Stuffed Piglet makes our internal balance Worse

[lame0]

Im pretty sad that stuffed piglets got Cuddled and not really because of the model but basically because it just makes every other master way worse than somer even more of the time. What made Zipp and Wong really worth it was that we could take a rather elite crew and still maintain a decent model count and thus have activation control for our alpha strike. Now that's out the window and the only master that didn't really get affected is Somer the tried and true best gremlin master. This pushes us further into that choice. I said in another post that I really liked that we had three very viable masters but now I feel wyrd has pushed us into picking somer way more often and reduced our small competitive model pool (and maybe master pool in general but that I think we will have to see).

One positive is that I no longer see any reason to cuddle reckless because without easy access to activation control (outside somer) the extra ap becomes less valuable.

I don't think the pigapult will get any less use. Most of the time I think it was best used to position summoned bayous or pigs for schemes and in reality I am going to take a taxidermist/Lenny/ulix (maybe Sammy depending on the new master upgrades) to get an ammo or two if I want to fire the gun.

Lastly it's not that I think the stuffed piglets shouldn't of been Cuddled in someway (rare 3-4) but by doing it the way they did somer rose from 5% better to 15~20% better than the rest. This is the issue with summoners in every faction but because of the stuffed piglet it was somewhat mitigated for gremlins. I do think zoroida ophilia and ulix are now a little more competitive compared to Wong and Zipp given their summoning/totems.

I can only hope that the new master upgrades took this cuddle into account and sufficiently helped some of the other gremlin masters overcome this issue.

[Mutter]

34 minutes ago, lame0 said:

stuffed piglets shouldn't of been Cuddled in someway (rare 3-4)

Because this gets bandied about every so often: people need to realize that Wyrd NEVER, EVER will change the rare value of something that already has a box > than that value. And rightly so ...

[Dogmantra]

Why does it make Som'er better?

[Adran]

The only thing I can think of is family tree lets him get more gremlins. And That is "The competitive list". 

Not sure I agree, I've seen several masters do well at events even without hiring stuffed piglets.  A lot of the time Family tree is a trap, that people get caught in, Somer does very well without that upgrade. 

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, lame0 said:

in reality I am going to take a taxidermist/Lenny/ulix (maybe Sammy depending on the new master upgrades) to get an ammo or two if I want to fire the gun.

Have you tried using a Taxi or Sammy for Summoning ammo for the Pult? As I really don't see a way to make it work with Sammy and with Taxi it means that you need to kill your own dudes so probably Somer.

40 minutes ago, Mutter said:

Because this gets bandied about every so often: people need to realize that Wyrd NEVER, EVER will change the rare value of something that already has a box > than that value. And rightly so ...

They could've introduced a hiring limit instead of a Rare value, though.

12 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Why does it make Som'er better?

I believe lame0 means relative to the other top Masters.

8 minutes ago, Adran said:

Not sure I agree, I've seen several masters do well at events even without hiring stuffed piglets.

Naturally. The differences in power are small enough to be easily trumped by skill. Making a few sub-optimal choices when building your crew won't lose you the game.

[PolishSausage]

2 hours ago, lame0 said:

 

I can only hope that the new master upgrades took this cuddle into account and sufficiently helped some of the other gremlin masters overcome this issue.

You will be surprised. I will not use any of the new upgrades or models for 2018 (because they are inferior to what we already have)

kind of sad compared to what other factions are getting

[Finalscene]

I agree with the balance being shifted, but with GG2018 Strats and schemes about to hit we were going to see a shift in competitiveness anyway. Each faction is going to adjust as they've done each other time. Hopefully activation control will be a bit less important so that we can start playing more elite focused crews instead of 3 bayous coming with me in almost every game.

[Dogmantra]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

The only thing I can think of is family tree lets him get more gremlins. And That is "The competitive list". 

Not sure I agree, I've seen several masters do well at events even without hiring stuffed piglets.  A lot of the time Family tree is a trap, that people get caught in, Somer does very well without that upgrade. 

If that is what lame0 is saying I think it comes from a bit of a misunderstanding of activation control. The aim isn't to just have lots of activations, it's to specifically have more than your opponent to the point where they need to spend their AP engaging and you can chain two or three significant activations together without a chance to react.

Anyone can still hire Bayou Gremlins and while you get fewer activations, they're cheap enough to get more activations than an opponent, and their activations can actually score you points. Also, if you summon with Som'er for activation control turn 1 then you're going early with one of the models you most want to go last because min damage 4 gun, minimising the effect of that activation control.

[MinionJack]

7 minutes ago, Finalscene said:

I agree with the balance being shifted, but with GG2018 Strats and schemes about to hit we were going to see a shift in competitiveness anyway. Each faction is going to adjust as they've done each other time. Hopefully activation control will be a bit less important so that we can start playing more elite focused crews instead of 3 bayous coming with me in almost every game.

Only 3?

[MinionJack]

2 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Anyone can still hire Bayou Gremlins and while you get fewer activations, they're cheap enough to get more activations than an opponent, and their activations can actually score you points. Also, if you summon with Som'er for activation control turn 1 then you're going early with one of the models you most want to go last because min damage 4 gun, minimising the effect of that activation control.

There is usually not enough things close enough for Som'er to properly attack on turn 1.  Going from 11 activations to 16 on turn one, if everything goes well, should set you up for activation control for the game.

Turn 2-5, Som'er is free to do shooting/stabbing and not worry about summoning for the rest of the game.

[Mr Janje]

11-16???

God damn, am i missing something :O?

 

[Math Mathonwy]

19 minutes ago, Mr Janje said:

11-16???

God damn, am i missing something :O?

 

I'm guessing it's three Bayous from Somer and two Piglets from Lenny. Though I suppose it could also include Bayous turning into Skeeters and the Corpses turning into Stuffeds through Taxis. Not achievable consistently, though, I don't think.

[Dogmantra]

1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm guessing it's three Bayous from Somer and two Piglets from Lenny. Though I suppose it could also include Bayous turning into Skeeters and the Corpses turning into Stuffeds through Taxis. Not achievable consistently, though, I don't think.

You can also do Two Akaname dropping corpses from poison and two Taxidermists summoning off that, but then you also need something to poison the Akaname with (I saw it done with Brewmaster that was kinda neat but my opponent flipped like garbage and didn't get either summon off) at that point imo you could just hire like 7 extra Bayou Gremlins instead and get more activations from the start

36 minutes ago, MinionJack said:

There is usually not enough things close enough for Som'er to properly attack on turn 1. 

I strongly disagree. In Standard deployment, the two deployment zones are about 26" apart. You're normally going to be as far forward as you are allowed, and give or take 6" or so for the fact you're probably not just straight in the middle, you're going to start about 26-32" away from at least something. If they walk forward with something, maybe only 8" for a wk4 model or a cautious walk, you're 18-24" away. Swing at Som'er a few times with Skeeters/Bayou Gremlins/Old Cranky and you have a pretty good chance of pushing him (you're looking for just a mask on defense, so 1/4, but then Bayou Two Card gives you another flip, Old Cranky puts you on s, or you can drop a mask with a Skeeter to make it automatic). You can easily get within 12" of anything that dared to move up a bit with just one or two pushes and still have the AP to focus and shoot (or if you brought Sammy with Encouragement, pull off a couple of shots).

If they stick out of LoS completely I'd argue you've at least compromised their position, and then you can bust out Family Tree if you want.

[lame0]

54 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

If that is what lame0 is saying I think it comes from a bit of a misunderstanding of activation control. The aim isn't to just have lots of activations, it's to specifically have more than your opponent to the point where they need to spend their AP engaging and you can chain two or three significant activations together without a chance to react.

Anyone can still hire Bayou Gremlins and while you get fewer activations, they're cheap enough to get more activations than an opponent, and their activations can actually score you points. Also, if you summon with Som'er for activation control turn 1 then you're going early with one of the models you most want to go last because min damage 4 gun, minimising the effect of that activation control.

That's a little insulting tbh. Somer with family tree a taxidermist (which is seeing a ton of play regardless and is super competitive) and two bayous can make 9 stones and three activations turn one. Of course summoning is a turn one maybe turn two thing but for 8 points that I wouldn't normally want (family tree + 2x bayous) I can summon three times with somer killing one of them making a corpse counter drawing two cards and the summoning a stuffed piglet with my stacked hand. So somer can get 6 activations off of 8 stones and can be put into position for next turn off of his greatest squee trigger. This then leaves him with 12-14 activations where from two onward he can control how the game is played. After turn one who cares about summoning I got 4 Gremlins and a stuffed piglet and have 42 points of taxidermist + other strong stuff. With somer being moved 8-12 inches in whatever direction he wants. With the do over upgrade + a stone he pulls this off 95% of the time so it's extremely effective.

[spooky_squirrel]

21 minutes ago, PolishSausage said:

You will be surprised. I will not use any of the new upgrades or models for 2018 (because they are inferior to what we already have)

kind of sad compared to what other factions are getting

This is potentially a sign of a serious internal balance problem.
One of the players in my local meta has made the observation that the power creep is real because many of the new things open new doors or cover existing weaknesses in a way that creates a trade-off. If you're used to playing with over a dozen activations that die to a stiff breeze (or an Ashen Core's version of a breeze) and want to mix things up a bit, there exists models that are a little tougher with a slightly higher price tag. You end up with less activations at the beginning of the game, but you are also not looking at having half your activations becoming corpse/scrap/head markers by the end of Turn 2.

This observation seems true for all of the factions to some degree, especially from an outsider perspective looking in. If you're an insider and you feel that you will use none of the new stuff (Wave n+1) because your existing stuff is always better hands down, then there's either a perception or a balance problem.

I know a thing or two about the perception problems that can arise, because I tend to play askew from local wisdom and run into it constantly.

• Some of it is stagnation: people go with what they know works because they know it works (Arcanists with Ramos crews tend to look/feel cookie-cutter because there's a build that's worked for all of M2E that doesn't change much, if at all). Maybe this is because they don't have a lot of time for practicing new stuff, maybe they don't have the desire, maybe they don't have enough potential opponents to get a lot of practice in, maybe there's another reason that's less generic. Whatever the case, their experimentation is minimal at best and the desire to play (especially in tournaments) drives them to grab something proven.
• Some of it is newness and/or complexity: within various local metas players are trying to learn the game, learn new models, learn opponents. There's a ton of information to digest at the table, so something that requires more nuance or finesse to play might not get a good early shakedown. For players wanting to get to a tournament or get a quick game in, nuanced masters and crews are neither quick nor user-friendly. This causes them to end up on the bench instead of on the table. This even applies to upgrades; there are some that just don't get used because they have a wall of text and some nuance to play that acts like a bar to entry for play.

Perception drives metas, so it's not like it is "all in your head" when you're playing against your usual opponents. To overcome the first problem I describe above, you need players who are willing to risk the second problem and spend not just a game or two, but a dozen or two games shaking down something new or previously overlooked. That takes time, which might not be available; it also takes having an opponent that has time to sit down for an after-action review or even reset the board state so that you can try different things into the same conditions. If you cannot find other players who have the time and desire to do this, then you'll end up doing it on your own without the benefit of another set of eyes and a hostile actor helping you figure out its strengths and weaknesses.

Perception is also why it is there may be some disparity between where the design team and their testers feel a faction, model, or upgrade is at and distributed players feel it is at. Sometimes that's because someone isn't picking up on a subtle interaction, sometimes it's because the local meta is skewed one way or another that favors specific approaches to play over others.

With widespread playtesting and play, the perception variance can get smoothed out over time. People warm up to new ideas and things start seeing more play because certain schemes or terrain just make a model, combination, or even crew fully click.

Once perception variance is smoothed out, then what remains is actual balance. That's when errata testing for actual balance and/or health of the game issues and ideas get thrown at a wall to see what sticks.

Using this approach is actually pleasant (especially when compared to other game systems), because it helps discover the root of a problem. Increasing a 2ss model to 3ss in cost may feel ham-fisted to some, but it's a targeted change that survived testing shakedown. If it feels like it was done behind closed doors, it may be safe to assume that non-public testing was being tested against new stuff or with new stuff in mind, or involved a variety of ideas that were spaghetti noodles thrown at a wall that did not stick and thus don't need to be known to the general public.

One of the things to note (as several of us commented to Arcanist players about Colette's errata among others) is that not all changes are to benefit any specific faction or player directly. Some of the changes will benefit factions or players indirectly because they're aimed at the health of the game (even emergency ones that arrive just before major release events). They might be closing an unintended interaction because it was creating NPEs at the table or because they have something new coming that will make that unintended interaction worse, like a master upgrade that the master needed to bump its competitiveness in line with the other masters in its faction.

[PolishSausage]

Lets revisit this doom and gloom thread after GenCon ( ~2 weeks)

[Math Mathonwy]

18 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Increasing a 2ss model to 3ss in cost may feel ham-fisted to some, but it's a targeted change that survived testing shakedown.

To be fair, all models in all their iterations have survived testing shakedown. That's hardly a guarantee of perfection.

[spooky_squirrel]

1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

To be fair, all models in all their iterations have survived testing shakedown. That's hardly a guarantee of perfection.

Very true, hardly a guarantee of perfection; but it's a far cry removed from "I dunno, just increase the cost and see what happens"

[PolishSausage]

I am not sure, but is this the first model that had its cost increased?

[lame0]

3 hours ago, PolishSausage said:

Lets revisit this doom and gloom thread after GenCon ( ~2 weeks)

I don't really think it's doom and gloom it's just a fact that the price of our activation control model for everyone but somer went up 50%. For at least the next two weeks (probably the long haul) we have one really competitive master. 

Best generalist list I can come up with for somer:

50 SS Gremlins Crew
Somer Teeth Jones + 4 Pool
 - Family Tree 
Skeeter 
Skeeter 
Francois LaCroix 
Gremlin Taxidermist 
 - Dirty Cheater 
Burt Jebsen 
 - Dirty Cheater 
Lightning Bug 
Slop Hauler 
Lightning Bug 
Bayou Gremlin 
Bayou Gremlin 

Which is 11 models with +3 from turn one vs

Wong

50 SS Gremlins Crew
Wong + 3 Pool
 - Ooo Glowy 
McTavish 
 - Dirty Cheater 
Gremlin Taxidermist 
 - Dirty Cheater 
Swine-Cursed 
Swine-Cursed 
Lightning Bug 

11 point flex

Lucky Effigy / Bayou Gremlin / Old Cranky / lightning bug / do over

this list is 8-9 models but taxidermist can summon sometimes. 

The Wong list is for sure a face beater but I dunno not having the activation control is a pain and it was a lot better when the flex could have been 5 stuffed + do over for 11 activations.

 

[PolishSausage]

My go to list now is:

Somer

-Pull my finger/Dirty Cheater

Skeeter x2

Iron Skeeter x2

Franc

Raph

Pere

Bayou Gremlin x4

 

Most likely will stay this way for all of 2018 as well

[spooky_squirrel]

Idea: instead of generalist/go to lists, develop lists that are specifically tailored for the strategy and schemes of a scenario. Flip some schemes and build a crew to complete those schemes and completely throw the idea of "generalist" out.

• First look lists would be ones that play for 10 VP. That is, they focus on scoring the 10 points you need to maximize your own score.
• Second look lists would the ones that play for 11 VP. That is, they work on both scoring and denial such that 11 VP are accounted for by your crew. If you score only 9, you deny at least 2. This is substantially harder to plan, because you have to take into consideration opposing crew and what its player is likely to be bringing for the same scenario.

In both cases you build out your crew to be able to readily complete at least 3 of the available schemes so that an experienced opponent cannot look at your crew and know exactly what you're going for. Ideally you shoot for 4 schemes that you can complete, but sometimes the scenario flip has some schemes that are directly conflicting to the point of being mutually exclusive. This also gives you some flexibility to switch gears if your opponent drops a crew that is new to you or tailored to deny specific schemes that you might have been hoping for.

This allows you to play specifically to the strengths of specific models in certain scenarios.

You might even develop modules for specific scenarios. For instance, to score on Dig Their Graves you need something that can drop a scheme marker within 4" of your target, and an assassin to kill them. You've got no shortage of non-peon heavy hitters, so pair something like a Swine Cursed with something that can chain activate into it. Then during the turn, its paired model activates, gets to where it is needed, drops a scheme marker, and chain activates into the Swine Cursed to murder something for Dig Their Graves.

Some of your modules could even be single models. A Glowy/Magical Burt under Wong is going to deny regions of the board to your opponent, unless they have expendable bodies. So he can both be an Inspection scorer and denier. This also puts him somewhere to perform Claim Jump. He could even go Reckless and complete Claim Jump by himself while camping on the corner for Inspection.. all while being a constant threat to anything that might get close enough to threaten him. If the opposing faction is something that won't care so much about Burt's lethality, then you swap him out for a module that can do other work for the scenario.

 

For playing on a budget, a generalist list is not a bad idea, but if you're interested in competitive play, you're going to want to think about being exceptional at the specific tasks in front of you (the terrain, opponent, and strat and schemes that make the scenario) instead of just decent to good in general.

[WWHSD]

18 hours ago, PolishSausage said:

I am not sure, but is this the first model that had its cost increased?

I think that Sabertooth Cerberus Blessed of December  also had a 50% cost increase taking it to 9 stones from 6. 

[lame0]

2 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Idea: instead of generalist/go to lists, develop lists that are specifically tailored for the strategy and schemes of a scenario. Flip some schemes and build a crew to complete those schemes and completely throw the idea of "generalist" out.

• First look lists would be ones that play for 10 VP. That is, they focus on scoring the 10 points you need to maximize your own score.
• Second look lists would the ones that play for 11 VP. That is, they work on both scoring and denial such that 11 VP are accounted for by your crew. If you score only 9, you deny at least 2. This is substantially harder to plan, because you have to take into consideration opposing crew and what its player is likely to be bringing for the same scenario.

In both cases you build out your crew to be able to readily complete at least 3 of the available schemes so that an experienced opponent cannot look at your crew and know exactly what you're going for. Ideally you shoot for 4 schemes that you can complete, but sometimes the scenario flip has some schemes that are directly conflicting to the point of being mutually exclusive. This also gives you some flexibility to switch gears if your opponent drops a crew that is new to you or tailored to deny specific schemes that you might have been hoping for.

This allows you to play specifically to the strengths of specific models in certain scenarios.

You might even develop modules for specific scenarios. For instance, to score on Dig Their Graves you need something that can drop a scheme marker within 4" of your target, and an assassin to kill them. You've got no shortage of non-peon heavy hitters, so pair something like a Swine Cursed with something that can chain activate into it. Then during the turn, its paired model activates, gets to where it is needed, drops a scheme marker, and chain activates into the Swine Cursed to murder something for Dig Their Graves.

Some of your modules could even be single models. A Glowy/Magical Burt under Wong is going to deny regions of the board to your opponent, unless they have expendable bodies. So he can both be an Inspection scorer and denier. This also puts him somewhere to perform Claim Jump. He could even go Reckless and complete Claim Jump by himself while camping on the corner for Inspection.. all while being a constant threat to anything that might get close enough to threaten him. If the opposing faction is something that won't care so much about Burt's lethality, then you swap him out for a module that can do other work for the scenario.

 

For playing on a budget, a generalist list is not a bad idea, but if you're interested in competitive play, you're going to want to think about being exceptional at the specific tasks in front of you (the terrain, opponent, and strat and schemes that make the scenario) instead of just decent to good in general.

I think the term generalist was wrong but in reality in building a Somer list im looking to work off his strengths.

Im not saying I use the same list I just come up with a base list and alter it accordingly. In the somer list I would say 20ish points can be flex but the reason I fleshed it out above is to reflect my opinion and the position of the master. Generalist was just to represent that hey if I don't know anything about what im playing something along these lines would be what I'd expect to take. What's best about somer now is that he can make most models work better, his totem is 2 ss giving him two great models for cheap, and he summons minions. Remember my post was just to reflect that hey Wong feels quite a bit worse than somer right now and I thought throwing out two decent lists would best explain my thought process.

[Math Mathonwy]

6 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Idea: instead of generalist/go to lists, develop lists that are specifically tailored for the strategy and schemes of a scenario. Flip some schemes and build a crew to complete those schemes and completely throw the idea of "generalist" out.

I dunno whether you are aware but PolishSausage is a highly accomplished and decorated tournament player who, for example, came in second in this year's Adepticon and is currently ranked number 11 in the US rankings. He probably knows a thing or two about list building