Quite the contrary, cursed signets is good in waiqar mirror matches. Getting your 4x3 nerfed by blight is terrible. Losing a few reanimates off the back isn't so bad if they still hit back (lingering dead helps).

I just hope that the Runewars development team has learnt from the mistakes of both Imperial Assault and X-Wing and that in a few years we're not all talking about how bad all the core set units are.

To differing degrees the early waves of those games are now severely underpowered compared to recent waves.

2 hours ago, Jukey said:

Quite the contrary, cursed signets is good in waiqar mirror matches. Getting your 4x3 nerfed by blight is terrible. Losing a few reanimates off the back isn't so bad if they still hit back (lingering dead helps).

I disagree, but I also encourage people to give me as many free wounds as they care to, particularly at the cost of the coveted banner slot.

I think it's pretty stupid that there's two keywords in this game called such similar things- Protected and Protector

On July 13, 2017 at 6:26 PM, Darthain said:

Trumpets, it just seems unnecessary.

Trumpets are the Proton Torpedoes of the Runewars world: everybody will have ten copies of them before the year is out and you will never see them equipped in a game.

All Uthuk stuff.

Too early to tell. There is much developed and little released.

but designing for a game like this has its own learning curve and I'm sure we will see unused cardboard. Just so long as the minis people paint are all still useful I'm good.

2 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

All Uthuk stuff.

Do you have something against the faction as a whole, or are you just unimpressed with their upgrade cards and unit abilities?

13 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

Do you have something against the faction as a whole, or are you just unimpressed with their upgrade cards and unit abilities?

I just want better daqan stuff. Like a rune golem with 3 wounds.

Yeah the more I think about it the more I think these early waves are likely to ultimately be seen as overpowered or underpowered, purely because they've had to design so much before the game was actually being played.

There's a few instances of that happening with FFG's other games - see:

• X-Wing waves 1-3 severely underpowered compared to recent waves, and the titular ship sees no competitive play
• Imperial Assault - Royal Guards, Imperial Officers, Rebel Saboteurs all saw hard errata, because they were really OP. Other unique figures like Vader, Fett, Han, Chewie, IG-88 are all very underpowered/overcosted and are slowly being fixed
• Destiny - first two sets were designed before the game's release - some things are close to broken - such as Rey, Sith Holocron, Force Speed etc

But there's also hope, because:

• Everything about the design of Runewars suggests a real thoughtful approach that incorporates the best elements of their past minis game, but also learns from their mistakes - it feels like the pinnacle of their efforts over the last 5+ years
• They're also learning from the distribution model of those games - such as friendlier upgrade cards etc
• FFG is increasingly recognising that development lead times often render upcoming 'fixes' or 'anti-meta tech' somewhat obsolete and that hard and fast errata is fine and often necessary - for example, they did the hard Imperial Assault errata, and they have errata'd Destiny cards even before their release

This makes me hope that Runewars will be more future-proofed, have less balanace/OP/UP issues in the first place and that when/if they do occur, FFG will be quicker to just simply say stuff like "hey, you know what, have another wound on your Rune Golems and have fun!"

On 18/07/2017 at 0:47 AM, Elliphino said:

Trumpets are the Proton Torpedoes of the Runewars world: everybody will have ten copies of them before the year is out and you will never see them equipped in a game.

Proton Torpedoes? Bad example because see below

On 7/18/2017 at 3:17 PM, jonboyjon1990 said:

Yeah the more I think about it the more I think these early waves are likely to ultimately be seen as overpowered or underpowered, purely because they've had to design so much before the game was actually being played.

There's a few instances of that happening with FFG's other games - see:

• X-Wing waves 1-3 severely underpowered compared to recent waves, and the titular ship sees no competitive play
• Imperial Assault - Royal Guards, Imperial Officers, Rebel Saboteurs all saw hard errata, because they were really OP. Other unique figures like Vader, Fett, Han, Chewie, IG-88 are all very underpowered/overcosted and are slowly being fixed
• Destiny - first two sets were designed before the game's release - some things are close to broken - such as Rey, Sith Holocron, Force Speed etc

But there's also hope, because:

• Everything about the design of Runewars suggests a real thoughtful approach that incorporates the best elements of their past minis game, but also learns from their mistakes - it feels like the pinnacle of their efforts over the last 5+ years
• They're also learning from the distribution model of those games - such as friendlier upgrade cards etc
• FFG is increasingly recognising that development lead times often render upcoming 'fixes' or 'anti-meta tech' somewhat obsolete and that hard and fast errata is fine and often necessary - for example, they did the hard Imperial Assault errata, and they have errata'd Destiny cards even before their release

This makes me hope that Runewars will be more future-proofed, have less balanace/OP/UP issues in the first place and that when/if they do occur, FFG will be quicker to just simply say stuff like "hey, you know what, have another wound on your Rune Golems and have fun!"

What do you mean by "hard errata". Did they start produce an updated version of these cards? If so, is it possible for current customers to get them without rebuying the expansion/core box?

56 minutes ago, Xargonaut said:

What do you mean by "hard errata". Did they start produce an updated version of these cards? If so, is it possible for current customers to get them without rebuying the expansion/core box?

They keep a living FAQ document online to that becomes required for tournament play. The erratas are usually handled there and often they don't reprint the cards. At least this is the case in X Wing and Armada.

There is nothing good about hard errata (errata that fundamentally change how a card works). They're called errata for a reason -- they're errors! Relying on errata to adjust the meta is a horrible idea. It means you never know the power level of something you buy. The company can feel free to change card text -- even if it isn't broken -- just to shake up the meta.

It also means there is less incentive for proper playtesting because, "Hey, we can always change it later." It makes the game one extended beta test instead of a finalized product. Imagine if that's how other publications worked. Someone submits an amazing discovery to Nature and then finishes analyzing the data months later only to discover that their conclusions were wrong. That kind of thing SHOULD be embarrassing, and publishing unbalanced units should be equally embarrassing for a game company. Relying on errata will only result un lower standards.

I'm all for card balancing and changing in electronic formats (such as Hearthstone) where everyone can know about it equally. For me though, hard errata is a major barrier to tournament entry. I mostly play games at home with my wife or with either of my brothers and occasionally with my dad or others. I only go to the LGS to play maybe once or twice a month at most and usually less than that. Because of that, we don't really keep up with the latest tournament FAQs and erratas. I've been caught more than once on some obscure tournament only rule. It also sucks during list building because I look at my cards and think, "oh wait, didn't they change this?" A lot of times they'll give out corrected alt-art cards at these events but because I go to events so infrequently, I don't have these handy at home.

Also, there's nothing less fun when playing at home than trying to explain to someone new (or just to my wife or bros), "Yeah, this card actually should say this. I haven't penciled it in because that looks ugly, but just remember that"... yeah, I'm not doing that during our home matches. Clarifying interactions and meaning is fine in FAQs, but this errata 'balancing' they attempt is just stupid.

On another note, I really like it when then buff old stuff using new stuff (like Imperial Assault's new buffs to IG88 and Vader), but unfortunately there's no real way to do this with nerfs. No one's gonna use an upgrade card that nerfs a character, so I'm not sure what approach they could take besides banning stuff but then that's even worse than an errata. I'm complaining and offering no solutions here.

EDIT: What would be great is if they could ship out revised versions of cards to people on request. I know they couldn't do this for free, but I'd be willing to pay just to not have to remember stuff. Plus then you'd have a proper amount of outrage about things being nerfed and then maybe they'd be more careful. I mean, just look at the recent Armada changes . If you don't play regularly, it's super easy to forget this stuff. Fortunately at home we don't play competitively, so we'll just keep going without the nerfs. We aren't good enough for it to matter. It just makes me less inclined to go play at my LGS because now I have to bring a reference sheet telling me which cards are changed so that I don't forget.

5 hours ago, Xargonaut said:

What do you mean by "hard errata". Did they start produce an updated version of these cards? If so, is it possible for current customers to get them without rebuying the expansion/core box?

Most of the time in FFG's game errata consists of a simple word tweak here or there. Replacement cards with the new wording don't exist and aren't provided.

The Imperial Assault errata fundamentally changed the stats and abilities of those units. Replacement cards with the new wording were given out as participation prizes in tournaments.

The Destiny errata would be classified as 'soft' but is notable for its publication immediately as those cards were released

4 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

There is nothing good about hard errata (errata that fundamentally change how a card works). They're called errata for a reason -- they're errors! Relying on errata to adjust the meta is a horrible idea. It means you never know the power level of something you buy. The company can feel free to change card text -- even if it isn't broken -- just to shake up the meta.

It also means there is less incentive for proper playtesting because, "Hey, we can always change it later." It makes the game one extended beta test instead of a finalized product. Imagine if that's how other publications worked. Someone submits an amazing discovery to Nature and then finishes analyzing the data months later only to discover that their conclusions were wrong. That kind of thing SHOULD be embarrassing, and publishing unbalanced units should be equally embarrassing for a game company. Relying on errata will only result un lower standards.

See the problem is, in a living game, errata is REQUIRED as a matter of course. Yes it might occasionally suck, yes it doesn't work well in physical forms, but it often has to happen. The thing is, it isn't always as simple as 'don't publish something unbalanced'. Sometimes an old standby becomes the lynch pin of something catastrophic, after it had time to simmer and build for a long time. Each individual part isn't a problem, but put together, it creates a monster. If you simply take the 'shouldn't have published that last piece then' approach you greatly limit design space over time.

Design space is pretty important, if it continually gets narrower because of the constraints of existing material, you need to have a definite end point, and a rather myopic approach. Say you want to stretch in a different direction though, and one card is holding you back... Well you fix that card. That's the sensible approach, opposed to just killing off a game people are enjoying with less and less unique ideas (or none at all). Sometimes off the hop you don't anticipate the design space issues that might arise with certain cards, and a too late approach is a bit silly.

58 minutes ago, Darthain said:

See the problem is, in a living game, errata is REQUIRED as a matter of course. Yes it might occasionally suck, yes it doesn't work well in physical forms, but it often has to happen. The thing is, it isn't always as simple as 'don't publish something unbalanced'. Sometimes an old standby becomes the lynch pin of something catastrophic, after it had time to simmer and build for a long time. Each individual part isn't a problem, but put together, it creates a monster. If you simply take the 'shouldn't have published that last piece then' approach you greatly limit design space over time.

Design space is pretty important, if it continually gets narrower because of the constraints of existing material, you need to have a definite end point, and a rather myopic approach. Say you want to stretch in a different direction though, and one card is holding you back... Well you fix that card. That's the sensible approach, opposed to just killing off a game people are enjoying with less and less unique ideas (or none at all). Sometimes off the hop you don't anticipate the design space issues that might arise with certain cards, and a too late approach is a bit silly.

The points you make about design space are well taken and I do agree with them. I do disagree though that errata is necessary as a balancing mechanism. It's the easy way out.

Earlier I said that I didn't have any solutions, but the more I think about it, the more I think that I can think of at least one solution. Balance through counter design. Basically, you can balance by creating counterplay to current powerful cards/units in the meta. You basically create new units/cards that offer some soft counters to whatever is/was dominating the meta. You can do this ahead of time by making sure that everything has some form of counter. They have to be soft counters because otherwise they suck too much against everything else to run in a serious list and you don't want them to be a 100% win against the target of the counter. In this fashion, the meta is free to shift, but it will never become too locked into one position because then the counters become more popular, so people go look for other 3rd options that circumvent both.

Of course, most game companies already try to do this to some extent and it's hard to foresee which playstyles will become popular. Other times, it amazing that they can miss these things. How did FFG not foresee the lifeboat meta with Flotillas? I have no clue. Other things like the strength of say, Rieekan, can be harder to spot in advance. In these cases, they need to introduce more counters into future produce rather than use erratas. That takes a while, but then so do these erratas. Flotillas have been out for quite a while now. You probably could have introduced more ways to deal with them by now in wave 6 rather than using erratas. I use Armada as an example just because it's the FFG game I've probably played the most seriously (even then not as much as many on this forum).

If they really want to stick with erratas, then I wish they would at least do like a yearly "errata pack" where I could just purchase the updated versions of cards for the games that I do care about more. Heck, make it print-on-demand like they do with the standalone scenarios in LOTR LCG. Further, let people customize the contents of the pack so they get the right number of cards for what they had. (At this point, we're entering dangerous territory where FFG wouldn't get people to buy whole expansions just for 1 card though, so this will probably never happen.) Then, if people don't want to pay for it, just let them use the current system where you print out a FAQ. I'm just really sad that I missed out on the Imperial Assault errata cards at events, and now if I ever want them I have to pay through the nose on Ebay.

@Willange , I see balance through 'counter design' as very bad design. If you feel the need to design a counter, you should probably go back and address the item that was such a problem it 'needs' a counter. What you end up creating are RPS scenarios, and those are a terrible thing. This is FFGs already standard practice and I think balance through counter design is exactly why things get out of hand. It is the exact reluctance to errata that creates a lot of these situations as when when final piece of the puzzle drops, it kind of becomes 'what have we done'.

I agree, changed cards should be reprinted, and who knows, they might be in the future. Include changed cards in the following release sort of deal. I'm from MTG in the 90s, and Armada. But we look at other systems, such a D&Ds evolution over time, and warhammer, and we see these shifts in response (not always for balance reasons albeit), but to provide the game the current helmsmen are envisioning, or possibly that the players desire.

3 hours ago, jonboyjon1990 said:

Most of the time in FFG's game errata consists of a simple word tweak here or there. Replacement cards with the new wording don't exist and aren't provided.

The Imperial Assault errata fundamentally changed the stats and abilities of those units. Replacement cards with the new wording were given out as participation prizes in tournaments.

The Destiny errata would be classified as 'soft' but is notable for its publication immediately as those cards were released

I mean that's what errata is, fundamentally changing the way a card works. Your assertion that the cards don't exist and aren't provided is demonstrably false, by your own demonstration.

@Darthain That's a good way of thinking about it that I hadn't considered, and yes it could definitely get it of hand. I suppose the real answer here is, "don't screw up" ?. That's pretty much impossible, so I guess I just have to settle for hoping for reprints! ... Hopefully

@Willange I prefer not to have to remember stuff too, like the other day when I gave a young player one of my 6 odd trc... ffg pls send me 6 exhaust trc alt arts ?.

Playtesting is tricky, especially when you need to keep a game moving (aka infinite time is unfortunately not real). You get a team, who are likely grumpy and frustrated, say break the game, and hope they do as you adjust. It's loads of work, but a labour of love of folks who want to steer their pet game, even a little. Huge sacrifices and massive respect to people who playtest ANYTHING. Hell players here just won't in many cases as, 'its work'.

Let's say FFG decides to release revised cards in the future, I can finally see a use for those proof of purchase tokens: send anyone of them back to FFG for any of their game and you get to be subscribed to their bi-annual card revisions for that game, getting those cards by mail for free. A guy can dream... ?

7 hours ago, rowdyoctopus said:

I mean that's what errata is, fundamentally changing the way a card works. Your assertion that the cards don't exist and aren't provided is demonstrably false, by your own demonstration.

Huh? @Xargonaut asked me what I meant by 'hard errata'

the way I see it there's:

- 'soft errata' which is simple word tweaking, but the functionality of the card remains largely similar to original wording. This is commonly seen in X-Wing and Armada. And the 'new' versions of the cards aren't provided - in reprint of packs or otherwise.

- 'hard errata' which is larger changes to wording, or in the case of Imperial Assault, a complete change in the wording/functionality of the card. These new cards were made available.

Hard Erratas can be very good for the game in the right circumstance. It helps open up the design field to prevent broken combos while allowing the development to experiment more.