3x Tak is no more/less a problem than 3x archdruid + eoe or 3x stormguard. The problem is having a lot of randomness without a way to eliminate it. And losing based on complete randomness, especially when you can 3x the amount of randomness. If you could always use a troop like obsidius or immortal ossifer, it wouldn’t be nearly the same issue - but some restrictions have zero curses or stuns or empowered converters to keep control of the board.
Palace should be hard, so I don’t care about the MDN/Trogolin setups and whatnot.
But having 3x banned would be a better alternative IMO. Even something like tak+ishbaala is still really nasty, but a lot less nasty than 3x tak. Remember in the old days, people would use great wyrm, morthani mythic, and that other stun-immune guy that makes doom skulls? With savage hunter on top? That was also nasty. But no matter, it’s a lot less nasty than what we have now.
Also, difficulty really depends on the restriction. 3x Tak wasn’t nearly the same fight on blue as it was with Knights or Urska as a restriction. With blue, we can use our own taks and mdn. On beasts we could use Spirit Fox and Inari to mitigate the issue of them filling up quickly.
But wtf a team of orcs, stryx, or broken spire gonna do to those? Or when the restrictions are literally restricted from having curse/stun, silence, or web? You can’t do anything.
Correct, and also what I tell my guildmates when they are frustrated.
It’s an unbalanced dumpster fire for the other team, too! Yay? They are not having any fun, either! Yay?
For the record, I don’t want to see any troops banned from GW. I don’t even want to see the ones currently banned, banned. There is always going to be something annoying to deal with.
But these randomized restrictions, that are completely divorced from the realities of the game, are morale killers. Morale killers are bad for the mode and bad for the game.
Edit: It occurs to me, maybe a point bonus for unique troops on defense teams (like old GW) could help with this? Maybe not, but better than banning things.
If you can convert Stellarix and Wand of Stars in PVP/GW, can’t you convert Taka? And just as important, can’t you convert Chrysantherax and Maelstrom Dagonath? Those troops make the palace and a few locations so overpowered it makes GW a painful chore rather than a fun skilled event. It’s already hard enough with attack restrictions, leaving those troops in makes it awful.
MalDag is a boss, so usually it can be one-shot by boss killer. With 30 mana cost, it should fill slower than attacking boss killer. So I don’t think it is too much trouble. It would be better if it’s not counted as a merfolk so not enjoying merfolk’s 50% mana start. That will make it more dealable.
Chrys, as well as Stella, should also be classified as bosses. If so, they don’t need to be banned. I’d advocate they should not have other classification (dragon and elemental), just boss. Buf even if boss/dragon is decent enough.
Taks, well, it’s just OP. Boss level, even though it has no obvious connection to existing bosses.
MDN isn’t a problem IMO because I’ve yet to see a restriction that doesn’t allow godslayers. Those all 1-shot the thing unless they’re much more overpowered than you, in which case… good luck.
Converting Taka… to what though? Chrys, I can see changing to Diamantina - but unlike Tak or Stellarix, I don’t see it as a problem. Yes, tons of damage, but submerge / deluge trait exists and isn’t restricted by offense restrictions. Stellarix isn’t a problem because of it doing damage, it’s a problem because of how much it loops and refills the entire rest of the team. Chrys is more damaging, but less threatening, significantly IMO.
Back to Tak, I honestly don’t think it would be a problem if the restrictions didn’t limit silence/web/stun-all. All 3 of those skills gimp it enough where you can win. A bad starting board is a bad starting board no matter what though, and that held true in Guild Wars even before the dragons and Takshaka. Having some stupid book/siren/converter/leprechaun thing was just a nightmare to deal with no matter the board, and then you just watch your team slowly die. Book was an issue because it did both skull damage and damage all, so you couldn’t really fend it off forever like you can with one or the other.
Easiest step 1 would be to limit troops to 1 in GWs. That wouldn’t solve every problem, but help with some of the worst while being relatively easy to do. Either by limiting actual troops or the points you would get from a win. Doesn’t matter, both would work.
I disagree. On the contrary I think Stellarix and Wand of Stars should be allowed. They’re all beatable with any restriction and it shouldn’t be a walk in the park to just get 30 people to the palace. It should really bring out the best in us and if you’re not good or lucky enough to beat a harder team then sucks to suck, that’s just how it goes. Old guild wars was too easy. Guild wars is supposed to be very competitive and challenging. Like the pinnacle of PvP.
That is a nasty mindset. If someone hits bad RNG and loses through no wrong doing on their part, despite them being highly skilled, they just… suck?
Then you’re wrong. Don’t like it? Well, sucks to suck, I guess.
See how dumb that is?
And that should be based on skill, not luck. Imagine going to watch the world cup of some sport and when you get there, all the players just flip coins and then tell you the score. Would you see that as the pinnacle of that sport, or just gambling on luck?
If they hadn’t made the game so RNG-focused, they could make a game mode that was challenging and competitive, and it would be great, but the way they pushed the game, that just can’t work any more. That’s why they can’t balance it.
I think this response is unnecessarily argumentative and negative framing of what I said. ‘Sucks to suck’ is a phrase and it doesn’t necessarily literally mean you are bad at the game for things outside your control, it also can be used as ‘sometimes things just suck’, or ‘sometimes it just is what it is but whining and complaining over it isn’t going to make you better at the game’. It also doesn’t make sense to simply say someone is wrong out of petty argumentation, as that weakens the rationality of your stance.
There is good and bad luck in anything, including the World Cup of any sport, and it can affect win/loss of a match. This is even more true in any digital game, as they use PRNG (not RNG), much less a match 3 that has a board configuration and sky fall based on PRNG.
The key points central to my opinion are:
People are quick to blame a bad starting board or other ‘PRNG’ factors rather than taking accountability for how they could have done better. The percentage of losses that are truly 100% due to PRNG, where the individual couldn’t have chosen a different team dynamic, matched different gems, etc. is so much rarer than people perceive because it’s easier on the ego to frame it as outside one’s control.
If PRNG truly had such a dominating impact in the game, then the top 10% to 20% of guilds or players within a guild would fluctuate a lot more for guild wars outcomes.
For PvP to be truly competitive, both the offence and defence should have equal access to all weapons and troops contained within their restriction. Limiting for one side is handicapping which doesn’t make anyone better and is not consistent with competitive PvP play.
Teams containing Takshaka, Maelstrom Dagonath, Chysthenax, Goblins, Stellarix, and/or Wand of Stars are the only ones that present any sort of real challenge, which would be consistent with my comment about being the pinnacle of challenging PvP.
I beat the 3 Takshaka and essence of evil team 90% of the time regardless of the restriction. This is also true of the Maelstrom, Zarg, Chrysthenax, and essence of evil team in the palace. Therefore, I would conclude based on my (and several others) experience that the impact of the PRNG in the battle is not statistically significant to the win/loss.
You should not expect to win 100% of your battles, especially in a game that is by nature heavily based on PRNG. If they make guild wars too handicapped, then everyone will be getting too similar of scores for true skill to differentiate between players and guilds.
I hope we separate Stella and WoS in discussion. Unbanning Stella, while I don’t support, at least I can see the reason for it, because Chrys is allowed right now.
Unbanning WoS should never happen, period. It’s a broken weapon.
I just want to add oil to the fire so to speak with an old adage.
“The squeaky wheel gets the oil” so there is no harm in saying what displeased you. You may be “wrong” or in the minority but this space exists for this kind of thing
I agree with you. I don’t think people that want the troops banned are inherently wrong, I just disagree and prefer the challenge. Even for factions, I wish it went to 1,000 instead of 500; and for explore I wish the levels went even higher than 16 too (though this is a lot better than 12). For PvP I think if they ban certain troops or weapons, they should do so on the offence side too.
