Your choice of captain should effect the kinds of units you can and cannot bring.#363

The lack of any factions or army restrictions was a huge let down when I booted the game up. I’d love to make choices about what to field and to figure out how to best play around what my opponents have selected as well. As is I’m not sure how any meta wouldn’t just devolve into good stuff mirror matches where tactics and strategy takes a backseat to the luck of the draw.

it seems to me the best strat is to turtle. esp if you get good ship asssists. hide and smack enemys anyhere on the board needs fixed. Also needs some form of counters as there is no way of stopping anything really. its no fun to know you lost turn 1 or 2 because of randomness in ship assists and starting bridge. just load up on 1 and 2 cinder units and hide is also not much fun

It is also worth noting that in addition to painting the miniatures and playing with them, designing a roster is a huge part of the game for some of us, and having no restrictions of any kind (ie. no faction restrictions, no role restrictions, no cost restrictions, etc.) is a bit disappointing.

I concur with the general feeling here. There should be some faction or unit type restriction when playing a certain captain. At the moment, this free for all roster mechanic will probably lead to players facing each other having exactly the same meta roster and it will get boring quick.

I would love Captain/Faction synergies that help craft comps a bit. Right now it will turn into good stuff v good stuff. Not very exciting unfortunately. The gameplay is there though, just need more comps.

Strongly against it, would limit the replayability by far for me. Does nothing against meta and just reduces your options for fun combos for no reason.

I’m not sure how you think the restrictions would remove the possibility of meta-lists forming. With restrictions, there’s still going to be meta-lists, just they’re going to look different having to operate in those restrictions. Many of the factors you’re looking for come in the semi-random nature of the game. Cost of unit matters, because you can’t take too many high-costs or risk getting a bad starting bridge. Can’t take too many low costs, or you risk getting wiped in the mid-game. Each captain supports a different playstyle, and therefore supports different types of lists.

I vote for the opposite. Don’t restrict anything, BUT give bonuses to units of the same faction as your Captain.

Additive gameplay > subtractive

List building is a huge draw for so many players who would like a game like this one. Without restrictions, the meta will only ever have a couple superfriends-esque lists. Locking choices behind factions or captains will create a drastically more diverse meta.

Note: I have never seen “additive” faction bonuses diversify a meta to the same extent straight restrictions do. Either the bonuses are good enough to be a meta list, or they aren’t and superfriends lists rise to the top. It changes what meta lists look like, but doesn’t diversify a meta well.

Restriction brings diversity of decks. No restriction is one meta to rule them all leading to boring mirror matches.

I feel like there are not enough units for that currently in the game per faction. At the moment, the game has a very rich environment in terms of potential combos, restrictions would cut it too much. Still, I don’t see how restrictions would change anything in meta. Take the current version of the game. You have 3 captains but, only 1 of them is played comptetively by the majority. With restrictions, not only will you face the same captain, but you’ll face exactly the same army every time as well (which was still happening even during the playtest).

Maybe instead of limiting units, crew of the same culture as the Captain can receive some minor benefit? Maybe they get an extra HP or slightly more move distance, could be a different bonus per culture as well. Could even limit it to just higher tier units (4+ Cinder cost).

I like this idea. How about the units of the same culture cost one less cinder to activate?

That might be too powerful or hard to balance I think, especially if one culture happens to contain many more Meta units than the others.

The bonuses would have to be subtle, even my 1 extra HP example I think is a little extreme. Zax could give ranged units in his culture 5% more accuracy, robot man could give melee units in his culture 5% more move distance, Astra could give her units slightly longer range for their abilities. Something like that. Should apply the bonuses to stats were a small percentage increase makes sense (accuracy, move, critical chance, ranges, AoE sizes, etc.).

I like the idea of tribal mechanics, but I disagree on adding restrictions to the captains, rather have units that care about culture for thier abilities.

Hard agree on this: with no restrictions there will be certain ‘must take’ units for every deck. In the current build, everyone takes a Maximus because he’s horribly OP, regardless of the captain. So there’s actually less meaningful choice.

There may be alternatives to a hard restriction. You could have faction-exclusive rosters and a separate ‘mercenary’ roster that all captains could dip into, perhaps with a 2-unit limit.

The captain’s ability will lead to the fixation of the routine, because there must be an optimal strategy, This is not a good idea

I would love for there to be culture/legacy/team passive synergies, but not outright restrictions!

It’s better to incentive players to play with this and this many same faction troops with passives than to outright ban stuff. This game thrives on wild synergies anyway and hard bans would destroy that.