Does anyone find the Kas and Ferren thematic abilities effect structure (each successive attack doing something else based on conditions which can be placed by other sources as well) highly confusing and difficult to keep track of. Especially Kas since there's actually 3 different abilities.
- As well as where savage is proc'ing "from to where" is not easily understood. A simple visual on dying barb (twinkle) and on barb gaining ability (fire) would do loads. As it is now your just a slave to the burden of knowledge.
Actually, I tried to play ferren for some matches, and found the chain condition is easy to understand, but the application in game is very, very complicate. I mean, each attack have to be planned to the chain actually matters (one or two hits are not going to made a big difference), but it doesn't go overboard either. On itself I do not think is bad, is just difficult to properly play. If I have to pick and name a theme as "advanced players only", certainly it would be ferren.
The effect of Ferren Focus isn't too complicated, but I admit the description is a bit messy. If anyone wants to try and re-write it in a way consistent with existing conventions while being more readable, go ahead and DoG will probably update it, but I found it pretty difficult to write myself
This is the problem with any argument suggesting that a theme needs to be played by advanced players: this is a strategy game. this is not Call of Duty. It doesn't matter in COD if the opponents decides to do a 360 quick scope bxr or whatever else they do before they shoot you--your interaction with them is constrained to them as an object. In a strategy game you need to be able to understand and predict what will happen. Hypercomplexity is something you can use to outplay your opponent. I think we need to be careful about advantages due to: 1. Arcane and unintuitive programming--talking about knockback and many things relating to LoL 2. Complex and hard to predict/track abilities--barbs and ferren are fantastic examples Better it be due to questions of whether I need to send outriders to contest a font or focus on the main front and other type questions, rather than spend huge amounts of energy just trying to understand how the runes work...
I agree with you in principle, but I don't believe FF is a good example. The reason is that the problem here is largely feedback and the convention of using very detailed descriptions. The mechanic itself is a simple A to B to C escalation based relationship. It's no more complicated than Sunder.
Additionally, what you are talking about here is the strategic nature of the game, while the decisions surrounding Ferren Focus are more on the tactical level. I will agree though that if you can't figure out how something works, it's an issue.
I have never bothered to memorise the order of effects from FF, or to understand the barb abilities in more then a vague sense. I'm not saying they are to complicated in isolation, and i'm sure someone who plays the decks picks it up pretty quickly, but if I meet a Ferran deck maybe 1 in 50 games or less it just doesn't seem worth working out. I think part of the problem is that it is a boring thing to think about in a game where there is plenty of interesting stuff going on.
