Not 100% sure either of these are really “balance” but I’ll take it. Maybe QoL or simply “the way they should have been from the start” …
For anyone who hasn’t figured out what the second one is, that’s the “Dwarf Allies start with 50% mana” -type text on those traits. They’re all the same now, its so freakin’ clean. Got the classes’ ones too.
(Could make Ishbaala 50% again instead of 40%, Divines hardly stand out at the moment…)
Lycanthropy still seems pretty daft in general though.
Can’t evaluate heroic gems or campaign changes until I see them. Not particularly enthused either way and I still think the whole campaign structure would best be served with deletion or a real intense overhaul.
This. Very Much.
(in the hopes that a company representative who understands the game and cares about the playerbase sees this repeated request by customers)
I think we should note both the good and bad here. I understand both the frustration and positivity, and I think both should be noted; there are pluses and minuses here, and I’m happy to give credit (or criticism) where it’s due.
Heroic Gems will be interesting - and I mean that in a neutral way. Done right, they could breathe some fresh air into the game. They’re a new way for events to interact with gameplay. Done wrong, we’ll end up with a handful of mediocre choices and never get the creativity advertised here (cough cough medals). Personally, I’m looking forward to where this goes.
Like the Campaigns or despise them, the QoL changes made to task options, especially rerolling, are very welcome. Free rerolls are indeed very generous. Good job devs!
I am not super concerned about the affixes - gem creation didn’t bother me much, and nor will this change. I’ll stay neutral here.
Text unification is always good, and I very much appreciate y’all taking the time to go through some of it!
Last thing I’ll mention is the Lycanthropy bug - it makes me want to facepalm a bit. The effect is not at all a popular one to begin with; for some reason the devs are quite insistent that it should not halve the level like regular transform does, thus making it a neutral effect, not a negative one. EoE is indeed nerfed by re-adding Lycanthropy. What kills me, though, is that it’s already been taken off again due to a bug which I know for a fact was repeatedly pointed out long before this update. @Snooj is one who reported the bug several times here on the forums without the use of Death Mark. It really feels like someone scanned over the report thread, figured they got the gist of it, and failed to read important bits of repeated information relating to the bug. It’s sloppy work.
Overall, this is a much more promising update than what we’ve got recently. I’m happy with even a little amount of progress!
Maybe balance issues? Chage was made to have all doomed weapons from 1st eddition work similiar… crossbow was a bit stronger as it created extra doomskull
question,
1.what is a lycantrophy gem?
2. if you add more kinds of gem without enlarging the board size (like heroic gems) wouldnt the board be too full and colorful that matching gems will be difficult? or will those gems be incorporated to some existing colors? like uber green or uber red or uber yellow?
Tbh, in the scheme of things I don’t think removing the ‘Doomed’ (Create a Doomskull) affix from the Doomed Crossbow is the biggest deal in the world, and (admittedly less invested than I used to be) having them all be the same is okay.
Overall it’s a nerf, but there a couple of rare situations where you wouldn’t want an extra Doomskull in the mix (think – it’s a GW match; you only have your Hero left, ready to cast; your opponent has three troops that would be killed by the Crossbow, but one wouldn’t; you don’t have any red-blue gem alignments, but casting also wouldn’t leave any Skull matches for the enemy → you cast, killing the three, but a Doomskull is made above a pair of other skulls → remaining Troop takes the Skull match and kills your Hero).
I don’t think the ‘Create a Doomskull’ affix defined the weapon (although maybe made it stand out from its peers, esp. compared to the Blade/Club), and it’s still a good weapon on the whole ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’d be interested to know why it was put on there in the first place and not on any of the others – maybe something to do with the Kingdom, and random/generic selection?
It’s this – Uber Doomskulls match with Skulls and Doomskulls, and Lycanthropy Gems are slated to be Purple and match with other Purple Gems, I believe. I guess I don’t know about any other future Gems.
Hmm, weapon changes have been posted under Balance paragraph so that could be the case.
Still, one sentence with approximately “we felt Crossbow was too strong and brought in line with other doomed weapons” would make it look more reasonable than a change out of the blue.
Basically, feel free to “reroll” and have the new task take 10 times longer than the other one.
But in their defense, they just make the game. They aren’t expected to know how long that many explores would take. Because they would never have the time to find out first hand. They just expect their free to play players to have that much time on their hands. Seemingly in their eyes, free to play means you don’t work 40+ hours and are busy with real life each week. Because if you did, you’d spend money or gems on a game that has now released the same exact bug 2 updates in a row.
So surely it’s not just a matter of releasing a product worthy of investment or anything.
No offense @devs… But the task reroll better be bugged or you really have lost your damn minds.
Doomskulls as an upgrade to regular skulls were introduced just three years ago, and we already got super doomskulls as an upgrade of doomskulls now. Feels a bit like an escalation. Try to hold back on mega doomskulls or whatever you got in mind next.
Since lycantrophy was introduced, I got the scary feeling, that it is kept so stubbornly as a feature in the same form that nobody likes, because there are plans to center one of the coming underworld kingdoms around it. Already dreading a delve, where there is a 100% starting mana lycantrophy caster in the first fight.
Switching campaign tasks is a very welcome change. No more need to keep one underworld kingdom underleveled, because I somehow have to get through a “beat 3 delve runs at level 80/90/100/etc” task.
