In order to support these features, we have removed the rule that draws your hand back up to 5 automaticaly, from now on you must always pay 1 Valour to draw a card from your deck to your hand.
I’m really torn about the Valour cost to draw. I think 1 is may not enough, especially once you start fighting and earning valour, and 2 is too much before you start fighting.
There are a few options I have been considering.
Make the cost a function of the games dificulty. 1 for Normal, 2 for Hard 3 for Nightmare.
Make the cost a function of how many cards you are holding, so its 1 when you only have one card in your hand, 2 when you have two, 3 when you have three and so on.
Perhaps a function of the games age. 1 in day 1, 2 in day 2, 3 in game 3.
I echo your concerns about valour in the beginning. It is so difficult to amass as you’re trying to build up both gold and armies to generate more valour. With the previous logic, I could focus on gold generation, which was then used to bring Heroes into the action. If I had to choose one of your suggestions, I’d opt for option 1, tying it to difficulty.
if you set the hand limit to 5 then i could see a use but as it is i can see no reason as to why i would want to discard a card.
early days so far but not sure I’m liking this change
Yep, right now there is no good reason to discard a card, but I felt I should add the otion while I was making changes there. The code on the server was already done, I just didn’t have a button on the interface. (There was a time when you could not hold more than 5 - perhaps a year ago or more)
The real reasion I did the work was becuase I really like the idea of being able to trade cards. I think it could make players feel like they are working together much better.
Discarding is more like making your hand more manageable and dropping cards you won’t be able to use again in a game. We’re also going to add something to make navigating a larger hand easier.
You could give the option of disabling the free cards in your starting deck.
This weeks tourney for example, if i don’t want to use marsh wardens then i don’t want them in my starting hand.
If you had the discard ability and auto draw to 5 that would be fine but otherwise it is taking up space that i want for another card.
Another option would be to offer a mulligan, you get the option for one reshuffle and redraw when you first start the game.
Setting the hand size max to 10 would still allow lots of choice without making it too hard to read the cards
Another small change I’ll send to the server later today. I think you should now start the game with 7 cards. Please let me know if you think this should not be the case.
I agree that I would like to give players the option of not taking the “deck essentials” but I think I would like some other deck building restrictions to smooth out some of the dominate stratagies.
For example, you cant take more than 4 of any 1 card and your deck needs to be at least 30-40 cards, That kind of thing.
I haven’t started any new games with the drawing restriction yet, so I’m not really in a position to comment… but that said, this feels like a pretty big, pretty unnecessary buff for the players. I say keep it at five unless people turn out to be having an unduly difficult time.
Well, the charming rogue is finally useful lol. One idea to make discard useful… Maybe make drawing cards cost 2 valor, and then discarding a card in exchange for 1 valor? Adds to the complexity, but then at that expense it is better to spend valor to capture towns and just training units… Which is what happens already too much as it is… Especially as goblins with such cheap cards and they still cost 1 valor that it’s almost not worth it a lot of the time, which I have to admit makes the game more boring since there is less variety in gameplay… And less hero use overall. If costing valor to draw cards is to actually be implemented, then perhaps we should return to having the ability to draw unlimited cards again??? But then that would negate the effectiveness of lurker units again… Which brings to attention the marsh prince all over again which is currently one of the best cards currently lol. One little change starts a chain effect to the gameplay… But I have to say that this weeks change definitely makes the game less interesting I find that trading cards and towns isn’t key to the game like trading gold/mana/valor is which makes the real difference. I suppose there are times or instances like trading the Orc bartender +4 to all units could be useful, or if they could just happen to need some particular card, it does make the game interesting, and costing 1 valor to trade towns or cards makes it a strategic decision which is nice as well. But I ramble lol, biggest issue right now for me is lack of interest due to the lower use of hero units and lack of variety in army units. Cards are instant which is nice, but if I can spare the training time, I would rather take the troll spears instead of turtle warriors or marsh hunters simply due to valor cost for example.
I feel like it’s worth actually trying the mechanic throughly before assuming it will make the game more/less interesting. 1 Valor to draw a card/play a hero isn’t really THAT steep a cost…
and purely based on speculation it helps balance cards like Marsh Prince and Little Wizard who were borderline OP.
It’ll be taught to just spam spider pennons then drop a super heavy hitting lil wiz, and Marsh Prince’s ability to quasi teleport actually has a reasonable cost attached.
I feel like spider rider has inherently lost some value again… but that’s with 0 testing.
I won’t question your experience, but I feel like I also plays this game at a “pretty high level” and like all change sometimes you need to see how it actually plays itself outside before assuming you know what’s going to happen.
From a game design perspective, forcing the player to manage their Valor between drawing cards and capturing settlements will present new any interesting challenges around resource management.
I think you just have to factor it into your strategy from the start. I usually draw a lot of cards from my deck anyway, so now that is cheaper. If you’re playing Trolls or Elves, you don’t need much Valour for settlements, so you can cheaply draw more cards for strategy options. If you are Dwarves, Orcs, Humans, you will have to consider if you need more cards or settlements, do you want more economy and armies or heroes from the start. You’ll have better starting options in your hand at 7 cards, which feels like a lot now. Once you get into combat and start generating Valour it gets easier. Goblins have the charming rogue to help draw cards and soon will have another card for drawing, so will the Elves.
I’m curious, if you have a lot of cards then how often do you have fewer than 5 cards in your hand during a game?
It’s already been implemented for 3 days so it’s not hearsay and actually played out, it’s a valid opinion. Base units are simply more economical than a few other card units once valor is included into cost
I agree, auto redraw is definitely a good thing to bring back, cost of 1 to discard and always keeping 5 cards is a good move in my opinion. The bazaar exchange to add a card is now rendered somewhat repetitive/useless without autoredraw. The heroes are what make the game fun and interesting and tactics more complex, and this weeks changes seem to discourage it slightly.
I find that trading cards and towns isn’t key to the game like trading gold/mana/valor is which makes the real difference. I suppose there are times or instances like trading the Orc bartender +4 to all units could be useful, or if they could just happen to need some particular card, it does make the game interesting, and costing 1 valor to trade towns or cards makes it a strategic decision which is nice as well. But I ramble lol, biggest issue right now for me is lack of interest due to the lower use of hero units and lack of variety in army units. Cards are instant which is nice, but if I can spare the training time, I would rather take the troll spears instead of turtle warriors or marsh hunters simply due to valor cost for example.