Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 21, 2018 14:02:41 GMT
I think the flagship for "streamlining" power creep is Orion, actually. He has RAT 7 gunlines that induct their focus for super efficiency, mage sight to stop you from hiding, spellpiercer to stop you from buffing, reposition and pathfinder to duck in and out of sight, he can throw a switch to suddenly get good in melee instead when you run to engage, and gets a damage feat. You can't shoot him for a bajillion shield guard, either.
I literally cannot figure out an answer to him in my faction, he's even blasted right through 2 ARM 25 warjacks and Durst himself on my feat turn. Unfortunately, This trend of models solving so many of their own problems is the new norm. I consider it a bad thing as it inevitably will lead to rocket tag (which is kind of where McKay was/still might be?)
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Mar 21, 2018 14:13:59 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that if they don't get playtest feedback they are much, much less likely to make any changes. To the example of the Sepulcher I could only find 3 Battle Reports during the Black Fleet CID that used the Sepulcher. 3 tests. In fact searching "Sepulcher" in the Black Fleet CID only returned 11 total posts. Searching "Victor" in the Armored Corps cycle nets 170 results and "Blightbringer" in Primal Terrors has 465.
So perhaps the issue isn't "PP didn't do enough to buff it" but "Nobody gave them data". It's just like the Christmas cycle when they said "The Champion of the Wall is almost perfect" and everyone blew up; turns out they just weren't getting any feedback so all they can do is assume the model is fine. If people don't participate then it's simply not going to do any good.
Now the obvious slippery slope of this is that only the faction that have lots of players get really good CIDs, which PP should keep an eye on. But there's only so much they can do, people need to participate.
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Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 21, 2018 14:24:50 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that if they don't get playtest feedback they are much, much less likely to make any changes. To the example of the Sepulcher I could only find 3 Battle Reports during the Black Fleet CID that used the Sepulcher. 3 tests. In fact searching "Sepulcher" in the Black Fleet CID only returned 11 total posts. Searching "Victor" in the Armored Corps cycle nets 170 results and "Blightbringer" in Primal Terrors has 465. So perhaps the issue isn't "PP didn't do enough to buff it" but "Nobody gave them data". It's just like the Christmas cycle when they said "The Champion of the Wall is almost perfect" and everyone blew up; turns out they just weren't getting any feedback so all they can do is assume the model is fine. If people don't participate then it's simply not going to do any good. Now the obvious slippery slope of this is that only the faction that have lots of players get really good CIDs, which PP should keep an eye on. But there's only so much they can do, people need to participate. the champion's data was right there, it was the only thing the Menites were talking about (Seeing as they basically hit the bullseye on the first shot for Faithful Masses). They straight ignored it, and when called out they made odd references to having more data than we do.
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Post by streetpizza on Mar 21, 2018 14:55:15 GMT
Yeah that was one of the weirdest things to happen in CID that I ever saw.
In their defense the Christmas CID was a huge cycle given the number of factions involved and I don't envy them the task of trying to sort through that much crap.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Mar 21, 2018 15:06:23 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that if they don't get playtest feedback they are much, much less likely to make any changes. To the example of the Sepulcher I could only find 3 Battle Reports during the Black Fleet CID that used the Sepulcher. 3 tests. In fact searching "Sepulcher" in the Black Fleet CID only returned 11 total posts. Searching "Victor" in the Armored Corps cycle nets 170 results and "Blightbringer" in Primal Terrors has 465. Note that the Sepulcher wasn't included in the Black Fleet CID, whereas the Victor was included in Armored Corps and both Legion Gargantuans in the Primal Terrors CID. PP hands out infractions when you try to tell them what needs to change instead of testing what they ask you to Now, you have a point when saying the above about the original Battle Engine/Thrall CID, because then hardly anyone was testing Mechanithralls and/or Sepulchers. This was because so much was going on and people just like Banes better than Thralls. That was indeed a missed opportunity, but also keep in mind that the paradigm for Colossals was different then, as apparently PP thought they were mostly fine.
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Post by jisidro on Mar 21, 2018 15:19:18 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that if they don't get playtest feedback they are much, much less likely to make any changes. To the example of the Sepulcher I could only find 3 Battle Reports during the Black Fleet CID that used the Sepulcher. 3 tests. In fact searching "Sepulcher" in the Black Fleet CID only returned 11 total posts. Searching "Victor" in the Armored Corps cycle nets 170 results and "Blightbringer" in Primal Terrors has 465. So perhaps the issue isn't "PP didn't do enough to buff it" but "Nobody gave them data". It's just like the Christmas cycle when they said "The Champion of the Wall is almost perfect" and everyone blew up; turns out they just weren't getting any feedback so all they can do is assume the model is fine. If people don't participate then it's simply not going to do any good. Now the obvious slippery slope of this is that only the faction that have lots of players get really good CIDs, which PP should keep an eye on. But there's only so much they can do, people need to participate. 2 things: - CID is voluntary and shouldn't be their sole playtesting experience. A model not being tested isn't good feedback, it just isn't. If people aren't testing then they should. People don't have to participate, they choose to do so. Nobody has to give them data, they get paid to come up with that data unlike the CID participants. - Are you saying that if something is broken it shouldn't be played so as not to be changed? The corollary of that is that broken stuff has to be tested from out of the faction or it'll be released broken... Not good.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Mar 21, 2018 15:37:16 GMT
Apologies, I had mis-remembered and thought the Sepulcher was in Black Fleet. A search in the Battle Engines/Thralls board returns 69 total results, which is a much better number but still lower than the other two colossals/gargs mentioned. The paradigm may have been different, I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but that doesn't change the fact that they didn't get as much feedback on the Sepulcher as they did on the Blightbringer or Victor, the two models specifically called out in this thread. the champion's data was right there, it was the only thing the Menites were talking about (Seeing as they basically hit the bullseye on the first shot for Faithful Masses). They straight ignored it, and when called out they made odd references to having more data than we do. They have said repeatedly that Feedback Form feedback and battle reports count for more than Theory and Listbuilding when it comes to balance decisions. T&L and Dev Talks are good for finding potential problems and occasionally proposing solutions but they don't replace playtest data. They also said both on the board and in NQPrime 2 that they initially didn't get a lot of feedback on the Champion and that led them to believe that his rules were in a good place for release. 2 things: - CID is voluntary and shouldn't be their sole playtesting experience. A model not being tested isn't good feedback, it just isn't. If people aren't testing then they should. People don't have to participate, they choose to do so. Nobody has to give them data, they get paid to come up with that data unlike the CID participants. - Are you saying that if something is broken it shouldn't be played so as not to be changed? The corollary of that is that broken stuff has to be tested from out of the faction or it'll be released broken... Not good. Of course CID should be voluntary, I don't think anyone has said it shouldn't be (I'm not sure how you would even enforce that). But that doesn't change the fact that more feedback is better than less feedback, I don't think that's an arguable point. I'm confused a bit as you seem to be implying that PP just throws rules on a card and them hands them to CID, which is not the case in the slightest. They playtest it before they put it in CID and we've seen that they playtest it after CID since sometimes model releases aren't the same as the final CID rules. From what I can tell the rules we get in week 1 of a CID are pretty close to what the release rules would be if CID didn't exist. I don't really know how to respond to your second point. I'm not sure where I could have been read as saying that we should avoid testing strong things, my point was very much emphasizing that more playtesting is better. So yea, idk what your reacting to here.
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Post by jisidro on Mar 21, 2018 15:54:12 GMT
HubertJFarnsworth You said that Sepulcher didn't get as much attention from players as the Blightbringer and the Viktor did and perhaps that was the reason it didn't "get as much" from CID. I responded to that and to the idea that if something is less tested it has a bigger chance to not be adjusted... Which means bias can lead to testing the bad and leaving the good or broken because that gives "your" faction the best chance of getting a "strong" CID... Which ofc perverts the whole process. Before you say they test stuff and make changes as they see fit... I know less than 5 names on the Dev teams and those guys seem pretty swamped... Between the odd new game, going to cons, making factions and testing who knows how many iterations of rules it's easy to focus on what CID presents you with.... I sometimes spot a thread that outlines exactly the changes done the following version of the rules and I sometimes wonder it was the decisive piece of feedback or just THE piece of feedback. So far I think the process has been strong and seems to be working very well but I have to wonder what happens when 2 guys are out at the same time... After all unlike MK3 people fail morale checks and sometimes need a time out.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Mar 21, 2018 16:30:55 GMT
The problem is that they don't think of everything at the same time. I think this is a very astute observation, and a core frustration of this kind of "running updates" type of game that all miniature wargames are. We saw it to a huge degree with GW codexes of the past. They would release a codex with a certain design style, and everything was fine. Then time would pass, and they would release some new codexes... and over time, their design philosophy would change. New rules would be written in a different way than the old rules, sometimes making them stronger, sometimes weaker, but with distinct differences in ways of thinking behind them. So you could trace different design eras as you went back through the rules chronologically. Because WM also releases models and rules gradually over time, it falls into the same problem. Because the ideas of the game designers are not stagnant, they are always evolving. And with the way wargames have their business model, it is not possible to rewrite and re-release the whole game constantly in tune with small shifts in design style. So different parts of the game will always be out of synch with each other. It's basically a premise of the genre, it seems.
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Post by Aegis on Mar 21, 2018 18:28:06 GMT
I don't think there is a big issue with biases in CID, since biases are on both sides.
While it's true that players of a particular faction tend to partecipate more to the CID involving their faction, the combined number of all other faction players is not particulary behind (During a CID, it seems to me that about half of the partecipating players are members of the actual CID faction, and the other half is composed by players of other factions).
While it's true that faction players may be biased and tend to only talk about underperforming models, the players of the other factions tend to do the exact opposite and only talk about the supposed overperforming models, so that balances out.
I remember people screaming at OPness in both Trenchers and Gun Mages CIDs, as an example, while nothing particulary out of the line seems to have come out of them in the end. The actual models complained about in Cygnar, as an example, are models that never gone through CID like Nemo3.
In general, the only issues I see coming out of CID are when PP gets stuck into a bad idea and doesn't want to hear any call for changes.
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Post by josephkerr on Mar 21, 2018 19:07:42 GMT
HubertJFarnsworth You said that Sepulcher didn't get as much attention from players as the Blightbringer and the Viktor did and perhaps that was the reason it didn't "get as much" from CID. I responded to that and to the idea that if something is less tested it has a bigger chance to not be adjusted... Which means bias can lead to testing the bad and leaving the good or broken because that gives "your" faction the best chance of getting a "strong" CID... Which ofc perverts the whole process. Before you say they test stuff and make changes as they see fit... I know less than 5 names on the Dev teams and those guys seem pretty swamped... Between the odd new game, going to cons, making factions and testing who knows how many iterations of rules it's easy to focus on what CID presents you with.... I sometimes spot a thread that outlines exactly the changes done the following version of the rules and I sometimes wonder it was the decisive piece of feedback or just THE piece of feedback. So far I think the process has been strong and seems to be working very well but I have to wonder what happens when 2 guys are out at the same time... After all unlike MK3 people fail morale checks and sometimes need a time out. The counterpoint is that its obvious PP does testing outside CID because we have to hold our breaths between end of CID and model release to see if our favorite stuff made it thru. The Archangel is not 36 points for example. Faithful Masses was overwhelmingly approved by players coming out of CID, but had a crucial alteration to it before being released, having its +2/+2 hit/damage buff for jacks become limited to Heavies because Menoth lights are already super efficient and there were probably well tested concerns that Faithful Masses would spam lights and cheap infantry. Reading and reacting to tester feedback is a part of good testing while blindly following it isnt, which I agree with you on. But CID is not the final step and more work has to be done.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Mar 21, 2018 19:55:01 GMT
It's important to remember too that Hungerford, Pagani, Shick, and Soles are not the only people at PP who play the game. Every employee participates in playtesting to some extent.
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Post by jisidro on Mar 22, 2018 9:38:08 GMT
It's important to remember too that Hungerford, Pagani, Shick, and Soles are not the only people at PP who play the game. Every employee participates in playtesting to some extent. I doubt Schick does a lot of playtesting... He is the Marketing director, right? But ok... 4 guys and some unspecified colaboration... Doesn't sound like a lot.
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Post by Cryptix on Mar 22, 2018 12:36:35 GMT
It's important to remember too that Hungerford, Pagani, Shick, and Soles are not the only people at PP who play the game. Every employee participates in playtesting to some extent. I doubt Schick does a lot of playtesting... He is the Marketing director, right? But ok... 4 guys and some unspecified colaboration... Doesn't sound like a lot. ...Do you really think they don't have an internal playtester department?
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Post by macdaddy on Mar 22, 2018 12:50:36 GMT
I doubt Schick does a lot of playtesting... He is the Marketing director, right? But ok... 4 guys and some unspecified colaboration... Doesn't sound like a lot. ...Do you really think they don't have an internal playtester department? You know, sometimes, when they release things like Una2 was released, or when initial rules for things like Makay, with 2 of the battletanks, that are clearly over the top. It makes me wonder how extensive the testing is. I mean honestly, Did they actually test Una2? how in the world did she come out that busted? The other thing could be, that in CiD, they specifically release super silly models, just to see how the community reacts. But as more CiD’s Happen, I feel this reason is less likeley.
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