Developer Update: Season Reset and Balance Changes! | Forums

[ItsJustBuck]

Hey everyone, Buck from RedLynx here! The team is currently in the process of finalizing the technical elements of our upcoming Balance Change, preparing a Season Reset, and making bug fixes and performance improvements for April’s update. Steve and I have put together some info for you all, so that we can give you as much information as possible about the upcoming Season Reset and Balance Changes that are coming next week! So grab your reading glasses, take a seat, and get comfortable!

THIS WEEK

First, let’s talk about this weekend’s event. This weekend will be the final event of this Legendary season, so if for some crazy reason you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, it’s time to get to climbing! This weekend’s event won’t be impacting your Season Rank by asking you to play with specific cards, however. While this event will be a Mystical themed team event (so remember not to team hop, or you’ll lose prizes!), it will also be one where you collect tokens out of lockers and PvP packs, so you’re free to use your normal decks, cause some mayhem, and climb that Legendary Leaderboard for better loot!

This week, we’ll also be hosting our weekly Developer Livestream, answering community questions, raffling off sweet loot (including some Legendary cards!), and tackling this weekend’s event! Tune in on Facebook Live and Twitch this Thursday at 8 PM Pacific/ 11 PM Eastern to hang out with us, ask your questions, and maybe even win some sweet loot!

NEXT WEEK

Next week, we’ll have the Legendary Season Reset (more info down below). On top of that, we’ll also be making some balance changes to some cards. As we mentioned previously, we are hoping to make balance changes far more frequent in the future than they have been in the past - this will allow us to experiment more, and keeps things fresh and exciting. This time around, there are quite a few changes coming, so I’ll do my best to list all of the juicy details!

Please be aware that when base stat changes are mentioned, a proportional modification to the entire upgrade tree has also been made.

C o c k s - We noticed our C o c k s were in need of some attention, as they weren’t getting much love on the battlefield. The community has frequently mentioned that they don’t function all that well, and were hoping to give them a little more spark to really make them worth it. Your C o c k related cries have been answered! In hopes of seeing some stronger C o c k s in your hands, we’ve doubled the starting health of ALL C o c k s from 25 to 50 at level 1, and increased the health of Chicken Coop from 330 to 450. This should make them harder to kill, and allow them to be more useful. When you play with any C o c k spawning card, it should now feel much more satisfying.

Gizmo Ike – Our furry little friend wasn’t quite as useful as we hoped, and we’ve heard frequently from many of you in the community that he was being overshadowed by every other Ike, so we’ve made some changes that we hope you will all like. His walk speed has been decreased from 1.08 to 0.7 (giving him more time to get that charge ready before heading over to the enemy) and his charge time has been changed from 12.5 down to 7. Ike’s copies are also getting a little bit of a buff as their base attack is increasing from 30 to 39, and their base HP will be increasing from 29 to 39. In addition to this, pre-attack delay has been removed for Gizmo Ike and all copies.

#BuffAllRandys - This is another one we’ve been hearing quite a bit about from the community. Randy’s are currently super underutilized, so we wanted all Randy cards to get a little bit of a boost! This should give them a little more staying power, and give all of you a bit more incentive to unleash your Randys.

Sexy Nun Randy – Base attack increasing from 40 to 50 and base HP is increasing from 320 to 400

• Little Choir Boy - The Little Choir Boys that Sexy Nun Randy summons will have their base attack increased from 50 to 90 and their base HP increased from 50 to 90

Pocahontas Randy – Base HP increasing from 320 to 400

• Indian Brave – Base HP increasing from 70 to 120

Sixth Element Randy - Base attack increasing from 60 to 75 and HP from 400 to 500

Amazingly Randy - Will benefit from the stronger c o c k s (mentioned above)

Ice Sniper Wendy - Ice Sniper Wendy has a solid Charge ability, but community feedback has indicated she needed a little extra bump in order to see more field time. In order to give her a little extra oomph, her base attack increased from 19 to 25

Pope Timmy - While Pope Timmy has an awesome Warcry, he wasn’t seeing much use. In order to add more value for energy, his base attack will be increasing from 48 to 64 and his base HP will be increasing from 128 to 200

Purify and Powerbind - These are two cards that the community has asked us to revisit, and we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that we were a bit heavy handed with these two previously. However, the core idea behind those changes is still quite sound - Purify and Powerbind should not nullify all offensive strategies using Charge Abilities or Effects for super low cost. In order to find a more comfortable medium between overpowered and underpowered, we’ll be making the following changes:

Purify - Base radius is increasing from 1 to 1.3, upgradeable to 1.6
Powerbind – Base radius increasing from 1 to 1.5, upgradeable to 1.8 and unlimited targets

Calamity Heidi and Smuggler Ike - We felt that these two have a little too much value as 2 cost units, so we are adjusting them slightly.

• Heidi- Base HP will be reduced from 150 to 130
• Smuggler Ike – Base attack boost from his Charge Power will be reduced from +10 to +5

Rat Swarm - These little buggers are the most played unit in the game, mostly due to the low cost and ability to quickly sneak up and attack a unit or the New Kid, or to take several hits that would otherwise be chipping away at a more valuable unit. In order to make them more balanced while not drastically modifying their usefulness, they will have their walk speed modified.
Walk speed will be lowered from 1.7 to 1.5

Legendary Season End
As you all know this legendary season is coming to an end on the 17th of April at approximately 8 am UTC. If you’re already in Legendary, you can see the exact time remaining by clicking on your golden PvP Shield in Butter’s House. As usual, there will be a small period of downtime during the season reset, expect this to last around 30 to 45 minutes. This season, only the bottom 50% of Legendary Players will be ejected to Rank 50. The top 50% will have their world rank adjusted to be even, and remain in Legendary. This will also gradually phase out inactive players from the Legendary System.

Legendary Season Rewards
This season, the rewards for the Legendary Rank players will be as follows:

WORLD RANK	LEGENDARY CARDS	EPIC CARDS	RARE CARDS	COMMON CARDS	GOLD UPGRADE ITEMS	SILVER UPGRADE ITEMS	BRONZE UPGRADE ITEMS	PVP TICKETS
#1-10	1, with a 50% chance for a second	9, with a 50% chance for a 10th	35	54	30	40	50	4500
#11-100	1, with a 20% chance for a second	8, with an 80% chance for a 9th	35	45	27	36	47	4000
#101-500	80% chance	7, with a 20% chance for an 8th	30	37	24	31	40	3500
#501-1,000	60% chance	6, with a 40% chance for a 7th	25	28	21	28	36	2500
#1,001-2,000	40% chance	5, with a 60% chance for a 6th	20	24	18	25	32	2000
#2,001-4,000	30% chance	4, with a 70% chance for a 5th	15	20	15	20	25	1500
#4,001+	20% chance	3, with an 80% chance for a 4th	10	16	10	10	20	1000

LATER THIS MONTH
We’re currently still on track to release an update later this month. The primary focus of this update will be to make some tech improvements that will allow things (like the Legendary Season reset) to go more smoothly. We are also putting an emphasis on fixing some critical issues when it comes to how units behave on the battlefield. As we get further along in the testing and validation process, we’ll be able to provide more info to all of you about which bugs will be fixed, and what will be coming.

Thanks a lot for the patience!

That’s all we have for you this week, New Kids, so until next time, we’ll see you on the streets of South Park!

Love,
-Buck🦌 & Steve🚀

[Zel4sh]

And the sacred sci-fi theme will remain untouched. That is just awesome. I can live with heidis nerfs but Ike is now not special at anything, he is another sally but cannot be used with other ikes, Iam so happy he is my only level 6 (sarcasm). But enforcer Jimmy is so fine, he is heidi wtih an ability. Or the bugged astro butters.

But I know what is your strategy. You want us all to play sc-fi. Id rather stop playing the game at all than switching to that ugly-*** theme.

I also liked that you did the survey like you promised, about units we feel are overpowered or underpowered. Because I kinda dont remember anyone mentioning smuggler Ike being overpowered.

And randys...I doubt people will play them anyway - they are epics and still worse than fighters with more potent charge abilities.

As always...Iam disappointed. And I will never forget you that Ike nerf.

[PanteneSocks]

Will Purify still be retaining the unit limit and will powerbind be unlimited units at level 6? Also, Ike is easily counterable with swarms, range, and princess kenny. Why would you nerf smuggler ike.. Shouldn't you be giving Sally some sort of ability instead?

Great job on the Randy buffs and not having nerfs that are too extreme. I think a reduction in cost from 5 to 4 would've made randy much more viable. But we'll see how these buffs work. It's doubtful they'll be good for pvp, but I shall see

Also, can you at least look into the mystic assassins. They are utter crap, they get outshined by pretty much any other assassin. Really, the only reason to use Mystic is for Zen Cartman.. The rest is so so. The purify nerf was understandable because it completely counters the sci-fi theme, but mystic really has little to offer and you haven't even addressed how weak mystic assassins are. I mean, their damage is okay, but their abilities are so bad.. it's almost as if they don't even have one.

I think this balance update is a step in the right direction, despite me having my smuggler ike, rat swarm, and heidi nerfed. Still, giving sally a perk would've been much closer to achieve equilibrium.

Also, any update on improved lockers for legendary?


Edit: Oh my goodness, you didn't nerf his base ability. You NERFED HOW IKE SCALES each level.

Are you guys morons? Princess Kenny and Paladin Butters have way better abilities.

You guys nerf because of little to no creativity. Maybe you should take some writing classes so you can better articulate yourself through words.. let alone try to lead a gaming community.

......... Lame.. Really lame. This is a PRETTY EXTREME NERF



TLDR; <^>, This is how I feel about you guys.. Since your actions obvious don't match your writing.. And you wonder why people are so "toxic".. Hey, what's your definition of base? Can you guys do anything right? Truly pathetic and unimpressive team.

[EscapeRoomDave]

You need to SELL MATERIALS without a bunch of random cards in the pack.

Decks of adventure, sci fi, etc materials with only ONE THEME in the pack are needed!

This is about RETENTION OF PLAYERS and REVENUE.

The game can't continue unless it pays for itself, and my guess is that the vast majority of players that leave are leaving because they CAN'T ADVANCE due to lack of materials.

These players don't want to wait 3 weeks to gather the materials 1 or 2 pieces at a time to promote a character from L4 to L5.

So sell them the materials immediately.

They don't leave. You make money.

Is it "fair" to non-paying players? Yes! Because it allows the game to continue. Without paying players, the game dies.

Sell materials in specific packs.

[Jakebetz13]

Sounds like a pretty good balance update. So **** magic ***** are going to be stronger as well?

[Vargas_NL]

Nerf of Heidi and rats swarm ! Finally ! Thank you !

Unfortunately I thing it’s not enough but that a first step !

Rats swarm are killing the Game and that’s why 98% of players play them, and I think that why you don’t nerf it to much but I hope later you’ll nerf their attack a little to

If I can suggest you to take a look at enforcer Jimmy too, wayyyy to OP for a cost 2 card and the area of his power way to big !

With rats swarm, Heidi and Enforcer Jimmy you have here 3 cards that need to be balance

Thanks for the good news

[Sky55995]

These updates r ok, but r u going to fix that glitch Hookhand Clyde is suffering from? (His warcry not killing his targets) also this is a personal opinion, but can you nerf Terrance and maybe Starvin Marvin? Theyre pretty much everywhere and I find they’re way too powerful and it gets frustrating after a while.

[ShamelesSteve]

I can tell ya'll really tried with this update and I appreciate it; especially waiting until after the season to kill my deck. Thank you so much.
Its bad enough to have to remake my deck every time ya'll fool around with a card rebalance halfhandedly; dropping from #800 to below #2K a few weeks before season end was a painful thing. I won't forget that failure.
But now I can look forward to having my cards nuked because it won't effect my current efforts. Yay!
But seriously; use a smaller hammer. These are tacks we are talking about not nails. Redlynx doesn't have to wack everything with a sledgehammer in order to rebalance.
Also buff Angel Wendy and Shieldmaiden; they are my favorite wendys and are being ignored while both the other wendys got huge buffs. Shieldmaid doesnt feel legendary.
Finally stop ****ting around with ****ty rebalancing acts and release cupid! ****!!!
Thanks!

[dannyb1022]

I do appreciate the nerfs. I feel like maybe the ike nerf was not quite the nerf people were looking for, it's his speed thats a little unfair, because he beats every other character on speed to attack, and if you speed him up with astro butters hes like an unstoppable rocket. He should have the same attack speed as sally. The other nerf that wasn't quite right was the rats. They DO need a nerf, but it was never about their movement speed. It was about their cost and/or how many rats spawn. All the buffs I am happy about.

My biggest complaint, of all of this, not just how sci-fi is godlike because of the mystic nerf, but why have spells been completely untouched (besides unnerfing the nerfed ones)? Spells are the most overpowered cards in the game. Poison, fireball (even after the nerf), lightning, **** magic... They are so overused its ridiculous. They, of any cards, are the most important to address. Poison specifically, with its huge range and high damage, your cards dont stand a chance. You cant even really spread out your cards enough to avoid it, and if you do spread out your cards you couldn't purify them (if applicable), and if you dont spread out your cards in comes the fireball. There NEEEEEEEEEDS to be a limitation on spells. Either a limitation or energy change or a change to how often they can be drawn. Why don't you care about spells? They totally remove strategy, because they are almost always utilized for extremely positive energy trades that are often not able to be countered and detrimental to winning.

My suggestions, all have their ups and downs:
Limit spell cards per deck
Limit spells drawn per game
Increase energy costs
Decrease damage/healing significantly
Allow a daily amount of spell usage to make players decide who to use their spells against (Allowing you to toss spell cards instead of using them to save from limit)

There are just so many options, and so many changes you can make, I am extremely depressed that you have not touched spells at all. I was hoping so much to have REAL matches and not just poison match after poison match (personally I have used sci-fi adventure deck since level 40 silver now floating around top 2k in legendary) and I have NEVER used poison, despite how extremely overpowered it is, because I like fun fair matches.

[Void_Away-]

Cool to hear that there's gonna be a smoother game play. You are still missing something in your game though and that's balanced tournaments, you already have friendlies, you are almost there.