recoding is resources. so we can have resources spent on recoding abilities to actually work/be more consistent OR we can try to invent new upgrade system as they do it now...
As a drunken dorf player, I'd like to say I am encouraged by the direction that the brews are taking.
I disagree that new ZA is more forced. Yes the champs with ZA will prob be zombie decks only, but every other zombie is more free to do whatever. When every zombie has ZA, their power budget is wasted in a bg that can't support it. Also, as regards the "forced/obvious themes", I think he is also referring to abilities like commander that simply give stats but don't really affect gameplay at all. Those abilities are cool when the theme already has a unique playstyle because it rewards staying in theme (sacrificing versatility for power, reinforcing the theme's strengths and weaknesses) and gives your opponent a "key champ" to target, but are really boring otherwise.
You nerd, that's Warmachine not Warhammer. I would add that a lot of themes can be fleshed out by things other than creatures. I don't just mean based on refunds but more cards like Foul Rite and Chains of Corruption. I agree with the sentiment that more=better shouldn't be a common trait among racial identities. Runes like tribal hut, tower of amareth, celestial spear and rain of blood add synergy and intrigue rather than numbers or flat abilities permanently. I'm not even sure I can get behind boost:x or camaraderie. I don't like the idea of adding numbers to anything to add some sort of cohesiveness because it just becomes a matter of what is the strongest and most efficient. One major issue I would speculate that would come from a change of stance like this would be the necessity for much more cards to be printed per expansion so there are more opportunities to flesh themes out. Themes should NOT be completed or fleshed out by an overpriced and overpowered legendary.
I wasn't saying it's more forced, but that it's still closer to forced than emergent. And yes to the second line.
Oh my God, Zombies are too slow, no range, dead fairy overpriced, 5 zombies for racial is many!!!!. and his strongs champions are limited. with the new changes,Thanks, zombies RIP.
there is a natural tendancy to want to make themes centered around a single race. and in fact, there is usually some discontent expressed when a non 'themed' rune needs to be included for utility. See stitched librarian showing up in things like lich decks. The only time race=theme is 'forced' is when the champ count is so low that you don't have any options. Skeletons approach what I think a fully fleshed out theme should look like, there are many skeleton options and even different playstyle variations within that theme. There is no 'racial' ability perse, but several abilities that key off of the number of skeletons in play and also boost skeleton. I'm fine with that, but it wouldn't kill the game if being race skeleton also had some 'trait' that went along with it. Something that differentiates a skeleton champ from a zombie champ with similar stats.
U can make 2 very different mechanic in the same theme, there are enough skellies to after both normal and ichor based decks for example. All themes should be expanded like that in next few expansions.
tbh I think ichor should always be an upgrade option. Any champion with ichor on base needs to be in a BG with ichor to be cost effective. At least in my head it does, and I hate having to go there and argue with my brain.
actually, i think it should always be on base, because ichor is affected by ennemy units too..if it has to be on upgrade always, theres no point in it to be affected by the ennemies ichor..because non-ichor bg wont use it, so you will never face any ichor, except vs other ichor...and to be honest, this is simply balancing out each others..the only real reason to upgrade ichor on a non-ichor bg would be to have free skill vs ichor bg EDIT: Sorry my english isnt perfect, this post might sounds confusing xD
The problem with ichor is how hard is to actually cost it. Usually abilities within the same category (the DoT like burn or rabid) have roughly the same or similar costs, but that can not be applied to ichor because how different are the abilities granted and their relative power. As example, ichor: poison vs ichor: multi-attack. Now, then have the problem with how often those effects work within their respective themes. By example, FW have so many of them is almost a theme on its own, so ichor: nora miner proceeds quite often. In a sense, is almost a guaranteed nora miner 3 on the tormented priest. In contrast, only the cyclops have ichor on SP, and not all of them are equally good, so the same ability proceeds less often than in skeletons. How do we cost it? High to balance the tormented priest, but punish the cyclops? Or the other way around? Ichor as upgrade would be hard to properly balance given how wildly varies in its power, and to be honest, I almost prefer to get ride of it.
I don't think you should try to cost anticipated synergies. all that does is force champs into certain groupings, because they would be overpriced without the synergy. and anyway, synergy costing would most likely impact the full faction themes worse than the split deck synergies (which might not even be on their radar).
That's a reason to have things like Nora Miner on the Priest on upgrades. Because then it could be costed by the level of synergy, unless you picked the Ichor Nora Miner without the intention of using it properly. Although I agree in general that Ichor probably isn't the greatest ability idea in general. It forces a theme of ichor where the ichor abilities themselves might not have any syngery. It's like a good stuff BG with ichor as an excuse ^^
The problem is once an ability goes to upgrade, its cost is set to be the same all across the factions. It can not be priced at one nora cost for UD, and another for FW. C'mon, Ragic, you were here when we had the old customization system. Plenty of abilities were plain sandbags in a champion because they had little to no synergy with the rest of their kits (IIRC, next to all the upgrades on the executioner were "optional" at best), and many also had an unfair price which put them out of question, like the ranks 2 and 3 for multi-attack or dodge and block. In fact, whenever the developers tried to "hide" the price of an ability, they would put it at base. This way, its cost would be lost among the nebulous cost of the stats and some other abilities, opposed to be in upgrades which clearly had to state how much a particular ability were worth. Think on attack: frost vs attack: physical. What was the cost of each? Nobody knew for sure at the time, and that's because none of those abilities ever went to upgrades, so people could only speculate on their true cost.
ofc...what I meant was... given eva 1 instead of ranked ones (mostly being 2 or 3) is quite the nerf, don't u think so I'd rather NOT have vuln sonic and eva 1 at all... seems too lackluster compared to other racial mechanisms
Simple fix, as we've all ben saying being this champion gains a rank of evasive (max 2 or 3) for each other champion with this ability within X squares.
