Game Length

[LeperColony]

54 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think any system that tries to address timing issues is inevitably going to discourage summoners, and large model crews.

Yes, but it also penalizes people for playing against them, and that seems fundamentally unfair.  If I'm a fast player with a small crew, but I happened to get matched up into more games that didn't finish and I lose an event because of that?  Going to leave a bad taste in my mouth, tbh.

[Griautis]

I'd rather penalise the elitist people who claim "games must be finished". It's very new player unfriendly, and for a game like this, we need new players for the game to grow. Far too many times I've seen slower players being told off from even attending tournaments. If I was a new player I would be rather disheartened reading all such sentiments, including in this very thread. 

Sheesh, if you're so good at it, you're gonna win regardless. Planning for a 3 turn game is not that hard either, and you will win and climb the tournament ranks to face against players who will finish it. 

[Griautis]

also what is a "high tier competitive tournament"? Malifaux community is not big enough to have such. UK Nationals, arguably the biggest event in the world should not be considered such. Majority of players there came to have fun and play the game they love and put in fun games. And the top players will finish their games and it's not a concern for them.

 

[Starrius]

2 minutes ago, Griautis said:

also what is a "high tier competitive tournament"? Malifaux community is not big enough to have such. UK Nationals, arguably the biggest event in the world should not be considered such. Majority of players there came to have fun and play the game they love and put in fun games. And the top players will finish their games and it's not a concern for them.

 

Tbh one thing I will say is regardless of level the community for malifaux has some of the best people in it. Played other games where the negativity during games becomes and issue,the only other comparable community I've found is the x wing scene

[Griautis]

1 minute ago, Starrius said:

Tbh one thing I will say is regardless of level the community for malifaux has some of the best people in it. Played other games where the negativity during games becomes and issue,the only other comparable community I've found is the x wing scene

Oh, I agree. I'm sure that the "elitists" are louder on forums/discord, than in actual events, but they do show up there as well. Tho, new players are less likely to meet them, besides bad luck on first rounds.  

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 hours ago, Griautis said:

I'd rather penalise the elitist people who claim "games must be finished". It's very new player unfriendly, and for a game like this, we need new players for the game to grow. Far too many times I've seen slower players being told off from even attending tournaments. If I was a new player I would be rather disheartened reading all such sentiments, including in this very thread. 

Sheesh, if you're so good at it, you're gonna win regardless. Planning for a 3 turn game is not that hard either, and you will win and climb the tournament ranks to face against players who will finish it. 

I agree really, which is why I prefer the least intrusive method possible. A 'finished games' tiebreaker is only going to matter to really competitive players in the top ranks anyway.

But as I say, for the majority of situations... Holding yourself accountable (lead by example), and if someone is chronicly slow, gentle encouragement from a community leader, should be enough.

17 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Yes, but it also penalizes people for playing against them, and that seems fundamentally unfair.  If I'm a fast player with a small crew, but I happened to get matched up into more games that didn't finish and I lose an event because of that?  Going to leave a bad taste in my mouth, tbh.

Tournaments already penalise people via the matchup lottery. I don't think this would be as big an effect as happening to draw your worst matchups for example. But also I'm not that wedded to the idea.

As I said, for most situations, no rules intervention is necessary IMO.

[LeperColony]

17 hours ago, Griautis said:

Oh, I agree. I'm sure that the "elitists" are louder on forums/discord, than in actual events, but they do show up there as well.

There's nothing "elitist" about a preference for finished games.  It's not about "good players will finish" and "bad players won't."  That's an absurd argument that nobody else has raised, and I can't help but believe it's linked to a specific negative experience you had, given the vehemence with which you've cast these broad and inaccurate assertions.

Malifaux as a game is designed to play within a set number of turns.  Just like Baseball is designed to work with 9 innings.  If you change the game length, you have an impact on the game itself.

For instance, you simply throw out that it's no big deal to finish a game in three turns, with zero appreciation for the fact that not every crew is equally well suited to play shorter games.  In other words, a mentality that claims finishing games is irrelevant actually penalizes players who select slower crews/factions or crews that are expecting to gain control over the board situation and score points in later turns.

The irony here is that newer players are the least likely to appreciate this dynamic.  They may pick a crew because they think it's cool, but since it's "elitist" to finish games, they're going to be at a disadvantage when facing players who understand the need to play faster scoring crews to be ahead when time is called.

Event timing rules are a concession to the reality that a full game of Malifaux is a struggle to resolve within the span of time allocated to multi-round tournaments.  Even for experienced players.  It has nothing to do with being "elitist" or punishing new players, but rather the timing rules (and the various proposed alterations) are an attempt to square the circle between practicality and accuracy.

The ideal end-round timing rules are:

1)  Fair, in that they treat players on a neutral basis

2)  Agnostic with regard to crew size

3)  Simple to understand and quick to administer

4)  Accurately model what would likely have been the natural conclusion of the game

5)  Encourage positive behaviors (for instance, they don't reward intentional slow-rolling)

But there exists inherent tension between some of these factors, so any system that is proposed or used is going to represent concessions while trying to preserve as many of the priorities as possible.

 

[dannydb]

I think that even at torderments 4 turns should generally be the minimum. I can understand 3 turns might happen occasionally but you should certainly aim to complete 2.

 

All my games save one were finished one time, the one game that didn't finish was due to a language barrier and that's nothing wrong with slow play (I guess I was a tad bit slower than my normal pace as I was playing a master I'd only had a game or 2 with before hand and he isn't the most straight forward (jackdor) and we got till middle of turn 4)

 

I agree that not every game is going to finish, but I think everyone should commit to playing at least 3 turns at events. That should be enough time in 2 hours

[Griautis]

On 11/16/2019 at 12:50 AM, LeperColony said:

There's nothing "elitist" about a preference for finished games.  It's not about "good players will finish" and "bad players won't."  That's an absurd argument that nobody else has raised, and I can't help but believe it's linked to a specific negative experience you had, given the vehemence with which you've cast these broad and inaccurate assertions

I'm not talking about preference for finished games. Everyone prefers to finish games. However, some people even say that if you can't finish games you shouldn't be in tournaments

And yea, the rest of what you say is true and makes sense.  Encouraging finishing games is all good, but we should never discourage people from playing, just because they can't finish in time (as a good player you'll just pick a faster crew and win anyways, right? ). 

Meanwhile, a lot of the conversations we're having now can easily discourage people from participating. That's literally the worst possible outcome. 

This thread alone is a good example. This is not a thread which a new player reading would be encouraged to participate further in this community, while also learning about the game length, it's challenges, and how games get on.    

 

[Mycellanious]

1 hour ago, Griautis said:

I'm not talking about preference for finished games. Everyone prefers to finish games. However, some people even say that if you can't finish games you shouldn't be in tournaments

And yea, the rest of what you say is true and makes sense.  Encouraging finishing games is all good, but we should never discourage people from playing, just because they can't finish in time (as a good player you'll just pick a faster crew and win anyways, right? ). 

Meanwhile, a lot of the conversations we're having now can easily discourage people from participating. That's literally the worst possible outcome. 

This thread alone is a good example. This is not a thread which a new player reading would be encouraged to participate further in this community, while also learning about the game length, it's challenges, and how games get on.    

 

I think you are confusing learning / friendly games with competitive 

[PirateCaptain]

On 11/15/2019 at 7:50 PM, LeperColony said:

Malifaux as a game is designed to play within a set number of turns.  Just like Baseball is designed to work with 9 innings.  If you change the game length, you have an impact on the game itself.

For instance, you simply throw out that it's no big deal to finish a game in three turns, with zero appreciation for the fact that not every crew is equally well suited to play shorter games.  In other words, a mentality that claims finishing games is irrelevant actually penalizes players who select slower crews/factions or crews that are expecting to gain control over the board situation and score points in later turns.

 

This, I think, is the biggest reason why there needs to be something more tangible in place against slow play during tournaments.  So many keywords or even generally player play styles are penalized by the game not going to the end of turn 5.  Aggressive play styles and keywords are so much stronger when the game ends on average on turn 3.5 vs ending even turn 4.5 (game called halfway through the next turn, if last turn is not called by the TO).

Additionally, of all the calls a judge can make, and a player can call a judge on, slow play is the hardest thing to judge. It can feel so bad to call a judge on an opponent for slow play, (and it can also be really negative to have a judge called on you for slow play).  It's so important to finish games, as that's how the game was designed.  If I sit down at the table, and I'm on the defensive, I might not even be able to get on to my opponents half of the table until turn 3, let alone want to cross the table until then (and so many strats and schemes require to get across the table to score, which is fundamentally a very good thing).  So many game plans depend on a full turn 5 game. 

I don't think a true death clock, or chess clock, would really work for Malifaux, but I think something should ad least be tried.  Even if it's just tried out in a GG beta test, or as a variant for timing in GG.  So often when the idea of a clock is posed, it just gets theoretically shut down without sufficient testing, modifying, and effort put forth to determine if something could work.

Malifaux is incredibly unique, so whatever kind of "timing" mechanism is used would have to be unique to Malifaux.

I don't think a true death clock (i.e. a player loses when they run out of time) is a good idea.  I plan on trying out myself, and I'd like to see others try and play around with, some kind of "activation" clock.  What I mean by this, I'd like to see some kind of clock where each player has roughly 70 minutes of play time.  The big thing would be that when you run out of time, you just are not allowed to activate any more models, you can still make defensive flips/triggers/what have you.  Any markers/schemes/strats anything you had set up is still there on the table to score at the end of the game.  Obviously this is just a theory and has some issues still, but I plan on trying it out myself and playing around with it to see if it could be a viable option to help combat slow play.

Now, on the point of model count.  I've played a number of competitive miniatures games on clocks, and I tend to play high model count armies in all of them, it just takes practice.  Like all things in gaming you just have to practice and it'll be fine, it sounds a lot worse than it is.

Anywho, just my super unpopular opinion, please don't hate me too hard 😜

[LeperColony]

3 hours ago, Griautis said:

This thread alone is a good example. This is not a thread which a new player reading would be encouraged to participate further in this community, while also learning about the game length, it's challenges, and how games get on.    

Many of the threads on the forums are not going to be accessible or particularly encouraging for new players.  Although this forum does, and should, welcome new players, by its very nature as a specialty interest community, it's going to include (and in fact be over-represented by) on average a more invested user base.  A lot of these discussions are going to assume familiarity with the game as a matter of course.

The idea that all content, including forum content, has to be immediately accessible to new players is unrealistic and ultimately undesirable.  Many people are going to want to talk about the game at a more advanced stage than entry level.  Tournaments are almost by definition more than entry level.  New players can play them, and reasonable accommodations should be made for them.  But at a competitive event, the default expectation is familiarity with the game.  If you go as a new player, either the event should be set up to support that, or (preferably and) the onus should be on you to make the extra effort and not rely on inexperience.

1 hour ago, Mycellanious said:

I think you are confusing learning / friendly games with competitive 

I'm not sure there should be such a bright line divergence, but I do think that competitive events, unless they are specifically newbie-oriented, carry higher expectations.

1 hour ago, PirateCaptain said:

Additionally, of all the calls a judge can make, and a player can call a judge on, slow play is the hardest thing to judge. It can feel so bad to call a judge on an opponent for slow play, (and it can also be really negative to have a judge called on you for slow play).  It's so important to finish games, as that's how the game was designed.  If I sit down at the table, and I'm on the defensive, I might not even be able to get on to my opponents half of the table until turn 3, let alone want to cross the table until then (and so many strats and schemes require to get across the table to score, which is fundamentally a very good thing).  So many game plans depend on a full turn 5 game. 
 

Yeah, it is super awkward to call a judge for slow rolling.  I've never done it in any game, even where I've been fairly sure that's what's happening.  Relying on individual initiative to call it is questionable.  Fortunately, I think it's a pretty rare occurrence.  This doesn't make it feel any better when it happens to you, but the point is I'm not sure it's this systemic issue that requires any kind of fundamental alteration.

1 hour ago, PirateCaptain said:

I don't think a true death clock, or chess clock, would really work for Malifaux, but I think something should ad least be tried.  Even if it's just tried out in a GG beta test, or as a variant for timing in GG.  So often when the idea of a clock is posed, it just gets theoretically shut down without sufficient testing, modifying, and effort put forth to determine if something could work.

There are practical issues to a clock and emotional/psychological issues (which are no less significant), but that's true of any timing system.  The main obstacle in my opinion is the clock feels judgmental in Malifaux.  I surmise, but can't prove, that most of the people who dismiss the concept out of hand are worried it'd put so much pressure on them that it would eliminate the fun.  Ultimately I don't think that's necessarily true.  It's not true in chess (there's whole genres of chess designed around playing with a minimum amount of time just for that fun), and it needn't be true here.  

1 hour ago, PirateCaptain said:

I don't think a true death clock (i.e. a player loses when they run out of time) is a good idea.  I plan on trying out myself, and I'd like to see others try and play around with, some kind of "activation" clock.  What I mean by this, I'd like to see some kind of clock where each player has roughly 70 minutes of play time.  The big thing would be that when you run out of time, you just are not allowed to activate any more models, you can still make defensive flips/triggers/what have you.  Any markers/schemes/strats anything you had set up is still there on the table to score at the end of the game.  Obviously this is just a theory and has some issues still, but I plan on trying it out myself and playing around with it to see if it could be a viable option to help combat slow play.

My objection to this idea would be that having to sit around and watch while the other player does their actions seems super unfun.  Worse than just losing, to be honest, in the majority of cases.  And yes, maybe it'll preserve the odd game where you're so far ahead that you win even while running out of time, for one I don't think that's worth it, and for another, if time were an element of the game, then learning how to manage it becomes just another skill.

Many chess events use timing systems that include an increment.  It's pretty modest, around 30 seconds generally, but it's time you get back after making a move.  I think any clock should use a similar increment, which allows people to play on so long as they don't run out.  It would probably also be advisable to avoid a simple set time limit in favor of a base time + some additional time per model (in a linearly diminishing manner) to make it less of a penalty to play larger crews.

 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I agree that testing is better than talking, but that can be tricky. Who is going to spend a few $100 to cover chess clocks for a trial tournament?

If anyone here is willing to test out a tournament with them, please report back!

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also since this is largely aimed at problem players, I would expect the problem players to have lots of problems...

Who gets their time eaten up during placing corrupted idols, who gets their time eaten up if someone asks a question of their opponent (how are you placing that model, is it in range of this other model? Intent questions are very useful, what about information questions like poison counts). Not to mention checking a rule. Or what if there is a disagreement on how many modifiers there are to a duel.

Some of these there'd be clean answers to, but a problem player might learn how to abuse this.

A player intentionally trying to use timing to their advantage gains additional tools when a chess clock is introduced.

An ideal system should reduce the number of tools or incentives to slow down games. A chess clock increases tools and incentives to slow down games unless it is exceptionally well designed.

[Adran]

18 hours ago, LeperColony said:

There are practical issues to a clock and emotional/psychological issues (which are no less significant), but that's true of any timing system.  The main obstacle in my opinion is the clock feels judgmental in Malifaux.  I surmise, but can't prove, that most of the people who dismiss the concept out of hand are worried it'd put so much pressure on them that it would eliminate the fun.  Ultimately I don't think that's necessarily true.  It's not true in chess (there's whole genres of chess designed around playing with a minimum amount of time just for that fun), and it needn't be true here.  

My objection to this idea would be that having to sit around and watch while the other player does their actions seems super unfun.  Worse than just losing, to be honest, in the majority of cases.  And yes, maybe it'll preserve the odd game where you're so far ahead that you win even while running out of time, for one I don't think that's worth it, and for another, if time were an element of the game, then learning how to manage it becomes just another skill.

Many chess events use timing systems that include an increment.  It's pretty modest, around 30 seconds generally, but it's time you get back after making a move.  I think any clock should use a similar increment, which allows people to play on so long as they don't run out.  It would probably also be advisable to avoid a simple set time limit in favor of a base time + some additional time per model (in a linearly diminishing manner) to make it less of a penalty to play larger crews.

 

I'm a big fan of Lightening chess so I don't think I rule it out for the fear of the clock.

I don't think malifaux is a good game for Chess clocks because there are so many decision points for each player across the turn. The topic comes up every couple of years or so, and my general response is "I don't think its a good idea because when do you switch the clocks? why don't you try it and see." I'm personally not interested in trying to make a system that works for clocks because my default view is it doesn't. Most of the time the person proposing it hasn't tried it either. Sometimes they try it, but often it never seems to get past the thought experiment. Of those that have tried it I believe the majority decided it wasn't worth it. A few have found ways to make it work and did like it, but they were certainly in the minority. ( I think I can only remember 1 thread where the original poster tried it and liked it, but that was about 4 years ago)

I can't remember where all the threads took place, but they will still all be on the forums somewhere if you want to look. (Malifaux discussion is probably a good place for most of them, but may not be all of them).

Try it in a few games before you even consider trying it in a tournament would be my advice. Lots of games clubs have clocks because guildball and Warmahordes use them, and there are free apps you can get on a phone, so its often not that hard to try.

Incrimental time doesn't solve the problem (at least as far as I see the problem). The problem is people want to finish a game in a set time. That means you can't keep rewarding people with extra time as they take activations if you want the game to end at time x.  If you wanted to avoid excessive thinking time then using incrimenetal time is a possible solution.  

 

Mind you I play tournaments because I get to play multiple games in a day. I would recommend new players to go and play in tournements because it is a good chance to play a range of different people and also to play outside of your local group. You might find that time is a problem, but you ill also learn a lot (and hopefully have lots of fun).

[Starrius]

As both people are doing things during the same action e.g. flipping and counting and such are we suppose to use a clock in tmeach flip like that?

 

That seems like it would slow the game even more?

 

[Griautis]

There's a vast divide between a forum thread being inaccessible due to lack of skill, as people discuss more advanced concepts, and it being inaccessible due to negative outlooks. 

Also,  Malifaux is far too small to have the divide of friendly/competitive very hardly drawn. A bunch of people go to tournaments for fun and to just dedicate a day to playing a game they like. Of course, that divide does happen, but in a tournament it's probably more along the lines of "top 5 tables/rest of tables", and not "in tournament/out of tournament" 

[DuBlanck]

The first (I think) tournament I ever played in had a sort-of-death clock - when your opponent runs out of time, you can finish that turn as normal, activating models and doing flips and triggers etc. but your opponet doesn't activate any models.

It was... ok?

I don't think it particularly added anything, and if I recall right it led to one unfortunate situation where someone timed out the second activation of turn 4, and then spectated on their opponent dismantling their crew and VP prospects.

Some might say it is 'fairer', but it didn't look fun for either of them really.