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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 18:25:30 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. There really is no debate. Hordes beasts are overcosted, and their in-faction list diversity is worse than WM (my Circle, for instance, only EVER makes use of 4 different units, and 2 of them are highly specialized.) With SR2017 forcing things into a grindfest in the centre of the table, 'tricksy' approaches (which got worse in the transition to Mk3) become nearly irrelevant. Virtually everyone in my meta who has a WM faction has switched to it, because the uphill battles against WM are utterly unfun. I've said it before, will say it again. The game feels like they released it ahead of schedule - after balancing most of the WM factions, but before balancing most of the Hordes factions.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 10, 2017 18:50:11 GMT
Maybe not ahead of Schedule but I feel like some staff must have changed or something.
There were lots of good ideas, but also ones just so utterly BAFFLING.
Like it was a tug of War.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on May 10, 2017 19:48:02 GMT
May I by the way ask, in general, why just to play one game? Take a break from WMH and return if the scene gets lively again.
There are so many good mini games today.
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Post by tiberius on May 10, 2017 20:23:46 GMT
For me, time to game is a premium and when I make the monetary investment, I want to play with my toys. As far as balance goes, I agree, things are more balanced, but that ended up being more "boring" to myself and a lot of my friends. They are slowly adding things back in that make it seem like options are there. In all I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that it was released a good year or two ahead of being ready. A lot like warmachine tactics was. My biggest gripe now however, is that I just want to go and buy a miniature or a book and have the rules that I will be playing with it. All this constant changing does nothing for my enjoyment of the game. I would have much preferred a good end product put out from the beginning. But again, that is my opinion.
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Xarlaxas
Junior Strategist
Hoards models more than he plays.
Posts: 192
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Post by Xarlaxas on May 10, 2017 22:11:27 GMT
The meta in my area seems to be increasing a little bit, we have a few super-excited people buying a whole bunch of stuff to get into the game, and the meta from our neighbouring *country* has also added some enthusiasim.
At the same time, we have a growing Warhammer Fantasy (8th edition) community, and some people getting prepped for 8th edition 40k.
I got into WarmaHordes near the end of Mk2, just before Mk3 was announced, bought way too many minis, and didn't have the time to actually play. Now that my first love (40k) is coming back on the scene, I've been trading in some of my my stuff to trim myself down to just two factions (one Hordes, one Warmachine) and to see if I can get some proper games in before I come to a final conclusion.
There is a lot of salt going around online though, which is pushing me slowly away from the game.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on May 11, 2017 1:05:26 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. There really is no debate. Hordes beasts are overcosted, and their in-faction list diversity is worse than WM (my Circle, for instance, only EVER makes use of 4 different units, and 2 of them are highly specialized.) With SR2017 forcing things into a grindfest in the centre of the table, 'tricksy' approaches (which got worse in the transition to Mk3) become nearly irrelevant. Virtually everyone in my meta who has a WM faction has switched to it, because the uphill battles against WM are utterly unfun. I've said it before, will say it again. The game feels like they released it ahead of schedule - after balancing most of the WM factions, but before balancing most of the Hordes factions. The fact that it endlessly gets debate seems to put the idea that there is no debate to bed. Warmachine factions in general seem better than Hordes factions in general, but this seems more due to individual factions powers, not anything innate to Warmachine or Hordes.
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Post by celeb on May 11, 2017 4:54:53 GMT
In our meta, we did have a hit in players when mk3 droppped, but it was players leaving where I wondered why they still play, so I guess that the release of the new edition was just a trigger for them to finally quit the game. Right now, our meta is recovering, with the numbers I equal to the end of mk2 and players slowly "maturing" into 75pt games.
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on May 11, 2017 5:33:47 GMT
I started playing a year before MKii ended. My meta was pretty awesome. During wargaming night, we had probably 6-8 games a night going, which took up nearly all the table space. 40k players usually had to reserve a table to actually be able to play. Shortly before MKiii launched, we lost a ton of players. Some because they had to move, or work took them away. But I think most of them left because they didn't like what they saw coming. For several months during MKiii, we had 3 or 4 players show up regularly. Getting a game was difficult because if even 1 person didn't show then the rest were outta luck. It was sad. Only recently did we start to get back some old players. We have 6-7 people showing up each week, so it's improving.
I think the initial balance problems played a role in the loss of players. We had some Cryx and Skorne players really lose morale. The game felt really unfinished.
We haven't had a new player actually stick around for a while, and I fear that it's because our players don't feel enthusiastic enough about WMH to really pull a player in.
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Post by beardmonk on May 11, 2017 9:41:05 GMT
I thought about this last night. Would it be better if we talked about what we should be doing to try and grow our metas and retain new players rather than moaning about it? Be the change we want to see?
So what are people ideas from growing their local groups?
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Post by joetortillas on May 11, 2017 12:28:23 GMT
We just had the largest east-canadian convention so far(SOO) with 116 players in the masters and we are preparing a 48 players team tournament locally. WMH events are doing just fine.
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Post by Azahul on May 11, 2017 13:08:03 GMT
I thought about this last night. Would it be better if we talked about what we should be doing to try and grow our metas and retain new players rather than moaning about it? Be the change we want to see? So what are people ideas from growing their local groups? Yeah, there always seems to be more than a little confirmation bias in these threads. Those most likely to post in them are those whose metas are dying, and I don't deny that some metas are, which in turn reinforces their belief that the game as a whole is dead. Talking about how to actually fix the problem for those areas that are struggling is undoubtedly more useful I'm not sure the local story is actually that helpful. We lost a fair number of players to Guild Ball before Mark 3 was announced. That game spluttered and died locally, sending most of them back. We had a new LGS open up on one side of town just as Mark 3 began, with a fantastically supportive crew. That meant a new community for the game, without a lot of the Mark 2 history. Those two elements have been the main factors I think, though I'd feel bad recommending the first.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 11, 2017 13:08:28 GMT
We just had the largest east-canadian convention so far(SOO) with 116 players in the masters and we are preparing a 48 players team tournament locally. WMH events are doing just fine. I'm so freaking jealous. -und_ed
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Post by Cryptix on May 11, 2017 13:13:42 GMT
Ha, you'll see more Warmahorde players here when PP allows more than one obscure game store in SoCal. The GW bias here is real.
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regleant
Junior Strategist
Sometimes things go right
Posts: 267
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Post by regleant on May 11, 2017 13:18:20 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. This is actually upsetting, and indicates that skill is a less important part of the game and that there is more imbalance between models. That..., shouldn't be the case, and is not a conclusion I've come to in my own experience.
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Post by elladan52 on May 11, 2017 13:28:28 GMT
I thought about this last night. Would it be better if we talked about what we should be doing to try and grow our metas and retain new players rather than moaning about it? Be the change we want to see? So what are people ideas from growing their local groups? Yeah, there always seems to be more than a little confirmation bias in these threads. Those most likely to post in them are those whose metas are dying, and I don't deny that some metas are, which in turn reinforces their belief that the game as a whole is dead. Talking about how to actually fix the problem for those areas that are struggling is undoubtedly more useful I'm not sure the local story is actually that helpful. We lost a fair number of players to Guild Ball before Mark 3 was announced. That game spluttered and died locally, sending most of them back. We had a new LGS open up on one side of town just as Mark 3 began, with a fantastically supportive crew. That meant a new community for the game, without a lot of the Mark 2 history. Those two elements have been the main factors I think, though I'd feel bad recommending the first. I really think that store support and leaving mk2 baggage at the door are key to growing the community at this point. We had three new players walk in a few weeks ago. They are students, so the haven't been back much but we'll see how things go over the summer. The did all buy battleboxes though, so I am hopeful. I have no doubt the would have moved on if we had been complaining the whole time they were watching us play. I don't want people to bottle up their feelings about the game; their are legitimate gripes to be made. But people need a little situational awareness and need to understand when blowing off steam starts hurting the local meta. Just for sake of discussion, here are a couple things I would try: Advertise - Make sure it's displayed in the store somewhere what night warmachine is played on. Post on the store's social media pages when things are happening, or just letting people know game night is on. Prioritize - Make sure new players are welcomed and have a game every time they show up, and play at their level. It's an investment, and if you can get a new player to stick around it will be much more valuable to you and your group than that extra tournament practice game. This is the biggest one I have seen problems with. I myself am going to make more of an effort to advertise this game at the local stores this summer and see if we can't start pulling in some new faces.
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