Nothing of this is Goblin specific though, key enemy troops you don’t want filled with mana or troops hiding in the back is a concern to pretty much all teams and frozen doesn’t hinder goblins any more than the vast majority of other teams to take out these key troops.
If anything goblin teams are still better setup to handle these key troops fast than most other teams when confronted with frozen.
Your opponent still gets the turn before you, most propably has some purple 4-match opportunities and decisive purple troops aren’t exactly rare atm, so chances are he has some nasty stuff to do with the purple mana you just provided him with.
I’m talking about Alchemist/Valkyrie/Banshee variants, which are a classic staple in this game, and a frozen Valkyrie stops this team in its tracks, giving the turn to the opponent almost every time you activate alchemist and banshee, when the pure essence of this team is to not give the turn to the opponent for long periods of time.
Well War Sphinx isn’t really stellar in any team but it is a viable helm for a trinity team, and a viable option for out-of-the-box teams rearranging a board that has lots of gems of a colour or skulls but no 4-matches to offer to get a high chance on a 4-match.
I just picked War Sphinx as my first example cause it is probably the most extreme negative impact frozen can have on a troop, effectively turning the WS spell into an enemy spell.
Anyways the point remains, no one is saying frozen has no effect on goblins at all, it is just a rather mild effect compared to its effect on several other troops and team compositions.
Yes, and it is a good direction too. Traits should have been light and even in the first place, not a collection of randomly dropped collection of wtfs and nukes.
Also the game is way more fun if the player can intelligently use some tool that is not OP to start with but becomes powerful with careful team build and situational use. Meanwhile when the AI just nukes your team with nothing but random flailing it is pure frustration.
That part I rather agree with… For me traits would have worked better in the game as milder, incremental effects… like some of the stat gain ones… I agree the current set vary wildly between irrelevant and almost game-breaking…
On the other hand, if traits didn’t change things much, would people bother with the vastly hard work of collecting stones to unlock them all… Traits are partly there to affect gameplay, and partly there to be a target for people to aim at and keep them playing (and sometimes spending)…
Said with your normal charm I hope I’ve put the same point with a bit more lucid (if less colourful) explanation…
I can agree with that, though struggle to see how this Frozen effect will be much more than a mild curiosity… I hope my crystal ball is flawed and this proves to be more interesting when we get it… But currently I can see dozens of things I’d rather spend my mana on…
It takes away their key ability, being able to wait for the match to evolve, then chain multiple actions into a single turn. They are exceptionally vulnerable to this, you only need to freeze a single goblin to seriously hamper their whole strategy. Without their extra move nobody would be picking goblins, because the vast majority of other teams just deals more damage paired with better effects.
War Sphinx gets access to Impervious, so one could argue it’s actually one of the troops least affected by Freeze.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Freeze on gem spammers increases your risk. You can take your chances and still end up getting an auto-match, possibly only grating a worthless 4-match to your opponent. Or really mess you up, if you gambled too high. Freeze on damage dealers severely lowers your damage output, every time, no risk involved. I don’t really see a difference between halving your damage or doubling your risk, it both hurts the same, just in different ways.
I really hope that isn’t the case. Ideally, it being a less potent version means it is more widespread and will just show up incidentally, plus allowing for multiple target freeze effects to be more unique. I still think the nerf was too far but AFAIK its hard to program most of the things in between.
There is a reason the AI is relatively strong playing Gobbos, without getting deep into combos, or picking of decisive troops first with 3-troop burst attacks or whatever, the kind of combos you seem to think essential to the team.
There is also a reason the AI is very weak when playing teams like Alch/Valk/Banshee or pretty much every other transformer heavy team.
Guess what, the reason is the same, Gobbos just don’t rely on being comboed as strong as you think, while other teams really do.
While i like the first part of this as we clearly disagree on several things, especially on the meaning of the term “counter”, i never really talked about gem spammers at all, its funny you mention them though as the Goblin Shaman with frozen still has about the same chance to get an extra turn as many other gem creators have without being frozen.
Anyways, most of what i talked about is about transformers, and they rarely get extra 4-matches of another colour than they transform gems into. Also their sole purpose is to keep turns while charging other troops otherwise they could just be exchanged against Gem spammers who generally have stronger beneficial side effects to their spells than transformers, or pretty much any single nuke troop dealing significantly more damage or having a more decisive beneficial effect with their spell.
You have clearly been playing too much Gobbos if you think they will be hurt the most by frozen, chances are with frozen and a possible nerf to true shot or even the skull spammers, Gobbos might be one of the winners of 1.09.
I might be wrong here, I’m quite sure the AI has been intentionally designed to be very weak when playing transformer teams. There’s a very simple adjustment that would make it extremely challenging to play against the AI. It’s also a Good Idea not to make that adjustment, because nobody would benefit from it. Don’t assume that just because the AI handles Gobbos better naturally that they don’t rely on combos.
You seem to have a very specialized setup of transformers in mind, like a Valk in a Sheggra team. For the standard transformer team, charging other troops is really just a side effect of their main purpose, thining the color diversity of the board. You want to eliminate as many colors as possible, the remaining gems will fall into place to auto-match. The aim is to eventually cash in on all the skulls, you do get 4-matches of other colors quite regularly though.
I keep wondering why you keep insisting that I think Gobbos will be hurt the most by frozen. In case you are interested, I play other teams too. There’s little reason to play Gobbos once you’ve progressed a bit, they are far inferior in regards to kill speed and reward payout.
Oh i absolutely think that is the case, but how does that refute anything i said?
The AI clearly is no combo mastermind(thank god), intentionally or not, the fact remains without chaining spells together or planning spell combinations ahead goblins are much much stronger in the hands of the AI than real transformer setups, simply because a goblin team is just much less reliant onjust that which is exactely what i stated…
No i don’t… this is true for most transformers whos transform colour is blocked by frozen. I gave several examples, most notably Valk/Alch/Banshee with a frozen Valkyrie blocking two of the transformation colours which may slow down this team immensly as long as the Valk remains frozen.
We also disagree vastly on the importance of charging the other troops, while it may be just a side effect in some specific one-transformer teams, it is of greatest importance in true transformer setups that are built around more than one transformer, like the one i mentioned, where each transform step needs to fill up the mana for the next one t ochain the turns together.
Cause you literally stated that frozen will counter Goblins… which it wont, it is what started this whole line of argument…
Maybe… But even as our meta is involving they’re still a disproportionately high number of defence teams and still very strong compared to most things that many people can access…
Huh? The stupid AI is one big source of disappointment and making the game boring. And have worth only for those like grinding and collecting up all the irrelevant stuff.
A well playing AI would be a thing that could make play interesting. And without ruining it too, as we have the difficulty levels for some time – W3 and W4 should not scale stats but make it play better on the same field. Or add another set of choices that tune the AI beyond that ‘combo breaker’.
The basic algo that collects up all the 4s is really stupid when playing with gem spawn or transform abilities. To me it’s painful to see when the “opponent” does things like collecting brown 4s up when it has all worms filled before activating. It should just offer surrender to save time and face.
Well, not saying the AI couldn’t be improved slightly in some regards, but a completely unchained Ai isn’t going to be much fun at all, no matter how much one likes a challenge.
With a transformer team i am quite often able to chain turn almost whole remaining games after the initial couple of turns to get mana filled up and spells ready to go and i know for a fact that i tend to miss stuff cause i’m a f#*&/g idiot.
I don’t even want to imagine this kind of planning ahead and combo-ing implemented into an AI that doesn’t miss anything, effectively ending games after the AI’s turn 3 or 4 (with me having to sit through the AIs endless final turn for minutes).
Oh the excitement…
Lol, sounds like the Prismatic Orb pre-“nerf” with 25+ magic on the hero. It was literally unstoppable unless a 3 skull match falls just right for the AI to take it. Good times, good times…
The endless AI solitaire is a completely separate problem. And we were asking the devs to be able to skip over it from the beginning of this game with no result however simple that would be to implement. :-((((
Actually THAT is the cause of most annoyance with gob team and such, not the team strength itself or the chance to lose but the endless turns.
And we have positive proof that good AI is fun. At least to some kind of people. See game Spectromancer where it is really really hard to beat the archmage level – while the field is properly even.
Yeah, there are people who jsut want to play manugo, spamming the A button and look the ‘you won’ without any effort. They are welcome NOT to switch on the said options. Also you could switch on that difficulty for battles where you have better stat team or good idea for counter.
Now what I see in GoW since 1.07 is nothing but pushovers or pure gamble. Pick your poison.
Oh i think you misunderstood me or i failed to get my point along in the first place. My gripe would not be about the endless turns duration, though it would sure be annoying.
What i meant was that a human with a transformer team is capable of ending a game in a single endless chain turn, after a few turns of 3/4 gem match exchanges at the start of the game to get one or two key troops filled with mana and start the chain turn. Really all that is needed is just a tiny bit of luck with the drops. I do it every other game, and i am an idiot.
I don’t want the AI to do something like this to me, this has nothing to do with the level of challenge i wish in my game, like i said i would not mind some AI improvements, i just don’t want to be at the AIs mercy every other game without a real shot at fighting back cause the AI had more drop luck an got its endless chain starting quicker.
A board control team that is benefitted by an unchained AI would be built very differently from a goblin team that works well with the current AI, correct? So if I used Treant/Alch/Valk/Banshee as my defense team, only players running at Warlord 3 or 4 would get the full challenge and the threat of insta-lose. The rest would see this as a walkover team unless the AI gets exceptionally lucky.
Edit: so basically this would turn defense into a new level of meta. Do you bet that your opponents will run at high difficulty (use a board control team) or a low one (goblins)? The goblins are roughly equally deadly at all levels of AI.
I hope I’ve put the same point with a bit more lucid (if less colourful) explanation…