Strong worry that Sith Holocron will break the game (despiet our limited knowledge)

[Fanfan 229]

I am unexplainably pulled by this game. I have read everything i could about it and I am looking forward for any new spoiler every day. I hate the business model of such games where the price paid to have a decent deck is orders of times higher than for a fixed-content game. Yet I am pulled by this game. Let's succumb to my feelings.

 

I have even built advanced statistical models to estimate the relative cost-efficiency of every card (like I do for every game I like). And well, everything sounds reasonably balanced and pretty well thought , a rare achievement for new games ! But I consider FFG is unarguably to me the world leader in boardgame design. And this high level of balance is especially true on the character side ! I was pleasantly surprised to find that the variations between the 1- or 2- dice of all characters all look very legitimately priced ! (My early assumption was two-dice or nothing, I was glad to be mathematically proved wrong)

 

EXCEPT for a stupidly unbalanced card. And it does matter, as with the generous muligan rule and small decks, you get more than 40% chance of drawing it, something very close to the worst possible randomness. You do get it - or you don't.

 

SITH HOLOCRON is massively overpowered to the point that I think it's quite likely that there could be a single viable archetype, involving holocron and its massive requirement for blue abilities, so not even much variation in that single archetype.

 

Every deck should consider carefully what it does with its 2-3 resources a turn - great concept ! Except holocrons, that will rain strong expensive abilities, resulting in an almost twice-as-strong economy, and then an uninteresting unbalanced game.

 

The main argument I expect to read against my statement is : "We barely know a fraction of the cards, how could you be that bold with your conclusive statement about the game ?!".

 

But the issue is that it's extremely tough to find appropriate answers to overpowered cards involving the additions of new cards !

 

- Other overpowered cards ? The game would still be bad, but with more variations of tier-1 decks

- (Too) specific counters ? i.e cards that are good as counters, but sub-par in other situations - this just emphasizes the luck-of-the-draw issue

 

Also, the Holocron is designed such as it is quite difficult to counter. It does not look like it's an issue to pack your deck with blue abilities. The holocron even allows you to split these abilities on other characters if you don't play double blue.

 

I'd like to be surprised, but I really don't expect the designers will have found the perfectly balanced counters in the set - it's a work of art to do, and it would have been so much better not to release the holocron as it is instead. I am afraid they just completely underestimated it.

 

I just sincerely hope I could be pleasantly surprised and the rest of the set offers smooth counters tuning done the overall holocron's power to a reasonable level (an "ability"-cleanse ? a breaker of equipment or cheap stuff ? not sure what could work well enough - Holocron costs nothing and you usually re-roll a bunch of dices once or twice which gives a high chance of special - and then your advantage is already massive). But again, that's super tough to do, especially if you have not identified the card as the one to tune down.

 

And nothing barely approaches this power level in the set. Cards like "close-quarter assault", or "deflect" look like they have a decent power level. BB-8 is a nice low-cost dice too. But none of those cards is a game breaker at all. They can be played around, or can just be considered cost-efficient. But nothing remotely approaches the power level of Sith Holocron for now. And that's good. We want balanced cards.

 

I am a little perplex. Yes, the ability requires a dice to be played on the turn it gets into play, yes the card may not be amazing in the final turns of the game. But still, it came obvious to many of us that Holocron is the card you're looking for in order to start well.

 

So, here is my request : I'd like to read arguments that could reassure me that this game will have a very interesting competitive future despite the existence of the holocron, or statements of other people sharing my worry !

 

Thanks for your feedback !