Patch Preview: On death Summon Abilities

I wanted to say bat still is the strongest but it'd just feel wrong after all these nerfs, so I won't say it.

It is though.

 

Not to mention it can get more race based stats buffs then others.

 

^Not true. Grave Warrior can get boost, defender, commander, banner, and permanent buffs from bone mine (OP) and altar of bones.

 

Well, R.I.P lich magistrate i guess

Speaking of, lich magistrate getting his abilities redone? the whole reason he had consume was to heal himself if he took too much damage from restless souls, and i assume he's losing surge spirit as well soooo, Eternal Life (please) and something to interact with his summons (yes i know consume would work but i meant offensively) can he have ravish? also can ravish cooldown go to 3. (it's stat bonuses are already so damn miniscule they shouldnt have to take that long to get stacked too.

 

Sorry, sok, but you are continuing to nail the pox coffin with all that "let's restrict everything that has a slightest potential to be cool".
Ffs diversity was the main thing that had this game running, now it's reduced to basic attacks and meaningless abilities, with no comebacks, no unique outcomes, and essentially no reason to recommend pox over a regular move-and-attack games, cause ap system and 5 skills instead of 1.5 don't change anything if those skills have little to no impact on the play comparing to stats and cost.

 

I think the ability to get large numbers, or to snowball, is often part of the fun in these abilities. It is fun to aim for that crazy good outcome. So i'm always a bit concerned about capping maximum numbers.

On the other hand, there is a legitimate balance issue here, and these guys are popping out summons for very little effort. So I think the proposed nerf is reasonable.

An alternative, which i'm sure you've considered, would be a range reduction on the ability. Either down to 3 in which case you would need to keep potentially dying champs pretty close (buffing the melee 'restorers' relative to the ranged ones) or maybe just down to four (which i realise is a weird number in the new 5 or 3 system).

I think you've done a great job with this, goblins especially are probably the most interesting theme in the game for me.

 

Uncapped abilities used to be game-deciding far mor often than capped ones. It was fun when one of your games ended with instigator apocalypse, another - with sarinda eradicating everything, or 7trux ascending, or snowballing champ / multiboost getting out of control - so lots of games ended differently, there was more space for creativity, and all kinds of comebacks were possible. Now same things mostly contribute towards general stat/nora/positioning efficiency, and first mistake/bad draw more often means gg.
It was perfectly normal when it was your choice to go for low risk-low reward general efficiency or aim for a specific high risk-high reward strategy - so the right thing had to be adding such options to themes which were lacking them.

 

Not sure about the different ranges - why not all 4? Otherwise welcome.

 

Spea

theyre all 5?

 

Unfortunately Pox now has a new crowd to catter to, and they are all very demanding, dont really like strategy or "complicated" stuff.
I think we, as veterans, have 2 choices: 1) accept that this new Pox is a worse version of what it once was, and play the game regardless; 2) GTFO.
Truly sad, I had high hopes of one day returning.

 

I believe that two things you want pox to do are at war. You've said you want to see 1000 players again. You also want complexity. Unfortunately the complexity keeps some new players from sticking around. I don't like the reduction in complexity, but if it helps retain more players from the PS4 launch, then I will accept it as a necessary evil.

 

Complexity has already been significantly decreased since the revamp. Where are those mythical new players which should enjoy it? Quite opposite - pox after revamp never had more players than while it had been in pre-transfer torpor for a year without any updates.

 

I agree, it is less complex. There also hasn't been a significant push to attract new players since the revamp. I don't know if Sok has any data showing user retention length pre and post revamp, but I suspect that users discovering pox post revamp either had a higher percentage of retention or a longer term of retention, if not both.

 

It's a matter of momentum. Every one of the revamps took a chunk out of the playerbase just as a result of the dead time. Lapsed players that were turned off by the SOE era is not a myth though, if you look at this reddit post that was mentioned here a long time ago you will find comments from former players who left because of the increasing complexity. In that thread you will find people who decided to get back in, but there is a much larger unspoken majority that simply never bothered to come back because they would have no reason to assume that the game somehow got better.

The SOE era was fun but it wasn't sustainable and a lot of that fun came at the cost of endless cheese. Having to deal with Spirit of the Mountain is nothing compared to duskdevil + temple of brutality, zeventrek superchamp decks, kthun/furball mother summonspam, hurler chasms, release imp deceiver, AP lock, and decks filled with rush tanks that each needed specialized and conflicting responses to kill.

 

Well, I personally always loved the challenge, and I'm sure people who played around the same time as me also did.
Knowing that you would face all those things helped increase deck building skills, and actually fighting them required a lot of strategy involved, not to mention community interaction to find ways and solve the problems presented.

Edit: heck, I played ST, the one faction without spot removal (no, Gale isnt one), and yet managed to win against super champs bgs more than loose against them.

 

Why am I so bad at reading? Second time in a few days I fail hard at it.