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Post by Swampmist on May 2, 2017 21:28:37 GMT
Ok, the 2 day cooldown period on this topic is up. however, that doesn't mean I can't lay down some ground rules for here-on-out:
1.) Personal attacks are the utmost of buttmunch behavior. If I get called in because you are making personal attacks here, you are getting banned for at the least a day.
2.) Can we not dissolve into off-topic philosophy discussions this time please? Keep on topic; if you wanna discuss the finer points of argumentation make a thread in Real World Stage for it.
3.) No attacking any members of PPS. We created a PPS_Strawman for that, and if you need to work out your anger I'll probably whip up an RP thread for giving the Strawman a good kick.
4.) Please just try to keep it civil guys. We all want this game to be the best that it can be; no need to get pissed if something isn't going your way here or in the CID itself.
Ok, that's my whole spiel. Let's get discussing now!
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Post by octaviusmaximus on May 2, 2017 23:13:09 GMT
The primary reason that I don't want proxy bases to go away is that because they were open information to both players it allowed for a cleaner game where proxy bases became the easiest way to turn thoughts into actions on the table. It sped up play because rather than agonise over distances and whether your combo chain could actually work, you could measure it out, take the hit on your clock, and be certain whether you should play your fun combo or not yet.
It also avoids those games where 1 player lost and the other didn't lose, but neither truly won. Games where after a chain of cool activations your caster is flapping in the breeze because a melee range was 0.1" out after a chain of tk, overrun, beat back, side step, etc. Neither player feels really fulfilled by the game because it feels like it was lost on a technicality, rather than on skill.
Its like those games where you math out a 98% assassination and fail because of 4 double 1s in a row. Your opponent didn't beat you, you lost and they didn't. Dice can be managed, however. There are known averages that can be massaged and manipulated until you get the most likely result, but when you can't use proxies then the information is binary. You are either in range or out.
Every time one of those games happens, where something out of the players hand's causes a win or a loss the first thing to come out of the 'winners' mouth in every case that i've seen is "sorry". In tournaments players often call them games that they didn't deserve to win. I neat James Moorehouse a few years ago because he failed to hit a pair of tk's on Haley. I had no business winning that game and he outplayed me in most meaningful ways.
Premeasuring has so few detriments. The "omg the table is covered in markers" problem can easily be solved with the rules in Sr 2017 saying you should name your markers. I would personally say it's up to the opponent to ask that and noone reasonable would deny that. I've also played in a place where proxy bases are heavily relied on and I've still yet to see more than 3 in play at once for more than a few seconds. Sometimes you need to place down a bunch to work out if something is possible and then just use the last one and that's fine too.
Tl;dr. Proxy bases are good for the game because they encourage better strategy from the players and less wasted games due to things outside of the players control.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 2, 2017 23:19:28 GMT
I don't want them to go away because it's easy for newer players. If they want to avoid visual clutter just remove the bases at the end of the turns.
I see their problem, but I think its one of those problems that only exists inside the head.
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Post by joetortillas on May 3, 2017 2:32:57 GMT
I don't want them to go away because it's easy for newer players. If they want to avoid visual clutter just remove the bases at the end of the turns. I see their problem, but I think its one of those problems that only exists inside the head. Visual clutter during a turn, your solution is not helping their intent.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on May 3, 2017 2:44:25 GMT
I don't want them to go away because it's easy for newer players. If they want to avoid visual clutter just remove the bases at the end of the turns. I see their problem, but I think its one of those problems that only exists inside the head. Visual clutter during a turn, your solution is not helping their intent. Their intent adds nothing to the game. Viewers aren't players and make the game worse for the players for the benefit of the viewers is not good for player happiness.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 3, 2017 2:47:46 GMT
Visual clutter during a turn, your solution is not helping their intent. I guess, but I mean your gonna witness allot of it anyway: Spell Effect markers, focus, fury, continuous effects, other tokens. I get it from them. They dislike visual clutter. But for whom? If its removed by the end of the turn it doesn't bug the other player. I guess this harms Photoshoots for PR.
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Post by maximumhippo on May 3, 2017 4:02:37 GMT
I'm going to nit pick for a second here, terminology is incredibly important when we're talking about this. Proxy base vs. Table marker. They've given these terms out and basically, if we want to have a meaningful conversation with them we're going to have to meet them halfway. Because frankly, I can't understand what half of people are saying because they're using 'proxy base' when they don't mean proxy base. nit pick over.
On widget gate, I don't care. I find the rule inconsequential since it literally has never come up in a game for me. I've been on the receiving end of a dozen markers and it kinda sucks because you're watching the plan to kill your caster unfold, but then lo and behold it's not going to work. So now, they rewind and redo their entire turn again. It's on their clock, it's the same as MKII but cleaner, it's this, it's that, whatever. It still sucks to be sitting there for 45 minutes waiting. On the other hand, we have clean, concise, no arguments play, which is really nice. They're trying to codify a sportsmanship issue and I don't know if it's going to work the way they want it to. I would personally rather see a rule that says hey, don't be a jerk, it's war dollies and it doesn't matter that much.
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Nyxu
Overseer
NaCl Elemental
Posts: 119
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Post by Nyxu on May 3, 2017 6:18:23 GMT
My take is that they're making a SR packet rule that belongs in the TO packet. And that's a mistake.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 6:49:00 GMT
I guess this harms Photoshoots for PR. And if it harms photoshoots, I guess that means it doesn't look right. I would say that it's all part of a greater discussion where the widgets are a Mk3 innovation, and that discussion is where the balance should be between practicality and appearance. Painted vs. unpainted and 3D terrain vs. 2D terrain, proxies vs. no proxies, it's an overall theme. Interesting to compare it with spell tokens and so on. The principle is in one way the same, but crucially different in another way. As I see it, the spell token represents something visual. If this was a computer game, and I cast Arcane Shield on a warjack, I would expect the warjack to get some kind of blue glow around it afterwards. The spell token represents that blue glow, i.e. something visual. The table markers do not represent this at all. Table markers represent only "this is how far my model can move", which is something that in most computer games would be entirely inside your own head. Which is where PP want it to be in WM too.
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Post by pangurban on May 3, 2017 7:05:06 GMT
I don't want them to go away because it's easy for newer players. If they want to avoid visual clutter just remove the bases at the end of the turns. I see their problem, but I think its one of those problems that only exists inside the head. Visual clutter during a turn, your solution is not helping their intent. Requiring cleanup after every activation, not just at the end of your turn, would go a long way towards getting people to use just the proxies they need instead of as many as they want.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on May 3, 2017 7:12:11 GMT
Visual clutter during a turn, your solution is not helping their intent. Requiring cleanup after every activation, not just at the end of your turn, would go a long way towards getting people to use just the proxies they need instead of as many as they want. It would also make some legitimate uses very annoying. For example: "This is where my Gladiator will go, now I need to activate my Beast Handlers to Enrage/Prod/Heal, my Willbreaker for Puppet Master and my Warlock to keep the Gladiator in Control". All of that is possible with one marker, but not if I have to pick it up and place it anew (in this example) three times. I don't think that's a useful solution.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on May 3, 2017 7:16:06 GMT
I'm going to nit pick for a second here, terminology is incredibly important when we're talking about this. Proxy base vs. Table marker. They've given these terms out and basically, if we want to have a meaningful conversation with them we're going to have to meet them halfway. Because frankly, I can't understand what half of people are saying because they're using 'proxy base' when they don't mean proxy base. nit pick over. On widget gate, I don't care. I find the rule inconsequential since it literally has never come up in a game for me. I've been on the receiving end of a dozen markers and it kinda sucks because you're watching the plan to kill your caster unfold, but then lo and behold it's not going to work. So now, they rewind and redo their entire turn again. It's on their clock, it's the same as MKII but cleaner, it's this, it's that, whatever. It still sucks to be sitting there for 45 minutes waiting. On the other hand, we have clean, concise, no arguments play, which is really nice. They're trying to codify a sportsmanship issue and I don't know if it's going to work the way they want it to. I would personally rather see a rule that says hey, don't be a jerk, it's war dollies and it doesn't matter that much. Let me just say that while I disagree with your general position it's really nice to see someone who understands the merits of both sides. There is clearly a disconnect between how PP wants us to play and how we actualy play. I wish PP shared your attitude and were thus a little more open to compromise. Sorry for the double post, multiple quotes are really annoying to do on this forum.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on May 3, 2017 7:27:59 GMT
I guess this harms Photoshoots for PR. And if it harms photoshoots, I guess that means it doesn't look right. I would say that it's all part of a greater discussion where the widgets are a Mk3 innovation, and that discussion is where the balance should be between practicality and appearance. Painted vs. unpainted and 3D terrain vs. 2D terrain, proxies vs. no proxies, it's an overall theme. Interesting to compare it with spell tokens and so on. The principle is in one way the same, but crucially different in another way. As I see it, the spell token represents something visual. If this was a computer game, and I cast Arcane Shield on a warjack, I would expect the warjack to get some kind of blue glow around it afterwards. The spell token represents that blue glow, i.e. something visual. The table markers do not represent this at all. Table markers represent only "this is how far my model can move", which is something that in most computer games would be entirely inside your own head. Which is where PP want it to be in WM too. Here is the thing, pp can make mistakes. They have admitted it, they continue to do it and the best thing to do in a world where you are fallible is one where you act nice and are willing to change your ideas when they aren't quite thought out. I find the look of a game to matter very little to me and my opponents. I moved away from GW not because of better models or that the game looked better on the table, but I was sick of playing a game where I felt strategy didn't matter and so much of the rules was down to arguing your case in your interpretation of a badly written rule. I wanted a game where I could do what the rules said I could do. Lo and behold, page 5. Try to win, be the better man when someone beat you, don't complain that stuff is op, just do your best. That was a big deal and while I jumped in to Warmachine it still took a while for me to really absorb that culture, but it was a good culture! People talking about a fame objectively, asking questions about rules that have definite answers and putting it all into a fame and letting the better person win. Proxy bases felt like a logical extension of this kind of play. Finding an edge while also being clear. Maximising your rules while also making sure your opponent knows what's going on. I've never seen a person not give someone a proxy base when asked for one, or measure it on their opponents turn when they didn't ask about it. It was clean play and trying to win rolled into one and I know that when I was first getting into the game, I would have fallen in love with proxy bases just as I did with the idea of being able to measure my control area (which eventually felt limited enough that when full premeasuring hit the scene, it felt like the game was truly. Like I have said before, PP can want the game to look a certain way. That doesn't make them right. They make mistakes and if they are unwilling to believe that they are wrong on this then the game will be worse for it when they are. Tomorrow is games night. I'm sick of testing out stuff while the cloud of premeasuring hangs over the game making thr game feel worse. I'm going to try to play without it and report my results as such. My hypothesis will be that I will feel that the game plays a lot better. I guess I'll see after the experiments.
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princeraven
Junior Strategist
Shredder spam is best spam
Posts: 256
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Post by princeraven on May 3, 2017 7:43:38 GMT
List of reasons I dislike the proposed marker restriction rules:
- It affects certain casters and lists way more than others.
- If you aren't playing said casters it might just not affect you at all for the vast majority of games, so you forget the rule exists and it becomes a "gotcha" rule that you could be punished for in a tournament.
- The problem of opponents proxying out their whole turn then simply replacing all those bases with models is not a problem because it is already against the rules to resolve more than one activation at a time and move something without measuring the distance. In order to do this they would need to measure out all the bases and then go through the activations again moving each model to the base and showing that it is a legal movement.
- Clutter is not a gameplay problem because when it gets to my turn my opponent is already required to remove all markers from the table that do not represent an in game effect.
- It makes gameplay less clean because there are situations you need multiple markers to prevent human error from affecting the game.
- Supposed problems that this pchange is intended to fix are by and large problems that primarily impact the "fun" of casual players who are not playing on a clock, yet it is being introduced in a tournament packet and isn't even in the sportsmanship section.
- The way judges are told to resolve conflicts is to use a whole bunch of markers and widgets, why keep this ability to resolve disputed measurments away from the players' hands and give more work to judges at events?
- There are so many workarounds to this rule that it would set off an arms race of learning the workarounds and buying/building gradually more complex markers to get the edge at tournaments.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 7:58:38 GMT
Like I have said before, PP can want the game to look a certain way. That doesn't make them right. They make mistakes and if they are unwilling to believe that they are wrong on this then the game will be worse for it when they are. Right, wrong, heh. PP are the people who design the game. They have a certain way they want their official, sanctioned version to look and feel. Some people agree with PP's vision. Some people disagree with that vision. You disagree with that vision. Therefore, it will make the official, sanctioned version of the game less fun for you if they push through the "marker-free" restriction on it. So it will suck for you. But it will benefit others. I assume that PP's loyalty is to their vision, not to who their vision will bother vs. who their vision will benefit. You could argue the merits of that approach too. I personally believe in the "free market" so to speak. If you prefer the "free markers" mode rather than the "marker-free" mode, then I hope that your local play environment will ignore the sanctioned version and play your own way. Then you guys win, even though the global consistency suffers. But that is the best way to send PP a signal that maybe too many people disagree with their vision and they should rethink it.
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