#battlecon

[the-gender-anomaly]

Today I was a special guest at BattleCon!

[assistant-honcho]

There's an idea going around that TTRPGs are meant to be "collaborative storytelling" first and foremost. Or that they're functionally a form of improv. And like, that's a valid way to think about your own games, but I think it's dead wrong to say that as a sweeping generalization!

I think it depends on whether you get into the hobby from the "theater kid" side of things or the "nerd gamer" side (and I'm firmly on the gamer side!). The games of D&D etc. that I and the other DMs in my group run are solidly games first, with storytelling coming as a handy side benefit.

The consequences of this for my game Delvers are not just that it's heavily gameplay focused, but also in the sources from which it takes inspiration. I'm not just borrowing mechanics from other TTRPGs and themes from popular media, but I can also take mechanics from other tabletop games that the theater kid side of the TTRPG space likely wouldn't even know about. Core inspirations are the snappy tactical combat of BattleCON and the back-and-forth card-based tempo of Ashes Reborn. I'm also using some combat mechanics and particular characters from the video game Legends of Kingdom Rush.

[nokomento]

#nkmtART Log 20191218

Some wips most doodles #nkmtART

View On WordPress

[isitfurbait]

Lymn from BattleCON?

I see that she was the most popular choice when she came up, so I’m already going to say that’s a factor into this. She just seems like a good female dog, and not quite something someone would find anthropomorphically interesting. However, I could be wrong, and I see that she would be interesting to a certain subset of furries whose anthropomorphism is more of the Jack London style: using a quadrupedal animal to narrate thoughts. She appears to have magical powers at the ready, and frankly? What person of the past 30 years online has not created a form of character deriving from something else with magical powers of protection?

[level99games]

Weekly Update - Mirrors and Toxins

Read the Update on Kickstarter: CLICK HERE

Dang, Marco. Back at it again with the Unleashed updates! In this update, I'll talk a bit about some of the characters that people asked us about on the Level with Us Livecast!

War Updates

In this update, I'd like to talk about the 2 kinds of "updates" we've had to do for War. To illustrate this, I'll go through 2 characters and their changes.

Let's start things quick and easy with Lixis. Lixis has always been one of the "healthier" characters in BattleCON, especially since her update in War: Remastered. Truly, the only problem she had was a single card in her kit: Naturalizing. Lixis is one of the many characters who are, for the most part, completely fine, but contain one or two archaic effects that needed to be phased out. For Lixis, that's Naturalizing's ability to straight-up blank any antes, which creates some rules confusion for characters who ante things and rely on their ante bonuses to even function. Naturalizing was always a "fast poke tool" first and a "blank opponent characters" second kind of card, so the new Naturalizing keeps this identity: it now simply Negates the opponent's Power/Priority/Guard from their Force Overload antes.

The second type of update is a bit more complicated. For that, let's talk about Sagas. Sagas always had issues, thanks to his core character design, especially his Negation and Echo styles. These two cards were very swingy. Negation was amazing against characters who needed their styles to work, but worthless against opponents who had "bad styles" that mitigated their powerful Unique Abilities. On the flip side, Echo was the reverse. It's great against people with good styles and bad against those without good styles. So, the character's "internal balance", as Brad puts it, is nowhere to be found. Sagas was either an "instant win" or an "instant lose" the moment the opponent picks their fighter, which is not ideal. And let's not even start with all the rules questions that happen when he copied opponent cards with Staff or Echo. This meant that Sagas, similar to Demitras, needed a complete overhaul or rework to their cards.

Sagas' update gives him more internal balance, while trying to maintain his "mirroring" aspect. Negation is still very similar to how it used to function, but now doesn't turn off opponent effects, which is healthier. As BattleCON has progressed, we've realized that, sometimes, increasing an opponent's stats can be useful, especially for clashing. Negation's true power comes from its utility to tiebreak, ignoring clashes when it benefits sagas. However, it also has the ability to force the opponent's style to be Priority +0 (even if they played a SUPER SLOW card), making it easier to clash them by playing the same base when you don't have your Mirror token (which exemplifies the "mirroring" fantasy Sagas has). Many of the changes are akin to this. Echo is a full-on "play the same base for a bonus" style like Eligor's Counter, which results in some hilarious plays.

Hopefully this look into these 2 characters sheds some light on the work we've been doing these past few weeks. Since I was the one who mostly worked on Sagas, feel free to ask me more questions! :)

A Year in Indines

We're also starting this year with a lore-filled bang! A Year in Indines gives you all the sweet lore, stories, and trivia you crave. We'll be releasing more on our social media over the next few weeks. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

What's Happening?

The following are starting or still in the process of completion:

Trials Proofreading

Fate Proofreading

Bonus Costume Punches

War Playtesting

What's Due?

We hope to be done with War Playtesting by this week, so expect it to be done by next update.

Final Words

That was a doozy! Working on War characters is always interesting because they are the "most iconic" BattleCON characters; at least, to me! Are there any fighters you want to know more about? Tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading the update and, as usual: Thank you World of Indines. Thank you, and good night!

[prozdvoices]

I voice King Alexian XXXVII in BattleCON: Online by Level 99 Games, you can play the game on Steam here

[robotoftheday]

today’s robot of the day is: Clive Melmont from BattleCON!

[pixelpeeps]

weekly 2018 Art Report 37

a bit late, i had a big thing happen!

also been playing BattleCON.