Here the changes:
INTRODUCTION
Overall this patch should have the following impact on the game:
Providing players with more tools to deal with a high movement playstyle
Providing players with the tools to play a tanky playstyle
Implement changes to cards and abilities to find usage for every single card
Open up more different sub strategies within the races main playstyle
In retrospective we are very happy with the previous patch. It was definitely necessary to improve some tank units with low movement stats. Nevertheless there were some issues remaining which were basically caused due to the guardian abilities in our opinion. So in our opinion this patch will shake up a lot of things to the better, we think this patch will have a massive impact and bring the game to the next level once again. We received a lot of feedback and we truly think that now with this patch the game will be at an awesome state.
So what did we change and why?
We overhauled all the enhancement and deterioration abilities. So far all of them referred to card levels. I mentioned it in some streams already but I will say it again, these abilities were kind of a relict from the past and very early stages of the game. Referring to card levels created two "problems":
They were too generic and influenced cards which were not meant to be enhanced in the first place. In particular the warriors without troop strength. All warriors who are not able to build troops have an ability and their stats were adjusted based on their ability. So what happened is that these cards got buffed as well which made them even better. This led to them being still more interesting than cards with troop strength. For example Exodus or Jupo. Same thing partially applied to units with toop strength with a movement value higher than 1.
Because the were too generic there was not a lot of deckbuilding around them. You could haven chosen Helga for example to assure some key pioneers have that extra defense but basically all pioneers get it anyway regardless of a more specific requirement.
Now the new enhancement and deterioration abilities will solve mentioned issues above. The new abilities refer to more specific cards instead of card levels. While the old guardians made sure cards in your deck get buffed anyway the new ones require to take certain cards to benefit from them. So overall it just makes the deckbuilding even better.
BUGS
Fellowship bonus not working in turn one
Fellowship bonus does now work in turn as well.
Impairment abilities worked through protector and resilience
Although the player did not see it because it was not displayed correctly on the client, the values of the cards on the server got changed.
Protector cards dying to counter strike did still protect hexes after their death
This was also not displayed on the client side but the last protected hexes were still blocking range attacks.
After death units which died to AoE attacks did reduce the values of friendly units.
AoE Attacks did work through blocked ranged attacks.
When a protector blocked a range attack the AoE damage still applied to adjacent units. This is not the case anymore. Blocked attacks are blocked entirely.
Random crashes happened when enemy cards were hovered during their action.
UI on cards not responding (C & R Button) so no attacks possible
We are not entirely sure if that bug is gone since it was very uncommon and only a few players experienced it. We had some ideas what could cause the issue and tried to solve that. Since we could never recreate the bug we have to wait and see how it works for the affected players.
BALANCING
NAPHAS
Arsok Eph
Attack: 7 ( - )
Defense: 14 ( - ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Enhancement (former: same)
Ability: Heavy Infantry (former: Leadership)
In the introduction part you will find all the information about the new enhancement / deterioration abilities and why the old ones got removed. Arsok did enhance the defense of all units of level warrior by 1. Now he enhances the defense value of all units with a base movement value of 1 by 1.
Ruutik Eph
Attack: 9 ( - )
Defense: 12 ( - ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Tactician (former: same)
Ability: Sabotage (75) (former: Sabotage)
Ruutik stays overall the same, the time deducted from your opponents starting time budget is increased from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. For the future we plan to create a fellowship around him with new cards as well to give him that little spark which makes him a more interesting choice for a broader spectrum of players.
Yasash Juz
Attack: 13 ( - )
Defense: 6 ( - ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 2 ( - )
Ability Type: Protector (former: Deterioration)
Ability: Support (former: Reputation)
In the introduction part you will find all the information about the new enhancement / deterioration abilities and why the old ones got removed. Yasash changed from deterioration to protector. He now blocks range attacks on the to fields in front of him. We think this will open up interesting new playstyles and strategies.
Blancara Eph
Attack: 8 ( +1 )
Defense: 7 ( - ) Movement: 2 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Alteration (former: same)
Ability: Hard Escape (former: same)
Blancara stays overall the same. She gets her attack value increased by 1. We still think the ability is very strong and has just not been used effectively yet. Nevertheless there was an argument that she needs a little buff considering the other choices the Naphas have and considering the difficulty to make use of her ability. Speaking of the latter, when used right it can have an enormous impact on the game and provides a lot of outplay potential based on our experiences, thats why we have to be very carful with her stats. The additional attack does not necessarily go hand in hand with the ability which is intentional. It has a few reasons but the main reasons are that we don't want her to be a more tanky unit and similar to other ability cards a card does not always have to focus on its ability primarily. There is now the chance to make her a 10 6 2 1 unit with the help of an equipment which in our opinion can make her quite a threat combined with the fact that she can make some things pretty difficult for your opponent after a successful attack.
NEW CARD
Drakan The Scorched
Attack: 5 ( - )
Defense: 7 ( - ) Movement: 1 ( - )
Range: 3 ( - )
Ability Type: AoE Attacks (former: - )
Ability: Area Damage (former: - )
Drakan is a new Master for the Naphas. He is some sort of crazy alchemist, scientist, blacksmith and engineer, which means he has a lot of knowledge about hermeticism. Nevertheless in terms of battle class he will be a marksman (gunner) which fits his weapon but also makes the card more balanced based on its stats. His AoE damage will be 1, which means the AoE alone will only kill something in very rare occasions. He is already a strong card based on the stats so it's more about rewarding players in tricky situation, where they manage to make usage of that 1 additional damage somewhere else and then use the right sequence as well to pull of a great play. He has still only one movement which makes it hard to maneuver him around the board. But he has great defense stats, can even make use of the new Arsok ability and use equipments. Nevertheless we want to see how things workout. We are open to change his ability to Immunity as suggested of a community member. It would be also very interesting, fit his theme and a useful ability for this card.
Soratros Juz
Attack: 8 ( - )
Defense: 5 ( - ) Movement: 1 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: AoE Attacks (former: same)
Ability: Spinning Attack (3) (former: same)
Soratros will deal now 3 AoE damage instead of 2. We think this buff combined with the guardian changes and the option to equip him, makes him now a more interesting choice.
Sherdet Dra
Attack: 5 ( - )
Defense: 5 ( - ) Movement: 2 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Manipulation (former: none)
Ability: Misinformation (10) (former: none)
Sherdet receives the Misinformation ability with an amount of 10 seconds. This will open up some synergies with specially Jathazi but also Ruutik and Vanax. Sherdet is a very mysterious character, who is manipulative and calculated. The card was created based on the ideas of a community member so the ability fits now his lore and characters as well. Said community member made a fan made novel about him. We will publish it soon here on our website. I hope you guys check it out, its incredible.
Swamp Eyes (new Fellowship)
Members: Jask (3 5 2 1) and Natrash (3 2 1 2).
Bonus: +1 Defense
With this fellowship we can share a bit more lore:
The swamp eyes are part of many conspiracy theories and provide plenty to talk about in Sizahlas. A grouping, or rather a huge network, which, based on the observations of countless people, directs events throughout Sizahlas according to their own interests. The information chain works similarly to a pyramid system - the information is always passed on to the next higher one. The question is who is at the top?
NORDUR
Fabyor Allmann
Attack: 7 ( - )
Defense: 13 ( - ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Enhancement (former: same)
Ability: Heavy Infantry (former: Belligerence)
In the introduction part you will find all the information about the new enhancement / deterioration abilities and why the old ones got removed. Fabyor did enhance the attack of all units of level warrior by 1. Now he enhances the attack value of all units with a base movement value of 1 by 1.
Helga Jargald
Attack: 4 ( -2 )
Defense: 16 ( +1 ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Enhancement (former: same)
Ability: Shieldmaids (former: Leadership)
In the introduction part you will find all the information about the new enhancement / deterioration abilities and why the old ones got removed. Helga did enhance the defense of all units of level pioneer by 1. Now she enhances the attack value of all female units by 1. She also received 1 additional defense and lost 2 attack. We consider the value change overall as buff since close combat guardians rarely get the chance to attack and having 16 defense makes it even harder to get rid of her. There will be more female units in the near future but the current selection is already very interesting together with her thats why we already introduced it to the game. The new master is female, ygridd, fyora, liv, frallga, brunnhilde and runa.
Radiana Lyra
Attack: 10 ( - )
Defense: 9 ( - ) Movement: 0 ( - )
Range: 2 ( - )
Ability Type: Alteration (former: Deterioration)
Ability: Hard Escape (former: Identifying Weakness)
In the introduction part you will find all the information about the new enhancement / deterioration abilities and why the old ones got removed. Radiana does neither enhance or deteriorate stats anymore. She got the Alteration ability now which does not only fit her theme very well but also brings a whole new control style with it. In the other changes section you will see that Alteration got changed a little bit. It is now bond to the range of the card. This means Radiana does now stop every enemy unit from moving more than 1 hex in her entire range.
NEW CARD
Unkown (female)
Attack: 7 ( - )
Defense: 6 ( - ) Movement: 2 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: Fighting Spirit (former: - )
Ability: Fury (former: - )
As you can see this new master has rather low basic stats for a master. This is ofc due to the power of her ability similar with Wapok form the Tagari. In her case, she will receive additional 2 attack each time the morale drops on 20 or below or on 10 or below. The ability names and descriptions got overall a bit reworked which will be explained in the other changes section. Anyway, after losing 5 morale she will already have 9 attack (10 if you use Helga) and if you hit 10 morale or less she will have 11 (12 if you use Helga). She is a melee unit so there are interesting equipments options as well. She is definitely a late game monster.
Ador Icestar
Attack: 8 ( - )
Defense: 5 ( - ) Movement: 1 ( - )
Range: 1 ( - )
Ability Type: AoE Attacks (former: same)
Ability: Spinning Attack (3) (former: same)
Ador will deal now 3 AoE damage instead of 2. We think this buff combined with the guardian changes and the option to equip him, makes him now a more interesting choice.
Lorik Bormbart
Attack: 7 ( -1 )
Defense: 3 ( - ) Movement: 1 ( - )
Range: 3 ( - )
Ability Type: none
Ability: none
Lorik will lose 1 attack damage. He also loses old defense buff on pioneers from Helga. But with Faybor he can receive an additional attack due to his 1 movement and also still has the defensive bonus from the fellowship.
Munin Windlif
Attack: 3 ( - )
Defense: 3 ( +1 ) Movement: 1 ( - )
Range: 2 ( - )
Ability Type: Tactician (former: same)
Ability: Battle Experience (former: same)
Munin receives an additional defense. He will gain an additional attack from Faybor still due to his 1 movement. Considering the overall buffs and increase on time reduction abilities he is a more interesting choice now.
Common past (new Fellowship)
Members: Dralnar (12 9 2 2) and Radiana (10 9 0 2).
Bonus: +1 Defense
Playing both independently is still fine but if you decide to use them together both end up with 10 defense which makes them quite a bit safer.
