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Post by cannonfury on Aug 6, 2009 20:21:45 GMT -5
yes and now build totals might be thrown off, so instead of having 1 point left and some options, you might end up with, "Great, i have 0.5 points left to finish my fleet. What to do, what to do...."
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Post by admiralb on Aug 6, 2009 20:57:37 GMT -5
actually, vlad it is that broken...the last update of the oarsman keyword basically said the ship is not derelict while carrying an oarsman, so it can't be towed without cancelling, and since the combo includes its own cancellor, you can't capture it without 2 cancellors of your own OR Holy Water and 1 cancellor on the same ship OR Cursed Jack OR Runes of Odin iceberg + Runes of Magic OR Duel...sinking an Eternal is less helpful than letting it row home to fix itself...but the combo is so expensive it can't be used effectively in games under 60pts.
yeah, i understand why 1/2pts can theoretically work, but again it seems like something that really doesn't need to be done...are there any other games that have 1/2pts? none from Wk at least that I can recall...most others I've played are all whole numbers...if it can't be done with whole numbers why even bother usig numbers in the first place? why not stars like Star Wars or icons like Magic? or some other way of measuring your cost...
I didn't want to bring this up, but the game was and to some extent will always be a 'beer and pretzels' game...if you take away an aspect that makes it easy to play, you take away some of its appeal...keep it simple...building your fleet should be the easy part, actually fighting for the gold and getting it home should be the hard part...if this were a more "techie" game I'd say go for it...like Rocketmen, but its not...its Pirates...we have so many abilities as it is that almost any new ability created can be likened to some existing ability and priced appropriately in whole numbers...it'd probably add a bunch new weird text to the rules sheets we all know and love about half a point and such...plus stuff like Duel...do you want to lose the Duel by 1/2pt, that would be terrible...wouldn't you rather tie and kill both than lose just yours? or lose a crew to Barbarossa by 1/2pt...it just seems weird...also, a number of scenarios involve using gold to pay for new crew/ships/equipment/etc. and 1/2pts would just mess with stuff like that; "I have a 1/2 a gold left...what can represent that?"
...I don't want to come off as some kind of jerk, but it really doesn't seem as necessary as one would suspect...yes some abilities probably should be worth more...but some should be less too...how often is Barbarossa or similar used? rarely to never probably and that's because no one can justify spending 10pts on a single crew that only works if you win a boarding party and then get your captive home...clearly, that ability could be costed lower, but it isn't, maybe to make up for other undercosted abilities, but maybe not...anyway, a lot of stuff balances out over the span of the entire game...at the moment all of our players know that if you aren't bringing a cancellor on board your gunship you stand almost no chance against the other big gunships...the extra 5pts you have to spend to get the cancellor is an interesting balance we have going on...you could spend them elsewhere, but if you don't get the cancellor you will never be able to take on any of the other gunships single-handidly.
rant rant...whatever...I can see the appeal and what-not, but just don't think the game is that unbalanced at this point...by introducing decimals you're admiting the game is not balanced and therefore any new players can be put off by that and never pick up the game because it seems unfair in some way...which it can be already...I may continue over in the ranting area about new players and such...but I think we need more input on this...I could go either way, I just need something to do right now, and unfortunately your comments got in the way, sorry.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 6, 2009 20:57:32 GMT -5
yes and now build totals might be thrown off, so instead of having 1 point left and some options, you might end up with, "Great, i have 0.5 points left to finish my fleet. What to do, what to do...." What I'm saying is that eventually after a while there will be enough .5 increments in ships and crew so that this won't be a problem. That being said, it was just brainstorming and I'm just being a devil's advocate right now. admiralb- Then just reduce the ship by a point and there is no longer a 'broken ship' scenario. Problem solved. Now the USS Constellation is 15, you can no longer have this so called 'god ship'.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 6, 2009 21:05:31 GMT -5
yeah, i understand why 1/2pts can theoretically work, but again it seems like something that really doesn't need to be done...are there any other games that have 1/2pts? none from Wk at least that I can recall...most others I've played are all whole numbers...if it can't be done with whole numbers why even bother usig numbers in the first place? why not stars like Star Wars or icons like Magic? or some other way of measuring your cost... Magic uses colored mana and uncolored mana. Things that cost for example 1WW (standing for 1 colorless and 2 white) is going to be better than something that is 2W, because 1WW is harder to get if you play a deck with more than white. That's where that balance comes from. So then you just round up or down. Stop making it seem like we're doing rocket science when in reality we're not. I don't want to be a jerk either but it's not as if everything you suggested is perfect either. The reason why crew like Barbarossa aren't used is for several reasons. 1. He's from the Barbary Corsairs. I should end here, but 2. He's expensive and too much of a liability. Had he been 7, he would've been better. 3. Boarding is worthless and more often than not counterproductive I agree with ships not having a canceler=insta lose The problem is, this game is unbalanced. Captains are too cheap. Sac Captains and cancelers rule the waves. If you don't have both you might as well just call it a game. Being a devil's advocate again, had this been implemented with the original game, we wouldn't see nearly as much overpowered stuff. :edit: After rereading this, admiralb, I realize that this is a bit harsh. I hope you know that I appreciate your contributions to design and that you have some really good ideas. I hope that you don't take this too hard, as you're a cool guy.
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Post by woelf on Aug 6, 2009 21:10:02 GMT -5
...hey, its 16pts...just enough for the 'god-ship' combo....F&S Mays, BC Diamond Nelson, oarsman, RotF Ralph David, Helmsman...and an extra cargo for someone like Perry. of course no extra action, but isn't that what Lord Mycron is for? So then you just don't sink it and leave it derelict, then you tow it. Not really that broken. The oarsman prevents you from towing it, but it's probably better to leave it derelict anyways. It's going to sit there crippled until your opponent manages to scuttle it or limp it home, and then it'll take a few more turns to repair it back up to full strength. While it's wasting turns doing all of that, it's not out collecting any gold and it's not bothering any of your treasure ships. Personally, I love seeing the "god-ship" combo in an opposing fleet because once you knock the masts off it's just a huge chunk of dead weight that would have been much better spent on ships that could actually help *win* the game. Half points are a can of worms that shouldn't be opened. Every single ship in the game and even some named crew have had their "true" point values rounded to the nearest whole number, but easily half or more of those could have been rounded to a half point instead. If you started doing it now, it's going to throw off almost everything that came before. If half points are going to work, you pretty much have to plan for them from the very beginning. Also, for what it's worth, I'd much rather see the Captain keyword costing 5 points. It would still be very much playable and every bit as powerful, but it wouldn't be an automatic addition to any ship that might do some shooting during the game. At that price, you might actually see a few gunships that *didn't* carry captains at all.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 6, 2009 21:16:10 GMT -5
Well yeah, now it would be. Which is why I asserted that had the designers implemented the half point rule, we wouldn't be having the discussion and would be in fact dealing with a much more how shall we say balanced game. I'd also like to know -who- came up with the new oarsman rules. I'm sorry, but they stink. Though for curiosity's sake: Woelf, have you ever played with the uber ships?
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Post by admiralb on Aug 6, 2009 21:42:47 GMT -5
haha! they are funny, and I am the only person in my play group to use the "god-ship" combo, EVER! even after I explained it to everyone, no one else has dared try...America may be the easiest, but others can pull it off...Pirates would be fun...Fool's Hope...crikey! built-in Eternal, get CC Jack, Tia Dalhma, Oarsman and Hammersmith and you're off to the races..."Yes, I will be boarding you. Oh, you lose a mast and a crew and my crew can't die because of Jack and you can't cancel that because of Tia Dalhma." scary...
...I only play it because I was/am/will be privateer of our venue and as privateer I could never legally "win" the game and be awared 1st or 2nd prize...so, in that case I decided to go all out and make the craziest possible fleets I could...when your opponent knows there's a way of making a ship nearly invincible, they can get a bit nervous and will inevitably have to make their fleets better because of it...so we've got some crazy players around here that are always expecting to go up against something over the top powerful...be it fast Hai Peng or Neptune's Hoard gold hauling or near "god-status" guns boats or the bizarre and powerful Davy Jones' Dutchman with Extended Range and an extra action (oh, Sir Edmund, you make so many Cursed ships better) from SAC El Fantasma or Mycron when he's not boosting the small treasure fleet of 10pts or less. of course most aren't effective under 60pts, but since we have a number of players that are young-ish they like the bigger fleets more, usually I let them decide the fleet size and threaten with vague comments like "You sure you want a fleet that big? What can I do with that amount of points?" mostly ending with some lame reference to a previous game involving one of the weird/fast/godly fleets. its funny...
...you're good, we're all friends here...we all like Pirates and want to see it survive...some in Cursed zombie form more than others...haha...now, which am I? I don't even know most of the time!
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Post by omegatraf on Aug 8, 2009 22:19:18 GMT -5
So are we leaning towards filling holes to make nations equalish? Or cementing roles as Vlad suggests by really gearing nations towards specific goals? I think I'd prefer giving nations more equal overall fleets and filling holes, and let players choose favorite nations (for whatever reason) and control gameplay themselves rather than have certain nation roles control gameplay.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 10, 2009 0:15:26 GMT -5
Personally, I don't see why we can't do both.
It's not as if the holes are -that- glaring, you know? Sure, America needs some stuff, Spain needs some stuff, but all the other nations are fine.
What is important still is that all 5 nations need is a firm foundation of what they're about, because of shoddy design they're all over the place. When we think about what the different nations are about, we think of the first several sets.
To be honest I think that very few pieces of the set will actually go toward these holes. And in reality, some of them shouldn't even be filled in the first place. For example, England getting a good gold runner. Remember when PotC "fixed" some of the stuff Pirates and English lacked? Like a canceler and gold runners, respectively? That's bad. In fact, England needs to be nerfed a bit.
Some other things: Spain shouldn't get a Jonah crew, but they do need a good gold runner. Though it pains me to say it, they don't need one along the likes of Le Bon Marin or whatever. Maybe something in that vein, but Spain has always been about big gold ships, not puny stuff.
The way I see it, Americans should be a combination of toughness that is a bit less than the Spanish, fighting that is equal or less than the English, and maneuverability that is a bit less than the French.
Not saying that they should be bastardised, but that's kind of what I read about them. Lots of frigates that were tough to hurt because of live wood hulls, determined crews, and very fast. There's a reason why England put a "shoot on sight" decree on the Constitution and I'm sure many others. Very deadly.
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Post by admiralb on Aug 10, 2009 14:32:14 GMT -5
when you say good gold runner for Spain...what do you mean?
cause they've got Santa Isabel, Monaraca, Joya del Sol, Buscador, and a few other less useful ones. . ..do you mean cheaper? like 6pts or less...that I'd agree with...they could totally use a nice Longshanks type ship or at least a useful 1-master with some speed that isn't massively overcosted...maybe something like the 1-masted Pirate ships in Rev...just less Banshee's Cry and more toward the others...one was 5pts and had Schooner, the other had "This ship cannot be shot at while docked" and 7pts both had at least S+S move.
for America maybe a crew that has the "If this ship is assigned a crew with the Captain keyword, she gets +1 to her cannon rolls and +S to her base move" it ups the manueverability and the cannons and since its 7pts would only be useful on bigger ships like Enterprise, Constitution, Stephens, Concordia, and maybe Thomas Jefferson. and the obvious SAT crew that's not 7+ points...maybe a Crimson Angel type from OE..."+1 against non-" and SAT roller...5pts...although the 5pts was probably done because of her being Pirate and not any actual costing formula...still...interesting combo.
France I just think needs a crew that has "This ship's crew cannot be eliminated unless she sinks." other than that I think they're good. and maybe another action roller, since they have an overlap with Gaston de St. Croix...eithe SAT of fleet action...either or...same with Spain...fleet action would be nice to have, another SAT maybe in combo or "This ship's crew cannot be eliminated unless she sinks." they have most crew they needs, just need better selection since Castro has overlapping personas.
England seems fine at the moment...maybe a decent 1-master with some speed and 3 cargo. they could also use another "Crew on this ship cost -1" toward the ship total...like The Stump and Mr. Gibbs...England only has one it she overlaps with a ransom/reroller...Doone.
Pirates are good...all I can suggest are interesting combinations of abilities...like Coconut was a great new combination when he came out, Explorer/reroll that was great. Maybe a uique Muskteer with a second ability, or a Cannoneer, or let's be really weird and say an Oarsman with a second ability like "If this ship is assigned a Captain crew, she gets +S to her base move." that'd be like 5pts...could be fun.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 10, 2009 18:46:10 GMT -5
Well, compared the the Banshee's Cry and Le Bon Marin, the gold runners that Spain have are a bit meh, if you know what I mean. Something for them that would be cheaper would be nice, but not really fitting of Spanish flavor.
I like the idea for the American crew, but they have too much expensive crew as it is. I'd like for none of their crew to go above 5 or 6 points in this set unless of course an actual fan of America wants that. A captain+SAT would be great for them.
One of the problems with the Pirates game is that abilities that were once for one nation get watered down and given to all of the nations. I don't think that the French want or need such an ability. Action rollers and rerollers and more accurate crew are more along the nation's flavor.
The decent 1 master with 3 cargo and good speed is exactly what England needs but should not get for the balance of the game unless it costs 8+ points, not including abilities. That's what I meant up above about some holes that shouldn't be filled.
Pirates, I agree that they need more combinations of crew.
I was thinking about this for the England rare crew. He's a doozy, but something along the nation's flavor.
-insert name here-, English, 12 points (should perhaps be more) Fanatically Loyal: England. Captain. This ship may be given an extra action each turn.
Fanatically Loyal means that you are loyal to X, and hostile to all non-X. This means that you have to go mono-England if you go with this crew. However, those are the only strings attached.
Imagine this thing on the Endeavor...Pax Britannica, baby!
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Post by cannonfury on Aug 10, 2009 19:51:34 GMT -5
if that happens then the rest of the world is screwd. being a fan and many time user of America, i dont want any more crew with this ships crew can't be eliminated unless she sinks, i have too many of those already. secondlt the SAC crew could help, but i dont view that as very American, and yes the +1 and +S to cannon rolls and speed would be a great help, but it needs to be less expensive, maybe 6, pushing it at 5
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Post by lord_denton on Aug 10, 2009 20:34:04 GMT -5
America has had a history of expensive package crew (that are usually just a rebrand of things already made), and I think we should keep that tradition, although making them cheaper, more useful abilities, but cutting done on the "package" deal.
The ability that admiralB suggested (ships with Captains get +S to base move and +1 to cannons) should be costed along the lines of RotF Griffin (LE), except a point or two more, since these will be easier to aquire than the RotF Griffin.
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Post by vladsimpaler on Aug 10, 2009 20:54:12 GMT -5
With all due respect, Lord Denton, rarity is not a balance. Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic, thought that rarity would balance cards. The result? The Power 9, the 9 most powerful cards, bar none. It should be kept at 7. Give the crew a hostile:England, and it's all set, perhaps to 6 points. @everyone including myself besides Cannonfury , but cannonfury is the reason why I posted this: Whenever you make up something that you think would be "cool", think about fans of that nations. You can't just make stuff that you think would work, when in reality it wouldn't. I'm not trying to be offensive, but trying to be realistic. What is cool to one person isn't that great to others. So the next time someone suggests that Americans should get a crew who shouldn't be able to be eliminated, or when someone thinks that the Spanish should get a Secret Hold crew or a super boarding captain, think about it. -Public Service Announcement. cannonfury-When you say that the rest of the world would be screwed, are you referring to my English crew? I agree a bit, would 13 make more sense? :edit: Was thinking, I actually like this more: San Juan Nepomuceno, 22 points Masts: 5 Cargo: 6 Speed: S+S Cannons: 2S 3L 3L 3L 2S Abilities: Once per turn, one crew or ship within L of this ship cannot use its ability that turn. The owner may eliminate 2 crew from the affected ship to ignore this ability. If this ship has a captain crew, she gets +S to her base move. What's different between the two versions? Well, this one is a bit more powerful, able to cancel within L! But you can kill off 2 of your crew to prevent this. I need Woelf to give me better wording for the eliminating to prevent part. She can still move fast, and has better cargo, but worse guns. Anyway, what do you guys think? It's expensive, but worth it in my opinion.
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Post by admiralb on Aug 10, 2009 21:45:24 GMT -5
cost sounds about right to me vlad...5pts to cancel from L, but it can be ignored by killing crew...sounds ok...a bit powerful, but interesting and if its in limited amounts like three or less game pieces it might be a nice asset to Spain or any other nation that gets it...maybe even pay gold to stop it...like a Parley on cancel...look to Parley for wording inspiration; closest thing I can think of.
I never said America needs another "crew cannot be eliminated" I said Spain and/or France could use one more than any other faction...Spain more than France though in my opinion since France has all those "Crew of any nationality can use their abilities on this ship" and therefor access to CC Jack, Spencer Portland, or any of the numerous Americans.
of course rarity can't balance in any set we're making since rarity really is almost meaningless if bought by faction or factory set; you'll get the same amount of all the cards no matter what the rarity. so yeah...um, point cost is really what will be balancing anything we make plus any Hostile/Loyal we decide to include...on a weird aside: anyone think ships should have Hostile/Loyal? maybe sea creatures...
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