1.0.9 Sneak Peek - Frozen Revisited

Official News
21

This revision seems better than the original because all other status effects normally target single enemies. It looked kind of strange when you announced that Frozen affected all troops…
This also makes room for multi-strike mass freezing later on (as many others have previously stated, sorry) which will add a nice strategic layer :slight_smile:
Personally I’m looking forward to the release and implementation of this. Should be interesting!

PS. One last thing, I’d like to say “Thanks, Devs!!” for listening to your players. It’s very rare to find this level of feedback/support between a game company and their players. Loving this game and its community more and more - stay friendly! :slight_smile:

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22

On dimetraxia notice, her spell should just be changed (read buffed) to burn 1 random troop every time she casts. 25% to burn could remain, but with added certainty of burning at least 1 troop.

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23

Well I havn’t seen a gobbo team without a shaman or a rocket in quite some time now, but even then, all i said more or less holds true.
The spell extra turns of all troops not directly affected by frozen are still intact, Goblin King can just choose the gem colour he chains an extraturn with if oone is available and at least two troop’s manacolours still give extraturns with 4-matches.
Counter is a pretty strong defined term in games like these, sure frozen will affect goblin Teams but not to a significantly enough stronger degree to call it a counter.
The original frozen though was infact a counter to gobbo teams.

24

It still is, keep in mind it also eats extra turns granted by spells cast by a Frozen unit. A Goblin that doesn’t get to move again right away after Hide & Sneak is a Goblin operating at half efficiency. I like the way Frozen has been changed from a grenade (which just hits everybody) to a sniper rifle (which requires precision). You can still get good results, especially against mono-color teams, same-color feeders and full spectrum heroes. And it’s less prone to get abused the other way around, by combining feeders and freezers in your team to flood the board while negating the risk of losing control.

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25

[quote=“Fourdottwoone, post:24, topic:3612, full:true”]

It still is, keep in mind it also eats extra turns granted by spells cast by a Frozen unit. A Goblin that doesn’t get to move again right away after Hide & Sneak is a Goblin operating at half efficiency. [/quote]

But so is any other troop that doesn’t get its extra turn cause it is frozen or cause its mana colour is frozen on another troop. It doesn’t affect goblins any more than that, and it doesn’t counter them even if they are supposedly setup all green (which is just a weaker goblin setup in the first place imho ), the goblin team still has multiple options to get extra turns even when green is frozen.
Frozen is much more a counter to teams like rockworms than it is to goblins.

Edit: Anyways none of these type of teams need any form of additional counters added to the game, and Frozen especially random targetted does very little if anything to most of the teams that dominate the meta right now.

26

Looks much better than the first take.

Thematically the color freeze is still lacking, it is only supposed to work when the frozen troop is the one actually processing that mana. I.e. My first 2 troops are blue with empty store, second one is frozen. A blue 4 adds to frst without spilling, don’t see why it should trigger the malus.
A more interesting example, first is frozen but full on mana, all goes to second.

Game-wise probably not a big deal and easier to implement as currently specified but makes less sense.

27

That would nerf it to an even more trivial effect than this already neutered version…

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28

Great news devs. I have been away for a couple days so I missed the initial announcement. Thank you very much for listening to the debate and making a decision to change things. The changes combine comments and ideas from several players into what seems like a fair compromise. I think the new method provides a debuff to be worked around rather than a crippling simply to be endured. It also leaves the core mechanics of the game only altered instead of removed which is good. I also look forward to more troops gaining this effect especially since it could really impact some of the “put all my effort into gaining this type of mana teams”.

Once again, and as always, thank you for your hard work and attention.

-Razlath

29

One idea I had… As this revised effect is so much weaker, how about making it last longer, or permanent like Poison…?

I’d suggest the Frozen effect stays in place until:

  • it’s Cleansed by a spell, or
  • you match 5 of a kind of that troop’s colour.

That last part probably makes it too easy to cure in combo teams, but feels flavour-some to me…

Thoughts?

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30

I suspect we are not talking about the same extra turn here. Frozen has two effects, it negates the extra turn granted by matches and it negates the extra turn integrated into some spells. The latter definitely hits the goblins (Goblin, Hobgoblin, Goblin Shaman, Boar Rider) harder than most other troops, because they can no longer keep going after using their spell if they are frozen.

31

I really like your idea, but a single 5 match can make it really easy. Put it at 3 and you’ve got a deal. With gem creators and convertora it’s not really hard to get 5 match 3 times. Or make it so that frozen disappear after making 5 times a 5 match of any color gem (and skulls count too). This way you could get extra turns for your other troops while you slowly work your way towards removing frozen from your affected troop. You can of course make a 5 match with your frozen troop mana color which will still count towards removing frozen, but it won’t give you an extra turn. Makes planing your moves more valuable :slight_smile:

32

Thanks dev team, i like these changes a lot.

The spell has great versatility. The effect is good against many teams that only construct around one mana color (famous examples are rock worm teams, goblin teams), mass skull spamming teams as well.
But its not the jack-off-all-trades effect like it was before, imho. That is a good thing, so player can and should use more teams for different situations.

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33

I’m not really a fan of the Cleanse mechanic, I don’t think it will scale well in the long run. More and more status effects are getting added to the game. We can’t really have dedicated removals, any troop countering a single status effect (e.g. cure poison) is much too situational (just look at the “Immune to Burning” trait, everybody considers it underwhelming). We will eventually reach a point with so many incoming effects that a single Cleanse troop will no longer get the job done. Yes, I know, there’s Sheggra’s Heart, I suspect it might not manage to dodge another round of well deserved nerfs. Besides, I don’t like the generic one-size-fits-all approach Cleanse currently offers.

So, thoughts. What if the ability to remove status effects isn’t bound to troops? Something globally available at any time, call it a cantrip, that can be cast between moves, targeted only. Such cantrips would have to be highly specialized, e.g. remove Burning, remove Freeze, remove Entangle. And they would have to be limited in some way, there has to be a cost attached.

One approach might be to let excess mana pool up. Green to remove Poison, Brown to remove Entangle, Red to remove Burn, Blue to remove Freeze, Yellow to remove Hunter’s Mark, Purple to remove Silence, possibly a combination of colors for future status effects. As a tradeoff, let status effects never expire automatically. Play around with costs a bit. Maybe freshly applied Poison should cost more to remove than one already active for some turns. Maybe some troops could offer traits that significantly reduce the cost of a single cantrip (e.g. free Remove Poison once each turn), reduce the cost of all cantrips cast on them only (e.g. half cost) or passively contribute to the excess mana pool (e.g. one Green mana each turn). Adds a level of strategy, do you fire off a spell for damage or keep it charged to collect excess mana for cantrips?

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34

My total guess on this is that at some point in the future we will see battleground environments that continually apply the status affects. Making those traits less bad.

Interesting thoughts on your cantrips.

35

Interesting idea.

36

No we are talking about the same extra turn. Obviously only troops that get extra turns with their spells are affected, but goblins aren’t affected by it any more than other troops like War Sphinx fe. If anything a goblin team will still have several options to keep a turn even if one or even two troops of the team are frozen while a team built around War Sphinx strategies will allways hand over the turn with frozen War Sphinx activation.

37

It’s a slightly different flavor of extra turn. Goblin, Hobgoblin and Satyr use their extra turn to squeeze damage in between regular moves. Skeleton, Goblin Shaman and War Sphinx use their extra turn to take advantage of board shakes. Boar Rider sort of belongs to both groups. Shut down any of the former and you decrease their average damage output. Shut down any of the latter and you increase the risk attached to their spell. I’d consider the impact of Freeze for both groups to be about the same.

38

Ok let me try to put it another way.
Goblin spells still remain good to great spells even if you take the extra turn completely out of it (assuming both magic kingdoms at lv 10, no ascension bonuses and no kingdom 5 star bonuses).
Boar Rider does 10 damage for 9 mana and gives you some very controlled way of board manipulation that will most of the time result in at least another 3-match, and may even result in a 4-match to keep the turn and circumvent the frozen effect that way, that is still a great and efficient ability.
Goblin does a 9 damage targetted nuke for 6 Mana, not amazing but very efficient. Hobgoblin, 16 damage half of it targetted for 11 mana, good and efficient.
The point is the impact on the efficiency of goblin teams is not as big as you seem to think.

Now look at War Sphinx. Its spell effectively becomes an enemy spell by taking the extra turn out of it. Using the War Sphinx while frozen will not just have a reduced effect, it will in fact work for the opponent 100% of the time!

Or look at Green slime, with the purple troop in the team frozen; half the time activating a frozen slime will generate more purple mana for the opponent than for yourself, and giving the enemy some great combo opportunity to top it off.

Or imagine a trinity team with the valkyrie being frozen…which will effectively stop the 3-transformation combo on 2 of its three transformation steps everytime!

What i am trying to say, Goblins still remain largely effective even if one or even more of their troops are frozen, the extra turn is not essential to their effectiveness, while other teams (and other players sure can think of much more troops or teams being impacted by frozen more than goblins) get crippled much more severely by frozen.

39

This seems a valid argument to me… Though I’d still add that even the effect on combo teams will be marginal and short-lived… The AI will be too daft to use it against us properly as well…

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40

[quote=“Gouki, post:38, topic:3612”]What i am trying to say, Goblins still remain largely effective even if one or even more of their troops are frozen, the extra turn is not essential to their effectiveness, while other teams (and other players sure can think of much more troops or teams being impacted by frozen more than goblins) get crippled much more severely by frozen.
[/quote]
It’s all about perspective. The extra turn very much is essential to their effectiveness. Playing Goblins means flexibility, taking your time to strike the right place at the right moment. You don’t just spam their spells every time they are ready, you save them for when they have the most devastating effect. To give two examples:

1.) There are two troops in the enemy team you absolutely don’t want to get a spell turn (e.g. Gob-Chomper and Silent One). You won’t be able to reliably deny mana for both of them. Charge up your spells until one of your two potential targets is (almost) ready to cast, then take that one out in a single burst with all you’ve got. Buys you several rounds to go after the after target.

2.) There is one troop hiding in the back ranks that is the key component for their strategy (e.g. Sheggra in a True Damage build). Keep hitting it as soon and as often as possible, disabling it before it can trigger the chain killing most of your team. The remaining troops will be much less scary afterwards.

Both examples tend to be a pretty close call with the opponents I’m facing. Freezing even a single goblin will slow me down enough to fail, either because I can no longer apply burst damage in a single round or because my overall damage output no longer outraces their mana gain.

[quote=“Gouki, post:38, topic:3612”]Or look at Green slime, with the purple troop in the team frozen; half the time activating a frozen slime will generate more purple mana for the opponent than for yourself, and giving the enemy some great combo opportunity to top it off.
[/quote]
Which means that the other half of the time you still get a load of purple mana, even when frozen. And unlike the other team, your team is tailored to mass murder with every tiny bit of purple mana it gets. Freeze doesn’t break your build, it just makes it more risky.

[quote=“Gouki, post:38, topic:3612”]Or imagine a trinity team with the valkyrie being frozen…which will effectively stop the 3-transformation combo on 2 of its three transformation steps everytime!
[/quote]
I’m not sure what your trinity team is, mine tends to be Valkyrie, Alchemist, Sunweaver. It already yields control whenever Sunweaver is activated, which I like to do quite often for buffing purposes. I tend to use it for challenges, usually I play sloppy enough for the AI to get the odd extra turn. It still gets the job done, even on high Warlord ranks. You know in advance what you get for activating Valkyrie and Alchemist, so I’d imagine Freeze not being that much of a showstopper.

I can’t really comment on that, I’ve never managed to put together a viable War Sphinx team. Maybe it’s my play style, it just can’t get it to add enough benefit to not replace it with some other troop. Freezing a War Sphinx does feel a bit cruel, like beating a dead horse. What’s your War Sphinx team and how do you play it?