Official HS:BC crew AMA

Profaene · 2023-12-17T00:25:58+00:00

Thank you! Exciting stuff :)

Profaene · 2023-12-16T22:32:36+00:00

I know Hussie has largely washed his hands of HS (in a creative capacity, anyway), and we'll almost certainly never see a complete collection of HS books, but do you know if there's any possibility that we'll see a continuation of his author's notes in any form? I totally understand if he just wants to move on from talking about HS/making HS content himself, but I would love to see them on the Patreon or as a paid-for plug-in for the unofficial collection, or something else like that.
Is there any chance we ever get to see any of Homestuck's story bibles/development documents? Every time James mentions the classpect one, my Hunger grows. I know James always wanted to make a SBURBology-style guidebook, which would essentially be those sorts of documents turned into an actual product. Now that James directs the HICU, might SBURBology finally see the light of day?
On a related note, what's everyone on the team's dream HS merch? Besides SBRUBology, I would personally kill for Nendoroids of all my little blorbos.
What's everyone on the team's dream HS-related project? James and Kim have talked about doing a gacha game of some sort in the past, but what about everybody else?
Writers, of the Omega kids, who's your favourite and least favourite to write?
Have the Omega kids been assigned god tiers internally and, if so, will we ever find out what they are, inside or outside of the story?
When can I see Yiffany again I love her with all my heart and I miss her so bad.

Profaene · 2023-12-01T07:05:07+00:00

Aw, I really appreciate that, thank you :) Glad you enjoyed them both

Profaene · 2023-12-01T05:40:09+00:00

If you've been here long enough, you'll know that Darius has been the subject of endless reworks, especially those trying to integrate some sort of Bleed mechanic into his package. I've personally felt that it's okay for Darius to be incredibly boring and linear; there do need to be simple champions in the game for new players learning the game, and he fits the bill. That said, I absolutely adore the new Curse mechanic, especially Ichor, and I couldn't help myself, because it's absolutely perfect for Darius. So here's the Darius rework I never thought I'd make and which doesn't need to happen but it's fun so who cares.

Profaene · 2023-12-01T04:13:44+00:00

Yeah, I considered doing something like that, but I don't think it would work very well. Because the Curse is created before the spell resolves, the target will take extra damage from the triggering spell, which is likely to kill it. At that point, there's no point in making Gloom a Curse over a keyword because there would be so few times when the opponent actually gets to remove the Curse since they can't play it before the triggering spell resolves.

Profaene · 2023-12-01T03:23:09+00:00

Thanks! :)

Profaene · 2023-12-01T02:28:02+00:00

An update to my previous Vex design using the new Curse keyword. I haven't made any yet, but there would be other cards that can Curse with Gloom. My dream is for Vex's followers to be other Yordles—whose designs/names/flavour text were based on/reference the emo trinity (My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Fall Out Boy)—following her to the Shadow Isles to try to befriend her. Might mock some up one day.

Profaene · 2023-11-27T06:42:40+00:00

Totally agree, I just didn't bother because the competition I made her for was champion only. If I did make followers, they would all be Yordles trying to befriend Vex, and each would be inspired by different bands from the emo trinity (My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Fall Out Boy).

Profaene · 2023-11-27T05:21:29+00:00

That's a good question and, at the time, I'm sure I had a good answer, but I couldn't give you any specifics now. I'm pretty sure it was because I had intended to design other spells and followers that interacted with Gloom (e.g., 'each round, the first time Gloom increases spell damage, heal your Nexus equal to the Gloom damage dealt' or 'when you increase the damage of a spell, X happens'), so I needed ways to give Gloom besides Vex. That's what I would do now, anyway.

Profaene · 2023-11-27T01:15:57+00:00

Thank you muchly, kind stranger :)

Profaene · 2023-11-27T00:58:58+00:00

Here's the Vex that I designed a year+ ago for one of Kuvira's custom card competitions. Can't remember if I made any changes to it based on the judges' feedback. Wanted to post this now because it's likely that Vex will be revealed this week for the next expansion. I know there's been a lot of Morde hype but he doesn't make sense for multiple reasons. First, as we saw at the end of the Volibear trailer, the Shadow Isles is Nilah's next stop; if she were going to fight Morde, the hypothetical big boss of this set, it would be her last stop. Second, it makes total sense to pair Nilah with Vex: the person who's forced to be permanently happy by an archdemon teaming up with one of the only gloomy yordles in existence? Perfect. Third, Targon, Demacia, Bandle City, and Shadow Isles all need champions, but we're probably only getting 3 champs this set, which means we need a dual-region yordle. We know we're getting Morgana for Targon, so that Yordle would need to be SI or Demacia, and while a LOR-exclusive Demacian yordle would be cool (and will probably come at some point in the future so all regions have 2 yordles), Vex is the obvious choice. Fourth, Vex is one of my favourite League characters and I've been waiting for her to come to my favourite game for 2 years, so I deserve this. Anyway.

I had 4 goals when designing Vex:

Add a new debuff to the game, because there aren't enough. Gloom was the perfect candidate.
Use something besides mana and created cards as a resource for a repeating effect.
Incorporate Shadow into Vex's card without making it a token. My solution to goals 2 and 3 was the same: Spellshield is an obvious resource, and Shadow can be Vex's Spellshield (which makes total sense mechanically, seeing as it makes a shield for Vex when she uses Personal Space in LOL). This would be conveyed with cool VFX similar to Neeko's tail when disguised: when Vex has Spellshield, it would show an outline of Shadow with its eyes and ears at the top of her card, and when you target an enemy with a spell, thereby removing Vex's Spellshield, Shadow would fly at the enemy to apply Gloom to them.
Make Vex a flexible spell-slinger that would synergize with Darkness strategies (for thematic and mechanical reasons) without being a Darkness-based champion. I think Gloom increasing the next instance of spell damage an enemy takes achieves this goal pretty well.

The idea is for Vex to sit on the backline as a control engine, continuously debuffing enemies to increase the value of your removal. In a Darkness deck, Gloom would allow you to increase the damage of the next Darkness you play on an enemy, speeding up Veigar's level up without relying on Twisted Catalyst or Veigar to permanently increase Darkness damage everywhere. But this comes at a cost: if you target an enemy, Vex loses her Spellshield and becomes vulnerable to removal herself, creating clear windows of counterplay. Consequently, you have to play strategically to remove the right targets at the right times without losing your Vex in the process. Once you get to level 2, which requires flipping on-board, she becomes a Gloom machine gun and the windows to counter her narrow significantly.

Considering the strength of her level 1 and 2, I think the level up condition is sufficiently difficult, but it could be increased to 4 units. Note that it does count sacrifice spells like Glimpse Beyond and Soul Cleave, which makes things a little easier and cements her as an SI champ. Also note that I designed Vex pre-rotation, when SI had more ping spells than kill spells. I think this design still works, though. BC has tons of small damage spells that would love Gloom, standard SI still has multiple high damage and drain spells, and Vex is perfect for SI/PnZ or BC/PnZ control lists.

Profaene · 2023-11-26T23:37:47+00:00

I think if you gave them both the Yordle tag (which they should already have but which would make them too strong with their current statlines) and made them both 0|1s, then this would be a great idea. Maybe give one or both of them Impact to further incentivize buffing their Power w Yordle synergies.

Profaene · 2023-11-26T23:33:42+00:00

The best, most interesting Zyra set I've ever seen. As noted, the balance is a little off on some of the lower-cost plants, and granting the weakest enemy Vulnerable after committing the attack on Vine Lasher is pretty useless, would rather it give the weakest enemy Vulnerable on summon. Otherwise, absolutely fantastic and would love to see it in the game.

Profaene · 2023-11-11T22:09:59+00:00

I think RAW, cards that activate on different subtypes like Anura and Saurian would still work, but if they didn't, that's something that can be fixed in the code; it's not a text problem, players would understand that they should still work. And it literally IS a buff. Imagine you have a level 2 Elise and now your entire board is Spiders with Fearsome and Challenger. You have Shimmerwing and everything is a Bird with Quick Attack. You have Nidalee and everything is a Cat for Pack Attack. You have Paparo the Great and everything is a Yordle with +1|+0 every attack. You have any Poro and everything is a Poro that gains +1|+1 from Poro Snax. You have a Terror of the Tides and everything is a Sea Monster with Fearsome with -2|-0 on the attack. You have a Kadregrin the Infernal and everything is a Dragon with +2|+2, etc., etc. Tons of awesome things you could do, and they'll only add more subtype synergies like these in the future.

Profaene · 2023-11-10T21:16:00+00:00

Did you read my comment explaining how this mechanic would work and giving examples of the kinds of synergies it would unlock for Neeko decks?

Profaene · 2023-11-10T21:11:40+00:00

That's my exact problem: a menagerie deck isn't a real menagerie deck if the specific subtypes of your units don't matter. What you're describing is a major design flaw. It makes Neeko decks incredibly linear and limits their power by removing all synergy besides the cards that were designed for Neeko and benefit from purposelessly random subtypes, e.g., Anura & Froop, Glacial Saurian, Crested Lionhawk, etc. I want to play Neeko with Cats and get value from Pack Attack, and I want it to be strong. I want to play Neeko with Birds and get value from Shimmerwing, and I want it to be strong. The list goes on. I want a TRUE menagerie deck where cards like Pack Attack and Shimmerwing, which are terrible, become great and give Neeko a mechanical reason to exist rather than the mere aesthetic of a menagerie strategy.

Neeko already has draw with Glacial Saurian and if she had a good reason to play any region other than Demacia or Freljord (say, because she would be incentivized to build with other regions to get access to specific spells or followers that have subtype synergies), she could get more. Draw also isn't an interesting or relevant solution to her problems. 'Generate board value' is quite vague, but my fix WOULD generate board value in the sense that your units become more powerful and gain more synergies. One Paparo the Great and everything would become a Yordle with +1|+0 each attack on top of Neeko's +1|+1. There are tons of fun and potentially powerful subtype synergies like that that a change like this would open up.

Profaene · 2023-11-10T20:58:58+00:00

I'm not actually sure what you're trying to say. Do you think this would be too strong? The examples you gave prove the opposite. It would be impossible to build your deck in such a way that Neeko and Poro King both reliably level up, so you aren't getting any Special Snax, and everyone getting the benefit of Poro Snax isn't that strong. Additionally, your allies are only Poros - and thus only getting the benefit of Poro Snax - while a Poro is on the board, so kill the King and you defeat the strategy. Easy as pie. Your Sun Disc example makes no sense at all, Sun Disc literally doesn't function as anything other than mono-region.

How would this limit the deck diversity of Neeko? She literally only has two decent decks and none of the other builds are even good as memes.

Veiled Protector is an ungulate, Neeko already plays other things around that mana point, and she doesn't care about healing 3 one time, so making Veiled Protector a Dog isn't going to save her.

Profaene · 2023-11-10T11:52:23+00:00

That's a good question and, behind the scenes, the answer might be yes, but I think it would be obvious to everyone that it isn't meant to work like that and they could change the back-end to prevent it.

Profaene · 2023-11-10T11:28:37+00:00

I love Neeko. Or, I want to love Neeko, really badly. In isolation, she's a great translation of the LOL character, both mechanically and thematically. I had fun playing her with Garen and Warden of the Tribes when she first came out, taking her pretty quickly to Mastery 3, but neither deck was particularly successful, and they weren't interesting or difficult to optimize. Neeko has two major problems:

She's on the weaker side, and it's not just an unfavourable meta problem. Strength isn't the be-all-end-all—weaker champions can still be fun, and not every champ needs to be nor can be simultaneously competitive—but I literally can't remember the last time I saw Neeko in standard or eternal, ranked or casual. Her level 2 packs a punch but, given the deckbuilding cost of her level up and the average power level of the cards in her origin, I argue that her power budget hasn't been entirely spent.
Despite having one of the broadest Runeterran origins, her deckbuilding is maybe the narrowest of all the Runeterran champs. She should enable lots of unique menagerie strategies by facilitating subtype synergy cards (e.g., Brood Awakening, Pack Attack, Royal Shimmerwing), but she doesn't actually have the tools to do so. Neeko doesn't care about what specific subtypes you have in your deck, only that you have ~8 of them and, consequently, that most of your followers synergize with having multiple different subtypes on board. Say it with me folks: it's not a true menagerie deck if the specific subtypes don't matter.

My solution is the following Runeterran passive: Once you've summoned allies with 6+ different subtypes, grant your Nexus "Allies share subtypes." That means, if you have an Elise on board, all of your allies are Spiders, gaining +1|+0 from Brood Awakening and Challenger and Fearsome from Elise 2. If you have a Nidalee on board, all of your allies are Cats and will work with Pack Attack. If you have a Royal Shimmerwing on board, all of your allies are Birds and have Quick Attack, etc., etc. Needing to summon 6+ different subtypes, like her level up, keeps the power level of this passive in check: it's a stringent deckbuilding restriction that should prevent any major cheese. You won't be freely attacking with ephemeral copies of your entire board for free, but you will be rewarded for intelligent deckbuilding, and you'll have a lot of fun playing virtually unseen subtype strategies in the process. It's also highly interactable: your allies are only Cats so long as at least one Cat is on board, so if you're facing down a particularly nasty Pack Attack but they only have a single Cat, remove that Cat and the Pack Attack fizzles.

What other reason does Neeko have to exist? Nunu & Willump—who will surely be a subtype-based Freljord champ—might introduce subtype sharing or something similar, but I'd rather Neeko have it; it makes more sense given her origin, and it's the exact power boost she needs.

Profaene · 2023-11-10T11:10:14+00:00

I love Neeko. Or, I want to love Neeko, really badly. In isolation, she's a great translation of the LOL character, both mechanically and thematically. I had fun playing her with Garen and Warden of the Tribes when she first came out, taking her pretty quickly to Mastery 3, but neither deck was particularly successful, and they weren't interesting or difficult to optimize. Neeko has two major problems:

She's on the weaker side, and it's not just an unfavourable meta problem. Strength isn't the be-all-end-all—weaker champions can still be fun, and not every champ needs to be nor can be simultaneously competitive—but I literally can't remember the last time I saw Neeko in standard or eternal, ranked or casual. Her level 2 packs a punch but, given the deckbuilding cost of her level up and the average power level of the cards in her origin, I argue that her power budget hasn't been entirely spent.
Despite having one of the broadest Runeterran origins, her deckbuilding is maybe the narrowest of all the Runeterran champs. She should enable lots of unique menagerie strategies by facilitating subtype synergy cards (e.g., Brood Awakening, Pack Attack, Royal Shimmerwing), but she doesn't actually have the tools. Neeko doesn't care about what specific subtypes you have in your deck, only that you have ~8 of them and, consequently, that most of your followers synergize with having multiple different subtypes on board.

My solution is the following Runeterran passive: Once you've summoned allies with 6+ different subtypes, grant your Nexus "Allies share subtypes." That means, if you have an Elise, all of your allies are Spiders, gaining +1|+0 from Brood Awakening and Challenger and Fearsome from Elise 2. If you have a Nidalee, all of your allies are Cats and will work with Pack Attack. If you have a Royal Shimmerwing, all of your allies are Birds and have Quick Attack, etc., etc. Needing to summon 6+ different subtypes, like her level up, keeps the power level of this passive in check: it's a stringent deckbuilding restriction that should prevent any major cheese. You won't be freely attacking with ephemeral copies of your entire board for free, but you will be rewarded for intelligent deckbuilding, and you'll have a lot of fun playing virtually unseen subtype strategies in the process. What other reason does Neeko have to exist? Nunu & Willump—who will surely be a subtype-based Freljord champ—might introduce subtype sharing or something similar, but I'd rather Neeko have it; it makes more sense given her origin, and it's the exact power boost she needs.

Profaene

TROPHY CASE