Hey Hydroclasm I'll just respond to some of your points here one by one. But I will also say it is skewed to be more overpowered to really get a feel for being the Avatar and being strong.

So yes this is something I thought about with the water cards. I didn't make spirit water exhaust because its the equivalent of a common element increase card. But I have myself and seen some other play testers stall combats to heal a lot. From what I've seen from people is that they either stall a lot to build up heals, or do it a bit to get some extra health. I decided to leave it how it is in the game because it either was only for a little bit, or people actually had fun building up hp slowly every turn so removing it would make it less fun for some people. I decided to let players choose how they want to do it.

Yes Posture and Earth Armour allow of some insane levels of dexterity and strength. I have fiddled with the balancing of both in different ways such as exhausting, or increasing cost but I ended up settling with this, which I will explain a bit later.

I think you are spot on about Guru sucking lol. It's a card I made and then never really touched while I focused on the other Chakra cards. I made it that why while looking at the Watcher card that does similar generating once per turn. To me it felt like the Avatar state was a strong state than devotion was (bc of the card into hand once per turn effect) so when making it, it felt like "bargain" comparatively. But honestly during runs I usually ignore when it appears so I think either reducing it's cost or having it give more chakra is the right move. So expect that soon in an update.

Shock Therapy is a very strong card when used at the right time, it essentially quadruples your element amounts after a period of time. I've found that using it early on in combat produces very strong results, but maybe I went to hard on it right off the bat, giving it 4 cost, Ethereal and making it rare. I'm interested in what you think would be the right way to balance it, is it reducing the cost more or just decreasing the countdown?

So going back to posture, this is one of the reasons I kept it so low in terms of cost and rarity. Some builds don't deal very high amounts of damage so being able to use posture in those runs helps a lot. It's possible to do a run and beat the heart without posture, as I've done it before, but it's not exactly a card you can just ignore. It's something I'm always keeping an eye on and could see myself increasing the damage of cards in the future.

Yeah Earth Etching is very strong hahaha. It makes me laugh sometimes with how absurd the amount of Block you get out of it is. I can definitely see myself nerfing it again either with increasing the cost again or reducing the Earth amount by more each turn. But I am open to idea's so feel free to say what you think the right balance for it would be.

Overall your comments were very insightful so thank you. And thank you for going out of your way to give feedback and discuss it I really appreciate it. Thank you for trying it out and I hope you've had fun playing it :)

Hey, glad you appreciated the feedback.
For Shock Therapy I think it could either have a maximum of two-turn cooldown or bring its cost down to 1 (upgraded either 0 or reduce cooldown to 3 turns). If you take most or all of your turn to play the card it should do strong stuff for you pretty quickly, or if it's cheaper to play then you can still do some attacks or blocks and maybe get a few element levels back up.
Earth Etching I was mostly surprised that it has any interaction with dex, and specifically only the amount of dex you had when playing it. If it didn't scale with dex, I'd consider it mostly worse than Metallicize, since it costs more to get in play and actively requires you to be generating a character-specific resource. If it had no dex scaling, but only cost 1 (upgraded increase amount of block per earth level) I think it would be an interesting alternative while also not doing crazy amounts of block when combo'd with earth armour.
I don't have professional game design experience, these are just my impressions of the cards. Thanks for the mod!

So I just put out a patch and gave a very slight buff to Shock Therapy (reduced the timer when upgraded along with the cost reduction). I was planning on doing more but it just felt like it would overshadow other cards too much if I made it even 2 cost with a reduction on the timer. But I am open to buffing it further if people seem to keep avoiding it overall.

I also have left Earth Etching the way it is, at the moment it can still be an extremely powerful card and give consistent block every turn. It's essentially a slightly better frost orb for every Earth level you have which seems in my eyes pretty good since the character can benefit a great amount from blocking (Avatar State). So for now I am leaving it as is but I am keeping a close eye on it.

But yeah thank you for the feedback, expect some more balance patches in the future :)

I'd like to suggest possible changes to the starting deck and relics. The character starts off feeling a bit on the weak side, so maybe could use some extra help with Act 1.

-Remove one of the strikes from the starting deck so that the deck size begins at 10 cards, in line with the other base characters (except Silent who makes up for it with her starter relic).

-Have one of the starter relics gain an additional effect: "Whenever you play a Strike or Defend, gain 1 random element." Given how many cards really want element levels for scaling, I think this is a decent buff for while you're stuck with crummy starter cards in Act 1.

-Replace one of the starting Defends with a card that gives 1 block per total elements, a defensive version of Tornado Kick.

-Give one of the the starter relics an additional effect that gives the player block + deals aoe damage (maybe also heal or draw) when they play 1 card of each element type for the first time each combat.

I have no idea how easy or hard implementing the new card or changing the relics would be, I just want to see the Avatar roughly on par with the starting power of the other base characters.

Hey thanks for the suggestions! and sorry about the long delay in response.

For the strikes I'll definitely think about it, one of the major things I find myself doing on runs is getting rid of a couple of strikes to make my deck more consistent. On one hand I think that's a good thing and adds some complexity that the base game already invites players to do. On the other hand it is something that's done quite often in runs. The only stipulation I have about removing one is that there are some runs I've done where I actually need strikes to help me win some fights. Due to RNG sometimes you don't get the attack cards you need, although like you say I would only be removing one from the pool so idk. It's definitely something I will be thinking about.

I like this idea as a relic and I think I'll test it out and possibly add it, but not as a starting relic. I think this relic as a starting one influences card picks too much. I intentionally left the starting relics a little blank so that players could reliably decide what cards to add to their deck as they play and not influence their choices into one element or another. For example what I do like about it is that it will influence people to pick up balance, which is a card that has more limited use. But I don't see people picking up Siphon as it's buffs will seem to unreliable as what elements you will buff and by how much is random every time, it takes away some amount of intenionality and planning from players. But as a uncommon or rare relic I think it's nice, combined with some other cards it can be a lot of fun to rack up element numbers, but it's influence as a starter relic would push people to much in a certain direction.

I like that idea as well, I have stated before I think that I didn't want to emphasize blocking too much so that players didn't just turtle for 6 mins every fight, but I think this could really work. I will test it out and may add it in the future.

I think I would potentially rework this idea into being a separate relic people could find, but each time the play the first card of a certain type it would give them a buff relating to that element type. This one also might be a little harder or tedious to implement since relic interaction with cards can be weird sometimes but yeah. Having to have 1 of each type of card is actually quite rare, it can give 300 gold in a specific event but rarely does it happen (I don't count remembrance when looking for 1 card from each element).

Overall thank you for the suggestions, they fit pretty well thematically and I can see myself implementing them. As for how difficult most of these are quite easy to do, the longest part (besides playtesting and balancing) is finding the appropriate art from the show or in some cases making the art myself. But I will probably implement some of these in a future update.

Again thank you for your feedback!!

Firstly: I love the amount of description you gave the mod.

Secondly, for clarification: I haven't played this mod yet, but I will soon. My friend is currently trying out the mod, and we are about to do a Together in Spire run with him using it.
This is just my critique from the little I can see based on my knowledge of mod creation from the mod I'm working on.

Is there a reason you set up the starter relic to be the way to keep track of the Chakra?
If someone plays a custom run and selects any option that messes with starter relics, it'll stop them from using either of your 2 starting relics. It will also mean they can never get the relic "The Avatar" (which neither of us can tell if it is actually important).
The other issue about having Chakra gain kept on the relic is when someone plays a different character and gets "Aang's Glider" when they pick up "Nostalgia". Is there any benefit for any other character to gaining Chakra? Can they gain Chakra, or even go into the Avatar State?

Again, all of this is without me, myself, play-testing anything, and I'm just trying to provide some feedback from first glance.

Assuming you have "Aang's Glider" solely to store Chakra, and you aren't doing it to force the player to decide if they want to build it or not, and also assuming that "Aang's Glider" is not usable for any other characters; I would recommend something along these lines:
- Setup a custom function in your main mod file to hold the Chakra amount. I recommend a void for storage, then using ints for editing if you want to separate out the functions.
- Set up a custom UI element on the screen, maybe behind the character or around the energy, to show how much Chakra the person has gained.
By putting the Chakra on the main modfile, it allows any other character to still access the Chakra on the off chance anything they do would increase it. You can also put in checks to have things that can stop Chakra from building up. For example:
- if (chosenClass == TheLastAirbender.Enums.AVATAR) { Chakra stuffs here }

Biggest downside to doing this is you would need to make a new starter relic.
Biggest upside is this allows more seamless play when using other characters, when doing custom runs, playing with buddies in Together in Spire (or that other multiplayer mod), and it would allow you more control over when you want them to be able to gain Chakra.


Another small critique, in case someone tries to break your mod.
I'm not sure if the elements are stored in orb slots, but I personally don't recommend that, unless you do something similar to the Hfuu Club Founder. I'm not sure what they did, but they made it nearly impossible to use the orb slots for anything other than what they wanted the slots to be used for.
I would instead recommend doing something like what I mentioned with the Chakra instead: function in the main file for the elements, and UI elements on the Avatar to show the elements.



Small side note: Only thing that's a little interesting is you mention the separate mechanics and everything, but never mentioned "Locked". It is a small thingy, but it piqued my interest while browsing the pics of the cards.

Originally posted by Keyon Ashton:

Firstly: I love the amount of description you gave the mod.

Secondly, for clarification: I haven't played this mod yet, but I will soon. My friend is currently trying out the mod, and we are about to do a Together in Spire run with him using it.
This is just my critique from the little I can see based on my knowledge of mod creation from the mod I'm working on.

Is there a reason you set up the starter relic to be the way to keep track of the Chakra?
If someone plays a custom run and selects any option that messes with starter relics, it'll stop them from using either of your 2 starting relics. It will also mean they can never get the relic "The Avatar" (which neither of us can tell if it is actually important).
The other issue about having Chakra gain kept on the relic is when someone plays a different character and gets "Aang's Glider" when they pick up "Nostalgia". Is there any benefit for any other character to gaining Chakra? Can they gain Chakra, or even go into the Avatar State?

Again, all of this is without me, myself, play-testing anything, and I'm just trying to provide some feedback from first glance.

Assuming you have "Aang's Glider" solely to store Chakra, and you aren't doing it to force the player to decide if they want to build it or not, and also assuming that "Aang's Glider" is not usable for any other characters; I would recommend something along these lines:
- Setup a custom function in your main mod file to hold the Chakra amount. I recommend a void for storage, then using ints for editing if you want to separate out the functions.
- Set up a custom UI element on the screen, maybe behind the character or around the energy, to show how much Chakra the person has gained.
By putting the Chakra on the main modfile, it allows any other character to still access the Chakra on the off chance anything they do would increase it. You can also put in checks to have things that can stop Chakra from building up. For example:
- if (chosenClass == TheLastAirbender.Enums.AVATAR) { Chakra stuffs here }

Biggest downside to doing this is you would need to make a new starter relic.
Biggest upside is this allows more seamless play when using other characters, when doing custom runs, playing with buddies in Together in Spire (or that other multiplayer mod), and it would allow you more control over when you want them to be able to gain Chakra.


Another small critique, in case someone tries to break your mod.
I'm not sure if the elements are stored in orb slots, but I personally don't recommend that, unless you do something similar to the Hfuu Club Founder. I'm not sure what they did, but they made it nearly impossible to use the orb slots for anything other than what they wanted the slots to be used for.
I would instead recommend doing something like what I mentioned with the Chakra instead: function in the main file for the elements, and UI elements on the Avatar to show the elements.



Small side note: Only thing that's a little interesting is you mention the separate mechanics and everything, but never mentioned "Locked". It is a small thingy, but it piqued my interest while browsing the pics of the cards.

Hey! Thanks for checking out the mod with your friend. I've done runs of this mod with my friends and we had a lot of fun, hope you do as well.

So the starting relic doesn't actually handle any of the data regarding Chakra. Chakra is a stack power that is applied to the character, once you gain 10 Chakra it becomes another power, The Avatar State. The glider is just a flag within the code that cards check to see if its there, if it is then the Chakra power is applied.

So the decision to have it be the first relic is for interesting gameplay. At the start of the run you can decide whether or not you would want to be able to gain chakra and by extension enter the avatar state more easily. During playtesting some people would opt to remove it in favour of a boss relic, while other players wanted to keep it since the avatar state is an extremely powerful and versatile power. Also to make it clear you can still enter the avatar state without the glider, theres a potion and a card that allow you to enter the avatar state directly when used. I intend to keep it as a mechanic since I find it very interesting and fun to play with. Lastly thank you for your suggestions coding wise!

As for the other problems yes the mod can break under 1 condition, the player obtains cards from the defect. Now when I was initially making it I never thought this would be possible as none of the relics overlap with each other to disrupt it (I.e Defect relics). But I was wrong, prismatic shard has proven to be very annoying lmao. It's a relic I completely forgot about during development as I never use it, it also never came up during play testing as people who play tested it also never used it. I was working on some ways to stop prismatic shard when people boot up the mod but I got distracted with other things so I had to put the update on hold. So it is possible to break it but I believe only from that, and hopefully I can get a patch out soon to address it.

Also the elements are actually orbs, I did this bc I found it to be very easy during the mods inital creation and came with things I'd find useful like the built in functions for orbs and easy access to create interesting graphics with them. Again like above I never thought this would be an issue since I didn't think it was possible to get defect cards into the mod. But I'm unsure if I will rewrite it all as from my perspective this is a big edge case that honestly requires some "effort" to break it, especially intentionally. If I did do a rewrite that would cascade out into the entire mod with relics, orb graphics, card logic, and probably power logic all needing to be re-done. If people really, really want to play the defect alongside the avatar mod I could do it, but it's not something I'm actively pursuing right now.

Lastly for multiplayer this is something I didn't think about until it was released. While I've had loads of fun playing it with my friends, all of us went as the Avatar. And again, for the most part, you could probably play with other characters and it'll all be fine, besides the defect lol as evoking any orb would lead to the mod not functioning anymore. So I hope inspite of this set back you and you're friend have a lot of fun with the mod!

Also thank you for mentioning the other mods as somewhere to look for some help, I can check out what they do to prevent other orbs from being generated as a good way of solving the problem without a total rewrite!

Again thank you for playing the mod with your friend! Feel free to let me know what you think of it :)

Originally posted by Keyon Ashton:

Firstly: I love the amount of description you gave the mod.

Secondly, for clarification: I haven't played this mod yet, but I will soon. My friend is currently trying out the mod, and we are about to do a Together in Spire run with him using it.
This is just my critique from the little I can see based on my knowledge of mod creation from the mod I'm working on.

Is there a reason you set up the starter relic to be the way to keep track of the Chakra?
If someone plays a custom run and selects any option that messes with starter relics, it'll stop them from using either of your 2 starting relics. It will also mean they can never get the relic "The Avatar" (which neither of us can tell if it is actually important).
The other issue about having Chakra gain kept on the relic is when someone plays a different character and gets "Aang's Glider" when they pick up "Nostalgia". Is there any benefit for any other character to gaining Chakra? Can they gain Chakra, or even go into the Avatar State?

Again, all of this is without me, myself, play-testing anything, and I'm just trying to provide some feedback from first glance.

Assuming you have "Aang's Glider" solely to store Chakra, and you aren't doing it to force the player to decide if they want to build it or not, and also assuming that "Aang's Glider" is not usable for any other characters; I would recommend something along these lines:
- Setup a custom function in your main mod file to hold the Chakra amount. I recommend a void for storage, then using ints for editing if you want to separate out the functions.
- Set up a custom UI element on the screen, maybe behind the character or around the energy, to show how much Chakra the person has gained.
By putting the Chakra on the main modfile, it allows any other character to still access the Chakra on the off chance anything they do would increase it. You can also put in checks to have things that can stop Chakra from building up. For example:
- if (chosenClass == TheLastAirbender.Enums.AVATAR) { Chakra stuffs here }

Biggest downside to doing this is you would need to make a new starter relic.
Biggest upside is this allows more seamless play when using other characters, when doing custom runs, playing with buddies in Together in Spire (or that other multiplayer mod), and it would allow you more control over when you want them to be able to gain Chakra.


Another small critique, in case someone tries to break your mod.
I'm not sure if the elements are stored in orb slots, but I personally don't recommend that, unless you do something similar to the Hfuu Club Founder. I'm not sure what they did, but they made it nearly impossible to use the orb slots for anything other than what they wanted the slots to be used for.
I would instead recommend doing something like what I mentioned with the Chakra instead: function in the main file for the elements, and UI elements on the Avatar to show the elements.



Small side note: Only thing that's a little interesting is you mention the separate mechanics and everything, but never mentioned "Locked". It is a small thingy, but it piqued my interest while browsing the pics of the cards.

Forgot about the locked thing! I didn't mention it since its just for a single card so its not an overreaching mechanic, similar to the extra power on the Ascend card. Locked just prevents your element levels from changing for 1 turn. This felt like a fun way to integrate Ty Lee's chi blocking style of fighting while creating interesting gameplay. While for the most part Locked can be negative, in one case its really effective. Overwhelming Power is an incredibly strong Fire Attack card that resets the level of fire to 0 after use, but when used with locked, fire remains at it's current level allowing you to use it without downside, also it has a fun interaction with Shock Therapy as well, but I'll leave you to discover that ;)

I still haven't played as The Avatar myself, but my friend is really enjoying it, and from what I've seen, the character looks really well made.
I've been distracted on patching Silverwolf and trying out Cthuga.
Speaking of Cthuga, I now need to find a water, Earth, and Air based character, since Cthuga is all about fire. That would make an interesting party to play with the Avatar.

Originally posted by Amhhex:

As for the other problems yes the mod can break under 1 condition, the player obtains cards from the defect. Now when I was initially making it I never thought this would be possible as none of the relics overlap with each other to disrupt it (I.e Defect relics). But I was wrong, prismatic shard has proven to be very annoying lmao. It's a relic I completely forgot about during development as I never use it, it also never came up during play testing as people who play tested it also never used it. I was working on some ways to stop prismatic shard when people boot up the mod but I got distracted with other things so I had to put the update on hold. So it is possible to break it but I believe only from that, and hopefully I can get a patch out soon to address it.

Also the elements are actually orbs, I did this bc I found it to be very easy during the mods inital creation and came with things I'd find useful like the built in functions for orbs and easy access to create interesting graphics with them. Again like above I never thought this would be an issue since I didn't think it was possible to get defect cards into the mod. But I'm unsure if I will rewrite it all as from my perspective this is a big edge case that honestly requires some "effort" to break it, especially intentionally. If I did do a rewrite that would cascade out into the entire mod with relics, orb graphics, card logic, and probably power logic all needing to be re-done. If people really, really want to play the defect alongside the avatar mod I could do it, but it's not something I'm actively pursuing right now.

I do hope you find a way to force it to keep the orbs as the elements. I think it can help it not become overpowered.
A thing to note though, there are multiple mods that add relics based on the base characters' decks that also break The Avatar. A good example is the Sentinel Core from Trophy Hunter (Start each combat with 1 lightning, -1 Focus. Evoke the orb in the first slot for free at the end of each turn.) I also want to argue for Nostalgia from the mod Aspiration (Gain a random starting relic) that is really nice. Nostalgia can probably also be patched when playing The Avatar (preferably not just for having it enabled) to never get Defect out of it.

I'm not sure if this would work, I haven't looked into the code for orbs yet, but here's an idea that might work better than stopping a relic from spawning:
When an orb tries to be created, it has to check if there's orb slots available. Use that bit of code, and do a different effect instead of making an orb. For example:
I had the numbers here a little higher than the orbs' base due to it being a 1 time use for orbs that are built for their passives.

Originally posted by Amhhex:

The glider is just a flag within the code that cards check to see if its there, if it is then the Chakra power is applied.

Side note here, while your relic won't be detrimental to other characters picking it up, I would push for a way to move the Chakra test to the second relic, or as a third/other relic.
You can have a test on that relic for whenever another relic is lost, and if the person looses their first relic, remove that one.
The pros:

• if someone gets the relic on another character (for example, using Nostalgia), it won't be seen as a wasted relic drop.
  
• Keeps the way you want to force the players into choosing if they want to build Chakra or not.

The Neutral:

• Not really a "pro", but it is considered good practice in the modding community to have your relic be a "generally beneficial" starter relic

The Cons:

• You have to make a new relic
  
• Starting with 3 relics is a little much to take in when not expecting it
  
• That would mean a lot of text for new people as well

Saying this again makes me feel like I'm trying to force it. I am just bringing it this time since I have a better understanding of your take on it.

Originally posted by Amhhex:

Lastly for multiplayer this is something I didn't think about until it was released. While I've had loads of fun playing it with my friends, all of us went as the Avatar. And again, for the most part, you could probably play with other characters and it'll all be fine, besides the defect lol as evoking any orb would lead to the mod not functioning anymore. So I hope inspite of this set back you and you're friend have a lot of fun with the mod!

Other than the mods mentioned above and when a Defect plays a TiS Booster Pack card that puts orbs in other players' orb slots, The Avatar runs really smoothly in multiplayer. Honestly, it runs smoother than many, as it's image doesn't flicker like many characters. I'm not sure what causes them to flicker or anything.