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Underwhelming Affinitys


Xamos

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Dear Skylords and Skyladies, 

 

first off, I really like the idea of card-affinitys, as they provide the possibility to use different strategies and adjust your deck to your liking and needs. And I´m really looking forward to a Rework of the 4 Crystals - as they provide great Synergy with affinitys and would improve deck diversity, f.e. when you choose the "weaker" affinity but it gets supported by the crystal-effect. I´d love to have affinitys for each original twilight-edition card as well, but that can wait :D

That said, there are many cards where one affinity is just better than the other one. And it doesn´t leave you with a choice - you simply want/need to use the better one (if you can afford it bfp-wise). 

I´d like to see that changed, and I´ve got plenty ideas as you might have noticed already in the balancing-discord, sorry if I bother too much ;D

Let´s start with one card each (random Order), and maybe expand this Post if wanted. Numbers can be adjusted of course.

 

1. Forest Elder (purple): His passive seems just so much weaker than his green mate, and doesn´t have unique use-cases. The card price also speaks for itself, one being significantly cheaper than the other one. My suggestions ( current / new ):
a) Pest Plants: Unit is surrounded by pestering weeds that poison enemy units within a 20m radius. They will lose 50 life points every second while being near Forest Elder and deal ~25% less damage. 
OR:

b) New Passive: "Lone Keeper of the Forest": Forest Elder deals ~50% more damage, but this bonus will decline for ever friendly unit nearby. Every allied unit reduces this bonus by ~5%.
OR:

c) New Passive: "Father/Keeper/Leader of the Forest": Forest Elder gets stronger for every allied forestkin (and or beast) nearby. Every forestkin (and or beast) unit in an area of 20m around him will grant Forest Elder a damage bonus of 5% each up to ~50%.
d) Same New Passive: "Father/Keeper/Leader of the Forest": [...] AND every allied forestkin (and or beast) nearby will also be inspired to deal ~30% more damage themselfes.

PS: at first I overlooked that the balancing community already talked about changing Forest elder, and even buff the green one to ~40% (would make sense to me, the 25% actually doesn't make that much of a difference if you try it out) - also, the idea that actually his trail creates the buff or poison area sounds really cool (but harder to implement?), or that Forest Elder (p) poison works like the Noxious cloud would be very cool. 

 

Next up:

2. Thunder Wagon (p): Dealing damage on death is not very useful, especially on a XL Unit which you don´t want to die. Why not improve his flamethrower, to behave like the ability of pyromanic (r)?

3. Gravity Surge (p): Nobody wants to use this since the target can´t even be attacked by ranged units anymore. If this gets deleted and the spell would hit all targets within a 15m radius, that would be nice.

4. Slow units: Nightguard (p), Stormsinger (r), Gladiatrix (p), ... being slow is a huge disadvantage, and their effects do not compensate that at all, they need something better. 

 

Please tell me what you think :)

Have a god day! 

Edited by Xamos
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Hey Xamos, 

You have been sharing a lot of idea's recently, and by all means, keep doing that! We are open to feedback, and we definitely try to take as much of it into account. 

I do want to give a little bit of expectation management going forward however. In the last few months, we have slowly been able to move from releasing the game in a stable state, to fixing old issues and adding new experiences. We have also been increasing the team size, and as you can expect, it takes a while for everyone to be up and running (myself included), as it is with every other job. Everyone is working on this project for free and alongside their studies and full time jobs as well, so time is always an issue. 

One of the great things about this game is the fact that there is something to enjoy for everyone. 1, 2, 4 and even 12 player maps, multiple difficulty settings, a story, player vs player, trading cards and building a collection, ranked, speedrunning, contests, achievements.. But this is also a double edged sword. People like different things and its a complicated eco-system to keep everyone happy. For example, you mentioned that the PvP changes dont mean much to you as a mostly-PvE-player. At the same time, the PvP scene was in need of a solution to a broken meta. Some people really want us to release new cards, while others feel there are hundreds of cards that can be improved upon first. Some people are looking for new fresh things, while others would prefer the game to stay the way it was. 

Sometimes there are also things that seem really easy to do on the outside, but cause problems when we try to actually implement them. A good example would be fire/frost cards. We can not add them to the game currently, because there is no fire/frost template card. When you see all the things that have been added that were not part of the original release, its seems bizarre this minor thing is keeping us from releasing a whole new faction, but yet here we are.. Now some of these things get figured out of over time, but there is the problem again: time. We only have so much of it to work on certain things. 

The reason I am writing all of this is because I see a bit of myself in some of your posts. I too get passionate about certain games and write out one idea after the other. But then nothing happens. And I get sad or even mad, cause I gave all these ideas and nothing is being done. "Clearly just another game where the devs dont care about their community!" I dont want that mindset to happen to you in the future if your ideas dont get implemented. We do care, and we are hard at work on the project. But we have to spread our time in the right places to keep as many people as we can happy. To be a bit on topic: the Crystals are really niche, and there are not many people that care about them. Im sure at some point we will get to them, cause their design space is interesting, but there are so many other areas where we can provide interesting new interactions or gameplay experiences, that I dont see it happen any time soon. But I leave that to the balance developers ;) 

So please keep sharing your ideas! They are being heard and, where possible, maybe being worked on already. But we can only do so much at once, and there will always be things that we cant get to. I hope you understand and I look forward to reading your suggestions in the future :)

 

 

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Well thanks a lot for your detailed reply @Majora :]

It´s great news that ideas from the community (and my ideas) are being heard! 

I am aware of the fact that this Project is only fan based and worked on in free/spare time, and I really appreciate all of the staffs work!

For me, i just want to provide as much as I can to improve the project or rather the game for everyone - and that´s just ideas for now, beacuse not available actual free time is a reason (besides probably missing qualifications too) why I don´t apply to become a member in the first place.

Considering Suggestions - I´m aware that not everything is even possible to implement, so I try to stay in range of what is technically possible and what does at least not sound too hard to implement (obviously I don´t know precicely, but at least I try to).

Also, I know that only some of these ideas would actually make it into the game itself (if even), but nevertheless I think its worth sharing them. In the first place I want to get feedback to these ideas, so that if there are a lot people liking or disagreeing on something maybe the devs notice it and maaaybe consider implementing something. I´m happy to get any opinion on suggestions.

I know and expect that many don´t even want to change specific cards, but personally I think a lot changes are worth considering to create a more balanced and fun game. 

But thanks for the heads-up, I wont expect any of my ideas implemented any time soon xd

 

On the topic: yes Crystals are niche - but right now mostly due to their weak/not needed abilitys right now i think, and also due to the fact that there are not enought affinity units that profit from them yes. It´s fine if these changes get delayed.

 

And what do you think on my suggestion for the Forest Elder? :D Would you prefer the first or the second ability suggestion? Or none at all?

Edited by Xamos
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18 minutes ago, Xamos said:

And what do you think on my suggestion for the Forest Elder? :D 

As a community manager I dont have a balancing role, so I can only reply to you as a fellow player (which I still am at heart, i love this game :)

In general, the reason affinity's were added was to be able to sell packs, and it saved them the trouble of creating double the amount of cards. However, I do think affinities have more potential than they currently have. Some have effects that are barely relevant, while others have a clear better version. So im always a fan of buffing the lesser used version ;) I do think the affinities work in a way that only 1 or 2 things are different, however. I cant remember from the top of my head a card that had literally a different ability all together, so if you add something to forest elder, you would probably have to add it to both versions. 

The suggested change of you, i think,  pushes people into playing a green batariel. You are pushed into only playing the Forest Elder and support it with heels and buffs. I would personally be more interested in something like ''gets effect X for every forestkin creature next to forest elder". I think creature types are underused in the game, and it would be fun to see the GGGG unit care about.. well. green units :P 

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53 minutes ago, Majora said:

I think creature types are underused in the game, and it would be fun to see the GGGG unit care about.. well. green units :P 

Good point, I´d love to see more creature-tpye synergies as well.

 

54 minutes ago, Majora said:

The suggested change of you, i think,  pushes people into playing a green batariel.

Dint´t think about that actually, I just wanted to make the Forest Elder stronger and different or even opposite to the other affinity, so that each of them has its own usecase - green being supportive, purple being strong on his own. But if he would get a dmg-buff in addition to his area-damage, that sounds alot like Batariel indeed :D

 

59 minutes ago, Majora said:

I cant remember from the top of my head a card that had literally a different ability all together

Right, usually it´s the same ability that has a different effect, but f.e. Thunder Wagon - red gives siege, while the purple one has a completele different ability: explodes on death. So i think if it´s not too far fetched it´s very well feasable within the game.

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Quote

1. Forest Elder (purple): His passive seems just so much weaker than his green mate, and doesn´t have unique use-cases

Maybe purple one is less usefull thatn nature - but price of purple one shows that its still usefull.
I have them both in mamany decks - while nature one is FAR better in late game... Purple one is better as first T4 unit.

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16 hours ago, ThomasMann said:

Give Mauler affinities 

Why Mauler in particular? Got any ideas for him already?

Yes I´d like to have affinitys for all twilight-edition cards, but where to start? Just randomly giving single units affinitys? I´d say we start with the units, and maybe go from t1 through to t4. I wouldnt mind coming up with ideas, but I don´t know if that would be even wanted from the devs - not everyone wants to get affinitys for the original cards.

19 hours ago, Draconnor said:

Maybe purple one is less usefull thatn nature - but price of purple one shows that its still usefull.
I have them both in mamany decks - while nature one is FAR better in late game... Purple one is better as first T4 unit.

Actually, Forest Elder purple is already ok-ish ye, but for a t4 unit that has such big restrictions (4x:natureorb:, 325 Power) it should provide more than just a little bit damage to nearby units. 
The price (at ~300bfp) comes from the fact that it is one of the coolest looking units I think, and that he is not bad even without any extra ability. But as the pinnacle of your pure-Nature deck it should be good and not just only "not bad" (in my opinion).

I like the idea to buff allied units nearby from the green one, as the King of the Forest he strengthens nearby allies (as Rogan does). Maybe the purple one should also do that, but more specific to Forestkin units as Majora suggested? 

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On 4/30/2021 at 7:30 PM, Draconnor said:

But i really like my Purple Elder and use it :P don't broke it ;)
Aura could be sronger - but as for early enlighted t4 it mostly figts with T2/T3 units - so its doing its work when added to damage from trample.

Ye I didn't say we change him that he gets broken - I would not take away the poison-effect from him, I'd just like to see it being made stronger or even add another ability to him.

He is the ONLY pure nature t4 card and thus the only reason to go pure nature on t4 in PvE, he should provide something more special that just looking cool. 

Even the green one could receive a little buff. 

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