Recent discussion blossoming from CCC.
I really do enjoy the CCC.


Costing pieces. How do people determine costs of pieces?

In my opinion it is tricky because there are SO MANY possibilities these days.

The way I like to cost pieces is to start with a base guess. Where dot he base stats and damage output and movement place this piece based on other pieces the same way. Than you add the faction and the "big guns" (power 10/11 pieces) into the faction. OR its Bastila and Senator Fringe its Talon, Imperials its Thrawn, etc...

To be honest the game has not moved very far in terms of squad changes in tier 1 in a lot of factions. Designers are purposefully designing around the "Staple" pieces since Vset 1.

Anyway, costing pieces is done by faction and squad building. If you can make a better squad than an existing tier 1 squad or just a tier 1 squad in general it must be looked at very hard.

In Designing these days the idea of Power 9 and Power 10 pieces are different than they used to be.

Look at Vset 11. it has pieces such as Covenant Defender, Vima Sunrider, Ben Skywalker, See-Threepio, Queen Amanoa, Droopy Mccool, XT-6, Bib, Cognus which have all been seen on potential tier 1 squads but besides See-Threepio, Droopy, and the XT-6 nothing has really stuck.

Since Vset 8 the tier 1 pieces that cost 50 or more are Boba Fett and Jangol'lore.
Vset 15 has put out Vitiate that might be tier 1 in some way or other.


I think it is time for power 10 pieces that are accurate and melee. Speed, defense, power the whole kabam and at a very good cost. I have said it before and I will say it again, unique force users with melee should all be power 8 to power 10 pieces all the time.
Set 15 did a great job doing what it set out to do imo, but I think it should have set out to make melee even a tiny bit better. If Vodo was a tiny bit better it would shift OR a tad more in the right direction. If Cade was just a tiny bit better it replaces some of the old options that are already obsolete and creates a real option (Kyle, JB). But it does not replace Mara Jade, jedi who is 45.

Would love others thoughts.

You know, funny thing about this quote. I fought tooth in nail with his development to be just a Booming Voice character. because I told everyone, no one needs him for anything else other than that. I fought with everything to get him below 15 points. Because any higher he was useless in that faction, where everything is already over costed compared to other factions. But people had their opinions, and dreams of him being able to do more.

@shmi: Whoa... okay. I know I'd like him a lot better if he were just Booming Voice. Some people really don't want more Booming Voice period, so they might appreciate him not being an auto-include. But, you make an excellent point (as you've brought up before), the game wouldn't be hurt by Sith getting the equivalent of Mas Amedda.

@Caedus: That's awesome! I... obviously don't know what I'm talking about, then

this is a fun topic;
some time ago, a former SWMinis'er from WotC forums, had a statcard maker .html app...
I have that archived a few ways, as well as via Wayback etc.
that site has since vanished, though I will update this thread when I recall the wayback ref and prior discussions on this topic hehe.

some time ago, Surf had the idea to "scrape" and kludge an Excel on a per-string basis.
then its just a bunch of nested-ifs depending on the statcard. heck, you can even code half the draw-routines for the Visio/"ultrabasic prototype" statcard with LEN and spline-check stuff hehe.
its also useful for transliterating the cards from english to other languages via that string-.rtf etc,
so as to be as adaptable as possible.

that approach was much more accurate than our own local excel "eyeball" routine, or the AGIXML-GAH
image index throughput, with GIMP script fu (that's next-level scrape based on the image itself).
so, the glossary from here and elsewhere, has each ability assigned a couple of numerical values,
depending on both its outright utility, and it's "Meta-combo probabilistic utility".

the meta-combo part can be assigned from a batch-test AGI system,
such as VASSAL in playtest mode, or SWMPlay etc... or TabletopEmulator APP.
those can be utilized to AGI "rapid-prototype" for a given range,
and, the playstyle itself can be throughput from 'championship playreport metadata' <--- which to-date,
has been somewhat under-scrivened and not scribed or easy to find hehe

costing is essentially a floating-point thing;
it depends on: the number of SAs/FPs/CE's etc.
its self-limiting based on what can legibly be fit on a statcard of the given dimensions, thats your "rho-regression self-referential limiter"
as a paper at the EJC alludes to. (there's some great combinatorial scholarship coming out of StarWarsMinis folks there, especially on the 'meta' and 'SWMinisCompositions".)

so, the base-key is ~ 3SAs of 'neutral' weighting,
20HP, 8DEF, +4ATK, 10DMG = 4 points.
thats the 'universal key' for a lot of costing approaches.

---

so, the above is how universally, SWMinis fans attempt to derive a costing algorithm process which closely emulates the original.
(it is NP-P complete meta-combinatorially arguably).

as to the VSet 'power-creep' or "melee has been nerfed" lines of thought;
yeah, that's been argued several threads in the past,
and I find KezzamachineII and TheHutts reflections; and their data/charts, to be quite insightful for those

personally? it's on public record that I initially thought VSets 1 - 8 were not kind to WotC style balance,
though I mellowed on a lot of that over time as meta-combos and compositions in squad-builder became increased,
and workarounds were sought,
that, and as local tournaments began era-specific tournament or different factions only per event,
that cemented niches and prevented a lot of era-mismatch balance issues (those pesky Vong, nuWarsTrek etc).

---

thanks, and I hope this was of some use/cogency given post#1,
and I look forward to seeing what other SWMinis'ers reflect on customs-pricepoints and how they automate statcard generation or
quality control rapidprototype batch-testing.

When I make my pieces I'm more in tune with how Surf does it, I don't use a calculator, but I do compare the cost to similarly costed pieces.

Take my Kopecz for instance he's not going to be a big time damage dealer, but he's going to draw some attention with disruptive and soak up a lot of hits while dishing some out in return. Bastila is 3 points cheaper and has a far stronger power where she doesn't need to be in the actual combat area to be affective. He's not going to be an auto-include like Bastila, simply because he's more expensive and really wants to be in the middle of the combat to make the most of him, but at the same time he should offer enough to be useful to the right playstyle.

Personally I find designing pieces to be a specific tier actually hurts the design process. It usually creates a nearly useless character, or a nearly auto-include, neither of which are really very good results. That doesn't mean all character end up that way, but you tend to see a lot of the same stuff with minor changes here and there depending on personal player preferences.

In addition to where I feel the cost is right I try to entice playing older less/never used pieces when appropriate with my customs.

What he said Bless Koba, I understand maybe 5% of what he says once he goes into his deep explanations but I get the gist of it. I've tinkered with that Excel program, various people have helped me work out bugs (the last was donnyrides) and it seems to be close enough for government work as they say ....



See, this is the problem with designing, in my eyes. Its seemingly consistent inconsistency. My "casual" approach is just different ... but I Can't become a competitive player jen in that a good competitive player Plays; I'm lucky to get a dozen games a year. Except for a weekend playtest where I might get 2-4 games in, I'm lucky If I play twice a year and get 3-4 games in each time

PS

Boba, exactly 50. Base 22 pts, add 1st four SA's, up to 33, next 4 SA's up to 50, Tow 3 but Single Shot & Unique negates 4, Quick 1, ... so 50. "They" got that right ....

Sabine - Now, Here's an interesting one. Her Base is already 16. You add her 1st five abilities (including a negative for Unique) she's already at 27. Her second five abilities are all ranged effects, some pretty heavy duty. Being conservative, I'd say 37 - 41. If you +/- 5 for the vagaries of costing, she's at Least 32 - 36 and That's if you aggressively cost her. She's VERY aggressively costed.