Dance of Cards

Dance of Cards

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Custom Mode Character differences
By ESN 64
This is to explain the major and minor differences characters can have when they go from Quickplay mode to Custom Game.
   
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Intro
While Quickplay automatically puts everybody at the highest level with everything maxed out and automatically selects the item for them, Custom game allows you to drastically change a lot of things in the game. Some characters benefit immensely from this, and some other characters either get very little or even nothing at all. Overall, I consider this mode a lot more unbalanced than Quickplay, but it has a lot of special quirks to it and it might be helpful to know some of the more abusable stuff if you want to do a match with it.
No worthwhile changes
Unfortunately, not everybody is a winner, there is 1 character who gets literally nothing, not even a funny gimmick



Lev's superior design shows its flaws here, all his Talents, stats, and items are objectively better the higher they are, so there's no point in giving him any changes from Quickplay mode aside from your choice of accessory unless you deliberately want to handicap yourself. Just comfort yourself in knowing you picked the character with the snazziest stache.
Gimmicks
You can be funny, and you can even be successful, probably, maybe.



What? Archie/Archibald? All his Talents are strict upgrades and so are his items, why isn't he in with Lev? Well it's because of something silly, but maybe potentially useful. Depending on how often you want to trigger Bad Boy, you can intentionally skip on getting Composure boosts and make it easier to enter Panic. You could also boost your Composure even further to prevent Bad Boy more but that's boring and you might as well just go for the funnier option.



Dita has the option to forego Golden Ring (TP: 9, TP Recovery: 2) for Silver Ring (TP: 12, TP Recovery: 1) which is...... an interesting choice to say the least. The benefits of 2 TP Recovery are huge and not worth losing for 3 extra max TP, but it is worth noting that Silver Ring Dita can start a match with double Charm (Golden Ring has to wait an additional turn to do it), and if Franz is backing you up the extra TP really helps. Realistically though, just use Golden Ring.
Small changes
Actual worthwhile changes that aren't just gimmicks, though they're also not anything too major.



Level 2 Gift might be appealing, the difference is 25 chips, so even though your allies get a little less you can use it a little more often. Money Trap is also worth downgrading, 9 TP is expensive, and oftentimes 100 chips is enough for a trap, so taking it at Level 1 makes it a lot more usable, and you can punish people for trying to get extra turns by making small bets.



Downgrading Just One Glass to Level 2 or even Level 1 can be worth it since you can use Happy Drunk and Sad Drunk more often, at the cost of using Total Drunk less. Level 1 leans more towards Happy Drunk if you want to affect chips more, Level 2 lets you use Sad Drunk more to continue draining TP. Personally, I think Level 2 is the better option, since you get a lot more control over what level you land on and can aim for Total Drunk occasionally, but all levels are good options I feel. Also, you have the option of fine tuning your Composure to control when you go into Panic and activate Bottoms Up, but I'd be wary because going into Panic during Rehab is reaaaaaaaaally annoying.



You have the same choice Dita has between keeping an amazing 2 TP Recovery or throwing it away for 3 extra Max TP, except your TP costing Talents aren't nearly as abusable, even if you have Franz backing you up. Level 1 Provoke is a lot cheaper and should let you use it more reliably, with the loss of extra turns not really mattering that much (though even if it did, Level 2 is still an option), Threat maybe could be downgraded as a gimmick but the most I could see is slightly more spam with Level 2. The real big thing for Joseph however is that you can max out your Composure even further which, when combined with Strong Will, means you basically never have to worry about Panic.



If you're going to use Reveille you might as well go with Level 3 since everybody has absurdly high stats anyways, but the real kicker is Level 1 Smokescreen. Choosing which hands you'd like to cover up on the fly is nice and you need as much TP as you can so the lowered cost is much appreciated. Level 3 is still good and you may also want to try Level 2, but generally speaking you'll probably just do Level 1 Smokescreen if you want to play Custom Game Arthur.



Esmera gets to exchange 2 TP recovery for 4 extra max TP, probably not worth it but you have a better start. You can also downgrade Blessing and Curse to make them cheaper, which seems useless at first since changing Luck was already situational in Quickplay and in Custom Game everybody has accessories too to buff themselves. However, the real good part is being able to get the shuffling effects of Blessing and Curse at only 4 TP, which lets you play around Prediction a lot better. Esmera still probably isn't that good, but she's a lot better than in Quickplay mode i'd say.
Big changes
Changes that can quite noticeably impact a character's strength, these are the big winners essentially.



Martin gets a big upgrade in the form of changing items, losing 2 TP Recovery to get 21 max TP, the highest in the game by far. This is such an absurdly big amount of TP that it easily makes up for losing the extra TP Recovery, and you can spam Talents for quite a bit before you have to worry about building it back. There's also a legitimate argument to be made for dumping Luck, as it will give you worse starting hands to Switcheroo onto opponents.



I don't play much Jeanne, but since every skill can be lowered to make it worse and cheaper, you can have your ideal cost vs value setup. Scare I don't think is worth lowering really as it's a lot less effective when everybody has maxed out stats, but downgrading Hiding is pretty tempting as a loss of 2 turns isn't that bad for being able to do it more often, Level 2 or even Level 1 Nervous Talk might also be worth it if you want to target multiple opponents or just think the extra TP drain won't matter enough. You can also dump Composure to go into Sliver of Hope more often, and unlike with Archie there's no real downside to it other than being in Panic.



Mask of Tragedy is actually a pretty good choice for your item, 16 is a lot for Max TP, and Classical Training already lets you grab additional TP anyways, so you don't miss 2 TP Recovery that much. You also have the option of taking Level 2 Makeup if you're confident your team can deal with characters that run them, though you lose the ability to just completely invalidate a lot of things and Simon, you'll be able to use it more to keep the important debuffs off your team. If you're going solo you may even be tempted to do Level 1 Makeup, but I still wouldn't be too eager to go alone in Custom Game with Douglas still running around.



Level 3 Time to Eat is game defining no doubt about it, but 9 TP is a really hefty cost and you lose out on a whole other side of Quentyn, which you can change by going down to Level 2 or Level 1 Time to Eat. Between the downgraded options I don't think there's an objectively best choice, just choose whichever one you're leaning towards. Either way, lowering the cost by 3-6 TP is huge, and you can use Fusion and Spit it Out a lot more frequently, you'll probably end up maxing out Appetite by the end of every hand (if you stay in). If you're willing to give up eating the cards of opponents, Quentyn will let you control his hand much more than you'd ever see in Quickplay mode.



Lowering the level of Taxation could be good, but 50 chips is already a steep downgrade at Level 2, and opponents won't be scared by 25 chips in taxes even if you put it on their whole team, and that's why you have it so high for the ungrateful masses (and to build your big pool). Signature on the other hand you can get a lot from downgrading, Level 1 probably not being worth it since you're only limited to your own cards, but Level 2 lets you get your win condition up much faster at the cost of not being able to tag opposing player hands. You do still have to live in the same world as Custom Game Franz, but you still appreciate winning more.



Just like with Jeanne, I don't play her much, and all her skills can be fine tuned to get your ideal build. My personal choice would probably be something along the lines of 1 Flash, 2 Interview, 1 Blackmail, but again, I don't play Agatha as much as I should, and there's a lot of variance between builds. The only thing I would discourage is having both Interview and Blackmail set to 1, as it just doesn't have enough impact to be worth doing for the total TP cost of both. Give Custom Game Agatha a try.
HUGE changes
In progress



You can lower Surveillance to only 6 TP and make it much more spammable, but more than that, you can choose whichever Bluff Shot level you wish. If you want you can still run Level 3 Bluff Shot and just have Level 1 Surveillance in the pocket for when you need it, but you're probably leaning more towards Level 1 or 2 Bluff Shot. Level 2 Bluff Shot will still let you beat any starting hand before the cards are drawn, as well as just having superior odds of working versus Level 1, and it completely refills after a Level 3 Reload. Level 1 on the other hand, while it has a much bigger chance of failing and no ways to guarantee it at the start of a hand, can be spammed like there's no tomorrow and lets you abuse Surveillance a lot more as well, meaning you'll always be able to do something during your turn. Choose whichever one you think best fits your team and go forth shooting.



Franz is significantly less restricted in this format, able to mitigate his biggest weakness of having incredibly expensive talents and low TP gain. At the very least when choosing what to change, you should lower Black Coffee, preferably to Level 1 since it's the cheapest and doubling TP gain is still fantastic, but there's benefits to Level 2 if you think you can get enough extra turns to do it.
1 Comments
ESN 64  [author] 19 Jun, 2023 @ 11:46am 
I'm still working on this just so you know! I've just been putting off the Franz section for a while, but I haven't forgotten this in the slightest!