Anti Hyper Augment!

[distant spade]

I might be running on tournament hype here (it's 2:30 a.m., and this idea is keeping me awake!), but I had a thought that could add some high-skill, strategic depth to the game that new player wouldn't have to use unless they wanted to.

Imagine an augment or tool that lets players nullify an enemy team's Affinity hyper. This would be a challenging, skill-based tool, giving players an incredible sense of agency over their matches.

Each round, players could select an Affinity to block from reaching hyper, forcing them to adapt and predict how the opponent’s hyper might unfold. This could bring a lot of skill expression into play, as it would require a deep understanding of the hyper mechanics to use it effectively.

The best part? It would allow for some intense compositions within a single Affinity, without the risk of being entirely countered by hyper. With this in place, we could even consider tuning hyper up a bit more for an added layer of depth.

And for an extra twist, imagine a bonus effect if players gathered three of these tools, allowing them to block hyper across all five Affinities. If that feels too powerful, maybe using just one could be balanced by requiring the sacrifice of two augment slots.

I could see this feature setting Illuvium apart from games like TFT, especially when combined with any new player agency mechanics planned for the Ranger. It could be the edge we need to make the game even more dynamic and skill-driven.

Let me know what y'all think!

There could also simple augment cards that slow hyper gain of enemy team also but I feel having the choice to snipe an Affinity each round could make some engaging gameplay

[dawn vale]

Thats sounds pretty fun, but quite OP, especially as hyper buffs are still very strong

Choosing an affinity to counter every round sounds too good imo and would also be harder to implement. What do you think about a radius effect of maybe 25 hex to cancel enemy hyper?

Or perhaps we could choose an affinity but only once you place your augment. This way you would have to make a decision based the team or player that will most likely give you trouble this game

[distant spade]

Ya that is the simpiler way to play and could work. It could also just be indipendent augments that cancel or slow hyper progression for specific affinities so there would be 5 new augments in the rotation.

But the goal of this is to had another layer of choice you have to make each round. Maybe it nullifies for the whole board. There are many ways it could be implimented.

[somber arch]

i feel hyper is one of the big things that sets illuvium appart from all other autobattlers i know.
it feels like if you get a bit knowledge (and lets face it, it's not that much knowledge you have to suck in) you basically deactivate the hyper system in exchange for doing one click each round.

[distant spade]

Depends on team comp. Maybe the enemy team is all earth, and they have berserkers active. Do you chose to shut down the one Rylance/toxic or the moniker and the rest of the earth team?

This could also lead to people making team swaps more often instead of just tunnel vision on one comp.

I actually had someone comment on my stream last night how they thought I was wasting board space and resources because I kept several units on my bench I could swap out based on situation(mainly hyper).

This is something I actually think would further raise the skill cap in how the top end players plan and adapt.

There have also been a lot of complaints that going deep into any one affinity is just stupid because it can be counter too easy. If you could deactivate earth you could play a full fire team and only have to worry about water comps. This allows people who want to do full affinity teams better opportunities.

And reminder it doesn't have to just remove the hyper all together. It could be a hyper efficiency delay.

[somber arch]

it can also lead to the total opposite and people just trying to get the the one or two meta deep combs which can't be countered with hyper anymore and therefore reducing the amount of viable comps to play

isn't the problem why deep combs are not a viable option because last points actually are not rewarding enough and hyper actually a bit too op balanced?

[distant spade]

Also true. However I mention that as a positive, as every comp needs a win condition and right now going deep in any of the affinities typically doesn't work. This opens up a bunch of new comps with out having to make them overpowered based on the synergy buffs themselves.

Similar augments can make totally different gameplay styles. Like in TFT they have an augment that gives your team major stat boosts for not playing any synergies.

I think that could be a cool augment to have in our game as well.

[thin lintel]

I like the idea. There are many op augments. If you cant beat them, join them

[slender plover]

Not bad but I'd rather a magnetic remover equivalent added first.

[distant spade]

Ya that should be in for sure

[somber arch]

fair enough.
Do you know if we are still capable to see who we fighting next with the upcoming feature to spy other boards, or is it more like tft where you are able to know which 3 opponents are next but you don't know which one.
With a similar approach to tft, i can see it as a fun addition but probably being the next meta augement everybody picks even before the already meta augments we have now, basically almost opening a new class of high tier augements. If you know who exactly you are fighting plus the fact that you can just choose the affinity which counters your comp the most it just feels too op.

I do agree that it can open up a fun additional mechanic... which also can bring in another part of emotions when fucking 1 round up because wrong affinity chosen and more emotions linked to gameplay is always good.

[distant spade]

Ya not sure how the scouting/opponent selection will work. Will ask 👍

[slim brook]

I feel like it should be Illegal for the HYPE guild to suggest ANTI-HYPE. 😛

I think this is a cool idea. And if we stick with the current hyper implementation it could add a really cool opportunity to add some skill expression. We are also considering some hype rework.

One idea that has been floated around for a very long time is for hyper to grow based on damage dealt and received. There are some definite issues with this model too (which is why we haven't tried it already) but we are 100% looking at ways to improve hyper. So thank you for this.