Initial revamp impressions and feedback (wall of text)

The game is in a bit of a shambles at the moment post revamp and that's to be expected, these were huge changes.

The impression I've taken from this revamp with the way the design sense is shifting, we should be moving toward a more champion based, tactical game, of several pieces working together rather than 2 or 3 high-powered champions fighting over fonts with spell, champ and relic support to close out the game, and that's cool - I dig it.

Where I think this shift in design has failed to hit the mark is that the synergies and efficiency have blown way out of proportion and where this becomes very apparent is in summons. What this has caused is a metagame that's run by summons, with select overly efficient runes to fill in the gaps. This has left no room for standard battlegroups to compete in and has resulted in very stagnant play, that unless dealt with will deteriorate into a stale game where most games run at least a half an hour and it's a case of who can summon more/better units wins.

I will preface this and say over the last few days I've mostly been playing around with FF SP, KF/X and ST/X which is most of what I'll be covering and is by no means exhaustive or complete.


Abilities general

Vulnerabilities
Seem to be discounting more than they should, but I don't have the raw numbers on this. The obvious examples I can think of are Groble Rock Eater and Augur of the deep.​

Surge enemy is underpriced
If you take a look at Elven Prodigy. Surge: Ranger costs one more nora than Surge: Enemy. In most scenarios this is going to be adding 4-5 damage all of the time. More often than not it can add more than that. Perhaps surge as a whole needs a cost increase.​

Relocation abilities are undercosted
The old staples with these abilities are Voil Transporter, Elven Strategist, Deep elf Priestess and Soul Siren. These champions are too efficient and the common denominator are the relocation abilities, these are premium abilities and should be priced as such. Oftentimes they equate to more damage than a spell could hope to deal without the upfront nora cost.

Swarm
This seems undercosted and a bit incosistent on the champs that have it, especially now post revamp. But it's hard to evaluate as the champions with it that I'm aware of have it base. That said, swarming champions should not be creating champions that have swarm. The most obnoxious example of this presently is the Clockwork Swarm.​

Summons general
Can we finally tackle this ruling once and for all and be rid of all the silly little inconsistencies?
Every unit that is not directly played from the rune dock should be classed as a summon. Yes it's drastic, yes it changes a lot, yes it messes with what we know and understand. This is the time for drastic changes. It will be better for everyone and everything moving forward. Black and white, no misunderstandings.

Summon Abilities
There's far too many champions with summon abilities. This needs to be addressed.
The cost for summon abilities is too little and they benefit from way too much. 9 times out of 10 unless you're playing absolutely abysmally, or your opponent particularly well you will get 2 summons out of these champions, for the cost or 5 AP each. In most cases, these 2 summons alone more than make up for the cost of the initial deploy. Something is out of whack here. They need to see a cost increase and/or a cooldown increase. The former brings them in line with what we currently have, the latter rewards better play, but potentially encourages unengaging play.

Sever summons
There needs to be more champions with this ability, if there's concern about it being too powerful, decrease the range so there's more tact in playing it.

Boost abilities
These have become too prolific and are lending too much power to summons which I don't believe was the intended effect. I would like to see a shift for this to benefit real champs more. for example +2 DAM / +8 HP and half the effect for summons.

Foment
There's two parts to this, in my pursuits abusing beasts and summons I've come to the conclusion that this is just a problematic rune and hinders design space a lot. If you take a look through the champions in all factions, you'll find a plethora exactly at the 40 nora mark solely to avoid the benefits of this ability.
The second part is that it drastically improves most summons and it's causing major problems. Please redesign this ability and take a look at the runes that took careful consideration of this ability (Vashal's in general, Vicar in particular for example). In the interim I'd suggest it only affect real champions.

ST Bonus
Should only affect real champions, compensate STs summons fairly.

Spells that create champions
Groble Strike Force (too efficient)
Skeezick Revolt (too efficient)
Darkmarsh Swarm (too efficient)
Gathering at Dawn and Summon Ant are bugged and don't display the artwork or stats. This makes the game think it is your opponents turn while it is still your own, rendering you unable to end turn. I haven't tested any others, but those that function the will likely have the same issue.

​

KF

Elven strategist
Too efficient, what's more is the threatrange teleport and relocate foe create when combined with his fragility results in the most dull standoffs this game has ever seen the turn he hits the board. Re-evaluate his upgrade paths and get rid of teleport on him competely. Remember how bad soul siren got at it's peaks? This is worse.

Falconer
Too efficient, too much damage. Hitting for 21+2+1 every other turn from range 6 for 3 AP is not OK for that price, probably not even OK in general. Hawk attack needs to be a +1 AP attack. Remove race: beast

K'thun
He was already one of the best runes in the game, quite likely the most efficient champion and had been so for a while. The combination of nora shield and all of those costless units often resulted in 200+hp 50+dmg on the board board at no cost, or even gain.
It was "addressed" by making him mythical forever ago and everyone just kind of accepted his existence because he wasn't around much. With the revamp he lost this, the grappler got buffed and (I believe) he became more efficient standalone. There's also been consistent support added to the tree theme, making him better still. He's had his day and needs a thorough redesign.

Timber wolves
Just overly and grossly efficient, I don't even know where to begin.

​

ST

Yeti Spirit
Permanent incorporal is far too strong here, please go back to Ethereal here, amp is too powerful here.

Frostfall Icewisp
Overly efficient for it's capablities, amp is too powerful here.

Elven Ancestor
Is reaching obscene numbers for cost very quickly, in FF or otherwise. Please reconsider this design. Failing that hit it with a hefty cost hike​

IS

Dwarven Tinkerer
Hilariously cost efficient, in need of at the very least a 10 nora cost hike.

Clockwork Swarm
I don't even know where to begin. The drawback for numerous is almost irrelevant, any cost decrease here is basically for free with the added benefit of evasive 3. Construct immunities, boostable, can be granted tough, manic, defense etc and creates a copy of itself when it kills a unit. It probably needs to lose numerous, then lose race construct or have swarm as an upgrade. Hands down the king of swarm units by a massive margin.​

Groble Rockeater
Until the costs of vulnerabilities are improved, champions should not be getting access to two, this unit is hilarious. Including physical immunity in a faction with RD and the rest is already questionable.​

SP

Voil guard
Having two next to eachother creates a voil phalanx that is immune to all attacks. They shouldn't be able to guard units with the same ability, furthermore bulwark is probably too strong here. I was frequently hitting 100+hp with 6+ defense.

Bat swarm
Sibling, as well as ruub's crypt feel too strong. Sibling with boost and loyalty get very hilarious very fast. That aside, pulverize doesn't trigger swarm, is this oversight? I know that it shouldn't, but it seems like counter intuitive design.

Moga
They possess too much surge 2 - they're already up there as the most prolific champions, they shouldn't have so much surge 2. 25 dmg moga by turn ~5 is not ok. I personally feel that surge 2 should be reserved strictly for the G'hern.​

SL

Drakewing Swarm
Basically range immune with both evasive and numerous, not sure if this is intended or not, but this could be handled better.​

Things to keep an eye one

Global Damage
It has been consistently problematic throughout PNs history and we just may see it again.

Dark Favor
Seems to be a bit more prolific post revamp, could become a problem

Spark Curse and Pain Curse
Static greeting seems to have become a lot more prolific​

​

TL : DR summons are too good, plsnrf

 

Would be more useful for the devs to have actual suggestions over these problems. Anyway nice summary.

 

Not necessarily, a bad suggestion or one the devs don't agree with can be confused with there not being a problem and nothing being changed

 

I was actually going to write a nearly identical post, but you beat me to it. As far as suggestions go, the following abilities are just flat-out undercosted:

Surge:X
Amplify:X
Boost:X

Amplify, for example, is listed on abyssal fiend as an ability that costs one more than burn1 and two less than burn2. I don't know exactly how much the DoT abilities cost, but I'm guessing it's either straight 3/6/9 or they added 2 nora to it making it 5/8/11 or so. These numbers are uncertain, but you can safely say that amplify costs well under 10n. Considering that there are two amplifying relics (and ice shard was run until it became redundant with the revamp) that cost 40-45n for 25% amp, 10-15 nora would be a reasonable range.

I haven't looked into the cost of surge and boost closely, but the current meta already favours a wall of meat playstyle, and these two abilities just amplify the raw efficiency of cheap champions/summons.

I also agree with the specifics of the list and wish there were more examples to look at, but I've been facing the same two decks over and over again and it's getting boring.

 

After the Q and A with Gedden, I'm 100% sure they won't get confused by bad suggestions since they are focusing on the whole perspective and not personal opinions over things.

That's why I feel that as many opinions over these problems, the better.

 

bamp

 

so you know its Op... but you still exploit the bg fully.

Shows what kind of player you are.

 

so we have a meta already?

 

could be worse, could be in denial about the bugs and broken runes carrying me.

 

A-hole swag

 

Very good constructive post here, I actually read it all and don't disagree with a single thing you've mentioned. I hope these things get addressed within the next few days as I don't really want to play Pox while they are like it.

You could add Starshine to the list (WAI or bugged?)

 

starshine, corpsepult and dwarf driven have been reported

 

I would also add that having less then 6spd grants way to large of a nora reduction. There are absurdly efficient 5spd runes out there and the spd issue isnt as large of a problem anymore.

Edit: and I would like to add that you should not be able to summon a copy of areal champion. All summons should be a special unique type of unit so that you you can balance it better. It follows the same line of thinking as the Cast; X abilities making the real champion less desirable to run.

 

Honestly was expecting a hotfix for a game-breaking bug such as starshine a couple of days after it was discovered (so a few days after the revamp). Even if a hotfix can't come out, the champions running the bugged ability should be removed from the game temporarily until they can come out with a hotfix. This should be standard procedure with game-breaking bugs.

 

and Soul Siren.


hm.

 

....

 

I haven't played a moga deck in like 5 years and could care less how they get nerfed, I'm only bringing up obvious and pressing issues that are relevant to what's ruining the play for everything else. Individual rune adjustments will be coming later once the dust settles

 

Where's FW in that list?

 

I think it's just a lot more difficult to assess FW SL and FS since they're not getting the same exposure the other factions are. Conversely, it is very easy to see what's strong in ST and KF since everybody's playing it.

 

For FW CoS gets too beefy too fast for his cost, and Surge working off illusions in general needs to be prevented IMO. Deception granting a free +3 DMG to multiple champs, along with its already strong uses is in general too much.

Also, I am a little worried about the soul collection + dead eater champs - more so in FW. However, I have yet to experience them as a problem, this is only a forewarning thought.