I agree with the Greens on this still. I don't see a difference between stealth and any other mechanic in the game. Everyone places several alt damage champs in their deck right? The argument should then be made, that you do not like resistance or immunity physical because it forces you to add a counter to it. No one says this because it is just accepted. Because creatures do damage? Should you feel screwed over because you are forced to put in healing champs/spells? Because there are negative effects, you are forced to put in cleansing of some sort right? This is just a fact of war. You need to have diverse units and anticipate what the enemy may bring to the battle. If you are very one sided and don't want to "waste" slots on a counter to a popular mechanic, then the fool is you.
This is a game, not war. War isn't balanced, a game should be. I like you a lot, but that comparison is stupid.
Sometimes you have to prioterice in a game. Do you want a bg full of meta best runes or do you want to include a counter or two that might not be quite up there, but can help you in certain sitautions. If you chose to build your bg with flaws, dont get mad at people who expose and capitalise on them.
I respectfully disagree. It's a game designed around battle - I don't see why my comparison is invalid. The same basic principles apply. If you choose to not bring any anti-tank infantry to the field, then you shouldn't be surprised when you get rolled over by a tank. Like Banshee says above, If there was no "need" for special counter units, then we'd see a very dull game of meta runes skipping around the board vomiting OP rainbows at us and blowing up our shrines. The "need" for diversity is a very healthy thing for this game. Also, rainbows remind me of unicorns. Unicorns are mythical. And so is balance. The only way to get balance is to remove all abilities and set everyone's stats to one.
You souldn't have to run abilities 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order to be able to be competitive. That is, for all I know, bad design. Various BG's shoudl be able to accomplish victory by various means, not be shoehorned into a "run every counter or die" situation. To stick to your tank comparison, someone who has a tank can be opposed by RPG's, Satchel Charges, PAK's, other tanks ... While a stealth BG will only be countered effectively by detection and unobstructed view. This is like having a tank invulnerable to everything aside of a certain kind of weapon, and some enemies having a nuke for every tank in the case of UV.
I wonder how many people open a pack or box with the thought "oh I hope I don't get a rune that is too powerful'. Even if the factions were identical, there would be imbalance caused by the RNG of opening packs. I'm all for Pox being a balanced strategy game, I just find it funny seeing people who are for this while at the same time treating the current business model as untouchable. /shrug
You dont have to run every counter to be competetive, but you exclue them at your own peril. If you build a bg that can win against a majority of themes without having the counters, you should not cry about losing when you face one of the themes that you do not have the counter for in your bg. You CHOSE to not include some counters, and you do so at your own peril. If you build a bg to maximise Poison damage and attacks you will very often have easy fights, but if you go up against Undead you will struggle and if its Constructs you will lose. It´s called balance.
Basically you're saying if I'm playing Paper Rock Scissors Lizard Spock, and I only use Rock, Scissors, Lizard, and Spock, I should expect to have a hard time beating Lizard and Scissors.
Thats not really balance, thats Rock-Paper-Scissors bullshit and as fun as hammering needles under your nails.
Well I think you are being too narrowly focused. Lets think of some creative ways to detect, without having detection: 1. Anticipate your opponent and count squares. 2. Keep an eye on fonts and see which ones are taken. 3. Spam an area with AOE 4. Set up hidden traps of your own to destealth 5. Set up relics/champs which cause damage to those nearby - will destealth or protect key areas 6. Run larger based champs. They can cover more area when trying to destealth by running into a champ. Especially when trying to destealth a champ around a font. 7. Ignore the champ and go on the offense - make the stealth player backpeddle to protect himself. I'm not saying these are easiest or most effective methods - nor am I claiming that I am excellent at them. But never-the-less you've completely disregarded these strategies. And the fact that stealth makes you THINK of these strategies, is reason enough to embrace it.
If you do not like the mechanic and premesis of the game, that has been like this since release, perhasp chess or something else is more to your liking. You dont like randomness of packs and now you want all bgs to automaticly have all counters build in or some mechanis not to exist at all. The more you post, the more it sounds like Pox Nora is not a game or you.
@Chemical22 I would like to point out that all of those strategies are either extremely inefficient or extremely ineffective. That's what stealth does, it causes you to waste and delay, which is fine, I just personally don't think it should do those things as well as it does.
More or less, with the exception that in Pox Nora you can actually win without having the counters. Its just harder then if you include them.
That's why I used Paper Rock Scissors Lizard Spock, since there are multiple ways to beat them, it is tougher, but not impossible.
"If you no liek it here you can git out!" Eh, no. Thats hick talk. As for Chemical, yes, those ways exist, but they are hardly enough against a full stealth deck. Not that I'd have a lot of problems with them because the theme isn't too deadly atm; a better comparison would be Zeventrech decks or Attrition decks or last stand decks or Solitary Garu decks which are almost impossible to win against without specific and sometimes obscure counters.
I agree fully with this. I'm interested in seeing what devs do with stealth. There is always room for improvement on anything. I just want to defend it, because I feel the mechanic really enriches the game at its root level.
Boozha is right. We are totally unprepared for war. I demand a modern military before we declare war (or invoke war power acts, even). And I mean everything and not just grunts. I want Military Police, Chemical, Signal, Transportation, Logistics, Intelligence, Medical, Recruiting, Training, etc. I'd hate to think we were giving the youth of today a false sense of what war is like. I want to see at least 12 support units for every guy who swings a stick in anger. I have come to the conclusion that a game doesn't need to be balanced but it does need to be fun for more than just a few. "Balance" issues often revolve around not "making things even" but making them more interesting to a select mindset that currently feels underserved. Personally, I like stealth a lot and love when it is in the game as a tactically powerful and prevalent component. It's should be an "upset your (too) carefully crafted plans" or "make you worry about the unknown" quantity rather than an "I am the Spanish Inquisition and now you get to die" element in terms of power. Finding that balance has always been elusive as game and probably narrowed with uber champage. Stealth is also an element that really just pisses some people off; they absolutely hate playing against it and would happily kill it if they could. I can remember when people complained about "where da bear" BGs that sucked but were fun to drop a pissed off garu in someone's plodding phalanx. My guess is the balance is fewer stealth champs that have the ability to stay alive (think mobility and easy restealth) with annoying features ("tag, you're it" features like ensnare) rather than one-mechanism game changers (like assassinate). When you see the stealth in better player BGs, it is almost always due to the latter rather than the former.
