I just lost a battle against a maw where hunger triggered on the only two skull matches it got. Then it Sandstormed the third troop, and the last one didn’t last much longer.
The problem with such a binary event depending on chance is that no matter what the listed chance is, there will be plenty of times where it determines the outcome of a battle. As I’ve said before, if the chance isn’t reasonably high, then it’s not worth building a strategy around for invading, and no matter how low it is, it will feel like it happens too often, whether due to small sample sizes or recall bias. In fact, the lower it is, the more frustrating it will be when those rare events occur, because the player’s expectation is that they will win or lose depending on preparation, strategy, and skill, rather than randomness.
Consider poison, with its 50% chance to tick. Even though the damage is small enough to rarely affect the outcome of a battle, it’s incredibly frustrating to see it tick almost every time on your own troops, or almost never on an enemy troop. The psychological impact is bigger than its actual impact on the outcome.
Played four matches against Maws just now… Maw’s “15%” third trait triggered 5 times out of 6 times the AI matched skulls…
As it happens I still went on to win all those matches, without Maw subsequently getting to cast its spell… But that’s only thanks to Mab being ridiculously strong…
My point is that a single battle isn’t going to have enough skull matches for 15% to ever be accurately represented. The sample size is too small. Even if it’s working correctly, and actually activating on 15% of skull matches, it will still never feel like it. That it fails the other 85% is no comfort for the outcome of a battle that’s decided on the 15%. Especially if those failures are when you’re using it, rather than your enemy.
Hunger needs to be evaluated independently of the chance to activate, at both extremes. What is the value of it if it always fails, and what is the value if it always activates? I’d say it’s obviously useless if it never activates, and far too powerful if it does on every skull match. No matter what the chance is set to, given enough players and battles, people will experience both extremes and be frustrated by them. I think it needs some other condition than chance, both to give it value to the invader (they can feel clever by building a strategy that meets the conditions), and to make it fair on defense.
This has been my propposal, the nature of Devour works with how much strong is the devoured troop, so it’s always provides too much value with the removal of one troop plus the gain in status.
I recently had this idea: How about a guranteed devour once the enemy is weakened?
What I mean is, that you automatically devour an enemy, once his total health (Life + Armor) drops below 10-15 points.
EDIT: You could even change Great Maw’s spell: Instead of devouring instantly it just does massive damage to weaken the enemy and then devours the enemy, if he’s weak enough.
All of the ideas about changing Maw’s spell/3rd trait are awesome but I don’t think devs would consider nerfing him any time soon… and that’s not cool. :((
My personal experience is that I think it needs no change. I normally use a Crimson Bat team which can still easily kill a Maw that’s fed a few times due to the Bloodsucking trait.
I find it thrilling when the opponent maw has eaten and I’m down to a single bat!
I find with that team and others I still win a high percentage of games even when I’m down a troop from the start. If my maw goes it normally just means I need to cast Infernal and Sheggra twice more than normal!
I also enjoying running a tandem Kerberos and Black Manacles Hero team.
Haven’t played around with Sand shark, but imagine he’s a squishy red/brown Kerberos.
I find BD much more dangerous than Maw. This past week I’m like 125-4. Many wins against Maw/Mab/Mercy teams. The 4 losses were all against teams with at least one Bone Dragon
