Weather and tempo issues in open beta. Solutions rather than complaints thread

[crisby_pancakes]

Weather and tempo issues in open beta. Solutions rather than complaints thread

So I was one of the earlier players to receive an invite to the closed beta and have seen multiple variations of CDPR's attempts at weather. The biggest problem atm IMO is the tempo plays that weather can cause (particularly with monsters) they can pull off these large swings due to the changes to leaders and not enough units that have weather abilites to buff or negate those effects (there are the odd general cards across a few factions) and I feel this is part of the cause to so many posters commenting on weather.

I'll start by saying I think in it's current format they definitely have more options in the ways they can get weather balanced correctly and they now have more options in the way they can tweak it, that in itself, is a good start.

Currently first lights are a must have for every deck and thats not great design for deck building and creativity when you have to spec for just one faction archtype. Part of the issue is the tempo swings factions can do while also dropping weather onto your side. Monsters for example have 3 tempo plays they can pull off atm.

1. Woodland spirit 14 points (19 with roach) and fog on one of your rows
2. Eredin into navigator into hound 13 odd points cant remember how much eredin is atm + (5 more with roach) and frost on another of your rows
3. Crones immediately after these plays. Deck crazy thinned going into next 2 rounds.

Obviously the other factions have one tempo swing they can do with their leaders as well so I can see roach being changed at some point again to reign this in a bit. My 2 pence worth is;

I feel CDPR could look at weather affecting say one unit and x amount either side or select x amount of random units on the board for bronze and choose x amount of units for silvers and golds, that way the effects are on units themselves and not a row and there would be clear value differences in bronze/silver/gold weather cards. CDPR can then adjust the weather damage effects accordingly to balance and you could then give other units or new units abilities like for example clear x amount of units of a weather effect, this would reduce tempo plays and make clear skies less of an auto include as there would be units with a body value and an ability. It could potentially lead to new cards with interesting abilites for the future, keep weather as a viable play option as there would be more ways to balance both sides but also make it a bit more interesting and complex.

Anyone else have viable ideas that would tweak it for the better? I would rather this thread be a constructive one for CDPR than the others that have become weather is op/broken/not right nerf nerf nerf.

Lastly, keep it up CDPR, the game is getting better and we appreciate the time you put in to keep making this a great game for the future.

 

[swiss1st]

Leader cant trigger Roach.

 

[doctorcheese]

I'd understand your complains if Monsters were good, but they kind of suck. The fact the have to rely on neutral weather instead of doing their own thing is telling.

 

[ibilibertas]

This is such a long discussion and i'm almost bored of referring to my previous conclusions.

Currently first lights are a must have for every deck and thats not great design for deck building and creativity when you have to spec for just one faction archtype.

This is true for the most part, definitely for starter decks. They are in disadvantage exactly because as one gets more kegs he/she is not allowed to experiment to something different, true. One the other hand you can experiment as you get cards at some point even more and FL is a bit agile at least.

I have found the issue is not weather, not anymore. The issue is the ridiculous amount of weather one Deck can throw per match/round. It's ludicrous imo. Weather monsters can spam faster than you can blink.

Nevertheless this is the first time i find myself having exciting matches finally. Perhaps that's misleading because it is to early and everyone somewhat is experimenting. Yet, if someone tries carefully to "craft" a deck while being mindful of what he/she will go against, then he/she will see a difference to the better.

It needs further refining for sure but it is in a far better spot than it was.

(Just for laughs)

 

[Rawls]

I actually like the changes to weather. The only thing I would change back is making weather agile. I think weather is more tactical when you can't play any weather on any row. I like that it's now only on other side, but not that it can go on any row. I think the system now is much better than the old one, as weather is more versatile. Before it was either weather deck or not a weather deck (with aeromancy last play the one exception). Now it's much more able to be blended in to various deck archetypes.

 

[BornBoring]

Am I the only one, who doesn't like weather being played on one side only? I personally want to see more cards which actively interact with weather(spamming weather effects is no interaction in my opinion)and I want weather immunity back. I'd actually prefer no weather at all to having 5-10 cards, which play or remove weather, in every damn deck.

 

[teddybee_r]

Please name all the decks where card advantage (CA) actually matters (aka people who open with 15-30str openings)
All I can think of is Dagon mass Foglet spam.

If CA doesn't really matter tempo isn't even that strong.

How much do the tempo opening decks really profit from CA?

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

The basic weather function of damaging units once per turn, is much better than bringing them down to one instantly. The problem is that weather is agile. You can use a single weather effect, like frost, to cover an entire board. The other thing is that weather is asymmetrical.

The way it is now, there's no need to plan ahead about which row you want to affect. Just bring 2-3 of the same weather effects and cover whatever you want. On top of that, yo6 don't need to worry that same weather affecting yor own units, so you can just use it and not worry about your own unit placement.

 

[BeEarnest]

I do not think that we can judge the overall weather balance with gold weather still in place.

My spontaneous idea for a change would be somethink like this:

Ragna: agile, 1 row, 3 points / turn, all units, moves to a random row at turn start
Drought: 2 rows, 2 point / turn, all units

 

[PonamJP]

O like the new weather effect, it makes more sense to be agile and damage over time things as it is mostly an atriction tool (flavor wise), but I think it should be simetrical, as it would make thw cards more tactical and all around more interesting to build and play around instead of spammable aoe.
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[doctorcheese]

Please name all the decks where card advantage (CA) actually matters (aka people who open with 15-30str openings)
All I can think of is Dagon mass Foglet spam.

If CA doesn't really matter tempo isn't even that strong.

How much do the tempo opening decks really profit from CA?

Spy John Calveit wins through pure CA. With luck you can get 20+ openers, burn through your deck really fast, then use your control cards to stop the comeback.

 

[Danest]

Am I the only one, who doesn't like weather being played on one side only? I personally want to see more cards which actively interact with weather(spamming weather effects is no interaction in my opinion)and I want weather immunity back. I'd actually prefer no weather at all to having 5-10 cards, which play or remove weather, in every damn deck.

Yeah, that might be part of the problem. it can be played without consequence now, rather than having to be careful about hitting one's own board as well. And yeah, there's no need for planning since all weather can be put anywhere. They can't go "whoops, I brought frost but he's not using melee."
The only strategy I consistently truly fear is weather spam. "run 3 first light" isn't a sufficient solution, and the weather spam will often force a minimum of one passed around, if not both, even if I'm lucky enough to draw all four clear skies.
I feel like I'm starting to look for ways to design the decks completely around anti-weather; I don't feel I'm trying to design an anti-foltest deck, or an anti-hoog strategy, but yeah, I am trying to build anti-dagon strategies.

So in sum, I think maybe it was better when weather affected both sides, and only specific rows as per weather type. Without those things, weather becomes a no-brainer without any tactical considerations for the user.
Although Northern Realms has some cards that get stronger when they're damaged by weather, and it would be weird to see players deliberately freezing their own soldiers; I know, I tried weathering my own units but found that I couldn't target my own side.

 

[teddybee_r]

Spy John Calveit wins through pure CA. With luck you can get 20+ openers, burn through your deck really fast, then use your control cards to stop the comeback.

Which exact play does a John Calveit deck does not want get countered (aka CA play). Where exactly comes that CA in handy. if he does a strong opener and you go two cards down where does it reflect your lack of extra cards. you can hard pass round 2 because of combat engineers if you dont have ciri or a spy.

 

[BeEarnest]

Another approach, just brainstorminG:


a) Keep bronze weather effects as their are now, agile, dot ...
b) Unify the 3 weathers into 1 card with multiple choices,
c) Keep the ability of silver units to spawn weather,
d) Keep the silver weather cards,
e) Nerf gold weather.

I just played 8 games, in 6 of those a gold weather card was played, in 4 of those it forced a lost round even though 3 cases were countered by first light ...

 

[MooshieMooshie]

It seems like the problem is there's no good way to deal with weather currently. They will always have more weather effects than you have clears, so they can just wait out your clears to play their most powerful weathers. Waiting to bait out multiple weathers doesn't work against a good opponent most of the time either. They have zero incentive to play more weathers, unless you're able to move all your units out of the weather. You also get punished the longer you wait to clear because your cards will consistently take damage. It seems like you're always put in a lose-lose situation.

 

[Laveley]

They have to make weather affect both rows again. And stop this bs of 80% agile unit, this screwed up the tactical aspect of rows in the game.

 

[kaalev]

Am I the only one, who doesn't like weather being played on one side only? I personally want to see more cards which actively interact with weather(spamming weather effects is no interaction in my opinion)and I want weather immunity back. I'd actually prefer no weather at all to having 5-10 cards, which play or remove weather, in every damn deck.

This, so much this. Weather was fun to play in CBT. You could pull off some crazy combos, even though some archetypes heavily countered weather deck. But at this point I'd rather devs rolled every weather related change back.

 

[BornBoring]

I want to add that I definitely prefer the new "damage-over-time" mechanic to the old one. Just anything else about weather bothers me now...

 

[kaalev]

They have to make weather affect both rows again. And stop this bs of 80% agile unit, this screwed up the tactical aspect of rows in the game.

Agree with this. So many agile units is pure bullshit. At least in CBT you could guess what rows enemy is likely to ppay so you could mulligan accordingly. Such as rain vs NR, frost / fog vs skellige, frost / rain vs monsters (+ lacerate for arachas). Now you have to play 3 weather cards just to finally lock enemy out. And that's if they don't have first light.

Weather now is also very inconsistent. It's very useful to start a match with but by round 3 it becomes worth less than trash since you don't have enough turns to keep up in strength. And increasing card count with say Avallach will increase the chance enemy will draw that first light.

All in all I say roll weather changes and all the changes related to it (such as 80% agile units and 0 weather immune units) back.

 

[_Ell_]

Every faction has builds that bring cards to ridiculous amounts of numbers and extremely easily. Leave it to everyone who fights against monsters to blame the weather and complain about monsters. I find the weather a fair and accurate way of presenting alternate solutions and potential decks. My weather monster deck hasn't lost much, but recently I recall one Scoiatael very well-made deck who ended up triggering the weather back at me and ended up winning.

It's a core game mechanic. Deal with it and find ways around it, like we all have to for other deck's strong-suits.