Many people are quite tired of facing endless looping teams that can wipe out your team or become unkillable without you having a chance to play, an incredibly annoying mechanic. This isn’t new, but I figured I would put them all in one place. A few simple fixes should limit the trouble and make the game more fun and less frustrating.
Nyx and Florian - Neat concepts! Poor execution. They create way too many gems. The fix: Make it “mana drained / 2” instead, easy fix that still can have a chance of an extra turn without a virtual guarantee. These are made worse by troops that allow them to loop.
Goblins - Again, nice idea to make them relevant, but just too likely to loop and be really frustrating. The fix: Any Goblin that affects the board (chance to explode, transform, etc.) should get a 50% chance for an extra turn instead of 100%. Other Goblins can keep 100%.
Lady Anariel - Why is she special among troops like her? Well, for starters, she buffs her own health, which she shouldn’t. And there seems to be something broken about her gem creation where she almost always gets an extra turn, and frequently self-fills in doing so. The fix: She no longer buffs her own health, and her gem creation mechanic should match that of Guild Guardians (i.e., giving an extra turn infrequently). Alternatively, change her colors or those she creates so self-looping is impossible.
We would all likely enjoy Guild Wars and PvP more with these small changes. Thanks in advance for your consideration!
Goblins are another matter. A troop that can explode and automatically get an extra turn is bad. But with the way cascades are for the AI (don’t turn the thread into that debate) the opponent is likely to fill the exploder again, and again and again. Which results in matches feeling as though they’re predetermined in that you’re going to lose.
Lady A, as you say should behave similarly to Guardians. Even if it’s just so that she doesn’t boost her own health.
Agreed that Fizzbang and Nobend are the crux of the Goblin problem.
As for Nyx (and to a lesser extent Florian) not being problematic, I’m happy for you that you apparently do not face the griefer team with them much. I had it three times today in GW.
I just kind of learned what teams I can’t beat and avoid them, hoping that the devs are watching PvP stats and maybe considering retreat rates/win rates when making future plans.
I think people think what’s needed is a drastic, specific nerf, but my experience with making some widespread nerf against an entire strategy tends to open the window to a worse problem. What we need is a slow, careful introduction of choices that makes using these teams less attractive.
Considering there’s a supposed massive change to many game modes coming, I’m curious if we won’t see some of that.
I had three battles against FT/Nyx/DB/Kraken(Mab) today. Believe me, I face the grief teams a lot.
Personally I don’t find it too bad. Keep them drained and you’re good. Can’t do that as easily against the exploding goblins.
Everyone has different experiences of course. You’ll find people who feel Goblins are perfectly fine the way they are.
Unfortunately I can’t see looping teams going away. It’s a sure fire way for the AI to have a fighting chance against us because let’s face it, the AI is dumb.
Mana drainers that can’t be drained are awful. Gem creators that can’t be drained are awful. Troops with a chance to OHKO or devour that can’t be drained are awful.
There are several broad classes of troop whose spells can single-handedly change the entire match. Coming across a drain-proof Nyx in Guild Wars will make me seriously consider throwing Emperor Khorvash or King Highforge on my team, regardless of what color the day actually is. Which may be intentional: force people to decide between a low chance of many points (with very few points earned for failure) or a higher chance of a medium number of points.
Lady Anariel never hits and gets extra turn when I use her, in fact I find the exact opposite that she nearly always never gets an extra turn.
Completely agree with Nyx, when draining a mythic character on your team with say plus 20 mana already collected that is way too many blue gems to create on the board, and is generally enough to fill 2 other troops on the opposition team (normally Forest Troll/Drakuulus).
Goblins are definitely a problem. It’s the only team imo where you can literally have your first turn, then put down the controller and sit back whilst your team gets obliterated. There are slight different combinations of goblin teams so difficult to pinpoint exact problem, but imo Queen Grapplepot trait (all goblins gain 5 life on 4/5 gem matches) and Fizzbang stealthy trait (cannot be targeted by other spells) need nerfing.
The problem I have with nyx and florian is that unless the ai magically chooses a target with no mana, it is almost a guaranteed extra turn. I can say this as when most of my teams include a mythic troop or at minimal, a legendary, making a dozen gems is ridiculous. Making upwards of 20+ is (Christian server) ridiculous!
Cockatrice is a good balance as it makes a small set amount, inflicts a status, and has a high ratio of 4 to 1. So assuming that if a mythic was full, it would make between 11 and at most 13 gems if it hits world breaker.
Having more troops that make that many gems through mana drain is ridiculous. For late game these troops put the trolls to shame in their own niche which many already thought was too much. While these two do require enemy mana, nyx is paired with many other annoying gem creators as well filling itself far too easily.
Goblins are bad because they all have extra turns and the rng fires off in their favor far too often. While they do have a hard counter, it is too much grief to fight them normally.
Funny enough, I have seen horror stories of the lady teams, but personally it never bothered me. It is strong and at least gave plague a current home. However, if her gem creation is indeed broken somehow, it should be fixed.
I feel nyx and florian are the worst as other meta teams are full of top tier troops and synergy that unfortunately makes them just as annoying as they are strong. However, I can’t just have four nyx chompers or stun forest troll and all my problems go away. I lost a match against one recently in gw, where forest troll had about 5 green gems, fired them all in one corner, filled nyx who drained my ready to fire mythic, and the team looped until I couldn’t possibly recover. The team is not unbeatable, but a loss like that when rng went jackpot forthe ai at the last minute is frustrating to say the least, especially in gw.
Oh man. That reminds me of before the Trolls were nerfed and they created 4 gems. I used Krystenax to remove green and Forest Troll cast with 0 green on the board and got 4 in a row from his creation.
I was so amazed by it I couldn’t even be pissed off.
The odds are low for a lot of things, yet they seem to happen. I’ve had a match against Lady Anariel where I had wiped all green off the board, and there were only 3 blues. She cast and got a pair of 5-matches.
A few battles later, I faced Lady A again, and this time she made two 5-matches out of a total of six green/blue on the board.
I get nowhere near the same result when I use her (well I guess it is sort of near the same result - in that the AI scores a bunch of extra turns ).
Anecdotal, of course, but something ain’t right with her.
My experience, seems to be same a single you, I don’t find them that bad. Sure they might look scary, but there are no immunities to any of the one shot mehcanics.
Anyways, I beat that team a number of times this week using:
Gorgon
Behemoth
Settite Warrior
Scorpius
However, lost to a Florian/Yasmine’s Chosen team. The Florian got charges just as Scorpius had almost full mana from there being a lot of purple on the starting board, I’ve never seen so many green gems on the board!! . And from then YC does what she does best in the teams I use her in.
Aye, and I’m tired of using teams that go in an endless loop without passing the turn. However, due to the nature of every color having a transformer, that’s not really avoidable.
I’m going to pop in here with something seemingly unwarranted, but anyone who has known me on these forums long enough knows what’s coming next.
Please remove skull looping. Or hell, even just make it so that the Guardians can’t target or create skulls. Bone Dragon is one thing, but things like Courage and Justice are just too reliable.
Have you used them recently? It’s really no longer the case. These days, Guild Guardians are in fact only reliable at giving your opponent an extra turn or three.
Define recently. Past week or two? No. Past month or two? Yes. Still just as reliable, and still just as boring to play. Though Giant Spider/Green Seer/Kraken/Kraken is just as obnoxiously reliable, if not moreso.
I’m still going to push for guardians to lose their ability to create skulls
).
. And from then YC does what she does best in the teams I use her in.