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hilarious. nice map too

Congrats Ross!

nice write up too.

I will second all motions, with the following exceptions:

3a) I will still lobby for relentless to be recognised as the most powerful ability of the game, by a looong way.

6a) Imprison is a great offensive card too, and should remain at 2 mana.

There you go Ross, more programming for you 

Well, good to have you back Dies, I agree with most of your points, but not the conclusions you draw from them. Let's agree on the point that mana/cards are the most important thing in the game, and look again:

1)
"

it is so easy keeping a summon/guardian/paladin when with non FM mages, that if you get caught stunned and cant unstun your mage"

unstun with a melee attack requires units to be constantly within 5 spaces of a mage. How do you keep "constant pressure" on, AND keep your units near a mage? even if in range, an attack means you take away the ability to sprint, plus at least 2 dice of offence, plus you must roll minimum 2 dice at yourself. Even paladin needs a card and LOS to do something FM gets for free.

2) summoner does suck, they are card pits. - nice suggestions for changes

3)

You will very rarely see me stand within flash range of an enemy FM when im not a FM myself if they have flash. It isn't hard to do

I have over 600 games under my belt and I find it hard. 5 move, 4 flash, 2-7 sprint, plus he can go through objects. this is beyond me to calculate each turn in 1 minute, on small maps which generally only have 3 "safe" squares to put my mage. I agree sorc lightning is very powerful, but it can only be used for offence. FM flash can be used for defence as well - he can't be cornered. 1 card, any card, to get out of any trap? yes please! you'll now note that other mages need cards, and the right cards to either attack or defend an FM for more than 1 turn.

4) augment is not very good, but again, it needs no cards to "work". the summoner needs 2 cards for its heal - one to summon, one to sacrifice

5) most 1v1 these days are decided in the first 2 turns. So yes, wiz has a good 15 valor ability, but it's tough to get him there!

So note that all the abilities we like, are ones where we get something for free, or without needing a specific card -

Sorc: lightning, NW, Fireball
FM: relentless, augment, flash, extra stats, DF
Summoner: sacrifice, skelly
Wiz: mana surge

So with the FM, we have a whole heap of benefits early in the game, that need no LOS, no cards, but also, are hard to counter with strategy. Add that to the mathematical and observational evidence(everyone uses this unit), and I still see a lot of benefits in changing the unit.

I think moving relentless to higher valor is at least a start. Aug superior is definitely the least threatening of his abilities, so can sit at 0 valor. Perhaps relentless could cost a card, so one must choose when they want to use it? Can I also add that the FM in the hands of a bot is also extra powerful, as bots cannot use most of wizards strengths, cast summons at all the wrong spots with summoner, and kill own units a lot with sorceress. FM however, really suits their aggressive patterns.

If I can't convince you of the merits of change, I at least challenge thee to come up with more reasons than imprison why he should remain as is...

"I'm also surprised at the recent player counts in the lobby.  I had presumed the AI and IndiePub feature would attract more players, but perhaps it's causing the opposite effect as players are getting an overdose of HM playing the bots"

I'm a bit surprised to see the lobby empty too. Has, at the least, the conversion from guest to registration gone up?

I want to throw it out there that the FighterMage and bard are too powerful. Why?

- FM's unstunnable ability negates the effectiveness of 3 spells: iceshards, blizzard, sleep. These 3 spells are easily the most powerful in the game, as they allow melee units to close in on a stunned mage. so by shrugging off a stun, the FM is way more mobile, and takes 6-12 less free dice than any other spell caster
- FM can negate most cover on current map sizes. the flash ability, available so early, means that there is no benefit to strategic placement of your own mage. one card, any card, still puts the mage at risk of a flash/disintegrate, flash/stun, etc. this means that your own"safe" squares are reduced significantly, and the FM's "attack range squares" include almost the entire board.  Further, in the end game, melee units can never close the distance on a FM. At least other mages have a turn while they are sprinted, there is a slim chance for melee units to still win. In a game where position is EVERYTHING, flash is way too powerful.
- FM gets 2 extra melee rolls and an extra 2 armour? even buffed other mages can't match this feat. plus, this is available without any valor needed. it's like an extra 2 free abilities vs any other mage.
- FM's dragon fury is similar. the sorceress's 15 valor ability gets an extra 1 damage (if a spell hits!) which is equivalent to, say, a half a demonic lash spell, or half a touch of death spell. Dragon Fury is equivalent to 3 archons might spells, and 3 armour of aegis spells. (9 mana benefit, with the only trade off being non-permanence). Most other abilities of spellasters have a 1 mana benefit. even the wizard, which is the next most powerful, only gains 2 mana benefit for their 15 valor ability.
- FM's augment ability is the only ability I'd say is fair. BUT, when combined with the others here, it means way too many die are needed to damage/kill a FM. only 10 valor and 1 mana (armour of aegis) are needed to make the FM a better melee unit than any specialist guardian. The other mages have to work soooo hard to defend, the FM so little.

Overall, I'd say the FM has more attacking power AND more defensive power than any other mage. There are too many cards that benefit a FM, and only 4 that can be used to defend against it (dispel, imprison, shield, barricade) all of these only defend for 1 turn. Being impossible to stun, there are no 2 turn offensive combos that can be used to kill it. He can move too far, buff himself too much, and combine too well with other units, such as the bard.

On the bard, he also is too powerful for a guardian. he effectively acts a a spellcaster, being able to cast multiple archons mights with 1 card, the equivalent of heaps of mana in team games.  he is also able to buff at any distance. the nearest equivalent is the warrior, who must be close, can only buff defensively, and who's defensive buff can be dispelled, hexed or sundered. the bards offensive buffs have no such drawback.  the bard has all the benefits of the psi, plus extra armour and melee. he is a spellcaster and guardian in one.

Suggestions:

- get rid of the FM's unstun. reduce his armour or attack by 2
- reduce bards armour or attack by 1 and make the inspire buff only add 2 or 3 to each dice

So it's been a week of AI, and I have played against it soooo much before crafting these comments:

- overall, I think it's brilliant. Good to see you launched it without trying to make it perfect first
- it's good to see most of the priority AI problems are identified
- In the meantime, can we set up an armour modifier, roll modifier, or similar to make the AI more threatening in 1v1? (ie. give the AI guys extra armour or dice)
- AI blocks teammates move paths. IMHO, a fix is needed as priority 2 behind the protect mage improvement
- AI needs a 'mage rush' command. ie. pretty much the only way to beat a mage if you have only guardians left is to rush said mage. A paladin that retreats to cast combat healing just gives the mage time to gain and cycle cards. So once AI mage is killed, guardians need to be more aggressive, and worry less about the '6 space gap'
- AI needs a stronger motivation to attack a single target, rather than doing 2 damage to 3 targets.

tutorial, tutorial, tutorial. make it a priority! We who love the game will wait for improvements, newbies wont, so give them baby steps.

Also, Terence, HM should have won!

Cool, i found both the questions and answers interesting. I personally love the way you have set up the free vs pay to play options, but I can see how it'll take a while to recoup the investment (man hours are lost forever I'd say!)

If it helps, this game is way better than, say, monopoly - which earns the copyright owners millions.

awesome ideas, zawolf, your clarity of expression is amazing, well said.
Looking at it from Ross's point of view, it'd be hard to accomodate all the good ideas, with little money coming in. I'd focus on the revenue raising, or cheap suggestions first. I'm not sure what'll do it, but once the snowball happens and we get tens of thousands of gamers, then bring on the features!

looks good!

yo kin, i've beat 7 bots by creating a map with a tunnel, so they send one unit at a time

hey Ross. Launch this sucker! While there are so few players to make up teams, even a weak ai is way better than nothing as it can be used to make up the numbers.  Eg. even if the AI is doing crazy things, we can put it with an advanced player (dies) to make the game interesting.  It'll also give 2 people the option of playing a 4 player game to mix things up. Drendal firepit is getting a real workout lately

Congrats on the write up! I know gamespot is where myself and a few other players found the game. I signed up to gamespot, but do not have the requirements to write a review yet