[New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread]

I like the "Recore" idea! Getting a T3 xl-unit with only two orbs seems wild at first glance -- but the 320 power cost and stats of a core dredge (3325*/2700XL) actually puts it at a similar spot to the shadow T2 Harvester (300 power 3440*/2800XL) so it could work!

Not sure how hype i am about the prospect of needing to deal with pulsing aoe in pvp vs frost T1....but that's probably just me being bad at pvp and paranoid 😂

Might be worth thinking about Blue / Red affinity, too, since the big core dredge (into which the worms would potentially recore) has two affinity variants 🙂

 

[Old School Efficiency]

Heads up: Spawning discounted units (via breeding grounds, and probably also for similar effects) appears to not discount the score of the unit (at least on ultralord's website).

That is, spawning a 100-cost unit inside breeding grounds' 25% reduction zone, thus spending 75 power, ends up giving your replay +100*2=+200 points, rather than the discounted +75*2=+150 points.

Not sure if this is an oversight in the way the website counts points, or if it's intended (i.e. score is deliberately based on the card cost rather than actual power spent), but it may be good to clear this up since it's an issue that a lot of people will likely run into when trying to optimize for least power spent 🙂

That issue aside --
Really fun challenge! Thank you for hosting this 😄

[Community Update - June 2023]

Really loving the new patch!

I dropped a voice actor application. Sounds like an easy way to help out 😄 

"A new frost skylord" hmm...is rogan kayle retiring? 👀

[May 19th - Patch Feedback]

Really love the patch! I've been putting the new abyssal warder in every deck it fits into because the new "recombine" mechanic is so much FUN to play with -- great job, whoever came up with that idea!

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How does Nature rPvE feel? June MotMs will be set to Nature if you have not been able to play it much yet. 

Nature rPvE feels challenging, but not so hard it's unbeatable (lost souls still feels more brutal, in my opinion.) I like it! Only one thing to complain about, is the spawner building is hard to spot at first glance. It feels like the colors of it kinda blend in with the surrounding units/buildings/environment.

Maybe it's a matter of not having gotten used to it yet 🙂 But if more people feel like this, perhaps the "tunnel" building model would be better than the sunken temple building model?

 

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• Opinions on balance changes?
  • We tried to add several improvements to T1 & T2 through both buffs/reworks and reducing card orb requirements
  • Current balance between the various void return methods

For the T2 part of this question, i'd love to see maulers be a unit which is easier to get proper value out of (in pvp situations) 🤓  Maybe instead of a splash card that doesn't seem to be good in any deck, could making it a 2N card and adding a 'slowing strikes' type effect so it's more useful to counter pesky swift+ranged units be possible to consider? 🙃

Spoiler

or implement that idea in a new, separate card and call it "maulest"! 🤓

and a spell that disarms one target for a few seconds, called "Maul", so we have "Maul / Mauler / Maulest" hehehe

 

Overall, you guys did a lot of stuff with this patch, and all of the stuff appears to have made the game more fun as far as i'm concerned, so i rate it a sparkling "Job well done / 10"!

Keep it up team, we love ya!

[2v2 solo queue]

Would it be a lot of dev work to implement something like a solo queue for 2v2? (and/or is it perhaps on the list of things to do already?)

 

What i mean is something like

1. you queue up alone
2. the system matches you with three other players who queued up alone (four total in the match, including you)
3. the system assigns the four players to their teams, trying to keep the teammate-sum-ELO-rating as close as possible between both sides (so the two players with highest rating won't be on the same team vs the two lowest)
4. the game begins and you play

 

I had my first 2v2 game today and it was really fun! I'd say more enjoyable than 1v1's, at least for me as a new-ish player. Perhaps this is a sign that 2v2 is more approachable for new players / more casual players? Either way, it'd be sweet if 2v2 was easier to get into regardless of wether you have friends who play the game  / before you've put in the time to make in-game friends. Might help with player retention, too!🙂

[New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread]

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how do you change the colors/hue of the card picture? 

Oh i just loaded the magma hurler photo into GIMP and adjusted the hue 🙂

In gimp you can find it in the top drop-down menus: Colors > Hue-Saturation > drag the hue slider to rotate the image's colors.

I'm sure photoshop (or whichever image manipulation software you favour) has an equivalent feature -- if not, gimp is open source and free to download here.

[New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread]

That sand worm idea is really cool! The Endless Stomach mechanic might be a bit unreliable if it's used in conjunction with other units though (other units might steal the killing blow and screw your worm's durability.) Maybe something like an "execute" mechanic could help in this regard -- imagine the worm deals 2x damage if the target has less than a certain amount of HP (e.g. if the worm does 500 damage per hit, and the target is at or below 1000 health, the worm would do 2x500=1000 damage instead, thus giving it a much greater chance of actually benefiting from its passive ability). Would be sick if it had a special animation too, maybe burrowing under ground and emerging under the target to swallow it (think of the sand worms in Dune!)

 

Here's another idea that might contend with the Bush Men idea above to fill part of the same niches but in a different (and likely less complicated to implement) manner.

Presenting: 

T2 N Elemental Archer idea -- Mana Surger

T2 nature ranged unit that doesn't suck when more than one exists on the field (looking at you, spirit hunters with non-stacking poison...), and fits as another design option for dealing with air units as T2 nature. Its stats are based on the spikeroot - which shares its status as a T2 unit with similar power cost - but with the numbers scaled-down a bit due to the 10 points cheaper power cost and its ability to counter air units.

The unit could use a recolor / re-texture of the magma hurler for its in-game avatar.

Abilities:

Mana Surge - The mana surger calls forth a surge of mana from the ground underneath the targeted ground unit. Deals [735 dp20] damage in an 8 meter radius around its target, up to [1125 dp20] in total. Affects ground targets only.

Arcane Hunger (toggle) - Lose the ability to use Mana Surge and gain the ability to use Mana Urge. (or vice versa when you toggle back)

Mana Urge - Mana surger has an urge for mana! It sucks mana from the air around its enemies, dealing [735 dp20 * X] damage in an 8 meter radius around its target, up to [1125 dp20 * X] in total. Affected units may not use their ranged attacks or special abilities for 5 seconds. Affects flying targets only.

(X = reduced damage modifier in anti-air mode. Can scale with card ranks, say x0.4 / x0.5 / x0.6 / x0.66)

[New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread]

Nature needs some love.

(card art was generated by stable diffusion, so they might have copyright i'm not sure)

--- Bush Men (T2 N at 65 Power) ---

A sneaky unit that excels at sticking to and taking down single priority targets. In particular, the 'ambush' function allows them to stick to flying units, thus covering up a much needed and heavily abusable "hole" in early nature's tool kit. Giving it a damage bonus versus beasts (or possibly dragonkin, since they're lizard-like) would fit with the theme of a wilderness hunter type unit, but it probably has enough utility/usefulness for its cost without that effect.

Spoiler

Abilities:

Track Prey (toggle) - The bushman begins tracking his prey and gains the following benefits:

• Sneak: The bush men move slowly (same as the "slow" trait) and cannot be seen by opponents unless they move within melee range of a unit. Attacking, being attacked, or being affected by any non-global hostile effect will break the squad out of its sneak mode.
• Ambush: When attacking from sneak mode, the bush men will ambush its target by throwing lassos and pulling themself to the enemy, becoming attatched to the unit for up to 5 seconds. This may target grounded units and flying units, but not buildings. Bush men will ignore the player's commands while in this state and just attack the selected unit. If taregting a flying unit, the bush men will fall to the ground at the end of the effect, taking a "knockback" style brief stun effect in the process.

 

 

--- Swamp Trolls (T1-T3 N) ---

They just seem like a cool idea, and a natural fit for the nature faction. Part of the unit also partly addresses the issue with the Tree Spirit unit being the worst choice of a card to play in every T1 situation -- a juvenile swamp troll can help the tree spirit be not-as-useless by either giving it a weak healing-over-time or making the enemy attack the troll first.

I had the idea of adding a "hungry" mechanic to the swamp trolls, where if they kill X units without dying they eventually transform/grow into the next type of troll (juvenile -> adolescent -> adult). While the idea seems really fun, and fits extremely well with the Nature concept of "keep your units alive, void return be damned!", it would probably be too strong and maybe steps on twilight's toes a bit - so it was left out.

-- Juvenile Swamp Trolls (T1 N @ 80 Power) --

Spoiler

Trollish Regeneration: Trolls regenerates HP over time. The base regeneration at 5% of its HP every 3 seconds, but gets stronger as the troll is more injured. Healing frequency scales linearly with missing% HP, with the maximum healing at 25% missing HP. At max scaling, the troll regenerates 5% of its HP every 1.5 seconds.

Root Fertilizer: While at full health, the trollish regeneration generates excess bio mass which sheds off the trolls body. While within range of a root network and at full health, the troll will provide 5% of its own HP as healing to the root network every 3 seconds, which is then spread evenly across injured buildings and units in the root network.

 

 

-- Adolescent Swamp Troll (T2 N @ 100 Power) --

Spoiler

(font size reeee!)

Grab Ally: The troll grabs the targeted small or medium allied unit, temporarily removing it from the battlefield and rendering itself unable to attack while the ally is being held

Hurl (20 power, 30 sec cooldown): Hurls the object or unit in the troll's hand at a target enemy. If a unit is being held, the unit is hurled at the target, and lands at the position of the target with its health intact and controllable by the player. If no unit is being held, the troll instead hurls a rock which deals 220 damage and knocks back a Medium or smaller target.

Trollish Regeneration: same as above

Root Fertilizer: same as above

 

 

-- Adult Swamp Troll (T3 N @ 140 Power) --

Spoiler

Hurl Boulder(50 power, 30 sec cooldown): Hurl a boulder at a target enemy. The rock deals 450 damage, and knocks back Large or smaller targets. If the rock is hurled at a building, it deals siege damage (+50%)

Concussive Blows: The troll's blows concuss its target, slowing Large and smaller units.

Trollish Regeneration: same as above

Root Fertilizer: same as above