I cannot believe this has happened.
I honestly do not believe that the designers have any real understanding of how this game is played. I’m sorry, but how can I come to any other conclusion?
To try and be constructive:
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The reason given is completely spurious. There are literally at least half a dozen duplications/over-writes between traits and talents, and even more between different talents. This is simply a consequence of the way talent trees are set up, and we work around it. Therefore, logically, this is NOT the true reason for this particular change.
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Having a Red Storm at the start of a battle and at the start of each turn are NOT the same thing. There are certain occasions – particularly on defence – where both take effect in a useful way. Therefore, the complainants did not understand how the game works, and the people who responded to them should have pointed out these scenarios.
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There are (were) three uses for a storm on every turn:
a) To negate a storm on turn 1 on a defender’s team.
b) To extend a storm for a team that needs it but struggles to get mana in the first four turns.
c) To counter troops like Lyrasza who also cause a storm on every turn. (This is something that’s going to get worse.)
d) To recover the advantage from Mountain Crusher, Valravens, etc.
These are all excellent and valid uses, and none were unbalanced. Red was a particularly good colour for this (Brown might have been better, but red has some useful synergy.) The Yellow from Stormcaller is not especially useful, because there are very few teams that can be built to synergise.
So essentially, we have now lost our counter to all of the above in most cases.
- The Phoenicia quick-farming team for Explore D4-5 is no longer viable. This makes it impossible to simultaneously balance Gnome farming and Medal farming on a Vault weekend. We are back to just two options: Rowanne on D2-3, and Urskaya on D12 with Scorpius. Removing options – when there are so few – is dumb design.
These comments, while they might sound harsh, are not intended as insults. However, pointing out people’s faults and short-comings is something that will usually be taken personally. Unfortunately, I don’t have the means (ie: face-to-face discussion) or the time to soften the blow or be properly diplomatic.
This is not a good change. There have, in fact, been many very poor design decisions in this game. On top of that, whoever is designing the GUI and UX seems to miss some really basic stuff. I have – along with many others – repeatedly tried to point out and explain these fundamental flaws, with little impact. I do not know if this is happening because of time pressure, because the details are not reaching the people who need to hear them, or because they really aren’t very good at UI/UX design. I sincerely hope it is not the latter, but the constant introduction of new flaws along the same lines suggests otherwise.
Returning to the Sunspear change and mounting game mechanics design errors, the evidence all strongly suggests that those responsible do not truly understand how the game is played. In a way, this is totally forgivable, because they have jobs – they don’t have the time or reason to grind the game. Yet they have designed a game that requires grinding. Therefore, the only sensible way to understand the game is to talk to, question and listen to the people who DO play the game the most and who do understand how it works. Listening to the majority will NEVER achieve this. Volume can sometimes (and only sometimes) point in the direction of problems. But only experienced players can truly evaluate if those complaints are reasonable, and whether the solutions make sense. In other words, you also have a communications and feedback filtering problem.
Incidentally, I do not consider myself an experienced player in most areas of the game. My team-building skills are poor, for example. I do have strengths that I believe are valuable. But even I apparently understand more about how teams work (essentially from listening to those more capable than myself) than whoever made this ridiculous complaint, as well as those who incomprehensibly made the change. I’m truly flabbergasted.
