Expatriette Fix?

Other Games SotM Game Engine
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It's more a matter of intentional contradiction.  From about 1981 (I mark the start of the "Iron Age" as the start of the X-Men "Days of Future Past" storyline by Chris Claremont, though other dates ranging from 1981 through 1987 come up), comics began to focus on more realistic, flawed heroes whose superpowers were either limited or utterly nonexistant.  In this age, we get Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Denny O'Neil, Grant Morrison, and numerous others rising to prominence on nuanced, philosophically-charged storylines.

Coupled with those storylines, we get villains that are simulataneously (and contradictorily) both innately human and seemingly untouchable.  The Kingpin, in Miller's Daredevil storyline "Born Again" dealt with this in spectacular manner—The Kingpin is just a guy, but he's an incredibly well-connected, wealthy guy who controls organized crime throughout Hell's Kitchen.  Compare that to The Chairman.  He's just a guy, but he's an incredibly lethal, merciless, beast of a guy.

Rook City, thematically, emulates those sorts of comics.  That comes with the constraints of the idiom, whether positive or negative.  And that includes the seeming contradiction between street-level, gritty heroes and seemingly all-powerful, unstoppable villains.

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Mmm.  I don't think Absolute Zero is very popularly thought of as strong.  He definitely has his fans, but he has a lot of detractors as well.  (At least before Elemental Wrath appeared, anyway.) 

You should have seen those debates rage before you got here.

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So which issue of the Punisher involved him not being able to find the right gun he needed to shoot a squad of Hand ninja?  Or when he couldn't beat the Kingpin on his own and had to rely on Charles Xavier souping his brain up with enough know-how to effectively dish out some vigilante justice?  Or when he went to his underground bunker to load up on pistols and rifles to take on Bullseye but accidentally went to the location filled with nothing but ammo?

I definitely get the idea of The Chairman (who certainly is not just a normal dude, considering the fact that he's over a century old and has developed a physiology completely untouched by toxic waste, dinosaurs, lava, chaos energy in a realm outside of time and space, postapocalyptic cryptids, and ancient Atlantean technology) being an untouchable villain, but Dawn is the Magneto to Expat's human Quicksilver.  If Expat can't step to crime lords and bird ladies, then what hope does she have against a literal coalition of metahumans?  I think there is a rather prominent issue of conveyance if that's what >G was going for with these characters.
Watchmen is a great comic.  Watchmen:  The Game would consist of the players being undermined, humiliated, and destroyed before concluding with a pyrric victory(?) through a Journal Equipment card (Rorschach reference).  That...is much more fun to read than to play.  I would be quite surprised if the inspiration for Fixer and Expatriette were specifically the era of heroes being kicked around by villains, because losing to bad guys all of the time isn't very fun.  The narrative of a game is quite different than that of an Alan Moore story.

He's still a pretty good writer, though.

44

If balence is the most important thing, then rather then fix Exp. or Mr. Fixer who it is a little early to say if they are to weak or not, stats wise, may I rather suggest that people talk about nerfing Legacy? 

 

Personaly I am fine with everyone as is, but the one thing the stats do show at this early stage is that Legacy is more powerful then everyone else. 

 

Again I am fine with whatever people want to do. I like the game as is, but for the balance folks why not go for the biggest balance issue, Legacy? 

 

 

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I think you're conflating the two very separate arguments I've made over the course of this thread:

Argument 1–Expatriette's lack of card draw is a relative weakness intentionally built into her design, as she has relatively high hp, can deal with ongoing/environment cards, and deals consistently high damage with relatively low set-up.  Increasing her natural ability to pull from her deck (particularly by direct choice) causes her to be overpowered.

Argument 2–Thematically, Rook City–and only Rook City (not the whole of SotM)–is meant to represent an era of comics that often featured street-level, low-powered heroes facing off against overwhelmingly powerful criminal organizations.  This representation is common throughout the entire game:  it's kind of the overall point.  Expatriette is as much The Punisher as Superman is Legacy, Bunker is Iron Man, and Tachyon is The Flash.

 

Applying the inherant logic of a card game to a narrative structure is an exercise in reductio ad absurdum and isn't really applicable to the conversation.  It's comparable to webcomics like the early episodes of 8-bit Theater or Order of the Stick where we read a narrative tainted by video game/RPG logic and laugh at the results.  But, even still, given your examples, how about the numerous storylines where Green Lantern can't get his ring to work, because of a loss of will?  Or the number of times Batman gets captured, and the first thing the villain takes is his utility belt?  Adversity and conflict breed good narrative, and that's true of comics, novels, and even games.  

And, for what it's worth?  I heartily disagree that "Watchmen: The Game" would be un-fun.  It's why I wrote one.  It has much less to do with "humiliating and destroying" the heroes as much as focusing on investigation, moral quandary, and burtal action in a semi-realistic setting.

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IMO, AZ can be strong but also he's swingy and hard to play effectively. When I pick him I often feel like I'm gambling. Either he will completely dominate the game or he'll be comepletely useless, depending on his draw and whether the environment and villain decks blow his stuff up. I would expect both of those factors to push his numbers down.

47

An alternate base power: Search your deck or discard pile for PRIDE or PREJUDICE. Put it into play.

This means she always has her trademark guns close at hand. The cards which do the same thing are still useful, because she can then fire the gun on the same turn. It seems like it would address the concern some people have (that she can go a while without being able to get a gun) without really making her any more powerful.

Also, it would just require a new character card - not changing any of the cards in the deck itself.

48

That might make her a bit overpowered. Pride and Prejudice by themselves aren't too much, but together they can be quite a handful, and with this power, you could easily have both of them in two turns, and it would make equipment destruction mostly meaningless to Ex-Pat. I agree that Ex-Pat should have a way to more reliably get what she needs whether it's ammo or guns. Probably the easiest fix is to just allow Quickdraw to search for any gun in her deck, and have arsenal access reveal cards until an ammo card is revealed an either put it into play or into your hand. You still wouldn't get exactly what you needed 100 percent of the time, but it would put her a little bit more on par with characters like Wraith.

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I agree with you to a large extent.  In the case of Expat though I do get the feeling that I really don't want her in a game with the tougher villians because she can't do as well as someone else.  As far as mages that is one that thing that I always hated about D&D.  How stupid is it that if you want to play a long campaign the other classes just have to accept an almost minion roll to the player that everyone knows is playing the more powerful characters.  It is so much more fun when all the players can be roughly on par (strengths and weaknesses yes) rather than "you be awesome and I'll be backup."

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Even more important when just using the base percentage is that it doesn't take into account what teammates and villians are being used.  If people think Expat is weak so they always team her up with Legacy, DV, and Tempest against some of the weakest villians while at the same time someone like say Wraith is strong so people player her along with a less dominat team against harder villian then of course Expat will have an inflated win %.  Now we are getting enough games that I think this issue is going away and really shouldn't be an issue, but I know in my group Expat is NEVER chosen against Matriarch or Chairman.

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Agree completely!  Sometimes he really struggles.  However at least when you choose him you know you MIGHT be amazing and you MIGHTbe terrible.  Sometimes its fun to gamble.  Some people don't like to play him, some think the risk is worth the reward for those great games.  Going into a game just knowing you will be subpar is not fun, its not a gamble, its just subpar.

52

What if ammo cards did not get discarded upon use, but get attached to the gun as a perma buff. Speed Load would be altered slightly to let you play an ammo card from your hand to destroy and replace whatever round is in the gun. Ammo could be a much cooler mechanic than one-shot in sheeps clothing. I think this would bring her damage more in-line with her contemporary heros while not breaking her with a power thats way too good

 

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I actually quite like Expat against Chairman. Get a damage boost or two and Hairtrigger Reflexes can one-shot some of the thugs.

Last time I played Chairman and the last time I played Apostate we had an Expat. We won both games. In either case I play with mostly people who don't frequent the forums, so none of them seem to have a problem with Expat. For my submitted games at least we don't shy away from using her against harder villains.

54

I don't think I'd hesitate to play Expatriette against the Chairman either. Leaving Hairtrigger Reflexes aside for the minute, Flak Jacket, Assault Rifle, Liquid Nitrogen Rounds and Tactical Shotgun are all very solid against the Organisation.

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My wife and I played some this evening, and I did some stress testing with the optional rule I suggested earlier for Expatriette:  her SMG card would deal 1 damage to all non-hero targets, then draw a card.

I actually charted out the damage dealt overall between Expatriette and Ra, with our ther heroes being Tachyon (normal) and Haka--two heroes that have relatively low interaction with other heroes.  We chose Gloomweaver and Tomb of Anubis, to provide a baseline without ongoing or equipment destruction and a fair amount of villain and environment targets.

Both Ra and Expatriette received pretty solid starting draws, with Ra's Summon Staff and Expatriette's SMG in hand.  Ra was able to get down Imbued Fire, as well, in round 3.  Expatriette got down speed loading in round 4, though it was a non factor.

Our findings?  Innate card draw massively overpowers Expatriette, precisely as I had figured.  By round 5, Expatriette had all but one of her guns out and was was preparing back to back turns of Unload.  Even taking a full round off to prepare by only playing cards, Expatriette outdamaged Ra 85 to 48, mowing down targets with abandon.  Ra's best turn, a Scorched Earth/Staff/Imbued Fire combo dealt only half the total damage of Expatriette's second Unload (17 vs. 32).  Ra's only saving grace was that he plunked off Gloomweaver's final 6 hit points.

What's most frightening about this experiment is the fact that Expatriette's ammo was an utter non factor.  I drew two ammo cards throughout the game--incindiary and nitrogen rounds--which were only used once each.  I didn't need or even want them, as my card draw was high enough to get down any guns I wanted, open with an RPG Launcher or an ongoing, and utterly annihilate the field.

I'll readily admit, Imbued Fire helped Expatriette, but the buff applies to everyone's instances of damage, so it's hardly the contributing factor.  Rather, I had copies of every card I could have wanted in Expatriette's hand, and just let loose twice to destroy everything in the way.  Giving her deliberate card draw, even linked to one of her powers, massively overpowers her.

 

(Edit--oh, and we took down The Chairman with her, too.  Pretty handily, mind you.  Same sort of scenario, only slightly more ammo, and two less guns.)

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If that's the case, Platinum, then I guess her deck really should be kept as it is, more or less, at least concerning outright card draws. Like someone said earlier, maybe the card draw "weakness" she has was deliberately built in to control her awesomeness?

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Vindication!!! XD

 

Of coruse, as you said you had a pretty awesome start. But out damaging /ra/ … thats pretty ridiculous.

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How broken would she be if her ammo stuck around until destroyed or replaced? Has anyone tried that? With her ammo able to replace old ammo to the discard pile. I really like the idea of the ammo mechanic, but I find it to be....lackluster 

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The problem with permanent ammo is that she's not going to have a lot to do on her turns anymore once all her guns are loaded up. At least with Speed Loading you have to work for it. I think it would likely be a small increase to a normal turn because she's not going to have a lot of other effective options most of the time, but it gives Unload an unneeded boost.

Once you start reclaiming ammo and speed loading every round, you're going to get pretty static. The ammo mechanic appeals to people who want to set up a tight loop and iterate all the way to the bank. People who want dynamic turns where you're always doing something different are naturally going to be disappointed.

I feel like this is okay, actually. Different heroes' mechanics appealing to defferent players is actually a really good thing IMO.

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We actually played a game or two with the "Perpetual Ammo" mechanic in play as well.

While the results weren't as overpowered as the SMG Draw mechanic, she was still significantly outdamaged every other hero in the game.  It did make  her more dynamic, in the sense that she was free to play "other" cards during her turn, but the overall damage effects were pretty strong.  Being able to throw down a Tactical Shotgun with Hollow Points and keep that combo all game, without any buffs?   This effect was only magnified when Argent Adept got to play his "Use a Power" song out, and she began pumping off Shotgun blasts 2-3 times around.  Whew...

It's been suggested up-thread that perhaps a limited mechanic on the Perpetual Ammo might work better.  Given my experimentation, I might suggest the following:

1) When an ammo card comes into play, attach it to a gun and place 3 tokens on it.  

2) Each time you use that gun's power, remove one token from the attached ammo card.  If the ammo card ever has no tokens on it, destroy it. 

After all this tweaking, I'm still back at my original conclusion--baseline, normal Expatriette is functioning precisely as intended. :D

 

@Lynkfox--Yeah, Expatriette had a pretty solid start, but the thing is...so did Ra.  I started the game with a Summon Staff, Scorched Earth and a Fire Blast (and another card that apparently wasn't important enough for me to remember).  Expatriette beat him down in terms of damage in every sense of the word beatdown:  More single-target, more targets, more overall damage, you name it.  When she can take a full round and do nothing but play guns/ammo and still nearly double Ra's damage output?  That's something else.

@Drako--That was me, by the by.  Expatriette really can do it all.  She excels at single-target and spread damage.  Liquid Nitrogen rounds make a great debuff.  She can destroy ongoings and environment cards, and she responds exceptionally to any buffs due to her multiple instances of damage.  The only thing holding her back is her lack of card draw and her relative fragility--(her only defensive card is Flak Jacket).  Eliminating one of those weaknesses by handing her more options really pushes her over the top.