RNG And Dragons Thread XXIX: NA is actually good now?!?!?!?!

[OverlordChirei]

I've already beaten everything that's basically not new and doesn't demand that you spike for 50M/have a partner or :getout: with shit teams, so there's not much left for me to do either until they release something that lets me spike through all that with those teams.

It would be painfully easy at my level to just use the cookie cutter teams, so no point buying/chasing those for me.

[The Greatest Dog]

So... we've basically cleared PAD with the exception of "Atlus Bonus Boss"-tier content?

At the same time, maybe the old spark could be recaptured by making some kind of team entirely different from anything one has tried before?  I dunno, something to ponder perhaps.

I think most people are just interested in keeping up with the power creep, and not particularly concerned with "new" play styles

if the negative comments I see toward Fenrir are anything to base this view off of

[Monarda]

Why people complain about Fenrir ?

I don't see why to hate Jammer Meta, maybe it's just me, but if nobody is using what's supposed to be Meta, then it isn't exactly Meta anyone is it ?

I would love a change in my tactics, and Denebola is a key to it, the same goes to Australis and Skuld/Jq's A. Karin Teams (the last one is stuck due to a lack in both cost AND 2 Water Jewels), they all have a new factor in them that i like a lot.

So if people aren't doing what's fun for them, then why even 'play' ?

[OverlordChirei]

So... we've basically cleared PAD with the exception of "Atlus Bonus Boss"-tier content?

This is actually exactly the point I feel at right now, except I'm trying to do something on the equivalent of a low level run, and the bosses aren't beatable without the increases from higher levels.

[Mеа]

I probably would not still be playing if it weren't for the social element here. That said, while I do agree or find reasons to agree with most of your points, I still find some random reasons to keep playing. Also brought on by artificial difficulty, ie: user error lol.
See, valid complaints and criticisms like matsu's, I like to read. Now, the jp comments on those twitter page links, those are literally cancerous. Like actual tumors hanging off of the OP. I don't know how you do it, tHime.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

So, I guess the solution is make stupid broken dungeons, to account for that. Ones where you need, like, 30 combos with certain team types (or the ever-faltering Jammer meta), or what?

EDIT: But then, is there any way to make dungeons runnable with various team types?
EDIT2: And still be hard?

That's exactly what I'm speaking against. The hardest dungeons in the game right now are just too absurdly difficult to beat unless you have the perfect team (because clearly having a full pentamax team is not enough), so far that unless you do have said perfect team, you'll never beat it unless you are either insanely lucky or you pour a ton of stones into it.

We're at the point where those dungeons don't revolve around one obstacle. For example, Sandalphon used to be insanely hard because you not only had to have an answer for Raphael's dark drain, but also be able to manage your damage against Michael if you couldn't one-shot him (and this was before doing huge damage was a common thing, because it was pre-power creep), and you had to manage your damage against Sandy as well, because if you hit too hard but not hard enough to kill, enjoy a 10-turn bind to all your gods, and good luck doing that without dark types, which the game all but screams you can't play because of Raphael. Take it too slow, and it was too hard to sustain your life for an extended time. But now, the new hardest dungeons need an answer for EVERY obstacle, which means you need very specific and limiting team setups to answer all of them. Which sucks and is honestly outright un-fun.

[Moogs Parfait]

So basically we're back to cost limited dungeons where you have to build an entirely new team for the dungeon, except now instead of needing to farm for a team your stuck waiting on pieces out of the REM.

Hi I'm not dead. Though the increased emphasis on farming and multiplayer has outright prevented me from playing in any capacity.

[OverlordChirei]

So basically we're back to cost limited dungeons where you have to build an entirely new team for the dungeon, except now instead of needing to farm for a team your stuck waiting on pieces out of the REM.

Hi I'm not dead. Though the increased emphasis on farming and multiplayer has outright prevented me from playing in any capacity.

You're fine since you have your own game to attend to that is probably a lot less broken than this one

[Monarda]

You're fine since you have your own game to attend to that is probably a lot less broken than this one

Don't forget it is also not RNG-based.

[Moogs Parfait]

I think you're referring to the REM but my game has a mechanic that can nearly kill a player outright.  Early in the design process I referenced custom smash bros battles like a big bowl shaped stage and footballs only with high launch, I called the stage The World Cup.

[Monarda]

I think you're referring to the REM but my game has a mechanic that can nearly kill a player outright.  Early in the design process I referenced custom smash bros battles like a big bowl shaped stage and footballs only with high launch, I called the stage The World Cup.

And the droprates, and the skillups rates, and the invade rates..... etc...

And wow , but to be honest i really don't care much about soccer unlike most people around here. :V

[commandercool]

I think you're referring to the REM but my game has a mechanic that can nearly kill a player outright.

I assume you're referring to a certain tree-based incident? It always makes things interesting...

[Moogs Parfait]

I'm referring to Lily White who nukes for 3 when most players have 4 life.  "Zany" is a good descriptor for it

Edit: really my game has as much RNG as PAD but it doesn't have characters that are strictly better than others and doesn't encourage gambling

[commandercool]

Oh right, that is what I was thinking of. Isn't there a Saigyou Ayakashi card that does something similar/complementary?

[Moogs Parfait]

Yes that incident makes you lose a life when your turn comes up, and there's no defense against it besides stopping the incident by playing winter cards

[Monarda]

Oh no ! I'm horrible at stuff that has time/turn limits ! :ohdear:

But anyways, does anyone else here have a Mecha-bastet ? Aka Denebola too ?

[yomichiyu]

But anyways, does anyone else here have a Mecha-bastet ? Aka Denebola too ?

I'd help you out but my Denebola is on my JP PAD :V dat jammer meta though.

And it seems that I missed quite a bit while being out. Although I play more casually than most people here, I do agree with what's going on nowadays with PAD. Two things that annoys me the most though, is the increased push of jammer meta (ie. Fenrir, Mechanical Gods, etc) and multiplayer. If I wanted to play a game that focused on multiplayer, I'd go play MMOs or anything else centers around multiplayer. As for jammers, I'll stick with the original 6 orbs myself. I'm not down to deal with an orb that requires either an active skill or an enemy skill for jammers to appear.

But it's always fun to build and try out different teams, assuming I don't get REM-screwed (which is one of the most annoying parts of the game). And of course, there's dungeons I haven't cleared yet that doesn't require a "super team".  Just got my 3rd +297 fodders on both accounts and working on a 4th one so I guess I have something to do on PAD when not clearing descended, challenges, etc.

[OverlordChirei]

I'd help you out but my Denebola is on my JP PAD :V dat jammer meta though.

And it seems that I missed quite a bit while being out. Although I play more casually than most people here, I do agree with what's going on nowadays with PAD. Two things that annoys me the most though, is the increased push of jammer meta (ie. Fenrir, Mechanical Gods, etc) and multiplayer. If I wanted to play a game that focused on multiplayer, I'd go play MMOs or anything else centers around multiplayer. As for jammers, I'll stick with the original 6 orbs myself. I'm not down to deal with an orb that requires either an active skill or an enemy skill for jammers to appear.

But it's always fun to build and try out different teams, assuming I don't get REM-screwed (which is one of the most annoying parts of the game). And of course, there's dungeons I haven't cleared yet that doesn't require a "super team".  Just got my 3rd +297 fodders on both accounts and working on a 4th one so I guess I have something to do on PAD when not clearing descended, challenges, etc.

A lot of the game's allure remains when there's still content that's within reasonable reach. The best you can do if try to make those victories memorable, which is what helped keep the value for me.

[Chaore]

pad ded gaem?

Not before Rage of Bahamut or Idolmaster CG chokes first.

Honestly though, PAD isn't really dying so much as it's player base is so old the people bored are becoming more noticable.

[yomichiyu]

A lot of the game's allure remains when there's still content that's within reasonable reach. The best you can do if try to make those victories memorable, which is what helped keep the value for me.

Yeah, it's pretty much what I like to do every time I tackle a tough dungeon and clear it without stoning. I don't see myself clearing any of those special descended anytime soon, but clearing dungeons like Sonia Gran recently put a big smile on my face. Clearing tough dungeons (tough for me) like those tells me, "hey, maybe I can clear some of the other tough dungeons too".

Although to be fair, I may have to consider to tackle the tough dungeons eventually, I'm looking at the upcoming descended list over on the PAD database and I've already cleared most of it :V

[The Greatest Dog]

it's kinda funny how we're talking about old players getting bored with the game
yet most players are appalled at the idea of trying the COME ON AND JAM meta if they roll it.

GungHo can't make new methods of play if we're so stubborn and unwilling to use new units. We haven't seen a new Pantheon since this whole PAD radar thing, haven't we?

We've exhausted so many ideas by this point too. Combo gods, rainbow, heart leads like Lakshmi, Parvati, Gadius, all the variations of mono-attribute and mono-type. Popcorn was an attempt to move away from TPAs and rows and some people still don't know that orb enhance awakenings scale past just five.

I'm sure more people had jumped onto the Hel train than Fenrir.

[Chaore]

it's kinda funny how we're talking about old players getting bored with the game
yet most players are appalled at the idea of trying the COME ON AND JAM meta if they roll it.

Yup, that's essentially the thing. A lot of older people are just like 'this is so bad all these old things are more efficient' that we kinda just... start doing the thing I've done for years and gone 'all these new cards suck'. So we start seeing things as essentially far worse off than they are.

This combined with how long a lot of metas tend to take to get off the ground really is part of the reason why this happens, tbh. (Remember how long it took before rows were widely used??? or TPAs?)

[Moogs Parfait]

I want to try Fenrir but skillups are so important, and to some degree +eggs

[commandercool]

My thoughts on this topic are this:

If it wasn't for having something to talk about with you guys, and to a lesser extent my IRL friends who play, I probably would have more or less quit playing after I reached roughly endgame. I feel like I've mostly done stuff, and all that's left is whale dungeons that don't seem fun to me. That doesn't mean I won't give them a try eventually, but I'm not feeling very motivated. Honestly what's got me most excited right now is actually multiplayer. I enjoyed that last multiplayer challenge a ton and I'm looking forward to doing it again some time, so as a result I'm branching out and leveling as many viable cards as possible to give me the best chance of having a good match with somebody else. I may also try to get really into the next ranking dungeon, although it will have to have non-bullshit design for me to want to do that. I have to find my own fun to a bit of a degree at this point (Project Shinji is still on), and I'm playing less than I did at my peak, but I'm still having fun.

As for game balance, I think I'm severely warped in my perception of it by other games I play. I've alluded to this before and may have even mentioned it, but I'm a longtime player of the tabletop game Heroclix. It's a superhero miniatures game that I've been playing since I was eleven years old, and not to brag but I'm really, really good at it. And it sucks, and that makes me sad in a way that it's hard to articulate. This game is honestly probably the thing I'm best at, and I've logged thousands upon thousands of hours playing it. I've met a ton of good friends playing it, I met everyone I've ever lived with through it including my current roommate, I've made a decent amount of prize money playing it (not talking Magic levels, but enough that I've probably just about broken even on Heroclix expenses overall). If it wasn't for all of the good friends I have at my weekly Heroclix games I would have quit long ago, but I love having an excuse to hang out with them.

So I have all this invested in the game, and it fucking sucks. It's a bad game made by incompetent, greedy designers. Things are looking up a tiny bit in the sense that they've resolved to overhaul design in a big way, but their track record is abysmal. So anyway, I say all of this because it's made me blind to bad design to some degree. No choice Gungho has ever made has even come close to equaling the pay to win bullshit Heroclix spews out in a PVP game on a regular basis, and that's without even getting into the way their game encourages players to use strategies that aren't fun, teaching them to hate the game and that trying to have fun is for suckers. PAD could be fucking up left and right and I would barely notice because I'm used to much, much worse. I've just become a bad judge of this kind of thing through such constant and personal exposure to abysmal decision making.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Looks like FF collab is coming back, after a long event of no stones orz

I'll just roll what I have, fuckitall. I don't really care about frivolous rolling anymore.

[Chaore]

So I have all this invested in the game, and it fucking sucks. It's a bad game made by incompetent, greedy designers. Things are looking up a tiny bit in the sense that they've resolved to overhaul design in a big way, but their track record is abysmal. So anyway, I say all of this because it's made me blind to bad design to some degree. No choice Gungho has ever made has even come close to equaling the pay to win bullshit Heroclix spews out in a PVP game on a regular basis, and that's without even getting into the way their game encourages players to use strategies that aren't fun, teaching them to hate the game and that trying to have fun is for suckers. PAD could be fucking up left and right and I would barely notice because I'm used to much, much worse. I've just become a bad judge of this kind of thing through such constant and personal exposure to abysmal decision making.

Honestly dear god, this is a thing I -very- much feel as well without the massive investment part.

Even when I do get annoyed at shit like Beach Claire, My eventual retention is probably very much realizing how overall Gungho is by far the best in the business to it's users, even in NA.

Unless we count royal flush heroes.

Rip Royal Flush Heroes.

[The Greatest Dog]

excuse me Agni

What

Just, what?

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Gungho: "use a fire leader for your green attackers even though it's completely useless to itself"


Xiu Min is intriguing though? Nothing necessarily game-changing, but finally light rows get a chance to really shine.

[Zengar Zombolt]

Poison to jammers? The jammer meta moves in mysterious ways I see.

[The Greatest Dog]

I don't even think this is a case of Jammer meta

I think the reality is, they wanted some 3 CD active skill to skill link with that "Change own attribute to Wood" weapon and "Poison to Jammer" was the most niche thing they could conceive for 3 turns.

Edit: got the chance to fight Sopdet with Fenrir today. Pretty rough when Fenrir has one of the highest ATK in the game, deals 2x because of dark>light and another 3x because of God killer.

Turns out, you can just not use jammers and instead do your best F/L Horus impression.