Issues with twilight - for constructive discussion

[bobrossw]

So given the tone of that other twilight nerf thread, I thought I'd start another thread that might lead to some more productive discussion (if you just want to say "nerf this into dust." feel free to post those rants elsewhere). What I'm thinking is we can just make this clear and to the point, giving the design team something to quickly read through and understand how others perceive twilight, rather than a bunch of troll responses. Here, perhaps we can stick to a simple format for feedback:

1 - state the problems (or lack thereof) that you perceive with twilight as they are now. If you don't think they are too strong, then perhaps discuss their limitations and reasons that they are well balanced.


2 - list a few potential solutions - if needed.


3 - list some predictions on how your proposed solutions would change the way twilight play, and how others might counter them.

[trevorJacobs]

Thanks - this is helpful

1) State the problems:
- Twilight Lumiary: we know that haste and seek are both individually very powerful; being able to add haste to ALL twilights is very destructive, especially combined with Twilight Championicon / Warden, and anything that allows you to kill other twilights (e.g. Lorhon, Headdress, ally ability)
- Twilight Avatar: you already get a lot from Twilights going to the graveyard (stats boost (TC, TH), draw (scriptures), item destruction (ritualist)), but now you can bring them back! Further, it's easy to get their health back up with Lifebringer, and Opportunist even gets an attack increase!
- Twilight Matriarch: not ridiculous in itself, but once hasted, it can attack (4) and allow another ally to go twice - problem lies with Luminary
- double location use: you can use Lorhon twice in a go, for free, which is pretty serious... (i think this an issue with locations more generally)

Other combos:
- triggering death at end of turn is a good price, but you can pay this price once for several effects (stat increase, item destruction, seek (Lorhon), health reduction) - you get a lot out of ally death AND you can bring them back again!
- avoiding death: Eidolon is a great card, and is the backbone of Twilight; but once you can get so much out of one ally death (see above), having that ally then NOT DIE is very strong!
- scriptures further adds to this - allowing you to refill. As predicted elsewhere the 'nerf' was actually a buff in disguise: you can keep it in play, top up gradually, never over-fill...

2) Some solutions:
- take the haste effect off Luminary - that alone might solve it. If this feels too much, perhaps "1: target Twilight ally has haste". Reduce health by 1?
- reduce the power of Lorhon: 'target readied Twlight ally is killed ... ' perhaps? And / or add SE cost
- Avatar: bring back 2 dead twilight; bring back three that are killed at end of turn; bring them back with no abilities
- Scriptures: ... not sure about this, but it needs cooling a bit. Perhaps remove the 'nerf' but add a cap (say, 3). Perhaps a re-think. "Exile X Twilights from graveyard, and draw X cards up to 3"? That would work against the Avatar at least.
- stop allowing double use of location in a turn

3) how would this change twilight?
- You would get a bit less out of every death. Currently, you can get the ally death ability (e.g. exile a card) plus any/all of: stat bump (champion), draw (scriptures), seek (location), extra attack (matriarch), fuel for resurrection (avatar), fuel for Warden ... and still keep the ally with Eidolon!
- you could no longer build a massive hasted champion in one turn (multiple location drops)
- at leasts you need some draw to play twilight well, but scriptures fixes this weakness as well - rethink needed

[Kosmiker]

I've already addressed some issues on other threads and goes something like point 1 of trevorJacobs post.

Although I would prefer adjustments in the form of buffs to other tribes, there is a possible solution in the form of nerf as well, add 1SE sustain cost to luminary and scriptures. This will prevent having both cards in the board for too long and makes the player having to think about it's strategy instead of the "no brainer" that the current form presents. Sustain costs to some key cards for twilight will prevent abuse of all the available "tools" and will demand clever gameplay while delaying just enough for an ordinary match to be balanced.

[Umbra7]

Problem A) luminary
Luminary has seemed overpowered since ahe was first spoiled. At 5 health and access to eidilon, she is not a walk in the park to remove, and if she stays on the board you cannot feel safe for any other number of high powered allies can come through her mach portal. More troubles arise when she is not the only ally out, maybe ritualist is also sitting fat and happy next to her, you now face a huge problem in picking between two poisons to try and get rid of. Without board wipes, regaining board while luminary is out is difficult even with her alone.

Solution: remove from her the ability to give haste, decrease seak cost to 1SE, and give her 2attack instead of one. The twilight have a lot of power and survivability, giving haste to them is not needed. Removing it completely would allow other people to have a better chance of keeping a state of board control, and allow for more balanced battles between a twilight deck and any other deck. With her ability to give haste, any battles against them while using most decks become very onesided, and it has already started to take its toll on the meta

Problem B) scriptures of the departed
It is hard to argue that this card is quite possibly the strongest draw card currently in the game. Once in midgame, it is easily activated every turn, as twilights have no troubles at all dying on a whim, especially when they can easily keep refilling their hand. The only weakness twilights ever faced was tempo loss from all their dying. If you kept kilking them long enough (and it did indead take quite a while) and theyd eventually lose steam, allowing you to start trying to get board control. They no longer lose steam, and no matter how many you kill, they still keep coming until theyve overwhelmed you

Solution: change the active ability to drawing 1 card. This too may prove still too strong for twilights, and it may just come out that they shouldnt have a draw source, but allowing them to draw 1 card for every 2 deaths seems a good step in the right direction towards balance. Other suggestions were to change it back to the old ability with a cap of 3 durability, however even this seems to be too powerful, as 3 or 4 durability was often the times that it was getting used anyways, and it caused plenty of problems.

Problem C) avatar of twilight
In addition to the problems stated above, avatar just compounds with the problems those cards create by bringing luminary back, and adding 3 more potential fuel sources for scriptures. It is after this card isnplayed that scriptures can start drawing 2 cards every turn without problem, as after this turn scriptures always has an excess of durability available. When this card brings out luminary, she comes out hasted and already ready to cause damage. When she also brings back a ritualist, a champion, a kalista, or an opportunist, if you dont have a board wipe then youre stuck having to choose between many huge threats, and often times no matter who you choose to kill, youve already chosen wrong. In addition to the enormous threats she can bring back, she can also bring back support allies like orphic, life bringer, and sheppardess, who can make things additionally hard on an opposing player

Solution: nerfing scriptures and luminary will help a lot, but you may have to additionally nerf this to only bringing back 2 allies. That will be enough fuel to draw one card with the suggested scriptures nerf, and should help bring balance to the tribe as a whole.

Problem D) ritualist
Ritualist went from basically being balanced to having an overpowered ability that can exile over half of the cards. At 5 health, she is on the higher side of survivability for 3cc allies, and gives an enourmous first turn advantage. When she comes out on turn 3, the opponent automatically becomes disadvantaged, and almost any card that they can play can be permanently gotten rid of for a very cheap cost of 2cc. Ritualist dying isn't even an effective repurcussion, as the tribe can gain a lot of effective benefits from her death anyways.

Solution: put her back to destroying only 3cc and under cards. Not exiling, destroying. The old ability was balanced. I was admitadly not on the forums at the time of her buff, but i cant imagine anybody saying she needed one, let alone one that is so destructive and painful. The change will allow people to feel a little bit safer when playing 4cc allies or weapons, something a 3cc ally should never have been able to eliminate so easily in the first place. With this change, a player can once again play their turn 4 drops without them being a complete tempo loss and waste of a turn no matter what they play. Shattered fates aint in print yet near as I can tell, i think one more nerf can be mustered before this card slips under the safety zone and winds up getting herself completely banned in the future.

I do not think lohorn is creating too much of a problem. Once these other cards are rebalanced, lohorn can become a pretty good location that will help a balanced tribe pull off their no longer overpowered combos.

Kallists may be over powered, she might not be. I dont have nearly enough play experience with her to give a reliable input on her.

[trevorJacobs]

This is super productive. Higlights for me:
- Luminary: add SE sustain OR remove haste; balance with reduction in seek cost (if needed)
- Avatar: reduce number of allies revived
- Scriptures: cap # of cards drawn; add SE sustain OR exile dead twilights from graveyard

For now, we could leave Lorhon and Kallista alone.

Are we still allowed to change Ritualist? Gondorian - is the lid now firmly on SF? Or is there scope to tone it down a little?

[Gondorian]

I approve of the approach taken to get community feedback here. Thanks, BobRoss.

If the good things and bad things can be identified and consensus reached, then the changes themselves are pretty easy. If there's just general complaints then it's harder to get to the right changes.

As for when changes might occur, all playing experience right now on 3.11 is going to help everyone better understand the good and bad things, so we are not going to change anything yet. We'd like people to keep playing and keep thinking about what's bad and what's good about particular cards. The 3.11 changes were to tackle obvious things that were seen soon after 3.10 got wider testing on live server - they were not an attempt to balance the whole of Part 1 based on live server experiences. 3.12 will be an attempt to do that.

p.s. Shattered Fates can still have nerfs applied if necessary.

[igornvidal]

- Avatar: bring back 2 dead twilight; bring back three that are killed at end of turn; bring them back with no abilities

Being back and die right after is a buff imo

[Armoek]

hmmmmmmmm........ can't believe people think that the tribe needs 4-5 nerfs to be brought back into line. I built a couple of decks that just farm them using snare trap and the exile location, made the deck easier to kill then any other deck people are trying out currently.

Ill start testing my own twilight decks over the next few days and see how easy I find it to steamroll people. That change to the draw engine was definitely a buff though and will need to be changed in the future.

[trevorJacobs]

Being back and die right after is a buff imo

True; scratch that!

[Umbra7]

p.s. Shattered Fates can still have nerfs applied if necessary.

Woot! Thats some good news. I'm gonna go play with the underpowered stuff now so i can make a buff thread and actually have legs to stand on