then the rune is too good period, no matter its power level in FF.

[Cookie99]

Very nice

(letters)

[Mirior]

Because combos get abused for some time in ranked play before anything ever happens.

The same is true of FF combos.


Honestly, what is the argument for not letting someone choose how they want to play the game? If the issue is its not "ranked". Then create two ladders. The fact of the matter is, that the flexibility afforded by 15/15 is far greater then in FF in terms of rune pool variety, and synergy. They are not equal play styles.

Do you believe that moga players should be allowed to filter out FW decks from all of their matches?


I can ask it perhaps this way instead: Do you want to play against an opponent who does not want to play (takes no pleasure in it) against your play style?

I want to play against players who have to take into account their deck's weakness when designing decks, rather than simply filtering out every deck that's strong against them. I consider that to be fair. If they have no fun playing against 15/15s, then they can simply surrender. If they care about their rank too much to surrender, then they should be willing to play matches that they do not enjoy in order to maintain that rank- that is the price of being competitive.

[zz1000zz]

I have seen two main complaints about this decision. 1) People like having the ability to choose their matchups. 2) Full Faction battlegroups are weaker than 15/15 battlegroups.

The first point is a valid reason not to like this change, but it is not a reason the change is bad. Decisions almost always wind up upsetting some players, no matter how good the decisions may be. Game designers need to worry about what is best for the game, not what is most popular. It is also important to remember the initial reactions from people are made without actually experiencing the changes much, meaning they may change. In addition, people who dislike the change will always be far more vocal than the people who like the change, meaning it will seem more unpopular than it is.

The second point is the point game designers need to worry about the most. At one point, there was no doubt Full Faction was weaker. Now, there is little doubt the two are at least close in power level. The "broken" combos that made 10/10 battlegroups better have all gotten weaker, through direct nerfs or other game changes. The rune selection issue has greatly diminished through the increase in how many runes exist.

While it is easy to assume Full Faction is weaker through a knee jerk reaction, there is no clear indication it is weaker. Perhaps enough time will show Full Faction is significantly weaker, but that is the only meaningful reason to reverse this change. Even then, fixing balance issues is still a perfectly fine alternative.

With all that said, it is still horrible this change happened with no warning. A change this major should be announced in advance. Instead, it was not even included in the Release Notes. Communication has improved greatly in this game, but it still needs a lot of work.

[Zoltor]

That's only a problem if you see 15/15 as an entirely separate format. Example: Cyclops Seer was great in SP Slag decks before they were nerfed, but balanced in Cyclops builds. Does that mean that nerfing Afflict to prevent it from being abused in Slag builds was a horrible thing?

One does not look at the lowest denominator when determining a rune's overall powerlevel. To balance a rune, you assume that it is in the deck most able to utilize it- if a rune's too good in 15/15, and 15/15 is in the same format as FF, then the rune is too good period, no matter its power level in FF.

With that reasoning, you might as well remove FF format from the game entirely.

[Mirior]

With that reasoning, you might as well remove FF format from the game entirely.

What makes that worse than removing 10/10 from the game entirely? (Which is what separate rank ladders leads towards. Just the filters resulted in a sharp decrease in 10/10 players.)

[PorkaMorka]

This has honestly destroyed my enthusiasm for the expansion and has really depressed me.

There is no chance that the devs will promptly fix broken combos.

These are the same devs that let drown and feeding frenzy push Forglar swamp to 13,000 plus faction points, without doing anything for months and months.

Why would we believe them when they say that broken combos would be fixed promptly?

Why would we believe them when they say 15/15 and full faction would be balanced, they couldn't even balance full faction, pre expansion FS pushed to 13000 and could win matchups within the first 5 turns routinely, and the Devs did nothing for months.

15/15 is simply a more versatile and powerful concept than FF, barring multiple powerful FF only runes, which many factions simply don't have. The ability to use two heroes at once for example, will only benefit two factions out of eight.

Further, our FF collections are no longer sufficient for competitive play. We now have to shell out for the best/most abusable runes from each faction, so we can be prepared to take best advantage of the current meta game: that makes the game almost limitlessly expensive compared to simply picking one faction and limiting your costs by trading away runes from other factions.

Frankly, I'm sick over it and I can't bring myself to even play, let alone buy the large amount of new runes I expected to.

At least 65% of the time I forgot to filter it to FF only I came up against an absurdly broken combo, often based on one rounding the shrine, that made me resolve to try harder not to forget to filter.

This is awful.

[Mirior]

At least 65% of the time I forgot to filter it to FF only I came up against an absurdly broken combo, often based on one rounding the shrine, that made me resolve to try harder not to forget to filter.


That is the entire problem with the concept of the filter. Losing to a deck should make you resolve to find a way to beat said deck, not to find a way to never have to face said deck.

Also, you may be pleased to note that almost all of the "broken" 10/10 combos have been nerfed. To my knowledge, one-turn shrine kills have been all but eliminated (not that they were so incredibly difficult to defeat in the first place.)

[Zoltor]

What makes that worse than removing 10/10 from the game entirely? (Which is what separate rank ladders leads towards. Just the filters resulted in a sharp decrease in 10/10 players.)


Did I ever say remove them no, but they should not be treated the same, in no way shape or fassion. Cleary this change had no thought put into it what so ever, or they wouldn't be forcing 2(cough cough), I mean 3 formats to not only be ranked together, but now you are forced to play against people playing other formats.

No, there are plenty of people that play 10/10, it wouldn't be effectively removed.

[Mirior]

Did I ever say remove them no, but they should not be treated the same, in no way shape or fassion. Cleary this change had no thought put into it what so ever, or they wouldn't be forcing 2(cough cough), I mean 3 formats to not only be ranked together, but now you are forced to play against people playing other formats.

Thought that you disagree with |= no thought at all. And I have yet to be convinced that 15/15 is an entirely separate format than FF- as long as FF has access to the same runes as 15/15 (which it does, it just can't choose as many as once), and there are incentives to limit the size of your rune selection (which there are, in the forms of Warbanners and Heroes), and the same attention is paid to balancing both playstyles (which there is no reason to assume won't be true), then they are not distinct enough to be considered separate formats.

[Mirior]

No, there are plenty of people that play 10/10, it wouldn't be effectively removed.

Name 10.

The greens (as evidenced by their lack of support for KotH and CtF) do not have enough resources to devote the same amount of attention to multiple formats. If they turn FF and 10/10 into separate formats, one will receive little attention, and will wither and die- guess which one? (Hint: Not the one with more players)

[PorkaMorka]

That is the entire problem with the concept of the filter. Losing to a deck should make you resolve to find a way to beat said deck, not to find a way to never have to face said deck.

All too often the answer is simple "make a 10/10 of your own".

And one champ stealthing to kill the shrine with greenhouses and mobi is completely different from the normal game of Pox: a clash of fantasy armies. I'm interested in a clash of fantasy armies, not finding the most abusive trick deck.


Also, you may be pleased to note that almost all of the "broken" 10/10 combos have been nerfed. To my knowledge, one-turn shrine kills have been all but eliminated (not that they were so incredibly difficult to defeat in the first place.)

I'm sure only about 100 more are waiting to be found with all the new runes and mechanics this expansion.

[Zoltor]

Name 10.

The greens (as evidenced by their lack of support for KotH and CtF) do not have enough resources to devote the same amount of attention to multiple formats. If they turn FF and 10/10 into separate formats, one will receive little attention, and will wither and die- guess which one? (Hint: Not the one with more players)

Go to any faction forum, and you'll see people always talking about their new 10/10(now it will be 15/15).

[Mirior]

All too often the answer is simple "make a 10/10 of your own".

Or, you know, use anti-stealth runes. I play FF. I never used the filter. I never had a problem with 10/10 shrine kill.

And one champ stealthing to kill the shrine with greenhouses and mobi is completely different from the normal game of Pox: a clash of fantasy armies. I'm interested in a clash of fantasy armies, not finding the most abusive trick deck.

Why does your view of Poxnora take precedence over the view of those who enjoy coming up with nifty comboes?

I'm sure only about 100 more are waiting to be found with all the new runes and mechanics this expansion.

1. Hyperbole doesn't help your argument. There haven't been that many broken combos, FF or 10/10, in the history of this game.

2. And I'm equally sure that a broken FF combo will be found. Does that mean we should kick FF out? No, it means that the greens should balance the combos when they are found, regardless of FF or 15/15.

[kanishou]

I like this. I always played FF, and most of the time I did not filter. It was a difficult decision though, because being able to limit your opponents to a certain subset _is_ a huge advantage. It just doesn't make sense to have this ability in the first place.

If anything, FF-only should be a separate ladder/ranking system, but that is just not a good idea until the community grows considerably. In so far, I completely agree with the reasoning given by PoxVega.

I often have been irritated by certain 10/10 decks too, and I definitely can understand the frustration of some people that they actually have to deal with this now. But I believe it will be for the better, and if there are significant problems, they will also be more apparent now that people can't shut them out.

[redbarret]

As many of you have noticed, the filter options have been removed from the ranked play. My goal is to touch on some of the reasons we decided to make these particular changes.

First, in my opinion, players shouldn't be allowed to create a defined match-up in ranked play. It is a competitive environment that's primary goal, in some ways, is to determine who the best players are - regardless of faction, BG type, etc. (I will address 15/15 vs. FF at the end.)

We certainly want players to be able to play with game-options they prefer and against a particular BG as well. This is where the casual lobby comes in. Granted, the casual lobby doesn't necessarily make this easy since there aren't any options to choose a BG type. I will bring this up with my colleagues, and hopefully in the future, we can make it easier for players that want to use certain option types.

15/15 is better than FF. This is a misconception, especially for this expansion. Now that there are a lot of new runes with bonuses for FF and the ability to run two heroes... I believe FF is on par or better than 15/15. In fact, a lot of players thought FF was better than 15/15 last expansion. Regardless, we will begin to find out, and it is our goal to have 15/15 and FF equally viable and balanced options.



____

Okay, quick words about this forum:

This forum is heavily moderated.
Please remain on topic and be respectful to everyone.
If you cannot agree to disagree with someone, then do everyone a favor and not participate.
If you do post a reply, please be clear and use more than "tenletters."
I truly enjoy conversing with you all and respect your opinions, so it is imperative that all of us are incredibly open-minded. If you cannot be open-minded, please do not participate.



POXVEGA!!!

1) 15/15 over FF any day.

2) STOP adding more cost... Soon (Or maybe now) Skill, Time, Smarts, and a lil lucky. Will not be enough to become the best. I tried... 1 Y and a few mouths as a player... Over +2000 games I should know.

3)There should be 10/10/10 =-D

4) LOVE some of the art and skill.

5) I notice that the greens have ALL the runes maybe not harbs... So there not able to how bad trading is... So make a 24 hour bid canel... Try to make a deck and be good from a poor man view. Try bening god with the runes I have. =-D

6) Make more rune that are better for FF then 15/15. (Yes that means work. =-D)
or make some FF ONLY runes. No not make new ones.

7) The whole C-Deck thing. Allright I guess.

8) Polls please.

9) STOP adding costs... I die a little each time you do...

10) More 2ND! Heros.

[Mirior]

Go to any faction forum, and you'll see people always talking about their new 10/10(now it will be 15/15).

On the front page of 8 faction forums, I see 1 thread about a new 15/15 build, started by fireball94.

I also know of two people who have mentioned new 15/15 builds- myalt1 and Wolfheart.

That's 3. You have 7 to go.

[PorkSol]

Why does your view of Poxnora take precedence over the view of those who enjoy coming up with nifty comboes?

It doesn't.

I'm all for a way for 10/10 players to play ranked.

I just don't wish to be excluded from ranked play because I choose to play only FF vs FF. Prior to this expansion I could play FF vs FF in ranked play. Now I can't.


1. Hyperbole doesn't help your argument. There haven't been that many broken combos, FF or 10/10, in the history of this game.

It depends what you consider broken. One person might consider DK + mobi broken, one person might not. Broken is a statement of opinion. You certainly will find hundreds of combos that are far outside the power level that they'd allow a full faction to have.


2. And I'm equally sure that a broken FF combo will be found. Does that mean we should kick FF out? No, it means that the greens should balance the combos when they are found, regardless of FF or 15/15.

The Devs have historically been very slow to balance things, and sometimes didn't fix them for months and months (see FS). But FF vs FF is far easier to balance compared to the innumerable combos available in 15/15, because of the simple nature of it.

[Mirior]

It doesn't.

I'm all for a way for 10/10 players to play ranked.

I just don't wish to be excluded from ranked play because I choose to play only FF vs FF. Prior to this expansion I could play FF vs FF in ranked play. Now I can't.

As I have already said, providing a way for FF players to cut out 15/15 players as opponents hurts all those who play 15/15, because of the smaller number of playersof that gamestyle. They have to wait longer for games and receive less support from the greens.


It depends what you consider broken. One person might consider DK + mobi broken, one person might not. Broken is a statement of opinion. You certainly will find hundreds of combos that are far outside the power level that they'd allow a full faction to have.

I consider broken to be something that completely dominates the metagame, ala Necromoga, Slags, or pre-Drown-nerf FS. There have not been 100 such combos in the history of Poxnora- and of such combos, they have been approximately evenly split between FF and 10/10.

The Devs have historically been very slow to balance things, and sometimes didn't fix them for months and months (see FS). But FF vs FF is far easier to balance compared to the innumerable combos available in 15/15, because of the simple nature of it.

What makes FF vs. FF simpler than 15/15 vs. FF? It's the same runes. The same number of decks are usually at the top of the metagame. The only way it becomes more complex is if you try to make every possible 15/15 combination as strong as every FF BG- which, traditionally, the greens have made no effort to do. 15/15 balance simply involves nerfing combos that become too powerful, and nothing makes a 15/15 BG innately harder to nerf than a FF BG.

[redbarret]

I have seen two main complaints about this decision. 1) People like having the ability to choose their matchups. 2) Full Faction battlegroups are weaker than 15/15 battlegroups.

The first point is a valid reason not to like this change, but it is not a reason the change is bad. Decisions almost always wind up upsetting some players, no matter how good the decisions may be. Game designers need to worry about what is best for the game, not what is most popular. It is also important to remember the initial reactions from people are made without actually experiencing the changes much, meaning they may change. In addition, people who dislike the change will always be far more vocal than the people who like the change, meaning it will seem more unpopular than it is.

The second point is the point game designers need to worry about the most. At one point, there was no doubt Full Faction was weaker. Now, there is little doubt the two are at least close in power level. The "broken" combos that made 10/10 battlegroups better have all gotten weaker, through direct nerfs or other game changes. The rune selection issue has greatly diminished through the increase in how many runes exist.

While it is easy to assume Full Faction is weaker through a knee jerk reaction, there is no clear indication it is weaker. Perhaps enough time will show Full Faction is significantly weaker, but that is the only meaningful reason to reverse this change. Even then, fixing balance issues is still a perfectly fine alternative.

With all that said, it is still horrible this change happened with no warning. A change this major should be announced in advance. Instead, it was not even included in the Release Notes. Communication has improved greatly in this game, but it still needs a lot of work.

Duh all the way to part where FF is = to 15/15.

P.S. Cant wait for green to use this as an reply then JUST say he/she agress.
You are right. We need more time.

P.p.s. What do you know about rank? You last RANK game was March 2008.

[Zoltor]

On the front page of 8 faction forums, I see 1 thread about a new 15/15 build, started by fireball94.

I also know of two people who have mentioned new 15/15 builds- myalt1 and Wolfheart.

That's 3. You have 7 to go.
It just came out today lol(I said it "Will" be 15/15), look back, and there are a lot of 10/10 talk.

[Ryvirath]

Death to filtering!

Death to selective queuing!

All hail Octopi!

[Mirior]

It just came out today lol(I said it "Will" be 15/15), look back, and there are a lot of 10/10 talk.

I can't speak for every faction, but I do know that Wolfheart has been the only person talking about 10/10s in the SL forums for a long time. If we assume 1 such person for every forum, and then also count myalt1 because I don't think he haunts any particular faction forum, you're still short 1 person.

[Zalithian]

I'm not really sure what the obsession is with not allowing people to choose what game type they play in. Is FF vs FF really unfair? Do you really think FF is less balanced than FF vs 15/15?

[Mirior]

I'm not really sure what the obsession is with not allowing people to choose what game type they play in. Is FF vs FF really unfair? Do you really think FF is less balanced than FF vs 15/15?

Unfair? Yes. It was unfair to every 10/10 player ought there that they have long wait times on matches and very little green support because it was easier to simply click a little filter box than to actually have to think about how their deck performs against 10/10s. I for one am glad that that period in Pox's history is gone, and hope that it never returns.

[Zalithian]

Unfair? Yes. It was unfair to every 10/10 player ought there that they have long wait times on matches and very little green support because it was easier to simply click a little filter box than to actually have to think about how their deck performs against 10/10s. I for one am glad that that period in Pox's history is gone, and hope that it never returns.

Yes, take away peoples freedom for convenience. I'm sure you'd make a great government official. It's totally fair people had the option to play FF or 15/15, and now people don't have the option because people who played half decks had to wait too long. Screw that, let's just take away the ability to choose! That's much more fair. Now people who want to play FF in ranked vs FF cannot. Nice double standard. It's also funny I didn't see you shed any tears for those poor highlander players who had to wait for a really long time either. Why not?

[PorkSol]

As I have already said, providing a way for FF players to cut out 15/15 players as opponents hurts all those who play 15/15, because of the smaller number of playersof that gamestyle. They have to wait longer for games and receive less support from the greens.

Perhaps, but it makes no sense to completely exclude a popular option because of long queues for 15/15 players.

I'm all for more incentives to get people into 15/15 if it's underpopulated. Heck, I'd be fine if they decided to place a chicken icon by FF player's names, I don't care.

But to completely exclude us from ranked play? I pretty much feel like I can't play the game I loved anymore. FF was always so fun. 10/10 was always just absurdly unbalanced in comparison and brutally unpleasant to play. The game I loved is gone.


What makes FF vs. FF simpler than 15/15 vs. FF? It's the same runes. The same number of decks are usually at the top of the metagame.

You know what each faction has and you know what they can do. Each full faction is limited in what it can do, so you can balance around it. KF for example is limited by having awful disarm. IS is limited by not having much global AP generation, so it's OK for them to have Warcry 3, etc. It's easier to balance FF, you can make sure that one powerful ability is balanced by a lack of another ability. For example, KF or ST might have great range, but have it balanced by weak disarm to take off demon shields, etc etc.

With 15/15 you have to ensure that no two abilities in the game when combined become overpowered. That's essentially impossible, unless you want to take out all the fun signature abilities from the game..


The only way it becomes more complex is if you try to make every possible 15/15 combination as strong as every FF BG- which, traditionally, the greens have made no effort to do. 15/15 balance simply involves nerfing combos that become too powerful, and nothing makes a 15/15 BG innately harder to nerf than a FF BG.

That's exactly my fear. They'll just nerf a few really strong combos that really dominate and leave large numbers of combos that are far beyond what a full faction would be allowed to have in place, which will result in more than half my games being against 10/10s with cheesy overpowered combos.

[PorkSol]

Unfair? Yes. It was unfair to every 10/10 player ought there that they have long wait times on matches and very little green support because it was easier to simply click a little filter box than to actually have to think about how their deck performs against 10/10s.

You know, the logic that you use here would also apply to every FF player now being entirely unable to play ranked FF vs FF.

We traded a lack of support for 10/10 and long queues for 10/10 for... the complete elimination of ranked FF vs FF.

Which one is more unfair?

[Mirior]

Perhaps, but it makes no sense to completely exclude a popular option because of long queues for 15/15 players.

I'm all for more incentives to get people into 15/15 if it's underpopulated. Heck, I'd be fine if they decided to place a chicken icon by FF player's names, I don't care.

But to completely exclude us from ranked play? I pretty much feel like I can't play the game I loved anymore. FF was always so fun. 10/10 was always just absurdly unbalanced in comparison and brutally unpleasant to play. The game I loved is gone.[quote]

The point of ranked play is that you don't get to pick your opponents, that you confront your weaknesses as well as your strengths. I'm all for filters in casual play- but if you want to be competitive, you should have to take all opponents into account, not simply the ones that you enjoy playing against.

[quote]
With 15/15 you have to ensure that no two abilities in the game when combined become overpowered. That's essentially impossible, unless you want to take out all the fun signature abilities from the game..

Or you simply act fast to nerf the combos that show up.


That's exactly my fear. They'll just nerf a few really strong combos that really dominate and leave large numbers of combos that are far beyond what a full faction would be allowed to have in place, which will result in more than half my games being against 10/10s with cheesy overpowered combos.

If they are far beyond what a full faction would be allowed to have in place, then they will rise to the top of the metagame, and they will be nerfed. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

[Mirior]

You know, the logic that you use here would also apply to every FF player now being entirely unable to play ranked FF vs FF.

We traded a lack of support for 10/10 and long queues for 10/10 for... the complete elimination of ranked FF vs FF.

Which one is more unfair?

I'd say being penalized for what you want to use is more unfair than being penalized for what you want to face, seeing as the point of ranked play should be that you aren't able to choose what you face.

[Uccisore]

What makes that worse than removing 10/10 from the game entirely? (Which is what separate rank ladders leads towards. Just the filters resulted in a sharp decrease in 10/10 players.)

Because factions are actually something that exists in the game, and the devs have been continually building the game around the concept of making us rabid fans of one faction, only being able to afford to PLAY one faction, and being loyal to the spirit and playstyle of one faction? Faction play is what the game is about, 10/10 is this other interesting thing that may or may not contribute.

I mean honestly, you don't need any more than this:

10/10 players were having a hard time finding match ups. What does that tell you about the communities interest in playing against with or against 10/10? Why do you even need to analyze it further than that, you just admitted that if you give people the choice to avoid 10/10, they will in such large numbers that the 10/10 players won't have anything to do. What other motivation is there here other than creating an entertaining game for the players? The players actually used the tools provided to us to make a decision to avoid a certain type of game that we didn't enjoy, and the end result is to just force us back into it again?

Mirior

The point of ranked play is that you don't get to pick your opponents, that you confront your weaknesses as well as your strengths. I'm all for filters in casual play- but if you want to be competitive, you should have to take all opponents into account,

This argument doesn't make any sense- there were people playing circus in AG, why didn't I have to take them into account in Ranked? You're defining the 'all your opponents' thing into reality- they could just as easily have decided that 15/15 wasn't around anymore at all, and then where would your argument be? Suddenly 15/15 players wouldn't count as 'my opponents' because they wouldn't exist.


I'd say being penalized for what you want to use is more unfair than being penalized for what you want to face, seeing as the point of ranked play should be that you aren't able to choose what you face.

Yeah, until you consider that the penalty was "Nobody wants to play against this". Once upon a time, you know, it went the other way, and the FF players were the people that had to wait forever and ever to get a game. Apparently THAT wasn't a problem, because all the high ranked people were 10/10, so they didn't even notice. The people who counted got plenty of matchups using the stuff they wanted to use. But now all of the sudden, the shoe is on the other foot, people realized they didn't have to put up with the 10/10 baloney, and those players were being 'penalized'?

[redbarret]

Now its a fact that 15/15 over(or equall to) FF over 15/15 H. over FF H.

[Zalithian]

The point of ranked play is that you don't get to pick your opponents, that you confront your weaknesses as well as your strengths. I'm all for filters in casual play- but if you want to be competitive, you should have to take all opponents into account, not simply the ones that you enjoy playing against.


That is such a blatant exaggeration. People do not get to pick their opponents. They get to choose what type of match they play but to say they get to pick their opponents is total crap. You have such a clear bias and double standard going on here. It's not okay for people who CHOOSE to play a certain type to have to wait longer, but it's perfectly acceptable to strip away the peoples right to play a certain game type competitively. People who play FF no longer have the choice of playing FF vs FF. Their only options are 1. stop playing FF or 2. Just play 15/15

And I'm still waiting for your explanation on highlander. Don't you feel bad for those poor people who had to wait even longer than 10/10 players? Oh, you didn't play highlander so you don't care? Nevermind, I understand.

[Mirior]

Yes, take away peoples freedom for convenience. I'm sure you'd make a great government official. It's totally fair people had the option to play FF or 15/15, and now people don't have the option because people who played half decks had to wait too long. Screw that, let's just take away the ability to choose! That's much more fair. Now people who want to play FF in ranked vs FF cannot. Nice double standard. It's also funny I didn't see you shed any tears for those poor highlander players who had to wait for a really long time either. Why not?

It's totally fair now that you have the option to build a FF or a 15/15 BG, but now you want to reinstate penalties for choosing one over the other. That's much more fair. Choice in opponents is not something that should be encouraged in competitive play. Choice in what one uses should not be sacrificed for choice in one's opponents.

As for the highlander players, I'm not shedding tears for them because...

1. They haven't come up in the conversation at all.
2. Because there is no incentive to play highlander over not-highlander in a mixed environment, so I do view it as a separate format, that should have its own ranking ladder in an ideal world where Octopi has enough resources to devote the same amount of time to balancing highlander play as FF/15/15 play.

[Zalithian]

I'd say being penalized for what you want to use is more unfair than being penalized for what you want to face, seeing as the point of ranked play should be that you aren't able to choose what you face.

This nonsense really needs to stop. You do not choose what you face, you merely limit it to 8 factions instead of said combination of 8 factions divided. Do you say hmm I think I'm gonna play ST this match. Gonna queue for ST. No? Oh. Well, people can still choose their opponents. Hey Tony, go queue for me in the single person queue I really want a free win.
Wait, you mean you never could do that either? Well geez. That's funny, in Magic and many other games you can choose to make a deck for a certain game type. I guess that was a dumb idea.

[Mirior]

That is such a blatant exaggeration. People do not get to pick their opponents. They get to choose what type of match they play but to say they get to pick their opponents is total crap. You have such a clear bias and double standard going on here. It's not okay for people who CHOOSE to play a certain type to have to wait longer, but it's perfectly acceptable to strip away the peoples right to play a certain game type competitively. People who play FF no longer have the choice of playing FF vs FF. Their only options are 1. stop playing FF or 2. Just play 15/15

And I'm still waiting for your explanation on highlander. Don't you feel bad for those poor people who had to wait even longer than 10/10 players? Oh, you didn't play highlander so you don't care? Nevermind, I understand.

In what way is picking only opponents who run FF BGs not picking your opponents?

The rest of your points are covered in the post directly before yours. I apologize for not getting the reply out in time. Also, you may find it interesting to know that I do not play 10/10. I play ordinary FF, just like you- I just see adjusting my BG to deal with 15/15 decks aligning with a competitive viewpoint more than clicking a little filter.

[Zalithian]

You create a deck for FF. Let's call FF type 1. Let's call 15/15 type 2. You make a type 1 deck and have no option to play type 1, but a combination of type 1 and type 2. That seems wrong to me. I really don't see why they should be combined if people do not want to do so. Picking your opponents would be looking at a chart of people and saying hmm I wanna play this one. That's not what happens. What happens is you say hmm I like this type of gameplay better. I'd rather play in the type 1 tournament instead of the type 2 tournament.

[Mirior]

This nonsense really needs to stop. You do not choose what you face, you merely limit it to 8 factions instead of said combination of 8 factions divided. Do you say hmm I think I'm gonna play ST this match. Gonna queue for ST. No? Oh. Well, people can still choose their opponents. Hey Tony, go queue for me in the single person queue I really want a free win.
Wait, you mean you never could do that either? Well geez. That's funny, in Magic and many other games you can choose to make a deck for a certain game type. I guess that was a dumb idea.

Do you say "hmm... I think I'm gonna play FF this match. Gonna queue for FF only." Hey, look at that, you do! What makes that different from queueing for ST only?

As for Magic, yes, you make a deck for different formats... because they're actually different formats. The distinction is that, in a Vintage game (the anything-goes format), there would be absolutely no incentive to play only Standard cards, or only Extended cards. In Poxnora, there are incentives for both FF play and 15/15 play in a mixed environment, so said mixed environment is only one format.

[Mirior]

You create a deck for FF. Let's call FF type 1. Let's call 15/15 type 2. You make a type 1 deck and have no option to play type 1, but a combination of type 1 and type 2. That seems wrong to me. I really don't see why they should be combined if people do not want to do so. Picking your opponents would be looking at a chart of people and saying hmm I wanna play this one. That's not what happens. What happens is you say hmm I like this type of gameplay better. I'd rather play in the type 1 tournament instead of the type 2 tournament.

"I'm an FW player. I like matches vs. SP better, because I win those. I'm going to pick to play only SP opponents."

How is that any different from what you said?

[Zalithian]

"I'm an FW player. I like matches vs. SP better, because I win those. I'm going to pick to play only SP opponents."

How is that any different from what you said?

Um, because you can't pick a single faction. You limit it to 8 factions. You don't get to choose which one you play. If you can show me how you can use the FF filter to choose which faction you play against then sure, I'll concede you pick opponents with it. All I can ask right now is.. are you serious?

[Uccisore]

"I'm an FW player. I like matches vs. SP better, because I win those. I'm going to pick to play only SP opponents."

How is that any different from what you said?

Dude, you're contradicting yourself. You can't point out that on one hand, there were so few people interested in 10/10 play that the few who were couldn't find match ups, and on the other hand, saying that the FF people were 'choosing their opponents'. In the first example, the problem is placed clearly on 10/10, which is apparently very unappealing to the vast majority of players. In the second example, you're trying to shift the blame onto the individual player, who is selecting what is most advantageous to him personally from among a set of equal options.
The FF filter person isn't trying to manipulate the system to get easy wins. He's avoiding what the community as a whole has decided is extremely irritating to play against, no matter what faction you play. So much so, that apparently prospective 10/10 players don't even enjoy playing against each other; the only way to give 10/10 any exposure in the game was, apparently to force people to play against it.

[Mirior]

Um, because you can't pick a single faction. You limit it to 8 factions. You don't get to choose which one you play. If you can show me how you can use the FF filter to choose which faction you play against then sure, I'll concede you pick opponents with it. All I can ask right now is.. are you serious?

I'm talking in theory. The same concept applies to that example as to the filters.

"I'm going to design a BG that is strong against other FF BGs, but gets torn apart by 15/15s because I'm giving no thought to them when I design the deck. But that's okay, because I can just choose not to face my deck's weaknesses, and then my win percentage goes up."

Any amount of control over what kind of opponent you face is bad, from a competitive viewpoint. If your deck is only a good deck when you ignore half of your potential opponents, then it's not actually a good deck, and you should not be able to obtain high ranks with it.

[PorkSol]

I'd say being penalized for what you want to use is more unfair than being penalized for what you want to face, seeing as the point of ranked play should be that you aren't able to choose what you face.

I disagree.

The point of competitive play should be a fair competition, of both deck building and tactical unit management.

FF vs FF represents a level playing field between two factions with known abilities and combos that the devs almost certainly were able to anticipate and balance.

10/10 vs 10/10 represents a level playing field between two players trying to find the most overpowered combo of runes that the Devs forgot could end up in the same BG. I can see how it'd be fun for some, but it's not for me.

10/10 vs FF represents an unfair competition, between a faction with known abilities and combos that the devs balanced around heavily (for example by giving all the UD champs 7 base damage before FF bonus) against a combo of the best runes from two factions (which are always better than the best runes from one faction and the decent runes from that faction) and any number of tricks and combos the devs barely even thought of, let alone balanced.

How can you insist I want to go against the spirit of competition? Theres nothing unfair about FF vs FF. It's the 10/10 players who want to go against the spirit of competition by forcing weaker FF battlegroups to face them...

Until the Devs patch in the second heros and tons of strong FF only effects that will eventually counterbalance the inherent power of 15/15s... three expansions from now.

[CPKZ]

I'm talking in theory.

In theory, split and FF are two different games. It's not me filtering my opponents, its me saying I'm playing Football, so I don't want to play against a rugby team.

[Mirior]

Dude, you're contradicting yourself. You can't point out that on one hand, there were so few people interested in 10/10 play that the few who were couldn't find match ups, and on the other hand, saying that the FF people were 'choosing their opponents'. In the first example, the problem is placed clearly on 10/10, which is apparently very unappealing to the vast majority of players. In the second example, you're trying to shift the blame onto the individual player, who is selecting what is most advantageous to him personally from among a set of equal options.
The FF filter person isn't trying to manipulate the system to get easy wins. He's avoiding what the community as a whole has decided is extremely irritating to play against, no matter what faction you play. So much so, that apparently prospective 10/10 players don't even enjoy playing against each other; the only way to give 10/10 any exposure in the game was, apparently to force people to play against it.

Prior to the filter's installment, IIRC, there was a fair amount of players playing 10/10. Post installment, that number dropped. Why? Because most of the FF players chose to filter out all of the 10/10 players, causing queue delays and making 10/10 decks less enjoyable to pilot. It's a cause-effect relationship, not a contradiction.

[Mirior]

In theory, FF vs. 15/15 is no more different than one faction vs. another. There are pros to both, there are cons to both- they are not different games, they are different choices within the same game. 15/15 vs. FF is a fair battle between the player who chose variety and the player who chose FF perks- if the battle isn't actually fair, then that's a problem with balance, not with either gametype. 15/15 BGs are not innately better than FF BGs, from a theory standpoint- if they are in practice, the solution is to improve the perks for playing FF, not to penalize the players who have chosen 15/15.

[redbarret]

In theory, split and FF are two different games. It's not me filtering my opponents, its me saying I'm playing Football, so I don't want to play against a rugby team.

I agree... Its two differet things...

NO MORE COST!

[Zalithian]

Prior to the filter's installment, IIRC, there was a fair amount of players playing 10/10. Post installment, that number dropped. Why? Because most of the FF players chose to filter out all of the 10/10 players, causing queue delays and making 10/10 decks less enjoyable to pilot. It's a cause-effect relationship, not a contradiction.

So you're saying 10/10 players enjoyment is more important than FF players enjoyment. If people don't want to play vs 10/10's they should not be forced to. There's a reason they filter. Don't forget this is a game and people play this game to enjoy it.

[Mirior]

So you're saying 10/10 players enjoyment is more important than FF players enjoyment. If people don't want to play vs 10/10's they should not be forced to. There's a reason they filter. Don't forget this is a game and people play this game to enjoy it.

I'm saying that they're equal, actually- 10/10 players should have the same game environment as FF players.

If players don't want to play against 10/10's, they should play casual- I'm all for filters in casual, and the greens have stated that they are working on installing them. But the ability to filter out 10/10s because you don't want to play them in ranked matches, in competitive play, is as ridiculous as being able to filter out FW as an SP player.

Also, my Internet is about to run out for the night, so I'm afraid the discussion will have to end in 4 minutes. Sorry, guys.

[Wyndstar]

I keep hearing people saying "10/10 BGs are so much stronger than FF BGs."

Could someone provide an example of a 10/10 BG that was stronger than FF BGs at the time the change was made?

Have you ever had to face the all init idiocy of a KF/FS ranger spam + mirrors + CF + Boghopper Elites + marshsong + ffrenzy spam 10/10?

~ Wyndstar

[Mirior]

Have you ever had to face the all init idiocy of a KF/FS ranger spam + mirrors + CF + Boghopper Elites + marshsong + ffrenzy spam 10/10?

~ Wyndstar

No. Are those dominating the metagame? No. If they start to, then they should be nerfed, but they are not currently.

[CPKZ]

they are not different games

They are as different as rugby is to football in my eyes.

While much of the base rules are the same, there are lots of different caveats going on. Such as the balance between factions, and that many things were built with the concept of FF in mind.

[redbarret]

I'm saying that they're equal, actually- 10/10 players should have the same game environment as FF players.

If players don't want to play against 10/10's, they should play casual- I'm all for filters in casual, and the greens have stated that they are working on installing them. But the ability to filter out 10/10s because you don't want to play them in ranked matches, in competitive play, is as ridiculous as being able to filter out FW as an SP player.

Also, my Internet is about to run out for the night, so I'm afraid the discussion will have to end in 4 minutes. Sorry, guys.

Where did this Fw and Sp come from...
Also like to note I use a Moga/Ghern bg and beat a 400 rank FF fw with a nice set of Exotics... Give me the runes to update my deck and Ill do it again.
(He was not drunk, stupid, or missclicks etc.) Maybe 1 or 2 missclick but not game breaking.

[redbarret]

They are as different as rugby is to football in my eyes.

While much of the base rules are the same, there are lots of different caveats going on. Such as the balance between factions, and that many things were built with the concept of FF in mind.

FF to 15/15 is like compairing gray to black (A cool dark color).
Thats just me.
=-D

[Uccisore]

Prior to the filter's installment, IIRC, there was a fair amount of players playing 10/10. Post installment, that number dropped. Why? Because most of the FF players chose to filter out all of the 10/10 players, causing queue delays and making 10/10 decks less enjoyable to pilot. It's a cause-effect relationship, not a contradiction.


Well yeah, that's exactly right. Nobody can stand to play against 10/10, but everybody likes easy wins. A fair number of people played 10/10 when it was mixed, because at least they got to play against FF often enough to break up the general misery that they inflicted on everybody else. When the filter got installed, at first FF people couldn't find a match, because by that time everybody who wanted to win was playing 10/10 already. Gradually, people started to wake up and choose the option that led to fun match-ups. Increasingly, 10/10 people found that they could only play against each other, and upon learning how truly awful that is, the shift to FF play accelerated even faster.

I mean, if you consider the whole filter thing a social experiment, look at your experimental data:

Most poxers will avoid 10/10 play like the plague, UNLESS they themselves are using a 10/10 BG with high probability of meeting a FF opponent.

That's the trend. How do you possibly conclude from that trend that 10/10 play needs to be forced?

[Uccisore]

I give up personally , this thread exist NOW just to appease the masses so we can whine , if my experience with SOE is anything to judge by they are just going to let us complain but do what they want anyway. If they REALLY wanted to know what we think , we would have been asked in advance. And Vega your posting is just typical , you only reply agreeing to whatever posts that support your argument.

We WERE asked in advance when filters were installed, and people chose the types of games they liked to play. They've done the opposite of the opinion we voiced.

[redbarret]

I give up personally , this thread exist NOW just to appease the masses so we can whine , if my experience with SOE is anything to judge by they are just going to let us complain but do what they want anyway. If they REALLY wanted to know what we think , we would have been asked in advance. And Vega your posting is just typical , you only reply agreeing to whatever posts that support your argument.

I fugure that out a while back...
Hawkfain did it and still dose.

[Mizzjamieg]

Honestly I don't see what the huge deal with the filter removal is, back before we had it 10/10s and ff's played without problem, when the filter was added it was very slow to get a match if you were FF, I guess it got better the longer it was up. However I personally never used the filter due to the fact that it took away from the challenge of playing ranked games.

I have always played FF in DoW and when it comes to 10/10 you win some you lose some, but that goes for every game.

If you sit there and design a BG that is only good against FF then yes you will suffer, but if you notice that your BG is always losing to 15/15 then maybe it is time to make a few changes to your BG.

As for the comment that I can't play ranked now cause I am FF, why not give it sometime for ranks to resettle and then in a few weeks see if it is so bad, but going and saying that I can't do it the first day of a change is not giving it a chance. With the 30 Rune BGs there are more slots to add those runes you had noticed you needed against 10/10s (spell seals can get put in and not kill your normal 20 rune bg)

The best thing to do is test out the changes and see how they work over a few weeks then make your judgments, based off games not hypothetical scenarios. For all we know 15/15 won't be the strongest type of BG.

[Uccisore]

If you sit there and design a BG that is only good against FF then yes you will suffer, but if you notice that your BG is always losing to 15/15 then maybe it is time to make a few changes to your BG.


That right there is a key point for me. I can picture what "designing my BG to be good against FW" means, I can picture what "designing my BG to be good against rushing" means, but I have NO conception of what "designing my BG to be good against 15/15" means. I'm betting you don't either, but could you go into it for me? As far as I can tell, 15/15 doesn't describe a playstyle, it describes a choice to build from a wider variety of runes than FF players get access to. THAT is why it's not the same thing.

[Zalithian]

Honestly I don't see what the huge deal with the filter removal is, back before we had it 10/10s and ff's played without problem, when the filter was added it was very slow to get a match if you were FF, I guess it got better the longer it was up. However I personally never used the filter due to the fact that it took away from the challenge of playing ranked games.

I have always played FF in DoW and when it comes to 10/10 you win some you lose some, but that goes for every game.

If you sit there and design a BG that is only good against FF then yes you will suffer, but if you notice that your BG is always losing to 15/15 then maybe it is time to make a few changes to your BG.

As for the comment that I can't play ranked now cause I am FF, why not give it sometime for ranks to resettle and then in a few weeks see if it is so bad, but going and saying that I can't do it the first day of a change is not giving it a chance. With the 30 Rune BGs there are more slots to add those runes you had noticed you needed against 10/10s (spell seals can get put in and not kill your normal 20 rune bg)

The best thing to do is test out the changes and see how they work over a few weeks then make your judgments, based off games not hypothetical scenarios. For all we know 15/15 won't be the strongest type of BG.

That's really only half the battle. SOE:Tuscon has been making a lot of important game decisions either without consulting players, or simply ignoring them. With beta they did the opposite of what it seemed most players wanted, and now they've done it again with filter removal. Lack of respect on a number of occasions.

[Mizzjamieg]

That right there is a key point for me. I can picture what "designing my BG to be good against FW" means, I can picture what "designing my BG to be good against rushing" means, but I have NO conception of what "designing my BG to be good against 15/15" means. I'm betting you don't either, but could you go into it for me? As far as I can tell, 15/15 doesn't describe a playstyle, it describes a choice to build from a wider variety of runes than FF players get access to. THAT is why it's not the same thing.

It will mostly depends on the 15/15 that is used most at a certain time.

I had noticed a while back when I was big into playing that I was running into a lot of 10/10s that depending on Spells mostly for the win, so I took out a rune that I was not seeing played often and put in a spell seal.

Another time I was not using my spell seal as much, but having problems with champs that had their damage buffed up, so I put Warogg in....


I know there is no way to predict what type of a BG that you will face in any one game, but to take out the challenge of 10/10s or now the 15/15 is limiting your game. There are times that facing those broken combo's cause you to change your BG and it helps with the FF games as well. Even though the split Bgs can be frustrating and exasperating at times they do add challenge to your game play making you tweak your deck or try to come up with better solutions on how to break that combo, or maybe even bring light to runes that need to be tweaked based off the combos....


Edit: For all we know this could have a surprising outcome of more people playing FF than 15/15s, the only way to tell is to give it time and see a little down the road how it is going. If then there is still the issue of 15/15 ruling the roost, then maybe the greens will bring back the filter, or maybe we will get a mass influx of players and it might get added back.

[LordStark]

I'm totally against having to play 15/15 decks as a FF FW player. There's a lot of change here so I'll try and see how "balanced" your saying it is.

However, in a game like this, the more options you have the better. And playing someone that can play the best of two factions with synergistic runes that work well from 2 factions instead of just one, it just makes it seem like a no brainer.

But we'll see.

[Ashkenaz]

thats not what im saying at all, i dont care about whats better or not i dont like playing against mixed BGs and i resent not having the choice to play competitively in the same format. Ive dumped enough money into this game to deserve to have an option to play the way i liked or at least my feedback taken into consideration before such change is instituted so i know in advance not to spend money on a game i will no longer enjoy.

And vega its not about whats stronger or not sure mixed BG are way more versatile if not powerfull since you can draw from 2 distinct factions utilising their most powerfull spells / champs and with 30 rune deck its like having 2 entire bgs vs one FF one. Its not 100% better But you have twice as many options and my main point is that playing against mixed BG is completely different than against FF they are 2 different formats and FORCING people to play in a format they dont like isnt a recipe for good community relations.

15/15 inherently allows for more combos, for one, and second, allows for better runes to be used. If a combo is not possible within your own faction, maybe it's possible with your faction and one other faction. Also, 15/15 allows you to pick and choose the best and the best from two worlds.

Imagine you have two countries. Each country has some very good workers, some good workers, some average workers, some below average workers, and some very poor workers. Say you can employ 30,000 people from your country. You're naturally going to use up the very good and good workers first, then throw in average workers to fill in the gaps. Now say you can pick from two countries. Obviously this gives you a wider selection, and you probably won't even have to rely on your average workers at all (or at least, much less so).

As far as faction bonuses go, let's imagine you get an income bonus for using all workers only from your country (an imaginary faction bonus); however, because if you use workers from two countries, allowing you to pick the best of the best, you're actually making more money in the end (not that I'm saying 15/15's get a better deal on faction bonuses, but a better deal overall). You're still getting only a little less than half of each bonus, so it's not even that bad.

On paper, I'd say 15/15 is superior to full-faction. Maybe not extremely significantly so, but enough to be better.

this i feel states my feelings to the letter. there there is not even a choice to use FF only in casual.

[Uccisore]

One other point that hasn't been made yet- it will be said that faction bonuses go a long ways towards balancing FF vs. 15/15. This is impossible, since the faction bonuses aren't even balanced with respect to each other.

[redbarret]

One other point that hasn't been made yet- it will be said that faction bonuses go a long ways towards balancing FF vs. 15/15. This is impossible, since the faction bonuses aren't even balanced with respect to each other.

I'm totally against having to play 15/15 decks as a FF FW player. There's a lot of change here so I'll try and see how "balanced" your saying it is.

However, in a game like this, the more options you have the better. And playing someone that can play the best of two factions with synergistic runes that work well from 2 factions instead of just one, it just makes it seem like a no brainer.

I agree with this.
But we'll see.
It will mostly depends on the 15/15 that is used most at a certain time.

I had noticed a while back when I was big into playing that I was running into a lot of 10/10s that depending on Spells mostly for the win, so I took out a rune that I was not seeing played often and put in a spell seal.

Another time I was not using my spell seal as much, but having problems with champs that had their damage buffed up, so I put Warogg in....


I know there is no way to predict what type of a BG that you will face in any one game, but to take out the challenge of 10/10s or now the 15/15 is limiting your game. There are times that facing those broken combo's cause you to change your BG and it helps with the FF games as well. Even though the split Bgs can be frustrating and exasperating at times they do add challenge to your game play making you tweak your deck or try to come up with better solutions on how to break that combo, or maybe even bring light to runes that need to be tweaked based off the combos....


Edit: For all we know this could have a surprising outcome of more people playing FF than 15/15s, the only way to tell is to give it time and see a little down the road how it is going. If then there is still the issue of 15/15 ruling the roost, then maybe the greens will bring back the filter, or maybe we will get a mass influx of players and it might get added back.

Yes fix your deck to stop or help you from loseing from that type bg. What if you dont have the runes for it? What if tne FACTION dosent have anything for it? Go to different one? That just open more door. Unless you have the money for SURE its EASY. Yea trading fun. It you trade with friends. We all know how the trading system is... A stores... You trade in a 30 deck to get a 20-25 deck back... Now what good is that, UNLESS you go 15/15 and all the problems are gone.

[redbarret]

One other point that hasn't been made yet- it will be said that faction bonuses go a long ways towards balancing FF vs. 15/15. This is impossible, since the faction bonuses aren't even balanced with respect to each other.

This has allways been a duh.

[Moijo]

Death to filtering!

Death to selective queuing!

All hail Octopi!

Hey l00k a 15/15 player!

[Daner04]

In theory, split and FF are two different games. It's not me filtering my opponents, its me saying I'm playing Football, so I don't want to play against a rugby team.

I love this analogy :)

[Revenancer]

By the same token a rugby team can't arbitrarily get into the super bowl by beating only other rugby teams.

[redbarret]

By the same token a rugby team can't arbitrarily get into the super bowl by beating only other rugby teams.

Who fault is that?

[Kevoun]

I didn't get through most of it, the thread got quite a few responses before I even noticed it, but here's how I feel.

I personally never bothered to use the filter, and probably wouldn't have if I did play highlander. Part of this is because I wanted quicker games, part because if I'm worried about being competitive, having a challenge is what makes it fun. Also part because I just don't care I suppose.

If you're worried about competing with people for ranks, shouldn't you be able to play against the top ranked guy? What if he's using a different filter type and your best deck isn't that type? I guess personally I feel like building and taking a deck to a good rank is a challenge, and I think restricting the amount of combos you face makes it easier. If you could, I wouldn't do it because I like tough challenges, especially when I want boasting rights when I succeed.

As for balance, I've never noticed a difference between split and full. Might be because I don't pay attention past noticing what factions they are and how it will affect my play. If you have problems playing against split, maybe it's because you never do it? There are combos to be gained (or made more powerful) in full faction that aren't possible in split factions. Playing multiple sub-themes in FF isn't a far cry from mixing sub-themes of two factions or creating a new sub-theme of your own. Spells like strength in numbers and abilities like surge:boghopper are a good example of things that can't be fully exploited in a split deck.

As for highlander, there are quite a few efficient champs out there and it would be cool to see a highlander make it to the top ranks. Watch the movie Highlander and ask yourself if any immortal swordsman would really complain about who he was fighting.

Oh yeah, I play mostly FF.

[redbarret]

I didn't get through most of it, the thread got quite a few responses before I even noticed it, but here's how I feel.

I personally never bothered to use the filter, and probably wouldn't have if I did play highlander. Part of this is because I wanted quicker games, part because if I'm worried about being competitive, having a challenge is what makes it fun. Also part because I just don't care I suppose.

If you're worried about competing with people for ranks, shouldn't you be able to play against the top ranked guy? What if he's using a different filter type and your best deck isn't that type? I guess personally I feel like building and taking a deck to a good rank is a challenge, and I think restricting the amount of combos you face makes it easier. If you could, I wouldn't do it because I like tough challenges, especially when I want boasting rights when I succeed.

As for balance, I've never noticed a difference between split and full. Might be because I don't pay attention past noticing what factions they are and how it will affect my play. If you have problems playing against split, maybe it's because you never do it? There are combos to be gained (or made more powerful) in full faction that aren't possible in split factions. Playing multiple sub-themes in FF isn't a far cry from mixing sub-themes of two factions or creating a new sub-theme of your own. Spells like strength in numbers and abilities like surge:boghopper are a good example of things that can't be fully exploited in a split deck.

As for highlander, there are quite a few efficient champs out there and it would be cool to see a highlander make it to the top ranks. Watch the movie Highlander and ask yourself if any immortal swordsman would really complain about who he was fighting.

Oh yeah, I play mostly FF.

I played split and full. 2000+ games about 900 split. I played Fw/St, Sp, Ud, Sl, Fs, Is, Kf... And I think split over full any day.
I dont win because O the lack of Exotics.

[Daner04]

Now that there are a lot of new runes with bonuses for FF and the ability to run two heroes...

This would be a somewhat valid point, if it was´nt for 2 things:
1. Not all factions have 2 Heroes. Only IS and UD can benefit from it at tthis point
2. Not all factions have runes that reward FF play. FS, FW, KF and ST did not recive such runes.

[CPKZ]

By the same token a rugby team can't arbitrarily get into the super bowl by beating only other rugby teams.

Nope, they get their own tournament.

EDIT: One could say...their own ladder.

[DolphinLLC]

Its really two different games out there, IMO..

FF is for people who want more of an RPG feel, who go in depth with the storylines, name their champs in-character stuff, and try to recreate what goes on in the Pox world.

15/15, while it can be with the above people in same-alignment BGs, generally tends to lead towards people just putting together power combos to beat other people with disregard for any canon or worldly views.

Some sort of filter needs to be put on.. I was hoping for a FF room/ladder with this expansion, and you guys have done the opposite. I want to be able to choose whether I am choosing to play the RPC, In-Character Pox nora "My army is fighting for the glory of xyz! we shall crush the enemy!", or the "Lets throw some runes together and play a game!" gametype.

[heroex77]

i think 15/15 should play 15/15

ff should play ff

[ssez]

ok here is the deal, just put a ff option in casual so it can be selected - then everyone who wants to play ff can.

now ranked - you have to fight everything if you dont then you dont want to be ranked play casual.

with no circus, ranked is the ultimate challenge, every combination is out there to use and be fought against - if you want rank fight the best - if you dont want to fight the best play casual - the game still matches you against somene your rank.

nothing stops you from saying in casual chat - hey anyone up for a ff game - heck i do it all the time

[Daner04]

Deleted. nwm

[PorkaMorka]

By the same token a rugby team can't arbitrarily get into the super bowl by beating only other rugby teams.

Yet there are still competitive rugby leagues in countries where it's popular (and make no mistake, FF is popular), rugby players aren't forced to play club level inter murals.

Essentially, what is happened here is that I paid about 300$ to join a competitive rugby league, which had historically allowed rugby players to play other rugby players.

But then after I'd paid, the rules were suddenly and without warning changed to force all rugby players to play against football teams too. They can either keep their rugby gear or put on football gear, but if they want to play rugby vs rugby, they're told "Go play intermurals, brother". The competitive rugby vs rugby that they loved is now gone, and they find themselves at a major disadvantage trying to play football with rugby gear. (except a couple teams which had two ridiculously good two star players, and a pair of rugby pants of power, but that's only two teams out of 8, the other 6 teams are at a ridiculous disadvantage trying to play football)

Rugby players would be rather unhappy, and rightfully so...

[walkindude]

i'm extremely disappointed.

seems like everywhere i turn in pox these days, there is some new thing waiting to give me one more crack on the shin.

so the people who think the whole game is about finding whatever inter-faction combinations they can break are strongly favoured by the company that makes pox nora, and now i have no choice but to play against them if i want to have an occasional ranked game. i am not a frequent ranked player, anyway, but this change will drive me out of that lobby for good. :((

thanks a lot.

this is the worst change i've ever seen happen in this game. and i've been an active player for over two years. there is absulutely no positive aspect to this change, from my perspective.

[MBasse]

One of the main problem with all of this is that people are using the claim that FF isn't equal with split BGs. Something that hasn't been proved in the slightest. Are there split BGs that are stronger than some FF? Yes, because not everyone optimize their BGs - that goes for both FF and split. A KF BG with Menalaus will have a massive advantage a KF BG that doesn't have him, just as a fully optimized split BG will have an advantage vs a FF BG which wasn't optimized.

This doesn't mean that a fully optimized FF BG can't beat a split BG - far from it. Some heroes are beasts, banners are borderline overpowered and there are just some synergies you can't take fully advantage of in splits.

Taking 15 from one faction and 15 from another doesn't mean you suddenly have the power of both factions in your BG. There are corners that must be cut, options that aren't as viable - you will never be able to simulate FW's attrition power and ability to deploy some cheap power champs again and again. You won't be able to simulate mogas ability to pour out in an endless stream in a split BG because first of all a banner isn't worth as much, you won't get the SP shrine if you take in a lower nora cost of SP than the other side and draw consistency will be wack as you draw those 80 nora IS champs instead of the cheap champs you need.

The "Split is Cheese" sign that people are holding up is a poor excuse for lack of flexibility and sometimes skill in some cases. I have played both FF and split extensively, and while some split have an inherit advantage over some FF the same goes for some FF over split.

I have not seen any solid evidence that split are better as a rule of thumb, and most of the arguments in that regard are provided by people who have an utter lack of experience with split, since you know... they haven't faced any unless it was by accident when they didn't tick off 'FF only'.

[kanishou]

Its really two different games out there, IMO..

FF is for people who want more of an RPG feel, who go in depth with the storylines, name their champs in-character stuff, and try to recreate what goes on in the Pox world.

15/15, while it can be with the above people in same-alignment BGs, generally tends to lead towards people just putting together power combos to beat other people with disregard for any canon or worldly views.

Some sort of filter needs to be put on.. I was hoping for a FF room/ladder with this expansion, and you guys have done the opposite. I want to be able to choose whether I am choosing to play the RPC, In-Character Pox nora "My army is fighting for the glory of xyz! we shall crush the enemy!", or the "Lets throw some runes together and play a game!" gametype.

That does sound very much like the difference between "casual" and "ranked" play to me... Essentially ranked is there to "beat other people with disregard for any canon or worldly views".

[kyzrin]

So, are you saying that this change is bad because FF and highlander BGs are inferior to 15/15?

Hypothetically, if ALL BG types were equal in balance, would this be a problem?

This is part of problem solving... figuring out what the true root of the problem is.

Before this expansion, I would say 10/10's were definitely stronger than FF in most cases. It's simple logic that cherry picking the best runes out of two factions makes it easier to have a powerful deck. I don't really see how this is going to change, and my knee-jerk reaction was to not be very happy with the loss of FF.

That said, in my limited amount of games yesterday I didn't feel that instant disadvantage that you used to feel as a FF player against a 10/10. All I can really say is wait until the best players start optimizing the 15/15 BG's and see how much more powerful than FF optimized BG's they are.

[walkindude]

In theory, FF vs. 15/15 is no more different than one faction vs. another.

this statement is purely and blatantly false.

with twice the runes to choose from, how can anyone say that you can't cherry pick 30 that will have average quality superior to what would otherwise be the case?

then there's the ability to negate a given faction's inherent weakness by simply using the material from another faction.

then there's the simple fact that the number of annoying and broken combinations that can be put into effect in a split bg increases by orders of magnitude.

the single faction play does have to deal with whatever inherent weakness his faction has. and he doesn't have the ability to include counters for all or even most of the above-mentioned broken and annoying combos. chances are, his faction simply can't counter a good number of them, anyway.

this change is crap. really crap.

edit: and just as bad as all of the stuff i already mentioned is this: many runes have had to be nerfed in utterly stupid ways simply because of split battle groups. a staggering number.

[Mirior]

this statement is purely and blatantly false.

with twice the runes to choose from, how can anyone say that you can't cherry pick 30 that will have average quality superior to what would otherwise be the case?

then there's the ability to negate a given faction's inherent weakness by simply using the material from another faction.

then there's the simple fact that the number of annoying and broken combinations that can be put into effect in a split bg increases by orders of magnitude.

the single faction play does have to deal with whatever inherent weakness his faction has. and he doesn't have the ability to include counters for all or even most of the above-mentioned broken and annoying combos. chances are, his faction simply can't counter a good number of them, anyway.

this change is crap. really crap.

15/15 plays by the same rules as FF, except in deckbuilding.

There are incentives for playing both 10/10 and FF in a mixed environment- 10/10 gets rune variety, FF gets warbanners and heroes (which do make a difference).

15/15 may currently be stronger than FF (although, based on the words of higher-ranked players who haven't been playing with the filter on, it isn't), but simply being stronger than something else doesn't make something a different game. Is FS a different game than SP? 15/15 being stronger than FF, if it's even a problem, is a balance problem, not an incompatability issue.

[Mirior]

edit: and just as bad as all of the stuff i already mentioned is this: many runes have had to be nerfed in utterly stupid ways simply because of split battle groups. a staggering number.

As I have already said, that's only a bad thing if you look at FF and 15/15 as separate game types. Runes that are perfectly fine in some FF builds are nerfed because of other FF builds all the time- is that a bad thing? A rune's overall power level is determined by looking at it in the best possible build for it- in a mixed environment, if a rune is balanced in FF and overpowered in 15/15, then it's overpowered. Period.

[walkindude]

As I have already said, that's only a bad thing if you look at FF and 15/15 as separate game types. Runes that are perfectly fine in some FF builds are nerfed because of other FF builds all the time- is that a bad thing? A rune's overall power level is determined by looking at it in the best possible build for it- in a mixed environment, if a rune is balanced in FF and overpowered in 15/15, then it's overpowered. Period.

you plainly state that it's ok for split to be better than full faction.

you ignore the fact that a good rune being nerfed hits full faction harder than split, going back to the issue of more limited resources.

i'm guessing you're one of those people who wanted rid of the filter because you play split and you want a better chance of a win/easier game.

the result is going to be fewer people playing ranked matches. i'm sure the ones that do will be holy terrors, though.

[Mizzjamieg]

One of the main problem with all of this is that people are using the claim that FF isn't equal with split BGs. Something that hasn't been proved in the slightest. Are there split BGs that are stronger than some FF? Yes, because not everyone optimize their BGs - that goes for both FF and split. A KF BG with Menalaus will have a massive advantage a KF BG that doesn't have him, just as a fully optimized split BG will have an advantage vs a FF BG which wasn't optimized.

This doesn't mean that a fully optimized FF BG can't beat a split BG - far from it. Some heroes are beasts, banners are borderline overpowered and there are just some synergies you can't take fully advantage of in splits.

Taking 15 from one faction and 15 from another doesn't mean you suddenly have the power of both factions in your BG. There are corners that must be cut, options that aren't as viable - you will never be able to simulate FW's attrition power and ability to deploy some cheap power champs again and again. You won't be able to simulate mogas ability to pour out in an endless stream in a split BG because first of all a banner isn't worth as much, you won't get the SP shrine if you take in a lower nora cost of SP than the other side and draw consistency will be wack as you draw those 80 nora IS champs instead of the cheap champs you need.

The "Split is Cheese" sign that people are holding up is a poor excuse for lack of flexibility and sometimes skill in some cases. I have played both FF and split extensively, and while some split have an inherit advantage over some FF the same goes for some FF over split.

I have not seen any solid evidence that split are better as a rule of thumb, and most of the arguments in that regard are provided by people who have an utter lack of experience with split, since you know... they haven't faced any unless it was by accident when they didn't tick off 'FF only'.


What MBasse says is very true, so I had a though last night after I got off, since there is no set evidence due to the filter having been in DoW for so long why not say give it a month, have Kaizer or another green run the stats in a month to see what in general 15/15 or FF is winning the most, by that I mean 15/15 vs FF games, if the numbers are about the same then the filter stays out, if it is obvious that 15/15 is winning more over FF then we see about them bringing the filter back?

As is yesterday I played around 10 games, and ran in to 2-3 15/15 bgs out of those 10 games, and they were different times through out the afternoon.

[walkindude]

have Kaizer or another green run the stats in a month to see what in general 15/15 or FF is winning the most, by that I mean 15/15 vs FF games, if the numbers are about the same then the filter stays out, if it is obvious that 15/15 is winning more over FF then we see about them bringing the filter back?

your logic is flawed

the lack of a filter will inhibit some people from playing ranked games. your sample pool will be not only smaller, but also tainted by bias. the results of such an experiment would be of limited usefulness.

[Mirior]

you plainly state that it's ok for split to be better than full faction.

you ignore the fact that a good rune being nerfed hits full faction harder than split, going back to the issue of more limited resources.

i'm guessing you're one of those people who wanted rid of the filter because you play split and you want a better chance of a win/easier game.

the result is going to be fewer people playing ranked matches. i'm sure the ones that do will be holy terrors, though.

Based on the words of high-ranked players who haven't been playing with the filter on, [10/10] isn't [better than FF].

15/15 being stronger than FF... is a balance problem

What I'm saying is that, if 15/15s are stronger than FF, then they should be nerfed, not just cut out of ranked play. By your logic, they should instigate a FF-other-than-FS queue- FS is more powerful than other factions, so it's not "fair" that other factions should have to face them.

Also, as I've already said, I play FF.

[Mirior]

your logic is flawed

the lack of a filter will inhibit some people from playing ranked games. your sample pool will be not only smaller, but also tainted by bias. the results of such an experiment would be of limited usefulness.

Wouldn't the bias favor 15/15, since FF players are going to be the one quitting in a huff over this?

[Mizzjamieg]

your logic is flawed

the lack of a filter will inhibit some people from playing ranked games. your sample pool will be not only smaller, but also tainted by bias. the results of such an experiment would be of limited usefulness.

Irony my logic would not be flawed if people would not quit ranked over this change, and give it a chance to give real statistical data to back up all the split bg are stronger, threads as not all split bgs are honestly stronger.

[PorkSol]

What I'm saying is that, if 15/15s are stronger than FF, then they should be nerfed, not just cut out of ranked play. By your logic, they should instigate a FF-other-than-FS queue- FS is more powerful than other factions, so it's not "fair" that other factions should have to face them.


The problem with this logic is that the Devs have historically been glacially slow in fixing obvious imbalances.

With the simple task of balancing FF they allowed FS to run rampant for months and months.

Who can say how long it will take with the extremely complex task of balancing all those 15/15s against FF?

But one thing can be said for sure. It'll mean far more miserable, unenjoyable games when a broken 15/15 is discovered and we have to wait around to fix it.

For example, when banish banish nora drain became all the rage recently, FF players didn't have to deal with it, we could just filter it out and continue enjoying the game, while we waited (like a month) for Devs to patch it out.

Now, not only will FF players have to deal with stuff like banish, banish nora drain, we'll have a much tougher time countering it, as FF BGs are both weaker and less flexible.

I remain extremely unconvinced that my full faction ST is not at a disadvantage against a BG that can pick the best 15 runes of two factions, when literally all full faction ST gets over 15/15 is Tracker Gnark.

[walkindude]

Wouldn't the bias favor 15/15, since FF players are going to be the one quitting in a huff over this?

yes, it certainly would.

[walkindude]

Irony my logic would not be flawed if people would not quit ranked over this change, and give it a chance to give real statistical data to back up all the split bg are stronger, threads as not all split bgs are honestly stronger.

so do you really blame people for not wanting to play the game in a way they know they won't be able to get much enjoyment from?

[Mirior]

I remain extremely unconvinced that my full faction ST is not at a disadvantage against a BG that can pick the best 15 runes of two factions, when literally all full faction ST gets over 15/15 is Tracker Gnark.

And Warbanners, which do make a good-sized difference.

As for greens taking time, I am hoping that they will act more quickly to nerf than they have in the past- they have been improving their reaction time, so I don't think this is an entirely valid fear yet. If time passes and they prove to be slow on nerfs (and trust me, they were not glacially slow on FS. Slags were glacially slow. FS was just somewhat slow), then we can relook at the issue.

[Mizzjamieg]

The problem with this logic is that the Devs have historically been glacially slow in fixing obvious imbalances.

With the simple task of balancing FF they allowed FS to run rampant for months and months.

Who can say how long it will take with the extremely complex task of balancing all those 15/15s against FF?

But one thing can be said for sure. It'll mean far more miserable, unenjoyable games when a broken 15/15 is discovered and we have to wait around to fix it.

For example, when banish banish nora drain became all the rage recently, FF players didn't have to deal with it, we could just filter it out and continue enjoying the game, while we waited (like a month) for Devs to patch it out.

Now, not only will FF players have to deal with stuff like banish, banish nora drain, we'll have a much tougher time countering it, as FF BGs are both weaker and less flexible.

I remain extremely unconvinced that my full faction ST is not at a disadvantage against a BG that can pick the best 15 runes of two factions, when literally all full faction ST gets over 15/15 is Tracker Gnark.


First off BBND not a big deal as the Bansh now works as follows: Target enemy champion and any equipment on it are returned to their owner's rune dock with a two turn cooldown. The nora costs are refunded at the start of the owner's next turn. The nora refund is unaffected by reducing effects. (This spell cannot target Planar Bound units.)

As for other combos that are broken well maybe just maybe changes will happen a little bit quicker, although it does take time to come up with viable solutions, code, and test them to make sure the change does not break the game.

[Mirior]

yes, it certainly would.

So, if the data shows that there are still more FF BGs in the top 200 than 15/15s, wouldn't the bias even further reinforce Mizz's point?

[PorkSol]

First off BBND not a big deal as the Bansh now works as follows: Target enemy champion and any equipment on it are returned to their owner's rune dock with a two turn cooldown. The nora costs are refunded at the start of the owner's next turn. The nora refund is unaffected by reducing effects. (This spell cannot target Planar Bound units.)


I know they fixed it a while ago, I was just using it as an example of a horrible combo that took a while to fix and was unpleasant to play against.

[walkindude]

So, if the data shows that there are still more FF BGs in the top 200 than 15/15s, wouldn't the bias even further reinforce Mizz's point?

given your presumption, yes it would.

however, my impression has been that the majority of top players were 10/10 with the filters available. without them . . . well, i'd be extremely surprised if things somehow shifted drastically in the direction of full faction.

needless to say, fulfillment of all of your ifs would make me rethink.

i don't expect to have to rethink. :)

i think the change is crap.

[Mirior]

given your presumption, yes it would.

however, my impression has been that the majority of top players were 10/10 with the filters available. without them . . . well, i'd be extremely surprised if things somehow shifted drastically in the direction of full faction.

needless to say, fulfillment of all of your ifs would make me rethink.

i don't expect to have to rethink. :)

i think the change is crap.

The statement of multiple top players has been that the majority of top players were FF. But all we ask is that you wait until we can get data on the top players sans filter before stating that 15/15 will dominate FF.

[SeraphNora]

At this point If Octopi feel that its too late to change format back or they wont. I feel the only solution to player anger at this sign of disrespect would be for SOe Tucston to issue an apology to the player base to admit that they made a mistake and that they didnt think this through properly and will seek feedback in the future and we can leave this behind us .

[walkindude]

The statement of multiple top players has been that the majority of top players were FF. But all we ask is that you wait until we can get data on the top players sans filter before stating that 15/15 will dominate FF.

"multiple" . . . so 2 or more, i guess is what you mean?

which players are these? what rank are they? when did they say this? did they say they only play FF, or maybe that they play it in casual once in a while? did the statement apply to this expansion? grimlic's descent? drums of war? what was the context?

you're trying to make a statement of fact without much in the way of facts.

i'm saying "this is what i think". i have allowed that facts could alter what i think. until facts alter what i think, i think the change is crap.

edit: yes, i also feel insulted and condescended to by this drastic, unheralded change followed by "well play in casual, then, if you don't like it".

[MBasse]

given your presumption, yes it would.

however, my impression has been that the majority of top players were 10/10 with the filters available. without them . . . well, i'd be extremely surprised if things somehow shifted drastically in the direction of full faction.

needless to say, fulfillment of all of your ifs would make me rethink.

i don't expect to have to rethink. :)

i think the change is crap.

There were hardly any 10/10s in the top 100 last expansion. FF KF, FS and FW were jumping all over most people. SL would have been too if KF and FW didn't tear them to shreds like they did and virtually made FF SL extinct. Maybe the same could have been said about moga.

What are all these 10/10 super BGs that you are talking about? What 10/10 was dominating last expansion? And why do you not address any of my posts the way you do the others? Are my points not valid enough for you?
Even further, what are your credentials for talking about split BGs besides the faulty assumption that split BGs get to toss in everything they want for no penalty?

[Mirior]

"multiple" . . . so 2 or more, i guess is what you mean?

which players are these? what rank are they? when did they say this? did they say they only play FF, or maybe that they play it in casual once in a while? did the statement apply to this expansion? grimlic's descent? drums of war? what was the context?

you're trying to make a statement of fact without much in the way of facts.

i'm saying "this is what i think". i have allowed that facts could alter what i think. until facts alter what i think, i think the change is crap.

MBasse, myalt1. Can't tell what rank they were, because ranks were reset, but they were top 100 players before the change. The statement applied to this expansion. Myalt1, a fellow who makes a point of keeping up with what top players are playing, has stated that there were only 4-5 10/10 players in the top 100 just before the expansion hit.

How many former top 100 players have been saying that 10/10 was dominating FF?

[PorkSol]

There were hardly any 10/10s in the top 100 last expansion. FF KF, FS and FW were jumping all over most people. SL would have been too if KF and FW didn't tear them to shreds like they did and virtually made FF SL extinct. Maybe the same could have been said about moga.


The problem with doing a strictly numbers analysis of 10/10s in the top 200 is that few people actually enjoy playing 10/10 or playing against 10/10 (which is why everyone filtered it out, causing 10/10 players to complain to the Devs about long queues).

Because 10/10 isn't actually very fun, it's numbers tend to be a lot lower than they should be, based on strict power.

For example, back when BBND was at it's full power, only a few people actually played it into the top ranks, because it was so cheesy and not fun to play. So if you judged just off numbers, you might have thought BBND was balanced. But of course it wasn't.

To some extent, the unfun nature of 15/15 will still limit it's popularity, but now that you can't filter, people will certainly feel more pressure to adopt it, as losing is also not fun for many people (I don't mind fair FF losses personally). I'd expect to see an increase in 15/15 numbers, but still lower numbers than it's power would indicate, due to it generally being less fun.

[MBasse]

For example, back when BBND was at it's full power, only a few people actually played it into the top ranks, because it was so cheesy and not fun to play. So if you judged just off numbers, you might have thought BBND was balanced. But of course it wasn't.


Actually one of the reason BBND wasn't run so much was because it was massively overrated. Cheese has never stopped anyone from playing something - hence the massive number of FS players for the last couple of expansions, despite the fact that most of them weren't regular FS players.

BBND had massive difficulties vs FW (Dead Magic Zone), SP moga (banishing a moga doesn't really do all that much...) and SL who managed to draw a leech first. KF did well against it too thanks to a shielded mena and cost-efficient champs. IS didn't do well, but hey, nobody played FF IS in top ranks anyway, FS did okayish - backfire was a bit more common at this point to counter Banish. ST also struggled vs it as did UD.

There were several FF that did much better vs a wider array of BGs.

[walkindude]

There were hardly any 10/10s in the top 100 last expansion. FF KF, FS and FW were jumping all over most people. SL would have been too if KF and FW didn't tear them to shreds like they did and virtually made FF SL extinct. Maybe the same could have been said about moga.

i know good and well that FW wasn't in the group of factions that dominated DoE. we've been having terrible problems. i understand that folks do continue to pair FW with other factions for 10/10, though.

What are all these 10/10 super BGs that you are talking about? What 10/10 was dominating last expansion?

my opinion about it is based on my own experiences playing vs. 10/10 battlegroups, and my own preferences about playing ranked matches.

And why do you not address any of my posts the way you do the others? Are my points not valid enough for you?

mirior was the squeakier wheel, i guess.

Even further, what are your credentials for talking about split BGs besides the faulty assumption that split BGs get to toss in everything they want for no penalty?

sorry, i wasn't aware that "credentials" were a requirement in order to have an opinion about a pastime which i have traditionally enjoyed and would like to be able to continue enjoying.

i guess they would be "long-time player who continues to invest time and money into pox nora".

split bgs have a wider range of material and can off-set faction weaknesses while bringing myriad additional possibilities and combinations to the game. that isn't an assumption.

[walkindude]

MBasse, myalt1. Can't tell what rank they were, because ranks were reset, but they were top 100 players before the change. The statement applied to this expansion. Myalt1, a fellow who makes a point of keeping up with what top players are playing, has stated that there were only 4-5 10/10 players in the top 100 just before the expansion hit.

How many former top 100 players have been saying that 10/10 was dominating FF?

myalt1, at least going by his forum posts, since i haven't played against him, plays only split battle groups. he is one of the most vocal lobbyists against the filters. (or am i thinking of kthx. ugh, withdrawn if i am . . .)

edit: 2? even if only top 100 counts for "top ranked" that's only 2%. O_o

[myAlt1]

. In fact, a lot of players thought FF was better than 15/15 last expansion. Regardless, we will begin to find out, and it is our goal to have 15/15 and FF equally viable and balanced options.

POXVEGA!!!


I think the phrase, we will begin to find out summed it up well.

Last expansion FF was stronger, and if that has changed it's due to 30 rune docks. The new runes haven't change everything.

Anyway this was a needed change.

Keep in mind some factions are weaker than others, as are some 15/15s. So it's not unexpected that some 15/15s will be stronger than some FF BGs.

[Mirior]

myalt1, at least going by his forum posts, since i haven't played against him, plays only split battle groups. he is one of the most vocal lobbyists against the filters.

Your point? I would imagine that someone who actually plays 10/10s would have a better awareness of 10/10s' strengths and weaknesses than someone who actively avoids playing against them.

sorry, i wasn't aware that "credentials" were a requirement in order to have an opinion about a pastime which i have traditionally enjoyed and would like to be able to continue enjoying.

i guess they would be "long-time player who continues to invest time and money into pox nora".

You don't need to have credentials to have an opinion, but just because it's your opinion does not mean that it can't be plain wrong. And the credentials are more high rank than seniority or investment.

split bgs have a wider range of material and can off-set faction weaknesses while bringing myriad additional possibilities and combinations to the game. that isn't an assumption.

No, that's true- but it doesn't mean that split BGs are more powerful. To gain that wider range of material, they give up access to power runes such as warbanners and heroes- it balances out.

[MBasse]

myalt1, at least going by his forum posts, since i haven't played against him, plays only split battle groups. he is one of the most vocal lobbyists against the filters.

This doesn't change the fact that there was hardly any split BG players. Of course he was vocal - have you ever tried searching for a game in the top 20 with 50% of the players filtering you out only to be matched up against someone ranked 4000+?

As far as your credentials, I was referring to anything that might give you the in-sight into split BGs. Or is it just that whenever split BGs beat you, it's because they are pure cheese? FW might have had some trouble last expansion, but I can assure you that apart from FS and KF you probably had it easier than anyone else - heck, you didn't even have to face FF FW most of the time, so there goes another thing you don't have to consider when building a BG! FW's one-track play-style is perhaps the most susceptible to the variety that no filter offer, but this doesn't mean it's a general indicator of split's greater power.

[Mirior]

edit: 2? even if only top 100 counts for "top ranked" that's only 2%. O_o

It's 100% of the top 100 players who have talked about the relative strengths of FF and 10/10, to my knowledge.

[Mizzjamieg]

I am not saying that after given time the run stats should only include the top 100-200 I am saying that all ranks should be included in the stats of who is doing better without the filter. This will give a better over-all view of if there should or should not be a filter for games, but the only true way to be able to judge this is without the filter, everyone having to play every type of BG....spell spam bgs included in that as well 15/15 is not the only ones that run spell spam ;-D

[redbarret]

I think the phrase, we will begin to find out summed it up well.

Last expansion FF was stronger, and if that has changed it's due to 30 rune docks. The new runes haven't change everything.

Anyway this was a needed change.

Keep in mind some factions are weaker than others, as are some 15/15s. So it's not unexpected that some 15/15s will be stronger than some FF BGs.

Some, Maybe most.

[redbarret]

I am not saying that after given time the run stats should only include the top 100-200 I am saying that all ranks should be included in the stats of who is doing better without the filter. This will give a better over-all view of if there should or should not be a filter for games, but the only true way to be able to judge this is without the filter, everyone having to play every type of BG....spell spam bgs included in that as well 15/15 is not the only ones that run spell spam ;-D

Yes, Darn them St, Sp, Ud, Kf, Is, and Sl.

[walkindude]

...but this doesn't mean it's a general indicator of split's greater power.

i see this qualifier a lot. basically, none of you want to actually allow that split bgs are tough for ff to deal with in a lot of cases. there are all of these reasons why split is desirable, and these are added to every time there's a new expansion. the first ripples through the forums tend to be all of the new inter-faction combos that are suddenly available.

i've had to wait in the queue before, too. i am not really crazy about the idea that i have to be penalized because you don't want to wait in a queue. ok, your enjoyment is slightly impinged because you have to wait. my penalty is that i have to play games that will be very frustrating and not-fun for me. which is a worse penalty? am i likely to want to participate in ranked play when i have a strong feeling that it won't be fun?

[MBasse]

Maybe this is a good time to point out that I play FF at least as much as I do split. If there had been an option to not play people who filtered when I was playing FF I would have taken that option.

[myAlt1]

Ok a few things.

FF BGs offer a few advantages over split BGs. Banner (HUGE), heroes, prot helms, and natural synergy. FF FS and KF were much stronger for these reasons than their counter parts FS/x and KF/x. Some FF bonuses are much better FF than in 10/10s, SL comes to mind as an easy example.

Don't discount natural synergy, a lot of things that are strong in FF are useless in split BGs. Some examples such as race demon in UD, amp frost in ST, boon in FW, and ghernbound moga. FF FW, UD, ST, and SP were all represented at high ranks FW and ST were up there with the strongest factions.

However, we all know split BGs can be very strong. Some of the popular ones last xp were FS/FW, FS/SP, and FS/SL. IS/FW, IS/SL, IS/KF, and SP/KF were also run but with much less frequency. Some of the match ups with FF and split can be quite unfair. For example, FW/x vs FF FW is a bit unfair. FS/SL with 2x acid and 2x poison is a bit unfair for UD.

But there are unfair match ups in FF as well. ST vs FW or FW vs moga. Unfair match ups do not mean split BGs are stronger however. Over all, last expansion split BGs were not as strong as FF mainly due to the natural synergy and stuff like prot helms. If that has changed it's due to 30 rune docks. It's hard to say if it has shifted until the meta has settled so lets be patient and see. If there are BGs that unfairly dominate, I am sure they will be toned down.

[Mirior]

i see this qualifier a lot. basically, none of you want to actually allow that split bgs are tough for ff to deal with in a lot of cases. there are all of these reasons why split is desirable, and these are added to every time there's a new expansion. the first ripples through the forums tend to be all of the new inter-faction combos that are suddenly available.


Other FF BGs are tough for FF BGs to face in a lot of cases- what do you suggest we do about them?

(Also, the first ripples through the SL forums have been what the new runes do for FF. One person has mentioned 15/15 so far, in an offhand manner. From skimming the other forums, the same seems to hold true for them as well, with the exception of the SP forums, where one person has created a thread for a new 15/15.)

[Uccisore]

Other FF BGs are tough for FF BGs to face in a lot of cases- what do you suggest we do about them?

(Also, the first ripples through the SL forums have been what the new runes do for FF. One person has mentioned 15/15 so far, in an offhand manner. From skimming the other forums, the same seems to hold true for them as well, with the exception of the SP forums, where one person has created a thread for a new 15/15.)

Dude, you really need to stop making this comparison because it's total baloney. One faction is better than another because it has, I dunno, some combo that cancels the other's play style, or exploits the other factions inherent weakness. I.E., stuff that can be nerfed.
15/15 is better than Full Faction because of the inherent nature of what it means to be 15/15. You have twice as many runes to build from, period. The mere fact of playing against a BG with 15 strong offensive runes with no healing AND 15 fragile support runes with tons of healing isn't going to go away because you added some nora here, or took some nora away there.
Also, this ruins the full faction game. I don't want every rune that's released for, say, SL, to have to jump through the hoop of "Is it going to create an unbalanced combo with ANY other rune in the entire game? Oh, something with KF really synergizes with it? Guess we have to nerf it!" IN-faction balancing is apparently hard enough.
Allegedly, there's a reason SL doesn't get nora gen, or FW doesn't get good AOEs runes are designed with those weaknesses in mind. What's the weakness of 15/15?

[Sumerian]

This is good thing guys, youll get used to it.

[CPKZ]

The main problem, for me, is entertainment. I simply don't enjoy going against split BGs. They aren't fun for me, I don't enjoy playing them, and I don't enjoy going against them. Heck, its not just "not enjoy," I HATE going against them. They aggravate me, they annoy me, they make me not want to play the game.

A lot of it has to do with cheese. Prior to this expansion, a lot of postman decks still existed. Things like LK and Sac existed forever. Things that were designed without splits in mind. I find a lot of those runes, the ones without splits in mind, were some of the more flavorful runes for that faction...but they get nerfed because of splits. Again, that hurts my enjoyment, and if they force no filter, they have to balance for the crap. I don't want my runes balanced because someone is being abusive...

On top of that, I know many players who enjoy building cheese. A lot of players who think coming up with cheesy combos makes them smarter / better players. Who seemingly get off on making a new postman, or mass spawning carrionlings from a CC. I don't want their enjoyment ruined either. I don't want all the cool combos nerfed simply so they can play more balanced splits. I want them to also still be able to enjoy doing whatever craziness they like...I just don't want to have to be bothered with it.

[walkindude]

This is good thing guys, youll get used to it.

wow, thanks! . . . i feel so much better now . . .

geez, talk about condescending . . .

[Mirior]

Dude, you really need to stop making this comparison because it's total baloney. One faction is better than another because it has, I dunno, some combo that cancels the other's play style, or exploits the other factions inherent weakness. I.E., stuff that can be nerfed.
15/15 is better than Full Faction because of the inherent nature of what it means to be 15/15. You have twice as many runes to build from, period. The mere fact of playing against a BG with 15 strong offensive runes with no healing AND 15 fragile support runes with tons of healing isn't going to go away because you added some nora here, or took some nora away there.
Also, this ruins the full faction game. I don't want every rune that's released for, say, SL, to have to jump through the hoop of "Is it going to create an unbalanced combo with ANY other rune in the entire game? Oh, something with KF really synergizes with it? Guess we have to nerf it!" IN-faction balancing is apparently hard enough.
Allegedly, there's a reason SL doesn't get nora gen, or FW doesn't get good AOEs runes are designed with those weaknesses in mind. What's the weakness of 15/15?

As I, and others, have said, repeatedly, multiple times even, the weakness of 15/15 is that it does not get access to the power runes of FF- primarily, warbanners and heroes. If you wish to argue that this weakness does not compensate for the strengths of 15/15, please do so, but please stop saying that 15/15 has no weakness, because that's "total baloney."

As I have also said, the concept of "ruining the full-faction the game" is only a problem if you view Poxnora as mainly a full-faction game, with 15/15 as a random aside. That should not be the case- FF and 15/15 should be treated equally. A rune that is broken in one or the other is broken, period, because FF and 15/15 are not separate entities in any more of a sense than a slag deck and a cyclops deck are separate entities.

[snow1wolf]

I think it is very interesting that (at least from what I've read in the General Chat forums), the folks that want to play FF decks are generally against the filter removal while the folks that want to play 15/15 decks are generally for the removal. This suggests, I believe, that there is at least a very real perception on the part of all players that 15/15 decks are stronger than FF. Even though you have 15/15 players saying FF is the stronger deck style, I honestly think they're just lying (or possibly delusional). WHY would such a preponderance of 15/15 players be happy with this change while such a preponderance of FF players are against it? The simplest answer (which is normally the right one) is that FF is weaker than 15/15, or at least FF was weaker than 10/10... I'll grant you that 15/15 may now be more equal to FF with the changes in this expansion, but that is still not the *perception* that the players (especially the FF players) are under, and as they say, "perception is reality"... thus you have a lot of very unhappy FF players at the moment.

However this pans out, I would like to suggest that SOET take more effort to anticipate these types of reactions and have information ready to post explaining your rational. That will, I think, curtail much of the negative responses. Most people are hesitant to experience change, especially in something they've grown used to such as 20-rune decks and FF/10/10/Highlander filters. Making changes to things that are so core to the game is always going to generate negative responses... but a lot of people will be more accepting if you have a post like above ready to go as soon as the change is made (not 5 hours later when people have had a chance to work themselves up into a blood frenzy :) ).

LS

the reason i am for the removal of the restriction is simply because of stigma. As a 10/10 or 15/15 deck player for the most part i get generally looked down upon. It does not matter if i am not using the really uber cheese stuff that is causing the problems. Heck it does not mater how creative new or innovative of a deck i come up with that stigma remains. I have made decks that have gotten compliments for creativity out of pretty much everyone i have played agaisnt except for the FF only players who refuse to even look in my direction. People do not compliment cheese they don't compliment somthing boring or uninteresting and yet the stigma remains because it is a split deck. Honestly it is really not fair to look down on a whole section of the player base just because of the bad apples of some really imbalanced combos. Whether you realize it or not in your post you are infering a negative intent on these players. Yeah we have heard plenty of how FF players feel about the filter but have you considered how the split deck players feel about getting excluded. That said i see this as a positive change more because i beileve it will help break down the wall between the deck types and force these issues to get resolved one way or another.

The squeaky wheel does get the grease after all.

[calisk]

eh you didn't nerf all those 10/10 combo's cause they were balanced...

their will always be a broken 15/15 combo, so forcing FF players who won't have access to such combo's just seems annoying.

meh I had to play several 15/15's yesterday, and i personally found them annoying not cause their broken, but because of the unpredictable nature of them. my opponent knew everything i had access to, pretty near exactly half as much as him,even if i had all of the 2-3 FF only runes accessible to me in my bg, it doesn't even compare to the unpredictable nature of having all the runes of two factions as his options for his bg, not to mention their highly likely going to be the best 15 from each faction. where as i run out of top tier far faster then him in FF.

[Mirior]

eh you didn't nerf all those 10/10 combo's cause they were balanced...

their will always be a broken 15/15 combo, so forcing FF players who won't have access to such combo's just seems annoying.

meh I had to play several 15/15's yesterday, and i personally found them annoying not cause their broken, but because of the unpredictable nature of them. my opponent knew everything i had access to, pretty near exactly half as much as him,even if i had all of the 2-3 FF only runes accessible to me in my bg, it doesn't even compare to the unpredictable nature of having all the runes of two factions as his options for his bg, not to mention their highly likely going to be the best 15 from each faction. where as i run out of top tier far faster then him in FF.

Most of the 10/10 combos were nerfed because they were annoying- understandable, although I personally disagree with it. And should the greens choose to simply remove 15/15 from the game or make a separate rank ladder for it because some players find it annoying, I will disagree, but I will not complain.

And I find it ironic- the very unpredictableness that you dislike about split BGs is exactly the reason that I enjoy playing against them and want them to stay in ranked play. Such is taste.

[calisk]

suppose, i prefer an even match as best as possible, my factions best 30 vs your factions best 30, either of us may have the advantage that way, but it's still the same restrictions to us both.

against a 15/15 it's two factions best 15 vs my 15 best and then my 15 next best. combo's aside this reason alone is enough for me to not want to have to play against them, it's like taking a 4 point disadvantage in go, or playing without your rooks. sure you can win, and it feels great when you do, but man does it get tiring fast.

the randomness is just something that bugs me, playing ud and having them pop a mobil off or something when you can't be prepared at all for it or playing frogs only to have a retribution go off in your face. those things i get tired of as well, cause the best counter for them is to simply be ready for them which is quite a bit harder to do in 15/15. probably will get used to them after several rounds of them using me as a pinyata, but meh guess that's what has to happen.

[PorkSol]

A rune that is broken in one or the other is broken, period, because FF and 15/15 are not separate entities in any more of a sense than a slag deck and a cyclops deck are separate entities.

Um, not really.

The way factions are balanced involves each one having strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Warcry might be really strong, but it's counterbalanced by the difficulty IS has in getting a healthy DK into the middle of the enemy ranks.

Mobilization might be really strong, but it's counterbalanced by the difficulty FW has in matching opponents in brute power.

Each one could easily be fine on it's own, but when combined, they might be too strong. (this is just one example, out of hundreds of possible combinations of abilties. This particular combo is just for the sake of discussion, not calling for it to be nerfed).

When you nerf Mobi and Warcry for 15/15, even though they were fine in Full Faction, they'll then become too weak in FF and the fun and flavor of the FF BG will be reduced.

If you have to balance the factions around 15/15 combos, you will have to weaken many of the most flavorful and fun abilities that keep each faction feeling different, even though they were balanced due to the weaknesses of that faction, because someone found a way to abuse them in 15/15.

They're really two very separate games, most people seem to prefer FF, and if we really focus on balancing 15/15 combos, it will be at the expense of the flavor and uniqueness that makes FF so fun.

EDIT:

Summary: Powerful, faction defining runes are part of what makes FF so fun. Those runes can be balanced by the limits of the FF format: you know what a faction has and you can give it weaknesses to balance out those powerful runes.

But those powerful runes are inherently prone to abuse in a 15/15 where you can combine the powerful, faction defining runes of two factions... and leave out the weaknesses. That leads to nerfs which end up hitting FF just as hard as 15/15, and making the game blander and less fun.

[choard]

I don't really care but as a FF FW player I need better ways to kill fw/15 decks. To many of our spells and attacks have no effect to undead. That or take out 15/15 decks.

[redbarret]

I don't really care but as a FF FW player I need better ways to kill fw/15 decks. To many of our spells and attacks have no effect to undead. That or take out 15/15 decks.

There is NO WAY in Hell there going to take 15/15 out, and to redo any old runes is to much work for them.

[myAlt1]

meh I had to play several 15/15's yesterday, and i personally found them annoying not cause their broken, but because of the unpredictable nature of them. my opponent knew everything i had access to, pretty near exactly half as much as him,even if i had all of the 2-3 FF only runes accessible to me in my bg, it doesn't even compare to the unpredictable nature of having all the runes of two factions as his options for his bg, not to mention their highly likely going to be the best 15 from each faction. where as i run out of top tier far faster then him in FF.

If you get past the people whinning I think this is a reasonable argument. You don't know what you are going up against so it's harder to deal with. You see KF/FW last xp, was it a wizard of OZ treehouse BG? Or was it some KF titan + reanimate BG?

You see ST/FW, is it a call of tundra rush bg? Or are you facing some bone ele + banner + ST titan reanimate BG.

But that's half the fun!

[Uccisore]

As I, and others, have said, repeatedly, multiple times even, the weakness of 15/15 is that it does not get access to the power runes of FF- primarily, warbanners and heroes. If you wish to argue that this weakness does not compensate for the strengths of 15/15, please do so, but please stop saying that 15/15 has no weakness, because that's "total baloney."

As I have also said, the concept of "ruining the full-faction the game" is only a problem if you view Poxnora as mainly a full-faction game, with 15/15 as a random aside. That should not be the case- FF and 15/15 should be treated equally. A rune that is broken in one or the other is broken, period, because FF and 15/15 are not separate entities in any more of a sense than a slag deck and a cyclops deck are separate entities.

First of all, 15/15 DOES get access to warbanners. When you only had 10 runes from a single faction, it was just usually not productive to include them. With 15 runes from a single faction, it becomes much more of a live option. For example, I could build a 15/15 deck with a moga swarm and an SP warbanner that has just as many champs as the old 20/- swarm decks typically ran. Heck, warbanners are nearly worth it just for shrine contesting.
Secondly, while 15/15 doesn't get access to heroes (technically they do, but I'll grant you that it's almost never a good idea to run them), what they DO get is the ability to run 2 titans, which equals out against all but 2 factions- SL gets a titan and a hero, SL/KF gets two titans. So that's a wash against everybody but IS and UD who could, theoretically run 2 heros and a titan. Considering UD's titan is often considered the worst of them, any advantage overall to FF here is miniscule.
So yeah, the weaknesses you brought up for 15/15 have both been worn down to nothing over time. Maybe sometime in 2012 when every faction has two heroes, there will be something to say here, but not until.


As I have also said, the concept of "ruining the full-faction the game" is only a problem if you view Poxnora as mainly a full-faction game, with 15/15 as a random aside. That should not be the case- FF and 15/15 should be treated equally.

And as everybody here has been telling you, you CAN'T treat them equally because

1.) 15/15 is inherently stronger, and
2.) Almost nobody wants to play against 15/15- this was demonstrated conclusively in the fairest possible way, by backing off and letting people play against what they wanted to, and seeing what developed.


A rune that is broken in one or the other is broken, period, because FF and 15/15 are not separate entities in any more of a sense than a slag deck and a cyclops deck are separate entities.

Completely circular reasoning. Yes, as of yesterday, 15/15 and FF are not seperate entities because the game has been changed to make them that way. A couple weeks ago, and they were very separate indeed. A couple years ago, and CIRCUS wasn't considered a separate entity, and you'd be trying to argue with a straight face that a rune that was broken in circus was just plain broken.

Also, what PorkSol said- If you can't see that Draconic Benediction in a Moga-swarm deck is completely different than Draconic Benediction in SL, then I'm not even sure what you mean when you say 'balance'.

[Zoltor]

Um, not really.

The way factions are balanced involves each one having strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Warcry might be really strong, but it's counterbalanced by the difficulty IS has in getting a healthy DK into the middle of the enemy ranks.

Mobilization might be really strong, but it's counterbalanced by the difficulty FW has in matching opponents in brute power.

Each one could easily be fine on it's own, but when combined, they might be too strong. (this is just one example, out of hundreds of possible combinations of abilties. This particular combo is just for the sake of discussion, not calling for it to be nerfed).

When you nerf Mobi and Warcry for 15/15, even though they were fine in Full Faction, they'll then become too weak in FF and the fun and flavor of the FF BG will be reduced.

If you have to balance the factions around 15/15 combos, you will have to weaken many of the most flavorful and fun abilities that keep each faction feeling different, even though they were balanced due to the weaknesses of that faction, because someone found a way to abuse them in 15/15.

They're really two very separate games, most people seem to prefer FF, and if we really focus on balancing 15/15 combos, it will be at the expense of the flavor and uniqueness that makes FF so fun.

EDIT:

Summary: Powerful, faction defining runes are part of what makes FF so fun. Those runes can be balanced by the limits of the FF format: you know what a faction has and you can give it weaknesses to balance out those powerful runes.

But those powerful runes are inherently prone to abuse in a 15/15 where you can combine the powerful, faction defining runes of two factions... and leave out the weaknesses. That leads to nerfs which end up hitting FF just as hard as 15/15, and making the game blander and less fun.


We told him this a bunch of times in this thread already, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. He keeps saying they are the say, when the different formats play out completely different, and what is completely broken in 10/10-15/15 Isn't even OPed in FF(nerfing it in 10/10-15/15 almost always makes a rune borderline shoebox or worse in FF. Another example of this is Sacrifice sigh). He can't possibly say Sacrifice is used in the same way in 10/10, as it was in FF, for one last time I checked, FF UD didn't have LK or any other immortal champ for that matter(now It's borderline shoebox as a whole, and infact in a lot of BG builds is completely useless).

[Uccisore]

We told him this a bunch of times in this thread already, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. He keeps saying they are the say, when the different formats play out completely different, and what is completely broken in 10/10-15/15 Isn't even OPed in FF(nerfing it in 10/10-15/15 almost always makes a rune borderline shoebox or worse. Another example of this is Sacrifice sigh. He can't possibly say Sacrifice is used in the same way in 10/10, as it was in FF, for one last time I checked, FF UD didn't have LK or any other immortal champ for that matter(now It's borderline shoebox as a whole, and infact in a lot of BG builds is completely useless).

And to make the point even more clear- there's a handful of pretty obvious reasons WHY UD doesn't have any immortal champs. Except in 15/15 where they do...which is apparently balanced because of no reason at all.

[Mirior]

Summary: Powerful, faction defining runes are part of what makes FF so fun. Those runes can be balanced by the limits of the FF format: you know what a faction has and you can give it weaknesses to balance out those powerful runes.

But those powerful runes are inherently prone to abuse in a 15/15 where you can combine the powerful, faction defining runes of two factions... and leave out the weaknesses. That leads to nerfs which end up hitting FF just as hard as 15/15, and making the game blander and less fun.

This is a good argument- well said. I personally disagree, but this goes into the realm of pure opinion- I'm not saying that you're wrong here.

The faction defining abilities that you see as making the game more interesting, I see as simply annoying. I dislike Warcry, because 1. I find it frustrating to go up against, and 2. I see it as restricting IS design space. I consider creating faction flavor through a single rune/ability that becomes a must-have for the faction a bad thing, even though it may be perfectly balanced in FF play. What if I want to build a kingless IS deck? It's possible, but I'll never do as well as if I shelled out for kings, because IS is balanced around having War Cry.

I believe that toning down such abilities to create design space within their factions is good for the game, and that the faction flavor lost through such toning downs can be replaced through interesting themes that were not possible before toning down the faction's power rune. Example: FF FW skeleton swarm decks. Before mobi was nerfed, this kind of deck was very difficult to balance- Mobilization's power was amplified for each additional skeleton spawned, so the concept would either be too powerful, if FW had decent summon mechanics, or too weak, if FW had weak summon mechanics. After Mobilization was nerfed, FW had the design space to expand on the Skeleton theme without becoming overpowered, and the faction flavor lost by toning down Mobilization was replaced by the flavor of the archetypical undead horde.

I consider a creative 15/15 BG, where the designer is effectively creating their own flavor, to be far more interesting and flavorful than a typical FF BG, where the flavor is created by the designers, and I enjoy facing them more than I enjoy facing other FF BGs. So to me, the fact that 15/15 combinations can cause design-limiting runes in FF to be nerfed is a good thing, certainly preferable to limiting the number of split BGs that I come across. However, I do understand the point of view that faction flavor as centered around key runes is more flavorful than random concoctions- it's a different school of thought, but not in any way a wrong one.

[Mirior]

First of all, 15/15 DOES get access to warbanners. When you only had 10 runes from a single faction, it was just usually not productive to include them. With 15 runes from a single faction, it becomes much more of a live option. For example, I could build a 15/15 deck with a moga swarm and an SP warbanner that has just as many champs as the old 20/- swarm decks typically ran. Heck, warbanners are nearly worth it just for shrine contesting.
Secondly, while 15/15 doesn't get access to heroes (technically they do, but I'll grant you that it's almost never a good idea to run them), what they DO get is the ability to run 2 titans, which equals out against all but 2 factions- SL gets a titan and a hero, SL/KF gets two titans. So that's a wash against everybody but IS and UD who could, theoretically run 2 heros and a titan. Considering UD's titan is often considered the worst of them, any advantage overall to FF here is miniscule.
So yeah, the weaknesses you brought up for 15/15 have both been worn down to nothing over time. Maybe sometime in 2012 when every faction has two heroes, there will be something to say here, but not until.

You make a good point about the changes in rune dock size reducing the weaknesses of 15/15 BGs- they still aren't nothing (a weakness that has a strength to match it is still a weakness), but they are less than they were before. FF decks may need a boost in FF-only mechanics to stay with 15/15 BGs, but that is a balance issue, not a incompatability issue.



And as everybody here has been telling you, you CAN'T treat them equally because

1.) 15/15 is inherently stronger, and
2.) Almost nobody wants to play against 15/15- this was demonstrated conclusively in the fairest possible way, by backing off and letting people play against what they wanted to, and seeing what developed.

I don't think we have the same definition of inherently stronger. My definition of inherently stronger is that, in a mixed environment, there is no reason (from a strictly competitive point of view) not to play one over the other. Such a reason exists- whether or not it is enough of a reason is another discussion, but there is a reason, so 15/15 is not inherently stronger.

As for the second point, I don't see how that makes 15/15 a separate format from FF. Few people enjoy going up against a FF FW attrition build- does that make FW attrition a separate format? Annoyingness is, like the strength of incentives, another discussion from whether 15/15 and FF are in the same format.

Completely circular reasoning. Yes, as of yesterday, 15/15 and FF are not seperate entities because the game has been changed to make them that way. A couple weeks ago, and they were very separate indeed. A couple years ago, and CIRCUS wasn't considered a separate entity, and you'd be trying to argue with a straight face that a rune that was broken in circus was just plain broken.

I would love to see them bring circus back, as long as they boosted the incentives for playing FF or 15/15 enough that those archetypes could compete with circus decks.


Also, what PorkSol said- If you can't see that Draconic Benediction in a Moga-swarm deck is completely different than Draconic Benediction in SL, then I'm not even sure what you mean when you say 'balance'.

I'm well aware that they're completely different, powerlevelwise. I just don't see why nerfing something based on its powerlevel in its strongest decktype is a bad thing. (Excepting flavor reasons, which while I personally disagree with, I can see the validity of.)
I ask again- was it bad that Slag decks got Afflict nerfed, despite the Cyclops Seer being perfectly fine in Cyclops decks?

[Zoltor]

I'm well aware that they're completely different, powerlevelwise. I just don't see why nerfing something based on its powerlevel in its strongest decktype is a bad thing. (Excepting flavor reasons, which while I personally disagree with, I can see the validity of.)


Let's try this again shall we.

Becuase the game, and each faction is balanced on the concept of each fasction is suppost to have some weakness, therefore are giving runes to help them somewhat in their weak area, while still remaining weak in the area. In 10/10-15/15 faction balance doesn't exist, becuase you can use runes from other factions.

Nerfing a rune that is designed for FF, based on the weakness of the faction, becuase it can be made to create BGs, that the rune wasn't designed or balanced around in 10/10-15/15 will always be a unwarranted nerf to FF, almost always making it borderline shoebox, if not worse, with the faction the rune was actually designed to be in.

The sad thing is, 10/10-15/15 don't even need such runes to be extreamly powerful (as they have access to more runes), but FF(the faction it was designed for) needs that/those runes to make up for their weakness, otherwise they have no kind of DEF to a faction with that area as a strength.

[Uccisore]

Mirior

You make a good point about the changes in rune dock size reducing the weaknesses of 15/15 BGs- they still aren't nothing (a weakness that has a strength to match it is still a weakness), but they are less than they were before. FF decks may need a boost in FF-only mechanics to stay with 15/15 BGs, but that is a balance issue, not a incompatability issue.

Well, it's both. It's a balance issue, and it's an incompatibility issue because the balance problems come from the basic nature of 15/15, not from any particular rune that can be tweaked.


I don't think we have the same definition of inherently stronger. My definition of inherently stronger is that, in a mixed environment, there is no reason (from a strictly competitive point of view) not to play one over the other. Such a reason exists- whether or not it is enough of a reason is another discussion, but there is a reason, so 15/15 is not inherently stronger.

It's NOT another discussion- it is the discussion. The reasons you gave for preferring FF over 15/15 largely don't exist anymore, we just agreed on that. Those reasons were put there to balance out the inherent strengths of 15/15- combos, overcoming faction weaknesses, greater variety of runes to choose from.


As for the second point, I don't see how that makes 15/15 a separate format from FF. Few people enjoy going up against a FF FW attrition build- does that make FW attrition a separate format? Annoyingness is, like the strength of incentives, another discussion from whether 15/15 and FF are in the same format.

15/15 and 30/- are separate formats because they're obviously separate formats. Both can contain FW runes in them, both could run an attrition build, etc. The runes you use aren't different, the rules defining which runes you can mix and which ones you can't are different. If that's not a separate format, what is? Is circus a separate format? Pretty clearly it is. Why? As far as I can tell, your possible answers are,
1.) Because the greens don't let you play it ranked right now (arbitrary), or
2.) Because you build the deck according to different rules than 15/15 or FF.

If your answer is 2, then 15/15 is a separate format for the exact same reason.

Hell, it's just a word. 15/15 is different than 30/-. It's not a different faction, so it must be a different something else. If you don't want to call that 'something else' a format, then pick some other term.

Either way, the point that almost nobody wants to play against 15/15, and that the buffs to FF designed to let it compete with 15/15 have been mitigated add up to there being no compelling reason to mix the two.


I would love to see them bring circus back, as long as they boosted the incentives for playing FF or 15/15 enough that those archetypes could compete with circus decks.

OK, so 'archetype' is your chosen term, I'm good with that. It's practically a synonym for 'format', anyway.
Your personal interests aren't really relevant to the point. The point is, circus is obviously a different format (or archetype, or whatever) from 15/15 and 30/- , and it's equally obvious that broken combos manifest in circus that do not exist in 15/15 and 30/-. Your point that a rune that's broken in one archetype is broken in them all is manifestly false. Certain runes exist the way they do specifically because the faction they are in is lacking in some way to capitalize on them. Unless every single instance like that can be accounted for by the different between full and half faction bonuses, 15/15 has an advantage over FF, and circus moreso.


I'm well aware that they're completely different, powerlevelwise. I just don't see why nerfing something based on its powerlevel in its strongest decktype is a bad thing.

Because 'deck type' is arbitrary, and can only be settled in terms of interest and taste.
For example, suppose they introduced a new deck type- 10/-. In 10/-, you only get 10 runes, but the advantage is, all your stuff has zero cooldown. Now, obviously there would be serious balance changes- there would be some stuff in 10/- that's way too powerful by virtue of being played over and over again. Forgetting the specifics, imagine there's a need to nerf a rune into oblivion for the sake of 10/- balance, that is fine in the other deck types. You have a choice-

1.) Nerf every rune that costs 50 nora or less, vastly changing the 15/15 and 30/- game, but at least these things aren't broke in 10/- anymore.
2.) Decide to get rid of 10/- or stick it off on it's own ladder so you don't have to worry about it's balance concerns in the 'main game'.

How do you decide between them? You can't use science or math- it's not objective. It's a matter of opinion. Well, suppose you have this body of data that suggests that almost everybody hates to play against 10/- decks, and basically the only time people use them is when they can play them against FF or 15/15 builds because of the perceived easy wins it will give them? The choice is still subjective, but surely this information counts for something- and what else could count for more?

So my point is, you're just de-facto assuming that 15/15 is this forced legitimate play style, and we've simply got no choice but to nerf runes and screw with factions to make it 'fit' somehow. No. We do have a choice, and it's pretty clear WHAT the players prefer.

I mean hell, what happened to highlander? Would you like to nerf the crap out of all your stuff so that highlander can compete equally? Maybe start by declaring every halfway decent rune 'unique'? Why not? It was a 'valid deck type' when the filter was there, on the same list as FF and 10/10.


TLDR: Every deck type we choose to include in the Main Game will force balance issues upon us. There's nothing to decide which deck types to include and which not to other than for the sake of enjoying the game.


EDIT

I ask again- was it bad that Slag decks got Afflict nerfed, despite the Cyclops Seer being perfectly fine in Cyclops decks?

Of course not, because 'slag deck' and 'cyclops deck' is something we made up in our heads. There's nothing in the actual game to define those, or to prevent them from intermingling. Now, someday there may come a point where we look at dividing the factions up so that a person DOES have to choose between playing a Cyclops deck, a moga/ghern deck, or whatever. At that time, then nerfs like the above would be bad, and if we go that way can only be determined by what's most entertaining.

[Mirior]

Let's try this again shall we.

Becuase the game, and each faction is balanced on the concept of each fasction is suppost to have some weakness, and therefore are giving runes to help them somewhat in their weak area, while still remaining weak in the area. In 10/10-15/15 faction balance doesn't exist, becuase you can use runes from other factions.

Nerfing a rune that is designed for FF, based on the weakness of the faction, becuase it can be made to create BGs, that the rune wasn't designed or balanced around in 10/10-15/15 will always be a unwarranted nerf to FF, almost always making it borderline shoebox, if not worse, with the faction the rune was actually designed to be in.

The sad thing is, 10/10-15/15 don't even need such runes to be extreamly powerful (as they have access to more runes), but FF(the faction it was designed for) needs that/those runes to make up for their weakness, otherwise they have no kind of DEF to a faction with that area as a strength.

So what you're saying is that the game should be based around FF play, because nerfs in 15/15 affecting FF runes would be bad if the game were to be based around FF play?

My argument is that the game should not be balanced primarily around FF play in the first place. Your logic is a bit circular.

(Also, I made a thread in general clarifying one of my key points, and attempting to shave away the other arguments that have come with it. There's still other things to be discussed, certainly- such as what Zoltor and I are discussing now- but the point I started off trying to argue is fully explained over there.)

[Mirior]

Well, it's both. It's a balance issue, and it's an incompatibility issue because the balance problems come from the basic nature of 15/15, not from any particular rune that can be tweaked.

Sure they can. Buff Warbanners. Buff Heroes. Or, my preferred solution, make more runes that work significantly better in FF than in 15/15.



It's NOT another discussion- it is the discussion. The reasons you gave for preferring FF over 15/15 largely don't exist anymore, we just agreed on that. Those reasons were put there to balance out the inherent strengths of 15/15- combos, overcoming faction weaknesses, greater variety of runes to choose from.

Largely don't exist is not the same as do not exist.


15/15 and 30/- are seperate formats because they're obviously seperate formats. Both can contain FW runes in them, both could run an attrition build, etc. The runes you use aren't different, the rules defining which runes you can mix and which ones you can't are different. If that's not a seperate format, what is? Is circus a seperate format? Pretty clearly it is. Why? As far as I can tell, your possible answers are,
1.) Because the greens don't let you play it ranked right now (arbitrary), or
2.) Because you build the deck according to different rules than 15/15 or FF.

If your answer is 2, then 15/15 is a seperate format for the exact same reason.

In my eyes, circus is the same format as 15/15 and FF. The greens don't let you play it ranked because they'd rather just kick it out than tackle the thorny problem of balancing it with FF and 15/15- which is understandable, and I wouldn't complain if they chose to do the same thing with 15/15, as long as that was their motivation and not a view that the two are separate formats.


OK, so 'archetype' is your chosen term, I'm good with that. It's a synonym for 'format', you know.
I don't care what you would love, your personal interests are not relevant to the point. The point is, circus is obviously a different format (or archetype, or whatever) from 15/15 and 30/- , and it's equally obvious that broken combos manifest in circus that do not exist in 15/15 and 30/-. Your point that a rune that's broken in one archetype is broken in them all is manifestly false. Certain runes exist the way they do specifically because the faction they are in is lacking in some way to capitalize on them. Unless every single instance like that can be accounted for by the different between full and half faction bonuses, 15/15 has an advantage over FF, and circus moreso.

Actually, I meant archetype in the same sense as deck type- FW attrition is an archetype, KF rush is an archetype, SL DB/Drums was an archetype. I apologize for using unclear wording.

And the argument that the two are different formats because some runes are stronger in them is circular- by the same logic, SP Moga is in a different format than SP Cyclops, because the G'hern Thrower is much stronger in a Moga build than it is in a Cyclops build. If it were to be too powerful in Moga builds, should Moga builds simply be cast out because it isn't strong in Cyclops builds?



How do you decide between them? You can't use science or math- it's not objective. It's a matter of opinion. Well, suppose you have this body of data that suggests that almost everybody hates to play against 10/- decks, and basically the only time people use them is when they can play them against FF or 15/15 builds because of the perceived easy wins it will give them? The choice is still subjective, but surely this information counts for something- and what else could count for more?

So my point is, you're just de-facto assuming that 15/15 is this forced legitimate play style, and we've simply got no choice but to nerf runes and screw with factions to make it 'fit' somehow. No. We do have a choice, and it's pretty clear WHAT the players prefer.

As I've said, I value providing more options for all players over making some of the players happier at the expense of other players, even if the annoyed group is larger. This is a personal opinion, yes- if the greens decide otherwise, I'll be annoyed, but I will understand the reasoning and will not complain.


I mean hell, what happened to highlander? Would you like to nerf the crap out of all your stuff so that highlander can compete equally? Maybe start by declaring every halfway decent rune 'unique'? Why not? It was a 'valid deck type' when the filter was there, on the same list as FF and 10/10.

I actually do consider highlander to be a separate format, because there is 0 incentive to play it in a mixed metagame.


TLDR: Every deck type we choose to include in the Main Game will force balance issues upon us. There's nothing to decide which deck types to include and which not to other than for the sake of enjoying the game.

There is something else, actually- variety. Simply try to include as many options as can be maintained in a format- and I am confident in the green's ability to keep FF and 15/15 balanced (something that they had done pre-expansion.) If they turn out to be not up to the task, then I will have no problems with them cutting 15/15- but I would like for them to be given a chance before we start railing at the gates.

[Zoltor]

So what you're saying is that the game should be based around FF play, because nerfs in 15/15 affecting FF runes would be bad if the game were to be based around FF play?

My argument is that the game should not be balanced primarily around FF play in the first place. Your logic is a bit circular.

(Also, I made a thread in general clarifying one of my key points, and attempting to shave away the other arguments that have come with it. There's still other things to be discussed, certainly- such as what Zoltor and I are discussing now- but the point I started off trying to argue is fully explained over there.)

It's "IMPOSSIBLE" to balance runes with both(using the same rullings), It's a universal truth, anybody who knows anything about game design could figure out why this is the case.

The entire game was based on FF play, not 10/10- 15/15, Highlander or circus(Note: Highlander is completely unplayable due to these changes now, unless you like getting steam rolled).

I'm not saying that 10/10-15/15 Isn't a legit format, but in no way shape or form should FF get destroyed becuase something is broken in 10/10-15/15, nor should they be ranked together, becuase they are drastically different formats(cough Archetype).

[Mirior]

It's "IMPOSSIBLE" to balance runes with both(using the same rullings), It's a universal truth, anybody who knows anything about game design could figure out why this is the case.

Interesting that you say that, seeing as FF and 10/10 were pretty well balanced right before the expansion hit.


The entire game was based on FF play, not 10/10- 15/15

Then why did they make 15/15 an option?

[Zoltor]

Interesting that you say that, seeing as FF and 10/10 were pretty well balanced right before the expansion hit.



Then why did they make 15/15 an option?


Wow, if you think that, you're delusional. First of all, FF was never ever equally balanced with 10/10. Second there are 3 factions, that are all in very bad shape now("IS, UD, and FW" 2 of which ended up in this bad state recently)that are either borderline destroyed, or only has one workable BG type. Then there is one faction that is overall OPed(becuase It's good at everything, and yet has a few individually extreamly OPed runes/combos. "FS").

You can't honestly say both FF, and 10/10 was balanced at all, let alone balanced in powerlevel with each other.

PS. BTW the reason why UD, and FW are in this bad state, is due to nerfing a rune, becuase it was broken in 10/10, and that is the only reason.

[Mirior]

Wow, if you think that, you're delusional. First of all, FF was never ever equally balanced with 10/10. Second there are 3 factions now.IS, UD, and FW are all in very bad shape now(2 of which ended up in this bad state recently)that are either borderline destroyed, or only has one workable BG type. Then there is one faction that is overall OPed(becuase It's good at everything, and yet has a few individually extreamly OPed runes/combos. "FS").

You can't honestly say both FF, and 10/10 was balanced at all, let alone balanced in powerlevel with each other.

There were only 4-5 10/10 players in the top 100. I'd call that balanced. And I can promise you that not every 10/10 combination was even as well off as IS or UD- not every pair of factions has synergy with each other.

[PoxVega]

Within a month or so we will get to see which is the best in ranked play. Personally, there are so many variables for both sides, it is exciting to see what type will be on top. (A lot of players are enjoying the challenge, granted the expansion is new, but we have had more ranked games in comparison than any other time.)

Btw:

Currently 7 of the top 10 players are FF players.

To early to tell yet of course.

[Kevoun]

Ok, one argument I'm seeing is that playing against 15/15 isn't fun. To that I would say, not being able to play against FF, having to wait longer to play, and playing people with vastly different ranks makes playing 15/15 less fun. So it isn't fun for you without filters, and it isn't fun for 15/15 with filters, so the fun argument just becomes a shouting match about who deserves to have fun. That doesn't solve any problems because players on both sides lose no matter which happens. You have to be willing to compromise.

The game world/role playing argument is more convincing because it doesn't make lore sense for Wrath and Protectorate to team up in this world. A solution could be to only allow 15/15 within respective alignments, eg. no FW/FS. I would say it is reasonable that Protectorates would team up to fight against a common threat, and the same with Wrath.

No one has made enough points to make me believe that 15/15 is 'better' than FF, particularly since the expansion just came out and apparently the people arguing here aren't playing it. 15/15 has DIFFERENT combos from FF, but FF still has combos that aren't available or don't work as well in 15/15. People are saying that balancing runes for 'broken' 15/15 combos hurts FF balance, and to that I say that balancing runes that are 'broken' in FF can hurt 15/15 balance.

For example, say a new rune has a broken synergy with a hero. You balance the rune to make FF work because the hero probably wouldn't be broken itself. 15/15 Players hurt because they can't use the hero, but the new rune is worse in their BG's.

This is of course only because you are segregating the two environments. Balance should apply to both FF and 15/15, not either exclusively. Separating the two into different games just makes it harder and more complicated for everyone to achieve balance. The greens have already stated that the goal is to balance FF and 15/15, so the argument that 15/15 have it easier or win more should be moot.

Before you start saying I'm a 15/15 player trying to get wins, I want to say that I'm more often a FF player that enjoys playing against all the challenges thrown at me in ranked play, and there are specific FF bg's that commonly give me more trouble than any other bg I've played. I try to balance my deck against my weaknesses instead of eliminating the bgs from play that exploit my weaknesses.

As for asking for forewarning so people don't go crazy when this change happens... you would have gone crazy when they announced it and then gone crazy again when they didn't change their mind and it actually happened. Big woop.

[walkindude]

In my eyes, circus is the same format as 15/15 and FF. The greens don't let you play it ranked because they'd rather just kick it out than tackle the thorny problem of balancing it with FF and 15/15- which is understandable, and I wouldn't complain if they chose to do the same thing with 15/15, as long as that was their motivation and not a view that the two are separate formats.

newsflash: if you have a set of game circumstances that requires you to re-examine all of the runes for balance issues, that set of game circumstances qualifies as a "format". i realize it's harmful to your premise and all, but 15/15 raises issues that can't be addressed by simply balancing a faction to work properly. and you are nerfing full faction battle groups every time you "adjust" a rune so that its use in 15/15 isn't abusive. circus as a ranked play style would require a re-evaluation of everything, and is therefore a "format", too.

[redbarret]

Within a month or so we will get to see which is the best in ranked play. Personally, there are so many variables for both sides, it is exciting to see what type will be on top. (A lot of players are enjoying the challenge, granted the expansion is new, but we have had more ranked games in comparison than any other time.)

Btw:

Currently 7 of the top 10 players are FF players.

To early to tell yet of course.

I Bet they spent tons of money...

[Mirior]

i realize it's harmful to your premise and all, but 15/15 raises issues that can't be addressed by simply balancing a faction to work properly.

Name one. And could you elaborate on why difficulty to balance constitutes a new format?

[walkindude]

Within a month or so we will get to see which is the best in ranked play. Personally, there are so many variables for both sides, it is exciting to see what type will be on top. (A lot of players are enjoying the challenge, granted the expansion is new, but we have had more ranked games in comparison than any other time.)

Btw:

Currently 7 of the top 10 players are FF players.

To early to tell yet of course.

how many folks aren't playing ranked games because of your decision, though? i suppose as long as the 15/15 people are happy about not having any sort of wait for a game, it doesn't matter how many people don't enjoy that aspect of ranked play.

to me the issue is: 15/15 guy is valued over ff guy, because his desire not to have to wait for a game is placed ahead of ff guy's entire enjoyment of ranked play.

[Mirior]

to me the issue is: 15/15 guy is valued over ff guy, because his desire not to have to wait for a game is placed ahead of ff guy's entire enjoyment of ranked play.

So, you'd rather have FF guy's desire not to have to adjust to things he finds "annoying" take precedence over 15/15 guy's enjoyment of ranked play?

[Kevoun]

how many folks aren't playing ranked games because of your decision, though? i suppose as long as the 15/15 people are happy about not having any sort of wait for a game, it doesn't matter how many people don't enjoy that aspect of ranked play.

to me the issue is: 15/15 guy is valued over ff guy, because his desire not to have to wait for a game is placed ahead of ff guy's entire enjoyment of ranked play.

You're assuming that everyone who plays FF doesn't want to play ranked anymore. Obviously this isn't true because 7 FF players played a bunch yesterday and beat a bunch of people. I play FF and I enjoy playing against 15/15.

[walkindude]

Name one. And could you elaborate on why difficulty to balance constitutes a new format?

just look back through the expansive list of nerfs to runes in this game, mirior.

the majority of those nerfs came about because something was abused in 10/10 matches. the most glaring one that comes to ming, i guess because UD guys are still smarting over it, is the nerf to sacrifice. that spell was completely reasonable in full faction play. abuse by 10/10 bgs got it nerfed.

i didn't say difficulty to balance defines a format. i said that when you have to separately balance something based on two different ways of using it, those two separate ways are two formats. the problem is, when you balance our runes for use in split bgs, it's often more damaging for the full faction people accustomed to using it than it will be for the split bg people.

[walkindude]

So, you'd rather have FF guy's desire not to have to adjust to things he finds "annoying" take precedence over 15/15 guy's enjoyment of ranked play?

the split bg guys still got to enjoy all of the things that have been stated as reasons that people enjoy playing split bgs. supposedly, though, their having to spend a few minutes in the queue was just devastatingly burdensome for them.

if it was easy to get a ff game, and you had to spend a while in 10/10 queue, what does that tell you? and yet the change was made completely in favor of the minority. *shrug* whatever.

You're assuming that everyone who plays FF doesn't want to play ranked anymore. Obviously this isn't true because 7 FF players played a bunch yesterday and beat a bunch of people. I play FF and I enjoy playing against 15/15.

i didn't say everyone. but obviously there were a lot of people using the filters in DoW before the expansion.

[Mirior]

just look back through the expansive list of nerfs to runes in this game, mirior.

the majority of those nerfs came about because something was abused in 10/10 matches. the most glaring one that comes to ming, i guess because UD guys are still smarting over it, is the nerf to sacrifice. that spell was completely reasonable in full faction play. abuse by 10/10 bgs got it nerfed.

i didn't say difficulty to balance defines a format. i said that when you have to separately balance something based on two different ways of using it, those two separate ways are two formats. the problem is, when you balance our runes for use in split bgs, it's often more damaging for the full faction people accustomed to using it than it will be for the split bg people.

I see them about evenly split between FF and 10/10. For every Sacrifice, there's a Glacial Titan.

By your definition of format, FW RMH decks that ran Necromancers for Soul Harvest were in a different format than FW Skeleton decks that ran Necromancers for Summon Undead. KF decks that used Farshot 3 on Centaur Archers were in a different format than SL decks that used it on the Draksar Archer, and FW Colossus decks that used Sirens to spawn hordes of Carrionlings and Mobilization to boost the swarm were in a different format than FW Melee Muscle decks that used the pair to boost AP on normal champs.

True?

[Mirior]

i didn't say everyone. but obviously there were a lot of people using the filters in DoW before the expansion.

Not everyone who used the filters is quitting because the filters are gone.

[walkindude]

I see them about evenly split between FF and 10/10. For every Sacrifice, there's a Glacial Titan.

By your definition of format, FW RMH decks that ran Necromancers for Soul Harvest were in a different format than FW Skeleton decks that ran Necromancers for Summon Undead. KF decks that used Farshot 3 on Centaur Archers were in a different format than SL decks that used it on the Draksar Archer, and FW Colossus decks that used Sirens to spawn hordes of Carrionlings and Mobilization to boost the swarm were in a different format than FW Melee Muscle decks that used the pair to boost AP on normal champs.

True?

no, that isn't at all what i said.

ensuring that a rune works in-faction is one thing. ensuring that the same rune isn't broken across all of the 7 other factions is entirely another thing.

in a pinch, i'd have to say that 15/15 is closer to circus, in terms of "format" than it is to full faction.

[Kevoun]

just look back through the expansive list of nerfs to runes in this game, mirior.

the majority of those nerfs came about because something was abused in 10/10 matches. the most glaring one that comes to ming, i guess because UD guys are still smarting over it, is the nerf to sacrifice. that spell was completely reasonable in full faction play. abuse by 10/10 bgs got it nerfed.

i didn't say difficulty to balance defines a format. i said that when you have to separately balance something based on two different ways of using it, those two separate ways are two formats. the problem is, when you balance our runes for use in split bgs, it's often more damaging for the full faction people accustomed to using it than it will be for the split bg people.

There isn't just 1 way to use every rune in the game. In FF you can use the same rune for different purposes. One way to do this is by upgrading it differently to make it perform a different function. Balancing runes to offset 10/10 or 15/15 isn't an issue if you accept that 10/10 or 15/15 is a part of the game. You only arrive at your point if they segregate the two. In this case, you have to give valid reasons to change the status quo (currently there is no filter in ranked) other than the fact that you are used to playing against FF always. The 'I don't have fun' argument doesn't work for me because filters make the game less fun for 15/15 however you want to manipulate the semantics. Also, balance isn't a arguable point because the expansion just came out and we don't know how balance will land.

[walkindude]

anywho . . . i've said what i have to say. noone's going to change his mind because of anything i say. i know i'm far from the only person in this community who feels this way about the filters being removed. and the filters don't make playing the game less fun for split bg people, beyond a couple of minutes sitting in queue. their removal does make the act of actually playing the game less fun for those of us who used them.

[shadeagent]

i like this i never filtered my ranked games (seemed like cheatin the system) the only legitmate filter i could tolerate was highlander. To be honest it always dismayed me to see top ranked players saythey would only play full faction or some such cause it seemed like they were hiding form peopl who would beat their bg instead of designing one that could handle all comers reasonably wel.

[Ragic]

A 15/15 deck can have upto 4 heros in it. fyi.

[Uccisore]

Sure they can. Buff Warbanners. Buff Heroes. Or, my preferred solution, make more runes that work significantly better in FF than in 15/15.

Yeah, that's a great idea, let's buff Menelaus and Grimlic. I'm sure that won't have repercussions in FF play. And yes, you could balance FF with 15/15 by having many (probably about half) of the runes in the game work better in FF than they do in 15/15. Not only is this not the case, but it's not GOING to be the case for years, at least. Arguing that 15/15 and FF should compete because maybe they'll be balanced someday doesn't make much sense.


In my eyes, circus is the same format as 15/15 and FF.


Yeah, and in my eyes, Pluto is a planet. Seriously, who cares what word you use for it? They're two different things that are balanced completely differently and have different concerns.



Actually, I meant archetype in the same sense as deck type- FW attrition is an archetype, KF rush is an archetype, SL DB/Drums was an archetype. I apologize for using unclear wording.


Ah, ok. Well, 15/15 is really super-obviously NOT that. I mean, if it was, you could tell me what a 15/15 battlegroup plays like, I suppose. Is it rush? Champ heavy?

[/quote]
And the argument that the two are different formats because some runes are stronger in them is circular- by the same logic, SP Moga is in a different format than SP Cyclops, because the G'hern Thrower is much stronger in a Moga build than it is in a Cyclops build. If it were to be too powerful in Moga builds, should Moga builds simply be cast out because it isn't strong in Cyclops builds?
[/quote]

Dude, read my whole response. The point is that all this talk about 'formats' and 'archetypes' and blah blah blah is completely arbitrary. You're making up categories for no reason, and trying to declare based on those categories what the game 'has to' support. Yes, Cyclops and Moga are different formats if we decide they are (and balance runes as if they are), and they aren't if we decide they aren't. Based on what criteria do we decide? What makes the game fun- there is no other rule, and we've already established that given the choice, people don't want to play 15/15.


As I've said, I value providing more options for all players over making some of the players happier at the expense of other players, even if the annoyed group is larger.


Yes, but how interesting is what you value? I can make my point without reference to personal interest:

1.) Balancing FF and 15/15 is continuously and notoriously difficult,

2.) Given the choice, most people don't want to play against 15/15 anyway.

That's it. Even if I loved playing 15/15, those points stand. You seem to keep falling back on "what Mirior thinks is neato".
I mean heck, what makes 'providing more options' good, if apparently the happiness of the players is worth sacrificing to get it? I would have thought the whole point of these options would be to make the game fun...but apparently not?


I actually do consider highlander to be a separate format, because there is 0 incentive to play it in a mixed metagame.


Only because the devs made 0 effort to balance the game with highlander in mind- just like they're making 0 effort to balance the game with circus in mind. Only difference is, circus benefits from this neglect and highlander suffers.
Now, let me turn your argument back around on you- back when UD was pathetically, extremely bad, and couldn't win a game- had been bottom of the rankings forever and ever, with no sign of improvement. Back then, was UD a seperate format because there was 0 incentive to play it in a mixed metagame? If cyclops aren't competitive now, are cyclops a seperate format?


There is something else, actually- variety. Simply try to include as many options as can be maintained in a format-

Even if the players hate it? What's your drive? I can't concieve of variety being valuable in a game apart from the enjoyment it creates for the players, and we've already determined that 15/15 largely does not do that, and you've already admitted that you frankly don't care if it does or not.

I see them about evenly split between FF and 10/10. For every Sacrifice, there's a Glacial Titan.

And what exactly makes the glacial titan weak in 15/15? What, because maybe only 10 of your champs will benefit from the snow? That's as many as ever did in the 20/- games.


A 15/15 deck can have upto 4 heros in it. fyi.

And 2 titans, but who's counting?

[SpadeDRD]

I only play FF but if always selected "ANY for the BG type. This makes sense to me. For ranking to reflect any type of accuracy their should be no filter. It should just be whos the best. 15/15 or Full Faction or Highlander. You should only. You pick the BG you want and goo to town.

It may be best to have different ladders if filtering is involved
1: 15/15
2: FF
3. Highlander

But for one ladder. Filtering doesn't work or make sense. If something is truly op'd you can disqualify that rune from DOW similar to what MtG does with tournys.

But Casual Play should definitely allow a Filter for FF, 15/15, or highlander.

[Mirior]

To Ragic: Sure, it can have 4 Heroes, but how effective will any of them be if you can't play half your runes without hurting them?

Yeah, that's a great idea, let's buff Menelaus and Grimlic. I'm sure that won't have repercussions in FF play. And yes, you could balance FF with 15/15 by having many (probably about half) of the runes in the game work better in FF than they do in 15/15. Not only is this not the case, but it's not GOING to be the case for years, at least. Arguing that 15/15 and FF should compete because maybe they'll be balanced someday doesn't make much sense.

You're still not seeing my point. My point is that there should not be any distinction between FF play and 15/15 play, because they play by the same rules. Every rune has the same text in 15/15 as it does in FF- only the interactions change. The idea of 15/15 ruining FF play is moot, because FF play is not its own format.


Ah, ok. Well, 15/15 is really super-obviously NOT that. I mean, if it was, you could tell me what a 15/15 battlegroup plays like, I suppose. Is it rush? Champ heavy?


I chose my words poorly there- I didn't mean to imply that 15/15 is a single decktype. It's a collection of decktypes. My apologies.


Dude, read my whole response. The point is that all this talk about 'formats' and 'archetypes' and blah blah blah is completely arbitrary. You're making up categories for no reason, and trying to declare based on those categories what the game 'has to' support. Yes, Cyclops and Moga are different formats if we decide they are (and balance runes as if they are), and they aren't if we decide they aren't. Based on what criteria do we decide? What makes the game fun- there is no other rule, and we've already established that given the choice, people don't want to play 15/15.

I'm not trying to say that the game "has to" support them. I'm saying that the game should support them. There's a difference- if the greens were to disallow 15/15 in a week, I wouldn't complain (I'd probably ask for the reason, but I'd quietly acquiesce whether or not they supplied one.)


Yes, but how interesting is what you value? I can make my point without reference to personal interest:

1.) Balancing FF and 15/15 is continuously and notoriously difficult,

2.) Given the choice, most people don't want to play against 15/15 anyway.


1. Balancing FF has also been continuously and notoriously difficult- name one 10/10 that sat at the top for as long as FS has. And balance between FF and 15/15 had already been achieved- I don't see what makes it impossible to reattain.

2. I thought you said you weren't going to refer to personal interest. The personal interest of multiple people is still personal interest.

Only because the devs made 0 effort to balance the game with highlander in mind- just like they're making 0 effort to balance the game with circus in mind. Only difference is, circus benefits from this neglect and highlander suffers.

Circus benefits? Last I checked, circus was killed. If you mean 15/15 when you say circus, I hardly think that the greens are making 0 effort to balance the game with 15/15 in mind.


Now, let me turn your argument back around on you- back when UD was pathetically, extremely bad, and couldn't win a game- had been bottom of the rankings forever and ever, with no sign of improvement. Back then, was UD a seperate format because there was 0 incentive to play it in a mixed metagame? If cyclops aren't competitive now, are cyclops a seperate format?

There is a difference between inferior and strictly inferior, just like there is a difference between being stronger and being strictly stronger. Inferior is having a smaller win percentage than other options. Strictly inferior is having those other options able to recreate what you can do, except better. Inferior, ala UD or Cyclops, does not constitute a separate format. Strictly inferior, ala highlander, does. You can create a highlander BG in a highlander-less format. You cannot create a Cyclops BG in the current format without using Cyclops. (Not talking flavor, I mean a BG that stats-wise does everything Cyclops could do.)


Even if the players hate it? What's your drive? I can't concieve of variety being valuable in a game apart from the enjoyment it creates for the players, and we've already determined that 15/15 largely does not do that, and you've already admitted that you frankly don't care if it does or not.

How do you know that the majority of players hate 10/10? Sure, a majority filtered for FF only- but how do you know what percentage of that was because of general dislike for the deckstyle and what percentage was because of a sometimes valid, sometimes erroneous perception that 10/10 was stronger than FF? The delay in wait times that myalt1 reported was largely due to higher-ranked people filtering- he was usually able to find a low-ranked person with the filter off to play against, but the system would take a long time before looking at those, and games with such a skill disparity usually aren't fun. If mainly higher-ranked people are filtering, wouldn't that suggest that filtering was more motivated by a desire to win more? Of course, on the flip side, you could argue that the disparity is more due to newer people who hadn't played against 10/10 enough to become annoyed with them typically being lower rank. Who knows which is right?

I'm not saying that you don't have a valid point here. I'm not trying to pass my opinion here off as fact, and I apologize if I'm coming off that way in this part of the argument. I am highly annoyed when people's favored playstyle is nerfed because other people don't like it. You are annoyed when an annoying playstyle is left alone. It's subjective.

I'm not trying to say that there are no reasons for separating 15/15 from FF- I'm trying to say that there is no reason that they should be considered separate formats, via the traditional definition of the word format (i.e. looking at other games to see how they classify formats, and following their example), and I'm trying to say that several of the reasons being provided are objectively wrong. The fun argument is one of the ones that I consider valid, I just subjectively disagree.


And what exactly makes the glacial titan weak in 15/15? What, because maybe only 10 of your champs will benefit from the snow? That's as many as ever did in the 20/- games.

You misunderstand me- what I meant was 'for every nerf prompted by 10/10 usage(Sacrifice), there's a nerf prompted by FF usage(Glacial Titan).\

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A lot of the arguments here seem to be coming from me not making clear what I see as fact and what is merely an opinion. So, I've made a TL;DR summary of my stance, broken up by what I see as objectively true, and am trying to argue, and what I see as subjective, and am simply trying to state my opinion on.

Objective: It is possible to balance FF and split play. It has already been done. Split BGs are not inherently better than FF BGs- they have pros and cons, that have balanced out in the past and can be made to do so again.
Objective: By the definition of format laid out by similar games, FF and 15/15 are the same format.
Subjective: FF play should not be thought of any differently than mixed play, and harming a rune's potential in FF play for the sake of mixed play is not a problem.
Subjective: A more diverse game with more annoying elements is better than a game with less annoyances and less diversity.
Subjective: The game is better with 15/15 equally supported than without.