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Post by slaughtersun on Jun 5, 2018 14:48:33 GMT
If the game is to simple and streamlined we want more depth. If it has models/rules interactions it has become a bloated mess. If the company release models without consulting the community then they don't care / listen to their customers/playerbase. If they do implement a process to get community feedback then it must be perfect otherwise its useless. Repeat ad eternum et ad nauseum for every game company out there...
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Jun 5, 2018 14:52:51 GMT
To be honest, a lot of the post sounds like “we are doing nothing to bring in new players or retain them, why aren’t they sticking around? Must be PP’s fault...” probably bc PP had a plan for that, but then decided against it. im not saying its not on other players but if they want communities to thrive, its also kinda on them to help it along. they were doing cool stuff like story driven events i havnt seen in a while. 1 year? they took a community idea, caster/spell/feat draft and sold it. like really? how is that not in pdf for free like everything else? (correct me if im wrong) but on the flip side, they did do stuff like company of iron, which tries to get away from the tourney scene. which i liked the idea of. other companies like wizards has got this down to a "T" free events with free cards to help bring people in. if you win there are playing mats. there is a store close to me where they literally run something magic *every* day of the week... now tell me it the players fault... maybe they need to help push stuff at the store level and not push it onto the players to get stuff going. *EDIT* it would be sweet if they had objectives or flags for the participants of an event. they make dice and tokens, why arent those pushed to stores as rewards. PP still does story driven events. They did Vengeful Deeds in March, and included a special mini in the package. They still do a few narrative events a year, such as summer rampage, longest night, etc. And they still have the journeyman packet. Event organizers can get prize packets for these events. The problem isn’t that PP doesn’t do enough to promote narrative events or hobby stuff; the problem is that the player base ignores this in favour of Yet Another 75 Point Two-List Steamroller. Now, they might not give away as much free stuff for organized play as WotC, but it’s always going to be harder for a miniatures company to do that than a CCG. MtG is basically a license to print money, cards are cheap to produce and ship, and people are more interested in collecting limited exclusives. And, the tooling costs of a new special edition cards are much cheaper than special edition minis.
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bward
Junior Strategist
Posts: 184
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Post by bward on Jun 5, 2018 14:59:07 GMT
I always am a bit surprised by threads like these because my meta has taken off in such a huge way since mk3, but... In our area, not long after mk3 began we started up a local league (we call it a Scrum). It basically plays like a steamroller where you only play one game a week. It started out roughly 10 people, and has now grown to over 36. It has really motivated the community in our area and has increased tournament attendance dramatically. I think two things happened to make this possible: 1. Mk3 was released and is continually polished to better balance and re-balance the game so that it isn't always the same few lists on top. This really improved the competitive depth of the game. 2. We (the players) found a format that lowered the barrier of entry (time commitment, finding other players, finding locations to play) and then promoted the ever loving crap out of it. Step 1 has already happened and is continuing to happen with every CiD. Step 2 is on you. Would you happen to have a pdf or something similar of the rules for your scrum league? We’ve done something similar in the past but would love to formalize it.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Jun 5, 2018 15:10:26 GMT
WMH is down in my area as well. One store is clearing out all PP stuff. I rarely see people playing the game outside of tournaments, and tournament participation has plummeted. I tend to think part of the problem is the game is starting to collapse under its own weight. There's too much stuff to remember, too many different variations of the same rule, and, honestly, maybe just too many different models. It's funny how they tried to consolidate rules in MK3 and then randomly start adding new variations again anyway. Looking at you Syvestro! Yeah, we heard those promises of streamlining at the start of mk3...and now things are bloated and messy as ever. New factions are so packed with unique rules they will soon run out of font sizes to fit everything at the back of the card. Does everything in Crucible Guard really need 3 ammo types for the game to be deep and strategic?
Just look at the failure Company of Iron is. It could have been a smaller, streamlined, more elegant entry-level game, but it in fact is even more complicated because it uses basic WM&H rules + a lot of additional CoI stuff. PP design philosophy unfortunately isn't up-to-date with modern standards. They still think that to make something better they need to make it bigger and keep adding to it, while, in fact, the way of improvement goes in the opposite direction.
As for the "do it yourselves" comments. I* run tournaments in my city and none of them are straight 75pts. The least I offer is 75/50pts variant which means people can play 75pts, but if one player prefers 50pts they have to play the smaller format. I also run a no theme forces event.
When I informed about it on Polish WM&H FB group, there were still people who got the message and liked the idea. There were former players reading this. And yet, hardly anyone came to any of those events-no new/returning players, the same few faces again and again. Attendance in November -12, in December - 8, in March -7, in May -6...
I think of trying a 30pts event but seriously wonder if there's any sense in this - the same couple of vets will come to play a format they don't really like with hopes of contributing to the growth of the community, but chances of anyone who really needs such a format to start/go back to playing WM&H are really slim.
*- and by that I mean me alone. In a 2 million capital city
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Post by greytemplar on Jun 5, 2018 15:36:09 GMT
What really needs to happen is for the PG program to come back in some fashion. That and the way mk3 was handled are what has hurt the game.
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 15:42:26 GMT
PP still does story driven events. They did Vengeful Deeds in March, and included a special mini in the package. They still do a few narrative events a year, such as summer rampage, longest night, etc. And they still have the journeyman packet. Event organizers can get prize packets for these events. The problem isn’t that PP doesn’t do enough to promote narrative events or hobby stuff; the problem is that the player base ignores this in favour of Yet Another 75 Point Two-List Steamroller. Now, they might not give away as much free stuff for organized play as WotC, but it’s always going to be harder for a miniatures company to do that than a CCG. MtG is basically a license to print money, cards are cheap to produce and ship, and people are more interested in collecting limited exclusives. And, the tooling costs of a new special edition cards are much cheaper than special edition minis. Ah, thanks for the correction on seasonal stuff. i see your point with the favour. did you hear how the turn out for what ever figure it was that had the running campaign to get him into your faction turned out? maybe if they had a league that made a new mini once a year. that would get people invested in that? but i could see people complain, why play if the mini isnt for my faction. i understand that about the free stuff. isnt there a saying about needing to spend money to make money? while those could be expensive, sell them at cost for a entry cost to get in a event? that way people still walk away with a flag or something. since most steamrollers cost $10 to get in for a prize pool. thats not even close to a guaranteed to give you something outside of placing at the event.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jun 5, 2018 15:55:41 GMT
I feel like PP have made a rod for their own back a bit in pitching Warmachine as 'The most competitive and balanced game on the market' for most of it's lifespan.
It's off-putting to more casual players, and the hardcore players become disgruntled when the balance falls down.
Something like 40k sees plenty of tournament play, despite GW not giving a monkeys about making a tight competitive and balanced rule-set, but in doing so GW get best of both worlds, it appeals to casual gamers still, and the more hardcore gamers have something to work with at least.
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 15:57:48 GMT
I feel like PP have made a rod for their own back a bit in pitching Warmachine as 'The most competitive and balanced game on the market' for most of it's lifespan. It's off-putting to more casual players, and the hardcore players become disgruntled when the balance falls down. Something like 40k sees plenty of tournament play, despite GW not giving a monkeys about making a tight competitive and balanced rule-set, but in doing so GW get best of both worlds, it appeals to casual gamers still, and the more hardcore gamers have something to work with at least. i wanted to say something like but but didnt know how
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Jun 5, 2018 16:03:57 GMT
PP still does story driven events. They did Vengeful Deeds in March, and included a special mini in the package. They still do a few narrative events a year, such as summer rampage, longest night, etc. And they still have the journeyman packet. Event organizers can get prize packets for these events. The problem isn’t that PP doesn’t do enough to promote narrative events or hobby stuff; the problem is that the player base ignores this in favour of Yet Another 75 Point Two-List Steamroller. Now, they might not give away as much free stuff for organized play as WotC, but it’s always going to be harder for a miniatures company to do that than a CCG. MtG is basically a license to print money, cards are cheap to produce and ship, and people are more interested in collecting limited exclusives. And, the tooling costs of a new special edition cards are much cheaper than special edition minis. Ah, thanks for the correction on seasonal stuff. i see your point with the favour. did you hear how the turn out for what ever figure it was that had the running campaign to get him into your faction turned out? maybe if they had a league that made a new mini once a year. that would get people invested in that? but i could see people complain, why play if the mini isnt for my faction. i understand that about the free stuff. isnt there a saying about needing to spend money to make money? while those could be expensive, sell them at cost for a entry cost to get in a event? that way people still walk away with a flag or something. since most steamrollers cost $10 to get in for a prize pool. thats not even close to a guaranteed to give you something outside of placing at the event. I know the Holden league a while ago had a fair bit of uptake locally, even with some competitive players. The local guy running this year’s Vengeful Deeds league charged a $10 entry fee, which got you the included model, so that seemed fair. And with the seasonal events, everyone goes home with something, be it some tokens, patches, or whatever is in the package. Now, it might not equal your entry fee in terms of value, and I think any excess beyond covering the cost of the kit goes to raffle prizes, but everyone at least gets something. Though, I must admit, a cool laser cut objective marker or flag would be a good prize and is something PP could consider for future events.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Jun 5, 2018 16:14:28 GMT
I feel like PP have made a rod for their own back a bit in pitching Warmachine as 'The most competitive and balanced game on the market' for most of it's lifespan. It's off-putting to more casual players, and the hardcore players become disgruntled when the balance falls down. Something like 40k sees plenty of tournament play, despite GW not giving a monkeys about making a tight competitive and balanced rule-set, but in doing so GW get best of both worlds, it appeals to casual gamers still, and the more hardcore gamers have something to work with at least. I tend to agree. I feel like PP did a lot of stuff in the early days to distinguish themselves from GW, but some of that may have caused issues in the long run. For example, they had to back away from Page 5 in the new edition, and there was some nerdrage over that. They also promoted themselves as not having painting requirements, and as a result, you have a large and vocal section of the player base who doesn’t care about aesthetics, so WMH tables tend to be the worst looking at any convention and while PP does a good job of promoting the hobby, that tends to fall on deaf ears a lot of the time. Being the hardcore competitive tournament game may have brought a lot of refugees over from GW, but now we’re seeing it perhaps limit the appeal a bit. Still, I think as many of those issues are on us as a community rather than on PP themselves. For example, PP can promote journeyman leagues and write fun, casual content and promote the hell out of the hobby aspect, but if the player base that they spent years cultivating ignores it, then there is only so much they can do.
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 16:43:47 GMT
Ah, thanks for the correction on seasonal stuff. i see your point with the favour. did you hear how the turn out for what ever figure it was that had the running campaign to get him into your faction turned out? maybe if they had a league that made a new mini once a year. that would get people invested in that? but i could see people complain, why play if the mini isnt for my faction. i understand that about the free stuff. isnt there a saying about needing to spend money to make money? while those could be expensive, sell them at cost for a entry cost to get in a event? that way people still walk away with a flag or something. since most steamrollers cost $10 to get in for a prize pool. thats not even close to a guaranteed to give you something outside of placing at the event. I know the Holden league a while ago had a fair bit of uptake locally, even with some competitive players. The local guy running this year’s Vengeful Deeds league charged a $10 entry fee, which got you the included model, so that seemed fair. And with the seasonal events, everyone goes home with something, be it some tokens, patches, or whatever is in the package. Now, it might not equal your entry fee in terms of value, and I think any excess beyond covering the cost of the kit goes to raffle prizes, but everyone at least gets something. Though, I must admit, a cool laser cut objective marker or flag would be a good prize and is something PP could consider for future events. there are so many companies out there begging to be discovered, like tectonic craft studios that does cool laser cut stuff that im sure would be dying for someone like PP to reach out and ask them to laser cut stuff for them. that sounds super awesome... its also rather cheap
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Post by cygnarstronk on Jun 5, 2018 16:48:03 GMT
Theme machine and early MK3 destroyed the game. Early MK3 was utter crap and full of lies. Theme machine means that you have to buy everything a theme allows to just even play the game, it's stupid.
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gordo
Junior Strategist
My star is green?
Posts: 548
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Post by gordo on Jun 5, 2018 16:49:56 GMT
I always am a bit surprised by threads like these because my meta has taken off in such a huge way since mk3, but... In our area, not long after mk3 began we started up a local league (we call it a Scrum). It basically plays like a steamroller where you only play one game a week. It started out roughly 10 people, and has now grown to over 36. It has really motivated the community in our area and has increased tournament attendance dramatically. I think two things happened to make this possible: 1. Mk3 was released and is continually polished to better balance and re-balance the game so that it isn't always the same few lists on top. This really improved the competitive depth of the game. 2. We (the players) found a format that lowered the barrier of entry (time commitment, finding other players, finding locations to play) and then promoted the ever loving crap out of it. Step 1 has already happened and is continuing to happen with every CiD. Step 2 is on you. Would you happen to have a pdf or something similar of the rules for your scrum league? We’ve done something similar in the past but would love to formalize it. It's more or less the same PDF as the steam roller, but you get a week to get your game in instead of all games on a single Sunday. Honestly, that last part I think is key to what makes it work for us. For most players, dedicating an entire day to a tournament sucks (myself included) but one game a week works great with scheduling. You get a consistently different group of opponents, fluffy-fun lists eventually end up playing fluffy-fun lists thanks to pairings after round 2-3, and you don't have to worry about everyone getting to the local FLGS for a game. Several of us have tables in our homes, and the Scrum-Master has three set up in his house. We use Conflict Chamber and Facebook to get it all organized. Works great, and as new players get more comfortable, they start going to tournaments. Bunch of us went to SOO. As we grew, we attracted a couple high level tournament circuit players too. But the easy format and smaller time commitment keeps it good for casual gamers too. I'm checking with our Scrum-Master, I'll get you a link via PM when I receive it.
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 17:01:41 GMT
Theme machine and early MK3 destroyed the game. Early MK3 was utter crap and full of lies. Theme machine means that you have to buy everything a theme allows to just even play the game, it's stupid. ok, so the mk3 launch was legit garbage. ill agree with you there. while i understand what youre saying with themes, its quite the opposite. *new player walks in* new player: that (insert model/unit/whathaveyou) looks cool! vet: yea, and if you play them with this stuff that looks like it you get cool bonuses that new player proooobably isnt going to drop 400 for a new army right off the get go. theyre probably going to get that thing plus a caster and one or two other things. it gives them direction. you absolutely dont need to buy *everything* for that specific theme *just* to play the game. also, if theyre already spending money on the game, enough to make a 75pt army, whats the difference how they get there, they still need enough to get to 75 pts. so regardless if they get things a theme allows to play a game or random stuff to get to 75pts, they definitely dont need *everything* for that theme and this way helps more than hurts in pointing them in the right direction. EDIT: ill agree it hurts people that were already playing the game when mk3 dropped and they had a whole bunch of random stuff and now they need to actually pick a direction and buy new stuff while leaving those odds and ends for other themes on the shelf. so, i can see it that way.
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Post by hocestbellum on Jun 5, 2018 17:26:43 GMT
while i understand what youre saying with themes, its quite the opposite. *new player walks in* new player: that (insert model/unit/whathaveyou) looks cool! vet: yea, and if you play them with this stuff that looks like it you get cool bonuses As an anecdotal counterpoint, let's transpose my own origin story into Mk3: *I walk in and start looking through the rulebook* Vet: Thinking of getting Khador? Me: Yeah! Blokes in steam powered death suits, condemned criminals chained to cursed blades, and murderers pressed into service... I love that 'win at all costs' mentality. I can't wait to play all those things together. Vet: No.
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