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RadicalX

Faction Designer
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Everything posted by RadicalX

  1. There is a big difference on how Thugs and Energy Parasite interact with the game. -> Energy Parasites are restricted by very specific orb limitations (double nature has inherent weaknesses, that make up for the strong upside of generating extra power) -> Energy Parasite does not have an impact in combat as the hp pool is basically nonexisting (trade off between combat power and long term power generation) On top of that there was no visual clarity on how much power got looted during fights compared to the flat 25 of EP, which made the Looter mechanic in PvP even more problematic to balance. Thugs were capable of generating leads through staying in combat for as long as possible regardless of the outcome, so the proper response for factions without hard cc options (Shadow/Fire decks without looter units) to this was avoiding fights at all costs, which lead to very stale, defensive and one dimensional gameplay. If you get into fights, there is no change in how thugs are played and they received a combat power compensation for the loss of looter to be more effective if they end up being ignored. PvE will also receive a compensation quite soon, which probably leads to Thugs being a lot better for the casual game experience than ever before.
  2. First of all thanks for your feedback, agreeing on many of your thoughts here. To give you some input on the current process as the major aspects you point out are being worked on: - We expect meta shifts with the bigger balancing patches, that will come soon: Pure Frost and Fire Frost design upgrades will go live next patch, Bandits might get an even bigger overhaul afterwards considering the process of devoloping new cards started recently - We will move towards to a seasonal system soon - cosmetic rewards are being worked on, we didn't fully decide on when and how to distribute them yet - We also currently are building a new set of free PvP decks, that will be adjusted due the amount of balancing changes we made up to this point (expect them to be ready with the next patch) - And on a sidenote: We nerfed Treespirits together with Phasetower & Mortar to prevent the exact type of oppressive gameplay you seem to be worried about 😄 Some other points like expanding the pool of free PvP decks didn't get discussed yet. I think it should be possible to adjust decks to personal needs within a rather short timeframe - still something I will keep in mind. Making entire color trees accessible won't happen in the near future though. Ladder updates and rank/acitivity distributions might be an important topic to discuss before the seasonal system starts, we might consider making some improvements here. Generally speaking we want to attract more players towards PvP again with fresh content and an optimized system so any feedback in that regard is always going to be appreciated!
  3. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008684841 You can watch the contest winning replays here. @Toggy If you have the time you might want to upload the vod on youtube before it expires since replays don't work anymore due to the balancing patch
  4. You could either use the card section of the forums and open up a new thread or join the discord balancing server to share your ideas (invitation link can be found in the card section of the forums aswell).
  5. @Ypulse You can try to use the slot advantage in T1/T2 to create advantages more consistently, if that's your kind of playstyle in pure Frost, but snowballing that into a victory can be quite difficult against some decks, when the enemy tries to scale up passively. Shadowsplashes, that use Nightguard against War Eagle/Mountaineer sometimes are really hard to beat before T3, therefore I consider playing towards the strong scaling point of pure Frost as the more consistent version of the deck.
  6. -> The absoluteley unique Voidsystem and the mechanic of passive ressource income, which makes this game less APM heavy and allows you to focus on combat and strategic decisionmaking only -> Full information gameplay allowing you to make alot more precise calculations -> The ability to adjust your cardset and individualize your faction based on your playstyle and strategy -> The possibility of spawning units and spells directly into the battlefield
  7. I think the decision to introduce these lvl 120 decks was awesome. It allows actual PvP matches right from the start and gives me an option of introducing new players into PvP immediately without farming hours of rPvE. In order to build up a solid PvP playerbase over time we need immediate access to the actual gamemode, which is built around U3 cards. Most PvP games are played around lvl 120 decks, the meta got built and balanced around it. I do understand, that some players are interested in grinding for PvP decks in order to have some fun games with more random interactions, but for a competitive realm, which ranked PvP is supposed to be, games should be decided by decisionmaking & micro mangement rather than upgrade differences. I support the option of opening up a sparring section for "only grinded decks" though, so players can easily set up games without lvl 120 decks. The issue with different ranked ques is the playerbase atm. Once there is a large playerbase to sustain such different modes you could go for grind based ques and also different modes like tome PvP for example. But dividing our current playerbase would lead to long que times, worse matchmaking and therefore a worse experience.
  8. Stream VOD is up on youtube (I also uploaded the last 10 minutes, when the stream had connectivity issues in the end). The Quality might be bad right now, but should be better in a few hours, when the HD version is available.
  9. Ice shields + buffs is a rather inconsistent interaction. For some cards like Ward of the North Ice Shield stacking doesn't work, but single target dmg reductions, like lifeweaving or toggle based dmg reductions (defender, imperials etc.) should work as intended.
  10. Frost Sorc dp20 is lower than displayed (210/225/250/275)* Cannon Tower dp20 is higher than displayed (1750/1825/2000/2085) Stone Tempest dp20 is lower than displayed (750/800/900/1030) Magma Hurler dp20 is lower than displayed (1500/1500/1500/1500) *The four numbers are the different upgrade values (U0/U1/U2/U3)
  11. @WindHunter Corpse explosion plays a big part in pure Shadow to reach consistent results against pure Fire as it provides a reliable and quick removal of the Rallying banner + Enforcer attack pattern, which helps alot in reaching the Harvester breakpoint, that ends up winning the matchup. In addition to that it also helps removing aggressive towers, that are built into an Aura of Corruption, therefore giving you more freedom to use this spell to punish things like stonekin army attacks. I agree, that Corpse explosion might be not the easiest card to use, but it is by far the strongest choice pure Shadow has. I don't really understand why Shadow Phoenix is supposed to have a big influence in the Frost matchups as the card just punished heavy well clustering in offense and usually does not have many usecases into the Stormsinger based Frost splashes. Corpse Explosion is the best card to break through Frost splash defenses (I recommend watching the TopS3cret vs Hyper match from my tournament in August, where Corpse Explosion played a big part in allowing arguably the biggest comeback in Battleforge Tournament history). In T3 the synergy with big nasties shouldn't be underestimated and Cultist Master also provides alot of corpses around the map, that can be utlized to break through Frost splash defenses. Overall I'm also not a big fan of promoting Shadow Phoenix gameplay outside of Shadow Nature since I've seen so many people just hurt themselves by trying to use Phoenix in defense that often result in negative trades since the enemy splits his army, the power well starts dropping low and then a desperation crash dive happens. The card defintely has solid use cases in pure Shadow and you can do some really nasty combos with nether warp, but that is a personal preference choice, that can be used by the editing function. @ImperatorSK We do consider Towers in Fire & Shadow T1 as technically healthy gameplay components, but Phasetower and Mortar are obviously to powerful and do way more than what they are supposed to. Since I assume these cards will receive nerfs most likely just after the reset, it should leave the free decks in a well rounded place, where those towers help at counteracting against build up rush mechanics, without being completely opressive to play agianst. Frost and Nature can use their natural late T1 scaling advantage to put pressure onto the opponent by refusing to fight early on and at that point a Tower should be a viable option to back up a first move like a defensive early early well.
  12. I hope you all like the PvP decks. If you have any questions regarding specific card choices, feel free to ask! I will try to provide our reasonings for the decisions. Our priorities during deck construction were the following ones: -> Create beginner friendly decks, that immediately perfom well in PvP games without any changes and don't require high end micro to be playable in 80k-110k base elo range -> Create competitive decks, that can be played in 110k base elo and above with no to few adjustments -> Provide a solid overview about the current meta, so players get an idea about powerful choices in the realm of PvP and things to care about -> Avoid promoting too many toxic strategies (hello Curse Well) -> In some very difficult occassions we prioritized card rarity* *(Mountaineer vs Lost Reaver is something f.e., that comes down to personal preference in deck choice, but Mountaineer is incredibly hard to buy & upgrade and alot of players were unable to use the card during the Stress-test for a very long time) @Eirias Fixed T3 patterns would go against our principle, where we try to make the decks as competitive as possible. In many occasions there is a clearly superior T3 path and we tried to follow that one. In the case of Lost Souls Cultist Master T3 is, while being very powerful, alot harder to execute than the current Timeless one T3 counterpart. Giant Slayer is almost always better than Fathom Lord considering that Fire Nature usually wants to use earyl T3 to quickly end games. In Shadow Nature Cultistmaster + Heal is way too powerful to be contested by anything else. Fire Frost does allow a 4 card T3 with the Fire T1 path, but ends up being more slot intensive with the Frost T1 start. Considering that double Fire works really well on 2-3 T3 slots, while TImeless one T3s often start to perform better around 4-5 T3 slots it doesn't make sense to follow a fixed pattern here, which might weaken the deck on both ends. @Cocofang In regards to no T3 choices there are decks like Fire Nature, that could work really well without a T3 and we also discussed this aspect, but it requires a certain amount of strategic experience (what map positions and power wells do I need contest to punish T3 accordingly) and a solid level in terms of micro management to execute these type of strategies. We did not think this is beginner friendly enough to be proposed for everyone. The "small T3" choice still performs very well in high elo games, but makes games much more consistent in mid to low elo matches, therefore we wanted to stick with that. Stonekin has alot more tools to fight against T3 though even without the highest level of micro. The deck also has many viable cards in T2, therefore the extra slots generated by cutting T3 work extremely well here. If you have some personal preferences the edit function will be very valuable of course and quickly provide a playable deck for everyone without too much effort in terms of gold/bfp grinding.
  13. We might be able to talk about this in a few years, but right now it would create more problems than solutions for balancing. Only a few decks do have sufficient options, that really improve decks at higher slot numbers. If almost every deck has 35+ truly viable cards for PvP, an increase might be an option, but for now most decks would just overload their T3's or add oppressive conditional strategies rather than providing more interesting game dynamics. Stonekin is the only exception right now as it has many different unique and viable T2/3 cards, that are not used for slot reasons. Adding them would improve options in T2 and allow different game styles (Attacking f.e. can revolve around different core units, that work against specific factions: Burrower, Mountaineer, Stonetempest, Crystalfiend, Stormsinger, Razorshard) or stick with current options, but with an actual T3. Standard meta deck Lost Souls has a very solid core deck structure, that wins scaling games consistently once you are ahead of the curve. This playstyle would be totally unaffected by increased slots, you just increase the options of getting that little lead throughout the game by adding counter cards like Lost Reaver, Lyrish Knight, Skyelf Templar and solidify the raw T3 power level by slot increase (6 slots are really powerful). Some decks Like pure Pure Fire could add something like Global Warming or Spitfire, but these cards don't really add anything and don't reduce any core issues. Relative to other decks pure Fire gains nothing new, while facing some more versitile decks with specific counter units (Twilight Brute, Skyelf Templar) and much more oppressive attack patterns (heavily supported L units, undead army etc.). Playing off meta decks is always possible, but people usually prefer to stick with the most powerful and most well rounded strategies. 25 slots won't change this. They won't randomly start playing things like Tower of Flames + Architechts call even at 40 slots, because these things are bad and not situational sleeper combos, that are restricted by slot investments. Stuff like Enlightment + Earthshaker might be more realistic, but that's just another toxic basenuke. PvE implications are also huge on a sidenote, since it makes deck building much more efficient and alot of speedruns are affected by this too. Makes the game much easier in that department. Creating more strategic options through card balancing and removing opressive matchup imbalances should be current priority. If we ever reach that goal in a couple of years and get to a larger healthy card pool, slot increases might be reasonable as a result of this.
  14. The Award Ceremony is here. I watched more than 100 matches, so things were kind of hard to decide. Alot of replays will be cast on my channel at some point in time, since there were alot of great matchups! Thanks for making this tournament great an I hope to announce another one at some point (can't really tell a date though, might take some months). But let's get to the awards: Award: Most intense match of the tournament #5 Fodasseman (Shadow Nature) vs Showaren (Shadow Frost) (200bfp for both players) #4 Ultrakool (Fire Nature) vs thelight288 (Shadow Frost) (Shadow Frost) (300bfp for both players) #3 TopS3cret (Pure Shadow) vs Hyp3r (Shadow Frost) (400bfp for both players) #2 Fodasseman (Shadow Nature) vs Killbuster (Fire Frost) (500bfp for both players) #1 TopS3cret (Pure Fire) vs DragonLogic (Shadow Frost) (1000bfp for both players) Most creative deck builds: #3 ndclub, playing an interesting off meta pure Frost deck around White rangers (250bfp) #2 DrStrangelove, the only player who did play Bandits in the tournament and he even went off meta here utilizing stationairy buildings to compensate for the weak defense. (500bfp) #1 Blueberryboy, with a massive pure Frost deck going up to a massive T4 combo, replay will be uploaded soon. (1000bfp) Starcraft Award (Highest APM peak) #3 Ultrakool with 123 APM (250bfp) #2 Zappyx with 151 APM (500bfp) #1 Duelllord with 177 APM (1000 bfp) Hyperaggression Award (Fastest well kick in the Tournament) #3 TopS3cret 2:20min (250 bfp) #2 Ulv 2:07min (500 bfp) #1 Quickshift 1:59min (1000 bfp) Spam Slam Award (Most cards played of the same type) #3 Hyp3r 21 Forsaken (250bfp) #2 Navarr 22 Silverwindlancer (500 bfp) #1 Draken 24 Silverwindlancer (1000 bfp) Toggy Award (most eruptions used in a single game): #1 Impossible with 12 Eruptions in his game against Blodir (1x Wildfire) Lowest deck lvl on stream award: #1 Navarr with 114 (yes, everyone else was actually higher) - (2x boosters) Hirooo likes Grigoris award sponsored by Hirooo (Most Grigoris played in a single match) #1 BKGurke with 6 Lost Grigoris in his match against Niq (1x Lost Grigori) Stonekin Award: Longest game of the Tournament #1 Hyp3r (Lost Souls) vs Afrobrook (Stonekin) with 19:34min playtime (500bfp for both players)
  15. Main stream tourney VOD is available now. I will update this post here after uploading the other one to avoid further doubleposting!
  16. I really hope the export to youtube function works, I have to upload 2 15GB files otherwise ^^ btw. I've got more than 100 replays already, thank you guys! I will try to upload some of them on youtube & announce the award winners as soon as possible, might take a little bit of time though because of these high numbers.
  17. What a tournament! Thanks to everyone who participated, we had some entertaining, high quality games on stream today and I'm looking forward to watch all your replays in the upcoming days. It might take a while, but I will announce the award winners here once I finished watching all games! And our final Tournament results for everyone, who didn't get to watch it. 7th-8th Place: Impossible / Fodasseman 5th-6th Place: Navarr / Deldrimor 4th Place: Draken, taking the 1500 bfp price 3rd Place: Hyp3r, taking the 2000 bfp + Juggernaut price 2nd Place: DragonLogic, taking the 3000 bfp + wheel of gifts runner up price 1st Place: TopS3cret, taking the Trophy, 5000bfp & a Promo Construct We had 39 registered participants and most of them also ended up showing up! Really great numbers for our community! Thanks for the games, it was a great experience! I will try to hand out the prices as soon as possible! And please send me your replays to be considered for the award ceremony! Stream might be uploaded to youtube (if the twitch export function works this time ...) and I will try to cast alot of your replays in the end! Edit: Boosters for tournament participation should be sent by now! Please contact me, if anyone didn't receive their booster for participating Thank you and best regards RadicalX
  18. Yeah that's reasonable. Added the rule to the main post!
  19. I wanted to keep my banlist rather simple. Phasetower, Mortar and Cursewell seemed to be the most oppressive cards, especially when I think about how previous tournaments played out. SunWu already gave a good explanation for my decision to ban out Mortar Tower. There also are some very powerful mortarspots on maps like Elyon where it's possible to build them protected by cliffs, while still being in range to directly hit the enemies powerwell. Nature and Frost both had very low play- and winrates across the previous tournaments and I want to support them a little by removing these very oppressive game elements. When it comes down to walls I would agree with zappyx here. Walls are a very interesting strategic element, that can be used in various ways, so I don't want to remove them completely. I agree, that basewalling can be quite annoying to play against though. You can make a no-wall agreement as long as both parties are fine with that (Please play fair after making internal agreements though, as it's hard to track these things rule wise!).
  20. Wow thank you! That's huge! Will update the main post And I'm also quite hyped, that we have 17 registered participants already (+4-5, that might participate aswell)!
  21. Hello Skylords and Skyladies! Today I want to announce the next big Battleforge PvP Tournament! Who is going to be the new Master of the Forge to show the world, that he mastered his decks and strategies to beat them all for fame, glory and obviously tons of bfp? Time to find out! Who can participate? Everyone! I will be thankful for every single participant! Even if you're not that confident at reaching grand finals to get a shot for winning the whole thing, there will be lots of opportunities to win prices and I would like to stream and review as many games as possiblle through all skillbrackets! It would be great to see a large variety of decks and playstyles! SIGN UP TO THE TOURNAMENT: https://challonge.com/tournaments/signup/aUNkP0atnG#/signup/205xjl4u7pp If you end up having problems with the registration talk to me! Format It will be a 1vs1 Double Elimination best of 3 tournament, the grand final will be best of 5 (one match, no reset). Winner and losers finals will be all played on stream (the basic Toggy-format). Prize Pool 1st place: 5000 Bfp + Promo Construct 2nd place: 3000 Bfp + Wheel of Gifts 3rd place: 2000 Bfp + Juggernaut 4th place: 1500 Bfp Every other participant, that shows up and plays his matches gets 1 Booster!! You don't have to reach top 4 to win something in this tournament! Awards There will be special awards for special and entertaining plays during the tournament. Everyone, who sends me the replays at the end of the tournament gets a shot at winning!! -> Best match of the Tournament: By that I mean the closest and most instense games! Perfect mechanical execution isn't necessary to win this award, it just has to be super exciting! The 3 best games will be rewarded with 500bfp for each player who took place in one of the matches. -> Creative Player Award: Make a creative deck or non meta strategy work in this tournament! The 3 most impressive strategies will be rewarded with 500bfp each. -> There will be even more hidden awards like the Toggy Award, so stay tuned! In total I will use up more than 5.000 bfp (I might even increase that number) to reward special plays and matches regardless on how high you placed in the tournament. UPDATE: We got another 10.000bfp donation for awards! To be considered for the award ceremony you have to send me your replays! You can upload them in this forum thread or send them to me via discord (RadicalX#0952)! Please consider, that I had to change my discord account, so don't send your replays to the old one! I want to upload as many tournament replays on my youtube channel as possible! When? On 11.07.20 starting at 2pm CEST (Berlin time), the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance! How to watch? There will be a livestream during the tournament: https://www.twitch.tv/radicalx5 I also want to cast alot of replays on my youtube channel and also announce the award winners: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3rZG7pzo3GYO0wR3Jx9F7w Will be thankful for every viewer! Rules Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake! Not showing up to your match within 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins. After your match go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats. The brackets will be updated automatically. The Map Pool is: Haladur, Simai, Wazhai, Elyon, Lajesh, Yrmia and Uro (same pool as in ranked duel). The first match of the round will be played on Haladur, then it is losers choice. Second round will start with Simai, third one... you get the drill. The brackets for the tournament will be shuffled before the tournament starts. Please save your replays by renaming them after you game or selecting the safe all replays option and send them to me unless your game were played on stream! Internal rules like "no wall agreements" have to be agreed on in text form to be an official ruling and if any of those internal agreements are violated it counts as a default loss No insulting! BANNED CARDS: CURSE WELL; MORTAR TOWER; PHASETOWER - using one of these cards results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake! Reply in this thread, if you have any questions! Big shoutouts to Yuah & MephistoRoss for donating huge amounts of bfp to make this large price pool possible! Quick reminder, that we have a discord tutoring server. If anyone wants to prepare for the tourney, feel free to join here: https://discord.gg/dZzKexQ All I can do at this point is quoting Toggy: "I would love to see this community grow again and the competitive scene develop aswell. Because BF is fun!" Looking forward to a great tournament! Best regards, RadicalX
  22. They dynamic for nature in 2v2 differs alot. Dryads & support spells can be utilized to very high efficiency, which makes the faction insanely strong here. Shadow + Nature (Nox-/Forsakenspam + double dryad) is by far the best T1 combination in open 2v2 combat and probably the strongest T1 combination overall, while Fire + Nature is probably ranked second as it is the most flexible combination with alot of cross map support and spell synergy (mine + root in T1 can be extraordinary powerful and win games on its own). Just the passive pressure a nature mate exerts just by threatening a potential hurricane support on 1v1 based maps like Zahadune can completely alter the T1 dynamic on the other side of the map too. It also scales well into later gamestages as you have options to pick the strongest T2 compositions like Pure Fire + Stonekin for instance.
  23. I initially recommended 20 games, after talking to some people in the PvP community I think 15 games per month might be even better. The activity check just should ensure, that people are still playing ranked PvP so you can't sit back after reaching a high rank without playing anymore. In fact it should make ranked PvP competitive and keep players active, but right know it does quite the opposite. Base elo is the more relevant stat to evaluate a players skill (it doesn't reflect it perfectly ofc, but is still much more important than activity) and right now the ladder doesn't do this. For example Draken, Bubbalo and Navarr & Hightech are players, that should be listed quite high in the ladder based on their true base elo score. All of them are quite active players and they played some ranked games during the last month (23, 14 ,15, 21). They still aren't part of the top 20 due to the high barrier (R28, R56, R57, R49). With a 15 game requirement they would be rated completely differently (R6, R5, R4, R10). When I look at the ranked PvP ladder I want to see things like "who are the best players in the game?". Right now the ladder doesn't really give me that information. It is okay to exclude completely inactive players, but I still want to be able to compare the people, that are actually playing the game.
  24. It takes 3minutes and 20 seconds up until an extra power well grants you the power, you have to invest into it. You are on a power deficit up until that point. Early T2s grant a 25% difference in void, which requires you to make much more efficient trades in order to even get some kind of a lead. It is impossible to crash mortar defenses pre T2, dependend on your deck you might even need T3 on maps like lajesh or Elyon. Based on my experience it can take 10 to 20 minutes for an average player to crash a decently executed turtle strategy. Considering that most PvP games are decided before 5 minutes due to skill gaps between alot of playergroups, it would be bad to force people for 5 minutes into ranked games. I agree with Lebovin, that the upgrade issue will be solved with the upcoming changes. That said, I still think 30 games per month are too many and make the ranked ladder less representative and reaching activity requirements can get really painful after dropping to 0%.
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