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Post by oncomingstorm on Oct 19, 2017 20:53:42 GMT
Honestly mt.motivation for the game has dropped drastically. One of my main opponents plays Cryx. I have little desire to continue playing against ghost fleet or dark host with either of my convergence or legion. Partly because I know both my lists are going to do pretty bad against black industries. That means I have to play list chicken with cryx every time. In mk2 I had a cryx list to deal with regular dudespam, now I need two cryx lists to cover vastly different matchups. For one list I need magic weapons, ranged rfp, and a caster that can't be assassinated. For the other list I need ways to deal with coven and massed banes which means I can't use heavies because they die easily and I need to not lose on scenario. But I can't use guns, which were my previous plan, because I can't kill arm22 heavies in the other theme. So I have to use melee infantry, but no-one does melee infantry better then Cryx. It's definitely a frustrating time for me. You're not the only one. I've heard this from others as well. It's straight up the worst parts of MKii list chicken to a new extreme. I think this was a foreseeable consequence of both theme-machine and their attempts to improve internal balance. When each faction only has two-four good lists centering around very similar playstyles, it's easier to have a single drop that can play into both of them. Now that they're working towards broadening the playstyles of each faction, that will become a lot more difficult. ESPECIALLY since each theme list is supposed to play in a distinct way, what we're looking at is pairing that are less '2 lists of faction A' than '1 list of faction A, 1 list of faction B.' Once balance starts improving across the board, it's not just going to be Cryx that has this problem either - can you make a single list that handles Bones of Orboros woldspam AND 40 infantry Devourer's Host? Not everyone can.
The long and short of it is that if the game isn't to devolve into list chicken for every game, PP probably needs to look into limiting the specificity of answers any one list requires.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on Oct 19, 2017 21:55:45 GMT
Once balance starts improving? In my opinion it won't do that other than marginally. BUT I don't think it is such a big problem to have suboptimal balance. The mechanics of the game will never allow better balance unless things get almost the same, which is going to be boring. Cryx is op now, it will be nerfed. Something else will take its spot, and the cycle continues. I have accepted that the power will not balance, merely shift. Embrace the change, and things get exciting again. Its really not that serious, the game can still be fun. Let me ask you this, if in doubt; how old is the game and has there been any meaningful improvement over the years if pure balance is the only factor? Im sure many will think yes, but in fact the situation has always been the same. People are constantly buying into dreams, and it is reflected in these discussions. I still remember the early cries of imbalance, come mk3, and I also remember those "just wait for themes/x/y/z". Themes happened and where we are ? Sure, the most obnoxious combos are long gone, but they sometimes happened to create a balance of terror.. things have changed, balance might have been improved (imo not meaningfully) a bit, but waiting for a holy grail is a waste of time - given the history of wargames development, and this game in particular.
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Post by novaspike on Oct 20, 2017 0:14:32 GMT
You keep talking about how they were a 'mid-tier caster' in mk2, but you're completely ignoring the tools they got (new Bane Riders are exactly what they wanted - fast, hard hitting units with ghostly to abuse CoS and veil of mists.) You're also ignoring the fact that, outside of Cryx, nearly every hard control caster saw (or has since seen) some kind of nerf. Control casters are often the best counter to a lot of control casters (Old Haley2 counterfeating on Coven was nasty,) and when Cryx is the only remaining faction with 'hard' control casters...
Bane Riders were almost the exact same in mk2. Same speed and 2" reach. They gained the extra MAT and vengence, but lost the extra threat distance and +2 MAT from curse. Putting bane riders and CoS together has always been possible since riders came out in mk2.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Oct 20, 2017 3:00:26 GMT
Once balance starts improving? In my opinion it won't do that other than marginally. BUT I don't think it is such a big problem to have suboptimal balance. The mechanics of the game will never allow better balance unless things get almost the same, which is going to be boring. Cryx is op now, it will be nerfed. Something else will take its spot, and the cycle continues. I have accepted that the power will not balance, merely shift. Embrace the change, and things get exciting again. Its really not that serious, the game can still be fun. Let me ask you this, if in doubt; how old is the game and has there been any meaningful improvement over the years if pure balance is the only factor? Im sure many will think yes, but in fact the situation has always been the same. People are constantly buying into dreams, and it is reflected in these discussions. I still remember the early cries of imbalance, come mk3, and I also remember those "just wait for themes/x/y/z". Themes happened and where we are ? Sure, the most obnoxious combos are long gone, but they sometimes happened to create a balance of terror.. things have changed, balance might have been improved (imo not meaningfully) a bit, but waiting for a holy grail is a waste of time - given the history of wargames development, and this game in particular. I'm not talking about interfaction balance, I'm talking about intrafaction balance. The more options become usable in a given faction, the harder it's going to be to develop a list that works into them without it turning into list chicken. In Mk2, even the strongest lists were often variations on a single 'theme' that you saw in most lists coming out of the same faction. For instance, take Khador. Khador has always had a number of subthemes going on. Heavy, hard to kill warjacks, Man-o-wars, etc...but what you mostly saw was some variant of troop spam. So your khador drop was a drop that could handle troop spam, whether that was iron fangs or vlad rockets. Now, a khador pairing might have something resembling a Mk2 khador list...or it might have Karchev and 8 jacks. Can you handle both of them? Can you build a list that can handle 40 iron fangs, or vlad rockets, or a jackspam box skew list? Maybe. But it's definitely not as easy to cover with a single list as it was in mk2. It's practically inevitable that if every theme is intended to bring a unique playstyle to the faction, it's going to reduce the ability to cover a faction's lists with a single drop. In turn, that means that something like Ghost Fleet (which demands ridiculously specific answers) simply can't exist, unless you want to force players into a situation where they have to dedicate both of their lists to a single faction, just to play list chicken against the Cryx player. There's a limit to how strong or meta-warping a given list can be allowed to be in that kind of environment.
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Post by Cryptix on Oct 20, 2017 3:05:16 GMT
What I still don't get is why its a bad thing for people to not be able to completely predict your list based on your faction. I mean, sure if some lists are overpowered that's bad but I see a lot more people complaining that a faction has multiple viable ways to play, and it annoys me there's a certain expectation of what I'm supposed to bring.
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Post by Azahul on Oct 20, 2017 3:16:10 GMT
What I still don't get is why its a bad thing for people to not be able to completely predict your list based on your faction. I mean, sure if some lists are overpowered that's bad but I see a lot more people complaining that a faction has multiple viable ways to play, and it annoys me there's a certain expectation of what I'm supposed to bring. I don't think ongoingstorm is saying that it's bad, just that it creates conditions in which gear check lists like Ghost Fleet are unmanageable. A meta in which factions can bring many different kinds of lists is varied and interesting, but it increases the necessity that "all-comers" lists be genuinely able to handle all comers. Lists where you need magic weapons and infantry removal and ranged RFP and some form of defence against spell/ghost shot assassinations skew the pairing process too hard for the opponent to be able to meaningfully cover the whole range of possible Cryx lists as well. Diversity and flexibility are good things, but they do mean that lists like ghost fleet need to be wound back to the point where more generic lists can answer them.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Oct 20, 2017 3:27:41 GMT
What I still don't get is why its a bad thing for people to not be able to completely predict your list based on your faction. I mean, sure if some lists are overpowered that's bad but I see a lot more people complaining that a faction has multiple viable ways to play, and it annoys me there's a certain expectation of what I'm supposed to bring. It's not bad, but it does increase the power any strong list brings to a given pairing, because you add an element of list chicken into the equation. ie. List X creates an 80-20 (or 70-30, w/e) matchup against lists that aren't teched for it. All you have to do is bring a complementary list that eats it's counters, and...done. List chicken scenario created. It's not a new strategy, but the diversity of lists that a faction can bring exacerbates it. Now your off-list doesn't just have to be an OFF-list, to cover bad matchups, it can be extremely strong in it's own right, but in a completely different way than your 'main' list. I firmly believe that's what we've got going on with GF/Dark Host. I think the goal is (and should be) to move towards more 50-50 matchups and away from extremely binary matchups that are won and lost at list selection. We were heading there for a while, but I think that with themes being what they are, we're going to slide away from that goal as time goes on, unless PP are very careful about the power level of the themes they release. And if Dark Host is any indication, they're not necessarily capable of doing that, even with the resources of CID. EDIT: Azahul that's exactly what I'm saying. You've got to be super vigilant about releasing broken stuff, because the broken list isn't just 'Cryx, but more so,' like, say, Body and Soul was. If each faction has loads of ways to play, gear checks just can't exist in the same way anymore.
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Post by Cryptix on Oct 20, 2017 4:05:08 GMT
Oh no, I wasn't actual referring to just you Oncoming I meant I've been seeing this sentiment a lot across both the internet and in my play group.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Oct 20, 2017 4:28:11 GMT
Oh no, I wasn't actual referring to just you Oncoming I meant I've been seeing this sentiment a lot across both the internet and in my play group. Ah, then we're on the same page. That is a weird way to look at things, I agree. More ways to play means it's harder to get bored long term!
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Oct 20, 2017 9:25:20 GMT
macdaddy I apprciate the replies. I wasn't trying to come off as combative, but I was wondering what kind of specific changes people were looking at. I could agree with the MAT/RAT debuff coming off. It does give an extra f-you to an already pretty hard hitting feat. And the overboosting does seem like a get out of jail free card as is. Could be something as simple as adding a bit to the sympetheic link (Egregores rule, if I screwed up the name), "damage dealt via this rule cannot be reduced". I don't think that's the answer. Maybe give Egregore a rule that says he can't run. That fixes the "balls deep" early feat.
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Post by jisidro on Oct 20, 2017 9:32:51 GMT
ADR Specialists as a base option seems like a viable idea...
You get a reaction after the fact... If you face Cryx but don't know if it's a horde of Satyxis or a pack of Carapace slayers ADR specialists could help you drop the best all round nswer and then ajust...
with the caveat Eilish-like arcane consumption stupidity can't be part of the game because they just kill off single wound spell casters by existing in the vicinity providing a cheap all round counter to a type of lists.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Oct 20, 2017 10:20:05 GMT
It's kind of weird that ARD is not an official Steamroller variant. I'd really like to play it in 2018, if they put a second good Skorne Warlock (besides Jalaam) in there.
I'm not sure ADR would help us against Cryx though. At least with my Faction's themes you either bring all the ranged stuff (and lose to BI) or all the melee stuff (and lose to GF). You can't really play anything in between the two skews, though that's a theme issue.
A general baseline sideboard rule would be great though, if only to increase build veriety.
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Post by jisidro on Oct 20, 2017 10:34:02 GMT
It's kind of weird that ARD is not an official Steamroller variant. I'd really like to play it in 2018, if they put a second good Skorne Warlock (besides Jalaam) in there. I'm not sure ADR would help us against Cryx though. At least with my Faction's themes you either bring all the ranged stuff (and lose to BI) or all the melee stuff (and lose to GF). You can't really play anything in between the two skews, though that's a theme issue. A general baseline sideboard rule would be great though, if only to increase build veriety.
Sorry, meant specialists.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Oct 20, 2017 10:45:48 GMT
I feel like the point stands either way. Both could be a great inclusion in Steamroller.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Oct 20, 2017 10:57:25 GMT
I feel like the point stands either way. Both could be a great inclusion in Steamroller. I doubt PP would make Specialists a default in Steamroller. Steamroller is designed to accommodate people just getting into the game, hence why the optional second list and no D&C, throwing Specialists at people who are still pretty new may be a bit too much.
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