Suggestion - limit to number of powers on one piece

[OncoByte]

Born out of frustration from recent Beneficiary induced losses.

No more than 10 different powers on a piece.

Any more than that and either the piece overheats or the added powers don't stick.

Overheating sounds too punitive and would make people stop playing the game to count up powers. The alternative is to make such that if a player does anything that would break the 10 unique power limit on torus A, that action does not work on torus A.

- You try to Bene 13 unique powers - you get a No Effect signal. Better yet, the Bene power is grayed out in the power list, making it unusable until your squad has 10 or less unique powers.

- You try to Teach Radial 6 powers. One receiving torus already has 5 different powers. That torus keeps its 5 powers but gets taught nothing.

- A torus with 10 different powers steps on an orb. The orb remains on the tile as if the torus were inhibited.

Implications:
Would force players to partially show their hand - maybe that Move Diagonal or Raise Tile would have been nice to save until the right time, but you'd rather keep some others powers hidden and make room for more....

Would prevent Super Bene's - Players may choose to bene earlier, making the chance that they have that immediate game ending combo less likely.

Would make it harder to Pilfer powers from pieces near the limit. If the Pilfering piece has 4 powers on it, it will fail to pilfer from a piece with 7 other powers on it.

Alternatively - make it so that some torus stigma such as inhibit, tripwire, or parasite can be contagious to pieces learning from them, pieces they teach to, or tori that bene from them. Or make bene second tier learn. Or make GQ activate on orb collection. Do something! STOP CRUSHING ME WITH BENEFICIARY! If you do, I will find you. I will reprogram your coffee maker to make rat piss. I will show Lyme disease carrying deer ticks where you live. Don't test me - I WILL DO IT! Real men don't bene - that's facism, baby.

[Mammalman]

I completely agree with the motivation of this idea. Some other possibilities

It's quadquad like snakes and bombs...SIXTEEN powers is the cap not ten

at 16 you could then count TOTAL powers against the cap, i.e. 2x your 9 other powers and you burn up


With respect to learning, beneing,and being taught powers, how about this: if a torus would get a group of N powers from one of those powers but it only has X slots open (i.e. his current number of powers + X = 16), a random X are selected. It's true that this adds some added craziness to an already crazy game, but consider that it can ONLY hurt you in a situation where you are already teaching, learning, or bene-ing...i.e. it gives the fastest routes to the knockout punch a chance of hiccuping, only when you can't find a way to ditch your raise tiles, use your torus mods, etc. to ensure your important combo powers make it.

[driven2sin]

a little short sighted. No talk on the player that is getting smacked by an early beni and then later on they finally get a beni but have too many inhibit and parasite radials that put them over your cap and then they have to just sit there and die

[47]

onco, don't you think it would be pretty easy to waste the bad powers in order to ensure that the beneficiary is usable.?

we can think of a better counter to beneficiary...

[Handi]

I agree with d2s and 47...

The problem isn't the AMOUNT of powers you get with bene, but the KIND of powers that you get with bene.

I can bene only 4-5 powers, among which will be Move Diagonal and Recursive. If it is operated toward the beginning of the game, it has good chances to be an insta 'GG'. On the other hand, I had instances where I bene'd like 20 powers, only to have 1 or 2 that I really needed, the rest being either passive powers or row and radial ones whereas I need column.

The main problem is usually bene-teach. 4 of my last 5 games against top players were ended as follows:

Me vs d2s: Bene-teach (to 2) GQ, Destroy Row, Destroy Radial, Relocate
Me vs d2s: Bene-teach (to 3) Smart Bombs
Me vs Sanzo: Teach (to 5) Smart bombs
Me vs Sanzo: Bene-teach (to 4) Recruit Column, Recruit Radial, Move Diagonal

Just make so that teach can't be inheritable by beneficiary, and 80% of problems linked to beneficiary will be eliminated. If teach is still a major problem, just make it more rare... no need to kill powers.


On the other hand, Onco, I can feel your pain. If I was swiped by bene 3 times in a row, I would have been pissed too.

[OncoByte]

Excellent points all - the "you put all of your eggs in one basket" is not balancing enough for this power since you can often teach those eggs to many other baskets or you destroy your opponents ability to respond (a la GQ-Pilfer/Acid/Recruit or InstaWin).

So bring on the ideas...

Ways to balance Bene (+/- Teach/Learn):
1. When you Bene the good stuff, you Bene the bad - spyware, parasite, trips, future bad powers?

2. You can't Bene Teach

3. Cap the number of powers you can activate per turn at 5.
-This would make Bene-2x-GQ-GQ leave you with only one power to use that turn.

4. Make Bene end your turn

5. ?

Add more - hash out these ...

[l0de]

I'm not in favor of the original suggestion, too big of an impact on the way the game's played, would add elements I don't like. I am in favor of limiting teach severely though, to reiterate:

Teach affects only one target, remains a r\c\r power but is multiply dragged. (area affected by gq)
Teach cannot teach teach.
Teach cannot be learned.
Teach cannot be bene'd (stays on that piece)
Teach can be 2x'd.

That brings teach to a reasonable level, and keeps it as a pretty powerful, but not gamebreaking power.

What do you think about teaching learn?

[driven2sin]

first i must say in the name of Gizmo and Rhox that everything is fine, deal with it, that's how it is and stop whining


back to reality - nice to see Onco bring back my idea of 5 powers per move cap. Sure there are some times where it will stop some cool strategy but when you compare it to other restrictions it really won't nerf the game from all it's strategic elements. Mainly you would just have to extend your win a few more turns but it at least gives the opponent a chance to unleash bombs or some other risky moves in a last attempt to survive.

The reasons jimmi brought back teach a teach/learn & learn a teach/learn was to be able to pass powers around the board in unique fashion; not to support endless loops - we've had discussion on limiting this and trying to keep the spirit in tact but it becomes too complicated to explain to the average player.

It may be good to restrict beni to not grab teach but then are we ok with these strategies?:

1) what about learn? Does that go to the beni piece? If so then the beni can just learn the teach that wasn't beni'd.

2) if learn also doesn't go to beni then we get the bonus of being able to learn a fully beni'd piece. That might be balanced unless that piece also has teach but that would be rarer and at least that takes some effort to set up.


keep in the back of your head how 5 powers per turn would affect your games as you play. I put a lot of thought into that one and it seems like the most simple way to balance all the crap we are talking about WITH the added benefit of reducing invisi radar and numskull endless orbic rehashes, etc

If we put that in and also denied beni from getting teach & learn that would bring a lot into order

it would still allow for all the creativity that comes from teaching a learn etc

early teach row rape column is not part of this thread and you have to ignore that to talk constructively about all the other elements on the table here.

[Mammalman]

if we capped per turn power limit, are you saying that no effect/no loss would count against the cap? cuz otherwise it doesn't effect invis hunting

[driven2sin]

if we capped per turn power limit, are you saying that no effect/no loss would count against the cap? cuz otherwise it doesn't effect invis hunting

yeah - that is where I first came up with the idea and then it spread to seem to be a good catch all for a lot of nonsense without nerfing the game.

it at least deserves a chance like the 9x9 board got. just have it listed on the settings page so everyone can try it out... i guess the orb mulligans could have its day on the settings as well but i know jimmi doesn't want to clutter that page..

it is shaky starting a game as it is - half the time people move the settings the game fails to start

[OncoByte]

Forbage plus Bene =

No 2x used. Game over on the same turn as Bene.

At least Bene = End-of-Turn would create a chance to respond.

If you can't give us that, at least make a power called "Knock-over-the-board-and-scatter-all-of-the-pieces-in-a-fit-of-juvenile-rage Radial."

I would use that.

[Polymorph]

If that power existed, then the radial part of the power would also affect other people's games. And let's not get started with Grow Quad.

[47]

as much as i love orchestrating enormous schoolhouse combo's, teach should simply be rarer. it seems like i get it every game.

[Handi]

as much as i love orchestrating enormous schoolhouse combo's, teach should simply be rarer. it seems like i get it every game.

seconded.

Kill bene-teach: if you use bene, any teaches that are present on your pieces are removed and destroyed, this way you avoid that inconsistency where some pieces are still left with powers (teach) after a beneficiary.

Disable x2 teach, teach-teach, and perhaps also the other combinations of learn/teach like it has already been done before the overheat feature.

Bene x2 is a recurring problem? Make x2 rarer, or make bene rarer.

[driven2sin]

i don't really agree with the 'just make it rarer' option.

people would just wait longer

same with creating tiers and prolonging when the more powerful powers come. A large portion of the players here do not attack without full proof odds.

stop lying to yourself if you think you do