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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 26, 2018 21:40:18 GMT
There is no power creep, except possibly in terms of huge based/BAHI models. Models are released, the community loses their shit for a few months over how OP it is, and then the meta adjusts. Once in awhile, something actually absurd is released (or more likely, a new release unlocks something that was absurd before) and it needs to be nerfed, but that's not power creep. Players whined about Grymkin when they were released...then they adapted. Players whined about Kolgrimma when she was released...then they adapted. Players whined about Anamag when she was released...then they adapted. Players are currently whining about Tharn...they will adapt. Some things have been released that may be actively bad for the game (the proliferation of anti-healing tech, anti-place tech, and arcane vortex everywhere is a profoundly uninteractive trend that incentivizes people to just smash models together in the centre of the table), but that's not the same thing as power creep. The problem is....look at just about any "how do I deal with X?" thread in a faction forum. The vast majority of the answers are "bring a list tailored to fight it", rather than "use the list you have like this". You can see a bundle of examples in this same thread. And the reason everyone gets the same stuff is pretty simple--because a lot of the time, if you don't have the ability to say "no" ready to go, some matchups drop to 80/20 or worse. The sheer unadultered hyper-fun of Harbinger without GW. Wacky "wake me up when you win" Rahn assassinations and Stranglehold stunlocking a colossal for half the game without antimagic. Empty cloudwalls without a Guidance dispenser. This is why gear checks and hard counters are bad--whether it's countered or not, someone's going to get frustrated. The game has always had the potential to be won or lost in the list-building phase, and honestly? It's better now than it's been in the past, because the most egregiously tuned lists out there are big 'ol stat bricks, not control lists that stop you playing the game. At least it's possible to outplay a bad matchup against Iona or Anamag. With Haley2, it was a case of 'see if the opponent can win their game of solitaire without clocking themselves. In any case 'bring tools to fight X isn't the same as saying 'bring list X tailored to fight list Y'. If I want to play Anamag, I can't rely on my models surviving getting hit, and I need an answer to hellmouths. There are several ways I could go about building a list that accomplishes those goals, though - I could run chaff infantry that don't care about your fancy stats (hooray, you're Mat stupid PS stupid, I'm Def 12 Arm 14. go nuts.). I could run a strong gunline that can remove the blightbringer at range/sandpaper off chosen/warmongers faster than they can kill me. I can play for assassination (not a great idea on it's own, but a solid backup plan). I can play control. I can out-threat warmongers and get up on attrition before they get to start hitting me with their stupid high stats. I can bring tools that make it easier to kill chosen and warmongers (anti-healing tech). Basically, there are ways I can build a list that make the matchup easier, but generally speaking, they don't boil down to 'must bring X caster in Y build'. That's internet monoculture speaking there. An answer to a meta list doesn't have to auto-win into it, it just has to be able to play the game, and there are usually lots of ways to do that. Now, there are definitely gear checks in the game (and these are, and have always been, bad game design). Cloudwalls if you don't have an out, Incorporeal and no magic weapons, recursion and no RFP are big ones. But all of these gear checks are still less bad than they've been in the past, in that the answers are more widespread, more available, and easier to include in lists without them having to be a 'silver bullet'. And when there are meta threats out there that do require highly specific answers just to play the game (Haley2, Nemo3, Una2, Wurmwood, Karchev)... they get nerfed. That's not a sign of an unhealthy competitive meta, or power creep. In point of fact, it's notable that only 1 new release caster has been nerfed thus far in Mk3 (Una2), and the others are all holdovers from Mk2. The game is slowly getting more balanced.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 26, 2018 0:35:09 GMT
No power creep? Well, they nerved Madrak2 surving through entire armies just to give Skorne something even better with Makeda3, where not only the warlock but Molik Karn and every single Bronzeback is able to surf through entire armies. Can anybody understand what happened there? Why do they nerv something to give it to others? On the other hand IMO Locke is an example of a well executed toolbox caster. She doesn't seem to be overpowered, her feat is no easy button. She is fun to play with and against. Therefore I think that pp is able to create good rules and interesting models/units. Nothing in Makeda's list except Makeda can surf (and that only on feat turn). And the problem with Madrak wasn't that he had berserk/overtake, it was that he could surf through an army, kill a colossal at the end (because he gained fury when he berserk-killed stuff), then sit there being borderline unkillable between transfers and Grim Salvation. The resemblance to Makeda is passing at best.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 23, 2018 2:18:16 GMT
crimsyn - I mean. Are you seriously going to suggest that Warmachine/Hordes is a system which (even ignoring the community's orientation towards competitive play) lends itself towards casual play? It's a game where you can win or lose by misplacing a model by a quarter inch, by forgetting a single rule on an opponent's cards, or by messing up your order of activations slightly. It's a game where if you don't understand positioning, a single model can eat through 75% of your army without slowing down. It's a game where 90/10 matchups do exist, such that one player simply doesn't get a chance to play if they wander into that matchup. Like...I can't see a single way in which warmachine/hordes could be considered a game that is conducive to playing random tuesday night games with whatever you have to hand. Warhammer and suchlike are pretty dice dependent and skill agnostic (as I remember them), and as such are way better geared towards that kind of single-list-no-prep pickup environment. And, hell, the current iteration of WMH is as good as it's ever been for pick-up games. There's fewer useless models, the most oppressive lists have been nerfed, and the biggest gotchas no longer exist (remember Mk1 top of 1 assassinations? double/triple ports? old Haley2 feat? Excarnate Bile Thralls?). And despite that, it's still not a good game for casual play. The binary, all-or-nothing nature of the rules structure, and the reliance on hard counters, is baked deep into the ruleset, and it's probably not going anywhere. As for the competitive orientation of the community...again, I don't know what you expect PP to do about that. The competitive mindset is pretty well entrenched, and the amount of practice and 'grinding' that's needed to keep improving competitively is such that competitive players tend not to want to spend warmachine time playing non-competitive games. PP can (and has!) put out all the narrative/hobby-based content they want, but if the community gravitates toward steamroller, they're gonna play steamroller. Now, if you've got players in your meta that are making fun of you for playing casual games with another player who's willing to play casually, those people are dicks, but that's neither here nor there in terms of PP encouraging casual play or not. But as for 'making' the community more casual friendly, again - I'm not sure what you're looking for. Most metas that I've experienced encourage the development of new players, but if players want to play competitive games (and moreso if the meta is a competitive meta)...you can't force people to play in a way they don't want to play.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 22, 2018 22:06:06 GMT
There is no power creep, except possibly in terms of huge based/BAHI models. Models are released, the community loses their shit for a few months over how OP it is, and then the meta adjusts. Once in awhile, something actually absurd is released (or more likely, a new release unlocks something that was absurd before) and it needs to be nerfed, but that's not power creep.
Players whined about Grymkin when they were released...then they adapted. Players whined about Kolgrimma when she was released...then they adapted. Players whined about Anamag when she was released...then they adapted. Players are currently whining about Tharn...they will adapt.
Some things have been released that may be actively bad for the game (the proliferation of anti-healing tech, anti-place tech, and arcane vortex everywhere is a profoundly uninteractive trend that incentivizes people to just smash models together in the centre of the table), but that's not the same thing as power creep.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 22, 2018 3:04:25 GMT
I agree with netdragon somewhat: CID does not compensate or "fix" mk3 in any way: - it takes waaay to long for your faction to enter CID and get an update. I play Trollbloods which got Northkin last fall. Currently CID looks like "X" the next 2 months until Infernals kick in until summer. That's 2(!) whole years with no new Trollbloods release. 2 ******* years! With the meta changing every 3-4 monts, that's just too damn slow. Mk2 at least gave everyone "something" every 6-9th month. - CID feels to me like a bad excuse to fix all the errors they made during the mk3 creation. Maybe it's just me.. - Only the very dedicated players want to contribute to CID: I play 0-2 games a week, none of which I want to be an "experiment" for PP to evaluate stuff from. If they really want quality playtesters, then actually hire a bunch of people to do it. Imo it's way more efficient: - you get rid of negative people on the forums which leads to wasted work hours to solve what is good feedback and what is not - you can get way more non-biased battlereports - balance it enough for people to actually buy it, but not draw into the powercreep curse. Oh, I completely agree. CID is a slow, flawed process, and at the current rate of progress it's going to take 6-7 years to hit all of the models that need to get hit. They're weirdly resistant to implementing broad based changes, even when they are clearly intending to do so over time (see also: Colossals/Gargs, Characters-in-themes, etc). About 50% of the models in any given faction need a CID (with a few exceptions), and at the current rate of progress (which seems to be slowing down - we've had 4 CIDs since the 3 month summer break, and we likely will only see 2 more before Infernals) they won't get attention any time soon. Especially if they end up devoting a bunch of time to testing RiotQuest. That being said, it's significantly better than nothing. And I've yet to see a nerf come out of CID that comes anywhere close to the overnerfing of Una2/scarsfells, or Mad Dogs/Karchev.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 22, 2018 0:56:31 GMT
netdragon - I'm gonna disagree with you, both in terms of CID being power creep, and on the necessity/manner of the Cygnar nerfs. Every one of those nerfs (save Haley1) was needed, and was preceded by a long period of cygnar wrecking shit at large events with said models. Storm Lances were literally nerfed because Cygnar players kept saying 'I won't play this theme, storm lances do it better'. Haley2 wasn't even in CID, so I don't see how she derailed it (also, she was, again, the quintessential S-tier caster for most of Mk2 and the start of Mk3). Nemo3 was a caster who won games without even trying, unless specifically countered. None of these models were good for the health of the game, and it's a damn good thing they were nerfed (and all of them are still perfectly playable, too).
I'm not saying that they didn't need the nerfs. What I'm saying is that the frequency of the nerfs - almost literally every CID - really kills any excitement of investing into Cygnar. Also, the trencher's CID went from "hey, let's look at all the new models" to "stop nerfing my stuff!"; as a commuinications and even marketing event (and EVERYTHING that a company does publicly is a markeitng event), it was handled horribly in my opinion.
They nerfed two models (3 if you count the laddermore sidegrade). They released 8 or so new models/kits, and they buffed a good 8 or so more (and I'm being conservative here). Then they buffed gun mages. Then, months later, they nerfed Nemo3. Let's not be hyperbolic about the scale or frequency of the nerfs. Nerfs for cygnar (specifically Nemo3) were a topic in every CID because Nemo3 was the meta's apex predator for a good 8 months. You literally could not design a competitive list pair without having a plan for him. That's not the same as having Cygnar nerfs in 'every CID'. Also, how exactly would you have liked them to have released the nerfs? I'm not really seeing a good way of nerfing models that doesn't 'reduce excitement in faction'. And in terms of marketing...having horribly overpowered meta-bending models and lists continue to exist for longer than they need to (to determine that the nerfs are in fact needed) is going to do more to kill excitement for the game (for players of the other 12 factions) than the nerfs themselves.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 22, 2018 0:50:09 GMT
And yet it has worked... the amount of negativism towards the game/ company that it has crept out of the woodwork is astonishing given that its clearly a player issue. It's almost like people just want an excuse to go all doom and gloom on PP. I often wonder what the world would be like if such energy was spent doing something constructive... Yea, it pains me that the people that "left" the game but still hang out shitting on something a lot of us still enjoy wont be happy until PP puts out a Press Release saying "Yup, you were right all along, the games was shit back in 2016 and we just didn't listen to you, so we're closing up shop" Speaking personally (and as someone who's still playing, and buying), they'd get a lot of credit from me for just admitting that they Firetrucked up the release back in 2016. Their actions since then (CID, continual references to 'how much they've learned') indicates that they understand that they dun goofed, but I think it'd go a long way to just acknowledge that they screwed up, that they're working to fix it, and that they DO have a plan to fix it (because frankly, we still ain't there yet). Frankly, a lot of my problem with PP at this point is the arrogance you see from certain devs at certain points...and honestly, you'd think that the Mk3 release would have knocked that out of them. For them to release a product that was so aggressively unbalanced, while apparently thinking it's fine...then to follow that up by releasing Una2...you'd think it'd make them more cautious about confidently asserting that 'XYZ is fair and balanced'.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 22, 2018 0:39:29 GMT
IMO, PP has a great product in warmachine, and it's gotten that way largely because they've been listening to the top 2% of players, the people who actually know balance well enough, and care about the health of the game enough, to contribute to it's development. Listening to casual players about balance is a terrible idea (and I'm not going to rehash that particular debate), and the game is not oriented towards a casual audience, both because the community is not casual friendly, and because the rules are very all-or-nothing, and do not lend themselves to fun casual play. Most of the 'casual' games I've seen end up being more of a stomp than any competitive game, because the core game rules encourage and allow this (and before anyone says anything, the game has always been like this). I also strongly disagree about the CID leadipowercreep. with a few notable exceptions (one in particular I'll get to later), the things coming out of CID have not been significantly stronger than the strongest things Pre-CID. Factions have gotten stronger through CID, but largely because they were underperforming pre-CID. That being said, their marketing and communications really, really sucks. They lost a ton of players over the Mk3 release (which was terrible), and they lost more players over the way the initial nerf/buff cycle was handled (everything is fine, everything is fine, everything i-NERF!), and they lost still more players with the poor handling of the theme releases. They shuttered the PG program (possibly legally necessary, the lawyers I know are divided on the issue, so they probably made the safe call), and they've really done nothing to sell their product to a broader audience. I do agree that most of their communication lately has been aimed at a select portion of their current audience, and I've seen nothing in the way of concerted marketing aimed at bringing new players in. And without PGers, it's really a crapshoot whether you've got people in your meta that are willing to sell the game for PP (if you even have a meta at all - and without marketing, how are new metas going to get started?) Add in the dismissive way the devs talk to players sometimes (some of them have really weird personal biases about the game), and the lack of communication when worrying things start happening (devs leaving, massive inventory sales, and a product coming out that looks a hell of a lot like Warhammer: End Times), and it's a real problem. *The one exception I'm talking about is the way that they've been releasing horribly pushed huge based models. I get that they're a tough balancing act (they're expensive models, so if they're not competitive people will just skip 'em, especially if they're BAHI), but holy shit, some of the stuff they've pushed out recently is extremely aggressive, and seems clearly oriented towards making the new model a must have for competitive play. netdragon - I'm gonna disagree with you, both in terms of CID being power creep, and on the necessity/manner of the Cygnar nerfs. Every one of those nerfs (save Haley1) was needed, and was preceded by a long period of cygnar wrecking shit at large events with said models. Storm Lances were literally nerfed because Cygnar players kept saying 'I won't play this theme, storm lances do it better'. Haley2 wasn't even in CID, so I don't see how she derailed it (also, she was, again, the quintessential S-tier caster for most of Mk2 and the start of Mk3). Nemo3 was a caster who won games without even trying, unless specifically countered. None of these models were good for the health of the game, and it's a damn good thing they were nerfed (and all of them are still perfectly playable, too).
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 17, 2018 23:40:37 GMT
IG is Champions, and for anyone that's hoping to qualify (or qualified) that's a powerful encouragement to picking a faction that has a decent champions roster. This right here is a great example of different styles from different players. If you’re playing Champions because u wanna compete in IG and you get a new army because u appear to have bad roster options...... well, that’s an event I’m happy to avoid. Ill never switch factions just cos someone else seems to have a better deal. Champions / ADR seems largely an opportunity for PP to test their material outside of a CID, to see how folks skew lists/factions/casters etc, to see what works in a different set of parameters. It is of course a different challenge for players too, to maybe play outside their comfort zone with sub-optimal options. That feels like it should be a fun event rather than a major international, but hey, peeps wanna win stuff (at all costs). I mean, I don't swap factions for competitive advantage (I'm down to two factions at the moment anyways), but I suspect that's the minority approach, if the proportion of CoC/Grymkin players I see in champions formats vs. masters is any indication.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 17, 2018 21:05:09 GMT
Im the most casual of players, yet I agree with none of you. I feel that the problem is not that you forgot there was an upkeep in play, but that you didn't give carefull thought to it's implications when it was put into play in the first place. If you had you wouldn't have forgotten. You all make it sound as if "gotcha" moments are cheap tricks, whereas what they really do is show you there's insights to the game or a level of alertness you still lack. Maybe next time you are very much aware of it, only to find out that in your attempt to circumvent the bad stuff all the awaits you is a second trap. Because people do that, build lists where you have to pick your poison and you can't avoid all of it, or just don't have the time to give it all the thought it deserves. When people build lists to force you to make these kind of mistakes, that's just another legitimate tactic. It may not be the most friendly approach but it's definitely one that teaches ye. You know.... ones you're done making a villain out of such a player. Is this a problem in their business model? The game has depth.... maybe that was dumb decision Gotcha moments are tricks. In a tournament, they're a valid way to win (and good tournament players will be aware of them, or will know the right questions to ask to find out about them...or they'll get got). Happens to the best players sometimes. In a practice game? There's no percentage in getting a win off of a gotcha. Tell your opponent if they're walking into a game-losing error, let them reposition to avoid it, and continue. You get better at the game by playing clean games where both players are playing at their best, so that you can look back on the game and identify broad things to improve on later. A good practice game is one where the takeaway isn't 'better not forget about wailing/stick my caster within 3" of my colossal into LoTF/insert gotcha here' it's one where the takeaway is something like 'hmmm. I think I undercommitted to my left flank, and committed my gargantuan too early in the centre. Also, I gave up too much in trying to remove X support solo. Maybe I should reassess next time'. A player who continually wins/loses on gotchas isn't going to play the kind of practice games that lets them identify actual, broad strokes flaws in their play, because that stuff only becomes apparent when the game goes longer. It's something I see in tournaments quite a bit - the opponent banks on a gotcha, then has no real backup plan when you see the trap, avoid it, and take advantage of their otherwise suboptimal play. In a lot of metas, it seems like the 'best player' is just the guy who gotchas hardest, but it's not actually how you win against good players.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 17, 2018 2:50:34 GMT
This isn't a rules problem, it's a player problem.
If it's a friendly game (or a practice game, or whatever you want to call a non-tournament game) and someone forgets a rule, or misses an activation, or whatever...you let them take it back. It's a practice game, and your best practice occurs when you're both playing at your best.
If it's a tournament game, then yeah, play by the letter of the rules and don't get salty if your opponent insists on doing so. (though speaking personally, I have never tried to enforce super oppressive rules conformity on opponents, unless I know them well enough to know they should know better - and it often pays off when I forget something minor, too!). But it's a tournament, competition is expected, so the standards are different.
If you're playing practice games against people who are looking to win on gotchas, you need better opponents. And when said players hit up a major tournament against good players who don't 'get got' as easily, they will lose...because they've had inferior practice because of their habit of going for gotchas.
Also, you don't make it clear whether the effect was marked...if it wasn't, then your opponent was 100% in the wrong for enforcing it.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 15, 2018 1:13:49 GMT
Or for people that go to lots of Con's I almost want to try Tanith in Secret masters...almost... Gotta be honest, Masters seems to have more attendees and focus than Champions. Maybe Ive missed a shift here, but even at cons ADR events seem lots less popular. IG is Champions, and for anyone that's hoping to qualify (or qualified) that's a powerful encouragement to picking a faction that has a decent champions roster.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 13, 2018 5:41:20 GMT
Woldstalkers are bad, pretty much end of story.
Like...mostly units have some niche role they occupy where they could theoretically be good, but Woldstalkers are...available in 1 theme...which has sentry stones and woldwyrds....both of which are better than woldstalkers at the jobs woldstalkers want to do.
On top of that, they have victim stats, low output (which diminishes as you lose models) and are some of the most expensive models in the game (point for point, they're only slightly cheaper than dawnguard sentinels, when you consider that the stoneward isn't a 'work' model.
I have 2 units, painted, and have not used them since Mk2.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 10, 2018 22:29:44 GMT
I think that this ADR is terribly designed (several factions have their best stuff, others have B-list casters), but does pose an interesting problem. IMO, barring specific meta considerations, the main factions to be concerned with are the Circle mirror, Skorne, and Legion. So with that in mind, I think some things to consider are:
- Wurmwood is pretty bad in the Circle mirror, because of the prevalence of Treewalker in Devourer's host. He's also got some issues into Skorne exalted, assuming immovable object sticks on everything, because of arcane vortex/no-push tech.
- Morv1 is really strong in the Circle Mirror, and has decent game into Kallus1, but Exalted has the potential to be tricky, as you're likely to be crutching hard on the Recursion aspect of her kit.
- Krueger2 has some issues into Exalted, and is sub-ideal into legion, especially when forced out of his best theme.
I think Iona DevHost is likely to be our most common mainlist, but there's a lot of potential to build an interesting offlist, IMO.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 10, 2018 10:32:58 GMT
How much does ADR actually affect people here? I never bother as I don't play in high level competitions etc. Just a point of interest, who actively uses ADR here? I play in 6 or so cons a year, maybe 2 champions events? I guess if I qualify for IG, that's another one now...and I guess that given Circle's roster this year, my chances are higher than otherwise. It's pretty relevant, especially since the IG gets so much attention. If we see like...6 Circle players in the IG, IMO that's not good for the game.
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