The Zinc Lich Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 I recently dipped back into League of Legends for approximately as long as it took me to realize it just made me angry, and it really got me thinking about the purpose of Bans in a game. Just so we are all on the same page, I'm talking about a banning step during the selection process of a game, not blanket bans being put in to try and "fix" balance issues. It's a pretty simple theory; after the scheme pool is revealed, each player gets to ban one master from the opponent's faction, preventing them from hiring that master into their crew. The idea is to create an environment where master selection is more dynamic, as well as rewarding players for identifying the weaknesses of their factions and having skills with models that are not necessarily their first choices. You can use your Ban pick for a lot of different things, such as: -Just plain banning the "strongest" master in the faction. This is the most obvious ban use, of course. If you really feel like you can identify the categorically strongest master in a faction, you can just ban them and the opponent will be playing at a handy cap. Of course, you will be, too, after the opponent bans a master for you. -Banning masters with particular strengths against your faction. A lot of the resilience in an Arcanist crew is tied to Armor, and it'd be really nice to pick from the whole catalog of toys without worrying about Leveticus ruining your day. -Banning masters that have particularly a particularly strong presence in certain strategies. Ramos and Nicodem when Reconnoiter comes up are the answers that immediately come to mind. -Banning masters you just plain don't want to face. Some days, you just don't want to wallow in the Brewmaster's suck bubble. -Banning masters that you have seen the opponent using well in earlier rounds of a tournament. I understand that this might be a bit of a negative play experience for people who really like using certain tools, but the ability to win with a variety of models in different situations is a skill I think that more people who play Malifaux should cultivate, really. I like the idea because it adds another tactical choice to be made before the game even begins. It gives you an incentive to try and cold read your opponent, and it rewards people for critically thinking about the tools that they have access to versus the ones the other player does. It creates more of an interaction between players in the mostly solitary steps before initiative is flipped. Who did they ban? Why do you think they banned them? Can you use this knowledge to your advantage? It also allows the community collectively to self-correct for masters who are doing unusually well, and remove problem matchups that may be preventing a master from operating at their full potential. There are, of course, problems with it. First and foremost, you have the fact that it forces people to bring a wide variety of masters to deal with the fact that any one of them can be banned. People who only own one master will simply be out of luck, and new players will be unfairly punished for their lack of experience if they make bad ban picks. There's also the fact that, for all that Malifaux is a pretty balanced game, not every faction can be equal at every situation. Most factions have "weird" masters that cover their weaknesses; Ironsides is an Arcanist that doesn't rely on Ca actions, Lucius brings ranged attacks to the Neverborn. If you can ban a faction's only access to a certain play style, you can make their crew collection, as a whole, more predictable. Considering that is the opposite of why I want to experiment with banning, I suppose that's a pretty big stumbling block. In a "masters" style tournament, though, I wonder how much of a difference banning would actually make? Anyone else want to muck around with this stuff? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zFiend Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 I think this sounds pretty cool to try actually at some point. While we usually opt for a Gentleman's agreement about certain things that aren't to be played we are sort of already doing this in a friendly game setting. Then again this highly favours people with a huge collection (read whole faction) than the guy who has a few masters. Probably the safest area to actually try stuff like banning masters would be Vassal as you have the whole faction at your dispense there. But it was a fun read for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirial Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Interesting idea. I'm no tournament player, so I can't comment on practicality. Although I'm suprised that zFiend isn't excited about his chance to ban Hamelin.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lusciousmccabe Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 This seems pretty interesting, although I'd be more inclined to call it a veto than a ban. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterDisaster Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Interesting idea. I'm no tournament player, so I can't comment on practicality. Although I'm suprised that zFiend isn't excited about his chance to ban Hamelin.... Chances are he'd ban the Viks before Hamelin if Outcasts were his opponent. I dunno why, the Viks are super soft and cuddly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zFiend Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Viks are horrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sholto Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 This could be fun. You would need a willing group of attendees, however, who are all on board with the idea. But yeah - I could see this working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adran Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 It sounds pretty intersting, but quite penaising to a wide group of players. (Those who only play 1 master). Even amongst the top players you often find they focus on 1 master at a time rather than 1 faction. From an implimentaion approach, I would suggest the event to have 2 options. 1 you pick a faction, and your opponent gets to Ban a master each game. 2 You Pick a master, and your opponent gets to Ban a non master figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patzer Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Interesting concept, but I say no. I think the game is far to balanced for bans (there are counters for everything), and in friendly games you can just agree with your opponent to not play x, y, and z (if they are ok with that). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengt Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 I think it's an interesting variant for tournaments, for casual play it would be NPE for me. For casual play, just discuss it with your opponent if you are tired of playing against a particular Master. A related variant would be no repeat Masters in a fixed faction tournament. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicodemic Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 You must be on Facebook because this is exactly what we are doing in the vassal league, i have to say I'm enjoying it so far. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trikk Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 The main drawback from this is... this discourages new players. If you have 2 masters and one of them gets banned each game that sucks for you If you have 4+ masters then this makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sholto Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 "I am playing <ARCANIST MASTER/ LEVI>. Which of my non-Master models would you like to ban? Actually, never mind. I'll just put Mech Rider back in my case, shall I?" 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Zinc Lich Posted May 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 It sounds pretty intersting, but quite penaising to a wide group of players. (Those who only play 1 master). Even amongst the top players you often find they focus on 1 master at a time rather than 1 faction. From an implimentaion approach, I would suggest the event to have 2 options. 1 you pick a faction, and your opponent gets to Ban a master each game. 2 You Pick a master, and your opponent gets to Ban a non master figure. Well, the idea is a new tournament type, not something that would be present in every tournament. Malifaux is getting popular enough that we can start thinking about fun stuff to do. In, say, an invitational format where you can bet that everyone is a veteran player, I think bans would be an interesting addition, especially over Vassal, where everyone has access to every model. I will say that I don't think that banning non-master figures is nearly as viable. I mean, what happens when someone bans Viktoria of Blood? Even if you limit the models that can be banned, it isn't like a non-master model is really going to change the way you play. There's just too much variety; what are the chances someone will ban the exact model you were planning on playing? It just means that Guild players are going to keep Fancisco in the bag and Arcanists won't drop the Mechanical Rider every game. Interesting concept, but I say no. I think the game is far to balanced for bans (there are counters for everything), and in friendly games you can just agree with your opponent to not play x, y, and z (if they are ok with that). Actually, I only bring up this step because the game is really balanced. If the power level was wildly inconsistent, people would just brainlessly ban whoever is best, every time. Has anyone looked at a major Warhammer 40k tournament lately? Something like 80% of the people in placing positions play Eldar. If they tried adding a ban step to that game, every ban would be Eldar in every game. I don't think the game *needs* bans, I think that it is something that gets you thinking about approaching situations from a direction you usually don't, and I think that's a lot of fun. I've got no real malifaux tournament experience under my belly but i am a regular wm/h tournament player and organisator. While i am strictly against each form of ban during such events i can understand the motion behind. In wm/h divide and conquer x is a fairly regular mode, meaning you have to play each of ur list x times. I can imagine a similiar procedur, where you can play each master only x times. Greets Tors! I'm glad someone else brought up Divide and Conquer, because it is literally, without a doubt, my least favorite format for a multi-list tournament. DNC is designed to make people play every list they bring at least once, and that means that, at some point in the tournament, you are going to be locked into what you are playing, even if that pick has almost no chance of winning versus the opponent. For those who may not play Warmachine, the meta is currently completely run by lists designed to skew hard in one direction or the other. An armor-spam list is a great option to drop versus the mostly low-powered shooting of the Cygnar faction, but it is totally useless against a horde of Cryxian shadow-zombies that tear through armored units like butter. If you run into Cryx every round of a tournament (which can happen, they are the most popular tournament faction in the game), you are going to find yourself locked into your armored list by DNC and put in a position where your only chance of victory is a 10-20% assassination run on the opposing leader. You should never lose a game because the tournament rules *force* you to, but if DNC doesn't threaten you with locking your list selection, it fails at it's primary goal of encouraging strategic diversity... Malifaux tournament play is really a different beast than Warmahordes. Because you generate each list on the fly, after terrain, victory conditions, and opposing faction are all revealed, you have much more flexible options for what you bring to the table. Even if you did a DNC for masters, you could conceivably run the same list every round, just swapping out who is in charge of it. Lady Justice, Perdita, and Sonnia can rock pretty similar lists and still do well because they mostly just kill your opponent's stuff with minimal interactions with their crew. Giving the opponent a Ban instead of limiting masters by use allows for them to select what to lock you out of with the same amount of flexibility that you build your lists with, which I think is a lot more true to the style of game Malifaux is. You must be on Facebook because this is exactly what we are doing in the vassal league, i have to say I'm enjoying it so far. I assume you mean A Wyrd Place? I joined up a while ago, but, I'll be honest with you, I spend a lot of my time hiding from Facebook. That place will suck away hours of your life. I get little enough done during my day without my friends messaging me about funny things their cats do. I'm glad to hear that other people are trying this kind of thing out, and that it works well. Is there a schedule for Vassal tournaments on Facebook, or do they just kind of happen when people are willing to organize them? The main drawback from this is... this discourages new players. If you have 2 masters and one of them gets banned each game that sucks for you If you have 4+ masters then this makes sense. Well, the idea is that you have a fixed master "Youngbloods" tournament running for people who don't have an expansive collection of stuff. I mean, a new player doesn't really have the experience or the knowledge to really make their ban count. In the end, Gaining Grounds is the official, sanctioned tournament system set up by Wyrd, so anything we do is going to be unofficial, at best. I don't really have a lot of numbers for it, but it really feels like Malifaux's popularity is increasing (which is good, because it's the best Miniature game I've played). We have our first invitational tournament coming at the Nova Open in September, right? How many more years before we're building national teams? Streaming content, Vassal support, and a dedicated community willing to talk about plastic cowboy figures for hours are really breaking down the boarders of what was, twenty years ago, a very niche and solitary hobby. I'm glad to see the love spreading as fast as it has been, and I look forward to seeing what Malifaux looks like five years from now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertmac Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 I think it may depend on numerous factors. "Which arcanist master do you not want to face?" "Ramos" "cool i dont play him anyway!" Would you have to advise which masters you have? Or would you just announce faction and your opponent gets to ban 1 master from that faction after seeing strats and schemes or would you need to announce which masters you have and let your opponent choose from those. If it was the 2nd option i'd probably end up buying individual masters just to mess up the opponents choice effectively gaming the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigHammer Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 In theory this would be something I would love to try. I'd worry a little about it excluding some players who maybe only have one master from any given faction, or who have really focussed on learning only one master's play style, but I think it could work if you got the numbers for it. One consideration I would give mind to would be to allow an extra bit of time at the start of each game, not just to decide the veto, but also to allow each player a bit more thinking time to adapt to the schemes and strategies with a master that might not have been their first choice for that game (and also because picking a crew can be heavily influenced by the master chosen, obviously). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxypoo Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 I would support this as an alternative tournament format, but would not support it as the main format. Malifaux is balanced enough that models don't really need to be banned (there are certainly no Black Lotuses or Skullclamps floating around). However, I think it would be a fun alternative game mode, especially over Vassal where everyone has access to every model. In real life, I think it could cause hard feelings since you might not get to play with your favorite lovingly modeled and painted master. As has been mentioned it would also favor veterans with large collections, so it could certainly be fun amongst a group of vets. I'm prepared to never play with Leveticus in this format haha. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cats Laughing Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 I assume you mean A Wyrd Place? I joined up a while ago, but, I'll be honest with you, I spend a lot of my time hiding from Facebook. That place will suck away hours of your life. I get little enough done during my day without my friends messaging me about funny things their cats do. I'm glad to hear that other people are trying this kind of thing out, and that it works well. Is there a schedule for Vassal tournaments on Facebook, or do they just kind of happen when people are willing to organize them? There is an affiliated but separate facebook group called "A Wyrd Place Vassal League" that runs vassal leagues and primarily draws players from the A Wyrd Place group. The current league is a double elimination banhammer format, where you can do exactly what you suggest (ban a master from your opponent's faction). I'm not in it, as I have a hell of a time scheduling vassal games due to real life and my time zone (GMT-10), but it seems to be running well. I think it will be a few more weeks before that league/tourney ends, but perhaps someone in that league will be able to pop in with comments. One thought I have, is that the vassal format means that model selection is as open as a player wants. Newer players are likely still disadvantaged by lack of experience, but at the very least no one is hampered by the lack of models (there is the potential for not having the appropriate cards, but...), as opposed to a physical tournament where this format can be unbalanced by model availability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumling Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 Its always good to have a choice, but i would never play this format myself. I'm feeling so old and grumpy now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllistorPreist Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 The biggest problem I have is that the idea ignores or even discourages a major part of the hobby, painting. There is a type of player who spends the year before Gencon or Feast of Blades or whatever big gaming event preparing an army for that year. They paint, convert, and builds and tune their list throughout the year. They show up with the fully painted, custom based armies that make people stop and go, "I want to do that". These are the full spectrum gamer who live and breath your game. Living,breathing billboards that make people look across the hall (or at pics on the web) and go, "what is that and how do I get in?" Way back in my 40K days I saw a lot of them, in my Warmachine days they were fewer. My Malifaux group is too small and local, so I am the closest we got. My painting ain't great, but i put a lot of work into it. I was hoping to put together a Showgirls crew for Califaux, but other responsibilities kept me out as I have not only not had enough time to paint, but also I haven't played nearly enough games and none with Colette. I don't need much encouragement to try and do this, but a kick in the teeth like someone being able to veto my choice is really gonna knock me out. Warhammer had mandatory painting, which I personally consider a mistake for much the same reasoning. Privateer had the Hardcore format. But mostly, they did not discourage this type of player. And keep in mind, these are not always the top painters, just visually motivated players. And sometimes, they are top end players. Giving someone the ability to say, "wow, you painted an amazing crew there, but no Leveticus so... to bad" is really a demotivating factor, even in an optional format. Don't believe me? Look up some of the rants warmachine players had when there was a tournament type, just one, that had a painting requirement. In LoL or Vassal games, this is not an issue, but at the table it is a real kick in the teeth to some very dedicated fans not to mention the people who just like one master or are newer and have fewer options. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omenbringer Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 For my part (and this may come as a surprise to some) I am against any kind of formal "Ban" step in events. It is a cop out in most cases (players that just dont want to learn to play outside of their comfort zones) and strongly implies band aid approaches to real or even imagined balance issues. Malifaux is not a balanced game even without considering player skill levels, there is a lot of rock-paper-scissors built into the game. In competitive environments the truly potent masters are those that are most capable in the widest range of strategies and schemes (since you can focus your event training on them instead of dividing it between a half dozen options within a faction), allowing the banning of them will just leave players feeling burned (especially if your opponent chooses to ban the one master you brought that has a reasonable chance of achieving victory in the given randomly generated circumstances). I would rather see "Easy Buttons" addressed with real changes rather than avoidance. Avoidance doesn't fix things it just allows them to fester, take a look at last edition to see a few examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guslado Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 I think an interesting idea for a tourney would be to have a fixed faction tourney and that you can only use any master once. I think that could bring an interesting feel to a tournament and force players to expand their horizons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solkan Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 My opinion? Ban lists work in environments like video games or vassal tournaments where people haven't spent money on the individual playing pieces. Otherwise, it becomes a way for the veteran players to demonstrate how jaded they are to the new players. "Oh, no, the game isn't interesting enough unless we have someone else tie an arm behind our backs." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpectreEliteGaming Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 The biggest problem I have is that the idea ignores or even discourages a major part of the hobby, painting. There is a type of player who spends the year before Gencon or Feast of Blades or whatever big gaming event preparing an army for that year. They paint, convert, and builds and tune their list throughout the year. They show up with the fully painted, custom based armies that make people stop and go, "I want to do that". These are the full spectrum gamer who live and breath your game. Living,breathing billboards that make people look across the hall (or at pics on the web) and go, "what is that and how do I get in?" Way back in my 40K days I saw a lot of them, in my Warmachine days they were fewer. Bang on for me! Its nice that someone else said it so I didn't have to. Honestly, I do a lot of research and have a game every now and then but i spend most of my time hobbying. Im not a gamer, painter, or modeler - I'm a hobbyist - I do it all. When I have free time I don't think "i should get a game in" - i look at my queued projects and give'r shit best I can. I have a hard time doing anything game related or reading fluff mostly because I'm too busy with the modeling aspect of it. Most people seem to get absorbed with the game - which I just see as a fun little bonus thing to do with your shinies - the real draw for me is the models and the possible crazy stuff I can do with them - from what I've seen though, you are correct. All the super crazy awesome people are doing 40k (which draws me in big time after seeing the display boards @ adepticon - consider me inspired). From what I've seen so far no one has really taken the hobbyist plunge into Malifaux the way the crazy 40k people have - I'm hoping that post-nationals @ nova open, people will be more inclined to go crazy with the hobby. Unfortunately/Fortunately, the Malifaux game is so good people would rather just focus their time playing it instead of getting their modeling done. TL;DR - No ones telling me I can't play my army. You silly vassal people should be painting your minis! Personally, I don't like the idea of factions at all - I play whatever masters I like - the gremlin faction is the only one where I seem to like almost all the masters in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniello_s Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 If this is a league then maybe you can do this trick: - all masters are available in the 'pool' in each faction - when player use certain master in the game, then this master is removed from his 'pool' and he must choose another master next game - when he uses all masters available in the faction then the 'pool' is renewed again with all the masters and he can choose any master for the next game - then proceed as previously This way you'll avoid people running same master all the time and there will be no problem with solving who is to be banned as the strongest master in each faction Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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