AOE negotiation cards seem way too strong

[Birbo]

May be this is just my impression, but I feel like AOE cards are just too strong.

Almost all negotiations have more than 1 argument created, so you don't really sacrifice your deck quality to prepare for some specific encounters where they can be good. Instead, they are great in majority of encounters.

Many "Boss" negotiations require you to attack several arguments, so you are pretty much always encouraged to have AOE in your deck.

The excess damage from AOE cards goes towards enemy's core argument, making those cards great not only at multi-target damage, but also at destroying your opponent since so many negotiations have enemies making low-hp arguments.

You don't usually get punished for AOE because, as far as I know, there are very few arguments that you actively want to avoid attacking.

If I had to think of a change, I'd say that those cards should be worse at dealing core argument damage and/or there should be more encounters where AOE is less valuable or even harmful, like enemies creating low-hp arguments you don't want to dismiss.

Any thoughts on this?

[pacovf]

Which ones are you concerned about? IIRC, most of them are not great value unless your opponent has multiple arguments. It’s not something that happens every negotiation.

[RageLeague]

Idk, every negotiation with the admiralty, the spark barons, the cult, the laborers, the foremans, the bartenders, the merchants, the jakes, sometimes the spree, the rise, and special npcs like Arint, Flekfis, the assassins, and Glofriam?

[Tempvirage]

5 hours ago, Birbo said:

If I had to think of a change, I'd say that those cards should be worse at dealing core argument damage and/or there should be more encounters where AOE is less valuable or even harmful, like enemies creating low-hp arguments you don't want to dismiss.

Any thoughts on this?

Burn statistically has one of the worst cost/damage values of any hostile card. It's designed to reward you for setting up two separate mechanics; gamble and dominance. It's pretty fair that for all the setup it does what it's meant to effectively.

Flatter, on the other hand, is very strong for the cost but again, influence can be destroyed extremely easily so your deck has to revolve around influence to gain its benefit all the time.

The same thing could be said of Matter of Fact. Combine it with turtle coin and gambles and suddenly it becomes a nuke. The point is if you draft a card and strategize properly with burning excess cards, etc. you get rewarded heavily.

Edit: Forgot about Slugstorm: Slugstorm, comparitively, does crap damage and has a gamble per-requisite so... maybe Burn should be uncommon or Slugstorm needs a minor buff. Otherwise, I think they're fine.

[RageLeague]

Wide slugstorm is a guaranteed damage output, and can scale with dominance. With gamble(tyrant's coin) it can become a nuke.

Headsplit has high base damage, but doesn't scale with dominance, and there is no guarantee hit. Still, it can sometimes do a lot of damage on its own.

[pacovf]

4 hours ago, RageLeague said:

Idk, every negotiation with the admiralty, the spark barons, the cult, the laborers, the foremans, the bartenders, the merchants, the jakes, sometimes the spree, the rise, and special npcs like Arint, Flekfis, the assassins, and Glofriam?

It’s definitely extremely useful against Admiralty, Heshians, Haggle Badge negotiations, and Glofriam, and great against Barons and Assassins. Against other people, they’re just fine. Granted, they’re so good when they do shine, that’s they’re always worth adding to your deck.

[Wumpus the 19th]

All the shotgun cards are good to play and assuming lady luck or mister actual-deck-build are on your side. Honestly stoic is pretty good considering it's a hard counter to aoe. And who could forget suppressing fire and target practice, two cards perfect for rooks constantly larger fights.

[Birbo]

8 hours ago, Tempvirage said:

Burn statistically has one of the worst cost/damage values of any hostile card. It's designed to reward you for setting up two separate mechanics; gamble and dominance. It's pretty fair that for all the setup it does what it's meant to effectively.

Flatter, on the other hand, is very strong for the cost but again, influence can be destroyed extremely easily so your deck has to revolve around influence to gain its benefit all the time.

The same thing could be said of Matter of Fact. Combine it with turtle coin and gambles and suddenly it becomes a nuke. The point is if you draft a card and strategize properly with burning excess cards, etc. you get rewarded heavily.

Edit: Forgot about Slugstorm: Slugstorm, comparitively, does crap damage and has a gamble per-requisite so... maybe Burn should be uncommon or Slugstorm needs a minor buff. Otherwise, I think they're fine.

I was mainly thinking of flatter and head split when writing this. So far the decks I've built focus on either getting influence for Sal or rigging heads for Rook, and these two were performing extremely well, which gave me the impression of AOE being strong.

Maybe it's just my lack of experience, I haven't played on difficulties higher than prestige 1 yet. It's just that turns where I play these cards with at least 2 enemy arguments deployed feel so strong without me having to do much setup, and one of these cards is essentially a starter.

[pacovf]

Flatter is great for sure, but it is sort of needed for Sal’s Diplomacy decks to be competitive with her Hostility decks (at least before the Bulldoze rework). Head split is just fine, having to rig stuff is a big hassle, not really worth it unless your deck is built around it.

[Tempvirage]

15 hours ago, Birbo said:

It's just that turns where I play these cards with at least 2 enemy arguments deployed feel so strong without me having to do much setup, and one of these cards is essentially a starter.

They're strong, sure. But you also have to get lucky to draft them (except flatter; but Sal doesn't have as many aoe options as Rook so I think it's somewhat fair to make it accessible). But I think it's healthy for a rogue-like to have a small quantity of powerful cards and the vast majority being mediocre/small upgrades to your starting resources.

That said, everything feels powerful on prestige 0. Start playing on higher prestige where enemies start with 60 resolve, deal 10+ per intent, etc. and suddenly you need those types of to succeed.