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Post by darkshroud on Mar 16, 2017 14:06:11 GMT
I was a special snowflake for most of MK2. I almost never run Skarre1, Denny1, Lich2 and Denny2. Most of the other casters was great fun to explore and list build (and also still really powerful). I really enjoyed Mk2 Cryx with Lich3/Mortenbra/Goreshade3/Skarre2 etc. I tried to continue like this in MK3 and its just awful. Nearly anything outside of the top choices I find unfun and frustrating to use and so many cool interactions and plays have been removed that it the whole thing feels basic to play. I kept trying but just became more salty and disillusioned so i had to take a small break to cool off. I found my fix however in I now just play the power models/lists. I find they are roughly similar in terms of feel to the last editions 2nd tier of models so it somewhat sratches my itch even if the variety is bad compared to Mk2. I'm lucky/dumb that I have multiples of everything anyways so I can run almost any list and ill never recover even a fraction of the money I've spent so its was in my interest to make this work. However if I was faced with having to make massive purchases to convert my Mk2 Cryx collection into the Mk3 equivalent then i would of likely abandoned Cryx switched factions (Probably Mercs or Ret). What cool interactions and plays have been removed?
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Post by darkshroud on Mar 16, 2017 14:10:24 GMT
Keep in mind you havent seen all of mk3 yet. We still need 2 more themes and steamroller 2017. The reason you're not having fun is probably bc youre not playing with the full game. Well, to be fair, that is a problem and it's totally on PP, because if true (and many people, including me, believe that it probably is), it definitely means that PP released an unfinished game, even though they said they didn't, and decided that they wouldn't finish it until a year had passed (until everyone has their command books)! Besides that, and I risk starting to sound like a broken record, while I think themes are cool, and I understand that there is a certain need for being able to balance "sub-factions" instead of factions as a whole because the game is simply getting too big, I think it's a horrible way to balance, especially if those models are objectively pretty bad outside of theme. I realise some people play Revenants out of theme, but they are still pretty expensive for what they do and D3 is pretty disappointing. Then they get really good in theme, with beter recursion and basically 3-4 points discount per unit, it just feels cheap. I like Ghost Fleet, I like the way it plays, I don't like how restrictive it is, while some other themes get a lot of leeway and I really don't like that PP forces us into it to play the Cryx of yore. All the way through MK2 I admired PP for having such a large game that just kept growing and managed to keep it more or less balanced. I really understand that it's growing out of control and they needed to do something, but maybe themes as they are now are overshooting the mark a little. I don't intend to quit any time soon though, I still enjoy playing the game and have some faith that it will get better in the future. I think that Cryx is playable, though I do find myself at a disadvantage often, but it can be fixed by just a few tweaks here and there (I would be fine with mostly getting cheaper). But I must admit that all the doom saying about PP turning into GW does have some merit, looking at their recent track record, and that scares me a bit, I just hope that it's wrong and that PP will recover. Did you really expect literally everything to come out as soon as mk3 dropped? I agree themes are a terriblebalance mechanic.
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Nyxu
Overseer
NaCl Elemental
Posts: 119
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Post by Nyxu on Mar 16, 2017 14:47:26 GMT
I don't think it's fair to say that the expectation was for "literally everything"- more that the edition change represents a hard reset for the mechanisms we are accustomed to having access to, and elements we can reasonably expect to have been balanced around in advance* simply are not showing up for a year or more in the case of theme forces. This reset isn't the most comfortable for a few factions, and Cryx is particularly feeling it- not only because they were such a bogeyman in mk2, and probably fell the furthest relative to that edition, but because of the amount of pushback raised whenever a complaint is rasied from the perspective of Cryx. On the topic of lost mechanisms, and with the caveat that these mechanics are not expected or even necessarily desired to return wholesale, we as a faction lost upkeep cycling via spell slave, dark industries, access to black arts and puppet strings on companion-locked warcasters, prevalent terror and abomination effects, non lethal upkeep removal outside of skarlock commander, until recently access to Faction AD on a unit, threat extension on most of our units (via Tartarus, Necrosurgeon, or Raider Captain), helldivers as a pressure tool, various accuracy bumps in other factions has decreased the efficacy of our higher def warjacks, and the additional precision of premeasuring has, in lower level games (since highly accurate distance approximation was a skill seen in high level play ) makes it less likely that we can leverage our strong melee options to turn a positioning mistake into a points advantage.
*Addendum : I maintain that there needs to be a clear definition of how far in advance they can reasonably look for balancing purposes before PP needs to consider making g a balance shift later on. There are plenty of reasons not to do this, however. Better to forsee strength and start weak than start strong then nerf so something else can. Ring it up to that level again
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Post by Gamingdevil on Mar 16, 2017 14:54:24 GMT
Did you really expect literally everything to come out as soon as mk3 dropped? I agree themes are a terriblebalance mechanic. No, I don't, and it's not what I meant, I'm sorry if I didn't express myself clearly. What mostly bothers me is that PP seems to be fine with finishing the game in a state that it's not meant to be played in. Then they "bring up" factions one by one. It inherently creates imbalance and "balance", by the definition that everyone can play as they are meant to, so with themes, is only achieved when everyone has received their force books. I think giving everyone one theme (and most of them strong ones at that) was a big step in the right direction though. It just still feels a little painful to see other factions with a bunch more variety in their themes. It's not that I don't understand, but they did initially say that MK 3 was finished, but if their intention was to have everyone play in theme, that statement was simply untrue. That's what bothers me.
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Deller
Junior Strategist
I’m on a Boat
Posts: 605
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Post by Deller on Mar 16, 2017 16:21:33 GMT
I was a special snowflake for most of MK2. I almost never run Skarre1, Denny1, Lich2 and Denny2. Most of the other casters was great fun to explore and list build (and also still really powerful). I really enjoyed Mk2 Cryx with Lich3/Mortenbra/Goreshade3/Skarre2 etc. I tried to continue like this in MK3 and its just awful. Nearly anything outside of the top choices I find unfun and frustrating to use and so many cool interactions and plays have been removed that it the whole thing feels basic to play. I kept trying but just became more salty and disillusioned so i had to take a small break to cool off. I found my fix however in I now just play the power models/lists. I find they are roughly similar in terms of feel to the last editions 2nd tier of models so it somewhat sratches my itch even if the variety is bad compared to Mk2. I'm lucky/dumb that I have multiples of everything anyways so I can run almost any list and ill never recover even a fraction of the money I've spent so its was in my interest to make this work. However if I was faced with having to make massive purchases to convert my Mk2 Cryx collection into the Mk3 equivalent then i would of likely abandoned Cryx switched factions (Probably Mercs or Ret). What cool interactions and plays have been removed? Short list of plays I played quite a bit in Mark2 Excarnate Purge - gone Hellmouth + Dark Banishment + Web of Shadows lockdown - gone Deathjack Perdition assassinations - gone Telekenesis + Ripjaw Vice Lock - gone Using light Warjacks as placeable wreck cover markers (aka fort Lich) - gone Were some of these plays too powerful, definitely. They were some of the main competitive strategies that gave Cryx the ability to compete at the highest levels. Some of them though were just good. Yet every single one of these strategies wasn't just nerfed, they were either eviscerated completely or outright deleted. Wrecks gone, Vice Lock gone, Perdition gone. Excarnate Purge, the original Mad Dog because when nerfing one element just isn't enough crush them both. Bile Thralls saw nearly no competitive play outside of the Excarnate trick, and Excarnate was never cast unless it was making a Bile Thrall or assassinating. Did both halves of the combo really need to get nerfed? Web of Shadows nerfed so hard in Mark2 that Deneghra2 fell out of the meta completely, only to get gutted a second time during the edition change because reasons. Also in case she might still see some play lets just replace Ghost Walk with Influence. Why was any of that needed? Deneghra2 was a middle of the pack caster at the end of Mark2, who was about to get even worse in Mark3 once the meta shifted away from infantry machine and towards more models that can shake Shadow Bind. Why did she need to get even worse on top of this? Hell one one of my favorite units in Mark2 was Mechanithralls. I was eagerly awaiting the Sepulcher's release because it made the Mechanithrall package that much more interesting. Sadly the entire kit got completely obliterated in the edition change. Mechanithralls lost 1 pow, 2 pow on combos, & a point of defense. Surgeons lost their long collection range, gained a corpse token limit, lost recursion distance since you need to be completely within, and lost the ability to attack after being resurrected. The Sepulcher lost an inch of corpse collection range, and lost the ability to collect friendly corpses. That is an overall total of 8 different nerfs to the Mechanithrall recursion package from Mark2 to Mark3, and these don't factor in other nerfs like Necrosurgeons losing the ability to heal living, or the Sepulcher's AoE going from 5 to 4 just the nerfs to the recursion package itself. The overall package was strong in Mark2 but was it really so good that it needed to get completely obliterated in the way it did? All it would have taken was 2 nerfs to the Surgeon to bring the package in line, but instead PP just smashed the package to pieces to the point where there have been 0 competitive Mark3 tournament lists that run the full Mechanithrall recursion package since the WTC where people were experimenting and had no idea what the meta would look like. Was the package removed, technically no, but it's so bad now that it's not worth playing, which is a shame considering how good our living units are currently.
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Post by josephkerr on Mar 17, 2017 22:55:30 GMT
The Sepulcher, being at the end of the release cycle, can't really be considered part of the Mechanithrall recursion package. All that Mechanithralls need is a Thrall theme that hands out free Necrosurgeons and theyd be fine, and its not hard to imagine that theme existing given other, similar themes. I personally love the new theme forces and like mediocre parts of the army being buffed thru themes rather than patches.
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Post by dragash on Mar 17, 2017 23:00:48 GMT
All that Mechanithralls need is a Thrall theme that hands out free Necrosurgeons and theyd be fine Er . . . what? Given that recursion was nerfed to hell (on top of, you know, everything else mechanathrall related), I've got no idea what this is supposed to accomplish. Might as well give them a theme that hands out free rubber ducks.
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Post by josephkerr on Mar 17, 2017 23:05:45 GMT
It doesnt matter where it was nerfed from, its comparable to where cross-faction recursion is in this edition and would b a powerful buff "free."
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Deller
Junior Strategist
I’m on a Boat
Posts: 605
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Post by Deller on Mar 17, 2017 23:43:45 GMT
It doesnt matter where it was nerfed from, its comparable to where cross-faction recursion is in this edition and would b a powerful buff "free." So compared to the bad recursion from other factions that nobody plays? When was the last time you saw an enigma foundry? Spawning Vessel? Only time I see Swamp Shamblers is with Wurmwood who's killing his own guys anyway for souls so he may as well double dip, and even then they're not a staple. Even with free Necrosurgeons why play mechanithralls as they currently are over Ghost Fleet? Revenants have better recursion, hit just as hard (if Mechanithralls combo strike they get one pow higher than Revenants, but have half the attacks, if they don't they're just weaker than ganging Revenants), have a relevant defense stat, and have guns. Mechanithralls do what exactly? They can flood the board, but are reliant on another unit to bring them back. Free Necrosurgeons is not enough to get Mechanithralls back on the table, that unit needs a lot of help.
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Post by sideshowlucifer on Mar 18, 2017 11:56:46 GMT
I still think lose shield guard on the brutes and give the unit the same rule the Blight Wasps have. Makes them dangerous in numbers.
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Post by Morganstern on Mar 18, 2017 13:33:41 GMT
I still think lose shield guard on the brutes and give the unit the same rule the Blight Wasps have. Makes them dangerous in numbers. I agree. Give Mechanithralls hunting pack. Lose shield guard on the brutes and replace with road block and keep combo strike on the brutes instead of hunting pack. I'd also makes thrall recursion a maintenance phase thing and maybe allow the Neurosurgeon to create 1 extra thrall for each stitch thrall in formation.
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Post by heckler on Mar 19, 2017 18:26:00 GMT
Those recursion suggestions are not a bad idea. Maintenance phase means you need to position it out the turn before and survive until then, but they get to act as normal during the turn.
Having it be like 2 for the surgeon and 1 for each stitch in range seems about right. Also, this allows the surgeon to keep up with the thralls, which is often a problem
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Post by Gamingdevil on Mar 20, 2017 10:06:23 GMT
So compared to the bad recursion from other factions that nobody plays? When was the last time you saw an enigma foundry? Spawning Vessel? Spawnings Vessels are actually still pretty common, as the Lessers can activate, right?
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Post by sideshowlucifer on Mar 20, 2017 12:57:48 GMT
I don't see the recursion rules changing anytime this edition, so better to swallow that pill and move on to ways to make things work with that as is.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Mar 20, 2017 13:06:32 GMT
I don't see the recursion rules changing anytime this edition, so better to swallow that pill and move on to ways to make things work with that as is. I, somewhat begrudgingly, agree. Since they took the effort to make it the same across the board, they're not going to change it just for Cryx and they won't change it for everyone. So the only option is to move the Necrosurgeon to Maintenance Phase and I don't really see that happening as that would step on the toes of the Revenant Crew (what with everything needs to have its own niche and everything) If they fix anything, it will probably be the amount of eligible targets to collect from, such as friendlies for the Sepulcher and/or a wider variety of Undead for both the Sepulcher and Surgeon. I don't see the latter happening, but a slight buff to Mechanithralls as well as a point reduction for the Surgeon might be all it takes.
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