I am either blind, or it doesn't exist, but I failed to track down a very specific kind of topic when I decided to try and give PoxNora a somewhat more earnest go. Where is the comprehensive global list of Factions and Themes of each, that is comprehensive in the context of having some blurb of -all- Themes but not in the sense of the Themes themselves being comprehensively explained? That is, instead of a full breakdown of each runes that might fit in one(1) specific Theme and detailing into miniscule detail how it is to be played to guarantee a competitive victory, it simply offers a brief summary and maybe some pointers as to what the overall Theme have to offer, and what kind of playstyles it might fit for? Me being myself and I having little practical knowledge of PoxNora would've been more than satisfied enough with having a brief blurb detailing that Ironfist Stronghold is a faction with Dwarves and Constructs, and perhaps what some key-runes thereof are if I wanted to make a 'Tinkerer/Constructs' Themed deck. Of course, me being a player with a very small to non-existant runebook to draw upon to make a deck, I would care more about what I could build together cheaply just to get such a Themed deck playable to start with. Not in a competitive sense, but just that it would be playable for Campaigns and Skirmishes while having a coherent Theme to it. I need to cut down the amount of text I type, gotta keep it simple, which is the point I am trying to make I guess. I am probably going to make multiple threads in pursuit of this endeavor, so for now I'm going to start with the 'format' of providing Theme Summaries, and later a second thread for actually gathering such summaries. Hastily slapping something together, I created what is found below here: ~NAME OF THEME~ Faction: Racial/Class Themes: Summary of Theme: Spoiler: Rankings of Theme Overall Playstyle: Budget Playability: X/10 Offense X/10 | Defense X/10 Control X/10 | Support X/10 Mobility X/10 | Stealth X/10 Notable Champions: Notable Spells: Notable Relics: Notable Equipment: Notable Synergies: What some of those things to fill out means? Well, should be simple enough. 'Budget Playability' refers to if the theme can be put together using mostly Common/Uncommon Runes and maybe a scant few Rares. If the Theme can reach a playable state, and just playable and not necessarily competitively playable, using only cheaply attainable runes this ranking will be high. The more Rare+ runes the Theme needs to be stuffed with in order to be playable at even a base level the lower this ranking would be. For someone like me, a player with very little runes that find himself mostly stuck with using public decks or whatever random Bane Shift I can manage to scrape together just to do the daily grind, the budget ranking of a Theme would be very important to me. 'Offense' ranking is about how much of a focus the them have overall in regards to dealing damage. 'Defense' is how much HP/Def and other survivability traits the theme is filled with where it counts(IE frontline). 'Control' is a slapdash of Crowd Control and Debuffs such as Sunder/Soften, Blind, Root, Stun, and the like and how much of it the theme overall have at its disposal. 'Support' being the opposite of Control, being both Healing and Buffing through Battlemaster, Defender, and the like. 'Mobility' is how easy it is for the Theme to move around, be it generally high-speed champs or traits such as Flying VS traits such as Lumbering. And 'Stealth' is, well, Stealth. Some players probably care an awful lot about that kind of stuff. There are probably more or less of these kind of 'Theme Rankings' the final format could use, as long as it is easy to figure out and understand and gets the point across to potentially new players. 'Notable X' is simple too; what kind of Runes are what provides the groundwork for the Theme to work? What runes are the glue that makes the rest of it stick together? Preferably most of these should be found at the Common/Uncommon level, but a scant few Rare ones might be acceptable too. As the guy that is continuously failing at killing Magic: The Gathering is so fond of to repeat, last I checked; "If the Theme isn't found in your Commons, it isn't your Theme.". But given how PoxNora have more rarities than MtG, I guess it is Commons/Uncommons here. Again, do not think of it in a competitive/meta sense when reading this drivel, but simply how to make a cheap and playable theme for new players to first start working towards to get a deck that is 'their own' to play with and grow over time, as they start getting more gold and shards to eventually claw their way towards the more expensive Exotic/Legendary theme cards. And as an example of writing it out, and watch me get everything incorrect and slapdashed: ~IRONFIST GOLEMS~ Faction: Ironfist Stronghold Racial/Class Themes: Constructs & Tinkerers Summary of Theme: Dwarven Tinkerers and their Golem-like creations working together to outbuild and outlast their opponents. Somethingsomething Tinkerers provide support in the form of healing(through Mason) and improvements(through 'Build 'em Tough' and 'Superior Tinkering') for the Constructs. somethingsomething HECK YEAH GOLEMS AND ARTIFICE! Spoiler: Rankings of Theme Overall Playstyle: Confused Metal-Turtle Budget Playability: 7/10 Offense 4/10 | Defense 7/10 Control 2/10 | Support 7/10 Mobility 3/10 | Stealth 0/10 Notable Champions: Dwarven Tinkerer, Silverclan Tinkerer, Animated Armor, Dwarven Mogaslicer Notable Spells: Repair, Melt Down, Groble Bombardment Notable Relics: Mystic Forge Notable Equipment: Full Plate Armor Again, what I could use for this is other people to provide feedback on the FORMAT, the stuff that will later be filled with edumacational and informative writings to educate fresh meat with. I am only human, so there might be ways to simplify this or just make it more readable. Once I, and you others, feel the format of it is in a workable state I will be making a second thread where you Veterans can provide Themes for new players to look for as their first goals to work towards in PoxNora. And after that second thread I guess someone might be able to take all of that work, and if it is found worthy, slap it up and sticky it somewhere for everyone to point greenhorns towards when they inevitably ask "So what X faction have which Y races and how do they play like?" I KNOW I COULD'VE USED A LIST LIKE THIS WHEN I DECIDED TO TRY GETTING INTO THIS GAME. tl;dr 404: tl;dr not found
I'm pretty sure there are a couple, but: There's just so much useful information that it's impossible to sticky everything that deserves to be stickied; They're probably outdated, even if a little bit. I remember someone asking me about these things this year, was it you @IMAGIRL ?
This kind of exists, but split up into multiple threads. There's kalasle's meta presence thread to kind of help judge strength, but otherwise you kind of gotta dig in the various faction forums for theme overviews.
Something like this would be very helpful for newcomers i think. We could just direct them to a stickied thread. Something that is short and sweet but has enough detail that new players can look over each faction and get a rough idea of each faction and theme without spending too much time having to A. look for stuff first B. read lots of information. Keep it simple enough that it doesnt need updating too much. There are quite a few themes altogether so keeping it simple is a good idea i think, should also help with updating. No point including meta/mix/good stuff decks really as they constantly change. Just include a few of the main themes and mention that there are other themes not included. SL's could be Draksar, Skeezick, Dragons, Beasts and Myx. FS could be Boghopper, Firk, Snaptooth, Mirefolk and Jellebrium. FW could be Skeletons, Zombies, Witches, Sprits and Liches. Etc. @kalasle I think this would be helpful, something thats both simple and to the point but informative enough to allow newcomers to decide what faction/theme they wish to pursue. Something to build there interest and give them some exposure to each faction. Id like to do something like this, i got plenty of time to type but i just dont have the game knowledge myself.
I figured that the more detailed Theme overviews that exist, have been made to be more in-depth and 'current'; detailing strategies and strengths that come and go with balance changes. As Anima mentioned, I was thinking of having these overviews be more simplistic as to minimize the impact tweaks to the game might have in regards to the information written. Competitive viability change over time, a simple summary rarely should unless a huge sweeping overhaul is made. That and given how I am hoping for smaller summaries of the various Themes, more of them could be crammed into one thread; providing a centralized location to chuck newcomers at for this kind of information. That, and having it be easy to ready might make it more digestible for a greenhorn as well. Regardless of all that though, should I take the lack of response and feedback in regards to the 'Format' I presented, as it being adequate enough to work with for this endeavor? Would any of you mind giving it a test run in this thread, just to see if it provides enough space for the necessary information to get the idea of a Theme in writing? Once the format's been found decent enough, I'll be moving on to making a second thread specificly for Veterans to start churning out small blurbs about various Themes.
I'm sure someone has done that, but as far as that experience goes it's really hard to define a theme in one short sentence. Not saying it's shouldn't be done though, it'd be useful nonetheless.
I've made several attempts at this before, but it usually resulted me burning myself out over the project, and it going stale.
Here's something I slapped together almost two years ago. At a glance, the SL faction bonus it outdated, but the rest of the information should still be relevant.
That's awesome, but then you're missing all the non-racial themes and also a few that didn't exist back then. Of course this perfectly serves its purpose as a general overview so I'm far from complaining, specially given if you want to showcase a faction's identity, races are where it's at.
Arright, this is good, gives me an idea for a change to the format I had presented to make it a bit less convoluted I think. As for the post itself, I like the use of 'Keywords' detailing the overall playstyle of the factions, and a list of what racial themes found therein, and if I had less of a clue than I currently have it would certainly give me some direction as to what faction might lean into my playstyle. Personally I'd prefer to have small summaries of individual racial themes within factions, but that list would be a decent start. I'm probably still going to try and flail around a bit with this thread though. Unfortunately, I am woefully incapable of doing theme summaries on my own and would almost entirely rely on the goodwill of veterans to actually fill out the format/sheet that might result from this thread. But hey, thats the burden of every ideas guy out there, right? Having read that list and gone over my original format, I figured I could axe the various 1-10 rankings and just have 'Theme Keywords' instead. I figure most people that have played games the past few years would at least roughly know what terms like 'Aggro', 'Rush', and 'Control' implies. That, and there could just be a 'legend' at the start of it briefly detailing the meaning of those words. Revised sheet: ~NAME OF THEME~ Faction: Racial/Class Themes: Theme Keywords: Summary of Theme: Spoiler: Rankings of Theme Budget Playability: X/10 Notable Champions: Notable Spells: Notable Relics: Notable Equipment: Notable Synergies: Though now I could use some help not just in regards to the format, but also a slew of suggested 'Keywords', and preferably the meaning thereof, to use for it. Some proposed terms: Control: The Theme have a significant amount of effects to either restrict or weaken the opponent with. Includes effects such as Root, Stun, Paralyze, Stat Reduction, Anti-Healing, Blindness, Counterspells, and similiar status ailments or effects. Support: The Theme have a significant amount of effects to buff or heal your own or allied side. Includes effects such as Healing, Stat Increases, Ailment Cleansing, Cost Reduction, and similiar effects. Sturdy/Tough: The Theme has a significant amount of Champions built to outlast the enemy, be it through high HP/DEF or abundant means of regaining health through healing or regeneration. Offensive/Aggressive: The Theme has a significant amount of Champions built to deal a lot of damage, be it through high DMG/SPD or abundant means of enhancing their attacks, such as Multi-Attack to more easily perform more attacks in a round or Pummel that allows a unit to hit twice in one move. These are just some slapped together Keywords to try and get the ball rolling. They could probably use more elegant and concise wording though. I am not good at either of those things. Anyone have any thoughts on this change to the proposed format, or if it should be reverted, or altered some other way? Regardless, I am probably going to keep trying to make this a thing until it is loudly spelled out for me that I'd have to do it on my own, where it would fall apart due to my lack of PoxNora know-how. But by all means, enjoy the circus until then.
Some other keywords could be Summons (easy access to summons, think dragons, skeletons, beasts), Attrition (slow painful death, basically FW), Poke? (lots of range and mobility). The best themes will have all the key words haha.
