The less biased Great Joker Debate

[Toonook]

I play Ressers and I support the Red Joker as is. I've had my ass saved by H2W stopping my opponents from cheating in high damage FAR more than I've had my H2W used against me to chase red jokers. It's part of the mystique of Malifaux, if you want to remove random luck from the game you play competitively, then go and play chess.

Edit: I now have a burning desire to make a chess set for each faction.

[Malovane]

Edit: I now have a burning desire to make a chess set for each faction.

Could probably go so far as to do each master.

King - aNico

Queen - Bete Noire

Pawns - Mindless Zombies

Bishops - Hanged

Knights - Dead Riders

Rooks - Punk Zombies

King - Mcmourning

Queen - #29

Pawns - Dogs

Bishops - Nurses

Knights - Rogue Necro

Rooks - Flesh Constructs

King - Seamus

Queen - Sybelle or Molly

Pawns - Rotten Belles

Bishops - Dead Doxies

Knights - Crooligans

Rooks - Drowned

[Wulfen]

Completely anecdotal facts.

Adepticon: (Forgot about this until now)

Cake Match... Playing against Spoon

Turn 2, Dead Rider Red Jokered off the board in one ranged hit. (He had the purpose with H2W2)

Not sure how many rezzers are here, but Dead Rider is kind of important to a rezzer list when you spend the points on him.

THIS WEEK:

My first and only two games at my new gaming store.

Two games with red joker flips on negative flips against my Seamus crew.

The first bringing aSeamus from 9 wounds to 1 (Hard to Kill saved his life, until his attacker hit him a second time with his next AP)

The second was last night as a gremlin blew an uninjured belle off the table in one shot. (not game ending, but certainly not helpful)

Someone somewhere above made the silly comment that if you are putting yourself in a position where a red joker flip could affect the game so much, then you were playing bad and I just laugh at that. aSeamus could not have been in a better place surrounded by models that were all about to learn how "wicked" he is.

Some crews quite simply have linchpin workhorses. I simply do not agree that one flip ought to have such a *LARGE* variation in expected outcome as to cripple how an entire crew works by removing its key model.

People can argue stats and "what they like" or what "should be" all day long. These have simply been my experiences and they are what forms my views.

I get that other peoples experiences are different. It would be super if they could recognize the same and stop acting like there is an objective truth in any of this or that anyone that thinks red jokers have too much of a swing are simply BAD players...

This is just the same as me setting up positive flips to get Sonnia's blasts off in critical situations, with a severe or RJ to cheat with, and flipping the BJ for damage. One game alone I have flipped THREE Black Jokers for damage, in cases where it has cost me games. Are these cases not massive swings in games?

The jokers are fine.

Edit: this game is about more than just expected outcomes.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Wulfen

[Gruesome]

Edit: this game is about more than just *LARGE* variation.

Fixed that for you.

The jokers are fine.

Well, if you say so...

[rancor709]

While i agree the game is more than just expected outcomes rapid shifts in fate and activily cycling occurs the issue is when this occurs. It can brilliantly thematic but also incredibly frustrating. The mechanics are what they are. Personally i have mixed feelings on them the primary issue is i cant as a resser player expect my bigstuff to survive and sone games in order to succeed i need them 2. H2w2 only true upaide is against weapons with +damage flips. Otherwise it can be extremely help to bring jokers up. It stops the cheating in of damage but ultimately can ensure those models die. Its saved me and killed me but ultimately its an interesting debate on both sides. One that just needs more testing

[Lungboy]

As a counterpoint, a red joker helped aSeamus one-shot my Bad Juju the other day, so it's not like it only works against Ressers.

[Gruesome]

As a counterpoint, a red joker helped aSeamus one-shot my Bad Juju the other day, so it's not like it only works against Ressers.

I am not sure that qualifies as a counterpoint as its sort of... you know... the point?

I do feel like re-stating though that I voted against changing red joker and would rather see a slight change to Hard to Wound...

[Lungboy]

I had the feeling that everyone was focussing on it being Ressers that suffer from this, but it works equally for and against everyone. You don't even need H2W to do it, so i don't think the H2W mechanic needs to change.

[dgraz]

The thread is starting to deteriorate into the same old thing. The same arguments are being repeated....people are starting to get angry and are attacking each other.....forcing two 'top hats' to come in and warn people to keep it clean.

Obviously a bit over a hundred people is not a huge pool......but I think an over 80% vote so far, that has never dipped below that number, is a fair indicator that maybe it's time to give up the fight over changing the RJ.

[Forar]

I see the Black and Red Jokers as a similar mechanic to the "Natural 1/20" in Dungeons and Dragons; overwhelming failure/success.

And similarly there are people who love and hate that mechanic as well. Some feel it's not a good game mechanic where you always have at least a 5% chance of success or failure no matter the odds otherwise. Others work to make the mechanics even more extreme, adding extra damage multipliers (sometimes requiring further rolls), bonus effects or even critical hit/failure tables that can range from minor impediments to your character managing to stab themselves in the throat and dying immediately.

The end result is that there are at least three camps involved; those who feel it's too extreme, those who feel it's not extreme enough, and those caught in the middle, with varying shades of grey in between those cornerstones where people have less easily/conveniently classified opinions.

Even as a newcomer to the game and the forums, I cannot see any given group (especially the extremes) ever convincing the other. The best resolution in my eyes would be that players work within their own groups, and if they feel strongly enough, to ask stores and/or Wyrd for an 'official' tournament varient that removes the Jokers from use (though that's not a good idea as some models interact with them in other ways) or simply make them a 0/14 - weak/severe.

Even as a newer player with less than a dozen games under my belt, I've already had clutch moments where I flipped a black joker (especially on damage) and it likely cost me the game (killing the target would've been key), or flipped red and a figure ripped another in half. Had one game where Teddy flipped red on damage and nearly wrecked my Peacekeeper in a single hit (would've killed it outright had my Guardian not been providing an armour bonus).

And yet I don't see this as a horrific negative. The swingyness of the system/deck mechanic allows for a minorly (but not entirely) controlable/manipulatable tweaking of ones chances. I can't say I've yet cheated up or down in the hopes of tagging a Joker, but it has noted that sometimes making your opponent flip 10% or more of their remaining deck can become risky, even though far more often than not (mathmatically) it's just going to toss a weak into the lineup.

It's a matter of preference, and liking or disliking the mechanic doesn't make one a bad person. The alternatives are to play something else (and I say that without snark; people shouldn't play things they don't like), see if their group is amenable to trying out an alteration of the rules, and ask Wyrd if they might be willing to look into it, if not as a full rules change, then as an optional variant of the game, or a possible Tournament option, whatever.

Edit: alt response: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Edited July 13, 2012 by Forar

[Fetid Strumpet]

Dgraz, I don't think those that those dislike how the Red Joker interacts with certain rules are going to change their mind, nor if the poll had been completely flipped about and 80% felt the opposite way would I expect you to change yours, and therefore be silent about it. It's just a contentious issue that is going to most likely always be a part of the game as long as the mechanics stay what they are, which is certainly Wyrd's prerogative.

My dislike of the current mechanic stems from having played mostly ressers for a good while. In that time I can't count the amount of times I've had an important model killed because the red joker came up on multiple negative flips. I can only think of two or three times in the year and a half I've been playing that it has ever come up on a model without hard to wound.

Now certainly that could just be down to luck of the draw, and in my case I could certainly be a statistical outlier, but it still doesn't change my opinion of it.

I guess my counter argument to those that say H2W is so unbelievably awesome because it basically says your opponent can't cheat for dmg vs you, I shrug because it is so rare that a hit even does get to cheat dmg in my experience. Most of the time if you hit you are going to be at a negative flip anyway, because in my experience, you very rarely ever get 6 higher in number on the attack than on the Df, unless it is a master or uber combat model coming in to do the job, in which case even taking min dmg your model is going down fast anyway so H2W is of minimal value in such a case.

I can certainly respect the opinions of those who think the mechanic is fine, even those who play ressers and think even H2W is fine with how it interacts. They are certainly entitled to their opinion, and their interpretation of how the game should work is just as valid as mine. However, I've not had my opinion changed by any of the arguments put forth that the mechanic is just fine, and I will not be silent about voicing my opinion if asked. I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree and be as civil as possible to each other whenever the issue pops up again, as we all know it will, like a proverbial Red Joker Flip, in the future.

[Guy in Suit]

I guess my counter argument to those that say H2W is so unbelievably awesome because it basically says your opponent can't cheat for dmg vs you, I shrug because it is so rare that a hit even does get to cheat dmg in my experience. Most of the time if you hit you are going to be at a negative flip anyway, because in my experience, you very rarely ever get 6 higher in number on the attack than on the Df, unless it is a master or uber combat model coming in to do the job, in which case even taking min dmg your model is going down fast anyway so H2W is of minimal value in such a case.

At higher levels of competitive play this is demonstrably false. Players don't waste AP taking pot-shots unless you have high minimum damage or long range (This is why Von Schill is so beloved on the interwebz - you can play him like a n00b and still get good results)

Instead, you work to set up charges or focused/channeled spells to do severe damage and prevent the opponent from responding.

HTW is an excellent ability. I still say it is ALWAYS better to prevent the ABSOLUTE Red Joker Damage via your opponent cheating it in while being left open the HIGHLY UNLIKELY event that it appears on a negative flip. You say you can't count the times you've lost models to RJ flips, then think of how much harder it would be to count the order of magnitude greater number of times you would have lost models to RJ's if they had been cheated against you!

You going to Gencon? If so lets play a pick up game and I will let you swap HTW for Armor on any Resser model you want. Will be an interesting experiment.

[dgraz]

I agree that it wouldn't change my mind if the poll were reversed, but I would be mostly quiet about it.....maybe the occasional zinger here and there or when asked about it like you said. But I certainly wouldn't derail and clog up dozens of pages of threads with an issue that doesn't have a ghost of a chance of being changed.

It's not going to change. Period. There's not enough demand for it - the poll proves this. If I had that much of a problem with it but still wanted to play the game I would house-rule it and move on.

I love WWII Naval games but can't find a decent one that's not bogged down with tons of rules. Victory at Sea was my favorite but it had lots of issues.....I virtually re-wrote the entire rule-set so some of us could play it a few times.

As far as your argument goes, that's Meta in my opinion. I play as Arcanists a lot vs Rezzers and with most of them having 1 for minimum damage I am constantly striving to get to an even flip so I can at least put moderate damage on. Whereas I don't struggle like that against any other faction.

[Buhallin]

My dislike of the current mechanic stems from having played mostly ressers for a good while. In that time I can't count the amount of times I've had an important model killed because the red joker came up on multiple negative flips. I can only think of two or three times in the year and a half I've been playing that it has ever come up on a model without hard to wound.

Even assuming there's no perceptual bias going on here (which I'm sorry, but there has to be), this is a flawed analysis.

If you're worried about H2W, the question isn't how many times a model with H2W eats the Red Joker. Of course if you play with mostly H2W models, that's what's usually going to get hit by the Joker. The question is how often H2W made the difference in the Joker showing up.

You say most flips end with a - I agree with Guy in Suit that even flips are way more common than you portray, but we'll go with it. So that means most flips you're going to be flipping two cards. Adding Hard to Wound 1 increases it by 1 card. Which card the Joker shows up on is very important. First card flipped, it was going to hit you no matter what. Second card, you were going to catch it because of the you usually see. If and only if it was the last card flipped did H2W actually make a difference.

I never, EVER see anyone presenting these numbers in their anecdotes. And unless you've got them, and take careful notes, you don't really have an accurate feel for how H2W is actually affecting you. This is also why I question your "can't count the times vs. 2-3 in the 18 months". By the structure you've laid out, a H2W1 model is 50% more likely to see a Joker flip (3 cards vs. 2), and H2W2 is twice as likely (4 vs 2). That's not just luck, that's not a statistical outlier, it's so unlikely as to be effectively impossible.

Dgraz, I don't think those that those dislike how the Red Joker interacts with certain rules are going to change their mind, nor if the poll had been completely flipped about and 80% felt the opposite way would I expect you to change yours, and therefore be silent about it. It's just a contentious issue that is going to most likely always be a part of the game as long as the mechanics stay what they are, which is certainly Wyrd's prerogative.

I don't think dgraz expects anyone to change their mind. At the risk of putting words in his mouth, I think he feels that this issue draws an inordinate amount of discussion given the number of people who actually think it's a problem. Put another way, the vocal minority is VERY vocal, and given that Wyrd seems universally content with the way it works, there's not much point in killing that many electrons discussing it every other week.

[Gruesome]

It would be nice if people did not treat forum posting like a zero-sum game.

By that, I mean that in some way, that talking about one thing PREVENTS other things being discussed as if you are in some way limited to a post count and every post "spent" on RJ is taking away from everything else.

People that like to say things like "move on"... Should.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Gruesome

[Math Mathonwy]

It's not going to change. Period. There's not enough demand for it - the poll proves this.

The poll doesn't prove anything of the sort. Designing games isn't a democratic process (and thank God for that!). What were the poll results for Alp cuddle? For the bury change? For the Levi change? I wouldn't be at all surprised if a poll would've shown the same percentages.

If I had that much of a problem with it but still wanted to play the game I would house-rule it and move on.

How much of a problem? How did you quantify the amount of problem I or other people have with Red Joker?

[Guy in Suit]

What were the poll results for Alp cuddle? For the bury change? For the Levi change? I wouldn't be at all surprised if a poll would've shown the same percentages.

And your lack of surprise would not surprise me.

[Gruesome]

So, you would not be surprised by his surprising lack of surprise of the surprising... um. surprise.

[Ratty]

But what Surprises me is the fact that you needed to post about your lack of Surprise when you already knew that the other person already wouldn't be surprised by it...

This is getting silly.

[Guy in Suit]

A long rebuddle was brewing in my mind, but complacency set in.

The numbers speak for themselves, so onwards and upwards.

[Gruesome]

This is getting silly.

Are you... <tee hee>

... surprised??

[Jonas Albrecht]

It strikes me that, with this thread, we have a place to discuss the topic, and that the calls to stop talking about it would be best served by starting other, more interesting topics.

Anyway, a couple of pages back, Qi got the question right. Namely "does the Red Joker interact with H2W in the intended manner?" That's what I'm interested in. Do people fielding crews where models have H2W in abundance have a greater chance of the Red Joker being used against them in a damage flip? Unquestionably, and by a wide margin. Would the game benefit from looking at the relationship between Hard to Wound and damage flips? Maybe.

[Dustcrusher]

I agree with Fetid as to why Hard to Wound isn't as awesome as some think. It's my perception- I'm not saying it's fact. I can have that if I want, and, in turn, you can think I’m wrong/misguided/delusional/stupid/the f---ing worst gamer in history all you want. Our respective prerogatives (there’s that word again).

Calling people "whiners" and effectively telling them to “STFU and L2PN” is rude and certainly won't win me over.

Here's my take on the real issue here- Hard to Wound. I can understand why people think it's fine the way it is, and it's not like it completely ruins the game for me as it stands. That said, I don't like it when I'm told to shut up just because of a difference of opinion. I'm being civil and respectful to the best of my ability (it was, for a moment, tempting not to be):

I'd like to see Hard to Wound tweaked, or some models with HtW given a special rule that tones down the RJ a little on a damage flip. Seamus being nailed for 11 in one go because someone farmed the Red Joker on a :-fate:-fate is, in my opinion, weaksauce and goes against the intent of Hard to Wound.

Seamus and whether or not he's fine is another issue for another time, he's just the most prominent example of HtW2.

That said, I've given up on the HtW/RJ interaction ever being changed. It's simply not going to happen because too few of us think it's a problem, and as far as I can see, most (if not all) of us play Ressers.

Again, I would love to hear that the Marshals/Powers That Be will, during the development of Malifaux 2.0, examine the Red Joker mechanics to ensure they are working as intended. The game has changed a lot since the first book, and I would assume that for a game to truly be a second edition that everything would need to be examined top to bottom, and no cow should be sacred. If they think it's fine as it is (I suspect they do), then as I said in my earlier post, so be it.

[Buhallin]

goes against the intent of Hard to Wound.

Given the input from a number of top hats, is there truly still some lingering question as to the actual intent here? How many times and in how many ways do they have to say it?

If you don't like the way it works, fine - that's up to every player. But I think they've made the "intent" pretty clear, and this ongoing charade that Wyrd has somehow failed to grasp that they screwed up implementing H2W and they still just haven't realized it... well, I think that ship has sailed. And got caught in a hurricane. And blown into the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. And if that place is nasty in our world, what's it like in Malifaux?

[Jonas Albrecht]

If you don't like the way it works, fine - that's up to every player. But I think they've made the "intent" pretty clear, and this ongoing charade that Wyrd has somehow failed to grasp that they screwed up implementing H2W and they still just haven't realized it... well, I think that ship has sailed.

Wyrd has made quite a few mistakes in the mechanics of Malifaux, why not this one?