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[Hanzoku]

...Is it sad that I was thinking the same thing as Mech#4 and Farce? because I was, and I would have seriously considered throwing money at that.

[Baneling]

In the meantime, though, perhaps the thread might need a retitling? A lot of people are coming in expecting something COMPLETELY different.

Myself included, when I poked in for a minute yesterday.

[Cthulhu]

Protip:  Fuck Gooey Blob.  The only thing I can see to really "counter" it is Shadow Wood and you have to survive a turn of it to counter it that way.

It summons two squares of Gooey Blob which immobilizes anyone inside it.  Every turn the blob spreads and it also attacks anyone inside it.  It's supposed to be a sort of double-edged sword becuase it'll eat you too if it can, but for the most part right now you just drop it on the enemy wizard and automatically win.

[Farce]

Wizard Wrestling is a silly joke name

The world's a little greyer right now.

Although Hanzoku makes a good point.  If I ever get off my ass and try to make a thing, I've got that little gem to work on.

[Biowraith]

It seems Julian is considering removing the attack component of Gooey Blob, although from skimming the thread he started on the official site's forum it seems the players generally dislike the idea.

Haven't encountered it myself yet, but certainly seen people rant about it here and there. 

Having someone summon 3 elves in one cast while I can still only summon one at a time was my wtf_unfair moment (especially when they followed it up with a non-illusion sapphire dragon)... but I actually won that game, so I guess I can't really complain.

[i2amroy]

It seems Julian is considering removing the attack component of Gooey Blob, although from skimming the thread he started on the official site's forum it seems the players generally dislike the idea.

Isn't it always that way with broken things? Players hate the idea of their removal, but balance (silently) cries out for it.

That said I would totally be fine with it if it allowed the player to attack the blob that they were currently in (similar to webs) instead of just stopping all attacks.

[Cthulhu]

One issue for me is that the blob is loyal.  It can block off your movement and cause problems but it won't eat allied creatures and wizards.  If it could do that I think it'd be more of a double-edged sword and something you have to put some thought into, rather than a very safe fire and forget way to ruin the other guy's day.

When I summon a manticore, it's a game with a manticore.  When I cast tangle vines, it's a game with tangle vines.  When I use gooey blob, it's a gooey blob game.  I feel like gooey blob has a very disproportionate influence on every single game it's in.  When it comes out the game becomes centered around it because it does so many things at the same time.

I'm quickly becoming a master Trick Wizard, coming up with devious shenanigans that Julian Gollop himself perfected way back in ZX Spectrum Chaos. 

It turns out illusions don't dispel on any attack.  An illusion is identical to a real creature except its cast chance is 100%, it can be disbelieved, and it will die instead of being subverted.  In an RNG-based game where you must learn to take as few risks as possible, a guaranteed summon for no mana is a godsend.  By watching and noting where players do and don't disbelieve you can learn where it's safe to illusion certain creatures, thus minimizing the number of times you face the RNG.

This is a pretty bad idea, revealing tricks that only work if no one knows them, but you guys are cool so I'll let you in on some of my Trick Wizard knowledge.

People very rarely disbelieve turn 1 summons unless they're outrageous.  Dorfs, Burds, and Goblins can be illusioned with almost no risk and I recommend you do so if you summon these on turn 1.  Skeletons are a little riskier but only a little.  They're a very common and reasonably safe first summon and most people won't risk disbelieving them.  Elves and spiders are possible but now you're pushing your luck.  Unicorns and anything lower than that I wouldn't risk.

Staves double the mana boost for the spells in their domain.  People who are aware of this and pay attention to it (hard to say how many that is) probably won't disbelieve a domain spell, again as long as it's not something outrageous. 

People almost never disbelieve mana node summons.  This is best with the mid-level summons.  Unicorns, manticores, elephants, etc.  People tend to disbelieve Giant+ on principle though and I would only risk illusioning them if I can't get a safe percentage and the game is on the line.

There are more tricks and secrets but I can't reveal them all.  The further into trickwizardry you get the more WIFOM you get and pretty soon you're confusing yourself more than the enemy.  He just disbelieved two of my creatures.  No one would be stupid enough to illusion a hydra right afterward which means he'll assume it's real so I should illusion it.  But then he's going to think the same thing and assume I'll bank on him assuming I'm not stupid enough to illusion it and he'll disbelieve it, so I should summon it for real, but what if he assumes I'll assume that he assumes that . . .

And so on.

Trick Wizard is the only way to play Chaos.

[EnigmaticHat]

Protip:  Fuck Gooey Blob.  The only thing I can see to really "counter" it is Shadow Wood and you have to survive a turn of it to counter it that way.

It summons two squares of Gooey Blob which immobilizes anyone inside it.  Every turn the blob spreads and it also attacks anyone inside it.  It's supposed to be a sort of double-edged sword becuase it'll eat you too if it can, but for the most part right now you just drop it on the enemy wizard and automatically win.

I absolutely agree with this.  Also it doesn't drop two goo units, instead it seems to have a ~80% to spread to each adjacent tile.  So its worse.

My rules for countering it:
If you come within enemy wizard move speed + 4, you must be mounted, and have a goo clearing plan.  If you come within move speed + 3, you need to be able to kill them right then, and you need to spread out your creatures.  Don't go within 3 tiles of an enemy wizard ever period, as they can drop goop directly on you and then run away.

Valid goop clearing plans: single target attack spells (NOT magic bolt, as it cannot target your own tile), magic sword already cast, or a powerful creature within range to free you.  Remember that if your mount is stuck, you can move and attack completely as normal but you can't free your mount without dismounting.

Its way too much effort to counter a single 70% spell.  Even magic bolt, dah wizard killar, has far less impact on games.

In my experience the goop isn't loyal, or at least it wasn't in the demo, don't know why they would buff it.  Enemy goo is better for you than allied go, as you can kill it for mana, while you can't kill allied goo unless its grabbed an ally.  Not that it matters since almost no one uses goo without directly hitting with it, and at that point you have bigger concerns than farming it for mana.

[Cthulhu]

The map kind of changes the way goo is used.  I think the original chaos map was quite a bit bigger square-wise, and it didn't have terrain and I don't think it had mana nodes.  So there isn't this strong incentive to get in close where blob and magic bolt take over.

[Rez]

Is it too late to demo this?

[Cthulhu]

There are some prototype versions floating around but they're very bare bones.

[EnigmaticHat]

Having someone summon 3 elves in one cast while I can still only summon one at a time was my wtf_unfair moment (especially when they followed it up with a non-illusion sapphire dragon)... but I actually won that game, so I guess I can't really complain.

That was their mega spell, elf squad.  Each staff has a mana requirement and a spell you can activate if you reach that mana requirement.

There are (or were in the demo, the current steam version has less staffs) multiple staffs with elf squad as their mega spell, I assume because their actual mega spells haven't been coded yet.

[IronyOwl]

Loved the original as a kid, so I picked this up as soon as I heard about it... which was only yesterday.

Not really the person for pro stats though (yet, at least) - so far I'm 3 wins to 6 losses :p

I'm 3/8 :3

My first game was a loss because of a derelict joystick driver that broke my camera and forced me to forfeit.  Then I won three games in a row and I haven't won a game since.

5/0/2 100% win rate, get on my level scrubs.

It seems Julian is considering removing the attack component of Gooey Blob, although from skimming the thread he started on the official site's forum it seems the players generally dislike the idea.

Isn't it always that way with broken things? Players hate the idea of their removal, but balance (silently) cries out for it.

That said I would totally be fine with it if it allowed the player to attack the blob that they were currently in (similar to webs) instead of just stopping all attacks.

Given how weak said attack is, I'm curious how much this would really change things. I'd agree about being able to attack the blob you're in, but in my experience spider web is tough. Letting you free yourself from the squishy blob would weaken it significantly, not that I've played against it enough to comment on whether that's good or bad.

That said, not being able to attack OR summon is more of a problem, I think. Unless you have something not-goo'd already on the field, and are willing to risk it getting into the tar pit as well, having your wizard blobbed can mean you're effectively stunned for a few turns, which is generally unfun even when it's not completely ruinous.

I'm quickly becoming a master Trick Wizard, coming up with devious shenanigans that Julian Gollop himself perfected way back in ZX Spectrum Chaos. 

It turns out illusions don't dispel on any attack.  An illusion is identical to a real creature except its cast chance is 100%, it can be disbelieved, and it will die instead of being subverted.  In an RNG-based game where you must learn to take as few risks as possible, a guaranteed summon for no mana is a godsend.  By watching and noting where players do and don't disbelieve you can learn where it's safe to illusion certain creatures, thus minimizing the number of times you face the RNG.

This is a pretty bad idea, revealing tricks that only work if no one knows them, but you guys are cool so I'll let you in on some of my Trick Wizard knowledge.

People very rarely disbelieve turn 1 summons unless they're outrageous.  Dorfs, Burds, and Goblins can be illusioned with almost no risk and I recommend you do so if you summon these on turn 1.  Skeletons are a little riskier but only a little.  They're a very common and reasonably safe first summon and most people won't risk disbelieving them.  Elves and spiders are possible but now you're pushing your luck.  Unicorns and anything lower than that I wouldn't risk.

Staves double the mana boost for the spells in their domain.  People who are aware of this and pay attention to it (hard to say how many that is) probably won't disbelieve a domain spell, again as long as it's not something outrageous. 

People almost never disbelieve mana node summons.  This is best with the mid-level summons.  Unicorns, manticores, elephants, etc.  People tend to disbelieve Giant+ on principle though and I would only risk illusioning them if I can't get a safe percentage and the game is on the line.

This is all very sensible, but oddly enough it hasn't been my experience.

From what I've seen, timing, current possibilities, and hope are better predictors of disbelief frequency than cast chance or the like. When people have better things to do, including if they just can't risk not doing anything this turn if it's real, they don't tend to waste time disbelieving even fairly large things. When they're on the other side of the map just chilling out or if they've got no other options (skeletons, for instance), they tend to give it a shot even on dwarves and other easy to do things. Conversely, I've totally had people call me on node summons and other things it's plausible that I'd be able to do.

These have also mostly lined up with my own experiences as the disbeliever. Often I'll wonder if a bird's real or not, but be too busy summoning useful things to bother disbelieving it when it's far away and too busy dealing with the wretch for certain when it's close up.

Overall, my experience has basically been to illusion aggressively and close up, and use real stuff defensively and far off. Which makes a certain amount of sense fluff-wise- if you give an enemy time to realize it's not real, illusions aren't harmful. It's the urgency of the thing that makes it dangerous.

[EnigmaticHat]

Right now the meta is no illusions unless desperate, only disbelieve big things.  Simply because a lot of players are very new.  This will almost certainly be replaced by "illusion usage varies wildly by player" once things settle down a bit.  I don't expect disbelieve usage to be high until the general playerbase realizes how good illusions are, which might be a while.

One constant I've found is that illusions are at their most useful when the amount of time before the shit hits the fan is low, or when you're winning.  A player who is losing, or going to be attacked next turn, might reasonably expect to lose the game if they disbelieve something real.  On the other hand, a player in a safe position can disbelieve at their leisure.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Seems interesting, will probably purchase when finished.

Go forth, test and give feedback to Gollop & co, for my future gaming enjoyment!

edit:
Bearing in mind it's all subject to change as development takes place, how long do games generally take?