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Wish list for season 2 - design and rules


Goblin-King

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1) Ban end-on board setup, so you have to place boards on the long edges in a 2 player game.

2) When deciding how boards are placed the person who wins gets to decide whether to place the first board or second.

  • "First" chooses a board.
  • "Second" chooses a board and decides which edges the two boards will connect on.
  • "First" then decides how to line the boards up on those two edges.
  • "Second" places the first objective

This would give you a slightly more intuitive flow to board setup and mean the players jointly decide the board setup, rather than one person winning the roll and deciding everything about how the boards connect. It gives a better distribution of the choice and advantages it brings. Combined with the removal of end-on board placement it makes the decision choice to take board setup or objective setup actually a big decision. 

3) Add an extra action type, "Run" which allows you to move 2 additional hexes but prevents you from activating again in that phase. Charge but with +2 move instead of the attack action. This would give some mobility to warbands which find themselves being heavily crippled by low movement while at the same time retaining a solid advantage for the warbands with higher movement values. Against a hyper defensive deck Ironjawz can rush into the enemy territory at the cost of leaving themselves completely open to attacks stopping the "Oh Round 3 and I finally get to attack you".

4) Make "Guard" an activation but not an action, the same way that drawing a card isn't an action. 

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@Malakree

1) Why do you want to ban short-edge-connections?

2) This is one of many solutions. The setup phase definitely needs some kind of overhaul.

3) At a glance I like this, but I'm afraid it might ****** up balance. Sometimes you want to keep an opponent away from something. Now he has a powerful tool.

4) To prevent Katophrane abuse or...? Just make it impossible to go on guard if you are already on guard. It's obviously something active the fighter does, so making it NOT an action is kinda confusing.

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10 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

1) Why do you want to ban short-edge-connections?

If all the possible board placements it's the most boring and prescriptive. I feel that the 3 he's side attachment achieves the same result in a far more interesting way.

It would also be required to implement the board setup method I suggested, otherwise selecting two short edges would fix how they connect ?

As an extension of that, I would love of they brought out some new boards which had the heads aligned in the other direction so that a new board+old board resulted in a short-long edge connection.

10 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

3) At a glance I like this, but I'm afraid it might ****** up balance. Sometimes you want to keep an opponent away from something. Now he has a powerful tool.

It makes shardfall more powerful and there is a ton of forced movement. There's also the option to attack and push back or just bodyblock.

I agree it would be a huge gamechanger and require testingf . Honestly it comes from my long experience playing ironies and just being unable to do anything for the first two rounds. 

11 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

4) To prevent Katophrane abuse or...? Just make it impossible to go on guard if you are already on guard. It's obviously something active the fighter does, so making it NOT an action is kinda confusing

Actually I took it from the new nighthaunt ploy which places a guard token next to them rather than causing them to guard. It also removes it from potentially interacting with future cards aswell.

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Do people have any thoughts on how cards between the two sets should interact? Do people want the sets completely separate, or some form of cycle that phases stuff out? Perhaps only the Neutral cards are phased out/replaced?

Have people given this any though, how to expand the game into another set (and later, even more sets) while still keeping the game manageable and balanced.

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Personally I hope it will be 100% compatible. All warbands and all cards will still be usable.
I wouldn't worry that much about balance. In my opinion we already have a lot of unbalanced stuff, so it can't get much worse anyways.

I like the idea of having a huge collection of cards to choose from, rather than basically throwing my entire collection in the trash each year.

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1 hour ago, Goblin-King said:

Personally I hope it will be 100% compatible. All warbands and all cards will still be usable.
I wouldn't worry that much about balance. In my opinion we already have a lot of unbalanced stuff, so it can't get much worse anyways.

I like the idea of having a huge collection of cards to choose from, rather than basically throwing my entire collection in the trash each year.

I agree completely. I don't want my stuff becoming obsolete. I think another reason why you could just have a giant pool of cards is that many of the cards become obsolete just by other cards coming out. i.e., there are many many cards now that are just bad enough that you'll never see them played or there's so many identical cards (identical ability, different name) that it makes some cards obsolete. For example, why would anybody ever take "headlong charge" when you have access to 3 flat +1 movement upgrades? And there are now 2 universal flat +1 strength upgrades, so you'd have to take 3 +1 str upgrades if you want to use a warband specific upgrade like whirlrwind of death. 

I just think with each warband set that comes out there are more and more cards that are becoming obsolete from the sheer fact one would never take them because it'd be silly to.  

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being able to by the board without a started set. It just feels ridiculous to me that I have to double everything just because I want that extra board for that moment I get my third and fourth warband and want to play a multiplayer game :S Love the reaver and stormcast models. Just have no use for to sets. 

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I do hope they will have some ban lists from earlier editions, reminiscent of say the Black Lotus ban in every set ever. With the introduction of a new phase it's a great chance to remove the worst offenders (looking at you Bloodless/Sigmar's Bulwark) and make sure that what is being carried forward promotes the different styles that create enjoyable games for both players and any spectators. It also give's them a chance to trim anything which is perhaps to powerful and limits other options by it's existence.

As long as they don't go overboard, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it wouldn't be to noticeable and potentially allow for the cards cut to be re-released in a different state at a future point (a year or two down the line). Then any re-printings of the original box could contain the new version.

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In terms of new features (and looking at other games), it'd be nice to see

  • something that lets you draw from your discard pile - either a ploy or an upgrade that lets you pick at random
  • force an opponent to discard from their hand

Both of these are pretty powerful, so might need a way to stop it happening every turn. Spend one glory perhaps?

 

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39 minutes ago, glitch said:
  • force an opponent to discard from their hand

Both of these are pretty powerful, so might need a way to stop it happening every turn. Spend one glory perhaps?

That would make comebacks impossible, someone gets a bit ahead then just spends their glory to keep your hand empty...

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On 4/27/2018 at 8:58 AM, Carnelian said:

Honestly, I hope they give it a good six months before releasing the new warhammer underworlds. I'm enjoying the game so much right now and I only have 4 warbands!

But in terms of future wishlisting, I would love to see: 

Nurglings and a nurgle sorceror 

And I would love an elite Nurgling squad to use in aos! There are so many great sculpts in the new kits. Get the person that made them on it!

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A ban list of some card would be great in my opinion but I fear it won't be enough.

Right now, I just stop playing Shadespire. It was a nice game withe 4 fist bands: objectives were useful, most of the cards were fine (in fact, most of the cards were ******, but the good ones were not OP). Then, things went wrong, slowly at first with more balance problems and card like Earthquake affecting every models. 

Now, there is other cards like that: Great Concussion, Shardgale. There too many cards giving free actions ( My Turn? erk....Quick Thinker? Yeah, I really want to charge Obryn with Saek. And there is more like those). Time Trap makes you pass one of your activation, Ready for Action was already quite OP but you still needed to play one upgrade.

There is too many "Score this immediately..." cards and almost only focus on killing enemy models. 

In a nut shell, and forgetting about the katophrane decks, the bands and the cards are getting more and more powerful, more and more combat focus (in a very diecy game).  So, a ban list is; at least, needed to make the season 2 something I may consider to buy. 

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2 hours ago, Biboune said:

In a nut shell, and forgetting about the katophrane decks, the bands and the cards are getting more and more powerful, more and more combat focus (in a very diecy game).  So, a ban list is; at least, needed to make the season 2 something I may consider to buy. 

I think one of the big problems is actually the combination of Great Concussion/Earthquake. It makes it to easy to disrupt things like supremacy with no effort or risk at which point the Objective player is now miles behind. Remove those two and Obj decks would become way more powerful again.

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1. Rotate out the mistake cards. Great Concussion I'm primarily looking at you, but there are other offenders...some not least because they're neutral and therefore in just about every deck (point 2 covers this). Some cards are going to continue to act as a restriction on the metagame and design choices so long as they're around, never mind so long as they're near enough ever present.

2. Print the more powerful cards as faction specific. A lot of decks feel very similar because it's painfully obvious the majority of the best cards are neutral. At least if you put your faction cards at a premium you give players clear choice and identity. There's only really Chosen Axes where this was somewhat pushed (Treasure Lust and Earth Shakes are at least reasons to be Dwarf)

3. Try and playtest an environment where different types of decks are equally viable and competitive. It matters far more to balance to see different types of decks doing well than to see multiple versions of a very similar aggro deck just with different skinned models.

4. Fix the wording on your cards. It's an absolute mess and in a TCG I should be able to figure out what happens when cards interact between an initial rulebook and the cards themselves. The amount of errata, FAQ and flip-flopping on some decisions is terrible. Get a framework down, map out how things work, introduce keywords to tidy it up and keep the wording consistent. I don't want slightly different wording on cards to mean they do different things, I want cards to be clearly worded so that they do what a reasonable player would expect from having played a similar card.

5. Fix the Grand Clash structure. It's already ridiculous capping rounds at 4 and only cutting to the top 2. Using glory as a tiebreak really turns this into an absolute crapshoot where you're heavily advantaged by playing against weaker players as well as needing to run hotter than the sun to making it to 8-0 in games and higher glory than the other 8-0s. Use Opponent's Match Win as a tiebreaker (sorry, but the glory mechanic is abusable). Run enough rounds to allow for top 8 cut, double elimination swiss (3 rounds up to 8 players, 4 up to 16, 5 up to 32, 6 to 64). Cut some of the dwell time for it. I spent more time between rounds, on break and eating at my last GC than playing.

6. Improve Grand Clash prize support. Tokens, a playmat and some alt-art promos are nice. They are not £25 entry fee and a day investment including travel of nice. There's something concerning when I'd say only the winner could feel they got something meaningful from their finish (actual trophy is nice) that's a ton of dead EV in the system. Especially when I've seen some GC's start to run on Fridays with finals on Saturday. Expecting players to use annual leave at work, travel and probably find accommodation? Absolutely not for a chance of a cardboard playmat.

 

May well add to this as I go

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/17/2018 at 4:43 PM, glitch said:

In terms of new features (and looking at other games), it'd be nice to see

  • something that lets you draw from your discard pile - either a ploy or an upgrade that lets you pick at random

One of the things I really like in Shadespire is that you can't get things back from the discard pile which makes opening hand discard, inspiration and deciding when to play cards very important.

I'd be open to one faction getting one card for cards of only that faction but not a widespread mechanic. In a small deck-count pool that tends towards playing the best "1-ofs", it's much too dangerous, even on a random return. A single universal card getting back any one card would immediatly be among the best in the game, essentially being a second copy of any card in your deck.

So, sure, bring it in but with *huge* restrictions.

 

My choices are:

* Inspire triggers on a number of unspent glory, probably at least 4. Creates a nice tension between spending to upgrade fighters to win glory and trying to get enough glory without upgrades. It's also quite a challenge to build characters that are good enough to score without upgrades and an inspired side that's not too powerful but still attractive enough to make players want to Inspire.

 

* Cards that trigger on faction specific cards being played, like "Pride of the Lodge" from Leaders (Score this in an end phase if your leader has three or more upgrades with his warband symbol).  Anything that says you get "something" if you play this cards but "something +1" if they have an upgrade with his warbad symbol.

 

*I'd also like to see Inspire triggers on every remaining character in your warband having an upgrade.

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I wouldn't mind if neutral cards are only compatible with the warbands of the 'season' they were released with. What i mean is, any cards that come out with the next release can only be used with warbands from that release.

This wouldn't make cards/warbands obsolete at all, but it would do a few things:

* Help with the studio during playtesting. As the game grows, it seems much easier to consider, say, season 1 'done', rather than try to balance every new card over the next several years with every warband that came out previously.

* Help provide some 'theme' between each season and its warbands. Seems this could allow for more creativity as well as developers can create some neat new combos, again, without also having to worry how it impacts older warbands.

* Help make deck construction for players easier. Far more manageable to work with subsets.

For sure you could play a season 1 warband against a season 2 (or 3 or what not) you just couldn't build the decks with cards across seasons. I wouldn't want warbands to become obsolete at all. The minis are too cool to not be an option, but I do think flooding the game with a zillion cards may not be the best option...but what do I know? :/

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4 hours ago, Mr. White said:

I wouldn't mind if neutral cards are only compatible with the warbands of the 'season' they were released with. What i mean is, any cards that come out with the next release can only be used with warbands from that release.

This wouldn't make cards/warbands obsolete at all, but it would do a few things:

* Help with the studio during playtesting. As the game grows, it seems much easier to consider, say, season 1 'done', rather than try to balance every new card over the next several years with every warband that came out previously.

* Help provide some 'theme' between each season and its warbands. Seems this could allow for more creativity as well as developers can create some neat new combos, again, without also having to worry how it impacts older warbands.

* Help make deck construction for players easier. Far more manageable to work with subsets.

For sure you could play a season 1 warband against a season 2 (or 3 or what not) you just couldn't build the decks with cards across seasons. I wouldn't want warbands to become obsolete at all. The minis are too cool to not be an option, but I do think flooding the game with a zillion cards may not be the best option...but what do I know? :/

That's an excellent call.  You'd keep the faction cards & rotate out the universal cards. I like it. 

That also leaves the door open for reprints as the game requires.

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I have been wondering how they are going to make the next set compelling without just repeating cards from Shadespire.

The idea of making cards only work in their own set would certainly give them an excuse to simply repeat the majority of cards, which is good and bad.

Good because it gives them cards to produce. Bad because boring.

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13 hours ago, Mr. White said:

I wouldn't mind if neutral cards are only compatible with the warbands of the 'season' they were released with. What i mean is, any cards that come out with the next release can only be used with warbands from that release.

This wouldn't make cards/warbands obsolete at all, but it would do a few things:

* Help with the studio during playtesting. As the game grows, it seems much easier to consider, say, season 1 'done', rather than try to balance every new card over the next several years with every warband that came out previously.

* Help provide some 'theme' between each season and its warbands. Seems this could allow for more creativity as well as developers can create some neat new combos, again, without also having to worry how it impacts older warbands.

* Help make deck construction for players easier. Far more manageable to work with subsets.

For sure you could play a season 1 warband against a season 2 (or 3 or what not) you just couldn't build the decks with cards across seasons. I wouldn't want warbands to become obsolete at all. The minis are too cool to not be an option, but I do think flooding the game with a zillion cards may not be the best option...but what do I know? :/

I've recently come to the conclusion that "neutral" cards should never have been a thing. Or at least the specific/neutral ratio should have been the opposite of what we have now.

* Balance would be easier as each warband would have a relatively smaller card pool.

* Each warband would have more flavor as the same auto-include cards wouldn't be in each deck.

* Different warbands are getting copies of existing cards from other warbands anyways, so it's not like anything is sacred. 

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One option might be for GE or event organizers to set up restricted buckets. So maybe they put Twist the Knife, Ready for Action, Great Concussion, and a bunch of other near-auto-includes in a list and say, “You can’t have more than three cards from this list.” In other words, you don’t ban them, but you force players to look elsewhere and diversify their decks more. 

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16 hours ago, Tutenkharnage said:

One option might be for GE or event organizers to set up restricted buckets. So maybe they put Twist the Knife, Ready for Action, Great Concussion, and a bunch of other near-auto-includes in a list and say, “You can’t have more than three cards from this list.” In other words, you don’t ban them, but you force players to look elsewhere and diversify their decks more. 

I actually like this idea a lot.

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from a gameplay standpoint, I only want 3 things:

1. the winner of the first roll off gets to choose whether they set up boards first or second. It's nuts the a sepulchural guard or dwarf player can win the roll off and its actually detrimental to them when warbands like magores and ironjawz don't actually care that much about objective placement but do care about board placement.

2. Clarification of scoring windows. The FAQ on score immediately made things too murky for me.

 

In terms of new cards, there's loads of things they can do. A season 1 ban list for some of the auto include cards, season 2 warbands can only play season 2 cards and vice versa. My preference would actually be a complete reset of the neutral cards going out of the active play pool and only warband cards remaining. This means the existing warband flavours, which are quite well executed remain the same and introduces a whole new set, some of which will be duplicates (hold x, healing potion etc.). From a business point of view, it attracts new players because they can buy into the second city without having to purchase everything (repackage of existing warbands as a "season 1 catch up") but it also gives existing players a compelling reason to buy the new sets.

 

Alternatively, enforce that a % of power and objective deck must be faction specific. It does mean that some of the factions with poorer faction specific cards will need a rework, but it avoids having to throw out season 1 neutrals.

 

Bear in mind, this is the first edition of a competitive LCG minis game. Season 2 should be about refinement of mechanics and balance.

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