What does sl think of the new bonus as it is now ?

There's a lot more than 3 tho.

There's the IS bonus:
-x damage from spell sources

There's Hunter: X:
-x damage from champions with a specific caveat

There's Evasive/Reflexes:
-x% damage from melee/ranged basic attacks

And so on. And this is only counting defensive ones. Offensive ones are basically similar except in the positive direction.

There is overlap. But there's overlap all over the game. The differences between the overlaps is what makes PoxNora an interesting game. If we only had 1 or 2 effects that interact with anything because we wanted to avoid "overlap" then we'd have a very plain game.

If this is an actual problem, why isn't an argument being made to remove ALL damage modification abilities except DEF and tough? Why is the SL bonus being singled out?

I don't understand an argument that targets one effect when the espoused principle applies to most of the game.

Also keep in mind his argument was not this to start with, his initial argument was that the effect is overpowered when stacked with Defensive Abilities. When that didn't get as much traction as he'd like, he changed it "It's basically Tough, so it's overpowered." When it was pointed out that it isn't as good as Tough, he changed his argument again, this time to "If it's not Tough, then what is it? I don't understand, it's confusing!" When it was explained what the differences are, now he says, "Why should it be different?!"

He basically doesn't have a consistent argument to this issue and is just rolling with the punches. It's hard to put much stock into an argument where the person clearly doesn't have a consistent, logical argument and seems to making stuff up on the spot.

 

I literally answered you in the post you quoted.

 

You actually did not use any of those terms in your initial complaint. You made this thread because you thought it was overpowered (even though it's actually weaker in the examples you provided). Then you changed it to "inconsistent" then "confusing" and now "unnecessary bloat." These are all different arguments.

And if you meant this, why didn't you say so? Why make us dance around the topic until page 3 before claiming you are "literally" saying something you never actually expressed?

Also, I literally did not agree with him.

It's called persecution complex.

We could have given it Tough (ignoring the fact that it'd certainly be overpowered by being Tough), but keep in mind that faction bonuses are specifically designed to stack with abilities and not interfere with their usage.

Differences in abilities and effects is why games like Pox Nora is interesting, particularly when it comes to faction bonuses which help define a faction. The faction bonus of SL is designed to help them against champions specifically.

It's neither confusing nor inconsistent - in fact, it's exactly how the rest of the game works. Additionally, the specific mechanic here - "takes X less damage" is consistent as well. The only difference is the caveat, which, once again, is a common mechanic.

Now, if we still had the OLD SL bonus, then I could 100% see your complaint, it was inconsistent, required knowledge of attack vs non-attack, used %s that were difficult to calculate, you had to know rounding rules AND most other damage modification abilities didn't work the way it did either.

Thus the change to something more consistent, less buggy and mechanically similar to existing effects.

 

Ok, so I just want to go thru all the stuff in this thread and make sure I have replied to everything basically so discussion can continue!

So there are 3 different aspects to the discussion:

1. Power Level
2. Consistency/Confusion
3. Why Isn't It Tough or DEF?

Power Level

I think I covered this pretty well in the previous post, but generally speaking I don't like laying the blame on the faction bonus unless it's really demonstratable out of line. In this case, it seems like if anything is an issue, it's the combination of defensive abilities that has people concerned and while the bonus of course interacts with that, it isn't the only part, and it also suggests that SL champs that do not have combos of defensive abilities are not considered a problem.

Specifically to the change of the bonus, it has resulted in what is reasonably considered a buff, but there are both buffs/nerfs in the change. It is certainly buffed against chip damage and the number of things it affects. It is nerfed in its defense of larger chunks of DMG (and corresponding any DMG buffs it has no effect on, whereas before it negated ~20% of most DMG buffs as well) and easier calculation.

As mentioned, other things have also changed which I believe also contributes to the power level of SL currently, and some of that stuff is changing, and along with the many other changes that have now "stacked up" in the next patch, I am hesitant to adjust the SL bonus directly in any way until we see how the other changes impact the landscape.


Consistency/Confusion

I honestly don't believe there is a problem here. It is not a new mechanic, it is the same, to me, as adding a new Hunter: X ability or if Resistance: Poison didn't exist and we added it. That said, if there are people who feel it is confusing, do speak up, I'd like to hear your POV.


Why isn't it Tough or DEF?

This is the newest part of the discussion, and the reasons are different for each, so I will address them differently.

For Tough, it's simply out of the question from a design goal standpoint. The vision for faction bonuses is that it is a layer on top of the game that permeates. It should not be designed to not interact. In fact, 2 of the bonuses that get the most complaints from those who use it are FW and IS - and in some part it is because of the way they overlap with functionality that you can already get, and in doing so it diminishes the value to some extent. Meanwhile, most other faction's bonuses compound on the benefits other abilities provide instead.

So that's the major reason honestly, of not using Tough or any specific existing ability. Note that this is different than using an existing mechanic - which it does use.

For DEF, it was actually considered, but rejected. The major component here is balance and also related to the previous point regarding Tough. For it to be "worth" it, it'd have to be something on the order of 4 or 5 DEF. This would mean that you end up seeing everything in SL being at least 5 DEF probably - which may not be overpowered per se, but you can always imagine the complaints - and I think those complaints WOULD be valid - as a number of decks/themes would absolutely have extreme trouble dealing with that.

Additionally, some decks would have no issues with that whatsoever. And while it is of course true that decks have different strengths to each other, I didn't want a faction bonus to so dramatically define that. The current SL bonus is designed to have a smaller impact on average and simply be more consistent in terms of behavior and expectation within a game.

 

I believe you are wrong in this case - I don't think it's confusing at all and no new player would ask that because they are confused.

They might ask, out of curiosity, but not out of confusion. Because the difference is not confusing.

Now, if both abilities read, "Champions take 1 less damage." But they worked differently, or something more similar, then sure, there's now confusion because the text does not show a difference. Or maybe Tough read, "Champions take 1 less damage" and the SL bonus says, "The first damage from each source is reduced by 1." Then it's confusing, because the abilities read completely differently, yet parse as the same. But if it's written in 2 dramatically different ways... then one would assume a difference?

~

And honestly, if SL bonus vs Tough confuses them, then MOST of the game will and I don't think there's a way to make the game not confuse that particular person without losing the entire soul of PoxNora.

~

At the same time, you might BELIEVE you are looking at it from the perspective of a new player, but I will tell you that it is incredibly hard to actually do so accurately - you can't just shed your knowledge/experience/assumptions/preconceptions. Professionally, developers spend money on a regular basis getting genuine new player feedback because it almost ALWAYS surprises you. In general, I find players (and developers) often want to argue about their own concerns using new players as a lever and it's logical to think so but usually it's theoretical rather than actual - the primary reason being that new players just think about the game very differently, and often will have already decided to keep trying or quit before they encounter the issues veteran players identify as a concern. It doesn't mean it affects ZERO new players, but it's usually a much smaller impact than they like to believe as most issues identified by veterans are much farther down on the new user funnel.

Lastly, yes, the game is overwhelming. I have been working for the last 2 years to make it less overwhelming without losing depth.