Tachyon - Definitive edition hero balance?

Other Games SotM Game Engine
#1

We played a game with 1 of 5 players using tachyon and it seemed to show quite a significant change. The combination of trash pile build up from a combination of draw/discard options, the increased amount of additional play card options, on-top of the numerous one-shots seems to allow for doubling of the trash card pile speed. Leading to the culmination of an attack of 20-25 every 4 rounds on average depending on shuffles.

Being that this is intended to some extent to “play fast” like the hero, the resulting playstyle differences of experiencing the entire deck of hero cards in comparison to others which seems to get through their desks at a significantly slower speed, to the point of not getting to a large portion of their deck at all compared to potentially getting through tachyons deck in full, and possibly more than once.

Is this the intended result of the changes? Are we missing something in the rules that allows for the number of plays during a single play phase, the number of one-shots during a single play phase, or even the same one shots used during the same play phase?

If this was intended it would seem that allowing for unlimited reactions, and reaction buffs, would allow for additional damage, semblance of speed, without dramatically increasing progress through the deck to be vastly different from other heroes and might decrease the damage done in single strikes based on focusing discards on the trash pile, as opposed to bursts of ongoing plays and discards.

#2

Yes, Tachyon is designed to churn through her deck at a high clip. That’s why she has so many cards that make her discard as well as ones that make her draw. There are some other heroes that do so nearly as much, like Haka and Tempest, but she’s the queen of it.

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#3

I understand the effort to match the hero skill, however at least in our case it resulted in folks not wanting to play, due to less than similar play experience, slowing the game down only because everyone was trying to determine if we were missing rules.

I would agree that Haka and Tempest function on similar mechanics at a much slower rate. The other impact on the game was essentially this hero focusing on discarding at the expense of essentially one ability, barrage. Essentially focusing everything on a single hero dimension, and still outperforming others. I would imagine not the intention of play for this hero.

The over abundance of one-shots, in addition to inflating the trash pile, also makes the hero highly immune to most “debuffs” by way of minimized “ongoing” and “item” clears of the heroes. While again playing into the heroes abilities seems to have compounded the previous impression on the hero. Creating a feeling of this hero being the exception to everything, or operating outside the parameters followed by the other heroes.

#4

She’s a strong hero, but not ridiculously so. It is true that she’s less dependent on item and ongoing cards than many heroes, and can replace them easily. However, she only gets that one 20-point shot in 4-5 rounds, and a game only lasts about 5 rounds. And she has a few strong one-shots, but most of them are very weak. Other heroes are more consistently strong.

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#5

Yea like I said I don’t disagree that most heroes do more damage on a per turn basis its just that we found most folks playing weren’t getting through even 25-40% of their deck, or less, while tachyon could easily get through the entire deck. What seemed to slow down other folks was also the more heavy reliance on, ongoing and item, cards. That sort of compounded the “ramping” back up after a clear, from the boss or environment.

Like I said it wasn’t all about the actual impact on the villain itself as it was that tachyon seemed to break, or heavily bend, most of the limitations of other heroes, while also being able to get to all of her cards. Even though it “felt like” half of them were simply discarded before playing, it was probably more like 30%. Some folks weren’t able to experience some of their powers because they simply couldn’t get that far into their deck to reveal certain cards.

Just trying to provide some feedback since it was really more about the dynamics of the hero. Perhaps having a strategy guide, beyond the gameplay notes from the Lore Guide, for each hero would assist? It would certainly have helped us spend less time realizing that we weren’t missing anything with Tachyon. Maybe even as an ancillary book to purchase, if not included in or with the two that come with the box? Even having it sealed and put a “warning” on the book, or book wrapping, like a “spoiler alert” - if you generally want folks to not have access to that as part of your game experience.

However, it would be nice to have something for new players to reference, or new players to certain heroes, to help level the gameplay experience by setting some expectations.

#6

I don’t think you’ll have GtG release full strategy guides. They want players to discover what works and doesn’t work for them strategy wise. EE only has full guides written up by players. Closest we will see from GTG I think is these spotlight videos Christopher has narrated which so far is only Legacy, Wraith, and Baron Blade Sentinel Spotlight: Legacy - YouTube

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#7

The Enhanced Edition strategy guides that @Powerhound_2000 mentioned can be found here:

Yes, it is true that they are written for EE, but I believe that (most) of the general advice is still applicable.

Regarding your experiences and issues with Tachyon, it seems like, to me, there isn’t actually any problem, but rather you’re just hung up on the fact that Tachyon’s play-style is just so different. Sure, you cycle through more of her cards, but, by my experience, most of her cards do, on average, less than those of other heroes’. And, well, frankly, just “seeing” more of a given hero’s deck doesn’t directly translate to more power, or anything unbalanced, really.

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#8

Yea, hung up is really not the right description. I had 3 people essentially walk away from the game because one characters playstyle was essentially “bypassing most of the limitations they had to follow”… i bought the game and ill continue to play. For me it would just be easier to remove tachyon from the box, and scan the lore book excluding that hero when reprinting it, than come here and provide feedback.

I think if there had been something to escalate the learning to play the other heroes in that particular game, it might have mitigated the significant differences. Ill go download and print some guides for future games but first impressions are hard to get by, for most folks. I dont expect those folks to want to play again, having basically percieved the game as unbalanced.

I agree with some, but not all of the complaints i delt with that night. I came here to confirm we disnt miss anything and express opinions on what might bring the playstyle to a similar deck pace without sacrifice a speed feeling. The only thing i think essentially happened with tachyon has stacked too many bends, or breaks, around rules that limit others. If it had been one aspect it probably wouldnt have even been an issue.

#9

Tachyon’s deck isn’t imbalanced, is essentially what we’re trying to say. Her deck is intentionally designed to play fast to emulate her being a speedster, but every individual card is dialed back in power to compensate.

And while this game has some similarity to games like Magic, it differs in that there’s no particular inherent value to going through your entire deck in this game.

Every hero deck in Sentinels “breaks the rules” in some manner that reflects who they are as a hero. The base rules are a baseline that every hero then deviates from in their own unique way.

Your playgroup’s reaction is unfortunate, but I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done because they’re perceiving an imbalance in power that doesn’t exist, so it can’t be addressed. Tachyon isn’t particularly stronger in terms of effectiveness than other heroes; she just plays differently.

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#10

Seconding this. Running your deck out is in no way a major goal in Sentinels of the Multiverse. The other players weren’t cycling through their decks quickly because they weren’t playing a speedster.

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#11

Yeah. I mean, in retrospect technically speaking they could help the perception by making her deck play slower, but not only would that be at counterpurposes with making her play like a speeder, her deck would also be weaker and less effective since it’s designed to anticipate her racing through her deck.

Even her EE deck was one that churned through its cards quickly.

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#12

Yeah, this strikes me as really odd. Sure, she can play and draw more than one card a turn, but so can several other heroes. More of them than not have some way of doing so, and a lot of Tachyon’s are “deal 1 damage,” which isn’t exactly impressive. And sure, she’s not reliant on getting cards out and keeping them out, but that also means other heroes have an advantage she doesn’t have—they can get a tableau of cards on the table in front of them that power them up without them having to do anything.

Honestly, it sounds more to me like Tachyon’s player grokked how to use her effectively right off the bat, and the other players didn’t understand how to use theirs.

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#13

yep, which is why I asked/suggested a more expanded game tips for all the heroes might help make others more viable, particularly on first impression/play. The issue started in round two, when tachyon played 6 cards in the same play phase, and continued in similar fashion until round 4 when 25 cards from the trash landed a 25 point hit on the boss. Essentially playing and discarding everything except for barrage.

When I asked the player afterwards why he essentially discarded everything was because he could do the same amount of damage against the boss by having the 1point damage cards in the trash pile as playing them, so he essentially discarded everything that didn’t have an immediate draw/play or increase the trash pile. When I went back and looked at his tactics, and tachyons desk, he didn’t even maximize the play options with goggles. When the rest of the group got their ongoing and items wiped by the environment deck in round 3, it literally didn’t phase tachyon.

The 2nd round was essentially the beginning of the end as I was forced to verify if there were any specific rules, around it, what was happening. In round 3 they were a bit exasperated by the fact the card wipe didn’t slow down tachyon at all, and it became laughter in round 4 when they finally realized the purpose of him burning through his deck.

You don’t have to agree with me, or even believe me, I’m just here expressing exactly what happened and asking questions to ensure I didn’t miss anything so perhaps those folks might play again. I don’t disagree some of it was player knowledge but I do agree that tachyon essentially has a cascading arrangements of abilities that dramatically shifted the play experience, not just that round but each time we tested afterwards.

I stayed after with the tachyon player and I picked two heroes to essentially play support and tachyon to nearly single handedly kill off two bosses to see how repeatable it was or if it was just the luck of the draw.

Either way, at this point, its obvious this is how shes intended to be played and we didn’t miss any rules. So I appreciate the confirmation, conversation and additional information. This would be one of those agree to disagree moments and thats fine. I can essentially prevent it from happening again by limiting the hero choices.

#14

Out of curiosity, do you remember the setups of the fights you’ve done? At least, those including Tachyon.

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#15

Without a full play by play it’s hard to say if they misplayed something and maybe that’s how they did that. I don’t expect you’d have that but I would say your comment that they didn’t fully use HUD Googles gives me an impression they might.

To theorycraft a bit in an ideal setup I’d expect Tachyon to have HUD Googles and Pushing the Limits in play giving a base line of three cards plays on their turn. If on that turn I played all three copies of Expedited Efficiency and all four copies of Fleet of Fleet then the max that could be played (without a reshuffle) on a single turn is twenty cards assuming I had that many to play. The next turn would cap out at three card plays and unless I used Research Grant power the prior turn I would only have two to play. Typically I’d say on Tachyon’s turn she is probably playing two to three cards between those two setup cards and one of those seven one-shots.

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#16

It also sounds like this player did nothing but play cards that let them draw cards or discard cards, and then did the big 25-point hit at the end. That means they were doing an average of about 6 points of damage a round, which is not bad but not exceptional for a hero who’s only dealing damage to the big bad and not dealing with intermediate threats, Ongoing cards, defense, etc.

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#17

When you say

do you mean when using Tachyon’s base power (as opposed to drawing) and cards that actually say to discard cards? Or were they discarding with something else?

Just want to ensure we’re understanding it, as you’ve said this a couple times and I wasn’t sure if there was something included in this statement that I was missing/misunderstanding. :smiling_face:

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