MArcomage

Hi everybody,

I'm posting balance changes preview for the upcoming Christmas update. Here is the preview and brief description:

Deathwood necromancer - keyword conditions that grant resource gain are swapped
Javeliner - tower damage calculation reworked
Reuse the rubble - added 30 upper limit for N
Necroent - gems and recruits gains are swapped
Templar castle - conditional Dungeon increase added

I'll be posting preview of new cards for the New year update here later. There is one more thing that I would like you to know. I've been working on complete redesign of the MArcomage application for the last 6 months. The reason is quite simple: after many years of development the application structure has degraded and made further development increasingly difficult, complex and untestable.

This redesign will have following effects:

- less code, more readable code, better code testing => less difficult, faster and better testable development
- less memory usage
- less database usage

Of course all the functionality and layout remains the same, nothing was taken out. On the contrary, because of the simplified development I was able to add new features that I wanted to implement for years: card development tools. I implemented these two:

- automated test that will play all cards in all modes and thus test the card code for errors
-> this can be used by admins only and should prevent simple typos in the code to be ever released in an update

- in game cheating menu
-> this tool is available for all users that finished tutorial and are playing a game with simple AI (not AI challenge). It allows you to modify all game attributes (Tower, Wall, Facilities, Stock) and also add cards to any player's hand. With this you can explore card combos much easier, since to set up the desired game state is easy.

Currently the development is finished and only final testing needs to be done (big thanks to Fithz Hood for playtesting the new version, his feedback and feature suggestions). I hope we can release this new version on the New year update, but I'll keep you informed.

Great!
About balance changes: if Reuse the rubble is limited now, maybe you could raise tower gain to N/2? Funny thing: Unliving cardset has tons of wall+ and plenty of decent offensive cards, but only three effective tower+ ones.

The cheat mode is avaible only for player above level 10 so it will not be used to gain exp.
It's a good feature, useful to try new cards or combos.

I plan to add new keyword in the upcoming update, here is a preview:

Demon

Effect: Wicked soul - player suffers random penalty based on played card cost (Recruits - N wall damage, Gems - N tower damage, Bricks - lose N random resources), N based on played card's rarity (Common - 2 , Uncommon - 4, Rare - 7).

Fithz implemented many Demon cards in the testing version, but balanced them for a different Demon effect. I plan to use most of these cards with rebalanced effects. The reasons why I'm choosing not to use the Fithz's proposed effect is that it would boost rush decks a lot. Instead I'm trying to go for a different approach.

There are also existing cards that may get a slight rebalance and Demon keyword:

Abyssal scavenger
Curse
Daemon
Devil
Imp
Succubus
Sacrifice
Soul sacrifice
Dark ritual

Mojko wrote:


Demon

Effect: Wicked soul - player suffers random penalty based on played card cost (Recruits - N wall damage, Gems - N tower damage, Bricks - lose N random resources), N based on played card's rarity (Common - 2 , Uncommon - 4, Rare - 7).

In which way is the penalty random? And which penalty do you get for mixed or zero cost cards?
And how the effect is triggered?

A card that should get the demon keyword is Devilkin. Also Power surge could have it.

It works like this:

- if card cost recruits it is eligible for recruits penalty
- if card cost gems it is eligible for gems penalty
- if card cost bricks it is eligible for bricks penalty

After this it is clear which penalties are valid for a card. Then, one penalty is selected at random. Of course if there are no penalties to choose from, no penalty is selected.

Now for example let's take a Demon that costs 5R and 5G. It is eligible for both recruits penalty and gems penalty, but not bricks penalty. When played either recruits or gems penalty will be chosen. This way the penalty is random, but you can always know what penalties can you get.

This means zero cost demons never get any penalty, single resource cost demons always get that one specific penalty. Demons that cost two resources will have 50/50 chance to pick and demons that cost all 3 resources have 33/33/33 chance to pick.

I suggest adding a single word to the description to clarify that point:

Demon

Effect: Wicked soul - Player suffers ONE random penalty based on played card cost (Recruits - N wall damage, Gems - N tower damage, Bricks - lose N random resources), N based on played card's rarity (Common - 2 , Uncommon - 4, Rare - 7).

...I'd also replace "based on" with "chosen from" in the first line.


In other news, I suspect that my Undead deck will be thirstier for gems after this change. That's probably not a bad thing, though. Undead's been rather strong lately.

DPsycho wrote:
I suggest adding a single word to the description to clarify that point:

Demon

Effect: Wicked soul - Player suffers ONE random penalty based on played card cost (Recruits - N wall damage, Gems - N tower damage, Bricks - lose N random resources), N based on played card's rarity (Common - 2 , Uncommon - 4, Rare - 7).

...I'd also replace "based on" with "chosen from" in the first line.

I agree with the above.
As for Reuse the rubble, I think raising the Tower factor to 1/2 would be too much, but maybe we should cap the max. increase to wall and tower instead. For example:
"...
Tower +N/3 (Max 15)
Wall +N/2 (Max 15)
[No cap for N]
"

Additionally, I'd recommend rephrasing Javelineer's text to reduce ambiguity.
Now: N = #Enemy tower / 10 +2
Proposed: N = 2 + Enemy tower/2

Otherwise all sounds great!

New cards preview is ready.

Also, the Demon keyword was renamed to Demonic and has slightly altered effect.

Wicked soul - player suffers one random penalty chosen from played card cost (Bricks - lose N random resources, Gems - N tower damage, Recruits - N wall damage), N based on played card's rarity (Common - 2 , Uncommon - 3, Rare - 4).

Also, some existing cards were given Demonic keyword and some slight balance changes.

Daemon - gems cost lowered to 12 from 13
Devil - gems cost lowered to 28 from 30
Imp - removed Burning and Banish, gems reduction doubled, gems cost increased to 3 from 2
Succubus - attack raised to 16 from 14

Balrog: nice, but funny to see that barbailans and beasts are fireproof while elves, dwarves, soldiers and mages are not. :)
Book of eternity: I'll just instafoil it, thanks.
Demon fruit: not sure if this is really worthy. At least I won't take it in my Nature deck.
Hell charger: nice, great addition to my Charge deck.
Quasit: seems too weak for reliability like this. +1 stock would be more interesting.
Temptress: basically rare Demonic-based version of Reserve forces.
Overall, I really like this cardset. :)

Looking good, although I think bricks should be vs tower, and Demon fruit "N = #Demonic cards in game"

demon fruit was quite good with the demon keyword I tested (token keyword with tower damage on self and attack on opponent). In normal mode, with few road to wallala and some demons it was easy to have an average +6 stock. During my tests I had already tried a Demon/holy deck focusing on summoning Avanging angel. Not so good but funny. But the keyword was different so this idea doesn't work now (unless I use only gem-only Demon).
The new set of Demonic card is interesting but there are not enough to create a good Demonic deck yet, anyway is a nice first step.
I have to say that "Demon" sounds cooler than "Demonic", but it's just my opinion

Nice update it was.
Adamantine citadel is fun, I have alredy created a deck around it.
Next I will try a Demonic deck, but I think it's too early yet: it needs more cards, now there isn't a real advantage putting Demonic cards togheter.

where is the cheat menu?

Unfortunately umage blocked most of the changes that I made in the new version, which also includes the cheat menu. The little changes that made it through at least allow a full card code compatibility between old and new version. This means cards can be developed and tested using the development tools in the new version and then moved to old version without any changes.

Demon(s) are quite meh. Demons ought to be more powerful I think. :)
There are some very interesting cards in this update Ocean king, Adamantine citadel, Dwarven kingdom, Book of eternity (this one especially).

dimitris wrote:
Demon(s) are quite meh. Demons ought to be more powerful I think. :)

I'm talking about the already existing cards which got the Demonic keyword. I haven't tried any new (except Hell charger which is decent)

Another thought on the Demonic keyword: Why not make the effects apply to both players? I think it would fit the theme well (as the demons are consuming both players) and it would provide extra offensive potential for the cards without making them overpowered.

Having it only affect the player of the card fits the theme more appropriately as the player has made a pact and must surrender something in return.

DPsycho wrote:
Having it only affect the player of the card fits the theme more appropriately as the player has made a pact and must surrender something in return.

Agreed, but I think it makes this set of cards very underwhelming.

Well, its a keyword, and with this, summoning is more possible. I think the reason why demonic cards are that bad (although their cost-effect ratio is strong) is that there are not much usefull demonic cards and none which synergies with each other. We got no summoner and just a single demonic card (which is a rare) relies on playing other demonic card. And most demonic cards are not fitting with each other because they are support cards made for different situations.

So i would just say that we should wait until there are more demonic cards which have any synergies with each other