Game is too fast now. Zero strategy left

I am landing on the team of @Homaclese here. There is definitely strategy.
My main raiding team is a 2-1-1-1 team consisting of a S2, 1 first generation ninja, a S3, a old Event hero, and a christmas hero. Three healers, playing for time, and reducing risk of bad boards.
This team has taken me into the top 10 multiple times. I have tried compositions of “stronger” newer heroes without the same luck.

I have created alternative teams to deal with Ludwig and Hulda, and a not-quite-finalized team to deal with those W3K teams that have dominated the top 10 last month.
Adjusting your team and strategy based on the opponent is ALWAYS wise.
I seldom bother to do changes when raiding, but always plan ahead when in war.

The team-composition to counter the opponent is one of my favorite parts of the game, and why I really enjoy W3K. Finding synergies between heroes is very satisfying. Of course, spending will give you more heroes and a better rooster to compose your team from, but strategy is still definitely a part of it. But it is an ever changing part, as new heroes and new meta’s mean that you need to adjust your approach also. To me this is positive

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in my opinion, there is of course some strategy: does one go more offensive? more defensive? which heroes to bring?

what’s not very fun though, is that a lot of that strategy is shaped by the available heroes one has. so for those with mainly S1 heroes/ older heroes / those lacking the key skills, it is much much more difficult.

If I as a player have a limited toolkit, there is only so much I can do.

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image

That’s the bulk of it! The foundation!
And…
For this topic… heavy hitters accompanied by:

Is becoming droll. Is becoming…
Rush!

Not sure how announcing 4+ years ftp advances the actual topic. But, when players that do have some investment bolstering their roster…are getting bored of the saturation,
the next scallywag will sing out that this is a rich man’s problem. Confined to the 1 percenters.

And while that maybe true, so is the following:
Saturations begin at the tip of the iceberg
The part you can see:

image

Month of after month, more pull the duo
More get the mats.
And the saturation will seep deeper below the water line. Until it reaches the platinum arena and those alliances at war, where mediocrity is commonplace.

Then…
SG’s hand will be forced

So… you can voice it, or…
Wait…
For something worse to take its place
.

I swear like 75% of the boards of my boards have a bulk of the 2 junk colours I don’t need, and it barely chains. I play 2-2-1 (green, purple and blue) and the yellows and reds keep coming. And it doesn’t help that I am fighting lv 30 mana troops every team. Lose rate I felt has gone up a lot.
Trash… absolute trash boards

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The 4+ years ftp is to claryfy where I coming from, since the experience for 1-5 year players and spending or not spending differs a lot! :smiley:

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There is still strategy but since talents and passives are involved and heroest start to deal too much damage the luck factor is becoming more and more important.

Newer heroes gets released every day and due to SGG hero design choice now to be sold they have to be a lot stronger than the ones who came before, increasing every aspect of previous cards instead of adding versatility or different usages.

Where once a fast hero would have been most likely high damage-single target hero now we have heroes wich hits 3 for around their damage plus better effects and from a while this has become disgustingly evident:

+1 year of power creepled us to this hero, currently tested in BETA:

So yes, strategy is still there but it wouldn’t take a lot of time for it to disappear as older 5* heroes’ (and I’m not talking about Quenell here) only redeeming quality would be to be Soul Exchange material and it wouldn’t even be surprising as the old S1 snipers are starting to take 1/2 damage of their special skill as autoattack from S5 heroes due to the amount of stats’ difference…

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The concept of a sniper is… gangrene at this point. Even if they release 1,000% damage to one target, that still pales in comparison to these monster hit-all’s.

Stats are a moot check and balance now too.
The next portal always outperforms the last…
And spenders will defend that with their $tragedy

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I don’t like mono… But when i go mono and send 3 tiles at a tank (with the strong color) and the tank doesn’t die… And i have 3+ limit broken heroes… The game seems screwed up.

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I am 100% behind you on this one. The game is getting too fast and playing with the top their players it becomes very difficult to make a dent on certain opponents. There needs to be a little bit of balance and not have the fast and very fast hero’s almost decimate you within the first few turns of the game.

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Yea don’t get me started on Kong. It used to be that I could bring a taunt hero in my 3-1-1 attack team to try and survive if I get a bad board, but now it’s either El Nadadda or Kong or whatever and you can’t even use your taunt

Wars are probably even worse than raiding for me now. In raids I can just click on next and eventually I’ll get a non-meta team. In war, it’s six teams with Xnolphod tanks and C Alassies and El Nadaddas etc. I still go 3/1/1 and pray but if you don’t get the tiles for your 3 main hitters or your 1 taunter in 3-4 turns, then you’re done. I hate how little chance there is to actually set something up and play the board. It’s at the point now where the opening board needs to have your tiles off the bat or you are dead.

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Yup I regret having leveled a few snipers. Not many, because I always found hit-3 more appealing, but there really isn’t any point to them anymore. My 85 +20 Eiora and Fluffy has been sitting idle for 6+ months. There’s only place for hit-3 now, or even hit all.

I did ok using a combination of mist/aouda/ureaus… But i getcha…

Bumping this as it’s even more relevant now than a few months ago.

The game is completely unplayable. SG, do you even care, or maybe you simply don’t even know because you stopped caring about balance a long time ago?

If you don’t get your 3 matches in 4-5 moves, the game is over. Ogima, C Panther, Waterpipe, Miriam & Midnight, C Alasie, Jequn, Jove, and whatever other heroes I don’t even care to remember just obliterate your team. Even fast heroes on offense now are too slow. Does anyone even bring an average speed or slower hero at higher levels of play???

SG probably knows this, hence the new even more ridiculously imbalanced upcoming ninja heroes that do 290% to all with just 4 tiles, but instead of balancing this nonsense they double down with even faster and stronger heroes. I can’t remember the last time I actually had fun in a war or tournament. It’s all M&M and waterpipe tanks, double C Panther, quadruple Jove, and other nonsense. So frustrating, not fun, I don’t even know why I still play this game.

SG, you messed up.

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I used to think lowering the defense bonuses to damage and defense was the answer. Now I don’t.

I now believe the answer is to increase the mana gain decay for consecutive combos. We all know that as more combos happen, the defense gains less and less mana per tile. That decrease needs to be steeper and stop completely a few combos earlier than it does now. The mana gain on combo 1 and 2 could be the same, but beyond that, 3, 4, 5, etc, they should gain less per tile. It seems to be the unpredictable casacdes that are setting off these modern powerful defenses more quickly than can be handled. This solution could bring back some strategy to working the board.

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It sounds like you were a good SG customer and now belong to a pretty small minority ( aka top players )
for which the game has become very difficult.
Luckyly for me as ftp in low to mid diamond the game is still fun and has enough varity.

Since I assume that this trend with the game continues or increases I would recommend you change your expectations or quit.

Whatever you do I wish you lots of fun and a healthy 2023.

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I use slow and average heroes in everyone of my raid teams. People tend to get obsessed over mana speed.

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The game has sped up but i do not view it as unplayable or zero strategy. Those words are too black and white.

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Agree. I have teams that have mixed mana speed. I wish the game would come up with more fast or very fast heroes that can do minus mana regen or mana cut to target and nearby or all. Trying to think if there are any… Mist, Alasie and costume are the only ones I can think of at top of my head. This would be an interesting elemental link: For six turns all enemies mana regeneration is reduced by 10% to 20%. If they make this elemental link, any Hotm that are fast/very fast mana will be greatly welcomed.

This thread starts to age better and better over time.

How is Ogima a problem? Don’t take minion makers or time your minions around him. No minions for him to kill and he isn’t that bad.

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