Deller
Junior Strategist
I’m on a Boat
Posts: 605
|
Post by Deller on May 11, 2017 11:28:42 GMT
A lot of the problem is that the vast majority of models that were good in Cryx Mark2 became unplayable garbage in Mark3, and the models that are now good in Mark3 were bad/Garbage in Mark2. Even if you owned Cryx in Mark2 you had to buy into the faction all over again. How many Mark2 Cryx players do you think owned 3 units of Revenant Crew? How many major Mark2 tournaments were being won by Witch Coven? Mark2 Cryx players who stuck with the faction aren't asking for fixes because the faction isn't good enough, they're asking for fixes because the $600 worth of models they bought into the faction for and what to play are sitting on their shelf because they suck. A lot of people got into Cryx for Mechanithralls & Banes, not Revenants & Satyxis. It's the same reason you see people who bought into Circle for Wolds complaining, the stuff they really liked about the faction became really bad. I play Cygnar so half my faction is borderline garbage, *tin foil hat on* PP gotta make that sweet sweet dollar! forcing everyone to buy 40 Revenants seems like a pretty good way of doing that "tin foil hat off*
I mean it's the exact same salt you saw in Cygnar during most of Mark2. A lot of the Mark1 Cygnar players got into the faction because of how sweet Trenchers were. Come Mark2 Trenchers were garbage until Haley3 showed up near the end. Up until that point you saw countless threads asking PP to just fix Trenchers because there were a lot of Cygnar players who didn't want to play Mercnar because it wasn't why they got into the faction in Mark1. PP doesn't need to make the Garbage models that people loved in previous editions amazing, but they should at least be niche playable.
|
|
isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
|
Post by isotope on May 11, 2017 14:16:29 GMT
I play Cygnar so half my faction is borderline garbage, *tin foil hat on* PP gotta make that sweet sweet dollar! forcing everyone to buy 40 Revenants seems like a pretty good way of doing that "tin foil hat off*
I mean it's the exact same salt you saw in Cygnar during most of Mark2. A lot of the Mark1 Cygnar players got into the faction because of how sweet Trenchers were. Come Mark2 Trenchers were garbage until Haley3 showed up near the end. Up until that point you saw countless threads asking PP to just fix Trenchers because there were a lot of Cygnar players who didn't want to play Mercnar because it wasn't why they got into the faction in Mark1. PP doesn't need to make the Garbage models that people loved in previous editions amazing, but they should at least be niche playable. Played Caine2 with the whole merc boat paired with Haley1 SW+Galleon. My models were reduced to unplayable trash. A+H don't work with harm anymore, can't arcane shield my hammerdwarves anymore, boomies not as good at jamming, can't just take old rowdy to have just one focus efficient jack anymore, can't take squire and reinholdt anymore, gatecrash nerfed. Then Haley1, bless her soul. Can't arcane shield Galleon anymore. I was forced to move on. I like maddox, if I ever went back to Cygnar I'd probably pick her up. I had a list for her in mind before themes(it fit perfectly into storm div) that probably would have kept me in Cygnar if the hurricane came out sooner but I didn't have the patience to wait a year. I'm really enjoying Ret and Mercs but it kinda sucked not being able to put a 1/2 decent list on the table with what I owned when MK3 rolled around.
|
|
|
Post by Tired of Fleet on May 12, 2017 13:15:38 GMT
Its discouraging that Cryx is all about Ghost fleet these days. Either you play ghost fleet or GTFO. Its not inspiring me to collect and paint and experiment with the faction at all.
|
|
|
Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 12, 2017 13:16:58 GMT
Its discouraging that Cryx is all about Ghost fleet these days. Either you play ghost fleet or GTFO. Its not inspiring me to collect and paint and experiment with the faction at all. Once the latest CID run finishes you will have the Thrall and Bane themes to play with as well
|
|
|
Post by pangurban on May 12, 2017 14:09:59 GMT
I dont buy these assumptions at all. My player skill is total zero, I never won with MK2 Cryx and come MK3 most wins with eSturgis and bile friends. My meta is steamroller 75pt all day, people mostly just practicing for tourneys. That said, even me, a total idiot, noticed there is something wrong with the faction. Now the theme(s) are actually top contender lists afaik, which still sucks in my opinion. I hate themes, especially those giving free models. If everyone playing themes, then why we need themes in the first place? Pp needs them to sell models, players dont. PP wants everyone to play in themes all the time, that is why they are the best way of playing your faction. With how bloated factions are and will continue to be, breaking down a faction into 'sub factions' using themes is the only way to achieve internal balance. That seems odd to me. I get that we don't have a lot of theme forces yet, but so far they haven't exactly increased internal balance in any of the factions as far as I can tell and having to balance umpty themes against one another (the ones we already have don't exactly show tremendous internal balance in many cases to begin with) doesn't appear that much easier than trying to balance the models themselves in the first place.
|
|
wendan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 785
|
Post by wendan on May 12, 2017 14:39:35 GMT
Wait, he won at the event he was hosting?
|
|
isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
|
Post by isotope on May 12, 2017 14:43:44 GMT
Wait, he won at the event he was hosting? Yes. But that doesn't really matter.
|
|
wendan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 785
|
Post by wendan on May 12, 2017 14:45:00 GMT
I suppose? Isn't that thing like 75 bucks, not including hotel fees?
|
|
|
Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 12, 2017 14:49:01 GMT
PP wants everyone to play in themes all the time, that is why they are the best way of playing your faction. With how bloated factions are and will continue to be, breaking down a faction into 'sub factions' using themes is the only way to achieve internal balance. That seems odd to me. I get that we don't have a lot of theme forces yet, but so far they haven't exactly increased internal balance in any of the factions as far as I can tell and having to balance empty themes against one another (the ones we already have don't exactly show tremendous internal balance in many cases to begin with) doesn't appear that much easier than trying to balance the models themselves in the first place. I agree that at the moment not all theme forces are created equal, Oracles of Annihilation seems miles better than Children of the Dragon, however there is still time for them to tweak themes slightly, or come out with new releases that fit into current theme forces to buff them up.
The problem with an ever expanding catalogue of models is that you inevitably end up models that are functionally very similar, take for example the new Ryovass Defenders and the Sentinels, both are single wound weapon master infantry, admittedly their defensive stats and points differ, but they are still competing for the same sort of space. Now lets hypothetically say you crunch the numbers down and you conclude that you should always take sentinels over Defenders, however if they have separate themes, and they are only ever played in those themes, they are no longer in direct competition.
|
|
wendan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 785
|
Post by wendan on May 12, 2017 14:50:28 GMT
Regardless of how I feel about Tim Banky winning in his own convention, it is good to see people speaking positively about Cryx. They are a solid faction with a lot of good options!
|
|
|
Post by pangurban on May 12, 2017 15:13:07 GMT
That seems odd to me. I get that we don't have a lot of theme forces yet, but so far they haven't exactly increased internal balance in any of the factions as far as I can tell and having to balance empty themes against one another (the ones we already have don't exactly show tremendous internal balance in many cases to begin with) doesn't appear that much easier than trying to balance the models themselves in the first place. I agree that at the moment not all theme forces are created equal, Oracles of Annihilation seems miles better than Children of the Dragon, however there is still time for them to tweak themes slightly, or come out with new releases that fit into current theme forces to buff them up.
The problem with an ever expanding catalogue of models is that you inevitably end up models that are functionally very similar, take for example the new Ryovass Defenders and the Sentinels, both are single wound weapon master infantry, admittedly their defensive stats and points differ, but they are still competing for the same sort of space. Now lets hypothetically say you crunch the numbers down and you conclude that you should always take sentinels over Defenders, however if they have separate themes, and they are only ever played in those themes, they are no longer in direct competition. Erm... That only works if the themes are balanced, which you agree they're not - which makes models that only fit bad themes worse and models that fit strong themes better, which increases internal faction imbalance. More to the point, which themes actually do something like that right now? We have jack themes and infantry themes: that's like the opposite of spreading out functionally similar models over multiple themes, jacks and infantry couldn't be less similar. Even the more mixed themes will inevitably have similar models competing with each other in the same theme simply because theme and function don't stick to the same design boundaries. And I look at the Cygnar themes and they don't seem to make any of the lesser played models significantly more popular either, so where's the improved internal balance? I mean, I get the arguments that are made insofar that in theory they could work. In practice I don't see anything that supports these arguments being taken into account in the design, so I can't expect them to actually be valid.
|
|
|
Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 12, 2017 15:22:06 GMT
I agree that at the moment not all theme forces are created equal, Oracles of Annihilation seems miles better than Children of the Dragon, however there is still time for them to tweak themes slightly, or come out with new releases that fit into current theme forces to buff them up.
The problem with an ever expanding catalogue of models is that you inevitably end up models that are functionally very similar, take for example the new Ryovass Defenders and the Sentinels, both are single wound weapon master infantry, admittedly their defensive stats and points differ, but they are still competing for the same sort of space. Now lets hypothetically say you crunch the numbers down and you conclude that you should always take sentinels over Defenders, however if they have separate themes, and they are only ever played in those themes, they are no longer in direct competition. Erm... That only works if the themes are balanced, which you agree they're not - which makes models that only fit bad themes worse and models that fit strong themes better, which increases internal faction imbalance. More to the point, which themes actually do something like that right now? We have jack themes and infantry themes: that's like the opposite of spreading out functionally similar models over multiple themes, jacks and infantry couldn't be less similar. Even the more mixed themes will inevitably have similar models competing with each other in the same theme simply because theme and function don't stick to the same design boundaries. And I look at the Cygnar themes and they don't seem to make any of the lesser played models significantly more popular either, so where's the improved internal balance? I mean, I get the arguments that are made insofar that in theory they could work. In practice I don't see anything that supports these arguments being taken into account in the design, so I can't expect them to actually be valid. yes jacks and infantry are dissimilar, however there are already multiple different infantry themes within factions, Khador has a Winterguard and Ironfang theme, Ret has a houseguard and mage hunter theme, to those you can add MoW, Dawnguard, Ryovass, maybe a kayazy merc theme.
This change will not happen overnight, and PP will need some time to tweak and adjust, and to release the majority of the themes, but in 6 - 12 months I expect about 80% + of all tournament lists to be in theme
|
|
|
Post by pangurban on May 12, 2017 15:27:26 GMT
Erm... That only works if the themes are balanced, which you agree they're not - which makes models that only fit bad themes worse and models that fit strong themes better, which increases internal faction imbalance. More to the point, which themes actually do something like that right now? We have jack themes and infantry themes: that's like the opposite of spreading out functionally similar models over multiple themes, jacks and infantry couldn't be less similar. Even the more mixed themes will inevitably have similar models competing with each other in the same theme simply because theme and function don't stick to the same design boundaries. And I look at the Cygnar themes and they don't seem to make any of the lesser played models significantly more popular either, so where's the improved internal balance? I mean, I get the arguments that are made insofar that in theory they could work. In practice I don't see anything that supports these arguments being taken into account in the design, so I can't expect them to actually be valid. yes jacks and infantry are dissimilar, however there are already multiple different infantry themes within factions, Khador has a Winterguard and Ironfang theme, Ret has a houseguard and mage hunter theme, to those you can add MoW, Dawnguard, Ryovass, maybe a kayazy merc theme.
This change will not happen overnight, and PP will need some time to tweak and adjust, and to release the majority of the themes, but in 6 - 12 months I expect about 80% + of all tournament lists to be in theme
Whether or not the majority of competitive lists will be theme forces has little or nothing to do with the supposed intention of increasing internal balance, and even if it will take time I'd hope and expect to see at least a little bit of progress towards those intentions with most factions now having 3 themes at their disposal. I don't (I see the opposite right now, if I'm honest about it), that's why I have trouble taking that argument seriously.
|
|
|
Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 12, 2017 15:34:09 GMT
yes jacks and infantry are dissimilar, however there are already multiple different infantry themes within factions, Khador has a Winterguard and Ironfang theme, Ret has a houseguard and mage hunter theme, to those you can add MoW, Dawnguard, Ryovass, maybe a kayazy merc theme.
This change will not happen overnight, and PP will need some time to tweak and adjust, and to release the majority of the themes, but in 6 - 12 months I expect about 80% + of all tournament lists to be in theme
Whether or not the majority of competitive lists will be theme forces has little or nothing to do with the supposed intention of increasing internal balance, and even if it will take time I'd hope and expect to see at least a little bit of progress towards those intentions with most factions now having 3 themes at their disposal. I don't (I see the opposite right now, if I'm honest about it), that's why I have trouble taking that argument seriously. Lets pick this convo back up again next Spring
|
|
marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
|
Post by marke on May 12, 2017 16:36:23 GMT
Umm.. 80% of competitive lists being theme is today. I haven't done the math tbh, but it sure feels like it.
Turns out free points is better than not free points in a game balanced around point values.
|
|