Because you never add abilities, you only replace existing ability slots. It still adds complexity, but checking the two upgrade abilities in game is easy enough. It's a pretty elegant solution to maintain depth while making the game a heck of a lot more accessible (especially with all the other changes Gedden hinted at).
a little bit on "no upgrades at all". with the current amount of runes, we see tendency more and more champions overleaping each other. the intention doesn't need to be powercreep, but it still powercreeps. even if you create similar rune, it still can easily powercreep some alikes. upgrade system will be harder and harder to please for its intentions -- creativity. why do you think we get so least champions with competitive upgrades? forced designs allow me to make my choice. if they allow us, players, to choose, they actually force us too choose. that's totally opposite than you might think at first glance. there needs to be some subtle line between those. do you really keep forgetting that we still have our beloved and extremely deep deckbuilding? this is where you should put your creativity and customization. there will be some decks you will "lose" due to lost upgrades. but the amount of decks you will "win" (this way) is going to be uncomparable higher. on top of that, it removes quite solid amount of complexity. once again, LESS IS MORE in this case. we don't need to go to extremes like Conquest of Champions, but simplier things will increase its depth. it sad that you think otherwise. do you really think you're creative just for having upgrade choices? I wonder what are those miracle upgrades making you very clever (since you choose them)? eitherway, revamp should be about mainstreaming abilities. I think any (no-)upgrade system will be perfect if they do the right decision on mainstreaming abilities. it's like real most important thing.
NO. if u wanna go back to 11 SPD deep elves running around I'll throw my table outta the window right now. Those full on SPD upgrades are the core issues that made me stopped playing pox for years. Lets not go back to that.
You're hardly the only person who is concerned about it; I like Pox's level of complexity and I hate the leveling system so everything they've posted so far sounds like two steps in the wrong direction. I don't see that there's much to be done about it, though; just have to hope they've learned something from their mistakes with Void Rim. The renovators certainly aren't encouraging.
Honestly from a new player point of view the new system will be great. They can buy a box and the runes are ready to play. I do agree that NUX deckbuilding could be improved. If only because there is a toolkit well built BGs include and that part is not explained right away to new players. You need cleanse and to understand what is cleansable, shatter recycle loot and the differences between them, detection and dmg as detection etc.
so with 3rd preview... Deep Elf Masochists has (currently) 5 abilities on base (and 2 from upgrades since they're different than base ones). so instead of convertingo Loyalty to pure stats and leaving her with 4 base and 2 upgrades, we totally redesign her with not so flavorful abilities? I'm starting (?) to doubt if revamp has any reasonable intention rather than "we will do this in our own way". what does new upgrade system offer besides "improved" CP management? absolutely nothing! the solution should be to remove CP upgrade system and call it a day. for a reason unknown, they incist on their own ideas. ok, you might say its their game and they have every right to do it, but it seems like a stepback to rebalance the game in general. if reducing abilities across the board requires it, it's totally worth it. but if this rebalance is done just beause of terrible upgrade system, it's lose-lose situation. now that I see on top of revamp, there is a big chance your champion might end up being shoeboxed designwise, I'm disappointed more than with those two previews before. every single preview is worse and worse. what message does Owl send me? are they trying to explain the upgrade system is the reason pox is sto stagnant? or should I understand that an obvious and reasonable answers (removing CP system) shouldn't be expected in future, because we're full of hipsters having illusions you're playing something different. if pox is really such a big crowd of brilliant-unique-play seekers (as forum tells), why don't you show your creativity in play by building out of your mind decks? is upgrade the only aspect of the game allowing you to customize your pox personality? no deck? no playstyle? but upgrade system? full of fake hipsters we are. new upgrade system will allow you to customize it by stealing customization from decks. and if we end up with more champions losing interesting interactions just because "they will do what they're intented to do now", I will love to see what decks you guy will come up with... we need mechanics actually working in the gameplay, not wanky ability customization punishing new players and awarding efficiency seekers...
who is to say that the runes in the previews are in their final form? in fact they say the opposite. I see the previews as simply a showcase of their new upgrade system and nothing more. balancing will have to come from playtesting in ranked, not in some back room revamp. yes they are cutting back on abilities (a good thing) and focusing each champ towards a more defined role (also imo a good thing), but beyond that I wouldn't focus on ability costs, or champ efficiency, or possibly interactions with other runes. Its way to early for that. Someone in another thread mentioned that DoG isn't advertising pox right now. Nor should they. We are in a beta phase of a new game, and that makes you a beta tester. You don't expect a polished finished game with each patch during a beta do you? And whether your specific ideas are being used or not, its clear that they ARE giving a lot of attention to the players during this process. Which is exiting to be a part of. I think our energy would be better spent accepting the mechanics as they are presented to us (since those things are very unlikely to be changed at this point) and tailor our input to them within the boundries set by those mechanics.
Wow Ragic, I really enjoyed this post of yours man. Nice. And yeah, I don´t like the new design on this Deep Elf Masochist either. I mean, why are we giving a beater tank abilities? Seems confusing to say the least. Doesnt mean "revamp is the doom of Pox", as only is so hard trying to convince everybody.
stats might be not complete, but considering their impact, it's sentiments. it's about how do they handle things and it shows what are their ideas quite clearly. when I say that we're losing interactions, I assume MORE runes will be treated like her and completely reworked. I mean was it her problem? designwise she seems FLAWLESS. she had a clearly role/playstyle, I doubt she was offending anyone by some out-of-control interactions most of our "late tanks" bring the to table (honorable mentions are all those clever plays by Tales of Valor and tankz). I wonder if Pedeguerra agrees with Ragic that we're in beta stage of the game for the reason he really believes that or he simply is eager enough to bring some worthless conflicts from our (recent) past? I'm not against more defined roles! in fact, I (and everyone else) supports/loves that, but how is new upgrade system going hand in hand with this idea? the question could be different: is this new system better than the current one without CP? it seems like CP is the main factor here. they wanted non-leveled runes to not be punished against 3 star ones, but instead of removing CP system, they introduce some new system full of complexity just to remove the aspect of 1 being worse than 3. Ragic, you were also defending Void Rim to its best. most of TCG games you prefer/defend are some clunky subtier unpolished games you considering being yourself hipster just because you like them. all those Shadow Era and Infinity Wars... nothing involved (by me) in this thread is about balance. ofcourse, I could question is it wise to break balance (the current pace of the game awarding/encouraing absolutely any playstyle) for the sake of different CP system, but it's not about that. no wonder we don't understand each other if focus on things I don't even talk about. P.S. it might be not the best place to say that, but your avatar is such an epicsauce (bigtime), RedScarlet!
If I were only into niche games I wouldn't enjoy Hearthstone as much as I do. There are aspects to all of those games that I like, and want to adapt those to pox. And there are aspects of all of those games I don't like and so argue against them in pox. You keep mentioning that this new upgrade system adds complexity and Im just not seeing it. It seems to be more of a UI interface change than anything else. Why is having 3 options for 2 ability slots more complicated than adding upto 2 out of 4 abilities? I think most people can adapt to that well enough. As to the masochist's role , you say she is a tank/beater hybrid. True if tank and beater are two distinct roles in the new pox. but what if they are trying to get even more basic than that, say with base trifecta, tank/healer/support? maybe not that extreme but the point is, we have not yet seen the 'roles' defined by DoG (except by inference through the previews as you point out). btw: im very turned off by the star trek expansion for infinity wars. I just hate it when games don't respect their own flavor and lore.
complexity (here) doesn't come from visual interface. visually (virtually), it will be the same. specific nora costs, balancing (around) it and the illusion of customizing is where the complexity comes from. it might seem like tons of options now and maybe for couple weeks when it hits... once dusts will settle down, there will be less of customization than now since everything will be quite obvious, maybe not for new players, but I'm pretty sure top players will figure it out quite easily. balancing/rioting against this (by developers) will be virtually UNpossible (on top of the fact that it might require an unreasonable amount of time to balance the game itself). so we lose customization the current upgrade system offers and we don't remove complexity with potential of removing upgrade system at all. it seems like we don't get ANY of good point from both of those systems and just sit inbetween. that's the complexity I'm talking about. you. as a player of hearthstone, should probably share the sentiment that something is wrong with PoxNora now. just something. some reason doesn't allow pox go to nuts in terms of increasing playerbase. so do you think that something is the current upgrade system? is it the answer for all pox prays? yes, they will touch it partly by reducing the amount of abilities per instance. why not follow this pattern? removing upgrade system in general? how does it go against focusing on roles? reducing complexity? is the gameplay not rich enough? is deckbuilding not deep enough? the so-called customization you all are talking about should come from your deckbuilding, personal playstyle and choices (read: interactions) on the board. in order to achieve that, we should get previews of how they're mainstreaming the gameplay, making it less complex, but still having the same depth (maybe even increased). follow the system, Hearthstone does. it pleases both sides. casual and competitive. if we remove upgrade system, we please casual (in this case casual vs competitive should be read as low/high skilled in respective manner) and do we really hurt competitive scene? in fact, I believe that if bugs and describtions would be working, we would increase interactions/depth of pox million times if we just simplify the game a bit. abilities should be the focus, how they interact on the board, not toying with some absurdly stupid upgrade system for the reason they're stubbor and can't take the right choice of removing CP system. isn't is the whole reason of this upgrade? to change how CP system works??? because, I don't see how it helps to reduce abilities across the board. cutting down some abilities per champion can be done with the current system! perfectly!!!
I share some of your concerns. Some things will get lost along the way. There will be a lot of balance issues that will be addressed with time. However, I also think that going to 5 abilities or less on all champs is a good idea. I feel certain upgrades raising the cost of the champ is a great idea. Given how incredibly well the Owls have done in revamping the market place as well as adding the rune forge with the ability to create most runes in the game I'm willing to wait and see optimistically how this revamp turns out. This is coming from someone who generally hates change of any kind.
another point, to what extention they're going to fight against powercreep. if DEMasochist is changed, it is considered to be above the curve (offender of powercreep) and by current standards she is ok-ish rune. so it won't be just about rebalancing (taking down balance offenders), it will involve changing the pace of the game (how easy/fast you can one-round, duration of match, viability of various decks). are these things also deemed to be in the spot they need help? are you guys telling we don't have variaty of viable decks in different styles?
I do not in any way think that the upgrade system was the primary thing holding pox back. It was its business model and still is. But that could be fixed in a day. Granted, if they don't fix it, then the rest is moot as far as im concerned. but I would rather they keep funding this beta off of you guys and then open it up to the f2p'ers once they are done.
I think there's a lot of losing sight of the forest focusing on the trees here. (Bear in mind this is from the point of my opinion, and may not be fact) (TLDR in red at the bottom) Champions have NEVER had a defined limit of abilities. Bad Old upgrade system, while not exactly hard to pick up, it did create a complexity Bane Shift-storm for anyone trying to figure out how you upgraded a unit. Time consuming, and complexity just to be complex. That was bad. SOE hamfisted a solution by axing that all together, and just slapping some generic tick box bullshit on us. Also bad. What they're doing now is streamlining the nature of champions in Pox. A defined, static number restriction on the amount of abilities. Good. The upgrade system is now not increasing the power level of a unit by increasing the number of abilities, it's providing options to run a unit at a different level of efficiency, without completely nullifying the 'sub-levels' of a rune. That's amazing, in my opinion. So what we're getting is this streamlined package, where power of a unit is pretty static, a defined cost calculation on abilities (Pulverize likely will always be X nora per rank). Hearthstone was mentioned. It's a pretty darn stale game right now. Why? Because the ONLY creativity in the game is in card selection. Which means the meta over there is maybe four top tier decks, with maybe (if you're lucky) three or four cards variance in build. Not that there aren't sub-tiers of decks you'll run into that do well against certain meta match ups, but other than doing really well against meta builds, they tend to fall short on general utility. That's the unique problem Pox Nora has, and I don't envy DoG one bit in the situation. It's not just a trading card game with a static playing field. The boards are complex, the interactions are complex. It's a Dynamic TCG, it's not 'You get 10 resource at X turns, And no outside factors will effect it.' It's 'You may get 45 resource a turn, but on some maps, you can get an extra 12, or even an extra 24, or if you're the right faction, you get 6 just because.' I honestly believe streamlining champs into a static format will do wonders for the state of Pox. It will still be complex enough that older players stick around, as it will be much easier to shift the meta, and new players won't be lost in the complexity Bane Shift-storm they happen to wander into. Trying to learn laundry lists of abilities, and remember an encyclopedia worth of upgrade options is just counter-intuitive to all but the most hardcore. Which, as much as I can tell, is the only people we have left on this ship. And some of you are starting to smell We can't act or delude ourselves into thinking they can just flip a switch and fix everything they got wrong, that SOE made worse, and that Sok and Alpha tried their damnedest to fix before DoG took the helm. It's just not happening. And this won't be the doom of Pox, by any means, if anything, it's the first step towards a much more intuitive, fluid, complex and dynamic experience for the playerbase. Right now, some matches just feel like a chemistry exam you haven't studied for. I'd rather just have my fun TCG/TBS niche tabletop game back. TL-DR - I disagree completely that removing CP entirely, or that creating static champs would be a good idea in any shape or form. People like to be rewarded for the work they do. CP accomplishes this only if we're not being punished on the road to maxing them out. The new upgrade system is the first step in streamlining champ design in a manner that balancing won't be the egregious Bane Shift-storm that it has been in the past. Keep calm and play Pox.
I agree with most things Only pointed out. The game is fine as it is from variety/customization point of view. Main offenders for NUX experience from my point of view are: 1. BUGs 2. Combat log that is not clear enough for newbies. 3. Abilities doing the same thing with different names making the list of abilities to learn larger, examples: - Sonar = evasive/sonic vuln. Extra ability name for something that is already there. - Nokhan Do = block/dodge Extra ability name for something that is already there. etc... 4. CP being hard to get. 5. Rune availability(currently it is hard to get limited/leg runes due to small playerbase). 6. Time limit(extra 15-30 secs can be added, I remember getting out of time a lot when i was starting).
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.
Actually Ragic, I see this as a red flag because they had a couple of chances to demonstrate rationality and logic, and they failed. First of all the logic of the whole rune is wrong, secondly this new system is exactly like a mini skill tree system which plagued the gaming industry for decades with its illusion of customizability when it's not, only forced rerolls more than anything else. One of the few things Diablo 3 did right was get rid of skill trees, yes this is one of the only times you see me give a plus about that game. This whole new system wanted to give perceived choice when it does not, notice it locks you into subpar choices. Add to the fact that there's a forced CP system when that leveling up concept should have went away. Under no circumstances should it have persisted. Only is right about OWL giving a perceived feeling a choice when there really isn't a choice. That whole new nora system would take forever to rebalance, the simplest and most rational move they should have made under so low resources was to remove the CP system OR give tokens for free while they trimmed down bloated champions with a lot of abilities and normalized game rules, while simultaneously making the game actually accessible to new players so people could experiment after revamp. If it were up to me to run the business model: Hire more artists, make all runes free, micro transactions on skins, invent another grind system based on FUN. Ever played guildwars 1? You don't progress by getting stronger, you played for fun and your rewards were cosmetic equipment skins. You played for FUN because you dont grind to get stronger, there were grinds for titles, gold, grinding for skins etc but nothing mandatory that would disregard your whole playing experience 'just because i didnt have that rune i needed' or just becasuse I wasn't in T8 gear I couldn't survive etc. Poxnora isn't ugly like WOW, it has good art and is able to make a business model off selling aesthetics easily. You need a deck of 30 to play the game, so many skin potential and microtransactions here. Even if a skin costed 0.25 or $1 at most, it's a lot. F2P 101: So long as you have the player base, you can make money off the players based off your company's competence, but if you advertise under the F2P model you better be F2P and your business model better not interfere with game balance. edit: Ragic im not aiming at you of course ``
give a try to Void Rim. try to read their forums, they older posts. designs behind their cards. go to Conquest of Champions on forums. you will see the same issues all over there. the worst aspects from those games (and their minds) are being brought to PoxNora. compare Void Rim's equipments to new upgrade system. "customization"? yeah right... don't get me wrong, they created absurdly deep gameplay. it was developed over the years. we already know many issues why poxnora isn't successful. this revamp perhaps is not going to touch it. so what is this revamp going to do it? pushing to more niche aspects to please the current veterans thinking they're evil geniuses just because of hipstering one or another upgrade? this is not what poxnora needs. we should reduce complexity where possible. you shouldn't be toying with upgrades and thinking what will be more efficient. straightforward upgrades (as we have now) works much better. they're more pleasant to new players in general. we current incoming system has only one reasoning behind it -- altering the problem of CP. I can't even say they're going to fix it. they're not doing it. they're just making it better, but still bad. CP will still exist. what revamp are even talking about? it seems like everything developers post pleases the crowd. be reasonable and just for the second think about it: if you/we all are thinking this good, it might be bad. how is this thinking different than the one we had for last years? the same years with 200 playerbase? the idealogy should be this: how to improve the game in such a manner you would reduce complexity for new players, but still depth for older/current ones. so according to you all, the answer is going from current upgrade to the upgrade with specific nora costs?
