Here is a crazy idea: Permanent Equipement cards that turns your troop in a Battle Form.
So, basically, in chests, you could get a very very rare (between Mythic and Legendary value) card called « battle equipement ».
You can then « merge » that card with any troop of base-rarity Epic or lower to give it a permanent boost. No refound. No turn backs. Only 1 equipement per troop.
Exemple #1
You open some chest and get the « Power necklace of Guzmor »
It says: give a troop the following Battle Form: +2 magic. At the start of each turn, enchant myself.
You decide to use it on your Wolf Night.
You lose your Power Necklace of Guzmor, and Wolf Knight becomes Wolf Night (battle form) and now and forever has +2 magic and is always enchanted.
Exemple #2
You pull the very cool « Armor of the Juggernaut »
It gives +2 to all stats and impervious.
You use it on Tau.
Now you have Battle Form Tau, with more stats and Impervious.
The goal?
1- Give some love to lower tier cards
2- add another degree of collectible for hardcore collectors
3- make each account/collection unique and varied, because maybe my Giant Spider is not exactly like your anymore.
I generally like the idea, the problem is that if you’d like to close the powercreep gap between your favorite oldschool troops and the new hot stuff so that they stop being completely irrelevant, the permanent bonuses of these items would have to be huuuge. (Guzmor sounds like a cool dude, but +2 Magic? He really needs to work on his item enchanting skills!)
And then you would consider why “waste” it on those classic troops when you might aswell use it on the new hot stuff itself to make them even more insane.
…Ugh whatever, have my like.
I’m all about adding extra customization. When i first saw the Orbs that are about to come into the game i thought they would do just that, something to attach into a card and add some bonus.
But it would probably require a lot of brainstorming until the devs figure out how to do it properly, otherwise:
Because Gorgotha and Great Maw can’t use Battle Form because they have a base rarity above Ultra-Rare.
As for the visual… maybe just a small graph addition (like a Shiny, Metallic frame) proving the Battle Form, from them you click the troop for details.
So I start a match, against the darn Dwarves, and I see that the Dwarven Miner is strangely in Front, and is in Battle Form.
I click on it, and see he wears the Battle Hammer of Spark, giving +3 attack, and Stun on skulls attacks. And I think , cool, that’s a nice Miner!
Hmmm sorry I missed the UR or lower point. Not sure I like it with that limitation. Plenty of legendaries and mythics need buffing too…
Visuals worry me as the battle UI is already kinda crowded…
Yes sounds cool in concept but I still wouldn’t see myself ever using that upgraded Miner…
Better might be to encode the upgrades (or a choice of them) as specific to each troop card, and have the collectibles more generic ‘orbs’/‘crests’/[insert collectible here] to unlock them… but maybe that is too close to the traits and traitstones pattern… so how about link the unlock of the upgrades to something else, like kingdom level or uses of troop or maybe weekly event twists…
If you keep them as unique equippable to any EPIC and lower card, then I would suggest that they be an equipment that does NOT disappear but can be moved from troop to troop as needed. Maybe you need a tanky Tau, so give him a boost to Armor and Life, now you need him dealing extra dmg to dragons, give him the Dragon Slayer sword, etc. This way, you are free to actually USE these rare commodities without fear of “something” better coming along or the regret of “that would have worked so much better on this guy” etc.
Instead of making them items that have a specific ability, make it an item that unlocks the BATTLE FORM of that card which would be the same for all players. I think this, though admittedly not as “fun” as the other, is more in line with GoW style mechanic and would be seen as more “fair” over all.
I admit, it would take some of the creative fun out of it, but it would be easier to code and similar to already established mechanics, ala Traitstones unlocking Traits, which is why I suggested it as an alternate. If I were voting, my preference would be for my first suggestion a permanent item that could be moved as needed to a new character.
Sorry double post, was switching location.
So yes, I figure mono-use would also force choices.
Exemple again:
You find a « Death Curse Cloak » with this wierd bonus: « Freeze, Disease and Entangle all ennemies when this troop dies »
So, you could just add this little effect to a troop you use anyways, for an added thing, like maybe your Dragotaur.
Or, use it on the Silver Drake, making your Krystenax better!
Or, go for a theme and actually put it on a Boombot or Firebomb, making it an emergency sacrifice troop!
But, you must choose, and that makes your team unique.
Potentially even more interesting if you use a Diablo/Borderlands-like system with randomly matched prefixes and suffixes that give different combinations of effects. That’s the kind of thing that keeps people playing just one more match to see if they can get that magical combo!
Interesting idea, but one problem would be a player would be unable to identify anything enhanced at a rapid glance. In a competitive game you would have to read all the troop details to determine it attributes, and it would usually be different each case. Forcing players to read everything could also be accomplished by removing all the card Art and Troop Names from all the cards😋
Heck in 3.3 the developers just added a bunch of boxes over most of the troops faces so you could instantly tell the troops power if you did know (increasing at a glance ID).
So I agree with @efh313 and think each equipment should be fixed to a troop, like a sort of 4th trait.
Honeslty, it’s what Ascension should have been (and not stat boost only)…
You know, i’m All for it if you need to use the card. So say you want to unlocking the Innkeeper’s Battle Form, then you need to use him for said game mode/objectif.
Maybe just a target, like win 250 games with said troop in the team in casual PvP on Warlord or above…
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