Customization is nice, but scroll buttons are almost the worst possible way to do it. Yes, I know that almost everyone does it that way, but it’s still awful. You don’t know how many options there are to choose from without scrolling through and counting them, and it’s difficult to compare multiple options. A grid or even a list is far preferable.
I’m also disappointed that the male body wasn’t changed at all. I realize it would have required redrawing all the armor, but it’s still the ugliest art asset in the game. The posture is absolutely terrible, and the arms are both horribly mismatched – the left arm looks like a lance because the wrist is so ridiculously skinny, and the right is this thick, short, misshapen monstrosity, with the hand connected almost directly to the elbow.
This removes one of the major barriers to me buying the Death Knight pack. I wanted the bonuses, but didn’t like the appearance. That may not have been an issue for anyone else, but I think it’s a real positive change.
As for the soul / Necromancy changes, I’m not sure what the real impact will be for me. I’ll have to see how it plays out. I’m always starved for souls, even using Valkyrie frequently, but if I’m earning 20-30 souls every battle, instead of 50-80 half the time, and 8 the other half, that seems a palatable change. It feels like only half the change necessary though, and not the good half.
I’m actually hoping to see far fewer Valkyries on the battlefield now that she has Mana Shield. Otherwise, Mab’s going in the corner. It’s one thing for a few troops here and there to hard-counter another troop, but when that counter is on nearly every team…
Does Necromancy still increase soul gains from spells, or does it only raise the cap? I guess I could reasonably test that, now that there are visible counters. If it only raises the cap, then it’s basically useless, because you’re better off fighting more battles and gaining other resources than extending one battle to hit the increased cap.
I’m glad Banshee has a use again, after being largely displaced by Hellcat. I’ve always liked Wight, so now I have an additional reason to put him on teams. I’m exceptionally glad that the hero stat bug was fixed – facing heroes that could nearly wipe my whole team with a single cast wasn’t fun.
Why multiply gains by 10, rather than cut costs by a factor of 10? I think it makes sense for most creatures to naturally only have 1 soul. Cutting costs does favor existing players with a supply of souls over new players, but I don’t think it’s worth arbitrarily inflating numbers over.
I would have appreciated one, because I don’t like surprises. Even good ones, and people seem pretty upset about this one. I opened the game before visiting the forum today, because I hadn’t seen any indication that we’d be getting a patch, saw that my avatar had changed, and had an anxiety attack. Some warning would have been nice, would have allowed me to mentally prepare for the changes before they happened, rather than logging in to play and instead having to spend time figuring out what happened and how I’ll have to adapt before I can get to playing.
