What is the appeal of M3E?

[Phinn]

More and more often I hear people talk about wether or not it is time for the third edition of Malifaux and I am allways like: "Ooh, that would be nice," but then I realized that I would like the third edition just for the sake of it being something new and exciting but other than that...

I am just a filthy Malifaux casual so I do not have the same insight as people who play weekly or even more often. With the new book and Gaining Grounds being released annually I can't see the game getting stale. I hear people saying that this and that rule needs a clarification or even rework, but wouldn't errata be enough? This is not a rhetorical question, I am genuinely asking

Two things I would like, though, are:

• Now, I am not familiar with The Other Side rules, I have only watched The Other Side - Gameplay promotional video, but some of the core mechanics like Margin Triggers, that is triggers that activate once you win the duel by at least X amount, I do envy.
• And some upgrades, 0 SS cost upgrades mostly, being incorporated on the stat cards, errata instead of an upgrade, but... that is not dependant on the third edition and I understand why it is never going to happen.

What do you think? What is the appeal of M3E?

[Pyrflamme]

The new and shiny. You remember the hype leading up to book 5? Imagine that for every model currently existing. I never played 1.5, but I have the books and the differences in models are incredible. I think Wyrd's design philosophy has matured enough that if we saw an actual 3e instead of a 2.5e, the change wouldn't be as drastic in terms of overall philosophy, though models might get tweaked to a significant extent.

Base rules play a role too, some people really want stuff changed /clarified, but I think more people want to see what models changed. Some people because they just want a whole new world, some because they don't like how some models are (whether in the 1.5-2e transition or just how they were designed in 2e), some a little bit of both.

[solkan]

What's the appeal of a new edition?  As far as I can tell, it's that the person hasn't experienced an edition change recently so they're under the mistaken impression that they'd get whatever it is they wanted.  *cough* Warmachine/Hordes edition change *cough*

If I understand correctly, the 1st edition to 2nd edition for Malifaux took at least three years, during which time you got to see uncertainty in what models actually did, and uncertainty in what the rules are.  

 

[-Loki-]

I'm pretty happy with the game. There's a few mechanics I'm not find of - I think Vantage Point could do to be rewritten, but I don't think the game needs a new edition. I think at M2.5E would be healthy for the game, just to roll some erratas into the print rules and fix a few things that aren't working well.

The issues that seem to come up most often are due to unit imbalances, which you don't do a new edition to fix.

[retnab]

Mostly it seems like people just want things shaken up.  After several years with a ruleset, things that aren't ideal always show up more and more, but as has been pointed out before a new edition is no guarantee that those problems will properly go away (and new problems always appear).  I wouldn't mind something like a 2.1 where they tidy up the rulebook a bit, but I think a whole new edition would probably be a ton of time and effort for not really too much benefit (as with WM/H's so-so Mk3).

[Nexus]

I think part of it is 40k's new edition.
Their change to 8th edition has revitalized that game a lot, bringing back players that haven't played in a decade.

I think people just want something fresh like that.
The problem is, 40k needed the huge change because the game had pretty much broken itself into a corner, but Malifaux isn't quite there yet.

[Ludvig]

I'd mostly welcome clarifications on often disputed topics like timings which are too big to put in errata/faq apparently. You can do an edition change without changing model statlines, just getting a new basic rulebook out there.

I'm not itching for a change like last edition when most of my models brcame unplayable for over a year because I happened to have stuff that wasn't in the first wave of release.

[HydroMog]

i believe the appeal of a 3rd edition comes from the fact that alot of game companies usually put out a new edition every 4-5 years either as a complete overhaul or to fix a few things here and there.

because there is "new-hotness" every few years, it helps prevent the "ADHD" in some gamers from going full tilt and relieves some of the staleness from the game. but with the GG system updated every year i feel it removes some of the staleness from the game.

[WWHSD]

11 hours ago, Phinn said:

And some upgrades, 0 SS cost upgrades mostly, being incorporated on the stat cards, errata instead of an upgrade, but... that is not dependant on the third edition and I understand why it is never going to happen.

One feature of 0ss upgrades that may not be immediately obvious is the way that they interact with hiring out of faction models. Since the upgrade can't be used when hiring the model out of faction it keeps some abilities availble only to the model's native faction. 

Carlos without Stunt Double or Oxfordian Mages without their upgrades are going to make those models work much differently when played in a Resser crew than they are in Arcanist crews.

[WWHSD]

For M3E to not piss me off Wyrd would need to include all of the exsoting models in the first book and not make me wait a year or more to start playing models I already own again.

Outside of some of the elevation rules I don't think that there's anything that really needs fixing enough to go through the trauma of a version change. That could be probably handled errata by a small rules supplement that has an accompanining errata on any models that would need tocbe adjusted (I can't think of any that would need to be off the top of my head).

[retnab]

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

Carlos without Stunt Double or Oxfordian Mages without their upgrades are going to make those models work much differently when played in a Resser crew than they are in Arcanist crews.

Yeah, Carlos' "discard to heal from Burning" upgrade may as well be stapled to his card forever in Arcanists.  I kind of wish that if another change to them did happen that the Oxfordians were renamed something like "Oxfordian Mage (Blood)", etc and each be Rare 1 with their current upgrade's effect just on their card.  Temporary Shielding and Warding Runes could still work totally fine with that with some slight rewording too.

[Wolfpact]

There is none, to me. Buying the books for new editions, new cards, etc. is a huge money-drain for the less-than-flush gamers among us.

[trikk]

I'd actually prefer a new rulebook with some rules reworked (timing, vantage points) and a bigger errata than a whole new 3rd edition.

The downside is if we changed the timing rules, some of the cards would need an errata which becomes a logistics problem

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, trikk said:

I'd actually prefer a new rulebook with some rules reworked (timing, vantage points) and a bigger errata than a whole new 3rd edition.

The downside is if we changed the timing rules, some of the cards would need an errata which becomes a logistics problem

Or they would start functioning differently without that being a problem. Clarifying the timings shouldn't be a gamebreaker for most of them, it might at worst change which order some abilities resolved in.

[trikk]

Just now, Ludvig said:

Or they would start functioning differently without that being a problem. Clarifying the timings shouldn't be a gamebreaker for most of them, it might at worst change which order some abilities resolved in.

... which can result in infinite loops, gamebreaking combos etc.

[Ludvig]

17 minutes ago, trikk said:

... which can result in infinite loops, gamebreaking combos etc.

Not putting in "this action may not declare triggers" results in infinite loops. Defining if "damaging", "suffering damage" and "reducing to 0 wounds" are simultaneous or discrete steps doesn't make something new cause an infinite loop.

[trikk]

Oh I agree. But you have to investigate a lot of possibilities to check if something stupid doesn't come up

[hydranixx]

I think M2e has a very good level of replay-ability so I don't see the need for M3e. There's so much variety in each game: unique scheme, strategy & deployment pools, board layouts, mercenary options & diversity of factions just in the "basic game". Add to this seasonal Gaining Grounds changes, global events (remember the hype when Arcanists realised they could get a werewolf?), yearly model releases, designers staying active with their community through these forums and facebook... You have a recipe for a game where you can play a thousand games without the sense of repetition.

Many other game systems lack this replay-ability, so releasing new editions (even at the cost of invalidating existing strategies/armies/cards) becomes the only way for them to stop their game becoming stale.

40k's an example I'm familiar with. There's only so many 40k tournaments you can endure where 80% of the players mope around with space marines armed with a bucket of dice and the latest big titan before you lose interest and the game becomes very stale. Admittedly 8th edition looks to be unique in the sense that they've finally started actually listening to what their customers want, breaking decades long traditions of ignoring the people they pay them. I suspect that the game is still going to be too big to balance fairly, and that the way they release new content will still keep invalidating at least some of their older content.

From what I've seen, this contrasts extremely hard with how Wyrd makes updates. Wyrd's changes are usually implemented in tandem with existing rules, rather than in conflict with them. A great example of this that we're all excited about are the new master upgrades - which will drastically improve the play experience of many masters - without removing options all around them or weakening other masters.

I don't think anyone wants a full overhaul of Malifaux. A few tiny tweaks here and there is sufficient. I also reckon a height and vantage rules update would be welcome, as the current rules for them, while playable, are just not very intuitive.

[MrDeathTrout]

I'm not a fan of M3E, but I'm a huge fan of M2.5E.

The core mechanics of M2E are fantastic, I don't see any changes needed.

I would love to see M2E cleaned up.  

+ Timing - Every process needs named steps and every trait would be resolved before, during or after one of those named steps.  This would mean rewriting every card in the game.

+ Cause and Effect - Have a standard way of differentiating when something is required for something else to happen.

+ Consistency - Two things that do the same thing should be written the same way.  

+ Minor re-balancing.

 

I would love to see the game cleaned up before we get more models.

[Squirrelich]

8 minutes ago, MrDeathTrout said:

I'm not a fan of M3E, but I'm a huge fan of M2.5E.

The core mechanics of M2E are fantastic, I don't see any changes needed.

I would love to see M2E cleaned up.  

+ Timing - Every process needs named steps and every trait would be resolved before, during or after one of those named steps.  This would mean rewriting every card in the game.

+ Cause and Effect - Have a standard way of differentiating when something is required for something else to happen.

+ Consistency - Two things that do the same thing should be written the same way.  

+ Minor re-balancing.

 

I would love to see the game cleaned up before we get more models.

All this plus terrain and vantage point rules rewritten to stop some of the stupid RAW things that happen. (note: I do not knock people for playing RAW, but even while doing it everyone knows that the effect of these rules are probably not as intended in some cases and would have a positive effect on game play if they were cleaned up)

[retnab]

Just a thought, but since we're discussing a hypothetical M3e, what if Malifaux used TOS' rules? So off the top of my head, attacker always cheats first, flipping a Joker means you can't cheat but you can still select a different card if you have the option, max hand size of 6, you can use multiple triggers, and there's no multiple heights (just Low/High). That'd be a ton of enormous changes but it works well in practice for TOS, so hey.

[Bengt]

I'd like to see some mitigation of out-activation. For instance in Confrontation identical cheap models could be controlled by the same stat card (each stat card was an activation) and if one player had both less models and less stat cards at the start of a turn they would get a number of passes equal to the difference in stat cards.

And of course the usual suspects: timing, vantage, natural sounding English being prioritised over unambiguous wording - save the purple prose for the stories guys!

[Kadeton]

For me, the main appeal would be the chance to refactor older models now that the game and its design philosophy has had time to develop and mature. You can see this change between the Book 1 Masters and the Book 4 Masters, for example - many of the former are very limited in their choices of playstyle, have fewer actions to choose from, and are generally less flexible across the range of schemes and strategies. That's not to say that the Book 4 Masters are inherently more powerful (though certain ones are, in my opinion) - they just have a lot more interaction with their crews and a greater variety of ways to approach the game.

You can also see this maturation of design in the differences between Malifaux and The Other Side - lessons learned over the past few years of M2E were applied to TOS' core mechanics, and as result they're generally cleaner, more elegant, and allow more variety in the unit design space.

Basically, that's what I'd hope for in a new edition, whenever it happens. Start with cleaning up the core mechanics (like terrain and elevation, timing, conditions, etc). Then, revisit the mechanics of Wave 4 models to make sure they fit the design of the new edition, and work backwards - rebuild Wave 3 and make them as varied and interesting as Wave 4, then Wave 2, then Wave 1. At the end of that process, all the models should be more-or-less on par both in terms of their power level and (more importantly) what they actually bring to the game in terms of player engagement.

That said, I don't think we particularly need a new edition. The real question is what Wyrd might do instead of releasing a new edition - at some point, the range of models becomes too unwieldy and a barrier to entry, so just packing more new models into books is a limited-term strategy. Other approaches, like Wave 5's new Master upgrades, are a great way to breathe some new life into the game, but again, they can't do that every year. I'm keen to see what they come up with next, though.

[(Keenan)]

23 hours ago, Kadeton said:

but again, they can't do that every year

Why not?  It's easy enough to design I think and cheap enough for the company and for the players to buy a master upgrade box every year or two to change how the game/masters play.  It's certainly better than waiting every six years for an army book just to have an edition change make the majority of the models you own obsolete.  Cycling a master's upgrades in and out keeps the individual masters fresh as well as the game.  New master upgrades every two years and new GG every year sounds like a decent way to evolve the game to me.

[Kadeton]

1 hour ago, (Keenan) said:

Why not?  It's easy enough to design I think and cheap enough for the company and for the players to buy a master upgrade box every year or two to change how the game/masters play.  It's certainly better than waiting every six years for an army book just to have an edition change make the majority of the models you own obsolete.  Cycling a master's upgrades in and out keeps the individual masters fresh as well as the game.  New master upgrades every two years and new GG every year sounds like a decent way to evolve the game to me.

Genuinely, I feel they would quickly run out of ideas that were sufficiently "new" as to be interesting. There's so much variety packed into the game already that it's very hard for new mechanics to find a niche that's not stepping on any toes, and people already complain that the Factions feel "samey" to them.

One area that could still be well explored in future releases would be "refresh waves", taking old or under-used models and rewriting their mechanics to bring them up to par, like a large-scale errata. That could easily be done without moving to a new edition, or even as a means of paving the way for a soft landing of a new edition by making the rules work in both.