How do we make Weyland good?

Huh, where did I say weyland was gonna rise to the top? All I said was they should have a good nexus matchup.

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Here is a thing I don’t get about Weyland.

Weyland feels like the big money faction. They always feel like they should be richer than everyone else. They also feel like they don’t care about bad publicity, just money. If a problem comes up, they should throw money at it, and it should go away/be killed. And it never feels communicated in game mechanics.

So a few ideas I had~

First up, Ice that multiplies - A click and a credit for +1 strength isn’t that hot. If it was something like “+2 strength per advancedment counter” or when you reached a certain point it got extra subroutines it would feel better.

Next, Traces in excess of X give an extra effect. Give a way of using all that extra cash they should have. Maybe the effect should happen even if the trace doesn’t succeed. They should definitely start from Trace 0 or 1 though For example.

Thor Shot - 0 credits
Weyland - 4 Inf
Operation - Black Ops
Play only if the runner is tagged
Trace - 0 - If successful, deal 4 meat damage. If the trace is over 8, trash all resources, even if the trace is unsuccessful

(Numbers POMA so pay more attention to the idea)

Next up, some reasonable advancement options? Would a double that lets you pay 6 credits per advancement counter to put up to 3 advancement counters on a card be reasonable? A way to leverage money and let you score a 3/2 from hand at a reasonable cost.

Just some ideas

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Uncorrodable is something I’ve been wanting to revisit too. Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

ah, looking back now, I think I wanted to link @hbarsquared instead of you for that part of the post, my bad.

[quote=“LeaPlath, post:652, topic:5699”]
Would a double that lets you pay 6 credits per advancement counter to put up to 3 advancement counters on a card be reasonable? A way to leverage money and let you score a 3/2 from hand at a reasonable cost.
[/quote]as long as it’s 7-8+ influence :smiley: the trouble with FA in weyland isn’t just that they have no tools (which can be imported), it’s that they already have to lean way too hard on their single 3/2 (which they pretty much want to overscore so bad it might as well be a 4/2), so a card like this would pretty much just end up in factions with better agendas for it.

I do like the idea of “cash-for-win” cards (to a certain extent), but I think weyland really, really needs to go in another direction besides “only if the runner is tagged,” which they are terrible at (see also: NBN 's domination of the meat damage game). I’d really like something like this but with an effect more like bad times - some way for weyland to turn a mountain of cash into a programless runner…

I feel like Weyland could get more cards to support a heavy Runner disruption playstyle – Power Shutdown, Housekeeping, Corporate Town, Student Loans. It naturally fits well with rush strategies.

NBN also has a toe in this sort of harassment with the spoiled Ibrahim Salem from Fear the Masses, Blacklist, Keegan Lane, Snoop, Invasion of Privacy. You could argue a lot of these could be changed to Weyland cards and no one would think they’re out of faction, though some would need some minor mechanic changes.

Forfeiting Agendas also could have been more of a Weyland thing, but 24/7 News Cycle, Enforcer 1.0, and the spoiled Salem are spreading the mechanic around a bit more. I think the mechanic would have fit well with Weyland Rush – if your Rush fizzles out you have some powerful effects to fall back on that can get you into the game.

The Woes of Weyland [Series of Articles] So, I recently put out the introduction to the Weyland series (originally an article) that I said I was working on. Created a new thread for it. Thought I should just alert y’all to it.

Apologies if this seems spammy, but I imagine that most people who have commented on this thread will probably have varying degrees of interest in the series. If not - as you were.

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I’ve been playing a mix between uncorrodable, grails and a ice specifically tailored to make Lady cry.
It honestly works like a charm. Your ice suite means you only care about the barrier breaker. The grails force them to go find all their breakers , unless they suddenly want to have program destroying code gates. Spiderwebs and Hive and Curtains (If you are playing BS) will eat lady counters like they are candy. Most other ice will cost the runner 3-4 credits with corroder. And almost all ice is at Str4, making it cheap to res , but outside of david range.

Grail is also horribly taxing towards Faust breakers.

With a Patch or two in the whole mix , the whole list can end up really nasty. (Str 4 grail sentry’s for all those mimic toting maniacs).

The agenda suite is 2 GFI with 2 pointers for all the others. Thus forcing the runner to come steal 4 out of 9 of your agenda’s.

Parasites tend to be a problem , but Blue Sun safeguards against most of that issue.

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Sounds like Atman’s wet dream.

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Atman4 has an install cost of 7 and then every Grail you run through, should cost 3 a-piece. Sounds pretty taxing to me.

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Initially, but not overwhelmingly so once the runner is set up.

That said, can see how Patch can also solve that problem if you’re running it already. Might make it D4V1Dable, but at least you change the kind of tax. It would be good for just one run through each Grail, though, so they might well run out of recursion for it before things were done with.

Atman 4 is a big problem. Not going to lie here. And Patching your SR4 ice isn’t exactly what you want to do.

The deck runs a swordsman. Together with a patch , it can be an answer to faust / Atman and eater.
Patch means the swordsman is out of range of that grand solution that everybody runs against swordsman : Mimic.
One off though , so not exactly easy to find.
There have been games where Swordsman at SR4 on R&D is something the runner doesn’t have an answer for.

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The problem with Patch is that you can’t use it to improve the value of facecheck ICE. All it does is increase the cost to get into a server. You don’t get to surprise the runner with Patch… So Patching a Swordsman will never kill an Atman unless the Runner lets it happen.

I did try Patch. It’s pretty good with Architect because you can’t parasite it down and it has two subroutines, and requires a solution that isn’t Mimic, but the MWL shot that idea down.

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Technically, you CAN parasite it down (and that might even be the right play if you run mimic purely to combat it), you just won’t trash it when it gets down to 0.

In which case they’ve 1) Used a Parasite and 2) Locked a Parasite onto an Architect for the rest of the game.

Both of these things I’m fine with. (In one game, I had two Patch on an Architect that had a Parasite. I just purged viruses every 4 turns or so to keep the Mimic out.)

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One does not ‘just’ purge viruses every four turns or so.

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To be fair it was also clearing Medium.

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So, seeing as how one of Weyland’s main problems is the amount of cards and development that have gone into the “advancing ice” mechanic, it seems like this isn’t going to just get scrapped in favor of an entire new set of ice that will leave these in the dustbin. If Weyland is going to get “fixed”, it’s going to be by using the ice they already have to manage a glacier build.

Divadus’ article “Woes of Weyland” covers this discussion completely (as well as the discussion above), although I’m not entirely sold on his proposed solutions. The proposed ID (1 recurring credit and another click if you advance ice) and the operation (install ice with the opportunity to pre-advance up to 3 credits, making payments) do seem to get some of the way there, at least giving you an opportunity to advance the ice while still playing the cards you draw, but honestly I’m not sure if that even gets you far enough. The ice is still average at best, even with the boosted strength or cheaper rez.

I’m halfway tempted to propose that the ID goes even further, even to the point of OP, since by playing this ID you’re losing the benefits of playing any of their other IDs…

What if this was a flippable ID?

Security Protocols and Response (SPAR) - Identity: Division 45/10

Side 1 - The first time you advance a piece of ice during your turn, gain click. (losing the recurring credit from Divadus’/Willingdone’s proposed ID)
Side 2 - During a run, you may remove 1 advancement counter from the ice currently being encountered, forcing the runner to re-encounter that ice before continuing the run.

Click, Click - Flip this identity.

This ID would allow you build to a point where you actually felt like you had a secure remote, and then flip to start scoring out of that remote (for a limited time). The 9-cost Space ice would finally be able to get those “extra subs” they need (kind of, more like clones of themselves), and even if you’ve timed it right you’re only about 70-80% confident you’ve got a scoring window big enough to push a 5/3 through.

By making it an ID, I’m attempting to get away from an Ash/Caprice style upgrade with similar mechanics that will just end up in other factions. Still though, combining this with an Ash/Caprice could make that scoring window a bit too wide, so I’ve dropped the influence down to 10.

What do you think? Does this ID see play against the likes of Blue Sun, Titan, Argus?
How many extra ETR subs do you need to actually get a Weyland 5/3 scored?

For an ICE with one advancement counter on it, this makes it 3 clicks and a credit to add 1 ETR sub to a piece of ICE for a turn. That still seems too slow to be effective, although it does make the space ICE more attractive if they’re advanced three times (although now you’ve used 5 clicks and 3 credits), since now they’re D4v1d immune for the turn.

I actually think that you’ve made the same mistake FFG usually makes here and made the ID underpowered. I really don’t think that it needs any influence reduction, and I don’t think that it needs to be two clicks to flip. Heck, I could see it saying “whenever you advance a piece of ICE, you may flip this identity.” Advancing ICE is already such a slow and expensive action that I think the additional punishment of having to spend additional clicks to flip the ID would just make it somewhat unplayable.

I don’t think ETR subs is what Weyland is missing; they’re practically drowning in them. If the runner has the appropriate breaker, if I add 3 ETR subs to a piece of ICE, all I’m usually doing is asking the runner to pay 3 credits more for this run.

Sorry, I think I edited while you were responding… Thinking along the sames lines as you, rather than adding ETR subs, I replaced that mechanic with a “re-encounter” the same ice, which (I believe) would be a much more effective tax/stopper.

Agreed on the flip action as well. That could probably be a free flip whenever, although I was going for a once-per scoring window type feel instead of an every-turn feel. Maybe it costs a few credits to flip at instant speed?

(Updated)

Security Protocols and Response (SPAR) - Identity: Division 45/15

Side 1 - 1 recurring credit for advancing ice. The first time you advance a piece of ice during your turn, gain click.
Side 2 - During a run, you may remove 1 advancement counter from the ice currently being encountered, forcing the runner to re-encounter that ice before continuing the run.

2 credits - Flip this identity.

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