Balance Report: April 6

In working on this update patch, we wanted to let our players know which cards were drawing our attention and what we intended to do with them. We did this as one more of our efforts to be as transparent as possible and to reduce uncertainty. This is a delicate task and we have decided to make the fair and necessary changes. In addition, some charts that we had not contemplated have undergone changes as well and we will explain them in this article.

Given the complexity of the balancing work, we have decided not to announce the work done in this way.

The game balancing process is a work in progress. We have already discussed the guidelines under which we abide in doing so but it is not out of place to review them and define how the rest of this process will be carried out.

As we specified in June of last year:

• Spirit of the card: Whether from the Lore or from the tabletop role that was intended for a character from the beginning, we look for cards to have their own personality honoring those factors.
• Workload: It may be that a card is fulfilling one or several roles at the same time, leaving under its shadow and out of the lists other cards designed to fulfill one of those jobs in particular. When this happens, we can decant some of the alpha card edges, as well as push some of the beta cards to fit in one or more lists.
• Criteria correction: when developing OTK we may have believed that certain generalized criteria about the behavior of a stat across a group of cards were appropriate. But over time we have realized that we were wrong.
• Power level adjustment: We want Legendary and Rare cards to live up to their frequency.
• Metagame opening: We want the result of the balance to derive mainly in more freedom for players to design decks and respond to the metagame to give life and health to the metagame.
• Strengthen foundations: It is public knowledge the current state of the cards. But only the Deviants Factions development team knows where we are rowing towards. We have big things in mind for the advancement of the card pool and some of the changes will be made to lead the way.

To these criteria we add:

• All shapes of fun: Given the arrival of Adept to our format palette and with a view to a near future where we can reactivate the training camps (single faction tournaments) there will be decisions we will take in order to have the healthiest possible metagame in each of our formats.

Structure adjustments

Some HQs only received an adjustment in their structure.

Fine-tuning while maintaining focus

These are HQs that changed their abilities to a lesser extent.

Dogana now only benefits the Technologies of his Faction. Also. We believe that the way Dogana rewarded for each structure point had uncomfortable extremes. When it is too little structure the HQ goes unnoticed and when the points are too high, the contest is unfair. That’s why we’ve changed it to have a more decent floor and a more merciful ceiling.

Stoneward still does not stand out as it should. We believe however that his approach is the right one and that is why we decided to slightly increase his healing amount.

Renee’s damage was never enough to be considered an offensive maneuver. It was much more its impact on the table due to the [STRUCK] triggers it triggered. This often resulted in Entropy’s favorite bar ending up benefiting unwanted visitors more than his faithful attendees. That’s why from now on, his [STRUCK] trigger will only harm allies. Another minor adjustment that Renee’s receives, besides its structure, is the increase of the Toughness it grants.

Alexandría upgrades his ability to give serious support for ya gals.

The (new) Unifier

As the balancing happens and new recipes are released we are becoming aware of things that are not in place. In this way and with an eye to the future we have decided to change The Unifier’s approach to how it rewards the use of Male Characters.

Instead of doing direct damage, The Unifier is shaping up to be the HQ Owner’s answer to these kinds of strategies.

Cards that deserve a buff

Sredoje has a clear objective and it has been difficult to find a way to achieve it. We hope that this time he will succeed.

Dancing Dazer L2 was not liked at all by players because of the numerous scenarios in which its abilities ended up benefiting the opponent more. We have decreased the intensity of its effect but adjusted it so that it only affects one’s own table.

Changes to support Adept deck building

El-Baz always felt like a misplaced Character. We believe that, for the time being, redirecting his intentions is enough to make him a serious card.

We do not want The Warren L2 to be the only way for Adept decks to run a Kutuzov Hold. Nor can we give any more instances of Swap, since this ability is unique to Awaken members who have chosen to put their attention on the hand.

During the work on this patch we realized that Awaken might need some Character with Grip to be able to cover important strategies in the Adept format. We believe that, by lore, Poncho & Montgomery are the right ones to step up and fulfill this role.

Tadashi is an important character and will surely see play in Adept. We think it is time for him to be more careful and learn to live with Technologies.

A sensitive issue

When we worked with Mitrovic L2 and throughout the process leading up to the release of his recipe, our intention was always to have it hit 3 times. While the final version hit 3 times, your text said to hit a technology and then repeat the process 3 times. This gives a total of 4 hits. We decided not to nerf L2 cards unless strictly necessary and, although this put the game development in an awkward place, we decided to respect what the players read and make the correction to their code so that the skill would resolve as written. The result of this could lead to two situations. The first is that the game would adapt in a healthy way to this new card and that future Technologies could come with a little more RES than they would have if Mitrovic were different… the second possible scenario was that Mitrovic would prove itself to be a design flaw and that it would be the players themselves who would ask us to take action when they saw how the deckbuilding itself was being affected by the presence of the saboteur. It was the latter that happened.

This is a tricky topic because, while Mitrovic might feel oppressive from one point of view, there are those who argue that there are some Technologies that could pull out and oppress the metagame from another corner. This is why we have decided to improve the Awaken and Owner tools so that they can better respond to Tech-based decks, relieving Entropy of some of the burden of that responsibility.

The first thing to take into account is the [PICK-UP] of HP. For those matches against 8 Character Formations, to ensure a better “worst case”.

The second adjustment we made was the RES loss trigger. When it was [END STEP] it used to happen a lot that the Character-Technology combination you are trying to answer ended up killing the Lobotomizer carrier in every Fight Step, preventing this ability from even triggering. Now, with the Trigger of [ATTACK] it is a safer way to deal with this problem while we propose a new way to protect your Technologies from the Lobotomizer: if you can prevent its carrier from attacking, you will have extended the life of your star Technology one more turn.

The last detail was to reduce its RES to 2. This is because 3 successful Triggers (4 in Attentio Prima) can be too long and the removal effect ends up being useless because it arrives too late. This has other implications such as playing Lobotomizer proactively becomes a bad move in general but very good in particular situations: stagnating your opponent’s key Technology in his hand for two turns is also another way to deal with the threat.

We have arranged Scarlet Strainer in a similar way. This time she will have better “worst cases” and the ability to combine with cards like Isabell Bennett or Jeffrey The Giver for greater impact.

We are pleased with the changes we are bringing to the game and firmly believe that we are getting closer and closer to an entertaining, dynamic and fair game.

We also announce that we will be monitoring the behavior of these and the rest of the cards during the league that is about to start. We will probably release another balance patch at the end of the April league as there is still a lot of leveling to do. From now on we will make these updates to the cards between leagues so as not to affect the competitive decisions and investments that players make in their cards. We will only intervene during a league when it is absolutely necessary and our community is the main interested in this happening. We will put all our dedication and effort to make this happen as little as possible.

Stay tuned.