I'd like to know your thoughts on biological warfare. Im sure you've also never played Alpha Centauri. My statement was that 'honor' holds no place at the top. I understand that being in the upper ranks means getting your hands dirty. I dont think that makes me less of a player or naive. I have my principles and id rather not use runes i deem unfair. Its a personal creed of mine. There are even champs in League i refuse to buy because i think they're cheap, easy to snowball and lack skill. Granted honor is often subjective and people have their opinions. Generally domicliff is frowned upon and i think the community overall finds it dishonorable. Again, it doesn't matter because thats the point of being at the top. Its not using the runes you like and perform well with them. The game previously wasn't designed that way. Powercreep made runes CLEARLY better than others so you were forced to play with the newer more overpowered & (efficient) stuff to compete in higher level play. When it comes to the top ranks its a cut off for people who play for fun and those who play to win. Every1 would like to win and some even strive to but they have their boundaries. Some people find winning the only fun required. Fueling their pride and competing at high level play is their fun. So thats when you lose faction loyalist and get into mainly Good Stuff BG's and the hard meta. The point of top rank is to abuse every facet of the game to outplay or gain advantage over your opponent. Id also say that the majority of the top rank are fairly skilled and are some of the best pox players on the game. Top 50-100 id say. The people under that are less definite. There are those that crutch on meta and OP runes so much that if you took it from them their poor level of play would drop them in the ranks severely. Im interested to see where people are after the revamp.
First off, I'd like to say there's a very strict line between reality and a game. I love war games, strategy games and games which forces me to use my mind to outplay my opponent. This was the main reason I loved pox at first glance, a large scale speed chess with a multitude of different moves and repsonses only limited to my immagination. This does not make me a fan of real life war on the other hand, in a game I would use biological warfare, in reality I'd rather take the top brass and throw them in into an arena and have them do the dirty work themselves. I have played alpha centauri, but not that much, as I grew up with Civ2 as my main Civ game, and kept playing it, and still do from time to time. I have not been active in a while, and when I left I'd say the most skillfull players had started to play less/leave, I do not now if it has changed, but the skill you needed to be limited 50 when I left was not even close to what it used to be. This is party thaks to the powercreep and party thanks to a smaller playerbase. I am not for powercreep, but you had "unfair/OP/strong" runes back before that as well, as you said some league heroes you feel is unfair, and League is one of the more balanced games in the top play level. Every patch they have has some small changes to some champions and often those small changes will make a champion see a comeback, even if the changes was small. I am also very interested to see if the revamp will take the rug away from under the feet of several top players now that it will hopefully be harder to play swiz army knife armies than before. But in the end it doens't seem we really disagree on what is required to win, and this is the same in any game. You either use the "OP" strategy, champion, rune or whatever to win, or you have to become so much better than the rest of all the players that you can use whatever you want. and as the best players have proven time and again when they were tired of the whining of those they considered lesser players, they would take up a deck wich would be considered "lesser" or "gimped" and gaina high rank with it. Trying to prove that it's not the OP runes or the Crutch runes that makes a good player win. And to be fair, domi is NOT a crutch rune for FW, that would be mobi, never a deck without two of those. Personally I rate stuff in four levels. Broken Strong(OP) Normal Shoebox Broken runes will require a fast patch as they can basicly only lose to another broken rune or combo (or FW in some cases thx to the LoL and spot removal) They make the most outrage in the community and actually make devs move with speed. The strong runes are what always make ppl come back to the forums and whine after they feel they can't beat it. It's the trump cards of any deck, and will always exist in some degree. The problem is when you can make a whole deck out of only strong runes, which takes less of skill to use and when you combine it with a high cost to obtain also make a lot of noise from the ones not having access to them. (either wrong faction, or to costly) Normal runes are everything used but not percieved by the masses to be strong, these are in most strategy games what wins or lose games. Since they are not shiny usually only the better players will understand this though. For me domination is floating between weak normal, and broken. Beeing able to early in the game cliffdive a 90 nora champ and take a font is silly. On the other hand it's often just left in the rundedock unless you can use it to such extent. I would love to see it changed, but this kind of thread is what I see as an evil in the forums. I much rather read large constructive balance threads where we can sit and discuss (not always civil mind you) what needs to be tweaked, than whine posts about OP runes. I am looking foreward to the latest reamp, and I hope it will make decks consist of some corner strong runes filled up by the normal runes. And if you want to win by using only what you see as normal runes and not using the strong runes then all power to you, but I disliked the way you were saying the top players have no honor, just because they play to win.
I agree it would have uses, but I would have to test and see it if it could get a spot in my fw deck, mainly because the spell slots are already highly contested. And it actually is used by walking into lava on some maps, and ppl hate that as much as they hate the cliff dive tbh. Or poison walking them, which also kills most champs that have saved AP. The main problem is people do not like other people just picking up their strategicly placed champion and killing it, poison, lava or cliff, doesn't really matter. It's a pretty badly made spell from most peoples view, and they'd like it to be removed. I can understand this though, so a chane would have to be on a large enough scale to change how it works and is used.^ Now that I think of it, witches and some other champs, with 2x domi in a deck at 35 nora, might bring more hate around it than already is, now it's a used only when the enemy have misplaced a champ on a certain map. Then it would become, make terrain effect and kill of enemy champ no matter the map, I've seen it when witches was at their most used, and the forums were not pretty.
While that sentiment is understandable, it's also misguided. Biological warfare is strictly forbidden as far as the world community can forbid anything. Breaking that rule is going to have consequences for you. Abusing bugs is frowned upon, like diving to seek a penalty is frowned upon (and will net you a yellow card when caught). But using the rules to its full potential is something else entirely. Not using heroes in LoL, or combos in Pox, because you personally consider them cheap, is only going to make you a bitter person. If there is a real problem, then it needs to be addressed by the governing body (in this case the developers), and by refusing to use them yourself, you are only making it harder for the problem to become apparent. It will also give you a false sense of moral superiority (which will lead you say things like "crutch on meta" and "let's see where people are after the revamp") and downplay other people's achievements, so what you perceive as noble is actually anything but.
I usually agree with Zenity, but not here; games are meant to offer equal chances to equally able players, and if some aspect strays from that using it amounts to breaking the game and making it about your (twisted) enjoyment only, not mutual.
That makes no sense. The game does offer equal chances, it is up to the players to decide what they choose to use. If you think the knight is a cheap piece in chess, and refuse to use it as part of your strategy that doesn't make the one susing it cheap. While pox has nowhere near the pure balance of chess, it's still the same principle, noone is telling you not to mirror your opponent, but finding comboes, themes, decks and tactics that outplay the opponent is a part of this game. It's not ment to be a mirrored matchup, if that was the intent then there would not be several factions, and multiple runes to choose from. Unless you think that one faction is leaps and bounds better than the others, but then it's about the developers having to balance, not about players having to gimp themselves by not using the tools given to them.
That doesn't make sense, both players have the same tactics at their disposal. If you refuse to use certain tactics out of some (misguided) sense of honor, then you are breaking the balance, not the other person. This is akin to complaining when a football team deploys (and wins with) an overly defensive strategy. Whether or not you consider the tactic honourable is of no importance. It is a part of the game, and if using it would make the game uninteresting, then it's up to the rule-makers, not the players, to fix that.
No, it is not the same principle at all. In chess both have the same "battlegroup" by definition, in PoxNora not. If a rune is too good to not use the diversity of the game gets cut down and those not wanting to play it, because it is in the wrong faction or they can't afford it or it doesn't fit their style, don't get what Pox promises: Diversity. The epitome of that would be 16 runes being playable, bringing us back to chess. There's also the argument that a game should be fun, and certain obnoxious tactics, even if potentially balanced, endanger that aswell. But thats another topic.
So playing FS I have access to Domination? No, I do not. Should I start playing FW then? Should we cut down Pox to one "balanced" faction? Maybe to one "balanced" champion while we are at it? Overpoweredness betrays diversity and, if coupled with rarity, creates an elite class defined by ownership, not by skill.
Domination is not hard to get, and it is not owerpowered, it's "cheap" yes, but a rune that can be used in a very limited number of battles and can be countered by the opponent taking into account the fact that the FW player maybe has it in his deck has to have a strong effect for it to be worth running. Saying domination is OP is a bad assessment of the runes power. And my argument was precisly that Pox is NOT chess, and diversity means that you will probably NOT like all the strategies and runes your opponent runs, but saying that he's cheap because he plays the game differently means you only tolerate what you find as fun, and has noting to do with balance.
It was a rhetoric example, Domination is not actually OP enough to suit my argument. I'm not saying that balance would be about liking your enemies tactics either, I am talking about runes increasing the w/l ratio in a manner not responding to the skill of the person using them.
When facing FW keep your champions away from cliffs. There are plenty of runes that are overpowered but they should not be shoe boxed out of the game.
Technically correct, but there are multiple maps on which that is not possible, like SP and elemental plains, because chasms are next to fonts.
Yes, you have the same access as everybody else, which being a trading card game is of course complicated to define. That you play FS is a choice, not a limitation. Optimal strategies (or "overpowerdness") are of course a problem, nobody is arguing against that. But it's not the job of the players to fix that. The only thing players can do is bring those to light and then let the powers that be decide what needs adjustment, so that everyone is on the same page. If we put that responsibility on the shoulders of individual players, we only breed resentment and holier-than-thou attitudes. If you feel that the developers do not do a sufficient job, then an alternative is always to create a new governing body and make your own rules, to be enforced e.g. in custom competitions. But unilaterally refusing to deploy a certain tactic and then deciding that anybody who chooses otherwise is a crook, is anything but honourable.
You either don't understand or ignore my point. It is not about opinions, it is about runes that skew the game away from a game of skill. And as for your "solution" of splitting with FW, I won't bother to answer that of course.
How is he ignoring your point, he is answering it, and even telling you what roles he sees fit for players and developers. It's you who refuse to acknowledge what he's saying by responding with the all time favourite "you don't understand"
I find it hard to explain how he's ignoring my point because it is kind of axiomatic in my view that if I say A and he answers B there is no reasonable correlation. You also seem to have little patience, as you apparently did not read past the first phrase of my post. I never talked about the roles of players and devs because they are entirely irrelevant to my point. The statistics won't care whether it is a dev or a player looking at them ...
If that is addressed to me I generally wouldn't see a reason to respond, but I am confused about the part about splitting. Where is that coming from?
You are saying I had access to domination. How? Playing FS, which is not a limitation but game design, I objectively do not have access to it unless I split with FW, which obviously cannot be a solution. If a game supposed to be complex and diverse would force you to play/split with one faction in order to reasonably reflect your skill in your success it would be a very bad game. Keep in mind that I'm talking about Domi as a placeholder example here, too, it is not strong enough to win uphill games alone unless played in some circumstances ... A more fitting rune would be Fist of Bastion, which probably wins quite some games in undeserved manner.
You chose to play FS... It seems you don't understand what I'm saying, that's okay. This is then the time to agree to disagree. Just to be clear, I don't "like" those tactics either. Fist of Bastion is a bit dubious because it's currently not working as described, but I still wouldn't blame anybody for playing it. Your idea of what is a "deserved" win and what isn't is entirely subjective, and if you let this decide what you play (or even worse, what others are "allowed" to play against you), then you will forever find reasons to be bitter or condescending towards your opponents. You are free to do that, as I am free to not have sympathy for it. And to be even more clear, I don't want to see any "gentlemen's agreement" to not cliff with domination, I want to see suicide cliffing removed from the game, period. It doesn't matter that it hasn't changed in all these years. This is a new era, and with so many things changing, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch to assume that the developers might reconsider this mechanic as well.
