- For bonecrusher example, Is it possible to upgrade siege and execute or I must upgrade one from each group of two?
The more I read the about the sneak peaks and the design theory the more I am unsure if upgrades should stay. If role choice and limiting abilities is a steadfast choice then upgrades seem to get in the way of that. A split job system like the one upgrades is trying to push doesn't work for a strategy TCG because of the sheer number of runes and pace of game play. Role playing games have a path/tree system because your mostly looking at 5-10 core classes/races with certain subsets. The tree system works their because there are so few classes trying to fulfill each fantasy. MOBAs are like rpgs on crack and again their class/race system is not as robust as a TCG. Also MOBAs are held in static battle grounds. The need to freshen the meta as well as fulfill far more fantasies than they can make champion/heroes/shapers or whatever MOBA your playing is alleviated with the different paths to build a champion over and over. In Pox you have so many variations of classes, and then those have even more variations with races you have. The fantasy of that class and race is usually filled in an entire module at a time. With pox if you want ninjas your in luck because your going to get every ninja fantasy from that module. It's not going to be 2 ninjas that need to fulfill 20 different jobs because there just aren't enough ninjas. A system that works small scale gives more variation to something with only 100 or so units vs something that has 1000+ which can make a balance nightmare. Pox doesn't need anymore variation. Its runes that are designed and fulfill what they say they do. Bonecrusher was a great example posted. His original purpose in the FW startup was to give FW some final pushing power to end an enemy's shrine. Nothing else. You make your way up to the opponents closest font after 30 mins of attrition, you deploy the shrine killer, keep him safe, and close out the game. Very specialized and did exactly what he was supposed to do. There's nothing wrong with that. Single minded runes with over 1000 choices to pick from. Seems to me that's easier to enforce roles, racial synergy, and faction differentiation among runes. Then when you separate them by race you can simply fill their roles with undead tank, beater, shrine killer etc. Instead of he's a beater or a shrine rush. This rune is a magic tank or stealth assassin etc. Rune make up could go Attack Condition ability Synergy race/class ability Role ability Role support ability Bonecrusher was a good example again because his kit pretty much showed what he did. He had a stun as melee support so he could get away and siege because he's built for killing shrines not champions. Condition/synergy wouldn't have to be guaranteed and you can still stay within the 4-5 range.
Are you talking about how you think things should be? Because that's not how things are currently, not even close.
Yeah, I said that higher rarities should have more options to change his upgrade abilities than lower rarities and markoth said that he didn't want to rarity to equal power and I told him what you quoted
The deck that is nora cost effecient wise will be the most powerful battle groups, regardless of strategy.
how do you know? for his cost, he is quite decent, and most of the Meta runes are gonna get nerfed too, so, who knows
Apparently you weren't around when things like: BBND, sac/LK, RMH, SL/KF singer-druid, Milandas 100 nora imps and K'lzik with leash, FW attrition, heck even DK + crossbow, were the top bg's. All of those battlegroups required a certain strategy to be executed and none of them were particularly nora efficient from the get go. The idea of running most efficient bg possible started with kthx temple-tad (that one also used a certain strategy) followed by people playing SL (molecl, revenancer, dmaximog) varu howlers and dragon handlers, which were also built for a certain type of strategy - running cheap stuff followed by DB and Quickening. Nora is a resource, usually the winner manages to use it in the most efficient way possible, that's the whole point of this game.
The reason why I brought it up is simple: people seems to be focusing on the wrong things here. This revamp is suppose to achieve few things in my eyes. First is a simple, straightforward decrease of abilities on champions. It doesn't matter what abilities, race, cost or whatever the previewed runes have. Each of them can have only 5 abilities and that's including an attack. It doesn't matter how many upgrades you tackle on champion, it will end up having only 5 abilities when it comes down on the board, no more, no less. The new system is quite simple and follows a very good formula that's present in lots of a tabletop miniature games - you want a unit to be different/better (worse in some cases) you have to pay for it. That's something previous revamp failed at. Giving people pre-fixed nora cost with an obligatory, illusionary 'choice' of upgrades was dumb idea. Who the hell wouldn't upgrade runes to level 3, it doesn't cost anything to do so! Previous revamp also pushed the powercreep significantly simply because the costing formula for abilities and champions alike was dumped into oblivion. Some people might say it was easier to balance things but that's a straight up misinformation. We never get to see the 'costing formula' dev's were suppose to use to balance things. If it ever existed it failed big time. I really don't have to bring examples of it, 70-80 nora champions with 12 abilities speak for themselves. I still have my worries about the cost of abilities. It was an issue back in the days (for example stun was significantly more expensive than set aflame). Back in 2008 we knew what the cost of each ability was though, I really miss that and I hope it will come back with this revamp. The costing formula for abilities (and champions) needs to be clear to everybody. A tab on the homepage with a list of all abilities with their respective cost would go a long way. Instead of wondering how to explain abilities in game just give people information on your homepage, clear and plain information people can read without the time pressure. The second thing that this revamp I hope will achieve is - bring back the strategic and creative aspect of the game. The release of tortuns, leoss, stitched and kanen took a big smelly dump on creative deck building. The dev's gave people battlegroup templates. Instead of opening a box of legos with a multiple choices of how to use it (with the intention to push the creativity), we were given DUPLO, a bunch of ready to go red blocks of boring. The further push to increase the 'synergy' between races, classes, 'themes' (oh how I hate this expression...), was nothing but a 'screw you' to the creative side of pox. Take a look at ferren, bok, zombies, vashal, yetis, Bane Shift even semi-aquatics, all of those 'themes' became nothing but a bunch of DUPLO sets, ready to go straight from the box. No need to think, no need to ponder or calculate. Open, click upgrade, click play, done. I want to be challenged, I want it to be complicated, I want to outsmart my opponent not only in the game but also on the level of deck building. I hate it when people whine and complain about ap lock, life siphon death benefit stuff, I like it. It shows the creativity on the deck building level. I don't want an obvious interaction, I want to search for it, I want to be able to do things the dev's didn't thought of when they designed the runes. I actually miss stuff like BBND, cursed temple + possess sac and banish, UD/ST phoenix sac, necromoga, RMH, shrine rush bg's, and many other funny stuff. Those things were creative, they were the strategy battlegroups, you were required to actually think how to outplay your opponent (pull of your intended plan), instead of how to overwhelm her/him with your 75 nora 'do it all units' and 20 nora + 10 damage spells. Another thing is just a slight 'wish and hope' that's also a bit selfish. That has to do with the rune designs, the old ones and the new ones. I loved the idea of the old diplomats. The lore behind them was brilliant. Traveling diplomats that learned something unique from their adventures in foreign lands. Those units were suppose to give faction something unique (self healing demon whipping other demons? no way! awesome!), plus the actual strategic, changing the board factor of a diplomat ability itself. It was a calculated risk to include/deploy those units. Now probably the most unique thing for a faction is... g'hern bound. The newly released runes are just an eye sore for me. Take a look at Woodmarshal, the design is a donkey without a head. If it was suppose to enable some fuel/de'lim synergy why the hell does it summon it's own fuel? That's nothing though, Seeker of the Source is a... what exactly? It has flamestrike and deflect and detection and relic guardian and relocate relic and he deploys relics and fire acolyte and and and.. holy Bane Shift what is this. New FS runes are a barf of abilities, Salaman Picket is a wtf rune to say the least, 10 abilities, 67 nora, not being run... Same thing can be said about almost every single rune from the newest expansion, ST - jakei turn ferren, nohkan do galore. SL - burning sands 12 dmg aoe 40 nora (I guess 40 nora aoe's are on the comback). SP - moga with 10 abilities. The list goes on and on. It's just sad to look at and that's the level of rune design pox has achieved, it's forced, fake and disheartening. I'm probably one of the few who thinks that pushing for racial (just an example, it can be class or whatever) synergy is actually bad for the game. It kills the creativity, it gives people an easy choice and it removes the fun and joy from spending hours building a bg that's strategically sound without being an obvious - ok 15 units with race X, I'm set! I want to see a rune that are not obvious from the get go, I don't want a shatter/detection/healing champion simply because specific 'theme' was missing it. Give the players freedom in designing their own themes with hidden mechanics. That's my biggest wish for this revamp, breaking the bonds of racial 'themes' and forced synergy. Balls, didn't want to write so much, oh well, whatever.
This is the best thing I've read on the forums. It has bothered me since forever and I always sighed when people beg for theme development because this is all that I saw.
Balanced strategic gameplay is the goal, not to be the first to break the game with an unforseen combo. the game you describe is mtg.
I really, really like this read man. Kudos. I disagree with some things, though: 1) Finished nora cost on units probably shouldnt be out in the open. It basically would just give the players more reason to whine, and would tie the developer too much, not giving him enough design space to acctually nerf/buff according to the meta. It´s good enough knowing how much we are paying for upgrades, even those will warrant lenghty discussions here; 2) I don´t think necessarily having DUPLOS is bad thing. After all, there are some players who can only use those toys, what can one do? I agree that it has been pushed too much lately, but making Pox even more niche of a game is a bad thing. What we need are options, as you pointed out. Wanna play pre set bgs? Do it. Wanna create IPox style of bgs? You can do it too. Pushing too much one way or another is bound to scare players away; 3) Lastly, on Woodmarshal, Seeker, Picket, etc., you can realise those were released on what I´d like to call the "wtfthisguyhasnoclue era" in Pox. I don´t think we are getting back to that.
