Balanced point values for Marvel HS figures?

[Cigarman]

I hope that the new Marvel units will have their points balanced with the current HS figures. I'd rather have larger point value figures that are balanced with the current HS system than lower costed figures balanced among the Marvel units only.

The words "mostly compatable" previously mentioned regarding mixing the sets fills me with dread.

I fully intend to mix the sets, so I would really like them to be a compatable as possible. I can hardly wait to build my Dr. Doom army with all the soulborgs I can lay my hands on.

Thanks,
Cigarman

[Joah]

Cig-man, I thought we lost you.

I don't plan on mixing the two much at all.
But planning on buying a lot!

In my "universe" there there is only 1 Hulk.


But I call him Krug. :wink:

[reapersaurus]

See, I totally hope they make it incompatible with playing vs standard HS figs, because if they don't then they will be severely weakened versions of themselves, without many of their abilities playable.

We've had this discussion many times already on this site, and on each of the previous ones.

Either they make the superheroes with cool powerful creative abiltiies that can fight each other, or they make them very watered down, neutered versions that can be killed by normal HS units.

I'd rather play a unit (say Silver Surfer) that "feels" like a super, instead of a normal person that can die to an Arrow Grut.

[Cigarman]

So, make them as powerful as they should be and balance them against the current figure costs. What's the big deal about making the Marvel figures 1000 points or higher? That way, you can have one Super taking on an entire HS army if you want.

I think Captain America leading an army of Minutemen, Paratroopers, and Cowboys against Dr. Doom's army of Soulborgs in Doom's Castle would be a hell of a lot of fun.

BTW, there is no Hasbro official formula for costing figures. They write up the figures stats and powers, guess as to the point value, and tweek the point value in playtesting.

What's the big deal if the point values are high, as long as it's balanced with the rest of HS. Worried about little kids being put off by "big numbers"? Just give us a reliable conversion factor, like 5 or 10 HS points = 1 Marvel HS points, and you wouldn't have to worry about it.

Cigarman

[reapersaurus]

because we've had this discussion many times, most notably in .net's "Are high-powered units viable for Heroscape?" thread.

It is the opinion of many that high-cost units are too likely to unbalance the game when played against standard HS units, for the game fact that when you activate a 400 point figure, you are using all the power of your army that turn, whereas your opponent will only be activating 100, 50, or even 25 points of his army in a given turn.

[Havokscry]

I agree with reap. With the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Thanos or other nearly invulnerable superhero an arrow, sword, or gun isn't going to do much damage. In the Marvel Universe, Captain America was the greatest WW2 hero. Using that rationale, his point value would be much higher than that of WW2's Drake.

[Augray]

If I were Hasbro I would balance the Supers against each other but make the points relative to general Heroscape--as Cigarman suggested. You probably would not need to go as high as 1000 or even 500 pts.

I think this approach would qualify as "mostly compatible." Or, as Craig put it "They CAN be used together, but it is not recommended."

Players could mix if they want but they would have the point activation problem Reaper mentioned.

[Cigarman]

If the point activation issue is a game breaker, just make the Marvel characters illegal in official HS tournament play.

As long as there is some sort of official point cost balance with the other HS figures for casual play, I don't have a problem with that.

Cigarman

[Faustus]

This might be a way to play with high costed supers and normal heroscape figures and NOT run into the unbalanced problem.

So, if Silver Surfer costs 500 points, it would really suck to play against him with your grut army. Your opponent gets to move 500 points worth of cards, while you get to move 40 points, every turn. Silver Surfer would tear through your army before you'd have much of a chance to get situated.

But what if we change the way army cards are activated? Right now, activation comes per card, but what if it comes per points? So you look at the highest costed guy in the game. In this example, it's silver surfer, so that is the amount of points you get to move each turn. We all have plenty of order markers, right? So the player with Silver Surfer puts his 1 on him, and maybe puts his 2 and 3 on him, too. The grut player puts enough 1 markers on his orcs to add up to 500 points. He repeats this with 2 and 3. So now Silver Surfer has his work cut out for him. He's got 500 points worth of orcs to contend with every turn!

This style may come with its own problems, confusions and unbalances (and of course, may require a lot of order markers! But in the absence of those you could combine armies into 500 point groups and place order markers on that group...)

The beatufiul thing about this game is it's so versatile. Change the rules to be able to do what you want to do!

[jcb231]

See, I totally hope they make it incompatible with playing vs standard HS figs, because if they don't then they will be severely weakened versions of themselves, without many of their abilities playable.

We've had this discussion many times already on this site, and on each of the previous ones.

Either they make the superheroes with cool powerful creative abiltiies that can fight each other, or they make them very watered down, neutered versions that can be killed by normal HS units.

I'd rather play a unit (say Silver Surfer) that "feels" like a super, instead of a normal person that can die to an Arrow Grut.


Can a balanced figure be made that preserves the accurate relative strengths of (for example) the Hulk compared to a regular human? No, not likely. But can a balanced figure be made that preserves the "feel" and flavor of the Hulk? Yes, of course....we call it Krug.

I think most superheros can be boiled down to a handful of key factors that define them. The Hulk gets strong when he's angry and smashes things. Spider-man climbs walls, dodges danger with spidey-sense, and shoots webs. Wolverine heals and slashes. Cyclops leads the X-men in the field and shoots lasers from his eyes. There's a lot that can be defined using just the base stats....a figure with high move represents speed....high defense toughness....high attack strength and power. Special abilites and attacks can be used to sum up other key factors. A Hulk card could have a variant of Wounded Smash, some sort of Wild-Swing-like special ground smash attack, and perhaps a "Gamma Leap" ability that lets Hulk jump around a bit. Match that up with respectable attack and defense stats and I think you could create a Hulk figure in the 200-250 point range, easily.

It's also a matter of persepctive.....if you imagine Hulk would be more powerful than Jotun, there's not much that's going to change your mind. Personally, I picture Hulk and Jotun being fairly close. I picture Captain America fighting in the same league as Drake or Carr or Valguard...none of those guys are what we would consider "normal" humans...they all have some sort of super-powered ability that makes them better...most of the "normal" non-powered humans we have in this game are squaddies or cheaper heroes like Guilty or Shotgun. I picture Iron Man blasting his way into a spot somewhere between DW9K and Q9. I picture the Punisher fighting with Shotgun Johnny.

I think that it would be very easy to represent the Marvel Universe in the HS world....it saddens me a little that Hasbro is insisting on keeping the two distinct. Hopefully the point balance will not be terribly out of whack, and the two will be compatible....some of the comments I gathered at the booth seemed to indicate that Marvel HS had been playtested against Classic, and they were trying to balance the two, but still recommended keeping them separated so as not to mix the universes. I actually heard someone talking about mixing the Marvel U with what they have established....they were against blending the fictions. I heard that phrasing mentioned more than out of whack balance, so part of me is hopeful that I'll be beating up Krug with the Hulk in a few months. I even mentioned that match up to the HS guy and he laughed and said that would be fun.