Recently I came back to this project of a game, started checking out new releases and noticed that in the last 2 expansions KF got 5 new champions with 5 speed. I went to check if maybe we're toning down speed globaly, but that wasnt the case. Could also note that KF didn't get any champ with 7 speed . Now I won't bother to write down a comparison list between all the factions, it's quite easy to check that in recent releases KF has gotten the most champs with 5 speed. I also checked that maybe it's the abundant of abilities that make them more expensive compared to their 6 speed counterparts in other factions, but didn't notice anything that might support that. Now I undestand that dwarfs are known to be much faster than elves. The fat dwarfish barmaiden has 6 speed, I guess it must be all the ale that make her so speedy. Anyone who can provide me with more info about this issue other than pointing out the cursed faction bonus? I'd love to hear what's behind it from our - oh so lore loving @Sokolov
The game went through a pretty large "redo" where it attempted to make every champion fit into a standard formula. To make a cheaper champion it is relatively easy to take some SPD off it. I guess it is particularly easy to do in KF where +1 SPD is easy to achieve through the faction bonus? Having 7 SPD (base) in KF is very nice, of course, but with it comes a higher cost (look at Ospryan Valkyrie and Light of the Circle, for example). It is a trade off. Still, here's hoping for some decent SPD in KF!
I was under the impression that KF was suppose to be the 'speed and mobility' faction. I'd be villing to agree that by knocking off stats (which are later supplemented by faction bonus) we're making champs cheaper (ergo more viable) if that tendency would be visible in other factions as well, which isn't the case. UD champs don't come out having 7 dmg, ST champs don't have 40 base hp. I could go even further and claim that IS don't have a manual cost modifier for semi spell resistance, SL designes don't include 20% dmg reduction cost and FS don't have a manual + 6 nora modifier. In other words faction bonus is not taken into account in the design phase. Back in the days in order to make a champions cheaper they were gived negative cost modifiers in form of vulnerabilities, I guess that's still the case seeing all them 'stasis' and 'weighties' champs. I noticed that 6 speed bacame sort of standard. The problem is that the new KF standard is 5 speed regardless of the abilities kit. KF was never much popular in splits but with the new 5 speed liablity we're just digging the hole deeper making KF completly unplayable in any sort of split. The simplest solution here would be to allow KF champs to keep their bonus in splits and eliminate the bonus AP. not sure why that simple change wasn't made long time ago, but that's another topic I guess.
It is true that KF generally has normal speeds in FF and is probably one of the slowest, if not the slowest, faction in splits (based on base SPD).
see the thing is. everyone *****ed up a storm about the KF bonus being too good, and the devs caved and now as a result flat out refuse to give any 7 speed unit, and give out more 5s to normalize our average speed a bit more. So in reality our bonus now is +1 ap storage and 6-8 nora cheaper than the unit probably should be
Also just gunna casually point out how KF has literally NO 8 spd units, whereas many other factions do.
Having 8 SPD champs would matter less now that maps have been changed around as well. Unfortunately, with the current relationship between DMG, SPD, and RNG, pumping SPD can be really disastrous in some ways, because AP is also damage output, not just movement.
So I probably missed some because I coudlnt find a way to check all runes, so I only checked for the ones I own and found these: Razorfin slider (FS), Melee, big negative ability in Aquatic which impairs movement in non-water Chirai Outrunner (ST/IS) high cost (84 unless you drop pin down to make him totally useless) Kanen Tracker (SL/SP), looks pretty good Shadowrake (UD) comes with Stasis EDIT: off the top of my head there is the ST/FS jakei which is run for seism, and which has a mandatory movement impairing ability in either Stasis or Weighty So there really arent many 8 speed champs outside of KF either, and none of the above are commonly used that I know of (atleast I have not seen them in the 40+pvp games I have played last week, and many more that I have spectated)
Stat based faction bonuses do get taken into account actually, though of course the KF one is the most obvious one. We don't do +6 nora modifier to FS champs because that'd effectively negate their bonus, which isn't what we do in other cases. If an ST champ doesn't get as much HP as it might otherwise not, it'd simply pay less, likewise with a KF champ. SL designs definitely do take into account the damage reduction, or you'd see a lot more tankier champs in that faction, etc. But generally, it's not as though there's some specific SPD in mind. Rather, I just thought those champs worked better as 6 SPD in FF and players would rather they were 6 SPD than pay extra for the SPD on those specific champions. ~ As for the split bonus, yea, it's a problem (i.e. bad) and it's something that's been extensively discussed both internally and with players, and no good solution has emerged. The option of making KF runes get +1 SPD even in splits is problematic. Power level wise, it would become the strongest split effect, and while it is restricted to the KF side, being able to run mostly KF champs while they also benefit from the split's bonus (for example, +5 HP and +1 SPD in an KF/ST split) is quite strong. We must also recall that pre-SOE revamp when KF split bonus was functionally 0.5 SPD that the KF/X split was considered one of, if not the strongest, split types in the game.
As a side note, for future development, it seems like flying champions tend to be deemed "too expensive" to have 7 SPD, unless they are super simple champions. The only ones that may be okay with 7 SPD are non-flying ones. This is a generalization, of course, but Flying 7 SPD champions tend to have really poor HP: NORA ratios.
Thanks for feedback. Something still don't hold together in my books so I'll just let it all out. Lets start with the SL tanky thing. By checking only the last 2 expansions I can list a number of 'tanky' SL champs: Farcrags Tardigrade - 2 def, 52 hp, void shield, option of regeneration 2 or domain sand which gives +1 def, defensive turtle, 6 speed, 61 nora - now I don't know how do you define 'tankier' but that thing is looking like a tank on crack. Skeezick Vanguard - 2 def, tough 1, plenty of other utility, and option for 6 speed for quite actractive nora cost. - quite tanky compared to the other champs. Two-Headed Kanen - 1 def, 55 hp - combat awareness or reflex 2, 8 speed. Now I know 'reckless' but who cares, that thing is a monster, quite tanky as well. Guardian of Eretat - yea.... not tanky at all, come on... Skywing Sonicbolt - 2 def, 55 hp, evasive 3... eh I'll stop now, think I proved a point. Now lets check ST: I'd be willing to agree with you on the ST front but still, an argument can be made that those HP values seem quite normal for given roles. Those stick out as ST champs with lower than normal hp values in the last 2 expansions: Crystal Rimeweaver - who's suppose to be a range glass cannon/support in a frost amp. Still better hp value than most fairies - lore and such I suppose. Ferren Cloudwisp - range champ with ability to gain evasive and reflex. I will give you this one, that hp is ugly. Wingmaster Cleric - range support champion, nothing out of ordinary. You wrote 'etc', I assume that means UD, let's check that as well while we're on it: Minotaurs with completly normal dmg values. Goblins with a little below averange - another example of 'lore and such' I assume. Nothing suggest that those runes come out with lower dmg to reduce their final cost in a ff UD builds. --- Now I'm not saying 5 speed champions in KF are not welcome. I'm saying that because of so many 5 speed realeases KF practically lost it's faction bonus and flavor (by that I mean - mobile; fast runes with mediocre dmg). By introducing more 5 speed champs you're turning KF into another faction without unique playstyle. At the moment none of the avaible KF 'themes' have above avarage speed with the exeption of a few selected elves and fairies ( fairies have another set of problems). Correct me if I'm wrong but going from 5 to 6 speed cost how much? 4 nora? Not too big of a deal considering how huge of a change that would make for some champions, I'm looking at you emo mage. -------------- About the split argument. It all depends how you look at things. Why do you think FS/IS/FW and SP are so popular in splits? If we focus only on the stats based faction bonuses, UD serves as a prime example, nothing is stopping people from running UD/x split while running mostly X champ for bonus stats and split X bonus on top of it. The weekness of the KF/X splits in my suggestion would be that your X champs would be much weaker (they would get only split X bonus) while your KF champ wouldn't be able to save 11 ap. In that solution KF doesn't bring anything to the split except the KF runes itself and vice versa. Call it 'Superiority Complex' or something, the aversion of elves to share their secrets. Then again, I'm not sure how would you go around and solve the coding problem, how easy would it be to create something like this. Last but not least - You're forgetting that in pre-SOE era KF champs had to pay extra nora to adjust their speed, so all KF champs were more expensive in splits if you wanted to run them with same speed as in ff. It's debatable which split was the strongest back then, It varied depending on the runes released. Yea KF/SL was popular for some time due to nora shield and lack of any practical counter but my vote for the strongest split back then would go for UD/FW anytime.
All of those things would be tankier if we weren't considering the SL bonus. I never said they don't get ANY tanky champs. And yea, comparing HP values to Fae is never going to make any sense, they have artificially low HP. For ST, it's more on the upper end and in regards to HP/Nora ratios that you will see more scrutiny. At the lower end it matters less. There's no way for you to tell really, unlike with SPD, which is very well regulated and same across the board for most factions. With DMG, you don't know if I mean for a champ to have 11 DMG, or 15 DMG when played in FF UD, you can only see what it is. But the fact of the matter is I am thinking about the TYPICAL scenarios in which the champions are played during the design process, not in isolation without the faction context. So I think about what mechanics are there to boost their stats from other runes, I think about the faction bonus, I think about what the champion ACTUALLY looks like when they are on the battlefield in gameplay scenarios.
I am not forgetting. I specifically said it was 0.5 SPD - that implies that it is only worth 0.5 SPD, not a full point of SPD. The fact that even tho it was 0.5 SPD and yet still ridiculously powerful tells us something, and I am not sure I want to go into that territory with a much stronger variant. There were a lot of reasons for KF/X being strong, part of it was the spell set also, though that was more important in Highlander than in normals. I looked up the old build rankings from 2009 and this is what I had: As you said, UD/FW is definitely up there as a full split, FS/X seems to be the most powerful half-split in general (which makes sense, considering it was 8/4 nora back then and shrines/fonts generated less too). IS, of course, is OP as always KF/X stuff is down further than I remembered. That said, i am not sure if this is before or after the SOE revamp (can't remember the dates of allthethings), but it seems likely to be before, because otherwise I would not expect any KF/X to be in the top half of this chart.
So looking at the list of the new 5 SPDs recently, which of these would you have liked to see with +1 SPD? Coalitions Vashal Enchanter would be 78 nora instead of 70 nora Path of De'lim Aurora Investigator would be 79 nora instead of 71 nora Solstice Marksman would be 73 nora instead of 65 nora Reticulated Splinehawk is special and has a line dedicated to SPD so probably doesn't make sense to discuss Visions of Amareth Elven Tender would be 76 nora instead of 68 Heart of the Forest would be 84 nora instead 76 I think the only ones on that list I would have considered 6 SPD base would be Solstice Marksman and Heart of the Forest, but in the latter case I am not sure he makes much use out of the extra SPD.
I do understand the "feel" perspective where players consider KF to be the "fast" faction. And I have to say that this isn't a new problem, I've had this discussion with KF players many times. The problem is that SPD is so intregal to the game's base rules that honestly it is not an ideal thing to have as a "faction strength." The problem also lies far more in the split scenario (where the majority of KF champs are 5/6 SPD) than it does in FF KF (where many are actually 7 SPD and DO feel faster). Last time we talked about this I had said I wanted to give KF the "feeling" of SPD without necessarily increasing base SPD, thus the new De'lim portal, the Lightseeker abilities for the Aurora, and the new relic Slipstream Fulcrum.
I didn't say any either, I just listed aprox 30% of all the champs released in 2 expansion and pointed out they are all tanky even before we consider SL bonus. I never said it's wrong for SL to get tanky champions, I think it's actually quite good, it fits SL to get those. Fact is, SL got THE tankiest champions across all factions in the last 2 expansions, which plays to the strenght of SL bonus. Why exactly KF can't get the same thing? See that's the whole problem, we're playing on strenght and weeknesses of each faction. KF strenght used to be speed, which - as I was informed - was mutated into blurry nora discount in order to bring them up to par with other factions. KF got THE slowest champions in the last 2 expansions. If we'd go further in this line of reasoning then SL should get the least tanky champs (plus blurry nora discount?) because SL faction bonus supplements them with natural durability. I do understand that comparing those 2 bonuses doesn't make much sense but you surely get what I'm trying to convey here. I hear ya, that's a fair answer. KF speed was rarely an issue few years back, it was kept in check by other things like low hp pools or lower than averange dmg, so I just asked a question what have changed that all of the sudden it became problematic. Did the speed stat got more expensive? New maps? Higher dmg, hp, def on KF champs? Simply what was the reason for the global KF speed stat tone down? About the "feeling" of speed. Similar counterparts already exists in other factions (with the exception of Aurora Investigations, that one is actually quite neat!) so are we trying to create the speed "feeling" for those factions as well? How does that make KF any unique?
SPD has costed ~8 SPD since Pox started. Nothing changed all of a sudden. There hasn't been a global KF speed stat tone down, at least not deliberately. The last time we had this discussion I was able to demonstrate that it wasn't true and I should have saved the data I pulled to show it. And maybe it's a little bit true of the last few expansions, but there's no deliberate slow down. As I said, it's more that I look at the final costs and builds rather than have some holistic approach to "speed up" or "slow down" a faction. I don't sit there going, "Hrm.. average SPD for KF this expansion is 5.8, too high" or whatever. Again, the 5 SPD champs that got released recently are 5 SPD because I think they are good at 6 SPD in FF KF and doesn't benefit hugely from having 7 SPD and I felt their design was better at 6 SPD in FF KF with those costs. Am I right? Maybe, maybe not - but it's not because of some global intent to slow KF down. Feel free to tell me which 5 SPD should have been 6 SPD base and why so I can better understand why you think those runes should be faster.
You really dont need to drown me in data. I just asked a simple questions basing my assumptions on what I see, and that is simple fact of 5 new 5 speed KF champs. Never said that 5 speed is 'wrong' for ff KF or that the new runes are too slow for ff KF, just stated that it digs down the whole KF/X split even deeper. Neither did I say that new 5 speed champions should have 6 speed, the opposite, Fae Dreamer could use a speed decrease (I'm assuming that would cause the too low cost issues). If you insist then here you go, a list a few champs that could use a +1 speed on the cost of abilities or stats tweak (Mage of Lament, Elven illusionist, Elven Bureaucrat, Guardian of the Circle, Sprite - because you never see them being played, if that counts for a good reason?). From new runes it's debatable if Solstice Marksmen needs Immunity Frost with access to Frost Burn, I guess it's a way to piss of ST players, and yea it would work much smoother without it but with 6 speed. In same tone I could list a list of champions that could use a -1 speed in order to bring the cost down (Spirit Singer, Ranger Elite, Ospryan Valkyrie - again the viablity reasons) but that's kinda like shooting myself in the foot...
