New to Mailfaux, why did so many 1E drop out?

[notmikehill]

Space Pirates

 

Space Pirates kidnapped a small portion of the community and took them to 1st Edition Island. Thread Over.

 

Going to have to agree with you on this one. Also, a spanish space game company stole a vast majority of my player base too. (myself included for a time)

 

Let's just say it's rhymes with "Smervus Smelli"

[Dracomax]

Going to have to agree with you on this one. Also, a spanish space game company stole a vast majority of my player base too. (myself included for a time)

 

Let's just say it's rhymes with "Smervus Smelli"

Nervous deli?

[nilus]

Hey guys,  one of the Kings of the old guard chiming in.  Well maybe not a king, maybe a duke or a baron.  Anyways the point is I played a lot of Malifaux 1 and 1.5 and ran a ton of events for it.  Now some of the reasons I stopped play are entirely not game related, mostly personal family  and career related stuff I got going on takes a lot of my time.  But the reason why I didn't really have the motivation to push past all that and get into M2E are belows.

 

1)  For every good change I saw I felt I saw an equal number of changes for the sake of change.  A great example to me is the encounter system.  A lot of the old guard felt that balancing out that the basic concept worked fine, but the Strategies and schemes just needed an overhaul.  A good example of where that was going is the last 1.5 version of Gaining Grounds that had the redesigned Strategies that for the most part people really liked.  I am also against the random scheme mechanic.  I think better balanced schemed would solve the problem of people always taking the same ones

 

2)  Poorly managed transition to M2E.   Looks at Warmachine and see the absolute best way to handle a edition change.  When the new edition came out official every model in the game had stat cards and was playtested.  Wyrd's approach with the multiple phases and currently still some 1.5 models that do not have official published rules in M2E(Avatars I think) was a bad call.  I felt there was a rush to have the game out for Gencon last year and they were going to put it out no matter what.  Maybe that was a financial need,  I don't know, but I felt it hurt the game and made it much harder for old players and Henchman.    The Gencon events last year are a great example of how this hurt everyone.   I took a bit of flak for fighting to keep 1.5 events but the problem was no answer was right.  You either support the old edition, and confuse the market, or you support a half supported new edition where some players(anyone using book 2, 3, or 4 Masters) could not even play.  

[Omenbringer]

I can not agree more with Nilus (great to hear from you by the way). A lot of us expected some targeted re-balancing and rules tightening (similar to Privateer Press' Mk2) not a complete rewrite.

 

I would also add that most of the old guard didn't appreciate the assertions that the old edition was "virtually unplayable" and "so horribly balanced" that you could just bring crew x and auto win (which always amazed me since I have been beaten many times while playing several of those crews).

 

 

Also as we entered storm of shadows the masters in 1.5 started to be walls of text witch as a guy who runs alot of convention demos was very intimidating to new players. 

 

Though I agree with this, I would also offer that the new cards are not much better (especially when you consider the additional word count from available upgrades). It is human nature to try and fill a page.

 

As for issues demoing, well I have plenty of thoughts on that and most of them have to do with the actual demo'er and little to do with the game. The one thing I really think M2E did well was make that aspect "dummy proof", though there are still plenty that goon it up.

 

In the end though it doesn't matter since continuing in the "Official" Malifaux community (Leagues, Tournaments, etc) will necessitate shifting to M2E or M3E or M4E or what ever the current edition happens to be. much like those that play Warmahordes or Warhammer Fantasy or 40K, etc.had to do.

[dgraz]

I'm certainly 'old guard'. I certainly do NOT disagree with Omen and Nilus.....I think there were some problems....and there was certainly that feeling of change for change's sake....those of you in the original closed beta know what I thought about it (I thought Wyrd would come to my house and confiscate all my Malifaux stuff and ban me forever I was so nasty).......I agree about the text complexity (though for many, many models it HAS been reduced) on Master's and such it's still complex...especially since you now have to juggle four cards instead of one. (Which I think is a little funny......people complain that it was too stream-lined, but then others say that it's still just as much if not more complicated.)

 

.....but, I got over it. As I said earlier, there are still some things I don't care for, but I've pretty much embraced everything else. I could go point for point as to why I can accept these things, but I don't think it's necessary and I don't want to come off as argumentative because I don't believe there is anything to argue about. We all have our own opinions and no one is wrong. The new edition isn't for everyone....period. I think it's incredibly sad that we have lost some fantastic people that did a lot for Malifaux as a whole, and I sympathize with them that they have lost a game they loved so much........but the growth I'm experiencing lessens that sadness by quite a bit.

 

Only one thing that I'll contend with a little bit....while I agree with Omen's point about some demo problems stemming from people doing it.........the game is way easier to teach. I gave scores of demos for 1.5 and never got over 4-6 solid, solid players..........I have not changed the way I demo (other than the new rules)......and my player base doubled. It definitely isn't me..........I'm the same nasty cuss I always was...and yet still...people want to play this game.

 

So, while I totally understand the people that left and don't judge them in any way..........you can certainly call me a convert.

[Mister Shine]

Not sure how warmahordes did it, but one of my favourite experiences with Wyrd so far was being able to help craft the rules of the system I play a lot. Yes its taken awhile but I got the chance to point to models and go "Wait, wouldnt it be better if it did it like this?" And then Teddy gets Peek-a-Boo and I can point to it and go "LOOKIT THAT THING I DID"

[EntrepeNinja]

Also there is a whole section of Stories in the book which are Asymmetrical, and even have Faction Schemes available. And when the Strat + Scheme deck comes out there is another 4 strats for multiplayer games.

 

 

Am I the last to this party? Or did we just as a community gloss over this bit of new? 'Cuz I know my mind is being exploded right 'bout now. 

 

... Just me? Kay.

[mythicFOX]

Not sure how warmahordes did it, but one of my favourite experiences with Wyrd so far was being able to help craft the rules of the system I play a lot. Yes its taken awhile but I got the chance to point to models and go "Wait, wouldnt it be better if it did it like this?" And then Teddy gets Peek-a-Boo and I can point to it and go "LOOKIT THAT THING I DID"

This. Very much this.

[DeleteAccount]

As I see it, the Gencon deadline only really hurt Tara and well, she had a lot of special exceptions associated with her...

 

The rest more or less pulled through well enough and frankly, if you don't have a solid deadline, stuff starts meandering aimlessly like the bloody train wreck that was Leveticus.

 

I also have no problem with the staggered releases since frankly, warmachine did the same, no matter how much you want to sugarcoat it. They first did all of warmachine and then they did all of hordes, so there was a period where hordes players only had beta rules in a shifting state to play against warmachine players, no different than wave 1 and wave 2, only at least you had all the factions represented.

 

Wave 2 was already very hard to balance, thinking of having to have both waves together would have been madness and I thank the gods that the avatars have gotten delayed since I assure you they would have been horrible if forced down the pipeline along with wave 2 (there is having a deadline to focus your work and another thing is releasing something that is half baked and we all know it).

 

As for M1 balance, it was crap, I was absolutely dominant with Kirai with little effort and my opponents had a very hard time stopping me from doing crippling actions that were trivial for me, I did lose once in a while, but most times I just plain had control over the tempo of the match and Hamelin before the Cuddle was plain madness. I pretty much add to disallow myself from using Kirai outright for almost a year which is certainly not something I was thrilled about.

 

Also, like I've already stated, I love the scheme pool, keeps things dynamic yet focused, too many schemes to chose and you have no idea what the other guy is going for and that's half the mindgames of the game that go instantly poof and into smoke. That or again the autoinclide brigade, since you can tighten the schemes all you want, but you will always end up with a few outliers, at least with the scheme pool I can't count with my usual schemes appearing and can play with my opponents expectations of me going for my usuals to try and shangai him.

 

Finally, I remember hearing that there were a  couple of M1 events at Gencon last year and they were a bust, though I don't know how much of that was people with lack of interest in M1 and how much of it was just the estranged atmosphere of the community. Something tells me it was probably more of the second...

[Scorpion0x17]

Am I the last to this party? Or did we just as a community gloss over this bit of new? 'Cuz I know my mind is being exploded right 'bout now. 

 

... Just me? Kay.

I'm just planning to pin Ratty down next time I see him, and extract whatever information I can, by whatever means necessary...

[DeleteAccount]

I'm just planning to pin Ratty down next time I see him, and extract whatever information I can, by whatever means necessary...

Probably 2 of them are from that Wyrd chronicles that had multiplayer strategies, or at least refined versions of that I'd imagine.

[Ratty]

Probably 2 of them are from that Wyrd chronicles that had multiplayer strategies, or at least refined versions of that I'd imagine.

All new, what you get when Ratty realises he has 4 spare slots for cards.. Had a lot of fun designing them.

[Fetid Strumpet]

The ultimate answer is that we all play war-games for a variety of reasons. And those reasons, even when they are the same, such as a love of pushing toy soldiers around a board, can still have different shades of meaning for different players. Playing a game is a total experience, everything from the sculpting of the miniatures, to what work goes into playing it, the fluff, the art, the community, and many many more things. Every one of us builds our passion and enjoyment of the game on personal interpretations of those aspects, and when any of those aspects changes it can mess with our personal preferences. I regret we mostly lost players and community members like Nix, Gruesome, and Nilus (Nice to hear from you btw!) but ultimately whatever made the game special for them seems to have been lost, while to players like me it seems to only have gotten better. Whenever M3E rolls around other members of the community will drop out and add it, that's just the nature of war-games.

 

There is no single "reason" why players left after the edition change. The truth is there are multiple reasons, in all shades of intensity.

[EntrepeNinja]

All new, what you get when Ratty realises he has 4 spare slots for cards.. Had a lot of fun designing them.

 

You know what I like about you Ratty? Your "leaked information" stuff is so casual that it's almost like it didn't actually happen. 

 

"Blah blah blah, stuff relating to the topic, blah blah, something new that is definitely happening and no one but me really knew about it, back on topic, yada yada yada".

 

"Umm... What was that bit in the middle?"

[DeleteAccount]

All new, what you get when Ratty realises he has 4 spare slots for cards.. Had a lot of fun designing them.

Intrigued I am indeed...

[Justin]

The ultimate answer is that we all play war-games for a variety of reasons. And those reasons, even when they are the same, such as a love of pushing toy soldiers around a board, can still have different shades of meaning for different players. Playing a game is a total experience, everything from the sculpting of the miniatures, to what work goes into playing it, the fluff, the art, the community, and many many more things. Every one of us builds our passion and enjoyment of the game on personal interpretations of those aspects, and when any of those aspects changes it can mess with our personal preferences. I regret we mostly lost players and community members like Nix, Gruesome, and Nilus (Nice to hear from you btw!) but ultimately whatever made the game special for them seems to have been lost, while to players like me it seems to only have gotten better. Whenever M3E rolls around other members of the community will drop out and add it, that's just the nature of war-games.

 

There is no single "reason" why players left after the edition change. The truth is there are multiple reasons, in all shades of intensity.

 

I think Fetid has put it as best as anyone can.

 

People like what they like. No sense in trying to quantify it or judge it. If you like second edition, cool, play it. If not, I'm sorry, but it's impossible to make everyone happy. This isn't me being dismissive, simply accepting reality.

 

Anyway, while this thread has been polite and on topic, I'm going to lock it as requested. Quit while you're ahead and all that. I think all sides have made their points.