Magno

If that O2 level gets too high, even above 27%, it increases the flamability limits of many flamable gases and O2 becomes a very dangerous. The "flamability" limit of these forums is pretty wide and so its always on fire. AHAHAHA!

"Broken" is often thrown out by folks who can't handle certain asymmetries. "My style of play is this, you're not adhering to it, so obviously your crew is broken." "Broken" should be reserved for a mechanics loop-hole that spins the game off balance in any mode. Like an infinite-loop mechanic or an auto-hit/ auto-defend. "Broken" should also be reserved for occurrences where you can isolate out the probability of the cards and the decision making of the opponent and still accomplish whatever it is you are looking to do. Because Malifaux is a competitive/interactive game with a limited set probability (as opposed to infinite set randomness of dice) and more importantly a battle of decisions vs another human brain, if a combo or synergy still has a chance of being countered by said probability and opposed decisions/timing, then its not broken. Then it's a matter of balance. The original post talks about folks claiming they've read of balance issues. Malifaux is not balanced. Its extremely asymmetric and this can be very inviting to more advanced gamers, because you can set-up scenarios and matches to accommodate differences in players skills; i.e., how folks handle risk-reward decision making, time actions, etc.. Such a set-up takes skill itself for an equally rewarding experience for the two parties. Malifaux is NOT balanced. Just because you extend the paper-scissors-rock chain out to 11 masters or more, doesn't mean it makes the game balanced. I think folks who promote the game should replace the word "unbalanced" with "asymmetric" when they here it. Its not a euphemism, its the nature of the game. Other games are more symmetric but the stat-lines are out of proportion, thus those games are truly imbalanced. Asymmetry should be a selling point for this game.

No new encounters, strategies or terrain stuff. Nicodem's Avatar: he's able to create more Mindless Zombies than usual.

So I've read through book 3. Was balance improved? I would argue yes. Improved on a moving target. The Avatars are a very, very interesting new twist on how games are going to be conducted. Malifaux has now introduced a slight psychology of tactics to the game I think folks are going really enjoy. Are Avatars powerful. Some of them are scary. But they not without their shortcomings or management. Avatars also introduce new in game management decisions and bring a new depth to play, not just variants of masters. It's pretty exciting.

In this case I'm not using "sold" and "advertise" in the strict literal sense, more by extension of the fans, respected voices and yes, by the podcasts and interviews. I'm not interested in comparing the game's balance to other games either. I'm more concerned with how the game is stewarded by the main fans, how its rolled out for events, etc..

@Q'iq'el, Again, folks here are arguing how unique and different Malifaux is, both in how it handles balance and competition, so why are we held to the same old same old competitive formats? "Because, thats what people want." Right, and if Henry Ford listened to his customers he would have made horse carriages. Often times people want what they know. All Paradox is getting at is why not challenge the whole gaming industry with a competitive format that they can't follow. So when customers "want that" the only place they can get it is Malifaux. Again, we've been challenged here by the proponents if balance to approach the game differently than others games. Fine, challenge accepted..... years ago. I'm asking you guys to consider whether this whole "faction balance" thing is really worth the effort? It's patching up the game to conform to industry norms, when from the outset, it could have pursued something different and this whole discussion is likely moot and we could be debating something new, different, and well ,... Wyrd.

But who has this data? The evidence used here is far from convincing. If I pull the results of one tournament with the top three players having played Marcus, does that mean that Marcus is broken? So the winning player played Vikis 3 times and Leveticus once? I could swing this evidence both ways; 1. Faction balance is had because the winner used multiple masters 2. Faction balance is a myth because the winner used one master 75% of the time. We'd need data from all over the country/world, for a good chunk of time to make the case cemented one way or the other. Once you've compiled enough data to create normal distributions (or simply normalize a given trait) of all the "random" factors; i.e., equal number of games a master has seen with good and bad players, equal number of games each master per strategy, etc.. The data would be hard to filter out individually. Then if you were to see the distribution leaning one way or the other per master, per faction, we'd know for surz. But until then, everyone is just gonna have to keep practicing their debate skills.

So round and round we go. I'm not advocating that you have to play all 4 current masters,but even if I did, and the game is still maintained and sold as faction balanced, then that's being a little more open and honest with how you should be prepared for investing into the game. If you're gonna play casually, then get whatever crew you want. If you're gonna go competitive (because the only events we hold are 1 vs 1 competition) then be prepared to buy at least two masters. Again, before this goes too far off on one tangent, my argument is that if you're gonna sell this game as faction balanced while condoning (exclusively at this point) 1 vs 1 competitions, then its in the interest of this purported faction balance that players use different masters per tournament. Otherwise, all we've done is added a new randomness factor, I could (and have) gone through whole tournaments with the same master simply because the match-up dictated the advantage to me. It does, hear me again, DOES help balance insofar that you can avoid a poor match-up if you have the option to change your master in between matches, but this is really nothing more than another paper-scissor-rock decision and not true balance (because balance should leave the outcome of the game determined by the events within the match, not from the set-up, and not from ancillary conditions pre-match). It can be fun, but you really don't want to pin that much on a master decision. And yes, I say master because the game is force centered on the master and many masters have limited choices of models they can select. So because, individual games do not have true balance, then tournaments should not be the summation of isolated individual games. Tournaments should then adhere to the "faction" balance and have linked strategies, or consequences that determine who your next master is, etc.. I know people want organized events and tournaments, and because there has and likely always will be discussions on balance, then either; A. Balance needs to ensured in the interest of 1 vs 1 tournaments; i.e. Master balance B. A new competitive format needs to be pursued to accommodate the uniqueness of Malifaux.

If the game is opined as "faction balanced", then the game should be advertised as a faction investment. If organized events are to be sold as "faction balanced" then why not force players to play the whole faction? (With book three coming out, this will be impossible in 4round or less events, but you get the idea). Also, other folks in this thread are going off about that Malifaux is so different from other games in it's balance. Ok, great. But folks like myself and Paradox are taking that argument and wanting more action on it, i.e., if Malifaux is different, then why run organized events just like most other systems?

Also, many folks are touting that the game is strategy based, thus we need not worry about whether a crew can kill. Although only one strategy is all out blood bath, MOST strategies and schemes involve the destruction of opposing models. So the balance of the game is still weighed heavily by crews abilities to kill and/or survive which lends credence to some folks insisting that if there were a metric or supporting data, you could discuss the balance of the crew and/or faction.

Ok, this is a solid argument for balance. But what may be throwing people off here is that people don't necessarily invest in Malifaux on a faction basis, they invest on a Master basis, especially since many masters have prepacked lists (or lists that are very limited/highly themed). If the salesmanship of balance is per faction, then the selling of the game's products with the intent to take part in events and/or to be competitive, should be advertised as faction based. But many people don't buy into Malifaux like this. Maybe some folks have a particular faction they buy 100% (me Rezzers), but buy single Masters otherwise. People are probably unwilling to accept the "balanced by faction" argument because it doesn't match up with their consumption habits or the freedom that Mailfaux allows for folks to purchase certain themes; e.g., constructs, spirits, etc..

I wholeheartedly agree. I read a lot of people making the statement that factions are balanced but it still doesn't make sense to me, since players still have the freedom to pick masters as they see fit and the fact that certain masters are tier 1, means they will get picked more often. You can walk through a whole tournament without seeing a master's counter or pulling scenario/schemes that are optimal for the crew you're playing, imbalance is carrying you part of the way. If you have roughly ~50/50 shot at winning a game based on the models on the table over a spread of different scenarios (not considering probabilities and player skill), then that system enjoys balance. Otherwise, perturbations of lucky match-ups has too strong an influence over the tournament results.

Ok, so we'd need to have data complied to support the claim of balance or no balance. Are all master's played evenly over a spread of tournaments and locations? Or are a particular set of masters played, a set rarely played and a set that typically win quite often? From the few tournies that I've been in and observed, there are indeed some masters that rarely ever get played and a set of masters that are very popular for their effectiveness. Are there some masters that really do well against a majority of other masters? Yes. hence imbalance. If the factions were intended to be balanced, not the masters, then you would have individual masters have equal sets of opposing masters that they are better than and not better than, such that compiling all the master of the factions together, their "paper-scissor-rock" match-ups equal out. Is this true? Are there an equal number of masters that Lady J will typically defeat as opposed to loose to? Is this true for Marcus? For Hamlin? For Seamus? For Kirai? If Lady J and Perdita are affective vs 75% of other masters, Sonia and Hoffman only 25%, then there still isn't really balance here, since players will majority of the time take Lady J and Perdita and have majority advantages. Now, if you were forced to play Hoffman and Sonia in certain match-ups, then you could say that the tournament/event was balanced and a truer test to individuals playing abilities.

There are balanced systems out there, Malifaux is not one of them. You can argue that Malifaux is balanced but this requires the boundary conditions to open up to the entire faction (I'm still not sure of that) and the required need of scenarios and schemes, sometimes very particular scenarios and schemes. So if anyone says Malifaux is balanced, then its not a robust balance. Its a highly conditional balance.

I got heavy into boardgame this last year, but prefer the "ameritrash", "brain burners". The theme, tone and atmosphere of Malifuax is highly attractive to me and if that is carried over to a boardgame then right on. So, as long as there is high replay value, room for player-based extensions then it will be worth the price.