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Post by Kriegsspiele on Dec 19, 2018 16:37:15 GMT
A friend of mine just analyzed the T3 tournament data: It took about 10 years to make WMH popular in Germany. It took just 3 years to radically decrease public tournament play. The trend was already obvious 2 years ago at the end of 2016.
The bottom graph is the average utilisation: Given a 16 players' tourney, it had only about 11 players in 2018 on average. Not in the stats: Way more tourneys than ever were announced but got canceled entirely. The once famous team tourney HMD wasn't even announced in 2018.
What's really interesting in the tourney chart is how MK2 and MK3 affected the tourney scene. - To remind you: MK2 was released in mid 2010 (and stabilized the tourney scene in Germany immediately). MK3 was released (not officially but the spoiled rules' copies) in May 2016. The downwards trend was already statistically significant at the end of 2016 and even more in early 2017.
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Post by sludgeogre on Dec 19, 2018 17:25:53 GMT
The competitive scene in my local area (Eugene, Oregon, very small area) has declined immensely in the same timeframe. I blame Guild Ball and then Kill Team for the lack of people joining the game now, but before that, people really didn't like the larger scale of MK3, really hated how themes took their favorite elements of their factions away (in their eyes, they didn't like having to play in a sandbox, or against factions that had themes when they did not in early MK3), and were massively upset by the end of the Pressganger program, after which no one ever stepped up to really organize anything.
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Post by tapecrawler on Dec 19, 2018 18:49:53 GMT
It died here at the beginning of MKIII as well. From talking to the former players one of main problems that was brought up is the game is all about memory and being able to remember: the rules, the model stats, the special rules, and the interaction between the aforementioned items. MKIII changed so much that most of the guys didn’t want to dive back into the hardcore memorization needed to be competitive on a decent level when they could learn pretty much the entire game of Guild Bowl in a couple of days. And Guild Bowl was the new shiny here since the mini guy at the gaming store was fascinated with it and was pushing it pretty hard. Myself and a couple other guys tried to reinvigorate the WMH scene and then CID started. That was the final nail in the coffin. Now the rules are in a constant state of flux and nobody around here wants to invest the effort in to learning and remembering week 1, week 2, week 3, and then possibly another change with the final card. And it’s not just that the only models affected are in CID. There have been a few universal rules that have changed and modified cards of of models not even in the CID cycle.
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Post by streetpizza on Dec 19, 2018 19:26:09 GMT
This is the thing that's always baffled me. Why is it so hard for people that don't want to participate in CID to just ignore CID? You don't need to memorize week 1, 2 and 3. Just be aware when there's an update. Those are relatively minor and only occur once every 2 to 3 months.
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bundeez
Junior Strategist
Posts: 325
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Post by bundeez on Dec 19, 2018 19:44:54 GMT
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing I can only agree that the exact same has happened in my country/meta - for the same reasons as sludgeogre mentioned I would imagine. Not to start this whole discussion again, but I really can't wrap my head around what is going on at PP these days: Mk3 was a big failure, much of what was changed/nerfed/altered didn't make any sense to us, the players. What errors we saw as clear as day, PP claimed to have done for good reasons -> then CID came and changed a lot of things back to what mk2 looked like (thanks Pagani). Just look at Hordes: A lot of warbeasts got a pts. drop for example. They sure pissed off a lot of loyal fanbase with the edition release AND killed of any chance of new players with PG gone. And now a bunch of good people working there "quit" their job. What is going on??? Nice to have some factual data to all of this. Looks like we are back to basic (start mk2). Can't wait to see what PP has in store for us, because the 2019 Insider sure as hell didn't get me very pumped ud!
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Post by sand20go on Dec 19, 2018 19:59:34 GMT
That is really interesting and probably great work on market research given the tools available.
My own take is the same as sludgeogre - it is the demise of Pressgangers. You simply can not bank on unrecognized and unrewarded volunteers on an international scale.
We have been blessed in Southern California with several volunteers who have stepped up and organized things. It has kept at least competitive WM going and likely KEPT players around. Not sure about growth - and I know that the other problem is sales with several LGS essentially discountinuing stocking the game due to low sales (aka not much player growth).
I think that PP needs to bite the bullet. Figure out a staffing plan that allows you to have a brand representative (or contract with a marketing agency so you don't have the employee issues) to grow metas.
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Post by dazzla on Dec 19, 2018 20:23:45 GMT
Very interesting. My play group has shrunk a lot. However, there are a lot of different things happening at the same time (many of which have been discussed a lot). I think early in MK3, some factions were hit hard (such as Skorne). I also feel that most people preferred not to play themes. Of course, you do not have to play in theme if you do not wish to, but from a competitive point of view it is difficult. Also, now the cost of building a Warmachine army is high.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Dec 20, 2018 14:12:12 GMT
nobody around here wants to invest the effort in to learning and remembering week 1, week 2, week 3, and then possibly another change with the final card. Why would they, if they don't take part in the playtesting process ? They should use the real rules, not the ones that don't exist in the actual game until final publication.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Dec 20, 2018 14:45:42 GMT
Interesting (and unsettling) data.
Gotta agree with the other posters here regarding CiD - there is no need to obsess over CiD rules. They are beta-test rules, and should be treated as such. For the vast majority of your games (all of them if you're not actively involved in CiD) you should just ignore them and actually play the finalised, polished rules of WMH. I do believe that communities being clearer about this would lessen some of the reticence many players regarding coming back to a game that is in a far better place than they remember it during the early days of MKIII.
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Dec 20, 2018 17:11:00 GMT
There is much to be said for ignoring CID in order to keep a clear head about the live rules, but that's easier said than done. I try to not spend too much time on the CID forums or playing CID games just for the sake of my sanity, but if too many of us do that, then CID will self-select for only the most motivated powergamers and it will get even worse.
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Post by GumbaFish on Dec 20, 2018 17:49:07 GMT
I think it is a good point about the time investment of learning the new changes. I played MMORPGs for a long time and can think of several instances where large changes occurred (ignoring whether they were good or bad) that resulted in player loss. This finally happened to me as well when I had been comfortably cruising in a familiar game I enjoyed and could play casually since I knew what I was doing. When things changed up I just couldn't reinvest the time to adapt and it was the final push for me to stop playing. I think a lot of players might have been on auto pilot a bit with casters/lists they were comfortable with and could pop into the shop once a week for a few hours and get a game in. Learning new rules again might have been enough to push a lot of those players out simply because they were unwilling or unable to dedicate the time to adjust to the edition change. I'm not saying this is the only reason people left during the edition change, but I think most people focus on specific changes that might have caused players to be dissatisfied. I think a lot of people left simply because things changed and never gave MKIII a real shot.
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Post by Aegis on Dec 20, 2018 18:41:02 GMT
The exact same in the same timeframe happened in my meta and in my country in general. Add to that the closure or abandonement of everything on the side of the main game (High Command, Official Forum, RPG, Novels, No Quarter, Company of Iron, ecc...), the multiple crazy discounts on new stuff that clearly clogs the wharehouses, and the recent departure of 4 historical PP staff members...
I cannot understand how some people can say that the game was never healthier than now...
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gordo
Junior Strategist
My star is green?
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Post by gordo on Dec 20, 2018 18:57:40 GMT
The exact same in the same timeframe happened in my meta and in my country in general. Add to that the closure or abandonement of everything on the side of the main game (High Command, Official Forum, RPG, Novels, No Quarter, Company of Iron, ecc...), the multiple crazy discounts on new stuff that clearly clogs the wharehouses, and the recent departure of 4 historical PP staff members... I cannot understand how some people can say that the game was never healthier than now... When I hear this and say this, it's because they/we are talking about in terms of rules for our style of play (competitive). All those other things (RPG, Company of Iron, etc) we viewed at best as a distraction. This doesn't make it true, but it's what we mean.
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Post by frumiousbandersnatch on Dec 20, 2018 19:08:19 GMT
The exact same in the same timeframe happened in my meta and in my country in general. Add to that the closure or abandonement of everything on the side of the main game (High Command, Official Forum, RPG, Novels, No Quarter, Company of Iron, ecc...), the multiple crazy discounts on new stuff that clearly clogs the wharehouses, and the recent departure of 4 historical PP staff members... I cannot understand how some people can say that the game was never healthier than now... None of the things you mentioned have to do with the state of the game "Warmachine and Hordes" as such. The game itself is very good. After more than two straight years of winding back the colossal muckup that was Mk3 the devs have created a pretty great product. It is virtually everything else surrounding the company that is in disarray.Nobody seems to know what is going on and nobody cares. Unfortunately for the game of WarmaHordes and for the company as well, the game is just not able to stand on its own merits anymore. A great game means nothing when you make absolutely no effort to get people to play it. The nice new models with tight new rules are meaningless when you do nothing to get them into the hands of new players. PP has utterly failed at fostering a community or advertising their product. They basically don't interface with social media or outside gaming news sites or companies. They pretty much just keep posting to the small echo chamber they have left. No one besides the small core group left playing cares about PP or the game. Now that they finally have a good product in their hands I actually think PP could have the potential to recapture some of their alienated audience or even get new players into the game. The problem is, they can't sell models worth a damn. Nobody wants them. There are no new players and even if there were, a new player can pick up a massive army on the secondary market for 20% of MSRP because both former players and LGS can't ditch their minis fast enough. Personally, I think they ought to have lots and lots of cheap bundles, full starter armies, expansion blisters/boxes centered around themes. Repacking things into boxes like this reduces SKU bloat and makes it easier for distributors and stores to carry the product and gives many different entry points into the game for new players; then most importantly they have to market and push hard to get people interested. Network with something besides their own company FB page or posting on the company site. I'm just worried it may be too little too late even if they did course correct at this point.
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snoozer
Junior Strategist
Posts: 467
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Post by snoozer on Dec 20, 2018 20:31:49 GMT
I think the curve describes perfectly when 40k balance reached its worst point. It then became better with the 8th edition and this together with lots of gw and non gw alternatives now keeps people from moving to wm/h. I only ever moved because 40k was fully unplayable on any level.
Mkiii and Cid have created the best game state yet. Every game changes and updates, if you do not want to follow that's not PPs fault for keeping the game fresh and interesting.
The decline is a problem non the less. To me it seems less people come in and more people start quitting. Probably "live" getting in their way, if you have family playing tourneys becomes very very difficult.
And +1 to everything frumiousbandersnatch said
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