War #9 - Planned Changes (Discussion)

[Dm]

EVERYTHING IN THIS THREAD IS NON-FINISHED, IS NOT FINAL, AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
We do however still appreciate your input and feedback about every change.

This is currently a rough draft. We will update it with more specifics as time goes on and we work on it or when one of us has more time.

Resume:

• Shards.
• Auction instead of Drafting.
• Roles are back.
• Vault building now utilizes a market.
• Sideboards.
• Upgrade amount change (lessen over-all, give bonus to in-element).
• Soft Bans (Also known as limitations. (?))

Bolded options in the spoilers below are the ones we are most likely to follow.

Spoiler for Shards:

Currently, the thought around shards is simply allowing them for every war player. We are not entirely against going on unlimited shards, however this would be skewed towards some elements with more powerful shards. The current options regarding shards that we ourselves gathered include:

• Just completely unlimited.
• Unlimited in number, but for only certain roles.
• Limit in numbers for some, all can use.

Nothing has been concretely decided yet, although we appear to be skewed towards "Completely Unlimited."

Spoiler for Auction:

We plan on bringing back Auction because we believe players prefer Auction over Draft (We'd like to hear your voice over this, however.)
To avoid things like AetherGravity outbidding everyone else and grabbing all the good players because AetherGravity is OP as hell and everyone wants to be in AetherGravity, we were planning on making it so that auction has no max bid.
However, we also believe Draft makes for more balanced teams than Auction (which is what max bid tries to fix).
On a different note, there was talk of not being able to ban elements in war. You could have a list of favorite elements that would still, quite obviously, give them bonus when bidding on you, but we would remove the concept of banning an element entirely.

Spoiler for Roles:

Roles are coming back (whether you like it or not), even though we are not sure on how to handle them so far. The discussions around roles include the following:

• In number of roles: We have both considered an amount of roles that is equal to the amount of members in team, or more roles than we have members in teams.
• Then, we have the options to make the roles either static or reassignable. This means, if you're out of the loop, whether you can reassign members to certain roles.
• In a scenario where we have more roles than we have members, we discussed the possibility of reassigning roles that you had not previously picked up at the beginning of war. This means that, for example, there are 7 roles and five team members. We discussed the possibility of being able to use roles that you did not use in the past round or did not pick originally, along with being able to reassign any role to anyone, apart of course from General. The thought that was brought up however was that this idea was excessively hard to predict, which could lead to confusion.
• However, more roles than members in team and static roles would mean that a team that has bad planning or bad understanding could end up with a possibly useless role. While that is also the team's fault, to avoid this scenario role balancing would have to be spot-on. Which is good regardless of changing roles or not anyway.

Ultimately, about this, not much was decided. The current idea is to have more roles than team members, but whether to reassign them or to keep them static is up to debate.

Spoiler for Vault Building:

Vault would utilize a market. You spend points to buy cards in this market.
Each card has a different value based on their power level. Things like Dim Shield are over 9000, and things like skeleton are practically god damn free very low priced. What this actually means is that by looking at past wars we analyze cards and see their win ratio and the decks they are in, and thus make them more expensive depending on their win rate. There are unlimited amount of cards in market. You have a set amount of points (obviously.)
Whether market continues open for the remainder of the war so that each match could give you a set amount of points so that you could use these points to buy stuff instead of salvage directly off their deck, as well as for transmutations, is up for debate, albeit we do like the idea.
We could also possibly give vault a limit so someone doesn't buy infinite skeletons and never loses, for example.

Spoiler for Sideboards:

Six cards in every match (up for debate), first game is played with the original deck.
That's all.
In case you do not know what a sideboard is, a sideboard is a set amount of cards that you can swap for some cards or simply add into your deck during the duels. You may swap them out later as well.

Spoiler for Ugprade amount change:

12/9/6 is a good balance, however we believe that this makes it so some decks become too powerful because of the easily splashed cards from off-element cards. One of the thoughts we had about this was either have a role where one card can permanently upgrade a card or similar (a vault upgrade, so to speak), or utilize a 9/6/4 formation with 3 free in-element upgrades for any and all roles. We are pending towards the latter.

Spoiler for Soft Bans:

Filling later.

[Dm]

Feel free to discuss or ask any questions in here. We will adress all of them and your input is rather important, so the more discussion and feedback this thread gets, the better for all of us. And for you. Since you'll be the one playing in war.

[majofa]

My thoughts:

- Unlimited use of Shards (Some elements are already more powerful and they'll never be truly balanced as they are).

- As long as the 'everyone max bids' thing doesn't happen, I'm good with any system.

- Market - with the Shards being added, the meta should be mixed up enough. (Maybe do this for the next War, after you see how this one goes)

- Yes, roles please. And make them strategic. Maybe not call them roles? How about boosts? You submit them with the deck.
Possible boosts/roles
3 extra upgrades
extra salvage
reduced discard
deck scout (you get to see your opponent's entire deck, posted in your teams section immediately after the deckbuilding deadline)
mercenary (your deck only needs to be 40% in element)
tinkerer (your pillars and pendulums become target element for this match, so your deck is still technically legal and you must use your team's own mark)
roles that give additional, specific card type upgrades
[[[don't have assassin, that one was horrible]]]

- Sideboards - I'm on the fence about these. Maybe have it as a role/boost?

[Submachine]

Making pillars and pendulums free in the market is totally a good move that i support. In past wars, we spent a lot of time to make sure we have enough quanta to fuel our decks. It was not fun at all.

[mrpaper]

Most changes seems fine... some are just tweaking stuff that goes on every war see auction vs draft, roles and sideboard so while not every one agrees... all will be fine with those along as it's well executed and written.

Shards will have a MAJOR impact on war and while giving a price for those cards will limit it.... I highly recommend that it is limited in a way or another for a 1st try in war... but I guess the market could be the way

Speaking of market... would a team pay the same for a card in element as off element?  Aether should have the advantage over those Dims just like death with skeletons!  Also, I would gladly help to build a chart since I have tons of experience in war (and maybe a few others could join)...that needs to be done before I'd get drafted ofc!  Also, fixed price or escalating?  For exemple, from 1 to 6 skeleton they cost 2 each... every skeleton after it cost 3... this would prevent teams relying too much on a few deck and be boring.

Lastly, not letting ppl ban a few elements means any team can have anyone ofc which seems nice.... but forcing a player into an element or with a master he doesn't have the heart to go with will likely means less activity/drops in the event which is the last thing you want.  Bans were not a problem at all save for the fact that many banned gravy, but sofo will help that and with an auction type it doesn't matter much as gravy master could bid on any of the (roughly) 85% that don't ban it.

[majofa]

Making pillars and pendulums free in the market is totally a good move that i support. In past wars, we spent a lot of time to make sure we have enough quanta to fuel our decks. It was not fun at all.

This has already been fixed by allowing unlimited conversions.

[mrpaper]

Making pillars and pendulums free in the market is totally a good move that i support. In past wars, we spent a lot of time to make sure we have enough quanta to fuel our decks. It was not fun at all.

This has already been fixed by allowing unlimited conversions.

This.. also, having em free means you could be bold and run a 60 pillar deck to hope you ran into an immortal deck type and win by deck out... I don't want this.

[Avenger]

Unlimited Shards - 4/5 - a bit wary about this, but I don't mind.
Auction system - 5/5 - hated draft, though its outcome was interesting, i think the auction system lets the generals have more power over the initial team. This gives maximum possible control to them fairly. Those who don't like draft, might want an "advisor" who does the bidding for them? Anyway, i think auction gives an additional layer to the game.
Roles - 4/5 - roles are nice
Market - 3/5 - huh, it might be good or bad. I fear that that pricing like dim = 9000 and skeleton = 1 would make the game totally unbalanced, but i guess that was just an initial silly example. Make sure that elements themselves are balanced (price of elementX cards wouldn't exceed price of elementY cards.).
Otherwise, some elements could start with double vault size, which would seem properly unfair (remember we got shards now).
Sideboards - 3/5 - huh, only if you completely remove event cards. With roles + sideboards + event cards the game will be a complete logistical nightmare, i think.
Upgrade amount - 2/5 - why, last war upgrade count seemed ok to me
Soft bans - 3/5 - same as with Sideboards, too much complexity with EC on top.

[Herden5]

I think unlimited Shards idea is fine, though it gives advantage to elements such as air, where player just PILE those shards (and life as well, where healing comes in bunches now  ). Roles are OK though something new to hear.

[Ginyu]

Shards: I like the idea with the roles, but slight or even no restriction seems also fine, if they are expensive enough in the market. (at least the strong ones in War meta)
Auction: This is gonna be very interesting without max. bids. A bit bad not to allow bans, as some players simply don't like one or two elements, but I see the point that players might try to avoid "weaker" elements that way; so alright.
Roles: Yes, please!
Market: The idea to get electrum as salvage looks good. A limit per card in vault seems very logical to prevent a too long event if a team collects tons of cheap cards. 24 was a good amount last War, shards may be reduced if no other restrictions are made.
Sideboard: Not a bad idea, but I agree with Avenger that these, Event Cards (that are a must in my oponion, as they grant variability during the event) and different roles can make anything overcomplicated. I guess we are fine not using Sideboards.
Upgrade amount: Looks good. @Avenger It is basically the same count as last War (only +1 for Soldiers), you just have to use 3 in-element ups.

[CCCombobreaker]

YAY ROLES!!!!!  I support static roles determined between auction and round 1 (with perhaps the possibility of an event card allowing some changes at some point).  And roles >= team members should work.

If card market thing is well planned and balanced, I believe unlimited shards could work, as the better shards will cost more, just like any other "worth more than a skeleton" card.

utilize a 9/6/4 formation with 3 free in-element upgrades for any and all roles

seems solid.

Not really a fan of universal sideboards, as it has dramatic ramifications on both deckbuilding, and also match play (and may affect the value of situational cards in unbalanced ways).  I think maybe a role with a sideboard could lessen this effect while still making it an option.

I definitely like the desire of the WMs to make the effort to balance war better.  My one caution would be against making too many changes that stress/undermine teams planning phase each round.  Trying to determine how many upgrades each opponent will have (round-by-round role swapping), what special power/ability they may have (round-by-round role swapping), and how many ways 6 sideboard cards can change the entire match (sideboards on all decks) is a lot of very complicating factors that will put a lot of stress on teams during each planning phase, and I suspect lead to more potentially lopsided matches. 

Any of those things in limited quantity can add extra challenge, and lesser versions of each is sensible (whether built into the rules for the whole event or introduced for individual rounds via event cards).  I am just wary of how many unknowns each team faces when planning decks.

(may re-read more and edit this post later)

Also looking at elk's post brought up a good point, in the past General's could secure at least 1 player early in the auction/draft and then have someone with whom to plan the rest of their auction/draft strategy.  Has this been considered/addressed in your discussions regarding removing the max bid?  And if it has not, and the WMs (and/or community) feels it is important, should there be a hybrid of some kind put in place to allow General's the ability to first draft their Lieutenant (yay static roles!) followed by a then an open auction on all the remaining players.

[theelkspeaks]

With no max bids, no one will be able to be secured for a particular team immediately.  Is that correct?  Is that a problem?