Winter Scar Playtest Feedback: Gilgamesh and its License

[halcyon tangle]

Hello all, I am @halcyon tangle. I posted two sets of playtest data (found here: https://discord.com/channels/426286410496999425/1180706895187685519, and here:https://discord.com/channels/426286410496999425/1195342582989979779.) for Operation Winter Scar. If you have yet to read that playtest data, particularly the second set of data, before reading through this post. In this post I will be talking about the Gilgamesh and its licensed gear.

Gilgamesh Frame: This frame has a couple of glaring issues. First and foremost, it has entirely too many good stats. The HP and Armor are both in good places, at about average or slightly above, the Evasion and E-Defense are both in alright places, and the Repair Cap and Speed are both fine. The issue is that 11 base Save Target and 6 base SP make this frame very good as an off-Controller or Controller hybrid, bolstered by a great mounting setup and simply having access to a Heavy mount. The other issue is that this is a frame that literally requires a spreadsheet to track. Due to the traits, the frame is encouraged to take a lot of systems and weapons with limited charges, which all need tracking. On top of that, the Locked and Loaded trait requires tracking, as it ticks down a die for every limited charge spent, on top of use of both the Core passive and active.

Legionnaire Battle Rifle: The Legionnaire Battle Rifle is a fine LL1 heavy weapon. It does 1d6+3 damage with 12 range, and the weapon has no tags. What is not fine is the effect the weapon has when consuming its Limited charges. With 3 uses at base, the weapon has two possible effects, gaining Reliable and gaining Accuracy on the attack. Gaining Reliable is fine. It has some very good uses, specifically having to do with shooting at Invisible targets, but overall it’s not too powerful. The issue is the ability to gain Accuracy on a rifle. The rifle talent set, Crack Shot, is all about getting a critical hit on the attack. Crack Shot 1 grants +1 accuracy, and Crack Shot 2 allows a player to trade-in that accuracy for a chance at higher damage on a critical hit. Legionnaire Battle Rifle eliminates that trade, allowing a player to quickly stack a lot of accuracy when fishing for the critical hit. The ability to add accuracy also has the incidental upside of sometimes removing the downsides of cover, for just 2 Limited charges a hard cover shot becomes neutral with ease, and because of how easy it is to invest in Limited charges (especially at higher tiers of play) this can happen quite often.

Emergency Repair Module: This system is not particularly great. There are a select few frames who benefit from Bracing generally, and of them the Kutuzov and Napoleon only have 3 base Repair Cap. The heavy costs of both a limited charge (this system only starts with 1 charge) and requiring the player to spend a repair, as well as the typically high cost of Bracing (the player loses most of their actions) makes this system quite weak. Some possible changes could be an increase in the limited charges the system has a base, but I do not think that fixes the issues of a Repair and losing a majority of action economy (the latter of which is a bit of an unfixable problem).

Thermal Blade: The Thermal Blade is a fairly innocuous weapon, but it is entirely too powerful. Its damage is fine, at 1d6 AP, but its ability to generate heat for both player and NPC target is entirely too good. Spending a Limited charge to deal 4 heat to a target is a lot, even more so when in the Danger Zone and possibly benefitting from Nuclear Cavelier. Meanwhile, for a hacker to get a similar amount of heat generation on a target, they must spend a Lock On, be in the Danger Zone, and hit an Invade attack. Sure that Invade might have more crowd controlling utility, but the weapon has damage and the best crowd control is death. That’s without mentioning that the weapon’s effect can still be used while outside of the Danger Zone being an invaluable tool to a build that wants to get to the Danger Zone quickly for possible buffs and other effects. Lastly, there’s only 1 real hacker frame that can benefit from this weapon, the Calendula. The Calendula benefits from this weapon a great deal, as it serves as a melee weapon for the typical build-style of a Calendula, and generates heat on an enemy, increasing the likelihood of an Exposed target with which to very quickly eliminate.

Utility Drone: Utility Drone is precisely that, utility. It has a lot of interesting uses with mines and builds that force a lot of saves, and is a great tool for when the GM is forcing saves upon a player. Its Limited charges for the drones makes them a solid comparison to ICEOUT Drone, which is similarly utilitarian in nature. This is overall a fine system for LL2, and much better there than it was at LL1.

Legion Nexus: This weapon is still too good. While the removal of the drones ability to deal damage has made the Legion Nexus less oppressive than it was before, its utility is unparalleled by any other Superheavy weapon in the game. Its damage is never really 3d6, as the drone deployment on attack immediately increases its damage by 2, and while it caps out at +6 damage, that’s still very good for any superheavy weapon to be dealing at base. Especially one that has good range like the Legion Nexus. The drones are also still too good. Their timing restriction means they don’t activate the turn they are deployed, but their abilities are all similar to that of the Hydra’s core, which pushes out the value of the frame entirely with just a single SP point cost. The heat 2(self) also didn’t slow the weapon down much, if at all, because to invest in the limited charges a player will also invest in more heat capacity by default.

SPEAR Charges:
Anti-Armor Rocket: The rocket is a little bit too much. Sure it’s only a single target, but with 10 range and 6AP damage on a failed save (in a damage type no NPC in this game has by default) the Anti-Armor Rocket is a little bit too much. A slight decrease in range or damage would likely bring it a little bit more in-line.
Loitering Payload: The mine half of SPEAR Charges is fine. It is a very powerful Control tool, being able to block off areas of the map until an NPC either disables it or takes the hit from it, but overall it’s perfectly fine. It does however raise some issues with Iskander, who really wants this mine for its toolbox.

[night cloud]

Eliminating the Crack Shot trade feels honestly like a non-issue. You can do that by mounting a Vulture DMR. Or an AMR. Or by consuming Lock On. Or by attacking a Prone character, so on and so forth. At full investment, you can get 8 charges on the LBR, if we're remembering everything correctly, which is a considerable amount, but if you spend two Limited charges every time you fire into hard cover, you will be burning through them very quickly. Grease Monkey helps with that too obviously, but at that point you're also burning through repair cap, which you need to continue living.

[sacred stirrup]

I think you're not properly contextualizing the frame's stats, and that's why they seem so high to you

Its stats are almost identical to those of the Everest. It has 1 more heat cap, 1 more save target, and 1 less repair cap.

So its stats are about on par with the "average-to-good stats frame"

[halcyon tangle]

+1 ST is not really equivalent to -1 Repair Cap. Even more so when the frame gets around 0.5-0.75 extra repairs per scene from core passive.

As for identical, it loses 2 HP, but gains 1 Armor as well.

[hollow condor]

to make sure this is in context, did all of those playtests take place within a single mission or where players always starting fresh ?

[halcyon tangle]

It's over the average for Armor, though at about average for HP. The +1 Save Target is a lot though, even more so when there are many dedicated Controller frames with similar repair cap.

[halcyon tangle]

Always started fresh. Each was a complete reset with new builds and sometimes even new license level limitations.

[hollow condor]

That may make some options seem stronger than they are unless you started with some simulated attrition costs

[halcyon tangle]

Each game was 2 scenes. So they would be dealing with attrition anyhow by scene 2.

[hollow condor]

gotcha

[sacred stirrup]

The standard bulk calculation puts 10 HP and 0 Armor roughly equivalent to 8 HP and 1 Armor, so I don't consider that to be much of a difference at all.

[sacred stirrup]

If we include the ability of traits to mitigate stats, then the Everest actually wins out. Replaceable Parts effectively doubles the frame's repair cap.

[halcyon tangle]

This is true, but I must stress that +1 Save Target, especially on a dedicated Striker frame is very rare, and also allows the frame to be very powerful when comparing to Controller frames with similar stats and Save Target.

The frame is strong as a Striker sure, but it's also a strong Controller, which is something the frame is expressly not due to it's Role.

[sacred stirrup]

I think you're wrong in that assumption, really

The Gilg is a controller/striker, looking at the license equipment. It's not a dedicated striker beyond having a heavy mount, something a number of other controllers have- the Iskander and Vlad come to mind.

It's listed as just a striker in the pdf, so I get why you'd be confused. Stat and trait wise, however, it's a striker/controller, and pays the expected amount of power budget to be one.

[formal nimbus]

roles are loosey goosey anyway so imo that’s not really a limiting design factor

like, the blackbeard is a Striker Controller too with its grapple focus

[deft anchor]

They’re descriptive, not prescriptive, yeah

[sacred stirrup]

Whatever box you'd want to put it in, the tin being mislabeled doesn't actually reflect negatively on the frame's balance

If you think it does both striker and controller stuff well, then compare it to another frame you believe to be a striker/controller, and then see if it sticks out

[floral pagoda]

And the role not feeling right is something to note, but not a major design issue

[sacred stirrup]

Yeah

[undone stag]

So to begin with I do appreciate the extent of this feedback, here and in other threads, and I'll be looking at all of it in depth.

I will say that while I have some changes I can look at to some things that have been noted here, it's possible that some things are not going to be receiving changes either. The Legionnaire Battle Rifle has been a thing that's come up in a lot of tests and feedback on it has been fairly varied, and while I have indeed seen people positing that they think it's too powerful, I'm not sure I'm convinced that it actually outstrips the other options competing for heavy weapon choices even with crack shot in the picture

The Thermal Blade is an interesting case because despite a lot of people looking at it and having some opinions on it (as they're allowed to), I haven't actually received much feedback on it. Typically up to this point what happens is someone will bring it to a game but then go "oh and I never got to use this"

Which, to be clear, I do not view as meaningful data one way or another, but it does mean that compared to other things I've had tested more extensively I've had much less to go on

The role issue is also something I could look at, like I don't think anything would be harmed by opting to label the gilgamesh as a Striker/Controller, but I also agree that roles in lancer are not really a thing that matters overmuch and I don't know that doing so would really change much

Re: SPEAR charges and their rocket mode, something I think is worth noting is that roller charges exist as a form of grenade damage out to range 10 which deal 1d6+3 damage and knockback 3, which is something that informed where I've been looking at the damage on the anti-armor rocket (which itself has no utility other than the damage). I'm aware that roller charges have some funkiness to them (not hooking into demolitionest as well and their "always hit the first target" clause, though I don't generally think it's very hard to ensure you hit the target you want), though they also come earlier in the license in terms of when and where you can pick them up