I wanted to make a huge feeedback post, but not before my team is eliminated. Now it is, so here we go:
(keep in mind that my team ended up in the second half among the teams, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt- Obviously we did something wrong, so apparently we failed to grasp the big picture, and thus I may be very wrong with some of my points)
1. Application:
- Less and less ppl apply, and I wonder why. War is not a newb-friendly event, and it is tedious work for the experienced player, hence they burn out after a while. I wonder if this can be helped.
- Thanks to this, the signup period felt too long (even with some mayor holidays right in the middle of signups)
- I think the "unupped cards" table may be a bit redundant? If someone doesnt have it, they wont be picked anyways.
2. Auction:
- I didnt really like the blind auction, but I guess it is a necessary thing, and you have to be a general or WM to see the big picture?
3. Member roles
- General, Lt: I think finally the amount of upps feel just right.
- Strategist: OP. I say this despite the overall disappointing performance of the strategists this war. I think that was bc of the subpar strategist choices instead of the strategist being less OP.
- Berzerker: I honestly thought noone is gonna use this skill much, but there were a few uses. We, for example, used it a lot (and we ended up in the lower half among the teams, so berserker is not too useful after all?)
- QM: The idea was nice, but I dont think the role is powerful enough? (definitely not the same level as strategist). Also, inputting QM (and berzerker) choices into the vault tool was not too straightforward, could this be helped?
- Standard bearer: Before war I thought this is pretty powerful, but in reality It turned out weak (for us atleast). QM and SB saves a few cards at best, while the correct use of Strut can win games, hence salvaging 6 instead of discarding 27. Clearly not the same level.
- Support: Feels weak, the system is nice but the current usefulness of relics is just too low. Last war they were too powerful, so a compromise between the 2 methods would be nice.
Overall, I'd like to see the gen and Lt as the 2 most powerful roles. Now the strut is on par with the general, with lt coming second, and the rest are somewhere way below.
4. Vault building:
- 18/9 rule is pretty nice, again, after much trial and error in the previous wars, the numbers feel right. If anything, this makes aether a bit OP since no other team can field 2 dimshield decks without salvaging.
5. Rounds:
- Please, no EC that denies options (no roles EC, half convert EC ). Theres just no way that those kinds of ECs hurt each tam equally. I think this was my biggest problem with this war. (even tho they didnt really affect us, they are bad, bad design.)
- No EC round? You ran out, or what?
- ECs that affect oher rounds than the current one are bad design IMO. They are yet another burden to keep track of, and they basically mean "no EC for this round"
- I like that the pairings are with names now, but I dislike that roles only revealed after the deckbuilding phase ends. This adds another "randomness" factor to the already random "rock-paper-scissors" way of MUs. It would ge great to know the opponent's role and plan accordingly.
- 24 convert felt okay.
6. Matches:
- There needs to be a consensus and enforced desynch rule.
- The discard numbers feel a bit odd, but I liked the final 27 which means you can save 3 cards from every deck.
- best of 5 duels and 6 salvage felt fine as usual.