Mid-FA Balance Discussion #1

It’s been a bit of time since the release of Faltering Allegiances, and we wanted to give the playerbase a look at how we see things currently.

These types of communications will be on an “as-needed” basis, and immediately after a set release definitely meets the definition of needed. This is the time where the player base is going haywire trying out new combinations and finding interactions that slipped us by, and if we are tracking things which are concerning then you deserve to know about it.

Luckily, we don’t see anything at this time that requires an emergency errata or immediate intervention, which is not to say that nothing could be improved.

Let’s start with what we were looking at a couple of weeks ago with the new plots:

  • Extremist Campaign
  • The Inquisitorius
  •  Intelligence Operation.

We perceive these as fulfilling their design goal nicely by giving a great jumping off point for new and returning players before they branch out creatively and find the powerful lineups lurking below the surface. None of the decks which are utilizing these three plots appear to be dominating early on, and moving forward we believe only Intelligence Operation has the potential to become an issue as the spy decks become more optimized.

Extort Cooperation

Not an issue in the slightest.

Rebel Schemes

While not off our radar entirely, use cases seen thus far are in line with our intentions.

Current Watch list: Nothing here is set in stone to be implemented. Our next official balance update is still set for mid-November.

Vibrosword

This thing is pretty pushed. It’s not anywhere close to Vader’s Fist level of effectiveness, but it is a standout rung above everything else in FA while also being available in the same faction of two other heavy hitters (Megablaster Troopers and Pulse Cannon).

But at the same time, it’s most common use-case is in Bala/Bing. From all the data we have been pulling in, Bala/Bing is tracking at around a 52% win-rate and very high play-rate, which is damn near perfect for a preconstructed deck which we perceive as having less room for optimizations. We don’t want to nerf one card and have the ripple effect drop one deck in particular out of competitive viability. So if we do change the card in question, it will need to be a very measured change.

Hero Droids

Speaking about the interaction between R2D2 and C3PO specifically here. It is absolutely uncontroversial to say the dynamic duo have enjoyed more than enough time in the sun. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. Palpatine is still also going strong after all but we don’t see any problems there.

What we don’t like however is that one specific character combination can pick up any cards without specific spot restrictions and kick them all up a notch immediately. And even worse, droids can do so in a way that outshines any other hero deck that isn’t an archetype all to its own. For instance, the recent additions of Greez and Vibroblade have created a new version of the droids archetype which can be very frustrating to deal with for a lot of players.


So we are very heavily considering adding R2D2 to the Restricted List. Both characters are interesting in their own way, and both have been used as color-enablers in other decks which wouldn’t be possible if we banned one or the other, or increased point costs… Again.

United/We Stand

In a world where we have purposefully reduced the amount of multi-die mitigation as a return-to-form effort, United presents a bit of an issue. Mono-color deck viability was one of our design goals for FA and United definitely has helped bring these decks to the top table. At the same time, an overwhelming number of decks are using this card to get around the very few pieces of “blowout removal” left.

Blowout removal being reduced doesn’t mean it shouldn’t ever be seen at all. Block, Dodge, Quell etc are good, if individually meta-dependent cards which are being completely invalidated by a plot which carries zero inherent costs to include in deck construction.

The change, if any, that will be made here is still up in the air. It is difficult to identify the correct method with which to bring this card back in line without merely stratifying the top decks which currently use it.

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