To assist with the community vote, the IACP Steering Committee presents these summaries of the Playtest Survey. After some initial missteps, the Steering Committee found solutions to tweak the power of Hunter cards and On the Lam that were received positively by our playtesters. These results are current as of Saturday, June 29th.
Assassinate
When discussing what problems to address in Season 1, the Steering Committee was convinced to address the Hunter card power curve. Our first attempt — a change in the core rules limiting one Hunter card per attack — taught us that making rule changes is something the community discourages. Back to the drawing board, we presented the change in text to Assassinate. We appreciate that the community was quick to forget our initial mistep and evaluated our second attempt fairly.
| Responses from “Do you approve the Assassinate change?”: |
| Strongly Approve: 8; Approve: 11; Neutral: 1; Disapprove: 4; Strongly Disapprove: 2 |
Our testers told us that Assassinate still feels powerful when used, as it should. They mostly enjoyed the new challenge Assassinate presents now, where they had to weigh using Assassinate versus one of Heightened Reflexes and Tools for the Job. Some of our testers still think Hunters might need a bit more reduction in damage output, but the Assassinate change was a good start.
On the Lam
Our initial change to On the Lam changed its custom timing window to the very start of the attack. Our initial feedback from the community expressed some worry that On the Lam was nerfed too strongly: They argued that the attacker should have the opportunity to play (and lose) attack bonuses from cards and abilities. After some debate, the Steering Committee decided to offer another version of an On the Lam fix, where it was used during the defender’s On Declare step of the attack.
In our playtesting survey, we asked each participant to share their opinion about each version of On the Lam via a multiple choice selection — choosing the version of OtL they experienced in games they’ve played. Then our testers were asked to specify which one they prefer via a written explanation. The following are the results of the multiple choice questions.
| Responses from “Do you prefer OtL with custom timing window changes?”: |
| Strongly Approve: 4; Approve: 8; Disapprove: 4; Strongly Disapprove: 2 |
| Responses from “Do you prefer OtL with On Declare timing window changes?”: |
| Strongly Approve: 11; Approve: 5; Neutral: 4; Disapprove: 2; Strongly Disapprove: 1 |
In the written response question where testers were asked to choose between the two versions, a little over 20 respondents preferred the On Declare timing window and 5 preferred the custom timing window. Those who preferred the custom timing window pointed out that On the Lam’s ability to erase an attack was strong enough without the attacker suffering more from losing cards played during the On Declare step. Those who preferred the On Declare timing window emphasized they preferred having the card activate during an established attack step, which makes the game a little more streamlined.
On the Lam still remains a controversial card in the Skirmish community. In the Season 1 Vote, you will have the opportunity to choose first if you think On the Lam should be changed from its current printing. Then you will be asked to choose which of the two changes should be used to change On the Lam (if the community approves changing the card). Even if you don’t want On the Lam to change, you’ll be asked to choose which version of the change you’d prefer.