July FAQ - Leveticus and Malifaux Rat Errata

[Lucidicide]

5 minutes ago, Wolfpact said:

Any idea when the errata might hit the cards? I've been eyeing Levi a while due to really loving his thematics and aesthetics.

What do you mean by "hit the cards"?

You can order the updated cards print on demand on Wargame Vault already, for example.

[Justin]

2 minutes ago, Frisch said:

I don't mind the changes much; Levi will be fine, but different. Hamelin received a 'boost' in the way that he is now the only one to employ the true rat engine; Fine. I never saw either of those as a problem, and I have played both as Levi and against Levi quite a lot, and against the rat engine a couple of times without problem.
To be honest; I found they forced the opponent to think out side their comfort zone which is a good thing.

However, the errata is in - the change is done - and the game will go on and still be good.

It does require a follow up question;
When will you fix the masters *under* the power curve? Lucius and Yan Lo are quite underperforming at events, especially our poor secretary. If you are willing to start hot-fixing models like this, then give these guys some love.
And how about the Ca8 Belles that, if I remember correctly Justin himself said he would have liked to change to Ca7, when will they be changed?

I love this game, and I like the openness of the design-decisions, so it is hard to be properly furious, but I simply believe there were more important issues to fix than these.

Just because I'm sure there will be more posts like this (why fix this when X is still broken?) I'll make some brief comments here, and I hope I can explain it to your satisfaction.

A Master (or any model) being too powerful is always going to be more detrimental to the game than a model being under powered. The heart of any game is choice. Players should feel like they have a wide range of choices, and that those choices matter in terms of winning the game. If a model is under powered, only one choice has been taken away (the choice of using the under powered model to achieve maximum effect). If a model is over powered, it takes away every single other choice other than itself. As such, over powered models will always be a bigger concern and be the targets for things like errata.

This isn't to say that I think the models you mentioned are under powered (Yan Lo, in particular, I think is better than people give him credit for), simply explaining why "too powerful" is far more likely to be the target of errata than "not powerful enough." And we never know what the future holds, as new models and upgrades are released the meta changes certain models may come into favor again.

As to your other point about other models you think are too powerful, balance exists on a spectrum. It will never be completely perfect. Since we can't cost models at fractions of Soulstones (and because we are not perfect) sometimes some models are slightly better or worse than others. If our goal was to make every single model perfectly and completely balanced, we would never leave playtest and the game would have no consistency. Instead the goal is to make sure that balance is as close as we can get it to perfect and that every model has a place in a game (whether it's just with a certain Master or when certain schemes, etc, are available is sometimes the case). Often times a slight lack of balance may be due to models existing on a spectrum (maybe one model is an obvious choice in a vacuum, but all of a sudden it has a lot of competition if you need a scheme runner). And other times it is simply due to your own personal opinion (we all have our favorites).

Hope that helps explain things.

 

[farabaugh100]

I suspect they will use erratas to cuddle and new releases to buff.

[Eclipse]

Just now, Frisch said:

The changes are fine, as I said. I simply want some changes to the bottom of the pile as well. Levi will be fine, and re-instating Hamelin as the rat king is A-OK by me.
...
I still think the best idea would be to errata the Wp required to pass Lucius' horror duel and the damage of Devil's Deal.

Yeah, I got that, just wanted to throw my thoughts out there as well
I'd rather see the card requirements for his actions reduced slightly, Lucius is very card intensive and sometimes going through hoops with him feels like doing a whole lot of nothing with him.

[Tawg]

14 minutes ago, Eclipse said:

This may be a little exaggerated, but I feel like you are now tailing closer behind Infinity in terms of balance and playability.

Wut?  Is Infinity considered one of the most balanced games or something?

12 minutes ago, Frisch said:

It does require a follow up question;

As a 10T player, I can say with relative safety that Yan Lo is not nearly as bad as people make him out to be (Not really sure where that comes from honestly).  Lucius I can't really speak for, and believe well that Guild players have had that gripe for a long time.

Although moral of the story, perception is a big thing.

And Erratas should be something that isn't so common that we expect to see them every two months.  And Wyrd's stance on Erratas should tell players that this is a fairly big deal that was brought up by the community.  But changing the Ca on Belles, even if it's a "coulda woulda" moment, is simply edging towards players expecting and pushing for other minute changes based on their perceptions.  However the game is generally balanced to a great level, beyond some mishaps (See: Rats), and things like the Belles, while more powerful than needed, are not breaking the games back, they are certainly not the only Minion Ressers take and often times theme lists eschew them entirely for their focus (Like Kiari, who has other goals).

3 minutes ago, Aaron said:

What do you mean by "hit the cards"?

You can order the updated cards print on demand on Wargame Vault already, for example.

I believe the question would be more properly stated

"When will the box I buy have the, new, correct card?"

[Eclipse]

19 minutes ago, Tawg said:

Wut?  Is Infinity considered one of the most balanced games or something?

For me personally, Infinity is the most balanced (war/skirmish) game of all I have played (as is the general consensus in my gaming circle as well). With the new edition especially they added so many new options and tweaks that there is no single model I can honestly name as useless. I am really glad that my stance on Wyrd aiming for this level of balance has held up true (again, in my opinion  ).
Yan Lo is not nearly as useless as my operating abilities make him seem to be  With the new Emissary buff along with Sensei Yu he is more Super-Saiyan than ever. Perception is a mighty big thing, aye.

[Frisch]

6 minutes ago, Justin said:

Just because I'm sure there will be more posts like this (why fix this when X is still broken?) I'll make some brief comments here, and I hope I can explain it to your satisfaction.

A Master (or any model) being too powerful is always going to be more detrimental to the game than a model being under powered. The heart of any game is choice. Players should feel like they have a wide range of choices, and that those choices matter in terms of winning the game. If a model is under powered, only one choice has been taken away (the choice of using the under powered model to achieve maximum effect). If a model is over powered, it takes away every single other choice other than itself. As such, over powered models will always be a bigger concern and be the targets for things like errata.

This isn't to say that I think the models you mentioned are under powered (Yan Lo, in particular, I think is better than people give him credit for), simply explaining why "too powerful" is far more likely to be the target of errata than "not powerful enough." And we never know what the future holds, as new models and upgrades are released the meta changes certain models may come into favor again.

As to your other point about other models you think are too powerful, balance exists on a spectrum. It will never be completely perfect. Since we can't cost models at fractions of Soulstones (and because we are not perfect) sometimes some models are slightly better or worse than others. If our goal was to make every single model perfectly and completely balanced, we would never leave playtest and the game would have no consistency. Instead the goal is to make sure that balance is as close as we can get it to perfect and that every model has a place in a game (whether it's just with a certain Master or when certain schemes, etc, are available is sometimes the case). Often times a slight lack of balance may be due to models existing on a spectrum (maybe one model is an obvious choice in a vacuum, but all of a sudden it has a lot of competition if you need a scheme runner). And other times it is simply due to your own personal opinion (we all have our favorites).

Hope that helps explain things.

 

Thank you, Justin.
I do understand why you are errata'ing things, and I can even see why you chose to errata these specific things. That does not mean I agree with the changed models claimed potency.

I would like to thank you though; Thank you for explaining not just your design choices, but also for stopping potentially angered rants and whines (like mine) in their infancy through patient explaining.
I do believe you guys are doing a very good job with this game and I love it -- if I didn't I wouldn't even have cared to post.

[Fetid Strumpet]

And to be fair, they do work on upgrading things they felt got neglected. It may not be the most elegant way to fix things but the upgrade system has allowed models like the Samurai and others to get a rework for their power level. That has always been one of my favorite things about the upgrade system, and the fact that they can always add more in the future. For myself I'm still hoping the next book expands the upgrade options available to masters to up in power those who are actually trailing, and to give a little more choice in how models play to others.

[MunkyMuddFace]

Nice changes, they are timely for me. I just started building the Hamelin and Brotherhood boxes last night - I haven't played with with the engine yet, so I won't know what I am missing. And as far as Leveticus goes, for some reason, I have always been very pillow fisted with him. I don't think this change to him will affect the way I play him.

[Move Ever]

I am Tui and I approve this messge.

[PeregrineFalcon]

This is great news. I appreciate the hard work and dedication the company continuously puts into their product. A great outcome of this is that I hope to see more Levi on the table now. A lot of people have steered away from him unless playing at tournaments because he was so strong. He still has a very strong play, and is up at the top of the power of masters but is def more in line with other 'heavy hitting' masters now.

Thematically, I am happy to see he hasn't changed much and still see him being out on the table deleting a lot of models (now albeit ones that are already injured or weaker models more often). 

This newly reincarnated version of Levi looks to be right on the mark!

[MrDeathTrout]

Fantastic.  Most everything I want to say about this change has already been said.  So all I will add is, Levi's play style fits me VERY well.  I have a full Levi Crew painted up, played it a few times, and put it back on the shelf because I thought he was too good and didn't want to be "that guy".  When GG2016 came out I thought I might play him a bit more, with these changes I'm definitely going to try him out again.
 

Thanks Wyrd for always doing such a good job keeping Malifaux my top choice for mini games.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Also means it will be harder to delete SS users as that free focus can be offset by spending a SS defensively.

[Paddywhack]

Thank you for all the hard work Justin. I'm sure these decisions were not taken lightly, but I am glad that Wyrd is willing to do such things in order to keep Malifaux the great game it is. Nothing is perfect, but a willingness to make changes when needed is great for a game company. Bravo!

[Freman]

Thank you Justin. These changes do make sense, given the difficulty activation control can create when there's a couple of heavy hitters incoming. From reports Leveticus did need a little tweaking, and your changes do seem to have toned him down to the same level as other masters, without breaking him. He's still definitely worth taking.

[Manic Mouse]

Honestly looks like good changes to me

1 hour ago, Eclipse said:

For me personally, Infinity is the most balanced (war/skirmish) game of all I have played (as is the general consensus in my gaming circle as well). With the new edition especially they added so many new options and tweaks that there is no single model I can honestly name as useless. I am really glad that my stance on Wyrd aiming for this level of balance has held up true (again, in my opinion  ).
Yan Lo is not nearly as useless as my operating abilities make him seem to be  With the new Emissary buff along with Sensei Yu he is more Super-Saiyan than ever. Perception is a mighty big thing, aye.

Not to get into a "this or that" system on the Wyrd forums - but what Infinity and Malifaux are trying to do is basically lightyears apart.  The design of infinity, with cookie cutter models pulling from a pool of weapons and abilities, makes it much easier to balance due to the sameness of the models (and I honestly don't mean that to be derogatory).  The unique nature of Malifaux models make it exponentially more difficult to balance by its very nature, but it also makes each model more interesting.

And honestly having played Infinity a fair-ish amount I think there are certainly problems inherent in the system especially the RNG and "cheerleading" problems with the activation system.

Having my 60 point model one shotted by a 12 point model, on my activation, simply because of RNG dice roles might be "realistic" but it doesn't make for a balanced game IMO.  It's balanced on a multi game level in that it could happen to anyone, but it's not balanced on an individual game level because whoever it happens to in a match, if it happens, is suddenly at a severe disadvantage and may lose the game due to it.  Losing a game because of a single dice roll is not cool, and is one of the major issues I have with Infinity - the fact that expensive models can potentially be very easily taken out by very cheap models if they get lucky.

Infinity is a fun game, certainly very different than Malifaux.  But they are so different that I think it is fairly silly to draw comparisons.  It certainly isn't a perfect system and doesn't accommodate the variety of play styles that Malifaux does, or have as unique models.

[solkan]

So the new version of Channel is:

Quote

Channel: At the start of this model's Activation it may suffer 2 damage to gain the Focused +1 Condition.

Aside from being a particularly flashy form of suicide, trying to gain Focused +4 using that ability without trying to spend a soul stone for damage prevention wouldn't do anything because Pariah's Soul is going to remove all conditions.

But is the following sequence valid?

• Leveticus activates
• Chooses to suffer 10 damage from Channel to gain Focused +5
• Spends a soul stone for damage prevention, flips an 11 and prevents 3 damage, so that he survives

or would it be:

• Leveticus activates
• Uses Channel, suffers two damage, chooses whether or not to prevent that damage.
• Repeat four more times

so that if Leveticus had two soul stones and wanted Focused +5, it would pretty much be guaranteed. 

I suppose it breaks down in to three separate issues:

1.  Can Channel be used multiple times at the start of the activation?

2.  If you can use it multiple times, does the damage add together or get suffered in 2 point blocks?

3.  Is the damage preventable without negating the ability?

 

[Justin]

2 minutes ago, solkan said:

 

1.  Can Channel be used multiple times at the start of the activation?

2.  If you can use it multiple times, does the damage add together or get suffered in 2 point blocks?

3.  Is the damage preventable without negating the ability?

 

1) No.

2) Irrelevant since the first answer was no.

3) Yes, Leveticus may prevent the damage and still gain Focused. The previous version of Channel had a similar question which was ruled the opposite way due to the word "exactly," this version has no such wording.

 

So, in summary, you may only suffer 2 damage to gain Focused +1 once per Activation. You may prevent this damage using Soulstones.

[Panner_]

Excellent changes. The rat engine completely changes the way the board state develops, which is perfectly fine for a single master, but not fitting for a whole faction.

Much appreciated!

[TeddyBear]

Even if i'm a new player, i'm really happy that you work to balance the game,
Great job guys!!

Thanks

 

Andrea

[daniello_s]

4 hours ago, Justin said:

I hope that Leveticus players see this errata as an opportunity to explore the wide range of possibilities which Leveticus still offers. He is no longer locked into the role of damage-dealer, and you may even find that his play is more interesting and dynamic.

I fully support change in Channel mechanics as the previous one was waaay to powerful however Leveticus will always be locked into the role of damage-dealer because simply he has not other viable actions to offer. His From Ash upgrade is too expensive even to consider and Desolate Soul supports killing play style so the statement I quoited above sounds at least funny

[verpixelt]

Thanks for all the time, effort and energy you put into keeping this game as much fun as it is! These changes will be for the better. I have no doubt! Keep on rockin! #showofsupport

[malekhant]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Might actually get around to playing games again.

[Yvarre]

That was amazing response time to serious community concerns.  Thank you for this, Wyrd.

Also, as a TT player, I have a 6 model Yan Lo tournament crew that I consistently table every other crew I face in Turf War and Extraction with, and I have had all my models at the end of every game but 1, occasionally losing and resummoning Izamu.  Yan Lo needs no help!

[Padre]

For the first time I can honestly say I'm disappointed in Wyrd. Levi was very well tested during the beta and balanced by you and the community. The fact that you are willing to ignore that makes me ashamed that I've been telling people how much different you were as a company.