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The illustrious Hawkmoon once said in this thread...
I don't see anything wrong with what you've laid out. Personally, I am surprised these kinds of things don't happen more often when cards from different sources are mixed.
In such a quote, he was effectively referring to card and power combinations which kind of... break the game. How do you define "breaking the game"? There's different metrics you can be using, but one pretty inarguable one, in my opinion, would be "This character can consistently finish an entire scenario in a single turn", though I'd also count "This character can consistently close any location in a single turn at no threat to themselves or in an uninterruptible fashion."
And the advent of the Ultimate Add-On decks has greatly increased the number of these 'game-breaking' combinations out there since that quote... at least which are also viable in structured, Organised play, without the help of Loot or pulling cards or characters from multiple Class Decks and Base Sets.
I can think of quite a lot of character power/card interactions that I think are 'too powerful' for a number of reasons, but there are certainly some interactions which I want to test myself to see how far I can really push them, and how they perform in a monitored environment where I can see the game unfold and replay it easily. To this end, I've set up a Play-by-Post forum thread where I can actually do a little solo play-by-post with a character, set up with a particular deck, to see how they perform. The characters are built as per legal PFSACG ("Organized Play") rules, with legal class decks.
Even so, I think the discoveries made are relevant to a wide audience, and so I'm sharing my discoveries here. I've completed my first test, and I'll be describing that in a following post.
Posting as my first test subject; Mother Myrtle, with the Reanimator Role.
Playing with the Alchemist Class Deck with the Ultimate Equipment Add-On Deck, the Reanimator Myrtle is able to spend allies to explore... then combo between Robe of Items, Twitch Tonic as well as a veritable ton of deck-searching powers and long-term supportive cards, finished off by her Reanimator's power to re-draw and re-use Robe of Items again and again...
...to what end? To explore, and move, and explore, and explore again, and stack more and more and more dice together, building a larger and larger hand size and re-using any effect she wants to finish a scenario in a single turn with ease. I demonstrated this as my first test in the play-by-post thread, where I took scenario 3-5D, an AD5 scenario in Season 3 (using Mummy's Mask) and blitzed through about 18 cards with ease; though I'm pretty confident I could've continued indefinitely, whether 20 or 200 cards, unless there was a very, very specific consequence which could not be avoided by rolling a 20 or so on just about any skill, or if I ever went through 6-8 or so explorations without encountering a monster.
I also summed up my observations and thoughts, and identified that despite stacking the game as much as I could against Myrtle (keeping basic/elite boons, kicking out basic/elite banes, removing Traders, removing Loot cards, taking the 'weaker' interpretation of her first power), the turn-1 victory was still trivial to accomplish, and I believe I could solo most scenarios from Adventure 5 onwards in a similar fashion with her. I also described possible 'nerfs' that could be applied to cards or powers that would prevent this chaining exploit, but hopefully keep the cards or powers strong enough to still be highly desirable to most players.
I'd be extremely interested to hear what people's thoughts are on the Reanimator + Robe of Items + Twitch Tonic combo, or any other builds people want to test. I've got no shortage of my own ideas, but I want to see what the community has already come up with.
TL;DR:
Mother Myrtle, with Reanimator Role, with the Ultimate Equipment Add-On Deck.
Solo play, Scenario 3-5D.
Key Cards: Robe of Items, Twitch Tonic
Victory achieved in 1 turn.
I'm impressed by your energy and zeal. This is interesting stuff.
I agree with Hawkmoon, in that there are now so many possible combinations (especially, as you say, given the Ultimate decks) that this sort of thing is bound to happen on occasion.
You didn't ask it, but a natural question would be "Should Paizo issue errata to prevent game-breaking combination X?" My answer is No. Instead, I'd say: if a player enjoys playing the game this way, more power to them. Most people wouldn't. I know I wouldn't join a table with a player who is using such a build. The only real concern would be tournament situations, I think, and the closest thing PACG has to a tournament (which I think is referred to as the Open) has strictly controlled conditions which don't allow your own build.
An excellent question. As a counterpoint, I'm strongly in favor of errata to prevent game-breaking combinations, at least in PFSACG, loosely due to the following reasons. (Note: All of these reasons are highly subjective in nature.)
- It lessens the sense of achievement of difficult challenges if they could be trivialized - and may have been trivialized by others - by making specific build options. An almost-identical argument was raised in another forum talking about starting high-tier characters in Organized Play. Currently, you're penalized hard for doing so, and when people were discussing "Give players the feats they would normally have gained if they had leveled it through" I brought up the counterargument which was more or less as follows:
"I've played my Tier 5 Monk, Athnul, for over 20 scenarios and over 30 hours of gametime. A new guy walks into the store, without a Chronicle Sheet, buys a Monk deck, and says 'I'm going to make a Tier 5 Monk' and just builds an identical Athnul in front of me in less than 15 minutes."
Whilst it doesn't objectively impact the experiences I've had up to that point, it certainly lessens the apparent achievement to me of having a 'high-level' character. Much like - for players interested in video game achievement hunting - they are probably going to be more proud of the achievement that 00.02% of the playerbase has than the achievement that 55% of the playerbase has.
A sense of achievement is an entirely illusory value in a game, but a huge part of making games immersive or satisfying is built on illusions (illusion of choice, illusion of progression, illusion of reward, etc). That's game design. Giving person A something quickly when person B gets the same outcome for ten times the effort can seriously hinder person B's enjoyment when they learn about it.
In this case; "Wow that was a hard scenario, but we worked together and we just did it, just barely, with all of our effort and down to the wire" gives a great sensation which is, perhaps, compromised if one of the party members goes "Yeah... we could've also just turn-1ed that scenario if we were playing Mother Myrtle".
- By keeping power levels at least at least vaguely equal between characters, you're increasing the value of player's strategy and choices, as well as increasing the likelihood that they feel like a valued member of the team. If someone is able to play with 10 characters based on the Class Decks he owns, each of those 10 are equally legitimate choices, but someone is less likely to feel bad about their choice down the line if all of the ten are at least on a comparable power level. Finding out in Tier 3 that Melindra (Wizard CD) is just kind of bad and doesn't really do anything particularly well is a disappointing thing to discover if the RotR Ezren player in the same party, with the same boons, is doing far more on every turn.
- (Purely Selfish Opinion) I personally am strongly in favor of making PACG a significantly harder game. I love to have down-to-the-wire games, but almost never encounter them unless I'm intentionally inhibiting myself. Intentionally handicapping myself doesn't feel fun; again, partially because it lessens the sense of achievement if I have to go out of my way to make things harder in a way that isn't acknowledged or inherent to the game. Perhaps a better way of putting is that "I'd prefer to work on the game designer's restrictions, rather than my own". Why? Because I'm playing "against the game", I don't want to play "against myself". I want to win and be challenged, not enforce arbitrary conditions.
- (Purely Selfish Opinion) It means I'm more likely to play far more characters if some are nerfed. I don't think I'll ever play an Alchemist, nor Linxia, nor some Oracles, nor will I ever play Skizza with Ultimate Equipment. These are all characters or combinations that I think let me do too much, too well, and therefore limiting how much I'm challenged as a player, as well as risking overshadowing other players. Nor will I play Lancer Alain in WotR for similar reasons; because I find it less fun to play as an overpowered character. If some of the more egregious combinations were nerfed, I'd feel like a burden had been lifted and I'd be free to tweak and theorycraft and play with characters I'd otherwise soft-banned myself from using.
I probably ended up going on an unintentional ramble there; but I'm strongly in favor of encouraging as balanced design as possible (at least among comparable groups - I'm less bothered that WotR and RotR have different power levels, but I'd like WotR to be pretty consistent compared to itself) in games, even singleplayer games and even co-op games. (As an aside, I think Mummy's Mask probably has the most balanced cast of characters to play with, and I love it for that!)
If players want to challenge themselves, I'm in favor of offering higher difficulty levels or optional additions, rather than leaving it to the player to think up handicaps if they want to. Again, 'playing against the game' rather than 'playing against yourself'.
It may be worth pointing out, why do I so eagerly theorycraft and test out 'broken' builds if I want to be challenged? Because I love poking holes in game mechanics. I was a big combo player in MTG, and I love tinkering and finding often-overlooked or otherwise unconsidered combinations and finding out how far I can push them. I'd prefer it if my results were more "gimmicky; it works but has serious weaknesses or requirements" rather than "congratulations, you've broken the game", just for my own selfish method of enjoying games.
I've read this far, but I don't plan on reading any farther. :)
Here's why:
When I played MTG (a *long* time ago), I hated learning about broken combos and/or amazing netdecks. This is because (a) for me, the fun of any game is figuring out strategy myself (so I always avoided netdecking, strategy guides, etc.) and (b) as soon as broken combos/decks are shared publicly, there's the danger that people will adopt them en masse and make the game (for me) more rote, less creative, and less fun.
I've bumped into at least one PACG character combination that I think makes organized play too easy, for instance. But I'm reluctant to share my small-scale "discovery" because I'd hate to see the majority of OP PACG campaigns end up with the same character combinations. Though, honestly, that's much less likely to happen in PACG (vs. MTG) because it's a cooperative game rather than a competitive game.
Anyway, what you're doing is theoretically interesting. I'll just put my fingers in my ears and eyes so that I don't learn something that I don't want to learn. :)
P.S. The whole "difficulty level" idea is interesting, and I think the Lord of the Rings card game (also a co-op) is a good example of what not to do. The problem with LotR is that players can use cards from any sets in any combination, which means "the community" was able to generate powerful netdecks that could beat almost any scenario. Consequently, the designers created the insanely difficult Heirs of Numenor block that made the die-hards happy, but IMHO messed up the game for the average player. Those scenarios were so punishing that they just weren't entertaining. For me.
Anyway, YMMV of course.
I don't, at all, share the sentiment "I don't want another player to start with something that I played the game 30 hours to achieve." I play the game because it's fun. I could not care less what any other person is using unless it directly affects my playing experience.
Obviously, you and I differ. You didn't quite say this, but I have to wonder if the status or peer recognition of your achievement is a factor.
Regardless - Paizo hasn't been able to find the time to do useful things like release PDFs of all the released characters. They are working flat-out to design new stuff, including a new Adventure Path and an entire revamp of the game. I for one do not want Vic, Mike, Keith, et. al. expending their scarce resources eliminating overpowered corner-cases just so players have the satisfaction of knowing that no one else can play them.
EDIT: Ninja'd. I was replying to OP.
Obviously, you and I differ. You didn't quite say this, but I have to wonder if the status or peer recognition of your achievement is a factor.
A fair question. From my perspective; I'm looking for my own recognition, more than anything else. I like to find ways of challenging myself - setting difficulties as high as they can get, trying over and over and bettering myself to beat something even if there's not particularly a given reward for it - but I find the drive quickly is lost if, again, I feel it's "against myself" rather than "against the game". I suppose I need an antagonist, as it were.
I'm also very aware that this is not a widely-shared opinion, but it does drive a certain hyper-awareness to perceived 'balance', whether in a singleplayer game or not.
Whether my answer reflects my actual psychology is another question. I don't believe I care about peer recognition in my gaming - and doing so would appear to conflict with other things - but I cannot objectively, conclusively demonstrate otherwise; at least not from a PACG-centric perspective.
Regardless - Paizo hasn't been able to find the time to do useful things like release PDFs of all the released characters. They are working flat-out to design new stuff, including a new Adventure Path and an entire revamp of the game. I for one do not want Vic, Mike, Keith, et. al. expending their scarce resources eliminating overpowered corner-cases just so players have the satisfaction of knowing that no one else can play them.
I will completely agree there! I don't think these are a priority in the slightest, but I'm still intrigued by looking into them. I'd be primarily interested in playing a 'nerfed' or 'fixed' version of Myrtle, because her design interests me; I just feel it's too strong.
I think seeing a character reimagined - buffed, nerfed, etc - is like a 'new character' to me, a new set of restrictions and opportunities to test with. I'd love to see new characters even more so, of course!
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As a side note, I do believe that there's a difference between solo and multiplayer gaming in terms of "brokenness" (or at least being overpowered).
You could argue that Linxia is overpowered (in part) because she can become ultra-powerful when taking cards from other players' discard piles. Which, if you're playing a solo game with 3-4 characters, could potentially happen every turn. Characters could even selectively discard cards to allow Linxia to grab them.
But when I played Linxia in a real multiplayer organized play campaign, no one else would let me take their discarded cards. Ever. So the point was moot.
Another example is Alahazra from Skull & Shackles. As the S&S campaign progresses, Alahazra can be used to scout the top card of almost every location. So, as part of a solo team, she's great. She's one cog in a well-oiled machine.
But if you're playing with other people, and Alahazra is the only character that you're playing, she's pretty boring. She scouts for everyone else, and that's about it. Her turns are usually short and uninteresting. So even though she's good, she wouldn't even be close to my first choice. Not fun enough.
This is actually related to my LotR/difficulty comment, above. Most people play LotR solo, and many of them find the fun in "solving" a scenario by building, re-building, and re-re-building their decks until they can beat it. So an insane challenge is fun for these people.
But if you're playing LotR with three friends and you get crushed on turn 1, the response is usually very different. More like, "OK, that was awful. We're done with this scenario. Let's move on." Not coincidentally, it's easy for solo players to schedule time to play and replay scenarios, and multiplayer folks may only have a few hours every few weeks to play. That makes a big difference in terms of the try-and-try-and-try again attitude.
Finally, I'd add (in terms of PACG) that there's a difference between characters that are eventually overpowered and characters that are immediately overpowered. If Gronk (druid) ends up being overpowered in Tier 5, for example, then I'm OK with that. He's fragile early in the campaign, and the player had to work hard, play with finesse, and build him smartly for months (literally) to keep him alive until Tier 5. So he earned his power, as far as I'm concerned. Having a character broken or overpowered in Tier 1 is a whole different story.
Agreed on everything wkover just said. In particular...
Yep; characters that single-handedly can do everything are far more of an issue to me than ones that need to work with teammates to excel, particularly because one of my primary concerns with 'broken' characters is that they cause other members of the party to have less fun or feel less important.
Probably mostly hurts that his strongest die, Constitution, is of little value in that set, and good ranged weapons were pretty hard to come by. And, again, no loot besides Snakeskin Tunic suited to him in the slightest, unless Ezren who walked around with something like a static +10 to his Arcane checks when combining all of the bonuses from skill feats, items and Loot cards.
Also, post-role power levels aren't as much of a problem, though I still think it's excessive if a character can single-handedly turn-1 scenarios without some serious risk or compromise or limitation holding them back.
I will say that I think Linxia is too powerful even without ever taking cards from another player, both because of the high quality of boons in her character deck as well as the fact that an incredible portion of her deck (all of her blessings, at minimum) represent a constant string of healing, causing 'discards' to be virtually costless to her beyond their impact for the current turn. I can link actual (PFSACG-official) play-by-posts where I played as Linxia as a substitute character (Season 4-P1 reward) and cleaned up 7+ cards a turn and ended the first scenario of Tier 3 with a combined deck and hand of more than 30 cards and no discard pile. But she has a limited hand size and minimal means of overcoming that core restriction, so whilst I think she's too powerful I wouldn't call her "Broken" in the same way some other characters can be.
Yeah, agreed that Linxia is really, really good. She can even heal 2 cards when killing a monster (Scizore w/ the shield trait). And Ultimate Combat pushes her over the top. Nothing like healing 2 cards/turn with the Reflecting Buckler (another shield), which is fantastic in any OP campaign based on Mummy's Mask.
Anyway, good luck with the build testing. I'm sure the design team will learn a little something from your efforts. :)
There allready Are erratas to broken powers. For example Allen from the Wrath. So definitely there should be erratas to fix those broken combinations!
There Also Also other examples where there have been erratas because some power Are just OP. We just have to find them and Paizo stuff make desision if one power is too OP to remain or not. And Yep there Are now much more of those theše days!
I wondered if someone would mention that....
If a character is OP just using the cards for the set they came -- say S&S Damiel in S&S -- then I agree an errata is needed.
I do also recall at least one errata to nerf a class deck character (Radillo) due to the way his power interacted with cards in his class deck.
But -- now we have 93 class deck characters and 44 base set characters (including add-ons), not to mention a few promo characters -- with 28 class decks and five decks you can add to any class deck. I stand by my request that Paizo not spend time ferreting out OP edge cases. If Vic wants to errata Mother Myrtle, Robe of Items, or Twitch Tonic - well, he's the man.
(Purely Selfish Opinion) It means I'm more likely to play far more characters if some are nerfed. I don't think I'll ever play an Alchemist, nor Linxia, nor some Oracles, nor will I ever play Skizza with Ultimate Equipment. These are all characters or combinations that I think let me do too much, too well, and therefore limiting how much I'm challenged as a player, as well as risking overshadowing other players. Nor will I play Lancer Alain in WotR for similar reasons; because I find it less fun to play as an overpowered character. If some of the more egregious combinations were nerfed, I'd feel like a burden had been lifted and I'd be free to tweak and theorycraft and play with characters I'd otherwise soft-banned myself from using.
This begs the question--Why can't you play those characters? Why do you need to play the most min-maxed, optimized build? I know you've told me how crazy your Linxia is, but I still have enjoyed my non-optimized Linxia and I don't feel my tier 6 is any stronger than average tier 6 characters. I'll admit, I do a fair bit of min-max'ing my builds but even then I go by the 'rule of fun' and I don't think it's fun for players to be at a table with someone having a turn 1 victory, or pestering me to let them draw from my discard pile so they can do some crazy combos, etc.
I don't, at all, share the sentiment "I don't want another player to start with something that I played the game 30 hours to achieve." I play the game because it's fun. I could not care less what any other person is using unless it directly affects my playing experience.
I agree with Elcoderdude.
Regardless, this is definitely interesting stuff to read and follow.
The short answer is; I keep looking over my class deck to go "Oh, that boon is awesome!"
Then I realise I don't want to play with it because of power level reasons, so I end up playing with a partial set of boons, limiting my options. For Linxia, I'd play her with Ultimate Combat and choose not to use Corrupted blessings or Corruptive Half-Plate or Corruptive Full-Plate (to use on a weapon to heal as many cards as I make combat checks) if I wanted to nerf her, but then I'm not playing with any blessing outside of Ultimate Combat (mostly). Actually, I can't legally make that deck, at least not to start with, due to how many Basic blessings I have to choose from.
For Mother Myrtle, I'd probably play without an Add-On deck at all... or I'll pick one just for more Blessing choices. Even so, I'd still keep avoiding Twitch Tonic, despite being basically built for her, and I have this awkward Tier 3 where there aren't really Item upgrades and I keep playing with a lot of the same items for a long period of time, whilst I highly value ever-changing builds and strategies to keep me interested. Part of the reason I love Ultimate Add-On decks, to give me as many boon options and feasible card upgrades as possible.
I've tried it in singleplayer games hundreds of times. A restriction I have to will myself to maintain (which usually shrinks overall decision-making) is always less fun than a restriction placed upon me to work around. The latter I can analyse from multiple angles to try to minimise its impact, the former is a more flexible concept which tends to frustrate rather than inspire new creativity. An example would be XCOM: Enemy Unknown; I'm not a big fan of trying to avoid specific classes and powers just to increase the difficulty (because, again, it feels like it's shrinking decision making or punishing me learning the game best), but I'm happy with bumping up the difficulty of the game or, better yet, modding the game to rebalance it (see: Long War mod).
Again, all of these are personal issues or faults of mine, and I'm not trying to shield that. The point still stands I'd rather pick from 5 equally-powerful characters than pick 1 character that I feel is more powerful than the other 4, and then work to try to limit the strategies I undertake with them. I'd also happily pick one of the other 4 if I felt they were equally powerful, but then I've got less choices of character to play in total.
EDIT:
Also, note, that you quoted me saying, amongst other things, "I wouldn't play Lancer Alain". I'd happily play his other role, Glory Hound Alain. That is entirely a limitation that I'd happily put on myself, because I think he's pretty much just right in terms of power level there, and can still do some cool things. Playing Skizza and then trying to avoid his absurd Alchemical synergies doesn't make me feel like I'm playing Skizza, but if I let myself toy around with them he starts excelling far too much. Linxia is a powerful fighter with the most powerful self-healing powers on almost any character, and some small Divine skill to boot, which pushes her ahead of any other actual printed Fighter in all senses I can think of (plus having a far better selection of boons in PFSACG than the Fighter Class Deck provides), so it feels very hard for me to work with that without just basically stripping whole powers from her.
Although, in truth, I'd probably be happy playing with Skizza as long as I avoid Ultimate Equipment. Linxia is way harder, because I think its cards in her own class deck and one of her core powers that push her beyond the power level of characters with comparable skill sets and deck compositions (Fighters). And Myrtle has Twitch Tonic in her own class deck, which is arguably the key synergy with Reanimator. Though, like Alain, I could just avoid that role of hers, though I don't think her other role has much depth or choices to it.
EDIT #2:
Bleah. I feel like this thread has just ended up making me look like an un-fun person to play with, which is unfortunate. I love to learn, grow and optimize; tabletop games, strategy games, grand strategy, card games. I've often experienced legitimate competitive environments (MTG, mostly) which further stresses the mindset; I have most fun when I'm learning and improving, I have the least fun when I'm rendered unable to push things further. Having a large array of characters and boons to choose from is a wonderful, wonderful thing in that regard, as it gives me thousands or more of potential combinations and strategies to consider, build, prepare, plan and test.
Furthermore, as I've stated several times; nobody has fun when one person on the table is playing the co-op game like a singleplayer game.
So on the whole, I try to avoid the characters I think are too strong, which I find more appealing than trying to play a character I know is stronger than I'd like without making the most of their powers and unique traits. But that does leave me with effectively a smaller number of characters to pick from; again, is why a rebalanced character feels equivalent to having introduced a new character, at least from my personal interests.
To clarify, again, I'm not suggesting that this should be the priority of the designers, nor do I suggest that any of my personal motivations or reasons reflect those of others. But I do see a certain imbalances with what some characters can do relative to others, and I do feel a compulsion to bring these up - if only to prevent similar things occurring in the future.
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The game has two aspects, the character + deckbuilding aspect, and the play of an individual scenario. Like most games that I enjoy, it's the rich interaction between those two aspects of the game that's an important part of the fun.
Having broken character builds spoils this in a number of ways. If your character is too strong, then the scenario play suffers. It's no longer a rich interaction, because one aspect of the game has obsoleted the other. But the character+deck building suffers as well. If there's a solution that's vastly superior to any other, then while it might be fun to find it, now other only moderately good character builds become less satisfying. Also, once you've achieved some overpowered combo, there's nowhere else to go with that character either.
How much the game suffers depends a lot on how tangential the strategy is, and how difficult it is to achieve. In normal play, if you had to dig all of those cards out of the box one by one, and it includes deck 5 cards which you'll likely never even see, I wouldn't have a problem with it. You're not going to be able to do it every time, and getting out of control near the end of the play through is still fun and won't ruin future games at all. But I have the impression that in Organised Play it's substantially easier to get the cards you want and this could be set up fairly reliably. In terms of being tangential, I haven't really followed the whole combo but I get the impression that every one of the pieces is a card you would plausibly want to have on its own. It's not so much a special case fragile loophole (like the Restoration combo was) but just the sum of a bunch of good cards.
I don't think it's helpful to just say you shouldn't play that way. Optimising builds is what you're supposed to be doing and what many of us enjoy doing. The game of "build a character that's just strong enough not to annoy your friends" is much less enjoyable as a game (than the game "do the best you can and game balance will stop you annoying your friends"). Again, it depends how tangential it is, but even if you can avoid a particular build, the game suffers for you having to do so.
So personally I think character balance is worthwhile, and finding these things is worthwhile as well. And how you play the game with your friends is your own choice and is separate to hunting down these combos. How much of a priority it is to fix things is up to the designers, but it seems as worthwhile addressing as the rules corner cases and the like that we post elsewhere.
A big thank-you to Irgy, who just summed up many things I'd would have liked to have said, in a much clearer and more concise manner than I was able to.
Probably worth noting that even just Reanimator Myrtle + Twitch Tonic is a pretty trivial combo that can extrapolate into a turn-1 victory, as long as you get into combat with a monster once every 2-5 turns. The rest of it (Robe of Items, searching cards) just make things more efficient. Given that Twitch Tonic is a set B card in Mummy's Mask, this is probably easier - not harder - in non-OP play (as long as you're in the latest Base Set).
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Bleah. I feel like this thread has just ended up making me look like an un-fun person to play with, which is unfortunate.
That's not the impression I got at all. I think you've shown that you have found a few of these game-breaking combos but you recognize that they can be un-fun to do in an environment with other players.
I think the discussion of what's worth errata'ing and whats not is a good discussion to be had. In my prior post I eluded to me imposing limits on my characters, but I agree with Irgy that it is much better to be able to min-max to my hearts desire and letting game balance prevent me from building a totally un-fun character (from other player perspectives).
As an aside: Love the Long War mod on Xcom. Need to finish it though LOL
Yep. I prefer to have balanced character if possible. We have had examples of characters that makes game unfun... in these cases errata is the best way to deal the problem instead of not allowing the use of character at all.
For me the most important thing that all player have fun time when playing. If only one player has fun because he has op character, something important is missing!
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These are all fair perspectives to have. I personally like ot see a range of character balance, based on the complexity of the character. More complex characters can be a little bit stronger than the more simplistic characters, because it's easier to mess up and have something bad happen. This is only for a cooperative game, not for a competitive game. Competitive games need real balance, otherwise they are totally un-fun.
The character with variance power Are newer in balance ;)
So yep, only those op characters Are problem or broken combos in otherwice ok characters. Otherwice reasonable variance in expected!
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I'd personally be very appreciative of letting me know any obviously broken interactions. I can't commit to any particular schedule, but I would like to be able to look at the new sets for next year and make sure nothing similar sneaks in. In fact, ideally it'd result in a codified list of things that cannot be allowed to happen or are really easy to look for.
For example, we flag automagically for review anything at all that allows you to draw multiple cards, draw from your discard pile, or to heal non-random cards. Sometimes our desire to let an awesome card or character exist can outweigh our paranoia, though.
One problem with catching infinite loops is that it requires a certain type of tester. Some of the designers are better at catching them (and some are better at writing them), but as noted above there's only so many of us.
It is a feature of the game that not every character is perfectly balanced against each other. Figuring out who to play, with what cards, in what set, is one of the fun parts of the game! The characters should be close enough that reasonable play results in everyone enjoying the game, even if one of them has a character that is better at certain types of scenarios or certain sets of the game. There's also an implicit social contract in basically every RPG or RPG-based multiplayer product that roughly goes "If you make the game unfun for the other people at the table, they won't want to play with you. So, don't do that."
I've been reading this thread with interest. I agree with elcoderdude's assessment of the core problem being addressed here.
"I've played my Tier 5 Monk, Athnul, for over 20 scenarios and over 30 hours of gametime. A new guy walks into the store, without a Chronicle Sheet, buys a Monk deck, and says 'I'm going to make a Tier 5 Monk' and just builds an identical Athnul in front of me in less than 15 minutes."
This may or may not be a problem as that built Athnul doesn't have any feats (due to not being a pregen).
It's a bit of a problem with this type of OP in general (and one I'm dealing with as a organizer). You don't want to diminish the achievements of people who play, but you don't want people to not be able to play because they can't find in-tier stuff. Pregens only solve part of the problem because they may be underpowered for the scenario, actually hurting the team.
I do think low-powered characters is a problem, but sometimes "low-powered" is "simple" and "simple" is a boon for people who don't play a lot. I've already seen all these arguments echoed in the PF RPG forums; character differentiation is a big part of Pathfinder and even though this is a card game not having meaningful decisions would be bad.
For the record, I think what Yewstance is doing is valuable; I do think that if possible these should be patched since the patching process is "easy" (it's not easy to errata cards, but it's easy to standardize OP which is the only place this matters; home games it's different because the social contract is stronger)
One of the goals of the Ultimates decks by the way was to raise the minimum power level of some particularly bad characters - your usual candidates apply here.
Interestingly, I would say my favorite archetype in MtG is aggro-control - precise tuning with versatility is my modus operandi. I can do some combo stuff (I remember breaking the Capcom VS SNK DS card game wide apart by using a full deck combo in that game) but I'm not the best at it.
If you want other builds, Mark Seifter's Cogsnap/Twitch Tonic build is similar. I'm thinking Twitch Tonic is the problem rather than Cogsnap or MM.
If you want other builds, Mark Seifter's Cogsnap/Twitch Tonic build is similar. I'm thinking Twitch Tonic is the problem rather than Cogsnap or MM.
I've actually played both Cogsnap and Mother Myrtle, and Twitch Tonic is definitely the culprit. Drawing 3.5 cards on average from the discard pile is probably fine on a banish, but once you can do it again, you can make a long (if not technically endless because eventually you probably won't find any monsters to sustain either CS or MM's engine, though I don't know what Robe of Items does as I played the alchs before the Ultimates, maybe it makes it endless) loop.
I'd personally be very appreciative of letting me know any obviously broken interactions. I can't commit to any particular schedule, but I would like to be able to look at the new sets for next year and make sure nothing similar sneaks in. In fact, ideally it'd result in a codified list of things that cannot be allowed to happen or are really easy to look for.
For example, we flag automagically for review anything at all that allows you to draw multiple cards, draw from your discard pile, or to heal non-random cards. Sometimes our desire to let an awesome card or character exist can outweigh our paranoia, though.
One problem with catching infinite loops is that it requires a certain type of tester. Some of the designers are better at catching them (and some are better at writing them), but as noted above there's only so many of us.
It is a feature of the game that not every character is perfectly balanced against each other. Figuring out who to play, with what cards, in what set, is one of the fun parts of the game! The characters should be close enough that reasonable play results in everyone enjoying the game, even if one of them has a character that is better at certain types of scenarios or certain sets of the game. There's also an implicit social contract in basically every RPG or RPG-based multiplayer product that roughly goes "If you make the game unfun for the other people at the table, they won't want to play with you. So, don't do that."
I can think of a few; I know there are more, but these are some which more recently caught my interest.
The Loot Ally Neferekhu can further push these particular abilities further, since that lets you make a Diplomacy check every time you make a Wisdom check thanks to its own unique mechanics; when Charisma/Diplomacy checks turn into card draws, there's a very big risk of infinite-combos.
This isn't as bad as the other ones, because it still has a reasonably large element of risk and is critically limited by having enough - and having the right allies. I plan to be testing this out with one of my actual PFSACG characters to see if it is actually a problem or not.
The combo might become stronger, or weaker, if it's ever clarified whether a check to acquire an ally from Codex of Conversations is a check against the Codex, a check against the Ally, or both. What card type is being used in the check and what traits are invoked could make a number of differences to what's possible. I'm pretty sure there are character that refer to "checks against items" or "checks against allies".
As an aside, I believe my email has already been put forward with an interest to assist with playtesting a while back.
"I've played my Tier 5 Monk, Athnul, for over 20 scenarios and over 30 hours of gametime. A new guy walks into the store, without a Chronicle Sheet, buys a Monk deck, and says 'I'm going to make a Tier 5 Monk' and just builds an identical Athnul in front of me in less than 15 minutes."This may or may not be a problem as that built Athnul doesn't have any feats (due to not being a pregen).
For the record, I'm aware you actually can't do this. I was referring to a statement I made on another forum thread which was discussing why you couldn't do this (and how it biased people against starting high-tier characters). In that thread, I was justifying a potential reason why the designers didn't allow you to start high-level characters (aside from Pregens) without a serious drawback, in this thread I was using the same general statement as a reasoning why it can be thin ice to have significantly different levels of effort expended by different players to get the same reward, if the levels are of different orders of magnitude, because it can hamper the feeling of receiving that reward in the first place for some people.
If you want other builds, Mark Seifter's Cogsnap/Twitch Tonic build is similar. I'm thinking Twitch Tonic is the problem rather than Cogsnap or MM.I've actually played both Cogsnap and Mother Myrtle, and Twitch Tonic is definitely the culprit. Drawing 3.5 cards on average from the discard pile is probably fine on a banish, but once you can do it again, you can make a long (if not technically endless because eventually you probably won't find any monsters to sustain either CS or MM's engine, though I don't know what Robe of Items does as I played the alchs before the Ultimates, maybe it makes it endless) loop.
Twitch Tonic definitely the primary issue. However, Ultimate Equipment provides 4 cards that let you search it from your deck (the item Robe of Items, a blessing and 2 spells), meaning that provides many more ways to re-use it in a turn if you're recharging it. It additionally provides 1 card that let you draw it from your discard pile (again, Robe of Items). Reanimator Myrtle can additionally search items (or spells, or allies) from her deck or discard pile selectively every time a monster is defeated. Strictly speaking, that alone with Twitch Tonic is 'infinite' with the right allies (and if you find monsters frequently enough).
With 4 additional means of searching and re-using it, and Robe of Items searching out 3 items from your deck or discard pile every time its discarded, and Robe of Items being able to be re-used multiple times in a turn with Myrtle's reanimator powers, it gets nasty. It turns a strategy that was already more or less an 'infinite combo' (or damn close to one) to an extremely consistent infinite combo with additional searching powers to repeatedly find methods of attack and passing checks and movement as well as keeping the core combo going even more consistently than before.
In post as my Mother Myrtle alias, I linked myself demonstrating how the series of interlocking search effects worked in practice. It turned a monster defeat into being worth 3.5 explorations into something more akin to 7 or 8 explorations.
I'd personally be very appreciative of letting me know any obviously broken interactions. I can't commit to any particular schedule, but I would like to be able to look at the new sets for next year and make sure nothing similar sneaks in. In fact, ideally it'd result in a codified list of things that cannot be allowed to happen or are really easy to look for.
For example, we flag automagically for review anything at all that allows you to draw multiple cards, draw from your discard pile, or to heal non-random cards. Sometimes our desire to let an awesome card or character exist can outweigh our paranoia, though.
One problem with catching infinite loops is that it requires a certain type of tester. Some of the designers are better at catching them (and some are better at writing them), but as noted above there's only so many of us.
It is a feature of the game that not every character is perfectly balanced against each other. Figuring out who to play, with what cards, in what set, is one of the fun parts of the game! The characters should be close enough that reasonable play results in everyone enjoying the game, even if one of them has a character that is better at certain types of scenarios or certain sets of the game. There's also an implicit social contract in basically every RPG or RPG-based multiplayer product that roughly goes "If you make the game unfun for the other people at the table, they won't want to play with you. So, don't do that."
Someone (I think it might have been Irgy but not 100% sure) posted an excellent analysis of powers and resource sinks that let you know immediately which powers will be the most problematic. I can't seem to find the post though :(
@skizzerz
I know of the post you're referring to, but I'm not sure where. I think it was Irgy, and basically described the hierarchy of resource trade-offs, and how once you can trade 'up' the hierarchy rather than 'down' you start to risk infinite combos, or at least abuse.
Also, in continuing my previous post...
In terms of 'problem combos', I forgot to list Reepazo. Whilst in Bug-Form, she can draw X cards in a turn, where X is the number of checks she makes (and there's a LOT of ways to make a lot of checks in a turn; spell recharge checks come to mind), and add 1d6 or 2d6 to every single check in the process. There's actually a few more interesting ways to abuse it...
...but I may never do a full-fledged test on that. I do not own Reepazo, probably won't spend money on her alone when I worry she might be overpowered in practice, and I will never play in a game (digital or not) if I know I don't rightfully own the product in question.
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Back to work! Yewstance here again, posting as my second test subject; Reepazo, with no Role.
Despite me just saying that I wasn't going to do Reepazo, I then immediately went and did Reepazo. How? Why? Well a big thank you to Matsu Kurisu for giving me the inspiration (and gift card) to do so; so I went out and bought Reepazo pretty much just for the test, because I don't plan to use her otherwise.
Playing with the Goblins Burn Character Deck and the Ultimate Magic Add-On deck, Reepazo is able to build a deck virtually right out the gate that is almost exclusively cards with the Divine, Goblin or Melee traits... which means she can use them all in 'bugform'. In bugform, Reepazo adds the Vermin trait to all of her checks, and when her checks invoke Vermin, she adds a bonus 1d6 to them and draws a card before rolling.
In other words, as long as she's in bugform (a form that greatly increases her stats already), she has additional bonus dice and draws a card for every check she makes. As it turns out, it's really really really easy to make more than 1 check per encounter. Recharge checks, checks to acquire, checks to defeat, BYA checks, AYA checks, 'side-effect negation' checks (such as from bottled Poisons like Embalming Fluid or the ally Neferekhu)...
If I so desired, I could've ended the scenario I tested Reepazo in with 17 cards in hand. In practice, I was more happy to hover around the 10 card mark whilst cycling my Cure spells, blessings and whatever else I wanted as much as I wanted, despite starting with a mere 4 card hand.
Did I mention that this was in Tier 2? Specifically, with only 2 AD2 cards, no Role card, 2 power feats, 2 skill feats and 1 card feat, without traders, without loot; Reepazo managed to beat scenario 3-2C on turn 1. I think there's a problem.
The good news is that I don't think it's a hard exploit to fix. As I mentioned when summarizing my thoughts on the test, it really is as simple as not having bugform add the Vermin trait to all of her checks; just have it GIVE her the Vermin trait (as in, on her character card) for largely thematic reasons. If anything, this makes her a more interesting and creative character, because it gives a meaningful reason for her to find ways to invoke the poison (or Vermin or Swarm) trait with her checks, such as with weapon poisons, poison spells, poison grenades, poison buckler guns, etc.
TL;DR:
Reepazo, no Role, with the Ultimate Magic Add-On Deck.
Solo play, Scenario 3-2C.
Key Cards: Locate Object, Cure, Fly
Victory achieved in 1 turn.
I got some lucky early draws (hit Fly when I needed to, most importantly. I also repeatedly had amazing Wand of Detect Magic luck, though honestly it wouldn't have affected the progression of the scenario with or without that). Overall I think Reepazo was pretty lucky with that scenario, and I also burned blessings from the blessings deck with my Blessing of the Gobs cards.
However; I'm quite certain that Reepazo could get turn 1 victories with the same deck, in various tier 2 scenarios, pretty consistently even without that luck. If anything, I was unlucky by encountering the villain as early as I did; seriously hampering my ability to draw up and prepare a big hand to start endlessly chaining together movement, explorations and cure spells with. And, of course, Reepazo would only get better and better with more AD2 cards, another card feat, and the traders or loot that players around the same point as her would actually have. On the whole, I still placed a lot of limitations on her; far more than Mother Myrtle (if only because of how early-game I tested Reepazo) and she still just had no real limit to what she could do.
As an aside; I cannot stress enough how in favor I am of simply saying "bugform Reepazo doesn't add the Vermin traits to her checks" and calling it fixed. That would literally make her more fun to build a deck for and she'd still be strong, without being a fraction as broken as I demonstrated in my test. I also feel like that may have even been the designer's intent (for a few reasons), but that's pure speculation on my behalf.
Thanks for doing Reepazo so quickly!
Much appreciated!