Well, you did it

[Ryastar]

I discovered this game a couple weeks ago, and fell in love immediately. the combination of tactical strategy with a card game combined probably my two favourite genres of games into one. I thought nothing could stop me from loving this game.

But you did it, i don't love it anymore...

I don't know where to begin with how much this last patch has made this game unfun, but here we go:

1. I'll start with a smaller, fixable issue. You changed it so you don't draw your starting hand until your first turn starts. I used to check what my other heroes had in their hands at the start of a match, to help me plan that first hero's turn. Fine, maybe that was too strong. But the issue is, now, if one of your heroes misses their first turn (ie due to the boss perk that adds 2 ticks to one of your heroes at the start of a match), they don't have a starting hand, and only draw 1 card on their first turn. Probably a bug, but it's made facing that perk an auto-loss in my experience.

2. let's talk about hero perks. Before the patch, you had 5 perk slots with up to 15 stars to use. That was excellent, each perk cost a fair amout of stars, so you could only have 2-3 really good ones (in the 3-5 range, depending on which ones) and had to fill out the other two slots with weaker things. Now, however at level 15 you have 10 stars, and since the good perks have basically the same cost (eg moonbrand, my favourite warfare perk is still 4 stars), i get 1-2 good perks, and then maybe 1 or 2 other bad ones. Straight up nerf to heroes

3. Most hero cards now cost more or do less or both. I get that you maybe thought that the player side had too much of an advantage. I don't disagree completely. I had probably an 80% win rate when attacking. But i also had a 70ish% win rate on defence (more on that later). However, this has been an overnerf. Warfare heroes are less flexible with fury being rigid like skullduggery heroes (i don't like rogues as a class, so i play faith, warfare and wizardry exclusively). The game time limit-ish is the same, but since you are spenting more ticks to do less damage (and have less access to perks to mitigate that), it's just miserable. My winrate has dropped to 30% or so, and that's generous. Now part of that i'm sure is because i spent a ton of gold on the new heroes instead of packs so my decks aren't as good.

4. Now let's talk bosses. Mostly boss cards are cheaper, better, or both. Everything has so much armor now, which combined with the fact that heroes do less damage, means that now i can't kill things, and oh yeah, faith heroes heal less now, so i'm screwed that way too. There were op boss comboes before the patch that were nerfed (old kiss of fire + molten birth comes to mind), but those were beatable with good tactics and draws. Now I have yet to beat Queen or the new boss (holy crap that new boss is dumb, anyone with half a brain just puts all even-cost cards so the boss always has minimum +3 attack on all attacks, and with geist-charged arsenal, boss is dealing 15 damage for 4 ticks with one card, while i can't do 15 damage in 4 ticks with any given hero anymore, except for a few edge cases that take a ton of tciks to set up, that 15 damage happened to me on tick 3, instant death of my warfare hero from nowhere). I could go on, but man, this is no longer fun.

I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, and wait it out til i hit 15 on a hero, hoping that some card would appear that would help, but no, i got another 5 cost perk, so helpful...

I understand that maybe heroes were winning too much, but as a player, shouldn't i have a high win percentage? yes, the other player gets dust when he wins, but he doesn't have to do anything to get that, just set up a deck and let the computer play. The hero side is the active side, and should have some advantages, not these heavy nerfs across the board.

I'm really sad, but i won't be playing anymore til something changes, this is unplayable

[escapo]

@Ryastar~

I'm sorry to hear that you're not having fun with the latest patch. We're always listening to our players, so your feedback does mean a lot to the team. You guys are the reason why we are making this game.

I think I might be able to help by addressing your points individually to give a sense of what our strategy was behind each of the changes that went into this latest update.

1. This was an unintentional change and will be fixed in the next patch, which hopefully we will have ready to go in about a week.

2. The removal of perk slots was meant to expand players' options when building out their heroes & bosses. Before, it was easy to get into a situation where you had an empty slot you couldn't fill, or stars you couldn't spend, and both of these situations were terrible. The intent wasn't to nerf heroes overall. The star cap went down because in a world without slots, we still needed to keep the number of cards in a deck manageable. We had to revise the costs of 0-cost perks up to 1 star, because they are too powerful without slots to restrict them. We also need to lower the overall cost of perks to account for the lower star cap. In all of this, some cards may have been made worse and we will continue to adjust costs as part of the ongoing balance process.

3. The balance pass to hero cards in this update had a few major goals. The first (and biggest) was to bring "smorc"ing under control. With the amount of damage that could be done at range, burst damage from high-cost attacks, and the advantages of playing efficient low-cost attacks to gain additional moves and draws, heroes were too often able to completely ignore the contents of the lair and go straight for the boss. While this may lead to high win rates, eventually those wins will lose their enjoyment because all battles start to feel the same. The damage reductions were meant to slow heroes down and give the bosses more opportunity to respond, which we think will make the game stronger overall. To compensate for their loss of damage efficiency, we increased the range of ranged attacks across the board to give ranged builds more flexibility. The second goal was to reduce the dominance of healing as a must-have strategy for every fight. Healers still play an important role, but we feel that ideally, they aren't an auto-include in every party and there are other defensive strategies that can take their place. To compensate for these changes, we will continue to make minions (particularly summoned minions) easier to deal with until we find the right balance.

4. Our main goal with boss balance in this patch was to increase the diversity of boss builds. I think everyone will be glad to see Pale Rider builds with Radaghar go. In the process, we have made some other bosses a little more powerful to make them more appealing. Regarding Mech Scorpion, his ability wasn't meant to work with all even cards, and this will be fixed in the next patch (just by reversing the abilities.) We're also on the lookout for any situation like you describe (15 damage with no warning) and will make whatever design changes we need to address that. You shouldn't ever have to lose a hero with good health from out of nowhere, that's just not fun.

Looking forward, we agree that the ideal balance for the core game experience gives the higher win percentage to heroes (the human players.) Some of our players will want a more challenging experience, and we will do what we can to satisfy them in a way that doesn't dominate the game for everyone.

It's also entirely possible that we overshot the mark with this latest balance pass, and as we gather more data and feedback from players, we'll make the changes we need to keep the game as fun as possible for everyone. We are still in early access--normally this process is hidden from view as the game goes through its bumps on the way to being finished.

However, we are glad to have your feedback--it's what we need to make this game the best it can be.

[Ryastar]

First of all, thank you for the quick reply, that's not something I've come to expect from game developers :)

I was feeling particularily dramatic and frustrated when i wrote that post, so i apologize if it seemed more of a complaint than feedback, feedback is/was my intent.

It's always interesting to hear more of your reasoning behind changes, helps frame them in the proper context. I thought i understood from the original post about the patch that the lowering of perk costs to compensate for less stars was also part of the patch, so it was frustrating to still see things cost 4-5 stars with only 10 stars available. Honestly, though, i feel way more restricted with the new changes, though that may change after their costs change. When i was first playing, having those empty perk slots was motivation for me, i focused my first few dust crafts into making perks to fill those slots.

I personally only smorc'd when i was against a boss configuration that i didn't think i could beat normally. I prefer to kill everything in the lair first, makes killing the boss easier. I LIKE longer games, but i still feel like i don't have the damage or healling to survive that long anymore. I've actually been smorcing MORE since the changes, though as i said, it hasn't exactly been working. And then there's queen, who just spams 1 cost spells and aoe's you down til you use one of the longer tick-cost abilities, and then boom, huge channelled aoe dmg while you can't do anything but watch as you take 3-4 plus her attack every tick, and it's queen so she has minimum 1 attack with the new standalone perk, and more likely a lot more. I understand she was the weakest boss, but damn, i just die without hurting her since she has 3 armor, and a 1 tick cost 3 heal, which makes me jealous, cuz lavella takes 2 ticks and a perk to heal 3...

Oh, one other thing i've noticed that may be a bug, before the patch any channelled abilities were unaffected by anything you did to reduce their tick cost (since that will reduce the effect of the spell) for example, using the fire tome as renna then engulfing didn't make engulf only channel for one tick. This is no longer the case, i had the first fire/earth spell costs 1 less tick on renna, and it displayed the tick cost on engulf as 2 if it was in my opening hand. I never cast it with that lowered cost so i dunno if it would have actually affected anything.

All told, I'm certainly gonna give the game another try after the next patch, but i'm out for now, getting too frustrated with the game

[DeepDong]

The patch has just released and it will take time for the playerbase to adapt to and understand the recent changes. But I will say some first impressions regarding Rya's points 3 and 4.

Heroes do seem a bit weaker and Bosses (and boss monsters) stronger.

- The increase of armor on boss monsters means that the default hero attacks (with the exception of rogue) are sometimes completely useless. I find myself more often "passing turn" (ie, just Guarding) because I am lacking the cards I need, and because of armor, the default attack would be useless. Passing turn is not satisfying, so having to do this more often is bad for the player.

- Boss strength and boss monster strength has resulted in more "quick kills". It seems my attacking team will sometimes be wiped out in just a few short turns if the enemy Boss gets a good combo. This is frustrating, and seems to be happening with more speed and frequency than before. This is particularly the case with mech scorpion but maybe also with others.

A few more points to respond to escapo:

- Healers were nerfed to make them less essential to the team. But it seems that Warriors have been essential to the team and were only BUFFED relative to others. One of the main requirements of assembling a team is having enough AOE to deal with Rhadagar and other Boss swarms. You nerfed Healer by nerfing Fire of Life, but buffed Warrior by giving them even MORE AoE. Already warriors have the most AOE and are the #1 indespensible requirement for a team composition for this reason.

- Related to my point above: Rhadagar is still pretty cancer. Nerfing Pale Rider was not enough, especially since players evolved strategies to nullify PR. Rhadagar still has the problem that he can summon too many minions (who are now buffed due to armor increase) and their death will heal him. It seems he was even BUFFED with the inclusion of a new Perk that heals him more. Players are still forced to pick a team comp around Rhadagar, requiring AOE, and now the nerf to Healer AOE means less value in picking a healer, but the buff to Warrior AOE means all the more reason to pick Warrior. So again, this is connected with my above point.

[David]

Hmm, to me it seems like both original bosses and heroes got nerfed somewhat. Radaghar can't take a perk with 4 3-4 cost minions (Bosses from 30->15 stars, Heroes from 15->10 stars).

However so far it seems much harder than heroes this patch. I don't have every card or character yet- but some of the bosses have been killer. This is with new cards and the general slowing down of damage. Old burst combos have been nerfed, but there are definitely new ones, which probably benefit bosses more than heroes with the overall slowdown of damage.

I don't think "smorc" is completely gone either, one of my bosses was killed in 2 attacks (1 attack doing >66% of my boss total hp) by some turtling heroes- the heroes did 1 attack on a minion (which didn't kill it) before smorcing. On the other side, I've had some heavy recurring damage from some bosses (hello perked out mech scorpion).

Almost every hero card I used prepatch was nerfed, changed or removed in this patch (goodbye mastery of the ways and champions gift), so I've been using some new cards and some of the old cards that are still decent. Given the changes and nerfs I think my win rate is going to drop from where it was (probably 97-100) down significantly, I think once I hit 15 every battle will be either challenging or frustratingly difficult compared to before, and I have to get used to that.

Making a list of which cards I used to use that got nerfed:
20/20 perks on my heroes. Either effectiveness reduced, %cost raised or both.
Radaghar, Oros, Roggix, Adolphus, maybe Maessna perks/lairs.

Korghan: 80%+
16/20 cards got nerfed, burst of rage and reprisal untouched I think.
The change to Korghan's ability and MotW nerf will be a huge nerf for him anyway (the new MotW gives Korghan his old innate damage boost back for 5 ticks).
Ace of Warriors is nice though.
Marrik not as affected by the patch, just reduced damages.

Lavella: 75%
15/20 cards got nerfed, 2 minor changes(Terrify), 3 untouched(Fortune,Prayer's Beads).
Haven't seen what the new Baena's Crown is yet.

Kylee: 70%
14/20 cards got nerfed, I think annihilate, exploit weakness and awaken the anima didn't.
Rohin Garrett used roughly same cards, except for annihilate.
A quick glance over Rohin's cards and it looks like he has some great cards still.
Also Heartseeker (which I didn't have pre-patch) doesn't look like it got nerfed interestingly.

Renna: 30-40%
6-8/20 cards nerfed. Doesn't look like my old Renna got hurt as much by the patch, firebolt, flashfreeze and I think molten lance got nerfed. Enchanted Edge is not as effective on MotW Korghan anymore.

I used Renna the least prepatch, only started using her after the post update which said she had the most losses. I started using her because she does have some good cards I think.


Anyway, I'm really curious how people are finding the new patch as heroes. Is anyone finding it easier than before? or is everyone in the same position as me, finding it much more difficult on the hero side?

[holy_darkness]

I am not a strategist, so I can't say I think out these details as much as the rest of you. I enjoy reading the input of more strategic players, therefor, because it offers new perspective. However, I do not mean to imply I am completely unintelligent. I only mean to say that my perspective is a bit more simple.

I did notice heroes got nerfed, and many staple cards from before were made less OP while some were changed completely. Once I got through the prerequisite level 5 climb and started putting together decks, I couldn't assume the exact same designs I used before, and I liked that.

I also noticed, however, that my win rate seems to thus far be higher than before. I win more often, but my average match lasts longer than my wins and losses in the past would. Most likely because everyone's bosses are low level and the reduced star gain means reduced speed of powering up and more strategic sacrifices in how to power up the boss. Also because lower hero damage slows the match so that you're suspensfully wondering if you'll make it before the 30 mark. When building our bosses, we can't just use everything that works anymore; just a couple things, and that makes the bosses more accessible to me I think.

I definitely believe that people are having trouble with the new changes, and I intended to write a reply about this anyway, but I suppose in response to your question, Dragondave: yes, I would say that I am ultimately finding it more challenging but more successful, as ironic as that sounds.

The only major problem I have that I don't feel I need to just accept is matches occasionally disconnecting and not reconnecting back into the match. It's fine now in casual, but that won't fly in ranked. I came to look up the email adress for submitting my log file, and stumbled across this.

[Gyler]

I'm liking it so far, shaked up the meta a bit, basically it feels to me like starting a brand new game, since i'm rediscovering all the cards and balance passes made. Also lets me test out new things. I think frequent balancing is important in a game like this, to make sure we don't get another rhadgar situation.

[holy_darkness]

Totally on the same page, Gyler.

[Ryastar]

So after the latest patch (which I didn't notice til today, whoops), I have played for several hours today, and I thought i'd give my updated thoughts.

I love that you fixed the bugs that were bothering me, both the game start bug, and channel tick cost bug.

Queen feels much more fair now, tough fight as she does a lot of aoe dmg, but it's largely telegraphed so it balances out for the most part, and she has 2 armor most of the time instead of 3, so things actually do dmg.

Leveled my main heroes to 15 now, and have pretty good decks on the spell side. I've adjusted to things being weaker than they were on the whole. As for perks, I still feel so much more restricted than before, so I still think that perk star cost needs a review for heroes, either dropping a star or two from the most expensive perks or giving us like 2 stars back (ie. 12 total) would be good in my opinion.

The only boss that still seems completely unfair is mech scorpion. Firstly, i should mention that the text of its ability is unchanged, though the function has been changed as you said in the patch notes, getting armor on odd ticks and attack on even ticks. That being said, it's still getting exploited. Check out this screenshot:

[IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/sg04rc.jpg[/img]

All three of my heroes have taken 15 dmg by the start of tick 3... (Lavella cast the spell that gives everyone +2 hp on tick one, and then got +ticked twice...). I should have screenshot the perks it had, but it had one that made all attack cards cost 1 less tick, min 1... and then had a deck full of nothing but 1 and 2 tick cost attack cards... mostly aoe and moving one. Tick one he moved accross the map to my heroes that were grouped in the corner and hit em all for 6, then did the same with +3 attack the next tick. Had the +2 attack perk when above half hp too, beast attack cards (so basically all the attack cards) add 1 tick to someone and the counterstrike 2 perk... not even gonna mention that ridiculous legendary minion (5 attack, 3 speed, 15 hp 2 armor, piercing, fleetfoot, stealth, and causes bleeding with attacks like wtf). i mean, yes this was a guy with two legendaries, but i'm fairly sure the perk is a hero-specific one you get from levels (couldn't find it in crafting) and that's the real issue. Every scorpion i've faced has had that perk and the same deck. When the boss acts more often than the heroes, and more effectively, something is super wrong.

Sso overall, this last patch is a big step in the right direction, i actually enjoy playing again, which is such a relief, you have no idea. There are still some balance issues, but i have renewed faith in you. Keep it up!

[holy_darkness]

I have not faced any mechs like that so I can't REALLY give any good input, but most bosses are going to be "exploitable" once you find the right card combo. To always avoid that would be to neuter boss cards across the board. And I'll have to look for that lengendary you mention, but maybe that is a problem if it is a staple of the mech, I don't know. If it is really so powerful it can't be reasonably strategized against by the community, then maybe it should have a star added to its cost, and maybe not be a level up reward, but it certainly shouldn't be removed.

I will say I agree about perk restriction, but I accept the new 10 star ceiling. Maybe no perk should cost more than 6 stars, so I agree the larger ones could have 1 star removed, but the perks are pretty close to reasonable for me. I think it's always best for strategy and individuality that each hero and boss has to think hard about the skills they cherish enough to take into combat, but there should still be enough room for SOME combo crafting.

[KnightLurker]

I'M SO MAD ABOUT THE NEW META!!!
/ragequit

[David]

@Ryastar, that's a screenie of my mech scorpion *yay proud :P*, which is fully perked out, has fully stardust crafted attacks to be as powerful as it can possibly get, and is already getting nerfed soon (once they lock in the star values from previous revision patch). Once that takes place it'll probably have something like HotP,HfB,FlHu(minion) and Sentry. So it'll lose geist and feral reflexes, probably, or it'll lose flayed hunter and feral reflexes, or maybe the sentry instead of feral reflexes.

Also I have to point out I haven't lost to a mech scorpion yet, and I beat that one in the screenshot myself in 5 ticks. This was the 40 hp prenerf version (it has 35 now).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=907854856

The perk is a draw legendary, the minion is the one you get from level 15. You can kill the minion without taking damage:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=909126620
As holy said, not every mech scorpion is like that. I know he hasn't come across mine yet because I didn't get a replay from him.

Not that I don't think it's really strong, but using my mech scorpion as the example when it's the toughest one I've personally faced, considering I've faced others and mine did the most damage to me. It does have a lot of aoe attacks which is why you shouldn't have your heroes bunched together but you do in that screenshot which is why you took so much damage. Its like taking the most powerful giant queen/radaghar/maessna build, playing to its strengths instead of its weaknesses, and saying look how OP this boss is. Giant Queen can wipe out an entire team in 3 ticks if you charge her and open up on her with 3+ delay moves, which would be the wrong strategy to use against her too. Maessna can devastate you if you line up your heroes or let her build up minions and/or essense shock. Radaghar can overwhelm you and kill you in short order if you get stuck between immaculate, lurker and swiftsteeds, since you'll be facing an average of 16+ pierce every 2 ticks not counting pierce from radaghar. Flamepylon Oros will murder you if you let yourself get knocked into them, a pair of them deals 6 pierce / turn. Even Roggix has a chance if you stand in lava xD

All mech scorpion could eventually run a similar build if they have all of the Beast-Mech cards, but they will never be as strong as that again, because the perk costs were raised. I don't find scorpions to be tougher than giant queens, radaghar or maessna, just different.

[KnightLurker]

^ This guy knows what he's talking about

[Ryastar]

@holy_darkness I agree completely that some restrictions on perks is good and necessary, and that picking and choosing among the choices is a integral and important part of deck making. I just think it's too restrictive now, especially since their reasoning behind removing perk slots and lowering stars was to make perks less restrictive, according to the devs. You get less out of your perks now than before, so we agree that the high cost perks cost a little too much.

@KnightLurker look dude, i'm not whining. I am venting, i'll admit, but this is about feedback, not complaints, so do try to be helpful not snide, that's totally unnecessary... though this is the internet effectively so i'm far from surprised at your attitude.

@Dragondave17 I was only using your scorpion as an example, not necessarily as the norm, it was certainly the strongest mech scorpion I've faced :P. That being said, i have still yet to ever beat that boss, though maybe i'm just super unlucky since every one i've faced has had that legendary perk and a 1 tick attack deck (since the patch, before it, it was the all-even attack deck, which was also not fun). I'd love to hear more of the tactics you use against that boss and minion, just screenshots of the aftermath isn't super helpful. Though smorc'ing isn't my style, i do adopt that strategy when necessary. I know that I didn't play perfect during that fight, but the thing i object to is that other than a small positioning mistake, my tactics started fine, i moved away from the boss and the legenary melee minion as much as possible and cast (mostly) low tick cost buffs, but the boss moved twice as far as normal due to a card, then dealt 15 aoe dmg in two ticks. How can I prepare for that? Sure, in retrospect i could have not moved korghan where i did, but i had no way of knowing what was coming, and i feel the punishment for that was excessive. I don't do any of the things you describe against any of those bosses, i know how to fight every other boss. I guess i just haven't fully figured mech scorpion out or something. Can't really figure out tactics when i'm always basically dead before i've had 3 turns, though i'll be more careful about grouping I guess.

[David]

The thing is mech scorpion is new too, it's the newest boss, and that particular strategy with that boss is also brand new (it's probably most similar to the old kiss of fire combo overwhelming damage strategy that got removed in the big patch- that gave ALL minions permanent piercing, +1 attack and +2 health with piercing being the most dangerous part).

Its a new patch with new cards, so I think it just takes everyone time to adjust to that boss. It took me a while to cement my hero strategy after the patch too. Yesterday I mentioned one way to beat mech scorpion to someone in discord chat- well they got my boss today, combined that strategy with their own (which I didn't know would work against my own MS since I deliberately tried to make it harder to use) and it worked- they beat it in 8 ticks. I probably won't refine my boss against that strategy unless everyone starts to use it, since it's not the only one that works.

Anyhow, no worries because Mech Scorpion and a few others are getting properly nerfed again in a big away again soon (as in forced less perks etc), though I think that particular build might still be reasonably challenging for most people. I think the all even attack build is not good for Mech Scorpion, even before the change, so it could be bad luck there, its only good in the sense if it happens accidentally and not the strategy based around it.

It's the same with most bosses, once you can predict what they will do, you have a better idea how to beat them, or you can prepare for the worst. Looking at a bosses perks usually gives you some idea of what cards they have, when you have enough experience. An Oros with +1 armor to earth minions and 2 ardelon perks is most definitely running 2 copies of Muster the Legion XD, that's probably one of the more obvious examples.

Hmm, some general MS advice- it really depends on what cards its running, and what you have. The one that works for most mech scorpions is probably, use non-piercing attacks when its armor is down. That's kinda obvious, but it works, mostly.

[KnightLurker]

I was making a joke, buddy. I've been playing this game for about a year. I've played Magic: The Gathering for around 20 years. And let's not even mention the hundreds of other CCGs that come and go.
But no matter what the game, whenever there's a meta shift, people get frustrated. Suddenly their plans have to be rethought and reworked. Sorry if you thought I was accusing you of "whining". Its part of these games. The joke wasn't even directed at you specifically. Heck, could even make the same joke about myself sometimes. :)

Back on topic, this latest update has completely changed the game. My two favorite bosses (Queen of Northern Wastes and Oros the Bouncer) work in completely different ways.
I agree that Mech Scorpion is a little silly. DragonDave's destroyed me almost as soon as the match began. That being said, I was a huge proponant of Radghar being over-powered last go-round. This time, I barely see him.

Hang in there. This game is truly unique and wonderful. Helps that the development team is very hands on with the community.