Introducing... The BalanceFaux format!

[Maniacal_cackle]

In some parts of the competitive scene, there's growing dissatisfaction with some aspects of game balance. New content is released faster than old content is errata-ed, so with current trends there is never a point in time where the game will have all content balanced through errata. New content gets a free pass on errata until the year after its physical release.

Now of course this makes sense - competitive players aren't the only ones that Wyrd caters to. Many players don't play models until they're physically released. But for scenes like ours, where things are legal to be proxied the moment they're in the app, it can cause quite a long delay for powerful things to receive balancing errata.

My favorite story is when one player was playing for a few hours, and then looked at the two masters being played on the table... He started cackling as he realized he hated *both* of the crews on the table. 

It can feel hard to be competitively relevant without playing the strong stuff yourself... But then your opponent is worried about the strong stuff, so also has to declare some of the most powerful masters. It's a catch-22.

So... A format has been proposed!

In BalanceFaux, the core idea is that content is banned until it is eligible for errata.

There's talk about the new Madness of Malifaux content - in competitive circles, some players are already convinced some of the content is going to need errata. I know players who have played dozens of games with Damian (and I know other players who don't even have access to the sculpts yet).

Banning Madness of Malifaux content until it is eligible for errata will give a unique experience. For many of us, it will be the first time playing the game where all content has been at least considered for balancing errata. One issue is that titles also have not been eligible for errata (except McMourning), but it feels a bit heavy handed to take out everything from Malifaux Burns. So... here are the rules:

• All masters from Malifaux Burns are banned (but you are allowed to use the minions, enforcers, and henchmen).
• All models from Madness of Malifaux are banned.

After there is an errata cycle with Malifaux Burns masters getting errata-ed, then BalanceFaux will update to allow them. When there are new releases in 2023, they will be banned until they receive their first errata. When Madness of Malifaux receives errata (likely in 2024), that content will enter the format.

This will provide a format for people to get the same experience of content releasing as regular Malifaux, but with a more balanced approach, emphasizing at least some errata content. It won't fix all balance issues, but the hope is that it will result in a more balanced competitive experience that many of us are craving.

I believe some events are already being organized with the BalanceFaux format, so I wanted to make a post where people could see the underlying philosophy (and rules). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[SEV]

Delayed Faux?

I would much prefer a banned list handle by a committee and revised every X months.

80% of the stuff form MB is fine for tournament played. Just banned the stuff that isn't and we will have a balance format.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, SEV said:

Delayed Faux?

I would much prefer a banned list handle by a committee and revised every X months.

80% of the stuff form MB is fine for tournament played. Just banned the stuff that isn't and we will have a balance format.

 

A lot of people have called for banning specific masters, but the issue is the calls for that are so subjective. This proposal is much 'cleaner'.

Though if anyone can propose a ban list with broad agreement beyond it, I'd be super interested to hear it!

For instance, I personally am not sure I'd vote to ban Damian... I think it's pretty clear that he's above the curve, but also am not sure I'd want to ban something without at least a bit more data on people teching to beat him. Though I also think it's going to be miserable facing him until 2024, particularly when some of the Malifaux Burns stuff is nerfed so he gets a power boost.

Most Yan Lo players don't think Yan Lo is overpowered (and same goes for many Nexus players). Guild players are quite resistant to the idea of banning Guild masters. Etc.

But if you can develop a list with pretty broad agreement, I'd be interested!

[SEV]

I strongly disagree... It's like saying Well we were not able to settle on a maximum speed limit on our street, so we just banned all the cars (wait, this could be a nice idea actually 😋).

A committee should stated some guideline (ere on the side of caution, banned any that does X + Y until reviewed by wyrd, etc.) Than work for consensus banning within those guidelines. Is it subjective? Yes (but there's not a lot of things that aren't in life). Will everyone agree? No, but we're not looking for that. People will accept those rules  because they'll know that they are way better than an open format (even though their pet Master get hit from time to time).

How do I know? Because it works I  most competitive games with models or cards introduced o  a regular basis.

And for the people that want to have a wilder experience, they always have access to an open format.

I would gladly played in a targeted ban format, but probably not in what you proposed.

[Kharnage]

20 minutes ago, SEV said:

I would much prefer a banned list handle by a committee and revised every X months.

 

Got a committee in mind? Cuz "we" the VWSC (I'm mostly a rules nuisance) are pretty strapped for time and willpower as is. This seemed an amenable solution that we were comfortable with, without having to step up to bat for every A/S tier master in the game.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Part of what spawned this format was repeated calls for some sort of bans or errata from the committee, but no one can provide a good list or even criteria.

If anyone can provide a ban list that three people can agree on, I'll at least put it in front of the committee.

[Azahul]

Honestly, the philosophical consistency of this does make it a lot more appealing to me than a select ban list (to be honest I'd be inclined to ban all Malifaux Burns content period for said consistency's sake, but I'm not dying on that hill). The more granular the bans the more it feels arbitrary and opinion-based, while also no doubt having a disproportionate impact. How do you reconcile a Keyword having to contend with the fact that they lost one or more Master options when others might have no such limitations? Or a Faction hit particularly hard by the banhammer facing the fact that half their Keywords functionally declare their Title when chosen? Throwing everything to an even footing does feel like the fairest approach and the least likely to lead to raging internet arguments over where the line between "fine" and "broken" lies.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Azahul said:

(to be honest I'd be inclined to ban all Malifaux Burns content period for said consistency's sake, but I'm not dying on that hill).

Yeah, this part is a bit funky for me as well. There's a ton of arguments both ways for that particular detail xD

EDIT: to elaborate, while there's some outliers (yannic), a lot of the enforcers and minions cleaned up the original titles in important ways. Kaltgeists, Guild Mages, Sly, Deacon, White Rabbit, etc all changed their keyword in interesting ways. Removing that content feels like you're just culling too much for not quite enough gain at that point. Literally other than Yannic I can't think of anything that would be ban-worthy, though maybe I'm forgetting something. I do hate 33

[Adran]

Surely there is a flaw to the concept, in that it appears to assume that things are known to be flawed after a fixed period of time, when in reality it is more likely after a number of plays.  By people not playing new models in a competitivesetting, they are going to take longer before any problems with them show up, so longer before wyrd would need to look at them as something that needs errata. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

23 minutes ago, Adran said:

Surely there is a flaw to the concept, in that it appears to assume that things are known to be flawed after a fixed period of time, when in reality it is more likely after a number of plays.  By people not playing new models in a competitivesetting, they are going to take longer before any problems with them show up, so longer before wyrd would need to look at them as something that needs errata. 

I have difficulty imagining this format will take off so much that it'd be the default format around the world.

If somehow this format was so successful it did just remove important data for Wyrd, then hopefully they would take notice and adjust their cycles to address those issues.

But realistically the competitive community can identify broken stuff much, much faster than the errata cycle. If even most of the events were the balance faux format, I think we could identify a lot of broken stuff with the few regular tournaments.

I think we will have a very clear idea of Damians power level by the end of the year. But he won't be eligible for errata until 2024 at current cycles.

[Adran]

1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I have difficulty imagining this format will take off so much that it'd be the default format around the world.

If somehow this format was so successful it did just remove important data for Wyrd, then hopefully they would take notice and adjust their cycles to address those issues.

But realistically the competitive community can identify broken stuff much, much faster than the errata cycle. If even most of the events were the balance faux format, I think we could identify a lot of broken stuff with the few regular tournaments.

I think we will have a very clear idea of Damians power level by the end of the year. But he won't be eligible for errata until 2024 at current cycles.

As far as I know there is no formal eligibility for errata, but power level errata rakes time. Damien might start to show up as overpowered despite experience facing him by the end of the year, but its likely that the playtesting for the next errata would have already started before that point,  which is the reason it wouldn't be included. ( I'd also say even knowing witness was too strong, there is a lot of questions to answer to workout what the problem is, before you start to work out how to fix it). 

Its not a case of the competitive community discovering broken things faster than the errata cycle, players discovering broken things is almost certainly part of the errata cycle. 

 

My last post was following the idea through to a conclusion. If the experience of Malifaux- delayed was generally considered better by the competitive community,  it will start to become the norm. ( see double masters as an example, and possibly clocks). If it becomes the normal setting then it stops working as a fix. If it's not a popular setting them people won't play it. Either way it ends up being a fix that doesn't work as a long term solution,  whilst it might work as a short term solution.   ( and if people can't play the new models, they are less likely to buy them, which is bad for wyrd, and therefore likely to be bad for all players...). 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I don't think me developing a new format after consulting a few people is going to have the logical conclusion of altering the game dynamic entirely 🤣

If it did take off that much, though... I think that would probably send a serious message to Wyrd that they should adapt the flow of their business model. They're pretty savvy. I'm sure they would.

[Maniacal_cackle]

To provide some additional context.

This isn't from any group in particular. I brewed the format after talking to a number of people with some shared frustrations. 

It's not about any masters in particular. It just feels like every year there's a new round of things that are super far over the curve, and it gets a bit tiresome just playing a busted meta (both as and against).

So I thought why not try out a format where we can mitigate that.

[Scoffer]

Ban DMH 

Ban multi-master 

Ban titles 

---you are here--- 

Ban all new releases 

Ban m3e

 

 

 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Scoffer said:

Ban DMH 

Ban multi-master 

Ban titles 

---you are here--- 

Ban all new releases 

Ban m3e

 

 

 

 

Actually you missed a step, this proposal includes banning all new releases for the format 😂

[James Dyson]

The Gaining Grounds documents, since they started being released, have included call out text to the effect of "play how you want to play"

So this doesn't strike me as any different than running a Singles tournament, or a Henchman Hardcore event.

I would find it interesting to hear feedback from players participating in such an event afterwards to see how it goes over.

[Yore Huckleberry]

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

A lot of people have called for banning specific masters, but the issue is the calls for that are so subjective. This proposal is much 'cleaner'.

 

 

My favorite recent one was Rage Quit Wire declaring that Zipp's original version is OP and needs major nerfs.

6 hours ago, Adran said:

Surely there is a flaw to the concept, in that it appears to assume that things are known to be flawed after a fixed period of time, when in reality it is more likely after a number of plays.  By people not playing new models in a competitivesetting, they are going to take longer before any problems with them show up, so longer before wyrd would need to look at them as something that needs errata. 

I don't think having a minor alternative will stop all other competitive play. Bonanza Brawl didn't kill Malifaux by letting people have the madcap experience now and then, and BalanceFaux won't replace the core rules.

BalanceFaux's not really my cup of tea (I play Guild and title masters really unlocked our faction, friends), but I'm willing to muddle through with Perdita 1 if it means not dealing with Damian in a given setting.

[Plaag]

9 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

In some parts of the competitive scene, there's growing dissatisfaction with some aspects of game balance. New content is released faster than old content is errata-ed, so with current trends there is never a point in time where the game will have all content balanced through errata. New content gets a free pass on errata until the year after its physical release.

Now of course this makes sense - competitive players aren't the only ones that Wyrd caters to. Many players don't play models until they're physically released. But for scenes like ours, where things are legal to be proxied the moment they're in the app, it can cause quite a long delay for powerful things to receive balancing errata.

My favorite story is when one player was playing for a few hours, and then looked at the two masters being played on the table... He started cackling as he realized he hated *both* of the crews on the table. 

It can feel hard to be competitively relevant without playing the strong stuff yourself... But then your opponent is worried about the strong stuff, so also has to declare some of the most powerful masters. It's a catch-22.

So... A format has been proposed!

In BalanceFaux, the core idea is that content is banned until it is eligible for errata.

There's talk about the new Madness of Malifaux content - in competitive circles, some players are already convinced some of the content is going to need errata. I know players who have played dozens of games with Damian (and I know other players who don't even have access to the sculpts yet).

Banning Madness of Malifaux content until it is eligible for errata will give a unique experience. For many of us, it will be the first time playing the game where all content has been at least considered for balancing errata. One issue is that titles also have not been eligible for errata (except McMourning), but it feels a bit heavy handed to take out everything from Malifaux Burns. So... here are the rules:

• All masters from Malifaux Burns are banned (but you are allowed to use the minions, enforcers, and henchmen).
• All models from Madness of Malifaux are banned.

After there is an errata cycle with Malifaux Burns masters getting errata-ed, then BalanceFaux will update to allow them. When there are new releases in 2023, they will be banned until they receive their first errata. When Madness of Malifaux receives errata (likely in 2024), that content will enter the format.

This will provide a format for people to get the same experience of content releasing as regular Malifaux, but with a more balanced approach, emphasizing at least some errata content. It won't fix all balance issues, but the hope is that it will result in a more balanced competitive experience that many of us are craving.

I believe some events are already being organized with the BalanceFaux format, so I wanted to make a post where people could see the underlying philosophy (and rules). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

many old stuff need to be balanced, new stuff

i think maybe better to balance models

like community patch and show it to wyrd-maybe they will add it to errata

[Kharnage]

4 minutes ago, Plaag said:

like community patch and show it to wyrd-maybe they will add it to errata

A banned list is miles easier than manually rebalancing the game, and we don't have the time for even that. 'Community' patch would add new layers of complexity before agreement, since not only do people not agree that some things are too powerful, they further cannot agree how to nerf something or by how much, even if they thankfully agree that it should be nerfed. 

Give the format a shot if y'all are interested. You might have fun, you might not, but it could address some issues people are having with the game at large. We're just trying to find out. 

[Alcathous]

5 hours ago, Scoffer said:

Ban DMH 

Ban multi-master 

Ban titles 

---you are here--- 

Ban all new releases 

Quit m3e

Fixed this for you.

You're using this to try to make a point about abusing power or something, but you're missing the point that people are already at the point where they're not enjoying the game and/or looking for alternatives. The errata cycle is long. Playing competitively can be extremely frustrating when there are a couple broken things. If there's a solution that keeps people who aren't having fun because of have balance involved in the m3e, that's better than losing them to another game, no?

[SEV]

11 hours ago, Kharnage said:

Got a committee in mind? Cuz "we" the VWSC (I'm mostly a rules nuisance) are pretty strapped for time and willpower as is. This seemed an amenable solution that we were comfortable with, without having to step up to bat for every A/S tier master in the game.

In my mind it should be run by Wyrd (maybe with the input of some competitive players).

In the meantime, for something like the MWS, I would simply have an open survey with the players every quarters. Anything that is consider OP by more than 80% of the community got banned. 

Quick and easy to implement. Not perfect, but this would lead to an interesting format, more balanced than an open one with a built in self correcting mechanism. Morr importantly, It's way better than banning a whole cycle of release...

Cackle himself said it 😜:

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

But realistically the competitive community can identify broken stuff much, much faster than the errata cycle. If even most of the events were the balance faux format, I think we could identify a lot of broken stuff with the few regular tournaments.

[muraki]

I think it could be interesting to try as a format for an event or more, as I feel like variating the tournament rules is a good way to keep things from feeling stale / seeing different things on the table.

That said, if the goal is to switch a major tourney circuit / meta to this format instead of the base format it could be bad for the game.  If people are told 'yeah you can buy (x shiny new thing), but none of the tournaments around here will let you play it for a year+' why would I bother buying new product?  Same if large tournaments ban whole swaths of models, then IDK how Wyrd will get the info about stuff that needs to be touched for good / ill (as the current errata cycle seems to be built around giving enough time for kneejerk responses to calm a bit). 

Additionally, not using the new stuff for a period would effectively take you out of the review equation. (like you said above 'I'm not quite sure I'd ban damian right now, as I want more time to build strategies against him').  I know it's not the same (as banning dual masters doesnt stop the keywords from getting reps) but it kind of reminds me of people who are anti-dual masters being able to point out new combos that aren't fun, and I wonder 'is this a testing/wyrd issue, or a '1/2 the community doesnt use em, so changing the combos may be low priority / low visibility thing for the devs'.

That said, if something like this would happen, I think it should be universal rather than certain models/keys being banned v others.  As I've listened in to chatter about Damian and when I asked how playing into him was different than other masters that feel over-curved (nexus2 for instance) the response I heard was 'oh but people like the challenge of trying to break that / find solutions for it' which feels kind of strange to me.  So if the controlling group says that witness is banned but not returned (for instance, haven't looked into em closely, just saw some chatter that said they look 'fine'), that gives a faction 1 less keyword to play than others, which doesnt seem right.

That said, I do wholeheartedly agree that playing in a meta where people 'abuse' the OP stuff every release isn't fun.  And it isn't fun to constantly play into the same 2-3 masters each time you go to a tournament / event.  So something that could help with that would be nice (whether the event gives people breathers with format changes now / then or if Wyrd releases some emergency changes to certain models). 

[Insomniakwulf]

So something I think alot of people are missing is that @Maniacal_cackle isn't suggesting this takes over as THE format to play, rather that this format is something that people can use for more casual events and games. If you are in a gt or similar ultra competitive event then you aren't gonna use this format, want a casual pickup game and don't want to be curbstomped by nexkids for the 3rd time in a row, or want an event where simply having fun and flipping cards is more important than this format is great as an every now and then.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I don't think anyone in the community minds X, Y, Z master being broken.

What they mind is playing 100-200 games where those masters are part of the meta without receiving some adjustments.

Some players play so much that waiting until 2024 to see Madness of Malifaux content errataed will be quite tedious (assuming current errata patterns hold).

So BalanceFaux offers a format that can be interspersed with conventional play.

If somehow the format is so fun and popular that it becomes the competitive default... well, then wyrd would have to ask themselves why the game ended up being more fun when their new content is banned.

But I doubt it'll get to that.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Overall I imagine the errata cycle works fine for most of the player base, though.

There'll be many players who buy a new crew and only play it 10-30 times before it gets errata-ed, which can also feel quite fast.

There's variety in the player base, so there should be variety in the competitive space to match different needs.