A Case Against Splits

I laid out my problem in my initial post.

 

Yeah and I narrowed it down to those being the main points. My answer is that
1) I don't think split meta vs ff meta is a problem, both are viable even if ff bgs are often theme oriented in order to be meta
2) I don't think the 'abusive splits' are too abusive where FF cannot compete so I also disagree that this is a problem


And for the record, I think the current system (with 15/15 splits being allowed) is a good balance in what is and isn't allowed (10/10/10 might be interesting but brings problems like the faction bonus, and pushes certain things overboard. with splits being allowed in 2v2 I would argue an even more free environment than 15/15 is already available)

 

When I say meta I am specifically calling out decks that are not theme-based. A better term would probably be goodstuff or junk.

With that being said, beyond quibbling about definitions we don't really have anything else to discuss.

 

If this is about the thread it's the most relevant point you've made.

 

Hell lets just burn the earth lets all make mono bgz and turn democratic

 

Yeah it's pretty cool, isn't it? It does get quite dull though, people do the same thing over and over again, only ballballer and tiny managed to win it by intelligent manouver, so I don't really play it cause it requires some prolong setback.

 

Why not make splits work in a different way. The split part could only consist of champions. Therefore, you can only include spells, relics, and equipment of one faction.

 

That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how they would go about programming it. 15/15 seems like it is easy as you can just set a conditional statement. Half champions seems like it would be a bit tougher, and probably easier to manipulate to a broken result.

 

Yeah, I was pretty impressed with it. It seemed pretty broken though, and reinforced my dislike of splits.

 

@doubtofbuddha , I do believe your OP is very accurate and greatly reflects the current situation of Pox. They are a designing nightmare( or @iPox 's wet dream, you pick), Prot/Wrath splits hold very little flavor if any, and even after massive GD brainstorms some mechanics prove to be very tough to balance. I seriously agree with that. I do believe that at least having splits restricted to Prot/Prot Wrath/Wrath would be amazing for balance, but

The problem is, that ship has sailed years ago. We have runes and mechanics designed for splits, and more than a few nerfs were directly caused by them. Hell, we even have lore on some. Banning/Restricting splits would be counter productive as it would ruin years of work, and demand others more. I do believe that at least having splits restricted to Prot/Prot Wrath/Wrath would be amazing for balance, but there are many things to take into consideration, such as what will get changed (like you said, everything has to be planned) and at what implication, how would players see such change and so on.

So yea, IMHO this would be a Pox 2.0 thing. Amazing thread anyway bro.

 

If 'good stuff' isn't as strong as themes, is it still goodstuff? If you can't make playable 'good stuff' bg in your faction then I don't see how splitting is going to help you

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

Meh, I've always argued that these should be allowed back when you could active choose not to queue against splits. Faction bonuses would be disabled if you ran this affectionately called Union bgs.

 

Yeah, and that was sitting in the back of my head as I wrote this. But one of my suggestions could be used in the time being, and we could probably remove split bonuses at the very least. And make it so when split heroes become available for FF that FF heroes do not become available for splits.

 

I get the "totally ban splits" argument, but half measures sound like they will do nothing to resolve your fundamental problem with splits, and only piss people off and muddy the game.

 

Yeah, I guess I will just have to accept that this is going to be something that happens later, if ever. And take a break until the more obnoxious range of current splits get nerfed out of the game. I do have a few other games I have barely touched because I mostly play Pox.

 

What inconsisitency we have in splits? Factions of Protectoare are not all "good guys", Firks and D'elim are examples.
Also, we have the agreement of SL and FS on the lore part... is this an inconsistency them? Factions defend their own territory, and that's all, the terms Wrath and Protectoare are long forgotten theses days.

 

The lore is at least inconclusive regarding these dubious Protectorate characters. It's a lot safer to hold onto the fact that lore connections between Wrath and Protectorate nearly don't exist. And about your last sentence, take the words Wrath and Protectorate literally; one attacks while the other defends - and no I didn't make this up, just read the stories and you won't find a Prot faction actually marching to Elsarin or Valdac.

 

Without addressing your points directly, I will teel you why I am in favor of splits, and it's a matter of balance.
If any rune can be run (to certain extent) with any other, that means that you have to balance each rune inividually, because you cannot give each faction a OP rune because that would mean that splits get to run double the OP runes that FF. This simple fact is what makes poxnora's balance style much more appealing to me than the style of balancing cards of other games in wich you could only choose your runes from a restricted set, so that you could bbe sure that cards from the A group will never be in the same deck as card from the B group, and you are proposing that we have 8 groups.
I played a game (shadow era) in wich you had two factions and you had 4 classes of heroes for each faction, so for a certain hero you could use A) your faction runes and B) your hero type specific runes.
This leads to a mechanism of balance in wich the faction runes are a lower tier than hero specific runes and are balanced against each other, and hero specific runes are much stronger and are balanced against each other in terms of gameplay impact because they are so different.
So, for every type of hero, you had a set of 5-15 OP runes backed up with 35-25 normal cards and everything was a matter of who draws the OP cards first or who counters who, leading to 90% of the matches being decided by luck.
Now, in pox, as I said, give each faction a really OP rune and everything explodes, so each rune has to be balanced in a global fashion and that reduces drastically the incidence of luck in the outcome of a match.

 

I allready knw the lore, my point is: He is making use of lore and consistency for "splits being bad for the game" wich is not a thing, and we know that.
And yes, they have marched into other territories, but they are more defensive than the wraths.