War #12 - Planned Changes (Work In Progress) (Discussion)

[CactusKing]

1. limit sofree (max 3-4 copies per deck) - probably the most fair option, while keeping it functional
2. change min in-element cards to 30-40% - not sure how this one would work out, could ruin the whole foundation of war
3. ban all shards - been my preference for several wars now

**It also may not be a bad idea to alternate allowing shards to every other war kind of like alternating upgraded tourneys.

I agree with this. It took a few wars before shards where even allowed in war for a reason. It wouldn't hurt not to have them in a war.

I'm really in favour - and has always been in favour - of restricting or baning certain cards. Vault restrictions dosen't seem so powerful to me, considering conversions.
A deck limit restriction seems a lot more fair. I'd like to see that on Sofree and Dims, max 3-4 each deck. There are other cards to be considered as well. Sop is not one of them.

Removing cards dosen't limit the meta as some people think. Removing cards changes the meta and changes is fun.

Is that because you think SoP is balanced or because restricting it to 3-4 in a deck makes no difference to its viability?

[dawn to dusk]

Of the cards listed as T0/1 in DD's post, which I agree with, limiting to 4 copies makes no difference to SoP, Vagger, Fractal, and somewhat Graboid. Which is why an alternate method of restriction must be in place. Personally, I agree with an upgrade restriction. 2 less upgrades per T0/1 card included in decks (which also soft limits to 4 copies for Soldiers with 8 upgrades), and 1 less upgrade per T2 card included

Spoiler for DD's Table:

tier 0:	SoFr, SoP
tier 1:	Fractal, V-Dagger, Graboid, Sundial
tier 2:	Fire Bolt, Blue Nymph, Bone Wall, Dim Shield, Discord, Miracle or Sanc

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Sop is nowhere near as powerful as sofree.
I dislike putting it in the same tier, imo it is tier 1, but if people wont accept that, then at least accept that sofree is tier -1.

Regardless, the fact they are the only 2 shards in ths table shows you how dumb it would be to ban all shards. Would make more sense banning the strongest card from each element.

[ddevans96]

I agree with this. It took a few wars before shards where even allowed in war for a reason. It wouldn't hurt not to have them in a war.

There was no legitimate reason, people were just scared of change. If the issue was really just SoP and SoFr - which were pretty obviously the two most powerful shards even then - those could have been banned and the rest could have been allowed. Now that they've actually seen action, it is abundantly clear that the remaining 10 are fine - you are suggesting that we should consider banning 10 cards from War simply because of their name. There's just no sense to that, I'm sorry.

Removing cards dosen't limit the meta as some people think. Removing cards changes the meta and changes is fun.

Restricting cards is a healthier meta change than removing them. If you ban SoP and SoFr, other strong cards they check need banned, and then their checks, and where do you draw the line?

Plus, the game hasn't changed in almost six years. At this point, all cards should be permitted in the biggest event, which above all else should showcase every element. If some cards need multiple layers of restrictions for that to be enjoyable, I'm all for it, but no card should be banned outright.

Sop is nowhere near as powerful as sofree.
I dislike putting it in the same tier, imo it is tier 1, but if people wont accept that, then at least accept that sofree is tier -1.

I agree that SoP isn't in the same class as SoFr, but it is a class above any other card. For the purposes of restrictions, it doesn't really make sense to have two tiers of one card each, and common opinion disagrees with us, so that concession has to be made for my suggestion.

But even being in the same tier, SoP is unaffected by a four-copy limit while SoFr is, so all other restrictions of them being equal, that would still separate the two. That's literally the best compromise possible - de jure equality, de facto separation. Everyone is happy, relatively speaking.

[deuce22]

I at first wanted to remove market, but we had a talk about it and want to give it at least one last try before turning it down. We feel like the coupons might bring a unique twist and are trying to balance that as much as we can.

Removing market would make sofree even more op, just saying.

And I, personally, am completely against straight out banning cards from war.

For the sideboard role, i'm not sure if i've talked about it with other WM's yet, but my idea was to keep it, with a -3 upgrades on it. If you want to use the sideboard role, you must use 3 less upgrades in your deck.

I didn’t say banning was the most fair option. If you limit the max number of sofree in a deck, it’s weaker but still viable war deck. And if market prices are kept (you already know where I stand on that), then its price can come back down, which would give air a decent boost to its initial vault.

For your sideboard idea, that may work. Likely depends what you set the baseline number of upgrades per deck at. But it may weaken it enough to where it may be used quite a bit less. My preference is still to scrap it, and if you use in an EC, then I like your idea to reduce the number of upgrades.

[Kalinuial]

- Agree with moving towards a simpler war is better for all

- I like the idea of the draft, although don't know enough about the pros/cons of draft vs. auction; draft seems simpler

- Strongly in favor of removing sideboard as a standard role and using as EC

- Variable team sizes seems okay, just as long as the team/community aspect is retained; do not want to see 1 to 2 people on a "team" practically soloing war

-Isn't it important to distinquish cards by un-upped and upped? For example, the difference b/w upped/unupped sundials is considerably greater than upped/unupped fractal.  Does un-upped Sundial even belong in the top tiers chart?  It would be better to be specific about upped/unupped when discussing treatment of top tier cards
 
-Damselfly and Gemfinder should be thought about when considering treatment of SoF and SoP.   These cards significantly speed up deck strategies and increase the damage bottom line (not to mention quanta producing/denial-resistance benefits).  Damselfly, in particular, needs to be looked at.  This little all-star is used prolifically in air decks: grabbow, dark domin, SoF mono, Mono domin, Blue Nymph, SoP variants.  I haven't reviewed gemfinder as thoroughly yet, but I suspect they are mainly used in SoP variants or immolation (not common in recent War decks).  As of now, the best idea I can think of is restricting upgraded copies to 1/2 in decks using SoF/SoP. 

-Is there a good reason to restrict the max team size to 5? Some generals will probably opt for 3 person teams.  War 9 had 6 person teams.  So, how about 6 person max - this might help in the event several gens go for low # teams and there's more applicants than can fit the other 5 person max teams; it's also a moot suggestion if applications aren't that high. 


 

[Manuel]

tier works in fighting games because i can pick the 2/3 strongest pg in the game no matter what, or in things like pokemon where u have 600 minipg and for giving more variety and way to play, u divide everything in tiers based on the pg "strenght"

that 3 tiers nerfs:

3 strong but borderline cards that can be used by few elements (sofree, blue nymphs, fire bolt)
4 support/tech/cool (?) cards used by every team (dagger dims fractal graboid?)
5 cards useless for some teams, broken as hell for others (sopa sundial sanct/miracle bw discord)

other than ironically nerf almost every light's deck that tier doesn't change nothing, the top tier decks will be always dark domin, grabbow, maybe more pugons rather than fractal and maybe u will hurt aether a little bit more than air

i have never played a non p2w game where something got indirectly buffed by a nerf of a top card
about auction and market prices: there is no reason in the world to waste almost a month for an auction, market prices currently have no sense, even vanilla cards are too expensiv (and no, giving coupons so u can discount dims by 15 when u can only discount 5 for deflag doesn't make things balanced)

playing by default 5 matches/round knowing there aren't enough players is terrible (if u wanna see a master vs a master make a new competition about that or rework the grandmaster one), war isn't brawl, if u wanna see more decks and strategies used don't make cards so expensive and don't try to nerf the most used decks, u are trying to move war in two opposite directions

[ddevans96]

5 cards useless for some teams, broken as hell for others (sopa sundial sanct/miracle bw discord)

In a discussion with a WM, we mocked up some vaults. We were generally in agreement that under that War's rules, SoP should be a core deck in 7, a borderline deck kept in 3, and a borderline deck out in 2. I've had similar conversations with top players and that was also the agreement often reached (sometimes only 6 core decks but always 10 in). In other words - despite being seen as the second-best card in the game by most people, it's underutilized (in fact, I would say SoFr is too)

Every element except Gravity can and typically does run a Sanc stall, almost always with Miracle and Dial (and Dial is free with a cheap ability, so it gets put in a lot of other decks too). Most elements use Discord and BW duos, and they're strong enough cards that even the non-standard ones are viable.

i have never played a non p2w game where something got indirectly buffed by a nerf of a top card

Smaller events here have had their metas benefit by restricting key cards in different ways. I'm very sure a good system can be developed for War.

[Blacksmith]

1. limit sofree (max 3-4 copies per deck) - probably the most fair option, while keeping it functional
2. change min in-element cards to 30-40% - not sure how this one would work out, could ruin the whole foundation of war
3. ban all shards - been my preference for several wars now

**It also may not be a bad idea to alternate allowing shards to every other war kind of like alternating upgraded tourneys.

I agree with this. It took a few wars before shards where even allowed in war for a reason. It wouldn't hurt not to have them in a war.

I'm really in favour - and has always been in favour - of restricting or baning certain cards. Vault restrictions dosen't seem so powerful to me, considering conversions.
A deck limit restriction seems a lot more fair. I'd like to see that on Sofree and Dims, max 3-4 each deck. There are other cards to be considered as well. Sop is not one of them.

Removing cards dosen't limit the meta as some people think. Removing cards changes the meta and changes is fun.

Is that because you think SoP is balanced or because restricting it to 3-4 in a deck makes no difference to its viability?

Right, reducing the amount of sop in a deck dosen't do much, unless you reduce it to 1-2. I don't think a nerf is super important considering that several elements can use them and the elements benefitting the most aren't dominating war.

I agree with this. It took a few wars before shards where even allowed in war for a reason. It wouldn't hurt not to have them in a war.

There was no legitimate reason, people were just scared of change. Back then I was pro adding shards to war just because I wanted change. And for the same reason I'm not against baning them again.If the issue was really just SoP and SoFr - which were pretty obviously the two most powerful shards even then back then sop did just give +1 each turn. Sofo was really badass. Sogree and Sor was also really really powerfull. So it wasn't just 2 shards. But even after the shard change they weren't added for 1-2 wars.- those could have been banned and the rest could have been allowed. Now that they've actually seen action, it is abundantly clear that the remaining 10 are fine - you are suggesting that we should consider banning 10 cards from War simply because of their name. There's just no sense to that, I'm sorry.

Removing cards dosen't limit the meta as some people think. Removing cards changes the meta and changes is fun.

Restricting cards is a healthier meta change than removing them. If you ban SoP and SoFr, other strong cards they check need banned, and then their checks, and where do you draw the line?This seems to be the big question. For me restricting or baning should be done when
1: A card makes it impossible for another team to beat them.
2: When a dominating team has a card in which they gain even greater dominans over other teams. Note I'm not against weaker teams having cards that could be seen as op, like SOP for instance. The main problem is when these cards are found in top teams like Air and Aether
3: I don't think simply being OP is reason enough for baning or restricting. Cards like graboids and nova may be OP, but they are also used by almost all teams and are therefore balanced out.

Plus, the game hasn't changed in almost six years. At this point, all cards should be permitted in the biggest event, I disagree that baning isn't an option. In order to create versatility and attract players to war, war needs to change from time to time. The market was one big change and adding shards was another. I'm not against in principal to change war. If that includes baning I'm not necessarily against it. which above all else should showcase every element. If some cards need multiple layers of restrictions for that to be enjoyable, I'm all for it, but no card should be banned outright.Considering the current set of cards and the current rules, picking a handfull of cards to ban is not the best way forward imo.

- Variable team sizes seems okay, just as long as the team/community aspect is retained; do not want to see 1 to 2 people on a "team" practically soloing warAbout half of the war teams I've been in have been runned to 80% by 2 players. It's quite common one player does 50% or more in war.

[Zawadx]

I won't say much in these discussions because I'm not a good designer, and even thought I was the most recent WM I was more focused on managing war to give good input for what enhanced the strategy/fun of the event. Still, here are my two cents and some crazy ideas.

I think draft is the way to go. Auction was returned after war 8 as people felt it was more popular, but the hassle it is to run is a bit too much. Auction is fun, which should be considered vs the complexity it adds to decide whether it's kept (I personally don't think the strategic considerations in auction are big enough compared to draft to factor here, but maybe that's me). I think since you're adding in variable team sizes, the simplicity of draft would be the better choice.

Market had two objectives: 1. Balance war between teams 2. Introduce changes to keep meta fresh. It has achieved both objectives a little, but it hasn't achieved them to satisfaction. A big reason is that market doesn't affect things mid-war. Transmutations changes that a bit, but it's effect was minimal. Adding in coupons also doesn't address this issue.  While reading this thread, I had two ideas which might have some effect:

1. Make market relevant in later rounds by adding in secondary vaults, which are added to the main vault in rounds 3 and 6. I don't know what the details would be here, maybe Teams can freely use their points and just start with a bare minimum vault and then add in counter decks as they see fit in round 3. I think this would be very interesting, adding some cool depth.

2. (inspired by dd's tiers) Make market not about cost in vaultbuilding, but about cost/benefit during rounds. The cards which are too strong and to be limited could have penalties for use or inclusion in vault, like reduced upgrades. And cards which are underrepresented can be promoted with some serious benefits, such as being freely upgradeable (perfect for archangel) or counting as 2 cards for deck discards (which would make fodder much more interesting). Do note that even with serious benefits, weak cards won't really see much play as they are still likely to lose and be a net negative for the team. So this system will have to judiciously add penalties to strong cards if the meta is to be shifted. The burden of market balance is still there with this approach, but I think the effects will be much more noticeable.

Also, if strong cards are penalized by reducing upgrades, there should be more freely available upgrades. This can be done by increasing the baseline soldier upgrades, or by increasing the availability of upgrades.

[InsignificantWeeaboo]

So far, from what I've read, the main consensus for change is:

• Find someway to limit the more OP/strong cards, such as SoFree and SoPa.
• Change the Auction into a Draft system.
• Make war simpler overall.
• Either balance market more, or replace it with an entirely different system.

Personally, I agree with the idea of switching to Draft and making war simple. While the idea of changing the Market system sounds appealing, I'm not sure if there's any alternative that can be better than it. I can see a bit of potential in the coupon system, if it's done right; I'm just not sure what the best way to execute the coupons is.

I also really like the idea of Zawadx's version of the Market, where certain cards have extra bonuses/penalties for purchasing them. The secondary vault idea sounds like a good idea, but I feel like that could get overpowered/exploited quickly. Maybe make it so that they can't be used as "health points", or have a certain number of cards in the secondary vault decay on X amount of turns. Another alternative I came up with is making the secondary vault weaker than the regular vault (2 cards discarded from the secondary vault = 1 card discarded from regular vault). Yet another idea I came up with is to have a max limit of the amount of cards you can store into the secondary vault assuming it can be used as a secondary "health bar". I know that this could potentially be extremely complicated, but these are my two cents.

[mathman101]

The WarMasters have been discussing some of the feedback that has been provided in this thread and we thank you for the multiple comments and different views and ideas, and also look forward to more comments and assistance in making sure we bring the community what it wants as best we can for this awesome event.


We have added two (2) polls in this thread. We have discussed the ideas for both auction and draft system as there seems to be viable pros and cons for each. We see that there are comments for and against each type of system, so would like to offer a poll to see some concrete data for which one the community wants most.
Similarly we have added a poll for the market system regarding removing market and returning to the old system with a 1:1 ratio for buying cards. Again we see there is discussion about these systems, and that there are pros and cons for each. We again want to see some concrete data for which one the community wants most.


Additional changes currently being discussed by the WMs:
- reducing upgrades for the Sideboard boost to balance it more in line with other Soldier boosts
- card tier list, and reductions/restrictions to top tier cards.


As always, your thoughts are welcome. We hope to prepare the official rules post and have it posted fairly soon. Thank you for bearing with us!