xeth1313 Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 This Extra credits video seems to sum up how I've felt the balance in Malifaux is very well. Any opinions? http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 (edited) Someone else posted this recently. I was happy to see my two favorite video games used as example. (League of Legends and Starcraft) The take-away for me, then as now, was the conclusion at the end of the importance to not make things that are good at everything. If someone can walk into a tournament with one list and do all strategies and schemes equally well as diverse opponents, then that list fails the test. That is assuming near equal player skills, which is a really tough assumption, mind you. Player skill gets glossed over a bit too much in most balance discussions. In a video game like SC or LoL, you have the benefit of hundreds of games against a diversity of opponents from all over the country(Or world) and ELO ranking to start finding your place within it. After even just 20 matches within either of those games you start finding your position relative to others. There is nothing even remotely close in the miniatures world. When you have 100 games behind your belt, your ranking is what you are. At the highest levels, it begins mattering if one race dominates because the math says the players are equally skilled. In Malifaux, we just do not know player skill to that degree and so it seems pretty clear that many make assumptions about it and when someone dominates with a faction, we knee-jerk blame the balance. That is leaving a large (Largest) variable out of the equation. Real knowledge of the player's skills... Edited August 24, 2012 by Gruesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmikehill Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Love it. Loved every second of that video! LoL and SC are perfect examples of two seperate game's balance. I love LoL because of it's imbalance, which is the same reason I also love Malifaux for it's imbalance. I don't see this game as imbalanced as everyone else seems to think it is. I'd like to think that given the proper interactions and the perfect crews for strategies you could accomplish almost any strategy when going against players with similar skill level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ciaran Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Thanks for posting this! I think it gets really easy for people to start arguing about imbalances they imagine. It gets worse when people get to the point of not being able to see their opinion as just that, and insist that it's actually fact. They'll then start finding "evidence" to back them up, ignoring any other input as it doesn't help their case, often dismissing it as blatant lies, and the message bearer as stupid, a bad player, and on and on ad nauseum. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmikehill Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 To give you some context to how hilairious League of Legends play can be, and how the whiner's do similar things, I'll give you an example of how people explain imbalance. New character comes out named Zyra, everybody complains when matched against her, she's too strong and needs to be cuddled into the ground. New character comes out named Diana, everybody complains when matched against her, needs cuddles blah blah blah Older champions fair well against the two new ones, people who use Zyra and Diana complain that they're underpowered and champions X(who beat that champ) needs Cuddling, after being in the game for about 2 years. Just something to ponder before whining Imba on the forums! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 New character comes out named Zyra, everybody complains when matched against her, she's too strong and needs to be cuddled into the ground. New character comes out named Diana, everybody complains when matched against her, needs cuddles blah blah blah To be fair though, they WILL cuddle them. They DO tend to release things a bit overpowered, but as close as they can get with internal testing to balance. But, the reality is, the community is much better at the game and will discover things that never occured to Riot. And Riot will then change them without an argument based upon the enormous number of statistics that they gather from every one of the millions of games played. They EXPECT that they will be changing things because they recognize there is too much complexity to have gotten things right the first time, regardless of their playtesting. They STILL tweak champions that have been out a year as more things are discovered. But, they have that luxury because they are a video game and a patch that automatically loads when the game does is considerably different than printed cards and books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undisclosed Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 It was something i considered posting in one of the previous balance discussions, but never got around to it. I agree its a great listen and makes you take a different thought process towards the issue of balance in a game. People in wargaming in my experience refer to the Chess type of balance as the one to be achieved, this made me think otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JisaacT Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Stop laughing get serious. Play HON. Just kidding. I'm a HON fan through and through. Can't wait for Dota 2 though. Anyways cool post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmikehill Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 HoN? That's so not Draven... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 HoN? That's so not Draven... hahahaha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dracomax Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 I think the other major difference between a video game and a miniatures game is cost of change--In a video game, it's relativly inexpensive(both in time cost, and in monetary cost) to switch from one Avatar/army/whatever to another in order to come out on top of the game's current meta. In a Miniatures game, the cost is generally much higher, both from having to purchase new models, and from having to paint, assemble, and learn the new crew. I think that's one reason why wargamers tend to want more evenly balanced armies--they don't want to have to do that any more than necessary to remain competitive, and after having done so. they don't want to find out the time and money spent turns out not to be at all helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boshea Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Reminds me of the TF2 approach to balance. If everything is broken, then everything is balanced. To be fair though, they WILL cuddle them. They DO tend to release things a bit overpowered, but as close as they can get with internal testing to balance. Fairly certain every new champion gets a cuddle/tweak within three patches of their release. Diana will likely be taking a ratio drop. I still a get a chuckle over the few weeks were Rumble was dominating top due to his bugs getting fixed but the compensations for them not being removed. MtG (eternal formats at least) I feel are a better comparison than LoL for comparing perfect imbalance for table top games. Mainly do to the slower process of bannings and adding new cards. Legacy is one of the healthiest MtG formats due to the large depth of cards available and the number of viable decks in the format. While the viable card pool doesn't expand as quickly as standard or modern each deck generally has option for their sideboard to counter decks they are weak against. I suppose a big factor to this is every set being designed with almost every format in mind, but every so often a mental misstep occurs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 MtG (eternal formats at least) I feel are a better comparison than LoL for comparing perfect imbalance for table top games. Mainly do to the slower process of bannings and adding new cards. The last time I played magic was called Mercadean(sp?) Masques. I remember that "rebel decks" were destroying everyone in tournaments until the meta dictated that something would trump the rebel mechanic... And it did, in the form of "Rising Waters" decks that were effectively mana lockdown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korrosion Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 To be fair though, they WILL cuddle them. They DO tend to release things a bit overpowered, but as close as they can get with internal testing to balance. But, the reality is, the community is much better at the game and will discover things that never occured to Riot. And Riot will then change them without an argument based upon the enormous number of statistics that they gather from every one of the millions of games played. They EXPECT that they will be changing things because they recognize there is too much complexity to have gotten things right the first time, regardless of their playtesting. They STILL tweak champions that have been out a year as more things are discovered. But, they have that luxury because they are a video game and a patch that automatically loads when the game does is considerably different than printed cards and books. So the solution for Wyrd is to release the new 5g-always-connected-auto-aupdating-cardtm so that they can push out patches and balance tweaks mid game right? How could that possibly be a bad idea?:Hiding_Puppet: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Wireless miniatures whose stats update live based upon performance in all games going on at the moment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich2 Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 So the solution for Wyrd is to release the new 5g-always-connected-auto-aupdating-cardtm so that they can push out patches and balance tweaks mid game right? How could that possibly be a bad idea?:Hiding_Puppet: If Wyrd developed an App for Iphone or my Kindle Fire or something where you could select your model cards out of a list and they'd all be there on the screen, minimized, and all you had to do was click it to maximize it and show front and back, I'd instantly pay up to USD $10 for it simply so I never have to deal with cards anymore. Not to mention if they had a thing that'd let you Tally Blight, Burning, etc Tokens, or how many Wds the model has suffered, or how many Corpse / Scrap Counters it has. That'd be something I'd easily sink .99-15.00 bucks in. Just my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcXON Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Aside from the genius idea of an APP, I have read some awesome things in this thread that I agree with. Throughout my experience with Malifaux I kept noticing certain combinations that ,to me at least, were game breaking. Librarian/Von Schill, Zoraida/Collodi, Chompy(pre-Errata)/Coppelius, and Nekima(pre-Errata)/Pandora/Twins. As you can tell Wyrd has been addressing these issues with time, and we have rejoiced that things are starting to look up for non NB players. I'm looking forward for a new edition of Malifaux. One where: 1. Arcanist models don't have lower wounds for no good reason 2. Guild has faster/mobile attackers (Judge/Sam with Hard to Kill for laughs), 3. Resser Living Models with better (easier to use at least) support abilities that are actually worth taking 4. Neverborn models actually require resources and the masters have less caches 5. Outcast Masters have a Cache higher than 0 (hell a 1 is better than nothing) 6. Gremlins have their own faction 7. In general Drain souls is either gone or Non-Master, Falling Back doesn't make you lose two turns on a model. Last year when I went to GenCon I had it in mind to win with NB because I thought Lord Chompy and Zoraida/Collodi were imbalanced. I couldn't play with my Chompy so I was forced to play with just Zoraida/Collodi. The fact that I actually got to Top table and lost to a Chompy crew kinda proved to me that imbalance a bit. I would really prefer to use my outcast and not feel hamstrung when facing certain combos if I picked the wrong master. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 I couldn't play with my Chompy so I was forced to play with just Zoraida/Collodi. ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcXON Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 ?? I didnt umm base my chompy crew....or any of my crews >.> Bill from the Gamer's Lounge lent me Collodi/Zoraida ./whistles I really gotta start painting more T-T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korrosion Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 I didnt umm base my chompy crew....or any of my crews >.> Bill from the Gamer's Lounge lent me Collodi/Zoraida ./whistles I really gotta start painting more T-T So you were the one we heard on TGL who played with the same crew for all of gencon 2011? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cats Laughing Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 So the solution for Wyrd is to release the new 5g-always-connected-auto-aupdating-cardtm so that they can push out patches and balance tweaks mid game right? How could that possibly be a bad idea?:Hiding_Puppet: You mean Warroom? :Hiding_Puppet: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korrosion Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 You mean Warroom? :Hiding_Puppet: No, not vaporware. I mean cards that actually have wifi built into them and update themselves like magic. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 ...if they could do that, Sabaac would actually be playable. That'd be sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcXON Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 So you were the one we heard on TGL who played with the same crew for all of gencon 2011? Yes >.< And thanks to the rest of the guys that fleshed out the cards as well. The only thing I had that was mine was aZoraida. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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