Some initial rambling; So, eventually, sometime after Onslaught, Pox 'prime' is going to be rebuilt in Unreal as well, from what I understand. I'm curious then, since that likely means more or less a complete recoding, if there would be any fundamental changes happening. I remember one of the things that drew me into the game when it first came out decades ago was just how mutable the units were. Anyone else who remembers, please chime in, as my memory is very rusty. But back in the 'first age,' CP meant more than just two slots of upgrade flexibility. Those CP points were used to modify baseline stats Spd used to be a THAC0 like calculation, where you gained half your speed rounded up each round on a unit. I honestly can't remember if abilities were involved here, or just baseline stats. Attack and Defense were also slightly more dynamic than just a -def from attack for damage. There was a 5% each chance to miss outright or critical hit (This one was very polarizing, some hated it, some loved it, not a lot of folks in the middle) The game itself had a store where you could purchase runes individually like a WH40k mini catalogue (The prices were very much out of touch, but it was there) Think; Old School World of Warcraft before the 'great dumbing down' of the game for accessibility (Arguably, all the simplification has hurt them more than helped them through the years. Definitely not a game I'm much into any more myself) Mind, some of the simplification in Pox was for the better. How attack and defense originally worked always felt way more complicated than necessary, while speed wasn't really all that complicated. No dev team has ever been brave enough to tackle the information overload by breaking the rune pool up into rotations, leagues, or other restrictive formats (Vocal minority always whined so hard against this). One of the biggest 'lies' we kept telling ourselves is that it would split up the community too much. 'We've only got so many people, we can't keep adding modes or...' which was/is utter rubbish. If the current state of the game isn't one people want or a format they want, they're not playing anyway, and you're not bringing in new people if they'd like to play, but not how the 'main group' plays. You can't split up a community that doesn't even want to play the way the game plays. Some thoughts on what could potentially shake things up in 'Pox 2.0' Quickest idea up front: Rotation/League/Limited, etc. One of the biggest drawbacks to Pox over the years has been the shear amount of information needed in order to play (like the legacy formats in MTG). Thousands of runes, literally Expansions are cool, but create three separate pools of runes, and they'll be the; Ranked Pool Evergreen; One master set with some of the most staple runes from each faction Ranked; A restricted assortment of runes from various expansions Current; Maybe two last sets of runes, maybe three This helps keep the competitive pool small and comprehensive, and most importantly, less daunting than current. Granted, this restriction is somewhat already there, but there's an ocean of information you have to swim through to figure out what the actual meta is, at least as a new player, and heck, even as an old player returning. Everyone, everyone has to dive in from time to time (I know there's veterans who have done the double take and lose a turn trying to figure out some new wonky addition to someone's BG) Those pools of runes are for competitive play. It creates a space where you can more finely tune runes to work. (Benefit; It should be stupid easy to implement) The rest of the runes + Ranked = Legacy League (OR whatever clever name you want) This is the current 'Bane Shift Show' that Pox is currently running If you're going to keep runes 'limited' and restricted from the general base, they go here If runes are too OP for ranked but 'super flavorful,' they go here Broken interactions that the community can agree are 'clever.' Yep, they go here This gives you a 'free for all' format where people can wallow in the glory of all that is Pox from every age of development, and play in ways that can be fun if you're not trying to be seriously competitive. Beyond Ranked and Legacy, You could add a dozen others; Restricted (Runes from A, Q, X, Y sets only), Pauper (Runes from only the Common pool) Ranked Pauper (Runes from only the Ranked commons pool). 2v2? Sure, why not, people love it. I know none of this is 100% fresh, two decades and more later, there's probably no such monster as a new idea that will 'save Pox.' Idea #2 : A return to 'not quite as Hyper' customization If you could take the pools into smaller, more digestible sets, I think being able to apply CP more dynamically than just unlocking new options in upgrades could be an area to revisit. Make the 'Under the Hood' side of the rune more dynamic again. Let us spend CP to adjust stats again. Only, let us do so in the positive and negative direction. It costs X CP to move stats off base in either direction, allowing us to 'fine tune' the costs and intent of our champs. An upside would be that you no longer have to think of the general cost, Nora wise, of what abilities should cost. Jolt 1/2/3 right now costs like 1/2/5 nora 'in general' to have on a champ. Which is cool, but range is a separate calculation. 1-1, 1-2, and 3-5 all have their own costs, but Jolt is considerably more powerful on 3-5 than 1-1 (imho). I honestly don't know if the formula is robust enough to 'think' about that. Also, could lump upgrades up into a 'pool' of sorts along with the stat adjustment prices, in order to add much more direction on a 'per player' basis. It's literally putting the perception of playability into the hands of the players. So many runes get small remarks attached like 'If it didn't have X, or 5 more hp, or..' attached to them that returning CP adjustments would help solve so many problems. Granted, it might cause some as well, but I think it's an endeavor worth taking. My memory is fuzzy, but I do remember a huge outcry when this aspect of the game was announced to be hitting the chopping block. A more amorphous benefit is that it can create an even stronger sense of attachment to one's collection. Even more so than those of us that still bother with Pox. This leads us into; Idea #3 : Per battelgroup customization One of the 'weaker' ideas, but I think a very important one regardless. It is quite frustrating that one either needs to own more than two copies of a rune that can be built more than several ways, or that we have to go into the manager and adjust some runes that we like to play with in several places. The idea explains itself. Champs get customized as they enter the battlegroup, not in the collection. This is a quality of life adjustment that's always been pushed off that I believe wholeheartedly is a more than just a pebble nuisance on Pox's path forward. It's like a boulder that keeps showing up at awkward times. Idea #4 : The monetization There was a time, when an online, collectible miniature board game, with customizable stat cards per unit, and interesting board/unit modifying cards (Spells/Relics/Equipment) that were arranged in a deck was a hot thing with lots of bodies coming in. Pre 2000, it was a time where the Dev team could go 'Hey, we're the only thing on the market like this, we can charge what we want.' And they weren't necessarily wrong at the time, but it would prove to be wrong later. Like I said before, my memory is fuzzy, so I can't remember just how accurate I'm gonna be, but it used to be that the only 'gray border' cards were Harbingers. And you had to have been with the project as a player, tester, or supporter since the beta, if not the beginning, to have acquired not one, but a pair of each. How something like that (Especially with how powerful they were) was not a red flag to Original Octopi at the time (Especially the forum where there was one 'Harbinger unfair' post per page, minimum) eludes me. They got the single rune store right. I think. I remember it closing not too long before the SoE purchase. No idea if that was a legal reason, or maybe I'm wrong, and it actually wasn't done right. I don't know, it disappeared, and not too long later, SoE purchased the IP outright. Then we moved from the 'lovingly crafted, balance minded' expansion development, into what I can only describe as a surreal ride down ego, ineptitude, and brilliant display or arrogant and apparent greed. CorpsE was not a good thing for the longevity of the game, but was definitely a force that made Pox some money.... at first. I believe first wave SoE changes included the dismissal of the original upgrade system (First dumbing down). Then there was the 'stat line squish' that removed Hit/Crit, and turned stats into what we know now (before then, Attack and Damage where separate stats). And then came.... Midterms. Small pack, obviously overpowered additions we knew were coming between expansions, and almost always aimed at being 'must have' additions somewhere. Obviously, sometimes things were DoA, but not usually. And almost always, there were new, 'clever' new additions to the encyclopedia of knowledge we already had to memorize. Now, somethings have definitely changed for the better. Somethings had to stay for lack of resources to change. But if you, the Dev team, sincerely want this game to actually become something other than a footnote in game history, you have to fix this cranial rectal impaction that has bogged down Pox for so long; You just cannot stay sustainable if you keep the pricing the way it is. I have never been privy to the numbers, but I do know as a 'moderate' spender, that I'm pretty well somewhere in the 'average' range of people that spend on games. In 'Whale generation,' I'm probably a dolphin. Whales will keep your servers running, and sure, while the population is big enough, it'll keep your lights running, but if you don't aggressively price to get the dolphins buying, you're not going anywhere but slowly down. I don't have a good answer for you on this, except that 'limited' digital content that locks behind a paywall is the single stupidest decision that any game in a digital format can make. It might have been fine in 1996, but gamers and their wallets have matured much since then. It only behooves you to do the same. Thank for coming to my TED Talk TLDR: Leagues, Better Customization, Customization per BG, Better Monetization, four points that would likely, imho, do wonders for the longevity and revitalization of this game we all love.
I can't remember who was but I like the idea of having abilities be separated from stats they are like cost cards you get to upgrade champs too make it so they aren't too overpowered
in a game in this situation where 90% its old timers just playing for the love of the game, rotation is the worst thing that can happen.there is no competitive scene, there is nothing to be gained from that. Limited format tournament can be done anyway, i did it in the past, others are doing it now, and usually players welcome this kind of special plays, but because then they can go back to use any rune they want. This is a game for hardcore gamers that are not scared by the rune pool, but see it as a way to keep the game fresh. Now that developers are somehow active, just giving a tweek on some runes with patches from time to time is enough. Rotation would scare away/anger most of the core of the players. Really no need for that.
Call me a dreamer, but even decades later, I can imagine Pox being on the forefront of the game market. I'm not saying this is anything that needs to happen right off the bat, but constantly playing behind with the development has always held the game back. It's true that the game only exists because of a hardcore and semi hardcore group of a hundred or so (If that), but Pox can do more than just 'hold on.' Besides, even if everything I suggested went in 100%, there'd still be a Legacy or Unlimited arena for people to play in just like we play now. Even if leagues and other formats could be introduced right now, I don't think anyone would play in a setting any different than they are already. If anything, it would just make things 'stickier' for new players who stumble on the game, since they'd be in a pool instead of an ocean and drowning. I could be wrong, it's happened before. But repeatedly, the game has held back going where it can to grow because it's scared to alienate the few people left playing. I don't play as often as anyone else, but I have a strong notion that we're not going anywhere, so long as we can keep playing.
i really think only format that would be good for the game is some kind of draft/sealed format where you build a bg on the spot and play. That's something that would make it more interesting for many people, like newcomers that could actually play and learn with a lot of new runes without having to forge them. the game isn't going anywhere in anycase until there is a company that wants to invest behind it, so no point in annoying the few hundreds that still keep it alive. If and when there is a big investor behind it, then we might start to talk about cutting some stuff/rotations. its already hard to get a match with only 1 ranked format, split it into 3 and its 3 times harder.
That's kind of what I'm getting at anyway. I'm not trying to split it now, necessarily. Just when the Post-Onslaught improvements happen. If there's going to be any development on Pox 1 at all after Onslaught releases, which unless I heard wrong, there's at least plans to rebuild in Unreal, that's when the game needs to 'get it right.' I remember post-Steam launch, just how much confusion there was. So much overload on an incoming playerbase was not good for the game.
