Balance Proposal regarding Solo Ladder

By saiki · · 51 views · 5 upvotes · 4 replies

Summary

Most players stall at rungs 4–5. Four things combine to cause this: Gambit lands far below its stated odds, mobs appear to out-roll players far more often than equal dice should allow, minions add a lot of effective HP and threat, and mob stats jump about 50% per rung while rewards don't keep up. Rungs nobody can reach don't add content. They add frustration. The proposals below keep the ladder challenging but make each climb a fair gamble.

1. Gambit success rate

Problem: Gambit's stated condition (2d10 ≥ 12) gives a 45% hit rate: 45 of the 100 possible rolls total 12 or more. Players report landing roughly 10–15% in practice, including miss streaks of 7–8 in a row (at 45%, that happens about 1.5% and 0.8% of the time) and dodges on rolls that succeeded. That's a gap of about 30 percentage points between the tooltip and what players experience.

Proposals:

This won't make Gambit stronger overall. It makes it less swingy, which is where most of the frustration comes from.

2. Mob rolls and parity

Problem: The combat log shows both sides' rolls, and players regularly see the mob out-roll them in around 8 of 10 rounds. If both sides roll the same 2d10, the mob should win about 47% of contests (about 7% are ties), and winning 8 or more out of 10 should happen only about 3.5% of the time. One fight like that is bad luck. The same pattern across many players and many fights suggests the rolls aren't equal.

Proposals:

3. Minions

Problem: On rungs 2–3 a mob already has about the same HP as the player, and a minion adds more health and threat on top. There are nine minion types, several of which (Leech, Mender, Broodmother, Champion) change the fight a lot. Players also have 4–6 skills against mobs with 4–5 skills, 2–3 passives, and a skill steal every turn.

Proposals:

4. Rung scaling and rewards

Problem: Mob HP goes up about 50% per rung, sometimes 2x - 2.5x (for example, 400K to 600K from rung 3 to 4, sometimes 300K to 700K), minion stats grow with it, and player power doesn't. A failed climb keeps 50% of banked loot, so climbing is only worth it when:

next-rung multiplier ≥ 0.5 / (win chance) + 0.5

That means each rung needs at least this multiplier to be worth attempting:

On rungs 1–3, where win chances are high, the 50% safety net makes climbing easy to justify. Around rung 5, win chances drop to around 30%, so each rung would need to more than double the loot just to break even. Stat growth pushes win chances down faster than rewards go up, so stopping at rung 4–5 is the rational choice and higher rungs go unplayed.

Proposals:

Appreciate if you guys can also share your thoughts and contribute to the topic.

Replies

Pickenchox ·

I like the Gambit pity mechanic. That seems like a pretty reasonable way to compensate for the 12+ requirement and some of the perceived excessive bad rolls without necessarily making Gambit stronger overall. You still have the RNG element, but consecutive misses gradually improve your chances and prevent those really brutal streaks where Gambit just never seems to land.

I also think there are some good points here regarding minions, although I'm not sure simply limiting the number of minions is necessarily the best solution.

Right now, between rounds you already have the ability to do some minion management depending on the cards/actions you choose. I think there may be an opportunity to expand on that and make dealing with minions more strategic rather than just reducing how many can exist.

That said, certain combinations can basically determine the fight. If you end up with a Broodmother and a couple of Splitters while your Gambit isn't hitting, you're probably done. At that point it stops feeling like a strategic problem you could have played differently and becomes more about whether the RNG gave you a manageable combination.

One thing that also needs to be considered with minions is how they interact with Barrier Shield. Right now, each individual minion attack counts as a separate hit against the Barrier, and the mob's attack counts as another. Since Barrier only absorbs three hits, if you have three or more minions up, the Barrier can essentially disappear immediately.

Maybe Barrier should treat the entire enemy turn as a single hit/charge rather than consuming one charge for every individual minion and the mob. That would allow Barrier to retain some value in minion-heavy fights without necessarily nerfing the minions themselves.

Overall, I'd rather see minions become something we have more strategic tools to manage than simply putting a hard cap on them. Broodmothers, Splitters, Leech, etc. can make fights more interesting, but there needs to be enough counterplay that a bad combination doesn't automatically turn the fight into a loss, especially when combined with a long Gambit miss streak.

Septimus ·

Totally agree on the barrier and the pity mechanic. It is a real gut punch when your fresh barrier is eliminated in a single turn, or the Gambit you've been waiting for is dodged or lands on the mob stacked with barrier and guard.

Something else that I don't think many players realize is that your standard attack "quick hit" requireds ≥ 14 to hit for 1x your attack power. This is a very significant restriction on player power. Quick hit is the one attack that should consistently hit for the player's natural attack power that your level has granted. You've earned that attack power and should hit with it most of the time. Quick hit should give 1x player attack power on 2d10 ≥ 10 that means 64% of the time you should hit for at least 1.0x your natural attack power.

Pickenchox ·

Another possibility for dealing with the minion issue would be introducing some sort of AOE mechanic.

Rather than limiting the number of minions that can spawn, give players a way to strategically deal with larger groups. For example, certain attacks or cards could do reduced damage to all active minions, or perhaps damage the main mob while also doing a percentage of that damage to its minions.

That would actually make having multiple minions more interesting. If you're facing a Broodmother and several Splitters, instead of the number of minions simply overwhelming you, you have a decision to make about whether to use an AOE action to control the group or continue focusing damage on the main mob.

It could also create another layer of strategy when choosing cards between rounds. Maybe you sacrifice some single-target damage or defense to bring an AOE ability because you see the minion situation starting to get out of control.

I think something along those lines would be more interesting than just putting a hard cap on minions. Let them multiply and become dangerous, but give the player some tools to counter it.

saiki ·

Thanks, I like this idea, and I think it would add a real layer of strategy to minion fights. I'd see it as working alongside the cap rather than replacing it, though.

The issue is that AOE only helps if players have room to spend turns on it. Right now mobs already out-scale us (similar HP to ours by rung 2–3, ~50% more HP per rung after that, plus passives and skill steal). In that situation, trading single-target damage for AOE mostly just makes a losing fight last longer. A cap keeps the fights winnable, and AOE would make them more interesting within that limit.

If TL fixes the scaling and make minions budget-neutral, I'd be fully on board with loosening the cap and relying more on AOE counterplay. Hopefully they consider both.