What actually is the problem with Unit Drop cards?

[Hailspork]

So I understand that there is RNG involved in which cards we get, but since both players get the same cards, I don't understand what the actual problem is.

Yes, you get more units than your usual deployment limit this round, and you could get lucky and get the hard-counter you need... but you can pretty much always pay to unlock that hard counter anyway. And again, since both players have access to the same cards, they can each deploy the same number of units (or the exact same units).

Regardless of the edge cases where the unit drop gives one player a substantial advantage over the other (such as getting a unit that helps me significantly more than it helps you), you still see the 4 choices your opponent can plan, and can use your strategic skill to counter it.

Can someone please tell me what the actual problem is, other than just pointing out the fact that there's RNG involved?

[Polar Test 53]

there were lots of problems but now the cards are in a pretty good position.
your probably reading old threads about it.

looking back the first issue was the testing phase. the said it was gonna be a 3 week test and on the final day went wouldn't it be funny to just make it permanent. that didnt go well with alot of people. and we had another month of the "chaos patch". so even after weeks of testing they didnt act on it's issues for awhile still.

the power imbalance they introduced as well wasint very good and even among the cards it was like yeah you got 4 choices but really only ever one was a viable pick. and with no cost to them as well.
i think at one point you could drop 10-12 wasp or mustangs and could fully upgrade them in a single turn lol.
and get a lvl 7 rhino on your first or second drop when everything on the board is lvl 2 at most.
and you could get a 3 drop of giant units that you could make into 5 and upgrade them.
so like 5 forts all with shield upgrades just poof on the field or a flank of 6 overlords and if you didnt get them yourself you were boned. as losing that one round against 6 giants let alone everything else on the board would cost you a huge chunk of your life points if not outright ending the game.

yeah back then no one could quite put a finger on why it was bad, cause the idea itself wasint bad just not well implemented. and with everything you mentioned also being correct.

tldr: being it was rushed, poorly balanced and about half of people didnt have fun with it. but thats old news the cards now add depth and choice to the game and are only getting better.

[WGarrison]

There are three issues with unit drops as I see it (and to preface this, I am in the camp that unit drops are ultimately necessary). One issue impacts everyone is pretty straightforward to address, the other two are more complicated, one for low MMR and the other for high MMR.

1. Some cards are still very big power outliers. The level 5 rhino drop and level 4 wraith drop are both often game-warpingly strong. Very early giants can fall into this category too. Refining the drop pools can solve this.

2. For low MMR players, they are often already committed to a board when the drops show up. These drops, while equal on the cards for each player, often offers stronger board counters to one player over the other. Blue decides to unlock and play Forts, next turn Melters are on the offer. There is a way around this, not committing to a board until the drops which leads to ...

3. Playing for the drop. For high MMR players they know how cost efficient and swingy a drop is, so they play into it. This means playing chaff and basic units into the board that can be adapted into multiple strategies. You may hear things like "I am going to play more chaff and see what giant Bearlike decides to give me". They are looking to create the biggest swing turn possible off a drop. There is a big gamble on committing to a board pre-drop and getting a tempo advantage or playing for the giant swing. All these decisions are being made 1-2 turns before the drop cards are even seen. Drops kinda feels like being all in and turning over the river in poker and hoping your hand stays good or you hit one of your outs (with 4 drop cards and not a ton of units in the pool, you have a good shot of hitting an out).

[Hailspork]

Originally posted by Polar Test 53:

there were lots of problems but now the cards are in a pretty good position.
your probably reading old threads about it.

I see people complaining about RNG in these forums ~2 days ago, but prior to the tarantula patch, it was pretty much daily.
Still, thanks for explaining the initial problems. It helps put at least some of those complaints into better context.

[Vespertellino]

not just rng, HEAVY RNG

[Vespertellino]

when you're winning w/ a lot of heavy units and your opponent doesn't answer them well for a few rounds, but then there's 5 melters outta nowhere
do you think this was a good skillful counterplay or just a bloody rng?

[Vespertellino]

also this patch I've seen a lot of rhino/sabertooth lvl 5 on round 3/4 (which is just insane) and if you don't take one of these or god forbid sell it - you pretty much lose a few rounds in a row

[Vespertellino]

also a great example: I just did an extremely successful wasp flank, tried to support it w/ tarantulas and crawlers, but opp just got rank 3 typhoons and I lost the bloody game to just that
f*ck rng man

[Fadeway]

Drops force a noncommittal playstyle because they provide a comeback mechanic which can nullify early tempo plays. This was much more prominent before, now you get much less stuff with each drop, but it's still an effect.

For example, before I understood this, I once had a game with 5 sledges by turn 3, against mass mustang. Unit drop: hacker, rhino, steel ball, wasp. The game is just over at that point, I had overcommitted without even having bought tech, just for spamming a unit and getting hosed by the drop. So now you kinda sit around and wait for the drop turn which lets you make a play knowing that the game won't stop it for free in the next 2-3 turns. Playing noncommittal has always been decent but previously it was also viable to try and consistently level a ball squad or force mass fang or something.

[Vespertellino]

comeback? more like a win more

[ArcadeVault]

I never really understood the hate on unit cards. I acknowledge, that it was unbalanced at first, but it was clear that they will fix them patch by patch.

What is really happening is a good measure of the community here is not used to EARLY ACCESS games, and they cannot tolerate huge / risky changes that are parts of a development process and necessary to a better outcome.
Most people simply fall in love with the earliest build of a game when they buy it and dont realize it will change a LOT in EA.

For example, if unit cards were in the game from day one and the big tactical AOE cards were added later, people would rage on them the same.
To this day, i hate NUKE, and that big electro AoE and Fire more than any unit card.
They are the same: u have to pick them or you have to shield - the game force you to change your plans for the turn the same way unit cards does. Only difference, they were here from day one...

I love unit cards, as they become more and more balanced and give you more options for the long run, not just ruin the whole game in one turn if you haven't paid attention for a fire card and you get it to the face...

[Vespertellino]

Originally posted by ArcadeVault:

I never really understood the hate on unit cards. I acknowledge, that it was unbalanced at first, but it was clear that they will fix them patch by patch.

What is really happening is a good measure of the community here is not used to EARLY ACCESS games, and they cannot tolerate huge / risky changes that are parts of a development process and necessary to a better outcome.
Most people simply fall in love with the earliest build of a game when they buy it and dont realize it will change a LOT in EA.

For example, if unit cards were in the game from day one and the big tactical AOE cards were added later, people would rage on them the same.
To this day, i hate NUKE, and that big electro AoE and Fire more than any unit card.
They are the same: u have to pick them or you have to shield - the game force you to change your plans for the turn the same way unit cards does. Only difference, they were here from day one...

I love unit cards, as they become more and more balanced and give you more options for the long run, not just ruin the whole game in one turn if you haven't paid attention for a fire card and you get it to the face...

just make it a separate gamemode and I'm fine with it
it doesn't feel good when I lose to rng, it doesn't feel good when I win thanks to rng
if people love gamba - good for them, I'm not a fan of coinflip strategy
* will opp get sabertooth after I was winning w/ stormcallers for a while?
* will opp get mass melters against my giants?
* will opp get 3 lvl 5 wasps against my dominating ground army?
These are not questions I'd like to ask, I wanna outsmart and outplay, not gamba
I'm sorry I just can't account for all the rng in my tactics game, there's only so much potential mitigation you can do, and you probably shouldn't invest into to counters to things that might not even appear in the game, y'know?

[ArcadeVault]

Originally posted by Vesper 🠊🠋🠉🠊🠋:

Originally posted by ArcadeVault:

I never really understood the hate on unit cards. I acknowledge, that it was unbalanced at first, but it was clear that they will fix them patch by patch.

What is really happening is a good measure of the community here is not used to EARLY ACCESS games, and they cannot tolerate huge / risky changes that are parts of a development process and necessary to a better outcome.
Most people simply fall in love with the earliest build of a game when they buy it and dont realize it will change a LOT in EA.

For example, if unit cards were in the game from day one and the big tactical AOE cards were added later, people would rage on them the same.
To this day, i hate NUKE, and that big electro AoE and Fire more than any unit card.
They are the same: u have to pick them or you have to shield - the game force you to change your plans for the turn the same way unit cards does. Only difference, they were here from day one...

I love unit cards, as they become more and more balanced and give you more options for the long run, not just ruin the whole game in one turn if you haven't paid attention for a fire card and you get it to the face...

just make it a separate gamemode and I'm fine with it
it doesn't feel good when I lose to rng, it doesn't feel good when I win thanks to rng
if people love gamba - good for them, I'm not a fan of coinflip strategy
* will opp get sabertooth after I was winning w/ stormcallers for a while?
* will opp get mass melters against my giants?
* will opp get 3 lvl 5 wasps against my dominating ground army?
These are not questions I'd like to ask, I wanna outsmart and outplay, not gamba
I'm sorry I just can't account for all the rng in my tactics game, there's only so much potential mitigation you can do, and you probably shouldn't invest into to counters to things that might not even appear in the game, y'know?

There are no "mass melters" in the game. You get one, or two. But you could just unlocked it anyway if the enemy goes for giants...

The biggest unit card is still the saber one, and i understand that one is quite a tank.

A suggestion: from the 4 unit cards DONT PICK THE ONE YOU NEED MOST, but pick the one, that COUNTERS THE OTHER THREE. That way you will dominate the other player's choice, or you will be equal.

People simply makes a mistake when they blindly pick something becouse their army needs it, and then the other pick destroys it within a sec. Think. NEVER pick wasps when the other offer is high lvl mustangs for example... even if you would need wasps, its a suicide pick.

[Vespertellino]

Originally posted by ArcadeVault:

Originally posted by Vesper 🠊🠋🠉🠊🠋:

just make it a separate gamemode and I'm fine with it
it doesn't feel good when I lose to rng, it doesn't feel good when I win thanks to rng
if people love gamba - good for them, I'm not a fan of coinflip strategy
* will opp get sabertooth after I was winning w/ stormcallers for a while?
* will opp get mass melters against my giants?
* will opp get 3 lvl 5 wasps against my dominating ground army?
These are not questions I'd like to ask, I wanna outsmart and outplay, not gamba
I'm sorry I just can't account for all the rng in my tactics game, there's only so much potential mitigation you can do, and you probably shouldn't invest into to counters to things that might not even appear in the game, y'know?

There are no "mass melters" in the game. You get one, or two. But you could just unlocked it anyway if the enemy goes for giants...

The biggest unit card is still the saber one, and i understand that one is quite a tank.

A suggestion: from the 4 unit cards DONT PICK THE ONE YOU NEED MOST, but pick the one, that COUNTERS THE OTHER THREE. That way you will dominate the other player's choice, or you will be equal.

People simply makes a mistake when they blindly pick something becouse their army needs it, and then the other pick destroys it within a sec. Think. NEVER pick wasps when the other offer is high lvl mustangs for example... even if you would need wasps, its a suicide pick.

you can get 2 lvl 3 melters and then buy another two
of course there are mass melters

[Vespertellino]

a suggestion: move rng to a separate gamemode so everyone is happy to play what they like

[Vespertellino]

I'm glad that you like coinflips but I don't, I'm sorry