Upgrades are going to be the death of this game

TL DR

Blame @Sokolov for not being hardcore enough. Thanks sokolov.

 

Nah, the current upgrade system was at least ... something. Without upgrades at all I'd be elsewhere doing other things until the revamp, instead of returning when Decondor noticed me that the Owls took over

 

Upgrades are cool, to a new player, but the reality is most runes have 'correct' upgrades. Diversifying the costs per upgrade should fix that. I also like that we're making it so abilities replace another in the new system. Seeing the same rune at different price points will take getting used to, but I'm excited.

 

Some runes had upgrades where it was hard to decide. Most just had two real deals and two shitty things nobody used. In a way they still did what Sok wanted

 

I think this would be right. The ideal situation is "you see a champ deployed, you know its role"... no need to check its chosen upgrades. Otherwise, newcomers (and not-that-newcomers) can get confused, scared and run away xD!!

By the way, I also think having upgrades alter a champ's nora cost is not exactly new-player friendly, but a large part of the forum community seems to be all for it... I'm not completely sure about it :S

 

Does the game need upgrades? No. Does the game need split decks? No. Does the game need 2000 runes? No. Is any of this going to be the death of the game? No.

The new upgrades system is solid, and solves the worst problems of the current (and previous) upgrade system. It's still complex as hell as far as balancing and code complexity are concerned, but it's up to the developers to decide whether that's worth it.

 

I'm not against the current upgrade system. I'm against that new one incoming!

also, what you're suggesting could fit to the current template.

go to rune idea section and post idea with ability, which allows you to get your other non-taken upgrades for doing something: like killing.

Quest: Assault - When this champion enters into opposite shrine deployment zone, it gains his all upgrades and this ability is removed.

it could be anything: killing, getting specific amount of globes, doing something weird. what I'm trying to say, we don't need to set up the whole game for that system, but introducing such mechanics is more than just fine. I like them a lot. actually, I was suggesting templates for champions becoming stronger over time for a quite while.

 

This is my only worry with this new system. Imagine revamping 2k runes, and on top having to consider balance while redesigning them - a lot of things will probably get missed.
Can´t say I´m against it, though, Pox needs something like this. What worries me more is the stuff left unchecked from Alpha´s reign, though, I really hope we can tone down some of the most egregious runes.

 

Eliminating the upgrade/customizability system would make the game boring and stale. Might as well be chess with funny characters at that point. I think making the upgrade system better, easier, and more rich in possibilities is the way to go. Whether it's in the deck building phase or in0-game, the ability to build the rune to suit your playstyle is a core part of what makes the game interesting and fun.

 

I'd like to mention that there are a number of mechanics that already "resemble" in-game upgrading: boost, surge, creep-n-crawl, fur-n-fang, dictate, adaptation, tempo, versions of premonition, wish, mutate, take root/uproot, change form, crown of petals, confusing attack (jester), and so forth ... all of these mechanics change champions, add abilities, boost stats and etc during play. I absolutely understand and agree that some of these abilities are over-the-top, and can sometimes be game-breaking (snowball effect of adaptation, for example). However, I think that a model for how in-game upgrading could work already exists.

Again, I'd like to stress that in my view, it's not the upgrade system itself that is a problem, it's the upgrades. If existing upgrade paths are inhibiting design space, then change them. I would personally have the rarity of a rune be the determiner of both the number and kind of upgrades it can receive. With Commons having the fewest abilities, exos having the most abilities, commons having higher stats and exos having lower stats. Commons are your shock troops, beaters, blockers, and meat; exos being your synergizers and enablers. This avoids the "rarity = power" problem, because lightweight "synergizers" get trashed without protection, and heavyweight shock troops can't get rolling without some support. Gotta have both (unless you are iPox).

 

O V E R D R A M A T I C !

it's not like upgrades would be vanished and champions woud lose abilities and be click A on bad guy.

some runes would end up "being played" with the exact A and B upgrades you were playing already.

some runes would end up "being played" with C and D, while you wanted A/B + C/D. probably some loss on your part, but it's not like we lack of champions to make for it.

think about Fae Oracle vs Spirit of Endurance. Fae oracle is clearly a superior champion to it, but what if we could toy with forced upgrades between them. we could easily make 2 different champions. as for now, it's hard for Spirit of Endurance to compete.

having no upgrades would provide us more tools to control powercreep.



I'm really curious what are those champions (and their upgrades) you feel add that amount of customization you're so proud of.

 

Not if we have different (competitive) runes that fill all the different functions that a certain rune with upgrades would've done.

Ex:
You can't run X rune with the Divert upgrade anymore but several similar rune would exist with that ability and slightly different roles = more rune diveristy but still the same amount of options to chose from as far as deck building is concerned.

As other have pointed out we already have too many runes and if they want to keep releasing more while keeping all of them both an appealing choice and balanced then the only way would be to remove the upgrade system at some point.

 

Boring.

 

One of my current favorites for upgrades is Kiergana. One pair of upgrades is for Stitched, the other set is for Kanen. Both are very runnable. More champs that have split themes, even if in full faction decks would be great.

 

Is it more interesting right now, when 75% of all the runes aren't runnable, but the rest that we encounter all over and over again have 4 different upgrades? (even if most of the time there is only one optimal way to upgrade them)

 

Totally agreed on that point. Again, I contend it's not the upgrade system that's at fault, it's the upgrades themselves and the champions that those upgrades are tacked onto.

 

Fairy Trickster, Mage of Lament, FlameMage of the Circle, Moonbeams, Centaur Regulator... and many more have upgrade paths that are quite viable and that fit into different types of themes. Same with Avenging Angel, Elven Mage, Apprentice Mage...