Of Banners, Sagas, Microtransactions, And Balance [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Already had your fill of news about The Banner Saga? Doubtful! So RPS is here with yet another installment of TBS called "Of Banners, Sagas, Microtransactions, And Balance".

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That was a big theme I think we glossed over a bit. When Chapter One comes out, what happens in Chapter One is going to have a direct relation to what happens in Factions. As you unlock characters in Chapter One, you’ll unlock them in Factions as well. We want free players to see [story classes in action]. We’re calling our magic-users Menders. They get hooked up in a match where they’re fighting against Menders casting these spells, and they’re like, “Holy crap, how do I get that?” You get the single-player game and you play through it, and now you know who these characters are and you can use them.

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Skip the snippet, though, and go straight for the goods!

Looking amazing! I was so very stoked to see some of our work showing up on screen. :) That 9 character Varl vs Viking shot may have taken a long time to animate, but boy was it worth it to see it up on the big screen like that!

As a competitive gamer, I tend to be wary of micro-transactions when they relate to multiplayer, that said it sounds like you have put a lot of thought into it, and with the way the decks play out and the way players are matched, it doesn't look like those who pay more will therefore do better.

So here's Skal to everyone at powerhouse and stoic, it has been a blast working with you guys!
*clicks flagons*

If it brings lots of easy money to the developers, they WILL balance the gameplay favoring the sense of reward for people who pay good money for those "Renown" points, at least once they've achieved a sufficiently big user base. It's the logical thing to do, you know...

In other words, the flawed root of this game will become evident sooner or later...

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Originally Posted by FaeTalan

If it brings lots of easy money to the developers, they WILL balance the gameplay favoring the sense of reward for people who pay good money for those "Renown" points, at least once they've achieved a sufficiently big user base. It's the logical thing to do, you know...

In other words, the flawed root of this game will become evident sooner or later...

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This is not is sure thing. Not everyone who pays in microtransactions in F2P gagmes expect a reward past the one they have for wht they pay. From the start they agree to pay for what they have, not for some intangible potential update dev's would add for the payers.

I just thought of something that I'd like to see clarified real quick in regards to matchmaking.

1. You match up with people based on how much Renoun you're spent on your current team that you're fighting with.
2. Capping someone out on points allows you to rank them up, which resets their stats back down, gives an extra ability, and increases the maximum cap on stat points that can be allocated to the character.

Okay, so with these two points in mind let me craft a hypothetical situation to present my question.

Let's say that I have a team of 6 characters, no equips, and each one has a Renoun cap of 10 points each. I've been playing up and leveling them all equally, and the last battle gets me the last 6 points to get everyone on the team up to Rank 2. They all reset back down to base stats, get their new ability, but ultimately I don't have any more Renoun left to pump stats any further (I'm assuming here that all of the allocated Renoun is consumed during the rank up process).

So now does my team count as a 0 Renoun team (no points currently allocated), a 60 Renoun team (10x6 points spent ranking up everyone), or something else entirely in regards to the matchmaking?

Good question Lolisauce, and you're the first to ask it!
So you have ranked up a whole team of 6 to rank 2 (once again these are not the names of our ranks, its just easier to discuss it this way) and now they are catalogued by us as a lesser team than your level 1 team was before. Yes. Most teams will have mixed characters as far as amount of renown put into them, but certainly in this game a "rank 1" could, for a time, be more powerful than a "rank 2", but the "rank 2" has more potential. You could even have a game where your full group of "rank 4's" (more on how many ranks we will ultimately have later) is matched up against a team of all "rank 1's". There would be a small window of opportunity for this but it's possible. At every new rank you can reexamine how you want to build the characters stats anew, but now with greater potential and a better understanding of both how they work and how they fit into the "deck" you're building.
Now, a caveat to this whole explanation is that we're still in Alpha, just entering Beta. If we find any of this to be unbalanced then we have other ways to matchmake based on the teams power. But we'd like to try this way first.
My interest is to see what different teams people put together that we haven't thought of. It'd be like playing chess and being able to pick 3 knights, 1 rook and 2 bishops -v- 6 bishops if the player so choses. We shall see.

Excellent. I was just musing about the possibility that if that freshly minted Rank 2 team still cost as much as a maxed out Rank 1 team, they might end up just getting beaten down pretty hard without all those extra stats, which would end up being a pretty heavy deterrent to Ranking up (or at least Ranking up multiple units at once).

On the flip side, the new abilities alone should allow for at least some extra Renoun worth, otherwise you'll end up with low stat Rank 4 or 5 teams that can really put the hurt on earlier teams. From the way you addressed it though, it sounds like you've already taken these points into account, so cheers to that!