Calmdown's Balance Suggestions [Wall of Text Warning]

[Calmdown]

Shadow Era is a good game. The problem is, Shadow Era has a limited card pool. The deeper problem is, a large portion of the cards in Shadow Era are currently polarized into 'really good' or 'completely unplayable'. A lot could be done for the game with multiple simple tweaks; many cards in the current pool just need a cost reduction to be worthwhile and you'll see this in the list below. Only a few cards actually need a mechanical rework. A few cards do need a nerf.

Before you read this list, let me caveat it by saying that I play everything. Someone will always reply with some kind of 'zomg dont nerf my deck' motivated comment, but think before you reply; we want every deck to be playable so that we get more variation in decks, have more fun deckbuilding, and have skill be a deciding factor in games moreso than a perfect cookie-cutter deck!

On with the list....


Calmdown's Balance Suggestions!


On 'Double Damage' heroes and Weapons: These heroes are fundamentally flawed in concept, because they completely break weapons for other heroes. All of the 1-damage weapons are relatively weak and borderline unplayable for heroes that aren't double damage; but even a 2 damage weapon like Soul Seeker becomes overpowered on Gwenneth. The double damage heroes need a rework, and some weapons need a little bit of a buff to make them more playable. As such I'm not going to post weapon suggestions since I think they can't be balanced with the heroes the way they are, unless you accept that some heroes simply won't be able to use most weapons.


Heroes

Jericho Spellbane: Ability cost changed to 2. It's a fairly weak ability with a limited scope of impact yet can work, and as such should come in at the lower end of the cost bracket.

Logan Stonebreaker: Ability changed to 'reduce target ally's attack to zero'.

Majiya: Ability cost changed to 3. Drawing a card is an immensely powerful ability, and with better human-shadow balance she will start to become an issue.


Allies

Dirk Saber: Reduce cost to 3. Reduce HP to 2.

Jasmine Rosecult: Reduce ability cost to 2.

Blake Windrunner: Reduce HP to 1. He's then counterable by shadow allies rather than being the outright best cost/effect hero in the game. There's also then a reason to run Puwen over Blake. More deck design decisions = good.

Sandra Trueblade: Change ability to 'when Sandra enters play, if you do not have more resources than your opponent, destroy target resource' (credit to Styxx for this suggestion, it's perfectly elegant)

Aeon Stormcaller: Reduce attack to 3. Killing most other creatures outright combined with 8 defence and protector is a little OTT for a 6-drop.


Keldor: Add +1 attack. Change ability to '2: Keldor has +1 attack until the start of your next turn'.

Brutalis: Add 'the first other ally to attack during your turn gains +1 attack'. Kind of like a mini-Aldon and balances that turbo-aspect out against Humans.

Deathbone: Reduce cost to 3. Reduce 'killer damage' to 2.

Medusil: Reduce ability cost to 1.

Pack Wolf: Increase HP to 4.


Abilities

Clinging Webs: Reduce cost to 2.


Poison Arrow: Reduce cost to 2.

Flaming Arrow: Reduce cost to 2.

Careful Planning: Reduce cost to 1.

Surprise Attack: Reduce cost to 2.

Tracking: Reduce cost to 3.


Ice Storm: Reduce cost to 3.

Inner Strength: Reduce cost to 2.

Curse: Reduce cost to 1.


Full Moon: The two abilities on this card are completely anti-synergistic, and as such this is an overcosted Bloodlust combined with a terrible Into the Forest. Change to 'your allies have +1 attack and cannot be attacked until the start of your next turn'.


Energy Discharge: The 5hp downside of this card is almost irrelevent, it's incredibly powerful. Change to 'Sacrifice an Ally: All Enemy Allies are destroyed, and your Hero takes 5 damage'. It would still see play and be a bit less of an instant free board control engine.

Conversion: Change cost to 1.

Transference: The whole 'take cards from your opponent' concept horribly destroys deckbuilding. Some combos are never meant to be for a reason, and this card needs a rework. Change cost to 4, and change effect to 'opponent discards a card at random. You draw a card'

Mind Control: Change cost to 7. The board swing that this card grants is huge, and it should take some serious investiture to do so. Compared to other 5/6 cost cards this card is simply insane. Some people will argue that this card would be priced fine at 6, but given it's dual effect of removal + more resource already on-board for the caster, it *should* be expensive.


Cover of Night: Reduce cost to 2, reduce duration to 1 turn.

Campfire Stories: Change to 'All of your allies heal 2 damage. Draw a card'


Here Be Monsters: Change to 'If you do not have more resources than your opponent, destroy target resource. Draw a card.'


Armour of Ages: Change displayed cost to 6 (even though the cost is already 6. At 5 it would be too good)

Wrath of the Forest: Change to 'when any ally dies, draw a card'

Cobraskin Wraps: Change actual cost to 4.


Wizent's Staff: Reduce cost to 3.

[Kichigo]

Just some little addition to your suggestions.

If by your argument that transference card shouldn't take opponents card, surely there's something to be done with the night 'klepto' prowler armor card.

Also, rapid fire for hunters are one of many reasons that hunters are potentially broken. Maybe treat the card to be like 'Portal'? Heroes are limited to do 2 attacks for 2-3 turns only?

Just my 2 cents.

[Spazik]

Agree first and foremost on Amber Rain and Gweneth. Gwen makes Victor unplayable and Amber makes Boris borderline so. My overarching theory when it comes to all this stuff is that more balanced cards means that more different cards are played which means more fun, ESPECIALLY with such a limited card pool. Please fix these two heros so we can have some REAL games instead of just a bunch of cheese-cloners that munchkined their way up to ranks they have no business playing in.

[Calmdown]

I dont think they follow the same set of rules. Night Prowler is expensive and needs another card to already be in play to use it (a bow) and for it to be devastating, 2 cards need to be in play (a bow+rapid fire). This seems to be the direction the game designers have taken Hunters in; less allies, more hero based. Transference costs 3 and needs no support cards. Plus Hunters are limited in other ways whilst Elemental has a stronger card pool in general.

I dont disagree that it could be changed. "opponent discards a card" would be a better effect for it and still be tough. It might be overpowered at some point, but right now I'd argue that nothing says conclusively that it needs a change (despite the fact that I still think that the 'steal a card' mechanic is fundamentally overpowered).

[stbassy]

great stuff.

I applaud your wall of text with my line of kirby-s dancing on your wall.

<('.')< ^('.')^ >('.')> <('.')< ^('.')^ >('.')> p('.')q ^('.')^ p('.')q <('.')< ^('.')^ >('.')> <('.')< ^('.')^ >('.')> <('.')< ^('.')^ p('.')q

one comment :
with the majority of your suggestions on cost reduction, I'd predict a lot more strategic activity in the early/mid-game stages. ... sounds cool.

and one further suggestion:
how about upkeep? (yes, I'm shamelessly copying other card-games). one way to restrict (or toning-down) powerful cards is to burn a upkeep.
Instead of a 7 casting cost for mind-control, I think the original 5 cost and plus 1 resource up-keep every-turn. if the controller can't pay, then the card is returned to the original owner.
I'm actually thinking that some of the very-power items/weapons/armor could be toned-down this way too.

comments?

[Montag451]

I came in here expecting an over-the-top list of strange changes like that other guy posted, but actually most of these aren't too bad. There's more focus on fixing blatantly underpowered cards rather a huge list of "omg these are OP, nerf please".

Though I'm not sure about the changes to Transference and Mind Control. The proposed changes would pretty much spell the end of Elemental control decks. 7 cost for Mind Control is too expensive. Most players already seem to have reservations about 7-cost cards, due to how late you can play them; more often than not the game's outcome is already decided and swapping 1 ally (unless they're stupid and played an Aeon) isn't going to have much impact. Transference I think could work, but the discard should be random, otherwise it'll only feel like a minor annoyance to the opponent having to discard his weakest card in hand.

[stbassy]

I came in here expecting an over-the-top list of strange changes like that other guy posted, but actually most of these aren't too bad. There's more focus on fixing blatantly underpowered cards rather a huge list of "omg these are OP, nerf please".

Though I'm not sure about the changes to Transference and Mind Control. The proposed changes would pretty much spell the end of Elemental control decks. 7 cost for Mind Control is too expensive. Most players already seem to have reservations about 7-cost cards, due to how late you can play them; more often than not the game's outcome is already decided and swapping 1 ally (unless they're stupid and played an Aeon) isn't going to have much impact. Transference I think could work, but the discard should be random, otherwise it'll only feel like a minor annoyance to the opponent having to discard his weakest card in hand.

I agree on the 7 costing cards. Usually, I find that, if I had 7 resources, I end up casting 1 x 4-resource card and 1 x 3 resource card instead.
that's why I was thinking an upkeep (see previous post) might be a possible alternative.

[Spazik]

I came in here expecting an over-the-top list of strange changes like that other guy posted, but actually most of these aren't too bad. There's more focus on fixing blatantly underpowered cards rather a huge list of "omg these are OP, nerf please".

Though I'm not sure about the changes to Transference and Mind Control. The proposed changes would pretty much spell the end of Elemental control decks. 7 cost for Mind Control is too expensive. Most players already seem to have reservations about 7-cost cards, due to how late you can play them; more often than not the game's outcome is already decided and swapping 1 ally (unless they're stupid and played an Aeon) isn't going to have much impact. Transference I think could work, but the discard should be random, otherwise it'll only feel like a minor annoyance to the opponent having to discard his weakest card in hand.

This. Other changes are generally good though.
If anything I would say nerf Zaladar's ability instead of two key elemental cards. Elemental decks rely on unconventional loopity loop methods to win, like stealing the opponents cards. They'd lose a lot of their fun factor if it was just another "play guys and attack" deck.

Plus half the time with transferrence I end up throwing the guys card away for resources anyways. What do I need a rapid fire for? I look at it more like a pre-emptive counterspell in those cases.

[Calmdown]

Though I'm not sure about the changes to Transference and Mind Control. The proposed changes would pretty much spell the end of Elemental control decks. 7 cost for Mind Control is too expensive. Most players already seem to have reservations about 7-cost cards, due to how late you can play them; more often than not the game's outcome is already decided and swapping 1 ally (unless they're stupid and played an Aeon) isn't going to have much impact. Transference I think could work, but the discard should be random, otherwise it'll only feel like a minor annoyance to the opponent having to discard his weakest card in hand.

Indeed, I did mean it to be random. Ill add that for clarity.

Thats the problem though. "Unless he's stupid and played an Aeon" is the problem. The fact that Elemental runs MC means that you simply cant afford to drop an Aeon, Raven, Behemoth etc. That's not a good state for the game to be in. Paying cost+2 or cost+1 to not only remove a major ally from the enemy side but also give it to you is *still* amazing. I'd still run Mind Control at 7. The situation is only compounded because Elemental also has Discharge right now.

I suppose the real problem is that neither of them have a cost restriction. Mind control could also be fixed by giving it a 4-cost limit.

[hongkong99]

Also: change the one-time ability to ongoing ability, vice versa


Elemental decks are everywhere now, because both Transference, Mind Control and Zaladar are overpower