Hired Swords- a Viktorias tactica

[RisingPhoenix]

On 10/23/2021 at 6:50 PM, admiralvorkraft said:

Oh, I know what the Viks are. They're pretty fun in third, though I'm not thrilled about their title. In 2e it was impossible to get a good game with them, win or lose it was just an eye roller, but w/e.

What I was saying before I, admittedly, went off topic was that rather than looking at making this one 4ss model do 6ss worth of damage maybe we should look at the structural reasons why such a skin percentage of 4ss models see play. Dropping weak damages across the board, and/or increasing the ability to exert pressure through scoring are both more productive ways to look at improving the relevance of low ss models/so called low value AP.

I'm certain that we won't see anything like my proposed changes in this edition. But desperate mercs aren't getting a redesign either.

The problem is manyfold here.  

1. You haven't really defined "4ss of damage" or "6ss of damage" in a meaningful way.  You don't seem comfortable with 4ss being "half the damage of what an 8ss model does" or 6ss being "2/3rds the damage" (despite no real reason why those would be bad definitions).
2. Weak is not the problem with desperate mercenary survivability.  It's moderates and severes that kill them.
3. Lowering damage does not fix the fact that they're not statted enough to be half as effective as 8SS models. 
4. Your stance that Wyrd does not buff bad models is... um... well, maybe you're thinking of a different game company?  Seriously, Wyrd has long had a philosophy of improving bad models, and I'm sure part of the reason there hasn't been a comprehensive buff package yet is simply COVID and a focus on the new masters.  I fully expect GG3 to ship with a broad range of buffs, which would be very consistent with how Wyrd managed Malifaux in the past.

Honestly, I see no problem with the idea that a combat focused 4SS model should do half the damage of a combat focused 8SS model.  No one seems to have a coherent objection to that idea.  The two we've had are "combat focused 4SS models shouldn't exist" and "redesign malifaux", neither of which seems productive in the slightest.

[admiralvorkraft]

Combat minions can exist. If you drop weak damages to more appropriate levels you improve the relative average damage of the mercs (and, importantly, other combat oriented cheap models).

More importantly the current game balance is heavily tilted towards a minimal amount of highly efficient AP. If you want to resolve the problem of low ss models you need to shift one step towards weight-of-ap. Not enough to privilege that approach, just enough to make it viable. Tweaking one model no one has cared about for two editions doesn't shift that dial at all but lowering weak damage across the board limits the amount of damage you can guarantee without cheating the damage flip and leans more into trying to flip through your deck to hit those damage spikes.

It's weird to me that you're focused on one model when the issues you're bringing up are game-wide.

As for combat generally my only wish is for scheme oriented crews to be competitively balanced against tank and agro crews. There's nothing wrong with combat being an aspect of the game but it shouldn't be THE deciding aspect in matchups of similar skill. And I only got into that because I was asked to clarify a flippant comment.

[Gheist]

On 10/23/2021 at 11:24 PM, RisingPhoenix said:

Malifaux, as a game, is a game with 4 stone models clearly focused around killing.  That's the design, and we're not gonna remove models from the game.  Nor should we effectively remove models from the game by making them so bad they aren't worth taking.

Honestly if point chasing is your preferred style of play, why are you in this thread in particular?  The Viks are not a master known for scoring above all else.  In fact I'd say what they were most known for in 2E is 3-2 games where one side gets tabled by turn 3.  3E has made them slightly more scoring-ish, but they're still a crew that loves to dive and kill, only now they run around and score and then dive and kill when your opponent tries to do the same.  This is a murder crew, through and through. 

This feels like a very weird place to bang your drum.

Hm... so not wanting to be rude because i enjoyed your posts so far and can agree with them for the majority i will express myself mildly:

this is a victorias Tactica ---> which is an information that i get from the title of the thread. Last 15 minutes i have been reading 4SS Models balancing and ideas. Which is great, but to be honest is so far off the main topic by now that throwing stones at the next man seems kinda disrespectful.

Viktorias are a crew that i thoroughly enjoy and have played a lot. I won most games, and won most games through board presence and AP heavy schemes and mobility. Killing ---> great stuff, LOVE to kill models.

But more so: LOVE to make my opponent fear getting killed and then just drop two scheme markers which get me the point. More me.

Please don't try to prescribe what a crew is and how it has to be played, it kills games in my experience and i like this one.

[admiralvorkraft]

I don't think that I was doing that? I didn't mean to. As I said above, the Viks are super fun in this edition because they can play a variety of ways, and their best approach might be that skirmishing edge play. 

You're absolutely right that this conversation was marginally ot to begin with and is now absolutely outside of the remit of the thread and I'm going to stop responding in it.

Again, I'm sorry that I came across as talking down the keyword, that wasn't my intention. 

[Gheist]

20 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

I don't think that I was doing that? I didn't mean to. As I said above, the Viks are super fun in this edition because they can play a variety of ways, and their best approach might be that skirmishing edge play. 

You're absolutely right that this conversation was marginally ot to begin with and is now absolutely outside of the remit of the thread and I'm going to stop responding in it.

Again, I'm sorry that I came across as talking down the keyword, that wasn't my intention. 

didn't quote you ;)