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Post by bane on Dec 13, 2017 8:02:54 GMT
I have noticed recently a few threads from new players who have purchased models mainly cos they look great enthusiasticly asking for advice on what else they should get for there new army, only for the responses to mainly consist of "that model is crap" and even "if you only want to buy cool looking models you probably shouldn't be playing warmachine"!! You guys totally suck all the fun and imagination out of this game and pp would prob be out of business if only played by them as only about 10 models per faction would be bought!! Play chess instead you bores!!!
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Post by Gamingdevil on Dec 13, 2017 8:17:07 GMT
I literally have no idea what kind of threads you are referring to?
Any model can be used, to what grade of effect is a different matter, but more and more factions are shaping up to have a deep pool of usable models.
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Post by cygnarstronk on Dec 13, 2017 9:35:42 GMT
Lmao then buy all of your fun models, go play at a games store, look as your improvised list (maybe even non thier) gets obliterated in 2-3 turns every game then you'll reconsider.
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Post by killroundears on Dec 13, 2017 10:05:44 GMT
i think theres a few reasons why new players should choose carefully. Reason 1 being its more economically sound to buy flexible, widely applicable units.
the line between "terrible" and "great" is actually quite muddy at times when we talk about a local meta. For example, i play casters that are panned as bad or meh all the time. i sometimes take bad units, for example ive played Arcuarii more than a few times as an experiment.
you can make reasonable success with bad units as long as they are used correctly. theres a smaller margin for error and they require better setup and they are more weak to bad drops.
However for new players who lack skill and have a small collection its always, always better to get staples. they can be used in multiple lists with multiple casters and have a bigger margin for error.
which is linked with the second reason - if a model is bad, when you combine that with new players lacking skill, they'll get stomped ultra hard instead of just stomped hard.
Warmachine is a very unforgiving game and definitely kinda niche. you have to, to a degree, stick to the orthodoxy until you're skilled enough to understand why people say x model is good/bad and how to get value out of a model that's bad. But telling newbies "just play whatever bad unit or flavour combination" can cause them to get stomped and leave the game.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 13, 2017 10:18:50 GMT
Ok, next time I will advise someone to buy Stormguard, they definitely wont resent that advice...
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Dec 13, 2017 11:45:54 GMT
There's no reason for them to resent it if you give them all the information you can so they can make an informed decision. Saying "X model is bad because no one takes it to con tournaments" isn't helpful, saying "X unit isn't popular because of Y and Z reasons but it can do B pretty well" helps the new player learn what sort of things are important in a. Model and let's them decide if the tradeoffs are worth it to them.
That said, while I remember seeing plenty of the threads OP described on the old PP forums or places like /tg/ I haven't seen them crop up much here.
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Post by thebuoyancyofwater on Dec 13, 2017 11:54:30 GMT
The one that just finished int he Khador forum was great! New player came along asking for some tips and that they'd started with Old Witch1 (not a highly regarding caster) and a quick description of what they liked. They've ended up with what looks like a solid and fun list that uses models they like the look of.
When I started I wasn't very aware of the forums, so I bought models that I thought looked fun/good. Forums regarded most of it a useless. But now I have basically everything for Khador, enjoyed learning to play the game with models I liked and was ready to go as soon as MKIII dropped while some were struggling due to only having MKII stuff.
Play what you want, have fun doing it.
Cheers, Dave
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 13, 2017 12:29:19 GMT
So while some of the hyperbolic retorts have an avocado's seed of merit to them as opposed to a kernel, it's easy to brush off posts that come off dismissive, despite the fact that they have some REALLY good points, here's the real deal:
WM/H is a game with currently internal faction balance that is in disarray. They are currently doing their best to use themes as a vehicle to rectify that and rectify it somewhat more with CID's but this is going to take a long time, and its a thorny path fraught with as many potential missteps as it is victories on the road to internal balance. There's a thread around here uses this analogy: If i'm retribution player and i have Sentinels, Swordsmen of ElevenvowelsandanH, Infiltrators, Halberdiers, and the infaction Nyss guys (their name escapes me currently, not Caelyna and her nyss hunters, the other ones), and one of those is basically always a good to great take, another is almost always a good to great take, two more are situationally good (so meaning with theme or caster augmentation they are good, but without, not good), and one is basically almost always inferior to another choice ... what's the state of internal balance with entities with a similar job function (melee) ?
So new players come in and they are full of hope and optimism for this great game they just found. Awesome, new blood rocks like this. And they just love the idea of (thing) because (aforementioned thing) looks so badass and has great fluff, and i want to do (idea) with (thing). This is great. However WM/H is designed to be a game around competitive marketing first. It's a game of interactions, combos, and ability intersections to achieve results greater than the abilities of any individual piece. Part of the game's many charms. HOwever if you 100% ignore the designs that go into those things, you have a very steep hill to climb to win games.
As a newcomer, you're going to lose. Part of the game unless you have some zen and the art of warmachine type thing going on. That curve usually levels out if you stick with the game and start learning (accidentally or through practice / study / experience) the theory of how models work and list building and some of the math concepts behind the game. You start leveling out in your meta. Then maybe you play other metas and that tends to dip the win curve a bit as different areas play differently. Part of becoming a regional player instead of backyard player, just as regional players need to learn to become national players, etc.
That all said: if you're new, and have little experience, and you just slap models into lists without noting their strenghts and weaknesses, that hill to climb gets steeper. If a new player is very unobservant of some of the finer designs in the game, that hill can be essentially unclimable at a certain point against opponents with a certain experience level and skill cap. Using previous examples, can a skilled player take infiltrators and make them work, sure. Is it harder to make infiltrators work than say halberiders or Sentinels in most Ret lists ? Absolutely. Is a new player going to have an even harder time doing that in a list that doesn't utilize good internal synergy ? Yup. Is that likely to be a frustrating experience ? Well everyone's different, but in the .... long ass time i've been playing this game, i have yet to meet anyone that on a long timeline enjoys making crappy lists that get the shit kicked out of them on the regular.
Part of the game is learning the intricate puzzle pieces of the game to maximize selection benefit both internal to faction and external to faction.
So it doesn't do a service to a new player to say "By all means, get a full Field Allowance of those Stormguard, great life and game choice!", only to have that person realize that stormguard are objectively *Firetrucking awful* in comparison to that player's other available choices - and by that i mean stormguard are so bad that only "not using the points on literally anything else" is a worse use of points. That player then drops the 100 bucks or so on two units, finds out "wow, these things just get shot to pieces" returns to the forum where they were encouraged to go ahead with said plan to buy two full units of said awful unit, and laments. Is it helpful if the response is "well i didn't want to discourage you and your new player optimism?"
Now, i'm being a bit hyperbolic. There's a fine line. Some players tack too hard to "Lol L2P N00b, gitgud, tilthardcountersolvedlistidiotspeakhere" which is similarly not helpful. Being overly supportive with "Wow ! That list is so unique and a fresh perspective, i'm surprised i never thought of taking nothing but full allowances of Sentinel jacks, min mechanics, stormguard, and precursors without the UA with Styrker1 - let us know how it goes!" is also not helpful.
So there's a fine line to walk between not waltzing someone down a primrose path to discouragement and buyers remorse, but also not encouraging groupthink.
One is literally just as bad as the other. I"ve always preferred a well reasoned and explained argument for whatever case i'm making to a new player looking for some input - strengths, weaknesses, and the propensity of either to hinge upon something that is likely to change. There's no value in unmitigated supportiveness or unmitigated negativity.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Dec 13, 2017 12:54:17 GMT
If I remember correctly Ghost Fleet was , when it was released, also "objectively" dubbed a trash theme and an insult thrown in the faces of already suffering Cryx players.
Objective opinion of overly emotional internet communities is debatable.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 13, 2017 12:58:38 GMT
I have noticed recently a few threads from new players who have purchased models mainly cos they look great enthusiasticly asking for advice on what else they should get for there new army, only for the responses to mainly consist of "that model is crap" and even "if you only want to buy cool looking models you probably shouldn't be playing warmachine"!! You guys totally suck all the fun and imagination out of this game and pp would prob be out of business if only played by them as only about 10 models per faction would be bought!! Play chess instead you bores!!! I do not doubt you, but I would like to know more of what threads you are talking about. Can you post links to the threads, or tell us where we can find them? The thread in the Khador forum that thebuoyancyofwater is talking about is this one: lormahordes.freeforums.net/post/69221/threadI am very happy with how it went because while it encouraged the new player to grow the core of his force that he preferred in a direction that will help him win, it also put him on a path to expanding his Khador in a more learning-friendly way. I think what also helped is that the guys at his FLGS were friendly and accommodating to what he wanted to do. Look guys, while the Warmachine rules are very good for competitive play, there are people who play the game not to compete but to have fun. (Yes, they do exist.) If they want to take units that are not good for competitive play (Stormguard, Cleansers, Kossites, Black Ogruns, whatever) then let them know that they can paint and play whatever they want, just that their selection may not be the best for competitive play if they are interested in doing that. If they are hell-bent on taking some crappy unit for fun - let them. They will have fun painting (and hopefully playing) that unit. If it doesn't perform well for them - they'll figure it out and then buy something else that works better for them.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 13, 2017 13:17:41 GMT
[Snipped out the hyperbolic hyperbole] Now, i'm being a bit hyperbolic. There's a fine line. Some players tack too hard to "Lol L2P N00b, gitgud, tilthardcountersolvedlistidiotspeakhere" which is similarly not helpful. Being overly supportive with "Wow ! That list is so unique and a fresh perspective, i'm surprised i never thought of taking nothing but full allowances of Sentinel jacks, min mechanics, stormguard, and precursors without the UA with Styrker1 - let us know how it goes!" is also not helpful. So there's a fine line to walk between not waltzing someone down a primrose path to discouragement and buyers remorse, but also not encouraging groupthink. One is literally just as bad as the other. I"ve always preferred a well reasoned and explained argument for whatever case i'm making to a new player looking for some input - strengths, weaknesses, and the propensity of either to hinge upon something that is likely to change. There's no value in unmitigated supportiveness or unmitigated negativity. I completely agree that there is no value to "unmitigated supportiveness or unmitigated negativity." But I have yet to see any "unmitigated supportiveness" in these forums. I have, though, seen a lot of competitive gamer-driven "unmitigated negativity" throughout. And in the cases of mild negativity - the quick, tersely written replies done on a cell phone make the replies come off as more negative. I'm not saying people should use verbose, flowery prose (like me) but the hundreds thousands of "that's a bad selection, get (net list staple) instead" responses really come off poorly.
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Post by thebuoyancyofwater on Dec 13, 2017 13:23:28 GMT
Just to add to the "not everything in Warmachine is about competitive play" stance:
I recently took part in a journeyman league and switched to a faction I've wanted to play for years (Minions) for it. I took off the competitive hat I've worn for the last few years and went into it with the mindset of "if I'm not sure what to do in a turn, just get involved, do stuff, and worry about the consequences later." Every game was an absolute blast to play! We had newer players joining in and it was great to see the combinations of stuff they were putting together and not worrying about how optimized the list was as a whole. As far as I know, none of them are particularly active on the forums, and I think that's been good for their list building overall.
My advice to new players used to be to ditch the internet for a few months and build your own lists. I'd still largely recommend that approach if I'm honest.
Cheers, Dave
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 13, 2017 14:24:47 GMT
[Snipped out the hyperbolic hyperbole] Now, i'm being a bit hyperbolic. There's a fine line. Some players tack too hard to "Lol L2P N00b, gitgud, tilthardcountersolvedlistidiotspeakhere" which is similarly not helpful. Being overly supportive with "Wow ! That list is so unique and a fresh perspective, i'm surprised i never thought of taking nothing but full allowances of Sentinel jacks, min mechanics, stormguard, and precursors without the UA with Styrker1 - let us know how it goes!" is also not helpful. So there's a fine line to walk between not waltzing someone down a primrose path to discouragement and buyers remorse, but also not encouraging groupthink. One is literally just as bad as the other. I"ve always preferred a well reasoned and explained argument for whatever case i'm making to a new player looking for some input - strengths, weaknesses, and the propensity of either to hinge upon something that is likely to change. There's no value in unmitigated supportiveness or unmitigated negativity. I completely agree that there is no value to "unmitigated supportiveness or unmitigated negativity." But I have yet to see any "unmitigated supportiveness" in these forums. I have, though, seen a lot of competitive gamer-driven "unmitigated negativity" throughout. And in the cases of mild negativity - the quick, tersely written replies done on a cell phone make the replies come off as more negative. I'm not saying people should use verbose, flowery prose (like me) but the hundreds thousands of "that's a bad selection, get (net list staple) instead" responses really come off poorly. Great points. I actually almost put in a line about "but in today's day and age most people are posting from a phone, so a lengthy treatise is neither practical or likely to get read, which is sad", but opted against it. Still you make a solid series of points in this post. Personally i find "good list!" feedback fairly vapid, and "your pair sucks, (link to tourney winner)" caustic, but i'll be the first to admit that i type to damn much. Regarding these forums, i think we're pretty even keeled here... at least when measured against other places you can go. This site is the calm waters of tolerance and constructive debate compared to other locals and communities online. Cyel - fair assessment, there's a lot of hyperbole floating around and i engage in it to sprinkle humor into my long posts. That said, I stand by what i said with Stormguard for the most part : i cannot think of a list where i am better off spending points on Stormguard than nearly anything else you could choose while in all seriousness trying to make an effective list, let alone any other melee option available to me in Cygnar's stable of options. The difference between our two examples are that Time has proven initial perspective false on Ghost fleet in, what, a couple months ? The same cannot be said for stormguard who have been horrible since MK1 flipped to MK2 (meaning they've been shit for the entirety of MK2 and MK3, and were "okay-ish" for the era they existed in MK1). Given my example spans, literally, years i'd say i'm pretty warranted in dubbing them "objectively terrible", because they've been that way for about 70% of the time they've been released. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Cygnar player genuinely endorse them. There are things in the game that are just straight up worse than other options that the developers have struggled to find places for / spaces for. This doesn't make them bad developers, it just is what it is. Sometimes you have one "entity" which is significantly worse than the other 4-6 entities it competes with that it's a non-choice. Sometimes those get fixed, Stormguard never have. Why encourage someone to buy that ?
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juckto
Junior Strategist
Posts: 124
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Post by juckto on Dec 14, 2017 17:36:37 GMT
That's not anywhere near to being an analogy.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 15, 2017 0:06:19 GMT
That's not anywhere near to being an analogy. You're right, i probably should have used "example". My choice of word in that one sentence was about as useful and accurate as the average entry on battlecollege, and that's a bar we should all strive to surpass.
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