Gruffchoice

Foreword I apologize for the excessive length of this post. It started as a couple different posts I wanted to make, but because the window to post this was rapidly closing, I lumped it all together for convenience (mine, not yours), while still managing to miss my window. This was all supposed to be done weeks ago, and is a reaction to what has and has not been changed in the updates. But life, work, social/family obligations, etc, all have a way of taking up time I would rather spend otherwise. As a result this is more disjointed and doesn’t flow the way I prefer. So please bear with it. Before I get into the post proper, a plea to Wyrd: Extend the beta test. The game is not ready yet. There is still work that has to be done if you want to “future proof” the game. What you have right now may seem acceptable, however there are still problems that can come back to haunt you further down the line. I know you want to release something at GenCon. But it is better to disappoint GenCon attendees, then to put out a disappointing product. There are still problems to be addressed. You can do them now, mire things up in errata later, or worst of all, let them be until 3E. If you have to release something, do what somebody suggested (sorry, I forgot your name). Release an “Early” version of the core rules. Leave the model rules out, and down the line release a “Final” rule book when all of the models have been tested to satisfaction. ===================================================================== Intro To get things started, there are a few things I should lay out. - These are my personal thoughts on game balance. Specifically, they relate to my views on the approach to game balance. This is in reaction to not just what we’ve seen so far, but also what comes next. - With the above in mind, this post is less about a specific model needing balancing, but rather why a model might need adjustment. Within the system as it is right now, what mechanics/abilities need to be reexamined. - I play Malifaux, I used to play Warmachine/Hordes, and back in the day I even played MtG. However, the genre of games that has had the biggest influence on my views of balance is fighting games (Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, etc). - I lean towards competitive play. When I talk of game balance, it is from the perspective of “playing to win” (http://www.sirlin.net/ptw). The opposing view to this is sometimes referred to as “playing for fun”. I’ll leave others to argue the specifics of these views, as they are not matters of black or white (personally I think playing to win is fun). But for the sake of this post, I’m going to lump a lot of things under the somewhat nebulous categorization of “fun” as to separate them from concerns of competitive balance. ===================================================================== A) Tenets of Game Balance. There are three tenets to my approach to game balance. 1) Design choices should be made with the goal to “make the decisions made after the first turn starts, more important than the decisions made before the first turn”. Faction choice, crew hiring, scheme selection, and deployment. These are all decisions made before the first turn. They all have an impact on the game. However, as much as possible, the decisions made during the turns should be emphasized over them. The “meat” of what interests me in this game is the player’s reactions to each other’s decisions during the game. On the flip side, having the outcome of a game heavily impacted by choices made before the first model activates, damages its credibility with me (imagine if a game or rock-paper-scissors before a boxing match gave one boxer an automatic lead in points). [Offenders: Rasputina-Child of December, Hans-Smile, You Son of a..., Yamaziko-Master Tactician] 2) There is nothing you can do to prevent a player from choosing a bad list, but you can remove mechanics that restrict what can be good (specific punishment). Players can and will make bad decisions. This includes the lists that they play with. There is nothing you can do to prevent this, and that is OK. This is just a side effect of having player choice before the first turn. What can be controlled is the amount and form of “specific punishment” in the game. When an ability only targets undead, constructs, nephilim, or whatever, this is “specific punishment”. This, as a concept, is different than a matchup chart (see below), but can contribute to it. The more adverse the effects of “specific punishment”, the more it can create bad lists. While I consider it a situation that should be avoided, when it does exist, no instances of “specific punishment” should be strong enough to turn otherwise valid lists into bad lists. For example, if a player wants to play a construct heavy list, it could be completely viable against one player’s well constructed list, but be severely disadvantaged against another player’s well constructed list. And to clarify; this has nothing to do with a player’s choices during the turns. “Specific punishment” also creates uneven abilities. An action may be useless against one list, but strong against another. From a design perspective it would be better to have actions that are situationally useful, not list restricted useful. OK, for the sake of completeness, there can be situations where specific punishment is important to the game. But this is more likely going to be the case if the game is designed from the ground up for it to be key (more like Rock – Paper – Scissors, interactions). [Offenders: Sub Zero, Marcus-The Hunger Cry, Perdita-Finger on the Trigger, Lady Justice-Justice Unleashed, Lady Justice-Last Rites, Sonnia-Counterspell Aura, Disrupt Magic, Lilith-Wicked Vines, Steam Trunk-Disaggregator Solution, Taelor-“Welcome to Mailifaux”, Relic Hammer, Kang-The Worker’s Champion] 3) I would rather under power something, than overpower it. If I ever had a near universally unpopular opinion on anything, it would be this. Few things I say ever meet the resistance I get from this. Three “whatevers” standing clearly above the rest of an otherwise even field of choices, adversely affects competitive play more than three underperforming “whatevers” amongst an otherwise even field of choice. The latter creates a situation where there are more competitively viable choices of “whatevers”. The truth is that it is easier to under power something now and fix it later, then to do the reverse. Players, generally, react worse to cuddles than they do to buffs, if the need to errata occurs. Within a miniature game, it is better to create a new model that makes an old one viable, than to create a new model that has to be taken to rein in the power of a dominant model. You will hear people say that they don’t want anything cuddled, they want everything brought up to the same level as the top tier (go check out some Guilty Gear forums). While somewhat idyllic sounding, the reality is that cuddles work better for balancing because they created fewer or more controllable spikes in matchup charts (see below). Buffs have the potential to alter previously balanced matchups and have a greater issue with “extremes” (if I wasn’t already running out of time I would go into this further, but it is a lengthy discussion on its own). Quick note: None of this is to say that things shouldn’t ever get buffs. Just that when there is a problem getting something just right, I would aim low rather than high. ==================================================================== Unfun gameplay mechanics. 1) Punishing players for taking upgrades. Part of your (Wyrd’s) sell on the upgrade system, is that it is a way to customize your play style. So it seems strange to me that there were even abilities/actions that negatively interacted with them in the first place. That in of itself, makes the upgrade system seem like a worse system than 1.5’s masters with static abilities/actions. Here at the end of the beta, all but two of these have been removed (unless I am forgetting something here). So I am really curious why they remain. Let us be realistic, most players are going to take two to three upgrades on their masters. From the perspective of “fun” (which is subjective, but bear with me on this), most masters seem like scaled down versions of their 1.5 versions. Playing without upgrades “could” make masters feel like shadows of their former selves. With game balance in mind, upgrades provide some of the most bang for their buck as far as their soulstone cost. Three upgrades totaling three to six soulstones “could” have more effect on the game than those stones spent on one more model (since at this point there are few two or three soulstone models). Either way, the game does not benefit from mechanics and abilities that discourage or punish players for taking upgrades. The presence of these mechanics, places importance on list matchups; most importantly “counter” choices. This is in direct violation of my first Tenet of game balance (A-1). A player’s decision to take upgrades should be based on what abilities and actions they want to have access to, not whether or not they will be hanging a target on their chest. [Offenders: Rasputina-Child of December, Hans-Smile, You Son of a...] 2) Abilities/Mechanics that don’t let players “play” the game. Restricting a player’s choices is just a normal part of a tabletop game. Things that prevent a player from playing the game, are something entirely different and need to go. You can think of this as excessive “denial”. At face value they seem similar. In fact, they can sometimes be the same sort of actions, with just a difference in the frequency or scope of their effect. These are extremely unfun abilities/mechanics. Both players are there to play, whether it is a causal or serious game. What most people find as fun, are the decisions they can make, and the motions they go through doing that (moving models, flipping cards, etc). They don’t show up to not play. Perhaps even more frustrating is when these abilities/create frequent or oppressive “me, but not you” situations. That is, when one player loses access to a lot of resources, but their opponent retains them. For example, when Somer Teeth uses “Bigger Hat Than You” to destroy both player’s control hands, then uses “Bayou Two Card”, “Git Y’er Bro”, and “Survival of the Fittest”. Other problematic mechanics include mass AP denial (see below). [Offenders: Marcus-Law of Meat, Guild Austringer-Raptor-Distract, Sonnia-Counterspell Aura, Somer-Bigger Hat Than You, Lilith-Wicked Vines, Voodoo Doll-Dance, Puppet, Voodoo Doll-Hem] 3) Random Discard Go find some MtG players that have been around for a while and ask them about random discard. While not the most powerful cards I used to use, two of the most hated were “Hypnotic Specters” and “Hymn to Tourach”. Random discard is strong because of its potential to disrupt a player’s plans, even if the actual card/cards lost are randomly determined. They are annoying when they take cards away you could use, but they are even worse when take the card you need. Most players I knew would have rather summoned a creature and have it killed, than to be forced to discard and never play it. I imagine the same goes for most Malifaux players. It is bad when you waste a Red Joker, cheating it in on an opposed duel, only to flip the Black Joker for damage. But it would be preferable to randomly losing it to a discard effect. In general, random mechanics should be limited if the game is supposed to be played competitively. That is the big advantage of the Fate Deck over a dice system anyway. While the card you flip is random, it is determined from a set pool, so you can weigh your odds. [Offenders: Zoraida-Crystal Ball] ===================================================================== C) The realities of the math of Malifaux. As I don’t have an abundance of time, I regretfully will not be able to flesh this out to the degree I wanted to. Instead, I will have to make do with this oversimplified version: Make sure you understand the realities of the stats of the models and their interactions (the probabilities associated with them). This might sound a little out of place since you (Wyrd) designed the game, and more things work than not. But there are some big changes that come from a +2 stat increase (“El Mayor”, “Confiscated Lore”, “Patrol”). I am concerned that this is being overlooked, or the actual effect on interactions within the game is being underestimated. I say this because for all the improvements Privateer Press made to Warmachine/Hordes MK2, they never fully addressed some of these sorts of problems, and they persist to this day. If you have to, have someone make a model of the odds of placing at the different tiers of the “Accuracy Modifier” table based off the difference in stats in the duel. Someone else already did the work on determining the average stats of models (sorry, your name escapes me). Look at the difference +2 makes in some of these cases (especially the extreme ones). It makes a strong argument for changing some of these stat bonuses to positive flips. It is worth mentioning here, that stat penalties are less detrimental than creating negative flips. Obviously, this is because -2 Df doesn’t remove your ability to cheat. I only bother with this because I want to reinforce that stat bonuses are the problem, not stat modifiers. [Offenders: Francisco-El Mayor, Sonnia-Confiscated Lore, Guild Guard-Patrol, Perdita-Aura Ancestral, Liquid Bravery, Whiskey Golem-“Fine” Craftsmanship, Von Schill-A Legend to Live Up To, Freikorpsman-Hunting Knife-Duck and Weave] ===================================================================== D) Priorities of balancing; placement on 1-9 scale (also the definition/explanation of the scale). This is a way of prioritizing what needs work, so that your time can be used effectively. Place everything on a spectrum of 1 to 9, with 1 being severely underpowered, and 9 being oppressively overpowered. The goal would be to design models that can be placed at 5, or “balanced”. Since balancing is actually a hard thing to do, 4s and 6s COULD still be acceptable (there is still a reason 6 might be too good, but I’ll get to that in a minute). More time should be spent on the 1 through 3 and 7 through 9 models. Time and resources are not unlimited, so this is really to make sure that the most important things stand out. There is one more benefit of this method. It helps identity other balance problems. A minion model may only rank at a 6, but if it is a low cost model, it can be spammed. The more of that model in the list, the more that slight imbalance actually affects the game (as opposed to models you can only take one of). This is further compounded when there are other models or upgrades that grant beneficial effects to them. Now that one slightly overpowered model, is six of them in a list at an effective power level of 7/7.5. Right now “Witchling Stalkers” are almost at this point. They are a 6.5 or a 7 model priced at 5 stones with no rare restriction. They get stronger against Ca with “Disrupt Magic”, and will probably get a boost from the “Witchling Handler”. Depending on how that pans out, the three soulstone cost of “Disrupt Magic” and whatever the “Witchling Handler” costs, could be a bargain for turning your six “Witchling Stalkers” into 7.5 to 8 power level models. Any “Witchling Stalkers” that “Sonnia” creates, will also benefit from these buffs. ===================================================================== E) Matchup chart approach to balance rather than faction vs. faction. This is something that you (Wyrd) mentioned yourself/yourselves. Rather than trying to balance one faction against another, balance each master against each other. I bring this up because I don’t think you have achieved this yet. Yes, I know true balance is pretty much impossible. Game balancing is a matter of satisfice; getting to a point that is good enough. Looking at the competitive advantages (see below) some masters have, I think the matchup matrix (see below) is still too skewed. There are too many 7-3 matchups. 6.5-3.5 is better, but you should really be aiming at the majority of the matchups being 5-5 or 6-4. It is probably impossible to keep there from being ANY 7-3 matchups, but the fewer of them there are, the harder it is for masters to pull ahead of the others. Now, for anyone who was confused by what the hell I was just talking about: Matchup charts are a tool that can be used to rank “whatevers” in a game. If you come across a Japanese tier list for a fighting game, this is the format you will usually find it in. This is a tier list for Vampire Savior in the form of a matchup chart http://wiki.mizuumi.net/images/2/28/Even-newer-matchups.jpg The benefit of this format is that it compares every “whatever” to every other “whatever”, and assigns them a matchup ratio. So if the matchup is 7-3, that means in a situation where two equally skilled players use these “whatevers”, seven out of ten times, the first “whatever” will win. How this is used to determine tiers, is that all the matchups are compiled together in a chart. The chart lists the “whatevers” in a descending order of highest overall score to lowest (in the example above, one of the “whatevers” would have a score of 7, the other 3). This gives you a perspective as to which “whatever” have the most overall favorable matchups. A note here: Not having the other masters being tested at the same time makes this especially hard. There are fewer ways to adjust balance against bad matchups when you are only going to make changes to half the masters at each phase. ===================================================================== F) Competitive advantage. 1) What it is. First a quick link: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/competitive_advantage.asp Well, this isn’t a business course, so I am going to have to adapt the meaning a bit. To put it simply, this is what one model/master/list/faction/whatever does better than its competitors (other models/masters/list/factions/whatevers). Not that complicated, but important to know for this next part. While some masters are better rounded than others, no one is a complete package (or at least they shouldn’t be), and there can some extremes in their differences. 2) Role in a “matchup matrix” (I really need to think of a better name than this). It is the differences between masters that drive their “matchup matrix” (sorry for the dumb name; in the circles I travel, this is usually a verbal discussion, but giving it a name makes it easier to talk about online). Two masters may both have good ranged options, but if one is better at dropping one target, while the other is better a spreading damage across multiple targets, they are going to be played differently. In tabletop gaming, one of the classic examples of this is ranged specialized lists vs. melee specialized lists. Each player is going to leverage their competitive advantages against the other as best they can. ===================================================================== G) Matchup matrix (active vs. reactive elements). This is a great tool for comparing two “whatevers”. The more specific the comparison, the better. This is because, the greater the body of data, the harder it is to factor in every relevant bit of information. However, even in these cases, it is still useful to get a general picture of the “whatevers” interactions. Simple version: Matchup Matrix = What you want to do and how you plan to react to what your opponent wants to do vs. what your opponent wants to do and how they plan to react to what you want to do. I was going to make an image to insert here, but I don’t have the time at this point. So bear with me as I attempt to describe it. So visualize this as a 2 x 2 matrix (that means two columns, two rows, four cells/boxes there within). The first column is labeled “What you want to do”, the second column is labeled “How you plan to react to what you opponent wants to do”. The first row is labeled “What your opponent wants to do”, the second row is labeled “How your opponent plans to react to what you want to do”. To make this a little more universal, you could just call them player one and player two, instead of “you” or “your opponent”. Within the four cells, are all the interactions in an actual game. Obviously, it would be hard to determine all the possible interactions between two “whatevers” (in Malifaux it is even harder due to schemes, strategies, terrain, etc). What the matrix is actually for, is a visual representation to understand these relationships. Going back to our ranged specialized list vs. melee specialized list. We’ll designate the ranged list as “Player 1” and the melee list as “Player 2”. Cell 1: What Player 1 wants to do, vs. what Player 2 wants to do. This is easy, as their competitive advantages are obvious. Player 1 wants to shoot Player 2’s list. Player 2 wants to get into melee with Player 1’s list. Since their goals are different enough, we can leave it this simple. If their goals were similar, or even just less different, you might have to go into more detail here (melee vs. melee for example). Cell 2: What Player 2 wants to do, vs. how Player 1 reacts to it. Player 2 wants to get into melee with as few casualties as possible. Depending on the list and the layout of the table, there could be a couple ways to attempt this. Player 2 could all out rush forward, advance with terrain providing cover, spread out to advance from multiple angles, etc. Player 1 will position his models to try to negate these methods of approach. Cell 3: What Player 1 wants to do, vs. how Player 2 reacts to it. Player 1 wants to invoke a many casualties at range as possible. Again, how Player 1 goes about this will depend on list and table. Player 1 could position their models to try to funnel the opponent through choke points, take advantage of open fields for fire, etc. Player 2 will design his advance to minimize the effect of these options. Cell 4: What Player 1 and 2 plan to do in reaction to each other’s gameplay adjustments. This is where things get interesting. In regards to player’s decisions, this is where Yomi Layer 3 could develop (http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html). Or this is where the matchup could fall apart because one list can’t handle the other (a matchup so bad that player choice is severely weakened or negated). Cells 1, 2, and 3 are all matters of “technical correctness”. That is a fancy way of saying, that they are the fundamental observable interactions that create the framework for player choice (tactical choices). Interactions at cell 4 assume that both players understand cells 1, 2, and 3 (in fighting game lingo, this is what they often mean when they use the term “respect”; as in respecting range/options/damage/etc). If one player doesn’t factor these into their decisions, the other may be able to win through strict adherence to them (I have a good VF example of this, but this post is dragging out as it is). It is here that the “interesting” choices take place, rather than just the “obvious” ones. ===================================================================== H) Pick a master you consider balanced and use that as a comparison to the others. This is useful in conjunction with matchup charts. Nothing complicated here. Identify a master you are satisfied with, and use that (with some well constructed lists) as a center point in determining what may be under or overpowered (with respect to the fact that there will probably always be some bad matchups). Better rounded masters are a better choice for this, over more specialized ones. They are less vulnerable to bad matchups, but it is still possible. ===================================================================== I) How do you want [insert Master] to play? One of the better pieces of advice I have ever been given, in regard to designing anything, was “to begin with the end in mind”. While I have seen the creative benefits of doing the opposite, when it comes to more technical endeavors (such as designing rules or systems), it has always been useful to me. In regards to Malifaux and masters, this ought to work fine. Even with the upgrade system, there is something of an overall theme to a master’s stats, abilities, and actions. Perdita shoots things, Nicodem summons and buffs undead, etc. Some of the masters that have issues, have a problem with “what they are supposed to do”. Going back to the idea of competitive advantage, some masters have a clear advantage, while others are somewhat less impressive. Remember my earlier comments about AP being an important resource; not every master uses their AP effectively. Think of each master and what they will want to do (matchup matrix). Is the AP and (0) actions they are using in pursuit of this, being used effectively. Perdita is good at shooting, she gets a lot of effect out of each AP spent making Sh actions. On top of that, she can discard a card for a push that COULD eliminate the need to use AP moving (more AP to take shots at things within 14”). Ramos, on the other hand, pays dearly for actions. His standout abilities and actions require a greater commitment of resources. His summon is a cheap TN for one “Steam Arachnid”, but still requires a scrap counter. While the scrap counter requirement stays the same for the double or triple summon, you start needing soulstones and high cards for success. He has aura buffs for constructs. The important thing to keep in mind there, is that while they are not small, they require him to advance with them. Being in the middle of everything isn’t terrible with armor and “Steam Arachnids” to block charge lanes, but makes him a great target for Sh and Ca actions. The need for scrap counters also forces Ramos to move downfield, without it he loses his “Steam Arachnid” summoning and his ability to heal. A heal that he also pays for needing both a [Ram], and a scrap counter, all for a healing flip that is on par with a lot a damage spreads. It isn’t that Ramos is bad, or that he doesn’t have good options, but there are other masters that generate more impact on the game for each AP they use. Ideally, a master’s best use of AP should be when they are doing their “thing”. The opponent should be, among other objectives, looking to prevent this. If you are creating situations where Perdita has to spend two AP just to be able to spend one AP on a Sh action, you are doing something right. Abusive combos and overpowered models/upgrades/actions/whatever aside, this is the big discrepancy I see between masters. Some of them effortlessly expend their AP (and other resources) efficiently, while others struggle. ===================================================================== J) AP is a resource. Malifaux is a game where resource management is important. I won’t get too into this, as this rough to quantify. What needs to be paid attention to is what you get for an AP (effect and efficiency), and what ways are available to remove or limit a player’s AP usage. There is a difference between when one model can spend four AP doing “its thing” and when another model has to spend three AP on walk actions so it can spend one doing “its thing”. This sort of scrutiny needs to be paid to (0) actions and abilities as well, since they work in conjunction with AP to determine “what a model can do”. [Offenders: Perdita-Relocate, Perdita-Finger on the Trigger, Francisco-El Mayor,Nino-Spotter, Zoraida-Crystal Ball] ==================================================================== K) How do you want soul stones to be used. I like the changes to soulstones. The only thing I can even think to bring up about them, is that: now that they are weaker, does the game really need abilities that can remove them? Nothing crazy. They help masters stay alive with defensive flips and damage reduction, but they are expensive and run out fast this way. When used for positive flips or adding suits, they really just work to make a desired outcome more reliable. Reflipping initiative or drawing and discarding two cards, are both ways of dealing with some of the random elements of the game. The defensive flips are consistently good, and adding suits can be strong depending on triggers. Overall though, soulstones seem like they are in a good place. You can make arguments for taking more or fewer of them. Since this is a resource you have control over accesses to, why not just make its availability reliable and remove the abilities that force you to discard them. You decide your cache when you decide your list, why add strength to decisions made at this stage in the game (A-1). ===================================================================== L) Auto-kill triggers and other resource destroying effects. None of these need to be spamable: Auto-kills, slow, paralyzed, control hand discard, and soulstone discard effects. A model with an auto-kill trigger should not be able to trigger it against the same target more than once a turn (maybe activation). No model that can apply the slow condition with ranged actions (Sh or Ca), should be able to do so more than once an activation. No model that can apply the paralyzed condition with ranged actions (Sh or Ca), should be able to do so more than once an activation. There should be no combination of models possible, that force a player to discard more than three cards from their control hand a turn. No model that can force a model to discard a soulstone, should be able to do so more than once a turn. These are all resource destroying effects. They remove the other player’s ability to play the game (B-2). Each one is a reasonable and interesting effect on their own, but they can be crippling when they can be repeatedly applied. Some of the models that can currently do this, are that bad RIGHT now, but this is also to future proof the game. We have a second half of the beta, and who knows how many book releases to look ahead to. These are abilities that cannot go unregulated. It may seem disappointing to restrict them now. I wager though, that it would be far less disappointing than playing against future lists that are good at removing your ability to play. On the auto-kill triggers, I think you can change the soulstone discard to one, instead of two. Soulstones and control cards on a one to one ratio, are different enough that I won’t try to say which is better than the other. However, the control hand is a more renewable resource than soulstones. You weigh the use of your control hand across a turn, but you weigh you soulstones across the game. This is enough of a resource investment that I believe one is enough. [Offenders: Rasputina-Freeze Over, Decapitate, December Acolyte-Harpoon Gun-Maim, Headshot, Bloody Exhibition, Guild Austringer-Raptor-Distract, Peacekeeper-Chain Harpoon, Sonnia-Counterspell Aura, Somer-Bigger Hat Than You, The Brewmaster-Binge, Lilith-Wicked Vines, Cherub-Cupid’s Arrows, Pandora-Voices, With a Flourish, Rotten Belle-Lure-“She doesn’t look that dead to me!”, Rotten Belle-Undress, Nicodem-Rigor Mortis, Sweet Murder, Sudden Assassination, Jacob Lynch-Hold Out Pistol-Salt Rock, Thunder Archer-Blessed Longbow-Karimata Arrowheads, Yamaziko-Master Tactician, Misaki-Cutpurse] ===================================================================== M) The Red and Black Jokers. When I first started learning about Malifaux, I thought the Fate Deck was kind of gimmicky. That it was just a mechanic to replace dice rolls and make the game stand out. By the time I had finished reading the rulebook, and had talked to an experience player, I came to appreciate its advantages over dice. Knowing the composition of the deck let you weigh your odds based off what cards you’ve flipped and what you have in your hand. You can play the odds in ways that are more reliable than dice. Cheating cards gives you more control over important flips. But there is one thing I have always disliked, the jokers. While I would prefer the Fate Deck without them, I understand there are more people who want them to remain (most likely including Wyrd). Since I always receive opposition to my idea of removing them, I came up with this compromise: Leave the jokers in, but change their rules a bit. I assume that the jokers are meant to be the two extremes of luck, the Red Joker being the “critical success” and the Black Joker being the “critical failure”. Along this line they retain their values, 14 for red and 0 for black. However, remove the extra bonus/penalty for their flips. No more Red Joker overriding a negative flip, or the Black Joker overriding a positive flip and preventing cheating. Also, no more extra damage for the Red Joker during damage flips. They behave like every other card does, except you can choose their suit. Let’s face it, the most powerful use for the Red Joker was to have it in your hand, and cheat it in for a damage flip. Yes it can be useful when you flip it, and yes it can be useful to cheat it in for flips other than damage flips. But a lot of times people will hoard it for an important damage flip, and who can blame them, you get a lot of bang for your buck out of that. By removing the bonus damage, the Red Joker becomes just as good as the face cards for damage flips. This levels out its strength across its uses. Now there is less disparity between the player that draws a Red Joker at the beginning of the round, and the player that flips a Red Joker for a simple duel they only need a 7 to beat (there is a huge difference in impact on a turn here). The Black Joker’s uses range from holding onto it to guarantee you don’t flip it later (or fake out you opponent in regards to what you are holding), dropping it when required to discard (over a card you have a use for), to cheating it to guarantee you get hit by something. With the suggested change, all of these remain, but it gains a use for defensive triggers. Since you would be able to determine its suit, it could be cheated in to activate a defensive trigger. It also gets the bonus of not ruining your damage flip (even if it remains 0 damage). Now for the elephant in the room. The jokers are borderline bad game design. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. OK, to continue. One of the core parts of the Fate Deck system are the positive and negative flips. These are one of the game mechanics that let you make decisions based on weighing the odds. At face value, positive flips give you access to cheating, while negative flips prevent you from cheating, which is very important. Positive and negative flips are the primary means of boosting or hindering your flips. More of the game is built around these, than static stat increases (those do exist, but, for example, “cover” creates negative flips in Malifaux, where as in Warmachine/Hordes it is a stat boost). This is important to keep in mind because the jokers adversely interact with the positive/negative flips, but not stat modifiers. The joker’s rule that overrides positive/negative flips is the problem. My assumption is that this was intended to introduce a chance for failure or success even in highly favorable or detrimental situations. Even if you had a triple positive or negative flip, nothing was guaranteed. That in of itself, is not a terrible thing. After all, there is only one of each joker in a Fate Deck. The problem is the realities of these interactions. In the correct situations, it is actually to your benefit to have a triple negative flip over just a negative flip, or to cheat down your flip so you get a negative damage flip. This is because you know the composition of the Fate Deck. If you’ve gone through over half your deck without seeing your Red Joker, and the Black Joker is in your hand or has already been flipped, you know that the more you flip, the better your odds of flipping the Red Joker. A triple positive flip, and a triple negative flip, have the same odds of producing that joker. You can purposely use double or triple negative flips to fish for a Red Joker. That actually creates some interesting choices you can make in the game. But there are two undesirable effects this has on the game: 1) It works contrary to a player creating defensive situations where the opponent’s attack flips gain negative flips. This is pretty straightforward. Creating situations where your opponent’s attack flips gain negative flips is meant to be a defensive technique. The game limits you to creating triple negative flips (four cards). At the point where you start getting double or triple negative flips, depending on what cards are left in the Fate Deck, you are more likely to flip the Red Joker. While this does work contrary to setting up these defensive situations, the problem is the odds, not necessarily that it happens. After all, on an opposed duel it is just a 14 with a wild suit. You still have to compare it to the other total to determine the Accuracy Modifier. The one, usually, time a turn this can happen isn’t game breaking, because it just turns a probable failure into a potential success. 2) The math behind it is wonky and becomes weird when you get to double or triple negative flips (it is like rolling triple sixes, but with better odds). Specifically, this creates a shake up for damage flips. This is where the largest problem lies. During a game of Malifaux, you will generally have a lot of negative damage flips. If you match, you get a double negative and if you beat it by 1 to 5, you get a negative flip. You also have “Hard to Kill” adding another negative flip on the models that have it (for the moment, we will overlook the abilities that add positive damage flips). This interaction is where the math becomes a problem. For this example (I apologize if there is a math error here, I didn’t have access to the guy I usually have double check these sorts of things): Full Deck = For simplicity’s sake, this will be the full deck. Even though there will rarely be a situation where these flips would happen with a full deck. This represents a situation where the Fate Deck is mostly full. Half Deck = For simplicity’s sake, this will be an evenly halved deck. No Black Joker, and only two cards of any value (ie, two 13s, 12s, etc). The chances of ever ending up with that specific deck composition is very low, but it is to represent a situation where the Fate Deck is about half used. Red Joker = chance of flipping the Red Joker as one of the cards. High = chance of flipping all high cards (11s, 12, and/or 13s). [-],[-],[-] Flip Full Deck Red Joker: 7.6225% High: 0.1565% Half Deck Red Joker: 15.7165% High: 0.08555% [-],[-] Flip Full Deck Red Joker: 5.6617% High: 0.8870% Half Deck Red Joker: 11.5499% High: 0.6838% [-] Flip Full Deck Red Joker: 3.7386% High: 4.6122% Half Deck Red Joker: 7.5499% High: 4.2735% What to take away from all of this: -If the Red Joker is in the Fate Deck, you have a better chance of flipping it in a negative flip, then any combination of high cards, when three to four cards are flipped. However, when two cards are flipped, a combination of all high cards has better odds than the Red Joker, but only when the Fate Deck is mostly full. When the Fate Deck is about half used, the odds swing back around in favor of the Red Joker. -On top of that, there is something of an inverse relationship here. The fewer cards flipped the better the chance for a combination of high cards, but the lower the chance for a Red Joker. The fewer the cards left in the Fate Deck, the better the chance for the Red Joker, but the worse the odds for a all high card combination. -To put things in perspective, the odds of rolling double sixes (or double ones) on 2D6 is 2.7778%. The odds of rolling triple sixes (or triple ones) on 3D6 is 0.4630%. The behavior of the jokers in Malifaux is not equivalent to these. -When it comes to damage flips, it can be beneficial to the ATTACKER to have as large a negative flip as possible. This saves them cards for other uses, while letting them more efficiently fish for the Red Joker. Even at a single negative flip, if they have already used about half their deck, they have better odds of flipping the Red Joker, than two high cards. The odds behind all of this work against (what I presume) to be the purpose of the positive/negative flip system, and the target numbers for the Accuracy Modifier. Minion models with good minimum damage benefit from this especially. Getting back on track, the worst of all of this can be remedied by removing the overriding rule. These are not radical changes. They simply acknowledge that the Fate Deck is one of the resources you manage in Malifaux, and level out the bonus/penalty of the two extremes that occur in it. ===================================================================== N) Healing concerns. Alright, “concern” is a bit misleading. Please remember that most healing spreads do not compare well with the damage spreads in the game. Some of them are a bit restrictive or expensive for the actual effect they have in the game. Keeping models alive is certainly beneficial, but in more situations than not, killing other models or completing schemes/strategies are more so. I’m not saying all healing flips need to get better, as some of them are fine. But it would be worthwhile to look across them all and decide if the disparity amongst some of them is really what you want. ===================================================================== O) Go back to the drawing board with McMourning. You don’t have to. Now that “Expunge” bombs are reined in, he is probably in a good place. But I still would like something closer to his 1.5 version, basing him around poison seems off to me. It seems weird to me that he was my favorite resser before, but I like him better with guild now. I’m just bringing this up because of my thread on the resser forum. ===================================================================== The offenders lists are for reference and are not all inclusive or 100% accurate. They were generated from notes I kept, but as these notes spanned most of the updates, there could be things I overlooked. Also, there are more models and rules/actions/abilities that could use further balancing, then what I have listed.