[Balancing Discussion: The T1 imbalance in PvP]

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 7:43 PM, Navarr said:

This is pretty much the only good idea I've read in this thread. Instead of making mortar or phase 75+ power we could just remove them from the game. Mine is crap in 1v1 and will always be. And concerning Frost, I don't see the only real problem discussed, which is fmage spam vs nature which makes the latter unplayable. All in all, it's really hard to talk about balance when there is no ranked system where we could see which tactics REALLY lack counterplay, because when i for example see a phase tower spammer in ranked, I will take the free win with fire (or at least make him waste 1 deckslot). Predicting enemy tactics and countering them in advance is a thing I dont see taken into consideration at all in all these balance discussions which kinda make me lose hope on getting to a good result.

It's very obvious that Phase Tower needs a nerf, but rather than removing it from the game I'd rather see some minor buffs for some counterplay possibilites, TOO.

Also one point I want to bring up that isn't taken into consideration a lot is that 2v2 and 1v1 differ quite a lot. For example nature + shadow t1 is absolutely broken, still nobody demands a nerf for SoL or Dryad, because nature t1 is so underwhelming in 1v1 due to shadow and frost matchup. So as you can see, this is a rather fragile and really complex system, where it is very much more likely to make it even worse by just nerfing everything we don't like into the ground. Without an efficient mortar and phase there would only be nox/dryad spam in 2v2.

I think I could go on forever complaining in my mediocre english about the too simplified way of thinking that is propagated by some people here. But let's cut it here and see how the discussion turns out. Sorry if I stepped on too many feet :p

Edit: Last point I want to mention is that Frost and Nature are very map depandent whereas Fire and Shadow don't have this disadvantage. This is probably where we should start tackling this issue.

Edit2 bc I cant help myself: Shadow is also the easiest deck to play which obviously make it seem stronger from noob perspective. Similar thing for fire

 

Hey Navarro, obviously you can criticize whatever you like. I am fine with phase tower dealing half damage after a teleport rather than a power nerf, but claiming phase tower @ 75 power is equal to removing it from the game is not a fair estimate since it rarely inflicts a cost of below 75 power on the opponent. The same goes even more so for mortar (in defense), the large range, AoE and high damage means it rarely fails to deal severe damage to at least 2 units with 1 barrage, either killing them or allowing them to be mopped up quite easily. Which for frost is at least 100 power and for nature at least 120 (although arguably a bit less considering SoL's efficiency). In the end that equation is perfectly able to be expressed in power costs, regardless of how simplistic that might seem. 

I don't mean to step on your toes either but steamrolling nature with a mage blob was resolved quite a long time ago when (blue) dryad was released, and countering it became increasingly more in the favour of the nature players after the homesoil nerf. Considering it is a key card to help negate the fact you don't have an M damage modifier and you deal 25% less damage permanently. The outcome is greatly influenced by the placement of units on both sides (but primarily frost) and how effectively the nature player root snipes you. By no means is this unplayable for either sides, but you can try it for yourself against a skilled nature player like Natiac. 

I am also unsure what you are expecting from ranked PvP, we already had 5 years (even more) of ranked PvP and the 'counter' was quite clearly displayed in the rankings: don't play frost or nature t1 if you want optimal ELO gain. Which was for example very clearly displayed by looking at 2 (PvP wise) popular decks that offer the choice between any t1 faction; Lost Souls and Twilight. What we saw in the PvP rankings was that almost all of these players went for shadow and fire t1. 

I am also not sure if you are being ironic when saying you will play fire vs a phase spammer, since the entire point of the thread is to discuss frost & nature viability VS fire & shadow. Surely you agree that at least on t1 level all factions should have a reasonable chance against each other, right?

Although I can agree that some maps present more issues for frost and nature than others, they are only underlining core issues, not causing them. The core issue for nature being that their high power investment eventually forces them to attack the mortar, or the phase tower (although the latter is more often used offensively). The core issue of frost being locked out of most maps early, since they are slow and have no field viability to contest the initial field battle with. Which drives the frost player into the mortar/phase when trying to break out. But a mortar/phase nerf won't be the only solution to that since even a 100 power mortar isn't going to give frost an efficient chance to take it down thanks to its lack of speed and reliance on barrier walking for IGs, which is why I suggested IGs to spawn with shields. Trying to change almost every map would cost far more dev time & effort, while still not addressing the core issue.

In closing; You are right about 2v2; Dryad (blue) probably shouldn't buff allies to prevent guaranteed efficiently healed blobs, and I support making that change along with the phase/mortar nerf. 

[[Seasonal Play] Massively increase gold & booster drop, wipe every # months]

O absolutely, 1 good change can make a big difference. But won't coming up with these changes also take up dev time as well? Unless you want to suggest random changes, but I don't think you meant that.

Pretty much all the changes I have in mind involve changing in-game metrics (damage, hp, range etc.) or the manipulation of in-game abilities, so although the changes on the gameplay will be major I think the technical implementation will be rather simple in comparison to how complicated getting the game in an operational state was/is. 

Anyway I'll think about your suggestion some more and look at Diablo 3 more closely. Overal I'm getting the idea these seasons are already too much to handle for a even a full time dev team, if I read the frustrations on the Diablo forum https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20770626885?page=1

[[Seasonal Play] Massively increase gold & booster drop, wipe every # months]

Hey Astiliano, I think your idea is pretty good but it feels more like a very cool alternative to Tome mode to me. BattleForge was after all a card collecting game, resetting that collection reguarly would defeat the point of that. I think a big part of satisfying gameplay is working on your collection. Although I agree the end game is limited after you complete your entire collection, is simply resetting it all a good alternative?  I suppose the answer will be different for each person but for me working towards a collection and progression is a core part of the game. If we are to work on further end game I think it should go hand in hand with that.  

15 hours ago, Astiliano said:

If you think cards are unbalanced right now, this is what the developers inherited from a full fledged studio. If a game that had a budget and set developers behind it when it was under EA couldn't balance it 100% during their time, how much time do you think it would take for our current developers to balance it out? Buffing/Nerfing a single card changes the meta more than you think. 

Come on now, I don't mean to get political but I think it was quite clear that BattleForge (balancing) hadn't been Phenomic's priority in a long time. Just look at the Amii edition, it was never fully released. More specifically look at Amii Phantom, you can't tell me a dedicated dev team figured it would be balanced to create a swift, cheaper (60 power) version of mauler (effectively disabling every ranged unit efficiently, even more so looking at the 60 power cost) and to top it off give it a ranged attack mode with crippling bite integrated into it. Instead of several Amii (I mean shadow/nature there) units they seemed to have just created 1 big defiance of logic. 

But overal I think only +-20 cards, maybe even less, have to be rebalanced out of +- 540 to provide a proper playing experience for all factions. And most importantly there already is/was a general consensus on these issues amongst the long time PvP players, so the current devs would be sooner tasked with implementing agreed upon changes, rather than coming up with balance from scratch. That seems like a better plan to me than buffing/nerfing in a never ending cycle. 

[Nature Frost Deckfor PVE Campaign]

I'd say you need surge of light and regrowth, take out battleship and living tower. Dryad blue instead of werebeasts would most likely help you too. 

[Balancing Discussion: The T1 imbalance in PvP]

1 minute ago, Eirias said:

Well, the eruption also does 300 damage to the well and any nearby units. But I guess you're right, I'd rather if people didn't make offensive mortars at all, and a mortar in the middle of nowhere can be erupted without hurting anything else. I was concerned with someone running up and erupting the mortar, then running away, but scavengers should be able to intercept and allow the tower to go up.

And I do think it will still be viable at 80 power, but there's also mine, which might just be better (bc you can use it in offense as well).

Interesting point, however a mine can be dodged by a player that pays close attention. Mortar attacks can't be avoided, so I suppose that justifies the difference.  

[Balancing Discussion: The T1 imbalance in PvP]

2 minutes ago, Eirias said:

I agree with increasing the mortar's powercost. That lets it continue to function as a defense if someone is building a braindead army to attack you with, and it still allows you to punish someone for taking a well that they really shouldn't have. On the other hand, taking a well and instant mortar can get destroyed relatively easily, and now fire can erupt the mortar at any time (possibly the power cost should be 75 to be equal to eruption?).

It also still allows defense in fire nature when combined with roots (and fire nature needs all the t3 help it can get). Although again, 75 power might be better so it's cheaper than mine.

I don't play phasetower at all (even when trying shadow), so I don't have experience with it. I'm fine nerfing it to unusability, especially because I don't see a necessary role that it fulfils?

Alternatively, ice guardians could be given an ability for something like "if this unit is within 20m of a friendly well, all units within 10m of the ice guardian take 20% less damage from structures." Not sure how abusable that is, but that effect might prevent offensive tower attacks.

Hey Eirias, nice to see you. Given the rather extreme damage output of mortar, combined with its extreme range (making it even easier to defend along with properly micro'd scavengers) makes me think 80 power is the bare minimum if we ever want to call this card balanced. If a fire player makes a mortar while the enemy fire player is near him don't you think he kind of deserves to lose 5 power? The delicious (or horrendous if you are against it) synergy of mortar + roots is also kind of an example why it will still be a viable card at 80 power, right?

Your IG idea is interesting too, but I think it is fair to say that if IG gets realistic field play viability and mortar is 80 power no further buffs are needed for frost - as you won't be forced as much to take a well as you are now. 

[Balancing Discussion: The T1 imbalance in PvP]

Hi Radical, thank you for bringing these important points up. 

I've been contemplating writing a post on changing frost t1, so I won’t hijack your thread with that. The essence of my idea was also to buff the Ice Guardian (IG) in exchange for keeping the rather ill thought through home soil nerf. My idea in a nut shell:

1      1 Always let IG spawn with its shield enabled (instead of only near friendly bases)

2      2 Disallow the spawning of IGs within a 40 meter (2x coldsnap radius) radius of enemy power wells. This limitation would be overruled when the frost player has a well inside that radius, so IGs can still always be spawned in defense.

Point 1 would allow frost to contend for a small amount of the (initial) field (battle) and end the complete dependence frost has on taking the first well they can get to, as in the current state of the game frost can’t (reasonably) hold their own on the field. Which leads to the subsequent abusive situations of always leaving frost open to rushes, whether it is a swift spam that runs in between your bases until a well drops or a direct rush that becomes possible thanks to 100 power frost just invested in a well. Not to mention the more often than not situation of getting locked out of the map, which is especially noticable on maps like Haladur where the frost player has to take the first well that is conveniently located right at the base of a choke point that leads to the rest of the map. A choke point which on the other end conveniently has 2 wells & an orb for frost's enemy to take and lock them out.

Point 2 is optional (imo) and might be too restrictive for frost and/or too difficult to implement. But I want to prevent any potential abusive situations of dropping IGs on to enemy wells, even though this concern might be exaggerated as Frost has no swift units to quickly approach wells with.

Could you perhaps elaborate your idea on IG? As I am quite sure IG received multiple nerfs, and I’d like to read your exact idea.

Mortar & Phase

With regards to Mortar and Phase tower, I can only agree. I think it is fair to say that both towers are too efficient so I would suggest the following:

Phase tower – increase the power cost to 75, this would at least decrease the vast efficiency difference between the phase tower and its opposing armies. This would also decrease the spam-a-bility of the card.

Mortar tower – increase the power cost to 80, this would achieve the same efficiency equalizer and spam demotivator. The reason I think mortar tower should cost more than phase is because you often only need 1 mortar to heavily influence a game, considering its vast range, large AoE and large amount of spike damage.

The reason I think we should go for power cost increases as a first iteration of balance is because it is simple to implement, and just as simple to roll back or fine tune. This would dramatically increase the speed at which (these) balance iterations can be rolled out and evaluated, and most importantly will save the dedicated devs time, subsequently increasing the likelihood of the changes actually being implemented. 

PS: A small example of what Radical described in mortar camp shutting down t1 battles vs Frost (and t2 for that matter)

 

[Bought a card from AH]

Thornbark? Did you check your collection for t3 nature uncommon cards?  

[Netherwarp Green bug abuse]

17 hours ago, PutinVV said:

I disagree with the conclusions. 1. On video, shadow lost 2. That would make four sorceress plus teleport, you need 270 of energy, and this is the minimum combo. You just need to be able to control this strategy 3. When battleforge was before, the developers fixed all the bugs. This is not a bug, its not fixed 4. I see a lot of players playing the same way, using the same strategies. This strategy turns out to use me, because it is not easy. 5.All the strategies that you win, you like, and who loses, you need to change that it would be easy to play. That would all be the same

Hi Putin, thanks for your reply. I understand it is difficult to communicate through a translator. 

1. I think you misunderstood the point of the replay cast. The point was to show the absurdity in how well the nether glitch + mage spam works, no matter how poorly the shadow player performs.

2. Are we really going to pretend it is hard to defend with mages? They are probably the most efficient (power to damage ratio wise) unit for defense.   

3. Radical stated it was a bug and reported to EA, but that it was never fixed. Probably because EA pulled back nearly all development resources. Besides that you can read the card description and conclude the heal only applies to entering the warp, the glitch is that the game seems to think you constantly re-enter the warp if the start & end point are close to each other (even though you don't actually get teleported repeatedly). 

4 & 5. Spamming mages in combination with nether warp is not the only strategy you can try as pure shadow.

[Netherwarp Green bug abuse]

Thanks for your feedback Kaliber, and thanks for your elaborated answer Radical. I can't help but wonder which other bugs you discussed at the time, but perhaps that deserves a thread of its own. 

[Netherwarp Green bug abuse]

1 hour ago, SunWu II. said:

+1, but i dont really like the suggested solution simply because it would make some wallhops impossible. It would nerf the blue netherwarp, wich i prefer to use, too.

Hey, thanks. As far as I'm concerned the issue gets fixed in its core (i.e.properly applying the buff only once upon entering the warp). That would be the best solution, if the devs can pin point the cause of the issue of course. 

Thanks for your feedback too Prit, nice to see you!

 

[Netherwarp Green bug abuse]

1 hour ago, LagOps said:

It just encourages spam like in the replay, i am seeing that a lot in higher gold elo. Especially without damage spells, you are having issues. Stonekin has it the worst out of all factions actually and its just sad to watch... the only "real"  counter is to get the shadow player to run out of charges. fixing it might actually encourage players to switch to blue nether warp in lower elos as well since shadow mages won't be an easy defense anymore (well, at least not THAT easy).

Hey, good to see you man! Thanks for your input, couldn't agree more. 

[Netherwarp Green bug abuse]

I'm not sure whether this belongs in the technical issue category or just card discussion, cards probably is the best place to discuss this old bug. Come to think of it I have no idea why this was never fixed seeing that it is an obvious bug. 

According to the Nether warp (green affinity) card description every unit that gets teleported (warped) receives a 40hp heal every 2 seconds. The problems begin when the starting point and the end point of the warp are placed close to each other, effectively 'teleporting' to the exact same place, which results in the heal being applied twice. This effectively means an 80 hp heal per 2 seconds (actually 40 hp every 1 second). Combine that with an army of shadow mages and you get a broken blob of damage dealing & self healing that carries the shadow player against just about every deck that doesn't have lavafield or wildfire. This is nothing new, but now that we have an active dev team this might actually get fixed, especially since I've already seen several players abusing this bug by camping & building a mage spam. This will hurt the PvP community as frustrated players leave the game eventually. 

In my opinion this is a glaring bug considering the card is a teleport (warp) and you achieve this unintended effect by starting & ending the teleport in the exact same position, effectively nullifying the entire design of the card. 

The technical solution I would like to propose is to ensure that nether warp's starting and end point must at least be 20 meters apart, ensuring that the warp actually teleports you instead of giving you a heal on steroids. If anyone else has ideas I'd like to hear them. Thanks for reading!

PS: Found an old replay on YT to illustrate the issue:

 

 

[Were some card changes reverted?]

On ‎12‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 9:18 PM, Ggoblin said:

I see. Wasn't around by then. Surprised they reverted mauler though, it was pretty useless with only skill prevention.

They didn't revert it. Mauler still blocks ranged in my game, so the database must be wrong there. 

[Christmas Challenge or Quest!]

'Complete 25 quests between December first and January 31st' would probably be an easy to implement but still amusing event to get some consistent player base.  

[Request for name reclaiment]

Ah ok, I suppose I misunderstood that impersonating isn`t taking someone`s personal name. It`ll be tough to proof then as it seems the account is rank 1, never played and only created to occupy the name. 

Topic may be closed now, thanks

[Request for name reclaiment]

Thanks mate see you in game!

[MA Spam or not]

6 hours ago, Eirias said:

Oof, shots fired

I think he means when fire has taken a well and has a 100 power disadvantage? For example, let's say you both take the first well on haladur, then fire takes well #2 immediately. If frost rushes, you think fire should be able to hold (without mortar)?

Lol, you`ll be fine doing it too, when the missing packets issue gets resolved.

Yea his first question was about the MA match up. The latter was about rushing fire when they over well. I`ll take some time later to write something proper about how to play frost t1 in the current meta (or rather how I played it, obviously everyone is free to play it in whatever way they want). But in a nut shell rushing with frost is a no go simply because you are nowhere without Ice Guardians (IGs) and in the current meta they can only be spawned at friendly wells/orbs, subsequently meaning you`ll be spending anywhere between 60 to 100 power on ice barriers to even be able to move in. At least in a manner that won`t be giving away guaranteed efficient eruptions. Of course this is assuming the fire (or shadow for that matter) player actually used his speed and subsequent  map control to not choose a well that is within 100m range of a frost well. 

 

[MA Spam or not]

On ‎10‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 4:31 AM, HiyaMC said:

Do MA lose even with BEST focus micro over scavengers?

In short, yes. Eruption will dominate the game in small to medium scaled stages (say 10 units & less) combined with scavengers' high damage output and crippling bite disabling your micro. After +- 12 MAs the odds slightly go into your favor but with such a large investment a fire player can easily afford 2 or 3 firesworns that will keep your damage output +- halved, if the fire player micros them. Which most players will be able to do since the only action the fire player really has is erupting you every now and then while the scavengers tear you up. 

[Request for name reclaiment]

Hi, 

A friend of mine told me there is a possibility to reclaim your old (in game) name. I would like to reclaim my old name MaranV (currently named Maran ingame), as it has been taken by someone that named their character/account 'maranv'. I trust that my forum name and allocated e-mail address are proof enough but if you need more information I`ll gladly help out. 

Kind regards,

Maran