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How's the power level/balance of ES (other than Cadmus)?


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2 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

I think Acolytes are cool and like using them, but I think that Analyze Weakness is kind of a dead Action this edition. 

1. Its often tough to get off, since it's usually stat 5. So you opponent spends their high cards to avoid it if it matters, but dont bother if it doesnt

2. It's only range 10. That is within Walk-Charge range of most models. 

3. You need to activate the model early in order for it to be worthwhile. This both throws off your Activation order, and leaves your models Activated near enemy models who can just kill it. Wouldn't it be better to just kill something else before it activates with your early activations?

4. Your opponent gets an opportunity to respond. So the best case scenario for Analyze Weakness is you flip high enough that you dont have to cheat. Then your opponent Activates and just walks that model away. 

I guess its good for dissuading the Armored Warhead models. Maybe your opponent will think twice about throwing a Peacekeeper in the middle of your crew. But so far my only real experience with AW was when Sparks tried to use it on Izamu, failed 3 times, and Izamu still just ran at me and killed everything. I feel like thats the story of Analyze Weakness. 

acolytes dont cost 7ss, tgey dont ignore concealment/cover/ff, only tools for the job is a cool ability on his card, that will work; but what would u take-silent one+1ss or acolyte? what mission have acolytes that other models cannt do?

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Just now, Plaag said:

acolytes dont cost 7ss, tgey dont ignore concealment/cover/ff, only tools for the job is a cool ability on his card, that will work; but what would u take-silent one+1ss or acolyte? what mission have acolytes that other models cannt do?

They have conditional ranged min 3 which is good, however I do think its too unreliable for that to make them worth 7 ss

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So these are just some general observations when it comes to overpowered/tuned compaints in general, but more specifically inspired by the discussions around ES so I think they belong here.

Almost any time there is a new faction, character, et cetera, in a game there are arguments of them being overpowered. Like most true, but boring answers, these arguments are often both correct and incorrect at the same time.

Often people perceive new mechanics as overpowered (unless they were release significantly underpowered for some reason) as a simple function of the fluency bias. As has been observed, many of the voices cautioning against overselling the strength of ES do so with the presumption that the player base simply hasn't become familiarized enough with the new faction to have fluency when facing them, so when tried and true methods of tackling a certain archetype that they see in one of the new masters doesn't work, there is a strong gut feeling that the new master is unfair. This accounts for some of the cries of overpowered, though certainly not all.

One of the reasons that ES is over tuned simply cannot be helped from a business and design perspective. If you are a game company introducing a new sellable product, you are disinclined to make the new product worse than your previous lines. It would be pretty disastrous to invest in design and production work for a venture and then have none of your customers buy it because you simply did not make your shiny new element appealing enough. In the worst cases you get the kind of pay to win power creep that kills your game. But even in the best cases you have scenarios where new game elements are almost always released at least a little over tuned, but hopefully can be dialed back shortly after introduction. I think there is more of the latter with ES. Most of their tools aren't fundamentally better than other factions, but when you look at their incremental characteristics they often eclipse their competitors. Damage tracks that are just a little more punchy. Trigger abilities that enable their control elements to work just a little too easy.

Finally there is the problem of designer experience. Simply put, the designers of 3e Malifaux have had more experience with their own systems, so when they are designing new models, they know their old ground well. They know what combinations work and which don't work, so they have better synergistic design overall. This exacerbates there previous inclination towards over tuning. What is more, since the new faction has fewer models overall, they want those models to all be useful and cover all their bases, which leads, I think, to the higher average power to ES models as well as the seemingly common complaint that their tech models simply have too many tools.

There is more I could say, but that sure is a big wall of text, so I'll stop. Probably nothing much new there for my fellow armchair scholars, but hopefully there is something salient in the morass of my mind.

 

Oh, and none of what I said applies to Jedza, btw, she is perfect as is and needs no change. Also I am totally objective in all of my perceptions.

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10 hours ago, DonQOT said:

So these are just some general observations when it comes to overpowered/tuned compaints in general, but more specifically inspired by the discussions around ES so I think they belong here.

Almost any time there is a new faction, character, et cetera, in a game there are arguments of them being overpowered. Like most true, but boring answers, these arguments are often both correct and incorrect at the same time.

Often people perceive new mechanics as overpowered (unless they were release significantly underpowered for some reason) as a simple function of the fluency bias. As has been observed, many of the voices cautioning against overselling the strength of ES do so with the presumption that the player base simply hasn't become familiarized enough with the new faction to have fluency when facing them, so when tried and true methods of tackling a certain archetype that they see in one of the new masters doesn't work, there is a strong gut feeling that the new master is unfair. This accounts for some of the cries of overpowered, though certainly not all.

One of the reasons that ES is over tuned simply cannot be helped from a business and design perspective. If you are a game company introducing a new sellable product, you are disinclined to make the new product worse than your previous lines. It would be pretty disastrous to invest in design and production work for a venture and then have none of your customers buy it because you simply did not make your shiny new element appealing enough. In the worst cases you get the kind of pay to win power creep that kills your game. But even in the best cases you have scenarios where new game elements are almost always released at least a little over tuned, but hopefully can be dialed back shortly after introduction. I think there is more of the latter with ES. Most of their tools aren't fundamentally better than other factions, but when you look at their incremental characteristics they often eclipse their competitors. Damage tracks that are just a little more punchy. Trigger abilities that enable their control elements to work just a little too easy.

Finally there is the problem of designer experience. Simply put, the designers of 3e Malifaux have had more experience with their own systems, so when they are designing new models, they know their old ground well. They know what combinations work and which don't work, so they have better synergistic design overall. This exacerbates there previous inclination towards over tuning. What is more, since the new faction has fewer models overall, they want those models to all be useful and cover all their bases, which leads, I think, to the higher average power to ES models as well as the seemingly common complaint that their tech models simply have too many tools.

There is more I could say, but that sure is a big wall of text, so I'll stop. Probably nothing much new there for my fellow armchair scholars, but hopefully there is something salient in the morass of my mind.

 

Oh, and none of what I said applies to Jedza, btw, she is perfect as is and needs no change. Also I am totally objective in all of my perceptions.

problem-players like most of es models( as they look, their description) and most of players would buy models just because they are cool; so why not make them balanced-this is not a game like mtg where u can get a lot of money just winning with op cards

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Oh I am totally with you there Plaag, I'm more of a fluffy player that picks the models I buy based on how much I like the look and feel of them  and their lore and mechanical themes more than because they are any good (i.e. I got Jedza for those reasons). I really like ES for their character and would play them even if they weren't top tier. Hell, I really like Cadmus' characterization and feel, the fact that they are on top of the pile is a turnoff.

I don't think that ES was intentionally over tuned. My thesis was just to suggest that the factors I listed in my post were why they could have ended up overpowered without the intention to do so. Indeed, I think you hit the nail with the mtg comparison. A game like Malifaux only remains commercially successful if people want to actually play it, which these imbalances actively discourage. Plus, I'm sure they would like to sell all those other factions' models too.

My hope is that Wyrd anticipated this possible overstep and will release some errata shortly to dial things back.

That said, as someone who does love the character of the faction, I remain reticent to see some of the more drastic changes some have mentioned, as I think they could spoil the actually fun parts of the faction.

I've spoken my mind elsewhere so I won't reiterate any more here. Just that I favor a pruning back approach to rebalancing as opposed to what I see as a more slash and burn strategy suggested by the saltier decriers...to use a mangled metaphor.

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1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

How does Colette stack up against English Ivan?

Since Colette is immune to the summons herself (she buries before the summons get placed), and things like Coryphee Duet laugh at the min 3 beats, it seems like a good matchup for Colette?

no-colette will still suffer dmg, duet could be killed by archivist or ivan, spectre, i have tried this matchup, i surrender turn 3 as i remember

rider was killed at the moment and colette dont have card draw-what i can do against ivan with tools for the job, a lot of card draw, 7 cards in hand-i just have no resourses; and it doesnt matter where i hide my models-ivan can be placed far away with only his bonus action, will have 2-3 focuses at this moment and archivist too

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Just had my first game against Jedza. It was the opponent's second game with Jedza, but he has come in first for previous months with his Neverborn I think. Got a 6-6 tie.

I definitely didn't get the impression of "how the hell do I beat this" against Jedza. There seemed to be tons of room for counterplay (although Ressers are very well suited to tackling Jedza in general I think). All the massive damage I took was my own fault (for instance if I had realised Mikhail can move ~20 inches in a turn, I would have used my Dead Rider differently xD).

One issue though is you have to be really thoughtful with your list. For example, I couldn't take Manos because he has regeneration, which is a real liability against Jedza.

The only thing that seemed over the top was Archivist. It's a pretty damn good scheme runner, which is frustrating on top of all the other tech it was bringing to the table xD  Archivist ended up scoring 2 of the 3 symbols he secured. The initiative advantage was also brutal. There were a lot of turns where initiative really mattered (and made the difference between life and death for some models), but it basically felt like I didn't have the option to contest. At least I was playing Molly and had last activation control a few times.

I stand by what I said in the Wastrel thread - why would you hire a 9 stone keyword model when you could get OOK Archivist instead?

That said, it was on Symbols/standard deployment which seems like a non-optimal scenario for Jedza. Not sure how scary they'd have been on a different pool.

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Mr Ngaatoro also seems pretty crazy good, to the point that a lot of 9 cost models seem suboptimal because they can't be Ngaatoro-ed as efficiently. His obey is almost as good as Zoraida's, being stat 7 and being able to do two actions (focus + action).

EDIT: okay, hyperbole, but can't think of anyone other than Zoraida with a better obey trigger, and Ngaatoro can do it twice with flexibility on what suit is built in!

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