Simplest solutions is to remove bonus for using duplicate (or triplicate) troops. Nothing would be nerfed, players would just need to think more while composing the team.
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I’m starting to think that’s the way to go actually.
That, and Skeletons should get a Shaman-style nerf. They were doing fine before they were given another thing to scale from, and now they’re fairly ridiculous. They get an extra turn, they don’t need to make quite as many things (skulls in this case) appear since they can mop up the next turn anyhow. Reduce it by 1-2 maybe.
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We should really just remove the orb from the game. And the skeletons. And any unit. And all the units. And all the weapons. Complete balance.
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Only in utter emptiness can there be true harmony and balance; this is the essence of Zen. And, as you have implied, @Machiknight, that seems to be what the nerf force truly wants. What all this really boils down to is a constant begging of “Make it easier for me, make it easier for me! My favorite team is always getting beat!” Well, revamp your favorite team! Figure out what works! In other words, quit yer cryin’ and get to work!
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I don’t actually lose. I just think Skeletons are stupid OP right now. I may also be taking advantage of this.
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I’ve fought a few skeletons teams before, and to be honest… I don’t think they’re that tough at all. At least I don’t get what all the hype is about. Compare to the old Webspinner loop, I don’t see the skeletons as anywhere deserving the title “OP”
Then again, I usually plays with a Skull-generation lineup, so those skeletons end up helping me more than hurting. Shrug
I just want my Sea Serpent to get the extra turn love too. Them and Rockworms, so the real QQ can start! 
With 7 skulls, attack gain, and extra turn, the skeletons are a bit too powerful. I don’t mind, because I think beginners need solid card options in the commons. I do think the attack gain should be dropped if they keep the extra turn.
The part I find frustrating with the 3xSkeleton/Prismatic Orb combination, is if the AI hits a lucky cascade, the game is over fast. Still, much better than watching my phone go to sleep with 4xWebspinner pre-nerf.
Skeleton is one of those ones I think is being designed around level 15 stats with no buffs. Which is to say, Skeletons with 11 armor, 5 life, 6 attack, and ‘create 7 skulls and gain 4 attack’.
My Skeletons have 15 armor, 14 life, 11 attack, and ‘create 7 skulls and gain 5 attack’.
3x with buffs - 17 armor, 14 life, 11 attack, and ‘create 7 skulls and gain 7 attack’. Which means one use of its 9-cost ability (so two matches, with +2 Purple) gives it enough damage to two-hit almost anything not in a 4xGoblin team, and the skulls to do it with. And unlike the base stats, can’t be one-shot by Crimson Bat.
I haven’t put them in defense all these last weeks but I was defeated about 20 times today so I might.
Great feedback in this thread - thanks guys!
I specifically haven’t been commenting because I wanted to see where things were heading… I just wanted to drop a quick line though to say that this kind of well-reasoned civil discussion is IMMENSELY valuable to us - we’ve been reading it all.
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Nice tactic there! I can indeed imagine that it is a lot more interesting for you to see what the community discusses within itself rather than see how they respond to your announcements.
Thumbs up for listening closely to the community 
I may be trying to prove my usefulness for some other reasons. Sirrian gets me. 
I would also want to see these things happen regardless, of course. Either way.
I think a lot of the recent balance issues hearken back to the way the team bonuses work now. The bonuses are causing problems with the balance the cards had originally. Unfortunately it is a balance nightmare, because the card can’t be too weak when non-bonused but not too strong when bonused. Coupled with not knowing which bonuses someone might get makes things unimaginatively difficult I am sure.
To me, the problem stems from the size of the bonus. When you have cards doubling their base stats under bonus their original balance is lost. The skeletons are just another example of this same problem. To that end, a couple of suggestions to consider.
Decrease the static bonus
If the bonus were less then the comparitive alteration of a card’s base stats would be less. This would leave more of the original balancing intact. This would also make including your hero more attractive again. Currently giving up those bonuses is often just not worth it because they are so large. This however still results in lower power cards receiving disproportionate buffing from bonuses however. Static bonuses are simply “worth more” on lower power cards than higher ones respective to their normal balance.
Alter the static bonuses to percentile bonuses
If the bonuses were shifted to percentile bonuses then cards would benefit on a sliding scale from bonuses commensurate with their base power. Adding 50% attack power to a 4 attack card only yeilds +2 attack. However when applied to a 10 attack card it gains 5 attack. This would leave more of the original balancing in place as stats pumps would be directly tied to the original stats given leaving weaknesses still feeling like weaknesses and strengths feeling like strengths. Not that shifting the entire bonus system to a new concept is either easy or quick, but it does seem on paper to solve quite a few of the problems introduced with the bonuses.
I personally think either of these would help with a much heavier leaning towards the percentile option. You could do both by scaling back the expected final bonus when determining the percentiles, or you could do one or the other independently. Just a couple ideas to really get at what I see as the root of the issue. Card changes have been coming fast and furious since the drop of 107 with its bonuses. Many were based on previous issues that were able to be addressed, but I think the pattern is pretty clear that the ability to dramatically change a card’s “base” stats is changing how those cards function within the game system.
I love the bonuses and I love that they reward us for “choosing a faction” so to speak. I think the springboard they provide from a player mindset and lore standpoint are great. However, I worry about the effect they are having on the game and the community in their current form.
-Razlath
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I am 100% for the %-bonuses. Don’t get me wrong, the kingdom bonuses are really nice but they always felt a bit too much in the first place. I think they were introduced alongside the team bonuses to make lower rarity cards more viable (which they did, undoubtedly) but they had another impact on the balancing aspect that you pretty much summed up already.
The way they are now makes balancing a nightmare. Percentile based bonuses on the other hand would aggrevate the “power gap” between the rarities but since there is talk about rarity upgrades for 1.0.8 I will play a wait and see before I make a constructive proposition.
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Having the bonuses as percentages sounds tricky (rounding, please no) but its actually presenting a couple of useful ways to balance things. Obviously, proportionally correct buffs makes more sense than Skeletons having triple their normal life. So there’s that.
If we use the current ratio for buffs, i.e. 4 life = 4 armor = 2 attack = 1 magic, we can extrapolate appropriate percentages to use. For instance, a level 10 kingdom or a ‘point’ from a team buff can grant either 5% life, 5% armor, 10% attack or 20% magic. All of this would be scaling from the base stats, additively.
The % magic, in particular, allows for some neater scaling. +1 magic doesn’t do a lot for a big nuke like Dark Song or Banshee or a splitter like Steam Turret or Hydra - but for something that can really use it, such as Hobgoblin or Crimson Bat, its a big deal. Such a big deal that we currently only have +1 from Karakoth and very little else. But if that +1 was a +20%, Bat would get the same amount (I think) but Hydra would get way more than it would currently.
Running numbers now, lets use Skeleton and Webspinner since they’re coming up so often. And Hydra for comparison. (Level 15 troops.)
** Kingdoms give a total of 9 Life, 5 Attack, 4 Armor and 1 Magic.
** Alternatively this is 45% Life, 50% Attack, 20% Armor, 20% Magic (clearly needs to shift right now!)
Rounding to nearest whole number.
Base Skeleton
5 Life, 6 Attack, 11 Armor, 3 Magic (-> +4 attack on use)
Maxed out triple Skeleton, current system (Kingdoms, +2 Armor +2 Magic)
14 Life, 11 Attack, 17 Armor, 6 Magic (-> +7 attack on use)
Maxed out triple Skeleton, proposed percentage system
7 Life, 9 Attack, 13 Armor, 5 Magic (-> +6 attack on use)
No longer absurdly twice as large, ability is still viable. Its a common troop, after all. Triple Skeleton chaining the ability would probably still break faces. Skeleton would get massively ripped off by the current scaling not favoring armor.
Base Webspinner
16 Life, 9 Attack, 7 Armor, 2 Magic (-> 2 damage to all enemies on use)
Maxed out triple Webspinner, current system (Kingdoms, +3 Attack +1 Magic)
25 Life, 16 Attack, 11 Armor, 4 Magic (-> 4 damage to all enemies on use)
Maxed out triple Webspinner, proposed percentage system
23 Life, 16 Attack, 8 Armor, 3 Magic (-> 3 damage to all enemies on use)
Slight nerf to Webspinner. Leaves room for the ability damage to be notched back up slightly, since a 4x Webspinner team would still only be a factor of 1.8, rather than a whole +4.
Base Hydra:
17 Life, 10 Attack, 5 Armor, 10 Magic (-> 15 damage split randomly, plus scaling)
Maxed out triple Hydra, current system (Kingdoms, +6 Life +1 Attack +2 Armor)
32 Life, 16 Attack, 11 Armor, 11 Magic (-> 16 damage split randomly, plus scaling)
Maxed out triple Hydra, proposed percentage system
30 Life, 16 Attack, 7 Armor, 12 Magic (-> 17 damage split randomly, plus scaling)
I fail to see the tactical benefits of using three Hydras but there you are. No big changes here. Slight ability damage increase. But an all-monster team would pump that up by another 2 damage. Food for thought.
I run numbers, its what I do. Basically, this just makes lower rarity troops less ridiculously big from Kingdom/team stat increases. Which is OK, seeing as they’re not being balanced for it yet.
Of course, this would have to be rethought based on a) changing the kingdom stat bonus distribution around as discussed (i.e. less life/attack, more armor), and b) 1.0.8. rarity upgrade system, however that works. This could also be applied to either kingdom stats, team buff stats, or both.
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Utter rubbish, sorry. @shimrra and I are two of the game’s longest standing and highest level players. That doesn’t mean that we’re the only ones with views, but it does mean we may have more considered reasons for such posts than simple bleating over losing.
I make lots of suggestions on this forum for balance changes, in favour of increasing variety of tactics and improving fun in the game, for me and everyone else. I do not lose battles, I just have views on how different things seem to compare. @Shimrra has put a lot of thought into articulating his similar views.
Don’t trivialise the debate - that’s insulting. You personally don’t approve of balance changes. I do. Let’s see what the developers proceed with.
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I would like to apologize for my snarky comments during the middle of the night, they didn’t really contribute much. After 3 kids you’d think I would be used to not sleeping while holding or feeding a not sleeping baby.
This post is great about the nerfs and complaints about troops and talks about team bonuses a little as well:
The one thing I’ll say about percentage based team bonuses is that it seems completely antithetical to the design diary of the devs. As has been witnessed several times they want to make this game as EASY for people to understand as possible, so much so that even being able to see the numbers for your mana is an option that must be turned on. Making a major change like adding in percentage based bonuses feels like it goes completely against that thought process.
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Not wrong there. Percentages really takes it sort of far away from ‘simple’. If the game provided more feedback to the players about where bonuses were coming from, it might be easier to take in… ah that reminds me.
I do keep adding things to the original post, just pointing it out. Just now I noted down making kingdom stat buffs work the same way as team troop/kingdom buffs - here meaning, show up when you click a troop and make the numbers on the troops green.
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Kingdom level bonuses: This absolutely should be added. Great idea.
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The main reason percentile bonuses even occurred to me was actually due to the devs. Look at the difficulty scales. They aren’t static adds they are percentile buffs to mobs. They also work incredibly well pretty much regardless of team type. I am not speaking to risk vs reward that is a whole different conversation. I am more speaking to each team feels a relatively equal degree more powerful regardless of composition. I don’t look at certain teams and go, oh these are goblins, better go back to Normal. Nor do I go, oh, Dwarfs, time for Warlord IV (no offense to goblins or dwarves)! I stay on Warlord I and enjoy the challenge I receive from all teams at that level while retaining a comfortable win percentage.
Because of that I am not sure it is as antithetical or complicated as one might initially think. I actually think people process percentages better and with greater meaning. On other game boards I am part of, devs release adjustments to stats almost exclusively in percentiles. +2% buff to damage on this weapon, -5% to range on this other weapon. People innately understand that their favored weapon is changed by a given factor in a given direction. They then respond appropriately based on whether that gain / loss is deemed worth the other stats on a weapon.
In contrast, what percent buff is applied by getting that +1 life kingdom to level 10? How much better is my team now? What is the difference between 4 Zaejins and 3 Zaejins? Sure it is +10 vs +6, but how much better does that make my team? +20% vs +12% is easier to process, I know my team has 8% more life regardless of which zaejin troops I choose. I would probably for shorthand equate that to 8% harder to kill, but obviously armor is technically involved reducing that somewhat. For those looking for quick and easy though, it is close enough. Even more important it stays true as I noted regardless of troops chosen. If I choose large health mobs I am still 8% cooler. If I choose low health mobs I am still 8% cooler. With statics I might be 25% cooler with weak mobs but only 5% cooler with beefy mobs. It actually makes judging whether that bonus is worth it or not more difficult not less to me.
-Razlath
One other thing that could improve general quality of life is to add a small picture/icon to every kingdom about what bonus they give(maybe even what mana masterie they increase). Trying to level up some status before others can leave you with having to enter a lot of kingdoms to find what you looking for. And with every enter there’s loading, so it could be made a lot shorter.