Balancing Suggestions and Ramblings

Feature Requests and Game feedback
1

Howdy gemlords,

I’d recently submitted some ideas to the devs and it was suggested that I post them on the forums, so here I am. I don’t visit here too often so my apologies if these ideas have already been discussed, and I realize that some (or all) of these might not be great ideas. That’s okay! I just wanted to put them out there.

Here goes:

  1. Rework summoning talents and traits that summon a troop when the hero takes damage. All summoning talents and traits should be changed so that a new troop is summoned only when an enemy troop is killed, like Arachnean Weaver’s third trait or the Shadow’s Call talent. The way that Giant Spiders, Bandits, etc. are summoned effectively punishes good players. Why should my enemy suddenly get a whole new team of maxed-out troops because I pulled off a good move that hurt their hero? It makes zero sense, and to add to the frustration, the hero can summon troops even when taking damage from burning, bleeding, etc.

  2. Change the order of skull damage and any applied status effects. For example, Webspinner should deal skull damage first and then apply web and poison. It makes no sense to first apply web and poison and then deal skull damage – the troop first needs to actually hit the enemy before it can deal any status effects, right? So then it stands to reason that the skull damage should be done first. That way troops like Webspinner, Savage Hunter, etc. will deal normal damage on their first hit, but after that, their skull damage multipliers will take effect (from Hunter’s Mark, 3x damage to poisoned/webbed enemies, etc.).

  3. Now that the Medal of Orpheus is commonplace on PvP teams, Goblin defenses are more likely than ever to loop indefinitely. Freezing used to be a good strategy, but more often than not, the opposing team will be auto-cleansed by the Medal of Orpheus. My suggestion is to update all Goblin troops to have a 50% chance for an extra turn from their specials rather than a guaranteed extra turn. I think this will keep Goblins viable but not borderline invincible when luck is on their side.

  4. Likewise, the Rope Dart weapon should have its extra turn upgrade changed to be a 50% chance for an extra turn rather than a guaranteed one. It’s far too overpowered as it is, especially for its low mana cost.

  5. The Life & Death weapon should be changed to bless a random ally instead of the hero every time.

  6. King Gobtruffle should be changed to deal scatter damage rather than fixed damage to all enemy troops. I think this is more in line with what his special is (sending out a horde of tiny mushroom things). As it stands, Gobtruffle is far better than Queen Grapplepot even though they’re the same base rarity.

  7. The Charm effect should either deal 50% of a troop’s attack as damage to the two surrounding troops rather than 100% of the attack, or it should continue to deal 100% of the attack value but only target one troop (either above or below, at random) rather than both the above and below troops.

  8. Please consider changing all troops with the Swift trait to instead have the Fast trait, and all troops with the Empowered trait to instead have the Swift trait. This way many troops that convert gems will take at least one match to charge their special and it will at least give both sides a chance to take control of the game. This will help balance out matches that give you a bad starting board – sometimes you’re stuck with a bad board and the enemy team has a guaranteed 4/5 match only because their empowered troops gives them one.

  9. Please consider reducing the number of exploded gems for troops that explode gems with their special (Gorgotha, Stringfiddler, Leprechaun, etc.). As it stands, many troops can basically explode the entire board, which I think is overkill for their mana costs. Reducing the number of gems they explode will prevent them from looping over and over, but they’ll still remain useful, e.g. exploding 5 gems instead of 10 is still helpful.

I’ve been a fan since the OG Puzzle Quest dropped on Xbox 360 and I love Gems of War. I want it to keep running strong, and I think these changes will help keep the game competitive, balanced, and fun for all players.

Thanks!

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2

Welcome to the forums! I like the way you outlined your proposals—hope to see more of you around these parts.

That being said, I disagree with most of what you’ve requested. Each seems to me to be a nerf, and I’d rather see weak things buffed than strong things nerfed. Sure—strong troops are really annoying to face when people use them as defenses. But on the flip side, those are the troops most fun to use on offense.

I like my leprechaun blowing up the whole board even though I hate it doing the same for my enemy (especially on Zuul teams!). Likewise, I only run Gobtruffle/RD/and similar teams because of the guaranteed extra turn. The less control I give to my opponent, the more control I have.

This would all go out the window if the extra turn mechanic were capped at 3, or nonexistent, of course.

As for summoning talents, reducing how often they trigger is probably fine, but I wouldn’t want to see how they’re triggered change (except for when they seem to trigger “on damage” that wasn’t actually taken, due to barrier or something).

Regarding the empowered “problem”, I would much rather see empowered mana drainers and/or counter-converters than a trait reduction across the board to make all teams slower. I want faster, not slower—gotta grind that gold!

Webspinner and Savage Hunter are only viable because they apply statuses before damaging. I agree that it’s counter-intuitive and sort of dumb, but I’d hate to see troops that are already underused be put in the never-used bin.

I’m not sure how to deal with Cedric medals. I think what I’d prefer are Curse medals to be added as a sort of “anti-cedric” option. (In a related corollary, I think cleansing in-general should not apply to all statuses simultaneously, or to all stacks of bleed at once—each thing should have an independent timer, and bleed should only be able to be shaken one stack at a time due to its high setup cost).

Finally, I like the L+D suggestion! Haven’t seen anyone ask for the Bless to be randomized rather than just removed. This would make it less tank-y, but still viable on offense.

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3

For sure! I do really like the game as-is but figured I’d throw out some wild musings in an attempt to spice things up, mainly out of boredom from being shut-in due to coronavirus

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