helo, everyone who doesn't have me on ignore list can see that I'm full of negativity, when it comes this big revamp thing. thank you for patience having me around. I will try to explain my concerns here since the second preview was just made. I want my stance to be known so once the results are known, I can be the guy eating my own words or that other guy with label "I was telling it all the time". I don't want to sound like I'm some kind of magic wizard knowing all answers, but I want to end up being the guy open to discussions and prepared to give answers and questions. I'm willing for you to do the same since I see alot of toolness (blindness) around. players don't even know what direction they want pox to be led. everything is fine for me since it's under green letters. let's start. I believe that the current upgrade system is as good as no system at all! it means that if we decide to keep the current system, I fully support it. if we decided to remove it, you get my support as well. in other words, both systems have +-. upgrade system opens up some different paths, might allow a champion to be played in some weird/non usual way or simply allows you to make your own choice. on top of that, more and more mechanics were based on upgrades (see: Confuse, Psychological Warfare). opening desing space at this stage of the game is something I consider to be brilliant/definitely worth it. on the other hand, removing upgrade system might reduce complexity and increase design space (in terms of champion competition, not brining new abilities on the table). champions simply have more focus (and it might be about the time we seriously take this into account since more and more champions are providing something real new). less complexity is more depth in this case. even if you lose an option to customize a champion, you make the deckbuilding more subtle. this is exactly the case of less is more. on top those, we barely have a real set of upgrades being able to compete. half (probably too unrealistic eitherway) of the time we end up having absolutely clear route of upgrades. and nothing is being done. I would understand if we would get some minirevamp of upgrades at the end of expansion to fresh things a bit. NOTHING. so if both cases (removing and leaving) are fine, why do I write this? because we're choosing the 3rd option: changing the current one. it simply seems like the worst possible scenario - doing the worse version of the current one. it reminds me issues of Void Rim since this is exactly what they were doing with equipments. stamping many different rarity/power equipments and calling it a day. it was complex as hell. this system will be for sure as well. we need less optimization of actual runes and more optimization of what is happening on the board. deckbuilding is already deep as hell. are you telling me that the current pox issues are deckbuilding being not complex/deck enough? here is your answer how good the incoming revamp is. its focus is deckbuilding. simple as that. half of the time, I see that Owls are trying to get some unusual answer to prove their hipsterness. they wanted runes to be cheaper. we have the current system. it might seem perfectly fine and it is perfectly fine. for the old users! it awards any experienced (read: rich) person. are we pretending legendaries got cheaper just because there is a chance you will get one random legendary in a box? TOKENS? yes, I believe that part of the current revamp model (upgradewise) is based on tokens. do you remember me saying unusual answers? the question was can we get cheaper tokens (or no CP system at all, but that would be to logical answer for pox). here is your unusual answer -- we will introduce new upgrade system that might not require you to use CP. that's like probably the only reasonable answer I'm trying to get behind the new upgrade system. reducing abilities is fine. it's perfect. it's what it should have been long time ago. but how come with the ideas of reducing complexity, we're introducing this new upgrade system, which does nothing, but bring some two-weeks joy for veterans and completely rip-off/punish new players. both these are conflicting with each other. it just seems wrong them both going with each other. one of them must be chosen. so the second preview was Bonecrusher. first reaction: it still has Boon of the Undead and Race: Undead, Skeleton. any hope for revamp was blown there. I want to believe this isn't complete, but the most unreasonable answer is the answer I'm going to get, I know. expecting the worst, but hoping the best. this is what I do. I thought that the whole idea of revamp to make the game much cleaner. double races and those random abilities are like the main offenders and I still see them? so how should I understand this so-called revamp Pox 3.0 era? my vocabulary is poor and I honestly thank you for reading it (if you did). I'm just concerned that I'm one of few players seeing something that is not going to help poxnora. this incoming revamp is their chance. I doubt it can be wasted just like that. and I have no other words than resources wasting for it. --------------- I believe that there is no end to bugs. everything or most things should be recoded to keep extremely high standards for consistency so everything could be deemed bugs or not WAI instantly (without subjective nonsense being involved, as always). consolidating/mainstreaming abilities would not only help to increase depth and decrease complexity, but also would help to fix tons of bugs. at the moment, bugs come out of the blue. you fix one thing, totally random thing on the whole side of the game (by all meanings) gets bugged, just because. simply remove the current CP system, leave the current upgrade system or remove it in general. idea given by Sokolof could work perfectly as well. all 3 options are fine. maybe there are more options. the current one you're doing is plain wrong. turn timer is fine, but many animations need to be looked at. it's not a priority by any means, but once the things are done, they could be revisited. in fact, it could be timed with the whole mainstreaming/consolidation idea. as you can see, these things are quite obvious and probably nobody would deny it. who would say that animations don't need to be more optimized OR that CP system sucks big time OR that we ned to fix those damn insects. I think the catch would be to revamp the game by mechanics. we have so many mechanics, which do not create interactions, make the game less intuitive. if we would touch this spot, the game's depth would go skyrocket and you all wouldn't be delusioning yourself into some kind of illusion about upgrades providing you loads of customization... once and for all: BASIC ATTACK VS ATTACK LIKE VS ON BASIC ATTACK EFFECTS make a clear rule between BASIC ATTACKS and ATTACK-LIKE ABILITIES. make on basic attack abilities to be consistent. damage auras/shields shouldn't be trigger on basic attack abilities like Fury, Swarm. some random abilities like Tramp shouldn't be triggering Fury. Nora Generation make everything outside shrine/font generation (and faction bonuses if they're decided to be kept) to be considered as nora gen unless it actually reduces nora cost (see: Call to Arms, Forge Hammer). if your equipment "refunds" the nora, make it to be not refund, but actual generation. consolidate Backlash and Corrupted Nora. at the moment, spell nora generation isn't being punished by them. see Sacrifce / Marsh Song. once we consolidated these both, nora gen counters will help you against nora generation, you won't need to find the right tool for the right form of generation. Corrupted Nora (new version, mix of both) Whenever a champion or relic generates nora through an ability it suffers damage equal to the half of amount generated. If nora is generated by spell, dmg is redirected to its owner shrine/avatar. mainstream DEF mechanics simply remove ability Tough from the game. it doesn't help DEF to be mainstreamed. make all effects reducing DEF to be the same -1 DEF. from Scour or Sunder or Throw Axe or whatever it is. make it one condition overall. stacking. deploy make a very clear line between all those spawns, summons, creations, deploys, from runedock, we should probably move away from re-deploy effects as Blink/Divinity Touch/VPush as well. Blindling Reflection while not being true redeploy is honorable mention. give them other purposes. they do not make the game richer. in fact, few runes/mechanics involve the whole new set of rules providing nothing to game's depth. summons no more summons. everything is REAL champions. summon is a game rule to prevent font contesting and casting spells. make everything to be REAL champons, but give them Faithless/Font Aversion/Font Ignorance. the thing is that you remove one "rule", which could be simply explained by abilities. pets shouldn't have many abilities so having 2 abilities (Faithless and Font X) shouldn't be the case for increasing complexity (visualwise) at all. in order to have less abilities per champion, we need to make them stronger/more relevant/more mainstreamed. since everything is real, death charged and vengeful are more related to non FW decks (everything being Undead, but that's for the future). since many champions (relics?) will have it, we can mainstream Sever Summons to deal damage in AOE for units having Faithless, Font Aversion/Ignorance. we are allowing for more subtle/rarier abilities like Change of Plans (Privateer Captain) or Inquisition (NCT) to get actual interactions, not putting 15 champions with the same race and call it bg. revisit illusions, illusions shouldn't be fodder for Lightning Rod, Thorn Collection, Surge: X, Council: Spells and probably something more I forgot. fear vs charm vs (bastion of) the will/courage vs prestige make it to be one condition - "Distracted" so once you Distract somene, it gets -3 dmg and can't attack you. biw rename Distract to Silencing Attacks. the problem is both abilities tend to do very same and it would be much cooler to mainstream it so many things could be based on it. now we have some weird counters to them, the whole faction ignoring one of those conditions etc. remove bastion of will/courage and simply make the Iron will ability stronger. Iron will - prevents Confused, Silenced (former Distracted), Pacified, Distracted (former Charmed/Frightened), Posssed. double/triple race the mos offender is FW here. if it's Skeleton, we already know it's undead, we don't need a race undead. if it's spirit, we also know it's already undead. and so on. it would also mean removing Boon of the Undead across the board. Amphibious/Arctic would beed more thoughts to do it, but they could be revisited as well. there are solutions for them. I know that if I can find answers for them, together would really make it. oppposite vs friendly we should move away from things based on race. everything should be opposite vs friendly. Obsidian Venger's Desecrate Earth should be for opposite, not against non-undeads. Flood (spell) should be for opposite, not against non-amphibious. Tidal Wave (and snow version of it) should be against opposite, not against non amphibious/arctic. do you remember the Ferren thing? good thing Sokolof was playing ST so he made a fast response for it. but (semi-)mirror matches shouldn't be punished. playing Adaptive: X in mirror shouldn't award you for opposite casting spells. it is not balanced around that... specific terms this is something similar to deploy case. terms should be very clear and specific. for instance, the "destroying" terms should be killed/destroyed/sacrificed. like sacrifice (from spells and abilities) shouldn't be triggering on-death effects. this would mostly prevent us from giving Bloodless to future offenders. it's just a small example, but terms should be more defined. at the moment, words are put for no reason. you never know if a describtion saying champion won't work against relic/shrine just because someone was clever enough to write it properly. we will need to rebalance many things, but once we have healthy template/consolidated/mainstreamed mechanics, it will be a rollercoaster to do. this is how I see revamp. the joke we get with this new upgrade system is already got old. it doesn't mean there are no more things. in fact those "pink" issues could be found in every single match. I just gave few examples how mechanics in general should be reworked to work intuitively and with interaction-creating ideas behind them.
Why do you think your opinion is so important it deserves its own thread, rather than posting it on the stick thread at the top?
I suppose its length. also, the current "new thread" ratio is quite low so I'm not pushing any other threads into 2nd page for no reason.
I'd say let the ability revamp happen, and then deal with faction bonuses, racial effects, and etc. Baby steps, baby.
@only Thank you for the well written post. Regardless of the content, you said it in a really well-meaning way, and I appreciate that more than I can say. I don't like ignoring people, and I do skip most of your posts for the... lack of... yeah. I'm sorry you're getting such negativity, because I don't think, in this situation, you deserve it. (Though you occasionally do.) The way I saw the previews that we got were just examples of how the system would look, at a glance. I didn't take it to mean that those were how the runes would end up, though it may be the case. This grand rework that we all talk about won't be perfect. There are a lot of deeply ingrained issues in Pox that won't be fixed in one pass. My best hope is for patience from the community and understanding from the devs, and I reaaaally look forward to 3.1. The current system is flawed in that it requires leveling for runes to be usable. A level 3 rune is always better than a level 2 or level 1, and that's bad. This is doubly the case since tokens got so much more expensive. Removing the system is definitely an option, but not the one they've chosen to take. I don't know how the new system will pan out, but I think it gives them a lot of flexibility in balancing runes, which is good. (Nora costs changed based on which options are more picked, etc.) I'm optimistic, but I suppose we'll find out when we find out.
Sigh, can we please wait for the finished result before we're commenting on something that is not even remotely done yet...
I doubt anyone is disagreeing that the current CP system is absurdly stupid. however, we need to see the difference between CP and upgrade system. I mean if the problem (of current upgrade system) is CP, remove CP in general. basically, this is what I had in mind, while writting this post. flexibility on balance has very different results on paper and in actual play. we might say that if we would increase all stats (HP, DMG, DEF) by 10x (like having 100-150 DMG, 0-30 DEF and 400-700 HP), we would also increase flexibility to balance. you know, we would have more space to provide accurate balance answers. but it simply won't be like this way. you would increase complexity to an extention you would smash your keyboard playing poxnora and counting those big numbers. so "IF" lvl1 vs lvl3 is issue, remove CP system, do not spend resources on some new suspicious system. it's not like shaving off abilities across the game requires a new upgrade system. my worst suspection is that Boon of the Undead still was there. I strongly believe that core of revamp should be mainstreaming abilities and their interactions. what's the point in having so many different abilities if they do not interact properly/intuitively. seeing BotU is like getting the answer "NO, this won't be included in your revamp".
@only Do you remember the system before CP had to do with stars? CP was used to buy upgrades on a rune. Everything from stats to abilities, but each thing raised the cost, while adding weaknesses reduced cost. Would you prefer a return to that system?
I know that I would. Also I would like to say that while I disagree with Only quite a bit, and have sometimes been quite aggressive toward him, I truly do appreciate the time and effort put into these discussions. Kudos.
I opened this thread thinking it was going to be a proposed revamp to the spell "Doom". Apparently not.
In the revamp OP, thre are several categories mentioned, the new upgrade system being just one that was showcased in some detail. They say pretty clearly that the existing meta is 'going out the window'. You seem twisted up about this upgrade choice vs that one and avg ability per champs counting boon or not, when what they are describing is a new type of gameplay where you specific worries might be moot. No change exists in a vacuum and almost always triggers a series of adjustments. With what they stated are their gameplay goals, I think that gives me confidence that they will promptly make adjustments as the new system settles into place. I think youre worries are founded in the belief that the new pox will be the old pox with a few balance adjustments. I personally am getting the impression that the changes are going to be more significant than that. What I'm most curious about is how they are going to implement them. All at once, or piece by piece. However they do it, 'soon' isn't one of the words they are using. A bigger worry imo is all the players who are waiting on this revamp because they DONT want the new pox to be anything like the old pox. How long will they hang around?
I don't remember that system since I started to play with the current one. I probably miss something, but from the details I hear about it, I can safely say "I know the reason why it was removed". to put it simple, I would hate it. to be honest, I didn't think much about alternative upgrade system. what I was asking is to improve current one by removing CP or remove it at all. I don't think something what is broken needs to be fixed. I also think the new system will be more hard to balance in terms of making upgrades attractive. as we can see by results, the current system is already tough enough to design a champion with truly 4 competitive-attractive upgrades. and what do we need to do? just put 4 similar powerwise abilities. the incoming system will have visual differences of nora cost and I'm pretty sure once the dust will settle down, there will be even more obvious paths than the current system offers. don't get me wrong, veterans will have some fun toying around with this new system. the question for how long. and then you will have to ask what message does it send for new players. average ability per champion has absolutely nothing to do with my problem of Boon of the Undead. that ability is a sandbagtrash by design, by any competitive game's nature. yes, pox isn't competitive (yet), but it doesn't mean we shouldn't aim for that...
I'm just confused as to why they are doing a re-vamp to get rid of abilities but then the re-vamp is allowing us to add additional abilities for more nora anyone think this is silly or is it just me ? Also i agree with only remove the frigging cp system nobody wants it it's so bad.
I can't for the love of god see why you'd aim your hate on boon of all things. The old system was deemed overcomplicated and unnecessary. Then again, a lot that was decided by SOE was silly...
The new upgrade system is like this, for those that didn't understand: Champions will have x number of abilities, fewer than before. From those abilities 2 will be configurable that means they will be able to be changed with selected others, with each level (star) the champion has you will be able to modify one of those abilities, untill you level up they'll remain locked. So, if a level 0 champion had 5 abilities, he will be always have 5 abilities, but from his abilities, two can be changed, and this may affect the cost of the champion. In one of the examples, bonecrusher level 0 costed 62 nora and had attack, boon, stunning sweep, *pulverize 1 and *siege. at level 1, he may choose to change his pulverize 1 to pulverize 2, at the cost of 2 nora added to his price. At level 2, he may choose to change siege for execute aswell, at the cost of 3 nora. he will always have the same number of abilities, but 2 abilities vary, and so does his cost. So, options: Level 0 62 nora, attack, boon, stunning sweep, pulverize 1 and siege. (option 1) Level 1 (option 1) 64 nora, attack, boon, stunning sweep, pulverize 2 and siege (option 2) Level 2 (Option 1) (Option 2) 65 nora, attack, boon, stunning sweep, pulverize 1 and execute (option 3) 67 nora, attack, boon, stunning sweep, pulverize 2 and execute (option 4)
