ndclub

It currently lets you swap out cards in the free decks though which I think is leading to a lot of the issues people are complaining about. You not only get cards and levels, but also have customizability on top of that. That makes it feel like you "own" the cards from the free deck which makes acquiring those cards feel worse. If the free decks were locked in and unchangeable that would be a slight fix to this issue. You could also make it to where you can't play the same free deck each week and force a bit of rotation to make it feel less "owned" but still remove the barrier to entry. I think free PVP decks are one of the best additions to the game and I have been loving nearly always having someone to play. However, I think with tweaks we can tackle a lot of the issues people are having with them in this thread.

It is the tab at the top of the forge on the right side. Looks like a dagger. You get to select 2 free decks each week.

I honestly think the core of all the perceived problems is the fact that you can currently customize the free decks you have with your own collection. I strongly believe that removing this option and having concrete free decks that rotate will alleviate a lot of those negative emotions currently. The grind was shorter during beta than original BF days but it was still excruciating. I like making my own "trick" pvp decks and am willing to grind for it. However, I still want to play pvp to grind to that in the meantime. I can't remember the last time there were so many active pvp players, I haven't even recognized the name of one of them yet. That is incredible and I can't help but feel the free decks were a big part of increased participation. PVE did not rise in popularity nearly as much as PVP has.

I keep checking in to see when the stream is uploaded on youtube, lots of games I am excited to watch. Thanks again for all the hard work.

I see the tutoring discord but is there another room or something people go to wait for their match? I will be getting up as early as I can (I live in Texas) and I don't know where to go to be ready. There is a 99% chance I will lose my first round because it is against TopS3cret and I haven't played in years. However, I don't want to be a no show by not knowing where to go and when.

I am also waiting to come back when there is more player activity being a PVP player as well. The stress test happened when I was too busy with other things in life. It will be a tough road to get the population back to any sustainable level and will require something drastic. The fact that everyone working on it is doing it on a volunteer basis it makes this goal even harder. Every discord feels so disconnected from everything else. It is definitely not a marketing tool but good for active discussions.

Balance of Battleforge was so close to my heart. The closure of it actually made me go off to make my own games to balance. I would normally love to discuss but do not know much time I could actually spend. I think it is pretty funny that there was no mention of frost t1 strength. They had a sudden disadvantage on the randomly generated maps that were bigger. That being said T1 was the most balanced part of the game but of course not perfect. T2 was close but things really start to break down in matchups and things like bandit were laughable. T3 was quite a mess balance wise and you were literally punished by not having certain orbs.

Exciting to see the tester pool expanded!

We appreciate all of the time all of the developers have spent and will spend bringing our wishes into reality. Glad to see the more helping out.

He was not suggesting to half the range, he was suggesting to half the damage when shot over cliffs. (which is not a new idea but there are questions about difficulty coding such a thing, most likely too complex to tackle with our team) If you are instead suggesting to half the range you are either saying you want to always half the range (in my mind it would make firedancers near pointless) or half the range only when shooting over cliffs (again, hard to code and halfing damage is in my opinion a far better suggestion) To those who state that it is beatable, I am never a fan of the game necessitating that another player play far better just to stay even with simple tactics. This leaves the door wide open for tiny mistakes losing them the game (just because you can identify the mistake does not make the loss fair) and taking a RTS away from what it should be - Greater skill should lead to a win, not greater skill leads to potential for even match.

Well no one has quoted the price of the first server yet so I don't think we can make assumptions and remove suggestions based off of the price of a second yet. Also consider that a server cost is related to the amount of traffic it will receive. A test server will be very sparsely populated. I could almost see a situation where we could host our own server using own equipment for such a small load.

[quote='Eirias' pid='11099' dateline='1438225590'] [quote='ndclub' pid='10966' dateline='1438197163'] Edit: Except Girl Power - Please delete that card as fast as you can and never speak of it again. [/quote] Actually, I thought girl power was okay in a pure fire deck for buffing firedancer and gladiatrix? [/quote] Even though it is "ok" in some circumstances it still remains true that this card is confusing(why have cards based on gender if cards do not list gender, even if they did...why?...), borderline offensive, doesn't fulfill a need the game had, and doesn't make sense thematically. And though we have discussed before - where you think the game is balanced as is, I think it can do far better. I know you think it risks making it worse but a test server would alleviate the vast majority of this problem.

This subject is very close to my heart. I think if we can run a test server and constantly test and retune cards it would be a priceless resource - one that I would love to pour time into. To concerns about not knowing how players will use cards once it goes public I think this fear comes from the pace of EA changes. If they screwed up it would be minimum 2 months later of terror before any fix occurs. There is nothing stopping us for patching as we go far more often. In my vision for bforge, every card should have a use, even if that use is in rare situations. There should never be a completely outclassed or worthless card. Edit: Except Girl Power - Please delete that card as fast as you can and never speak of it again.

TEXAS

He said we were now talking generally as in not just pure cards. The question still remained what is UP now and OP in another deck. I wasn't trying to call you out, just saying that the question still remained more specific. [quote='Hirooo' pid='9159' dateline='1437677750'] Sunken Temple Dont know why that should change for shadow. [/quote] Because the units are unbound power shrine of greed, altar of nihil, motivate, CE. Like I said it wouldn't be overpowered, I just think it would be stronger in their hands.

Cliffdancing and to a lesser extent walldancing(sometimes its so hard to click them) still puts fear into me to reflect on. Sometimes games would be lost in an all out gambit just to secure any ground where the fire player could plant themselves behind cliffs. [quote='Czechmate23' pid='9073' dateline='1437654842'] Honestly its a part of what makes this game an RTS any game those that have the highier ground on anyone else will have the advantage when both are ground armys [/quote] I understand some games give height advantage with damage bonus etc. but these are at ranges far shorter than dancers have. Also, fire dancers can cliff you even from lower ground. It was the fact here that the terrain was impassive which gave such a large advantage, not the fact that elevation played a role. Shooting from cliffs or walls would cause a firedance to have no vision of the target so in reality I would almost think it would be disadvantageous in a real circumstance. I always got the feeling that the dev team knew had bad of a problem cliff and walldancing was. However, how does one code a fix in? I don't think terrain had any trigger in code that could be able to alter projectiles flying over it. That alone will be the biggest problem in fixing cliffdancing(not saying impossible, just hard), for there should be no argument about how the strategy is "fair". If fire is not strong enough without it then we shall fix fire in other ways.

[quote='Hirooo' pid='9088' dateline='1437659926'] Juggernaut becoming anything.. War Eagle becoming anything.. Any core pure unit becoming anything.. In general every strong 2n2 tactic getting viable for 1n1. Dryad in shadow t1. root aoc in every nature splash. Harvester with heal or disenchant and cc. Shadowmage with heal. Sunderer Lw etc etc. [/quote] But those are not considered weak units in 1v1(maybe sunderer?). I personally think northguards in fire shadow or nature. Strikers in frost. Creeping paralysis in pure fire/bandits/pure shadow. Fountain of rebirth frost. Sunken temple in shadow(I think strong card but rarely seen). Suppression in nature (not overpowered, just used a lot more). Girl power in the trash.

Why are we throwing out 100 bfp number? My deck suggestions can be put together for less than 10 bfp. As far as stomping people in t1- its not like my deck suggestions stop you from doing that but I do not believe someone who can get to legendary with 4 cards is in the target audience for my guide or any guide for that matter. It is simply a suggestion for a cheap deck for those who need a little nudge with deck building and budget. I tried countless new players and this subject was always brought up.

[quote='Hirooo' pid='8480' dateline='1437479267'] Global warming was sadly enough not even very good at removing shields. To increase diversity you should first make the core-function of the card viable. Increase the damage to shielded minions by another 100 dmg and lets see if its useful vs p frost or mountaineer. [/quote] I will admit that GW was not that much of a shield hard counter considering the cost - 70 power to counter 80 power and in some instances high HP shields could endure it. However, I still think this is taking GW in the wrong direction, we need multiple soft counters, no hard counters. Fire To those who think my suggestion will make pure fire stronger vs non pure frost matchups, I find this true for only times when pure fire would have included GW without change which does not happen every time. If my suggested damage change causes pure fire to include it in more decks I actually see it as a slight nerf because it means they are going into non pure frost matches with one option less replaced by a meh damage spell. [hr] [quote='Anonymos' pid='8669' dateline='1437508411'] i dont see a reason to give fire a miliz. [/quote] What is a miliz? @Silverdragon and @Treim I understand that disagreements arise but there is no reason to escalate matters and be outright abrasive. If you have personal arguments to make please settle them in private chat and do not take over a discussion thread.

[quote='JoseAlmeida' pid='8216' dateline='1437412607'] Game should get more splashes but not new faction :/ [/quote] Exactly. How neat would it be if fire/frost was steampunk, game could stand to have a few more mechanical units and I can think of at least existing 3 models who would make fantastic M or L units. A 5th element would feel incomplete due to having no splashes with anything and requiring over a hundred cards to exist viably.

Thank you for taking the time to list out reasoning for your standpoint. This is one of the few times on the forum I have seen anyone do this and allows for me to see where you are coming from. Please allow me to expand on my rock paper scissors statement: I aim to remove the faction specific counter system, there will always remain a slight card to card counter system. Current example: I can think of no pure fire loadout that has an advantage over a pure frost loadout. Pure frost while they can lose, had a statistically significant advantage in this matchup. Suggested example: Some pure fire loadouts will be at a disadvantage vs other pure frost loadouts but other loadouts the opposite could hold true. Overall pure fire=pure frost. Decks being predicable causes pvp players to burnout and the metagame to grow stale. Higher amounts of viable variety allows players to act more on skill instead of "netdecking", this can only be a good thing overall. I will admit, no game in history has yet achieved what I suggest but it doesn't mean it is impossible.

[quote='Eirias' pid='7932' dateline='1437348753'] Yeah, I don't play pure fire but I would think global warming helps? Or maybe not so much? What if global warming changed to deal damage to a unit equal to its ice shield? That would basically make frost ice shields useless ONLY against fire. (I was under the impression that fire couldn't deal with war eagle + ice shield). [/quote] If it was changed to do damage = to shield it would be stronger vs shields and just as weak against everything else, something that is the opposite of what I am trying to do. Pure fire is not helpless against war eagles and shields, its just the deck is stacked against them. (key is to have air superiority through drakes but that cant always happen) [quote='Eirias' pid='7932' dateline='1437348753'] BTW, I think an L counter squad archer would be fairly broken. At best, perhaps there could be a spell that only does damage to air units? Which would of course make fire much stronger against fire splashes, so it's prob not a great idea. The thing is that fire only needs help vs frost--it doesn't need something that will buff it against another faction. What if there was a slow anti-air damage spell? Something that would be slow enough that something like a fire drake could escape with good micro, but a war eagle could not (they're slow, right?). This might perhaps be a better address of the problem than global warming? [/quote] With concern about an S/L pure fire unit making them too strong against other factions again I say you are looking at balance too narrowly. (for example there are several lost soul units I want to buff among other strong factions) I would not put in such a unit without other pure fire tweaks but even without that it would help them against deep one and lost reaver which they currently have issues with. Compared to my other balance suggestions, giving pure fire a not very efficient spell against non shields is hardly the thing that will throw balance for a loop. Balance has to come in waves, not one unit at a time and if things go wrong they can always revert. Lets not hamstring what could be a better game out of fear of changing our comfort zone.

[quote='Eirias' pid='7870' dateline='1437338785'] It would still be useless without shields then, because why would I global warm for 200 damage when I can erupt for 300? [/quote] Remember that not only can the numbers be anything, I just threw one out, but it is a 25m aoe compared to 10m. I also said if we don't like damage it can always be a debuff. We also cant have one player calling it borderline OP and the other one calling it useless, its one or the other. [quote='Eirias' pid='7870' dateline='1437338785'] I like that global warming in generally a wasted slot. It nerfs fire against decks that fire is good vs (by wasting a deck slot) while buffing fire vs decks it loses to (pure frost). [/quote] It is difficult for me to see how this is a good thing. In a previous post I said we should do away with the rock paper scissors faction mentality (example pure fire-rock pure frost-paper pure nature-almost scissors). Pure fire lacking a good counter for war eagle is the main issue not shields, something that can be solved with a small-L counter squad that would have uses beyond fighting war eagles. This would be paired by bringing some of pure fire's heavy hitters down just a hair to open the door for variety. Not to make a player regret the side they chose and instead leave it up to skill. Don't get me wrong, this will take a LOT of work but it will be worth it. The path to this is not leaving pure fire with dead deckslots against most of its opposition.

Again, I don't think you understand me correctly. Currently red warming U0 causes 600 shield damage and 0 effect to anything else. My suggestion would be something in the neighborhood of 400 shield damage and 200 damage. Therefore against shields it causes the exact same 600 damage(efficient) and against non shields 200 damage(not efficient, less than eruption). Numbers can easily change but hopefully you understand the suggestion better now, to not make it a wasted slot in 90% of situations, game should be more than rock paper scissors and guessing games.

[quote='SZTB' pid='7842' dateline='1437334080'] So you're saying by making Global Warming an Eruption v2 is "balancing" it? That's hardly logical giving a card that has such a hard counter in the first place a so called buff. There's always more to consider than one change if you're changing anything in a game like BattleForge. [/quote] Again, I said the amount of damage done would have to be inefficient for the powercost. I also considered a debuff mechanic for unshielded units but I have difficulty of thinking of debuffs that fit the fire theme. Maybe slight damage amplification debuff but only if damage suggestion is hated by all.