The Book of The Crow

[dok]

No, you still have the basic negative play experience problem that was the issue from the start.

There is a reason we've been more fundamentally overhauling this one, quozl, and a reason I've been saying this was going to be the hardest one to re-eval since the very beginning of the process. The issues here are very fundamental to the design. We could nerf it to be uncompetitive and there would still be the self-attacking problem.

[quozl]

Originally Posted by dok

We could nerf it to be uncompetitive and there would still be the self-attacking problem.

What's wrong with that? Not everybody has to like every design.

[Dysole]

Originally Posted by quozl

What's wrong with that? Not everybody has to like every design.

There are plenty of reasons not to like a design. The problem with this one is that the optimal way to play the design ended up being both unthematic (as the optimal way to play involved not attacking the guy with the crow marker) and a bad gameplay experience for the opponent (because the only way to remove the marker was to attack their own figure).

~Dysole, who really wishes the CRB had been there to head this one off

[A3n]

What if ...

LIVE FOR VENGEANCE
At the start of the game, choose an opponent's Unique Hero that is not The Crow and place the black Crow Marker on the chosen figure's card. While your Crow Marker is on another Army Card, that figure rolls one fewer defense die and The Crow will not take wounds from any attack. If the figure with your Crow Marker on its card is removed from the battlefield or receives one or more wounds from a normal or special attack, place your Crow Marker on this card. While the Crow Marker is on another Army Card, The Crow cannot attack any other figure except the chosen figure.

It still keeps all the original intents & forces the Crow to live only for that vengeance. Sure the ability remains for the opponent to wound his own figure to remove the marker, but that now has less incentive than before & the cost is an OM & a wound to do so which I think is pretty fair considering you get to place it again if they manage to destroy one of your figures . But if you still want to nerf that ability you can just change it to "...receives one or more wounds from an opponents normal or special attack..."

[Lazy Orang]

So, the Crow can only attack his target, and as soon as he wounds it, he no longer has a target?

I'm sorry, I'm with dok and Dysole here - the original design is kind of irredeemable. We can keep the same spirit, but we need to make major mechanical changes before it is either balanced or thematic, and I thing my/dok's idea is the best way of doing that (though if LP has any specific thoughts/requests on it, that is of course important).

As is, I would never give the ideas quozl or A3N proposed a passing grade in a test, thematically or mechanically.

[quozl]

Originally Posted by Dysole

There are plenty of reasons not to like a design. The problem with this one is that the optimal way to play the design ended up being both unthematic (as the optimal way to play involved not attacking the guy with the crow marker) and a bad gameplay experience for the opponent (because the only way to remove the marker was to attack their own figure).

~Dysole, who really wishes the CRB had been there to head this one off

I'm going to say this in bold to everyone:

We are not redesigning this figure because we do not like the theme. We are only making small changes so it can be used in a competitive environment.

If you don't like the theme, make your own design. You do not have the right to change this design.

[Lazy Orang]

Okay, compromise time:

NAME = THE CROW
SECRET IDENTITY = ERIC DRAVEN

SPECIES = UNDEAD
UNIQUENESS = EVENT HERO
CLASS = REVENANT
PERSONALITY = VENGEFUL

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 5

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 5
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 4

POINTS = 190

SET THE WRONG THINGS RIGHT
At the start of the game, choose an opponent's Unique Army Card that is not The Crow and place the black Crow Marker on the chosen figure's card. If the Crow Marker is on this card and any other figure you control is destroyed by an opponent’s figure, you may place your Crow Marker on the attacking figure's Army Card. If a figure with your Crow Marker on its card is removed from the battlefield or your opponent loses control of that figure, place your Crow Marker on this card.

LIVE FOR VENGEANCE
While your Crow Marker is on another Army Card, if The Crow would receive one or more wounds, ignore one of those wounds. Any Unique Hero with your Crow Marker on its Army Card rolls two fewer defense dice against the Crow.

DOUBLE ATTACK
When The Crow attacks, he may attack one additional time.

This is the originally proposed re-eval version, with two alterations:
1) You start with a Crow Marker on an opponent's card. This is both closer to the original design, and much more thematic. (There's also the Unique Hero to Unique Army Card note, but no one's really argued with that change.)
2) The change to drop his attack and boost the defence subtraction to -2 and made it conditional on the Crow attacking. This a) makes him less useful to just blast away at other units while maintaining the defence boost, (balance win), and encourages him to go after his target for the -2 defence (theme win).

Can we please agree on this one? I'm doing my best here, and actually departing from the original design/theme less than the originally proposed revision.

EDIT: Calling @Lord Pyre , please approve this.

[Viegon]

I support that version.

[dok]

No, I don't agree to that one, L_O, for the reasons I've said other times. I still don't understand why you think it's thematic for the marker to go on another card during the game, but he must start with one marker placed. Either placing markers during the game hits theme, or it doesn't. (Also, going back to your previous suggestion doesn't seem like much of a compromise on your part...)

Originally Posted by quozl

I'm going to say this in bold to everyone:

We are not redesigning this figure because we do not like the theme. We are only making small changes so it can be used in a competitive environment.

If you don't like the theme, make your own design. You do not have the right to change this design.

First of all, there are several heroes in this discussion, and others seem to be supporting the path we're taking. If you don't like what we're doing than I would respectfully suggest that you guys discuss things in private and come to a consensus, instead of having some people supporting our work while you yell at us.

But anyway, here's the thing: making "small changes so it can be used in a competitive environment" will produce a design that literally nobody is satisfied with.

The reason you didn't see this come up in the other re-evals is because that was not the case for those re-evals. In every one of those cases, there was a tweak to a power and/or a cost change that produced a design everyone was satisfied with while preserving the basic approach of the original design. That should always be the goal of a re-eval, and nobody disputes that. The reason I've been dreading The Crow since we started doing re-evals is because it was always obvious to me that this one could not be fixed just by turning a few dials.

Here, what you are insisting on, is that we simply turn the dials down on this design until it's not a competitive problem. The issue here is that, because of the nature of the design, we can't just turn an "A+" down to an "A" "A-" and call it good (as we've done for most re-evals) because the competitive issues would still be a problem. So instead we'd have to turn it way down. You'd be left with a bad figure that still has the negative play experience problems.

In short, we can do two of three things:

1. Balance The Crow for competitive purposes
2. Produce a figure that adheres to the C3G standards of fun and thematic design and gameplay
3. Preserve the basic dynamic of what LP's current design does.

Talk to the heroes, pick two, and get back to us.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by dok

No, I don't agree to that one, L_O, for the reasons I've said other times. I still don't understand why you think it's thematic for the marker to go on another card during the game, but he must start with one marker placed. Either placing markers during the game hits theme, or it doesn't. (Also, going back to your previous suggestion doesn't seem like much of a compromise on your part...)

Because
a) I feel starting with the marker is necessary for the theme;
b) I don't like it transferring, but have been argued down on that score; and
c) It's closest to the original version, which seems to be the big contention with any other idea proposed.

In short, I don't like it, but for the sake of compromise, I think it's the best we can expect to get.

P.S.: I'd actually forgotten I'd suggested this before, though, to be fair, it was a compromise then, as well.

[quozl]

I was hoping to see more people discuss this but I guess maybe it's become too contentious currently. At this point, I think we should table this until the Heroes talk with Lord Pyre about how we should handle this design.

[Ronin]

I've been a little wary about poking into this, yeah. Don't have the energy for a big argument in here.

I do think having the Heroes weigh in and render a verdict on the scope of the changes being made to the Crow is a good idea.