The real true problem behind Homecoming

[Forestry]

This is exactly due to excess control in the game. These huge point slam units are more than removal can do, so they stick to the board and beat removal. Only if engines would stick to the board and people would thus use them, the engines would beat these point spam decks.

I'd consider healthiest a meta where engines and removal by engines is the dominant tactic, which is only achieved by increasing deploy removal units' provision cost.

EDIT: It is not to say that speartips are broken too. Adding a doomed tag should do the trick for those, as the problem is more the huge bodies than the graveyard consuming units' provision cost, because on most other cases it is quite well balanced.

Depends what type of control were talking about, i mean... for example, a long and commited round between Woodland and Eithne, Eithne wins if she lines up the high creatures and scorches while pinging out the Thrive units before they even grow... the problem is that Eithne is not as prevalent anymore since she got nerfed which is what kept pure point-slamming in check. (Which totally needed to happen, but thats the issue, we need a middle ground where neither control nor Woodland gets out of hand).

And engines? Yes i totally agree theyre far too weak and always get cleaned out... ive heard people talk about implementing armor like before instead of pure hitpoints, which sounds good.

Ultimately, i think what is needed is a balance between: Control, Engines and Point-slam... when all three of these strategies are viable without being overbearing maybe its when the game is healthy (just for reference ill mention 3 dark eras: the pointslam era of SK veterans (or dorfs), the SK uncontrollable engines of greatswords and the era of artifact Eithne... i think these are moments nobody wants to go back to)

 

[Restlessdingo32]

This is exactly due to excess control in the game. These huge point slam units are more than removal can do, so they stick to the board and beat removal. Only if engines would stick to the board and people would thus use them, the engines would beat these point spam decks.

These point slam decks aren't very good anymore. People have adjusted. If you do not believe me try playing a deck like Big Woodlands or Bearmasters.

It regards to Big Woodlands it's not as simple as bombing a board with thrives into big units to finally unload uber buffed Ghoul finishers. The thrives get locked/killed, the big units get killed and the uber buffed Ghoul finishers get reset for 15-40 pt swings or buffs stolen for 20-30 pt swings. This is assuming it's not a match-up against certain Brouver, Fila or NG decks. All of which, believe it or not, can dump points pretty good themselves. Furthermore, unlike Big Woodlands many of these decks can run targeted control alongside the positive points. Control is back in fashion.

I'd consider healthiest a meta where engines and removal by engines is the dominant tactic, which is only achieved by increasing deploy removal units' provision cost.

Please, no. The provision system is turning into an epic fail. Minor adjustments to card costs where they make sense is reasonable. This cannot be the only tuning dial. If deploy units are too powerful, and in many cases they arguably are, the numbers and mechanics of those cards need to be looked into and adjusted. Damage points moved to the body, mechanics completely changed, etc. This applies equally to controversial card concepts like artifacts, engines, etc.

EDIT: It is not to say that speartips are broken too. Adding a doomed tag should do the trick for those, as the problem is more the huge bodies than the graveyard consuming units' provision cost, because on most other cases it is quite well balanced.

Speartip is 15 provisions for 13 points. The only value provided by this card is the tempo and fact it can be re-used via GY consume to "recover" the points under the provision cost. Say, with Ozzrel to get 28 pts for 24 provisions. Yes, this is 4 "bonus" points. It's not necessarily broken given how both cards are susceptible to large removals and one is also susceptible to resets.

The tempo from throwing Woodlands on top of a uber buffed Ghoul or Ozzrel is arguably a problem. This has less to do with the cards and more to do with the ridiculous leader design. It's only a major concern when the MS player leverages last say. Which, by the way, is the macro issue created by HC mechanics. Last say is too strong.

Depends what type of control were talking about, i mean... for example, a long and commited round between Woodland and Eithne, Eithne wins if she lines up the high creatures and scorches while pinging out the Thrive units before they even grow... the problem is that Eithne is not as prevalent anymore since she got nerfed which is what kept pure point-slamming in check. (Which totally needed to happen, but thats the issue, we need a middle ground where neither control nor Woodland gets out of hand).

I get what you're saying here but Eithne is no longer relevant. The December patch made sure of that.

And engines? Yes i totally agree theyre far too weak and always get cleaned out... ive heard people talk about implementing armor like before instead of pure hitpoints, which sounds good.

Eh, engines are too weak to control and removal, yes. They're also too strong when they stick. This is one of the more irritating aspects to HC. There is very little middle ground. A card stays on the board and it's too strong. It gets removed and it's too weak.

Armor is a good one to bring up. As many streamers/players have already stated it's confusing why it was abandoned. I'd think armor would be a great tuning fork for cards. Alas... it was abandoned for some reason.

Every faction can compete to some degree right now. Whether the game play is "fun" is another matter. Whether it's because every faction can run busted cards while others sit on a shelf is also another matter. I question whether it's possible to correct some of these issues without a shift in design philosophy, personnel or both .

 

[jgolden234]

These point slam decks aren't very good anymore. People have adjusted. If you do not believe me try playing a deck like Big Woodlands or Bearmasters.

It regards to Big Woodlands it's not as simple as bombing a board with thrives into big units to finally unload uber buffed Ghoul finishers. The thrives get locked/killed, the big units get killed and the uber buffed Ghoul finishers get reset for 15-40 pt swings or buffs stolen for 20-30 pt swings. This is assuming it's not a match-up against certain Brouver, Fila or NG decks. All of which, believe it or not, can dump points pretty good themselves. Furthermore, unlike Big Woodlands many of these decks can run targeted control alongside the positive points. Control is back in fashion.



Please, no. The provision system is turning into an epic fail. Minor adjustments to card costs where they make sense is reasonable. This cannot be the only tuning dial. If deploy units are too powerful, and in many cases they arguably are, the numbers and mechanics of those cards need to be looked into and adjusted. Damage points moved to the body, mechanics completely changed, etc. This applies equally to controversial card concepts like artifacts, engines, etc.



Speartip is 15 provisions for 13 points. The only value provided by this card is the tempo and fact it can be re-used via GY consume to "recover" the points under the provision cost. Say, with Ozzrel to get 28 pts for 24 provisions. Yes, this is 4 "bonus" points. It's not necessarily broken given how both cards are susceptible to large removals and one is also susceptible to resets.

The tempo from throwing Woodlands on top of a uber buffed Ghoul or Ozzrel is arguably a problem. This has less to do with the cards and more to do with the ridiculous leader design. It's only a major concern when the MS player leverages last say. Which, by the way, is the macro issue created by HC mechanics. Last say is too strong.



I get what you're saying here but Eithne is no longer relevant. The December patch made sure of that.



Eh, engines are too weak to control and removal, yes. They're also too strong when they stick. This is one of the more irritating aspects to HC. There is very little middle ground. A card stays on the board and it's too strong. It gets removed and it's too weak.

Armor is a good one to bring up. As many streamers/players have already stated it's confusing why it was abandoned. I'd think armor would be a great tuning fork for cards. Alas... it was abandoned for some reason.

Every faction can compete to some degree right now. Whether the game play is "fun" is another matter. Whether it's because every faction can run busted cards while others sit on a shelf is also another matter. I question whether it's possible to correct some of these issues without a shift in design philosophy, personnel or both .

^ yes, all of this. I think the reason control is still a thing (speaking as someone who favors it) is because when engines get going they trash a board. By a LOT. Ever play demavend and not manage to control every single engine? They only need like two to survive to win, which is insane. But I also understand how someone can set up a deck to do all sorts of cool synergistic things and then those are stopped and it is frustrating. I am not sure where the exact balance is. I am glad cdpr keeps looking but I think they need to try smaller changes instead of the big ones they usually do. There had to be a way to balance eithne without making her virtually useless now. I think a lot of decks are losing out on some peower and fun because they have to being a ton of different techs (locks, artifact removal, etc.) Just think if artifacts could be dealt with differently how many slots that would open up for you. For me it would be like 3 because I get so triggered when I see sihil. That card by itself ruins all fun for me.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

For me it would be like 3 because I get so triggered when I see sihil. That card by itself ruins all fun for me.

TBH Sihil isn't very concerning from a balance standpoint. The mere sight of artifact/spell spam does indeed drive me up a wall though. If only because it lacks creativity. The entire concept is killing everything hitting a board. I'd prefer my opponents grow a pair and actually attempt to out-play my deck/game play. Not incessantly murder everything hitting the board.

On the other hand.... Very little is more satisfying than beating the snot out of these type of decks. It's even more satisfying when you do it without artifact removal. By playing the discard game into, "Mine is bigger than yours.", at the end of the round, for instance . Tough to do with blue coin but possible.

But yes, needing to specifically tailor a deck because people insist on hiding behind non-interactive spears, Sihil's, etc. gets old fast. The entire concept behind those cards is not healthy. How it was even deemed a worthy addition is beyond me.... And they are the perfect example of an area needing a complete redesign. Provision adjustments aren't going to get it done.

 

[Hybridizati0nn]

Please, no. The provision system is turning into an epic fail. Minor adjustments to card costs where they make sense is reasonable. This cannot be the only tuning dial. If deploy units are too powerful, and in many cases they arguably are, the numbers and mechanics of those cards need to be looked into and adjusted. Damage points moved to the body, mechanics completely changed, etc. This applies equally to controversial card concepts like artifacts, engines, etc.

This is also indirectly adjusting the ratio of removal points to the provision cost. At least I feel reducing the body's points don't matter as much, because it's still net positive value on microinteraction-level every time you get something out of the board before they have a chance to activate abilities. Currently the amount of removal points is too high compared to provision cost, e.g. Chironex costs 9 provision and is 4 body + 4 damage (and a possibility to 8, but let's disregard that and imagine that wouldn't even exist), which still means 4 damage on deploy is only costed at +1. And that's a neutral card.

Eh, engines are too weak to control and removal, yes. They're also too strong when they stick. This is one of the more irritating aspects to HC. There is very little middle ground. A card stays on the board and it's too strong. It gets removed and it's too weak.

Armor is a good one to bring up. As many streamers/players have already stated it's confusing why it was abandoned. I'd think armor would be a great tuning fork for cards. Alas... it was abandoned for some reason.

I know, armor would give tools to solve so many problems! Engines having even 1-2pt armor would give them a chance on staying on the board, without adding too much tempo and value on deploy. I think the same thing could be done for artifacts. They could be removed via current artifact removal, or if they had armor, by destroying all the armor they have. Would remove the worst aspect of them e.g. being binary, either you have a counter at your hand or then you don't. Things should have multiple ways to interact with, even if the other way is sub-par.

And I agree with the engines snowballing out of control. We need less "high risk, high reward" binary cards. I think the most convenient / interesting way to make an engine NOT snowball is to make it gain charges on very specific interactions (a bad example of engine gaining charges is Vysogota of Corvo in my opinion), these interactions could be something like the current Saesenthessis has reduced cooldown based on the variety of cards you have in your hand, which can't be achieved with filling your deck with only certain type of cards to guarantee a charge every turn (like Isengrim or Gabor), though even the said two are better than automatically gaining charges because they might require compromises on deck building. The (nearly) "automatic" charge gainers are exactly in numbers those which snowball inevitably out of control when you have no direct answer for them.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

As a Demavend player I don't find normal control a real problem anymore. There are a couple of decks, which really commit to control and thus rather beat a full engine deck, but those will loose to big bodies. And against a normal control deck half of Demavends engines will remain and that will usually mean Demavend wins. And against decks which a point spam without control or engines, Demavend will likely win, too.

The only kind of control cards I still find annoying are those that easily destroy huge bodies. If you really need an engine and thus want to keep it safe, and thus invest a couple of points into it, at the point you leave the "get destroyed by control in 1 turn" range, you are already in the range that is worth for the enemy to invest a huge body destroyer. So armor would surely help. And I'm kind of expecting it back with the first card expansion in march.

The only attrocity I've seen so far is playing a Demavend mirror and "winning" the coin flip. I've never won a Demavend mirror if the enemy went first in the first round, and I never lost one, when I went first. Due to all the delayed effects, the one who goes first, is always one step ahead of setting up his engines. And while against control decks it is the same challenge for every single engine, wether the enemy can remove it or not with a deploy ability, against Demavend the one going first is able to not only destroy your engines, but set up his engines more and more, such that there is absolutly nothing you can do. Thus, the starting player completly stomps you to the ground in the first 3 cards and then passes instantly. If you win this round on less cards, you can't really take round 2 and the enemy will go first in round 3 again and once more get his engines rolling much faster. At the other hand, if you loose round 1, the enemy can directly stomp you in round 2.