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Rework to Battle Standards

AuthorMessage
Petty Officer
Sep 19, 2013
69
I recently bought the Hoodoo Bundle and Empire Bundle. I have no regrets about my purchase, but it seems that the standards that are included are rather lackluster. They have a very small range and large debuffs for your team if they are destroyed. (I haven't yet tested those debuffs, but what I have heard is that the Baron Samedi's Standard deals half of their max health to boosted undead companions when destroyed, and the Imperator's Standard reduces the accuracy of and immobilizes boosted birds.) Furthermore, most undead aren't that good, and you'll find it difficult to stock your team with birds. The only reason the Beastmaster banners are good is because they have unlimited range and buff a type that can be summoned en masse (nefarious staff, fall champion weapons). I suggest making the standards a "build-around" for your team, that is, you can pick the meta companions or choose a standard and utilize companions that fit its theme. My suggestion is as follows:

1. All standards have infinite range. 1-2 squares means the enemy can just run away. This means they either have to devote resources to taking out the standard or fight through it.

2. Reduce/eliminate penalties for standard destruction. You're already spending an item slot and a turn to set up something that can be destroyed, and furthermore is vastly important to your strategy. It shouldn't nuke/immobilize your team in addition to these sacrifices.

3. Scale standard effects to the number of units your pirate brings that matches the standard type. Currently I can just throw down nefarious scorpions with a beastmaster banner, and none of my other companions need to be beasts. With this change, you would actually need to bring companions that match the standard type to get the maximum benefit. One companion would receive a small buff from the standard, two would both receive a medium buff, and three would get a strong buff to each companion. I think that 50% of current value for one companion, 75% for two, and 100% for three would be fair, but I'm open to discussion on the numbers. Summons would receive buffs for matching the standard type but would NOT be counted towards the scaling; that is locked in by companion choice at the start of the battle. In the case of the class banners, your pirate would not scale the banner as well but would receive buffs from being the proper class as well.

This means that the Imperator’s Standard and Baron Samedi’s Standard can be balanced with other options (read: not trash) and banners overall can promote more interesting combat styles. I believe this would be balanced since the class banners aren’t terribly broken and affect all companions of a class (it’s probably more viable to bring three musketeers than three undead) and the extra strength of the banner will likely balance itself with the weaker companions.
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
Robobot1747 on Dec 11, 2018 wrote:
I recently bought the Hoodoo Bundle and Empire Bundle. I have no regrets about my purchase, but it seems that the standards that are included are rather lackluster. They have a very small range and large debuffs for your team if they are destroyed. (I haven't yet tested those debuffs, but what I have heard is that the Baron Samedi's Standard deals half of their max health to boosted undead companions when destroyed, and the Imperator's Standard reduces the accuracy of and immobilizes boosted birds.) Furthermore, most undead aren't that good, and you'll find it difficult to stock your team with birds. The only reason the Beastmaster banners are good is because they have unlimited range and buff a type that can be summoned en masse (nefarious staff, fall champion weapons). I suggest making the standards a "build-around" for your team, that is, you can pick the meta companions or choose a standard and utilize companions that fit its theme. My suggestion is as follows:

1. All standards have infinite range. 1-2 squares means the enemy can just run away. This means they either have to devote resources to taking out the standard or fight through it.

2. Reduce/eliminate penalties for standard destruction. You're already spending an item slot and a turn to set up something that can be destroyed, and furthermore is vastly important to your strategy. It shouldn't nuke/immobilize your team in addition to these sacrifices.

3. Scale standard effects to the number of units your pirate brings that matches the standard type. Currently I can just throw down nefarious scorpions with a beastmaster banner, and none of my other companions need to be beasts. With this change, you would actually need to bring companions that match the standard type to get the maximum benefit. One companion would receive a small buff from the standard, two would both receive a medium buff, and three would get a strong buff to each companion. I think that 50% of current value for one companion, 75% for two, and 100% for three would be fair, but I'm open to discussion on the numbers. Summons would receive buffs for matching the standard type but would NOT be counted towards the scaling; that is locked in by companion choice at the start of the battle. In the case of the class banners, your pirate would not scale the banner as well but would receive buffs from being the proper class as well.

This means that the Imperator’s Standard and Baron Samedi’s Standard can be balanced with other options (read: not trash) and banners overall can promote more interesting combat styles. I believe this would be balanced since the class banners aren’t terribly broken and affect all companions of a class (it’s probably more viable to bring three musketeers than three undead) and the extra strength of the banner will likely balance itself with the weaker companions.
KI would have to go back and re-code those standards, but I do agree that these standards ( and any new ones we get ) should have an infinite range. However; I don't agree on removing the de-buffs, there ought to be a risk for choosing to use a powerful buffing item. In other words, you can't have that cake and eat it too.
Petty Officer
Sep 19, 2013
69
anecorbie on Dec 12, 2018 wrote:
KI would have to go back and re-code those standards, but I do agree that these standards ( and any new ones we get ) should have an infinite range. However; I don't agree on removing the de-buffs, there ought to be a risk for choosing to use a powerful buffing item. In other words, you can't have that cake and eat it too.
The risk is that you build your strategy around the banner, using your totem slot for it instead of something else. If it gets destroyed you're up the creek without a paddle, since your companions are going to be outclassed by the meta companions who don't need a standard to be good. If you're not building your strategy around it, it's not very effective since you get weaker bonuses.
Petty Officer
Sep 19, 2013
69
For example, you can probably think of one good undead or bird. Old Scratch and Peter Quint are pretty strong eh? Can you think of two? I guess Dead Mike isn't so bad. Can you think of three? Erm... Bosun Budd or Martin Valvida? The idea is to incentivize underused companion usage, which isn't going to happen if the destruction of the banner is basically an immediate loss. You're probably not going to come back from having your entire team losing half their max health because the banner got hit, AND then having to use mostly/only undead companions.
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
Robobot1747 on Dec 12, 2018 wrote:
For example, you can probably think of one good undead or bird. Old Scratch and Peter Quint are pretty strong eh? Can you think of two? I guess Dead Mike isn't so bad. Can you think of three? Erm... Bosun Budd or Martin Valvida? The idea is to incentivize underused companion usage, which isn't going to happen if the destruction of the banner is basically an immediate loss. You're probably not going to come back from having your entire team losing half their max health because the banner got hit, AND then having to use mostly/only undead companions.
That there are so few undead makes this even less of a reason to re-work the banners. What you are asking for is OP without risks.
Petty Officer
Sep 19, 2013
69
anecorbie on Dec 12, 2018 wrote:
That there are so few undead makes this even less of a reason to re-work the banners. What you are asking for is OP without risks.
How do you not have risk with the ability to destroy the banner? Once that's down, your beast/undead companions are substandard and should be easily dealt with by a meta crew. Again, you also need to spend a totem slot on the banner, which means you're not putting in a power that isn't garbage currently.

There's not an issue with the number of undead companions. It's that they're bad.

TL;DR:
Good parts about using banner: An off-meta team can be actually viable since the banner gives them a buff.
Bad parts about using banner: Destroying it removes the buff and takes away the buff that your team is built around having.

You don't need to add an effective "you lose the match" to banner destruction.
Lieutenant
Sep 04, 2013
150
Maybe the standards shouldn’t have zero penalty when they’re destroyed but I can definitely agree with you how the penalties are insanely harsh as of now. The Imperator standard makes your companions unuseable for a few turns and the undead one basically just smites your companions. Meanwhile the Beast banner makes summons insanely powerful and if you destroy it there’s pretty much no penalty except in a very specific situation and even then it’s minor. I’d like to think of the class banners as an example of a reasonable penalty, if a banner is destroyed the class loses 100% of their best base stat for 3 turns. It’s a scary penalty vs enemies who use the same base stat but it doesn’t make it so you’re completely doomed no matter what.

I don’t really like the idea of requiring all 3 of your companions to be a certain type for the full boost either. I actually use one PvP setup with the undead standard on occasion but I only use 2 undead, so if that change happens it would negatively impact me.
Petty Officer
Sep 19, 2013
69
Friendly Jesse Pew on Dec 13, 2018 wrote:
Maybe the standards shouldn’t have zero penalty when they’re destroyed but I can definitely agree with you how the penalties are insanely harsh as of now. The Imperator standard makes your companions unuseable for a few turns and the undead one basically just smites your companions. Meanwhile the Beast banner makes summons insanely powerful and if you destroy it there’s pretty much no penalty except in a very specific situation and even then it’s minor. I’d like to think of the class banners as an example of a reasonable penalty, if a banner is destroyed the class loses 100% of their best base stat for 3 turns. It’s a scary penalty vs enemies who use the same base stat but it doesn’t make it so you’re completely doomed no matter what.

I don’t really like the idea of requiring all 3 of your companions to be a certain type for the full boost either. I actually use one PvP setup with the undead standard on occasion but I only use 2 undead, so if that change happens it would negatively impact me.
I do have to agree that the penalties are harsh and I would be OK with just reducing them, although I maintain that it would still be balanced even if removed due to the reliance on the banner the new system would generate.

That's why I suggested that the boost scales. It's not an all-or-nothing affair, but the growth rate of the banner's effectiveness is greater than linear, so it will incentivize going all-in on the theme. I doubt that your strategy will be crippled if you only get 75% of the buff for your companions anywhere on the board (without them being completely smited if the banner is destroyed). Unless your banner is almost never destroyed and you never look at your team's positioning and say, "You know, it would be really nice if my undead units could actually move away from this banner," I doubt it would negatively effect you.