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Post by lordsizzlor on May 21, 2017 0:16:34 GMT
There's a pretty big premise being thrown into the ops post. Would the game have better balance if theme lists didn't exist.
Nope.
Theme lists make it easier to balance one part of a faction vs another. There are too many units in a faction for each to have a perfectly balanced distinct role. You also get too many multipliers when balancing without the help of separating the models, cryx is the worst example of this.
Playing out of tier is kinda a mess for some factions and requiring non theme list would decrease list diversity.
Right now the only thing holding back list diversity is a shortage of theme lists. We will also see a drop off of theme lists to non theme list ratio once the newness wears off a little.
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Post by Cryptix on May 21, 2017 0:18:49 GMT
Stay on topic. The discussion on is no theme force events, not on the power of the Exemplar theme
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Post by pangurban on May 21, 2017 9:35:39 GMT
Theme lists make it easier to balance one part of a faction vs another. There are too many units in a faction for each to have a perfectly balanced distinct role. You also get too many multipliers when balancing without the help of separating the models, cryx is the worst example of this. Yes and no. This works on a relatively large scale, like a Bane theme or a Revenant theme. You bring up a bunch of models that belong in the same theme. It doesn't work all that well when you want to use themes to give specific models a better place by separating them from similar ones via themes, since then you eventually have to balance an entire theme around a single model when you could just have made that model a bit more distinct by itself.
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Post by lordsizzlor on May 21, 2017 16:29:31 GMT
Theme lists make it easier to balance one part of a faction vs another. There are too many units in a faction for each to have a perfectly balanced distinct role. You also get too many multipliers when balancing without the help of separating the models, cryx is the worst example of this. Yes and no. This works on a relatively large scale, like a Bane theme or a Revenant theme. You bring up a bunch of models that belong in the same theme. It doesn't work all that well when you want to use themes to give specific models a better place by separating them from similar ones via themes, since then you eventually have to balance an entire theme around a single model when you could just have made that model a bit more distinct by itself. I'm sorry I don't quite understand the point your making. You say that this idea does work on large scale but fails when it gets down to the individual unit? how is it harder to balance a model against 10 models and easier to balance vs 100. Sorry pang I must not be understanding what you mean. I also don't understand why making a model more distinct on it's own is separate from the theme force. As we saw with banes, they got both more distinct in the roles and balanced around a theme force. The ideas are not mutual exclusive.
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Post by pangurban on May 21, 2017 16:58:15 GMT
Yes and no. This works on a relatively large scale, like a Bane theme or a Revenant theme. You bring up a bunch of models that belong in the same theme. It doesn't work all that well when you want to use themes to give specific models a better place by separating them from similar ones via themes, since then you eventually have to balance an entire theme around a single model when you could just have made that model a bit more distinct by itself. I'm sorry I don't quite understand the point your making. You say that this idea does work on large scale but fails when it gets down to the individual unit? how is it harder to balance a model against 10 models and easier to balance vs 100. Sorry pang I must not be understanding what you mean. I also don't understand why making a model more distinct on it's own is separate from the theme force. As we saw with banes, they got both more distinct in the roles and balanced around a theme force. The ideas are not mutual exclusive. Banes are not single models. That's why it's easy to build a theme around them, a theme that makes Banes in general more competitively interesting. But suppose you want to keep Ryssovass Defenders and Dawnguard Sentinels from competing one another out of being taken in lists too much, since they share the same basic role of hunting jacks or beasts. If you do that via themes, say a Dawnguard theme and a Nyss theme, what you end up doing is making the themes compete instead of the units. Whichever theme turns out to better is the one that gets used, and the corresponding unit with it, but the other one doesn't. So what's the point of doing this? Also, it means you're potentially building a theme for every model out there you want to redefine the role of, with all the work of designing and balancing that theme. How is that more convenient than redesigning the model itself a bit?
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 22, 2017 3:15:00 GMT
Banes are not single models. That's why it's easy to build a theme around them, a theme that makes Banes in general more competitively interesting. But suppose you want to keep Ryssovass Defenders and Dawnguard Sentinels from competing one another out of being taken in lists too much, since they share the same basic role of hunting jacks or beasts. If you do that via themes, say a Dawnguard theme and a Nyss theme, what you end up doing is making the themes compete instead of the units. Whichever theme turns out to better is the one that gets used, and the corresponding unit with it, but the other one doesn't. So what's the point of doing this? Also, it means you're potentially building a theme for every model out there you want to redefine the role of, with all the work of designing and balancing that theme. How is that more convenient than redesigning the model itself a bit? There's another option, which is what PP is aiming for I believe: Make Themes virtuality similar in Faction, and players just use the one they think looks cooler. For example I honestly don't see the MoW Theme being anymore powerful than Legion of Steel or Jaws, although I do expect them to play similarly (box and ARM skew).
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Post by pangurban on May 22, 2017 7:42:31 GMT
Banes are not single models. That's why it's easy to build a theme around them, a theme that makes Banes in general more competitively interesting. But suppose you want to keep Ryssovass Defenders and Dawnguard Sentinels from competing one another out of being taken in lists too much, since they share the same basic role of hunting jacks or beasts. If you do that via themes, say a Dawnguard theme and a Nyss theme, what you end up doing is making the themes compete instead of the units. Whichever theme turns out to better is the one that gets used, and the corresponding unit with it, but the other one doesn't. So what's the point of doing this? Also, it means you're potentially building a theme for every model out there you want to redefine the role of, with all the work of designing and balancing that theme. How is that more convenient than redesigning the model itself a bit? There's another option, which is what PP is aiming for I believe: Make Themes virtuality similar in Faction, and players just use the one they think looks cooler. For example I honestly don't see the MoW Theme being anymore powerful than Legion of Steel or Jaws, although I do expect them to play similarly (box and ARM skew). Absolutely: the goal is to make stuff balanced enough that choosing what to play is a matter of preference rather than how strong a given model is. I'm just saying that in terms of making the distinction between two similar models more defined, themes are not an efficient solution. In terms of balancing out minifactions within a faction against one another, that can work.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 22, 2017 9:17:07 GMT
I can't see PP adding a non-theme variant to any official documents (unless it's a silly Rumble or Mangled Metal format that no one cares about), as I have said in other posts, themes are the way PP want this game to be played. You might have a few people try to run non-theme events, but I can't see them being that popular.
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Post by Flamigant on May 22, 2017 9:25:41 GMT
THey said that the Exemplar and other theme lisst will go trough a CID cycle also.
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Deller
Junior Strategist
I’m on a Boat
Posts: 605
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Post by Deller on May 22, 2017 9:26:03 GMT
Like it or not theme forces are likely going to represent the vast majority of competitive lists in the future. Events are typically geared towards competitive players and telling people "Hey you know those super sweet competitive theme lists you've been collecting, practicing, & painting the past year. You can't play them." That's not really going to attract a lot of competitive players, and casual players typically either don't go to events or don't care about event rules and just showed up to have fun. I don't see "no theme events" taking off or being popular at all.
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Post by The 1336 on May 22, 2017 13:08:58 GMT
Got my teeth kicked in this past weekend at an event. Partly due to playing better, more experienced players, but most were running theme lists and were getting 10-15pts of free stuff, which made matches look bad on paper before any dice were rolled.
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Post by elladan52 on May 22, 2017 13:20:50 GMT
Got my teeth kicked in this past weekend at an event. Partly due to playing better, more experienced players, but most were running theme lists and were getting 10-15pts of free stuff, which made matches look bad on paper before any dice were rolled. So how much was because they were playing themes and how much was because they were playing up points? Extra points tend to matter considerably less the more imbalanced the skill levels are.
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Post by The 1336 on May 22, 2017 15:43:49 GMT
Oh it's the skill mostly. They probably could've kicked my ass with the lists reversed. My point is that looking at just the lists on paper, the theme lists definitely looked like they had more punch
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Post by elladan52 on May 22, 2017 16:19:44 GMT
Oh it's the skill mostly. They probably could've kicked my ass with the lists reversed. My point is that looking at just the lists on paper, the theme lists definitely looked like they had more punch What themes were they?
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Post by pangurban on May 22, 2017 17:40:42 GMT
Oh it's the skill mostly. They probably could've kicked my ass with the lists reversed. My point is that looking at just the lists on paper, the theme lists definitely looked like they had more punch List building is also a skill. If you're not very skilled yet then you may not be able to recognize the specific weaknesses in your opponents' lists yet and may not be able to tune your own lists optimally yet either. I'm not saying it always works out as it should, but themes give up a lot in order to get their benefits. There are a few where it's questionable they give up enough to balance out the benefits, but with most those extra 10-15 points of models aren't actually worth 10-15 points (you wouldn't normally take them at their standard cost, or you're taking more units than youy normally would to be able to fit in an extra free attachment or something like that), there are weaknesses you can't compensate for because the models that'd allow you to do so aren't allowed (no models who have Pathfinder or who can grant it for instance), and powerful models you'd normally automatically include may not be allowed either (character jacks or beasts are rarely allowed unless they have a bond with the caster, to give the most obvious example). Not playing in theme gives you more freedom, more options. That's worth a lot too, if you make the most of that advantage.
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