Deck Building Option!

[aprillo]

Hey friends, some of you may have been wondering what I've been up to for the past week, as I haven't really been on the forums. Well have I got a surprise for you!

I had found that since I acquired TP, SFF, HP1 & GH that the games lately have been leaning towards Hero victories more and more. Especially with TP. For one, the Heroes are definitely favored in TP in terms of new cards. Don't get me wrong, there are some devastating Zombie cards in there, but it's not enough to combat them, especially since hero upgrades are CRAZY and zombie upgrades are... yawn... sorry I kinda dozed off there. I read reviews with similar sentiments, but the only suggestions I saw were to mix the decks. Now If your mixing the original deck with the new ones, yes it waters down the heroes's deck, and the zombie deck still stays pretty strong, but suddenly cycling becomes literally impossible, and the Heroes have 0 chance of running out of cards.

So I thought do both, make two equally strong zombie decks, and two equally strong hero decks by splitting up all doubles, quadruples etc. of the various cards. That was okay... but still, not balanced, it meant the zombies still had about 72 cards which is definitely more than desired, and the heroes had the same number, and still tons of crazy powerful cards.

I came to the conclusion that the only way to restore balance, and still be able to play with some of the new cards vs the older ones would be to add a deck building component to the game. Initially I thought okay choose a range of deck sizes, and then go. I quickly realized though that whatever the range is, Heroes would put the maximum amount of cards, and only the strongest one, and zombies would put the minimum.

This brought me to the realization that the real issue is the lack of balanced decks. I needed a way to ensure that if you put to many strong cards as a zombie, you deck would be so large you wouldn't be able to cycle, no rely on getting any specific card desired. And I needed to make it that if heroes put to many strong cards, their deck would be dangerously small, and wind up costing them the game.

So I rated every single card, from the base game right up to timber peak, for both heroes and zombies. Then I recorded all the ratings in excel, taking into account things like frequency of usefulness, potential synergies with other cards, and stand alone strength. I even took into account the number of copies each card has, as even that could make 1 card seem more alluring than other ones. I divided them all by type, and made a detailed rating system, tweaked the card values until I was satisfied with the average deck size for each side. Because lets face it, zombies could easily do very well with a deck of 25 cards of their choosing, and heroes would be happy to include all the cards available, maybe excluding a few that they personally find less valuable.

I just finished it an hour ago. But I'm fairly confident no play testing will be needed as mathematically it makes perfect sense.

If your like me and have found the games less exciting lately, or maybe have kept TP out of your LNOE games, and have been playing them separately, perhaps this will be your solution too.

Enjoy guys!
Happy Deck Building

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Oh for those of you with BitF, I'm sorry but those cards aren't included in this list as I'm still missing that one.

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Here I've also included PDF Versions so that printing will be made easier.

[ATOEtalGeek]

Is it the idea then that you start each game by building (choosing) your deck based on the point system? Choose the cards and add the points together until you get to some total number of points? It would seem then that you must require a certain number of points from each category of card in order to keep the decks balanced and in line with the intended mechanics of the game. So a certain number of points of Range Weapons, Hand Weapons, Events, and so on. Otherwise the players could stack up on a certain category, which may break the game.

[aprillo]

Well that would be up to you. You could make new decks for each game, or make scenario specific decks, or you could just make one deck each, that are more or less generic and suited for every scenario reasonably well. The choice is yours.

I have a couple of different groups I play with, and one of them loves deck building games so they'd probably want to go through the process every time. One of the other groups may find it interesting and make a few decks each, but in the end they'll probably want to stop doing the process each time, and have some sort of finalized deck, or a couple of lists describing the cards needed for X scenario. The third group I play with will probably hate the idea of deck building and for that reason I plan on making two basic deck lists, so that when I play with them, they don't feel tortured, but the decks are balanced.

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It should also be noted that presently, all the stats in both decks are based on a deck of 300pts. This is what the ratings have been based on for balance. If you chose to change the number of points required in either deck, apply the opposite to the other deck.

Example 1:

Instead of the Hero Deck requiring 300 points (no more no less) you make it be 350. The Zombie Decks required point value should be 250. This way, the heroes can now put more of their powerful cards in, and the zombies can put less weak cards into theirs.

If you go into the Excel files, you can change the number of points for your Hero in the "Average Deck" row of the document. Once change all the stats automatic update for you (except the card range, that I had to Calculate manually using sheet 2).

Example 2:

You want to make it hard so you reduce the Heroes Point to 250, then you must clutter up the zombie deck and make their point requirement 350.

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Also this is very important:

"Samantha the Radio DJ" is not worth 150 pts specifically, rather she is worth 50% of the allotted points for the hero deck. This is because with that card in play and a couple of "I found it"'s the heroes can effectively have a recyclable deck. This is an incredible advantage if your deck is built right.

By contrast Terror at Timber Peak is actually worth -20 pts. This is to compensate for how much that card can speed up the zombie player's ability to cycle. By making it negative 20 they must include more cards to get to the 300 point mark. This value doesn't change though, as the card can easily be eliminated from the deck by heroes or even by Zombies themselves if "Fight for Survival" comes up. On top of that it can be canceled by the card "At Last..." and by most townsfolk events, and any other card that cancels Zombie cards. Thus despite being arguably the best zombie card, it isn't nearly as strong as "Samantha the Radio DJ".

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(06-19-2014 11:13 AM)ATOEtalGeek Wrote:  Is it the idea then that you start each game by building (choosing) your deck based on the point system? Choose the cards and add the points together until you get to some total number of points? It would seem then that you must require a certain number of points from each category of card in order to keep the decks balanced and in line with the intended mechanics of the game. So a certain number of points of Range Weapons, Hand Weapons, Events, and so on. Otherwise the players could stack up on a certain category, which may break the game.

With regards to the types of card you choose, that's really up to you. because now both zombies and heroes can customize their deck, it's up to them to develop a strategy on how they'll shape their deck. If the Hero players want to make a deck designed to keep the zombies held at bay, they may decide to put mostly ranged weapons and hand events to help them. I would imagine this would fail, but maybe not. The cards ratings are also partially based on what type they are, so like events are generally cheaper than items, items are cheaper than hand weapons and hand weapons are cheaper than guns. but ultimately to me, like in most deck building games, it's up to you what's going to be important in yours. you build a strategy and make your deck reflect that. In theory, heroes could make a deck with an arsenal of weapons and items, and hold back on the events, and this may prove fruitful, but by the same token, zombies won't have to worry about surprises if they do that. or you could build a deck with just enough weapons for each hero to have 2 and there to be say 4 extras, fill the rest with events and have tons of defenses against the zombies, but do that and your bound to fall short on weapons for most of the game.

The way I see it, that's half the fun. I'm not about to micro-manage peoples decks for them.

A) This was enough work. And

B) If you have poor strategy (not at all implying that you specifically do, just speaking generally) and can't design a deck that will be effective, that's your problem. Eventual though you'll get the hang of it. All I wanted to limit was powerful cards to weak cards. Plus as far as I'm concerned no matter what you do, your going to be better off with this than with all 143 cards in your deck. with that many cards a bad shuffle can cause you to lose.



Of course, though I wouldn't want to restrict how people build, I could put in recommended ratios for each category.

[BigDumbYak]

This is a really cool idea aprillo! Sounds like you put a lot of work into this. I only have the base game, so I won't be testing this myself, but I'd love to hear results from someone's play test of your system!

[aprillo]

Thank you, I'm glad you think so. I will definitely let you know. I'm planning on trying it today


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[sgiove]

This is very similar to an idea I had, but have not initiated yet. I'm glad this thread was started! Great thoughts so far, Aprillo! I haven't read through this whole thread yet, but I'm sure I'll have some questions and responses in the coming days.

With that said, here is a very "basic" version of what I'm thinking. As mentioned previously, I also think the decks get too large and was thinking of ways to trim them down. I came up with the idea of an 80-card deck for each game where half of the deck is the same every game and the other half of the deck is randomly added for each new game.

I haven't gone through and decided which cards would make up the "permanent" half of the deck yet but I imagine the points system given in this thread will help greatly in deciding how to build complimentary decks for each side.

I did the research in advance and had a breakdown of how many hand weapons vs. ranged weapons vs. event cards should be included based on what kind of cards are typically included in each base game. I think it was very close to half events and half weapons with hand weapons making up a bit more than half of the weapons. I don't have my notes handy but I think it was a around 60-70% hand weapons and 30-40% ranged weapons.

Once the permanent deck is made I was mulling over two options. One method would be very basic. For zombies, just randomly insert the second half of the deck (i.e. create a standard 40-card deck used in every game and then randomly insert 40 more cards from the remainder of the zombie cards.) For the hero deck, for the remaining cards outside of the pre-made "permanent" deck, split the remaining cards into events and weapons and randomly place 20 cards from each pile into the standard 40 cards pre-made half-deck to complete your 80 card deck for the game. Or you can split the remaining cards into events, hand weapons, and ranged weapons and randomly add in 20 events, 13 hand weapons, and 7 ranged weapons.

I did consider that the themes of each scenario should be taken into effect as well. So, another idea was to let each side hand pick 10 cards (but no duplicates) from the remaining cards and then randomly insert the remaining 30. For one example, this would allow players to add an extra gas can, keys, and "Just What I Needed" for the Escape in the Truck scenario.

I'm not sure I'm completely getting my thoughts across via this post and I still need to work out the complete details, but when I saw this post created I immediately wanted to share some ideas I've had.

P.S. I should note that when my group plays we split up the Hero deck into four even piles and assign one pile to each L-board. Once a pile runs out of cards, no more searching is allowed from that L-board. This stops the heroes from "camping" in one corner of the board all game and also makes the zombies events that send hero cards to the discard pile more effective because the zombie player is allowed to choose which of the four piles the cards are removed from (or this can be a random roll if you think allowing the zombie to always choose a deck is too severe.) However, this "house rule" setup should have no effect on the overall ideas for deck building listed above. I just wanted to let people know of this house rule in case others wanted to try it out.

[aprillo]

(06-19-2014 03:59 PM)sgiove Wrote:  This is very similar to an idea I had, but have not initiated yet. I'm glad this thread was started! Great thoughts so far, Aprillo! I haven't read through this whole thread yet, but I'm sure I'll have some questions and responses in the coming days.

With that said, here is a very "basic" version of what I'm thinking. As mentioned previously, I also think the decks get too large and was thinking of ways to trim them down. I came up with the idea of an 80-card deck for each game where half of the deck is the same every game and the other half of the deck is randomly added for each new game.

I haven't gone through and decided which cards would make up the "permanent" half of the deck yet but I imagine the points system given in this thread will help greatly in deciding how to build complimentary decks for each side.

I did the research in advance and had a breakdown of how many hand weapons vs. ranged weapons vs. event cards should be included based on what kind of cards are typically included in each base game. I think it was very close to half events and half weapons with hand weapons making up a bit more than half of the weapons. I don't have my notes handy but I think it was a around 60-70% hand weapons and 30-40% ranged weapons.

Once the permanent deck is made I was mulling over two options. One method would be very basic. For zombies, just randomly insert the second half of the deck (i.e. create a standard 40-card deck used in every game and then randomly insert 40 more cards from the remainder of the zombie cards.) For the hero deck, for the remaining cards outside of the pre-made "permanent" deck, split the remaining cards into events and weapons and randomly place 20 cards from each pile into the standard 40 cards pre-made half-deck to complete your 80 card deck for the game. Or you can split the remaining cards into events, hand weapons, and ranged weapons and randomly add in 20 events, 13 hand weapons, and 7 ranged weapons.

I did consider that the themes of each scenario should be taken into effect as well. So, another idea was to let each side hand pick 10 cards (but no duplicates) from the remaining cards and then randomly insert the remaining 30. For one example, this would allow players to add an extra gas can, keys, and "Just What I Needed" for the Escape in the Truck scenario.

I'm not sure I'm completely getting my thoughts across via this post and I still need to work out the complete details, but when I saw this post created I immediately wanted to share some ideas I've had.

P.S. I should note that when my group plays we split up the Hero deck into four even piles and assign one pile to each L-board. Once a pile runs out of cards, no more searching is allowed from that L-board. This stops the heroes from "camping" in one corner of the board all game and also makes the zombies events that send hero cards to the discard pile more effective because the zombie player is allowed to choose which of the four piles the cards are removed from (or this can be a random roll if you think allowing the zombie to always choose a deck is too severe.) However, this "house rule" setup should have no effect on the overall ideas for deck building listed above. I just wanted to let people know of this house rule in case others wanted to try it out.

Hey thats cool, I handn't considered having a permanent section an non-permanent. My one suggestion though would be to lower the base, or make the zombies and heroes have different deck sizes. because i would argue 80 cards seriously slants towards heroes. with 80 cards, it's unlikely they'll run out, and pretty much impossible that the zombies will have the opportunity to cycle. When i was working out the kinks to my fully customized option, I found that 55 cards is the fairest number. with semi-conservative searching the heroes dont have much to worry about, and with that many cards, the zombies may manage to cycle once, if that. like I said, ideally zombies want less cards, 56 or more becomes disadvantageous. whereas heroes want more cards, so 54 or less becomes dangerous.

That's why in my system, i made their average deck sizes (meaning if the built the deck perfectly balanced with weak and strong cards) zombies come out to about 50 cards, and heroes come out to about 60 cards.

[sgiove]

Understood. But as I mentioned in my post, I have the heroes split their cards into four even decks and assign each to a different L-Board. So, each section only receives 20 cards each. This makes the zombie cards that cause hero cards to go from the deck to the discard pile more dangerous. If the players have already drawn half of a deck from an L-Board, they'll be left with nothing once one of those zombie cards wipes out the remainder of that L-Board's deck and then the heroes can no longer search that L-Board. I've given up on the chance of a zombie discard event being able to win a game because it depletes what's left of the heroes deck so I re-designed how heroes use their deck in order to give those types of zombie cards some weight.

If I wasn't using this method, I would agree that a deck closer to 60 might be ideal.

[aprillo]

(06-20-2014 06:39 PM)sgiove Wrote:  Understood. But as I mentioned in my post, I have the heroes split their cards into four even decks and assign each to a different L-Board. So, each section only receives 20 cards each. This makes the zombie cards that cause hero cards to go from the deck to the discard pile more dangerous. If the players have already drawn half of a deck from an L-Board, they'll be left with nothing once one of those zombie cards wipes out the remainder of that L-Board's deck and then the heroes can no longer search that L-Board. I've given up on the chance of a zombie discard event being able to win a game because it depletes what's left of the heroes deck so I re-designed how heroes use their deck in order to give those types of zombie cards some weight.

If I wasn't using this method, I would agree that a deck closer to 60 might be ideal.

Right no, that makes sense. That sounds like a neat house rule. I may have to give it a go some time.

[ti0chic0]

(06-20-2014 06:39 PM)sgiove Wrote:  Understood. But as I mentioned in my post, I have the heroes split their cards into four even decks and assign each to a different L-Board. So, each section only receives 20 cards each. This makes the zombie cards that cause hero cards to go from the deck to the discard pile more dangerous. If the players have already drawn half of a deck from an L-Board, they'll be left with nothing once one of those zombie cards wipes out the remainder of that L-Board's deck and then the heroes can no longer search that L-Board. I've given up on the chance of a zombie discard event being able to win a game because it depletes what's left of the heroes deck so I re-designed how heroes use their deck in order to give those types of zombie cards some weight.

If I wasn't using this method, I would agree that a deck closer to 60 might be ideal.

This is very cool, but at my games, the zombies wins mutch more than heros, I think the zombie card is more powerfull.