Let’s see…
Losing the game because you have all of your economy milled and you’re staring into the cold dead eyes of Faust
I agree, Noise needs crippling
2 Likes
Except if the best players are ‘playtesting’ these IDs, they’re likely to discover which are broken and exploit these heavily. Why would you release untested product on the people most into the game?
Or FFG could introduce new cards that offer corps more ways to recover cards from Archives. Instead of making existing cards worse, they could offer new ways to play around challenging mechanics. Museum of History certainly helps against the Noise matchup, more cards could be added in the same vein.
Does anyone else think that the premise of this thread is ridiculous? I can only imagine FFG’s reaction to the suggestion that they errata their flagship, intro level ID’s. I guarantee that the only way we’ll see any changes to the core ID’s is if they rotate out the core set for a new one. Personally, I think that’s a great idea and should be part of their model, but as DS said in the Winning Agenda interview, that’s way above his pay grade and not likely to happen any time soon.
9 Likes
You’re a supporter of cyber terrorism.
But in all seriousness, have you never had one of those hateful I-cant-believe-he-fucking-won-what-a-load-of-fffffffwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAA!!! moments? A time where you’ve fought your way through an entire game struggling to find scoring windows, and all you can do is watch when he makes your efforts go to waste dumping all the agendas in archives on his last click? Rage inducing. There are times when I play at Corp and I’m glad to play against noise, but it’s only after I have a particularly soul crushing game against Reina or Val or something like that.
2 Likes
I’m a Noise player who runs Hades Shard. Too many of my wins are from 3 virus installs, capped off by a Hades Shard-access Archives with no window to react. I’m pretty sure I cause that moment…
For me, the rage inducing moments are when I realize I could have won a game that I lost because I forgot to use an ability/card combo that I specifically put into my deck for the exact circumstance that I forgot to use it in (like a FA deck gets clot-blocked, but forget that the CVS on Archives can fix that for me).
That isn’t really any different than a shaper who moneys up and runs a maker’s eye…
1 Like
Sure it is, Noise doesn’t have to play ways to get through Ice to do that, just shit he can sell to Aesops.
1 Like
I don’t get all the Noise hate. That ID was argued as weak and inconsistent until Faust dropped.
3 Likes
Frankly, I think redesigning IDs or other core cards is a non-starter. But what I’d really like to see to diversify competitive decks is a tournament structure that rewards the player who scores highest with the least played ID. In smaller tournaments, this could just be an extra goodie or two, but in larger ones, these could be equivalent to the second or even first place.
basically this. If we get too ahead of ourselves on balancing ID it will just be nerf the best on repeat. Good things that function well are fun and healthy for the game, but I’ve had people tell me that any popular ID is gamebreakingly op and should be destroyed (exception: early nbn IDs). ETF and noise are the only ones complained about frequently and I think a part of that is noise npe and the fact that all the other hb IDs really suck.
That just encourages politics and has nothing to with how strong an ID is, bad but new IDs often get more representation than tier 2 IDs, and what constitutes highest with the least played? is it the one person that got 25/25 as the only apex or the guy who got 13/25 out of 2 next designs? neither of those are really good plans, and I think just shout outs for people who place highly with worse decks is a better plan which often happens (maybe worlds faction trackers on special occasions). Showing up with a bad id just takes the ability to not try in a tournament and shouldn’t really be rewarded nearly as much as first or second.
You mean pancakes, not Faust, right?
Noise had to operate on 3 clicks before pancakes. He had to use Crypsis before Faust. I would argue an extra click is better than having to pay credits instead of cards to break ice.
2 Likes
You are clearly not a man who has tried to use Crypsis 
It is still super easy to gear-check Crypsis Noise out of the game early on, because he just doesn’t have enough money to install Crypsis and break things. I’d play Noise with Faust and no Chronotype over Noise with Chronotype and no Faust any day of the week.
To pull things back a bit more on-topic, Noise is exactly the sort of ID I want to see in the game. Even if one does think his power level ought to be tweaked, he rewards building a different kind of deck than you would for any other Anarch ID. Anarch is easily the most diverse faction in terms of different IDs that can be played competitively - I think it’s the last place anyone should be looking when discussing how to fix IDs.
3 Likes
I think the only problem IDis ETF, and even then, the problem is not that ETF is too good so much as all other HB IDs tend to run poor (Cerebral Imaging is the exception, but mostly because it encourages a semi-singular money-hoarding gamestyle). Aside from the campaigns, HB doesn’t really have good economic options. The clearances are decent, but in terms of raw money, underwhelming. Successful Demo is perhaps underrated, but very conditional.
Meanwhile, Jinteki have Gifts to supplement their asset income; NBN has Sweeps Weep and Pop-Up; Weyland makes money off of agendas (Hostile Takeover, Oaktown). HB, if you can’t protect your assets, doesn’t have anything potent to fall back on.
Make no mistake, Adonis and Eve are great, but not in a deck that can’t do assets. And as long as ETF is so predominantly played, HB’s economic woes will go largely unheard.
Who said ‘untested’? At least for the first year, I’m not talking about making up a dozen random IDs that are easily busted, I’m talking about making “Kate 2.0” (where the credit discount is only on the first hardware install), or ETF 2.0 (credit on the first ICE install), or NEH 2.0 (where the ID now reads 40/10). Noise 2.0 mills only on the first virus install each turn, etc. Maybe some of the weaker IDs get a bump in influence or a reduction in deck size to make them more tempting.
Now, if FFG actually has the time to properly play-test, and maybe pre-leak some of this stuff out to see if it gets busted, then sure, commission some new art and print out a set of entirely new IDs and abilities. But I’m not suggesting they start with some crazy stuff that lets the best minds completely bust the game and ruin the tournament for everybody.
In the mumbad cycle HB are getting two new money cards (both are basically “+$2 and an install”). Even though those cards will be better in ETF than in any other identity, it will still mean that other identities will be able to get money more easily and so will see more play.
1 Like
HB identities that aren’t etf are not good enough, except CI which needs to do a uniquely CI thing. I often look at the foundry, but it turns out it’s too poor. Econ cards that are better in ETF won’t help!
This isn’t quite a uniquely HB problem but it’s worst there.
2 Likes
More money is always better, but the important thing is to have a critical mass of money. If you have less than that, your deck won’t work; but if you have much more than that, you’ll get to a point where you have nothing to spend the money on that will actually win you the game, or maybe you just run out of card slots in your deck for more econ cards even though the cards you’re not using are “good enough in a vacuum” (we’ve already seen this with runner decks not playing sure gamble).
Imagine that every HB deck was allowed to add six more copies of Hedge Fund. Sure, this would help ETF, though it would help the non ETF decks a lot more. Think about NEXT Design; now you can actually afford to rez all that ice you installed for free. Isn’t that better than just getting money on top of your money?
2 Likes
Dunno, the Foundry wantonly firing ABTs can be a big economic advantage…
3 Likes