Custom Unit Philosophy

[Lamaclown]

It seems like there are new custom unit creators popping up each day. Like me, they are looking for tips and critiques to make their creations better. I am still a newb when it comes to custom unit creation but I have gleaned from many people and many resources from this site.

One thing I have recently realized is that before I try to improve on any particular custom unit, I need to improve my custom unit philosophy.

Things that I have recently realized:
Is this unit truly unique or niche filling?
Just because I see a cool figure or thought up what I think is a cool ability doesn’t mean I need to make a custom unit with it. This is just my (new) personal viewpoint. I realized that, for me, I need to wait until I think of an ability that is truly a unique mechanic or a figure that really fills, or fits, a needed niche before posting yet another custom card in my customs thread.

Play test, play test, play test.
I don’t feel the customs I post should be thoroughly play tested and perfectly refined before posting. However, out of courtesy to those who peruse my customs thread, I should play test a fig at least a couple of times before posting. This lets those who help me refine a unit know that I am serious about my creations and not just pumping out mediocre cards with every whim that pops into my head.

Like most customs creators, I want people to look at my customs and go, “Wow!” This won’t happen by being a custom unit assembly factory. What this will foster is a loss of interest in, and a decline in the quality of my customs. Each custom I create needs to be born of inspiration, not whimsy.

For quite some time I was posting several new units a week. Was I play testing them? No. Was I trying to fill a niche or introduce something truly unique as far as game mechanics? No. Was I cluttering the customs community with lackluster or mediocre units that would never see the light of day on a battlefield? Yes.

Nothing is wrong with getting excited about the possibilities of an ability I think of or an awesome sculpt I come across. But am I furthering the customs community by immediately posting a card with it? That will be the new question I ask myself before posting a new unit.

OK, enough newbie philosophy; how about some insight and inspiration from veterans and masters…

The HS Codex has some great articles for us customs creators. Some articles that stood out to me were…
Issue 2- More Unit, Less Custom
Issue 3- The Gift of Magic and Heroscape Items
Issue 5- Finding Your Place in Heroscape History
Issue 6- Measuring and Importing Power
Issue 8- Heroscape Color Theory
Issue 9- Three Army Archetypes in HS and What’s in an Order Marker

Each of these articles offered me either insight on creating customs and how they fit into the game, or inspiration for creating units. Also, each of these articles can be found here @ heroscapers.

As far as pure inspiration, there are some customs creators that make my jaw drop in awe (and envy). Here are some of my favorites…
Annerios
Grungebob
Euryon
Atmospro

When it comes to play testing your units this thread was really helpful to me.

Also, for some discussion on custom unit philosophy…
If no official card has “X” should custom unit creators stay away from doing “X”?
If a customs creator is using an official ability should he use its official name or is it OK to change the name to make it thematic?

Any thoughts or other discussion inducing questions?

[Mythic]

Hey, nice post Lamaclown!

Can't say as I have ever read one of your posts before, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Philosophically speaking, I've been struggling with how to make customs more playable. All the careful design and play testing in the world is useless if you can't actually use a custom in a "real" game...mostly because of concerns of it not being "official" and thus not balanced for the game.

I've been considering what I call an "exact replacement" custom. (for lack of a better term)

This is a custom with the exact stats/specials as an existing hero/squad but reworded such that it fits its own theme. Of course race/personality /general type stuff could change as well...but the essential game effect of the custom would be identical to an existing fig.

In this way, cool custom minis can be used without anyone feeling they are in some way unbalanced for HS, because essentially they are "official".

Thoughts?

[Lamaclown]

Originally Posted by EyeOfSauron

Hey, nice post Lamaclown!

Can't say as I have ever read one of your posts before, so this was a pleasant surprise.

I've been considering what I call an "exact replacement" custom. (for lack of a better term)

Thanks!

I'll assume that you're in favor, then, of changing "official" ability names in favor of theme .

This would make it easy to differentiate between figs in a large multiplayer game if say, two players each drafted a Sgt. Drake and one was an "exact replacement".

Also, for 'scapers who were/are involved with other minis games this would give a quick and easy use for their minis from other games.

For me personally, however, I would miss the creative process of abilities development. Of course you could still get creative with a bio for the character and thematic names for the abilities. Also, I was never involved in another minis game before HS so I don't have a bunch of extra figs lying around.

Thanks for spurring discussion!

[nyys]

I only make a card for a custom if I think it's reached the stage of being worthy of testing. I've yet to put any of the customs I've created on the game board for various reasons, but I am getting closer to getting over that hump so to speak.

I try to make sure I put somewhere in the post that the custom is still in the testing/development stage, and if I ever get to the point where I'm happy with everything for a particular unit I've created, I'll add it to the 1st post in my custom thread as 'ready for play' or something like that.

I like to post my raw ideas to see others reaction and to help get them refined. On pretty much every unit I've created someone has give me a great suggestion to make the unit better or to help put into words what I'm trying to pull out of my head.

Great post LC, and thanks for the resources.

[rouby44]

I agree whole-heartedly with the original post - great points for all custom-creators to consider.

I would like to add just a touch of my personal custom philosophy (by personal philosophy, I mean just that - I don't expect others to abide by these guidelines, but I do recommend them if game balance is your highest priority):

• One should avoid creating custom abilities that deviate excessively far from pre-existing official abilities; in other words, make minor variations on existing game-mechanics.
• Only create customs that counter, to some degree, the best units in the game or customs that enhance, to some degree, the weaker units in the game.
• Avoid superfluous customs. Create a custom only when you feel that there is some kind of gap in the official set of units.

[Lamaclown]

Originally Posted by nyys

I only make a card for a custom if I think it's reached the stage of being worthy of testing. I've yet to put any of the customs I've created on the game board for various reasons, but I am getting closer to getting over that hump so to speak.

I try to make sure I put somewhere in the post that the custom is still in the testing/development stage, and if I ever get to the point where I'm happy with everything for a particular unit I've created, I'll add it to the 1st post in my custom thread as 'ready for play' or something like that.

I like to post my raw ideas to see others reaction and to help get them refined. On pretty much every unit I've created someone has give me a great suggestion to make the unit better or to help put into words what I'm trying to pull out of my head.

That is a good way to do it. My problem is a lack of self-control. I get too excited and post 37 cards at a time (OK, thats an exagerration, 36 cards at a time ) so people don't have time to critique a card before another one is up. That is why I have come to the point where I need to purpose to playtest a fig a couple of times before posting- it keeps me from getting ahead of myself.

Even now I have 3 cards I made that I am dying to post but not until I playtest each one a couple of times- must... control... posting urges...

And I am with you, my customs have benefitted greatly from the input of other customs creators- we do have a great community here!

Originally Posted by nyys

Great post LC, and thanks for the resources.

Thanks, and I am glad they were helpful.

[Lamaclown]

A new thread by rouby44 has spurred some interesting conversation concerning customizing units. Check it out if you haven’t already.

It has raised a question in my mind concerning two areas in the philosophy of customs creation: motivations to create and styles of abilities.

Concerning motivation…

There could be several different motivations behind a unit from, “That is a cool sculpt! I need to do something with that,” to, “I believe this unit will completely revolutionize game play.”

Since this is the area of customs, I don’t think there can really be a right or wrong motivation (there could be less admirable motivations, I think).

My primary motivation is to create a unit that is either truly unique or niche filling. I sometimes venture outside this (i.e. my Mystery Men customs) but I think this is my dominant view.

Some creators’ motivation is to create units that either bolster weaker official units or take powerful official units down a notch (as rouby44 stated in a previous post here).

Others’ motivation is driven by bringing favorite characters from books, movies, or other games in to HS. Some, honestly, may be motivated simply by a need for some sort of recognition or affirmation

What is your primary motivation for creating customs? What pros and cons do you see with different motivations?

Styles of abilities are another area I am interested in hearing from other creators about.

Again, I don’t think there is necessarily a right or wrong style of abilities, but, unlike motivation, style can have a negative impact on game balance if not handled appropriately.

Rouby44’s style is to not stray too far from official abilities. This a good way to avoid a potentially broken special ability.

My style is to try to introduce a new mechanic or a unique ability that isn’t similar to anything else seen (admittedly, this can be game breaking if I am not careful). I look at creations by people like Atmospro and marvel at the creativity of the unique mechanics some of his creations introduce to the game.Both styles contribute to the game I believe.

There are those who enjoy the employment of some sort of a marker system with their abilities (many of my early customs did this). Others like to add equipment. Again, I don’t think a customs creator can be strictly defined by one particular style (in most cases) but a prominent style, I think, will emerge with multiple customs from a single creator.

What do you consider as your primary style of ability? What pros and cons do you see with other styles?

[ZBeeblebrox]

Good post LC,

The idea of finding out how customs work with classic scape is my idea behind my Scape talk proposal http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ad.php?t=26680.

I woant to have a discussion over customs of others I've used ... and kind of place them within the scope of Scape.

-ZB

[Lamaclown]

Big necro, I know, but...

A question came up recently in another customs thread about pricing.

When pricing a custom figure, should you price it based on the best case scenario when using that unit?

Why or why not?

[flameslayer93]

Originally Posted by Lamaclown

Big necro, I know, but...

A question came up recently in another customs thread about pricing.

When pricing a custom figure, should you price it based on the best case scenario when using that unit?

Why or why not?

No, in my time as a customizer I have never bothered with considering best case scenarios. I price my units as the original figs(RotV) were priced. Guess and let it be tested. Sure its often close to what they should be(I don't mind a little underpowered or overpowered custom. It's more in line with the official stuff), but if it is too close, I simply will leave it as my first guess. I usually go with the average game of equal fighting when trying to price.

Great article LamaClown.

[CapnRedChops]

Hmmm interesting thread.

I am very new at creating customs, and I create because I love creating.

I would love to be part of a larger plan, for example, if the 'Characters from Classic Literature' thread spawns enough customs of good quality, which we then playtest extensively, and then we playtest some more, until we have the points totals right.
We pick a natural number of cards (like 20) that work well with and against each other, and design several scenarios that take advantage of the massive wealth of backstory available using those characters, and playtest those scenarios until they are balanced. We then each order the figures we've picked to represent the carded characters, if we haven't already.

Then we have our own League of Classical Characters master set!!!

We're done at this point, but we do have the option of approaching WotC and trying to collaborate in regards to making it a master set.
This step is obviously massively oversimplified, and the chance of success might be very low - for example, if we've picked sculpts from competitor's lines, WotC might need to create original sculpts, which seems unlikely. Regardless, in my mind it's worth approaching WotC if the product is independantly deemed to be excellent. This is how Valve does the majority of their recruiting, so you can hardly say it's an unsuccessful business model.

If that doesn't work, we could ask permission to sell the custom MS online, the way people sell custom terrain & units currently... I assume the majority of those folks never asked for permission, though.

Not saying it HAS to be done, not wanting to turn a fun hobby into brutal work, but just saying I'd love to be involved in a big project with that kind of vision, that might just turn a buck at the end of the day.

CRC

[Lamaclown]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

No, in my time as a customizer I have never bothered with considering best case scenarios. I price my units as the original figs(RotV) were priced. Guess and let it be tested. Sure its often close to what they should be(I don't mind a little underpowered or overpowered custom. It's more in line with the official stuff), but if it is too close, I simply will leave it as my first guess. I usually go with the average game of equal fighting when trying to price.

Great article LamaClown.

Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed reading it!

If I create something that is similar to an official unit I will usually use that unit's cost as a primary guidline.

However, I have created more than one unit in my time that is nothing like any official units. These are the ones that are hard for me to price when comparing them to official units.

I usually take the best case scenario into consideration for these types. I find if I don't, they usually end up overpriced at best and broken at the worst. If they shine in the worst case scenario for their points worth, they are probably over priced.

One example is a fig I recently playtested for a community project I am a part of. He was priced at 120. When going one-on-one with a certain 150 point fig he did great- so was he underpriced? When he went toe-to-toe with a certain fig priced at 120 he lost every time- so was he overpriced? Against the 150 point fig it was a best case scenario; against the 120 point fig it was a less than best case scenario. Hence, he was probably about right- beats powerful figs in a good situation, loses against equal figs in a bad situation. Only taking into consideration best and less than best case scenarios during playtesting helped show this for me.

That's my view on it anyhow. Thanks for chiming in!