Balance suggestions

[lebeststratege]

Hi dev, here is a big one.

There are two panels to the gameplay : the card-game and the world-map.

The card-game revolve around the clock system (which is great inspiration and really fun for many aspects) and as I said in other thread, defense is not an option right now. I won't develop to much the mecanics (this is not an F.A.Q. of how to win the game), so know right now that I love it and I'll discuss only the relative power of the elements.

First is the persistent life of the MC, coupled with the maledictions, it means that the quicker the fights are finished, the better. Also there is the time the MC need to respect "it means that the quicker the fights are finished, the better". There is some trend here.

The defensive strategy is already lagging behind, maybe it can redeem itself with better survivability? Well... not really. Why ? Because playing slow is the best way to let enemy buff themselves as much as the MC... but the MC only have one life meaning every health point taken from him is one less another enemy need to shred. On top of that burn and curse both hit the MC through any shield, meaning you can't defend easily from them. To defend of curse you either need luck (unlocking the blessing buildings, which need ingredients, formula AND money AND space), heavy investment (unlock the card with the 2 temporary blessings, meaning you'll leave out some alchemy) or die. To defend from burning you can appeal to 1 (and only one) defensive card (which negate the NEXT negative status you'll get... you better hope it's burn), or get lucky (alchemy => anti-burn ring and proc it the third time .. the moment you need it) or lucky (level-up => get the perk when you kill you stop burning... hoping you don't die in between). So here is my first suggestion : make damage overtime shieldable.

What I meant with defensive strategy is the combo "oil/burn" coupled with "counter-attack" since there are so many perks for it to work :
- some scale have defense and deal burn
- some level offer a burning perk (I don't remember well, but there is one along the lines of "whenever you play a defensive card, give one burn to everyone, when an enemy dies you remove your burns")
- some scale offer both defense and counter attack
- some level offer counter-attack bonuses.
(I could throw in the bleed effect too, it works... sometime, and with the same concepts)

But my main issue is that those killing technics right now are too slow and reactive to what the enemy does. Not even taking into account that some enemy resist burn and some other don't bleed, there is an enemy whose only purpose is regen, and another one which would add burn on top of self-inflicted burn (good luck surviving 12 stacks of burn, which pass shield).

In the end I never use any of those, since all-out attack is both quicker and safer HP-wise (my deck is litteraly 11 attack cards and the blessing buff... for no good reason in the end). And I stack attacks with self generated attack buffs. (the most OP tool for this is to luck out the perk which reduce the time of the 3 first card played every combat... insanely useful buff). Oh did I mention that attack buffs can last 1h15 (instead of 1H) and stays on you between fights?

To be honest, I'd put in the attack strategy "every card with direct damages" and in the defensive strategy "everything else". Attack snowball, snowball hard, but what's more, snowball FAST.

[lebeststratege]

On the world map, you get alchemy materials as well as the possibility to "enact policies" or better say "construct buildings". I'll start with the later.

The buildings are so core to the game it's great, but some are so bad it's a pity. let's tier the buildings :
top tier => more max stamina/hp/attack/defense/%gold
bottom tier => regen hp on travel, no stamina cost on travel, gold on travel... anything on travel.
middle tier => everything else

The main issue here is that all the "on travel" buildings work for the tile you just cleared, meaning you have to make round trips to get something out of them... while losing hp+stamina+time. There is litteraly ONE spot in the game where such building is usefull => the 5th territory conquered (the 3rd could be equally good, but you can't build those then).

On to the middle tier we have the "one time" buildings, which aren't providing enough ressources to be great, but you still need thoses juicy red materials from mines. So here is my second suggestion : make building like mines produce ressources overtime . Something along the lines of 2 per hour up to 20 (total per mine), or even till the end of game. third suggestion : give us a building of alchemy to unlock formulas , either one random or better, give us the choice of the tree to unlock.


The alchemy is the part where you can unlock usefull perks and view/construct your deck. The construct part where I never set my foot in because I don't want to lose precious alchemy material for card I can get randomly anyway. 4th suggestion : reduce the number of cards to choose from 4 to 2 IF you give us more ressources (along the lines of suggestion 2) then I could spend my time creating my deck and spending ressources for it.


Finally here are some building I'd like to have access to :
Merchant => allow me to buy material at *2 cost of sell : better than the perk but would unlock materials tier by tier (1 tier each (max 3), 2 tiers for the special)
Guide => reduce the time used by travel (1 minute each (max 3), 2 minute for the special)
Roads => free stamina travel to and from the tile (highway is free stamina for the island)
Tavern => generate gold every hour (600 (max 3), bank is 1200 => equal to grant 10 collect and 20 collect)
Hospital => give the MC ONE apple (max 3), special is 2 apples.
Church => reduce the stamina cost of focus by 1 (max 3), cathedral is 2.

With those I'd have a hard time choosing which building I want, cause most of them would appeal to me rather than me being "oh ... I don't care which one I create".

[lebeststratege]

Finally I wanted to talk about the perks. You get perks from either alchemy, level up of destiny.

To me there are 4 kinds :
=> those which define the run
=> those which are good/great to have
=> those which rely on luck
=> the useless

and the really detrimental one (there is only one so I'll put it here => you gain 200 max HP but you can't pierce nor soften) this one is a negative (due to the fact that again, defense is bad).

===> those which define run : to me there are 2
- "you win 10 gold per minute and you can buy materials" => capitalist
- "the first 3 cards you play each fight cost 5 minutes less"

Those 2 are monsters of their own kinds, because they allow more flexibility. The first one on the world map allow you to pick any alchemy you want the moment you unlock them, the second one is a almost a free win, here is why :
This game have a hand of 3 (having a 3 card hand is a bonus not a minus : less shuffles, more scale sync, comes with great perks like +100 max stamina), and with full attack build you have HUGE strength bonus (I went up to 400) which last for 1h15 with multiple buffs overlapping, including "get strength from scale sync, get strength from strength (+5) get strength from playing attack card, etc...". Meaning the less time you use, the more strength you have to kill faster. it's easy to have a deck full of 10 minutes direct attacks. And with such synergy the enemy can't attack you before you killed it. Rinse and repeat. Oh it also level up perks around scale sync from "lucky" to "great" because it's way easier to trigger them. it shouldn't, but from experience it does.

Most of the useless buff belong into the "defense" category. I won't repeat myself about why.

The good/great ones are those that trigger all the time.

And lastly the "luck" ones... consider this : if you need to spend 3 hour (with pin point accuracy) to proc a bonus, it may as well no be here (you only have 60 hours ahead of you... 2,5 days). In this category fall every perks triggered "after you hit three time the same number with minutes". As well as the ring of anti-fire. Some are better than others : better ones are the colored hourglass (they are predictable) the worse ones are like "soul of the female warrior : [Stkpile] (trigger with min point to 4) deal WET * 2 damage on every enemies". The trigger is insane, for nor real damage since wet is a rare status, doesn't last long and can proc no damage at all for "bad timing" reasons.

5th suggestion : all the stockpilled effect should have the "stockpile" component removed , with 1 notable exception : the "play a type of card" trigger, which can be consistently triggered with the proper deck.


Finally please, either add some way of restoring stamina (outside of rest) or remove the stamina cost on "that card" because it's simply to high (5 is the same to travel from an island to another or play a card, while any of the other cost stamina). I could propose a revamp of the stamina system too :
every card cost a mix stamina and time to play, and time regen stamina (0.5 per minute) and traveling reduce the amount of stamina available at the start of the fight. If a player doesn't the full stamina to play a card he have to pay with minutes.

ex card cost 5 minutes and 5 stamina OR 15 minutes.

[畢子]

Thank you for your suggestions, we need time to follow. We agree with you with most your idea, we will have a long reply today, please be patient. (game producing is just hobby to me and I have to work on daytime, so my effectiveness may be low)

[畢子]

First, let me tell you what does we think about "defense".
- defense is to alive, not to win. Therefore, the concept of keeping enough defense points is important, using too much resources to build up too many defense points is wasting.
Therefore, it is ok for "defense not a Strategy". But this concept may be not clear enough in the game.

For "damage overtime shieldable" suggestion, we in fact have this concept, called "immunity", to block negative status given from enemy. May be we let immunity more accessible. May be add some status which is "immunity on specific status".

We may adjust this skill: "whenever you play a defensive card, give one burn to everyone, when an enemy dies you remove your burns", and also many skill that you have mentioned which is not so fair.

To hear that your 11 attack deck is working, we think it is not a healthy situation, as we want players to also make use of other three types. We may think about "how to prevent a single type deck become working." It may also fix the "red materials are too important" opinion.

We agree that 3 hands is better than 4 hands but it is not the original situation. On the very beginning, 3 hands are worse than 4 hands but as we modify many rules, as a result we are having wrong balance on related skill, and we may adjust those skills.

We agree "Cast time during the first 3 turns is reduced by 5 minutes (minimum 5 minutes)" is too op, we may nerf it in the next version.

We agree policies are having different tiers, and we make different policies having different cost to balance it, may be we need to adjust the price to make this concept obvious.

For "second suggestion : make building like mines produce ressources overtime", in fact the first version have a similar concept (it is inspired by Atorie series), and we don't have enough types of assets to make it meaningful and make the game so strenuous.

For "third suggestion : give us a building of alchemy to unlock formulas", we think it is not so good as it make the "random formula" less meaningful and less excited.

For those buildings suggestion, we may add new buildings, but talent is more important so we may handle it on the second next version.

For "4th suggestion : reduce the number of cards to choose from 4 to 2", we need more time to think about it.

For "5th suggestion : all the stockpilled effect should have the "stockpile" component removed ", in fact the stockpilled effect is more advanced, but may be we can switch the skill activation from auto to touch the skill icon once, make it more controllable.

[lebeststratege]

Ok that's a great lenghty response, thank you for taking the time of writing it. I'll quote you to give my opinion :

Originally posted by 畢子:

First, let me tell you what does we think about "defense".
- defense is to alive, not to win. Therefore, the concept of keeping enough defense points is important, using too much resources to build up too many defense points is wasting.
Therefore, it is ok for "defense not a Strategy". But this concept may be not clear enough in the game.

I get your point of view. I didn't mean to win through defense alone (since counter-attack and status exist), but the inconsistency of such strategies makes them too much unreliable, contrary to direct damages which always works : I'd rather do 45 direct damages than 1 burn (60 dmg in an hour effectively), because as soon as I get 15 strength bonus (and that's not hard at all) I already outpace the burn (I don't take the curse damage of time lapsing).

Originally posted by 畢子:

For "damage overtime shieldable" suggestion, we in fact have this concept, called "immunity", to block negative status given from enemy. May be we let immunity more accessible. May be add some status which is "immunity on specific status".

I think half the problem is that it's often better to kill than to defend. Immunity is indeed rare, probably as rare as enemies that can kill you through status, but since the MC only have one life, it's too late the moment you need to defend.

I'm thinking of a new suggestion : a flexibility power which allow the player to use other card of the same tier.
Exemple I own :
- the scale 1 tier 1 attack
- the scale 1 tier 1 buff
- the scale 1 tier 2 attack
- the scale 1 tier 2 defense
with this power, should I draw the scale 1 tier 2 card, I could use (in exchange for a cost, like 5 minutes and with limited uses) the scale 1 tier 2 defense (but not the scale 1 tier 1 buff).

Originally posted by 畢子:

We may adjust this skill: "whenever you play a defensive card, give one burn to everyone, when an enemy dies you remove your burns", and also many skill that you have mentioned which is not so fair.

I can't wait to see this :)

Originally posted by 畢子:

To hear that your 11 attack deck is working, we think it is not a healthy situation, as we want players to also make use of other three types. We may think about "how to prevent a single type deck become working." It may also fix the "red materials are too important" opinion.

I totally agree upon this statement, I'd like for buffs and curses to be more usefull. Maybe something like a way to curse of buff which would give some apples (especially curses since I believe it would make sense for some "devil's trade" to appear in the story).

Originally posted by 畢子:

We agree that 3 hands is better than 4 hands but it is not the original situation. On the very beginning, 3 hands are worse than 4 hands but as we modify many rules, as a result we are having wrong balance on related skill, and we may adjust those skills.

I can seehow having so many tweaks led to that :)

Originally posted by 畢子:

We agree "Cast time during the first 3 turns is reduced by 5 minutes (minimum 5 minutes)" is too op, we may nerf it in the next version.

my proposition would be to morph it into a skill reducing the time consumption of fights instead (making it to 2 or 1 card would almost drop it's interest ImhO).

Originally posted by 畢子:

We agree policies are having different tiers, and we make different policies having different cost to balance it, may be we need to adjust the price to make this concept obvious.

For "second suggestion : make building like mines produce ressources overtime", in fact the first version have a similar concept (it is inspired by Atorie series), and we don't have enough types of assets to make it meaningful and make the game so strenuous.

As far as gold cost go it's already obvious, maybe some material cost could be added. I think you are talking about Koei's Atelier serie (am I right?). I don't understand the problem with assets related to buildings generating ressources overtime instead of only once. I'd go as far as to say it could income everytime the 0 minute mark is passed.

Originally posted by 畢子:

For "third suggestion : give us a building of alchemy to unlock formulas", we think it is not so good as it make the "random formula" less meaningful and less excited.

As I said in my bug report post, random formula isn't a quality as they are right now, because it lack the tier distribution part, meaning you can get a tier 5 formula while not having tier 2 formulas you desperatly want. Total randomness is more frustrating, to me, than tiered progression.

Originally posted by 畢子:

For those buildings suggestion, we may add new buildings, but talent is more important so we may handle it on the second next version.

For "4th suggestion : reduce the number of cards to choose from 4 to 2", we need more time to think about it.

Sure I guess that's a lot of content and some big changes.

Originally posted by 畢子:

For "5th suggestion : all the stockpilled effect should have the "stockpile" component removed ", in fact the stockpilled effect is more advanced, but may be we can switch the skill activation from auto to touch the skill icon once, make it more controllable.

Well, "on touch" activation would sure be a good improvment for them. Is it possible to make them to be activable on touch every time the trigger is activated (for the minute related ones), but to keep the stockpile component as a way to increase the effect of the activations (like +33% damage for every stockpile).

[畢子]

For "random formula is in fact have tier distribution", you may not get a formula that require high class assets in the early stage.But we found a bug that players may not get a formula on tier 2 (lowest tier that require unlock) now, we may fix on the next version.