I think the pain that people are experiencing with CP is that a level 1 rune costs the same as a level 3 rune, so having an unleveled rune in your deck is always inefficient, and while long time players will have a deck with mostly leveled runes, new players will need to level a full deck, which is very time consuming. I agree with Gedden's point, which I copied from another thread and put in the first comment, that the old system resulted in multiple issues, but one thing that it did right was to make unleveled runes cheaper than fully leveled ones. My suggestion would be to assign a nora cost to every champ at level 1. Each of the 4 upgrades would have a nora cost associated, and when a champ had them applied, the champ would cost that much more. I would make it so that at level 2, the first ability is automatically selected, and the second at level 3. Using Lich King as an example, let's say Teleport 2 is worth 8 nora and Curse is worth 5 nora. A level 1 Lich King would be 87 nora. A level 2 Lich King with Curse would be 92 nora, and a level 2 Lich King with Teleport 2 would be 95 nora. A level 3 Lich King with both would be 100 nora. This would reduce the pain of having unleveled runes, would bring back some of option of running an efficiency or maxxed out champ, without introducing the out of control upgrades that we had before.
Wow, very interesting! I always assumed the old CP system was done away with because of it being impossible to balance an infinite number of runes and people were always coming up with weird killer trick decks. The reasons Gedden listed were definitely big problems, and tough to overcome. It'll be interesting to see his post.
Yeah, not sure if we need a new thread for this, but like I said in the other thread, I do like this. I would go as far as to allow all four upgrades to be selected. To avoid complexity creep, the basic/most efficient form of the champs would have to be fairly straight forward (maybe 1-3 signature abilities and a couple of racials / attributes at most). Then I would give Common runes mainly stat upgrades, and Legendaries fancy abilities (positive or negative) for upgrades, so Legendaries become far more flexible but not necessarily more powerful or efficient. Exotics could sit somewhere in the middle, with more abilities on base and thus less flexibility. As I posted in the other thread: Allow all four upgrades to be selected. Each has a nora cost of course. Basic/common runes mostly get stat upgrades, to keep them simple. Legendaries get fancy abilities as upgrades instead, so they allow you to build (expensive) super champs or customize a champ for your deck, but you can also run them fairly basic. This way Legendaries stand out primarily through their flexibility. In-game, the champion is shown with 1 to 5 stars, depending on how many upgrades are selected. This way you can see on a glance whether a champ is the basic configuration or an expensive one.
- Let's not forget leveling runes is a great way for a new player to get experience with the runes before they get stomped in ranked. Rushing into ranked does not give a good feeling cp'd runes or not. I think you should have to get to a certain player level before you even play a ranked match. - I don't think its a terrible idea to have uncp'd runes cost "-X nora" or something until you get one upgrade. Call it "novice" as a condition on a champion but make sure to prevent over-efficient lvl 1 champ shenanigans etc.
I started a new thread because I realized my post was in a thread focused on limiting the complexity of the game. I like the option of upgrading all 4 abilities, but that would require the champ to have 5 levels, and in my original suggestion, I had required the selection of an ability when leveling, which would result in all level 5 champs being the same. If all 4 abilities were possible, I'd eliminate the requirement to level a champ.
I think that's a must anyway, otherwise you could end up in a situation where leveling your rune actually makes it worse. And if we do stick with CPs (which isn't a must), I also think an important improvement would be to clearly show whenever a champion leveled up in the after screen dialog (and/or how much CP it got in total now). It's super annoying if you have to go and hit the Rune Manager every time to check for progress.
It is more complex than simply giving every champ two abilities automatically. It is a reason to keep CP as a mechanic in the game. It also gives unleveled champs a chance to be effective so that two players with decks constructed with identical champs, one leveled, one unleveled, will have a more even playing field. I'm trying to come up with an idea that allows CP and tokens to remain in the game since that is an additional revenue source for the Owl formerly known as Octopi.
