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Post by BarbeChenue on May 9, 2017 19:29:32 GMT
Hi everyone, new WMH player here.
I received my first Khador minis during Mk2's dusk, and I remember the enthusiasm when Mk3 dawned. Fast forward 10 months later, and I've finally managed to save up and get a somewhat decent collection of new and second-hand minis, of which I'm quite proud. It's worth about 900 bucks (but I obviously got it for much cheaper), which is a pretty damn good start!
To do so, I had to sell a few of my Warhammer 40k, unassembled miniatures. In my social circle, nobody had been excited by Warhammer 40,000 for years. We all felt that both from casual and competitive POVs, the actual wargame wasn't up to par with what we envisioned when we purchased the minis. I remember 12 years ago buying my first Chaos Beastmen and Warriors from Fantasy and my first Chaos Space Marines. I remember the thrill of buying tons of bits, mixing loyalist sets with various chaos product lines and kitbashing them into a beautiful tabletop army. And then they destroyed the Chaos Space Marines with a horrible Codex that has become infamous for getting CSM players salty for a decade. I threw myself into Tyranids, after my carefully customized Thousand Sons army became all but useless. And then the same happened with Tyranids. After it happened to me twice, I got out of the hobby for good, and played a bunch of other tabletop RPGs, but no more wargames for me.
To me, edition change has since meant the company would come in and [expletive deleted] for hundreds of dollars worth of miniatures. It's worse with W40K, because you have to WYSIWYG the exact weapons, and if either the unit stops behaving the way it should OR its special weapons are no longer adequate, then you're [expletive]!
I'm not experienced enough with WMH to tell if the same thing happened between MK2 and Mk3. As far as I could tell, it seemed to be a pretty smooth transition, at least compared to the utter [expletive]-storm I had endured before. Nobody had to wait 3-4 years before their Codex got new rules -- and don't get me started on the Sister of Battle!
I hear from quite a few people, on the Internet, that attendance to WMH events is not as good in Mk3 as it was. Many events having a hard time reaching the minimum attendance to be held at all. That quite a few people are leaving the game. Complaints about spam, theme lists removing all creativity, gunlines, warjacks being too good, warbeasts too nerfed, etc. etc.
Is that something you guys see? Is WMH experiencing a crisis like W40K experienced a few years back? As a new player who just invested heavily into the game, this worries me a bit.
What's the situation in Mk3? Am I worrying for no reason? Is the CID going to help fix this or not?
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Post by elladan52 on May 9, 2017 19:34:22 GMT
I think WMH is experiencing a rebirth. It really is an all new war, and older players are attritioning out, which I think is to be expected with an edition change. It just so happens that a lot of podcasters fall into that category, so it's a little more emphasized. As older players attrition out, either due to changes they don't like or just life in general new players will be attracted attracted to the things that caused others to leave and the cycle will begin again. This is not guaranteed to happen to any single locality, but I believe in the whole the warmachine scene will grow throughout the life of mk3.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on May 9, 2017 19:41:01 GMT
Hmm, not sure. Perhaps a little, but I predict things will get worse when the new 40k is released.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on May 9, 2017 19:47:33 GMT
I don't think it is that bad. If you read the warmachine internet, everything seems like the sky is falling and Mk.III is a disaster, which is patently not the case. I'm having a lot more fun in Mk.III than I ever did in Mk.II.
That said, I do think WMH is a challenging game to get into, and with all the focus on high-level competitive play, we need to make sure we are doing everything we can to make the game and our communities welcoming to new players. If all we have is the hardcore competitive scene, the game isn't going to experience the rejuvenation it needs to replace players who leave for whatever reason.
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Post by macdaddy on May 9, 2017 20:18:36 GMT
The nearest LGS to me has this issue where winning and having the most expensive and op army takes precedence over having a good time. When I lived down in Lynchburg there was a notable difference between the super obnoxious 40K community (invisible knights and crap everywhere) and the hordes community down there which, while small, was always friendly, inviting, and favored the fun aspect of playing a game and hanging out with people over wining. Im a pretty competitive guy but I also have more fun engaging with my opponent than I do winning. To me the interactions and relationships built are more important than the game itself.
I have noticed a drop off in popularity, games like infinity are becoming more popular and people are getting all hot and bothered over 40K 8th edition which makes me chuckle because its still the same game, just dumbed down.
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vitzh
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 8
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Post by vitzh on May 9, 2017 20:20:13 GMT
Balance is worse in Mk3, after degrading over Mk2. Players are delaying purchases because there is a perception of over nerfing when fixing problems. PP was also arrogant about the level of quality achieved in the transition.
From a Skorne perspective, the balance is incredibly bad in Mk3. This says a lot because it was also awful in Mk1-2. The errata made Skorne a more powerful faction, if still in the bottom half, but the faction design or stupid decisions weren't fixed. Also no tier lists likely until after the Grymkin release is great.
What this means is the community locally lost all the Skorne players, all the Cryx players and a smattering of other players. It has maybe gained one or two back but nothing like what was lost.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on May 9, 2017 20:48:49 GMT
I don't mean to offend Vitzh but I believe their feelings are probably the most prominent. "Balance in MK3 is worse"
And to exaggerate slightly "My faction isn't top 3 thus it's garbage." Not every faction can be top tier. it's just not possible to make everything perfectly equal in power.
I have and play Legion, Circle, Minions, Cryx, and Khador. Though I have gripes that I can put everything I want in a Khador list and have 20pts to spare. Where as Legion I'm 20pts over. I can put anything on the table and have a perfectly fair chance of winning. (I don't run Karchev + spam. Those things were problems but have been dealt with)
I think MKIII has done a ton for balance and game interaction. I absolutely do not want to go back to MKII.
My store had a huge turnout for the launch and battlebox games. Suddenly though people just would not stop complaining how much they "lost" in the change... and just about all of them left. Instead of even trying to make what they had work, they threw up their hands and walked away. I still have one player who, though he wins on a regular basis and put up some seriously oppressive lists to deal with, can only complain how bad his models are now. He could have a 100% win rate and still complain because it wasn't what he had before. So there is literally no convincing him to stay with the game. He jumped ship to 40k and says it's way more balanced... A game that he left for WMH in the first place.
tldr: grass is always greener, and you can't persuade someone who doesn't want to be persuaded. So yeah, WMH is loosing a lot of players for no good reason. Edit: ok, if you have a reason that is based on your feelings I can't tell you it's not a "good" reason. So I guess it would be better to say "no demonstrable reason".
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 9, 2017 20:54:37 GMT
MKIII Is undeniably mechanically more balanced in my mind, and approaches design from a much healthier direction.
But good game design has never been at the core of player retention in my mind. I think better marketing is.
People where much more happy to play broken lists in MKII and tell new players who pointed out flaws to "Get Gud" then loose a bunch of that brokenness and have to deal with variety.
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Post by elladan52 on May 9, 2017 20:57:22 GMT
Those who quit because of how much they lost are inevitable and would really be deadweight. If you hang around complaining you only hurt yourself and the community, and the quicker they are gone the better.
I find that new players enjoy the game a lot more, even playing faction with lower power levels because they carry less baggage. I think we are in the middle of that process, losing the dead weight before being able to take on new faces.
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Post by MovedOn on May 9, 2017 21:05:12 GMT
I started in mk2. I bought quite a few models, I played a lot. I didn't read articles, or listen to podcasts. I read the forums and ignored most of what I saw there. I was excited for mk3 even after the leaks, because I was assured that we hadn't yet seen the big picture and all the changes would come together to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
I've stopped playing for a few reasons.
1] It stopped being fun. When I play, I feel bored or disappointed. When you deploy your army and you look across the table and just mentally sigh "let's get this over with", something's wrong. Smaller point values actually help a bit, but there's too much of the 75 point culture ingrained everywhere.
2] Playing other games like Malifaux and Guild Ball unfortunately shows how much better things can be, and I think this is responsible for the mass Warmachine exodus I've seen locally.
3] Constant claims of the future fixing the game. When mk3 first came out and seemed broken, people said to wait, because soon there'd be an errata to fix the problems. Then it was the theme forces that would fix it. Then the CID would fix all that ails us. Then the new steamroller. Each step people crowed about how the game would "finally be the way it was intended". Now people are still pointing to future theme forces as fixes for current problems. It's enough for me, I don't believe it will be fixed in the next year, maybe two. I've watched every week of the CID make huge changes instead of tiny tweaks, and then at the end of each cycle they may still make changes before release, not even putting the final product through the CID process at all.
4] There are so many arrogant know-it-alls playing, ready to dismiss any comment because "you obviously just don't understand the game like I do". Similar people exist in every group, but they seem highly over-represented in the remaining players of this game, and it gets tiring to deal with.
5] The grymkin are coming, and I am all cringed out.
I check these forums from time to time hoping to see something exciting or interesting, hoping that the models I paid for can be used for something other than keeping dust off small circles of my shelf, but it doesn't seem to be working out. YMMV.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on May 9, 2017 21:29:05 GMT
Balance is worse in Mk3, after degrading over Mk2. Players are delaying purchases because there is a perception of over nerfing when fixing problems. PP was also arrogant about the level of quality achieved in the transition. From a Skorne perspective, the balance is incredibly bad in Mk3. This says a lot because it was also awful in Mk1-2. The errata made Skorne a more powerful faction, if still in the bottom half, but the faction design or stupid decisions weren't fixed. Also no tier lists likely until after the Grymkin release is great. What this means is the community locally lost all the Skorne players, all the Cryx players and a smattering of other players. It has maybe gained one or two back but nothing like what was lost. Mk 3 has better balance now than mk 2 ever did.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 9, 2017 22:05:58 GMT
What I find funny is the narrative some people are trying to push. If you hear them tell it they would have you believe Guild Ball is eating up all the disgruntled WM/H players out there. And yet, you see things like the WM/H World Team Championship having a full 64 5-man-team roster again this year, while the smaller WTC for GB (being held in the same venue btw) still had open slots (32 slots for 3 man teams). Then they point to X-Wing as the big Borg eating up all the newbies, but guess what? X-Wing is eating everyone's lunch! www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/03/industry-the-top-5-miniatures-games-2017.html
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Post by HereComesTomorrow on May 9, 2017 22:07:51 GMT
Mk3 got off to a REALLY bad start. Like, day one of an MMO bad.
It's better now. SR2017 is looking like its going to shake things up a lot and the CID is great at finding problems with new releases.
I think PP are focussing less hard on the competitive side and trying to make the game more fun. A lot of older and super competitive players don't like this I think but the super-competitive aspect of the game has been turning people away recently.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 9, 2017 22:12:46 GMT
I think PP are focussing less hard on the competitive side and trying to make the game more fun. A lot of older and super competitive players don't like this I think but the super-competitive aspect of the game has been turning people away recently. I don't think it's the super competitive aspect as the origin. You don't go "With a List thats 80% Optimal but more enjoyable to play and defeat" to a tournament even for fun! Because if you loose your pretty much stuck twiddling your thumbs.
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Post by whiskeydave on May 9, 2017 22:15:07 GMT
So interesting how different some people's views are than mine...
Mk3 at our local store is as or more popular than Mk2 was.
I have far more fun in Mk3 than I ever did in Mk2.
I quit Malifaux because of what they did to the game in 2nd edition.
CID has been really cool and they are improving not only the things involved, but getting better at the process itself with each round. Such an enormous amount of access and feedback directly with the developers is more than I have seen in a mini-game and with Pagani joining it feels like "one of us" is on the inside.
I know that some people that left the game were, IMO, looking for a trigger or excuse to do so...
All that having been said, different strokes... its all good.
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