So, I have finally had a chance to play as the Luminary, and I am intensely dubious about his Complexity rating.
As listed, Luminary is only Complexity 1. However, most of his cards interact with each other. He's got devices to heal other devices, devices that can blow up other devices, cards to play the top card of his deck (which means guessing about what's coming out), cards to blow up hero cards to blow up villain cards, three different Doomsday cards that are mutually exclusive and do very different things, cards to pull Devices into play, cards to pull Devices into his hand...
Luminary definitely feels at least as complex as Fanatic, Tachyon, or Expatriette.
Is there something that I'm missing that makes him extremely straightforward? Am I overthinking the deck? It definitely feels complex...
I tend to put Luminary at the outer edge of 1. Knyfe is a 1 also but less straight forward than some others. Luminary is unique in the 1 category because he has devices which are unique to his deck. Most 1s don’t have that mechanic. Luminary is pretty simple, but I would say he’s nearly a two also.
I personally think there was some complexity creep in this last set. I think most of them are about right if you add 0.5 to their listed complexity ratings. Benchmark, Harpy, Idealist, and Akash'Thriya are much harder to use than the early 3's. Luminary is borderline 2 for sure. La Comodora's 2 I disagree with intensely--I've played her a few times now and I don't understand her at all.
Sorry but the thought of complexity creep makes me chuckle a bit. Though I get the point and since this is the last expansion it makes sense to me they are probably the most complex group of heroes to play. Overall, complexity is just a guide as to which heroes should be easier to just pick up and play. Each person’s experience will vary and influence how they feel about it.
In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind seeing peoples’ rankings of the characters in difficulty order. It’d be neat to see how others view them on the spectrum of easiest to hardest.
The thing about Luminary is you can discard your hand, let your all your stuff blow up, and still do 15 damage to something if you held on to that one card. He doesn't really care what happens to him so long as he hits that trash limit.
Weirdly, this makes him a little more complex if you're a long-time player of the game, because he really changes how you consider your plans over the course of the game.
I think the 'Complexity 1' rating is well put. Luminary's cards and mechanics are reletivley straight-forward, easy enough for a person who has a basic understanding of the game to pick-up and play. Like it was said by TakeWalker, we may just think he's a little more complex since we're all a bit more experienced with the game and can understand the possible combos and such hidden just beneath the surface...
Yeah, I would say with Luminary that you could use the phrase "Don't worry about it" most often...
"Oh, I had to discard a card" - Don't worry about it, it's just making yout trash bigger.
"Oh, I had to destroy my whole hand!" - Don't worry about it, it's just making your trash even bigger than if you'd discarded one card.
"Oh no, all my stuff just got blown up!" - Don't worry about it because guess what? Yup, it's making your trash bigger!
"This card I just played is making me discard cards that look cool!" - Don't worry about it - you'll get them back later when your trash inevitably cycles.
Really, you have to keep even less of an eye on your trash than Tachyon does, considering it doesn't matter what cards are in there, just how many overall. And once you reach that magic number, all you need is whichever Doomsday Device is most relevant to the situation and boom. Literally >:).
There’s definitely some debate to be had here. The statistics project compiles a bunch of objective measures, which definitely don’t agree with the published difficulty/complexity rankings. But also, individual players have anecdotes that don’t agree with the statistics project.
For example, I lose to Baron Blade more than I lose to Grand Warlord Voss, I think because I’ve fine-tuned my Voss strategy but sometimes there’s nothing I can do about the Baron’s clock running out. And I find the Ruins of Atlantis to be an easier environment than the statistics suggest - if you plan for Krakens, they are more helpful against minions than hurtful to the heroes.
I will be interested to see how the new heroes do in the statistical rankings.
This. He’s a complexity 1, not because his deck doesn’t invite interesting decisions or have cool internal interactions, but because so many his cards are effective most of the time- if you just shuffled your hand and played a random card every turn, and used your base power until it’s time for Doomsday, you would still be effective ~80% of the time.
Unfortunately, the stats say nothing about complexity, just how likely a hero is to win or lose. Some complex heroes do badly, mostly because of setup time, but many don't.
Here's my sticking point about Luminary: compare him to Tachyon or Captain Cosmic, both 2's. Tachyon has the whole Burst thing, which is a special keyword but is really easy to grok. She has a slightly complicated strategy in that you have to know when to pop your big attacks, but that's about it. Captain Cosmic also has his Constructs, which have HP, but are very simple mechanically. The toughest part about him is knowing when to use Construct Cataclysm or Conservation of Energy (and personally, I almost never use either), and sometimes deciding what order the constructs should take damage in. Luminary has Devices and cards that interact with Devices, he cares about his trash, he cares about damage order, he cares about when and which Doomsday Device to use--he has everything that makes either Tachyon or CC a 2, put together.
Tachyon is a better comparison. Captain Cosmic hands out extra powers, healing, an alternate power, and retribution damage all of which can end up outside of his own play area. All of Luminary’s stuff stays in his play area. In regards to Tachyon, Luminary doesn’t have to track a card type in his trash, doesn’t have cards that give him extra card plays, and has no self damaging abilities. The worst case for a blind card play I can think of for Luminary is having Triple Cross played by Hasten Victory resulting in having to destroy a card he has or another hero’s. You can find some good strategy with Luminary but he’s a hero I feel confident to hand to a new player without much issue.
Interestingly it was a few such discussions that led to me formulating that observation. One was a discussion of people noting that Gloomweaver felt like almost a 0 Difficulty compared to Baron Blade who in turn was surprisingly hard at times for a 1, one was people saying Progeny felt like on the easy side of 4 compared to Chairman and Iron Legacy and wondering if Dreamer was too low rated, and then on the hero side was Nepycros saying he felt like Argent was a Complexity 4 which led into a hero-centered discussion.
I was alluding to the ease of play, not the overall win rate . I would readily recommend Luminary to a new player because he’s hard to be ineffective with. Most of his cards give him setup and passive effects, and many of those that don’t set up still build his trash. You don’t need much deck knowledge, or, indeed, knowledge of the game, to do great things with Luminary. While a high-skill player can do great things with him, a low-skill player can do a lot too. He cares a lot about a lot of things, but he doesn’t ask that the player do the same. Hence the high blind success ratio (or BSR). Tachyon has a lower BSR- a lot of her cards are neutered in the wrong situations and knowing what to save and what to toss can require a developed game sense. And anyone who’s played Requital CC can tell you that his BSR is lower than it seems. In general, I would say that:
A complexity 1 hero can be effectively played by a child who is unfamiliar with the game, and is sufficient for a group that is all learning. BSR: >70%
A complexity 2 hero can be effectively played by an adult who is unfamiliar with the game, with some advice from more experienced players. BSR: 40-70%
A complexity 3 hero requires an understanding of the basic strategies of the game, as well as a very basic familiarity with the ideas of the particular hero, to be effective. BSR: <40%
That's an excellent point and yet I completely disagree with you. :)
I have a player in my games who is smart but not very strategy-minded. She usually plays heroes like Legacy, Wraith, and Tempest to fairly good effect. But she also plays Tachyon and has done quite well with her, even by the end of her first game with her (not SS Tachyon, but any other version). Luminary, she still hasn't really figured out even after 3 games or so. She also picked up Doctor Medico without much difficulty despite him supposedly being a 3.
I think "complexity" is actually a combination of 3 things:
How difficult it is to understand the rules required to even play the character
How difficult it is to strategically come up with effective ways to use the character
How difficult it is to track the character's various moving parts
Luminary isn't quite the lowest level of any of those. He has some cards that need to be read carefully to understand, he has a few different ways of managing resources that have to be balanced, and he can have a lot of cards on the table in front of them, most of which have HP. Tachyon is fairly low in point 1, quite low in point 3, but higher in point 2. Captain Cosmic is low in points 1 and 2 but higher in point 3.