Blog Chat: Apr 29, 2009 - Competitive Play VS Casual Play in PoxNora

[HawkFain]

Talk about the current blog post for The GreenRoom. Haven't seen it yet? CLICK HERE. (http://thegreenroom.poxnora.com)

[Kaervas]

Bump, because I inadvertently moved this off the front.

[Uccisore]

I can't believe this thread isn't being discussed. It's so relevant to the game debates going on these days. Interesting to see that the "Forsake Wastes sucks" talk was ultimately listened to.
Kaervas seems to find it inevitable that in the competitive game, very few of the runes will actually see any play. If I was a game designer, I think that would make me despair.

[hughmann]

This one was a very nice entry. Too many people get hung up about what is competitive.

Although Barbarian Guardian is not shoebox! I'm totally running him in the 300s rank. Total.

[Xiape]

It's good FW is getting a change.

I think that's a good topic to discuss. I was actually pretty pleased with the last expansion, and much so with SL runes. All of the runes were at least worth trying out and some may run them as if they were mainstream. When the runes are good enough to at least be usable, people can have fun with them.

[Iajabmaka]

buffing shoebox runes should be on the list. So many good concepts are lost to failed design, nerfing or improper costing.

[Hidersine]

I agree with most of this except 2 points:
A: not all good runes go on to replace other good runes from the previous expansion or be chucked away, for example the deathcaster initially was not used but slowly is finding it way into competitive decks as part of a valid choice between having essence drain, a dead fairy or a dark messenger, my point being that it is neither a autoinclude or a auto drop

B:This doesn't mean that some runes don't still need buffed, some runes are brilliant in conception for either casual or competitive play but due to some flaw are used in neither. My example being the Forsaken follower who while a great idea is simply to weak and too expensive for what she does in addition to the fact that rise is both overpriced and buggy.

Sorry for using only FW runes and sorry for using this as a mild rant.

[Mnrogar]

Casual play is indeed important and I'm glad to hear you say it. There are tons of people that want circus back. Please bring back circus in some fashion!

[Krebmart]

I'm going to focus on the comments about FW, and they will echo themes I wrote in threads in general and FW forums.

The development team is probably wrong if they think the introduction of 8 new runes for FW is going to change the faction's play style. The only way that will happen is if some of those runes are so enormously powerful that they're worth running despite not having any synergy with a play style that has been developed and refined over the years.

Second, I disagree with the premise that FW is considered by a large group of players as "annoying". FW is a late game faction - so as the match goes longer, the FW player's chances of winning usually increase. Both players know this. I can't tell you the number of times I've been rushed, and after it was obvious the rush had failed and I'd recaptured my font, and was now getting all the tools in place (like Unholy Tomb and maybe healing hate), my opponent suddenly declares the match "boring" or "annoying" and he's going to be the bigger man and do us both a favor and just surrender. You can spin that as "annoying", but I see that more as players unwilling to try to defend a bad position. He knows he'll likely lose. I know he'll likely lose. But it is easier to claim "annoying" or "boring" than to man up and accept defeat.

The proof of my unwilling-to-admit-defeat-in-surrender hypothesis is that now, with FW clearly the weakest faction, people no longer post screeds about us being "annoying" (now they reserve that honor for IS or UD. I'm not sure why Moga don't get the same level of attention). But considering how few of the AA runes are actually used, what changed prior to the expansion other than FW's ability to win against other factions?

I also wonder what possible change you could make unless you change the faction bonus. Our champs generally do low damage; outside of Lich King, our range is worse than any faction; our champs are expensive; our nora gen is terrible; our spell selection is among the worst. On the plus side, we have great relics, shrine healing and negative equips. Are we suddenly going to become a generic beater faction, like a UD without a faction bonus? Are we suddenly going to become a range faction, like KF but without the speed? What alternative is there other than what FW is now - a faction which tries to drag its opponent's champs down to its level and win a war of attrition. How else could a reduced cooldown bonus be useful?

Maybe the new expansion will include more experiments like the Forsaken Follower. If so, I strongly urge you to ask some the best FW players to join the beta and listen carefully. I say this because Follower was one great idea (gift of the dead), placed on a body totally unsuited for the great idea, and then piled on with expensive sandbags (Making a low-damage, 31hp champ for 85 base nora cost). The Follower never should have had rise or heal mass; it should have been undead from the start; and it should have been an enormous glass cannon (very high damage, very low hp). Then, she could have been used as a shock troop who cannot be ignored due to her offensive threat, but which required skill and finesse to use effectively since you're likely to only get 1 or 2 attacks off before it expires (and she gets one-rounded easily unless she retreats or kills any nearby threats).

I don't want to be in the beta, but I would be happy to recommend names.

[Revenancer]

The reason no one complains any more is that attrition doesn't work any more and thus is not played. I know plenty of people, myself included, who hated facing it even when they won.

I would imagine making skeletons the main viable playstyle and moving the tomblord from a dedicated summoner to more of an attacker is a pretty clear indication of the direction the green's thoughts are taking them.

[Daner04]

I don't want to be in the beta, but I would be happy to recommend names.

Go ahead. The green´s might listen.

[Krebmart]

The reason no one complains any more is that attrition doesn't work any more and thus is not played. I know plenty of people, myself included, who hated facing it even when they won.


Well, then what separates "attrition" from "not attrition"? I still use curse and unholy tomb and fester. I still use cursed blades or mindshanks or blight rings. I still aim for trading champs with my opponent. The only difference, which I grant is substantial, is I will never cooldown lock someone. But the strategy remains the same - I try to bring your higher speed or higher defense or higher damage champs down to my level or below and trade, knowing my guys will be back soon, but the Ranger Elite probably won't ever.

If that isn't attrition I don't know what is. And while weaker than before, it does still work. It is also literally the only FW theme that makes a conscious attempt to capitalize on the FW faction bonus. So even if someone is running skeletons, you can be nearly certain they're backing it up with some, perhaps most, of the above-mentioned runes.

So if the greens want to move us toward skeletons or lich themes or whatever, they better goddamn change our faction bonus to something that will support that theme or it won't work.

[Krebmart]

Go ahead. The green´s might listen.

Here would be a good list from which to choose:

Morpheus6
Gainer900 (Who I think is in)
Inklew
Koraas
Celessty
BkWiz
Daner04
Dezhem

[trixmaster]

i give you 3 thumbs up for your great blog Kaervas (in case PoxVega didn't make you the message yesterday)

Makes people see the game in a different way and makes super competitive people re-think about how they are acting.

[Uccisore]

The proof of my unwilling-to-admit-defeat-in-surrender hypothesis is that now, with FW clearly the weakest faction, people no longer post screeds about us being "annoying" (now they reserve that honor for IS or UD. I'm not sure why Moga don't get the same level of attention). But considering how few of the AA runes are actually used, what changed prior to the expansion other than FW's ability to win against other factions?


Well, the obvious answer to your question is that the hordes of bandwagoners aren't playing FW anymore, so of course there's fewer encounters to complain about. Also, even if FW is still super annoying to play against (they are), complaining about it when it's common forum-knowledge that FW is the weakest faction would make you look like an ass, and who wants that?


I do agree with a lot of what you said, though, about people doing the whole 'Well, it's obvious this is going to go on forever' thing when they start to lose. I ran into the same thing back when I played slags, and still do sometimes when I'm playing my Sand/Statue BG and they just had their Super Champ run through three Poison Clouds.

[Sackett]

If causal play is about fun and not winning, then please restore Circus, as creating circus comb is is one of the funnest aspects of the game. Plus it lets newer players who don't have enough runes to play every faction can throw an intersting rune into a mixed deck so he can have some fun with it.

As for FW? I think it's faction bonus can still be pretty powerful, but it synergizes best with Short Lived, cheap units now.

Instead of the old attrition (delaying until your opponent runs out of champs) instead FW could have a new attrition game- play cheap expendable units in a horde of undead to defeat the enemy by having more units out- since FW can keep recycling them over and over.

The Death Harvester, Soul Collection, are already providing strength for this.
What is lacking?

1: Cheap Range: Give FW a Short Lived range unit, range 5 or 6. Magic damage.

2: A way to recycle destroyed relics faster, give the Bone Mason an ability similar to Craft, only for relics. (Maybe a "Destroy target champion you own, relic cooldowns are reduced by 10 divide among all relics on cooldown").

[snow1wolf]

I think the greens have just taken a defeatist attitude towards the game. Thier is much more than just these top runes are optimal therefore will be the only things to see play. What about the meta game. The optimal decks should evolve over time to counter each other. Take Guild wars as an example It is a game alot like a card game in that your charecters are setup with skills from a large pool that you can easily swap out and around. You would think only one single team build would ever see play but the game has a very healthy meta game and the builds change over time. Sure thier have been times when one build became too dominate but the admin fixed those hicups to keep the game evolving and changing.

However guild wars is a much much bigger game with more skills and possible builds than poxnora and they have considerable more resources.

That said it is still possible to do.

[Revenancer]

Poxnora already has a metagame. But with mass releases it's rather hard to know what it will be afterward and tailor new runes to it.

Also, without even playing guild wars I am still sure there is a good percentage of skills that aren't used.

[zz1000zz]

Poxnora already has a metagame. But with mass releases it's rather hard to know what it will be afterward and tailor new runes to it.

Also, without even playing guild wars I am still sure there is a good percentage of skills that aren't used.

Generally speaking, about 25% of the skills in Guild Wars have ever seen competitive use. Only 10-15% are used competitively at the any time.

Of course, Guild Wars has a single player environment as well. It is far larger than the single player environment of PoxNora, so a far greater variety of skills is seen there.

[nacho14]

Very, very well written and perfectly true. Great post!

I completely agree when you say such a small percent of people call all runes shoebox save for their 30 they play in each bg (that's and exaggeration). because they are such high rank too many people take it to be truth to the entire game. It is not. Samzen is a great example of a high ranked player that plays alot of "shoeboxed" runes in his aquatic bg.

Today players strive to get the 30 runes that the top 10 players play but they are top ten because they play runes that work for them and their individual playing style. I think that too many players try and copy top players decks rather than take time and find what runes improve their matches.

my 2 cents

[Raileks]

Thats fine if all we were talking about were substandard runes. Theres are runes and abilities that are utterly useless but have remained unchanged for some time. Where is a wind generator going to perform to any effect, even in casual? Nora Freeze?

[Mrrg]

Someone once suggested a new arena where it would only be possible to use runes up to rares. That would cater a lot to the casual players, I think.

[Arkian]

That and the return of circus would be a great idea imo

[LucLameth]

I really love this topic. Because I used Elven Illusionists while he was very unpopular and scrutinized by others. It bothers me when a lot of players want to friendly quit because they think it is a "mirror match". I always like to play unpopular or forgotten runes because I think it's fun.

I was playing a lot of Centaurs once and someone thought I was playing a Centaur deck. One time I was using Nectar Faeries and Sprites and someone said, "Seriously. Are you kidding?" and I couldn't help but laugh at his reaction to my faeries. Forest Giants, also unpopular I love. My friend refers to him as the "Jolly Green Giant".

Someone once PMed me and complimented my BG creativity and that meant a lot.

While I also have a lot of players saying, "Congratulations, your decks sucks" or "is annoying" and I ignore them because I am having fun with my unpopular runes. The competitive players only using competitive runes, it gets so boring to play against the same decks over and over.

Sometimes I lose against a creative player and I have a lot of fun. Since his tactics were refreshing. Like one time I had one guy kick my ass slowly from using a high level Solitary Garu and having a huge arsenal of spells (KF/IS) to benefit him. Fun fun.

And another time I watched Brittanico (a high ranking player) beat another high ranker with only KF uncommons. That was fun to watch, too.