Discussion: Announcement & Preview Expansion 25

- Redfist/Bluefist?

 

Ayla and Thor the Boar?

 

Timmy and Boghopper Zombie?

 

Azaren and Tusk?

 

Guyz, don't rain on their parade. This is a time to be excited about the new cool thing. Focus on the kewl birds.

 

Is it easyer this way? like is lore easyer to blend, is it cheaper get them done, easyer to code being the same image, etc?

 

Do I have to?

 

They ment first time a dual art for runes from different factions. ha!

 

Sok, can you give a ballpark time frame on when it will be released?

 

To be fair, Redfist+ Bluefist art looks cool. I especially like Redfist's pose.

 

- All good, to be honest I think everyone loved the redfist/bluefist made for wallpaper type art style. Hey maybe it saves in art cost too! Do ur thing

 

- Lore teaser? Like is it a Hitchock expansion? Y deez birdz so mad?

 

Redfist+bluefist art is really cool, but.. when it comes to the in-game hero sprite, i hate it. I really hate all the tortun battle mystic-like sprites, they follow a very different pattern than the other runes, please keep the pixelized sprites!

 

redo monolith sprite

 

My thoughts:

(1) There's nothing wrong with releasing an expansion to make money. DOG is entitled to pay their bills.

(2) @Sokolov has made a lot of progress, imo. Sure, we can all think about particular runes or themes we'd like to improve or change, but there was a huge amount of rework/damage control to do after the revamp and fixing that will take time.

(3) It's unrealistic to expect that EVERY rune and/or EVERY theme will be meta-playable. A deck that is artificially restricted to a certain theme will never be as good as a deck that can select from every rune in a faction, and nothing will change that reality.

(4) Focusing on themes is a design mistake. Instead, we should focus on (1) maximizing the diversity among meta runes and meta playstyles and (2) increasing the accessibility of those runes. If met, those goals create meaningful choices when building a deck, introduce uncertainty about what runes or strategies an opposing player might select, and ensure that those choices and strategies are available to newer players.

Themes won't accomplish these goals. Instead, they give players a choice among decks (e.g. moga vs. poison vs. voil, etc.), but each theme bg ends up looking the same (e.g., voil decks almost always have a core set of champions that are consistent between bgs). A better strategy would be to focus on small, 4-6 rune modules that work together (slag overmind w/ cyclonic fesh, moga cannons and sappers, old centaur skirmishers and carn vines, etc.) and then let players build bgs from those modules.

PS: Does the art remind anyone else of Birds of Paradise from MTG?

 

This is a good point regarding themes, I think they have taken away a lot from more inventive deck building.

But ultimately, a lot of people enjoy themes and they shouldn't be abandoned. There is perhaps a compamise to be had here.