Some people somewhere suggested that it would be a good idea to turn the Jakei Frost Queen into a "Crystal Theme" related champion. Personally I was against that idea since I kinda like to believe that she's a Frost Queen and not a Crystal Queen. And then there's the thing aboug her also being a Jakei Queen, wich would make it seem reasonable to let her have some kind of Jakei related synergy instead. She's a Queen of the people, after all. But that's not really the point of the thread, at least not for the most part. The point is that I wasn't able to answer to the suggestion right away which lead to me thinking too much about "Themes" and their future on my rather long way to work. So there you go: Something something about themes, again. I should probably start with illustrating how themes, at least in my opinion, work right now. Writing that out would be quite a challange to read and this is already going to be a minor wall of text, so to save you and me a bit of trouble I drew a rather ugly picture including circles and text. My very opinionated view on things. This is basically ST in a circle, to me. In my opinion there are some problems with this graphic. I mean other than it being sort of ugly. When I grew up we didn't have much in the Tundra. There were some Yetis, Lonx and Jakei and since there was not much else to play with they had to cooperate to make somewhat decent battlegroups. Nowadays we have a lot of runes and themes that make me kind of feel like the three main races have little to nothing to do with each other anymore. They are all more or less doing their own thing which is a little sad. Another thing that I personally find very disappointing is that Terrain gets little to no attention anymore. Oh and I guess the ST/IS runes don't even feel like a part of ST to me, which might be a problem somehow. So now that you know how I think things are right now you can also look at a picture of how I'd want things to be in the future. My opinionated view on how things should be. Some of the smaller "Themes" got put together because they are either having a hard time being their own theme or they are already arguably one theme anyway. I know people hate reading long texts so I'll try to keep it brief. If anybody actually cares what or if I was thinking at all while drawing those lines you can feel free to ask. Main improvements, again just in my opinion, are the fact that Yetis, Lonx and Jekai found a way to renew their old friendship and actually manage to act as a union at times. Like a nation or something would do. (Suggesting that there should be more synergies between Jakei, Lonx and Jetis if that wasn't made clear by those very obvious lines there! Possible very rushed example: Abominable This unit has Arctic and deals +1 dmg for each friendly yeti champion with Abominable in play, to scented units. When activated, a scent appears at the location of the nearest real opposing unit. If that unit is stealthed, it becomes Frightened for 2 turns. +give some very beastly looking Lonx Abominable. +abilities that give things abilities that already exist are annoying in my opinion. Just make Abominable cheaper and give Yetis Arctic. :c) Ice and Terrain got a bit better separated. Ice would be used more as a thing for "ranged" theme decks and Terrain would be there to support the close combat part of the Tundra. Leoss could get Icewalker and a bit of Terrain related stuff so they can at least pretend to be a part of us and Jakei could try to play the central role that they are probably supposed to play according to the lore. I didn't read the lore, but I'll just assume that Jakei are important for everybody in the Tundra somehow. There you go, feel free to add your opinions or pretty circles to this! Terrain/Melee Rune Idea: Blizzard Storm, Spell, AoE:X for X turns. Leaves a "poison cloud"ish effect. Reduces the max range of all champions in the AoE by 2 to a minimum of whatever their min range is. I didn't have the chance to proofread this, I'm sorry for the mess.
I only have one theme that I play enough to really talk about with some confidence and that is flying. I personally don't like the strig I would have much rather have had them be winged jakei and owl riders ( the owl riders were the champs that made me want to play st in the first place ) I think there are a couple of things that are holding the theme back, one is that half of the champs are also beast it is hard to make them good stand alone when they can be buffed and boosted. I wouldn't mind seeing beast removed from the majority of champs that are riding something ( not just in st but in general ) and leave beast for just animals. Second there are only two abilities that support the flying theme, boon of the wind which is on a limited number of champs many of which aren't very good. And tailwind which is such a lynch pin for the theme that it more or less defines it. It is only on one champ now and was removed from the champ that originally had it. If I get my wind rider out early I have a good chance if I don't it is a struggle to match the synergies other bgs bring out much more reliably. Tailwind is such a powerful ability that it can carry flying by itself but it magnifies anything that it improves making other synergies and champs seem much better than they are by themselves so balancing it is a nightmare. I recall calisk saying something about changing tailwind which would be a massive blow to flying but give room to actually improve/create other synergies. I wouldn't mind something like it giving the ap only to the closest flying champ and/or giving it a range restriction and then giving a couple more champs tailwind which would make the theme more movement based with multiple champs moving around to give ap to others. A couple of variations on boon of the wind could be nice as well, instead of just evasion maybe ones that give tough,reflexes,rend,chill or other abilities, perhaps one that gives defense instead of the damage. Not sure if it would help much but would be kind of cool and make the theme feel more connected if the majority of champs had a boon. 3rd is the lack of flying support champs I know I can dip into ground based units to fill the role but I'm stubborn and my flying bgs only have flying champs. The best flying support besides windriders tailwind is juya with declare target and the heal, it feels really weird to think of my ranged powerhouse as my support. The angel lost soften the doombringers orb of frostfall effect won't be giving ap once the bug is fixed and it is extremely expensive to deploy. A dedicated support unit would be wonderful, maybe something like the angel of mercy with cleansing aura, healing and something else. Quick note on the jakei I think they should continue to be the hub for ST in the past they were the support and ranged units but as other themes got better options they have been moved out, a few flavorful jakei that fit into other themes could make them feel like the string that connects the faction as a whole. alternately giving them some internal synergies could bring them together as more of a theme by themselves, they have defensive options with nkd and all the ranged and support they always had but there is no real special incentive to run them all together instead of just cherry picking the best where ever you can find it. Jakei are also well represented in frost and terrain, crystal is an interesting case because it was designed from the beginning to have some jakei support. The tough thing is to find the right jakei to support it. I love the jfq and it would be great to see it played more not sure if I'd like seeing it moved into the crystal theme to make it happen but in the end it wouldn't be the worst fit and if snappy her pet dragon got a bit of crystal synergy it would fit even better. Although with her extreme range I'm not sure she would be the best choice because she wouldn't want to be near the melee crystal units. That was more of a wall of text than I anticipated not sure if it really helps or made much sense but there you go.
Various comments to consider for your diagram: By "Ice", I assume you mean "Frost" since Ice is part of the Terrain theme. Crystal is a subset of Elemental with less than 100% overlap Fear (Psychological Warfare) is a minor theme within Yetis, but there have been discussions on expanding it further into Jakei. Monk/Ferren should be split into Kas and Ferren with less than 100% overlap. Not all Ferren are/were or should be Monks. Psychic is a minor theme with a couple sources of Amplify (used to be more) that could be expanded for use with Shardseer Argol. Rangers are in every race (ignoring Ferren which used to have Ferren Wanderer) with several sources of Ranger specific synergies (Commander, Darius' Favor, etc.). Savage Exploit used to be more prolific and served as an offshoot of Frost and Ferren. Sonic is a minor theme that dips into Crystal and Yetis (Deafening Aura + Horrific Howl) with unification via Howling Wind. Strig is a subset of Flying with less than 100% overlap Not all of this is uniquely associated with ST, but if we're going to talk about Themes, we should probably give everything proper consideration. Some of these are viable candidates for fleshing out minor ST themes. I'm sure I've missed some things, this was just a quick scan through my BG list.
Pretty much. I don't know what you mean with that. As far as I know every Crystal Champion is also an Elemental. And while not every elemental is also a unit with Endless Devotion, there isn't really much that you'd miss by throwing both of them together and calling it a Theme. At least in my opinion of course~ Too minor to be considered* As of now all but one Ferren are monks. Though I wouldn't say that having the class: Monk is what should define the theme. So if we get more Ferren that are not monks but contribute to the "Enfeebling" part of the Monk theme I'd still call them canon and not consider splitting them in two. Too minor to be considered* Also very difficult to pull off in FF. Too minor to be considered* Ok. Too minor to be considered* Also close to impossible to pull off in FF. Same thing applies that I stated in the Elemental/Crystal reply. As far as I'm aware there are no Strig that are not flying and mixing them up doesn't hurt either "Theme". Also I'd put a "Too minor to be considered*" here if it wasn't for that one person who actually only plays flying things who posted here a while ago. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't even know that a flying "Theme" still exists. Might be true. Though I believe that splitting things up too much isn't going to be healthy for the game. I think that you can get to the point where you do have "too many themes" in a game. Where things just become an unoverviewable mess that no new player will ever want to touch. So rather than trying to expand the sub-sub-sub-themes that we have I'd prefer it if we could focus on the big things for now. And the distant future too. (It might be not that obvious for an oldtimer. But 8 Factions with ~10ish Themes each is a really tough nut to crack if you want to get into the game. At least if each of them is actually unique with their own abilities and synergies. And we do want the game to become more accessable rather than more confusing, right?) *There are a lot of possible sub-themes in ST. Most you have mentioned already. And then we have like two champions with Creep And Crawl, a few Worms, enough Warriors that you could pretend that we have a Warrior Theme and god knows what else. But for the sake of making things easier to draw I only considered Themes that I either saw being played or being discussed in the forum recently.
@Hiyashi (easier to ping you than quote your replies in this instance ) Crystal vs Elemental: Yes, every champion with Crystal in its name is also an Elemental, but not every champion within the Crystal theme is an Elemental (like Jakei) nor should it be. For there to be 100% overlap between Crystal and Elemental, every ST Elemental would need to be relatively integral to the theme. Less than half of the non-Crystal Elementals present themselves as such. In actuality, there's only around 70-80% overlap which should slowly expand over time. Crystal is not synonymous with Elemental so much as Crystal is synergistic with Elementals. In my experience, ST Elementals usually implies a strong Frost and/or Terrain module for Ice Eater and the possibility of an ST/XX split with SP or UD. Fear/Psychic Themes: Given the amount of thought @calisk has put into expanding ST's selection of Fear mechanics and Psychic synergy, I don't think it's fair to consider either as "too minor." In my opinion, what you've presented is better described as a racial diagram with consideration for ST's associated damage type and terrain. If you want to have a discussion on themes, I don't see the point unless we look at more than just racial themes (some of which aren't actually themes, like Jakei). Yes, FF ST Psychic isn't currently viable post-revamp, but there's considerable room for flavorful growth. Monk/Ferren: What Ferren are currently is very much a symptom of their poorly handled simplification via the revamp. Monk was originally little more than Nohkan Do (Block/Dodge) and only became a tangible theme when Kas and Ferren were mashed together. Ferren had three non-Monk champions in Ferpent, Ferren Dancer and Ferren Ranger with hints/implications/rumors for additional non-Monk Ferren to supplement the beater heavy race. I am wholly against this merger and I don't agree with smothering Kas and Ferren via the homogenization of Monks. Rangers: Your comparison to Warriors doesn't hold much water. KF and ST are the only factions with Commander: Ranger and Surge: Ranger. They both supplement this exclusivity with equips/spells that specify the Ranger class. ST Warriors isn't a theme because there is nothing available that matches the existing Ranger synergy. You can make a BG of Rangers as FF KF, FF ST or KF/ST, but you can't do the same with Warriors. When one of ST's heroes (Tracker Gnark) has Surge: Ranger and all its heroes are Rangers, it's a fairly clear indication that Rangers are intended to be a viable option. This is a solid starting point for any ST Ranger BG: http://www.poxbase.com/deck/C6aCuwcqGCuqC8DCanc4hCg7C6uE1ME2P Rangers have so many choices for Detection, easy access to Shatter, excessive amounts of speed/range, but it doesn't have immediate access to a Magic source (hence Tundra Whisper). All that's needed is to decide which Rangers to run (if not already included) and fill the remaining slots with your choice of non-champs. Sonic: This is a quick example of ST Sonic: http://www.poxbase.com/deck/CfkCd+CgjCadCtkC6uC86Cgzs19s7bS2LS3bs13r3dr1_r3yr1yrIeHe2b I choose to run SP/ST Sonic primarily because it offers more flexibility in the current flux, but also to provide suggestions in either faction's forums for additional Sonic options when appropriate. The existence of Howling Wind and the fact that Horrific Howl (ST has the most champions with it at 6) changes any attack's damage type makes Sonic a prime candidate for expansion. It overlaps nicely with Fear and Psychic (to a certain extent) which is why I mentioned them as well. ----- I find your concluding thoughts rather contradictory. We need to split up the major races over time if you want them to maintain any sense of uniqueness. Focusing on the "big things" is exactly what we don't want to do because it only serves to further dilute their identity. I can't clearly define Jakei in my head as being anything other than blue snow-elves with fewer fingers and a connection to e'erthang ST. To me, that's incredibly boring and flies in the face of your desired goal(s). It irks me when players ask for more Jakei or more Elves or more of any existing race with enough individual champions to make 3 different BGs. Why? Because the only way to add more of an existing race is with excessive overlap or by eventually putting every conceivable ability and playstyle into those races. Eventually you have to stop adding to a race or theme for it's own good. Having more themes to choose from only increases accessibility by providing a larger variety of choices that could attract players to this (or any) faction. It's less confusing to have an abundance of smaller themes (like Crystal, Ferren or Strig) because newer players can filter out non-theme runes and more readily identify other themes for what they are. Inversely, they're more likely to be overwhelmed by the range of options something like a "Jakei" BG affords them.
I think I'll have time to read the whole post next Monday. While glancing over it that part caught my attention. "Too minor" means that "Fear" and possibly "Crystal" are a subset of another theme. You could run Yetis in the "brute melee" way or you could attempt to do the fear thing. You still mostly have Yetis. Or you still mostly have Elementals. In my opinions it's good enough to call one thing Yeti and the other thing Elemental. Them having more then one trick in their sleeve doesn't really change much to me.
