March 2019 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Liu]

The labyrinth set is, sorry, ABSURD. Let's use the eclipse set as benchmark. Per hit, you'll receive 5% HP damage with eclipse, but 2.5% HP damage with labyrinth (in expectation). On Top of this labyrinth, with 25% chance when struck, inflicts debuffs on ALL of the opposing characters. Further, eclipse provides a buff that can be removed, while labyrinth is a passive. Let's top this of by acknowledging it a 5 set, so we can add a cosmic talisman which is probably stupendously powerful once maxed out. Guys seriously ? This ain't no power creep, this is a power rush.
The sentinel 5 set looks like equally bad news, I don't even want to think about that.

/e: It'd be nice if we, the players, could agree on not using these things ... I don't even want to think about what toons and talismans that are being released in a year from now are going to be capable of. 10% chance to permanently delete enemy toons from the opponent players roster ? The idea of introducing balanced stuff instead of game breaking stuff seems to be completely absent from the dev's minds.

[Yup]

I would agree that these new talismans merely look like "fun killers" and annoyances for PvP.

And unfortunately there's not a whole lot of new playable content to make them worthwhile there.

I too feel the power creep is moving ahead way too fast with these proposed talismans. I mean do you REALLY think granting an entire team perfect health for the duration of a battle is anything other than unbalanced?

[scott-5496]

I sense danger ahead! LOL. There seems to be some chat on here about the way the game is going and from these changes it seems that many of you are correct in this assumption. We are moving quickly to a game that seems to be chasing its own tail - going nowhere and we players are being taken along for that ride on a game I am sure we all kind of love and are addicted to for one reason or another.

I am really not sure where I am currently getting my fun from in lotb - probably my kids accounts as they are not near the top - there can be a lot of fun to be had down the bottom to middle of the game and real challenges to face.

An example from my game this morning - I played five arena matches and got my ass handed to me in all five - the first time this has ever happened to me. OK, I was mucking about with my attack teams I was using but I truly got destroyed in a round or two in each battle. I then took some of these on again and owned them just as quick with my destroyed attack team which had been my defence team. The game, at the moment, is, to me, a bit all over the place. Arena is toss of the coin random based in many battles and I dread to think what gauntlet will be like after this update.

I hope I am wrong and that this is not going to make the game so boring that you have no idea if you are ging to win or lose a battle. Maybe a lot of folk have these gold/cash relic boosters on the go (I dont) and maybe it was that and/or bad luck this morning, not sure but it is the first time since I started arena where I have been skelped so soundly with little chance to do anything much at all.

RNG is coming more into the game than ever as is coin toss. However, saying all that I do still enjoy playing on my kids accounts so maybe for new to mid level players what we have now is a chance for them to be a top player by spending and hitting events hard - my kids cant as they are at school but I can see how this must be pretty cool for newer folks as you just need a bit of luck in events, grind time and ironite and a wallet and you can be a top player in weeks to a few months.

Maybe I just got out the wrong side of bed of course!

[Blade]

Further, eclipse provides a buff that can be removed, while labyrinth is a passive.

Good point and completely right! I wanted to mention that too but forgot it. Give the Labyrinth also a buff so that it can be removed and the problem would be reduced to a somewhat ok extent.

[Blade]

I sense danger ahead! LOL. There seems to be some chat on here about the way the game is going and from these changes it seems that many of you are correct in this assumption. We are moving quickly to a game that seems to be chasing its own tail - going nowhere and we players are being taken along for that ride on a game I am sure we all kind of love and are addicted to for one reason or another.

I think this is mainly the case as we rather old farts are not that familiar with the implications that come with this being a mobile game. To be honest I thought at some point we would be done with new Talis and a final state would be reached. But this seems impossible. Same for extreme character abilities. Did you expect 2 years ago that there will be something like Killer Prime or the Ferryman? I did not.
So due to the needed evolution - and the selected high frequency of new stuff - things MUST become crazy I think. For me personally everything could be slowed down to let's say half of the frequency with which characters, Talis and other effects are released.
But mobile games are made especially for the young folks and due to the large selection of games they need to evolve rather quick as most of these folks lose the ability to be patient.

About your pvp issue...that is really crazy. Due to the current meta I only lose <1% of my battles. Only if all of a sudden my passives do not work (without disable passive being around), there is a real chance for the AI to win. There was a confirmed bug a while ago that made relics sometimes not work and temporal relics work for areas of the game where they should not apply, so maybe this problem is back?

[slauki]

the problem is that the devs have to earn money for the company, so you have to make players chase things they want. since the game was pretty unbalanced for quite some time now i don't expect anything to change. if they release an middish/okayish toon/talisman who would care or spend because of it? people will only pay if you offer them things that will improve their strength. so the wheel will be spinning endlessly

i think the truth is that there is no way back, either you take it or you leave. the toons will get even stronger and talismans too. rlease an OP team and sell the players the counter after a few weeks. that seems to be the way to earn money in these games. (it's also the same in strike force btw) that said i do feel lotb is a bit out of control with all these crazy mechanics like avoiding damage or random nomal, silver and golden buffs/debuffs.

but i cannot see an escape there so we have to deal with it.

[scott-5496]

the problem is that the devs have to earn money for the company, so you have to make players chase things they want. since the game was pretty unbalanced for quite some time now i don't expect anything to change. if they release an middish/okayish toon/talisman who would care or spend because of it? people will only pay if you offer them things that will improve their strength. so the wheel will be spinning endlessly

i think the truth is that there is no way back, either you take it or you leave. the toons will get even stronger and talismans too. rlease an OP team and sell the players the counter after a few weeks. that seems to be the way to earn money in these games. (it's also the same in strike force btw) that said i do feel lotb is a bit out of control with all these crazy mechanics like avoiding damage or random nomal, silver and golden buffs/debuffs.

but i cannot see an escape there so we have to deal with it.

Yeah that is for sure and I guess it all makes complete sense. They must make money to keep it all going and I also guess what right do we old timers have to be the best just bexcause we have done form the start - no reason at all. It's like in football - who were the like of Man City of PSG before they had the influx of massive cash to buy players - they were no one. Same sort of thing here - you can buy your way to the top if you want to and I guess we need that to happen too or the game makes no maney and no wages are paid or staff have to go.

Just now though it does seem like things like the arena and gauntlet are a fest of random stuff and a massive influx of teams that have been lucky in events over recent months.

[Zantarath]

Labrynth talisman is undoubtly- the most powerful set we haven seen
its a more powerful version of eclipse: for a number of reasons:
it is unremoveable
it has 75% chance to not take damage - which offset the 10% random damage taken compared to the eclipse
it takes random damage. which means defence and resist will reduce the overall damage taken

as this is a turn based game. introducing such mechanics like chance to not take damage really hurt the value of turns when players get them. if this is a ActionRole-Playing-Game this set could work as damage done is not determined by turns but by speed of attack which people could invest in, but having such a mechanic that is unremoveable is just absurd.

i have 3 different path of suggestions for how this talisman set can be adjusted

1: Keep current functions, but also add: Character cannot be healed
Comment: this is still very powerful. but players can kill this character eventually even tho it may still take 5 to 50 turns depending on RNG
-It become a set for character that needs to stay alive for at least the first couple turns, but usefulness falls off later on
-The negative effect it has still make it very useful while it lasts
Power-rating(9/10)- one of the powerful set every created

2: Remove the 75% chance to not take damage
Comment: This is what i would prefer - the value of actions made by a player have impact and the set still have strong defense abilities
-The damage taken can be offset by Def and Resist so 10% is not as bad as one would seem.
-Running synergy with fortune talisman or other forms of sustain can easily survive
-Especially good for taking pressure off blockers if running with blockers
-The negative effect it has still make it very useful while it lasts
Power-rating(9/10)- still the most powerful set, players can synthesizer better and have creative build options.

3: Remove thewhensuccessfuly sturk take 10% of hp as random damage
Explanation: Very Rng Based. I personally do not want such a mechanic in a turn based game. but if devs like this kind of things i have to consider-it
-really there is not much to say about this effect, if lucky it will take a while to kill it, but it could also randomly fail, either player gonna hate this or Ai gonna hate this.
Power-rating(8/10)- could fail very hard if not lucky, but if lucky all the universe cannot kill u

the Labyrinth set could- in its original form - lock a battle to the point of just spending long time to kill just a single toon ,and such a toon could be a part of a chain to keep a entire team alive. Especilly combined with fortune talisman and assassin banshee together to make a extremly long battle, nobody likes such long battles because its un-fun.

I think if this set is released in its original form. i will simply no play arena seriously anymore and just play gauntlet, sure a lone person would not seem to matter to the Devs because the amount of money i give them is limited. But think people will find some battles atrocious and become very much like me.

This is a game for players to enjoy themselves, we are the consumers that provide income, and when great changed are made, such as release of night city and the following events- i personally spent a lot in support of the developers of the game. I'm not sure if other feel this way but some times i get a thought where the devs are doing good with releasing the contents, ill buy some support packs and give my self greater enjoyment while supporting them in making new and meaningful content.

I understand the need for develops to power-creep the game to generate income, however, some testing should be done before releasing such impacting and game breaking stuff like chance of not taking damage in a turn based game.
Sure, it increase purchase, but releasing a problematic mechanic into the game(chance of not taking damage in a turn based game?) which could result in very long battles can make the game very un-fun, and not-fun is not something good for the game. I feel that the game is shifting too hard into forcing players to spend more in acquiring the latest and greatest, and what would happen is.
-Current player who CANNOT spend cannot catch up will leave because the game is un-fun for them.
-Players who CAN spend, will do so to stay in top but with long battles and RNG they will feel unrewarded.
-Of course, we may have people who enjoy long battles, feel free to say so.

[Kaz_LOTB]

Thanks for the engagement Kaz!

Edit: So regular mythicals wont change?

Actually, the regular Mythics do have an increase of 50 frags, but the other Mythics will remain as is.

-Kaz

[Kaz_LOTB]

Regarding concerns about the Labyrinth Talismans, the feedback is appreciated and your concerns are understood.

As always we will keep an eye on things and adjust if need be, but during testing they did not outright prove to be better than Eclipse Talismans (or even Destiny for that matter) due to the prevalence of multi-hitters, immunity, their inability to prevent MAX HP reduction, and the surprising difference the 10% HP damage makes vs the 5% in killing the target with these talismans faster (using pretty accessible units). As far as their effectiveness on blockers like Set, they are okay, but passive disable tends to mitigate their advantage as well as the additional hits of damage they take from blocking the hits of other allies (Destiny was much more of a problem so far than these Talismans atm, I think). Shadow Sustaining / Advantage is still probably a more reliable build for Set.

These Talismans are more meant to allow certain Eddies (and potentially other characters) to become useful in Arena Offense / Defense, because they do increase the chances of them at least being able to survive the first round (unlike Shroud which can be stripped).

The main point is, with any character or talisman it is important that we actually have the chance to play with them in context to get the clearest picture of their overall strength and potential in the meta. If we find that it becomes too prevalent or overwhelming for whatever reason, we will look at adjusting them as needed, while still allowing them to reach their goals.


-Kaz