Equity and Balance

So I’ve decided to share my piece here on how I observe balancing. Balancing is a touchy subject and rightfully so. Balancing determines the pacing of the game and is indirectly linked to the “fun” of the game. Too much balancing and things become stale. Too little balancing and things are a mess. People tend to look at balancing as if you’re balancing sheets and trying to make a net zero on both sides of the equation.

How I tend to see balancing is that of a seesaw. With this logic, the initial thought process would likely be that of having the seesaw sitting equally on both sides, being flat with neither person on either side above or below each other. Now, that image perfectly defines the word “equality”; however, if you’ve ever been on a seesaw, you’d quickly realize that is painfully not fun. Seesaws are meant to go up and down, give and take, both participants enjoying the thrill of going up and down in retrospect to each other. And I think this is ultimately what “balance” should be, both participants enjoying the game and moving between states of up and down in respect to each other.

From a Weiss perspective, what does that entail? That is a good question. Before I move on, I want to remind you that no two seesaws are perfectly alike. There are times in which one of the sides is more heavily weighted than the other. People are of different weights and masses after all (not calling anyone out here). As such, balance is never fully achieved due to circumstance. You must also consider that of the foundation of the seesaw. If there is sand below the seesaw, it may heavily favour one side over another. The seesaw may be tipped in advantage to one of the participants over the other. The point here is that the seesaw was never built to achieve full balance to begin with. This is where equity comes in. Rather than trying to strike true balance, as in forcing both sides to be literally the same, we should sometimes consider applying some support to one side over the other to give them an edge. This allows them to play more fairly into the game so both sides can enjoy going up and down the ride.

So yes, the question is why do some series get more support than others? This isn’t even limited to just number of sets and boosters for one series. Some series have dramatically “better” profiles and more powerful cards. But numbers don’t always mean superiority. Da Capo is a very good example of this. Da Capo is the oldest series in Weiss Schwarz with one of the largest card pools in the game. However, Da Capo does not see any gameplay in the current metagame despite having all this support. Why is this the case? Rather than considering the point of creating new product to make a series a strong meta contender, we should look at ongoing support from a different angle. Part of the point of printing new cards is to give the series some amount of support so players can enjoy running their cards with a bit more modern power. Rather than considering everything from a meta angle, support is given to increase the options available to players, allowing for more choice and creativity in building their decks.

Objectively, rather than thinking of new product as always a way to “break” a series or tip over the sides of the seesaw, new product is more so here to breathe a bit more life back into an old series. This doesn’t necessarily mean they will instantly jump to the top of the metagame or displace current series, but it gives some fresh new tools to help balance the scales a little more.

One other common misconception is that sets produced in the same time frame are equal to one another in power. That is inherently false. There are plenty of sets produced within the same time period where cards are not phenomenally close to each other at all in power. This is not a recent pattern either. Bushiroad has always been inconsistent with their designs and power scaling. The other reality is that Bushiroad sometimes tests the limits of the game by introducing new designs in sets. Some of these become staple common effects; others don’t. Some are beloved. Others are hated. And it is without any doubt that these tests can often disrupt the game, pushing it into an unfun direction. I don’t personally think its bad or blame the developers for trying out these mechanics in the game. However, I will say, with my decade of experience now, recently, it feels as if the balancing team has been much at liberty with pushing the envelope of powercreep and letting cards release into the game with little play-testing or consideration.

As such, you end up with overloaded profiles like the ones above. And these cards end up having to either be nullified by restricting the number of copies or through straight bans which aren’t fun either. Arguably, I feel Bushiroad needs to take a step back and stop releasing new card types in such a loose fashion. In the last few years, it may appear as though there’s much less balancing going on, especially with the seasonal ban lists now and how they are managed. As others have noted, modern Weiss really feels like a seasonal game where series are “allowed” to participate in the meta for a season before being force rotated out by the ban list and then being eclipsed by newer series with even more powercreep.

Arguably, another point to make on the topic of balance is the awkwardness and difficulty it comes with balancing. Weiss is a little easier to balance than many other games that I have observed because the game comes with an inherent built-in balance system in the neo-standard format with series restrictions. Since sets are locked behind series, they cannot inherently use cards from different unrelated IPs; thus, this prevents many potential degenerate gameplay patterns. However, the developer team may sometimes inadvertently create some problematic situations with poor oversight and just accidental lack of considerations. This isn’t inherently a Bushiroad only thing. There are so many cards and interactions in Weiss that can often lead to some disgusting designs. Some of them are fun and otherwise great to keep; others are just degenerate and create too many strong advantage chains or unfair disruption with little drawback. The bottom line is sometimes the designer team creates things that just end up causing problems when they interact with cards that the balancing team never considered. It just happens. They’re human too.

There is also one inherent problem that I have spoken about for years at this point. Weiss suffers from cards having universal traits and low restrictions/weak requirements. Because of that, certain degenerate cards or profiles can be overly abused since they can be slotted in anywhere. Looking at the cards above, we can talk about some of these cases here. 1/0 Fiona has a strange interaction with 0/0 Anya’s brainstorm. The cards were not designed directly to work with one another and was most likely an oversight (they hate each other in the original series). With Anya, Fiona creates an unfair level one field with her change card that can be looped, all because Anya accidentally works with just any card with a keyword found on Fiona’s card (CHANGE) when she was originally meant to support her foster parents and family, the Forgers. 1/1 Hiori is a victim of the open design issue with generalizations. 1/1 Hiori was designed in mind to work with her unit in Idolm@ster Shiny Colours, Illumination Stars. The unit features her and her two other members, Mano and Meguru. The three are in three different colours, and the mechanic of that unit is to juggle colours in level to activate their abilities. 1/1 Hiori was a great accompaniment to the theme deck, but since she has no strict restrictions, she was just slotted into any deck that could fit her in, primarily abused in standby profiles as a cheap way to mill the deck and gain advantage, turning her into something that was meant to buff and empower Illumination Stars into a generic all-star that broke the generic deck, leading to her limitations on the ban list today. 0/0 Nino is a “Foolish Burial” (send a character from deck to waiting room) profile that supercharged the standby archetype, allowing players to easily set-up their waiting room and create degenerate early game board states.

Nino is the probably the most problematic of this bunch in terms of theory on design and balancing. The question with Nino is whether or not this type of gameplay pattern is fair. In some series, other decks are capable of replicating the same interaction as seen above. And this is just one of the key questions that needs to be addressed. At what point is an interaction between cards okay or not okay? In the case of Quints, perhaps due to the card pool and many ways which Nino could abuse the Foolish Burial ability, it was a no brainer that the card was a problem. However, this same interaction is okay to be played in a series such as Frieren shown above. So where is the dividing line between fair and unfair? Now this frustrates many players including myself because Bushiroad is also inconsistent in their answer to this. With many effects being clones and being reprinted in each and every set, the lines become more blurred. Given that some sets have access to certain profiles and others don’t, just where does the balancing line become defined?

This pairing above is commonly noted to never be allowed in the same deck. This is supposedly because they create an unfair and degenerate loop. In any combination, refreshing your opponent’s deck first or flushing your opponent out of climaxes in their deck first and then the other ability, this heavily punishes your opponent for having some amount of compression, penalizing them for an in-game necessary mechanic. Now this is considered unfair. But is this the baseline for determining balance? Are profiles allowed together as long as they don’t punish core mechanics of the game itself?

Well another consideration to make is when looking at designs that were clearly created on purpose. Observing Ainz’s deck from before the banlist, we see something that is quite absurd. As a cost for Ainz’s ability, you got to send your opponent’s cards to waiting room when your climax was played with some nuances. You were able to kill your opponent’s cards for free without any reversing abilities or any real payments in stock or hand. Furthermore, you had access to the Vampire Bride engine above, letting you also draw three cards each turn for free essentially. And for some reason, this wasn’t immediately banned, allowed to run for a full season of gameplay before ultimately banning the 1/1 that allowed the full interaction loop to begin with. Where is the line for balancing?

I think that is where players are arguably frustrated with the balancing team. It just feels as if they are intentionally creating unfair designs and just letting them run free, hoping to “fix” it when the next ban list opportunity comes around, only to print more unfun designs that eclipse the previous meta. Bushiroad has become more transparent in answering why and how they modify the ban list, but even then, their designs often walk back on their own answers, making you question the company and its philosophies.

And yes, some series do have access to profiles that would seem entirely busted in today’s meta. Heck, even some of these are currently being played in the current metagame. But well, nobody really complains too much about these series even with these “strong” profiles and cards. That is because the series containing these cards are outdated and suffer from other issues such as lack of mill power or filter abilities. Taking away these profiles from the decks would make them even worse as is, and even though it is technically “unfair” that these series carry profiles and cards that other series don’t, this advantage only better levels out the playing field to give these series a fighting chance.

I know many who wish to bring out their old decks and play them into the current metagame, only to be shot down by powercrept designs and whatnot. But this is just a bitter reality that players must face. The seesaw has its limitations. You have got to make considerations regarding the landscape and factors surrounding the seesaw.

And it’s quite odd if we look back at the seesaw analogy. The sides are pushing up and down constantly, and it’s hard to tell when there’s this absolute state of balancing or not. And that, in my opinion, is a good thing. Games become stale and boring when everything is the same. And given the nature of balancing, there is bound to be some points where one side has an advantage over another. But it equalizes out at the end as the seesaw continues to move up and down, creating an endless loop of fun for both sides. What is egregious is when one side is overwhelmingly more powerful than the other, whether that be through busted profiles or broken designs/interactions. This is where I think balancing really needs a review.

Ultimately, what is the point here? Well, balancing is difficult. And I see it from both sides of the spectrum. On one hand, balancing is tough and mishaps are bound to happen. On the other hand, Bushiroad has been clearly making questionable balancing choices and have lead certain designs or game states to be quite unfun. Both co-exist at the same time. But what does this have to do with you, the player. Here’s the truth: you can decide with your friends as to what is balanced and what is unbalanced. If you don’t like the current metagame, just play casually or do whatever satisfies you and your friend group. People’s opinions are going to always be all over the place, but you are in charge of what makes you happy. Don’t like a design and think its unfair? Speak with a friend and see if you can come to a compromise before you play again. Don’t like the current metagame and its competition, just take a break and don’t play competitively until you feel like the game is in a manageable position you like.

You are the owner of your own fun, so go out, speak with others, and work out what best fits your playgroup.