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Nexus: An NPE like no other


Kharnage

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Haven't read this through from the start.....(*waves pom poms for himself*).

Wouldn't the simplest solution be a line on Nexus saying "When this model is the Leader, only models within their keyword can be hired"?

Sort of fluffy - they only want people infected

Cuts out all of the Emissary/Crypto shenanigans.

Very blunt, breaks a key design concept but..... seems simplest and cleanest way of toning things down.

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On 3/24/2021 at 7:20 AM, HowNot2Wargame said:

Haven't read this through from the start.....(*waves pom poms for himself*).

Wouldn't the simplest solution be a line on Nexus saying "When this model is the Leader, only models within their keyword can be hired"?

Sort of fluffy - they only want people infected

Cuts out all of the Emissary/Crypto shenanigans.

Very blunt, breaks a key design concept but..... seems simplest and cleanest way of toning things down.

I don't think this is a great idea. It could work to balance Cadmus in Win/Loss ratio, but also makes the crew one-dimensional (not in what it can do, since Cadmus can do many things, but in variety). When the opponent declares Cadmus you'll always know exactly what will be in the list, and it shuts down the fun in decision-making and predicting your opponent's moves during crew creation.

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At this stage we're unlikely to see nerfs since the crew came out just 4 months ago, but if we are to nerf them it would have to be small changes with little-to-no impact on theme, but moderate impact on power.
We definitely don't want to change the core mechanics of Malifaux (as above), we don't want to change the themes of Cadmus, and we don't want to over-nerf Cadmus just because we're scared of them ruling everything.

Personally I think this is appropriate for initial nerfs:
1) Make Omnipresent Influence a 12" Aura
2) Make We Are Legion a 4" Aura
3) Remove the built-in Ram from Shambling Nest attacks
4) Reduce Shambling Nest Defense to 4 (-OR-) Health to 6 (-OR-) Melee to 1"
5) (Optional) Change Parasite Token damage to 1/2/3 Irreducible which cannot be cheated, (-OR-) make it "Discard a Soulstone or suffer 2 Irreducible Damage"
and from there we wait 6-12 months to judge what else may need to be changed.

-

This introduces the following changes:

1+2) Using LineOfSight as counterplay to Cadmus. Nexus shouldn't be able to stand behind a dense forest and control everything while being nearly untouchable. If Seeker's LifeTokens can be LoS blocked, then Legion should too. Cadmus' many 30mm Sz2 models will have to position much more carefully and enemy models with Parasite Tokens will have at least some level of counterplay to incoming ping damage.

3+4) The two Shambling Nests are too tanky for the amount of threat and board control they put out, and WAY too good at utilizing general upgrades. Making them into Enforcers to break the upgrade abuse is off the table, and I'd imagine removing FromTheShadows would also go against Wyrd's intended mechanics (although that change is actually my favorite - it makes Cadmus have to push them up and adds to the theme of "approaching growing force which will soon be overwhelming" rather than making them immediately impactful all over the board from Turn 1).
Therefore they'll just have to be made less tanky, or less impactful. There's no need to heal on every attack in addition to the huge impact of handing out a Parasite Token, and I think they should fit the "Hard2Wound but low stats" archetype like Flesh Constructs or Berserker Husks. If the design intent was to make them decent at defense but low willpower, then instead lets just reduce their health by 2. Alternatively, keep them difficult to remove but remove their ability to engage-but-not-be-engaged

5) Parasite Tokens are currently brutal against Armor and Soulstones, and good enough against everything else. On average 1/2/3 reduces the damage by a very tiny amount (there are more Weak cards than Severe) but makes Hard2Wound a viable counter, reducing the damage to 1 much more often. Alternatively, keep 2 Irreducible the same but allow Soulstone use in a roundabout way to give a little bit of control back to Cadmus' opponent.

What do you guys think?
Did I hit the correct problem areas?

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1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

Why do you say that? 

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe Station and Cost are solidified very early in the design process and Station especially is non-negotiable, with Minions being the only Station for "unnamed crewmembers and creatures which come in multiples"

With the exception of Victorias, there is no non-minion (2) or (3) or greater model in the game, only Minions can be hired more than once at a time

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11 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

They could be made into two distinct Enforcers called Nesty McNestFace (with two less Wounds) and Nesterbestertester (without the Ram baked in)!

So pretty much what they did with Justin's dogs, just better naming schemes.

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7 hours ago, Plaag said:

 

Thank for the game.

This is probably not the best example of what Mama Z can do since it was my first time against Cadmus  ever and I'm the definition of an average player (so Plaag would probably have beaten me with anything... it was just even more brutal with nexus).

Here's my tough on the game. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Its very hard to say. The only tournament results I have been able to look at recently are the Vassel world series, and explorers have been doing about average the past few months (yes I know they came first and second last month, but they were players that had podiumed in the event in previous months with other factions. There were plenty of explorers players that didn't do well). Cadmus and DUA and Seeker were all reduced in power by core rules errata, or FAQs, so it might not be as extreme as it appears. 

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4 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

OTOH nerfing all the other big guns kinda leaves Explorers absolutely ridiculously broken and I kinda wonder how viable the tournament scene will be for a year. 

Yeah, I was worried that we'd get a worst case scenario, but at least we got general errata that nerfed the crews.

How was Seeker changed? There's an FAQ about chronicles, but surely it was already known that you can't heal when you're at full life?

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2 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

How was Seeker changed? There's an FAQ about chronicles, but surely it was already known that you can't heal when you're at full life?

I would have thought so, but if that was commonly the case then we wouldn't need it in a FAQ. 

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14 hours ago, NoisyAssassin said:

And the FAQ clarified that you can't relent vs a Parisitized model (not sure which way people fell on playing that, but I know it was a big question for a while).

That may be the nail for me... that was the mechanic I fell in love with the crew for.

It was a solid damage mitigation mechanic and way to waste the opponent's deck.

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7 hours ago, Adran said:

Its very hard to say. The only tournament results I have been able to look at recently are the Vassel world series, and explorers have been doing about average the past few months (yes I know they came first and second last month, but they were players that had podiumed in the event in previous months with other factions. There were plenty of explorers players that didn't do well). Cadmus and DUA and Seeker were all reduced in power by core rules errata, or FAQs, so it might not be as extreme as it appears. 

I would say that still doing pretty good. You have also talked a couple of times about top players playing Explorers and getting good results with them, but if you're gonna diminish that, they you should also diminish the bottom players that are losing with ES. It's not fair to do cut one side of the Gaussian distribution ;) 

image.thumb.png.e0e4756d5a9bdd8826547c601c677d0f.png
The mayor hit it's going to be the summoning that really hurts Nexus (and to a lower extent Ivan) and the new Strats & Schemes that don't favor anymore the "center brawl".
 

Although Nexus still has a bunch  or other tools up to her sleeve.

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1 hour ago, ShinChan said:

I would say that still doing pretty good. You have also talked a couple of times about top players playing Explorers and getting good results with them, but if you're gonna diminish that, they you should also diminish the bottom players that are losing with ES. It's not fair to do cut one side of the Gaussian distribution. 

Strictly, no I don't think I need to because in my view if it is overpowered it should be making people perform better than they normally do. I'm not basing the distribution on the population of explorers I'm basing it on each player. Although if you were to argue that plaag typically got his best results with colette, and she has just been nerfed and his explorers output was comparable to his Colette output you could use that as evidence that they are too strong. 

Likewise if you can show the mid placed explorers players were typically bottom placed players with other factions that could also be evidence they are too strong. 

I'm sure nexus has tricks up her sleeve still for the new gg. She has enough sleeves after all. 

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2 hours ago, Adran said:

Strictly, no I don't think I need to because in my view if it is overpowered it should be making people perform better than they normally do. I'm not basing the distribution on the population of explorers I'm basing it on each player. Although if you were to argue that plaag typically got his best results with colette, and she has just been nerfed and his explorers output was comparable to his Colette output you could use that as evidence that they are too strong. 

Plaag actually does better with Cadmus. He wins matchups he used to lose, and doesn't lose any new matchups.

Additionally, ES have the highest win rate in the series.

I'm not sure it is true all the best players swapped to ES. But even if it was, that itself is an indicator - good players think taking ES is the winning plan.

And as soon as players have their 3 placements sorted, they're swapping away from ES. So good players are taking ES because they think they'll win with it.

Though personally I find Ivan and Jedza quire beatable.

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