Ruby Carbuncle vs Solar Prince

[lupos]

I'm far from being a strategic expert at this yet, but in my brief experience actually playing I have to say I can easily see occasions, especially early on, where I would want to be able to activate a soul skill at will. But, I am an aggressive player. Others may be more content to bide their time, see what strategy their opponent's is taking and then adjust accordingly. Throwing out a few weak cards early and letting them die to provide this time. Being able to come at your opponent from a more knowledgeable point of view when your attack actual starts certainly is appealing. It's a much trickier prospect of course, and making a properly flexible deck is also rather tricky, but it's certainly do able.

I'm continually impressed with the amount of variety and strategy that can be had on such a small playing field and with relatively few cards. I can only imagine that as the expansions start to roll out it will just get even better. Did I mention before this I played like 10 games of MtG total ever and no other card games. I'm an action/shooter fan really but I have enjoyed the hell out of Alteil because it's got a lot of variety and moves at a very good pace. I know it's hard to conceptualize the game just be looking at the cards (though I'm very impressed with the knowledge of the system you already have o_0 ) but I think once you've had a chance to go a few rounds you'll be very pleasantly surprised.

[lupos]

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.

Not true. You can only have 3 of one card in you deck total. Deciding whether or not to use a card as a soul or a unit or both is all part of the process. some cards may seem like cruddy units but make good soul cards and vice versa but some may be trickier to decide. Some may be great at both. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what our strategy man in Japan is thinking here, but he is one of the best players of the game "period." He's spent a lot of time working on this and I know he knows what he's doing. Admittedly you make a compelling argument, but I feel pretty confident that when all is said and done we will see his grand scheme... of course by then he'll be working on like the 6th expansion and owning all of us with one hand tied behind his back.

Miyamoto san, the man who basically invented the game, was able to beat a very high ranked player in a match the first time he showed us the game, while continuing a presentation and never missing a beat. Literally, he spent about 2 minutes of the fight showing us things and then proceeded to wipe the floor with the other guy while we talked any number of other subjects. He gushes about our balancer.

[DanTheTimid]

Ignoring EVERYTHING else that's even remotely questionable balance wise, I still don't see ANY justification what so ever for the lp2 cards with no soul skills when there are lp2 cards with good soul skills. That's just such a cut and dry imbalance I really can't see how it can possibly be argued.

I also stand by my stance that soul card balance and unit card balance SHOULD be independent. The 2 sides don't interact with each other beyond the 3 card limit so there's no reason they should effect each other.

HOWEVER that is in an ideal card game, and although it may be a bit lazy to include cards which are worthless as soul cards or worthless as units, you can most certainly get away with such a balance structure. In the end as long as the card is useful in some form things are still fine overall. We do have less deck options now, but in the long run as more sets are released we'll eventually have more options through that avenue.

So long story short I'm going to stop looking into things and just trust the balance for now. I do want to say that I truly appreciate all the efforts that have been done on my part to investigate about the balance issues I've brought up. Its very gratifying to know that you guys care enough and trust my opinion enough to investigate these things.

[Akjeil]

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

-Grain

Actually, Dan is looking at a "full" picture, just from a unique perspective- one of balance (in relation to individual card attributes). I think along with the "small" pictures, there are "big" broader views with different emphases, and combining these there is also the possibility of one or more "super-" picture combining people's takes on the big picture. (The question is can one's mind contain it all and still be mindful of it both while setting cards and in the heat of battle; perhaps Miyamoto-san is one who's achieved this?)

I find this interesting in light of two things: (1) the potential of variance in player's unique approaches related to the game system's condition, and (2) the potential variety of successful use of each Sphere.

In one context, DanTheTimid's point indicates that if a game has "useless" common cards and rare "overpowered" cards, it could be a disadvantage to some who don't have money or luck (if it truly turns out to be an imbalance); however, some cunning players might find great success in the proper Card File choice or Alteil's advantage of allowing integration of cards from various files into a player's arsenal.

In the second context, there seems to be unlimited potential provided in the diversity of advantages and disadvantages in each card file: Refess is balanced in some impressive ways, for instance, but the right strategy from another Sphere could unbalance it in a duel. Falkow seems to be the least advantageous in all the normal ways at first glance, but its unorthodox advantages could make it nearly invincible (for someone who can fight while seeing that "super-"picture mentioned above; I'm not sure I could do it easily...)

Instead of spreading my long-windedness to another post, let me ask something related to another issue:

Ok, now I can't remember.
-Amnesiac Akjeil

EDIT: Ok, I got it:

Miyamoto san, the man who basically invented the game... He gushes about our balancer.

What's "our balancer"? Is it hardware, software, or simply the methods used to create balance in the game?

-NOOBalanced Akjeil

[Awod]

You should clear your double post.

Also I don't see it as a big deal the main thing Dan was saying is some soul cards of the same life points utterly suck whereas others are good but every card can't be excellent since every character and unit can be used as a soul card I'm not surprised to see a few that aren't immediately useful. Weather they claim it's actually balanced or they just couldn't think of a better skill the fact remains they had to put something there since all of them 'can' be used as a soul card.

"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."

I disagree every card can't be perfect they need weaknesses.

[Akjeil]

You should clear your double post.

Thanks- I reported it; it should be dealt with soon.

...I disagree every card can't be perfect they need weaknesses.

I agree that having some weaknesses here and there does make things interesting; It's on the plus side as long as a game's designed so that people aren't hampered by a particular game's economy or stuck with all weakness-bearing cards; players can choose to include or exclude certain kind or cards based on their style/preference.

-Balanced-Breakfast Akjeil

[lupos]

Miyamoto san, the man who basically invented the game... He gushes about our balancer.

What's "our balancer"? Is it hardware, software, or simply the methods used to create balance in the game?
-NOOBalanced Akjeil

It's the guy in charge of re adjusting all of our cards because some of the rules of the game may have changed a bit since it originally came out so the starting skills on the first 100 weren't perfect. They should be pretty darn well balanced by the time you get to play again.

[Akjeil]

[balancer:] It's the guy in charge of re adjusting all of our cards... They should be pretty darn well balanced by the time you get to play again.

Ah! A biological interface. Well, I'm looking forward to handling the results.

-Graphical User Akjeil

[DanTheTimid]

Just to clarify I'm not asking for cards to not have weaknesses, in fact every card should have a weakness. Being useful just means there are card files that exist where that card would be useful, it doesn't mean its a staple in every card file. In fact staples are precisely what I've been hoping to prevent. The thing is, being a weak soul card doesn't cause a weakness for your unit side. The reason is because your soul cards aren't chosen randomly, they're pre-chosen before the game ever starts. As such a soul card's unit side will never come into play and no matter how weak its unit side might be, it won't change anything about how it functions as a soul card. So if you have an over powered soul card, making its unit side weaker won't change anything, it'll still just be played as a soul card and it'll still be over powered when played as a soul card. And of course the reverse applies as well.

So yeah, every card can't be perfect, but every card CAN be useful in the right deck with proper balance. lp2 cards with no soul skills will never be useful as soul cards, but with really situational effects they might still be useful in SOME deck even if they aren't in most decks. By leaving these soul cards in their clearly useless state you put alot of pressure on the unit side to always be useful because if the unit card every becomes obsoleted the whole card will become useless. Having potentially uses as both soul card and unit card just leaves more options to keep a card useful long term.

[Allied]

Solar Prince / Verlaat is alot harder to get then Ruby Carbuncle, It makes sense, Rarer the card the better it should be, Its a common card vs a Ultra rare card. Not saying thats how it will always be but usely rare cards are better then common cards