Hello everyone, and welcome to June's update. Right in time for the end of the month!
As of the previous post, the biggest focus we've had on Fatal Factions is really tuning Fatal Factions: Guild Wars to be in a spot where everything feels well-tuned and synergetic. This project was no easy feat, as it meant going through every single one of the 2,020 cards currently in the game and scoring the usefulness of the card to both its own mechanic and other often-paired mechanics.
At this point, Guild Wars is now balanced in 5 different levels:
Each individual part of a card produces a threat score, which is something like a scoring of 5 for killing a unit outright but a 2 score for preventing an action for 1 turn.
All threat scores are added up for each card (including attack and endurance power), then divided by the total cost of the card. This creates the Threat-To-Cost Ratio.
All TTC Ratios are then added up and averaged for the entire guild. This Guild Average score MUST be 2.55.
While adding up those scores, we also have a Unit-To-NonUnit Ratio to make sure that every mechanic has an opportunity to have plenty of units with supporting cards.
The final scoring comes in with Usefulness, which is a mixture of both a card's Impact to its own mechanic, as well as its Synergy with cards inside and outside of its own mechanic. This is where a lot of deckbuilding and game-playing comes in to make sure we fully understand how the card works.
We have finalized the final Usefulness scores and, as a result, we have updated 355 individual cards throughout almost every guild but one. If anything had a 3 or less (out of 5) on the usefulness scale, it was either buffed or changed to fit better. Many cards have had their resource cost increased to allow more space for more powerful effects, but the majority of cards have just received a nice little buff. You may find some complete card changes here!
Most cards had a great amount of usefulness (especially cards from later guilds), but we did find that The Ancients of Imparda had a bunch of cards or entire mechanics that just did not feel useful or synergetic with many other mechanics. At this point, I would like to introduce the changes coming to The Ancients of Imparda. Here are the 5 current mechanics:
Assimilation - Select a non-legend unit on the field that hasn’t already been assimilated this turn. This unit now has that unit’s abilities until the end of your next initial phase. This can only be done once per turn.
Totemic: X - This card cannot move. Units between this card and another Totemic card gain: X. (Includes buff effects)
Stoneskin - This unit’s max endurance cannot change. The battle damage this unit would receive doesn't damage this unit until your initial phase. This unit takes all damage from a unit it battles and stays tapped when it has more pending damage than endurance.
Memoria - This unit goes to your Summon Deck when it dies. This unit activates abilities based on how many Memoria cards are in your summon deck.
Fadecall - When this unit enters the field, give a non-legend card on the battlefield or a card in a hand Fading. When a card with Fading is targeted with Fading again in the same turn, shuffle it into their owner’s deck. If this unit has Fading, shuffle it into your deck at the end phase.
As you can tell, Assimilation and Totemic (previously Heavy) have not gone through many changes. Most of the cards did well for the Ancients and both mechanics did well to work together and with other cards. Assimilation is like an easier Mysterious copy mechanic that keeps it fluidity, while Totemic keeps its immunity to movement and support-type nature. Totemic's new description does allow it to keep its abilities working even if the unit is no longer a unit.
Stoneskin, however, has went through some very necessary changes. Most cards under the previous Stoneskin and Ancient Power mechanic just did not work and was forced too hard into healing token mechanics and cards that broke their own rules. We went ahead and fused Stoneskin and Ancient Power so that both attack and endurance cannot change. This allows for people to Taunt foes into blocking one unit with multiple and getting hit very hard. Once these changes were made, we found that Stoneskin was actually very strong - in fact, it was a little too strong. Stoneskin units could take 10 damage hits and keep blocking the next turn with no penalty, so now they are tapped if they have pending damage equal to or higher than their endurance. They're still an amazing powerhouse, but now they're not the invincible battlers that they were for a few hours.
Lastly, we have Memoria and Fadecall. As a developer, I had been taking some time to learn and play others' games the past several months. Fatal Factions is huge, so there are not many mechanics that I did not already have in Guild Wars in some shape or form, but fun mechanics inspired from Birthright: Alliance and Yugioh had caused me to bring in two new mechanics with my own Fatal Factions twist.
In Birthright, you slowly gain points that unlock abilities once you reach a certain number. I did my own graveyard twist using Guild Wars' summon deck - When a Memoria unit dies, it goes to the summon deck instead of the graveyard. The number of Memoria units you have in your summon deck dictate when certain abilities unlock. Using a card like Memory Ripper can push several cards into your summon deck to activate abilities quickly and cause more devastating effects you might find from a safer control deck. Plenty of your Memoria cards will allow you to pull cards from your summon deck or add more cards to it - all while safe from any kind of deck or graveyard manipulation effects. Plenty of Memoria cards put things into your graveyard to eventually move to your summon deck, so this mechanic also pairs very well with graveyard mechanics like Spirit Link or Divinity. Since it can pull cards from your summon deck, you may have a better time using summon mechanics like Conjure: X or Engineering as well! Though it may seem like it at first glance, it won't pair well with Assimilation or Mysterious as any mechanics they copy disappear after death, and Memoria relies on Memoria cards to be in your summon deck specifically.
As for Fadecall, I was always a fan of Madolche control-type decks in Yugioh that put cards back into the deck instead of the graveyard or hand so the card seemed much harder to obtain again. Guild Wars is quite calculated and has a slower pace than Yugioh, so I had put in a limitation where you must target an already-Fading card with Fading to put it back into the deck. However, I wanted to put the old Guild Wars twist on it as usual. If you target a card with Fading twice, it goes into the deck - but this also applies to hand cards. Also, if you decide to target your own Fadecall unit with Fading, some of these Fadecall units will do some very strong effects like a killing strike or free card plays before returning to your hand later.
With changes coming from the entirety of The Ancient guild's cards, that means 415 total cards have been updated. There may still be some changes to mechanics as we re-re-retest the cards in live play, but Guild Wars is in a great spot and may go through fewer changes in the future.
That will bring our June update to an end! As I take a small break and continue to try out some other games, the updates on the Fatal Factions site may dwindle to an update once every few months. Don't worry, Fatal Factions is still going strong and will continue to go through updates as we search for possibly one more game to bring to the fray as I dig into the one final game to represent Fatal Factions. Stay tuned, and thanks for checking out our monthly update!
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