September 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Askora]

Well, if the Advantage talismen give you "class advantage" and the Penetration talismen give you "MR Ignore", then the very first hit you do with both of these active should do the same damage, regardless of who the target is (provided no shields). This is not the case. Should I post screenshots to follow this up, or is this question good enough?

That is the bug with penetration and piercing. If you attack with it active and it proc's again on that attack, it behaves as though you didn't have the buff. I discovered it a while back and reported it. If you have penetrating or piercing active and do a good hit instead of perfect, it will do more damage than the perfect (if the effect proc's again). Have to hope on your hit with it active that the talisman fails to proc in order to get the buff. Stupid, but hopefully will be solved with the next update.

Hope that wasn't too confusing.

[JJJ428]

I always wondered are the piercing talismans ever worth it? I mean you need a perfect attack to proc then wait a full turn and need same toon to survive and attack again. Seems like a long set up compared to other talismans doesn't it?

[bort]

I always wondered are the piercing talismans ever worth it? I mean you need a perfect attack to proc then wait a full turn and need same toon to survive and attack again. Seems like a long set up compared to other talismans doesn't it?

I have it on my GRE for arena - his multiple attacks can trigger it immediately and often. I combine it with the advantage talisman to smack down annoying sentinal characters

[Coletrain]

Liking the look of this update. Instead of debuffing Vampire Hunter much, a counter is created. Some much needed updates to Aces High Eddie mean that I may finally shard him. Only negative to me is the trooper store limits; as a trooper point hoarder, I appreciate the ability to wait and buy in bulk to suit my needs (I.e. If I want to try for characters in a particular class, I can buy 20-30 souls in that class at once if I have the points). I can see where this behavior might not be liked by those running the game, but being able to do so is one of those little quality of experience things that I appreciate. Having to blow my points stash now (or be stuck with 200k and a limited store) means that I don't get to plan as effectively. It would be nice if the only things limited in the store were the future items added (like trooper Soul fragments, etc) and the souls/shards were left unlimited.

Sparton/Kaz, a few things for you:

-Patch notes for the Steal Breath changes may be wrong; steal breath silences enemies and the notes say something about blinding.
-Regarding the update to the block passive, it sounds like it will take into account shields. If a block character has a guard shield applied, will indirect damage boost fury the same as direct damage?

@Sparton, I am referring to Viking's Magic Resistance Charge.
When active, it supposed to increase damage/defense based on MR, and it does nothing.

��

I know that you commented on this issue, I wanted to make sure it was known that the same issue persists with Pharaoh Eddies Defense Charge skill, arguably a bigger deal since more characters have Def-scaling skills than MR-scaling skills. Tested it again just now, and it does not grant a damage buff.

Lastly, unrelated to this update but wanted to ask since you're checking this thread out. The event for Kari, Valkyrie Siren fell during the busiest period of the year for me with work. I had time to blow through troopers in ailing kingdom on the drive to work, but no time for much else, least of all to grind the tough BNW dungeons. For those that missed out on this character, is there a plan to offer it again? Perhaps as a reward for a super-difficult mission? Having played with a trooper's Kari, it's a godsend in the BNW dungeons and I would certainly like the opportunity to get one of my own.

Thanks as always for communicating with us on these updates!

[Mizrael]

I know that you commented on this issue, I wanted to make sure it was known that the same issue persists with Pharaoh Eddies Defense Charge skill, arguably a bigger deal since more characters have Def-scaling skills than MR-scaling skills. Tested it again just now, and it does not grant a damage buff.

The wording is upmost confusing since it says "enhancing" ability...so the way i understood these skills is that they boost the NEXT MR/Def "enhancing" ability...
For example: If active and SDD uses Brace "Increase MR and Def for 2 turns", then THAT skill would increase MR and Def more....

But then it's LVLs adding damage % wouldn't make any sense, so i guess your interpretation is correct and the skills don't work. In that case the word "enhancing" should be replaced with the word "scaling" perhaps?

Same thing goes for the Furious charge skill, which doubles the damage of the next physical attack...but what are those % on lvls, which have been added later? In my understanding:if something doubles something it's simply doubled. do the 5% add to that doubling or after it has been doubled?!

Even after a year of developing there are still sooooo many skills with wrong/confusing/misleading/incomplete descriptions! NF- Please let one of your guys (preferably someone who has previous experience with CCGs like MTG) take these files home and correct it. It would take ME 30min to do...is that such a big deal?

[zamasu]

Gonna have to disagree with you based on the fact there's some random I've never heard of in 1st right now with her as his pic lol First time I've checked rankings in forever. Although it is still Friday, players that are actually good (Gmac) might awaken.

LOL was this Caliza? he's actually good and puts a lot of effort.
All I want to know is if she really helps that much in defense, what is the typical hold rate with her?
I also would live a PvP arena where people struggle to get 70-80% winning rates, playing and winning 99%+ of the time gets boring, people need to be challenged to keep them interested in the game.

[Sparton_LOTB]

-Patch notes for the Steal Breath changes may be wrong; steal breath silences enemies and the notes say something about blinding.

Yeah, someone else pointed that out as well; it'll be corrected to indicate a change to the Silence in the final patch notes.

-Regarding the update to the block passive, it sounds like it will take into account shields. If a block character has a guard shield applied, will indirect damage boost fury the same as direct damage?

I believe it would, yeah. Not something I've personally tested, though.

I know that you commented on this issue, I wanted to make sure it was known that the same issue persists with Pharaoh Eddies Defense Charge skill, arguably a bigger deal since more characters have Def-scaling skills than MR-scaling skills. Tested it again just now, and it does not grant a damage buff.

I was able to clarify with Kaz what should be going on here, and the wording on these skills is definitely not clear. The intent for "Defense Charge" and "MR Charge" is that they'll improve the next Defense Up or MR Up buff (respectively), not that they affect skills which scale off of Defense or MR.

Given this, I'll make a note to adjust the wording of these skill descriptions so it's more clear what the synergies really are.

Lastly, unrelated to this update but wanted to ask since you're checking this thread out. The event for Kari, Valkyrie Siren fell during the busiest period of the year for me with work. I had time to blow through troopers in ailing kingdom on the drive to work, but no time for much else, least of all to grind the tough BNW dungeons. For those that missed out on this character, is there a plan to offer it again? Perhaps as a reward for a super-difficult mission? Having played with a trooper's Kari, it's a godsend in the BNW dungeons and I would certainly like the opportunity to get one of my own.

We do plan on event exclusive characters returning in some fashion eventually, but we don't have an exact plan for when or how at this time.

Same thing goes for the Furious charge skill, which doubles the damage of the next physical attack...but what are those % on lvls, which have been added later? In my understanding:if something doubles something it's simply doubled. do the 5% add to that doubling or after it has been doubled?!

The doubling would be 100% more, so 5% more of 100% would be 105%, 5% more of 105% would be 110%, etc.

That said, the doubling here seems to be misleading, as the base amount of increase from most charge effects seems to be 80% more at skill level 1, not 100% more. Something else I've made a note to adjust.

Even after a year of developing there are still sooooo many skills with wrong/confusing/misleading/incomplete descriptions! NF- Please let one of your guys (preferably someone who has previous experience with CCGs like MTG) take these files home and correct it. It would take ME 30min to do...is that such a big deal?

For what it's worth, I actually do do a bit of this from time to time (I think in this next update I've done a pass to better clarify skills that have a "chance per ally to blah" so the skill descriptions don't imply the chance is to grant to all allies or no allies), I just rarely bring it up in patch notes, as they're usually minor grammar things.

As noted earlier in this post, I do agree that I should do a pass on the "Charge"-related skills; however, it's worth noting that there's a bug with our skill level display system that requires us to set it to the "damage scaling" level type for the Charge scaling to work, so while I can make the skill descriptions more clear with some simple editing, the skill level stuff will still be a bit weird until that programming bug is fixed.

[calizario]

LOL was this Caliza? he's actually good and puts a lot of effort.
All I want to know is if she really helps that much in defense, what is the typical hold rate with her?
I also would live a PvP arena where people struggle to get 70-80% winning rates, playing and winning 99%+ of the time gets boring, people need to be challenged to keep them interested in the game.

I finish this week with 21% on defense ..
As you said, it is not very difficult to neutralize it. Any toon type AD has already done the service for the first round.

[Mariner-1212]

I was able to clarify with Kaz what should be going on here, and the wording on these skills is definitely not clear. The intent for "Defense Charge" and "MR Charge" is that they'll improve the next Defense Up or MR Up buff (respectively), not that they affect skills which scale off of Defense or MR.

Given this, I'll make a note to adjust the wording of these skill descriptions so it's more clear what the synergies really are.

Just to chime in here, I can verify that this skill is working - when you do the MR Charge, then run the Call To Arms, Viking's damage goes way up (like around 17k on a hit). At 5 power and a full round waste, it's a tough move set to make use of. I have never seen it get used in the Arena and it really shouldn't be with the round you have to wait. It's probably best utilized for something like MLOL, or BNW GoD maybe, but that's just in theory, not something I tested.

Viking Eddie would REALLY benefit from some move changes, maybe turn him back into a powerhouse. He just looks like too much of a badass with that giant axe to deliver such a mediocre blow. Or maybe you release a Warrior Viking Eddie that just destroys? Would love to make more use of him. Easily my favorite looking Eddie.

[slauki]

For what it's worth, I actually do do a bit of this from time to time (I think in this next update I've done a pass to better clarify skills that have a "chance per ally to blah" so the skill descriptions don't imply the chance is to grant to all allies or no allies), I just rarely bring it up in patch notes, as they're usually minor grammar things.

As noted earlier in this post, I do agree that I should do a pass on the "Charge"-related skills...

if you want to do me a favour and if it'S not too much work for you, it would help me and my thread a lot if you could mention every change in skill descriptions too. would save me a a lot of time, if i don't have to search every description for every character...you could PM me these changes too, if you don't want to put them all in the patch notes, since they are really kinda not so interesting.

would be very thankfull for it :-)