Card Balance: Share your build!

[Nives]

Hi, everybody!

We've been discussing the balance of several cards more closely this week, and want to ask for your opinion on mechanics you think are currently making the game uninteresting.

Do you have a favorite build that would be perfect, but is too costly in mana right now, or cards that you like in description, but can't play without specific combinations? Tell us! :)

Current Discussion

• Discard is powerful, could use better distribution among smaller cards
  
• Burn decks take long to setup, currently lack satisfying finisher cards
  
• Building large decks makes harder to recover, discourages variety
  
• Collecting mandatory overpowered cards limits diversity in builds
  
• Choice in interaction with the Ash deck, to target specific cards
  
• Lifesteal is not suited for Pyrobomb or long-setup archetypes

[ioanns_net]

Well. About OP combos, as for me:) And OP dungeons. My last run (and my first finished with dungeons) was about. inferno - i mean, poor dungeon bosses, after i crafted inferno in second dungeon of 2nd chapter, it was over for them. But that was noticed in another thread.
I think, that burn on crit and burning can crit combo is, in fact, intended. And probably on about 10-15 crit chance and 1-2 burn on crit, it is ok. But with 4 burn on crit scrolls, (well, actually, also about 5 pyroglyphs on 60 cards in deck), imo, it's too OP. Especially against bosses. They burn.. and burn.. and burn..

About heroics dungeons - well, shielding ring is a saver. and that hiding cloak/ especially since both are normal cards. (though, i was playing with 10 mana mods modifier, that's why cloak was so saving)

[Nives]

Thank you for the observations! Inferno is kinda OP, but as with scrolls - updates are coming ;)

We don't want to nerf stuff, maybe limit to a couple of unique effects per scroll, or scale power.

How many dungeons did you clear so far?

[Ouroboros]

Just got my first win using a scroll deck, with the black tome. I could one shot almost anything if I burnt out all of my cards other than black tome and greater sacrifice, so you might want to look into that. The only target I didn't manage to one shot when I used that combo was the third boss, which it dealt around 800 damage to. I mostly relied on Lesser Sacrifice, since it's difficult to get the deck into that specific state, but even that could one shot most things, the only issue being that I had to wait to draw into it.

But yeah, scrolls are definitely overpowered right now. The issue is, they provide a benefit with no downside, and can be kept active indefinitely. The only real disadvantage is that they make the Ash Pact and other random renewal effects harder to use. I'm curious what the update will change about them!

A few side notes:

It looks like Greater Sacrifice only discards a maximum of 100 cards; is that intentional? (My deck had a bit over 130 cards)

During the final boss battle, when I used Greater Sacrifice, it actually caused the screen to briefly get much smaller. I think it went to about half its normal size? It fixed itself right after... I'm guessing it's related to The Ash Box shard being discarded multiple times using Greater Sacrifice.

Using Greater Sacrifice, in general, caused a pretty massive amount of delay as well. I wouldn't call it lag, since the game still responded normally in general, but essentially what would happen was that the game would wait for a minute or two after the enemies died before processing my victory.

[Nives]

Hi! Thanks, Discard will be reworked, maybe not this update, but in the nearest future ;)

You raise the exact problems we want to solve - passive, persistent power, one shotting.

P.S. Thank you for the max cards tip! We're checking what can cause slowdown in 171.

[Occultist]

Seems like you've actually changed something I've been asking for (turn order etc). Impressive.

I've always thought that card or actually turn based games rely much more on UI/QOL improvements than other games. Because you can play them while drinking tea, studying, working etc. And the more complex they are (in a good way), the more fun these games will bring. Especially if the control/ui system is done well.

Still there are several QOL and gameplay changes could be done to make DOA more enjoyable: make ash storms more important, accessibility of certain upgrades, make attribute system more interesting and some casual balance shenanigans to smoothen some edges (OP effects stacking etc).

I also want to mention total mana and mana cost of some cards. I want to do MORE per turn, considering I can control only 1 character in battle.

It is merely a suggestion, but I kinda like the idea of a more archetype - based ash pact. Not as a separate card (like the strain 0-cost one), but maybe as an ash card or a trait (attribute somehow? Lesser hp usage?), which changes the way ash pact works.

I really like the idea that character can have an active special power , like in the Hearthstone, or in the Heroes of M&M 6 (the game itself was a mediocre, but these mechanics were interesting). Especially if this power is 'free', but either has cooldown or can be used only once per battle.


P.S. Sorry for the wall of text, again I'm glad that you are not forgetting QOL.

[Nives]

It's cool Occultist, and as always, thank you for the honest feedback o/

We'll try to have *at least* 1 major community/QOL patch every month.

[Occultist]

So I decided to play more cautious this time, entered heroic dungeon and died to a cannibal guy from 80 dmg crit.

I understand that this is a hardcore challenge and shouldn't be easy by any means, but don't you think that dungeon terrain debuffs can be... a bit unfare?

I mean, my whole point of the run was to stack a lot of burns to make sure that my healing is efficient enough, thanks to damage debuff trait.

But it all was ruined by the fact that traits are not working and I wasn't able to decrease enemy's damage. I understand that if I was lucky, I could buy shield card later on blah-blah-blah, but still I hope that instead of no traits debuff there will be something else at some point.

I'm sad about the situation mostly because my first enemy was an epic monster which marks all cards in your hand to add an ailment. Forgot its name. And this fight was a joke, cause speciefic tactics were not even needed, all I had to do is to pay attention to what is happening next turn and make sure that my hand is empty.


Btw, as expected, the game feels much more satisfying in terms of QOL etc. I really enjoy the latest changes.

P.S. Have you ever considered adding 'replay battle' option? I'm not suggesting it, just asking out of curiosity.

[Nives]

Replay battle yes, and for now you can use the haxtor method of "back to Main Menu", continue ;)

Dungeon effects are work in progress, we'll change things up and remove some before release.

[Maldevinine]

There's a lot of discussion here about card combinations being overpowered ( I got 1295 damage out of a Greater Sacrifice and the third boss just disappeared) and most of the discussion is about how to change the cards to make them more balanced.

I'd suggest going the other way. Change the enemies to make the cards more balanced. At the moment there's only a few enemies that play with your deck mechanics in an interesting way (Mostly the Black Knight with his hand discard mechanic) and there's a few enemy abilities that are based off your decks. Make more of that.

Have enemies that gain strength based on the number of contagions you are carrying. Make an enemy that as it's first move swaps your playable and ash decks. Have enemy abilities that deal damage based on how many cards you have in your ash deck. Make one that every time you damage it you discard and renew a random card. Have one that can cast random cards from your ash deck (or your main deck). Have something that can disassemble cards in the ash deck. If you're feeling really mean, have an enemy that also gains the benefit of every ash card you have in the ash deck.

That will also make the game more tactical because how much damage an enemy can do to you is more dependent upon your build and you will have to pay more attention to what they are doing.

[Nives]

That is actually an incredible and yet simple way to deepen the battle system, thank you A LOT!

[Maldevinine]

I'm going to hate myself next update when I hit one of these abilities and remember who suggested them.

[Nives]

True, there is fine balance between fun and surprise of a tricky foe with avoidable mechanics and just blatant "you have any ailments you screwed". Like with horrors, suspense and shock value :)

[Occultist]

Originally posted by Nives:

True, there is fine balance between fun and surprise of a tricky foe with avoidable mechanics and just blatant "you have any ailments you screwed". Like with horrors, suspense and shock value :)

That was the main point of my last messages. I just hope you will find a solution to make sure we respect the threat but at the same time, we have enough tools to deal with it no matter the archetype we are using.

[Nives]

That is the goal :)

I'm gathering feedback and ideas from the community and the designers will try to include what is fitting with the game into the updates, QOL or new mechanics. This week should be a good one ;)

[incendia]

hey folks, I've been unable to play for several weeks due to a combination of a broken computer and a rather turbulent personal life however I've gotten things fixed and I'm really excited to check out sly and to see whats changed over the last few weeks!