Which cards are over/under powered?

A little too much?

It's debatable if Rumiko is the most popular character, I see more Helenes, but that might just be me.

But I see a bigger problem if Rumiko is nerfed...esp with Nicol's changes. Rumiko is one of the few characters that is considered "range". With those changes, I feel that she will be used as frequently as the other range characters (Phoebe, Andro, and to some extent Anex). This implies that I feel that range characters are underused compared to melee. Honestly I feel people only use the ranged amazons (NOT Rumiko) to be different and unique. I just feel that they lack something IMO. With Rumiko given the "big nerf stick", I predict that the battles will be like 85%+ close range.

Comparing range characters, I feel Rumiko hands down beats Phoebe and Andro because of her lower energy costing moves and a much better selection of close range attacks. But since the game needs far range characters, I think Rumiko only needs a small nerf and the other ranged characters a buff.

What I do suggest is IMO:
Rumiko's shuriken barrage from 12x4 to 5x10 or 7x7. I think thats enough nerf to Rumiko, yet doesn't make the move useless.
Phoebe - someone tell me why power lash isn't 50 energy but 55? It makes this move almost impossible to use, considering that games are close range most of the time. It would drastically make her better, gives people a reason to think twice about switching characters.
Anex and Andro are being patched...so, we'll see.

Whether or not Rumiko is imbalanced is beside the point that I was making. All of the stuff he was saying I couldn't judge one way or another. However, given the reason he's making the changes he is, I do declare that he is wrong since that is a completely flawed approach to balance.

Ideally, every game will be balanced for the highest level of play, with all barriers to competitive entry removed. In starcraft's case, it's APM. With Guilty Gear, it's retarded difficult inputs like Tyrant Rave, Potemkin Buster, Instant Air Dashes, and FRC windows.

By saying "this game has to be balanced for the average player that doesn't play 100 games a day and doesn't know the ins and outs", he is giving flawed reasoning.

A player that plays 100 games a day and knows the ins and outs of the game SHOULD beat an average player, assuming that he's winning because of game experience, not because he's mastering playing around the entry barriers.

Whether or not Rumiko is utterly imba or not is beyond me. I just know that the card doesn't look horrific like the necro guys, and that she seems a pretty popular character to run.

I have a feeling that there is some underrated character out there that can counter Rumiko with a scroll of inner focus with some special item 1v1 that probably gets trounced by someone else, but hence the point of rock paper scissors.

Do I know which character that is? No. Do I want to spend the time finding out which character that is rather than running Helene+Remedy/Rumiko+Scroll/Yoshi+(??) or Helene+Remedy/Rumiko+Scroll/Higashi+Insignia? No.

I just know that such a character exists, and Sirlin probably knows how to counter Rumiko easily, just like he was loath to nerf Higashi, because Sirlin knew how to deal with Higashi.

I say Sirlin should balance Kongai for Sirlin himself, Sirlin being more or less, the all-knowing, or as close as we're going to get to it. Sirlin should NOT balance the game for people that lose to a character and whine, when Sirlin himself knows the counter, even if it is underrated and not often played.

The thing about Kongai is this: there are no barriers to entry (aside from having the 60 cards, hence I think there should be multiple kongregate challenges a week), therefore, EVERYONE is already playing that strategic game that is past all of the barriers to entry, therefore, since the game is so early in beta, no player I think has that insight to know every subtlety and nuance, ESPECIALLY when there are patches to constantly add and remove said nuances.

THEREFORE, nobody really has the right to whine. You can say make suggestions...

But the moment you say "we have to balance it for the average player", you are wrong. The better players should win. If Yoshi and Ladies are the best nubslaying strategy, so be it. I am confident there is a counter to everything in Kongai with the way the game stands now.

I've probably been chanting "RUMIKO IS OVERPOWERED! RUMIKO IS OVERPOWERED!" longer and harder than anyone, but I think it's a complete non-issue now with the latest update.

Her light defense is nerfed from 4 to 0, which means I can now beat her with two Bleeding Slices instead of three, and playing Enchant Blade is actually scary instead of desirable.

I think she'll still be a strong character, but no longer overpowered.

Rumi is not imba. Good certainly, and definitely the best of all the "ranged" characters. Strong certainly, but what's a game without a varied cast? I see pretty much an equal amount of Rumis, Helenes, and Higs... simply because, well, they're all pretty solid cards. But by no means are the completely undefeatable. Ilk never mentioned that Rumi was weak, you just put that in his mouth NicolBolas. But she's certainly not as imba as you think she is. How are you not be able to wreck her with Corny? Or Helene for that matter?

Anyways... FS is right, 4 -> 0 light defense is enough of a nerf for Rumi.

I find it strange that people find Helene so desireable. I can see that she lasts a long time, but I never feel threatened when she comes out like I do with Rum, Hig, and Yosh.

3 bleeding slices? Wrong, if you take into account bleeding slice's effect. Sure, it's not guaranteed, but 2 bleeding slices with a 50% chance of the effect (coming out to an overall 75% chance) is pretty damn likely to kill rumiko. Even then, you should be power swinging her out and killing her teammates first so that she can't take advantage of her innate

I don't think the problem is that rumiko is imbalanced, it's that people are stupid and lazy to find a way to counter her. All you need is an ashi or a helene in your deck, and you'll be able to counter her. Either that, or you could suicide one of your characters against the rumiko, and that's a nuisance you won't have to deal with anymore.

Ilk, your philosophy is a good way to have a game that only 10 people ever play until they get tired of each other. Yes, if you want a competitive game, the highest levels of play are top priority but that doesn't mean you should completely ignore everyone else.

People who complain about seeing a lot of Helenes: She was the challenge TWO WEEKS AGO. Of course you see a lot of them. Get used to seeing it happen every time a good character is the challenge.

Nerfing Helene: After some thought and discussing with the better players in Kongai chat, I can see that 10 speed 100% interrupt is possibly too much. However, there are two things I really like about Shield Bash as it is now:

A: Bad players spam it even when it's clearly wrong (usually because frenzied is lethal)
B: Other bad players always lead with Pilebunker and get mad when it doesn't work

Any proposed Shield Bash nerf is going to kill "A" but I would really miss "B". I really, really, like punishing people who always use their biggest move with a 100% interrupt, and if SB's proc is reduced, I'm left with Popo (deliberately suboptimal character) or Cornelius Constantine (exactly the type of character a 100% interrupt is good against, a fact that necessitated the Blood Burn buff).

I brought this up in chat yesterday, but as a Helene player I would really like to see Shield Bash speed 5 with no other change. Valkyrie Charm brings it up to 7, which seems fine (it's 1 faster than Hypnotic Stare, in exchange for 20 extra energy, not hitting the opponent with his own attack and being on a one-range only character).

One major objection in chat was that the spd 5 version is terrible if you don't have charm, but I'm not even so sure that's a big problem for her overall power level. The way I see it there are basically two times Shield Bash is great: when it locks the opponent completely down, and when the opponent is using a big slow attack like Pilebunker or a slow draining attack like Vamp Kiss and numerous others. Slowing down Bash gets rid of the lock situations (the presumed goal of a Shield Bash nerf) while leaving the "fair" use intact for the most part.

Would such a change force everyone to use Valkyrie Charm on their Helenes? Possibly the opposite. Slowing Shield Bash while leaving the other attacks the same makes the mirror significantly more fair by removing the 10-speed Bash/Bash/Frenzied sequence. On other characters, the attacks I most want to stop all seem to be 5- speed anyway.

Another argument that was brought up is that balancing that way is hard because of the existence of Valkyrie Charm. Given that Valkyrie Charm seems to far overshadow all the other Amazon items based on the decks I've played against, it may be that the Charm should be looked at (card availability is probably not an issue because all Amazon items have been released in the last couple months)

Regarding long-range characters: I'm happy with Andromeda's changes so far (although she may still turn out to need more). Now I just got Phoebe and I'm wondering how she's supposed to be any good. I remember Sirlin saying in chat that the close-only characters have attacks below 50 energy because they need to be able to range-change into them to be any good, but the far characters have close attacks so they don't. Kick really justifies the cost of Power Lash? I'm pretty sure if Helene had one of her attacks replaced with an ability that was "20 energy: 12 damage. Far." she would be worse. And characters start at close so you can lead with a close-only character and be guaranteed to start a round at their perfect range with full energy. What am I missing?

You may want to, ahem, *look* again.

=P

On a more serious note, for a 50 energy move just to interrupt one of their attacks and do suboptimal damage seems fine. I keep hearing how enchant blade frenzy slash or something can just win the match outright if not for interrupting things like Cornelius's pilebunker.

On that note, if Cornelius has pilebunker, why can't Helene have Gunflame or Grand Viper?

And why can't Ashi have Ashi Buster?

=P

I think Rumiko needs small adjustments. Some ideas -

Shuriken barrage, speed 9 -> 5
Shuriken barrage, damage 12x4 -> 11x4
Eviscerate, damage 20 -> 24, stun proc 70% -> 60%

That is actually about it! I think just one of those changes would make her more counterable. e.g. speed down means more range characters can act first, since it sucks that primary ranged characters like phoebe/anex/andromeda have to fear her so much. Damage is because shuriken barrage is really cheap for its damage and speed. Eviscerate makes it more of a gamble and not something that makes Rumiko fearless against melee characters.

She's a NINJA. Ninjas are supposed to be FAST and strong.

Glass cannon? Yes. I think she fits the bill. If you want to counter her, just smash her with Helene or Ashi.

No, you're completely wrong. There's a 25% chance that neither Bleeding Slice effect works, in which case Rumiko is left with 6 health with her current 4 light defense. There's a 50% chance one of them works, but if she equips the v1.5 Healing Salve (+3 HP per turn), or even the v1.6.1 Healing Salve at (+2 HP per turn), she'll survive the two Bleeding Slices.

However, one thing you completely miss is that even if both bleeds proc for Ashi (25%), RUMIKO IS STILL ALIVE FOR A FEW TURNS UNTIL THE BLEEDING EFFECT KILLS HER.

Your faulty reasoning is the same short-sighted logic that beginning players use to argue why Juju is so powerful; "Oh, he has Touch of Doom! That kills an opponent with one hit!"

What they (and you) fail to realize is that four turns is a long time, and during that, I can still inflict a lot of damage. Similarly, Rumiko, bleeding or not, would be alive for at least an extra round or two, able to inflict more damage.

With her light defense going down to zero, that's no longer the case. Two connects, instant death.

That's an absolutely horrendous strategy. You WANT Ashi or Helen to be fighting Rumiko, not changing the match-up. No wonder I beat you so easily in our games...

Ashi and Helene have an advantage against Rumiko, but thanks in part to Rumi's switch out innate, the advantage is by no means large, and it's still a very competitive match, which is the problem with Rumi; in her bad match-ups, she's at least competitive, and in her good match-ups, she frequently dominates.

In the interest of fairness, I should also note that Onimaru is GREAT against Rumi, Ambrosia is decent against her, and CC is also okay against her. (Then again, who ISN'T CC good against?)

However, Rumiko definitely needed this nerf. We'll see how it goes from here; if Ashi and/or Helene get weakened considerably, there might need to be further nerfs. Otherwise, there's nothing terribly unjust about her anymore.

Guess I'll weigh in with my thoughts on Helene/Rumi.

Yes, both of them are powerful, but neither one is really all that unbalanced, they only need slight tweaks. For the most part, I'd rather see other characters brought up to their level, than see them brought down to the level of other chars. That being said, some slight changes that might help them be a little more balanced.

Helene - The trick to fighting Helene is to range switch a lot. At 100 Energy up close, she can tear pretty much anyone apart. However, decent mixed range characters can force her to eat up energy moving, so that she can't do her shield-shield-frenzy combo. The problem is that most decent mixed range characters are vampires, and are weak against light attacks. This means Helene can enchant when you move far, then move close and do a very nasty frenzy+slash to kill most vamps in two rounds. My solution: make enchant add +2 damage, instead of +3, and make frenzy 8x5 instead of 7x6. Alternately, make enchant add +1 damage, and leave frenzy as is, or leave enchant as is and make frenzy 7x5. She'll actually still be able to two shot the vamps with enchanted frenzy + enchanted slash, but if ambrosia or marquis use their draining moves, they can survive and find themselves facing an out of energy Helene 70% of the time. A lucky energy proc on slash will still make the battle look bad for them, so this isn't too much of a nerf.

If shield bash needs to be nerfed, I'd rather see the damage reduced than see the interrupt screwed with. I think keeping its utility as a high speed, reliable interrupt makes for interesting tactics. It's also one of the two moves, along with Rumi's Evis, which makes equipping a Girdle of Iron Will worthwhile. Maybe lower damage to 15 so that it isn't such a good way to reduce your opponent's life while locking them down.

A slightly wackier idea: take away its damaging capacity entirely, and instead have it add a buff to Helene called "Shielded." Shielded can either increase Helene's defenses, or give her a % chance to block (effectively the same as dodge) incoming attacks. I like this idea because it discourages multiple shield bashing in a row (the buff shouldn't stack), and means that shield bash is no longer an effective way to kill opponents. Instead it's a decent buff that comes at a high energy cost, but doesn't waste a round during which you're taking hits (the main drawback of other buffs).

Rumi - I think what makes Rumi seem so powerful is just that she's much more versatile than other ranged attackers. If anything, I think this means other ranged attackers should be more like Rumi, not vice versa. The current system seems to be balanced around close attackers having more damage, while ranged attackers have more versatility and can act at both ranges. I like this dichotomy, and think Rumi captures what ranged attackers need quite well. Evis is a definite threat, but its occasional failures mean that it's also a risk. Ninja-port is nice, but slow enough that melee only characters can get in a hit before she moves back. Poison dart is a well balanced move, and I don't generally hear anyone complain about it. That leaves shuriken blast, which I agree may be a little overpowered, particularly considering the fact that she can spam it, and can switch out with little risk against high armor foes. That being said, I'd like to see it remain very powerful and dangerous against low armor enemies. How about going from 12*4 to 8*6? It will still kill 70 HP characters with 0, 1, or 2 physical armor in two shots, but it will no longer two shot 3 phys armor characters. Rumi will also need to worry much more about long range amazons with reinforced breastplate, which will be a nice change since right now she kills other long range characters quite easily, while also doing well against close range characters.

Frankly, if Shield Bash costs 50 energy for 20 damage and the stun, I think it's balanced around the fact that it does both, but for such a high energy cost. If you want to reduce its damage, I think its energy should be reduced in turn.

And frankly, I think Helene (ditto Ashi) are balanced by the fact that they are close-ranged only characters. I think the point should be that you SHOULDN'T EVER be able to beat them close up. I feel like Helene and Ashi are sort of like Guilty Gear's Sol and Jam. They're both fighters that you should do your best to zone out and stay away from, rather than try to play bloody knuckles.

And frankly, I think that you SHOULD be punished for trying to play bloody knuckles with them. Using a vampire against Helene's enchanted light sword SHOULD be a mistake in and of itself, not something that you can yomi the Helene out of too easily.

Do I think Helene should be the best (or 2nd best to Ashi according to some) in the game? Most definitely, as I think she looks cooler than a vampire.

As for Rumiko, Helene seems to counter her quite well what with 8 armor against a 4x12 attack. Especially with Rumiko's light defense at a big, fat 0, so that Helene's enchanted frenzy slash = YIKES. Onimaru's 10 armor just laughs at Rumiko's shurikens also.

So since Rumiko has a counter, she's FINE. You SHOULD need a tank to take her down since her moves seem generally to be attacks with multiple attacks of low-damage, a tank works fine. You shouldn't win against Rumiko with some other low-armor character. Rumiko is a glass cannon. If you take away her cannon, she'll simply be glass. Throw Onimaru or Helene at her and she's done.

And frankly...

Numerically speaking, there are too many combinations to balance kongai perfectly. The trick is to make sure nobody has any matchups so horrible that they're plain useless. If Rumiko is competitive in her bad matchups and dominant in her good ones, that means she's balanced. It means that those she absolutely slaughters need to be more competitive, not that Rumiko should get slaughtered in her bad matchups, which is what a nerf will do to her.

Ilk, I'm glad to see that despite having never played it, you have a better idea of what would balance this game than garcia, who has like 500 games and a w/l ratio approaching 4:1

I'm going on my fundamental game design philosophies here and what I hear, and very few particular numbers.

Not that I'm defending Ilk, but that's terrible reasoning. Because I'm sure patients who have are terminally ill with cancer have a better idea of how to cure cancer than their doctors who have not had cancer for a single second. Likewise, because garcia has more games and a better ratio than Sirlin, he almost must know much much better than Sirlin at how to balance this game.

That I also disagree with. Most of the people here have Phoebe at/near the bottom of their tier list. What if Rumi completely owns all other matchups but has an absolutely DOMINATED matchup vs. Phoebe where she'd win maybe 5% of the time? Would it be unbalanced? No, simply because the metagame balances matchups out. If we see too many Rumis, then everyone is going to start packing a Phoebe to counter the Rumi. There is a push-pull effect, and that's what makes the game balanced.

The problem right now might be that some of the stronger characters don't have that weak matchup. Like... CC for example. I think he basically made everyone's "top tier" simply because there is no real bad matchup for him. Ditto Helene. It's not her Shield Bash that's really the issue, it's the fact that she can basically take whatever the opponent throws at her, and at worst "just" trade.

Not even close to comparable. It's more like "Someone who has built a car from scratch is far more likely to know how to repair an engine than a 15 year old shop class student."

It's not that I think anyone who hasn't played the game is incapable of having a well-reasoned, constructive opinion, but Ilk's posts:

-Are way too authoritative given his total lack of experience with the game
-Appear to demonstrate a belief that no tweaking whatsoever should be done, at all, which is pretty ridiculous given that this is a game still under development THAT HE HASN'T PLAYED

EDIT: Bolded for emphasis. You're arguing very fervently against a point I'm not making.

Likely, yes. But it also depends on the experience of the 15 y/o student. Ilk sounds like he has experience in terms of game development and balance, though might not apply directly here, is valuable input. So the fact that he brings up valid points about Rumi's upcoming changes and counters all go out the window because he hasn't played a single game? That's ridiculous. Good suggestions and development paths can come from all sources, especially from people who are looking from the outside-in.

You misunderstand. The problem is that Helene's Shield Bash ISN'T balanced around the fact that it both interrupts (different from stun, btw) and deals damage, and has a high speed. In order to balance it, there are four options: increase energy cost, decrease damage, decrease speed, decrease interrupt success rate, or change the fundamentals of the ability. I suggest the slight decrease in damage as the change that is least invasive for the move's basic utility, while still making it more balanced.

Agreed. The problem is that because they can advance and attack with their top abilities in the same round, there's no way to avoid fighting them up close without draining their energy through some lucky character switches. This is certainly doable, but it makes them much harder to face than just about every other character in the game. The tactic I suggest in my previous post, using a mixed range character, is one of the few viable tactics for fighting Helene with a single character. The current strength of an enchanted frenzy, however, makes it impossible for the characters who would otherwise be best able to carry the tactic out (the vampires) to do so. If there were a set of characters who functioned well at both ranges and had high light magic defense, the story would be different. But right now, there aren't. As such, Helene lacks any reliable counter. My suggestion makes the vampires a slightly more reliable counter, while changing Helene as little as possible.

Wait, you're right! We should balance all the characters around how cool you think they look!!!!!11111

Where do you get the idea that Rumiko is glass? Her defense isn't significantly worse than other ranged characters, she has the same hit points as most non-tank characters, and her 50% resistance to intercepts means that she can switch out with near impunity. Thanks to the last bit, she's actually more survivable than most other ranged characters. Of course, if you wanted to really make her into a glass cannon, you could reduce her hit points from 70 to 60, but I think a very slight nerf to shuriken blast would be better.

Note that changing it from 12*4 to 8*6 would not affect her match ups with tanks at all, since she uses poison dart against them, not shuriken blast. Also, note that since it would still kill characters with 70 HP and 1 or 2 armor in 2 shots, it wouldn't affect her match ups against most non-tanks. On the other hand, it would give her a few slightly weaker match ups, and would allow ranged amazons to counter her by equipping reinforced breastplate.

Incidentally, Rumiko isn't terrible against tanks unless she's your last remaining character, thanks to poison dart and free switch out. If she starts long she can probably get off at least one dart, and cost her opponent a lot of energy, before switching out. And even if your opponent sees the switch out coming, they can't do much about it. And the main thing that makes her bad against Helene is actually Helene's resistance to stuns and high speed (meaning ninja-port and evis are less useful), not Helene's high physical armor.

No game is ever balanced perfectly. The point of beta testing is to make it as well balanced as is reasonable, though.

Other than the last part "which is what a nerf will do to her," I agree with this sentiment. I like the fact that Rumi has a versatile array of options which makes her useful in a number of different situations. I wish there were more characters with her depth, and would particularly like to see the other ranged characters given the same depth. I agree that a heavy nerf will ruin her, but I think a slight tweak would balance her better while leaving what makes her interesting intact.

I respect you a lot, but that's a very faulty analogy. A better one would be a medical student specializing in broken bones trying to argue chemotherapy treatments with a doctor who has been treating cancer patients for 30 years.

There's a possibility he might say something that is generally correct, but he probably won't even realize the specific reasons why. If one hasn't played Kongai, they won't know the precise move and damage and speed values. That's a major limiting factor already.

Knowledge and playing ability, even in something like Kongai, aren't the same. I realize that's probably what you were arguing, but again, the two cases aren't comparable. Sirlin and garcia both have extremely high levels of knowledge and playing ability in Kongai.

In Ilk's case, he lacks both.

Really now? Helene is far from an easy win against Rumiko, ESPECIALLY with Rumi's godly innate, as well as her previous high light defense. Even Ashi isn't that great, since she still takes 24 damage from Shuriken Barrage, and all her moves are a lot slower than the ninja's. Only Onimaru is particularly dominant against the cosplayer.

Which nerf are we talking about here? Her light defense going to zero, or some future change? In the former case, it's a moderate change after which she's still one of the best characters in the game, but a little more vulnerable.

I don't think you fully realize just how many different options she has, or that her main weapons and advantages are still completely intact.

Again, we'll see how it plays out after v1.6.1 . Right now, I can't think of anyone who's played the game who disagrees with slightly weakening Rumi.

Overall, I absolutely love Sirlin's changes, appreciate that he's listened to the input of players like myself, garcia, and others, and think this might be enough already.

We'll see.

Everyone is just ignoring what Ilk is saying because he hasn't played the game. For example, Bruce can be considered a contributor to the community through his Kong forum posts and guide and he didn't get the beta invite until recently. I just don't like seeing anyone being shat simply because a lack of experience. You know those comment posts for Kongai? Occasionally, you'd still dig a diamond out of that pile of shit.

Even though Ilk hasn't played a single second of the game, it's not like the game's concept is hard to grasp. I knew how to play the game even before getting the invite too just by reading the rules. It's 3 clicks per turn, not all that complicated. Easy to learn, difficult to master - my favourite type of game. Ilk has the advantage of being directed towards http://momako.blogspot.com/2008/04/kongai-card-list.html and http://www.sirlin.net/kongai-beta, both resources that I didn't have at the time either. He does in fact know precise dmg and speed values and can give his views on the current balance situation. In fact, because he isn't affected by the current metagame, he probably has a more objective sense of balance than the rest of us.

I'm just particularly peeved that NicolBolas completely shot down Ilk because he has not played a single game and other people jumped on the bash Ilk bandwagon. It's true that he has a rather grating online personality, and he could have definitely presented his case in a more reasonable fashion. I realize that ultimately this is an elitist game. That what one says and how it's received by the audience IS based on the strength of one's record. The players with better record definitely garner more respect and their words taken as canon. But that doesn't mean people with shittier records (or no records at all) don't have any contributions to make. Just because I'm sitting on my tidy little record, I don't go "lawlz nubsauce, gtfo."

As for Rumi, I definitely agree with the current v1.6.1 nerf. But for the other suggestions in this thread or the chat? I don't think her Evis needs +5 energy or that it needs to be slowed down, I don't think she needs more spread out packet damage, and I certainly don't think she needs a Poison Dart nerf. She's a very good character, no doubt. I have her in my main deck. But I've also learned to deal with other Rumis as well. If she's really THAT good, why doesn't every deck pack one?

Anyways, I also absolutely love Sirlin's changes. He does listen to the suggestions of the community, but adds his own finishing touches. I just want to see how everything plays out before anything more drastic is done.

Yeah, uh... i dont think Ilk's done it, but it wouldnt be too hard to scribble on some old playing cards or MtG cards and make your own Kongai decks. Keeping track of the poison, bleed, burns, etc. and scribbling hp changes down every round could be a pain, but taking all the time to do that would really help ingrain the details of the game into one's head. Most scientific calculators i've seen have random number buttons and plenty of memory slots if needed. I dunno if sirlin has his own hard copy kongai decks or not, but putting together the materials for one and playing with your buddies isnt impossible. Given some of the odd ways the proc's and items resolve tho, i'd say someone forgot to play this game w/ the programmers before they sat down to write up this game's code But hey, whatever works, right?

Anyway, point is Ilk's a noob for sure, but dont knock the guy. Let him figure out he's wrong later after he plays the game some. When i first saw Juju i thought Touch of Doom was broken as crap. Now, after i've learned how to play bettah, its just not that scary. Also, i'd quit playing if Rumiko's Eviscerate were made to interrupt instead of stun. Interrupts > Stuns. The energy loss when your move doesnt execute after you throw it into an interrupt is just painful. Getting stunned, i at least have something left afterwards.

Ah, yeah and lowering Rumiko's light defense is a horrible nerf especially in light of the new sets being fortold to have many light based guys. Yeah, she's good, but not that good and doesnt deserve any nerf.

Once again, how many times do I have to reiterate, that I have a very basic understanding of the game FROM WHAT I READ ON THE FORUMS--and the REST of my opinions are taken from this line of thought:

Balance only affects the game once skill is not a factor in deciding the victor--that means that the skill difference between players is rather small, such that neither makes such huge blunders that the other can simply capitalize on.

And therefore, I have a feeling that a VAST majority of the time, you aren't losing to OMFG BORK3N RUMIKO!!!111 or WAAAH HELENE IS SO IMBA!!!11, but the fact that your opponent A) outplayed you tactically, or B) made better strategic decisions as to the composition of their deck.

And frankly, I am wondering if you people know anything about information cascades...basically the entire premise is that the first person may make a decision using their better judgment. But the second person's decision is not just their own judgment, but knowing the decision of the first, and the third person has not just their judgment, but the decisions of the two AHEAD of them.

And information cascades are not just theory. They are very much a fact of life. Or need I cite the dot-com bubble of the 90s that burst in 2000, or the real-estate mortgage bubble that just sent out economy into another recession?

Or if you want it more related to gaming--I'm sure we've all heard of the word METAGAME. Know what a METAGAME is? It's nothing but a giant INFORMATION CASCADE.

Player 1: "Hey, this works really well because of such and such!"
Player 2: "After testing some other options, I found that player 1's strategy is really great!"
Player 3: "Well gee, these two say it's good, so I'll do it!"

And you have a metagame, which can very well be countered by ingenuity, thinking outside the box, etc. and soforth.

Instead, rather than try to find COUNTERS, people just whine IMBA IMBA IMBA. And the counters don't have to be so outlandish. It could mean equipping your Rumiko with something other than the norm (scroll of inner focus if I'm correct), and using a slightly different permutation for taking down the METAGAME, rather than making the most "optimum" deck.

And the thing is, I'm not sure how many of you know of the warcraft 3 custom Enmity Campaign, but it was a game like DotA, but far flashier, with far more interesting items, far more interesting conceptual spells, and a mode of gameplay that essentially made a team as good as its best players, rather than as bad as its worst, meaning you couldn't just win through sheer number.

Now while I was guilty of whining NERF NERF NERF myself, the truth was that I eventually found counters to the strategies that were beating me, and came to realize that I wasn't beaten by imbalance (especially when said imbalance was RESTORING balance since I loved to beat "rock" with a specially built "scissors")--but by the fact that my opponents outplayed me, and I didn't adapt to it properly at that time.

However, the creator decided to NERF NERF NERF anyway, just to appease the players that liked to always random their hero, when every game, I would play the same one, to try and find every last nuance of that hero.

And what happened then? Well, before the nerfs, what you won with wasn't a question of "OMFG IMBA", because every single hero was OMFG IMBA when played to their full potential. It was simply a question of playstyle and what strategies and tactics you were COMFORTABLE using.

Know what happened AFTER the nerfs?

Okay, strategy A was nerfed. Now strategy B is the most powerful. Fine, I CAN'T win in style. So to spite the creator, I'll just cheese strategy B. And when that's nerfed, strategy C. And then you can nerf the whole game to the ground and I'll still be the guy that plays to win by perfecting the least nerfed strategy.

You see, the fact is this: if you try to make sure a character can't win this or that, that's fine.

A new character or a new strategy will arise to be top dog.

For character A to be rated a 10 and character B to be rated a 5 is no different than character A to be rated a 4 and character B to be rated a 1. Character A will still dismantle character B, whether everything was nerfed, or not.

This is the mistake that caused enmity campaign (how I loved that game) to die, what caused Brawl to be a competitive travesty (Sakurai tried balancing the game and instead succeeded in destroying any competitiveness it once possessed), and what constant "adjusting the scales" does to a game, when everything is blamed on imbalance, rather than player skill.

And no matter how good someone's record is, I think that their record is simply a matter of time spent playing Kongai. Sure, it's not the same as WoW grinding, but I think to a certain extent, and this is true of all games, whether video games or strategic games between firms in reality, is that time (read: experience) is directly proportional to results. The more you play, the more accustomed you get to this particular game.

I am not talking about balancing Kongai in particular, and people criticizing me should understand that before berating me. Kongai is simply an *instance* of the *class* of game, speaking in terms of computer science. Kongai is nothing more than some variables set to some constant or another. My underlying philosophy is the same whether we're talking about Kongai, the NHL, DotA, Smash, or what have you.

I believe that the game should be balanced for the best players, because then BY DEFINITION, it'll be balanced for the REST of the players, ASSUMING that all barriers to competitive entry have been removed--these barriers being defined as that which bars newer players from reaching the competitive strategic interaction of top level players. Such barriers are starcraft's APM barrier, WoW's grinding barrier (for Arena), Guilty Gear's obscene commands and FRC windows (all pros can do Pot buster on command, or FRC on command), etc...

Kongai HAS NO SUCH BARRIERS. EVERYTHING is mental--any player that starts playing Kongai is playing the real game as it was meant to be played.

That means every time you lose, you can either blame it on imbalance, or you can think about why your opponent won, and why you lost. The people whining about imbalance will ALWAYS lose to the next imbalance because they'll never think for themselves--they are more or less scrubs that simply call something "cheap", or in this case, "imba". Does that mean Kongai needs no tweaking? Absolutely not.

I am speaking purely about the mindset. I believe me NOT having played Kongai (and I don't do so out of aggressive ignorance--I simply have not gotten my beta test clearance yet!) gives me more objective ground to stand on. My only bias towards Helene and Rumiko are the card aesthetics. I don't want to have to play an ugly cornelius constantine to win when I can play a much more aesthetically pleasing Helene and Rumi. And yes, it's cartoony and all, but guess what? There's still preference going on.

I believe in playing to win, but in order to play to win, I believe that whining about imbalance should be a LAST resort.

Frankly, rather than focusing on OVERpowered cards, I think we need to focus on UNDERpowered cards--cards that have an overly tough fight even in matchups that it would be the smarter thing to switch out against them, and are absolutely getting slaughtered in their bad ones.

I think it's a GOOD thing that Helene's or Rumiko's worst matchups are 4.5/5.5. Because guess what? If you nerf them so their 8/2 matchup goes to 6/4, you may make their bad matchups go from 4.5/5.5 to 3/7. I would much rather the 8/2 matchup go 5.5/4.5 because the 2 character got buffed that much.

And frankly, I believe in Sirlin knowing IDEALLY who should counter whom. In order to determine practically, testing should be done through beta testing, but I don't think that whining WAAAH THIS IS IMBA WAAH is helping anything. Because clearly, some people say nerf rumi, some say she got enough of a nerf as it stands. Some people say nerf Helene, I and others say she's perfectly fine as she stands.

I say that the ultimate decision should be purely Sirlin's, and should not be made on the demands of the masses, but whether or not this complex game of rock paper scissors has all of the rocks being countered by the papers being countered by the scissors being countered by the rocks as Sirlin sees fit.

Am I in favor of making changes sometimes rather than say "oh, you got OUTPLAYED! NOOB, L2P N SKILL UP KTHXBAI!"? Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes I do believe that something is simply not competitive enough, and sometimes I believe that the person whining about it is full of shit that should STFU and L2P.

Frankly, I've seen one game completely die because my advice and philosophies went unheeded. The creator wanted the game to play JUST HOW HE ENVISIONED IT, and in the end, all it resulted in was the arguably strongest strategies being cheesed over and over.

You think that if you just removed Helene, Higashi, Ashi, and Rumiko from the game (the equivalent of a big nerf) that there won't be a new strategy in its place, with CC and Yoshi and someone else being the new bad boys? Of COURSE there'll be.

Frankly, I don't think that Sirlin should strive for card balance in Kongai.

I think Sirlin should simply strive to balance the game such that the better player will always win, either through superior deckbuilding skills, or through superior mindgames. So long as there are enough options that balance each other out that there isn't only one or two competitive decks, what should decide matches is how well players read each other.

Remember, if you're out to make a competitive game, the only thing you care about is the better player winning. If you cared about ZOMFG FUN, then why don't you turn on items to very high in competitive smash, with special emphasis on hammers and bobombs legendary pokeballs?

jiaflu, for the third time, I never said Ilk isn't allowed to have opinions, or express them, or that they couldn't possibly be valid. What I object to is his "I know better than you" attitude toward people where it clearly isn't true (Read: nearly everyone in this forum). I mean, stuff like this:

See, even though this is a beta and part of its express purpose is to iron out balance issues, you guys are idiots for having opinions on game balance based on actually playing the game. Give me a break. Or maybe this one:

In other words, someone who plays a lot and wins a lot isn't necessarily any more in tune with the game than he is, so he has every right to imply garcia is a scrub who wants to nerf cards he can't beat, even though he is already beating them.

I'm not the one being elitist here. The ridiculous part is that Ilk is talking like an elitist except he has no apparent basis from which to do so other than his own ego.

Ilk: I doubt many of the people in this thread or on these forums are bitching about things they personally lose to. In fact for garcia it's quite the opposite, but of course your response to his suggestion that maybe Rumiko could use a slight nerf is that you know better than him what the game should look like and that he probably doesn't know how to counter her.

Your statement that player enjoyment doesn't matter is dead wrong. People want to enjoy their recreational time. That most of the people on this forum derive enjoyment from mental contests is just one part of the picture, and your massive general arrogance is not allowing you to see that.

Hypothetical: If game A is skill testing to a certain degree, and game B is exactly as skill testing but both players have more fun, which is the better game? This isn't even a question.

The rest of what you're saying is, frankly, things most of us already know and you're only bothering to say them in a desperate push to prove how much smarter you are than everyone else. Yes, we know there will always be some characters that are generally better than others. Yes, we know that the metagame can lean heavily in one direction for reasons other than that character actually being the best. Neither of these things means that "OMG we can't try to balance anything!" especially given that Sirlin regularly asks for opinions in these forums and the Kongai chat and has stated himself that the game is still under development.

Cliffs Notes Version: Ilk automatically assumes everyone is a scrub for giving feedback on potential balance issues in a game under development that they are currently beta testing. Meanwhile, having read internet spoilers qualifies him to talk down to everyone else. Why anyone is even halfheartedly defending any of this is beyond me.

I am just going to quietly bow out of this argument about Ilk. It's beyond my saving, lol. It's just that in MY opinion, Rumi's 1.6.1 changes are sufficient and Shield Bash could use just a speed drop and that's it.

I just simply like improving other characters first before looking to nerf others. For nerfs, I just feel like once something "imba" is nerfed, people are just going to use the next best "imba" thing. It's a vicious cycle and I've seen several online games essentially die because of continuous nerfs until everything becomes vanilla.

Here's the gist of that novel; sometimes cards are indeed unbalanced, and sometimes it's scrubby players needlessly complaining. Sirlin will ultimately decide what to do.

Wow, thanks for that Earth-shattering insight, Richard Feynman. I'm sure everyone who read that is eternally grateful to you for uncovering this hidden secret to us.

Focus

Agree about Rumi, and after thinking about it for a while, changing Shield Bash to speed 8 or a bit lower seems reasonable. I've been considering it a lot more in my recent games, and there are indeed instances where the Bash + Bash + Frenzied Strikes combo is very deadly, usually when it's 2 v 1 in one's favor, the opponent kills to get it to 1 v 1 (depleting energy in the process), and Helene just mugs them with the fast bashes.

It's not broken level right now, but I can see the logic behind such a change. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to hurt her edge against Rumi, either.

Hey guys,

This thread really heated up! :)

Well, first of all. I think that it's pretty apparent that NicolBolas is a scrub and he whines a lot and doesn't support his arguments well. I make fun of him in chat about this all the time and he doesn't seem to mind, either :)

But this does not mean that what he says is always wrong. Sure, you can use some skepticism. But for example, here are two things NicolBolas has said previously:

1) Cornelius is a weak, crappy character.
2) Rumiko is overpowered.

Going by what I know, 1) is probably not true. But this doesn't mean that 2) is automatically untrue just because NicolBolas said it! In fact, I think that it's true.


Now it's time to analyze an Ilk1986 post!

k.

wat

Well I will leave aside the fact that Rumiko has no problems against Onimaru; since you haven't played the game, it's reasonable to look at Onimaru's 10 armor and conclude that he hax Rumiko. Rumiko doesn't do that badly against Helene, either, EVEN THOUGH Helene renders her eviscerate and shuriken barrage useless.

Look, Rumiko isn't even countered that badly by her almost perfect counter character. Do you see why?

Also, I understand that by looking at Rumiko's stats, she looks like a glass cannon. I assure you that she is not. The threat value of eviscerate and shuriken barrage against close and far range characters respectively is probably not evident without playing.

Actually, most of the changes we are discussing for Rumiko won't have that effect. Again, this is probably imagine without playing.




Oh! Now it's time for a jiaflu post! That's always fun!

I agree that the current "metagame" - whatever that is, biases our opinions. For example, I think Yoshiro is so totally toppest tier that he should be on every team. But few people use him right now, so no one really cares enough to nerf Yoshiro. Or for example, Cornelius is so powerful and well-rounded and does everything well and has no bad matchups. But people don't say he's overpowered because no one uses him.

This doesn't mean we are all wearing bias goggles though. I'd like to think I have a pretty idea of who is good and who is not.

I don't bring up my record as some sort of huge e-peen thing. If I wanted to I could play against L1 newbies all day and slaughter them with my best team. I could get a 9-1 W/L ratio. But that seems pretty pointless because I wouldn't be learning new stuff.

I think that Ilk1986 displays more certainty in his convictions than is warranted by his knowledge.




Oh! Next up is another Ilk1986 post! Fun times!

Some people might be crybabies whining about losing to Rumiko or Helene. But I think it does us a disservice to say that everyone's main motivation for suggesting changes is because we can't beat them. I can beat Helenes and Rumikos without much problem, but so what? I can beat the other 18 characters without much problem too. That's not a valid argument.

I don't know if I have whined or not. It's more like "sigh... another helene to rest->rest->(far) intercept->intercept->voidstream again". Just sort of boring and I don't learn much.

duh
This is why most of the reasonable changes that have been suggested are small. e.g. enchant blade, +3 -> +1. eviscerate, proc rate 70% -> 60%. Some people are suggesting crazy total nerfs but those aren't really taken seriosuly.

orly?

I agree.
You forgot though, we can also blame it on the random number generator! Two out of five 90% attacks missing somehow turns into five 95% misses in a row when it goes from Kongai into the comments box or chat.

It's sort of like the choice between standing on a perfectly level field of quicksand, and a slightly sloping field of granite

Me too!

... man, I thought it would be really fun to go through his post and post witty replies to all the wrong stuff. But reading it thoroughly, all I learned is that Ilk1986 has a huge ego

I am sorry for not providing sufficient entertainment, guys

I do not have a huge ego. These are simply my opinions. If something is imba, it'll be fixed. And as for "sigh, another Helene to rest rest voidstream intercept", then you need to find better competition.

The most imba cards don't make your deck good if you're not, but conversely, if you're good enough, you can win with the worst cards.

I'm probably missing a bunch of stuff, but I was looking into doing numerical analysis of the game based on the published information that I could find, but there's a bunch of fundamental stuff that's not clearly spelled out. For example, if stun or paralysis takes place on the first attack in a round, does it cancel the opponent's attack on that round or, at what frequency do the various random effects occur?

Considering all the accounting that's involved, it seems unlikely that the game saw a whole lot of live testing.

You could always experiment by actually playing the game....
Experience is always better than documentation, even if you're clueless at first.

Think I wouldn't if I actually got my beta invite?

Heh, what I don't understand is why you didn't find a way to get to lvl 14 fast sometime earlier (cheat or no cheat), and continued to make assumptions on the section of a forum of a game you never played.

On the Other Hand, I look forward to playing you >=)

The moment I registered for kongregate I beelined toward that beta invite. I registered halfway into the Helene challenge.

Tafari is pretty boss with the new Deadly Poison. His darts now do an average of [15 base + (50% x 12 poison proc) + (80% x 12 deadly poison proc)] x 90%.

This works out to (30.6 - dark resist) x 90%. Against someone with, say, 3 dark resist, this still does around 25 damage per turn, which is a lot since you will usually bring him in against low energy or injured people. I'm using him now, but it will take a while to see whether he's hax, or just boss.

herbal remedy > healing salve
but
poison >> generall insignia


poison is about 240% of insignia damage, while hebal remedy is only 130% heal of healing salve.

Also poison is OP to both heals in absolute numbers.
defending OP deadly poison is wrong…

Fix this pls.

A totally 'overpowered' item, still most people only use it on 1 on the 5 cards that use it? (Well, probably 2 after claws will be 12 instead of 18.) I mean, I'm not saying it's not good, but if it would be as ridiculous as you say wouldn't you see it on others too?

Xanthus, I'm not completely convinced it's overpowered yet but there are 3 characters that would use it if claws didn't exist (Zina, Popo, Tafari)

Zina, yes if claws didn't exist. For popo I'd prefer feather, insignia or death mask myself, I think poison is just another option in that list, not clearly better or worse. Which still means poison is only for one character an option that you could say may really be the best (although you won't look ridiculous as a tafari with stoneheel or feather for example).

Popo

Popo needs to be nerfed.

His slingshot is a major attack, that you practically need to avoid just as a chi blast, while it costs almost nothing and is faster then chi blast, while having the same game turning effect.

Popo can also defend himself far too well with dodge and kneebash – which is a weaker shield bash.

Onimaru would be good against him, but he gets quickly killed by poison. 20 energy attack for so much poison is also wrong.
These points lead me to think That Popo is a bit off balance.

Now you want to tell it´s only a small chance

1) the chance is good enough to be abused with success by even newbies - absolutely no skill required. Which proves the chance is too high

2) You have to treat is as a chi blast, to counter the mindless strategy stated above. But compare chi blasts cost to that of slingshot, which can be done many times even after going far.


no other character can spam MAJOR GAMEBREAKING attack

there's approximately a 50% chance to do 60 damage. On average, it'll do 30 damage per turn. Even then, when slingshot doesn't hit, popo is screwed against opponents that have long-range attacks.

Poison will do even less damage, around 22.5 damage per turn.

Knee bash, for an interrupt, is somewhat unlikely to hit, at 85% hit.

Onimaru isn't really supposed to kill popo, it'll take him 4 turns on average to kill popo using sword flurry because of his dodge. Popo is something of an anti-tank guy. Even then, popo will most likely go long in order to prolong the amount of time he's alive.

I am sorry to tell, that you fail to understand the point

Popo can spam his major and game turning ability
No other character can do that.

Once Higashi blasts chi blasts, you know hes outta juice. this never never happens with popo, that is my point

In a 2/3 tournament setting, you're never going to last to the top with that kind of thinking. Sure Popo turns the tides of the game rather quickly, but hardly a "major gamebreaking" threat.

Why Rumiko and tafari are overpowered

Tafari has a slow close attack (ambush), a decent poison attack, and a stupid leaf trap that only works if the opponent doesn't know how to play.

But he's still overpowered. Why? Well, let's play rock paper scissors. Oh, and you cannot play scissors. Let's also add in the fact you may have a low energy dude with limitted range. Now you can't switch helene, anex, onimaru, etc out because tafari blocks that AND you have to rest while taking poison counters out the wazoo. Plus tafari has no problem fleeing the battle, and can sometimes force an opponent to go to range with hide/ambush.

So even though he doesn't do damage quite as well as some (like rumiko) he cancels their abilities so well it often doesn't matter.

Rumiko also has a hoser ability, a 50% to leave the battle regardless of intercepting. It's risky enough to intercept. It makes it so much worse when rumiko is there. She can just keep wailing huge damage with near impunity, safe in the knowledge that if the opponent ever does get to the right range, she can hop out easily and bring in someone like tafari to close the deal.

Finally, cornelious is a little overpowered still. But the blood burn thing was ridiculous. -2 to opponents voidstream means no damage from that at all, and adding damage is cool.

nerfing him is good.

So who is underpowered? Anyone with limitted range because tafari and rumiko ruin their day. They can't intercept rumiko, which will eventually force them to take damage and leave. And if they ever go to low energy, tafari is there to poison them to death completely. With the poison vial, he does 39 damage a shot sometimes! Who needs popo when tafari does all that?

Popo is weak because he has no hp. that's so freaking obvious. Hp is a major determinant of who is good and who is not, because insta-kills turn the game completely.

Finally, higashi is still a little overpowered. But it's not as bad as it used to be.

Popo is at range with higashi, who has full energy. Either a retreat or a stay and fight could mean certain death in a single turn. Same problem with the student, but at least he can do damage with his shadow attack, wheras with popo its all random.

I think Rumiko's innate convinces me more than anything that random elements can add skill tests to a game. I keep hearing people say "You can never intercept her!" but I intercept her pretty regularly. 1/2 is not zero!

I do think his innate is a bit busted. How balanced would Helene be if she had some sort of move instead, say, instead of regular slash, that set the range to close and kept the opponent from switching range for the next 3 turns for 0 energy?

Tafari shutting down switch out is a bit over the top IMO.

This is why I advocate for a "sidestep" option that dodges exactly like switch does and is countered by intercept just like switch is, but doesn't switch out your character, so you can spam sidestep all day against someone like Tafari to make them play a guessing game while you regain energy.

Ilk, that option destroys the endgame. One of the skills in this game is deciding how much you care if your opponent switches out at a given juncture, your sidestep option makes that answer always be, "A lot."

I agree with chad on the rumiko thing. Just because she can dodge your intercepts doesn't mean you shouldn't intercept her. The 50% intercept dodge makes opponents really cocky about when they can switch, so usually Rumikos are really easy to predict when they want to switch out.

If popo had 70 or 80 HP, he would be way overpowered. The ability to dodge things at around 55% with elusive feather and the ability to heal himself with herbal preparations justifies his low HP.

Wrong, Popo, assuming the person playing him is half-decent, will close in in both situations.

Higashi is much too underpowered now. His interrupt move costs him 40 energy and only deals out 26 damage, with a proc rate of 25%. Compare that to Cain Solomon's tackle, which is 30 energy, deals out 27 damage, and has a proc rate of 50%.


Nicol: maybe you're just butthurt because my popo kicks your ass . As an experienced popo user, i'm gonna say that my popo is more of a scare character because people aren't sure whether or not he's gonna kill the other enemy or just get wiped all over the floor.

After playing 4 straight games against feathered Popos, I've discovered the best way of dealing with them is to gamble against them. Throw on a Girdle and PB away.

deadly poison

I really don´t know if Tefari with a deadly poison was supposed to kill ANY character with too much poison? Just no way to survive this spam. +12 damage on each attack? this gotta be a joke. Everyone who can, is playing it already