Boosts, Commanders and Defenders OH MY!

I thought the various boosts were already pretty balanced.

Commander was global but usually limited to classes. There is 1 commander: elf rune and it is on a pretty mediocre rune.

Battlemaster was more common and affects all in range. Also was the lowest range.

Boost was on a lot of theme support runes, is focussed on specific theme and had medium range.


To stack them all requires a significant investment in runes and nora and placement.

KF elves has basically has 2 playable runes with battlemaster. Dugon and strategist. Dugon isnt an elf but he is still fine. No boost elf rune. Several surge enemy runes but no surge:elf. 1 commander elf rune, no elf with foment.

Seems like a strict nerf to all themes. Just a push to 'good stuff' meta decks for all factions.

 

I'd say Lonx are effective the most because they have access to all these abilities.

 

I could see Defender, Boost and Commander just become 1 ability. "Friendly champions that share a race or class within 5 spaces gain 1 DMG, 1 DEF and 5 HP. This ability does not stack."

 

So you only need one unit to make a theme good?

 

I think the point was to split these bonuses apart. One strictly for each stat type for more control over what theme gets what type of stat boost

 

This idea needs a lot of testing from the top players in the community and not from your staff. Once again give your runes with new abilities to experienced players to test and trust them to give you solid feed back. So pox staff. Make your bg. Trade it with player. Have those players test it.

 

Combining them would pretty much be AOE Commander, except it also gives +1 Defense.
This ability would be given to the "Lord" Rune of the race. (In MTG, a Lord is a rune that gives the race +1/+1)
Examples

Draksar Lord
Lonx Hunt Leader
Hyaenid Pack Leader
Kartch, Finlord
Prince Malandur (Regal Presence is a too OP ability in my opinion.)
Dwarven King
Archer Commander
Most of FW themes wouldn't work well with this I think. So they would require specific boosting abilities for Zombies and Skeletons.

Obviously Not. Every theme have synergies within it. This is just a very generic boost that is easy to remember for new players.

 

Yes, partly.

At the moment there are a lot of boost abilities that do very similar things: battlemaster, boost, regal presence, commander... They all give a mix of HP, def, and dam.

Not only is there a lot of redundancy here, but it means there isn't much of a meaningful difference between them, and so a rune with one ability functions very similarly to a rune with another.

If we give a boost ability to a particular stat, then you have a meaningful choice between offensive or defensive. So within a theme you would need to decide 'I want more damage' or 'I want more hitpoints'.

As you mention, from a design standpoint it is also good because it allows a lot more design space - instead of a theme having one boost type it has three, and you can design a champ with a more specific function.

Importantly, it achieves this while not increasing complexity, and actually reducing the number of abilities.

That's my reasoning anyway.

 

What synergies does ST beast deck have? I thought it was based on having stupid amounts of hp and free mastodons without lumbering?

 

I agree that these changes are beneficial. But first, I was not fostering a complaint, I'm sorry if it sounded as such; I was trying to make a point about design. Second, perhaps you missed the core of my post, or I wasn't clear enough in communicating it: at a fundamental level owing to the very nature of the mechanics involved, defense and buff stacking in general are more unstable and less easily balanced now than at any point previously in Pox history. That abilities such as strike and sunder function to circumvent portions of these mechanics does not alter their fundamental characteristics.

There are two more points you bring up in that first paragraph that I'll address. First, that access to phalanxing by any faction is good, and second, that there should be mechanical counters (such as Strike or Sunder, which I will touch on the problems of as well.)

Valuing phalanx play as a good thing is a personal taste. It may be one widely shared in this community, but there is no inherent good in it. There are a couple other examples of similar design preferences as prevailing opinion in Pox - unmentioned here for brevity, but I'll bring them up if you want. I have no issue with phalanx as a style of play. I find it a little frustrating at times, but it's a different kind of mental puzzle from what Pox often presents, and can be a joy to play with or against. That preference doesn't influence that I believe balancing phalanx style play to be preposterously difficult right now. Because of my limited attachment to phalanxing and a belief that it is at present a balance nightmare, I would be comfortable seeing it go. I hope I've made my feelings clear, but I understand if they are still obtuse. I'll clarify if need be.

You bring up a second point: phalanx style play is fine so long as it has mechanical counters. Their existence - even their prevalence - changes neither the interaction nor scale of the current defense and damage system. Mechanical counters to issues serve more often as a justification for greater instability, rather than a stop gap against imbalance. Their presence or absence from a match becomes more decisive. You bring up as well foundational counters to phalanx-play, namely positioning problems. These are more closely tied to the map pool rather than runes or mechanics, and would, I agree, work as suitable potential counters to phalanxing. I don't think the current map pool facilitates that balance, but that's a separate realm for the devs to handle.

The changes posted in this thread would be a great step towards both cleaner design and - to my eyes - better balance. The core systems involved in Pox make portions of balance difficult, but these changes do an admirable enough job of addressing that.

Edit for reply to other parts of this thread -

@badgerale I think even at 4 spaces +3 defense is too much. It's a strong ability at 2 spaces, and might pass at 3. Obviously this is untested, but 4 still seems too large for that kind of bonus.

Plenty of people have said that the factions have become homogenized, or incredibly similar as they gain runes that fill new roles. I disagree that this removes from faction flavor; it only changes the dynamic. A faction still has a character by the degree and ratio of all design elements mixed together to form that faction. In MtG, Red has ways to gain life and draw cards, Green has kill spells, Blue has direct damage - all the colors have ways to move inside of the bredth of design space open to the game. It's is the nuances of that design that provide flavor. In Pox some factions bleed into each other more than others, but even now, stripped of all color and context, IS does not play like FW does not play like UD does not play like ST. For all their growing access to mechanics, they still maintain a distinct character. Flavor does not mean exclusion. Homogeneity doe not mean inclusion. The incessant panic that underlies parts of just about every discussion on faction identity could stand some attention to detail.

 

Without Boost they are unplayable as a theme, unfortunately. Ever watched a Construct match ? If the Engineer ( Booster) gets killed they lose, every time.

 

what if... the warbanners were how you got your faction bonus? they come bundled with the avatars now, it kinda makes sense. plus since the bonus would be in the form of a rune it becomes balanceable.

 

The point I'm making is that it would seem a lot of constructs were prenerfed in terms of stats with Boost in mind. There are currently around 30-33 constructs in IS right now, do you know how many of those have a base damage of higher than 10 ? 5. Rugolths Revenge, Dragon Engine, Siege Engine,Faultbreaker and Mortar Crew. How many of those are worth running in a Construct BG ? None of them.

The problem with this is that the entire theme hinges around that 1 Boosting champ, which is ridiculous and a huge design flaw in my opinion. So any change to Boost is going to hit constructs a lot harder than lets say Boost: Beast who's champs already have impressive stats without a Booster around.

 

Im all for a change to Boost as its a generic and boring play style , but a lot of constructs would need to be looked at individually if it goes away. Theres already a lot of them which are simply unplayable.

 

I like the simplification. I'd even consider renaming all the abilities. Have them all be Boost: HP, Boost: Range, Boost: Def, Boost: Damage, etc. Boost could apply to all units of the same race. Another set of abilities named Commander: HP, Commander: Def, etc could be used for all units of the same class if a class specific method is desired.

My concern is that with Taint, Necrosis, and possibly more ways than I'm considering, you can add races. In SL alone you can use Taint to give Draksar access to buffs from Improve Range and Damage. Taint can also give other races access to buffs from Sermon and Commander Draksar

 

My concern is that they will all have the same little icons, and i do not like that.