Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[caps]

Originally Posted by dok

How do you mean? The first without explicit synergy? The 80 point tier is loaded with Range 1 80 pointers, and even if we strip away the ones with ranged specials or bonding (including Kumiko's VC bonding) we are left with the four Kyrie (Concan, Raelin, Saylind, and Kelda).

Still, I agree that his role is different than the others, and it will be interesting to see him getting play.

When you have 90 points left in your build and want to add a hero that can take out the big tough threats, you pick up Crixus (or any of several other options). When you have 80 points left you pick up ________?

[caps]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

There is already too much standalone heroes in this range of cost in my opinion.
I hope we will not have to do a Martial-like for 60 points, and 90 points and 75 points etc...

Also if he's as usefull as Martial, thank you but I'll pass. From the games I played Martial did at best nothing and at worst lose the game all by himelf.

A melee hero without synergy at less than 100 points is just too hard to be effective with, and way too risky OM wise. In most of competitive games it's just a dead weight. It's just how the game works.

Anyway J15 is like 10 times more usefull and versatile than this guy for only 10 points more.

Martial is one of my favorites and has often come through big for me.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

A melee hero without synergy at less than 100 points is just too hard to be effective with, and way too risky OM wise. In most of competitive games it's just a dead weight. It's just how the game works.

People don't design customs solely for competitive play.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Foudzing, it sounds like you're angry with Prince Al'kahora's creator and submitter for creating and submitting the unit. Did caps do something wrong?

No, no special problems with Caps or the Prince. The problem is and will always be, the sov system (not judges, system).
Except Dok customs all sov figures are rather quite weak or quite non-exciting.
I feel that if you try something a bit out of the bounds, and not weak so it could be part of the meta, you have way less chance to go throught.
The amount of interesting designs (way more than this prince, sorte Caps) that have been abandoned because of this system is saddening.

The system as it is does not encourage sexy stuff.v

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

I feel that if you try something a bit out of the bounds, and not weak so it could be part of the meta, you have way less chance to go throught.

Apparently you have forgotten every other conversation we've had on this subject.

Originally Posted by Foudzing

The amount of interesting designs (way more than this prince, sorte Caps) that have been abandoned because of this system is saddening.

Which designs? List them please.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Which designs? List them please.

Gur'vath, Green Wyrmling, Rat Swarm, Horned Skull Champion, Bulcaners of the endless sea, Kophawet, Tentacles of the Kraken, Shaitan, Wraith of Bleakwood, Kheris, Sundol, Kar-Su-Na, Gruoark.

Yes all of these have maybe obvious playability or balance problems, but they have in my opinion a more exciting and interesting design than a simple melee hero knight.
The fact that they'll probably never be inducted is sad, the idea was here, the figures were available, the only thing left to do was to balance and make the thing playable, which is the easiest part.

In brief in the SoV system there is way too much energy spent on judging and not enough at all on actually improving the custom. Actually there is nothing made to improve the custom.

Once the custom has pass the review, there is a one year delay where nothing can be done to improve the custom, as we have to wait for judging.
If it's a NO then it was almost a one year waste because the custom goes out of the sov the same as it was before, with almost no councils from the judges, who are just roughly pointing out what's wrong.

So you have to work on your custom once again and wait another year.
You don't want that this is way too long.

Basically the system works only if the judges already receive an almost perfect custom. But for custom with an original and innovative design, this is difficult especially if you want your custom to not be weak.

I think a better system would be, instead of spending all the energy and time to say "no the custom is not perfect", actually spend it to make the custom perfect.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

I think a better system would be, instead of spending all the energy and time to say "no the custom is not perfect", actually spend it to make the custom perfect.

It's an interesting criticism, but here's the issue. That's exactly what C3V is for. There's no reason to have two systems to do the same thing.

The SoV exists for a different reason than apparently you want it to be. We are not here to create customs. The C3V already does that. We are here to present an opportunity for the great customs that exist on this site to have a chance to make it into Fanscape. That's a completely different reason than what you are searching for.

A submission needs to be perfect (in terms of playability) for SoV acceptance. How much effort goes into making that true is up to the creator and submitter, not us. We're just the gateway. Initiatives like the Boot Camp of Valhalla are great ways to ensure a custom is ready to go before submission.

Do not use us as your test bed. If you want to make a powerful, metagame-altering custom, it is your responsibility to make sure it is viable before submission. If it's worthy, it will pass. If there's something wrong with it, we leave it up to you to fix it and resubmit.

As for the time it takes us to review, we're working on that. But don't expect it to get much below a year -- this stuff takes a lot of time and effort. I will repeat: we are not your test team. It is your custom, so it's up to you to make it right.

[superfrog]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

Basically the system works only if the judges already receive an almost perfect custom. But for custom with an original and innovative design, this is difficult especially if you want your custom to not be weak.

The problem is that it would be impractical for the judges to redesign somebody's custom. It's the designer's/submitter's job to make the custom "sexy" as you put it, but still balanced.

I applaud the French submitters for doing a great job of this. Kheris was a very interesting submission that came very close to passing. It seems Asterios is doing better in the process, and I find him to have a bigger impact on the metagame, FWIW.

[caps]

We are not in the business of changing other people's customs.

Originally Posted by Foudzing

Gur'vath, Green Wyrmling, Rat Swarm, Horned Skull Champion, Bulcaners of the endless sea, Kophawet, Tentacles of the Kraken, Shaitan, Wraith of Bleakwood, Kheris, Sundol, Kar-Su-Na, Gruoark

I would love to see many of these units come back in revised forms. Anyone who likes any of them could put some time and effort into it and resubmit them.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Scytale

It's an interesting criticism, but here's the issue. That's exactly what C3V is for. There's no reason to have two systems to do the same thing.

Of course there is a huge reason: everyone can have his custom in semi-official scape.
If you don't think this is a very important reason then I think we pretty much disagree on everything.

SoV is supposed to be the way for the little guy with his little custom to have an impact on the community by making his custom semi-official.

If the custom have to be perfect at the beginning of the process then it's bad because not anyone can do a perfectly balanced and playable custom.
But even the guy who have played only one game in his life can have a freaking good idea.

If you think the few guys in C3V (even how good they can be) can have as much good design ideas as the whole community then we disagree once again. But I think you are wrong and not me.

The Bootcamp of Valhalla is basically a second C3V because they don't start with an already existing custom, they are creating everything, it's what we did with Kheris and Asterios.
But the problem with this is that it takes too much time. You have to wait something like 2 years to see your work go throught, it's longer than serious stuff like job or studies...

I don't ask you do create custom, I ask you to balance and make the custom playable, or at least give councils. Not just saying "this thing is not good, it's a no".
You say what is bad but you don't give any clue to improve, for the creator the custom was already perfect, so he usually doesn't know what to change, so he's blocked, then the custom is abandonned.

You are saying you are just a gateway, and you do nothing but saying YES or NO, ok with that, perfect. But then a gateway shouldn't take so much time, and energy.
Serisously one year for basically just applying a sceal of approval is too long. I agree that testing is long (you do too much testing imo).

There is no need to debate the results are here: look at the customs design I named then look at the figures who made it to sov, even if there are good SoV cards, I highly prefer the first set of designs, and I think I am not the only one.
We are missing potentialy great customs and therefore the system is bad.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

We are not in the business of changing other people's customs.

I would love to see many of these units come back in revised forms. Anyone who likes any of them could put some time and effort into it and resubmit them.

So you are willing that anyone who love this customs to change them and resubmit them (could be me or anyone).
If it could be me or anyone, why not you? You love them and tested them.

Anyway waiting again a whole year is just too long.

[Dad_Scaper]

There's nothing stopping an SoV judge from submitting a design, whether his own or someone else's. Also, nothing is stopping someone from re-submitting a design that's been modified. Or anything stopping anybody from submitting a design created by someone else.

It's always been that way.