Introducing... The BalanceFaux format!

[ShinChan]

I'm with @Maniacal_cackle in that topic. I think that more often than once every 9 months would be bad for the game.

Being more conservative with power levels is probably the way to go. I believe they mentioned in an interview once that they rather nerf a model to lower the overall power level of the whole Malifaux, which makes "strictly worse models" more playable, since the gap with better models is smaller.

However, since Burns we've seen models that were never seeing the table because they're terrible, being even worse when compared with new stuff.

Also, then there are nerfs that go way too hard, specially if we compare them when what's been released. As an illustrative example: François was heavily nerfed, because he was too good (which I agree with the statement, not with the nerf), but then they release models like "The Wall", who is arguably better than what François used to be.

[Jinn]

I personally like new content and profiles a lot, and would prefer a more aggressive errata schedule (especially buffs, those are way too sparse).

Playtesting does seem a lot more effective when it's more open, I remember how much explorers got nerfed in playtesting, only to still need errata post release, I shudder to think how bad it'd have been with less games testing them.

[Math Mathonwy]

They are also in a bit of a catch-22 now. If they nerf the Burns stuff down to the level of the errataed stuff from before, then the new releases will be even further from everything else for over a year's time. But if they don't, they have shifted the power level up for good and, as @ShinChanpoints out, that will invalidate massive amounts of profiles from competitive play for the foreseeable future.

I don't understand why the new models are so completely packed with stuff. If we look at John Watson, Warning Growl is an insane ability and then he's a healer - OK. Those should be the core. But why is Help Me Out Frederick 8" and no LOS? Why not 6" and LOS? Why is Emergency Syrette stat 7 and TN10? Why does the trigger let you pick two things one of which is drawing a card (yeah, two is in the name)? Why does his melee ignore HtW, HtK, and Armor? Why isn't his Heal limited to Living? At least he doesn't have baked in Triggers... But if you pack him this full, maybe give him Df 5 instead of 6? Maybe don't give him HtK as he can heal himself so effectively? And he isn't the worst from the bunch - it's just that everything seems to be set to eleven in the new set.

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

They are also in a bit of a catch-22 now. If they nerf the Burns stuff down to the level of the errataed stuff from before, then the new releases will be even further from everything else for over a year's time. But if they don't, they have shifted the power level up for good and, as @ShinChanpoints out, that will invalidate massive amounts of profiles from competitive play for the foreseeable future.

Yeah I think this will be a huge problem.

But of course if they nerf everything down to original levels and then there's a huge gap between Madness of Malifaux and everything else...

Then Balancefaux neatly solves that problem 😜

[LeperColony]

17 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

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.

Power creep is a serious issue, and part of that is due to the somewhat limited playtest pool, and part of it is due to design philosophy.

But a more aggressive errata/faq schedule means that individual changes can be smaller and encompass fewer models (even single keywords) because you're not trying to do everything you feel is important for the entire year.

Players playing less than 10 games between each update is not a problem if those games are better, and if errata are more targeted and limited because there's more of them, most players will see no change for those 10 games anyway.

What Wyrd should do is create a tier of "Provisional" cards (or some such) that is similar to DMH in that they are clearly identifiable and by default not-tourney legal, though individual TOs could let them in, that represent potential changes.

This would allow Wyrd to look at entire keywords and redesign them from the ground up, outside of the private playtest environment (which would still exist and serve as the "first pass" process) to where there could be sufficient games to get an actual sense of how well the changes are working.

Changes should then follow a "row, row, row your boat" sequence where various modifications are in progressive states, so that you have the devs working on ideas furthest from release, closed playtesters on "first pass," and then provisional cards being an open beta, with the goal of perhaps an official release single keyword revision once a quarter with two more in known development, subject to design resources, FAQs at a similar rate, and large rules errata yearly as we currently have.

At the end of this current release, we'll be looking at maybe ~750 models in Malifaux. Wyrd's current errata philosophy of maybe changing 10 models per year is simply insufficient, unless you want to be playing a balanced game in 2097.

One of the issues I see with Balancefaux is it is going to be a negative incentive for the strongest players to play the newly released material if they can't be used in tournaments. We can already see with DMH that models which technically exist, but aren't generally tournament legal, see much less play from the top players, even in their casual games. And it shouldn't be too hard to understand why, and I expect as a result of making new releases illegal for events, we'll see a significant drop in the number of people playing them. That means even if an errata cycle comes by, we're going to have learned a lot less about them and they're less likely to receive changes.

Balancefaux isn't inherently a bad idea, but it's not really solving the problem of imbalance, just delaying it.

[DuBlanck]

Unless Cackle's changed their stance, it maybe bears repeating that Balancefaux is a format suggestion for one sector/circuit of competitive play, not intended to entirely supplant Mainfaux in all tournaments - maybe you'll see a small reduction in 'top-tier' players playing new releases, but the overwhelming bulk will be events that run vanillafaux and attract the celebrity headliners by virtue of their wider player field.

Edit:

Unless your concern is that some those celebrity gits tend to main only two or three crews for months at a time, crews which won't be new releases if they can't play them in the big tournaments, in which case... fair point I guess.

[LeperColony]

27 minutes ago, DuBlanck said:

Unless Cackle's changed their stance, it maybe bears repeating that Balancefaux is a format suggestion for one sector/circuit of competitive play, not intended to entirely supplant Mainfaux in all tournaments - maybe you'll see a small reduction in 'top-tier' players playing new releases, but the overwhelming bulk will be events that run vanillafaux and attract the celebrity headliners by virtue of their wider player field.

Edit:

Unless your concern is that some those celebrity gits tend to main only two or three crews for months at a time, crews which won't be new releases if they can't play them in the big tournaments, in which case... fair point I guess.

I'm looking at the concept assuming it were employed in a statistical meaningful environment, like say the Vassal World Series. But really no matter how wide spread the meta(s) it is used in, every time it is used, it means (by definition) fewer games with those models during the very errata cycle that would be used to evaluate them.

Would the difference in games be significant in terms of evaluating the models? Hard to say but if I had to guess, probably not, unless it became the default for the widest participation online events. 

But it is a difficult effect to evaluate since I have little insight on how Wyrd decides what to review in its yearly errata, the information they use to make their assessments, and what, if any, testing the changes go through.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Interestingly the top 16 just had to evaluate how they were going to handle Madness of Malifaux since now it won't be released in time for the event and may release mid-event.

The players for the event were a bit split on the vote, but was a narrow win for just banning all Madness of Malifaux content (including Damian).

So the championship for this year isn't going full Balancefaux, but it is banning Madness of Malifaux content.

[TeddyBear]

I am just reading this topic now, and I find it to be a very good idea. More and more players (me also) are noticing a growing "gap" between old and new keywords. I recently made a question/suggestion for the Dreamer in the Nb section. It would be nice to be able to review the first masters back to competitive levels, but actually this could be the easiest way.

[Armour]

So how are people feeling about the Balancefaux format, now that the November errata has cut the best Malifaux Burns master titles down to size?

Are the Madness crews just going to run away with everything at this point?

[Math Mathonwy]

I am extremely worried about the Madness stuff. But I guess time will tell. The errata probably makes it so that Burns can now be included into BalanceFaux so on that front it delivered. Though I was really looking forward to some buffs as well.

[Plaag]

lj2 and pandora2 get buffed, yannik not nerfed, tara2 still can make same with talos...

[Azahul]

2 hours ago, Plaag said:

lj2 and pandora2 get buffed, yannik not nerfed, tara2 still can make same with talos...

Talos can't be buried so his threat ranges are way less problematic.

[Plaag]

15 minutes ago, Azahul said:

Talos can't be buried so his threat ranges are way less problematic.

16"  range for 1 atack is big

and it can be made with 2 activation

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 hours ago, Armour said:

So how are people feeling about the Balancefaux format, now that the November errata has cut the best Malifaux Burns master titles down to size?

Are the Madness crews just going to run away with everything at this point?

I've certainly had some people go  "oh  Balancefaux seems really appealing now!"

Will update the format soon (in a new post).