So I've been away for a few years... But you know what I couldn't resist coming back, playing some forsaken wastes, spreading disease, zombies, and vampires.... and then I find the developers have gone and done THIS http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/pox-nora-revamp-preview-1.2488/ Congrats, congrats to you former octopi employees who 10(when I was still in high school) years ago I began a journey with, of poxnora... I tried and paid for your premium account subscription when you had it.. I got my avatar the day it came out.. Founded my guild the day that came out. I am the proud owner of a giving tree.. I absolutely loved the complexity of the game.. AND THEN YOU COMPLETELY LOBOTOMIZED THE GAME BY SCRAPPING ITS COMPLEXITY ENTIRELY!! IN FAVOR OF WHAT YOU CALLED "FUN"... When sony first acquired the game, I expected this of them... I expected they would simplify the game for increased profitability at the expense of the quality of the game, sacrificing the vast majority of it's players to do what it did to Star Wars Galaxies... By simplifying it for the sake of bigger market appeal, sacrificing much of it's player base, all to be more like world of warcraft... I never expected OWL, to pull a smedley, an NGE... They have taken hundreds of champions, and reduced them down to utterly abysmal mediocrity.They are scarcely different from one another. Even 10 years ago the game was never this simple, this dull, this boring... The demon lich for instance is now no more than an over glorified ranged zombie... Its not like you couldn't work to balance it without lobotomizing it... This isn't one flew over the cuckoos nest, or some particularly deranged episode of doctor who. This is a game that became great with its complexity of strategy. I have previously spent hundreds, maybe even over a thousand dollars on this game, because I genuinely loved playing it..... Until this abominable simplification of the game..... so thus, until this simplification is reversed, even 50% of the way (I won't be fully satisfied until 85% of it is reversed) , you will not get a single penny more out of me, not one! You have no idea how genuinely you have hurt me Desert Owl Games... to see a game for which I have had so many fond memories... almost 1600 pvp matches I have fought..... and now I find myself in a game I can no longer recognize.... So out of respect for your previous accomplishment of making this game great, before you tore it down... I will no longer call this poxnora out of respect for the game that was. This is now FauxNora. Sincerely, Renatus David E. Kretschmer Guildmaster and Founder of Shadow Blood Former Premium member Original Giving tree owner
SOE is the one that caused champs to go from a reduced number of abilities to the bloated list you seem to long for. Ten years ago the game was not this simple because you could spend CP on a large variety of things, which made it extremely difficult to balance. SOE's revamp took that away but gave all champs 4 upgrades you could choose from. That made balance much easier, but also made it so any champ with less than 200 CP worse than any copy of that same champ that had 200 CP. SOE also introduced powercreep, which meant that if you didn't have the latest runes, you had a much tougher time against players with the new stuff. The DOG revamp has resolved most if not all of that. There is still a lot of synergy to be had and themes are better against meta BGs than they ever were under SOE. I encourage you to actually read the runes, build a BG, and play the game. Depending on how long it has been since you left, you may need to get some more runes to fill out a theme, but Poxbox is still alive and has a ton of C/U/R that you can get cheap. If you decide to leave permanently, please trade your limiteds to someone so they can be enjoyed by someone else.
No as I hope things will improve Did a little pvp, a some campaigning. gradually realizing the extensiveness of the changes as I did so, playing through about 6-7 different decks of mine. I said I was gone for a few years, I was there for most of SOE's time in charge. As I said, things weren't even this bad back 10 years ago. SOE also solved the power creep by boosting older champions, thats why my decks still included older champions such as Zombie Behemoth, dark knight, crossbone, decayed mercenary, cleric of unrest, and of course Lich King (with the custom name I put on it back when renaming tokens were a thing). and I read ALL of the forsaken waste runes... I'm gifted and OCD so yeah, not a big deal.
I could have quite easily just stopped playing again and not posted any of this... But I want things to improve. I want things to change for the better... Thus this.
While change is always hard and there will always be detractors, it's important to point out that change is constant. Original Pox champions were simple champions, usually having just a few abilities, and almost non-existent inter-rune synergies, and almost everything was basic attacks or keyed off basic attacks. During the SOE era, the customization of stats was removed, but complexity of champions in terms of number of abilities ramped up significantly. Whether this was a good, or a bad thing, depends on your point of view, but most players I know felt that this was getting a bit much: (Note that some of this guy's abilities also added a bunch of effects or other abilities.) Now, complexity in of itself is not a bad thing, but this kind of thing was considered a rapid departure from what made PoxNora tick to begin with. Another thing that happened is that champs like this basically didn't pay for their abilities - he'd be around 110 nora. Of course, this was "balanced" since all of the other runes from this era (or buffed during that era) was also handled the same way. ~ So when DOG took over, one of the things they did was realign the costs and design back to a stricter design formula, and there's a spectrum of champions from ones with just a few abilities to ones that have quite a few still, but they have to pay for the abilities instead of getting to do everything cheaply: In this case, he lost a few base abilities but retains his role as a tank as well as his signature ability: Ancient Corruption. Most of his other effects do show up in some shape or form in terms of the upgrades - he just can't do it all at once anymore. Honestly, I don't think he's less "complex" so much as less "bloated." When I came back sometime after, I noted a few things and have been making changes with the following in mind: Restoring the Flavor of Champs Because it was such a wide scale change, many champs lost the things that made them interesting and I have tried to restore much of that. Champs need a distinct purpose and role to fulfill. In some cases, this meant returning a signature ability, in other cases it meant changing upgrades, or even redesigning the rune to give it a new role. If there are champions you feel has no role or could use a re-infusion of flavor, feel free to make specific suggestions - but keep in mind the champs have to stay aligned to the cost formula. Promoting Inter-Rune Synergy The SOE style of "one champ does all" was something that many people lamented. Instead, recent develop focuses on ensuring that champions fulfill particular roles/niches rather than having all the tools for many different situations. Additionally, theme development has been a major focus and will continue to be so. Race/Class Consolidation As an extension of the above, Race/Class have been beefed up in terms of synergy in general. Races and Classes have been reduced somewhat, which means anything keying off those keywords now have more function. Additionally, many runes/abilities/effects have been modified to interact with races and classes more directly. For example, Rangers is now a viable build. Consolidation of Similar Abilities Over the years, many, many abilities were added, in many cases, their roles overlapped and many similar abilities were created when in most situations the abilities would do a very similar job. Additionally, many abilities just worked differently than similar ones for no real reason. These sort of abilities have been consolidated; this makes them more intuitive to understand and less rote memorization required to play the game. Focus on Tactics PoxNora is a TACTICAL game, and much of the design during the SOE era was CARD based design - focusing on flashy combos that far too often negated positional play. Recent developments have moved PoxNora back to its roots and focuses the game on champ vs champ combat SUPPORTED by non-champion rules with a focus on positional play. For example, the increase in CD of the Ranged Bomb attacks is one such development - as those kinds of abilities being extremely prevalent was eroding the impact of good positional play. Reduction of %-based Effects This one has been a slow one, and certainly falls under "simplification." Many %-based effects still exist, and 50% ones are likely to remain forever, but many like 20% or 25% or 33% type of stuff is functionally similar to +2-4 most of the time and just makes it more difficult to calculate while also introducing rounding. The idea here is that players should be able to focus on playing the game instead of doing the math (and memorizing whether it is rounding up or down or maybe has a weird quirk with the way it rounds, etc.). Moving Away from "Abilities on Everyone" Another group of ability changes is an attempt to move away from the idea that every X needs Y ability. This has two implications. One is that there's less homogeneity within a theme or race and more variety. Two is that different runes within the themes/race can fulfill more different roles. If every champ in theme X has "Swarm" then either they are inefficient at non-attack roles or they are all about attacks, and that just makes things dull. Another way this is accomplished is by moving from racials that need everyone to have the ability such as , and instead moving to . This way, the runes get the same racial effect, but only needs the ability on select champions, instead of every thing in the theme. This doesn't reduce depth/complexity, but gives more flexibility both in terms of rune design and deckbuilding, as well as creates more tactical interest in terms of gameplay as the players have particular targets they can go after if they want to limit or preserve certain kinds of effects on the board (again, instead of every Witch with this, which meant they keep it no matter what you kill). So yes, your champs are less flashy now compared to before - and this is going to be true across the board - specific factions didn't get away with not having this changed. However, I'd argue this has not made the game "simpler." While it's true individual champs have less abilities in some cases - the gameplay itself is still incredibly complex and requires a lot of skill. In fact, you could argue because the champ kits are not so over the top swiss army knives along with a greater emphasis on positional play that the game actually takes MORE skill now, both in deck construction and actual gameplay. The changes also made non-champion runes relatively more useful - both in terms of nora efficiency as well as effect per slot - which has expanded options somewhat. So I wouldn't say the changes made the game simpler for mass market. PoxNora is simply not a mass market kind of game and it'd honestly be better/easier to start over if one wanted to make a mass market version of Pox - but I am not even sure what that really looks like. These changes are intended to allow Pox to maintain a proper development path, while providing guidance for future development as well as maintaining play-ability across the wide spectrum of runes in the game. I personally worked on the game both during SOE and came back recently after DOG - and I have to say that I think the current version of the game is more fun and has more tactical depth. But it also depends on what kind of game you are looking for - if you want a game where everyone is dropping bombs every turn - it's no longer that game, and I can understand why you'd feel let down. Ultimately tho, the game really hasn't changed THAT much in terms of the core gameplay (unlike the SWG NGE, which had fundamental, core changes) and if you are looking for a game with a lot of depth in terms of tactical combat and deckbuilding - I think you will find that PoxNora is still that game. In short, I hope you will give the changes a chance And if you decide it's really not the game for you anymore, then we are sorry to lose you, but of course we can't appeal to everyone. That said, your feedback is still valuable, so thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I empathize with you, but I really don't think devs can balance a complex game. If you like winning, just play a facebook game, and buy a bunch of power. You can still be master of your own universe there. If you genuinely like complexity, try the most complicated and competitive game ever, MATHEMATICS!!
Uninformed? I lived through most of a decade of the game's history, and literally read through their patch notes before reading their post that I linked above. Hell after that I went about collecting a full list of each and every badly changed ability, and was going to proceed with full ability by ability commentary.. I got as far in my commentary on the list as Designate flagbearer in the June 24 2014 patch notes.. As for pretentious, you don't know the meaning of the word... You sound like the sort of person who just lets people roll right over them don't you? Flake? Go back to your job as Trump's chambermaid. My proposal is simple, rather than dumbing the game down to the lowest common denominator like what Desert Owl has done. Raise up the other heroes like SOE was doing. You wouldn't lobotomize a game of dungeons and dragons would you?
Its like you didnt even read what sok posted. You look like one of those randomly angry forum members that when presented with facts and explanation they just choose to ignore it and keep complaining disrespectfully and insulting people
it's great to hear that you've enjoyed poxnora and will always have some nostalgia for it - i was also in on the game semi early-ish. this game was wonderfully ambitious from its inception, but with the consistent expansion of its rune base it would have been doomed to fail. currently, even with the changes you're apparently upset with, the game's learning curve is absurdly demanding. this game is more intellectually demanding than eve and europa universalis combined. and on steroids. that and you really had to break the bank to even gain access to that experience in order to be consistently competitive. to be candid with you - it is somewhat ironic that you came back to complain about the very issue devs are working their tales off to resolve. you were gone only a year or two and look how upset you are over comparatively minor changes - imagine what it's like for a new player. if you care about this game: -play it -drop a few bucks from time to time in order to support it -provide honest feedback in the forum to improve it
Let's look at that specific clop: Prerevamp: Boost3 giving him really scary stats. Warwizard with grant teleport and alacrity making him really mobile. Personal harpoon combo: 9spd + hold the line + exploit = easy double-trippletap. No damage from fat aura to other undead. The FW/clops deck itself: 7trux was great, martyr was a "bank loan" to deploy him, whisperghasts were providing further mobility and globe recovery to fat expensive clops. He was also decent in SP/ and ST/chops. Postrevamp: Well, he can derp in zombies like any other zombie, that's it.
