Removing a round?

[Taxidermied]

The risk I see in making end of game only apply at end of turn 5 is that it will encourage purposeful slow play by some people once they have a good lead early game, as it can prevent the opposition from pulling ahead in vps if they cannot score the end of game points.  Eg. If Player A is at 4 be end of turn 3 (2 strat points and 2 reveled schemes) and Player B is at 0, then if the game ends early the maximum VP that Player B can achieve is 3 (1 strategy point and 2 revealed schemes).  There are multiple ways that this kind of situation can occur, but simply it gives an unscrupulous player the option to lock out 2 of an opponents possible VP through purposeful time wasting.  And there are unfortunately people that will do this.

Quite a few tournament set ups I’ve seen use a fixed masters pool (usually two) submitted by the players prior to game 1. Although at first glance it can seem to be a way of reducing the time spent on crew construction, it also dramatically reduces the number of models within a faction that players need to be familiar with using (yes ook is a thing, but very few are viable options for every master).  Increased knowledge of a models capabilities reduces decision paralysis and thus speeds play.  If time running over is a constant problem then make it fixed master, even fixed crew, for the event.  It will result in some massively skewed matchups, but the play speed is increased as the player only needs to be practiced with about a dozen models.  Personally I think that this is a terrible idea (fixed master/crew.  I like the limited pool of 2 variant), but if we’re ripping apart game mechanics let’s ruin crew building too.

The number of turns does not need to shorten, players just need to be able to perform within a reasonable time limit.  May I suggest chess clocks.  Each player has half of the total game time available to them.  So in a 2 hour game each is allocated 1 hour total.  You play at the speed you choose, but once your allocated time is gone for the game you may make no more activations.  You may not cheat in opposed duels and may not declare triggers or take out of activation actions.  Simply put your models sit there and do absolutely nothing.  Auras and passives are still in effect as long as they do not cause you to adjust position of your models or force actions.  I realize this can increase the value of pass tokens as a player short on time can burn them to save their remaining time for an end of game rush, but this isn’t too different from how they can be used anyway.  This does not lock out certain large sized crew builds or mass summoning, you should be practiced enough with such crews to play them within a games time limit beforehand as otherwise in a standard shared time game  you’re just draining the opponents play time and unfairly forcing them to play at a faster pace to see the game to conclusion.  Play speed is a skill.  Games are a competition of skill.  If an opponent can play faster then they are of a higher skill.  They did not cheese the game or rob you by finishing within their allocated time limit, they merely managed that resource (limited time) to a higher skill than you did.  Malifaux is a game of resource management and they who spend them to the greater gain win.

[Andrew James Princep]

12 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Let me explain a little concept called "Diff"...

I like how you think its sensible to cling to a scoring system where differential is really important and redesign/rebalance the whole game instead of just tweaking the scoring system for tournaments. 

explain that maybe?

[RisingPhoenix]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

*snipped for length*

 

Thank you for posting a well-thought out response.  I snipped it not out of disrespect, but because it was making my own post unwieldy-large to the point of absurdity.

I would point to the primary culprit in extended game length being more complex models and more complex actions.  If you pull out some of your old M2E cards, and look at the general minion, it probably had very few movement tricks, games, or other shenanigans.  It probably had 1-2 triggers, it probably had one purpose, and that was about it.  Most of the complexity was top-loaded into a small number of models, which was good because activation control was god, so crews often had a large number of cheap models to keep from being out-activated.  

As the simplest example, look at the charge action.  Charge used to be one measurement, one attack.  Done all the time.  Now it's one measurement, one attack, and one whole extra action.  That's fundamentally doubling the length of an activation where you charge.  So models are doing more, all the time.  Go over to the explorer's society and look at the new minion Surveyors.  Lets count how many measurements and actions they might generate:

• Chronicle: 4" aura, involves card discard, spawns another model.  That model must be placed
• Surveyor's Tools: Both blasts (extra templates) and a 3" push
• Hooked Chain: Built in push, action that involves setting up a triangle
• Chain Gang (Bonus): Two separate pushes on two separate models.  Involves 2-3 measures and movements.
• Field of Steel: Hazardous terrain aura.  Could involve many measurements as both you and the opponent make sure that you're not moving through it at any point during a move (hard to determine if you clipped it, time consuming)

This is a 6 stone model that could simply activate, chain gang, charge, attack twice with surveyors tools, miss once, hit once, and push the target off, say, a leyline.  Then get healed out of activation to put a geode in the way.  That would involve:

• 5 measurements
• 4 models moved
• 1 model placed from off the table.  
• 3 flips

Take a look at this list for a second.  That's on a 6 stone model.  I didn't try to maximize the action count, I didn't even do anything all that extraordinary.  Doing that sequence is about what you'd take the model for.  And that's where the time has gone to.  Models are also more durable, meaning that it's not uncommon for non-slaughter crews to end with the majority of their units still on the table.  

Now personally, I happen to like games that offer a lot of decisions.  But a lot of these decisions are of the time-consuming type.  Lets say inbetween round bookkeeping takes 5 minutes, which is quite fast (some crews can take a lot longer, depending on conditions and out-of-activation effects).  Even with measuring sticks, even knowing your own crew, even with a good opponent flipping quickly, do you think you're going to play out anything like 80 activations in 100 minutes?  It's just not feasible.

So simply put, if you're playing a game in 2 hours, you're probably making it a lot more like 40-50 activations, which means murdering the hell out of some models.  Even 50 activations a game in 2 hours is a breezy pace.  If you do that, if you play aggressively straight into each other's crews, and you start killing immediately, yes, the game can finish in 2 hours.  But I don't feel design intent is that every crew should always play that way.  

Goal: Reduce time while retaining complexity and decision making.

Why I like 4 rounds, with scoring early: First, it has a minimal impact on components, because it's so easy to do in Gaining Grounds.  We could tweak every deployment and do all-new schemes and strategies, because that's literally what Malifaux does every year.  And that's awesome.  We would probably create imbalances, but the game is imbalanced right now.  What we'd do is create new imbalances that are different from the current imbalances. Would they be worse?  I don't know.  Some tweaks would be needed, but some tweaks are needed right now.  I think fundamentally "4 rounds of Malifaux" and "5 rounds of Malifaux" are pretty similar beasts.  

It forces people into conflict early, and early conflict gets people killing.  It also cuts a round.  The shortest and least impactful round, sure, but it cuts a round.  A few extra dead models, and one less round, and I think we can get to 2.5 hours... maybe?  

Smaller Table: Looking at your list, smaller table is not a bad idea.  It pushes crews towards killing each other quickly, which keeps the time down.  A 30x30 table might be awkward to measure, but it's 6" closer.  On the other hand, we have a lot of mats that are sold, and they'd all be worthless in an instant if we did this.  Everything involves some sacrifice.  Where this gets weird is the idea of doing something like Reckoning here.  We can't score round 1, but we're deliberately pushing people to kill each other round 1?  It does involve rethinking the strategies.  It also makes certain schemes much harder because you're that much more likely to lose your scheme runners.  A 12" gun covers all but 3" of the board if you're trying to sneak past.  It already covers all but 6", so that's just making it worse.  It's easier to be in range to shoot a side while still being able to shoot the middle.  Again, the balance becomes different (but not necessarily more imbalanced).  

Verdict: You could do this without Round 1 scoring, probably with more strats like Public Enemies over Reckoning.  All mats would become worthless.  Shooting crews might need a balance pass (but maybe they do already).

Smaller hand and no opposed duels:  Wow, there is going to be some pushback.  First, it accomplishes the task in two ways.  First, less time flipping.  Second, if you want a model dead, you can look at your hand and know that it's dead.  There's nothing the opponent can do.  So you are not going to have models limping away on 1-2 wounds against good opponents.  It's just dead.  The game is faster, and more deadly (which is also faster).  No change in components.

Verdict: It's a good solution.  It might make some people very unhappy though.  Models will die without the chance to do anything about it.  Stones and henchmen are your only opportunity to stop a death.  And you'd have to reprint every card in the entire game.  

Large areas of hazardous terrain: So movement becomes harder, setup becomes more difficult, scoring becomes more finicky, and everything requires more thought and measurement?  You make an interesting argument, but this is a lot of bookkeeping and measuring.  These take time.  Moreover, I think you'll hit the "not fun" point.  As in it's a solution that works fine technically, but not being able to use an onslaught trigger because you are in hazardous terrain, which was totally unavoidable, is not fun.  Also, it's hard enough to get 50-60% coverage in a tournament environment.  The TO has to make that, and M3E experience has shown that terrain recommendations clash heavily with "how much terrain do I need for how many tables?"

Smaller Crews: I'm going to dismiss this out of hand because it's financially unsound.  There's a lot of models that get taken at a 50 point game that won't be taken in a 30 point game.  Go to any of your crew lists, then count how many models you're not going to bring in a 30 point game.  You're going to have to sideline some things, and that means Wyrd's shrunk the model pool de facto.  They're clearly marketing at a certain size - there's boxes with 24 stones worth of models in them for instance.  Is anyone going to bring Prospectors, Convict Gunslingers, etc.?  No.  There's just no room.  Since I like Wyrd and want them to stick around, I'm just going to say this one is set aside.  It might not be a bad idea in any way but financially, but if Wyrd's finances are damaged... they're not exactly Fantasy Flight Games, y'know?  

 

Change scoring mechanism (In conjunction with reducing the round size) objections:

Guild would need a buff: They have Mounted Guard, but... yeah, they would.  Does Guild need a buff right now already?  Yep.  Virtually any change to Malifaux that doesn't change their models is going to leave them underpowered, because their models are generally underpowered.  Daschel would be good, Daschel is good in GG1. 

 We'd have to craft strategies to avoid locking factions into 1-2 model selections: Yes, we would.  Corrupted idols wouldn't really work as written.  There'd be other losers.  It'd have to be considered and tested.  But GG2 will need to be considered and tested anyway.

The strongest crews are fast and mobile: Are they?  Neverborn's fastest crew is probably Nekima.  Ressers is Redchapel, with teleporting master shenanigans.  Arcanists is Colette, her movement is unparalleled.  Outcasts, Zipp, no question (Same for Bayou).  Ten Thunders... probably Misaki?    That doesn't look like a list of the best crews to me.  None of those are awful.  Would they become the new meta?  Maybe.  If they're too strong, they can be adjusted.  Certainly things like Public Enemies speed will be de-emphasized.  You can run as fast as you want, but if you're dying in a fight, that doesn't matter.

Turn 1 will have more meaningful choices and take longer: Meaningful choices means you're interacting with an opponent.  That probably means models are dying or at risk of dying.  A dead model turn 1 saves a lot of time, that's 3 activations gone right there.  Since our baseline would be more like 60, that's a decent chunk of the total.  2 dead models round 1, and we're at 54 activations.  If 40 is a reasonable game to play out in 2 hours, then we're getting close right early.  

 

I agree that it's tied with eliminating opposed duels.  Opposed duel elimination might even be the better way.  I do think you'll hear a lot more screaming than you will over 4 rounds (it also involves reworking every card in Malifaux, that's an obvious drawback).  

 

 

[Adran]

1 hour ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Goal: Reduce time while retaining complexity and decision making.

Why I like 4 rounds, with scoring early: First, it has a minimal impact on components, because it's so easy to do in Gaining Grounds.  We could tweak every deployment and do all-new schemes and strategies, because that's literally what Malifaux does every year.  And that's awesome.  We would probably create imbalances, but the game is imbalanced right now.  What we'd do is create new imbalances that are different from the current imbalances. Would they be worse?  I don't know.  Some tweaks would be needed, but some tweaks are

 

Thank you for the reply. I considered leaving parts of your post as I answered it, btu its getting quite long. Hopefully its still obvious which points I'm answering.

I can look at my M2e cards. I can also look at my M1 cards where I played 6 turn games in the 2 hour limits, and I can tell you that the M1 cards are MUCH fuller than M2 or M3. Less complexity can speed the game up, but more things on a card doesn't automatically make it a more complex model. It does give you more choices, which may not always be a good thing.

I'll also point out that the M2 charge was a move followed by 2 attacks. So not really that much simpler than the M3 charge (Its certainly simpler as you don't get to choose what your second action is, but not by all that much, and due to an attack probably being one of the longest actions to perform possibly may still take longer to resolve a models activation over all).

I can't say that I've noticed that M3 is that much more complex than M2 over all. There are some models that are Complex (and the new surveyor certainly looks to be one that may be time consuming in the middle turns of a game, but is probably fairly quick to do its turn in the early game). But I'm not sure it is more complicated than some M2 models. One thing I have found that reduces complexity in M3 is the reduction in upgrades, meaning I have a lower mental load to keep track of.

You can say its not feasible to do that many activations in a game, but I've done it and more before. It may be my style (which isn't kill everything, its more sacrifice everything for points) or it may be your style. There are plenty of people that manage to get games done in the time limits they set, and there are plenty that don't.

 

Smaller table. I did offer a table size that wouldn't invalidate most of the mats out there, but that was just a way of showing it. (Most 3*3 mats had a 6" deployment zone added because that was what it was last edition. On the size I suggested this is now just a card storage space). You could certainly change it to other sizes, and yes they might invalidate mats.

Large areas of Hazardous - the example I talked about was actually a table wide rule (just like the game used to use in M1) rather than extra bits of terrain, but it could also be done with more normal terrain, although this might cause more delay,. The table wide rule may be considered un fun, but I do also count not finishing a game as unfun. I wouldn't count it as unfun to have to make the choice of Flurry knowing it deals damage to my model, or not. Others may well. Peoples perceptions are strange things.

I don't think I suggested no opposed duels. I suggested no cheating when defending, but otherwise the duel process would have been the same. I haven't tried but I think you would find that a large number of games would turn out very similarly. Cheatable damage would happen more often, but you won't know if you can cheat damage until at least after they flip their card. So I agree with your verdict, but you don't quite seem to have been talking about what I wrote.

Smaller Crews - unsound for finance reasons? I don't know what you own. Most of the people I know own multiple masters from multiple factions. in the Last UKGT M2E I played 7 rounds with a fixed master but other than that and the totem I never duplicated a profile. Every other model was unique over those 7 games. Two years before that I tried to play every model I owned in a year. I fell short despite playing over 60 games and using over 2000 ss worth of my collection. I've been playing for years, so I've had a while to build up my collection, but It is stupidly large, and its not that large because I needed to play 50 ss games rather than 40ss. Its possible that if you dropped the game size from average 8 to average 6 models that you would reduce Wyrds sales, but I'm not sure its that certain a thing.

You could look through the threads on here to see what people complain about. Nekima (although much less so now with the removal of butterfly jump), Molly (especially pre errata) because of her crew mobility, Shen Long (especially the fact he can get a move as part of his attack action). Zipp and Colette are considered strong by some, and Seamus is also views top tier by some (and poor by others, but those that view him as strong have certainly posted good tournament results with him). Lots of the summon crews are also mobile crews by default because they get the model they need to the place they need quicker.  Perhaps it would have been better to say the worst crews are slow.

End conclusions - Yes you certainly could make the game work in 4 turns. It doesn't need any obvious rules changes (outside the changing the length of the game). there are some models that are designed considering 5 turns, but several of these are strong enough to be valid picks with out this turn (i.e. Riders).Others, such as Big Jake, can just be erratad to last turn.   GG 2 will be new and its probably not much harder to make it work for a 4 turn game. You would probably need to alter deployment to some degree. Adding scoring to turn 1 isn't a solution to the problem. Its entirely a side issue. You could make the same GG2 and still not score turn 1, and everyone is playing 7VP games rather than 8.

Durable models become less of an advantage and "glass" cannons become less of a risk

In the end I'm not actually sure what you're proposing over all other than making the game 4 turns and scoring on turn 1. That solves the problem that at least the players are going into the game with the same expectation. (assuming they get to play 4 turns) I'm not sure how it makes the game faster (other than you not needing to play turn 5), or makes the first turn any more meaningful on its own. Some of that will probably be dependent on how you score that first VP, but that's not really something you covered.

I'm sure there is some way to score VPs on the first turn that is both interactive and feasible for the majority of models in the game. Whilst Corrupted leylines would be feasible for all crews to score on turn 1, I'm not sure I'd call it interacting with opponents for example.

My personal biggest problem is you are trying to fix a fault in the game that I don't find, and haven't really proposed much of a solution to the problem that can be discussed.

Removing round 1 from every game currently is not a good solution (and is a different solution to removing round 5, which is what currently sometimes happens by default). Removing round one and then scoring in some different way may or may not be a good solution, depending on how change the scoring happens.

[RisingPhoenix]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

...

It's true that Charge had two attacks.  They were (almost) always identical, and usually went by very quickly.  That's 1 move and 2-4 flips, which all happened in a row.  It was very easy to resolve in a minute or less.  Again, I like charge in M3E.  It removed some of the depth of play of controlling charge lanes, but the flexibility makes the game a lot more fluid, and you can do more with units.   But it slows the game down.  Much of M3E is similar. 

I'm a little annoyed that you looked at "how much stuff is on the card", but ignored the much more salient point of "how many model moves, places, and measures does this stuff generate?"  

Take the Peacekeeper.  In M2E, it had exactly one action that generated movement or required movement - a trigger on chain harpoon (odds of hitting it?  Not great).  So to compare:

M2E Peacekeeper:

• Could pull a target 8" on a ram.

M3E Peacekeeper

• Power Converter to remove scrap (3" aura)
• Harpoon Gun: Automatically moves model 3".  Trigger to push another 3"
• Trail of Gore: Free walk action
• Transfer power token: Push, either of peacekeeper or another model

Across the board, everything has gotten more measures, more pushes, and more movement tricks.  As you can see even Guild units have gotten significant upgrades in this regard, and guild is generally behind the other factions in mobility and movement shenanigans.   Do you want to randomly pick a master and compare them? We could roll dice, random.org, whatever.  If we pick an M3E master they're going to have many more movement shenanigans and range checks (and less conditions) than their M2E versions, as a generalization.     

Movement takes time.  That's just a fact on the tabletop.  And there's a lot of small movements in M3E.  I think you can basically pick a random crew from either edition and compare them and you'll see that.  In contrast, M2E had a lot more conditions (and a lot weirder conditions).

Thoughts: 

I think we're at an impasse, because despite many people saying that game length is a problem, there's a core of people that say it's not.  Most seem to play the same style of "kill first, score later", which does seem to be the contributing factor.  

We seem to be in agreement on the time required - no more than 1 minute activations tops, every activation, in order to have a hope of completing the game in time.  That's very fast - not to do every activation (most activations can be done that quickly) but that you can never tank, consider, consult cards, or measure during a game.  And that right there removes a lot of the strategic depth, because you just don't have time to consider it.  Does it matter if Malifaux is an ocean of strategy if we don't consider it?  How many games of M3E have ended in gotchas?  Gotchas are a product of not knowing the opposing cards, and not having time to consider what they can do.  There needs to be some time to do more than run through your activation as fast as you can move your limbs, and it's not unreasonable to expect that.  It used to be there.  It's not anymore.  

As for how this makes the game faster, yes, not playing round 5 is part of it.  Also if we move deployment zones closer and make scoring possible early, then conflict will erupt early.  As we note, M3E is full of movement shenanigans.  Killing models round 1 isn't actually that hard, and if it scores you points, then people will do it.  

Is it enough?  I don't know.  

Final aside:

If you remove cheating from defensive flips, you might as well remove the flip.  At that point all the flip is adding is an RNG element to an rng element (your own flip).  You can just say "Flip an eight, that's a thirteen vs defense, what's your defense?" "Twelve"  "Okay, that hits."  It's very much faster, unifies attack and tactical actions (both flips against a static number), and RNG is not particularly desirable unless it's enhancing strategy in some way.  Which, if you can cheat it it does, but if you can't cheat it it's just dumb.  It's not a bad approach to do, mind you, but it is a major change.

Saying "you can't cheat defense flips" is removing the strategic half of defense flips, but not the entire time commitment of them.  Which, they're not particularly strategic, so yeah, they're a fine thing to remove.  

Edit: Oh and 1E?  1E was rocket tag.  Sure, resolving Leveticus' actions probably took three times as long as it did in M2E or M3E.  There was an entire mid-turn hand redraw and waif respawn thing that was nightmarishly complex.  Does it matter if your damage track is 1/2/12? You can kill the enemy master in 1 hit.  Literally.  It was a pinata of broken effects that could delete models off the table, and it wasn't uncommon for games to end in either a tabling, or with both players having blown up so much of their crew it was just a few models wandering about doing random things.  

Or with Pandora literally locking down your crew so badly you could never activate ever again.  Paralyze, good condition, very well designed.  Etc.  Those games were something that was entertaining, sure, but as a serious game it was lacking in numerous ways.   Lets just leave it aside.  In terms of resemblance, it's M3E is an evolution of M2E.  M2E was a total redesign of Malifaux, practically from the ground up.  

[katadder]

@RisingPhoenix if you dont play round 5 how can you say its least impactful? For some of us it has a massive impact on the game, and it's also usually fairly quick as less stuff left.

Give you an example, a game I played today on vassal. Both of us using stuff we are not used to, even with cigarette breaks etc that was only a 3 hour game. Now vassal is supposed to be longer anyway and we had loads going on with stuff we are not used to plus breaks.

In person at a tourney with no breaks this would have easily been finish in 2.5 hours, more likely 2 hours. And I scored 5vp in turns 4 and 5, still lost (but that's due to not seeing something that could have scored me a point if more familiar).

So it's not even lack of familiarity as a reason, it's just slow play. Guys who play 3 turn games have become accustomed to that and I honestly dont think they will manage to get out of that rut if they dont force themselves to play 5 somehow and speed up.

[Cleezy]

TFW is an excellent resource for our hobby and as such presumably has a good portion of the community actively listening, where this is potentially problematic is that it may give a platform to an issue that is the minority and is being projected as the majority especially if guests are on repeatedly.

This issue was a common theme when m3e was fresh in the wild but at events in the UK particularly the play sped up for the majority quite quickly, of course there are some situations where a game runs slightly short but turn 3 isn't the norm here where as for the guest on the pod it is. Other high profile players in the US have also said that 5 turns is not the problem.

A 3 turn game, the effort to then completely amend the rules to suit and ultimately change a game on what certainly seems to be an issue for the minority of players.

What people have to also remember is that when playing at home or casually you can take your time and be longer (for a variety of reasons) but if you are looking at tournament play and to be competitive then the full game should be what is practiced for to the point that it is achieved. 

[Adran]

30 minutes ago, RisingPhoenix said:

It's true that Charge had two attacks.  They were (almost) always identical, and usually went by very quickly.  That's 1 move and 2-4 flips, which all happened in a row.  It was very easy to resolve in a minute or less.  Again, I like charge in M3E.  It removed some of the depth of play of controlling charge lanes, but the flexibility makes the game a lot more fluid, and you can do more with units.   But it slows the game down.  Much of M3E is similar. 

I'm a little annoyed that you looked at "how much stuff is on the card", but ignored the much more salient point of "how many model moves, places, and measures does this stuff generate?"  

Take the Peacekeeper.  In M2E, it had exactly one action that generated movement or required movement - a trigger on chain harpoon (odds of hitting it?  Not great).  So to compare:

M2E Peacekeeper:

• Could pull a target 8" on a ram.

M3E Peacekeeper

• Power Converter to remove scrap (3" aura)
• Harpoon Gun: Automatically moves model 3".  Trigger to push another 3"
• Trail of Gore: Free walk action
• Transfer power token: Push, either of peacekeeper or another model

Across the board, everything has gotten more measures, more pushes, and more movement tricks.  As you can see even Guild units have gotten significant upgrades in this regard, and guild is generally behind the other factions in mobility and movement shenanigans.   Do you want to randomly pick a master and compare them? We could roll dice, random.org, whatever.  If we pick an M3E master they're going to have many more movement shenanigans and range checks (and less conditions) than their M2E versions, as a generalization.     

Thoughts: 

I think we're at an impasse, because despite many people saying that game length is a problem, there's a core of people that say it's not.  Most seem to play the same style of "kill first, score later", which does seem to be the contributing factor.  

Final aside:

If you remove cheating from defensive flips, you might as well remove the flip.  At that point all the flip is adding is an RNG element to an rng element (your own flip).  You can just say "Flip an eight, that's a thirteen vs defense, what's your defense?" "Twelve"  "Okay, that hits."  It's very much faster, unifies attack and tactical actions (both flips against a static number), and RNG is not particularly desirable unless it's enhancing strategy in some way.  Which, if you can cheat it it does, but if you can't cheat it it's just dumb.  It's not a bad approach to do, mind you, but it is a major change.

Saying "you can't cheat defense flips" is removing the strategic half of defense flips, but not the entire time commitment of them.  Which, they're not particularly strategic, so yeah, they're a fine thing to remove.  

I agree that we're not going to convince each other. Sorry you didn't think I commented enough on the Surveyor. Yes it could have plenty of movement. I'm still thinking I can do most of its activations in under 1 minute each.  I've not spent much time directly comparing M2 to M3, but I think your peacekeeper example is flawed. I would agree that there is more on the card in M 3, but you seem to discount terrifying ( granted not in its activations) and the pulse to remove markers whilst including the checking range for power converter. You make some good arguments, but you also appear to miss other peoples points and try and massage the numbers to support your argument. For example I explicitly told you I don't play a kill everyone style, and no one has said that is how they played, but you have assumed it and are treating it as fact that that is how games are reaching turn 5. 

And comparing a M3 master to M2 master ought to include m2 upgrades, which does slow it down quite a lot because I can know what they all do, but I also need to know which you have, which means every time I face that master it could be different. 

I think you have missed an important point on the difference between flipping and not being able to cheat, and not flipping, despite raising it as a reason it might be bad. There are over 1000 different outcomes for an opposed flip ( from 2 fresh decks). And if you can only cheat one side you can't"know" you will win unless you know you have a hired card in hand than they can reach. The maths for opposed flips is very different to the maths for static target numbers. 

[LeperColony]

13 minutes ago, Adran said:

The maths for opposed flips is very different to the maths for static target numbers. 

Amen, brother.  See my sig line.

[touchdown]

I just played a game where I outscored my opponent 3-1 on turn 5 to manage a 1 point victory and the game took us 5 hours to play. So I'm not sure which side this anecdote favors but there it is.

[RisingPhoenix]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

I agree that we're not going to convince each other. Sorry you didn't think I commented enough on the Surveyor. Yes it could have plenty of movement. I'm still thinking I can do most of its activations in under 1 minute each.  I've not spent much time directly comparing M2 to M3, but I think your peacekeeper example is flawed. I would agree that there is more on the card in M 3, but you seem to discount terrifying ( granted not in its activations) and the pulse to remove markers whilst including the checking range for power converter. You make some good arguments, but you also appear to miss other peoples points and try and massage the numbers to support your argument. For example I explicitly told you I don't play a kill everyone style, and no one has said that is how they played, but you have assumed it and are treating it as fact that that is how games are reaching turn 5. 

And comparing a M3 master to M2 master ought to include m2 upgrades, which does slow it down quite a lot because I can know what they all do, but I also need to know which you have, which means every time I face that master it could be different. 

 

I didn't comment if Peacekeeper got worse or better between editions.  That's such a hard question to answer it's ultimately unknowable.  But as to Terrifying adding time, when do you flip a terrifying duel?  When you're flipping a normal duel.  So you're already picking up your deck of cards.  If you pass, you just flip another card, bam.  Nothing your opponent can do. If you fail, that's even faster.  It only slows you down if you cheat the terrifying duel, and even then it's pretty quick.  Compared to measuring and moving a model, a flip when you're already flipping is only slightly longer than a plus or minus flip.   If you have Ruthless, you ignore even that.  

I actually like the movement design more, as I said, but it simply takes more time.  

As to the idea that people aren't playing kill lists, we have multiple supporters of the idea that the game is fast saying how they often have scored 0 points in round 3, and score 4-5 points before the game ends.  If you score 0 points by round 3... what are your models doing?  Probably?  Killing things.  I simply can't fathom a game where you score 0-1 points on turn 3, somehow get 4-6 by the end of the game, and you weren't trying to table your opponent (and from those scores, probably succeeding).   

2 hours ago, Adran said:

I think you have missed an important point on the difference between flipping and not being able to cheat, and not flipping, despite raising it as a reason it might be bad. There are over 1000 different outcomes for an opposed flip ( from 2 fresh decks). And if you can only cheat one side you can't"know" you will win unless you know you have a hired card in hand than they can reach. The maths for opposed flips is very different to the maths for static target numbers. 

Actually there are 5 possible outcomes for an opposed flip.  They are: You have lower, then your attack fails.  You flip exacto, double negative.  You flip 1-5 more, negative.  You flip 6-10, neutral.  You flip 11+, you get a positive.  Those are the only possible outcomes.   If you're not trying to do an attack, there's only two.

Sure, there's plenty of configurations to get there, but is there any value in that?  Imagine a coin flip, two outcomes, heads or tails.  A D20 where you need to roll an 11+ to pass?  20 possible rolls, but two possible outcomes.  A D100 where you need 51?  Now 100 rolls, but two outcomes.  They're all the same coin flip.  Is 2,916 configurations superior to 54?  Remember, whether 2,916 configurations or 54, they all fall into the same set of 2 or 5 buckets.  If there's a similar ratio of entities in each bucket, all your "extra RNG" has done is waste everyone's time.

You'd have to demonstrate the buckets were sufficiently different between the two configurations to justify the extra time.  

[Cleezy]

1 minute ago, RisingPhoenix said:

As to the idea that people aren't playing kill lists, we have multiple supporters of the idea that the game is fast saying how they often have scored 0 points in round 3, and score 4-5 points before the game ends.  If you score 0 points by round 3... what are your models doing?  Probably?  Killing things.  I simply can't fathom a game where you score 0-1 points on turn 3, somehow get 4-6 by the end of the game, and you weren't trying to table your opponent (and from those scores, probably succeeding).   

Maybe your opponent is strongly denying your schemes and strat? Maybe you make a mistake or have some bad luck. There are variables that can account for such instances.

Also it may be that the player has opted to go heavy handed early and is happy to concede a point or two in T2 and T3 knowing that they are playing a 5 turn game with an opportunity to catch up and overtake in the later turns.

There a lot of people who say m3e that models survive longer in m3e or that damage output is less and that is why they are struggling to reach the later stages of the game, that is something that in the majority of my games, and the majority of games I see at the events I run that I do not see.

Do I feel like m3e has more meaningful models? Yes, because people dont want activation filling rubbish to have activation control due to the introduction of pass tokens. As such are people generally picking models based on what they will do to impact the game? Definitely, tech picks are way more of a thing now to the point where I was in a discussion and the person said when he sees cheap minions of the table they have been selected for a purpose and removing them from the game is a route to victory to deny the opponent needed AP.

Ultimately I do not feel that anything posted in this thread is going to change the viewpoint you have regarding game length, some are in agreement, some are not. Do I have games that take over 2hrs15? Yes, when I play at home or with friends and I am using something I am unfamiliar with, would I take that to an event? No, not unless I feel comfortable I can play that crew in a 5 turn game in the allotted time.

[RisingPhoenix]

6 minutes ago, Cleezy said:

Maybe your opponent is strongly denying your schemes and strat? Maybe you make a mistake or have some bad luck. There are variables that can account for such instances.

Also it may be that the player has opted to go heavy handed early and is happy to concede a point or two in T2 and T3 knowing that they are playing a 5 turn game with an opportunity to catch up and overtake in the later turns.

There a lot of people who say m3e that models survive longer in m3e or that damage output is less and that is why they are struggling to reach the later stages of the game, that is something that in the majority of my games, and the majority of games I see at the events I run that I do not see.

Then we have to admit that Wyrd entirely failed in the design of M3E, because one of their explicit design goals was to make models tougher and increase the TTK and reduce the damage output from M2E.  This isn't subtle, this isn't hidden, they spent plenty of time talking about how the TTK at the end of M2E was too low, and that it made balancing a nightmare.  They specifically toned down many of the higher damage things in the game, because the same set of incredibly lethal units was forming the core of every crew in a faction.  

And I think that for the most part Wyrd succeeded.  I think Wyrd had a clear mission, and they accomplished it.  And one of the consequences of this is the game takes longer.

[Adran]

27 minutes ago, RisingPhoenix said:

 

Actually there are 5 possible outcomes for an opposed flip.  They are: You have lower, then your attack fails.  You flip exacto, double negative.  You flip 1-5 more, negative.  You flip 6-10, neutral.  You flip 11+, you get a positive.  Those are the only possible outcomes.   If you're not trying to do an attack, there's only two.

Sure, there's plenty of configurations to get there, but is there any value in that?  Imagine a coin flip, two outcomes, heads or tails.  A D20 where you need to roll an 11+ to pass?  20 possible rolls, but two possible outcomes.  A D100 where you need 51?  Now 100 rolls, but two outcomes.  They're all the same coin flip.  Is 2,916 configurations superior to 54?  Remember, whether 2,916 configurations or 54, they all fall into the same set of 2 or 5 buckets.  If there's a similar ratio of entities in each bucket, all your "extra RNG" has done is waste everyone's time.

You'd have to demonstrate the buckets were sufficiently different between the two configurations to justify the extra time.  

If you can change your flip by cheating then there are more buckets. If the action ( or defender) has triggers then there is more to the outcome than just those 5 buckets. Malifaux maths is really complex if you actually do it properly. The 5 buckets is a suitable approximate of the initial duel to work with, but it's not really true. 

Using a deck of cards rather than a set of die does funny things as well. You can potentially win a duel and at the same time improve your chances of winning more duels, or lose and still make your deck worse. 

Two people flipping at the same time adds very little time. Two people having to make choices on that one outcome ( and the other person's choice of that outcome) can add a lot of time.  You literally said that removing opposed flips will mean you can know almost the exact outcome, where as you can't know that with opposed flips even if you're the only one who cheats. ( unless you have a card they can't beat in hand and the jokers are gone)

Basically there is a huge difference between an opposed duel and a simple duel in this game. The suggestion to remove opposed duels would reduce time. It would also reduce a lot of the strategy. It wasn't the suggestion I made, and I would be quite opposed to it. I don't think I'd like the removal of defence cheating, but it would reduce the time of a game without a major reduction in strategy ( I think) in practical terms. 

 

[RisingPhoenix]

22 minutes ago, Adran said:

If you can change your flip by cheating then there are more buckets. If the action ( or defender) has triggers then there is more to the outcome than just those 5 buckets. Malifaux maths is really complex if you actually do it properly. The 5 buckets is a suitable approximate of the initial duel to work with, but it's not really true. 

Using a deck of cards rather than a set of die does funny things as well. You can potentially win a duel and at the same time improve your chances of winning more duels, or lose and still make your deck worse. 

Two people flipping at the same time adds very little time. Two people having to make choices on that one outcome ( and the other person's choice of that outcome) can add a lot of time.  You literally said that removing opposed flips will mean you can know almost the exact outcome, where as you can't know that with opposed flips even if you're the only one who cheats. 

Basically there is a huge difference between an opposed duel and a simple duel in this game. The suggestion to remove opposed duels would reduce time. It would also reduce a lot of the strategy. It wasn't the suggestion I made, and I would be quite opposed to it. I don't think I'd like the removal of defence cheating, but it would reduce the time of a game without a major reduction in strategy ( I think) in practical terms. 

 

The five buckets isn't an approximation.  It's literally the only five possible outcomes for an opposed duel.  If you think there's more than five, you can try to point me to a rulebook page, but I think on review you'll discover that I'm right, and that there's only five outcomes to a duel.  This isn't semantics, this isn't approximating.  Every one of the possible combination of flips falls into one of those five buckets.  This is something called a "discrete outcome".  With discrete outcomes, the idea of a curve of results is actually the approximation.  And "five" is too low a number of discrete outcomes to try and plot it on a curve.

Now sure, if we add in cheating from the initiator only, it does become slightly fuzzier, but does it become valuably fuzzier?  Yes, you can sometimes yolo into a situation where you can cheat a 5 and win a duel, or random into a situation where a 12 isn't sufficient.  These golden goose/black swan scenarios are rare.  Humans have a cognitive bias to remember rare events (remember that time I had a positive flip and flipped the black joker and the red joker?  Oh my god, what are the odds!  Answer: A lot higher than you think, but still quite low).  But if you actually do the math you'll discover that all the buckets are about the same, except the 11+ bucket which will go from vanishingly rare/impossible to very rare.  It's just a function of there being very discrete outcomes.  

[scarlett fever]

I've only had 2 tournament games of M3e that didn't go the full 5 rounds, and they were easy to unpack with my opponent how they would end. I've also had many m2e games that only went to round 3. Note that in our meta our tournament games are generally 2.5 hour games.

But my casual games are routinely slow, playing new crews, long set-up times, banter etc.

I've played tournaments in other game systems with less excuse for slow play and if there aren't chess clocks you will get games that don't go the distance.

We could reduce to 3-4 rounds but new players, people who don't know their armies and those vulnerable to analysis paralysis will still be turn up and want a game. Which is fair enough, they deserve to play too.

I don't think this is necessarily about changing the game system to accommodate slower play, though that could help, I think this should be a discussion about how serious you want to take your tournaments.

Mentioning chess clocks is a sure way to blow up the Malifaux conversation, but I believe it's the only way to be certain games won't time out. This is from someone who used to be disparaging about their use in Malifaux. They do add another layer to your gameplay and you will forget to switch back to your opponent on occasion but over all it will even out and adds that level of pressure to stay on time. I've tried using them and they're usable.

If you want a proper competitive format they shouldn't be compulsory but they should be an option if you're expecting a slow game or you start to see your game grinding. This is obviously a difficult ask for those who just turn up to have fun and mess around or those who want to unpack every decision but I don't believe cutting down rounds will make timeouts go away.

Reasonable players who know their crews cards to a reasonable level can absolutely get games done in time. They may have to short cut some of the deep decisions but it's achievable. The knowledge that someone can ask for a clock will keep the pressure on.

But this won't be fun for the casuals and people who want the deep thinking in game, so could alienate some players.

But in a gentleman's format, which Malifaux has been pretty good for so far as far as I can tell, strong players won't need to slam newbs with chess clocks, because they'll know how to win the game even if it drags. As they rise in their Strength of Schedule over the course of a tourney, if they strike someone of their own calibre who is dragging the chain and they really want the win, threaten a clock on them. If both players are top table level they should be mature enough to use a clock if asked.

Though I agree that kill everything crews are quicker to play than other crews I don't think summoning crews are significantly slower than all other crews. Often what you summon in has a pretty specific role to play and there are lots of crews out there that don't summon but are just so dense with synergy that you have endless decision trees with them. If you're turning tournament with one of these crews and want to play top table then know your cards and know which of your 500 synergies is most comfortable for you in most situations.   

So I guess my summary is, how serious do you want your tournaments to be? If you don't want to time out know your crews and don't get stuck on decision making. If your meta is not meeting the requirements you want then you may need to threaten clocks. I don't believe reducing rounds will completely remove timeouts and it will change the game so much that it's likely the whole game would need re-balancing.

[katadder]

Chess clocks are a bad thing in faux (and I was a supporter of them in warmahordes). Tbh they arnt great ik general as they cause bad feelings when people lose by them as I have seen.

Also if i have had a complete game but only used 40 minutes and my opponent used 1 hrs 20 then i am happier than them timing out.  Would rather play full games than win this way.

Simple thing is, the minority who seem to be aiming for 3 turns (which we only hear from loudest sources making them seem more people) need to start playing for a full game, this will remove their subconscious bias and hopefully speed them up. If you aim to play 3 turns as these people do, chances are you will only play 3 turns. 

Also with 2 hours that's 40 minutes per turn (50 with 2.5 hours) if only playing 3, who takes (being generous  and splitting equally) 20 minutes to activate 7,8 or 9 models? That's reduliculous. 

Use your opponents time to plan ahead, I normally know once they choose a model to activate who is going next and have a general idea where they are heading and what they are attempting to do.

[Adran]

8 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

The five buckets isn't an approximation.  It's literally the only five possible outcomes for an opposed duel.  If you think there's more than five, you can try to point me to a rulebook page, but I think on review you'll discover that I'm right, and that there's only five outcomes to a duel.  This isn't semantics, this isn't approximating. 

Well I thought I'd proved there weren't just 5 buckets just by the addition of triggers. 

If you look at the outcome of 1 duel then yes you can look at it in terms of 5 outcomes. But there is a big practical different ( in terms of choices of cheating) in a duel (equal stats) when the attacker flips a1 and the defender flips a 2, or the same duel when the attacker flips an 11 and the defender flips a 12 even though both would be in the same bucket. And choice wise probably even more so you swapped the numbered so the attacker was winning by 1. 

Likewise if I have a 7 in hand then the 5v6 duel is in a different bucket to the 8v9 duel because one is in the losing but can do something about it bucket and the other is in the losing and can't change it bucket. 

I don't have the numbers to hand, they're on my work computer and I don't have time to recalculate, but if you have a static duel where you need 7+ and do it 54 times in a row starting with a fresh deck, you will succeed 29 times in those 54 attempts. If you are doing an opposed duel with equal stats instead then you could succeed 54 times or you could succeed 4 times. ( The 2 extremes) I think the average number of success is similar, but the distribution of result matters. Once you add the ability to cheat you have changed the values of your cards from a binary result in the simple duel, ( in my above example, all cards 7+ in your hand are successes, and everything else is a failure) to actually mattering. In a opposed duel a 2 in hand might actually be a success. It's not a high probability, but it has a different value to a 3 in hand. 

Some of this stuff I didn't realise for years of playing this game, but the discussion here in the ttb section about the difference between simple and opposed made me look more closely and surprised me, and I thought I understood probability so I don't expect most people to have realised the differences either. 

[RisingPhoenix]

3 hours ago, katadder said:

Chess clocks are a bad thing in faux (and I was a supporter of them in warmahordes). Tbh they arnt great ik general as they cause bad feelings when people lose by them as I have seen.

Also if i have had a complete game but only used 40 minutes and my opponent used 1 hrs 20 then i am happier than them timing out.  Would rather play full games than win this way.

Simple thing is, the minority who seem to be aiming for 3 turns (which we only hear from loudest sources making them seem more people) need to start playing for a full game, this will remove their subconscious bias and hopefully speed them up. If you aim to play 3 turns as these people do, chances are you will only play 3 turns. 

I think if you've hit the point where you say "If you disagree with me all you have to do is believe in yourself because the only thing holding you back is you!" then you've run out of useful things to add to a discussion, and are down to spouting nonsense.

 Shit like this indicates any useful discussion has fled the room.  

Unfortunately any forum is inundated with a minority of people who post stuff like this, and this loud minority makes intelligent conversation impossible.

[katadder]

See yet again all you can do is respond with insults due to not agreeing with a counter argument.

Sorry but if you aim for 3 turns you will never learn to play faster as that is your aim so why would you try to push past it? So yes the thing holding you back is you.

Unfortunately for you, you are the minority loud voice in the room as across forums, factions chats etc this doesnt seek to be a problem for the majority and that's American metas as well as other countries. So I agree, the loud minority does make intelligent conversation impossible, it's just the loud minority dont recognise who they are.

[Durza]

Locking this thread, discussion has gone down hill enough.