Cuties' Balance

[Kitty]

Given the stigma typically associated with balancing threads, I gave Cuties a couple weeks to flesh out, and I imagine everyone that got the DLC has gotten some games in now. She has an interesting design and it's clear a lot of work was put into it, with the songs and melding AOE mechanics into her hyper. I like her theme and poses, even if some of her voice lines are a little grating (ie, sham's warp line), and she makes for a great support in co-op.

However, in versus mode, she has a few issues that tend to advantage her significantly more than comparable characters/passives/effects.

She has slightly above average stats, and the fact that one point floats between defense and attack isn't really significant outside of boss encounters. Arguably it gives her some flexibility, but as its not consistent, let's set that aside for now. She's durable enough to hold her own and cherry-pick a skirmish or two, like most, thus no complaints with her stats by themselves.

Her passive(s) and hyper are where she starts to toe the line. Just to get it out of the way, her no-win norma passive is only a very slight disadvantage. It prevents her from getting ahead with early KOs, similar to YukiD, but in general simply dissuades an aggressive playstyle, which is fine and what more than a few characters are also designed around. The rest of her kit encourages star gain anyway, to make up for the lost potential. They might even over-compensate for it.

First of all, the event card passive. One of the easiest passives to build a deck around and see success with, so long as you stuff in a bunch of low-norma, low-cost event cards, you'll start raking in stars soon enough. Which isn't new, others have chapter income passives as well, but it's the pure ease and unlimited cap on Events Crashed that puts it head-and-shoulders above similar effects. For instance, Arthur needs to have found hyper, paid into hyper, and distributed successfully his small batch of traps before he gets the bonus, and even then, they're overridable. Nico needs to find rarely-packed gifts and retain them in hand, which runs counter to full utilization of her hyper, thus is often a very temporary boost.

By comparison, event cards are commonly decked by all, thus easy to find, often cheap if not free, often beneficial to the caster in some way, and result in permanent income boosts irreversible by any means, save card disruption ensuring they are not played in the first place. Clearly a fundamental revision to the nature of event cards would be too extreme, but implementing a simple cap to limit abuse would be welcome, say 5x or so. If not a cap, a stackable cooldown that increased chapter income for a certain period but wears off as event cards aren't being continually used, which I think would the fairest, most workable method given the lack of true permanence to Arthur and Nico's passives.

The bigger concern is of course, her hyper. It has insane power and a surprising degree of flexibility. Fortunately, its cost is high to discourage reckless uses, but with enough foresight, it's not hard to maximize: So long as you pop it close by (preferrably in front of, and locked into an un-branching path) 2-3 players, you're almost guaranteed to refund its cost if not profit a tidy amount, pretty easily netting more per use than an Ubi, and carrying none of the inherent risks of Ubi (not to mention stat downsides of Ubi's owner, but let's ignore that for now and let the hyper stand for itself), since you cannot be targeted by boosts or attackers while under Special Stage.

This latter power is under-rated given the assumed intent of the hyper, but it's a significant defensive boon, transcending Tsih's Stealth On and Miusaki's Solid Witch both, as well as providing effectively the same cover from disadvantageous tiles as Sugi V2's Revival of Stars (even if favorable ones cannot be used), so it's great for boss-phases and/or battletile-heavy maps. For the duration, it acts as a shield against targetable/long-range offensive cards/hypers, and the decreased move speed helps shake off pursuers, as well as being riggable for targeted normas on opponents' homes. You can even choose to fight other players upon reaching them while under it, a double-edged sword that could lead to an untimely KO and early end to concert, but ultimately a potential leg up on opponents since you're still getting first-strike.

That's not to say the hyper doesn't have weaknesses. Warp and movement control effects go a long ways against it, but across the board I just don't see it countered well at all. The required cards are common enough, but also fodder that isn't retained nearly long enough in the average match. There's also RNG to consider, with small maps in particular just not having enough space for players to escape in time, even when warped away.

The long and short of it being that Special Stage is a multi-tool that just ends up being too powerful when used intelligently, and even sometimes when not, with some luck. I'm not entirely sure what a re-balance would look like, but I can say for sure the star drain on multiple players at once is too high. Maybe a diminishing returns effect, giving less stars per consecutive player stolen from, or even total players stolen from. Maybe just a flat decrease to the rate stolen, say 3x level rather than 5x. Maybe just a static duration and cost, akin to SugiV2's hyper re-work (which ended up going well for her, tbh).

Given that devs seem reluctant to completely scrap whole ideas, apparent in the re-works to AruS and NoName, I'm not hoping for anything too drastic, and as such the invulnerable to panels, battles, and boosts will likely stay, since the move debuff supposedly balances it out. It doesn't personally make sense to me that she can choose to attack players during her hyper, thereby landing on a potentially increased volume of homes, and seems particularly unfair that this gives her the ability to move into a pack of players and snipe a kill without reprecussions (I don't remember if she can use cards or not in these fights), so if anything that aspect I think should be removed. The ability to norma while under hyper is debatable, but also toes the line of unfair to me, given her invulnerable state.

Anyway, the floodgates are opened. Let me know what re-balances, if any, you think Cuties deserve, or opinions on my own re-balance ideas. Apologies in advance if this topic has been covered already, but perusal of recent threads yielded nothing substantial, so I thought it safe to begin one anew.

I also realize after the fact that the pronoun I use for Cuties is consistently 'she' rather than 'they', but as that ends up reading awkwardly and shifting the tense for a lot of sentences, it would be a pain to go back and amend, so this'll have to do. He, she, wumbo.

[risbolla]

Originally posted by Desirous:

unlimited cap on Events Crashed

[Intra]

Honestly, the Cuties stat line isn't that great.

Her closest parallels are to Saki and Ceoreparque.

Having an unreliable bonus to attack or defense is not much better than just having a base 0 in the stat.

So, minus the stats, is Cuties good? Sure. The hyper giving you potentially 5 turns of combat immunity and a large-scale Ubiquitous stealing effect is very, very strong.

As for the passive? I agree that the "Stars Only" part of the passive isn't really much of a restriction. On the other hand, the events giving bonus stars part? Not really a big issue IMO.

There are only a handful of events that really benefit the deck, and otherwise are just neutral,

The primary event card that benefits is Dinner. The secondary card is Mixed Phenomenon. Party Time is extremely risky for someone with an unreliable defense stat, as it will more than likely end up being used against you. Here and There also opens you up to major risks.

So, that basically leaves We Are Waruda. Not exactly an exciting card, but sure, a Holy Night that only benefits you that also situationally helps protect you from traps as a star gatherer is decent.

There is an opportunity cost to bringing everything. I currently bring 7 events, 2 draw, and Shield Counter. However, that balance can easily shift because of opportunity cost. I've thought of reducing the number of events and replacing them with defensive options like Rainbow-Colored Circle, Tactical Retreat, or Quick Restoration as well.

Comparing to Arthur is a mistake, because his 8 Hypers generate 3 Shops each, and those shops also generate more stars when landed on. This means that Arthur has 24 bonus income cards in the deck, while Cuties on average won't even come close to that number.

There is also some relative counterplay, knowing that Cuties is in the meta, you swap out Out of Ammo, Dinner, and Super All Out mode for cards that fulfill the same purpose for those character's decks. Reducing the average events brought per game in return.

[Trétoile]

About the event passive i think the cooldown-based nerf is the most interesting, mostly because since the cuties are idoles that the one that match the more on thier identities (if you want good outcome from live events, you better doing them on a regular basis right ?).

And for the hyper i think a decent nerf would be to have a reducted amounts of stars gained based on how much the cuties are far away from the other players in the hyper's radius, just like M10 Robot's Self Destruction.

[Intra]

I'm personally in favor of just making the hyper a set cost, set duration, enemy-level-dependent steal.

So:
REQ 3
Costs 20
Lasts 3 turns
Steals enemy lvl x 5 stars

[JSlayerXero]

Suguri v2's hyper has a static duration but a fluctuating cost. The trick is that at level 5 it only costs as much as it used to at level 3 which is how long the duration was based on. If they were to freeze Special Stage's duration to say, 3 turns, adjusting the cost akin to Suguri v2's hyper would be to make it cost Level x6 stars. Given they didn't get rid of that fluctuating cost I highly doubt they're going to do so with Special Stage. At best it'll get reworked somehow.

From a purely semantics standpoint, homes are panels, and they're not movement-based. They shouldn't be triggered according to the card text. Either card text needs an update or that needs to not be a thing.

Considering part of her star gain is how her hyper meshes with her passive another option is to have Special Stage cost more the more stacks of Events Crashed you have. Cuties would be the only ones to build these so for the rest it's just whatever the base cost is whether that fluctuates or not.

Having her lose stacks of Events Crashed would be akin to losing relevance over time if they're not constantly performing. Special Stage would need to freeze that cooldown since it would be them actively performing, but it's an interesting idea.

I agree to stealing based on enemy level being a more balanced approach. As they are now they can potentially render people who are falling behind unable to catch up.

[『 SPY-F.R.A.M.E 』]

Totally disagree. Cuties balanced perfectly.

Every nerf will make them unplayable and unnecessary.
Of course, talking about ideal situations and writing that they are OP is a bad form.

Play with them when there is at least one normal bully. And you will understand that they are not so strong. Random stats provide a good survival opportunity for a specific hyper, unlike trappers or direct strikes from the outside.

Hyper "Special stage". Very expensive, it also needs to be used wisely. Or -50 stars, and if you are lucky in general safe-life.

Well, about the event. Is this a joke? Find different events, it is also essentially luck. We play a random game. I only in the rarest case received a 5+ permanent bonus. This is generally a pretty thing to bring chaos with a bunch of different events.

[Miraglyth]

I don't think comparing the permanent star gain with Arthur's setup is fair because Arthur was nerfed too hard shortly after his arrival.

[CarThief]

Didn't see em enough to get a whole load of information, but it does seem incredibly cheesy they can ATTACK players while utterly INVULNERABLE to attacks themselves during the hyper (barring counter-attacks, but if they're instigating a fight, then they got a plan or just really good odds to win/survive).
Would be better if they couldn't attack during that, either. Or still make them vulnerable to NPC/boss tiles to compensate, as ignoring those types of tiles is stronger then you'd think. Or just cancel Special Stage after attacking.

I wonder if it renders them untargetable by stuff like Jonathan Rush, Gentleman, Ambush, etc, too? Hm...

Well, atleast they can only get one stack from an event per unique event played. Playing two Waruda's aint gonna get them 2 stacks, only one, as far as i recall. The odds of drawing 3+ unique events aint too high, i suppose (unless they want to throw in events in their deck EXCLUSIVELY, which will be troublesome since then they lack defensive cards, cards like magnum, or healing cards).

In any case, the stars-only passive means nothing. Not a big enough drawback. So a tiny nerf (or a stronger, non-ignorable drawback) would be in order, probably.

[Bees]

They're fine. They don't need changes. Mediocre stats and high hyper cost balance out the nice passive and strong hyper. I don't want to see another fun dlc character nerfed big right out of the gates.

[Donnie]

I don't know if the cuties are unbalanced are not. But for me when i play against them their hyper is super unfun to play against. it goes on for mutiple turns protects them from about all source of damage. on most maps they can give a character or two a good SUCC and then at the end they can just step on a home panal and its done. though usually I have to deal with chain uses of their hyper so thats not really that fun either. so the only interaction i have from them is them slowly stepping on traps or sources of outside damage whee long distance shot has only consistancy.


and it always whether the cuties are fine or not leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

[pauldiggy]

I'll try to keep this brief
Pretty sure Events Crashed only counts unique events played and pretty sure home panels do not activate under the hyper's effect. So Cuties is weaker than OP thinks.

I will say it's not very fun that their hyper isn't very interactive, since it's basically a get out of jail free card. Would be nice if you could attack them, but they've got +1 to both ATK and DEF as if Sora and Sham have stopped tag-teaming and are now working in tandem.

I don't think they're especially strong. About equal to Miu in terms of power I think; annoying to deal with at worst.

[Intra]

They do have a couple counters:

Yuki - Gamble to kill
Mixed Poppo - Teleport them away
Sherry - Windmill to kill
Mae - trash character, but one shots
Fernet - Air Strike, duh

Other untargeted's:
Magical Girl Tomomo - random hits
Iru - random hits
Flying Castle - trash character, but forces a fight?


Trash hypers that can be obviously played around-
Tomomo
Kiriko

Others-
Ambush
Here and There
Cloud of Seagulls


Dunno if traps work on them, haven't seen anyone land on one with it active. If they do, traps are a massive counter since they have a 66.66% chance to move one space forward. That means easy setups into Exchange / Toy Store / Restaurant / Piyopiyo Procession, etc.

Overall, I think Mixed Poppo and Sherry are best equipped to deal with them.

[SomeGuy712x]

Originally posted by Intra:

Mae - trash character, but one shots

You mean Mei, I assume?

Originally posted by Intra:

Dunno if traps work on them, haven't seen anyone land on one with it active. If they do, traps are a massive counter since they have a 66.66% chance to move one space forward. That means easy setups into Exchange / Toy Store / Restaurant / Piyopiyo Procession, etc.

They can indeed hit traps while performing. However, I've seen Invasion just simply not do anything when hit during Live Mode. But, Assault does work normally. I'm not sure about Piyopiyo or some other traps yet.

[mage.goo]

How'd you guys get that much from their hyper anyway?

-3 MOV means you have like 2/3rd chance to roll 1, and with the range of what, 3 panel? that means people usually only get hits once before leaving range.
And stealing once ain't even enough to setback the cost.

You guys plays on small map or something?

[Katty Nat]

Only one thing really stands out as *needing* attention.
Stars stolen should be determined by the target's norma, not the Cuties'.
When someone's behind and ends up caught in a Norma 5 Special Stage, it's not unexpected to see a bankruptcy.

When going for balance, it's ideal to stick to one change at a time, and this one stands out as the most important to me.