Criticisms of Wyrd's Errata Policies

 “Malifaux Fourth Edition will largely follow the same errata schedule as previous editions” and so Wyrd delivers some of the most disappointing news of the edition. There were some serious problems with third edition’s errata cycle, and to hear that they’re planning on following the same basic plan is very disheartening.

I am Maniacal Cackle, and last edition I had a huge emphasis on how to respond to Wyrd's errata issues.  I created the Balancefaux format as a response to issues with their errata cycles, and already I can see many of the same problems coming for fourth edition.

Before we dive into looking at why this is a problem, I do want to acknowledge two things.

First, physical cards matter.  It seems very likely that the majority of people play the game with an emphasis on physical materials, including cards. So including cards and making sure they’re up to date does matter. And this is a logistical challenge for Wyrd.

Second, some of these concerns mainly apply to players who play to try to win their games (competitive players). A large portion of Wyrd’s playerbase are casual players who may have different sensitivities. 

Nevertheless, some major problems stand out.

Inability to correct typos and rules issues

Many models went the entirety of third edition without having rules issues addressed on their cards, even if it meant correcting one word on the card.

In fourth edition we are already seeing many very unintuitive cards or just downright failures to work by the rules.

For example, Curator’s Control Graft action tells someone to take an action printed on its crew card.

The problem is, 1 of the 3 actions printed on the crew card doesn’t work under the rules with Curator.  Why not just update Curator’s card to say “may take the explosive ventilation or sepsis action” so the card actually makes sense to read.  It is purely upside to make this card actually say what it does rather than require an obscure knowledge of the rules to realize that one of the actions isn’t allowed under the rules.

Feed on Paranoia is similarly confusing.

The crew gets Paranoia tokens to make enemies make scheme markers, and they get Feed on Paranoia to heal when enemies make scheme markers. But once you read the rules, you realize the two abilities don’t actually function together and you don’t get the heal. This is a very common question that will likely end up in FAQ, so players will understand how this works only if they go refer to an FAQ document.

Why?  Why not at least have typo errata in app-only so that you can always see a cleaner version of the rules on the app? It would save on physical card costs but still be a clear upgrade to having to go refer to FAQ to understand these things. Would anyone lose by making cards more clear via errata?

The errata cycle was fundamentally broken.

Third edition’s errata cycle can roughly be summarized as…

• Game launches
• Crews nerfed into line
• Broken Explorer’s Society released
• More original crews nerfed.
• Broken Malifaux Burns models released
• Explorer’s Society crews nerfed
• Broken Madness of Malifaux models release
• Malifaux Burns models nerfed

Most of the edition was characterized by broken stuff being released and its competition being nerfed into the ground.  I don’t think Wyrd did this intentionally to push sales, but it really had the effect of nothing in the game mattering but the latest release.  To hear that they were happy with this cycle and plan to continue it is really, really bad news for the competitive community who is already sick to death of having to deal with the Damians and Asamis of M3E.

Bad models miss out

In third edition, 80-90% of the models simply never received errata.  A very large chunk of the game was just unplayable from day one. Cheap models for example were designed with certain assumptions that did not pan out, so cheap models were generally quite bad last edition.  The vast majority of them never got a chance to shine.

This really sucks for competitive and casual players alike when beloved models just are destined to sit on a shelf for an entire edition.  And all indications are we can expect more of the same this edition.

The main way to change the game is through power creep.

Since most models are stuck, the main way to change the game is through power creep of new releases. Now certainly all games need some power creep, but third edition saw a lot of power sprinting.

New releases would come out wildly out of line with the existing game to make up for previous deficiencies. Compounded with the nerf cycle listed above, often the most competitive thing to do was play the newest thing.

So how can we respond?

Wyrd seems pretty wedded to their errata policy, so where does that leave us players?

As individuals, I think we can respond by following the direction Wyrd is pushing us. Their cycle pushes us to focus on playing the newest models.  By extension, this means not getting too attached to the models we love.

For example, I’m infamous for being an utterly dedicated Molly player (and previously treasured my physical models).  However now I’m just ditching my attachment to my physical models and adjusting what I play to be more flexible so I at least have a chance to keep up. I don’t necessarily want to play the strongest thing, but I want to play things that don’t feel like auto losing.

For me, this also means no longer buying physical models.  Focusing on proxies and playing digitally means I don’t have to be sad when crews I used to love get power crept. I can just focus on playing the crews that are currently viable in the game.

As a community we can also go a step further. Last edition when it was clear that Wyrd’s cycle was to nerf the old to make room for broken releases, the community responded with community bans. For about two years in the world series, banning of broken models was a tool used to balance out the game that Wyrd refused to balance. This is a direction the community can look at embracing if the first expansion is as broken as the third edition expansions. 

The bottom line is ultimately the competitive community is only a small consideration of Wyrd’s errata policy, so we should be prepared to shape the game to be the best game it can be for our own needs. Especially as Wyrd won’t change anything if the playerbase just continues playing as normal.

Ending on a positive note...

Here's the good news.

We are at the launch of an edition!  It will likely take 12-18 months to even really identify the super broken stuff. We have about 1000 stat and upgrade and crew cards to play with, and there's so much to investigate. This is the best possible time to be playing the edition and not have to worry about errata coming up anytime soon.

Problems may be coming in the future if they stick to the same errata cycle, but we should have 1-2 years of a great edition before the issues become really obvious.