Competitive Unit Congress

[lefton4ya]

My only gripe with downgrading units is this removes any hope of of them being used in tournaments and possibly even home games with novice to experienced players who are used to playing with units as is, unless you are a masochist who wants to make the game harder for you to win (although maybe there quite a few more masochists Heroscapers). As a TD in the few times I allowed CUC cards, I always made them optional, but no one optionally brought a weaker version (even the one time I did a combined Take-2/Pick-Your-Poison/RTW where you could be playing against the army).

Also, Raelin is used to much though and other units' rankings are based on Raelin and Deathreavers priced where they are at so since Deathreavers where already costed more, if there was any change to Raelin, it would have to be other than point cost. Only thing I could think of is maybe downgrade Aura to be "All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 1 to their defense dice or within 3 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 2 to their defense dice. Realin's Aura does not affect Raelin." Believe it or not that one extra space makes a huge difference! I am totally cool with Q9 having one less defense. But again, these downgrades would be only sporadically used and IMHO I would rather focus on making other units better.

Also, anyone who has played with CUC units, please post on Competitive Unit Congress (CUC) Armies & Battle Reports

[quozl]

I'm with Uber Q9. It's much easier to downgrade a couple of units than to upgrade every other unit.

[Pumpkin_King]

Well, the goal isn't to make every unit Q9 - just make them playable.

[quozl]

So you admit Q9 isn't playable.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

My only gripe with downgrading units is this removes any hope of of them being used in tournaments and possibly even home games with novice to experienced players who are used to playing with units as is, unless you are a masochist who wants to make the game harder for you to win (although maybe there quite a few more masochists Heroscapers). As a TD in the few times I allowed CUC cards, I always made them optional, but no one optionally brought a weaker version (even the one time I did a combined Take-2/Pick-Your-Poison/RTW where you could be playing against the army).

Also, Raelin is used to much though and other units' rankings are based on Raelin and Deathreavers priced where they are at so since Deathreavers where already costed more, if there was any change to Raelin, it would have to be other than point cost. Only thing I could think of is maybe downgrade Aura to be "All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 1 to their defense dice or within 3 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 2 to their defense dice. Realin's Aura does not affect Raelin." Believe it or not that one extra space makes a huge difference! I am totally cool with Q9 having one less defense. But again, these downgrades would be only sporadically used and IMHO I would rather focus on making other units better.

Also, anyone who has played with CUC units, please post on Competitive Unit Congress (CUC) Armies & Battle Reports

Yeah, I'll be honest, I've used a few CUC cards (not all, but some), and I've never had any interest in switching to the new Deathreavers.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

My only gripe with downgrading units is this removes any hope of of them being used in tournaments and possibly even home games with novice to experienced players who are used to playing with units as is, unless you are a masochist who wants to make the game harder for you to win (although maybe there quite a few more masochists Heroscapers). As a TD in the few times I allowed CUC cards, I always made them optional, but no one optionally brought a weaker version (even the one time I did a combined Take-2/Pick-Your-Poison/RTW where you could be playing against the army).

Also, Raelin is used to much though and other units' rankings are based on Raelin and Deathreavers priced where they are at so since Deathreavers where already costed more, if there was any change to Raelin, it would have to be other than point cost. Only thing I could think of is maybe downgrade Aura to be "All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 1 to their defense dice or within 3 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 2 to their defense dice. Realin's Aura does not affect Raelin." Believe it or not that one extra space makes a huge difference! I am totally cool with Q9 having one less defense. But again, these downgrades would be only sporadically used and IMHO I would rather focus on making other units better.

Also, anyone who has played with CUC units, please post on Competitive Unit Congress (CUC) Armies & Battle Reports

I agree. One of the keys to making these changes more appealing is precisely to make them optional (that way people coming to tournaments won't be forced to rework some of their favorite armies if they don't want to), and I doubt that many people would willingly choose to use the weaker version of a unit at a tournament. Also, if people get used to a unit being stronger, then it will feel pretty bad to be stuck with an inferior version of that unit, which may dissuade them from trying out future revised cards.

While it may be more difficult when balancing to improve the strength of multiple units, I think that it's ultimately a better course to take than just nerfing Q9 and Raelin.

[Pumpkin_King]

While I don’t think that any sort of revamping project like this would be very likely to make it into a tournament, I had a thought.

Does changing the price of the unit make it less likely to appeal to a more competitive audience? If a project like this is to continue, would it be wise to not touch price point as a tuning dial?

[Astroking112]

I'm personally not a big fan of adjusting prices because it changes the drafting process pretty heavily, and it screws up my memory of what kinds of units I can afford at different price ranges. I greatly prefer adjustments to powers or stats themselves to improve units. There are some cases where simple price adjustments are generally fine, but I'd rather avoid that as much as possible.

[flameslayer93]

I can answer that from my personal opinion/experience with playing Delta Format at a tournement.

For those who don’t know or remember, Delta Format chaned the price of “all” the units to make them all on the same overall level. Really crappy units got buffed with a hefty proce drop, and vice versa for really competitive units.

As I was considering my build, I noticed that a lot of the units no longer clicked. Knights of Weston were around ~80 and lost that luster that they retain while at 70 points. That being able to slap Knights + Viking Champion for an easy 150 point “building block” was no longer on the table. Instead I had to work around the nice cookie cutter armies, which is HUGE for anybody who had to prepare armies for other attendees as well, and I just said it wasn’t worth the hassle. If I had only had my own build to consider, then it might be different.

Ultimately I took Groks and lost my games.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

I can answer that from my personal opinion/experience with playing Delta Format at a tournement.

For those who don’t know or remember, Delta Format chaned the price of “all” the units to make them all on the same overall level. Really crappy units got buffed with a hefty proce drop, and vice versa for really competitive units.

As I was considering my build, I noticed that a lot of the units no longer clicked. Knights of Weston were around ~80 and lost that luster that they retain while at 70 points. That being able to slap Knights + Viking Champion for an easy 150 point “building block” was no longer on the table. Instead I had to work around the nice cookie cutter armies, which is HUGE for anybody who had to prepare armies for other attendees as well, and I just said it wasn’t worth the hassle. If I had only had my own build to consider, then it might be different.

Ultimately I took Groks and lost my games.

This is roughly the extent of my experiences with Delta. No offense to it, as I think it's a fine idea and a valid way to go about balancing the game, but now that I'm familiar with all of the cards, I'm very hesitant to adjust prices and try to fix things by changing what's possible to fit into an army. As someone who often lends out units or builds armies for my friends for games, it just isn't worth the time to pull up a spreadsheet and recalculate everything if we're playing with adjusted prices.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

I was really big into Delta+ for a while, but have replaced it, for the time being, with a Draft Pool. See Kha Formal Playtest - 16 Card Draft Format.

[japes]

I always thought that if an issue could be addressed with a price change that was the best option. You stay with the original idea that the designers intended and just adjust it to be balanced within the universe. Breaking out of "cookie cutter" armies is a bonus not a hindrance. When I first joined I remember reading several game logs from tournaments and it always looked like the same armies. So to be competitive you had to also use counter armies for those which usually just meant a lot of similar armies. That's why other weaker units became obsolete. The didn't work against "cookie cutter" armies.