A Case Against Splits

I fully expect that my dislike of splits is not going to result in any real changes to the game, but I figure that it is worth at least discussing.

So I find split battlegroups to be essentially bad for the game. This is not to say everything they supply to the game is bad, but the net value is such that I think the game would be better without them than it currently is with them. This is my reasoning:

Points against splits

Wrath/Protectorate splits are thematically inconsistent.

The thematic basis for this game essentially has established that the (generally) allied Protectorate forces are fighting against the (generally) allied Wrath forces. All of the game’s lore points in this direction, and we are even geared up to pushing our faction in specific and side in general through Days of War. The thematic zaniness of cross-side splits are even greater for battlegroups built around two factions that are in what are essentially wars of extermination. FS/SP, ST/FW, UD/KF, and IS/SL are the prime offenders here, but Wrath/Protectorate splits in general break this.

Splits Reduce/Eliminate the Point of Playing Full Faction Meta Battlegroups

People have been pushing for themes to be strengthened for quite a while. I was kind of torn on this, because a) I liked the idea of putting together more creative in-faction decks that aren’t theme reliant but b) I did like the idea of people being able to effectively play thematic battlegroups.

In thinking it from this perspective I mostly ignored the fact that anything a FF meta bg could do a Split meta bg could do better. Essentially most meta bgs are either built around either using the most efficient runes available, and taking advantage of their efficiency to enable you to grind out wins, or taking advantage of non-thematic synergy in order to set up your win condition. In both of these cases anything you can build out of a full faction battlegroup you can built more effectively with a split. If you are building with the rune runes, than you are going to have even more efficient runes if you have access to two factions instead of one.

If you are trying to take advantage of non- thematic synergy, then you are going to be more likely to find effective/overpowered ones by looking at combining two factions than by looking at one. This is because of an artifact of the design process (which I will talk about in a bit more detail later) that results in it being more likely that oversights in rune production are going to show themselves in splits then in full faction battle groups.

Now it can be argued that the presence of the banner is enough of an edge to make it so FF meta decks are still viable, but global +1 dmg and +5 hps really can’t compare to the inter-rune synergistic bonuses that you can get from faction mixing or the sheer efficiency or additional options that become available from having twice the total available runes. Before it would be reasonably possible to argue that heroes were a good enough reason to run FF, but they have been nerfed enough that that is not even close to the case anymore.

Split Decks Reduce the Impact of Differences between Factions
I really, really like that the factions are different. They play differently. They look different. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Splits basically laugh at this, by allowing you to overcome any distinctiveness in the faction’s rune line-up by letting you split with whatever other faction reduces your weaknesses.

Split Decks Reduce the Ability to Make Interesting Designs for Full Faction Decks and Tax Developer Resources

There are numerous instances of individual runes being nerfed or having the potential to be nerfed because the particular combinations possible because of the potential of split abuse. The nerfing or pre-nerfing of these runes penalizes the majority of the population (full faction players) because it takes away from the possibility to play with more interesting designs due to how they combine with runes from a different faction.

A speculative example of this is the Draksar Fabricator. He has not been nerfed (yet), but he has been showing up as an enabler in a number of split decks (most notably kokon3’s) that are problematic. This may end up with him being nerfed. This may end up with the runes he interacts with being nerfed. But if he was only showing up in single faction decks, one or more of these problems wouldn’t appear and he would continue to be an interesting design an option for SL decks.

Another speculative example is the Aspect of Violence. He is a strong and interesting rune, but when you combine him with KF’s suite of protective and AP generation spells he becomes oppressive with one sided board wipes that come up as a result. In FF he is a fine and interesting option, but it is when he can is split with other factions that he becomes out of control.

An actual example is the Groble Rock Eater which was nerfed not because of how he interacted with runes from his own faction but how being a rock-eater interacted with equipment from other factions.

This might be less of a big deal if we had a large dev team like something like Magic does, but we have one full time developer and as much as I like how @Sokolov has done (and I really, really do like what he has done), he is still just one developer and even with the council’s help he is not going to be able to account for all of the potential abusive combinations of splits that crop up and thus be able to make designs that work around and account for those possibilities. This leads to some of the nerfing mentioned above but also to some instability as players find abusive splits combos and create an oppressive game environment for a while.

Points in Favor of Keeping Splits

Splits Allow Greater Creativity in Battlegroup Design

This is true, to the extent that by having a greater number of potential runes you are able to build a larger variety of potential decks. However I would argue that for the most part these decks have an overall negative impact (see points two and three above). Also, the same point can be used in favor of making zoo decks legal, but there were reasons that zoo decks were eventually banned, and many of the arguments for doing that apply to eliminating splits.

Splits Have Been Here For a Long Time

This does not work as an argument in favor of keeping overpowered or broken runes and does not work as an argument in favor of keeping splits.

A Portion of the Player Base Would Get Angry and Leave If We Banned Splits

This is probably the strongest argument I can see in favor of keeping them around. We have a small enough player base at this point that banning splits entirely seems counterproductive. This is why even though I absolutely think that splits are fundamentally bad for the game my arguments are ultimately not going to have any effect.

What to Do About Splits

So assuming you accept the concept that splits are a problem, what can be done about them?

Ban Them

This would be my ideal result but I realize that they are just popular enough that this probably would not happen. I am invested in this game and want it to prosper in the long run, which is part of the reason I bothered to write this essay in the first place, so fatally wounding the game like this is probably not a good solution.

Restrict Them

There are two main ways to go about this, either by just making it so protectorate/protectorate splits and wrath/wrath splits are legal. This would handle the thematic inconsistencies of splits and also reduce the strain on dev resources and reduce the impact off nerfing interesting designs.

Reduce the Reason to Play Them

This essentially leaves them as an option, but reduces the reasons to play them such, that FF decks are a lot stronger in comparison to them. The most elegant way I can see them doing this is by taking away from them their ability to take advantage of faction bonuses at all. So faction bonuses are a thing for FF decks, and are not something that split decks can take advantage of this. Additionally, when the split hero reformation occurs, FF decks should gain access to split heroes, but split decks should not gain access to heroes.

Another way to do this is to start pushing runes even harder into themes, and basically make it so there are very few reasons to run runes outside of their themes. I dislike how this impacts factions as a whole however, and while I would support it if it was the only potential solution, I would prefer something else.


So basically this is where I am at. What do you think? Are there any further anti- or pro- split arguments that you have? Do you have any potential solutions to the split problem? I know @kalasle said he had some strong reasons for being against doing anything about splits.

 

Haven't read the whole post yet, but no, what I said was "If this ever picks up steam let me know so I can crush it." Will now read the thing.

 

Same difference.

 

Strong rhetoric, more than strong reasons.

 

If you want people to read a wall of text why would you start with this? Your argument against them I'm assuming is balanced related and you lead with "well this doesn't make sense in a fantasy game". Turtles that walk upright and use pistols don't make sense either so should we make them all 1 speed and melee only? I've never seen a blue elf either so we should probably just scrap jakei as well.

 

Even a fantasy game should be internally consistent. We are presented with specific rules with how the game works both from an internal logic perspective and a mechanical perspective. The internal logic should not be broken any more than the mechanics should.

 

The argument: "protectorate would never ally with wrath" is really weak and should not be used as a base for your case. There is a bunch of cross faction runes already which implies that there are certain allegiances within the game's world (ripdemon, draksar psion, any split theme), besides, the lore is so much in the background of poxnora that I - and I assume many others - really don't care about the background reasons for the fighting.

About differences between factions... I would agree with you a bunch of years ago, but now there is only a handful of factions which seem to contain a clear identity ( UD, FW and to a certain degree IS and KF). The rest of factions is such an amalgamation of random runes that I really couldn't tell which one has a clear defined identity. I understand that ST has frost damage, SP has electricity and SL has acid/fire, but every freaking faction has long range units, regular range units, tanks and beaters. Used to be FS had squishy dudes with lots of healing and mobillity, now they have so many powerful tanks to choose from it's not even funny.

Most of the weaknesses of Full Factions which made them unique do not exist anymore, and the biggest differences are just flavor and details concerning damage types, additional effects on spells etc.

Your last point I agree with. Some split decks get pretty ridiculous.

 

Very good post, I agree my moga brothern splits are bad for the game. My biggest problem with splits is they limit rune design to the extreme because of potential abuse. Example could be the infestor rune with that acid spell, saw someone abuse this in-game and noticed it wouldn't have worked as well in a full faction bg if at all. The end result is the rune was banned from ranked because of a split interaction.

 

Yeah, but a lot of these runes are pretty easily pushed into one faction or another, are split heroes and are thus by nature exceptional, or considered to be borderline cases. I wish there was an easy way to look at how many split runes there really are.

I still feel like FS has a lot less tanky guys than the other factions and is generally not tanky at all. What runes do you think are the current powerful tanks for the faction? We also kind of lost our position as the lots of healing faction...

Beyond that though, I think the individual factions still have pretty strong identities. If you want to discuss this I can go into greater detail. But even if you do not agree with that, would you think for it to be beneficial for factions to be pushed more into having distinct identities than they do now?

Yeah, and that is my biggest and most important point. The others are just things that also bother me about it, and I think add to how much they detract from the game.

 

Certain combinations of runes are unhealthy and unbalanced for the game I.E. (Aspect of Violence + KF spellset). I agree with this idea. It is the developers who are responsible for creating new allegiances between wrath and protectorate by creating split rune heroes like Timothy the Vile FS/FW, Jyx the Shadesworn FS/UD, Hraken the Bloodbow IS/UD, Magnus the Fallen IS/FW, Ash the Bandit KF/UD, Zeventrech the Last ST/SP, Mangleshell FS/SL. As much as you argue against splits its the developers pushed for them and endorsed splits A lot of players fell in love with these split ideas and it has become a mainstay for them. Some splits are unhealthy and some add spice and creativity to the game. My proposal is to ban certain runes from splits that throw fair play and balance out the window and only allow an insignificant chance for counter play. The top offenders that come to mind at the moment are Aspect of Violence and Infestor. I am sure there are many more those are the two I have noticed since their inception. Make these runes only playable in FF bg

 

Off the top of my head darkmarsh enforcer, the 2 psychic dudes with void shield these are probably the better ones, so it's easy to forget that 60+ hippo rider, big crab, firk behemoth, muck dragon and boghopper glutton exist. From what I've noticed ppl usually don't want to run strong tanks anyway because the range + control in FS is just so freaking good, besides there is the bubble to give anyone +35 hp if u rly need to get beefy. Now it sounds like I'm whining, but what I really am trying to say is that there is a selection of good/great tanky units on top of the "faction identity goodstuff". I'm not even mentioning the overwhelming amount of decent to good 50+ hp beaters. And that's pretty much a similar champ selection to IS or SL (apart from that sl cant get 60 hp units because of faction bonus).

No, I think after 30 expansions and over 9 thousand runes there is very little design space to be "discovered" for single runes. Individual runes don't really matter, themes and decks/potential synergies and tricks is what matters now.

edit: I think it's impossible to push factions into having their own identities with this amount of runes, you would end homogenizing too many runes (which we don't want).

 

Your point about thematic consistency:
If you want to use this as an argument, you should also argue for protectorate BGs not being matched against each other (and the same for wrath), and if not that at least not faction mirrors. That said I don't think the thematic inconsistency is really a problem at all. This is still a game and I would say the counter argument to why we should allow splits (despite anti-thematic reasons) is that the increased gameplay value far outweighs the 'enemies are fighting alongside eachother!?' issue.
This also isn't a problem in MTG and hearthstone for example. I don't see how it should be a problem in pox

So next, why play FF bgs?
FF bgs offer FF heros, more focussed bonus (yes I do think this is valuable), better consistency (more on this further down). I think splits are fine as they are, and sacrifices still need to be made in split BGs as long as you cannot split 28-2 for example.

Certain split faction bonuses are bad: FW and KF bonuses don't contribute much to most splits with these factions.

I took a look at some of my FF bgs and which I would be willing to drop 15 runes from to add 15 from another faction and splitting the faction bonuses:
FF UD: no thanks, I'll keep my demons/relocate demon/sacrefice/demonshield that work together consistently. Would I like to play Cleansing storm in my FF UD bg? Sure, but I'm not going to replace 14 other runes for that, then it's an entirely different BG where I would sacrifice a lot of the FF synergy that makes me enjoy playing it.

FF ST yetis: no thanks, I want to run 15-16 yetis, 2x gale 2xhideout 2xCall of the tundra 2xyeti fang. Again if I could split 28-2 I would probably replace my 2 least used runes for something else

FF FW: vengeful and cheap units to take advantage of the FF bonus, or a highlander BG to take advantage of the FF bonus. Don't see myself swapping out 15 runes (with supposedly 'better synergy') while trading half a bonus that the BGs are built around. The runes all have the best synergy with themselves, apart from maybe 6 runes.

I could go on if you want me to give you an example of every faction. There are plenty of BG concepts that are stronger in FF than in split. The extra synergy you get from playing a split needs to match that of an FF bg and you make it sound like splits overpower FF bgs by default.

If a split somehow breaks the game it is dealt with, that is the cost of having a lot of players being abled to more freely express their creativity in BG building. I also don't really like the examples you provided: I have yet to see frabricator played in FF SL. It is a rune that really needs to be built around and is best possible in a split. Aspect of violence is a good example but I would argue that the split reveals a problematic rune more than the split is a problem. I'm not sure on the details of the rockeater nerf so not going to comment on that.

Anyway, taking away that 'what if I combined this, with this? could I flesh this out to a full concept?' feeling is not only a bad idea for the people who currently enjoy playing splits but also for anyone who never knew splits and would discover these cool interactions but not be abled to use them.

 

I would play a heck of a lot more splits if FW wasn't such a garbage faction with which to split outside of using particular utility pieces.

 

Pox could harvest a lot from exploring the "Player's faction identity" and integrating that to the gameplay too. Stuff that was already added to QoL thread

 

@narvoxx The examples you are giving really don't address my points at all. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

There are essentially three types of bg:
1) FF Themes with a lot of theme-based synergy.
2) FF Meta/Junk BGs built around internal synergies that are based on abilities instead of themes.
3) FF Meta/Junk bgs built around individual efficient runes.

Category one is mostly not impacted by this discussion because it would be actively detrimental to split with them unless the theme is specifically built to be a split theme. In that case you are typically penalized by going full faction with that bg because of the greater number of support runes you have access to by splitting. So you are almost never going to see a FF Leoss, Kanen, or Stitched bg. Tortuns are kind of an exception, but even then they are almost always played as splits. Your demon and yeti examples fall in this category.

Category two is impacted by this to a varying degree. Battlegroups with synergy only found in that individual faction are not impacted at all. A lot of the wonky bgs that @kalasle plays really would not work outside of FW, and vengeful and fry bgs really rely on internal structures and synergies and largely aren't going to be any better by branching out. Howevver when you hit something likes @Gutsa's enduring aura/nexus aura battlegroup, the split super-champions battlegroups (like the Aspect of Violence once), or the newly risen split equipment/relic battlegroups then they generally exceed both the power you are going to see from single faction mechanical synergy battlegroups that rely on the same mechanic as well as ones that are built on distinct mechanics found just in that faction. Your vengeful bg falls in this category. And it is definitely in the in-faction mechanical synergy that is overshadowed by external split synergy bgs.

Category three is highly impacted by this, as you can just double the number of really good runes by splitting to two factions.


There are definitely factions (specifically FW and KF) that lose out on the split bonus game, but for every other faction there is little to be lost by splitting. Yes, you use heroes, but what heroes are still regularly used? There are only a handful that are used with any regularity and the ones that are used are (mostly) not so dominating that you lose much by splitting with them.

If you want players to be able to more freely express their creativity do you support the return of zoo decks? How about people being able to build splits out of something else besides there being 15/15 runes? I mean doing both of those would allow people to more effectively express their creativity and make it so they no longer wonder about what might have been.

 

Absolute freedom in construction has no real correlation with how creative a design actually is, leaving aside the nebulous nature of the term; restrictions and open space may both breed creativity.

 

I agree. He was arguing that one reason to keep splits was because they encouraged more creativity than FF decks. I think that FF decks provide enough of a playground on their own except for perhaps players who play dozens of a time a day, but even for them they could just play another faction or two.

 

What would you do about split heroes and split themes like Leoss and Kanen?

 

So this is your problem? that making a bg of individually efficient runes works better in split?

EDIT: this and the 'abuse' which I say is more runes being problematic and are only revealed to be problematic because of splits (rather than splits being the problem)

 

They are themes or heroes that you can choose to run in one faction or the other. ST Leoss would end up looking very different than IS Leoss in all sorts of fun and interesting ways.