WoE - Skill polishing - Air

[Scaredgirl]

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It's time to go through all the 13 skill trees and make them "perfect". Main goals are:

1. Make all the skills fit to the theme of their path
2. Balance skills between different skill trees
3. Make big changes now that we have the technology trees and City buildings


Air is next.

Post any ideas if you have. Thanks.

[Scaredgirl]

I think I found a good mechanic for Cloud Rider. tree is a bit PvP-heavy though. Maybe it needs some more non-PvP stuff.

[ak65ala]

And here I thought these would come slow.  Yea!! 

Don't have time tonight to write my novel for this tree, but you can expect it tomorrow morning!

[YoungSot]

Assault Team - 2 additional ppl with the skill seems like too much effort. Perhaps just decrease it to 1 other person with the skill?

Fog of War - Too boring. Crazy idea for a replacement: you don't have to post your deck after winning or losing. you just pm it to the appropriate organizer. Would need to be moved to t2. It's a totally new ability and fits the Fog of War concept perfectly, in that it obscures detailed enemy knowledge forcing them to rely on second hand reports. I hope you agree.

Calm Before the Storm - It's too weak/boring in it's current form of only providing 1 additional up. I haven't been able to think of a better one yet though, so I'll get back to you on that.

Eroding Wind - This was Kuro's idea for a new t1 air skill if Fog of War got moved to t2. It would read something like this: "If your opponent is fortified, they must use 2 less upgraded cards per duel fought." the intent being that for each game you played in a match, their defenses would get worn away more and more.

Terror from Above - This one is really lackluster compared to other champion skills. I'll try to give some suggestions for alternatives tomorrow.

I keep wondering if it might be nice to add a "wings" style mechanic to the Air tree somewhere. Something that made them harder to affect because they were supposedly high off the ground. For example, what about a skill that allowed the player to be treated as if they were 1 hex farther away than the map showed whenever they were targeted? Something along those lines would be fun.

[Kuroaitou]

Seeing that there are plenty of ways to gain upgraded cards thanks to the new changes to the skill trees and other Air's bonuses, I also agree with YoungSot's suggestion of potentially removing the Terror from Above champion skill (or modifying it at least). As crazy as it sounds, I thought that one of these could be an alternative Champion skill assuming that you can fit the four lines of text into the box as necessary. ^^;                              


4 AP - Terror from Above
The following turn, players must use Aggressive Charge on the same hex as you in order to declare a battle. The range of your Charge and Siege stances is increased by 1.

4 AP + Relic - Pressure Squall
Target an adjacent hex; all non-Air and non-Ally players in that hex are automatically blown in a random direction 3 hexes away and cancels all of their actions this turn. 2 day CD.

[Scaredgirl]

Assault Team - 2 additional ppl with the skill seems like too much effort. Perhaps just decrease it to 1 other person with the skill?

Fog of War - Too boring. Crazy idea for a replacement: you don't have to post your deck after winning or losing. you just pm it to the appropriate organizer. Would need to be moved to t2. It's a totally new ability and fits the Fog of War concept perfectly, in that it obscures detailed enemy knowledge forcing them to rely on second hand reports. I hope you agree.

Calm Before the Storm - It's too weak/boring in it's current form of only providing 1 additional up. I haven't been able to think of a better one yet though, so I'll get back to you on that.

Eroding Wind - This was Kuro's idea for a new t1 air skill if Fog of War got moved to t2. It would read something like this: "If your opponent is fortified, they must use 2 less upgraded cards per duel fought." the intent being that for each game you played in a match, their defenses would get worn away more and more.

Terror from Above - This one is really lackluster compared to other champion skills. I'll try to give some suggestions for alternatives tomorrow.

I keep wondering if it might be nice to add a "wings" style mechanic to the Air tree somewhere. Something that made them harder to affect because they were supposedly high off the ground. For example, what about a skill that allowed the player to be treated as if they were 1 hex farther away than the map showed whenever they were targeted? Something along those lines would be fun.

I agree about the Assault Team. Fixed.

Yea, this is one of those boring "take X number of cards" skills that me and Kuro added because we ran out of ideas. I think we should replace all of them, apart from the one which gives Supernovas, therefore being much less situational. That "PM to organizer" won't work though. Way too much communication needed. Might sounds simple, but all those tiny things add up and lead to fail or big workload.

Yea, I changed it to 2 cards late last night. It might not be the most exciting skill, but it's simple and kind of makes sense, so I don't have a big problem with it.

I like the mechanics of anti-Fortify skill, but I think the theme is a bit weak. What would make more sense is a theme based on surrounding your opponent and attacking from all sides, a situation where being fortified can be bad. But the bigger problem is that it would make tier 3 skill suck. When skills cancel some other skill, that other skill should always be lower tier. Maybe we can fix that somehow.

Plan is to change all the Champ skills so that they are..

- Cool
- Interesting
- Open up many strategy possibilities
etc.

So yea.. simply increasing the number of upped cards, giving extra salvage, etc. is not enough anymore. I do like the basic idea behind Terror from Above though, maybe it could be used elsewhere.

Seeing that there are plenty of ways to gain upgraded cards thanks to the new changes to the skill trees and other Air's bonuses, I also agree with YoungSot's suggestion of potentially removing the Terror from Above champion skill (or modifying it at least). As crazy as it sounds, I thought that one of these could be an alternative Champion skill assuming that you can fit the four lines of text into the box as necessary. ^^;                              


4 AP - Terror from Above
The following turn, players must use Aggressive Charge on the same hex as you in order to declare a battle. The range of your Charge and Siege stances is increased by 1.

4 AP + Relic - Pressure Squall
Target an adjacent hex; all non-Air and non-Ally players in that hex are automatically blown in a random direction 3 hexes away and cancels all of their actions this turn. 2 day CD.

Hmm.. that first one sounds too defensive for "Terror from Above". Charge and Siege stances is increased by 1 sounds pretty good though, and wold fit the theme like a glove.

I like this second one. This kind of crowd-control skill could be cool. I have to think about if we can technically do it without making organizers lose their minds.


Thanks for all the ideas and keep them coming.

[YoungSot]

Fog of War - Too boring. Crazy idea for a replacement: you don't have to post your deck after winning or losing. you just pm it to the appropriate organizer. Would need to be moved to t2. It's a totally new ability and fits the Fog of War concept perfectly, in that it obscures detailed enemy knowledge forcing them to rely on second hand reports. I hope you agree.

Yea, this is one of those boring "take X number of cards" skills that me and Kuro added because we ran out of ideas. I think we should replace all of them, apart from the one which gives Supernovas, therefore being much less situational. That "PM to organizer" won't work though. Way too much communication needed. Might sounds simple, but all those tiny things add up and lead to fail or big workload.

Are you sure it's not doable? The battle organizer would just check the relevant topics as usual in order to run the salvage/discard program, and the player would, instead of posting their deck, post "Fog of War" and then PM their deck to the organizer. Just having to check their PMs after seeing "Fog of War" is such a small difficulty, that I think it would be worth it.

[ak65ala]

Now, I agree this tree is a bit PvP heavy.  I am struggling with finding some concepts that 'fit' and add to its flavor, so I'm just going to throw a range of ideas out there and see where the wind takes them.

Talent trees feel: Cloud rider is about movement, storm bringer is about PvP.  Cloud Rider needs something more.... Something more along the lines of PvE...

Mobility: Right now, it's kind of lackluster.  You stop caltrops, earth's champion skill.... and.... not much else.  Perhaps pairs (OP!) with death march.  If we make moving across mountains cost 3 AP, and add maybe another 1 or two other things this will effect, it'll be good. Needs Buff (passive).

Assault Team: I don't like this ability.  I don't like it.  Remove. (see below to my new suggestions)

Fog of War: Remove.

Calm before the Storm: First big change here.  Move it to T2 next to Rising storm.  Make it "For each day you are not locked in battle, use 1 additional upgraded card in your next battle, up to 6." I love the idea of having two T2 abilities that oppose each other yet meld and Rising storm and calm before the storm does this both in name and in what they do.  The good air players will maximize time between battles but still be attacking for maximum upped card bonus. Change.

Ambush: Make T1, move over to Stormbringer's side.  Make it only work if you attack, charge, etc..  It makes no sense what-so-ever to gain an 'ambush' buff if you are fortified or neutral. Change.

Sniper: Make T1 on the Stormbringer's side as well.  It's really restrictive.  1: you have to be on the same hex as your target. 2:you have to name a creature (they might not have that creature!) 3: it only gets rid of 1 card... Sure, it's a targeted card, but with abilities like Duplication from aether.... that's not a huge deal.  And it's only creatures.  Elements that rely on permanents, spells more won't be hurt by this at all. Change.

Rising Storm: I like this skill.  See CbtS above.  No Change.

Drift: This is much more complicated now.  I liked 1 AP for movement.  As a T3, I don't think it should be based on if you are in enemy territory or not.  I see where you might think this is a problem, but for a tree without much else going for it, this skill made air on par with most other movement skills. Revert.

Vortex Tornado: Good change from the original.  Balanced.

Terror from Above: Go with Kuroaitou's suggestion.  With the upgrades from the stormbringer side, air is good on upgrades.

Suggestions:
So, now I have like a totally empty Cloud rider side.  We need 1 T1 ability and 2 T2.  This allows us to go with a new 'theme' for cloud rider, including their mobility. 

• Tail Wind: "2 AP, move up to 2 spaces in the direction of the wind."  This adds another piece for the developers to update on the map, but here is my idea, on that cool compass thingy, add a wind direction, be it in 1 of the six hex movement directions or no wind.  Then, air elementals have a 1/7 shot of having the wind go in the right way and getting a good bonus from it.  This is my idea to replace assault team. Now we can use this wind direction to add other fun abilities.
• From Thin Air: "Passive, gain 2 electrum per day." Simple ability, T1 worthy and gives air a source of revenue.
• Leap & Glide: "Passive: If you move to a lower elevation, your movement costs less." I have no idea how to make this work in that small text box.  Concept is if you move from a mountain to a hill, your movement costs 1AP.  From a Mountain to the plains, forest, water, it costs 0 AP.  From a mountain to a hill, it costs 1 AP.  You can't chain it to make yourself go further with crazy movement, but it might become broken with 1 AP normal movement.  Just one of my ideas.
• Enchant Relic: "2 AP, you may change a relic into a stone of return." Another random idea, spawned from enchant artifact card.
• Fog of War: "3 AP + relic, cover the map with a fog.  All characters are obscured within the fog.  Lasts 1 day." It would create a 7 hex area (your hex and all the surrounding ones) where no one can see who is on what hex.  A area of effect stealth.  I can see so many fun uses for this.  You can still charge targets and do all everything else, but it keeps you from knowing who moved where, etc...
• Wind's Blessing: "3 AP, Move in the direction of the wind and gain 10 electrium and 1 relic" Or however much needed to make it whatever tier you put it in worthy.
• Second Wind: "Working only costs 2AP, but only usable once a day."
• Dove of Peace: "Passive: Gain no negative reputation from quests."
• Erode: "4 AP + relic, "Use the wind to search for hidden treasures, sometimes has unintended consequences..." Can be used anywhere and has some fun consequences.  Could find gems, gold, could cause a river to turn into a lake, could turn a mountain into a hill, hill into a plains, desert into a wasteland... I think more world shaping abilities would be fun.

I'm out of thought brainpower!  Perhaps there is something here that is usable...

[Kuroaitou]

Sidenote: I just realized that 'Dust Cloud' was removed from the tree, when it was a Tier 2 skill. Is there a reason why it was removed? (too similar to Aether's anti-siege skill, bad theme, etc.?)

I like this second one. This kind of crowd-control skill could be cool. I have to think about if we can technically do it without making organizers lose their minds.

We actually can make it simpler.

Pressure Squall (4 AP):
"All non-Air & non-Ally players in a target adjacent hex are automatically blown in that direction 3 hexes away, canceling their current movement and stances. 2 day CD."

By 'Blown in that direction', whatever way the Air Champion has to face in order to target that hex, they get blown 3 hexes away. (It can also be seen as - move the players 3 hexes farthest away of the person using Pressure Squall).

ak65ala, I don't think we should move 'Ambush' and 'Sniper' onto the Storm Rider side; just because the right side of tree has two major PvP talents, doesn't mean we should just automatically 'stuff' one tree with all the pvp and the other with all pve just because. While some trees of the other elements are more pvp oriented on one side, I think that most of the elements should have at least 1 skill within the T1 and T2 levels that doesn't follow the current trend of skills.

Also, the reason why Drift is made as is (I like it personally) is because having 1 AP for movement completely negates the Assault Team movement skill, which, by the way, would be useful as a starting skill when the Air team coordinates their players properly. Then again, Tailwind is a nice 'movement' based touch, but it would also require another level of management for the map (managing the direction of the wind as an organizer).

In regards to your skill suggestions, Erode cannot be done (WAY too much map management at a low level), while Fog of War would require more map additions/organization. The other ones seem like cool ideas though if the 'Block the Sun' and 'Weapon Mastery' skills are replaced...

[Essence]

Air Champion skill should combine the traits of Cloud Rider (speed, movement) and of Storm Bringer (AoE damage and effects.)

Thus:

Ride the Lightning
XAP: Move up to X squares in a straight line, minimum 3. All characters in hexes you move over or into must discard 4 cards and lose 2 AP from their next Day. All character adjacent to hexes you move through must discard 2 cards. You begin the next day with 2 fewer AP than normal.


Maybe add a Relic?  Of course, it's the player's responsibility to PM all affected targets.
Just throwing it out there.

[YoungSot]

Air Champion skill should combine the traits of Cloud Rider (speed, movement) and of Storm Bringer (AoE damage and effects.)

Thus:

Ride the Lightning
XAP: Move up to X squares in a straight line, minimum 3. All characters in hexes you move over or into must discard 4 cards and lose 2 AP from their next Day. All character adjacent to hexes you move through must discard 2 cards. You begin the next day with 2 fewer AP than normal.


Maybe add a Relic?  Of course, it's the player's responsibility to PM all affected targets.
Just throwing it out there.

I think you've got the right idea, creating an offensive effect based on movement would unite the two trees nicely. I'm not a big fan of discard-forcing skills, since it doesn't benefit the player much, and their are already AP reducing attacks, so it might be nice to make it something different. But... I don't have any better ideas atm, so hopefully I'll edit this post with something awesome soon.


Also, if we are going to have wind direction, then perhaps use ak65ala's Tailwind skill, but make it a buff to other movement skills instead of a separate action. Something simple like: "if you take a movement action in the direction of wind, you may move 1 additional hex in that direction."
It certainly wouldn't be OP, since it only comes into play if the wind happens to favor you, but it would be a nice way to make good movement even better with planning and luck. It wouldn't compete with other movement abilities, it would compliment them.

On a semi-related note, wind direction should probably have some consistency, blowing in 1 direction for 2-5 days or so (randomized) so that skills that are affected by wind can be predicted to a degree, "if the wind holds steady."

[the dictator]

Yeah, I really like the idea of adding wind (and wind related skills).

On the wind itself, how about giving it a weighed random direction. Something like: 1/3 chance to keep it's direction, 1/5 to change 1 step (From N to NW or NE), 1/10 to change 2 steps (from N to SW or SE) and 1/15 change to change completely (from N to S).
So, when the wind is north today, the wind tomorrow has a:

33% chance to stay North
20% chance to change to NE
10% chance to change to SE
7% chance to change to S
10% chance to change to SW
20% chance to change to NW