A Letter to Those With Expansion Anxiety

[qeltar]

Obviously one is not better than the other, but doomsaying is dumb, and serves only as a way for people to needlessly say “I told you so” later on.

I am not saying anything about whether or not the expansion is OP, simply the fallacious form of reasoning you are using here, which is, as I said, merely an argument from authority.

Reality is important. “Doomsaying” is exactly as dumb as “cheerleading”. Both terms are in quotes because they are derogatory ways of dismissing another’s viewpoint.

That said, yes, I do think many of the cards that have been revealed so far represent substantial power creep. It’s not causing me “anxiety” because frankly, I am not even playing the game right now. If I like how the meta turns out after this expansion I will start playing again. If not, I will probably uninstall and move on.

[persona0]

Well regardless newer players will have a harder time getting into the game because they are new. What cp needs after their mobile release is to get. That adventure mode so newer people can aquire gold quicker to buy packs and such. Really it should have been present before the mobile but hey not a big deal

[eudaimonia]

As others have alluded to, I think it may have been more prudent to address the major concern underlying this ‘anxiety’: power creep. From my understanding of the concept, I don’t see any issue of power creep from the currently revealed cards (i.e. a new card [in-faction] is not invalidating an old card [in-faction] that did see play). However, I do see some highly questionable decisions in regards to costing and rarity (e.g. Enfeeble, which I fully expect to be nerfed to 4 if not 5 mana by the end of Feb.).

Another salient point, doomsaying ≠ critical thinking ≠ optimism, and an appeal to CPG’s design authority does nothing but dismiss the concerns of others (rather than addressing them with reason). CPG has demonstrated its design fallibility many times, especially in their “hyperpolar” response to imbalance (e.g. Kron, Mana Vortex, Time Maelstrom, Shadow Nova, Siphon Energy, Zirix, Kara, etc.). Thus, there is reason to be somewhat wary, not full-on doomsaying, but nonetheless wary.

[thanatos996]

Very much agreed. I’ve suffered through many blatant design issues in the past, and often everyone said ‘That looks OP af’ when the card was revealed, before it was played much, and were later proven undeniably correct (ie old Sunsteel, or old third wish). Other cards were indescriminately hit with nerfs that made them nearly-but-not-quite unplayable, like Kron recently but also Locke, twilight sorcerer, and Mask of Shadows-- though I must say recent nerfs have been far better- lanter fox to 3 health and Skorn nerf, those felt on point.

CPG may not be infallible, but they have always eventually returned Duelyst to an interesting meta, which is reason for confidence-- many games never stayed this playable for this long. For that, I give them benefit of the doubt on this release, with the promise that they’ll have nerfed broken cards by the end of January.

[persona0]

Kron was played In EVERY DECK I came across in my trip from bronze to gold before it was nerfed. That card needed to be nerfed there is no other way around that one.

[cassador]

Yeah because we still lack playable proactive 5-drops till today, but this discussion is pointless.
Anyways, some cards will be broken, others we are now losing our shit over not so much, they will be nerfed end of story. I am not gonna rely on CPGs playtesting, simply because releasing untested shit is a bad habit in the gaming industry as a whole, but till mid january the meta is going to be a total mess anyways, so i am just gonna toy around with the broken shit and be happy. If until then something severely annoys me, i am prolly venture of to gauntlet again, unless thats broken as shit as well.

[thanatos996]

I think all the cards I mentioned (Except maybe lady locke but I am biased- I really liked locke vanar) needed to be nerfed. But it’s better, in my opinion, when nerfs don’t entirely ruin a card. I think if forcefield and rush had been taken off the token abilities, and kron was made a 3/6 or even maybe a 2/6, I’d be much happier because then he would still serve his original purpose: making replace decks better. Now he kind of just stinks imo…

[persona0]

I def agree on the forcefield minion… The rush was okay imo because it died forcefield made some games unwinnable cause it was unkillable… Kron was way to powerful in that mana spot with provoke and a immediate effect ability. Ppl can still play it with good effect its just that ppl just go along with Oh it was nerfed it socks now mentality. Look at skorn. Still a good card but ppl dont run it as much which is fine with. Me when I double chrysalis burst you and you have no answer.

[genkei]

You are right, but the thing is, not all players want the same thing from the same game. In that case, what the players want actually translates to what vocal mojority wants. I think that CPG should perhaps create questionaires with answers from from 1 to 5 (from strongly disagree to strongly agree) and give a small in game reward to those who compleate them (100 gold, random card or crate key). The questions could be sort of like this “I think that Duelyst is currently balanced” or “I think that Songhai is…” (from extremly underpowered to extreamly overpowered).

This would perhaps clarify what the players (the majority, not just the vocal ones) really want from the game.

[phyvo]

In life there are a lot of things which we accept based on authority, like which news outlets we follow, which scientific studies we believe, and who we believe when it comes to what’s healthy to eat. The less we accept authority the more skeptical we have to get, and if we accept no authority we’re in paranoia territory. Life just isn’t that neat logically.

So the question is not “Is maelrawn arguing from authority”, but “Is there enough evidence to show that CPG is a valid authority?” or more simply “Can we trust CPG”? This is a difficult argument to make since even a strong one cannot prove anything to a skeptic, but it is not an innately invalid one.

As for power creep, power creep will be forced to happen until some kind of rotating format is introduced. The only thing worse than a OP expansion is an expansion full of completely useless cards. We’ve been here before with literally every other CCG ever produced by a company. Power creep is a ticking bomb but CP still has time to address it and the willingness to nerf anything really out of line (like Kron).

[dreamgazer]

Power creep is inevitable (without rotation, but…). The focus should not be on avoiding power creep, but on managing it. Even if you ignore balancing eventually you run out of design space at the power level you’ve established. Cards then need to get more complicated or more powerful otherwise they won’t see play competitively.

In a vacuum rotation solves this problem to some extent by replacing power creep with power fluctuation. However, if you have a static core and are rotating expansions then new cards have to at least match the power level of that core set. You run into the same issue as without rotation - eventually you run out of design space in relation to your baseline since you can’t perform a complete reset. Whereas in the past MtG had a core set, each core set was balanced slightly differently. The likely result here is that CP will errata the (core) set to adjust balance with each expansion as and when it’s needed; whether they have a rotation or not.

The outcome is largely the same - overall power level goes up and down either as individual cards are nerfed/buffed or as sets rotate in/out and in all cases the metagame shifts as players try to solve the format. There’s always a top deck; there’s always a counter to that deck (even if that counter is playing the same deck archetype with some tech cards).

Ultimately what’s important isn’t how powerful cards are in relation to each other, or whether old cards become redundant: it’s whether the game is fun or not (but both can contribute to and detract from fun). CP seem willing to make adjustments to cards when they’re needed, so I expect nothing will be too out of hand for too long.

[kingw]

Well, ITT: lots of people ignoring the core point of the OP.

I’d go to say that Duelyst is one of the most “balanced” (whatever that actually means) games I’ve ever played. If you think Duelyst has an issue with power creep / OP something, you should really try playing a larger variety of games. I think the devs here have a good balancing philosophy and have a good idea of where they want to go with a lot of cards / archetypes in terms of design (Vetruvian being the outlier). The only card in the new set that I think could potentially be power creep is Punish, but we’ll see.

Anyways, all of that is not to say that CPG will release a perfect expansion, but just that they have a decent history (speaking comparatively to other games) and have typically solved problems with unhealthy cards. Frankly, speculating on whether or not the sky will fall with the new expansion is pointless. Will there be some cards that need balancing? Probably, again, no developers are perfect. Will Duelyst crash and burn? Probably not, this game has a good future ahead of it.

Calm your nerves, get a nice comfortable chair, a cup of hot cocoa, and sip peacefully until Thursday. Duelyst will be fine people. If it’s not, you can make all the nerf threads you want after you’ve tried the cards yourself (preferably for more than a few days, but we all know that’s not happening).

edit: P.S. A little bird told me this- since the expansion is already coming out tomorrow, worrying about the balancing will do absolutely nothing because it’s far too late to change any of the cards. Huh.

[persona0]

What cards are we talking about when we say “power creep” i need examples

PS it’s past 1 pm here can we at least get the card list a day early

[phyvo]

I think the main offenders people point to are trinity oath and punish. I’m not sold on punish being very power creepy but trinity oath is seven million times better for card draw than solarius, it’s pretty much the definition of power creep for the lyonar faction.

[persona0]

At the very least punish leaves to u one card down while trinity oath heals and and lets go u draw three cards. I mean what’s stopping Lynor from over running th e board with their cost efficient normal drops and smaller drops all while going face, clearing and healing from it.

[skulldragon42]

The main thing stopping Lyonar from doing that is the fact that its class design is not very swarm-friendly. Neither BBS supports swarms, as they both want to have large minions on board to buff/ heal.

[persona0]

What about beefy 1or 2 drop neutrals like shiro, wings, rock pulverizer. And azure herald?

[skulldragon42]

4 health isn’t that big for a roar target, and will likely only go off once, maybe twice if you’re lucky. But just having trinity oath probably isn’t worth missing out on all that another faction (Abyssian) has to offer, like a useful BBS for swarming, and deathwatch cards.

[thanatos996]

I disagree with that.
Lyonar has some swarm tools that indicate the playstyle is meant for them-- namely War Surge, that artifact that gives nearby minions +2 attack, and minions like Dragoon, which gives the most value on smaller drops, or Elyx, which can be used to let a whole bunch of smaller minions hit face unexpectedly.
Also, I disagree that Argeon’s bbs doesn’t mesh well with swarms. The bump in attack works very well at getting huge value out of drops like Azurite Lion, and helps smaller drops trade for mana advantages.
Furthermore, Lyonar has fairly good single target removal, which is good for swarm by getting rid of fat enemies that would force you to trade in at a disadvantage. They also have Sundrop Elixir and Beamshock, two rather good cards that fail at producing enough value to be worth a card back right now. But with Trinity, the value of a cardback in Lyonar will be much lower, and I expect them to abuse that.

[skulldragon42]

But are those cards good enough? War surge gives your minions +1/+1. How many minions do you have to hit to get value off of this card? At least 3, and with nothing on board you would have to spend 8 mana and 4 cards for 3 slightly buffed 2 drops. If Lyonar could summon swarms of 1/1, though, it might be okay. Also, Argeon having 1 (2 if you count Lysian Brawler) minions to synergize his BBS with isn’t that great. Compare to Lillithe, who has plenty of wraithling synergy. Also, giving your opponent a lot of health to remove a big minion is the opposite of what an aggressive deck wants to accomplish. Same with trading efficiently. And I fail to see why one would pick Lyonar over Abyssian when building a swarm deck.