Popular Post tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 I've been thinking of starting a thread like this one for a while now, but have held back because, well, this is a great forum, but still an internet forum, so I should probably know better... It seems to me there's been an increasing trend of more and more whining and shouting OP on the forum. Myself, I haven't played the top guns enough to weigh in too strongly on what is/isn't op. But I have a memory strong enough to see some hints indicating that not ALL of these complaints have merit. I do realize that the game has had 5 waves, and increasing complexity due to wider model pool increase the likelihood of OP models/combos, so I'm not saying NONE of these complaints have merit. But I have the impression that an increasing rate of errata the last two years have led to more cries from further erratas. From memory, the last few months have seen the following bold statements (not saying anyone in particular said this exactly, but I feel these are reasonably summaries of statements given in different threads): Sandeep (with mages) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Nicodem (with Asura and Kentauroi) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Gremlins cannot win against any competitive opponents anymore (despite winning UK Masters). Gremlins (in general) are OP, and should get banned/nerfed out of existence (and they're not a real faction anyway). Somer (with Warpigs) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Hamelin is OP, and should be banned. Thunders are useless, Guild is useless, Outcasts are useless, Neverborn are useless (or OP!), Arcanists outside of Sandeep are useless. Probably forgotten several others, but these were the ones at the top of my mind. I'm more than usually certain that all of these cannot be true at the same time! 🙂 From earlier we know that there have been crews that were really game warping and hard to find answers to (several in M1E, Leveticus/Viks with rat engine, etc) that dominated several tournament metas simultaneously. We've also seen crew builds that have dominated some metas, but not managed to reach the same level across metas (the Seamus Belle spam from Chicago comes to mind, who today feel Seamus should get a nerf?, but also Perdita at times, Viks, Sonnia Criid, Lynch, Lilith, Dreamer, Shenlong with Yasunori, Kirai, and several others have at times been complained about). I don't think it's useful for us to spend time and words on trying to figure out how we got here and why (I'll leave that to Wyrd), but I think it is useful for us to discuss how we best can give feedback to Wyrd about the state of the game. So how can we be more constructive in giving feedback? I propose the following goals that we should keep in mind whenever we give feedback/complain: We want a game as balanced as is practical, while we acknowledge that perfect balance will never be achieved. We want as civil a discussion as possible, with as much signal and as little noise as possible so the feedback will be of as high quality as possible. We want the neccessary changes only, change for change's sake is not desireable due to having to get new cards etc. The GG rotation will keep the game fresh without changing the stats for changes sake. Keep game warping models in check. If multiple players across metas rage-quits because they don't feel they have an answer to a crew/master/combo that's a problem. If a model/crew/master/combo is a little stronger than average/slightly undercosted it's not a problem. Anything else I'm missing? Based on the above I'd like to suggest the following recommendations for giving feedback on models' power level: Be clear whether you need help understanding HOW to beat a crew or whether you have seen aggregate experience demonstrating a crew is way too strong. Maybe someone from another meta have faced this particular puzzle earlier, and found a way to beat it! 🙂 Do NOT use hyperbole!! Very little is unbeatable, so don't claim it is. It will just poison the discussion to exaggerate, especially if there is a genuine case for something needing to be pulled in a bit. Never assume your own experience is universal! Sometimes a combo emerges that is universal, and will need to be controlled. But more often it's a combination of a slightly above the curve combo/crew combined with a very skilled player and/or a smaller/less experienced meta. There should be an acid test for when something is OP. My suggestion is that if something dominates smaller tournaments across metas over time (several months) AS WELL AS dominating several of the bigger tournaments across metas (UK Nationals, UK Masters, Adepticon, GenCon, others) it should be considered universally overpowered. If a crew/model/master fails this test, that doesn't mean that it is NOT too much over the curve and should NOT be reined in; it means it's not definitely established that it is OP yet, and we shouldn't act as if it is (see hyperbole above). Be polite! Everyone here are on here because we love the game. No-one wants the game to be unfun, and the forum is generally very helpful, and most players of powerful crews are willing to help others on how to beat them. Famously, when Leveticus/Viks won Adepticon with the rat engine, the winner came on here arguing that it should be banned because he himself couldn't see a way to beat it. It's much more valuable feedback when a big tournament winner argues that his crew is OP than whoever he beat in round 1. Be conservative! Not a general political advice this time, but a good advice when it comes to shouts for errata. It's easy to get carried away after being crushed in a tournament, but hot-headedness makes for a poor quality online discussion. Anything else? Just a note at the end: I'm not having a dig at anyone with this, I hope nobody takes it as such. I post this because I feel the historically very high quality discussion on here have deteriorated a little when it comes to power levels specifically, and I wanted to at least try to make an impact to improve the discourse. We'll see if this succeeds or gets shot down in flames... 😕 12 4 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4thstringer Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 Listen, I happen to suffer from a salt deficiency, and those salt threads are the only thing that are keeping me going. Please don't try to deny me that good good salt 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 18 minutes ago, 4thstringer said: Listen, I happen to suffer from a salt deficiency, and those salt threads are the only thing that are keeping me going. Please don't try to deny me that good good salt Absolutely not my intention, sodium deficiency is (deadly) serious business. Let me know if you can find an alternate source, otherwise I might have to delete this thread... 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rillan Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 In your place i would ignore those whining posts cause when u read them u find out that mostly it's all about - *My opponent won against me, lets nerf him!* / *It's defenetly not mine mistakes or weak play it's his fault i'm loosing! Nerf him !* Sometimes it makes me curious how far tolerant moderators are.... Those themes could be easy answered and closed or even better deleted, but no, most of them keep being alive and by now have nothing to do with theme it started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PolishSausage Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 2 hours ago, tmod said: NONE of these complaints have merit. But I have the impression that an increasing rate of errata the last two years have led to more cries from further erratas. From memory, the last few months have seen the following bold statements (not saying anyone in particular said this exactly, but I feel these are reasonably summaries of statements given in different threads): Sandeep (with mages) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Nicodem (with Asura and Kentauroi) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Gremlins cannot win against any competitive opponents anymore (despite winning UK Masters). Gremlins (in general) are OP, and should get banned/nerfed out of existence (and they're not a real faction anyway). Somer (with Warpigs) is virtually unbeatable, no other crew have any answers to this, and the only reason to play anything else is attatchment to already painted models/crews. Hamelin is OP, and should be banned. Thunders are useless, Guild is useless, Outcasts are useless, Neverborn are useless (or OP!), Arcanists outside of Sandeep are useless.😕 Your topic is too broad, it dilutes the real issue at hand. There is clear indication of power creep from book to book, for Wyrd to exist its a natural thing ( they need to sell models). Any balance needs to be handles per faction/ per faction forum. Example: Outcries of nerfe should be done per faction/by that faction in order to bring other models in line with it. Some models that are more present in meta are not always there because they are broken but rather a necessity for the faction to function correctly. (nerfing/increasing SS cost can destroy internal ecosystem of a faction) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Le gob Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 Hi, In our local meta of about 10 players (no ressers), Sandeep, Shen long and Pandora are dominating and the Guild in general is getting trashed every time, getting draws on best matchs. For Pandora, she's got a lot of wins but most of them are against newish players or people who never faced her before, so I'm not sure her dominant position is relevent so far. We don't have any real resser player yet, so I can't tell about resser balance. What we feel is broken, just the point of view from a small meta: -The steamfitter is really too good for it's cost. Gives you a high card from the discard pile, armor 1 on your master and immunity to max damage in addition to be ok in melee, have a squeel and a lot of HP for his cost. We feel like it's abilities should have been split between two models. It has been an auto include in every arcanist team so far. -3 Oxfordian mages (1 alone is ok). 15 SS for the pack , 5+2 Wd, arcane shield, super Ca attacks with build in super triggers and they buff your henchmen/master with really nice abilities. The warding runes are what makes them over the top. The immunity to conditions from ennemies seems to be too much. -Sandeep. Go check the posts about Sandeep, I won't tell more here. Everybody always feel like they've been counterpicked when playing against Sandeep. -Miranda with her item, or mostly the item to get 4 cards. -Shadow emissary. Too good for it's cost, it just needs to be a bit more expensive. -Recall training. This item is always a game changer. -Zipp, with his attack against Ht. There's nothing you can do/bring to avoid it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lusciousmccabe Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 I've noticed something of an upsurge in "X model is OP" type threads since I was last active back in Wave 3. What I think is more of an issue is the way the discussions tend to be posed. Often there's a lot of speculation and less discussion based on actual game-experience. These conversations tend to be unproductive as they involve one or more people telling each other something is/isn't problematic without much in the way of evidence that might persuade the other to agree. From what I recall Wyrd have said that they are far more likely to consider making changes to the game based on battle-reports, tournament results and other concrete pieces of information, rather than the odd anecdote and a bunch of theoryfaux. The big changes to Leveticus and rats came right after a detailed report from a tournament that showed how broadly effective and difficult to deal with the crew was. There had been plenty of assertions that they were broken before that, but it wasn't until the evidence was there that anything happened. If people think some combo, Master or whatever genuinely needs to be changed for the good of the game they would do well to document some games and post them. People who think otherwise can do the same and have something to discuss that isn't just opinion. If you just want to wishlist for nerfs and buffs, that can be a nice light topic dealing with changes you might like to see but are non-essential. If something really needs a change then that's a much more serious conversation and deserves a bit of work to back it up. Good thing the "work" involved means playing a game we all enjoy. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 56 minutes ago, PolishSausage said: Your topic is too broad, it dilutes the real issue at hand. There is clear indication of power creep from book to book, for Wyrd to exist its a natural thing ( they need to sell models). Any balance needs to be handles per faction/ per faction forum. Example: Outcries of nerfe should be done per faction/by that faction in order to bring other models in line with it. Some models that are more present in meta are not always there because they are broken but rather a necessity for the faction to function correctly. (nerfing/increasing SS cost can destroy internal ecosystem of a faction) 58 minutes ago, PolishSausage said: Your topic is too broad, it dilutes the real issue at hand. There is clear indication of power creep from book to book, for Wyrd to exist its a natural thing ( they need to sell models). Any balance needs to be handles per faction/ per faction forum. Example: Outcries of nerfe should be done per faction/by that faction in order to bring other models in line with it. Some models that are more present in meta are not always there because they are broken but rather a necessity for the faction to function correctly. (nerfing/increasing SS cost can destroy internal ecosystem of a faction) I would say on the contrary, and your post happens to Illustrate my point: If there is a "clear indication of power creep" from book to book it should NOT be handled separately. Furthermore, ask gremlin players about wave 5 power creep, see what they say... Besides, this thread is NOT meant to be a discussion of what needs nerfing/buffing. It's addressing how we as a community reacts to powerful combos. Words matter, and if a lot of people complain a lot it makes a difference, whether they are right or not. If the forum degenerates into a shouting match where everyone is trying to make other factions get nerfed, and their own faction buffed, the game will suffer overall (either this noise gets ignored by Wyrd, and real information is lost at the same time, or they listen to too many complaints and wrong models get buffed/nerfed). Finally, and with all due respect, I reserve the right when I post a topic to determine myself what is the "real issue at hand" with regards to my own topic. If you don't find the topic useful, feel free to say that here or elsewhere, or just ignore me. But the real issue at hand here in THIS specific topic is exactly what I introduced in the op; is the whining on the increase? How do we get a meaningful and constructive discussion about preceived balance issues... 13 minutes ago, Le gob said: Hi, In our local meta of about 10 players (no ressers), Sandeep, Shen long and Pandora are dominating and the Guild in general is getting trashed every time, getting draws on best matchs. For Pandora, she's got a lot of wins but most of them are against newish players or people who never faced her before, so I'm not sure her dominant position is relevent so far. We don't have any real resser player yet, so I can't tell about resser balance. What we feel is broken, just the point of view from a small meta: -The steamfitter is really too good for it's cost. Gives you a high card from the discard pile, armor 1 on your master and immunity to max damage in addition to be ok in melee, have a squeel and a lot of HP for his cost. We feel like it's abilities should have been split between two models. It has been an auto include in every arcanist team so far. -3 Oxfordian mages (1 alone is ok). 15 SS for the pack , 5+2 Wd, arcane shield, super Ca attacks with build in super triggers and they buff your henchmen/master with really nice abilities. The warding runes are what makes them over the top. The immunity to conditions from ennemies seems to be too much. -Sandeep. Go check the posts about Sandeep, I won't tell more here. Everybody always feel like they've been counterpicked when playing against Sandeep. -Miranda with her item, or mostly the item to get 4 cards. -Shadow emissary. Too good for it's cost, it just needs to be a bit more expensive. -Recall training. This item is always a game changer. -Zipp, with his attack against Ht. There's nothing you can do/bring to avoid it. I'm not going to argue either way in this thread. My whole purpose of this thread was to discuss the process of giving feedback Wyrd, not to list grievances... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 2 hours ago, Rillan said: In your place i would ignore those whining posts cause when u read them u find out that mostly it's all about - *My opponent won against me, lets nerf him!* / *It's defenetly not mine mistakes or weak play it's his fault i'm loosing! Nerf him !* Sometimes it makes me curious how far tolerant moderators are.... Those themes could be easy answered and closed or even better deleted, but no, most of them keep being alive and by now have nothing to do with theme it started. I think this is very close to the truth in many instances. I think however that it can be useful to get feedback on what is above the curve. I just wish more would be based on repeated observations and an acceptance that it could possibly NOT be a case of "OMG this is clearly massively OP, anyone disagreeing obviously have no knowledge of the game"... 41 minutes ago, lusciousmccabe said: I've noticed something of an upsurge in "X model is OP" type threads since I was last active back in Wave 3. What I think is more of an issue is the way the discussions tend to be posed. Often there's a lot of speculation and less discussion based on actual game-experience. These conversations tend to be unproductive as they involve one or more people telling each other something is/isn't problematic without much in the way of evidence that might persuade the other to agree. From what I recall Wyrd have said that they are far more likely to consider making changes to the game based on battle-reports, tournament results and other concrete pieces of information, rather than the odd anecdote and a bunch of theoryfaux. The big changes to Leveticus and rats came right after a detailed report from a tournament that showed how broadly effective and difficult to deal with the crew was. There had been plenty of assertions that they were broken before that, but it wasn't until the evidence was there that anything happened. If people think some combo, Master or whatever genuinely needs to be changed for the good of the game they would do well to document some games and post them. People who think otherwise can do the same and have something to discuss that isn't just opinion. If you just want to wishlist for nerfs and buffs, that can be a nice light topic dealing with changes you might like to see but are non-essential. If something really needs a change then that's a much more serious conversation and deserves a bit of work to back it up. Good thing the "work" involved means playing a game we all enjoy. This is very similar to what I've noticed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PolishSausage Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 The whining is on the increase.(or never really left) We cannot balance entire game with one topic. Each overachievers and underachievers need to be revised per faction/faction topic. We need M3E sooner than later. We need more restrictive hiring pools per master to avoid excessive list optimization/broken interactions. PS: Gremlins are the M2e faction and never got all the testing needed due to lack of models for testing - reason for biggest model hiring swings/ overall voiced faction community. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 1 hour ago, PolishSausage said: The whining is on the increase.(or never really left) We cannot balance entire game with one topic. Each overachievers and underachievers need to be revised per faction/faction topic. We need M3E sooner than later. We need more restrictive hiring pools per master to avoid excessive list optimization/broken interactions. PS: Gremlins are the M2e faction and never got all the testing needed due to lack of models for testing - reason for biggest model hiring swings/ overall voiced faction community. It does indeed seem to me that the whining has steadily been increasing over the last few years or so, but I might be mistaken. I read every post (except some rules threads and the community events subforum), but it's easy to misread trends. If you (and others) have the same impression (that it's increasing) we might have an observstion here, and might want to discuss whether we as a conmunity wish to do something about it. I also think it would be useful to "recalibrate" expentations for models. It seems like some people on here expect an extremely tight balance across hundreds of models. Justin Gibbs said several times that it was never a design goal that all x soulstone models should be equally viable. As long as every model was useful sometimes that would be good enough. Also, a model being over/undercosted by a soulstone or two was specifically called out as NOT being reason for errata; models being cheap enough to be auto-includes, or expensive enough to never to be taken, was valid reason for errata. I think these were good benchmarks, but it seems like expectations amongst the player base have moved... Not trying to balance anything with this thread either, except possibly the language and tone of feedback given elsewhere... I completely agree though, listing grievances, especially across factions, is too wide a topic to get us anywhere. Especially under the current discourse where it seems many are out for themselves/their own faction. I don't know about M3e, with some cleanup to the rules for height/vantage points I think the main rules are fine. This would be the socalled M2,5e solution. On the other hand the massive hiring pools in each faction is bound to be problematic at some point, whether we believe we're closing in on that point now or reached it a few waves ago. I'm curious about splitting up factions/increasing hiring restrictions as more factions means more to split the models amongst (in fact I posted a topic suggesting this last week), but worried about the transition process; given the large model pool I think the process will be much rougher, and I don't think it can be done like in M1.5e => M2e. But anyway this is kinda beside the point for this topic though. Whether M2e will be further errataed or M3e is in the works there will need to be a process for giving feedback, and this feedback will need to meet certain standards. This topic is about what we as a conmunity feel these standards should be... Ps. Thanks for the interest! 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omenbringer Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 40 minutes ago, tmod said: On the other hand the massive hiring pools in each faction is bound to be problematic at some point, whether we believe we're closing in on that point now or reached it a few waves ago. I'm curious about splitting up factions/increasing hiring restrictions as more factions means more to split the models amongst (in fact I posted a topic suggesting this last week), but worried about the transition process; given the large model pool I think the process will be much rougher, and I don't think it can be done like in M1.5e => M2e.🙂 The hiring pools have been out of hand for a long while and I would say they are the largest issue. It is impossible to play test this many models even if you limit testers to specific factions. The transition from M1.5 to M2e was problematic for several reasons but the model counts didn't help. Hopefully, Wyrd has learned somethings from the last edition release. I would hate to see the company have to repeat its past mistakes or have to rebuild communities again. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 42 minutes ago, Omenbringer said: The hiring pools have been out of hand for a long while and I would say they are the largest issue. It is impossible to play test this many models even if you limit testers to specific factions. The transition from M1.5 to M2e was problematic for several reasons but the model counts didn't help. Hopefully, Wyrd has learned somethings from the last edition release. I would hate to see the company have to repeat its past mistakes or have to rebuild communities again. Yeah, this is why I'm scheptical about trusting an edition change will solve everything. If they split everything up in waves with open betas like last time it will be years until all M2e models will have M3e profiles. It's going to be much harder to do now because if the higher model pool. I'm highly uncertain if it's at all doable at this from a risk perspective (maybe if TOS gets traction...). The other option for M3e that I can see is to keep the old profiles, and gradually upgrade some with each new book. But this doesn't even adress the balancing issues at all. (On a more optimistic note, maybe Hoffmann can get back his "unexplained connection" in M3e and be able to hire Coppelius again. That was my favourite easter egg in the first edition...) But feedback would still be neccessary/relevant, so another topic really (but a very interesting one!). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeddyBear Posted May 9, 2018 Report Share Posted May 9, 2018 15 hours ago, lusciousmccabe said: I've noticed something of an upsurge in "X model is OP" type threads since I was last active back in Wave 3. What I think is more of an issue is the way the discussions tend to be posed. Often there's a lot of speculation and less discussion based on actual game-experience. These conversations tend to be unproductive as they involve one or more people telling each other something is/isn't problematic without much in the way of evidence that might persuade the other to agree. From what I recall Wyrd have said that they are far more likely to consider making changes to the game based on battle-reports, tournament results and other concrete pieces of information, rather than the odd anecdote and a bunch of theoryfaux. The big changes to Leveticus and rats came right after a detailed report from a tournament that showed how broadly effective and difficult to deal with the crew was. There had been plenty of assertions that they were broken before that, but it wasn't until the evidence was there that anything happened. If people think some combo, Master or whatever genuinely needs to be changed for the good of the game they would do well to document some games and post them. People who think otherwise can do the same and have something to discuss that isn't just opinion. If you just want to wishlist for nerfs and buffs, that can be a nice light topic dealing with changes you might like to see but are non-essential. If something really needs a change then that's a much more serious conversation and deserves a bit of work to back it up. Good thing the "work" involved means playing a game we all enjoy. I find this, the best advice of whole discussion, and i fully agree. [off-topic] although i am convinced that leveticus should not been nerfed so much, game dynamic of rat-joy was entirely wrong.. not even close with last warpig alpha strike.. but..isn't it strange that all these unnecessary complaints were made before June, month dedicated to erratas??[end off-topic] anyway, it would be a good idea make some battlereports better if with some pictures (or video) to clarify issues with specific master or model. sorry for my english 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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