Introducing... The BalanceFaux format!

[Maniacal_cackle]

The Team Cup event will use this format, so by the end of the year we should have 6 rounds of experience with it.

[celary]

There are multiple players who would like to play in a global team tournament, but do not wish to participate in this experiment. Can we put this to a vote and then decide on a ruleset?

[Adran]

2 minutes ago, Bartłomiej Celary said:

There are multiple players who would like to play in a global team tournament, but do not wish to participate in this experiment. Can we put this to a vote and then decide on a ruleset?

Probably your best bet is to organise your own event.

It's possible that the organisers would listen to your views and change it, but I think they have thought hard about the format and want to try it out, and as they are the people running the event, they have the ultimate say. 

(Plus its hard to decide on who should get a vote on this.  There are people that would vote even if they weren't going to play in the event regardless of the outcome. The best outcome would be run 2 events and see how they compare )

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 hours ago, Bartłomiej Celary said:

There are multiple players who would like to play in a global team tournament, but do not wish to participate in this experiment. Can we put this to a vote and then decide on a ruleset?

There's no plans to do a vore at this stage, but let me know how many teams you have that feel this way and I'll pass it on to the committee.

Are they already on the discord?

[hydranixx]

I'm keen to try this format - and I'd vote to keep the name as it is.

I started collecting Malifaux in M2e almost exclusively because the game had better balance that anything else in the market. Pre-Malifaux Burns, after the Explorer's errata, it felt like the game was more or less about right balance-wise. GG seasons could come and go and they would influence the trends of masters within my faction, Explorers, but each master felt like they had space to see play.

But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked  Malifaux Burns was released.

 

The game is littered with ridiculous master titles now. Nexus2, Perdita2, Damian2, and to some extent Maxine2, just to name a few. When these titles show up, it often doesn't really matter that the opponent knows exactly what you're doing, knows how 90-95% of the crew will be built, and almost definitely knows what the schemes are at the start of the game - if they didn't pick a similarly broken master, they are usually powerless to stop you. You can afford to make misplay after misplay and still win because the power level disparity and AP disparity (especially for Nexus2) is just too vast.

Getting consensus on how to fix them with any community-driven errata is close to impossible, so an approach like Balancefaux concept might be the best bet, if the goal is to play a balanced game.

 

Explorers
Speaking from the Explorer's perspective, our two stand outs are Nexus and Maxine.

I positively adore the concept of the Nexkids / Nexus2. When they came out, I was so excited to try them. But these days, I feel terrible seeing Nexus2 on either side of the table because they're just way too strong. I want to enjoy playing with and against them again, but I can't bring myself to do it, they're just too powerful. Nowadays, when I play vs other Explorers, I ask for a gentleman's agreement that neither of us playing Nexus2 so as to not ruin the game; if one of us takes Nexus and the other doesn't, depending on the pool, it's often game over before any cards are flipped, and if both of us take Nexus, well that just sounds like a headache.

It's a slightly similar thing with Maxine2. Even in games where I see the pool and the opponent's master and think to myself, "hmm, Maxine1 has a lot of good tech here, if I pick her I'll have the ability to out think and outplay the opponent", I often find myself still forcing the Maxine2 pick anyway. I build the crew somewhat predictably, and play it somewhat predictably, and I'm not really doing many fancy tricks, but I can still make it work since her raw power is so high. 

 

I'd welcome a chance to pick and play Nexus1 or Maxine1 without feeling that I've made a suboptimal choice, because my opponent might have picked an extremely powerful title master.

Balancefaux would give me that opportunity without feeling like I'm just playing with one hand tied behind my back.

[Maniacal_cackle]

This is especially encouraging as you were vocally opposed to this format when I first proposed it.

Hydranixx and I also just played a game of the BalanceFaux format, and it felt like there were a lot less "answer me or instantly lose" crews going on.

[Regelridderen]

Looking back, Wyrd's approach has so far always upped the power game with new releases.

In M2E, the release of new master upgrades, saw a discard of the old, and the release of Sandy The Harbinger of M2E  End Times caused for a complete reboot of the game.

Now they pair this up with model sales – in what was previously just upgrade cards is now awesome models – which would be cool, if it wasn't for the blatant money grab of pairing up random masters/factions.

-

I welcome this newfangled format of not accepting models, until they've gone through a proper playtesting and found suitable for the meta. 

It's a nice way of telling wyrd not to wreck our enjoyment of the game, and it's good business practice, as if we the players see Wyrd taking a dump on us, we're more likely to cut and run, rather than recommend it to our friends.

If we wanted shoddy rules for great models, we, as a community, wouldn't look beyond GW games, but it just so happens that Malifaux is a great offer on both rules and models.

[Maniacal_cackle]

On 10/3/2022 at 11:23 PM, Regelridderen said:

Looking back, Wyrd's approach has so far always upped the power game with new releases.

In M2E, the release of new master upgrades, saw a discard of the old, and the release of Sandy The Harbinger of M2E  End Times caused for a complete reboot of the game.

Now they pair this up with model sales – in what was previously just upgrade cards is now awesome models – which would be cool, if it wasn't for the blatant money grab of pairing up random masters/factions.

-

I welcome this newfangled format of not accepting models, until they've gone through a proper playtesting and found suitable for the meta. 

It's a nice way of telling wyrd not to wreck our enjoyment of the game, and it's good business practice, as if we the players see Wyrd taking a dump on us, we're more likely to cut and run, rather than recommend it to our friends.

If we wanted shoddy rules for great models, we, as a community, wouldn't look beyond GW games, but it just so happens that Malifaux is a great offer on both rules and models.

I do think that Wyrd would like everything to be well balanced, but it isn't a priority. What is a priority is releasing tons of new and interesting models, which has a side effect of very fast power creep.

We'll have to see how Madness of Malifaux goes, but the previous two expansions both broke the game pretty significantly (although at least Explorer's Society only broke it if you were facing Explorer's xD)

And to some degree, fair enough. There's plenty of types of players, and many players prefer this pace of release.

But for many of us, we'd prefer a more balanced approach to releases... Which hopefully this format will provide some great games for people. I think if this format works out, it will get really interesting when titles enter the format.

And just in general the idea of experiencing all content after balancing errata seems very appealing. It's kinda like a 15 month open beta process xD

[Scoffer]

42 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

And just in general the idea of experiencing all content after balancing errata seems very appealing. It's kinda like a 15 month open beta process xD

Months of open beta is a good way to kill malifaux community. We've tried it in 2019.

[Plaag]

On 10/1/2022 at 11:09 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

The Team Cup event will use this format, so by the end of the year we should have 6 rounds of experience with it.

we cannt take titles, but we can take other not nerfed broken stuff like yannik+og schill...so what the point of this?

[Adran]

13 minutes ago, Plaag said:

we cannt take titles, but we can take other not nerfed broken stuff like yannik+og schill...so what the point of this?

One point I suppose would be to see if just not allowing new masters is or isn't enough for the format.  

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 hours ago, Plaag said:

we cannt take titles, but we can take other not nerfed broken stuff like yannik+og schill...so what the point of this?

A few people have brought up this exact point.

Which is very interesting that the first model people mention that might break the format is a Malifaux Burns model...

So if things like Yannic and 33 break the format, I think the solution would be pretty clear. Remove the compromise that allows them.

But gotta draw a line somewhere so this trial seems like as good a place as any to start.

[Adran]

55 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

A few people have brought up this exact point.

Which is very interesting that the first model people mention that might break the format is a Malifaux Burns model...

So if things like Yannic and 33 break the format, I think the solution would be pretty clear. Remove the compromise that allows them.

But gotta draw a line somewhere so this trial seems like as good a place as any to start.

Thinking about 33, I think his big problem is his combination with Tara 2 allowing the bury without retaliation, just using him with Tara 1 or Justice doesn't lead to quite the same issues ( but I may be wrong and the problem is still there with the untitled masters, just to a lesser extent). 

Yannic is more of a problem, in that her card draw can boost 9 different masters even without titles, and some of those were intended to be slightly card starved based on appearance. ( I don't expect friekorps to have been intended to power more than 2 or 3 discard effects on a normal turn, so you could have given them more powerful discard effects than normal because there was so many). 

I can't  think of other non master burns models that might be an issue.

 

Considering the format basically at the moment is only banning malifaux Burns models ( whilst it will ban madness models, so far we have only seen a few) it's not surprising that if there is a problem model it's a Burns model that isn't keyword specific.  

 

As you say, if it is a problem you can remove it.  You can ban masters and henchmen models, as a vaguely sensible line to draw if you don't want to remove everything   

[Maniacal_cackle]

Yeah, exactly.

To me if the format is a success other than one Malifaux burns model...

Then that suggests the core idea is good but the details need work.

However if it ends up being a model like Rasputina that breaks the format... well then that'd be pretty damning of the format.

[hydranixx]

On 10/3/2022 at 4:26 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

This is especially encouraging as you were vocally opposed to this format when I first proposed it.

Hydranixx and I also just played a game of the BalanceFaux format, and it felt like there were a lot less "answer me or instantly lose" crews going on.

I wasn't opposed to the format - it just wasn't initially my favourite 'solve' for the broken stuff. 

My preference order was more or less:

1) Community-consensus driven errata to the really broken/weak stuff, where we share what we're testing directly with Wyrd. 
2) Targeted title bans, 1 from each faction.
3) BalanceFaux
4) No Madness of Malifaux.
5) Standard.

I acknowledge my top two are highly idealistic and in practice would be extremely hard to actually agree on and implement, so to me, BalanceFaux is a good compromise.

Banning all titles in some events feels heavy handed at first but I think it's still better than playing standard in every event, where you're matched against Nexus2 every second round and Damian2 just walks over everyone with absurd win rates. 

[Plaag]

On 10/4/2022 at 1:16 PM, hydranixx said:

I wasn't opposed to the format - it just wasn't initially my favourite 'solve' for the broken stuff. 

My preference order was more or less:

1) Community-consensus driven errata to the really broken/weak stuff, where we share what we're testing directly with Wyrd. 
2) Targeted title bans, 1 from each faction.
3) BalanceFaux
4) No Madness of Malifaux.
5) Standard.

I acknowledge my top two are highly idealistic and in practice would be extremely hard to actually agree on and implement, so to me, BalanceFaux is a good compromise.

Banning all titles in some events feels heavy handed at first but I think it's still better than playing standard in every event, where you're matched against Nexus2 every second round and Damian2 just walks over everyone with absurd win rates. 

damian 2 is not hard to play against

[Math Mathonwy]

With the previews rolling in my gaming group is kinda on the verge of abandoning Malifaux due to balance issues. The titles were really bad but there I still upheld the hope that the errata will fix the worst outliers and managed to keep the more pessimistic in our group still invested. But now each preview seems to cement more and more that there indeed is a big shift in power level of the game and if they nerf the problematic titles the game will be completely lopsided to favour the new stuff.

Cavalier has really been the final nail in the coffin hereabouts with just seemingly amazing stuff piled on top of other amazing stuff. Why are their stats so high? Why are they giving so many negative flips in Auras to enemies? Why are there two powerful Totems with Condition removal and healing? Why are there so many no-LOS things?

And Bayou was kinda lacking in that protector role so why, when they get something for that role, is it the best in the game in that role (well, outside of Cavalier...)? Isn't that just madness?

Now, I realize that I'm judging this stuff just based on cards and with zero actual games with these profiles but I'm the optimistic one in our gaming group - the rest have basically given up. Which breaks my heart since I've been playing this game since 1e beta and have an absolutely massive collection of painted models and love the world but without opponents it's not much use. And, as noted, I don't think that I like the direction that this game seems to be taking.

M3e was supposed to tone things down and streamline but now it seems like it's going beyond M2e in all the wrong ways  

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

With the previews rolling in my gaming group is kinda on the verge of abandoning Malifaux due to balance issues. The titles were really bad but there I still upheld the hope that the errata will fix the worst outliers and managed to keep the more pessimistic in our group still invested. But now each preview seems to cement more and more that there indeed is a big shift in power level of the game and if they nerf the problematic titles the game will be completely lopsided to favour the new stuff.

Cavalier has really been the final nail in the coffin hereabouts with just seemingly amazing stuff piled on top of other amazing stuff. Why are their stats so high? Why are they giving so many negative flips in Auras to enemies? Why are there two powerful Totems with Condition removal and healing? Why are there so many no-LOS things?

And Bayou was kinda lacking in that protector role so why, when they get something for that role, is it the best in the game in that role (well, outside of Cavalier...)? Isn't that just madness?

Now, I realize that I'm judging this stuff just based on cards and with zero actual games with these profiles but I'm the optimistic one in our gaming group - the rest have basically given up. Which breaks my heart since I've been playing this game since 1e beta and have an absolutely massive collection of painted models and love the world but without opponents it's not much use. And, as noted, I don't think that I like the direction that this game seems to be taking.

M3e was supposed to tone things down and streamline but now it seems like it's going beyond M2e in all the wrong ways  

I don't agree with some of the specific points about what will end up being broken, but agree with your overall point.

This is the third expansion, and so far every expansion has broken the game needing a massive set of nerfs that don't happen for over a year.

I'm hoping Balancefaux offers a fix for players feeling like that, but also realize quitting the game fixes the problem too 😕

Personally my playgroup is dying locally, but Id blame that more on the lack of a new player experience. It's just so hard to recruit players for Malifaux. "Only four factions have starters and one of them half the models are insignificant. Want to play?"

[ShinChan]

• For veterans: The game is becoming bloated, there's certain level of powercreep. There were bad models before, that never gonna see play with the new standard of what's becoming the baseline. There's a design swift where a bunch of new crews are getting the most powerful mechanic in the game: card draw.
  There are poor written abilities that raise more doubts about the game.
   
• For less experiences player: The game is really bloated. Most of the people won't play against every master/title in their lifetime. (I've played 311 games since GG1 and I haven't done that yet). Abilities and long lasting effects are becoming more complicated. It's quite difficult to be "up to speed".
   
• For newcomers: There isn't a good entry point to the game (what @Maniacal_cackle). Between masters and titles, there are way too many profiles in the game right now. More and more complicated mechanics. Abilities and triggers that do the same, but have complete different names. There isn't like a campaign system or similar "friendly entry" to the game to attract new players. We've been waiting for the henchman program to come back (or anything like that) to try to support small groups.

 

I'm not going to stop playing Malifaux, because it's a great game and probably the best I've played. However, me and bunch of people with whom I've talked, are feeling that the crazyness of M2E is coming back, and that's going to take a toll in the playerbase, which never fully recovered from bumpy M3E launch, Evergreen logistics shitshow and pandemic.

 

I don't know if BalanceFaux is the answer, I actually don't think so. However, in my opinion, it's a good "going back to the roots" that allows to take a pause from catching up with everything that's been launched in the past 2 years.

I also understand that Wyrd needs to keep selling to function, but here I am (and like me, many other people!), waiting for a couple of novels that collect all the lore, a new TOS starting box where both commanders have faces, a campaign system...

[SEV]

As much as I dislike balanced Faux as a format, I totally agree with @CapShinChan#2785  view on the state of the game. Something must be done, and at least @Maniacal_cackleis trying something. I hope that Wyrd will tackle those issue quickly. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, SEV said:

As much as I dislike balanced Faux as a format, I totally agree with @CapShinChan#2785  view on the state of the game. Something must be done, and at least @Maniacal_cackleis trying something. I hope that Wyrd will tackle those issue quickly. 

I think we can all agree that the ideal solution is that Wyrd fixes everything, yes xD

But in the meantime, I think this format will offer a lot, especially after the title errata (if it follows previous patterns, that'll be ~4 months into next year?)

[Math Mathonwy]

On 10/24/2022 at 10:10 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Personally my playgroup is dying locally, but Id blame that more on the lack of a new player experience. It's just so hard to recruit players for Malifaux. "Only four factions have starters and one of them half the models are insignificant. Want to play?"

I totally sympathize with the main problem of getting new people on board but I'm not sure that the starters are really the ideal way of starting Malifaux. I mean, I wouldn't suggest any of them as a first or second purchase that one should make when starting out. I think that starting out with the Master box that interests them the most and going from there. That said, I do see the appeal of having an easier and more generic starter to suggest as a starting point (I just don't see the current crop of starters really fulfilling that - they are more like a generic fine buy when you have settled on a faction and have a Master or two already).

 

13 hours ago, ShinChan said:

• There's a design swift where a bunch of new crews are getting the most powerful mechanic in the game: card draw. There are poor written abilities that raise more doubts about the game.

Yeah, the card draw has really gone crazy, hasn't it? And it's such a difficult mechanic to properly value compared to, e.g., stats or damage tracks. It's also weird in the sense that if you have a little card draw, it's especially valuable but if you loads it actually starts affecting the flips so I feel like the value keeps going higher but the effect changes somewhat. And then there are of course all the abilities that are balanced around the cost in cards.

13 hours ago, ShinChan said:

• We've been waiting for the henchman program to come back (or anything like that) to try to support small groups.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that such programs were all ended because Magic the Gathering judges sued Wizards of the Coast and the verdict was that they were seen as employees which naturally brings all sorts of additional things to consider for the company. And as a result all of these "volunteer promotion of a game for swag" -programs were killed since there's a real risk of litigation (and treating them as real employees isn't worth it by a long shot).

[LeperColony]

7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think we can all agree that the ideal solution is that Wyrd fixes everything, yes xD

While obviously you were being facetious here, I do think that Wyrd would be much, much better off with a more aggressive errata/faq release schedule closer to patch notes in video games. And that they also would be better off with a "public test server" section of the app with proposed changed cards.

[Plaag]

17 hours ago, ShinChan said:

• For veterans: The game is becoming bloated, there's certain level of powercreep. There were bad models before, that never gonna see play with the new standard of what's becoming the baseline. There's a design swift where a bunch of new crews are getting the most powerful mechanic in the game: card draw.
  There are poor written abilities that raise more doubts about the game.
   
• For less experiences player: The game is really bloated. Most of the people won't play against every master/title in their lifetime. (I've played 311 games since GG1 and I haven't done that yet). Abilities and long lasting effects are becoming more complicated. It's quite difficult to be "up to speed".
   
• For newcomers: There isn't a good entry point to the game (what @Maniacal_cackle). Between masters and titles, there are way too many profiles in the game right now. More and more complicated mechanics. Abilities and triggers that do the same, but have complete different names. There isn't like a campaign system or similar "friendly entry" to the game to attract new players. We've been waiting for the henchman program to come back (or anything like that) to try to support small groups.

 

I'm not going to stop playing Malifaux, because it's a great game and probably the best I've played. However, me and bunch of people with whom I've talked, are feeling that the crazyness of M2E is coming back, and that's going to take a toll in the playerbase, which never fully recovered from bumpy M3E launch, Evergreen logistics shitshow and pandemic.

 

I don't know if BalanceFaux is the answer, I actually don't think so. However, in my opinion, it's a good "going back to the roots" that allows to take a pause from catching up with everything that's been launched in the past 2 years.

I also understand that Wyrd needs to keep selling to function, but here I am (and like me, many other people!), waiting for a couple of novels that collect all the lore, a new TOS starting box where both commanders have faces, a campaign system...

agree-at the start m3e were much more balanced than now

and we all see wyrds behavior to players-errata includes few models, it comes 2 times/year, playtest includes not top players/pro testers

u can say that they are small company comparing to gw, but they could:

1) include almost all models in errata that need buff/nerf, update app and than sometime print new cards(all of us use app, but few use printed cards)

2) pay more attention to vassal games-many of them are recorded and u can see problems with some models almost everywhere if u have internet and if new release comes broken-nerf it faster than in half year

3) ask only top players to make playtest if u cannt hire pro; maybe make some programm to support them-send some mistery boxes for playtesters

[Maniacal_cackle]

9 hours ago, LeperColony said:

While obviously you were being facetious here, I do think that Wyrd would be much, much better off with a more aggressive errata/faq release schedule closer to patch notes in video games. And that they also would be better off with a "public test server" section of the app with proposed changed cards.

I think that probably most players wouldn't like this. I think most players play pretty casually, and if you had an aggressive errata/FAQ schedule like a video game, you'd probably end up with some players playing less than 10 games between each update.

So there's a bit of a balance to be had, and don't think it's as clear cut as "just errata more."

I think if they were more conservative with power levels of new models that'd go a long way, though.