May 19th - Patch Feedback

[WindHunter]

Hello everyone, it has been 10 days since the last patch and it is time for our next feedback thread. You can discuss it both here and on our balancing discord: https://discord.gg/jrGEBG9NT5

What did you like, what did you not like? Do you want to see more of some things and less of others? Below are some topics to help begin the discussion:

• Thoughts on the many quality of life features released with the patch?
• New card feedback
• How does Nature rPvE feel? June MotMs will be set to Nature if you have not been able to play it much yet. 
• 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
  • How does Stonekin feel post-patch?
  • Do towers feel like they are in a good place (minus the still-pending changes announced months ago)

[DefAnske]

I love pretty much all of the patch, and I apreciate all of the work a lot, but right now I want to share my opinion about the nature Rpve.

I had some 4 player runs on diff 9 that were very fun, probably more challenging then most other factions, but still balanced to fit in the difficulty. Especially the post t4 Camp with bosses, and the motk's in later rows can really hurt some strategys, but I think that is a cool thing, because the meta spelldecks also get some weaknesses with this.

I was never a huge Rpve Player before, but this month I actually played quite a lot and enjoyed it a lot, also the singleplayer maps.

I also played quite a lot of 10s and started to feel quite confident with most maps and the generell mechanics of it.

But I have to say in singleplayer, also the 9s of nature felt much harder then most 10s I played of other factions (exept maybe LS). That was also affected by pretty unlucky and hard map-layouts I got on nature maps, but it took me like 5 rounds to beat one of them, and there I was already so frustrated that I even played Amii-Monument 😶

And even with pure Frost T4 with 2 Dreadnoughts, 4 Ironclads, shields of 3 Winterwitches and spell support I lost most of the army in the later camps.

That felt realy unreasonable to be honest, I would describe myself as a pretty solid frost player, and I think frost T4 is fairly strong, but the singleplayer nature maps are in my opinion way to hard, uncompareble to other factions on 9 in my opinion.

If you compare a random singleplayer 9 on nature with the Bandit Motm 10, the nature map will challenge you so much more, probably with any possible map layout. 

Edited May 29, 2023 by DefAnske

[Tiny Thor]

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!

[Kapo]

• Thoughts on the many quality of life features released with the patch?
  
  I think you almost take away from them by calling those things QoL features, because some of the improvements touch the game to its core (like the solo pausing). I know card balances are mega important, but from a player perspective, since the magical UI dev started to work, the game got SO MUCH BETTER. 
   
• New card feedback
  
  Maybe I don't understand where it's meant to be used, but I find it so underwhelming that I'm quite sure I'm missing something. It looks great, but I dont see the use-case. Especially, the wind-up time of 5 seconds feels incredibly long. I would lower that significantly, but If this is needed for PvP reasons (?), then maybe add a damage component or debuff for those units that got caught.
   
• How does Nature rPvE feel? June MotMs will be set to Nature if you have not been able to play it much yet. 
  
  Great. Stranglehold is a real pain, but it makes the first camp unique that you have to work around that. Voices that say it needs to be removed just want to keep playing the same as they always did on a different preset, so I think it should stay because it gives you something to do. If you have no idea besides getting one unit strangled to death, so be it, when you focus the Stranglehold down only one unit will die.
  
  I agree on already stated feedback (on Discord I think?) that some bosses still need a special something, especially the Elder, the Wyrm and the Razor. For the Razorleaf I would suggest that the boss heals more the more support it receives, to force players to destroy at least a part of the root structure first before being able to kill him. That's more interesting than just buffing its damage.
  
  And one small detail, the root nexus is sometimes placed so weirdly in the early camps that XL-units can't attack it. 
   
• Opinions on balance changes?
   
• We tried to add several improvements to T1 & T2 through both buffs/reworks and reducing card orb requirements
  
  I think it was a great idea, especially Wallbreaker and the nexus support on T1. 
   
• Current balance between the various void return methods
  
  I was an advocate of the SoW change from the start, and I'm glad it happened. But I was reading on the lack of void return on rainbow decks. Maybe something can be done about this, Sunken Temple + Furnace was mentioned, but that doesn't feel right to me. Maybe something else can be explored? Furnace is fine, but the Temple just feels wrong.
   
• How does Stonekin feel post-patch?
   
• Do towers feel like they are in a good place (minus the still-pending changes announced months ago)

All in all, a great patch. 

The thing the bothers me the most right now are performance issues that seem to be connected to the UI. After the game has been on for a while - no matter if active playing or just running in the background while I'm working, the menu where you place yourself at a map position gets abysmally slow. Sometimes I forget to restart for a while, try to join a rPVE 9, and after I joined the match, until I am able to click anything more than a minute has passed in a frozen state and all spots have filled up already.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Kapo

[Novia]

First of all: Massive thanks for all your work!

 

1. Thoughts on the many quality of life features released with the patch?

The pausing option is amazing.

2. New card feedback

I really like the idea of the card, especially considering to make a construct centered deck more viable, but 5 seconds charging time is way too long in my opinion. I guess it's because of PVP balancing reasons. Is it possible to create a PvE and PvP version of the card? 

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

I'd call myself a fan. Faced it quite often in the last few days. MOTK is annoying as hell and that's good. Strangehold ist not that big deal to me. Yeah... you get rooted. The only unfun part so far is the parasite swarm boss that can mind control a creature. To me this is the definition of an unpleasing experience. I'm somehow attached to my babies. All in all it makes rPvE more unpredictable but not that much harder. (Speaking about 9s) Good Work!

4. Opinions on balance changes?

5. We tried to add several improvements to T1 & T2 through both buffs/reworks and reducing card orb requirements

I loved to see the root network buff with lowering the requirements to T1 for "Root Nexus". Windweaver spam was boring. 

6. Current balance between the various void return methods

Puh. Difficult one to be honest. The new SoW is pretty restrictive now as there is often no argument for playing 2 fire orbs, but forces us to be more creative and to bite the bullet. Martyrs feels very week in comparsion, the higher building costs makes it even more unattractive. Sure you do not need to activate it manually but I'd rather build 2 SoM or 2 Sow  and have my energy flowing the whole time. 

7. How does Stonekin feel post-patch?

8. Do towers feel like they are in a good place (minus the still-pending changes announced months ago)

A lot of towers feel so weak besides "Living Tower". Especially "Stronghold" feels so off. I mean its a big fortress and it does basically nothing. I would love to see a "Warden's Sigil" buff as the idea of the card is great. Also I would love to see a small buff to T1 Towers.

 

I have the same performance issues @Kapo. Oh and somtimes when I play 4ppl maps and i pick "assign loot" the loot chart is empty. No gold conversion.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Novia