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The problem that Molly's new title should solve.


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I've been thinking a lot about Molly (cuz... that's what I do 😜 )

And it seems to me the new titles are really going hard on keywords where they can. And I hope we'll see Molly's title do the same thing. I hope running a crew with archie, philip, rabble risers, night terrors, and crooligans is competitively viable.

But there's a big issue - discard as a resource gets worse the more you have. Current Molly tries to fix this by having card draw, but... Then you just can build a crew with tons of card draw with models that don't need to discard cards. The result is Molly is at her best when she is played with non-keyword models for the most part.

If you don't have any card-draw, then the discard cost is even more prohibitive. So what can be done?

The new title for Molly should tie card draw to discarding.

Something like this ability:

Never Forgotten: Once per activation. After a friendly Forgotten model (or maybe minion) discards one or more cards, it may draw a card.

There we go! All of a sudden, the discard theme goes from being a horrible drain on your cards (even with card draw) to being a key mechanic of the crew. The more discard you have, the better the crew functions as it works as card cycling. It would significantly improve the keyword-focused play (especially if it the only source of card draw in the crew).

What do you think?

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33 minutes ago, aquenaton said:

Yep, without some clarifications like that, it could simply cancel execute and the likes.

 I am really interested in knowing the new path of Molly. I hope her nightmare crew version feels ok as a model for that variant in some way

Yeah, some tinkering would be necessary. Could also make it so that it is 'minion only' so you still have plenty of valid targets for discard effects, just not the minions. Or could do both!

And yeah, hopefully the new model has the same base size at least xD So far I think everything has had the same base size?

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I certainly see the appeal, but it sounds pretty similar to how she already plays. You could play Molly 1 and discard and draw back up, or Molly 2 and draw as you discard. Unless the Forgotten models get better, aren't you still better off playing Molly 1 with non-keyword models?

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Just now, touchdown said:

I certainly see the appeal, but it sounds pretty similar to how she already plays. You could play Molly 1 and discard and draw back up, or Molly 2 and draw as you discard. Unless the Forgotten models get better, aren't you still better off playing Molly 1 with non-keyword models?

Well, that part depends on how powerful the rest of her abilities are.

If Molly 2 is playable, and her card draw is based off discarding, you'll see a lot more keyword play when she is declared. She could for instance be like Nellie and be a Don't Mind Me scheme runner plus this card draw mechanic could give a very nice niche.

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I'm a bit disappointed, @Maniacal_cackle - I mean, I can see the problem you outline and all and I suppose your suggestion is a solution of sorts but really - what is Molly's thing? It's obviously making things very very difficult for the opponent. So the natural Molly solution is

Sharing is Caring: When a Forgotten Minion would discard a card, the opponent discards a card instead (yet it still counts as the Forgotten Minion discarding the card for any effects and abilities).

Voila!

:D 

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1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm a bit disappointed, @Maniacal_cackle - I mean, I can see the problem you outline and all and I suppose your suggestion is a solution of sorts but really - what is Molly's thing? It's obviously making things very very difficult for the opponent. So the natural Molly solution is

Sharing is Caring: When a Forgotten Minion would discard a card, the opponent discards a card instead (yet it still counts as the Forgotten Minion discarding the card for any effects and abilities).

Voila!

:D 

THE TRUE SOLUTION!!! A NEW PROPHET HAS RISEN!!!

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19 minutes ago, Adran said:

What you need is a bit of "ingenuity" to solve this problem. (See Yannic from the new outcast starter)

Will let you change the resource you are spending from card discard to scheme markers. 

This also works! Although I'd worry that it would potentially just keep the keyword crooligan focused, and then they can generate/eat enough schemes for card draw alongside Archie that you just don't bother with the others.

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7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Never Forgotten: Once per activation. After a friendly Forgotten model (or maybe minion) discards one or more cards, it may draw a card.

What do you think?

I think it's the laziest design ever :P It puts the entire Fading mechanic on its head. You should rather get some compensation for having an empty hand, like positives to flips or something else what increases survivability of your Keyword models or punishes enemy for engaging in opposite duels with them.

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2 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

I think it's the laziest design ever :P It puts the entire Fading mechanic on its head. You should rather get some compensation for having an empty hand, like positives to flips or something else what increases survivability of your Keyword models or punishes enemy for engaging in opposite duels with them.

That's a great idea too, although not sure what that would look like.

It'd have to be pretty potent to justify WANTING to have an empty hand. Since having an empty hand opens you up to all sorts of terrible stuff.

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1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

That's a great idea too, although not sure what that would look like.

It'd have to be pretty potent to justify WANTING to have an empty hand. Since having an empty hand opens you up to all sorts of terrible stuff.

You could add in bayou 2 card to minimise the downside of having an empty hand. (Sure its not as good as knowing what you can cheat, but turning every flip into 2 cards makes it a lot more likely you will win the flip. And as long as you aren't going for set TNs you probably end up winning more flips than your opponent with their hand anyway). 

I think I recall at least 1 master in the previous editions got a bonus for getting an empty hand. I just can't remember who it was or what the bonus was at the moment. 

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2 minutes ago, trikk said:

Having a discard mechanic turn into a cycle mechanic means that most of the time you don't really have to make a choice. 

Yeah, it's probably the most boring option - although I think the choice is still there in list building as to whether the models are worth it. The minions are also going to be a LOT weaker without constructive criticism (and they're already weak enough they're not worth hiring most of the time), so I'm hoping for quite a substantial reason to play them. 

Although maybe new Molly has constructive criticism? But that'd be weird.

3 minutes ago, Adran said:

You could add in bayou 2 card to minimise the downside of having an empty hand. (Sure its not as good as knowing what you can cheat, but turning every flip into 2 cards makes it a lot more likely you will win the flip. And as long as you aren't going for set TNs you probably end up winning more flips than your opponent with their hand anyway). 

I think I recall at least 1 master in the previous editions got a bonus for getting an empty hand. I just can't remember who it was or what the bonus was at the moment. 

Bayou two card is just generally worse than a positive flip, right? And I'm not sure even a positive flip would be enough.

But those are the sorts of things that could be answered in playtesting.

The base idea, having a bonus for having an empty hand is pretty good. The bonus has to apply to the actual Forgotten models (not Molly), because otherwise you just use other models to drain your hand. It's pretty easy to drain a hand, generally xD

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Perhaps a bit off the wall, but maybe something like:

"If you have no cards in hand, friendly Forgotten Models may count as discarding a card to pay costs for their abilities without having to discard a card. If they do so, they <get a positive effect>"?

So then you can keep getting the discard abilities going even with no cards, and then there's a positive effect to offset it? Whether that's gaining conditions, healing, or whatever.

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1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Bayou two card is just generally worse than a positive flip, right? And I'm not sure even a positive flip would be enough.

But those are the sorts of things that could be answered in playtesting.

The base idea, having a bonus for having an empty hand is pretty good. The bonus has to apply to the actual Forgotten models (not Molly), because otherwise you just use other models to drain your hand. It's pretty easy to drain a hand, generally xD

Yes, Bayou 2 cards is just worse than a positive flip. Not much worse, but a little. It is a lot better than a single flip. And if you make 20 flips in a turn, you may actually want to only cheat 3 of those in a normal 6 card hand. 

Flip 20 duels, and you probably expect to win 10 of them on the flip. So by default you get to flip 10 extra cards to try and win those duels you're losing (There may be times you wouldn't want to, because you are the defender, and you are worried about getting a worse result for the accuracy, but I'm going to ignore that at the moment). That probably brings you an extra 4 or 5 wins. And of the 10 you won, your opponent may cheat 3 or 4 of those to make you lose, and you can then flip the extra card which will probably only bring you 1 extra win.

so of the 20 flips vs someone with a hand you probably will win 12-14 of the duels with Bayou 2card vs a hand of 6 cards.  You have less say in which duels you win, but you will win more. (This is ignoring suit hunting because that's hard to model). 

This is based on previous editions where bayou gremlins all came with Bayou 2 card as standard. It is a very strong ability if you are going for quantity rather than quality. 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Interesting!

Rabble risers are all about quantity for sure, but night terrors, Philip, and crooligans are happy to go an entire game without flipping a card if necessary.

So I think something flip based doesn't quite work.

Says mister "crooligans can do 8 damage an activation". 

(I'm also happy if my support and mobility models never have to flip a card all game, but I do expect my opponent to try and kill/engage them at some point).

 

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Just now, Adran said:

Says mister "crooligans can do 8 damage an activation". 

(I'm also happy if my support and mobility models never have to flip a card all game, but I do expect my opponent to try and kill/engage them at some point).

 

Haha, yeah, they can, but not very often. Especially may not be worth the risk if you're just hoping to top deck the hit AND the moderate+ damage.

Yeah, defensively it makes sense, but then it is a bit of a weak defense (as you said, sometimes you don't want to risk giving the opponent better modifiers).

So would be nice if it was a more concrete bonus than the card quantity approach of bayou gremlins.

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4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Haha, yeah, they can, but not very often. Especially may not be worth the risk if you're just hoping to top deck the hit AND the moderate+ damage.

Yeah, defensively it makes sense, but then it is a bit of a weak defense (as you said, sometimes you don't want to risk giving the opponent better modifiers).

So would be nice if it was a more concrete bonus than the card quantity approach of bayou gremlins.

Remember that it would roughly turn straight damage into positive damage. (It wouldn't, but on a straight flip you could always cheat the flipped card with a new flip, so for the purposes of getting "not weak" it is the same odds as a positive flip). 

I would happily take a Stat 5 attack with 2 attempts to win, that my opponent can't cheat against. I ought to win over half of those duels even vs Df 7. 

The tough choice would be when I didn't focus and was winning by 4 or less, do I risk the extra flip or not...

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3 minutes ago, Adran said:

Remember that it would roughly turn straight damage into positive damage. (It wouldn't, but on a straight flip you could always cheat the flipped card with a new flip, so for the purposes of getting "not weak" it is the same odds as a positive flip). 

I would happily take a Stat 5 attack with 2 attempts to win, that my opponent can't cheat against. I ought to win over half of those duels even vs Df 7. 

The tough choice would be when I didn't focus and was winning by 4 or less, do I risk the extra flip or not...

Oh it is worth the AP for sure, but just risky as crooligans typically have to set up the perfect scenario to pull off attacks or just die.

But yeah, it is useful, it just doesn't quite seem right for the crew to me.

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1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Oh it is worth the AP for sure, but just risky as crooligans typically have to set up the perfect scenario to pull off attacks or just die.

But yeah, it is useful, it just doesn't quite seem right for the crew to me.

That probably depends on why we have new title Molly (from a story point). Crooligans and Night terrors already have a bonus for you having a smaller hand, which would work well if you are on 0 cards. 

Its not really answering the initial problem you raise, its sort of side lining it, with a way to make the crew function with no need for cheating from hand. 

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You already mentioned my comment from the Discord in your 2nd post, but I'll take the original version to showcase, why I think that concept isn't good design imho, it's most apparent there.

"Once per activation. After a friendly Forgotten model (or maybe minion) discards one or more cards, it may draw a card."

We all know: Malifaux = resource management game between 2 players. What resource needs to be managed here? You discard, but immediatly get it back, so it's a free up-cycling. You also get whatever fading effect the model has. The "you need 1 hand card left" requirement is neglible imho. You do not interact with your opponent and you pay nothing. Not even mental space, it's a trigger mechanic as simple as it can possibly be. No matter how ridiciulous strong this wording is, it also is boring as heck. You could just give every Forgotten model their fading effect for free and a card-cycle on top of that and it would do exactly the same.

Compare that to the current version. First, instead of getting the card back immediately, you need to manage your order of activation. It also involves foresight as to when the best moment is to activate your card draw, which will involve your opponent into your thought process. Nothing like that needed with your proposal. Second, the card draw always happens, no matter what your opponent does, in your version. But Gorgon's Influence involves the opponent's hand - giving them at least some degree of ability to control the amount of cards you can get back - your opponent has to think about and play with your ability, instead of just waiting for it to happen, making it more interactive. Limiting the trigger for the draw (specific models/types, etc.) doesn't solve these issues. It makes it less OP and more bearable, but does not make it more interesting during the game.

I don't think Gorgon's Influence is a great example for interactivity, but it has solid management requirements (activation order, hand management both yours and your opponents, timing, (master) activation). But sadly, your proposal lacks in all those regards. The only benefit is the motivation to include Forgotten into the crew, which is a good goal to have, but not at the cost of such a boring/non-interactive and OP alternative ability.

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I like the thought of changing Molly to use upgrades to force opponent discarding. Something like:

Forgotten Memories

Ability Name 1: Once per Activation. When an enemy model within 3" with Fading(X) would discard a card, this model must pass a TNX Wp duel or it must discard a card instead of the enemy model.

Ability Name 2: Whenever this model would discard a card, another model within 6" with Fading(X) may gain the effect of that ability.

The change really revolves around the Forgotten Keyword, and flips Molly on her head causing the opponent to have to consider a self-discarding crew or an opponent-discarding crew. Archie and Rabble Riser's Flurry can serve as easy opponent discard, and RR's challenge gains some additional functionality. Good placement is also rewarded with being able to utilize other model's Fading out of activation.

Alternatively, I also like the idea of making ability #2 some sort of negative fading ability. Something like:

Forgotten Memories

Ability Name 1: Once per Activation. When an enemy model within 3" with Fading(X) would discard a card, this model must pass a TNX Wp duel or it must discard a card instead of the enemy model.

Fading(Lost): After this model discards any cards, it gains Injured +1.

This version would work in-Keyword like the previous, but would offer a more offensive oriented version of Molly. This could also be accomplished with markers (Similar to new Asami Rift markers) instead of an upgrade if it treads too much into Daw's territory.

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Yeah, fair points Graf!

I do like the idea of having the fading unlock something offensive, although even just a TN duel to discard feels a bit weak. Optimistically, without card draw you're going to have maybe 2-3 discards? So then at most you might drain 3 cards, which is a lot less than say a Charm Warder crew that can drain 4 random cards (and then has mechanisms for lots more on top of that).

But still, maybe there's something there!

You could also do something wild like "as long as your hand is empty, opponents can't cheat against Forgotten minions" or something, to really capture the control vibe 😜

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