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Some Rambling Observations from an Old Man of Malifaux


Arkion

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Hey Wyrdos,

I've been playing Malifaux since first edition, circa book 2. I took something of a hiatus and stopped keeping up with it in 2015, but since Fall 2017 I've been getting back into the Malifaux habit and I'm surprised at how complicated the game has become. So, in order to help me process, and get some feedback/help/angry yelling from the community, I offer

Some Rambling Observations from an Old Man of Malifaux
Does he justly fear what he can't understand, or is he simply past his prime?

First of all, Book 5. Wow.
* Holy upgrades, Batman! While some of these I absolutely LOVE (Seamus, Von Schill), others are... um... potentially insane (Perdita, Misaki) or actually insane (Tara), and a vast number seem like they're just trying to encourage a sub-optimal line of play (Leveticus?). I'm all about breathing new life into old models, but not at the expense of making the game feel tedious to play.

* Seriously, this version of Tara is more complex than Leveticus was in 1.5.

* "They're just trying to break the game at this point so they can sell 3.0."  --My Cynical Side

* PLUS COLUMN: I love all the new story encounters! 

* Also, remember Linked Story Encounters? No? Trust me, those were great. They're back in Book 2 somewhere, I think.

And what's with all this newfangled tournament stuff?
* Gaining Grounds 2017 was highly favorable to Hamelin players and highly unfavorable to the Guild in general. Hopefully 2018 will let folks bring a Lady Justice crew to a tournament and not feel like they're swimming against the current.

* Also, forgive me if I'm wrong, but Molly can look at hidden Schemes now? How on earth is GG 2018 going to account for this? Limited Master pools? Seasons? Formats? Bannings? Nothing?

* How about selling us a Tournament Kit? For real. Deck of Fate Cards + Scheme Markers + 20XX Gaining Grounds Cards + Corpse/Scrap Markers + Any Markers relevant to Gaining Grounds + A Commemorative Tape Measure, all in a neat little zip-up bag? This game has a lot of paraphernalia, and it would be nice to have some help organizing it. Not mandatory help, mind you - don't force us to use official Wyrd plastic markers in tournaments, please.

So how does it FEEL?

* Between 2015 and today, Malifaux is a different experience. It's still good, but it's gotten a lot more time-consuming, and there are a lot more "GOTCHA!" moments (which I expect, given my lack of familiarity with some of this newer stuff, but this is true even for people who have been regularly keeping up with the game). There are some fun new rules in the mix (I love Von Schill's new upgrades, and Misaki's blasts make her a whole new experience), but on the whole, I'm not certain if the new rules make for a better game.

* Proxies are everywhere, and it's getting very difficult to know, at a glance, what's on the other side of the table. Whoops - I mean Alternative models, not proxies. Don't get me wrong, I love the variety of models in Malifaux, and most of the alt sculpts are great, but I can't help but feel like they're working against the experience of the game by making the game more visually confusing. With a growing emphasis on larger crews, keeping track of 5-7 of your opponent's goofy-lookin' things is a lot different than keeping track of 10-15 of them. Combine this with the growing number of new models, and learning how all these things interact with one another becomes exponentially more time consuming.

* Every faction can do everything, now, thanks to Book 4. This puts Book 4 models in an interesting place, as tournament players and casual players alike want to field them to shore up their Faction's weaknesses. Good for short term sales, but bad for long term game balance. Playing against Lilith now feels like playing against Colette two years ago. Again, this isn't bad, but it's definitely different.

* I haven't played against Yasunori yet, but I hear it's painful.

* Gremlins seem more than capable of mitigating the downsides that come with playing the "wild luck" faction. Not always, but I'm hearing people talk about Wong and Zipp in the same way they used to talk about Hamelin and Dreamer back in the 1st Edition days. Maybe that's my local meta, but Gremlins get a strong reaction: you either love 'em or hate 'em. They're not quite as polarizing as, say, Warhammer 40k 6th Edition Tau, but they definitely get a strong gut reaction.

So, what's the point of all this sputterin' and putterin' and complainin'?

I'm noticing a shift toward quantity over quality. I don't like it. Quality over quantity is why I started playing Malifaux in the first place. I could play a super fun game with six cowboys, a book, a tape measure, some tokens, and an hour. I wanted to get away from games that pushed a relentless release schedule into an over-crowded metagame (Warmahordes, I'm looking at you) or published rules that made it absolutely necessary to buy arm-loads of books and models before you could enjoy their games (cough, Games Workshop, cough).

Malifaux is a robust and complex game that rewards careful observation and tactical thinking. It benefits from having an engaged community that loves its quirks and foibles, and that actively promotes it. Wyrd made itself accountable to its fans when it opened up Beta testing for 2.0, and that accountability helped create a game that tournament grinders and perpetual casuals alike could enjoy. Malifaux such a consistently interesting experience! However, Book 4 and Book 5 seem, to me, short-sighted. Wyrd is starting to prioritize selling sweet new model kits/books/upgrade packs over making the game more balanced, enjoyable, and accessible, and like we've seen time and time again from more established companies (Games Workshop, Privateer Press), I'm worried that the community will react negatively (or worse, passively!) to unfavorable changes.

If we, as a community, are aware of this, and we use our voices wisely, we can keep Malifaux awesome.

That said, my apprehensions have now been aired, and I'm eager to see what 2018 brings. I'll definitely be playing more Guild next year, and I'm looking forward to seeing the madness unleashed by Book 5, good and bad alike. I hope I'm wrong about Tara and Molly being no fun, and that Wyrd doesn't forget that, cool as the models are, it's the game itself that keeps us coming back for more.

***

tl;dr: When you take a bite of grilled cheese sandwich but you're expecting a cheeseburger, it can leave you feeling like someone's made a mistake, no matter how good the grilled cheese actually tastes.

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Not sure if you were looking for a response but you aren't the first oldbeard to voice some of the concerns about bloat among other things.

I'm hoping the increased crew sizes were a byproduct of gg17 and will be less common in gg18. I still think out activation is a powerful mechanic because there are still a lot of schemes that will depend on enemy positioning so it might not end up like that.

I think the master upgrades were a great idea and they have made me rethink certain masters that felt stale to me. The amount of testing and development spent on those upgrades that don't really sell new models makes it seem to me that Wyrd is still invested in their community and not just trying to sell new stuff.

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Responses are great!

GG17 was too reliant on conditions, and Masters like Hamelin found themselves in an advantageous position. I don't think it's possible to create a GG that accounts for all 39 Masters, especially considering the complexity added with Book 5. My hope is that it's less glaringly obvious that "_______ is the best this season." I would also love it if the Schemes were fun. I know that's totally subjective, but here's hoping GG18 captures that lightning in a bottle.

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Pretty sure gg18 had text clarifying that no model could be immune to or choose not to gain scheme conditions so Hamelin won't be a problem. I know the strategy with a condition applies it to your own models so Hamelin can't screw with your scoring there.

I think out activation will still be strong since it enables alpha strikes among other things but several of the schemes tied to strats didn't rely on it so it won't be 100% necessary. Thr new quarters pool measures non-summoned soulstones and the scheme gives VP for killing minions so I would assume killer elite lists will dominate it.

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3 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I think out activation will still be strong since it enables alpha strikes among other things but several of the schemes tied to strats didn't rely on it so it won't be 100% necessary.

Even if you had a strat and scheme pool that didn’t benefit from being able to activate a couple of your key models back to back without allowing your opponent to react, out-activating your opponent also typically means that you are out-APing them as well.

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34 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Even if you had a strat and scheme pool that didn’t benefit from being able to activate a couple of your key models back to back without allowing your opponent to react, out-activating your opponent also typically means that you are out-APing them as well.

If all the schemes in the pool are about killing then the number of AP might not matter as much as the quality. Only marker schemes care about ap and some less than others. The old book schemes that took 2-3 markers for full points weren't as bad as claim jump that takes a minimum of 6. Old alits took 4 though. Now that the always scheme will be stuff like make them suffer it will be a lot less of a problem. Dig their graves didn't need a lot of ap, especially since some models got triggers to drop markers off attacks. I'd say Phiona is a lot better than two reporters for dig.

But yeah, back to back activations are basically what I called alpha strike. Could be for schemes as well but people seem to prefer damage.

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Tournament kit is an excellent idea, and I think Molly looking at schemes takes away from bluffing, which I find is really fun to do.

Personally I still find that Malifaux is a gourmet dish, even if I do agree that they're overdoing the spices a little - but the game's always been hard to keep track of, and more options isn't something I'd scoff at.

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Most tournament players don't really bluff, they take the schemes that are hard for the opponent to prevent even knowing that you are trying to do them. That's why a lot of players aren't concerned about Molly, they are counting on knowing which two schemes the opponent is going for in 98% of their games because in gg17 there were some that were so obviously easier to do. With more end game schemes in the pools I think her ability to look at schemes will be significantly stronger.

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Yeah but it unnecessarily removes a very interesting dimension.

Dig their Graves and something like Claim Jump being in the pool, and suddenly they need to decide which one they want to avoid.Heck, I always tried to go for Claim Jump regardless of whether or not I was using it since it kept my opponents on their toes.

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@DonCheadle

Since most tournament player always take claim jump because it was deemed the easiest scheme in any pool there's no need for them to fake it and most players don't waste ap on faking other schemes, try kill any model that you can contest it with so they know it's a sure thing.

What it will probably mean is that you will be very unlikely to pick certain schemes against Molly. I agree that removing options is boring, this mighy be similar to Hamelin. Lucius can also steal markers at the end of the game but he is so easily killed that it doesn't need to affect your scheme choice. I think most of the schemes you will not want to be taking against Molly were already hard to do, it will mostly affect those that score all at once at the end of the game. You would hsve found out most schemes early turn two anyway.

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12 hours ago, DonCheadle said:

Tournament kit is an excellent idea, and I think Molly looking at schemes takes away from bluffing, which I find is really fun to do.

Personally I still find that Malifaux is a gourmet dish, even if I do agree that they're overdoing the spices a little - but the game's always been hard to keep track of, and more options isn't something I'd scoff at.

You can just do extreme bluffing, pick Nellie and after Molly has looked at your schemes change them...

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Molly can look at your schemes but she doesn't know the specifics such as your FFM target or the model you have to kill or who you are setting up.  So yes, she may know that you have that scheme but then the player has to play cagey because they still don't know the specifics.  I think this might even add a bit to the game as it now makes the Molly player even more anxious knowing you have that type of scheme but doesn't know on who.  Plus, it is taking up an upgrade slot that is useless after the beginning of the game.  

I played against a Molly player that did this to me and I decided to make his Carrion Emissary my target to kill.  Not knowing my target, he kept most of his higher cost back but ran his Emissary up to place its markers.  I promptly killed his Emissary 1st turn and got 2 points.  So yes, Molly may have an idea of what you're doing but not everything.  Taking schemes like the ones I mentioned still makes it hard to counter. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is actually an excellent post! I share most of your views - I must be an oldbeard myself :)

Bloat, must-buys, tight update schedule and faction blurring (you know, every faction now being able to do more or less anything) are a real problem - I've seen this in many games and it always put me off. Just to mention some monstrously famous examples, Magic The Gathering, World of Warcraft and Warhammer all suffered from these at various stages.

I do hope Malifaux survives as long as possible and stays awesome although the latest releases and changes are not encouraging in this sense.

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