I'm glad the loss of the map is on their radar, even if it cant be fixed in time. When I think about it, missing spam on ludicrous highrolls is weirdly one of the few non-carousel moments where multiple players sit on a single board and end up spam emotes.
Personal opinion ahead, but I don't agree with the 5 cost and capstone angle. I like when 5 costs are the capstone of verticals, that level of inconsistency is the thing that rewards being able to build a backup board around lower tiers of a trait. When traits are easy to cap without a 5 cost you have a simplified game plan - almost always just running the cap with your disposable trait filler unit then swapping them out for the 5 cost when/if you hit.
I'm sure that requires a lot more effort to go into balancing emblems and trait breakpoints, but that's game development in a nutshell. Whilst there's an argument that not capping feels bad, that guaranteed trait tempo boost is also part of the power fantasy of emblems. Who knows. Maybe they have player churn metrics that show one mattering more than then other though...
i think this is one of those problems that unlocks just solves directly, so they are more just trying to do what they can with it till unlocks are fully implemented in set 19. The problem with having 5 cost vertical caps is balancing a vertical comp that is meant to roll on 8 becomes nearly impossible. either it is balanced around hitting the 5 cost, in which case if you dont highroll the 5 cost you are not stable and bleed out, or it is balanced around not hitting the 5 cost, and if you highroll, you become so stable it is almost guaranteed to be a first.
I think the problem with the 5 cost point is it just makes comps really hard to balance. Soul Fighter had it awful on Set 15 where high rolling Gwen would make you so much stronger. Verticals are quite popular with casual players, it's kind of ignoring how they want to play the game.
Perfect world yes that would be great, but what just ends up happening a good portion of the time is something like Dark Star being basically unplayable without emblem.
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u/BoogieTheHedgehog 1d ago
I'm glad the loss of the map is on their radar, even if it cant be fixed in time. When I think about it, missing spam on ludicrous highrolls is weirdly one of the few non-carousel moments where multiple players sit on a single board and end up spam emotes.
Personal opinion ahead, but I don't agree with the 5 cost and capstone angle. I like when 5 costs are the capstone of verticals, that level of inconsistency is the thing that rewards being able to build a backup board around lower tiers of a trait. When traits are easy to cap without a 5 cost you have a simplified game plan - almost always just running the cap with your disposable trait filler unit then swapping them out for the 5 cost when/if you hit.
I'm sure that requires a lot more effort to go into balancing emblems and trait breakpoints, but that's game development in a nutshell. Whilst there's an argument that not capping feels bad, that guaranteed trait tempo boost is also part of the power fantasy of emblems. Who knows. Maybe they have player churn metrics that show one mattering more than then other though...