Devs - Seasons Past infinite loop

Netatron

shteev wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Harness the Storm is also on my list. I'm currently testing some changes to it. I'm curious to know how would you guys fix it.

I have some pretty good ideas. My consultancy fee is £50 an hour, which I think is quite reasonable.

I'd rather see them spend the money to hire another coder or someone to test things.

shteev

@JC

Just please, don't mess up the new metagame so that Kiora is the only Tier 1 planeswalker again. It's so dull. Harness the Storm can let a variety of different planeswalkers take on Kiora right now. If you must nerf Harness, please consider nerfing some of Kiora's more obviously broken cards which have inexplicably escaped the nerf gun until now, like Prism Array, Day's Undoing, Part the Waterveil... maybe even Fertile Growth... Or perhaps have a look at that first ability of Kiora's again. Come on now, everyone who paid for Kiora has had a good knockabout with her by now. Isn't it time you made her balanced?

Netatron

shteev wrote:

@JC

Just please, don't mess up the new metagame so that Kiora is the only Tier 1 planeswalker again. It's so dull. Harness the Storm can let a variety of different planeswalkers take on Kiora right now. If you must nerf Harness, please consider nerfing some of Kiora's more obviously broken cards which have inexplicably escaped the nerf gun until now, like Prism Array, Day's Undoing, Part the Waterveil... maybe even Fertile Growth... Or perhaps have a look at that first ability of Kiora's again. Come on now, everyone who paid for Kiora has had a good knockabout with her by now. Isn't it time you made her balanced?

I think Kiora is fine, her mana gains are nothing special. There are some problematic cards Kiora has access too, but they're nothing to do with Kiora really, Drowner of Hope is just as bad if not worse on Saheeli, and I think all of Kiora's really broken combos come from either DoH or the huge green ramping spells paired with cards like the ones you mentioned. If other planeswalkers were more finely tuned and the AI knew how to use them all I feel like we'd see people begging to nerf Ob Nixilis or something.

murtagon

Seasons Past being exiled versus landing in the graveyard is a great fix. However the mechanic to prevent it from returning itself would be less extreme. I'm sure there will be cards in the future that let you pick cards from the graveyard so it just depends on how flexible you want the card to be going forward.

Harness the Storm is strong due to the potential cascades. If you reduce the number of gems destroyed as some have mentioned it would not require major game change logic and should reduce the huge chaining it currently induces. I don't think the gem destruction should go away, it seems appropriate that the card is potentially unstable and self destructive. The suggestion that one of the gems it damages is always one of its shields is a more extreme option and could potentially ruin the card without more balance testing on how many shields to give it. Personally I like the randomness and think reducing the gem destruction to two gems might be enough.

I don't think Harness is broken on par with Seasons Past. To make harness broken you really need to build a deck around it - granted it is not hard to do and perhaps the lack of diversity in these harness decks justifies the change. Season's Past and Runaway Carriage are broken without having to build a deck around them, just adding them enhances the deck. Adding harness to a deck will not suddenly make the deck perform much better.

shteev

Netatron wrote:

If other planeswalkers were more finely tuned and the AI knew how to use them all I feel like we'd see people begging to nerf Ob Nixilis or something.

I think you might be right there. I can't see there being an outcry for it while the AI plays him so badly tho.

shteev

Netatron wrote:

shteev wrote:

@JC

Just please, don't mess up the new metagame so that Kiora is the only Tier 1 planeswalker again. It's so dull. Harness the Storm can let a variety of different planeswalkers take on Kiora right now. If you must nerf Harness, please consider nerfing some of Kiora's more obviously broken cards which have inexplicably escaped the nerf gun until now, like Prism Array, Day's Undoing, Part the Waterveil... maybe even Fertile Growth... Or perhaps have a look at that first ability of Kiora's again. Come on now, everyone who paid for Kiora has had a good knockabout with her by now. Isn't it time you made her balanced?

I think Kiora is fine, her mana gains are nothing special. There are some problematic cards Kiora has access too, but they're nothing to do with Kiora really, Drowner of Hope is just as bad if not worse on Saheeli, and I think all of Kiora's really broken combos come from either DoH or the huge green ramping spells paired with cards like the ones you mentioned. If other planeswalkers were more finely tuned and the AI knew how to use them all I feel like we'd see people begging to nerf Ob Nixilis or something.

The list of cards I named there isn't complete or definitive, Drowner is certainly a candidate for being OP. Maybe Thopter Spy Network as well? Hard to say, I rarely see people play TSN in Kiora.

tm00

Silly idea for harness, but what about only destroying gems with the same color of the tile of harness the storm ? Or a 2/1 split.

Rootbreaker

shteev wrote:

@JC

Just please, don't mess up the new metagame so that Kiora is the only Tier 1 planeswalker again. It's so dull. Harness the Storm can let a variety of different planeswalkers take on Kiora right now. If you must nerf Harness, please consider nerfing some of Kiora's more obviously broken cards which have inexplicably escaped the nerf gun until now, like Prism Array, Day's Undoing, Part the Waterveil... maybe even Fertile Growth... Or perhaps have a look at that first ability of Kiora's again. Come on now, everyone who paid for Kiora has had a good knockabout with her by now. Isn't it time you made her balanced?

Day's undoing may still be a great card, but saying it escaped the nerf gun until now is just untrue. They increased the cost from 6 to 10!

Feagul

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Harness the Storm is also on my list. I'm currently testing some changes to it. I'm curious to know how would you guys fix it.

Set a maximum number of spells it can return per turn? Have the shield drop when it returns a spell? We kicked that idea around in coalition chat the other day (and it's already been posted). You might have to raise its shield value for it to still feel valuable.

Alternatively, you could have it fetch the next spell in your deck rather than the one you cast last. This would make building a deck around it far more restrictive (and these large loops of spells that cost 1 mana harder to set up).

Rootbreaker

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Harness the Storm is also on my list. I'm currently testing some changes to it. I'm curious to know how would you guys fix it.

How you'd fix harness the storm depends on what part(s) of it you feel are broken. It's certainly a powerful/abusable card, but what kind of activity do you dislike with it?

majincob

Just going to throw my 2 cents in here. Please don't increase the cost of SP or lower its gem production. I wasn't lucky enough to get Nissa's Renewal which I really wanted so this has been a good replacement. Exiling it instead of going to the graveyard would be fine. If you do increase the cost/decrease gem production, could I trade it in for a renewal?

jimilinho_

majincob wrote:

Just going to throw my 2 cents in here. Please don't increase the cost of SP or lower its gem production. I wasn't lucky enough to get Nissa's Renewal which I really wanted so this has been a good replacement. Exiling it instead of going to the graveyard would be fine. If you do increase the cost/decrease gem production, could I trade it in for a renewal?

Hopefully they realise no-one has a problem with the cost or the gems, Just the fact that it loops. Just hope when a minor fix is needed they don't smash it up with the nerf bat

M3f

Seriously this fix is as easy as they come. Just use the already existing mechanic of "summoning a card with exclusion of a copy of the card itself". It already apeears on some cards so no real hassle needed.

andrewvanmarle

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Just an FYI - Seasons Past is getting changes in the next version. It is currently overtuned.

I am also looking at Ulvenwald Hydra.

It might help to minimise animations to speed things up, maybe as an option or after a certain amount of cards have been played in a turn?

Be gentle with the hydra

M3f

As for the hydra it would be ok IMO if it only work on own matches not opponents. It's too harsh for green decks atm

Morphis

I love playing harness the storm in my saheeli and Koth deck.
Neither of those are built specifically to loop on it.
Only 1 mana spell I included(in saheeli not Koth) is the cloak since helps both offensively and defensively.

I hope that any change that is made does not make it unviable.

One change could be double casting but i suppose it would be hard to code primarily cause you need to exclude the second "copy" to trigger harness itself.

Also double casting kill spells or some buff(like cloak) is sometimes useless.

The shield counter idea is somehow viable but would make it too hard to destroy through gem matching.

Probably there is not a simple overall viable solution.
It's too bad cause I find it perfectly fine now(again I use it without cards to specifically loop it) and very fun.

Hibernum_JC

There's some good suggestions in here - pretty much generally in line with the avenues I was exploring.

The major problem with Harness the Storm is the looping. It's power level, in itself, is fine, but constant looping is a problem.

I'm still investigating it. The problem, as shteev mentioned, is that lowering it's power level too much just empowers Kiora, as Harness the Storm is a potent tool for Red (and thus is usable by a wide variety of Planeswalkers).

Seasons Past's gem conversion won't be touched. It's a high-level ramp that is incredibly strong, and I don't want to lower it's power level that much. Overall the problem with Seasons Past is it's looping, like it is for Harness the Storm. There are ways to change stuff like Harness the Storm so it doesn't loop, but I certainly do not want to make the card no longer viable.

khurram

Hibernum_JC wrote:

In the next version, Seasons Past is no longer able to fetch itself or any copies of itself. This will completely eliminate the crazy loops with itself, while still remaining a very strong card. It's mana cost may also increase a bit.

Definitely not increase the mana cost. It needs a nerf but going just one step further when nerfing powerful cards is a recurring theme in the game.

e.g.
Knight of the white orchid
Mizzium Meddler
Skysnare spider
Undergrowth Champion

NEVER see the first three in play since they were nerfed.... and UC is basically just regular now (make it cost less like it used to).

Netatron

khurram wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

In the next version, Seasons Past is no longer able to fetch itself or any copies of itself. This will completely eliminate the crazy loops with itself, while still remaining a very strong card. It's mana cost may also increase a bit.

Definitely not increase the mana cost. It needs a nerf but going just one step further when nerfing powerful cards is a recurring theme in the game.

e.g.
Knight of the white orchid
Mizzium Meddler
Skysnare spider
Undergrowth Champion

NEVER see the first three in play since they were nerfed.... and UC is basically just regular now (make it cost less like it used to).

Speaking of UC, it looks like it still behaves the old way when Ob uses his 2nd skill on it?

Morphis

Think a change to harness that can reduce its looping potential while keeping the same functionality can be:
- when you cast a spell return the spell at the bottom of your graveyard to your hand. it costs X more until the end of the turn. Destroy 3 gems.

X is meant to increase the cheap spells(the main responsible for the loops) to a decent level.
Since the increase is only until end of turn it will not affect the utility of recurring spells to play again next turn.

X could be any value but I think that more than 3 is not needed to reduce chance of loop and loop length.
Thoughts?