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M2.5E or the Time of Errata


Manic Mouse

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On 11/1/2016 at 1:07 PM, Fetid Strumpet said:

The problem with that argument is that it also covers things like: Why ever clean my house, it's only going to get messy again. Why mow the lawn, it's only going to grow again. Why eat right and exercise, I'm going to die anyway.

At what point do you think an update is in order?

Like I said currently we have a master with errata on their core rules. We have models that have errata on their core rules. We have a complete smorgasbord of (0) patch upgrades to fix under performing models that not only adds rules bloat to the game but creates a situation where people can play legal models for the same cost that are worse than their opponents playing the same models because they haven't bought the upgrade packs and may not know.

There are no broken masters in the game like old Hamelin, but there are definitely masters like Lucius and Yan Lo that could do with a little love. There are some rules that really could do with overhauling, specifically elevation and LoS. And whether you like to admit it or not there are a couple of slightly problematic models in the game.

M2E has been out for 4+ years at this point - which is as long as 1st edition was out before M2E came about. Now absolutely M2E was far more needed than an update now, but it doesn't mean the game wouldn't benefit from a smaller update now.

All games go through revisions, and that is *healthy* for the game. Going 6+ years with confusing vantage point rules and an endlessly increasing number of patch upgrades (do they come with the models if you buy them now?) and errata isn't what I want to see from Malifaux.

Many are arguing that updating the game makes things "messy" for current players. I would argue the opposite - that having a modern and clean set of rules, that takes into account 4 years of feedback and errata, makes things less confusing for players and the game better overall. With the number of patch upgrades and amount of errata I feel the game without an update is getting quite messy.

"oh yeah your master doesn't work like that anymore" for Levi. "Oh yeah that model isn't very good unless you have this (0) upgrade patch in generalist upgrade pack 2, but you can still play it and be at a disadvantage" is kind of where we are at the moment.

So would the "confusion" of a "general upgrade pack" that consolidates current errata and maybe updates 5 or so models per faction, and an update to LoS rules be too much to make it worth it? I don't think so, and I think the game would be better off.

Personally I've never gotten the rules Luddite point of view. If the game can be made cleaner, better and more balanced every couple of years with a maintenance update why wouldn't you want that? The argument it would confuse the current player base I don't buy - because why would that confuse them while all the current errata, patch upgrades and poor elevation rules not? They will be confused either way, but one way makes the game better and the other leaves it with poor rules, some questionably balanced models and rules bloat.

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1 hour ago, Manic Mouse said:

At what point do you think an update is in order?

Like I said currently we have a master with errata on their core rules. We have models that have errata on their core rules. We have a complete smorgasbord of (0) patch upgrades to fix under performing models that not only adds rules bloat to the game but creates a situation where people can play legal models for the same cost that are worse than their opponents playing the same models because they haven't bought the upgrade packs and may not know.

There are no broken masters in the game like old Hamelin, but there are definitely masters like Lucius and Yan Lo that could do with a little love. There are some rules that really could do with overhauling, specifically elevation and LoS. And whether you like to admit it or not there are a couple of slightly problematic models in the game.

....

 

Personally I've never gotten the rules Luddite point of view. If the game can be made cleaner, better and more balanced every couple of years with a maintenance update why wouldn't you want that? The argument it would confuse the current player base I don't buy - because why would that confuse them while all the current errata, patch upgrades and poor elevation rules not? They will be confused either way, but one way makes the game better and the other leaves it with poor rules, some questionably balanced models and rules bloat.

It's really a bunch of complex issues and at the moment no ones quite figured it out.  We're in an exciting age for minis games though, where everyone is experimenting with the best answers.  Things like Guild Ball's yearly rewrite or PPs new edition move to regular major errata haven't quite proven THE way, but they're definitely looking to clear the brush.

The primary problem is just coordinating information.  There's a huge gap between people that actively follow the game and the community and people that mostly participate in more local means.  I know people who literally have no idea what's coming for the games they play until it shows up on a shelf or someone in the shop clues them into it.  For every one of us who reads every single potential nugget of news, there's 3-4 who might not play the game for 3 months at a time and assume nothing has changed.  It gets much worse when it comes to updated rules, as small updates that only impact a fraction of the community don't draw as much attention.

For the most part, I think people are just a little conditioned into the idea that a new edition is necessary for the kinds of major updates they want to see, largely because that's the kind of marketing needed to broadcast those kinds of changes.  Realistically, I think digital is the only way the kind of regular tweaking dedicated players want can happen, but there's a lot of love for the unplugged experience cards provide still.  Malifaux's app announcement certainly has me preferring to see its adoption before moving to a new edition though, personally.

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40 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

It's really a bunch of complex issues and at the moment no ones quite figured it out.  We're in an exciting age for minis games though, where everyone is experimenting with the best answers.  Things like Guild Ball's yearly rewrite or PPs new edition move to regular major errata haven't quite proven THE way, but they're definitely looking to clear the brush.

The primary problem is just coordinating information.  There's a huge gap between people that actively follow the game and the community and people that mostly participate in more local means.  I know people who literally have no idea what's coming for the games they play until it shows up on a shelf or someone in the shop clues them into it.  For every one of us who reads every single potential nugget of news, there's 3-4 who might not play the game for 3 months at a time and assume nothing has changed.  It gets much worse when it comes to updated rules, as small updates that only impact a fraction of the community don't draw as much attention.

For the most part, I think people are just a little conditioned into the idea that a new edition is necessary for the kinds of major updates they want to see, largely because that's the kind of marketing needed to broadcast those kinds of changes.  Realistically, I think digital is the only way the kind of regular tweaking dedicated players want can happen, but there's a lot of love for the unplugged experience cards provide still.  Malifaux's app announcement certainly has me preferring to see its adoption before moving to a new edition though, personally.

but like, people who don't keep up with the game that much aren't the people who are going to affected by changes much? Like, it's hardly a disaster if some people play with outdated rules among themselves.

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Sure, but then you're dealing with fragmentation.  Some of those players will start going to public places, some people probably do a bit of both.  It's really not all that different from house rules; the more different groups play by different rules, the harder it is to sustain the kind of critical mass needed to keep a game relevant.  Games in general operate in this weird sword of faith space.  They're successful entirely because players believe in them, which is a hilarious inexact science.

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Astrella,

No, but balance of any kind could also be argued isn't an issue if you are just going to play with a small group and never with anyone else. If anything is too powerful you just house rule it and don't care. So for casual players they could arguably care less if there is an errata because they can just do it themselves. The point of any tight rules system, or consistency in rules is that it facilitates groups to grow interact together within a community. Scramble things too often and make things confusing and you might as well not have even bothered because you will just create more problems for yourself.

 

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2 hours ago, Astrella said:

but like, people who don't keep up with the game that much aren't the people who are going to affected by changes much? Like, it's hardly a disaster if some people play with outdated rules among themselves.

Everyone is affected by a required errata, because if it required that change then there was a problem. If it's rebalancing something overpowered, they're affected more. If they only play every 3 months and their main opponent was playing Levi with a Rat Engine, their one game every 3 months was likely to be a terrible experience - and maybe why they only played once every 3 months. Playing several games every week at a club makes you no more or less impacted by required errata - it just means your more likely to know it exists and have your play experience improved by it.

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22 hours ago, -Loki- said:

Everyone is affected by a required errata, because if it required that change then there was a problem. If it's rebalancing something overpowered, they're affected more. If they only play every 3 months and their main opponent was playing Levi with a Rat Engine, their one game every 3 months was likely to be a terrible experience - and maybe why they only played once every 3 months. Playing several games every week at a club makes you no more or less impacted by required errata - it just means your more likely to know it exists and have your play experience improved by it.

But it's not an argument against putting out erratas though? Like, either you put it out and they're unaware of it or you don't put it out and they're still unaware, it doesn't affect them at all is my point.

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17 minutes ago, Astrella said:

But it's not an argument against putting out erratas though? Like, either you put it out and they're unaware of it or you don't put it out and they're still unaware, it doesn't affect them at all is my point.

Errata was an example. Any rules change for the better affects everyone, be it an errata, card revision, rules update or rules rewrite because without it they're playing something that deserved some kind of rewrite.

The example of Leveticus was based on errata. How about rules. Maybe that person who only plays once every 3 months is because he likes elevation in his games and finds the vantage point rules needlessly confusing. So he plays other games and only Malifaux when that other friend drags him into a game. That person is still adversely affected by the vantage point rules, despite not going online to complain about them and is unaware others share their point of view. If there was a 2.5E releases, they would find out about it when their friend dragged them into the next game, and found the vantage point rules altered to something they enjoyed. Or they would not know about it, and continue to not enjoy the game because of the flaw.

Again, you don't have to be aware of an issue or a change to be affected by it, it just affects your experience without you realising.

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It's a tradeoff.  Changes create an overall better game and are fundamentally good for the health of the game, but the implementation creates complications and confusions as a byproduct.  It's all about keeping up with necessary changes to keep the game healthy without overloading the playerbase's ability and willingness to keep up with those changes.

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23 hours ago, -Loki- said:

Everyone is affected by a required errata, because if it required that change then there was a problem.

Acknowledging a problem doesn't create a problem.

Like, tuning my guitar isn't going to retroactively make it out of tune. It was already out of tune.

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27 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Acknowledging a problem doesn't create a problem.

Like, tuning my guitar isn't going to retroactively make it out of tune. It was already out of tune.

But if you don't tune it, it stays out of tune and sounds bad. You're affected by it not being tuned, or not knowing how to tune it.

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1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

Acknowledging a problem doesn't create a problem.

Like, tuning my guitar isn't going to retroactively make it out of tune. It was already out of tune.

Acknowledging that there's a problem isn't the same thing as deciding on how to fix it, or fixing the problem.  Probably as demonstrated by model discussion threads, determing that something is a problem isn't always certain.  

Two things about playing an out-of-tune guitar versus getting it tuned:

1.  You have to stop playing/practicing to tune the guitar.

2.  For the proper analogy, you need a dozen people arguing over how to properly tune the guitar and which strings need to be replaced.

I mean, how big of an issue is it that a player can have all fifty four of their cards in their hand and then need to perform a flip from a deck with no cards in it?  If that was errated, who would notice it, instead of shrugging and going "Oh, a rule got added to deal with a really rare situation.  Huh."  

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41 minutes ago, -Loki- said:

But if you don't tune it, it stays out of tune and sounds bad. You're affected by it not being tuned, or not knowing how to tune it.

Which is independent of the tuning. People who don't tune their guitars aren't affected by other people tuning their guitars, they're affected by the guitars not being in tune. People aren't affected by errata they don't know about, but they could be affected by the source of that errata (i.e. the bad experience/rule).

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6 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Which is independent of the tuning. People who don't tune their guitars aren't affected by other people tuning their guitars, they're affected by the guitars not being in tune. People aren't affected by errata they don't know about, but they could be affected by the source of that errata (i.e. the bad experience/rule).

Being affected by the source is what I'm arguing. You can't guarantee everyone will read the updated rules, but you can't ignore issues that need to be fixed because of that. Otherwise the Rat Engine would never have been fixed - why bother if those garage gamers in that small New Zealand town never download erratas?

Maybe I should have worded my original post as everyone is affected by the lack of change? 

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13 hours ago, solkan said:

2.  For the proper analogy, you need a dozen people arguing over how to properly tune the guitar and which strings need to be replaced.

But it is still the guitar player who tunes it. He can listen to the feedback of the people or not but ultimately he still tunes it.

Also, imagine Killjoy as a cheap wah-wah pedal, Rat Engine as a faulty transformer and then Viks as Steve Vai's guitar solo on For the Love of God...

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  • 6 months later...

I do think a bit of cleanup is needed as IMO things with errata'd cards and new upgrades are getting a bit out of hand - I am seeing this after moving to a new place where most players are new and inexperienced...I played against a guy who was fielding his Levi crew for the second time and I hated to tell him that no, "Channel" doesn't work that way anymore...

Personally, I also do hope that M2E takes a slightly different directions, focusing on enriching what we have rather than adding new models, least of all new masters. As is, there is already a huge amount of models that can be fielded and it starts getting a bit dispersive. It is clear that this can't keep going forever...the more models you add, the more balancing the game becomes complicated, not to talk about how difficult it is to create new and enticing models while trying to not make the old ones obsolete.

My 2 cents ;)

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What I want to see is more things like Twisted Alternate sets. It was a great idea, packing in story scenarios for both Malifaux and TTB with a couple of miniatures and some special cards for those scenarios, and a couple of proxy cards for general use. They could do a lot more with the idea. The more non standard releases they do, the less they need to release more core stuff for Malifaux but they give something different to the community to have fun with.

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The main issue I have with the 0 upgrades is that they can cause some problems, like lelu being worse if he's summoned vs hired or captain dashel mot being able to bring his upgrade over to a lucius nb crew.

Personally I don't have problems with stat cards being updated as I don't mind playing with printed cards (already do this for some of the upgrades in ripples of fate) .

But I can see why this would bother others.

I think an app ala war room would be a fantastic addition to the game, especially if it allowed crew synchronization so I can see my opponents models remaining wd and conditions. 

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On 5/23/2017 at 11:33 PM, Angelshard said:

The main issue I have with the 0 upgrades is that they can cause some problems, like lelu being worse if he's summoned vs hired or captain dashel mot being able to bring his upgrade over to a lucius nb crew.

That's one of the things I rather liked about the upgrade solution.   It's a way to try and incentivize hiring the model rather then summoning it.  There are times when they make them summoning compatible.  Some examples:

1) One Pig Against the World:  It's an upgrade for war pigs, a model that shows up in a lot of Ulix lists, but is NEVER hired for them.  This upgrade is a way to try and buff hiring them and not impact summoning them.

2) Wronged Spirits:  This upgrade buffs Onryo, but doesn't go on *them*, but rather some other model that's around.  This would be a summoning-compatible upgrade since it doesn't care how the Onryo get there, they just have to get there.

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another issue with the 0pt upgrades is it feels like it locks models into a certain build (Especially enforcers).

Example the whiskey golem is considered a subpar model, but the 0pt upgrade is pretty good for him. Since he is an enforcer though the 0pt upgrade is the only upgrade he can take which again makes him seem like a bad model. 

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@Clement

I can see your point and I agree with for the most part, however as wizuriel said it does prevent taking other upgrades. Not sure how much of an issue this is since it seems to me the models in question get quite a lot out of their boosts, more than what a 0 upgrade that didn't count against max upgrades should give.

The other part is that discourages using the models outside their own faction as the upgrades are faction locked.

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On ‎26‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 10:43 AM, Angelshard said:

I can see your point and I agree with for the most part, however as wizuriel said it does prevent taking other upgrades. Not sure how much of an issue this is since it seems to me the models in question get quite a lot out of their boosts, more than what a 0 upgrade that didn't count against max upgrades should give.

Well, considering that Whiskey Golem has a personal Upgrade other than the new 0-Upgrade it kinda does mess things a bit. His original Upgrade was sometimes taken but I really don't see anyone taking it now.

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