Lycanthropy, the why and the moving forward

[Whiskeyjack]

@NerdieBirdie

It’s true for Valravens, as far as I know. Dev response was “just don’t trigger Lycanthropy on a raven.”

This is not incorrect, but Sirrian’s actual response in the dev Q&A was something like “maybe stop spamming EoE lol”

People shouldn’t have to watch an hour long stream to get this info, but it hasn’t been mentioned in game or in any official news posts

[yuru]

Nah…it’s called pouring gasoline on fire, or blatantly lying.

[ANGI]

the only targeted lycan i’m aware of is EoE and wereverine somehow (next week), but it is still no strategic tool.
in general i fully agree with your statement.
over the years i’m really getting tired of all these statements from Salty/devs saying “to keep the game fresh” or “to keep the game healthy” or “to balance the economy”.
i’m already also too tired to list here every little thing to prove the devs they just lied.

[YourMom]

@RiverSong

You moved it forward from the trash bin directly into the dumpster fire.

So sorry to hear about your rage quit… I probably pick the best time to retire before this campaign.

[Fourdottwoone]

@Saltypatra

I hope this has answered some of the questions you’ve been asking about what we intended with Lycanthropy.

I’m curious, sifting a bit through the data it seems Lycanthrophy was originally intended to be an instant effect like Devour. As far as I can tell it wasn’t even supposed to just transform, it had it’s own special handling. At some point it got changed to the status effect we currently see, introducing side effects in other areas (e.g. Lycanthrophy showing up whenever something causes random/all status effects). Any chance you could let us know what the original design was and why this apparently got changed rather hastily?

[Saltypatra]

Moving forward it is our intention to have Lycanthropy behave more like “transform” so a few changes will be coming to it with our next major update. Our post talking about Lycanthropy let that out of the bag a little early, and we apologise for any confusion.

This means that in the future Lycanthropy will behave like transform and when the troop lycanthropes (yes that’s what we are going with) they will be at the same level as a troop that was transformed, which is half of the original troop. Also, the issue where lycanthroped Valravens and Gnomes don’t give sigils or loot will be rectified at the same time.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, and before anyone asks no, I can’t tell you the date of the next update. This change will be some time coming, but it is coming.

Happy matching!

[Grundulum]

Thank you for coming back to post this on your Friday evening, rather than letting it sit till Monday Australia time!

[terberos]

And there you go, just when I got the hang of it she throws a harder word at me, lys… lycn… lycantrophes, oh man… But hey, great news, now people can spend a relaxed weekend

[canadademon]

Don’t get too excited, though. It’ll be over a month for this change to happen, by my estimation.

[Madd_Hurricane]

Next major update as in 5.6? That is too long to wait, considering that major updates generally release once every 2-3 months. Any chance we could get a 5.5.5 update with this fix included in it? Please?

[Fourdottwoone]

@terberos

And there you go, just when I got the hang of it she throws a harder word at me, lys… lycn… lycantrophes, oh man…

You just need to abbreviate it properly. If you go with the middle part of “lycanthroped” you end up with “canned”.

[Live]

I thought the same - either we get the next major (5.6) veeeery soon after 5.5 or she means 5.5.5 (major?) which has maybe an earlier release chance.
All other alternatives would be a update which comes too late, after the campaign we dont realy need it anymore…

[Magnusimus]

@Qoob

As discussed the other day on stream, Heroic Gems are our latest feature to keep the game fresh and moving forward. Lycanthropy is part of that initiative - introducing new challenges and considerations for you to experience.

I think the framework that has been built around heroic gems and its integration to campaigns is certainly promising.

Unfortunately, Lycanthropy had a few issues on release, and for that we apologize; we’re updating our test plans here to better catch future issues like this in new features.

Can you be more specific as to what changes are being made to improve testing for such new features?

Now, onto the effect itself. Lycanthropy is a “transform” and, as such, it will act like other transforms in the game (e.g. Possessed King and Night Hag) with regards to stats and traits.

As pointed out above, this is inaccurate, because TPK’s transform also halves the level of the transformed troop, whereas lycanthropy does not.

Lycanthropy is a little bit unique in that it’s NOT an entirely negative status effect in every case, and that’s by design - we believe it’s great to be presented with tools that require a little consideration in their use - for example, cast on a powerful troop it can be debilitating to an enemy team if it triggers, but cast on a weak troop it can backfire and slow you down on your path to victory.

I agree that status effects (and, indeed, abilities) which require careful consideration before use are valuable and important to the game. Lycanthropy is not one such effect. You describe lycanthropy as a tool, as an effect that can be cast, which implies some form of control. This is inaccurate. A significant source of lycanthropy is from lycanthropy gems on the board. When matched, exploded, destroyed, or even removed, lycanthropy is triggered on a random troop. This subverts any strategic use that such gems may have because their target cannot be specified and because their trigger cannot be removed through most usual means. (Lycanthropy gems can indeed be removed inertly if they are overridden by created gems.)

In summary, the current implementation of lycanthropy (random, negative effect—bad) is at odds with its intended behavior (strategic tool—good). This disagreement will only be exacerbated in challenging or high-stakes content, such as pure faction delves and, presumably, next week’s guild wars. To this end, I propose three suggestions that attempt to align its current implementation to this purpose.

1. Allow lycanthropy to be cast on a selected troop when lycanthropy gems are matched on the board.
2. Allow lycanthropy gems to be removed, exploded, and destroyed without triggering lycanthropy.
3. Do not designate lycanthropy as a negative status effect. As you state, lycanthropy is not entirely negative, and its being lumped in with negative status effects (which causes it to be cast with EoE, Luna, or Magnus, for example) reduces the strategic decisions players can make with it.

Best first post I have ever seen on this forum.

Reposted in its entirety because I cannot like it a million times, and I want it read again by any devs perusing this thread.

It fairly and completely addresses lycanthropy from the “players in the know” perspective.

[Arcaiser]

Any plans to do something for pure faction delves? At level 500 this really ups the difficulty of completion with a pure faction team to absurd levels.

[Magnusimus]

@Saltypatra

This means that in the future Lycanthropy will behave like transform and when the troop lycanthropes (yes that’s what we are going with) they will be at the same level as a troop that was transformed, which is half of the original troop. Also, the issue where lycanthroped Valravens and Gnomes don’t give sigils or loot will be rectified at the same time.

Sorry if double-posting — still reading the thread — but wanted to take the time to say thanks for this.

Will always appreciate when feedback matters, and communication happens (I don’t mind things being out of the bag early, like, at all. Sooner is better, even if things change, as long as changes are explained).

But this will make it fine in-game, especially after the Campaign, when the random-on-the-board triggers won’t be a problem like they are now, because it will only be causable by a small number of troops and situations, all (mostly) avoidable if the player wants to.

[Snooj]

@Saltypatra

Moving forward it is our intention to have Lycanthropy behave more like “transform” so a few changes will be coming to it with our next major update. Our post talking about Lycanthropy let that out of the bag a little early, and we apologise for any confusion.

This means that in the future Lycanthropy will behave like transform and when the troop lycanthropes (yes that’s what we are going with) they will be at the same level as a troop that was transformed, which is half of the original troop. Also, the issue where lycanthroped Valravens and Gnomes don’t give sigils or loot will be rectified at the same time.

Yay! Thank you!

Thank you for the words lycanthropes and lycanthroped. I wasnt sure if these are words, but now its official. Yesterday was painful avoiding the word transform

@Saltypatra

Unfortunately, Lycanthropy had a few issues on release, and for that we apologize; we’re updating our test plans here to better catch future issues like this in new features.

Taken from the OP, this is awesome.

I am a concerned though given the bug reports labelled not a bug. For example, a few hours after this post, you marked this bug as not a bug:

[NOT A BUG BUT PASSED ON AS A QOL SUGGESTION] Lycanthropy on gnomes not giving rewards

Platform, device version and operating system: N/A Screenshot or image: I don’t have any. I trust the community on this so am forwarding it here. I am not spending time to test. What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened: Gnomes, when transformed then killed and battle won, still provide awesome loot. However, gnomes made into beasts via lycanthropy then killed and battle won, do not. For example, a pet gnome made into a beast via lycanthropy will not start a pet rescue, …

Improving testing is awesome, but if bugs get treated as non bugs / QoL enhancements, then that improvement doesn’t include fixing bugs and there isn’t much change.

@Madd_Hurricane

Next major update as in 5.6? That is too long to wait, considering that major updates generally release once every 2-3 months. Any chance we could get a 5.5.5 update with this fix included in it? Please?

I hope the lycanthropy bugs are being prioritized so that the fixes are coming ASAP. I imagine fixing all the bugs takes time and even throwing all resources at it can’t fix it soon enough.

Part of me wants to suggest removing Lycanthropy from the game again until it is fixed, but that ship has sailed given the current campaign story. If this was possible to fix soon, it should, as the current campaign is so broken and needs addressing. But, being realistic, I dont see it happening.

[igniteice]

I wish I had the, I dunno what you want to call it, strength/courage/gumption, to do that as well. I think the developers (and publishers) have the smallest of cares for what actual players want in their game. They just… aren’t interested, at all. They don’t play their own game and they don’t want to interact with players.

[terberos]

@Snooj

Thank you for the words lycanthropes and lycanthroped.

What?! No! Don’t encourage them with words that can’t be written or soon instead of lyca gems we’ll have lycantrophizers on the board

[Snooj]

@terberos

lycantrophizers

Seems you’re giving them ideas.

My phone’s spellcheck now thinks theres three ways to spell lycanthropy by the way, and none of them are correct.

[sls]

Well, won’t stop people from getting annoyed when their own troops get halved in level now. No idea how to put this nicely, but if you guys could stop designing game mechanics in 5 minutes on a napkin during lunch break, that’d be great.

The bug report spam whenever you introduce something new is tiring. Take the time to think the things you want to add to the game through. Try to imagine as many scenarios a new mechanic might be put through as you can - and then actually test your new mechanic under all these circumstances. Look at the forum. Seriously, look at it. 3/4 of the bug reports here are ‘Ooops, we didn’t think about that possibility’, ‘Ooops, we didn’t test that interaction’ type of issues that you could easily avoid if you spent the tiniest bit of extra time on testing and reflecting.

E: And stop claiming all the game’s shortcomings are ‘by design’, it’s condescending and extremely dishonest