Logic behind Nerfs

Errata issued by the CoE, open discussion of candidate rules for errata, and submissions for the Annual Rules Vote.
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Theo
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Would it be possible to make a subforum that catalogs the motives behind historic errata? Particularly for errata that seem to be entirely based on reducing the power of a card (which to me seem more subjective), as opposed to things like ease of interpretability/gameplay, thematic consistency, or removing typos or other inconsistencies.

On my list are mainly cards which have multiple nerfs, where I wonder "Were all of these really necessary?", like
Rescue Prisoners: reduced MP and MP only when stored?
Vilya: site restriction and reduced cards and limit 1/turn?
Guarded Haven: no region removal and cannot start?
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the JabberwocK
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When we created the new forums about a year ago, I completely reorganized the forums and reduced the total number of forums and subforums by about half. So I am a bit of a minimalist when it comes to this and generally speaking, require a very good reason to create a new forum.

That said, if this proves to be a topic of interest to people, I would be happy to make it a sticky. Even without a sticky, a somewhat active thread will be moved to the top of the forum regularly.

I'm no expert on the history of any of the cards you listed, but in terms of Vilya, I'm pretty sure it was massively broken and needed a serious fix. I'm actually a little surprised ICE missed this fact during development.
Jose-san
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The region removal from protected wizardhavens was pretty broken too.
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Bandobras Took
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You needed to have been here for the beginning of the game. With the Wizards release, you could move to a site, play two greater items and rescue prisoners, and easily have an 11-point site phase. This was unhealthy for the game.

As was infinite Vilya recycling.

When Wizards was released, there was no creature minimum, either. Every hazard portion was The Balance of Things, Ren the Unclean, and twenty-three corruption cards.

Guarded Haven isn't startable because some FWs benefit far more from a protected Wizardhaven than others.

It's interesting to note that the number of broken cards increases as one approaches the Balrog set precisely because ICE didn't have time to nerf the cards that break the game. And their best gauge of that was seeing how much players who knew the game well could break it.
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Theo
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I mean, I did play when Wizards was released... maybe not the day of, but before Dragons for sure. But the more important limit to MP burst was probably Thorough Search, no?

I would think subforums would be precisely useful for topics that are of interest to only a smaller set of people? I guess I've never seem them used much outside of this site, though.

I perfectly realize that Rescue Prisoners and Vilya weren't balanced. My point about Rescue Prisoners is that I've seen it used in a deck maybe once since the errata was known in the groups I played in. To get some justification for this sense, I did a quick search through all of the world champion decks that Shapeshifter has easy links to on his website and got... 0 uses of Rescue Prisoners. Any surprise? While I think lowering from 3 MP seems obvious---is there any other way to get 3 MP/card without tapping a site besides character play, which has its own limit from influence?---the requirement to store for any MP seems a bit excessive. Oh wait, compare to Smoke on the Wind, which not only gives instant 3 MP but you don't have to keep a character tapped for 2 more turns let alone worry about the poor sod getting knocked off and losing it all on your journey back to some (potentially useless) site. So, from this we should conclude that Rescue Prisoners was deemed to need the extra storage requirement because hero greater items give too much MP? Fair enough.

For Vilya, I don't understand the changes as solving infinite recycling, which after all the nerfs can still be done! Or was the problem in combination with some other card I'm not realizing? Anyway, if recycling were the concern, a better solution might have been to not allow Vilya to return itself, say by being set aside until the player exhausts their deck, or any other mechanism. Conceptually I have a very hard time believing that Vilya, made by Celebrimbor in Eregion and first sent to Gil-galad in Lindon before ever coming to Elrond, would have some binding to Rivendell in particular. I guess we'll have to wait a year to suggest an official change proposal.

Meanwhile there are cards like Longbottom Leaf, which 100% of champion decks have the maximum allowed, but no one seems to bat an eye because every deck uses them, rather than Rescue Prisoners or Vilya being somewhat more strategy dependent and thus actually an interesting choice.
Bandobras Took wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 1:04 pm Guarded Haven isn't startable because some FWs benefit far more from a protected Wizardhaven than others.
That's really the historic motive? Uhh... isn't being different kind of the point of having multiple Fallen-wizards? :|
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Bandobras Took
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If you wish to argue with ICE's reasoning, you're several years too late. ;)
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Logain
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Lowering a broken card to a point it isn't used anymore is common as far as Collectible Card Games are concerned, ICE is no exception...

The last set (Balrog) has some cards that could have been errated if ICE hadn't stopped, Council of Elrond discussed some and issued at least one.
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the JabberwocK
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Logain wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 9:13 pm The last set (Balrog) has some cards that could have been errated if ICE hadn't stopped, Council of Elrond discussed some and issued at least one.
Do you know which one the CoE issued? The only erratum I'm aware of is this one... viewtopic.php?f=103&t=2815
Logain
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The one i had in mind concerns Balrog characters with 3 mind, but we didn't manage to agree on something, as usual... viewtopic.php?f=68&t=1503

So in all its existence this Council only issued one... which is more of a wording correction.
That's conservative to say the least. ICE issued many erratas and we didn't manage to pull a real one. What's wrong ?

Tharasix "I forgot how deliberate and conservative the fan base is. Like Gimli describes working in the Glittering Caves of Aglarond: "With cautious skill, tap by tap - a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day - so we would work..." Good job in displaying your cautious skill".
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the JabberwocK
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Logain wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 7:37 pm So in all its existence this Council only issued one... which is more of a wording correction.
That's conservative to say the least. ICE issued many erratas and we didn't manage to pull a real one. What's wrong ?
Indeed. Well, I can't speak for Councils of the past, but as you know, our current Council has more of a focus on making the game enjoyable and long lasting for its current players, as well as those new players who continue to join our game.... and not so much of a focus on rigid adherence to ICE-era rules.
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Bandobras Took
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Logain wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 7:37 pm The one i had in mind concerns Balrog characters with 3 mind, but we didn't manage to agree on something, as usual... viewtopic.php?f=68&t=1503

So in all its existence this Council only issued one... which is more of a wording correction.
That's conservative to say the least. ICE issued many erratas and we didn't manage to pull a real one. What's wrong ?
If you knew how hard I had to fight to get them to even amend the process, let alone issue that one, you might be more impressed. :)
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Theo
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I enjoyed the links; thanks all.
Logain wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 9:13 pm Lowering a broken card to a point it isn't used anymore is common as far as Collectible Card Games are concerned, ICE is no exception...
I imagine that most CCGs are based on making a profit :arrow: selling new cards :arrow: power creep. Excessive nerfs work in favor of that. But without profit as a driver, why not revisit them?

Sealed decks making the best of what they are given is the only reason I can think of to deliberately have otherwise-unused cards in the game. But from a self-centered perspective, my prospects of sealed deck play at this point are pretty minimal.
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Bandobras Took
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Theo wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 11:11 pmI imagine that most CCGs are based on making a profit :arrow: selling new cards :arrow: power creep. Excessive nerfs work in favor of that. But without profit as a driver, why not revisit them?
Amen and Hallelujah!

:)
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Theo
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I have found somewhat what I sought:
Ichabod wrote:Someone asked for the rationale behind the latest batch of errata, so
I will do my best to give it to you.

First was the realization that certain decks are a bit too powerful.
The two main culprits are the Indiana Jones strategy of getting lots
of items fast, and the Coastal/Sea strategy that uses Great Ship to
ruin whatever your opponent's hazard strategy is.

Second was the decision to issue errata rather than restrict cards in
tournament play. It was decided that creating a restricted list would
result in too many luck situations where I got lucky and drew my one
Thorough Search and Rescue Prisoners on the first turn, and win by
getting 11 points real early.

As for the individual cards:

Thorough Search: Two greater items a turn is just too fast. By restricting
it to minor and major items it's slower getting marshalling points and
harder to get the right two items together.

Rescue Prisoners: Again the 3 extra points is too fast. Also it makes
it a bit too easy to fill out the non-item points in an Indiana Jones
strategy. 2 points and requiring storage slows it down in two ways.

Great Ship: This is too much of a surprise card, but forcing it to be
played during the organization phase brings it in line with other
hazard avoidance cards like Ford. The tapping of a character also
limits it's effectiveness some. This was the lynch pin of the Coastal
strategy, and was what really needed change the most.

Vilya: Just too powerful. Both the pumping of Elrond and the card
retrieval at the same time is a bit much. Even the card recycling
itself is a bit much. So we toned down the card recycling and by
allowing it only in Rivendell we made the card an either/or proposition.

Tolfalas: The Coastal strategy was meant to have a minimum of greater
item sites, but region movement allowed more than expected. Therefore
Tolfalas was knocked back to minor/major. The Scroll of Isildur was
left in for simulation, since according to the books it was found at
Tolfalas.

Lucky Search: Too easy to get the item points again. Just use a
Hobbit Scout and there is minimal chance of losing the body check.
Now you have to defeat the prowess of the attack also, making it
no sure thing.

Cruel Caradhras: Type fixing, Minas Morgul being a site not a region.

Dragon's Hunger: Since the discard is supposed to be forced, you should
be able to see the cards for confirmation. This brings it in line with
other cards.
Not hugely satisfying, but better than nothing.
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CDavis7M
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No surprise that most/all of the changes were made in response to tournament decks. No wonder everyone plays the same tournament decks for the past 22 years...

Also, did you read the posts were ICE asked for suggests on what to do about Fallen Wizards and they received a ton of responses and didn't use the ideas from any of them? [-me_gi-]

Another one of the early "big" changes was the move from 1-deck games to 2-deck games. People complained about this.

People also complained the "weakest link" method. And then people complained about the changes.

People complained about the sideboard size changes and the ability to sideboard hazards when opponent's wizard is in play.

It seems like everyone was in favor of the -3 for corruption rolls change.

People complained about the 12 creature change. People still complain about this.

People also complained how they couldn't get Fatty Bolger because the shipment was lost and the rest were stolen. And people complained that his border was blue.

There is at least some commentary on all of this.
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