Custom Unit Philosophy

[CapnRedChops]

Has anyone ever asked the designers how they playtest? Seems the obvious starting point for mine.

CRC

[Chardar]

They playtest the same way we do. Play games with them and decide based on how they play. That's all playtesting is, an excuse to play scape and call it work.

[CapnRedChops]

Hang on. We're debating whether to cost units based on how they perform in best case scenarios, or how they perform on average.

You get different results with these two methods.

If would be handy to know how the designers playtest so we can do the same thing and get units that are more likely to be consistently priced with the official stuff.

CRC

[Lamaclown]

Originally Posted by Chardar

They playtest the same way we do. Play games with them and decide based on how they play. That's all playtesting is, an excuse to play scape and call it work.

LOL.
Great way to look at it, Chardar.

@ CRC: In the OP there is a link to a thread in which nyys asked the same question and Grungebob chimed in. So, a designer has given some input, albeit not extensive.

In case you missed it here is the link again.

[wolfeman1968]

Me and my family enjoy making customs. It all started when I picked up my second MS1. All the figures were unique and you could only have one in your army. I hate things just sitting around gathering dust so I started to customize the duplicates. Almost all of my customs except 3 are official HS figures repainted or altered (remove or add equipment). I now have 5 MS1 figures sets, 2 MS2 and 2 MS3 (yes I have 8 custom dragons). The customs I created help to round out theme armies (samurais, soldiers, agents, soulborgs, vikings, kyries). Some of copycat abilities assigned to other figures and others have new abilities.

I have not posted hardly any of them because I do not have a card generator loaded on my current computer (my family and I go thru computer like crazy...darn viruses). All my customs have been play tested and work well and are not overpowering (except my wife's darn Pixie who goes invisible and puts figures to sleep).

To give an example, one of my favorite customs are Marines...I painted a camo pattern on the Airborne Elite. Special Ability-- Amphibious Assault which is simply half movement in water. I made them because I wanted a soldier group that could "assault the beaches" they can move thru water but are slowed and since they are marines they are a little tougher. M=6, R=7, A=3, D=3 points 110 common squad. I recently changed them from unique to common, the other ability is grenade but being common now I think I may need to drop that and lower their points.

As Lamaclown mentioned, this custom filled a niche I wanted to see but is not too ground breaking but they do kick some butt. When making customs I try to use HS card wording as much as possible and keep the format as close to the original as possible.

I have done a lot of customs, about 140 different cards and over 300 repaints/alterations to figures.
(current collection 361 cards and 627 figures not included are D2 which should jump me up to 386 cards and 662 figures)

[flameslayer93]

Looking at my various customs(complete with many differing unique squads, 2-man squads, remakes like SotM Drake, etc.), I don't make things based upon a niche of the metagame at my place or what I think is overly different. Rather, many of my customs were designed around a central idea. Let's look at my custom Pyras for example:
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.p...i2emxb&thumb=5

With him, I wanted to examine how fire worked. Thinking back, I remembered how fire would "eat" stuff and grow stronger and larger. Thus came Unstopping Flame.

Sparks would light things on fire. An interesting idea I had was to give him magic that let him move differently and he would destroy things in his path. Which was where Firestream came from.

High Elemental Spray came from my imagination of a Deathwalker blowing stuff up and then setting stuff on fire like any explosion would. Putting 2 and 2 together gave birth to that power.

Anyways, I make customs based on a central idea(such as fire) and emphasize that particular thing. Now I choose my sculpts more about practicality and how many I have. For example, I only have 1 set of PK's. So I made one into a hero(check out customs to see more). I had 2 sets of Marro Warriors and I made one of those squads into Elites. I looked at my less used heroes and made some more from there(you won't believe how many of my customs use Morsbane's sculpt). Because my house doesn't have much of a metagame(because we often use anything), making and designing customs appears to be different than others.

There's my philosophy on custom making.

[Lamaclown]

With the cancellation of 'scape there has been a marked increase in the interest of custom units. As such it has brought some of my older questions to mind. Namely...

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 is 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?

This is somewhat of a necro but I do believe that it is a relevant question to the new era of scape we are entering.

[flameslayer93]

Necro time! I think this thread deserved a good necro

On topic...

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

Make something. Play something. Do something. Emphasis on the "Do". Making customs, judging customs, testing customs, and more. It's all about the "doing" of customs that I like.

The motivation to make something because you don't have a lot of Scape seems quite valid. Making something else to add to your collection seems valid.

The style of customs(as I have stated before) is to take a single idea and run it into the ground. The idea can be anything, and quite frankly has been anything. And as far as I'm concerned, I've advanced in my abilities a bit, but it's all about the past.

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

My primary style of ability appears to be heavily based on stats and messing with unit life. I've done some bonding, but I'd prefer to make that bonding mean something. Of course, have a 20-point squad who bonds with any Einar hero means one thing: Hero Armies

[faure]

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

The two things that I really enjoyed from the point where I first got Heroscape were: 1) the great mix of figures across time & place (orc riding dinosaur mixed with samurai, vikings, agents, etc); and 2) the ability to put together great themed or mixed armies (orc horde vs. roman legion; soulborgs vs. elves).

So my prime motivations in creating customs are: to bring new & interesting figures into the mix; and to expand my ability to put together interesting themed armies.

For instance, I really like the Vikings, the elementals, and Vydar's forces as themed armies, so those are groups I've concentrated my work on. Why should Utgar be the only one to control a range of elementals? In my heroscape, he shouldn't, so I'm working through what a Jandar-led elemental army (air/ice) or a Vydar-based construct army (golems) would look like. But I also find some figures that just seem natural to bring forward like my orc wardrummer -- yes, plenty of orcs already, but that figure seemed to fill a natural and distinct niche.

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

Generally focus on finding either new blends of existing special powers or taking a special power in a new direction based on the characteristics of the broad theme or the specific figure. I rarely have lots of similar figures, so the figures tend towards unique or common heroes, or unique squads, which means there has to be some reason to put an order marker on them and get reasonable use out of them (or take advantage of other synergies/bonding).

[kolakoski]

Well met!

From OP to Custom Unit Philosophy:

Originally Posted by 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.

Everything in this post speaks to my evolution as a custom designer. The last paragraph is exactly what I intend.