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Post by sgregorbmmd on Dec 7, 2018 21:06:28 GMT
Hate and apathy are different things. Happy to have a discussion, even in PMs, but right now you’re proving my point.
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Post by Charistoph on Dec 7, 2018 22:34:49 GMT
Yeah, to hate means to care about something, apathy is even worse by not caring. If they truly hated Mercs, it would have been phased out and the models dispersed to the main factions as needed.
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Post by michael on Dec 8, 2018 0:23:19 GMT
You guys are taking this way too seriously.
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Post by josephkerr on Dec 8, 2018 0:30:29 GMT
Mercs are hard to balance. Any discussion of Merc stuff means talking about one or more main factions and how it effects them. They cant realistically get a hellmouth without other factions getting a hellmouth. And the Nomad thing is Merc players faults. All Crucible Guard CID all Merc players ever said about the Toro is that it needed to be buffed or theyd never take it compared to a cheaper Nomad. Battle report after battle report said the Nomad was superior and the Toro needed serious buffs or it would never see play in Mercs. So they nerfed the Nomad. Makes sense.
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Post by Charistoph on Dec 8, 2018 0:57:06 GMT
Mercs are hard to balance. Any discussion of Merc stuff means talking about one or more main factions and how it effects them. They cant realistically get a hellmouth without other factions getting a hellmouth. And the Nomad thing is Merc players faults. All Crucible Guard CID all Merc players ever said about the Toro is that it needed to be buffed or theyd never take it compared to a cheaper Nomad. Battle report after battle report said the Nomad was superior and the Toro needed serious buffs or it would never see play in Mercs. So they nerfed the Nomad. Makes sense. Yes, and no. All it would take is to leave out that Mercenary rule on the card. It would make it exclusive to Mercenary players. The Warcasters are pretty much that anyway due to the level most people play the game as it is. The Jacks are the only ones that you have to add extra rules to in that matter thanks to Jack Marshalls.
There's an interesting idea. If you could pick one non-partisan unit and solo to lose their Mercenary and/or Minion rule, which would it be?
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Post by sgregorbmmd on Dec 8, 2018 15:14:11 GMT
Back to criticizing tone again, huh? I thought we went over this.
As for the Merc balancing issue, I’d argue that theme force restrictions and friendly faction only spells already actively disincentivize over reliance on merc units in most, if not all, cases. I also don’t think it would be bad for the game or any of the other factions if there was *occasionally* a main faction Caster that synergized particularly well with a couple different Merc units.
Let’s look at Crucible Guard as an example. They have an awesome character CA that synergizes very well with boomhowlers, Forge Guard, press gangers, and halberdiers. I can only take one unit that benefits from faction spells and benefit from the CA’s buffs so I go with the halberdiers for 11 points because they’re one of the only units in faction actually worth their points.
It isn’t over yet... Now I have to choose between a very small battlegroup or a third free card like hutchuck or a field piece since Merc units don’t count toward free points. The halberdiers might in this instance bring something to the table that CG doesn’t have, but now I can’t bring my awesome and appropriately costed collosal or more than a few jacks in the list without playing down in points. I have some opportunity costs to consider. This is the kind of elegant and well thought out design solution that makes me love this game.
There’s no need to also make mercenary units horrible on top of existing restrictions like there was at the start of the edition, but if they still want to, our casters should have things like battle plans or elite cadre [subset] to make the units worth their points. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of work and testing, which circles back to my original argument so it’s easier just to make Devil Dogs cost 19 points and have victim stats.
I have thoughts on the nomad thing, but that should really be its own thread.
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sorokin
Junior Strategist
Posts: 775
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Post by sorokin on Dec 8, 2018 16:39:21 GMT
Back to criticizing tone again, huh? I thought we went over this. As for the Merc balancing issue, I’d argue that theme force restrictions and friendly faction only spells already actively disincentivize over reliance on merc units in most, if not all, cases. I also don’t think it would be bad for the game or any of the other factions if there was *occasionally* a main faction Caster that synergized particularly well with a couple different Merc units. Let’s look at Crucible Guard as an example. They have an awesome character CA that synergizes very well with boomhowlers, Forge Guard, press gangers, and halberdiers. I can only take one unit that benefits from faction spells and benefit from the CA’s buffs so I go with the halberdiers for 11 points because they’re one of the only units in faction actually worth their points. It isn’t over yet... Now I have to choose between a very small battlegroup or a third free card like hutchuck or a field piece since Merc units don’t count toward free points. The halberdiers might in this instance bring something to the table that CG doesn’t have, but now I can’t bring my awesome and appropriately costed collosal or more than a few jacks in the list without playing down in points. I have some opportunity costs to consider. This is the kind of elegant and well thought out design solution that makes me love this game. There’s no need to also make mercenary units horrible on top of existing restrictions like there was at the start of the edition, but if they still want to, our casters should have things like battle plans or elite cadre [subset] to make the units worth their points. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of work and testing, which circles back to my original argument so it’s easier just to make Devil Dogs cost 19 points and have victim stats. I have thoughts on the nomad thing, but that should really be its own thread. I absolutely agree. The notion that you can't balance merc units because other factions can use them too never really clicked with me. They would have to be seriously borked for people to consider them over more in faction stuff and a free solo lika a Supression Tanker, Trench Buster, ect. I mean just look at the stuff people of other faction actually do take atm:
Aiyana and Holt in pretty much all factions they're available in (Except Ret because they can't make use of Kiss) Steelhead Halberderps, Press Gangers or Lynus and Edrea in Crucible Guard
Gurgle Old Frog Guard and Idrimans in Faithful Asses (special case because the theme lets them count towards freepoints)
What do all these units have in common? You can comfortably squeeze them into the 15 points you have left over after you spend 60 points on in faction stuff, and they all offer something the faction doesn't have other wise.
I seriously doubt that if all merc units were properly balanced they would all fall withinto this spectrum. And even if they did, they's still compete against each other, which then requires decision making, which is good in my book.
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Post by deathbymelancholy on Dec 10, 2018 1:08:18 GMT
-- Privateer doesn't just hate Mercs, they really hate Mercs? I heard they hate them so much they are going to do away with the whole faction and all the models are going to get absorbed into real factions. Kayazy? Back to pure Khador. Cephalyx? They're part of Infernals now. Rhupert? Protectorate solo. Rhulic models? Now they're just decoration for the new Legion structure, which is a super-sized Spawning Vessel. You just take all your High Shields and dump them in the pot to spawn Shredders, that's all they're good for after the next errata. It's all true! Sorry! As long as that gets my Boomhowlers back home in Trolls I guess i'm okay with it.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 10, 2018 17:43:55 GMT
It's too bad you cannot take the Arcanist in Irregulars, the Jack Marshall benefit might be a bit more useful
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Post by phantasm on Dec 25, 2018 5:30:17 GMT
I could go on a very long rant about the state of the game and especially the Mercenary faction right now, but what it really boils down to is that this edition should have been delayed by at least a year or two. During that time PP could have done exactly what they are currently doing with the CID and prevented nearly all the damage they have caused to their own game as well as its player base.
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Dec 25, 2018 7:39:00 GMT
I could go on a very long rant about the state of the game and especially the Mercenary faction right now, but what it really boils down to is that this edition should have been delayed by at least a year or two. During that time PP could have done exactly what they are currently doing with the CID and prevented nearly all the damage they have caused to their own game as well as its player base. u dunno nuthin.
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Post by phantasm on Dec 25, 2018 11:51:46 GMT
I could go on a very long rant about the state of the game and especially the Mercenary faction right now, but what it really boils down to is that this edition should have been delayed by at least a year or two. During that time PP could have done exactly what they are currently doing with the CID and prevented nearly all the damage they have caused to their own game as well as its player base. u dunno nuthin. In the grand scheme of things you're probably right, but what I do know for sure is that there used to be a lot more than four people who played in my area.
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Post by michael on Dec 26, 2018 5:15:24 GMT
Let me guess your story:
The new edition dropped, and after weeks and months of salty old players griping and moaning about how terrible the game was, you looked around and suddenly found that the casual players and semi-regulars mysteriously dried up.
Does that sound about right?
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Dec 26, 2018 7:09:58 GMT
Let me guess your story: The new edition dropped, and after weeks and months of salty old players griping and moaning about how terrible the game was, you looked around and suddenly found that the casual players and semi-regulars mysteriously dried up. Does that sound about right? pining for teh good ol days of bust azz haley2, lich2, bradigass and vayl2.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Dec 26, 2018 9:02:35 GMT
this edition should have been delayed by at least a year or two. If I recall correctly, when MkIII launched, you could still charge and make power attacks against your own models. I think it was maybe 6 months later than they released an errata saying "no power attacks against your own models", thus making a fairly significant change to the game mechanics. I'm not saying that it changed the way most games played; I know that power-attacking your own models was quite rare, but to me it still feels like a significant change to the core mechanics (although that might just be because I'm the kind of guy who's built lists around chucking my own Clamjacks up the table...). Also they made massive changes to Skorne and so on, Colossals have been getting massive points drops; so yeah, it does feel like MkIII wasn't quite ready when it was released. There is a saying though: "Perfect is the enemy of good". Realistically, a product will almost never be perfect, and trying to get it there can take ages as changes become more and more incremental. It's typically better to release a decent product and then later release a better version/update it with improvements. It would have been nice if MkIII was released in a better state - perhaps that would have avoided some of the lost player base, perhaps not - but I think it's much easier to say that in hindsight than it would have been for PP to realise that at the time. Plus we can't really be sure that taking longer would have made things better; perhaps the game was as polished as they could get it with in-house testing, and they really did need a much wider player base to play it for the issues to show up? Anyway, while MkIII has it's problems, I personally prefer it to MkII overall.
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