Post by serprex on Aug 22, 2014 18:23:30 GMT
You should probably not bother reading this; it's mostly written for me to be able to try distill my decision making. I've made no attempt to make it coherent. That said, it may have misconceptions which are arguable (I say ahead of time I'll reject any suggestion of me being wrong & then consider it more later & maybe decide whether I agree or not then)
I only care about PvP; PvE balances itself with cheating. Also CG only cares about PvE so we balance each other. Also I'm mostly going to speak in terms of unupped because upped derives from unupped, not the other way around (sorta)
This isn't to say "Thou shalt balance according to my rules" but to help people understand how I think so that they can correct misconceptions I have (also so that they can consider ahead of time what I'll think of the idea)
Will update over time
Miracle is OP but necessary. It isn't an issue at 100hp. If it was going to be nerfed, I'd make it use excess quanta to heal to full potential when maxhp has been buffed
Why was Fractal OP?
Consider a card "Draw 2 cards" how much should it cost? It turns out that it'd have to cost more than Innovation. But this isn't related to Fractal so much; cycling vs generation. From this we find that discarding a card is worth more than drawing a card
Still, "Draw 6 cards" has the value of 6 cards. Let's try derive the quanta value of a card from HG
HG costs 4, draws per turn for 2 more quanta. Also it apparently gets a cost reduction because
4/0, 6/1, 8/2, 10/3, 12/4, 14/5, 16/6
It takes 7 turns for HG to give you 6 cards for 16 quanta. Now how is it remotely balanced that Fractal give you 8 cards of your choice for 10?
Upped things get better, but faster meta means 6 turns to draw means something else has to be going well
All on top of the fact that a permanent be more efficient for lasting on the field for 6 turns compared to a spell which didn't even have any counterplay besides Silence before all those hand control spells I added
So a card is suppose to have a base value of at least 2. Note that this doesn't have to be reflected in the stats since it cancels out
In this way Life is able to gain card advantage by playing creatures because if every creature costs 1 less than it should, then you gain an advantage of half a card everytime you play a creature
Which gets into the idea of valuing everything in terms of cards. Which is probably kind of dumb. It's also sufficient to value everything in terms of quanta
Healing costs less than damage. Somewhere around half price. Why? Because I read some random bullshit in A Political Mind that stuck with me because it was about Game Theory rather than ranting about political ideals like the rest of the book. Also it seems to sort of match the game's preexisting balance
Darkness should have slightly OP weapon/shield because Steal has negative synergy with them. Vagger is the best weapon in the game
Burn Card & friends should always be over priced. To be fair, Burn Card should cost 2/1. But whatever, hand control pays a price in being pretty versatile
As a deck builder I make CC domins & call them rushes. My understanding is that a rush should be around 7ttw. This means stalls need to stabilize in that time (where plainly drawing Lightning is partially stabilizing)
Burst damage counters healing if enough is amassed, but otherwise comes off as a rush mechanic. This makes cards like Heal counterintuitive since rush-stall is weak. The thing is that Heal can be useful in rush vs rush. Elements is a lot of DoT tho since creatures don't block
Unfortunately there isn't a straight up spell that deals damage exclusively to the opposing player, so such a spell's value has to be derived. It'd be something like 3 quanta for ~10 damage since heal is 3 quanta for ~10 healing. So 1 quanta is worth 3 life. Now to fact check with UG: 6 air, 1 fire is 7 quanta for 20 damage. Infected is 4 quanta for 14 damage over 2 turns. Firebrand is 5 quanta for 24 damage over 3 turns
That was all comparing spell vs permanent vs creature vs weapon. Firebrand is the lowest on the powerscale since weapons are suppose to be something like innate 3 quanta
Previous creature balance formulas would give only 1 quanta value to a card. This made 1cc end up being worth what should be free
I feel like I haven't written anything. todo shields, weapons, boring, cards which must be bad or else they'd be better off not existing, role of creatures, role of poison, duo cost reductions, mechanic alignments/bonuses, 1cc vs 2cc creatures & how original butchered 1cc
I only care about PvP; PvE balances itself with cheating. Also CG only cares about PvE so we balance each other. Also I'm mostly going to speak in terms of unupped because upped derives from unupped, not the other way around (sorta)
This isn't to say "Thou shalt balance according to my rules" but to help people understand how I think so that they can correct misconceptions I have (also so that they can consider ahead of time what I'll think of the idea)
Will update over time
Miracle is OP but necessary. It isn't an issue at 100hp. If it was going to be nerfed, I'd make it use excess quanta to heal to full potential when maxhp has been buffed
Why was Fractal OP?
Consider a card "Draw 2 cards" how much should it cost? It turns out that it'd have to cost more than Innovation. But this isn't related to Fractal so much; cycling vs generation. From this we find that discarding a card is worth more than drawing a card
Still, "Draw 6 cards" has the value of 6 cards. Let's try derive the quanta value of a card from HG
HG costs 4, draws per turn for 2 more quanta. Also it apparently gets a cost reduction because
4/0, 6/1, 8/2, 10/3, 12/4, 14/5, 16/6
It takes 7 turns for HG to give you 6 cards for 16 quanta. Now how is it remotely balanced that Fractal give you 8 cards of your choice for 10?
Upped things get better, but faster meta means 6 turns to draw means something else has to be going well
All on top of the fact that a permanent be more efficient for lasting on the field for 6 turns compared to a spell which didn't even have any counterplay besides Silence before all those hand control spells I added
So a card is suppose to have a base value of at least 2. Note that this doesn't have to be reflected in the stats since it cancels out
In this way Life is able to gain card advantage by playing creatures because if every creature costs 1 less than it should, then you gain an advantage of half a card everytime you play a creature
Which gets into the idea of valuing everything in terms of cards. Which is probably kind of dumb. It's also sufficient to value everything in terms of quanta
Healing costs less than damage. Somewhere around half price. Why? Because I read some random bullshit in A Political Mind that stuck with me because it was about Game Theory rather than ranting about political ideals like the rest of the book. Also it seems to sort of match the game's preexisting balance
Darkness should have slightly OP weapon/shield because Steal has negative synergy with them. Vagger is the best weapon in the game
Burn Card & friends should always be over priced. To be fair, Burn Card should cost 2/1. But whatever, hand control pays a price in being pretty versatile
As a deck builder I make CC domins & call them rushes. My understanding is that a rush should be around 7ttw. This means stalls need to stabilize in that time (where plainly drawing Lightning is partially stabilizing)
Burst damage counters healing if enough is amassed, but otherwise comes off as a rush mechanic. This makes cards like Heal counterintuitive since rush-stall is weak. The thing is that Heal can be useful in rush vs rush. Elements is a lot of DoT tho since creatures don't block
Unfortunately there isn't a straight up spell that deals damage exclusively to the opposing player, so such a spell's value has to be derived. It'd be something like 3 quanta for ~10 damage since heal is 3 quanta for ~10 healing. So 1 quanta is worth 3 life. Now to fact check with UG: 6 air, 1 fire is 7 quanta for 20 damage. Infected is 4 quanta for 14 damage over 2 turns. Firebrand is 5 quanta for 24 damage over 3 turns
That was all comparing spell vs permanent vs creature vs weapon. Firebrand is the lowest on the powerscale since weapons are suppose to be something like innate 3 quanta
Previous creature balance formulas would give only 1 quanta value to a card. This made 1cc end up being worth what should be free
I feel like I haven't written anything. todo shields, weapons, boring, cards which must be bad or else they'd be better off not existing, role of creatures, role of poison, duo cost reductions, mechanic alignments/bonuses, 1cc vs 2cc creatures & how original butchered 1cc