What errata would balance all mages immediatly?

[BoomFrog]

Continued from Charmyna's thread: Bringing all mages on par!  The plan is to issue temporary tournament only errata that would be repealed later once new expansions rebalance the gameplay.  Obviously most players hardcore enough to use the forum will also probably use these as house rules.

I think for a short term fix, making dissolve, dispel and seeking dispel all novice, and make teleport and wizard tower epic.  That would nerf wizard dominance, what errata would immediately bring the subpar mages up?

[Zuberi]

Changing all of those spells like that would have a very large impact on the game, as I mentioned in Charmyna's thread. I don't think anyone can accurately predict the end result of such drastic changes, but it most assuredly will not be the same game we are playing now. I want to make the least obtrusive changes as we can.

Currently I think the best solution would be a temporary tournament rule to reduce the Wizard's spell points. Take away 20 spell points so that he has a flat 100 to spend on his book, and you've got a very effective nerf. Casual players are welcome to adopt the rule as well. It doesn't change the game at all, and works to balance the king. This would then be reevaluated and adjusted as future expansions come out until the Wizard is allowed his full 120 points again.

Conversely, we could also try giving the Warlord extra spell points. Hopefully this won't be needed for much longer though.

I believe the rest of the mages can stay where they are and await the release of actual expansions to address their issues.

[silverclawgrizzly]

*sees another 12 page thread on the wizard coming*

*Jumps in front in slow motion hands waving*

Nooooooooooooo.............

[webcatcher]

Like SC Grizzly, I think this is going to be a repeat of the last thread, so I'll just say that I think B Frog's solution would work fine and be minimally invasive, though I think we should add nullify, as well.

[BoomFrog]

The previous thread was a success.  It asked the question what needs to change to balance the mages, and it got it's answer.  Short term errata is needed, long term the schools of magic need to be balanced.  Maybe this thread is unnecessary as we seem to already have a clear consensus.  The least disruptive way to balance things is to play with spellbook construction instead of changing card functionality.  Either limit strong mages SP or reduce the SP cost of 'mandatory spells'.  I like Zuberi's idea of just attacking the direct number of SP instead of playing with several spells.  I could see having a changing spellbook points allowed per mage for tournaments that could be tuned with playtesting between the release of expansions.

Let's assume 4 dispells, 4 dissolves, 3 teleports, 2 nullifys, and 2 seeking dispells are mandatory.  That makes an SP bonus of 14 for wizard, and 18 for water wizard, and a warlord tax of an extra 14.

So my new proposal would be tournments SP list is
Water wizards: 102 SP
Other wizards: 106 SP
Most Mages: 120 SP
Warlord: 134 SP

Should we give a little bonus to Johtori and warlock to compensate for their anti-nonliving cards they must add to compensate for their limited use innate abilities on their card?

[Wildhorn]

I think 100 for all Wizards, 140 for Warlord (but will depend with FiF release) and 120 for all other mages would be better. Maybe 110 for Johktari BM.

[Kitarja]

This thread scares me a little bit ;-) I think the changes become too many. Why not start with some small changes, like making Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Dissolve and Nullify to Novice spells and then look how this changes the game. If this is not sufficient than we need to discuss the issue again. But hopefully this and the spells released this year, adressing known problems with the other mages (nicely summed by Laddinfance in the other thread http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13773.msg32157#msg32157), will solve the problem.

I personally really hate the idea of different spell points for all the existing mages and thematically it would make no sense for me that especially the wizard has the least spell points and I therefore hope that this won't get implemented in the game.

[Alexander West]

Rather than give different mages different numbers of points, I think *if* a short term errata is to be made, I'd just like to see some number of "must have" arcane/water spells be made Novice.  If Teleport is one of those spells (I'm not sure it should be) Novice can be reworded to 1x Level instead of just 1 total.  I think this is the most elegant solution, and I think it cuts to the heart of the problem.

For the record, I don't feel like making Wizard's Tower Epic fixes much.  I usually don't play more than one copy to begin with.

[Wildhorn]

This thread scares me a little bit ;-) I think the changes become too many. Why not start with some small changes, like making Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Dissolve and Nullify to Novice spells and then look how this changes the game. If this is not sufficient than we need to discuss the issue again. But hopefully this and the spells released this year, adressing known problems with the other mages (nicely summed by Laddinfance in the other thread http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13773.msg32157#msg32157), will solve the problem.

I personally really hate the idea of different spell points for all the existing mages and thematically it would make no sense for me that especially the wizard has the least spell points and I therefore hope that this won't get implemented in the game.

Spellpoints change would be temporary changes for tournaments only (and most likely most fervent players would follow too), until the cards pool allow the game to balance itself out.

Modifying cards to become Novice is a worst change to achieve the same effect.

[Alexander West]

Spellpoints change would be temporary changes for tournaments only (and most likely most fervent players would follow too), until the cards pool allow the game to balance itself out.

Modifying cards to become Novice is a worst change to achieve the same effect.

Novice errata would also be for tournaments only, so it is also only temporary until things even themselves out.

Points changes assume certain spells will be played, and tries to charge or discount for them.  I think this doesn't work as well as a Novice change, because with temporary Novice errata the player can choose whether or not they will use the proscribed spells.  (And can load LOTS of copies if they want, rather than just the 2-4 we speculate they want.)

[Wildhorn]

Spellpoints change would be temporary changes for tournaments only (and most likely most fervent players would follow too), until the cards pool allow the game to balance itself out.

Modifying cards to become Novice is a worst change to achieve the same effect.

Novice errata would also be for tournaments only, so it is also only temporary until things even themselves out.

Points changes assume certain spells will be played, and tries to charge or discount for them.  I think this doesn't work as well as a Novice change, because with temporary Novice errata the player can choose whether or not they will use the proscribed spells.  (And can load LOTS of copies if they want, rather than just the 2-4 we speculate they want.)

Novice temporary errata achieve the samething but affect many cards, while adjusting wizard and warlord SP only affect 2 cards.

[Borg]

Dear Arcane Wonders,

I’m sure I’m not the first to mention this to you but imo the Teleport spell is currently wrecking gameplay.
A card that ends up being a “must include” in nearly every spellbook is indicative there may be something wrong with the card.

Dispel/Dissolve are staples as well but these cards are of a much more “defensive” nature and potentially even useless if the opponent doesn’t play any dispel/dissolve-worthy spells.
Teleport on the other hand is mostly played “offensively” thereby destroying any well laid opposing defensive plans with just ONE spell.

Therefore I think Teleport is currently overpowered and making a lot of strategies unplayable and therefore should be nerfed to be able to Target only FRIENDLY creatures.

Note : Allowing to target enemy creatures except the enemy mage would still not be a good solution as that way a number of strategies relying on one or two big creatures would still suffer from it and become unplayable.

Releasing a counter card also doesn’t seem to be a good idea IMO as you’d just create another “must incude” card that way.

I hope something will be done to the card soon as I have to admit … it takes the fun out of the game for me.

I’ll take a break and see what’s happened in a few months.

[Wildhorn]

Teleport is too powerful, it is true, but they can't make it unable to target at minimum enemy creature. If they would make it only able to target friendly creature, then it would make turtling in your corner too powerful and the only viable and boring strategy since enemy mage could not force you out of your forteress.

Instead to create a new topic, you could have joined one of the already numerous topics about this subject.

[webcatcher]

Ah,  this again.  Don't worry,  Borg, I'll get you up to speed. Everyone agrees that Teleport is broken, but there's a deep divide in the community about how to deal with it. Some folks want an errata.  Others dislike erratas on principle and will argue passionately that the slow release of counter cards is a superior solution. Unfortunately,  there's some bad feelings over it.

[webcatcher]

Oh,  and if you're thinking about starting a thread titled "Wizard nerf necessary?" I'd recommend against it.