Upgrades are going to be the death of this game

so if the no-upgrade system wouldn't allow you to be hipster and pick Energy Thief instead of Shadowspawn, you would feel that playing Fairy Trickster would be playing "boring chess"?

I'm not blindly telling it wouldn't be different system. in fact, I'm supporting BOTH ways (the current and no upgrades at all) and I'm against the new (incoming system), which I consider will be just worse version of what we do have now.

but some champions like Avenging Angel and Elven Mage you mentioned, it's not like "customizing" them allow you to put them in different decks, just efficiency choice.

I would understand if we had set high standard for upgrades and more runes like Stitched Anathema would exist.

note that alternative path of upgrades for the champions truling having such a thing could be easily shifted to similar rune. so while you wouldn't be able to pick A and B on your X rune, it's very likely you woul find A and B with similar desigin of X in your Y. just because we have so many runes powercreeped by design.

so rune customization provides us choices, but these choices are not out of the blue. they are literally stolen from deckbuilding. in other words, if we reduce rune customization on runes, we increase (read: refund) it in deckbuilding. customization won't disappear.

 

And i'm arguing that this is bad for the game. If we were to push all runes into themes then the slots left vacant could be filled with new runes or things that we haven't been able to play in years. How are we supposed to release new content that people will want to buy without just making it better then everything that's already out there? You give it a purpose.

 

IMO Upgrades are good for the game. They add Diversity in playstyles, without adding Ability complexity creep.
For example:


You are a fan of this rune...
But you want to run him in an Aquatic Battlegroup? Take High Tide upgrade and play as a support rune.
You want to run him in a Boghopper Battlegroup? Take Surge: Boghopper upgrade for a damage dealer rune.

This makes a rune diverse, viable to play in different playstyles, without being Overpowered due to upgrade limits.

The Rune will still have 1 role, but being able to change its role by changing its upgrades is what make fun and possible for players to play with their own playstyle. And yes, the same applies to stat upgrades in a lesser extend, because changing an upgrade from +3 DMG to +2 DEF provide players with the option of playing the rune in a diferent playstyle: tank instead of damage dealer; while others prefer playing the rune as a damage dealer instead of a tank.

This applies as long as upgrade abilities are equally balanced with each other. One way of balancing them is adding a nora cost to each upgrade, this would add more complexity in my opinion as new players won't know how much an ability should cost.
My suggestion is simply to balance the upgrades in champions where it isn't balanced, or make them "Tide Master style" where upgrades are easy to choose and depends on which battlegroup you are running him.

 

Ultimately it's just an extension of the same customizability which custom decks already provide. Whether you have 10 runes with 10 different configurations each, or 100 slightly different runes, is exactly the same. Upgrades essentially increase the value of a single rune as far as customisability is concerned, but that's about it.

 

Competitive deck builders will make their deck choices under whatever constraints you give them. They used to not have to worry about faction. Circus was bad for the game then, and it would be bad today. Adding factions (and deck constraints) caused the deck builders to make more choices, and deck variety increased, therefor the number of runes seeing play increased. Deck constraints increase variety. The addition of 'intentional' themes to the game added further constraints if you will by requiring certain runes in order for the deck to work. I believe that as you do this, you also broaden the range that champ power can vary by. Stitched librarian might be the more efficient rune for detection, but a player might choose the eye of serkan for his mutant deck instead. This is my thinking when I ask for a full faction format. That added deck restriction will add another layer of 'forced choice' if you will, but the result would be more variety in runes in being used. Yes you cut out all of the split decks, but in return you get some of the weaker full faction themes (and their hybrids) being run. There should be room in pox for both formats.

 

I was about to quote and explain why his logic is flawed but that pretty much sums it up. @Zenity

 

Still, it gives more flavor and flexibility. How long would it take for those 100 runes to be released? Two eternieties ...

 

If you have 100 different runes, each rune will only be played in 1 battlegroup by taking a forced role, and some of these runes will probably never see play.

If you have 50 with 2 different configurations each, you have half product with the same overall impact, most runes will be playable and in a viable state, and you will have more flexibiliy to use the playstyle you enjoy the most. Hows that the same?

 

That is reasonably accurate and logical at the base level, however, I still contend that diverse upgrade paths on individual runes allow for more creativity: If I choose to run demoralizing descant instead of slowing armor on my mage of lament, it creates a very different kind of interaction -- it allows me to build into a particular theme/style (reducing damage) at the expense of a different style (slowing my opponent down). One of the things that most appeals to me about particular runes that I think most epitomize the value of the upgrade system is that I have the ability to choose how my choices interact with each other beyond the simple choice of "this rune with these abilities vs that rune with those abilities."

That said, I do completely agree that the way that the above is implemented in many cases is not appropriate, and that it results in "runes that do everything and replace 10x their number in runes that never get used"... and again, I contend that this is more of a problem with the specific upgrades available and their powerlevel with respect to the champs that they are on, rather than a problem with the upgrade system in general.

Honestly, let's say I am going to run a massive beater melee champ in garu-based KF, and my choices are Elder Garu vs Fiorn. Please explain to me how I would EVER choose Elder Garu, regardless of the upgrades?? On the other hand, with the right set of choices, I could see putting both in, if they complement each other, and the way I can do that is to build them myself by choosing the correct upgrades that fit them together well.

 

I think its also important to theme deck variety. youre already limited by a race or class (or unifying ability) to the champs you'll use, letting you configure them further allows for varied (hopefully) builds within each theme.

 

That's correct, and what I referred to with "increasing the value of a single rune". Most card games have tons of cards which are rarely played, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Neither are upgrades to increase the impact of a single rune. It's just a different style.

 

it sounds interesting, viable and would definitely add a lot of depth to the game. even upgades wouldn't need to be so competitive anymore, because you could adapt them. that's innovative!

 

Splits are going to be the death of this game....that or heat death of the universe.

Devs and players want diversity; the devs especially since they just can't help adding cool new abilities at a rapid pace. Diversity makes management (or balancing, if you must) harder. It also makes costing harder (we left the days of that nice simple spreadsheet a while ago). The new system gives more discrete costing which should improve management and promote different builds and diversity. Might not, of course. As to powercreep, who the heck ever said it was unintended? It's the cornerstone of the business model used by pox since it was in a garage. The effects are obvious and it takes hitting the reset button every once in a while (like getting a colonoscopy) to free up all the crap that builds up.

I did like simplifying the number of abilities on champs when that overhaul comes; bit ridiculous when there are more things going on than in the Technologic song. However, I liked the old system where you had to run att/def numbers in your head to figure out damage so I am probably on the wrong side of that.

 

The only problem I see with it is that it won't fix the issue with swiss army knife champions.

 

egami:

Diet, lifestyle, and certain "tasty" meds every so often keep the blockage to a minimum.

Colonoscopy is a diagnostic procedure, not a treatment as you implied. Loved your example though. Creative. +1

 

it also could mean choosing 1 from 2.