Bramble on par new take - 'prickle' action

[Necrocat219]

EDIT: AyrenZ originally came up with this idea so credit goes to him! Sorry for not mentioning you before!

Hi all! I genuinely think this would be a viable alteration to the Bramble to make it viable at high level play, making it have a fair share of strategically offencive and defensive capabilities; I'm aiming to buff the Bramble without encourage turtling as I think that would be most healthy for the game. Also keep in mind I'm trying to make the idea as simple as possible and this is the initial idea that to me seems like it could work! For players not much would change interface - wise, just a thorn icon would appear above enemies too, and from a programming point of view this should be really easy to implement. The only problems I can foresee is just using the Bramble on it's own to attack and animation. Anyways all the posts I've made so far are here regarding this idea of a 'prickle' attack, so please read on...

(02-11-2013 01:00 AM)Necrocat219 Wrote:  Hi OML, this is an idea I came up with that I believe could make the Bramble versatile enough to be played and could be reasonable to implement. It could possibly need a few animations added but I think that a 'speeded up passive thorn' animation could be good enough. Anyways here are quotes with my ideas and clarifications:

(02-10-2013 11:03 AM)Necrocat219 Wrote:  Hmm. I believe that theres one change that can be added that will bring the Bramble up to the same level as at least Feedback and Scallys:

-Don't change any stats or +1 wit per kill
-Add 'prickle': enemies adjacent to thorns take 1 damage for 1 wit. that thorn can't make a new one this turn.

This makes the bramble a bit more flexible in it's purpose, gives it a damage component that it lacks so much compared to other specials and can be used to tackle it's biggest weakness: snipers! It also somewhat tackes the problem of barriers helping your opponent and is more rewarding for relatively conservative use of the bramble, thoughts?

(02-10-2013 05:32 PM)CombatEX Wrote:  I'm not sure I understand your idea Necrocat. Let's say you have a bramble and there is a sniper with 1 hp 5 spaces away. You could spend 3 wits to kill it? Spawn "thorn A from bramble" 2 spaces away, spawn "thorn B" using "thorn A" 2 more spaces away, use "thorn B" to deal 1 damage to the sniper. Now "thorn B" has used its one action for the turn (attacking), so has "thorn A" (spawning "thorn B") and so has the bramble (spawning "thorn A"). Both thorn patches and the bramble only took 1 action each.

|B|-|T|-|T|S|

B=Bramble
T=Thorn
S=Sniper
-=Empty

If so, it's certainly interesting to say the least and I wouldn't mind trying it out in beta.

(02-11-2013 12:34 AM)Necrocat219 Wrote:  Heres an example of aggression

I was just making this example to make it clear how this 'prickle' action would work and it does seem to demonstrate the only drawback that I think it could possibly have - it might encourage bramble rushes that were reminiscent of runner rushes. However it is far more expensive to execute and requires a special to do so so that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyways here is a sample situation that takes place about turn 5/7, with red's sniper being buffed to 2hp. I wanted to demonstrate a Runner/Bramble attack and a Bramble/Bramble attack on the Sniper:



In this example P2 (Red) Has buffed his sniper and moved it up. It is now the start of P1's (Blue) turn and he has his Bramble set up with one thorn and wants to take out the sniper:



In this case it costs Blue 4 wits to take out the sniper; however the runner will die for free and the heavy is nearby so can come up to clear up thorns.



This is more of an example of what would be a worry: Just using the Bramble thorns to take out the sniper. It only takes 1 more wit to kill the sniper and leaves a lot of thorns around. However again the heavy is there to counter.

[ImperialSun]

I like it. You shouldn't leave your sniper exposed like that against a bramble player if this change happens. In other words, the example you give wouldn't actually happen as wit efficiently in a normal game. I think you should try it when you have another beta.

[Necrocat219]

Yeah, and have got various changes in mind in case it's overpowered (I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be underpowered)

Doesn't work as intended - Revert update back to 2hp, no wit for kill

Doesn't work as intended - Limit no. of bramble attacks so that all thorns spawned from the same thorn share 1 attack between them e.g. The Bramble makes 2 thorns that spread, each of those networks can attack once each

Overpowered - Each Bramble can only attack once each turn, no matter what.

[ElPared]

it would be easier to just make the Thorns retaliate for 1 damage when attacked, but I guess that would encourage turtling.

still, I like the idea of thorns being able to do damage somehow. There needs to be some kind of drawback for attacking them, even indirectly.

[maconbot]

(02-10-2013 02:44 PM)WeiWei Wrote:  

(02-10-2013 01:57 PM)maconbot Wrote:  

(02-10-2013 01:08 PM)WeiWei Wrote:  Bramble: When Runner/Soldier/Heavy Attack/Touch the Bramble's thorn, that unit takes 1 damage.

This would pretty much turn every bramble game into a sniper batter...thus always long. Could be balanced though. However I like my prickle mod of destroying branch that does the prickle or dropping to 1 hp.

While the prickle idea does seem like a nice idea, I don't like the concept that the Thorns become a more long reaching offensive unit. Thorn walls should stay as defensive as possible.

But your idea works just as fine.

The concerns mentioned above about it becoming a offensive weapon as well as a strong defensive one...would be solved by the prickle action destroying the branch that prickles...it becomes a major cost to prickle if you have a child/children branches that would get uprooted/destroyed by a parent prickle.

Also I agree that a major draw back of bramble is that it hinders offense and the use of snipers. Another easy solution and obvious one - is to enable uprooting your own branches. Have it cost 2 wits...or enable attacking your own branches...with no wit reward for a kill obviously. And child branches are affected still by parent branch.

These types of things would certainly help balancing. I've tried the new bramble several games now and find I still don't enjoy the new mod and prefer the old bramble. Plus find it makes games take forever...ooo just thought of something:

What if bramble could only plant a certain number of branches? Say after 20 you need to uproot and replant to refresh the number. Could also lock down plant radius. Combine stuf like this with offensive changes?

[daHsu]

Wait so thorns are back down to 2 hp? I think another buff would be to let your own units kill your own patches.

[Necrocat219]

(02-11-2013 12:11 PM)daHsu Wrote:  Wait so thorns are back down to 2 hp? I think another buff would be to let your own units kill your own patches.

No nothing's changed, this is just a suggestion with what impact it could have

Also I quite like the uproot when prickling idea; also gives you some control over removing them as well as being a drawback. I sense trapping runners to become a tactic!

[ElPared]

if you could prickle to cause an uproot without a unit being nearby I would love it (something like the BS's splash damage). Then you could not only control your thorn placement better, but use them offensively as well.

I could see that being pretty powerful against opposing units trying to recapture a spawn or wit space. Unless they can kill the thorn outright you can either kill or severely weaken the defending unit, at the cost of giving them their thing back of course. Sounds pretty cool

[WeiWei]

Now that I think more about it, turning Bramble into an offensive force is probably more fun than what I suggested. I support this idea.

[PowerCrazy]

Prickling wouldn't necessarily make thorns OP as they would be the least wit efficient way to kill something, second only to scouts. Do I think it would be a "good" change game play wise? Hard to say, but treating each thorn as a unit that can't move and has a 1 hp attack doesn't seem too bad.