Ruby Carbuncle vs Solar Prince

[DanTheTimid]

I'm comparing both of these purely as soul cards:

Ruby Carbuncle: Lp1
Soul Skill: Return two random cards from your Cemetery to your Card File. You get SP+1.

Solar Prince / Verlaat: Lp2
Soul Skill: Return two random cards from your Cemetery to your Card File. You get SP+1.

Am I missing something or does Solar Prince straight up obselete Ruby Carbuncle? Perhaps Solar Prince is mis-translated?

[Awod]

For quick reference heres the cards.

[card=19]Ruby Carbuncle[/card]

[card=0]Solar Prince / Verlaat[/card]

Well I think that's the problem, you're looking just at the soul skills. Solar Prince seems to be a character which there can only be one of? So that may balance it out more. Like is there any backlash between them? Not saying I know the reason just saying there probably is one i'm sure Solar Price being a character card may have something to do with it.

Also Solar Prince actually has some fairly useful skills to give you incentive to play it probably, not so much the case for Ruby Carbuncle it only adds 5 defense to the cards next to you [for that turn] all in all I don't think it's outright unbalanced.

[Logress]

I asked the Japanese players about this, and they told me that the balance was done for a few reasons. One, Solar Prince is more rare, but slightly less powerful than Ruby Carbuncle in the first set. Seems a strange thing to say, right? But remember, Ruby Carbuncle has strong HP, good agility and his Auto skill will give him DF and the soldiers on either side of him defense every round, for free. He's a very solid, bread and butter card that is key to establishing a front line in set 1. Verlaat, on the other hand, is far too weak for the front row, and he's only got a RNG of 1. His Protection of the Sun power is kind of awesome, but in reality, it only is useful when you're up against Lawtia, and only if they're using Lycanthropes, and only when they don't have [card=26]Eskatia[/card]. Now, keep in mind, in that one particular situation you will rip it up, but otherwise it doesn't do anything for you. (This will change in later sets, with sun Lycanthropes). Now, I personally like his healing power, but there are other cards who can heal and it's more of a late-mid game power.

So, they made him a great soul card to make up for it a bit.

Now, I still felt it was weird that he had the exact same power, with no difference except the LP. So I asked them about it. And they said "Are you so sure having 2 LP over 1 is always an advantage?" and then "Is it more important to have the most LP, or is it more important to always know exactly when your Soul Skills are going to be activated?"

Then I realized that if I keep asking questions like this they'll probably make me shave my head and go off in the mountains to live in a Buddhist temple for 10 years... which would probably delay the Beta, so I decided to shut up.

[Awod]

oh, auto skill happens every round I had no idea. Thanks for sharing that tidbit of information.

Is it more important to have the most LP, or is it more important to always know exactly when your Soul Skills are going to be activated?"
Nice quote and keep away from the Buddhist temples!

[DanTheTimid]

Wow... I must say I truly am shocked that this was not a mistake but an intended imbalance. They're logic doesn't make any sense to me at all... of course having more LP is better... if not why include lp2 and lp3 soul cards at all? Lp1 cards have equal or superior abilities to all other lp cards after all. I mean really, if their logic holds, and not having lots of experience with the game like they do I don't know maybe it does, then doesn't it follow that all lp2 and lp3 cards are severely under powered and need to be rebalanced? I mean why ever use a lp2 card with no ability if a lp2 card with the ability of a lp1 card is considered reasonable?

I also REALLY hate that they used rarity to justify a card being overly powerful. I HATE when games do that. It not only gives an unfair advantage to those with lots of money and who've been playing the game for a long time but it also decreases the card files you can build because your limited to choosing the rarest cards, other wise your card file will be inferior to other card files that do have the rarest cards. Things become more predictable and boring.

If Solar Prince is weaker then he should be in his unit form the answer isn't to give him an overly powerful soul skill to make him a desirable rare card, the answer is to buff his unit form so that its worth using.

So yeah... for the first time I'm actually pretty worried about the balance of things. I still plan to be trying things out first hand in the beta, theres only so much I can determine playing theory craft and crunching numbers, in the end how the game actually plays will be a better judge for actual balance. But these comments they've given you are extremely worrisome to me.

[DWildstar]

And they said "Are you so sure having 2 LP over 1 is always an advantage?" and then "Is it more important to have the most LP, or is it more important to always know exactly when your Soul Skills are going to be activated?"

I've been playing a lot on the Japanese servers for the past week (maybe longer, I forget now ) and recently I've started to use my Soul Cards more strategically than I did initially. It does seem that having the most LP would always be the best, but this really isn't the case. Like they were saying, knowing when a Soul Card is going to be activated is of great strategic importance.

I've run into many situations where reviving a unit wouldn't be as effective as taking damage and activating a soul card because sometimes my unit can't do as much damage. Or maybe the soul card gives me SP that I need to bring a new card my next round. The possibilities are endless.

So if you start a battle and your opponent has four or more LP points than you, don't worry because the right strategy and card selection might whittle down their LP faster than they can get through yours.

[Logress]

Overall, the Carbuncle is still a more useful card (at least as a unit), and more likely to find its way into balanced decks. Verlaat has the nice benefit of being a good choice for players who want to start with an LP advantage, although there are plenty of other good soul cards in that range. When it comes to more LP always being better, don't forget that +1 SP on turn 2 means getting a level 3 card out one turn before your opponent, and that's something Carbuncle can give you -- should your strategy require it.

[DanTheTimid]

See I can understand how careful planning of your soul skills can be a strategic advantage. I can also understand how getting off an effect earlier can be worth while, the advantage you gain from getting your effect early allows you take a lead that they can't easily over come when their effect goes off later even though you had to take out more of their units.

Its really hard for me to see the same effect being balanced at 2 different LP but with out more experience playing the game I'm willing to just grant that it might be true.

What I can't get over though is that if that IS true, it means lp really aren't very valuable, its all about effects. And that means all those lp2 cards with no soul skills might as well not have lp at all because theres never a situation where you'll be using them as soul cards. And similarly it makes me question if any lp3 cards are worth it, certainly not ones with negative soul skills that are hard to avoid but even ones whose negative skills are easily avoided (such as setting your units defense to 0 when none of your units have defense). If Ruby C truly is balanced with Solar P it implies that LP doesn't give you a significant advantage, its just stalls things and that winning is all about gaining field and sp advantages which can only be achieved through positive soul skills.

[Grain]

DanTheTimid seems to have a knack for judging cards based on their soul skills and not looking at the full picture.

-Grain

[DanTheTimid]

DanTheTimid seems to have a knack for judging cards based on their soul skills and not looking at the full picture.

-Grain

When I get more experience with the game I'll get a better feel for the balance of the unit side of things but soul cards, having so few variables that effect them, are the easiest to simply observe statistically and gauge their strength.

The thing a lot of people seem to misunderstand is that do to the way the game works, balancing a card's usefulness as a soul card and balancing its usefulness when played as a unit are 2 completely separate actions that have no barring on one another. Ideally every unit would be useful both as a soul card and a unit, so being a good unit is never a justification for being a bad soul card (and vice versa), its just a cop out for laziness, for not trying to make it a useful when played as either side. I don't mean anything mean by that comment, its just the reality of the situation.

Me, I like options. I like variety. That's why I'd like to see every soul card in the opening set be potentially useful and no cards obsoleted. In that manner I can have lots of difference choices when choosing my soul cards and not just be constrained to the handful of clearly overly strong ones. That's the reason I keep looking for and pointing out seeming imbalances among the soul cards, not be an annoying pain but to better understand the game and possibly help make the game better.