Malifaux- Game balance between masters

[shekbo]

Malifaux, game balance.

Let me start off by saying that I like this game. I really do. I think the figs are amazing and the rules are innovative and fun. The issue that I want to discuss today however, is balance.

On the surface the rules for creating a crew (Masters cost 0, minions cost SS and the difference is made up in extra SS) are simple and easy to use. The problem is that they only work if the Masters are balanced. If Som'er Teeth and Lilith both cost 0 to add to your crew they should be equally powerful. I've heard an interview with the developers where they claim that the game underwent rigorous play testing and the masters were tweaked numerous times to make them balanced.

Let me take the aforementioned Lilith and Som'er Teeth as an example. Some may claim that this is an extreme example, but that's actually my point. There really shouldn't be extremes if things are balanced.

Looking at stats first. Lilith is better across the board. There is not one stat where Som'er is better. That 8Df is tough

Soulstone cache: Lilith 4 Som'er 0

Weapons: Lilith has the better overall weapon in terms of stats but Som'er does have a ranged weapon to even that up.

Abilities: Lilith has 5 pretty powerful abilities. Som'er Teeth has only 4 and 3 of them are actually harmful to his side!

Check it out: Lilith gets one extra C-card (then must discard 1) Som'er gets one less C-card

Lilith's sword does +1 card damage and strikes during a disengage. Som'er's damages an ally if he misses.

Lilith has poison blood and Som'er is limited in who can be in his crew.

Lilith can ignore terrain for movement and LOS and Som'er finally gets somtehing good... he can draw 2 cards if one of his crew DIES near him.

Maybe Actions will be more equal: again Lilith has 5. Som'er has 3

Lilith is +1 Fast and so is Som'er (if he takes a wound)

Som'ers best = Heal a model within 2". Lilith's best, make a greatsword strike against EVERY model within 2"

Triggers and Spells:

Som'er starts to have potential.. He can kill a something to summon a pig and he can injure a gremlin to summon another.

Lilith can create a forest, and an earthquake.

Som'er can also make the opponent discard control cards. But he takes damage to do it.

Lilith can cause 2 models to switch places.

Oh and let's not forget Som'ers crowning Spell... Pull my finger.

So, explain to me, in game terms, how these 2 masters are balanced enough that they both cost the same to your crew??

[Subötai]

Don't forget Som'er Teeth's composition restrictions.

[shekbo]

that's what I meant by limited in who can be in his crew.

[Rathnard]

I think you're looking at this far too simplistically.

It's not just a matter of looking at two masters in isolation and pairing off stats/abilities. You need to look at how the Master functions as a whole, both with his/her available crew and when comparing missions or prospective opponents.

On the whole, Lilith is a beatstick, while So'mer is a support/shooting Master. Lilith is all about running up and smashing faces in, while So'mer is mostly about supporting your gremlins and cheating out some massive damage with the boomstick.

So trying to compare Lilith vs So'mer is like comparing an AK-47 with a microwave. Sure, an AK-47 has some very obvious uses, but it's no good when all you want to do is heat up your noodles.

So is one better than the other? That depends on what situation you're in.

[Angus Khan]

I agree with Rathnard... The balance comes when the crew is taken as a whole. In your example with Lilith and S'omer both masters may not be able to go head to head, but a wise gremlins player will use his crew to prevent a one-on-one fight since he knows he will lose. Masters may "cost" the same, but their crew is just as integral to the master's balance as their actual stat line.

[Iron Man]

lol @ ratnard that is a very good comparison.

i would suggest the idea that some masters are supposed to be harder to play, to make the game more interesting to those experienced gamers who want more of a challenge. Its why you have halfling and goblin teams in bloodbowl, so those who are genuinely better at the game can handicap themselves without going easy on the opponent.

if your not playing in a tournament then playing to win is secondary to playing in character, and sometimes characters like somer teeth jones are more fun to play. Winning is fun, but i would hope that if an opponent found a strategy that would beat me every time despite my best efforts, then they would be the ones to give up that strategy in the hopes of making a more fun and interesting game.

[shekbo]

so you're saying that if we look at the Gremlin crews vs the Nephilim crews then the difference in masters would be accounted for?

Or are you saying, hey, gremlins are more fun and winning isn't everything?

if it's the first then sure, we should look deeper.

If it's the 2nd, then well... That's a cop out for the game rules. A crew can be fun to play and still be able to win.

I realize that these masters are meant to be used in very different ways but my point is that within the game they are of equal value.

And I guess, deep in my Gremlin loving heart, my question is, why is Som'er Teeth screwed over? Why saddle him with all these handicaps like Whoops and Ill Fated. It just doesn't make sense to me. It's not like the other Gremlin abilities are so powerful that they need to be reined in with these handicaps.

[shekbo]

I'm looking at this as a skirmish level wargame and in a wargame if you told me I could have either an AK-47 or a microwave, same cost... I'm taking the AK-47 every time. I can heat my noodles later.

[SuicideCommando]

I'm looking at this as a skirmish level wargame and in a wargame if you told me I could have either an AK-47 or a microwave, same cost... I'm taking the AK-47 every time. I can heat my noodles later.

Then take the AK-47?

[Angus Khan]

Then take the AK-47?

I agree, if winning is what's important to you then take Lilith and leave the gremlins at home.

[Justin]

I am a gremlin player. My good friend who got into Malifaux at the same time as me is a Lilith player. And I must tell you, I have had the exact same questions, and come to the same conclusions.

Sommer is worse than Lilith. Period. In fact, he is probably the weakest master in the game.

Sure, you can look at the crew as a whole, but Sommer has all of five models he can choose from, Lilith has the entire neverborn section plus mercenaries. I'm not going to go into detail, but that round goes to Lilith as well.

Next we can look at the missions, since some people have mentioned avoiding Lilith's crew and accomplishing objectives. There are five. One is assassinate. If gremlins draw this against Lilith, it's basically an auto lose. No way they can accomplish it with her defense 8 and great movement. Next we have slaughter, well, gremlins are definitely going head to head there, aren't they? Claim jump and treasure hunt, the gremlin's objective is in the dead center of the board. All Lilith has to do is get there and, well, good luck avoiding her and accomplishing your objective. The only chance gremlins have against Lilith is reconnoiter, and even with that game (against Lilith) my experience has been that I tie, because I usually have no way in hell of keeping Lilith from accomplishing her objective.

So, yeah, Lilith is infinitely better than sommer. I'd say you'd have about a 1 in 5 chance of maybe tying when you play her.

It's. Not. Balanced.

But, all that said, if you look at the (rather short) history of this game and it's erratas, you can kind of see what happened. One of the first erratas was to make survival of the fittest only trigger once per every gremlin dying. This means that prior to this errata (and, more importantly, in the initial playtest) sommer was potentially drawing four (or more depending on his list) cards every time a gremlin died. It probably wasn't that hard to draw your entire deck into your hand. This is obscenely powerful, and the whole gremlin crew was probably balanced against this potential. But, once it was released to the public, this ability was clearly abused and, subsequently erratad. Unfortunately, this left the gremlins lacking.

Now, you still might be disappointed because you mentioned how you say one of the creators said the game was "thoroughly playtested" before it was released, so you might be wondering about how something like I mentioned above slipped through the cracks. But, you know, things like that happen, even with thorough playtesting, and especially to such a new company with their first game. And at least they erratad the obscene card draw rather than leave it and deny the problem, like most other companies probably would have.

At the moment gremlins are probably the hardest crew to play; they are, making any excuses otherwise will just result in frustration. But if you accept them for what they are you can have some real fun with them. And Lilith, well, just avoid her...

And I have very good faith, judging by Wyrd's fantastic track record of listening to its fans and willingness to admit and fix problems, that in subsequent releases the gremlins will swing back to the moderate end of the power scale.

I also must say, most masters are actually very well balanced.

Edited March 27, 2010 by Justin

[Justin]

I agree, if winning is what's important to you then take Lilith and leave the gremlins at home.

It's not about winning every game. It's about at least having a close game. Knowing the outcome as soon as you see the other person's models is neither fun for you, nor them. So I understand the OPs problems.

But I'm also rather happy with the balance and dynamics of this game, on the whole. But certain situations are rather frustrating.

[Rathnard]

so you're saying that if we look at the Gremlin crews vs the Nephilim crews then the difference in masters would be accounted for?

Almost. You need to look at the Gremlin Crew, Nephilim crew, the missions/schemes that each would play and every Master/crew they might face to get some idea of how balanced So'mer is compared to Lilith.

I'm looking at this as a skirmish level wargame and in a wargame if you told me I could have either an AK-47 or a microwave, same cost... I'm taking the AK-47 every time. I can heat my noodles later.

In Malifaux, sometimes the objective of the game is to heat your noodles.

Look, I'm not going to try and prove that So'mer and Lilith are balanced in a direct matchup because as above, I've never played with/against either master.

What I do know, however, is Pandora. So why not compare how the Masters fare against her?

Vs Lilith: I'm facing a combat monster, sure, but her Wp isn't too high and it's likely that none of her crew will have any serious shooting, let alone blast effects. Obviously I need to keep the hell away from her and her nephs but short of that, I'm confident that I could seriously mess her up if I needed to engage her directly.

Vs So'mer: The entire crew has low wp. You'd think would put them at a disadvantage against Pandy, but that isn't the entire picture. The crew has a access to ALOT of blast weapons, and has the means to easily bounce them off nearby gremlins/sorrows to hit Pandy. There's also "pull my finger", which gets around the Wp duel and some decent control hand manipulation to ensure So'mer has the cards he needs, when he needs them.

Basically, I'm alot more concerned about facing So'mer than I am fighting Lilith.

So...by my assessment (ie. fighting against Pandy), I can conclude that So'mer is a much better master than Lilith.

Edited March 27, 2010 by Rathnard

[Amarel]

Interesting topic, and I think it's firstly worth pointing out that balancing this many models against, and with, each other is an immensely difficult task, and to have got so many so close in such a relatively short space of time is nothing short of amazing.

With all that said, yes there are some Masters and some match-ups which are clearly less than ideal, there's also some Masters which require a specific play style which won't suit a lot of better, some Masters with a steeper learning curve and some Masters who work better and different points levels.

Take Pandora, when Malifaux was first released the general consensus was that she was a very bad master, fast forward a few months and people work her out a little better and now she's all but impossible for many people to defeat. Another example is the Viktorias who people thought were amazing for a couple weeks until they stopped just charging blindly at each other and then discovered that the Viktorias have nothing to give if they're not in melee (fairly easy to avoid).

Continuing on Viktoria she's a Master that works best at higher points levels. At 25ss both she and her crew are easily outmatched by other Masters who can take most of her crew anyway and have extra Soul Stones as well. At 35ss the savings she makes in hiring her crew start to kick in and other factions only have a small percentage of their crew made up from them. Although I do still think she needs a defensive mechanism of some sort to round her off .

TLDR: Amazing job by Wyrd getting the Masters as balanced as they are, some Masters are better than others in various ways but never in all ways, I am obsessed with the Vik twins having something to help them live a little longer.

[shekbo]

I apologize if I sound like a whiner in these posts. I'm a long time gamer and I'm interested in game design and mechanics. I always find myself wondering what logic the designers had in mind with particular game mechanics.

In this case for instance, why give Som'er Teeth so many de-buffs? Was it like Lalochezia said and he was initially over-powered and they added stuff to tone him down?

I'm gonna keep playing my Gremlins (I like underdogs anyway) but I'm also going to continue to wonder about the rationale behind giving them so many disadvantages.

[SuicideCommando]

I believe Wyrd has implied that they are going to continue developing the gremlins and including new options in the next book, so it's not a bad idea to hold on to them if you like their style. I'd recommend getting another faction/crew in the meantime if you're up for it though, variety is the spice of life after all.

[Pavic]

I'm also going to continue to wonder about the rationale behind giving them so many disadvantages.

Prior the errata, Som'er and crew were the best card drawing mechanism in the game. In fact, it was actually possible to draw your entire deck into your hand and then drop only the 13's and Red Joker back into your deck, ensuring that anything you did not only went off, but decimated your opponent.

This of course resulted in the dramatic changes that have occurred. Unfortunately, with the debuffs already built into Som'er and crew, this severely weakened Gremlins in general. I fully expect that the Gremlins will see significant improvement in the next book, or they might actually see some additional errata (though I think this is less likely). However, that being said, the Voodoo Doll received a very nice piece of errata, namely giving Poison 2 to the conduited model every turn, which was a significant improvement for Zoraida and crew, so maybe additional errata is not completely out the window.

Edited March 28, 2010 by Pavic

[shekbo]

Thx Pavic,

That explains a lot. It also means that as a Gremlin player.... they owe us! :-)

[Joona]

For some reason I don't consider Gremlins to be that weak. Just take the enemies cards away and feed them to the pigs. Your bound to do something at some point. Usually you can also force your opponent to activate most of their crew before you call your pigs in with a Sooey. Most of the time your crew can outnumber the enemy around 2:1 or even more. And a Gremlins Luck from a Mosquito usually makes your enemy cry. If someone gets painfully close to Som'er, take their cards and use Boomer with Dumb Luck for some nice damage. Or swarm them with the small fry.

Of course I have to admit that they aren't the perfect do it all crew that always devastates your enemy but who is? Assasinate might be a hard strategy with Gremlins but so it is against the Gremlins too, Slaughter is completely impossible against Gremlins. There's pretty much no one who can stop Gremlin's from getting full points from Reconnoiter, Treasure Hunt shouldn't be that hard either. Claim Jump depends a lot on your enemy. Even Lilith doesn't want to stand around all those Gremlins and their little blast markers while the pigs try to nibble at her toes.

Edited March 28, 2010 by Joona

[paperbag4]

I'm looking at this as a skirmish level wargame and in a wargame if you told me I could have either an AK-47 or a microwave, same cost... I'm taking the AK-47 every time. I can heat my noodles later.

I saw Steven Seagall blow up a room with a microwave. It doesn't have the mobility of the AK-47, but don't discount the microwave's stopping power.

[Cornelious1424]

I've been playing the Gremlins for a little bit now, and I have the disagree with you guys. From the experience at my local game shop, I've been doing really well with So'mer. He has two devastating spells in "Gremlins Luck", and "Pull My Finger". "Gremlins Luck" gives you ultimate hand control, which is huge in this game. Combined with the Mosquito's "Larva" all action, you can take advantage of "Survival of the Fittest" which allows you to draw 2 cards when a Gremlin is killed or sacrificed with in 6" of So'mer of the Hog Whisperer. You can have 10 cards while your enemy has none! Now "Pull My Finger" is just a pain in the ass spell (pun intended). So'mer can cast it and so can the skeeters. Draw the enemy close to you and swarm em'. If you have 4 Skeeters out and So'mer, you have the potential to dish out 14 damage to targets within a 6" bubble! When Lilith gets close to So'mer...fart on her face and watch her choke to her death, trust me I've done it before! Remember, "Pull My Finger" and "Gremlins Luck" cannot be resisted which makes them even better. The Gremlins are short changed compared to the rest of the factions...but if you use their tricks and forget about playing them straight up they can be very, very effective in almost any scenario.

[artificer]

I will start right off the bat by saying that I do believe there are a few balance issues, but not quite as severe as the OP posited.

One of the biggest factors that I feel affects in-game 'balance' is the random mission draw, and not just one but TWO (you+your opponent).

THIS IS NOT A BAD THING, this adds extra depth to the game - two players sometimes working toward wildly different purposes makes for some cool dynamics.

HOWEVER!, If you only have one master&crew, you are, in general, at a gross disadvantage to those who have the options of their entire faction.

I play Neverborn the most, so I'll use them as an example.

Pandora - I HATE Treasure Hunt and Reconnoiter with Pandy. I don't like it when my opponent has those either. She just isn't mobile enough with her primary crew choices to really make these fly.

Lilith. She's our go-to for tricky situations. She's not the best against crazy ranged attacks (guild), but if I've got you in melee then I've eliminated your shooting (and probably already won).

Her crew can be crazy-fast with the right cards, making assassination, treasure-hunt or Recon a dawdle.

The only time I'd think twice is against Viki. The Ronin are just too fast and hit too hard... Pandora might be better in this case, depending on the scenario.

Zoraida. She's not as offensive as Lilith, or as Passive-Aggressive as Pandy, but for certain situations she's aces. With the voodoo doll and obey she can be insanely frustrating to play against. Nothing is funnier than making a Ronin stab Viki over and over and over (or anybody else you need to get rid of).

Her Silurid can be extremely fast and slippery to hit, making Recon and T/H pretty easy. They don't pack the wallop of the Nephilim though.

Nearly every master in this game has bad matchups or scenarios that are just a pain. Some just have a bigger list than others of things that are difficult for them.

[PanzerKraken]

There are definite balance issues, though I think it's in large part to the whole style of armies/masters which create a very Paper/Rock/Sciccors environment to play. A particular master can sometimes just trump a certain other one because of it's ability/skill sets. It's kind of a toss up in which you can have a great list and suddenly get shut down by a specific master being put on the table.

[Lucidicide]

There are definite balance issues, though I think it's in large part to the whole style of armies/masters which create a very Paper/Rock/Sciccors environment to play. A particular master can sometimes just trump a certain other one because of it's ability/skill sets. It's kind of a toss up in which you can have a great list and suddenly get shut down by a specific master being put on the table.

Is it possible to get some examples of who trumps who? I just feel like I've seen plenty of posts saying "Arrrgh! How does X beat Y?" And every time people offer a number of strategies.

I have not seen posts where someone says the same and people response "Yeah, it can't be done."

It seems there is some consensus that some fights are more challenging (particularly Guild vs), but a challenge is good, right?

[dreadpiratelynx]

There are definite balance issues, though I think it's in large part to the whole style of armies/masters which create a very Paper/Rock/Sciccors environment to play. A particular master can sometimes just trump a certain other one because of it's ability/skill sets. It's kind of a toss up in which you can have a great list and suddenly get shut down by a specific master being put on the table.

I'll agree this is true to an extent if all you're doing is trying to wipe out the other crew, but if you concentrate on your Strategies/Schemes (and/or denying your opponent theirs) this really becomes less of an issue. Some games will be harder fought than others, but I don't think any match up is entirely impossible.