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| The Great Ban/Errata Divide; Opinions Wanted! | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 8 2009, 09:12 PM (4,137 Views) | |
| HeroComplex | Jun 8 2009, 09:12 PM Post #1 |
Senior Member
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This will hopefully be the first in a series of threads about how the community and the council should approach game mechanics post-UDE. Given community sentiment, the first issues on the agenda are bans and errata--- In setting up how the community and council should consider errata, bans, and rules changes, the first thing that we need to do is lay out the ways that UDE would use them in the past. From there, we can determine not only the way that UDE would deal with new dilemmas, but also when the community needs to depart from UDE's precedent. With that in mind, below are the six situations in which one or more cards need to be addressed, and the traditional type of solution. 1) Oops: This is the easiest kind of errata, not very controversial at all. Scarlet Spider simply wasn’t meant to refer to himself---errata fixed the typo. This kind of errata is only used to fix mistakes, when the text of the card doesn’t match the design text (Scarlet Spider) or the card has some sort of typo (Sentinel Squad O*N*E). These are the types of errors that generally get fixed in the FAQ with simple errata, and so should primarily come up for new community-created cards. I know that some people would like certain changes to older cards---merging the Ghost Riders, distinguishing the Chameleons, etc. Those seem worth discussing, and some may be worth implementing---distinguishing the Chameleons would be fairly straight-forward, for example, as would merging Black Widows. But for some others like Ghost Rider and Venom, there probably needs to be a presumption against new alterations. Those characters have complicated histories/identities, which could lead to whole new arguments about their proper representations. Further, where UDE made conscious choices about how to represent a character, and chose not to reverse their decisions, we should probably not leap to second-guessing too quickly. In the future, we can set up a thread for players to nominate cards/characters for this sort of treatment, but we will probably focus on more pressing types of errata first. 2) Juggling Templates: When the current template switches between “defends” and “becomes a defender,” a lot of cards can receive errata for consistency. Generally speaking, these errata should not change how the card works at all; they are just meant to promote consistency across cards, while keeping them all the same. I suspect there will not be any need for these errata with community-created cards, as it should be easier to conform to the existing card base than it would be to create new templates for old cards. 3) Ch-ch-changes: Just because a card works properly when it’s released doesn’t mean it will work properly forever. Rama-Tut’s erratum is a great example of this---in MOR, there were no ways to bring him into play unless he’d been recruited, so his power was de facto limited to recruitment. When new cards allowed you to bring Rama-Tut in without paying his recruit cost, all of a sudden Rama-Tut was going to cause tremendous problems. (Dr. Light was first, but Hard Sound Construct was right behind!) Rama-Tut’s erratum came about because of power level problems with Light Show, but it’s important to realize that this change was adapting Rama-Tut to changes in the structure/possibilities of the game. If Rama-Tut had been released in the same set as Dr. Light, so that there was already a possibility of being put into play without being recruited, I’m sure that this wouldn’t have been UDE’s response to Light Show. Bizarro World did not lead to errata, but introduced similar changes---for most of the game, it was impossible to have two names at once. Once that became possible, there was a serious question about how earlier cards should accommodate it. In the end, CRD updates included new rules limiting the impact of multi-named characters, but different circumstances could have led to errata---changing cards like Four Freedoms Plaza, which check for multiple names, to explicitly require distinct cards. Though addressing a powerful interaction, the potential errata and the actual CRD addition are really just updates to deal with previous impossibilities. This sort of change actually could still arise; as new cards are created within the community, some new mechanics or novel effects might justify errata to old cards. And because we do want to encourage new ideas, we should all be willing to consider errata for old cards, required by structural/mechanical changes by new creators. That said, the community and council should be careful that this sort of errata isn’t used to justify simple changes in power level---a new type of mechanic justifies this type of errata. But a new card that just works well with old cards doesn’t---for that type of interaction, see #5 below. 4) Take Two: Some cards just confuse people. Adding “directly” to Elektra had no impact on how the card worked, but a lot of players slept easier afterwards. Death Times Five is another---the erratum is not any sort of change, but it clarifies the text for players by making the wording more explicit/straight-forward. I don’t predict many existing cards needing new errata in this vein, but as with error errata, we can have players nominate cards for clarification at some point in the future. 5) Not Working Right: This is the type of errata that gets the most attention and causes the most argument. If a card is being used in a way that it was not meant to, that needs to be addressed---but many pages have been spent arguing over the type of address. Setting up thousands of triggers with Parademon certainly was beyond the card’s intent, hence his errata, which attempted to fix him while changing as little as possible. Time Gem is another example---the card’s original wording did not fully take into account the timing of triggered effects, so that a player could be required to discard far more cards than intended. The change did alter the card’s functionality, but certainly not because it was incredibly powerful---because it was not working as intended. But errata isn’t the only solution to this type of problem. Remember Attend or Die! and DSM’s Mr. Mxyzptlk---a complexity of the rules for replacement modifiers meant that Attend or Die! allowed an infinite loop. Such an interaction was clearly not intended, the card’s wording had specifically tried to eliminate such loops. But there weren’t really errata that could fix the problem without greatly changing the cards; the problem arose from a complex rule, so the situation was best solved with an exception to the rule. But sometimes, neither errata nor CRD changes are the appropriate fix. Rules changes are often not practical fixes---you don’t want to change the basic triggered power rules to fix one problematic interaction, for example. UDE’s policy always aimed to fix problems while changing as little else as possible. Here’s how I once heard the errata issue phrased---if the card were errataed, what % of the its usage will change? For examples like Parademon (or Rama-Tut from #3), when the card is only problematic in a limited set of interactions, the errata should have no impact on the vast majority of times the card is used. Under one standard, this type of errata would only be appropriate if the card was unaffected 95% of the time.. This serves dual purposes of a) minimizing the amount that players need to memorize in order to play, and b) preserving the card’s intent by excising only the unintended aspects. 6) Plain Ungodly: If a card is excessively powerful, but is working exactly the way that it is supposed to---a card being used and abused, but not misused---then the UDE policy was to ban it. No erratum could appropriately fix a card that was simply too good. Overload is the classic example of this type of decision---it was tremendously powerful in concert with other cards, but in a sense it was doing exactly what it was supposed to. Unfortunately, Overload is also the classic example of a problem that blurred the line between #5 and #6. By stunning over-pumped characters, the card did exactly what it was supposed to; but by incentivizing you to pump your opponent’s characters, it was (sort of) doing more than intended. But my read of UDE’s decision to ban Overload was that this was still largely a case of being too good, rather than being misused; the argument that Overload needed an intent-based errata was a bit tenuous, and as a result could require a lot of changes to balance properly. Dr. Light is another example worth looking at. Initially he was errataed---maybe intended as a #3, given how easy it became to abuse Dr. Light as the card pool expanded. For example, the proliferation of team-ups and leaders made it a lot easier to use him twice. But since Marvel Team-Up and Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters both existed before DGL, enabling characters of other affiliations to be readied, this was probably not truly a #3 candidate. Nor does it seem like #5, as the card was doing exactly as intended---bringing in low drops. The fact that Dr. Light was good at his job (and that his job was powerful) doesn’t mean he was being misused. He was probably more accurately a #6 example, as shown by his eventual ban; the attempts to errata him are probably best seen as anomalies. (Though the changes to Rama-Tut were legitimate #3s.) Valeria, Nenora, Detective Chimp---all examples of cards that were just too good. They weren’t being used improperly, they were just being utilized well enough that they were dangerous. For that reason, no change could eliminate the abuse without altering the card’s intent; the abuse was really just an extension of the card’s intent. We could certainly find examples of #6 in new sets, which could require that cards in new sets be banned---hopefully that won’t be the case, but it’s a possibility. Separately, though, we need to look at whether certain cards from Marvel Evolution fall into this category and require a ban. Certain cards have garnered enough attention that they very well could fall into #5 or #6, and we should look at which rationale for errata resembles those cards most closely. Furthermore, if some of those cards appear to be #5, there is still a question of what the appropriate solution appears to be; if a card can be fixed with minimal enough changes, then that is preferable. But if all solutions change the card too much, then bans would be necessary. And that's my list. I encourage you all to respond to this thread with your recommendations for cards or interactions that you think should be addressed in categories #5 and #6. If you recommend a card, though, I'd ask that you explain which category you believe the most accurate, the solution that you feel is most appropriate (given the above guidelines), and your thought process to get there. If your proposed solution to a problem clashes with UDE's traditional way of addressing it above, that's also fine---but if so, it would be very helpful if you could elaborate on why you feel the community should respond differently than UDE would have. The goal is to get as much information about the community's thoughts so that we can consider the best way to proceed; the more insight you provide, the better. I'll be reading every post here, and after everyone has had a chance to make recommendations I'll try to summarize the community's thoughts. For now, if someone makes a suggestion that you disagree with, I'd also ask that you not post just to quote and disagree with them---there will be time for that, I promise, but I'm afraid this thread will be less useful if gets entrenched in back-and-forth debates. Feel free to post a different solution, or to give your reasoning for why a particular card doesn't deserve to be addressed, of course, but hopefully the full-on debates can be kept in existing threads. Thank you. |
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| Guglio | Jun 8 2009, 09:34 PM Post #2 |
Senior Member
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First off, THANK YOU for posting such an informative thread. Really, thank you. :) I'm sure someone will talk about Blink, but I'd much rather bring up the Armed Escort dohicky. Because of the existence of 2 drops with Energize, the Red Skull - Energize 2 drop - Armed Escort combo still works, even in Random Punks and other similar more casual based formats. I'm sure the intent of Armed Escort was not to infinitely redirect attacks onto his holder. Now, if Armed Escort has indeed been fixed and I was not aware, disregard this comment ;) Gugs |
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| kariggi | Jun 8 2009, 09:45 PM Post #3 |
Elite Member
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Yup aught to be a slam dunk on the AE. |
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| Silkmane | Jun 8 2009, 10:23 PM Post #4 |
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Senior Member
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Thanks Hero, I think the first and foremost card that I would like us all to reconsider is Frankie Ray from the Hog set. She probably comes in at the 5 spot in terms of her degree of correction. Nevertheless, I really think that she could have been corrected at the 1 level by just limiting her game text to once per turn. I am a Herald of Galactus(HoG) fan. I believe it the right of every fan of a particular affiliation to be able to play that affiliation in all it's mono glory despite unique interaction with other affiliations. What better way to bolster this sentiment, but to maintain and or preserve an affiliation's card drawing ability. UDE's decision to curtail the apparent card drawing abuse of Frankie was to ban her before she had a chance to make her tournament debut. This did in fact put an end to broke combos featuring Frankie and ?; Nevertheless, it also cut off access to mono HoG builds. Without Frankie Ray's card drawing ability, it is certainly not impossible, but definitely less fluid to create an engine to compensate for all of the "discard a character with cost 4 or more" effects that the HoG theme utilizes. Again, my hope is that Frankie Ray be errattaed to the point where she can again see play at least in mono HoG builds. peace---Silkmane |
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| Shadowtrooper | Jun 8 2009, 10:36 PM Post #5 |
Elite Member
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I love this thread. I started a thread that dealt with the characters names a while back, but I do agree that there are more pressing matters. Blink is one such problem. Most have banned the pink skinned shifter from their local scene and I think it's worth to look at some of the suggested texts that were given to her bfore we actually decide that banning is the only way to go. I'm specially fond of: "When Blink comes into play if you have not controlled a character with the same printed name and version as her this turn, put a shift counter on each shifted card you own." As for Armed Escort, I think limiting it to once per turn is the way to go. Honestly other than Press the Attack back then there wasn't much one could of done to activate a character more than once for Armed Escort. Mr. Fear has an ability somewhat similar to Armed Escort, yet the way he is written it doesn't allow for a continuous loop unless you break uniqueness and recruit 2 copies of him. It is highly unlikely that will happen, but I think that just to be on the safe side he should also get a once per turn limit because with the endurance gained from Red Skull (the second part of the abuse) I can keep paying and paying just as easy as I can exhaust and exhaust. |
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| Guglio | Jun 8 2009, 11:00 PM Post #6 |
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Senior Member
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I would have to say that Frankie Ray <> Nova from MHG should stay banned. Because the abuse involves removing her from play in order to play her over and over again, no "once per turn" effect can be added, as she becomes a new object once she leaves play. |
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| scottkthompson | Jun 8 2009, 11:37 PM Post #7 |
Elite Member
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Fantastic read. I would have never guessed a case could be made for six different errata situations. I only had one in my head... 'borken' ![[bounce]](http://209.85.48.22/9050/5/0/e218/e218.gif)
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| OnyxWeapon | Jun 9 2009, 12:22 AM Post #8 |
Senior Member
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any pre turn 5 infinite loops (armed escort) need to be adressed. Also i'm not sold on frankie raye's bustedness with such easy answers to draw spam. I dont see any decks that seek to abuse not being flat-out shut down by one teched caliban. Her banning came after a "degenerate" interaction in the modern format. but i feel her teeth are gone now. Not that i'll lose sleep if she stays gone. just tossing in my 2 cents. Edited by OnyxWeapon, Jun 9 2009, 12:22 AM.
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| stubarnes | Jun 9 2009, 01:03 AM Post #9 |
Senior Member
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The writing of HeroComplex in this thread gives me wood. So very entertaining. I don't have anything to contribute to the discussion, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading that brilliant writing. Thank you sir, you are the best. Always have been. ![[coolguy]](http://209.85.48.22/9050/5/0/e230/e230.gif) |
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| bkwrds | Jun 9 2009, 01:14 AM Post #10 |
Senior Member
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I agree with some of the sentiments regarding Frankie Raye: however, I think we should be addressing possible bans/erratas first. Then we can proceed with full knowledge of which cards are available and what their possible interactions will be. Not that I wouldn't be interested in having Frankie back. I just think Blink and other cards (Escort is already pretty much errataed, isn't it? :D) should get our attention first. I would also like to be the first to make a BAMF! joke in this thread. That is all. Edited by bkwrds, Jun 9 2009, 01:15 AM.
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| captainspud | Jun 9 2009, 01:58 AM Post #11 |
Senior Member
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With the advent of fan-created sets, I think we'll likely see the advent of a seventh class of erratum: #7: Huh, wow. That's an excellent point. Simple fact: fan designers don't have UDE's experience, nor UDE's playtesters. Our sets are going to be weaker overall, and we ARE going to miss things. Unlike UDE, who had to maintain an air of professionalism, fan designers should be encouraged to take feedback about cards whose true working they didn't understand, and issue a set of "My bad!" erratas, even if they fundamentally alter the way the card works. We're never going to put out perfect sets, and it's important to keep in mind that UDE's "If it's a mistake, we just have to ban it" policy isn't mandatory for us. We can be forgiven for issuing corrections to cards we just didn't have the expertise to know would be a problem. |
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| DoomStat | Jun 9 2009, 02:37 AM Post #12 |
Regular
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Has anyone removed the Ban/Errata from their Hobby League/Kitchen table play? I am curious due to the fact that I am concidering doing just that. Then again, my players only come for the fun of the game, and are hardly cut throat when it comes to Vs. DoomStat |
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| Orange_Soda_Man | Jun 9 2009, 02:59 AM Post #13 |
Elite Member
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Great thread. I'm going to edit this post with card suggestions. 1. Sabretooth, reformed killer 2. Caliban, Pestilence 3. Sage, Earth-616 4. Beak Saves the Day 5. Blink, Earth 295 - Clarice Ferguson 6. The shift mechanic itself maybe? 7. Pathetic Attempt? 8. The way names work - I shouldn't be able to play carrying the torch on a character and then be able to bring in another copy of the same character. Or maybe this is just an issue with Carrying the Torch? Or maybe not an issue at all? Edited by Orange_Soda_Man, Jun 9 2009, 03:05 AM.
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| andrewbircher | Jun 9 2009, 04:37 AM Post #14 |
Senior Member
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i think that Ghost rider 4 drop from MTU needs to be not johnny blaze since none of the other ones have this distinction. same thing with Nova 6 drop and 4 drop, either make it NOVA or Richard Rider Nova. these maybe nit picky but could be addressed as well, and easily fixed to show in MWS. |
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| Shadowtrooper | Jun 9 2009, 04:43 AM Post #15 |
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I had to reply to OSM's post. I hope you reply back. 1) I don't think Sabretooth needs to be touched. I might be mistaken but although his effect is a pretty strong one his weak 4/4 stats make him more than manageable by most of the decks out there. My play group doesn't play the card that much, as the usually go for Jack Frost when playing X-Factor and if playing Weapon-X Vision and Nuke take top honors. I know for a fact that in draft he is a beast but in constructed he hasn't impressed me that much. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has had bad experiences with this card. 2) I don't think Caliban, Pestilence needs to be addressed. Searches, rallies, and recursion aren't effects that draw cards but still net you card advantage, or the ability to fish for what you're looking for. Then there are other effects that can't be categorized like the one from SRA that allow for "additional cards". A 2 cost or lower Total Anarchy that can't be dealt with I think is more problematic, as some of the other effects some cards have while shifted. 3) Sage is not a problem if Blink is controlled, same thing goes for Mariko. Ther just isn't that much advantage gained with them when the number of character that can be recruited per turn is lowered. 4) Beak Saves the Day is a card that could be headed for the workshop. Honestly other than using it to abuse Blink and other characters with Shift effects what is the point of playing that card in the build phase? If limited to the combat and recovery phase the shenanigans Blink and company pull of are easier to control. 5) SHE NEEDS TO BE WORK WITH AND SHOULD OF BEEN #1 IN YOUR LIST. 6) Shift itself doesn't need to be worked with. Just because there are a few bad apples in the basket it doesn't mean we have to throw away the whole bunch. 7) It didn't happen while UDE was still with us and I don't think it should happen now. 8) Carrying the Torch is not a problem. I would be more concerned about Clash of Worlds but then again I have never heard anyone complaining about that card. It's an ongoing PT, it only works on characters cost 3 or more, easier to disrupt than say Clash. There are so many ways to break uniqueness now that I don't think it matters. The Captain, Clash of Worlds, Wolverine Squad, Bodyslide, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mystique, Scarlet Spider, Superman -Red, Cadmus Labs, and so forth. I mean I think it has become more of an issue ever since the introduction of very powerful Legendary cards, but it is nothing new. I truly hope this just stays the same. |
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