Jumpstart: A Netrunner Reboot Project Update

About 3 months ago I announced The Netrunner Reboot Project (Read that background info here: https://runthenet.wordpress.com/2020/05/26/the-netrunner-reboot-project/). This post is an update as to where we currently stand, what’s coming up, and why you should give it a try! You’re going to want to stick around. The best stuff is at the end…

I’ll be discussing:

• Technical infrastructure
• Balance patches/Format update
• The ‘Jumpstart’ game-mode.

Technical Infrastructure

Since May, our online implementation of The Reboot Project has improved by leaps and bounds. Our card images have been upgraded from crude mock-ups to practically indistinguishable from the original cards. There’s still some work to be done here, but about 95% of the card pool looks amazing!

We have 3 sites that you can use to participate in the Reboot Project:

Reteki.fun – This is our clone site of jinteki.net, which you can use to play games with all our changes fully implemented. This site is also great for getting a quick visual overview of all the cards. Just click the “cards” tab and change the format to “Reboot”.  

Nrdb.reteki.fun – This is our clone site of netrunnerdb, which you can use to build decks, publish decks, and explore decks published by other players

Stimhack.slack.com (The Netrunner-Reboot-Project Private Channel) – This is where we organize games, collect feedback, and discuss changes. Unless you already have people you can readily arrange to play with (or even if you do), you’ll want to join this channel to find games. Just join the Stimhack Slack (how have you not already?), and private message me (Thebigboy) asking to join. I keep the channel private just so I can control potential spammers or harassers. Generally speaking, the channel is open to everyone!

Balance Patches/Format Update

We are currently playing games up through Order and Chaos (Meaning the legal sets are: Core 1, Genesis, Creation and Control, Spin, Honor and Profit, Lunar, Order and Chaos). There is still no ban list of any kind, and as far as we can tell, there are strong decks in every faction. We have made several balance patches, mostly making small tweaks to make even more cards viable.

You can view a spreadsheet summary of all the changed cards here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J2rLDnDd800BjgxKfQffMU2Mg6Fdmzlg5vHuIfGfILs/

The first big obstacle we faced was balancing Leela. It turns out when you fix Astro and nerf defensive agendas, her ability becomes frustratingly strong, both in the early and late game. We tried a lot of numerical nerfs to her, but none of them addressed the core problem, so we arrived at this change:

This nerf (letting the Corp choose the card returned) seems like a huge change, but we’ve found the ID to still be strong enough, and a solid option for slower criminal decks. Ice-light builds still find themselves slowed significantly by her ability, and the click-tax is relevant to every Corp deck. The fact that she is still performing well after this change should do a lot to show how strong she was before.

We act quickly to address balance concerns as they come up. You’ll see at the end of the above spreadsheet, there is a “Credits” tab, on which I congratulate everyone who proves one of our buffs to be a mistake.

The ‘Jumpstart’ Game-Mode

Finally, I’m excited to announce Jumpstart: An entirely deckbuilding and preparation-free way to play Netrunner. If you go to Reteki.fun and create a game with “Jumpstart” selected as the format, you’ll notice that it will not ask you for a deck. Instead, Jumpstart will build you a unique, never-before-seen deck using our algorithm. These decks are not random cards, nor are they pre-planned packages of cards or modified pre-constructed decks. They truly are uniquely generated by a guided semi-random process that gives you a fresh experience every time!

Your Corp decks will always have a somewhat balanced spread of ice types and sizes, with enough economy to rez them, and your runner decks will always have the breakers it needs, along with some multi-access, some tricks, and money to pay for it all. Decks will always be legal in some ways (deck size and agenda points), but will sometimes break the rules in others. You may get 4 copies of a card, spend a little too much influence, or even get the occasional out-of-faction agenda! That said, you will generally receive in-faction cards, with high influence cards being less likely to appear out-of-faction than low influence ones (although I have seen an NBN deck with a Government Takeover, which is exceedingly unlikely!). I don’t want to give away too many specifics, since half the fun is the thrill of drawing from a deck that you know is functional, without knowing exactly what you’re going to get.

The Reboot card pool is the perfect setting for this game-mode, because one of our primary aims is to vastly broaden the pool of playable cards. You may never put a Bishop or a Tenma Line in your deck on purpose, but you might find that when they fall into your hands, and you find the perfect use for them on the fly, it’s a great moment of shared joy for both players. The fact that we have pushed these weaker cards up to a respectable power level means that these moments happen in most Jumpstart games.

If you want to mess around and hop right into games with the Reboot card pool with no time-commitment to deckbuilding or learning the changes, Jumpstart should be a perfect fit for you.

What’s next?

Now that the game is in a solid place and we’ve launched Jumpstart, the next step is to start planning for the SanSan cycle. We’ll also be constantly working to improve Jumpstart based on feedback, while teaching the algorithm to build even more types of decks.

We need YOUR help to make this project the best it can be! Join the Slack channel, try some Jumpstart games with a friend, or head to nrdb.reteki.fun and look at some decks. If you haven’t given our Reboot a chance yet, you’re missing out.

-Thebigboy