Where is the MWL? - As of August 20th, 2018 - MWL 2.2 is here (effective 2018.09.06)

I can’t agree with anyone who honestly thinks that 1 single card can solve the problem in current meta and if there is a card really that powerful,then the very existence of that card itself is a problem.

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I think they were really talking about Self-Adapting Code Wall. Ot maybe Warroid Tracker, but that would be more anti-parasite-sifr than anti-sifr per se.

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This so much. So so much.

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i said not necessarily. Damon set himself a limit of 6months, but Boggs is free to do as he wishes (he doesn’t even need to update the MWL at all, since that was entirely Damon’s idea)

given the statements from interviews with Boggs, it seems that he will continue with the MWL, it will be updated more regularly (like every 2-4 months) after it finally sees an update, he will not ban or restrict any cards, and the delay in the next MWL update is likely a result of Boggs newness to the team, needing to test the changes and talk with testers about it, and also in needing to get everything sorted through organised play first

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That “leak” is nice.

I think FFG should more involve Stimhack in the game, for the MWL.

Over-protecting the game may be understandable for creating new cards, but to achieve a good tournament balance, Stimhack is a good medium to get argumented and valid feedback.

Hiding the game is so 1997.

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I don’t normally agree with you :grinning: , but I’ve said the same thing almost a month ago in this thread:

I’m not sure if there was much consensus for the idea (or maybe it just got lost in the other posts). But maybe we’ll give it another go-around…

Also, has anyone else heard of similar player’s group for other competitive games?

Couldn’t agree more. I really don’t care for the model of releasing a card that breaks the meta, then a couple packs later (or more) releasing another card that counters it. It’s not healthy.

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Eve Online have representatives coming from the playing community. It was working when I played the game 5 years ago.

I’m not sure how this works today (Eve Online community = internet spaceship shooting flames with both the mouth and another anatomical part).

I’m not all for giving the speaking rights to a small part of the community, I like the way it is as of today, if the leak is made by purpose and if they are reading us.

Notice they allready listened in the past to the one you speak of, which are basically all the spikes.
The only problem is “the stupid guy”, because there is at least one, that creates the blatant balance problems with those cards, for a reason or not.
It is not the first quality of spikes to spot those cards, since they would want to use them (at least secretly). I’d recon an assembly full of Timmy or Johnny wouldn’t be a good thing either, but I think the game need more balanced advices : therefor, to me, Stimhack can real time represent the people who are playing the game and this is the right place allready.
Sifr was spotted as a strong to op cards by various players (I was only in the “strong” place), the job is not this hard so it needs only big guys. It needs exped players more than top players, whose deckbuilding skills are to be demoed, I think.

If you want a crappy parallelism, lobbying to be part of that kernel would acheive the same effect on me with english writing skills and Nrdb’s dotw : can’t do. You said it in your intro : you do not usually agree with me, so I guess I can beat myself with a trout with at least a lot of top players.

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Thanks for the example from another game.

I’m just suggesting a streamlined way to get unbalanced/NPE feedback to Boggs. That’s why my suggestion has the rest of the community co-signing the list. And, it’s only that: a suggestion of areas to focus. There’s no guarantee that Boggs will just copy and paste it into the MWL. It’s actually a suggestion for a group to step up and do a fair amount of work: gather lists of problematic cards, decklists, and data that shows there’s a problem. (The fact that it takes effort, is probably why it hasn’t really caught on so far.)

I don’t really think the current method of feedback works all that well. It just seems to be griping and complaining on Reddit, Stimhack, StimSlack, Facebook, and tweeting to @FFGOP and hoping that they notice.

I don’t really buy that we should distrust competitive players because they somehow want the game to be broken for their nefarious agenda. As Josh (sarcastically) put it earlier:

it’s such a complex issue and I think a lot of the problems ironically stem from trying to appease the player base.

If we take a trip in the way back machine there was a time when Anarch had powerful tools like medium and parasite but serious draw and Econ problems held them back. Lukas listened and gave inject, I’ve had worse, street peddler and chronotype. Oops turns out a little too much consistency and better Econ options open up their influence for recursion too and allows them to consistently and repeatedly use their powerful cards.

NBN was in the same boat as Anarch. They had access to the most powerful cards in the game but lacked the Econ and draw to consistently bring them to bear and players griped about that. Why is NBN so poor? How come trace str is so low? Why is tollbooth their only playable ice etc. we all know how that turned out.

While we are back in time we would also see grumbling that assets and upgrades are useless. Their power level is too low and their trash cost is too low. Lukas also listened. He gave jinteki sundew, mental health clinic and turtlebacks, Nbn daily business show, HB team sponsorship and by the time Mumbad hit there was a critical mass of powerful assets, powerful corp IDs that supported horizontal play and mumba temples and museum to pay for it all and recur it. Oops you know what? There is no mechanic in place that balances building horizontally like there is vertically.

Other things heard in the past. Caprice is too good. I don’t like my games being decided by coin flips! Poly Op (good design) rumor mill…eh a bridge too far.

It hasn’t been all bad. We begged for jinteki to get Econ. I think that has largely been positive,

Maybe the real problem has been trying to appease the players without careful consideration of the ramifications of giving the factions with the most powerful tools consistent means to bring them to bear even to the extent of cutting into other factions color pies to bring underpowered factions up.

I’ve had worse is the clearest example I can think of. It’s a better diesel. Anarch draw had always had a caveat and by removing the caveat not only do you devalue shaper draw but push anarch over the top. Chronotype being in faction for anarch was another example. If anarchs wanted draw without drawback they should have needed to spend influence.

hopefully rotation will allow the designers to revisit the core color pie and balance cards accordingly . Short term I think it’s going to be painful because the MWL treats the symptoms of deeper problems. If you look at some of the first cards magic banned it wasn’t a card like sifr it was the tutors and draw effects and Econ that brought power cards to bear too consistently.

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Part of this is a systemic logistical process problem. They have to design and test 6 months to a year ahead of time, so they don’t know when they hit that critical mass until it’s likely too late to rein it in.

Their testing is limited compared to the thousands of games that get played once the cards are released. And since we’re dealing with cardboard they can’t tweak numbers once they are released. They’re only recourse is to have some kind of MWL-like system to balance cards after they are released. Hopefully if they do this periodically (it sounds like Boggs is on board to do it every 3 months) the meta will be smoothed out more.

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If FFG keep printing power cards to counter other power cards (MCA Informant to counter Aaron to counter Breaking News) then eventually you will get a card that effectively reads “You win the game”. One for the runner and one for the corp and it is a race to see who draws their’s first.

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I know that the old Star Wars CCG (which is still being played) has a Players Committee that designs new Virtual Cards and basically keeps the game (semi-) alive. While I don’t think this step is entirely necessary yet, as FFG is still the designer/developer/distributor, it’s not a bad idea to kick around and maybe test out.

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Very well said. FFG definitely needs to revise what core Netrunner is and fix the color pie. When one color just does everything, things get stale, interest fades, and people clamor for better power cards in the other factions.

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No, it’s not 100% “distrust”, it is just that FFG listen allready to player winning tournaments (they are testers allready), and the MWL is still like it is.

Trust should be put in Johnny / Timmy too.

Lots of more humble players have problems with other cards that doesn’t seem to be approached by the MWL : for exemple Siphon, Caprice & Ash, Sandburg, False Echo, SOT, etc.

This is not a matter of NPE, it is a matter of making the game dumb or not (because any spam make the game dumb when this wins).

The current proposition limits only extreme strategies (if the prof rule is out) that what I call “omnidecks” can’t compete with. It doesn’t really limit spam.

Constructing a deck with archive tutors is too easy now, any noob at deckbuilding can make a working deck with an enabling gamewin card, and 6-9 recurring tool. In any faction now : how does this make the game more complicated ?
That’s why IMO FFG needs to listen to deckbuilders too.

I think competitive players doesn’t care about this. Their needs are covered by banning extreme strategies, so they can (copy an) omnideck, and this is it : deckbuilding is not picking a winproven list, changing a card and call it a new deck.
Deckbuilding starts with questions like “how will I win”, not “how many times I’ll win”. If you want to spot dumb cards, exp help to tell that you will see it at this phase, not in the w/r optim phase, here you’re just making a dumber deck.

The dumb deck is choosing Parasucker Sifr with Sunny + breakers & overmind, breaking everything for nothing, not replacing a card in it because it wins you a a credit or a clic.

For what it is worth, I share what I believe to be @anon34370798’s viewpoint that a player’s council as described would probably not represent the viewpoints of all players. I mean, theoretically it could, if it was big enough and diverse enough, but particularly as I imagine the players selected would tend to be well connected and respected, there’s a perspective that is going to be missing.

I don’t know what the best way is to get the perspectives of randos who only ever play with one other person or those who just have their own weird meta where Apoc Nasir is unbeatable. But certainly with regard to the rumored MWL, I suspect they are listening to these players as well:

  • Blackmail is a powerful card, of course, but based on Boggs’s podcast comments its inclusion on the 3x MWL list is less about how it is warping tournament metas and more about how casuals hate it.
  • Ditto with DDOS. If the aim was to hit Dyper, I submit that hitting either Hyperdriver or False Echo would have been both more effective and had less collateral damage. But casuals don’t like not being able to rez their ICE.

However, I don’t think (though I may be wrong) that anyone is suggesting a player’s council that has some kind of ultimate authority on what the most wanted list is. My impression of the suggestion is that it would be a good way to get relevant data to FFG, and also magnify some voices that people tend to respect. I’m all for that.

Ultimately, I’m not totally sure how much good it will do. I didn’t think the main problem was that FFG wasn’t hearing the voices of competitive players. Rather, their response to those voices has been sluggish and opaque. TBH, I think rather than a player’s council what I would really like to see is FFG offering some of these players with their finger on the pulse of the meta a job.

Also @anon34370798, I do have a few bones to pick about your comments:

  • I think your distinction between competitive players and deckbuilders is a bit faulty. There is serious overlap between competitive players and innovative deckbuilders.
  • It’s really important not to give free reins to dish out bans and MWL edits to anyone, but I think it is ESPECIALLY important not to give it to people who don’t have a great understanding of the game. Because if someone is calling for a ban of card X because they can’t figure out how to play around card X when actually the avenues of play exist, you just took a card away from some other deckbuilder for no reason and also reduced complexity from the game.
  • You say any noob can make a working deck with an enabling game win card and 6-9 recurring tools. I would suggest you play a few of these decks so you can appreciate their weaknesses, if you haven’t already. It feels like you think these decks are 1) brainless and 2) unbeatable. I think you’ll find if you make yourself the pilot, they are neither.
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This is exactly what I’m suggestion in my original proposal. There are a lot of respected players that focus more on deckbuilding (rather than piloting) that it wouldn’t be hard to get their perspective on a Council.

Is the MWL out yet? No? Back tomorrow…

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@Sanjay:

  • of course, overlap exist, but deckbuilding skills are not mandatory for being a top player.
    Rather than “mandatory top, then deckbuilder maybe”, I prefer “mandatory deckbuilder, then top maybe”. Exp would mandatory.
    By deckbuilder I mean competitive deckbuilders of course, mainly, but also some Johnny builders. Because they are dedicated at having new ideas.
  • I don’t expect people to dictate what Ffg have to do, I expect them to give them better and faster feedback and council, this is not the same. Ban / errata / MWL stays at ffg’s discretion. But at least they’ll know card zomglol is too strong and seen in 80% of tournament between two worlds where “they gather data”.
    Testing before release & errating are different works. I’ve always been ranting at the firsts because of a lot of valid and unvalid reasons, but at least testers exists.
  • Today is the day people exepected to see at coreset release. All factions have b&b, or so, and you start to see recurring tools compressing clicks for 1 inf in corp, while they ban the same tools that cost 2-3 in runner.
    Meanwhile, it’s been say 2 years the game have problems with horizontal assets and nothing is done but giving more 1 inf FiPs.
    Third, the way to specialize is not between 4 deck anymore like in coreset days, it is between 60 decks, making meta a different concern than with 4 decks : you have 3 categories: “I’ll beat this”, “I’ll loose the this (hope this is rare)”, and “I hope I’ll adapt” (vs before “will loose for sure - few decks -> won’t be rare, will win for sure, will try to adapt”). Removing risks makes hybrid decks a very powerful tool (because you have now hybrid cards filling lots of old building holes). You will see b&b on MWL, nothing against horizontal because who knows, and too few hybrid tools in my opinion. Rotating removes Imp, Scrubber & Wizzard, keep CTM and unpreventable pressure on ice with new cards where horizontal is the new way to play. While it’s to be seen in Mars, I’d like to know if FFG is plotting with IKEA to make us buy new tables to play this game, or not.
    I think it is a really easy situation to deckbuild working stuff (competitive is lot more work, but today’s new build drafts win games : if I can, anybody can) comparing to old days because of all of those things.

I really hope Boggs will remove horizontal frametraps (= your usual NEH/CTM horizontal non sense) in that game, because hybrid, and boost accesstrap instead, therefor asking active corp piloting, making expose b&b again, risks at running blind that way. For a start, we would need same inf as a Sifr aka Dan’s card on an antiMWL list, some kind of a BFF list or something.

Sorry, but what’s “b&b”?