So...I've been out of the game for a couple years already. I'm not happy about that, Vampyres got nerfed so bad I can't play my unkillable demon vamp combo anymore. But, that's the way of things in virtual games. Somebody discovers a cool/fun/brattwurst, it'll either turn obsolete at the turn of a few expansions, or nerfed beyond recognition on the next batch. It's something that happens. I've yet to read most of the comments, but it feels like most of the complaints heads towards factions with SWIZ-KNIFE CHAMPS. The name itself is reminiscent of ancient, chaotic times where people would go on lenghts crying on how annoying was it to have a rune doing tit-and-tat while the same on your side costed thrice the amount, of half the effectiveness. Or you simply had nothing to compare it with. So, after that lengthy introduction, here's my point: do the developers still consider "faction flavour" a thing? Here's the thing. Every time I see runes from new expansions, I see this particular rune with this set of stats, or abilities, or both, which would work wonders at another faction. Indeed, when you read the faction flavour and bonuses, you're convinced you get a power gap based upon the notion that everybody does things in a different way. I see people still complaints about units covering many roles. Offering benefits not fit for the faction. I mean, if some complain Minotaur Stoker offers "too much cleanse" for a faction not supposed to have a lot of cleanse, then the Faction Flavour is progressively lost in that case. And what if we talk about over-stacking high damage. Or base fire resistance/immunity on other factions. If a faction not supposed to specialize in high damage on melee get this champ which gets super high damage after 1-2 buffs, then naturally comes with attack-related abilities (i.e. multi-attack), that should make him an auto-include in most BGs if you've got other runes which are supposed to make up for the lack of melee in your faction. I believe that in order to create balance, faction flavour automatically offers a handicap all factions must adhere to. By making benefits easily available to some, but difficult to attain for others, those factions are to be forced to rely on their accessible, flavor-related strengths. Or, it'll require Jhonny-class skills to beat the handicap. Well, that's my point of view on the matter. TL;DR: Make faction flavour a thing again. If it's necessary to tweak future releases by creating more powerful cards sticking to their original faction flavour, then so be it. Let old Swiss-cheese rot away.
faction flavor heh....well st has champs with frost if that's good enough for you. to the rest of your points people complain about everything there is no rhyme or reason to why aside from they either got their ass beat by something or watched someone lose and decided to pick something to complain about. 11+ years and no sign of them stopping yet, I'll keep you updated though maybe when 1 person is left he will be happy with how the game is....but i doubt it heh.
I think at this point the game is too big for 'faction flavor'. I do think that there should be some small degree of it but that we have mostly evolved past it. We have things like Tortuns that are half KF but are unable to make use of the faction bonus. Inquisition and Barbarians in general are highly aggressive which is counter to your standard IS flavor of defense. Flavor is important but I believe we are at a point where "theme flavor" is more important than "faction flavor".
