Patch Notes: August 31st, 2020 Discussion.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Etherielin, Sep 1, 2020.

  1. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    Why have the Obelisks been nerfed? or are you going to combine them later?
     
  2. Nebron

    Nebron I need me some PIE!

    Woah woah woah, what did I miss? Who the heck is etherielin and since when is this game getting patches?

    *checks notes* nvm, carry on with w/e this is
     
  3. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    I'm a guy who posted bugs for years, got in touch with Cortices and now I gather community feedback and compose patch notes based on it. There's a spreadsheet in both patch notes and the OP here you can look at to see the suggestions and offer some yourself.

    Next patch is going to be on September 30th so there's still time to offer your input.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2020
  4. Nebron

    Nebron I need me some PIE!

    There's so much that makes no sense here.....replacing multiattack with illuminate was supposed to be a buff to soothesayer? Why is there no vetting process for who gets to suggest changes? Some guy is trying to remove detection from every single voil that had access to it when it was already a rare ability in SP.

    When players got input in rune design/balance in the past it was all face up. You knew what sort of bias they had going in and could judge their opinions accordingly. It was also done by well respected players who ranged from "good" to "great" at the game so when they gave a suggestion it wasn't something they came up with from throwing darts at the wall. Currently there's nothing to stop a new/really bad player from coming in and flooding the page with horrible ideas or worse, someone who actually knows what they're doing from going into factions they don't like and suggesting what appears to be buffs to slowly remove abilities they don't like.

    Who gets to sort through this mess and decide what should get implemented into the game?
     
  5. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    The community. Everyone gets to talk about the suggested changes here and on Discord - the final call goes to me as I compose the patch notes. The Soothsayer changes you brought up had a commentary to it from a person who suggested it saying the reason illuminate would do better is because Soothsayer is a very low DMG champion who chooses between utility OR damage in the upgrade line 1 and illuminate lets him offer additional utility this way.

    The Councils of the past were good, yes - I was a part of one myself. The problem is that - and I explained it to Calisk on Discord - the Council also suffered from veteran bias, inability to come together as a united front on pressing matters and inability to detect potential ignition points with controversial runes.

    The existence of the spreadsheet is to be a thinktank - the community drops all of its thoughts, ideas, wishes and suggestions into it and then mulls it over as a collective instead of a "magocracy" of the chosen few to dictate what happens. Then the most approved / least controversial ideas go further and get included in the preliminary patch notes, which are further discussed by the community. After that the patch notes take their final shape and only last minute changes like a bug or a faulty interaction are added in or replaced. The final call on everything belongs to me as I compose the notes, go around asking people for feedback, add their suggestions to the spreadsheet and forward the notes to Cortices.

    Does that make sense?
     
  6. poxrooster

    poxrooster The Pox Chameleon

    Being honest, Etheriein is a vet, and his changes are not bad even though he and I have disagreed on the recent Mena changes. He's been a backbone to this game for some time and held it together. So we who play pox should give him some praise and cut him some slack because of his contributions. Plus, he got patches going on some level.
     
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  7. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    I'll chime in a little bit more on Menalaus change: during the last few expansions we've seen the development of two themes Menalaus fits in: Magic Amp and Aurora. His old upgrades were almost there regarding Magic Amp but Aurora - a theme that lorewise is an organisation founded by him and aiming to keep the Protectorate united - didn't quite hit the mark. I chose to empower him in his lorewise flagship theme and to give him additional strength in another he was already a considerable choice in. Yes, it makes his upgrades less druidic and more magical and I am aware of that but that's the direction his lore-based theme leaned towards as well.

    If there was a deck where abilities like Heal Mass 3 and Nature's Connections would work on him much, much better I'd include them too somehow, but alas that isn't the case and with runes above 85 nora mark you really need to have the design as tight as possible with little wiggle room for extras, which is another reason as to why Menalaus' changes sharpened his design a little bit.
     
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  8. poxrooster

    poxrooster The Pox Chameleon

    Of course, I get your thinking. It makes some sense. You did a decent job. But I don't think you're looking outside your box. His kit is too narrowed on those themes, and those are themes you play the most. Let's take Prognosticate just as an example. Do you remember what that does? It causes causes pacified on a unit after 3 turns. It would have perfect for him because of his range and would have worked well with his Elven Page sub-theme. These are themes I like to play. I use him in every KF build I have. I'm trying to find a way to make a build around him solely. Anyway, I'm just using this as an opportunity to argue that champ revamp design for older more established champs should not be too theme centric. For newer runes, yes! I'm not really that set on Prognosticate, especially when you said that they are no "new" skills. I just think he could use some more generality or fitting for more than just two themes.

    Looking at him again, now, the changes you made fit well with Magic Amp and Aurora. However, it's an awkward balance. The GMA and MB are on the same line.

    But whatever, I'm just glad things are moving forward, and someone is making changes. This means the game is not going to die yet.

    Hey also, can you get release 30 out?
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2020
  9. poxrooster

    poxrooster The Pox Chameleon

    While we're on the subject of Aurora theme, Elven Vindicator has some synergy with Blind. Can you remove Dodge 1 and give him Phantom Dash? It's the same price and brings him closer to the theme.
     
  10. poxrooster

    poxrooster The Pox Chameleon

    As for Elven Artisan, she needs some more love. She's sort of like the Silverclan Tinkerer of KF. How about something like this.

    0, 6, 1, 1, 40

    Base > NM1, Pilfer, Mason 2
    UG 1 > Toss Equipment, Provision: Utility
    UG 2> Relocate Relic, Lay Trap Fire 2
     
  11. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    It's on the table but faaaar into the future.
    I don't want to risk proliferating too much mobility across KF, we're quick as we are and vindicator is usually the go-to champion to get the Aurora Lance.
    She's pretty solid as is and she sees play. I'm more keen on changing things that saw 0 play at all like Great Eagle or Nymph.
     
  12. chickenpox2

    chickenpox2 I need me some PIE!

    Can we give more love to soulthirster he needs like +3 more damage
     
  13. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    CAn you fix the bugged runes first? one being crystal crawler..just give it planar bound instead of cutting out the main theme behind it and removing upgrade options, other runes like ice stars, crystalize, snowed in (you can see where it is going to land) these runes are seeing zero play..so why are we not addressing these? I am sure there are lots of them.
     
  14. L33Ch

    L33Ch I need me some PIE!

    I was optimistic when the new patches were suggested, and I thank Cortices and Ether for all their work, the fixes have been good and much needed but from my perspective many of the "balance" changes have just been nerfs that shoeboxed runes I enjoyed playing.
     
  15. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    What runes have been shoeboxed in your opinion?
    Ice Stars and Crystallize aren't played because they're banned from ranked because of bugs. Planar Bound on Crystal Crawler would make it glitch out even harder with swap and I gave him creep and crawl because I forgot about it being on U1 when applying the change. I am fixing bugs where I can and banning runes where I can't, neither of these are standing in the way of each other.
     
  16. L33Ch

    L33Ch I need me some PIE!

    "A great eagle came down and ripped the heart from the Pureblood." -zeal damage

    Exorcist with no exorcism, skill needs rework, remove on kill effect and replace with Stacked damage (zeal damage on hit wrath ?)

    Most of the others have been addressed in earlier posts.

    Portal mage that cant port
    RIP Demon - replace damage shield1 with fire eater
    Skeleform - give back unleash I miss taking him for long walks
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2020
  17. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    No it would not, the glitch is with swap not trail crystal. Planar bound would prevent swap being used. You would have to change Swap, creep and crawl of the champ.

    That is my point with Ice stars and other runes like it...Cant you start fixing those first? Crystalize would be easy...Spell gives defiled then the champ is not cleansible and would not be able to run around as an immortal for 5 rounds. Yeah there is a bug but those seem to be two very easy fixes.

    Ice stars who knows that one is probably a total revamp, but chained fairy does the same thing to the game, pretty much stalls it for a minute so the two might be bugged for the same reason
     
  18. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    I asked for a database check and prognosticate is apparently gone from it. I didn't find it on any units either.
    I'll go one by one:

    1. Pureblood Plainswalker was something I discussed with @Markoth . We have both agreed that it having Zeal: Damage made it too strong of a generalist rune that is difficult to deal with and so we shifted some of the rune's power towards build up and utility. It's still strong and still scary but not as dangerous. Zeal: Damage on ranged champions is generally scary to have.

    2. Exorcist was deep in the shoebox already. I was looking at runes to unshoebox and was offered a revamp of his by Markoth that also kept him as a rune that still hates ghosts and foul magic through solidify and spellswallower. I cannot change abilities directly, which is why we went with this approach to him.

    3. Portalmage was changed because of the current situation with summons being extremely feast or famine - the ability itself was near half of his nora cost. I do agree that him not summoning the pygmies is a big flavour loss, but to keep it consistent with his art I gave him grant teleport and swap instead.

    4. Why do you believe RIP Demon is shoebox? The change to him was done as a result of people commonly agreeing that he is too cheap for what he does, so he was given fire nova 3 to make him more expensive but also not be a straight nerf.

    5. Skeleform lost unleash as part of long term nerfs to skeletons - I gave it phantom dash instead but if it gets dropped from skellies completely I'll revise it, no unleash coming back though.
    For the time being spells cannot be directly changed apart from nora costs, names, cooldowns and descriptions/lore entries. Same about equips. Champions and relics can be fully modified and no new abilities can be given, abilities themselves also cannot be changed. I'll look at Crawler and definitely will give him a proper upgrade instead of creep and crawl, I might also just look at giving trail crystal to another crystal champion it would work if it's fitting.

    As always all feedback is welcome and all contributions to the spreadsheet are encouraged!
     
  19. ArtmanOz

    ArtmanOz The King of Potatoes

    First thanks for the hard work and dedication to the game Etherielin. I only get to come back occasionally but wanted to offer an observation on one champ in particular. I'm just happy there was an update and still a few players that come to the game. To that end I think Pureblood Plainswalker U1 was just a touch too much. I do however like the direction and had a couple suggestions.

    [[1. Pureblood Plainswalker was something I discussed with @@Markoth . We have both agreed that it having Zeal: Damage made it too strong of a generalist rune that is difficult to deal with and so we shifted some of the rune's power towards build up and utility. It's still strong and still scary but not as dangerous. Zeal: Damage on ranged champions is generally scary to have.]]

    Agreed that Zeal:Damage on range is a very powerful ability and should be limited in the game. Spark Crone has this combo and actually comparable utility at a cheaper cost with it, at the sake of a attack space. What made Pureblood really awesome b4 was the multi-attack at range. Just a few thoughts on the new upgrades:

    Spellswallower-Requires opponent to use a spell for the champ to see a benefit. Most players understand to avoid using spells unless its going for a kill/or create a significant momentum shift (ala Quicken/Quickening/Mobi ect) against IS. Even in solo mode it has limited usability. Rec: Possible debilitate/burn2/favor ect. The benefits are more offensive nature but with a tactical aspect to play. Note there could be others, these just came to mind first.

    Resonance-Requires opponent to generate additional nora to see a benefit. Can be fun in some situations, but in most cases if the opponent is generating nora through spells/skills ect. Pureblood should become the primary target for neutralizing. Rec: No change. I would keep this change as it is definitely a risk/reward balance for to upgrade.

    Vengeful-Requires a real champ to die to see a benefit. There are not too many champs in a IS BG that you want to lose due to prohibitive costs. Rec: Violent is a much better play mechanic and the benefit requires a friendly champ of the same race in range. Situational to receive the benefit but much better than real champs having to die. Fury alone I think takes her over the top.

    Again thanks for the changes. Also just one other champ, Exorcist sucks so bad he loses his signature ability. Good try but I think there are some champs are just meant for trolling...he's one of them. Cheers bro.

    - Art
     
  20. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    With crawler or any champ that can swap trail crystal will pose a problem and create a bug that makes them occupy the same space (which i don't mind since it is so random) and or leave a permanent crystal space on the battle map. Crawlers main strategy is to hit and run away with a crystal trail for a barrier, if you made crawler a 2x2 champ that would work and cause no problems as it would eliminate swapping with him. That is why crystal dragon has no problems with his trail crystal. Thanks for looking into it
     

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