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T1 cards for Twilight, Stonekin and Bandits etc.


WolvenX

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  • 3 months later...

I would like to share my idea for this kind of Topic which i had for pretty much years... sorry for my english too.

 

At first i would like to start with, this might become a future thing, it will take alot of work to do any of this stuff and i do not think it might be ever possible.

but the solution to solve the unbalance or orb confusion is maybe, lets take the Faction Bandit as an example, Bandit will lets say get the Sand Orb which is only available if you start with a Bandit T1 Card, in that case (extra rebalanced T1 Bandit units such as Banditos crossbows and or spearman would exist just for the T1 matter, the original of these T2 Cards will still remain as they are) They would be played out with one sand orb and the Monument will get an automatic sand orb.

Now you might ask how the heck do you plan on adding more factions to this idea, if you go with T2 you get the normal 4 Orb options and of course the 5th one which would be the "mixed (Bandit, Stonekin, Lost Souls, Amii, Twilight)" faction Orb so Fire, Nature, Shadow, Frost and Sand, you now could choose to go with any other faction with as example Nature, shadow, Frost or Fire, and if these cards have 1 Nature/Shadow/Fire/Frost orb and neutrals then you could use them, you could also use mixed t1 cards and t2 cards with special rainbow orbs if they ever exist, who basicly use any faction type. Or special hybrid orbs that let you have with a combo of fire and shadow let you use t1 bandit cards.

The only thing that would be limited is that you cannot go with other T1 mixed factions unless you use the correct orbs for them as example i have a sand orb, and went with fire, if i have Sand Fire and Nature, i could use Twilight cards, as example If i went with Lost Souls and earn a Haunted orb with T1 and continued with it, i wouldnt be able to get the sand orb for bandits, unless theres gonna be more work about mixing just "mixed factions (Bandit, Stonekin, Lost Souls, Amii, Twilight)"

The Hybrid orb if expanded could become a rainbow orb for mixed factions if it ever happens where the Sand orb example could be pushed into it, so you can start with pretty much any mixed faction.

The Second way of doing these is instead of having an extra Orb to choose from, the first Orb which is from (Bandit, Stonekin, Lost Souls, Amii, Twilight) might be the one we can use for T1 and whenever we use any of the major pure factions we would exchange the existing orb where the sand orb might become whatever faction you choose as T2.

Thats all i had and always wanted to bring up, but keept forgetting ^^

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Sorry I did not get it, what will the sand orb allow you to play? If it would allow you to play any pure card, it sounds quite overpowered. And what spell(s) the Sand orb would have? Spells require effects to be created, and that is work.

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33 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Sorry I did not get it, what will the sand orb allow you to play? If it would allow you to play any pure card, it sounds quite overpowered. And what spell(s) the Sand orb would have? Spells require effects to be created, and that is work.

the sand orb would take over to play T1 Bandit cards, it depends if new ones would be made or if existing ones would be downgraded. and incase you wanted to add a faction with it to make it a Bandit/Fire or Bandit/Shadow deck, instead of just bandit, you could mix it with others.

Lets say you play Banditos T1 you gain 1 Sand orb at the start, just like the pure faction would have, and then at T2 you decide to go with Frost fire, nature or shadow to continue your deck, the Sand orb would then convert to the next element you have choosen making it a hybrid basicly "Sand/Shadow, Sand/Fire, Sand/Nature, Sand/Frost". This converting is an idea, unless we add even more Orbs to the cards, i know the limit is just 4, it might be also a big problem having lots of orbs, but knowing how to put them in, hybrid orbs might help out but it is still hard to pull of.

if you wanted you could go Pure bandit, then you would just stick with sand orbs until T4 then it kinda reflects what pure factions have, as example for the bandit dragon you might need 4 sand orbs or you have the Soulhunter which might be just 2 sand orbs and a neutral, it depend show it will be changed.

The hardest part in my eyes is, how we do the orb mixing, hybrid orb or rainbow orbs if they ever exist, might help out. i Read your message where you said you might make Twilight work.

Edited by BoltyGER
some typos.
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So do I get it right that Sand orb would be 7th type of orb and it would allow you to play any color?
And you would be able to select it when creating second orb (and later). So at T4 you could play Abomination, Wasteland Terror, Lost Dragon, Grinder, Transcendence, Ravenheart, ... with just 4 Sand orbs? Would you want Amii Monument to get this overpowered option too?

I can not imagine designers agreeing to something so powerful.

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34 minutes ago, Kubik said:

So do I get it right that Sand orb would be 7th type of orb and it would allow you to play any color?
And you would be able to select it when creating second orb (and later). So at T4 you could play Abomination, Wasteland Terror, Lost Dragon, Grinder, Transcendence, Ravenheart, ... with just 4 Sand orbs? Would you want Amii Monument to get this overpowered option too?

I can not imagine designers agreeing to something so powerful.

If we maybe take it that way, If you had a sand orb you could play bandit cards, the hard part is how it would continue, since it kinda adds a whole new line of element, just like the 4 pure ones we got, but ideas would have been if a t2 card had 1 sand 1 neutral or 1 sand and 1 fire/shadow/frost or Nature orb then those combination could also happen, just like if you had a fire nature deck, and you mixed fire and nature cards and some who need both orbs to work. Not entirely a multi use orb, making it turn into something was another idea.

 

It does not give you all orbs for free dont worry, it was an idea for the hybrid function but it doesn't very good, more like that if other mixed factions were to become pure, they would have a difficult time mixing with others, unless even more card theme and mix ideas were created, that also means alot of work

Edited by BoltyGER
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2 minutes ago, Kubik said:

it seems kind of over-complicated compared to how few cards are there.

yeah i know, that is why this might be something in the future or probably never, its also kinda sad to see that the rare play of the few cards like twilight minions or banditos, they aren't often used, and this thread might give them hope haha, my sand orb idea is for all mixed ones where everyone has their very own orb to use, which is a big thing too, but i get your view how it may have sounded like, the hybrid ideas wan't good i totally agree on it being to strong

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55 minutes ago, BoltyGER said:

yeah i know, that is why this might be something in the future or probably never, its also kinda sad to see that the rare play of the few cards like twilight minions or banditos, they aren't often used, and this thread might give them hope haha, my sand orb idea is for all mixed ones where everyone has their very own orb to use, which is a big thing too, but i get your view how it may have sounded like, the hybrid ideas wan't good i totally agree on it being to strong

Well my last attempt would be if we had additional pure factions such as stonekin, bandit, twilight, amii, Lost Souls then they basicly work just like the 4 main pure factions that we got, it would not require any mixing so pretty much the sand orb is basicly a completly new orb added to the game and another thing to be added to monuments

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🤔 so you would want to replace existing mixed faction with pure factions and limit deck possibilities this way. You can try applying for designer role, but I doubt there is any chance to redesign few thousand cards, with so few people to actually implement these changes, so I recommend checking out

 

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On 4/8/2022 at 3:47 PM, Majora said:

If I remember correctly, the issue is that the game gives you your first orb color depending on which element you spawn first.
So if your first unit is a twilight unit, how can the game know what orb to select for you? 

what does the game do if you go to t2 instantly and then spawn a neutral or multicolored unit (you should be able to do that in team maps where orbs are close or custom maps)?
Ironically while pure or multicolored units are usually stronger than those with wildcard orb requirements (Windhunter - Skyfire drake), the opposite must apply multicolored t1 cards.

The technically easier solution is probably just locking twillight/lost etc. cards from being spawned first, but that might be a dissatisfying solution since you could never make a pure twilight deck. Instead spawning a twilight card should lock your ability to play any ice, shadow spells.

Another option would to give orb by a cards orb precedence or the cheapest solution, create two affinities where one is green and the other red t1.

On 4/10/2022 at 5:53 AM, Eirias said:

Or implement it somewhere in the deck itself, so your orb auto-builds even faster at the start of the map (e.g. pre-define that I want my first orb to be fire). This has a few advantages
1). New players don't accidentally start with the wrong unit and thus build the wrong orb
2). PvP stalling is reduced (this is a strategy where neither player wants to play the first card, because they decide this based on what the opponent is playing. In fact Radical recommends this to 100% of nature players)
3). No problems with half orbs or neutral orb creatures in t1
4). Additional searchability (e.g. is that my stonekin deck with nature t1 or frost t1?)

Implementing this feature could be clunky. Maybe it could be an icon in the deck thumbnail (like small red circle for fire t1) which you can click to change? Or maybe give the deck some kind of border?

nah, the card spawning is nice and seamless. Changing that probably doesn't change the fact that you have to change a core mechanic which makes it technically complicated.
If pvp stalling is an issue there are better ways to deal with it, e.g. temporary fog of war. I don't even see how forcing to choose an orb solves pvp stalling.

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36 minutes ago, Kubik said:

🤔 so you would want to replace existing mixed faction with pure factions and limit deck possibilities this way. You can try applying for designer role, but I doubt there is any chance to redesign few thousand cards, with so few people to actually implement these changes, so I recommend checking out

 

i will think about it, this does require alot of changes that is true, and like my aim isn't to ruin that its more like to add new pure factions somehow

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24 minutes ago, Sacriefice said:

what does the game do if you go to t2 instantly and then spawn a neutral or multicolored unit (you should be able to do that in team maps where orbs are close or custom maps)?

Any + Starter = Any + First orb on card (For example Shadow + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)
Starter + Starter = 2x First orb on card (For example Starter + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)

24 minutes ago, Sacriefice said:

Another option would to give orb by a cards orb precedence or the cheapest solution, create two affinities where one is green and the other red t1.

But the orb i chosen based on first orb on the card, not what card was actually played.

25 minutes ago, Sacriefice said:

If pvp stalling is an issue there are better ways to deal with it, e.g. temporary fog of war. I don't even see how forcing to choose an orb solves pvp stalling.

How is that easier solution? It would require change to mechanic no one have a clue about how it works (internally).

3 minutes ago, BoltyGER said:

i will think about it, this does require alot of changes that is true, and like my aim isn't to ruin that its more like to add new pure factions somehow

Such faction to be usable should have similar amount of cards as existing factions, which is about 90, and from converting mixed factions you would get only about 40 cards. (not counting affinities, just using numbers from filters on wiki https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Cards)

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1 hour ago, Sacriefice said:

I don't even see how forcing to choose an orb solves pvp stalling.

This is a very minor problem, but it's actually "optimal" to stall for the 1st minute.

If you are nature, the starting unit depends a lot on what deck your opponent plays. For instance, you usually want to start swiftclaw to contest map control, but shadow's nox trooper make swiftclaw a bad choice. So a nature player usually waits to see the opponent's deck, before deciding to start swiftclaw or something else. There was actually a funny game where radicalX put a t1 nature card preview into his deck which actually started t1 shadow, to trick his opponent into starting with the wrong card.

If you suspect your opponent is nature, stalling can be good because 1. they might give up stalling and play swiftclaw into your shadow, or 2. it gives you more power to burst in an early encounter (for example, fire having 2-3 eruptions in reserve can be devastating vs nature. Nature has to play units in advance but if that happens, fire can just go t2 and clear the t1 army).

 

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2 hours ago, Kubik said:

Any + Starter = Any + First orb on card (For example Shadow + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)
Starter + Starter = 2x First orb on card (For example Starter + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)

But the orb i chosen based on first orb on the card, not what card was actually played.

How is that easier solution? It would require change to mechanic no one have a clue about how it works (internally).

Such faction to be usable should have similar amount of cards as existing factions, which is about 90, and from converting mixed factions you would get only about 40 cards. (not counting affinities, just using numbers from filters on wiki https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Cards)

It might take a while but theres ton of Bandit and the other mixed faction pve enemies, that just wait to be a card 🙂 its a slow process but a huge one for sure

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I thought the general idea of this kind of "sand" orb sounds great, but I was thinking about it in an other way:

If you play a t1 bandit card your first orb will be spawned as sand orb, that is a somehow unstable orb between fire and shadow.

With the sand orb you are able to play any bandit/fire/shaddow cards, but as soon as you play a fire or a shadow card, the sand orb transforms into its color, so you can only play shadow or fire cards along with your bandit T1 cards.

This way you could still go pure bandit, but are also able to fill with spells or fillers from one of the colors.

I have no idea if something like this would even be possible to programm, probably super complicated, but this is how I would implement this kind of mixed t1 orbs.

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1 hour ago, DefAnske said:

I thought the general idea of this kind of "sand" orb sounds great, but I was thinking about it in an other way:

If you play a t1 bandit card your first orb will be spawned as sand orb, that is a somehow unstable orb between fire and shadow.

With the sand orb you are able to play any bandit/fire/shaddow cards, but as soon as you play a fire or a shadow card, the sand orb transforms into its color, so you can only play shadow or fire cards along with your bandit T1 cards.

This way you could still go pure bandit, but are also able to fill with spells or fillers from one of the colors.

I have no idea if something like this would even be possible to programm, probably super complicated, but this is how I would implement this kind of mixed t1 orbs.

That was pretty much what it was meant for, i cannot explain it well, but yeah i wished the mixed factions were its own thing, then they will be completly used just as the 4 main factions we got.

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While people should feel free to continue to offer suggestions and theory craft on how to make this work, there are no plans at present to release any hybrid faction cards for T1. We plan on continuing to flesh out existing factions and combinations for the foreseeable future. Making new cards takes a lot of time and resources and we still have the Amii faction waiting with only 4 cards to its name. 

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13 hours ago, WindHunter said:

While people should feel free to continue to offer suggestions and theory craft on how to make this work, there are no plans at present to release any hybrid faction cards for T1. We plan on continuing to flesh out existing factions and combinations for the foreseeable future. Making new cards takes a lot of time and resources and we still have the Amii faction waiting with only 4 cards to its name. 

yep, that is why i said this is a thing for the future, Shouldn't be rushed down or anything like that, but im glad you guys bring new cards in, it makes some peoples childhood dreams come true ^^

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23 hours ago, Eirias said:

This is a very minor problem, but it's actually "optimal" to stall for the 1st minute.

If you are nature, the starting unit depends a lot on what deck your opponent plays. For instance, you usually want to start swiftclaw to contest map control, but shadow's nox trooper make swiftclaw a bad choice. So a nature player usually waits to see the opponent's deck, before deciding to start swiftclaw or something else. There was actually a funny game where radicalX put a t1 nature card preview into his deck which actually started t1 shadow, to trick his opponent into starting with the wrong card.

If you suspect your opponent is nature, stalling can be good because 1. they might give up stalling and play swiftclaw into your shadow, or 2. it gives you more power to burst in an early encounter (for example, fire having 2-3 eruptions in reserve can be devastating vs nature. Nature has to play units in advance but if that happens, fire can just go t2 and clear the t1 army).

Lacking your explanation here how this prevents stalling?
I get behind the concept of stalling and generally reactive play being annoying.

Sure you can't shadow your faction anymore, but still stall to play your first unit . If I understand you correctly this puts nature even more at an disadvantage, which is already one of the weaker pvp factions.

@Kubik

On 11/1/2022 at 7:06 PM, Kubik said:

Any + Starter = Any + First orb on card (For example Shadow + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)
Starter + Starter = 2x First orb on card (For example Starter + Starter + Banditos = 2x Shadow)

good to know, couldn't test it yesterday.

Quote

But the orb i chosen based on first orb on the card, not what card was actually played.

What I meant is, just make a multi colored t1 card (twilight) t1 nature and then do some trickery to also allow it being played by fire. (Enlightment allows to circumvent orb requirements, so there is some basis to emulate its effect and limit it to two orbs). This way you have to change nothing about the orb system itself.
And the even cheaper solution that requires no extra work is, to make two cards for every multicolored t1 card.

Quote

How is that easier solution? It would require change to mechanic no one have a clue about how it works (internally).

PVP stalling - You sure you quoted the right paragraph? Didn't say its easier, hard to tell what's easier there without knowing the source code, but changing the orb selection process doesn't sound trivial either and I don't think it's a real solution to stalling. Fog of war is something that already exists in theory, dunno how hard it is to utilize it, it could be really easy or really hard. Either way this was just an example solution that would actually fixe stalling.
You are not going to wait ~10 seconds to react to whatever your enemy has spawned

EDIT: oops, prematurely posted by pressing ctrl+enter

Edited by Sacriefice
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Yes I think I quoted the right paragraphs.

We do not have source code for the game. With source code changing orb selection would likely be small isolated place, but Fog Of War would still be complex system.

Also changing Fog Of War for PvP would have significant design decisions, because it would be quite significant change. Can you imagine playing chess, but not seeing opponents moves?

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50 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Yes I think I quoted the right paragraphs.

We do not have source code for the game. With source code changing orb selection would likely be small isolated place, but Fog Of War would still be complex system.

Didn't know, I thought you meant you specifically don't have it. I thought I read years ago when this project was in its early phase, that EA gave 'you' the source code, they just didn't give you the netcode because of potential security risks that could be revealed for their other games.

Quote

Also changing Fog Of War for PvP would have significant design decisions, because it would be quite significant change. Can you imagine playing chess, but not seeing opponents moves?

temporary fog of war for like 10 seconds, maybe only around an area around the first monument. 

Not really related but yeah I can imagine it, its just hard to implement something like this in a physical game. Battleship and its variants do this, Stratego is chess variant that hides your units and essentially every other RTS game does it. I think it would be a neat variations to pvp mode with fog of war, but Battleforge is clearly not made for it and it might reveal some issues. I can imagine hit and run tactics may be really annoying to deal with.

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No not even a single line of code from EA.

You can enable Fog Of War on community maps, but it is for whole map, not just 10s around spawn.

Stratego does not seem similar to chess in any other way, than having board with squares.
Fog Of War is quite a big balancing issue in many games, because you can lose units without having a chance to know what happen, because something outside of field of view will kill them.
Point is that having Fog Of War would make totally different game.

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19 hours ago, Sacriefice said:

Sure you can't shadow your faction anymore, but still stall to play your first unit . If I understand you correctly this puts nature even more at an disadvantage, which is already one of the weaker pvp factions.

No, as soon as you know what color your opponent plays, there's no need to stall. Each color tries to achieve different things (map control, early t2, etc). It doesn't matter if shadow's first card is nox trooper or dreadcharger (spoiler, it will always be dreadcharger), nature does not want to play swiftclaw vs shadow because nox trooper can be played at any time.

If nature sees that their opponent is frost, swiftclaw is perhaps the most useful unit in the deck. You don't need to wait to see the first unit, if you know their t1 color you already know what cards they have access to.

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