War #5 - Suggestions and Feedback

[Avenger]

I would remove propaganda and keep event cards. (Skill vs. popularity that should decide war).

[Elbirn]

I'm all for keeping propaganda, but remove bonuses from it. Having the prettiest pictures and winning the popularity contest should not equate to rewards in a skill based environment. However, I LOVE the idea, and there are a lot of people that enjoy having a creative outlet via this game.

[Avenger]

I'm all for keeping propaganda, but remove bonuses from it. Having the prettiest pictures and winning the popularity contest should not equate to rewards in a skill based environment. However, I LOVE the idea, and there are a lot of people that enjoy having a creative outlet via this game.

Sure, i didn't mean to remove all the trash talking, funny pics and cartoons

[PlayerOa]

In my opinion, it is quite unnecessary rewarding for having the best (or just 'coolest element') propaganda submission, as it does not relate to PvP, which War is all about.

Event Cards are much needed for keeping the spirit up, as long as they are not unbalanced or unfair *ahem* Chaos Lord.

And please, keep the Auction as it is. Maybe it is possible to make some changes according to fav element (e.g. an easier chance to join that element) or other small changes, but at least I enjoy pretty well how the Auction fares.

[deuce22]

just remove voting from propaganda. You can keep bonuses for completing propaganda. Although, I wouldnt be opposed if propaganda was completely removed either.

I really, really don't like when we mess with the vault later on with event cards or whatever.  The hard choices shouldn't be which cards to discard, or left up to RNG.  The strategy is in building the vault to begin with, and then making the hard choices on how to play with it. 

I agree with this


Event cards are by and large bad.  I have seen a handful that were balanced for each and every team, but more often than not they aren't.  Not to knock people making the event cards, it's just really difficult to make good ones.  I would get rid of these in a flash.

Kind of disagree, I think event cards make war unique and fun. Unbalanced event cards can drastically change a war (examples in war 3 and 4), but last war was more balanced with a couple exceptions. I think many people (including myself) already commented on those. I believe the event cards used in war are headed in the right direction, but always room for improvement.


If you want more variation in War I would suggest bans like we've used successfully in other events.  RR had some interesting ideas for Trial bans that added strategy and variation to the matches.  An idea could be like at the start of War every element gets to pick a franchise card of theirs that they and only they may use.  So like Entropy might pick Nova, and then they are the only team that can use Nova.

bans in war are bad...very bad.

So while I like vault building I actually dislike the whole discarding and whittling down mechanic we use to eliminate players.  I would massively change War by giving every player 60 cards and 3 lives.  When you've lost 3 matches you're out, and you take the 60 cards you brought to the vault with you.  While you're still alive your 60 cards are shared with your team mates.  Put in special rules where a player can sacrifice themselves to save the General if the General is about to run out of lives.  Or that support team can work to adding an extra life for the soldiers if they are successful.  IMO it would be simple and would make War a lot more War-like as opposed to spreadsheet management-like.

I just don't see this happening.


And lastly I personally do not like pvp'ing with upgrades.  More upgrades ≠ more fun.  I liked it back when only the General and Lt. had a handful of upgrades because it was meaningful, but maybe that's just me.

I disagree to an extent. Lots of upgrades is not fun. But too few upgrades can really screw with deckbuilding. I really liked kev's relic/upgrade concept last war. I just really really hated support teams and how they influenced the upgrade count. I think making it more like the game Risk would be more balanced. Each team gains a relic for winning at least 1 match. Keep the rule of 1 upgrade per 2 relics.

[kev]

I would massively change War by giving every player 60 cards and 3 lives.  When you've lost 3 matches you're out, and you take the 60 cards you brought to the vault with you.  While you're still alive your 60 cards are shared with your team mates.  Put in special rules where a player can sacrifice themselves to save the General if the General is about to run out of lives.  Or that support team can work to adding an extra life for the soldiers if they are successful.  IMO it would be simple and would make War a lot more War-like as opposed to spreadsheet management-like.

Doesn't that make vault tracking completely impossible?
Wouldn't losing cards in 60-card chunks hurt deck variety seen?
Do you still limit team-wide use of any one card?
What happens to sdpc?

[majofa]

Just some quick thoughts:

Propaganda, but everyone gets equal amount of cards. (no vote)

Auction, the same, but find a way to make it fair for Generals who can't be on when the auction starts.
1 card per element ban, instead of 2.
Remove support teams... just have them be on the actual teams. (they felt so left out, and most of them disappeared)

Increase starting vault back to 500, since there will be 8 people on each team.
Either 24/12 or 18/9 max of each card.

Keep member roles.. eliminate assassin, since random removal of the vault is bad. Invent new fun roles.

For matchups have the players listed so people can set up times. Roles are later applied to each player (except General, maybe Lieutenant also)

Event cards add a little to rounds, but not too much... and no adding or automatic removal of cards from the vault.

No rounds that have no salvage.

Substitutions allowed with normal no salvage penalty.  Role: Substitutor (or another name) that can sub one time per round for free.

Byes: Same as last War, EXCEPT, all teams that can field the highest amount of decks can get the bye, which is randomly selected from them. No team can have bye if there are other qualified teams that can get a bye.

Sharing of information is allowed lol

[plastiqe]

bans in war are bad...very bad.

I would say that the inter element blandness is bad, or in laymans terms every team having a nova-grabby deck variation is bad.  If Team Aether got to pick one of their Aether cards to franchise for the entire War, and every other team got to pick one of thier cards you'd have a strategic decision to make on which card you wanted to limit from the other teams during the pre-War vault building. 

Maybe it's just an event card idea but like I said I don't like messing with vaults after they are made.  I would have this as a starting rule as you are building your vault, not a reactive ability you use to screw other teams once you know their vault.

Doesn't that make vault tracking completely impossible?
Wouldn't losing cards in 60-card chunks hurt deck variety seen?
Do you still limit team-wide use of any one card?
What happens to sdpc?

If you're smart about your original vault building (which is my whole point really, War should be all about that) then you'll be ready to adapt when you lose a player.

Lemme try to explain it a bit more:
Pre-War Prep
Each team has 6 players.
Each player brings 60 unique cards with them to the vault.
Vault now consists of 360 cards that anyone can use for deckbuilding, as long as everyone stays alive.
You could still have some communal cards in addition to each players 60.  The propoganda cards could be part of the vault but belong to no-one, or salvaged cards or the franchise card could go here.

So it's kinda like each player is coming into War with 60 cards not unlike the Sideboard event.  Your cards can mingle with your team mates cards while they're still alive but you need playable decks of your own in case they die.

* Having player lives and players that die is more War like.
* It rewards individual success.
*It adds strategy when you're planning who gets which deck in a round to give someone on 1 life a really good deck to keep them (and their cards) alive.
* It adds strategy during vault building when you not only need a working 360 card vault, you also need working 60 cards sections for each player.
* It makes vault management really, really easy.

I would also add a rule for vault construction that every team has unlimited access to pillars but not pends.  Pends you have to bring with you because they're more useful.



Another way to do event cards which would be fair is to have a full set of balanced cards made before War begins, like 12 different cards.  Then give one copy of each event card to each team and let the teams decide in which round they use which event cards.  More strategy, less RNG, cards are known beforehand so you can plan for and against them.

I would also give a handicap bonus of extra starting vault cards to teams that finished poorly in the last War.  Something like 12 extra cards for last place, 9 for 2nd last, 6 for 3rd last and 3 for 4th last.

[majofa]

Also, have conversion be based a bit on how many matches a team lost... there's always the part of war where a team is just above the threshold where they start fielding less deck and they are always low on pillars/pends.

[deuce22]

bans in war are bad...very bad.

I would say that the inter element blandness is bad, or in laymans terms every team having a nova-grabby deck variation is bad.  If Team Aether got to pick one of their Aether cards to franchise for the entire War, and every other team got to pick one of thier cards you'd have a strategic decision to make on which card you wanted to limit from the other teams during the pre-War vault building. 

Maybe it's just an event card idea but like I said I don't like messing with vaults after they are made.  I would have this as a starting rule as you are building your vault, not a reactive ability you use to screw other teams once you know their vault.

Bans in war are still bad...very bad. Imagine this scenario, which is VERY likely. Aether bans dims, fire bans deflags, darkness bans steals. Gonna be honest, dims become very very OP. And given there are 9 other elements yet to make bans, they can become even more OP. Even as an event card, this can troll an entire round.

Let's say we flip the banning around. For aether, if either fractal or dims were banned for us due to event card, that's nearly half our decks that are basically dead. For other elements, I don't think it's quite as significant, but it still ruins many decks and makes the point of having a card vault pointless.

[ddevans96]

There are way more hidden benefits to propo than obvious ones. In reality, a topic with just the element's name is enticing to a newer player that uses said element. This leads them to the topic, which almost certainly mentions war, which leads them to inquire about war, which encourages them to signup, which leads to them becoming an active forum member. Does this happen every time? No, but it can. Many people have gotten involved in forums almost completely due to war.

There is one blatantly simple way to dampen the popularity contest, at least as far as players go: require propaganda to be finished prior to the end of the auction and not have player names or avatars as part of either the banner or the speech.

Also, tone the bonuses for propaganda down to two for completion, four for second place, and six for first place.

[Acsabi44]

My turn 

Propaganda:
Keep it. It is a fun way to do something non-vault related. As far as I can remember, most every team where I took place enjoyed making it. But don't give war-related rewards for it.

Auction:
I think most problems with the current system are behind-the-scenes machinations noticeable only to generals, so maybe I'm wrong here, but I would definitely keep the auction the way it is. I would max banned elements in maybe 2. +2 starting bid for each banned element is fine.

Starting vault:
Last war's vault felt to be small, even compared to the number of teammembers. I don't really mind it, cause it actually promotes clever vault design. The max number of cards is a much more serious problem. No matter how we adjust it, some teams will have a bigger advantage and some will be at a disadvantage, especially when it comes to off-element cards. I think I'd like to see a flexible system where the starting numbers are something like 16/8, and the teams are able to buy "extra copies" at the expense of maximum vault size, maybe -1 for in-element cards and -2 for off-element. You want that extra10th dimshield? sure, but you gonna pay for it.

Member roles:
IMO it is good to have distinct roles for every member. Help to keep newbies in pace. A few remarks: 1, give an interesting trait to strategist. MY suggestion was "strategist goes first" or such. 2, Definitely remove the random discard from assasin. 3, Allow everything to general. Edit any member's post, do any task etc.

Event cards:
During the unofficial PVP event I hosted, participiants semed to like that the event cards weren't mandatory. You could ignore them if you wanted to, but you could risk something (mostly, alternative (aka stricter) deckbuilding rules) for the promise of some benefit.

Duels:
Definitely post names at pairing. Also, I dislike swapping around member roles like mad. IMO if a teammember has a fix role throughout the war, it is more likely that s/he will carry out the assigned tasks with greater responsibility.

Subbing:
I like free subbing with a small penalty attached to it, but that doesn't mean I don't like the role of substitute (te advatage, obviously would be that the small penalty doesn't apply to substitute.) A few remarks: 1, No player should play more than 2 matches in any round. 2, In the case of a sub win, the defeated team should tell if the sub salvages 0 or 6 cards. That would eliminate (or lessen) strategic subbing.

SDPC:
- My opinion is that a very modest first round penalty is good for eveybody. The first round is a warmup anyways. But if we stick with slowly increasing discards, then the war will never be over. I think I would go with doubling each round, as follows: 6/12/24/30/full deck (in case of 30+ decks).
- Salvage is OK with 6 cards IMO. Another thing that may be interesting is to include a kind of "checkpoint" maybe after every 4 or 5 rounds, where teams are allowed to "trade" 2 off-element cards for one in-element, for a maximum of 6 in-element cards. That would serve 2 main functions: 1, reducing the dispariy between teams who "easily uses off-element cards" and teams who "has a hard time using most off-element cards", and 2, makes life easier for generally underused elements (for example, life has a very hard time to salvage in-element cards bc hardly anybody splashes life)
- Converting seems to be at a good balance right now; enough for minor corrections, but won't save any team it they failed at initial vault building. IMO this is exactly the role convert should cover.
- Penalties: I'm sure we won't need them this war