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Post by Azahul on May 10, 2017 0:02:20 GMT
Yeah, the game is actively growing locally. My local gaming store seems to be netting new players every few weeks, tournament turnout is double what was common late-Mark II, and the handful of people who complain just seem to get a kick out of complaining. I haven't seen them come up with any issues I take seriously. 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. Mark II on release day had Haley2, Deneghra2, Asphyxious2, Skarre1 (let's be honest, Cryx in general), Snipe-Feat-Go, Lylyth2 Ravagores, and the Winter Guard Death Star. Even with Haley2 still being around, none of Mark 3's problems are even on the same level. Even on release day, I'd take Madrak2 and Sloan and even High Reclaimer over the existence of any of the above. Mark 3 has massively levelled the top of the playing field. Warcaster diversity at tournaments is like nothing I ever saw in Mark 2. And Skorne feel a whole lot more competitive than they were when Mark 2's titans were still stomping around. 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". Balance in any wargame above a minimal level of diversity is a goal, not a state. It is accomplished in increments and never truly achieved by any game. What you describe is Mark 3 working. The game releases, problems are found, they are errata'd. As new problems are discovered, the process begins anew. That problems being fixed is being used as indicative of the game failing at balance is preposterous.
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Post by BarbeChenue on May 10, 2017 1:03:36 GMT
I agree that expecting a meta to be "balanced" as a sort of fixed end-state, "there's nothing left to improve", is asking the impossible. Games like Starcraft only become balanced AFTER they stop releasing new expansions, and there are no new mechanics being introduced, and even years later afterwards they still tweak things here and there. If stagnation is the price to pay for "perfect balance", it's *not* a price I'd be willing to pay.
But then again, I don't think most critics of Mk3 are asking for perfect balance, but more of a "reasonable amount of fairness" being in place between factions and when you calculate the opportunity cost of each model within each faction.
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Post by Azahul on May 10, 2017 1:12:15 GMT
I agree that expecting a meta to be "balanced" as a sort of fixed end-state, "there's nothing left to improve", is asking the impossible. Games like Starcraft only become balanced AFTER they stop releasing new expansions, and there are no new mechanics being introduced, and even years later afterwards they still tweak things here and there. If stagnation is the price to pay for "perfect balance", it's *not* a price I'd be willing to pay. But then again, I don't think most critics of Mk3 are asking for perfect balance, but more of a "reasonable amount of fairness" being in place between factions and when you calculate the opportunity cost of each model within each faction. Certainly, but if that's their expectation then the constant references to Mark 2's supposedly amazing balance is pretty blinkered. The specific quote I was responding to was someone complaining about how there's always people in the community claiming some future event will "fix" the game, and I was pointing out that, well, of course they are. The game will never be perfect, PP will (hopefully) never stop trying to improve it, and so there will always be something around the corner to make the game just a little bit better. As things stand, the game has never been more balanced. I honestly can't believe anyone would seriously attempt to argue that. Since HR was nerfed we don't have a single massive boogeyman looming over the game. Complaints about Storm Lances and Haley2 are as close as we get, and I would be lying if I didn't expect them to get tweaked at some future date, but those arguments are watered down and mild compared to the kind of broken stuff we used to get in this game. If anyone seriously thinks the game was closer to perfectly balanced at some point in the past then give me a specific date you are thinking of and I guarantee you it would be easy to point to far more serious issues with the game than it is right now.
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regleant
Junior Strategist
Sometimes things go right
Posts: 267
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Post by regleant on May 10, 2017 1:13:28 GMT
If people are not happy with the direction PP took with MK3 or find games more appealing to them, I am certainly not going to stop them from going out and exploring something new. I can't tell you that you're having fun 'wrong'.
That said, I do find that Warmachine is growing in my area, that the balance both within factions and across factions is better than it ever was in MK2, and that I'm still enjoying the game. I also enjoy Guild Ball, but it never really took off, here.
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Post by beardmonk on May 10, 2017 7:55:10 GMT
In my experience, in one location, with one meta and games club (London/Essex, UK), it’s extremely swings and roundabouts.
In our group of friends, the transition to Mk3 enabled us to bring a new player into our weekly WM/H meet up. However, the need for major errata since launch has affected one of our player enthusiasm for the game. He refuses to update his cards, doesn’t/won’t use war room.
Within the games club I try to get to 1-2 a month the new edition resulted in a LOT of people buying starter kits and demo games were being run. WHF had been nuked from high orbit and replaced with AoS. 40K was going through a rough patch (not sure why, I don’t follow 40K). I played about 3 demo/BB games with new people who liked the new rules a lot. However, most of them dropped WM/H in favour of Malifaux, Flames of War and a resurgent 40K. Main reasons stated were: too steep a learning curve, model quality and cost, rules being updated (which I find odd as it addressed issues but they wanted a static rule set), game too competitive.
However, this year I have started making time to attend more tournaments and have met a lot of new people. They are reporting that within London while many people dropped away as other have said, many new people has joined. So overall numbers have remained the same.
My question/feelings are however that the lunch of a new edition, at a time when GW and other companies were “weak” in terms of their customer relations etc, should PP not have made a net gain in terms of players. It feels like a massive opportunity missed.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 10, 2017 8:39:55 GMT
I can't speak for anywhere else, but in my neck of the woods we had the following chain of events:
1) decline in interest and players towards the end of MKII
2) Lots of excitement with MKIII release, brought in new players and brought back old players
3) Initial hype started to die down, the new players did not get the experience they thought MKIII was going to give them (for a variety of reasons)
4) New players sold off their recent purchases, moved to mostly Bloodbowl and Malifaux
5) Older reclaimed players faded back into the woodwork
The result now is we actually have a smaller player-base than we had at the end of MKII. We can nit-pick different players' reasons for jumping ship all we like, but you're never going to get a player back into the game by wagging a finger at him and telling him he's experienced the game wrong.
Whatever the problem is, step #1 is to recognise that there is a problem (at least in my area, at any rate).
-und_ed
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Post by ForEver_Blight on May 10, 2017 13:26:08 GMT
I'm literally faced with a choice today. I can try and drive over an hour out of my way to another county to go to a game store that might have players. Or I can drive two minutes from work to see the same faces, bringing the same lists, complaining about the same nerfs... and I don't want to do either. I'm literally becoming one of the players "lost" because of my local meta is falling to pieces.
I'm now wondering just how to try and start gaining new players. What can I do, where do I go, how do I sell people on a game I know is dying (locally).
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Post by dazzla on May 10, 2017 14:43:56 GMT
IMO game balance is now as good as it has ever been. Not perfect, but certainly good enough with most of the clear standouts having been toned down. Also I believe that PP has shown a genuine commitment to listen to the player base, perhaps sometimes too much. IMO the Grymkin CID process was extremely well done.
I enjoy the game very much now. And yet there does seem to be a negativity around. I find it hard to explain why.
I think that after the next CID and rebalancing it would be beneficial to have a period of stability, taking a very gradualist approach to model changes.
And maybe we all (myself included) should focus more on the really good aspects of the game and less on the minor negatives.
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Post by W0lfBane on May 10, 2017 14:51:11 GMT
I'm literally faced with a choice today. I can try and drive over an hour out of my way to another county to go to a game store that might have players. Or I can drive two minutes from work to see the same faces, bringing the same lists, complaining about the same nerfs... and I don't want to do either. I'm literally becoming one of the players "lost" because of my local meta is falling to pieces. I'm now wondering just how to try and start gaining new players. What can I do, where do I go, how do I sell people on a game I know is dying (locally). Pick up a game that is easy like grind or frost grave that is easy to teach new players but can use pp miniatures. When they play the easy game new players will be like what are those cool as painted minis for and boom you can introduce them to warmahordes
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Arcaux
Junior Strategist
Posts: 724
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Post by Arcaux on May 10, 2017 15:01:14 GMT
As we're doing the doom and gloom, "My Meta is dying" tales in this thread, I thought it might be useful to hear the opposite.
My Club in the UK has more Warmachine players than ever. We're a small town that is regularly getting 10-16 Warmachine players every week. My local community is thriving and big UK events are selling out. 128 man masters etc.
The game balance is the best it's ever been and there are more viable casters and factions than ever before. It might not be for everyone, but there is certainly no exodus happening in the UK.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on May 10, 2017 15:10:29 GMT
I'm literally faced with a choice today. I can try and drive over an hour out of my way to another county to go to a game store that might have players. Or I can drive two minutes from work to see the same faces, bringing the same lists, complaining about the same nerfs... and I don't want to do either. I'm literally becoming one of the players "lost" because of my local meta is falling to pieces. I'm now wondering just how to try and start gaining new players. What can I do, where do I go, how do I sell people on a game I know is dying (locally). I feel that. My local store is full of people who just want to complain about the game, the CID, and SR17. Luckily I know which ones don't want to do that and I just play them instead. I also picked up Dropzone and Dropfleet Commander so when the Female Doging gets too much I just play something else. If there literally aren't any people who aren't Female Dogy though I certainly can't blame you for losing interest. To add more positivity; my local store has gained a few regulars and from what I hear some other stores in the area (Eastern Massachusetts) have gained a few as well. A lot of the complainers TALK about quitting over SR17 and whatnot but I suspect many of them won't. Guildball tried and failed to take off here a year or so ago and Infinity has never gotten more than a handful of demos. A lot of people who are traditionally WM/H players have been playing Necromunda 2.0 but I doubt that will last past this campaign.
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Post by elladan52 on May 10, 2017 15:16:37 GMT
I'm literally faced with a choice today. I can try and drive over an hour out of my way to another county to go to a game store that might have players. Or I can drive two minutes from work to see the same faces, bringing the same lists, complaining about the same nerfs... and I don't want to do either. I'm literally becoming one of the players "lost" because of my local meta is falling to pieces. I'm now wondering just how to try and start gaining new players. What can I do, where do I go, how do I sell people on a game I know is dying (locally). I feel that. My local store is full of people who just want to complain about the game, the CID, and SR17. Luckily I know which ones don't want to do that and I just play them instead. I also picked up Dropzone and Dropfleet Commander so when the Female Doging gets too much I just play something else. If there literally aren't any people who aren't Female Dogy though I certainly can't blame you for losing interest. Ironically, those people that stick around are what will kill the meta the fastest. Now one wants to play a game of all they hear when the get started is how much better things used to be. I have personally made it a goal to never refer to mk2 when discussing things with a new player. It seems obvious, but the natural instinct to mention how things used to be is startlingly common once you start looking for it. As for bringing in new players, I really have no idea. People just have to walk in the store and see it being played. The only thing that you can really do beyond putting up a flyer or two in the store is make sure that if someone walks they won't be immediately turned off by the attitude of the people playing the game.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on May 10, 2017 15:16:57 GMT
I'm literally faced with a choice today. I can try and drive over an hour out of my way to another county to go to a game store that might have players. Or I can drive two minutes from work to see the same faces, bringing the same lists, complaining about the same nerfs... and I don't want to do either. I'm literally becoming one of the players "lost" because of my local meta is falling to pieces. I'm now wondering just how to try and start gaining new players. What can I do, where do I go, how do I sell people on a game I know is dying (locally). Pick up a game that is easy like grind or frost grave that is easy to teach new players but can use pp miniatures. When they play the easy game new players will be like what are those cool as painted minis for and boom you can introduce them to warmahordes I suspect that's part of the reason PP has been putting out these minigames. Its the same way GW is putting out box sets for dogfights, Kill Team, etc as a way to get people in to one chunk of the game and then expand. Of course PPs version is cheaper lol. I'm waiting for them to drop the rules for no warcaster games later this year.
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on May 10, 2017 15:20:19 GMT
My meta seems very strong, there's one guy who doesn't play mk3 because he's disheartened by the changes but he still shows up to the store all the time to watch others play. I keep trying to pull him back in, hoping some release will eventually get the glimmer into his eye to play again. A lot of people have faction hopped from the MK3 changes and I think the dust is finally beginning to settle. Once SR17 is final we will adjust the meta a little with list construction and I think people will really have fun with figuring out what works best in the new year.
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joedj
Junior Strategist
Posts: 513
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Post by joedj on May 10, 2017 16:52:09 GMT
I know the game is more balanced in 'overall' terms. In MK2 I could take a trash army with my ~10yrs of experience and destroy a less-experienced player's average army. Easily. Now, if I take a trash army, against an average army piloted by an average-experience player, it will be a GAME. And if I take an average army against a tooled army/moderately experienced player, I EXPECT to lose, regardless of my experience, though scenario play does allow for some surprising alternate wins. The loss of the Press Gang program will probably result in regional pockets of great-fun gaming and pockets of black hole competitiveness. I wish for all players the ability to find the venue they desire! We've lost players due to Factions' change. We've gained some. Most with experience have at least dabbled in multiple armies, or changed Factions entirely. The debate in our venue, as ever, is WM vs Hordes, who has the upper hand? Current venue wisdom has it that WM with cheap, plentiful warjacks/power-up is in the lead for blunt force. Hordes uses more tricksy approaches.
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