Losing Focus...

[Scoffer]

16 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

It doesn't break the game in the sense that you can still play it but I think that it is one of the things contributing to the fact that something like well over half of the cheap profiles seemingly never see play in competitive environments. Focus means that they can be one-shotted very reliably by a stronger model and when that Focus is incredibly plentiful, it means that cheaper fighter models are at a massive disadvantage.

Now, it is entirely possible to be happy with the way things are and consider it ideal that crews are small and very elite - nothing wrong with that! But I always liked it better when the small dudes were viable as well.

I think the reason why "little" models don't see play is not their fragility. The real reason (and the real problem of m3e) is the combination of scoring system and gg schemes. In m3e you don't need many models and many actions to score. That's why cheap weak models are worthless, unless they have some very special abilities - the big guys can effectively do their job. And it's also the reason why it's ok now to invest 10-12 stones into models that do nothing but buff big guys. And the reason why it's ok to use one action to concentrate instead of walking again into a perfect position for scheming as well.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 minutes ago, Scoffer said:

I think the reason why "little" models don't see play is not their fragility. The real reason (and the real problem of m3e) is the combination of scoring system and gg schemes. In m3e you don't need many models and many actions to score. That's why cheap weak models are worthless, unless they have some very special abilities - the big guys can effectively do their job. And it's also the reason why it's ok now to invest 10-12 stones into models that do nothing but buff big guys. And the reason why it's ok to use one action to concentrate instead of walking again into a perfect position for scheming as well.

There are probably multiple reasons, agreed.

Taking two combat cheapos is very seldom better than taking one combat heavy and I think that the main reason there is fragility - the cheapos lose half their effectiveness when one dies, they utilize you limited cards worse, and they benefit less from healing.

But yeah, there are a lot of Schemes which don't require all that many Actions. Some do require a lot if you can't somehow poop out Scheme Markers when you're doing other stuff (e.g., Spread Them Out requires six that are far apart on the enemy Table Half and Sabotage requires four and ideally some way to move or remove enemy Models who come snooping around).

[Mycellanious]

See, Ib my experience the little guys do fine. I actually prefer a crew a 9-10 5 or 6 stone models to 6-7 9 or 10 stone models. You just have so much more you can do with the little guys, and most of the time the beaters cant stop all of them, and if they can then you misplayed somewhere. I think a big part of it is the way people look at the game. Every model is expendable. Most of the time I am fine with spending my 5ss model to take up an enemy's Activation and their Focus, thats generally a good deal for me because he's not hitting something important, not scoring points, and if I've set up correctly I can punish him for taking my models. I just played a 10 model Basse list against a 6 model mamma Z crew yesterday. He killed 4 models turn 1 and I had 3 at the end of the game, but I still won 7-3 because I clogged him up so much and he couldnt be in every part of the board at the same time. 

I think GG0 generally had low AP pool, but I think GG1 generally has very AP heavy pools, so I think large lists do well.

[Ogid]

On 9/16/2020 at 2:44 PM, Math Mathonwy said:

To be fair, that kinda pre-supposes that things are currently balanced. At least in OP's opinion they aren't, thus the suggestion. Now, the question is, is the balance better before or after the change and that's naturally open for debate but the current state of the game isn't very fragile and it would most likely survive a change like that just fine. Some models would become better and some would become worse but the open beta tried to balance hundreds of profiles with intense synergies in a number of weeks - the end result is impossible to get anywhere near perfect.

I must say that one of my biggest peeves with M3e as compared to 2e is the way Conditions are handled. I can see the merit behind limiting them to a certain number but they are also way more common now and additionally we have these not-Conditions-in-name-but-really-Conditions to muddle things up. I've played against TT quite a bit lately and, without any exaggeration, they have to hit and damage far more often than not due to either Focus or some other thing like taking a Flicker.

The thing is this thread's proposed changes are too big, which is a way to balance things that I dislike at this stage of a game; specially in an asymetric game where changes doesn't affect everyone the same. Focused supports, Focused stacking and Focused pulses are indeed powerful, but I've no problems playing with, without and versus these and with list with more or less models. I think Focused has an important place in the game and removing/weakining it without touching healing and defensive tech will leave the meta in a worse place than it's now. Maybe as I didn't play ME2, I don't have some expectations than players from other editions have, but I do find it fine.

That doesn't mean the game is perfectly balanced tho. Those abilities and models need to be watched as everything else, and if any of those start to overperform, then that particular ability/model should get a twist or a price increase; but that one only, not the core rules affecting the whole game.

For example: If Tanukis/Mobile toolkit were too good, then those getting 1 extra SS cost could put them on the curve again or if Blasphemous Ritual pulse or Mark territory focus stacking were too efficient, then limiting the maximum models affected by the pulse or putting a cap to the Focused the ability can handle will do the trick; or if the problem is one particular model getting unstoppable with Focused, that one could get some ability that caps the focus on him or limit it somehow (kind of what they did with Cooper's Reload). That's much more reasonable than implement some drastic change across the board and hope the meta settles after the dust imho.

[LeperColony]

I'm not a fan of focus condition resetting.  I much prefer the change where you can use Focus as a  to almost any duel or damage/heal flip.  

In my opinion, focus definitely needs a nerf.  The game is balanced around the belief that min damage is the expected outcome of most attacks.  Efficient focus stacking completely overturns that model, and without an appreciation for that fact, future changes will likely increase model wound counts or proliferate things like HTW in order to make them live as long as expected.

Removing the  to opposed duels and damage helps address this issue.

However, if you then expand Focus's use beyond opposed duels, all of a sudden it acquires a lot more flexibility.  Focus on Terrifying.  Focus on tactical actions.  Even summoning.   to heals.  None of these uses seem broken to me, and a give-and-take solution to Focus is preferable to a straight nerf.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, LeperColony said:

However, if you then expand Focus's use beyond opposed duels, all of a sudden it acquires a lot more flexibility.  Focus on Terrifying.  Focus on tactical actions.  Even summoning.   to heals.  None of these uses seem broken to me, and a give-and-take solution to Focus is preferable to a straight nerf.

I agree this change would probably be fine, but there's likely some areas where it would start to feel nuts. Stitched pre-nerf would have been pretty happy to have it. Any tactical action that is one per activation will potentially be affected, as you get two looks at a card for it instead of one. I actually like that effect - Pandora on an empty hand can still get Fears Given Form or The Box Opens off even with no cards in hand.

[LeperColony]

48 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I agree this change would probably be fine, but there's likely some areas where it would start to feel nuts.

There are so many interactions in Malifaux, so doubtless a few cases could be found where it might border on the abusive.  But in the main, what I expect it would do is increase the utility of focus to moderate cost support models and improve the reliability of nice-to-have but not critical mid/late turn actions.  Ride With Me, for instance, if it happens later in the turn when you can't cheat it, or your only cards left are severes.

Any truly critical action, like summoning, is only taken when you can virtually guarantee success anyway.  If you're summoning off the top with no other plan, then either the summon doesn't matter that much, or you're in such a bad state that it's hard to see a meager  saving the day.

[Ogid]

15 hours ago, LeperColony said:

I'm not a fan of focus condition resetting.  I much prefer the change where you can use Focus as a  to almost any duel or damage/heal flip.  

In my opinion, focus definitely needs a nerf.  The game is balanced around the belief that min damage is the expected outcome of most attacks.  Efficient focus stacking completely overturns that model, and without an appreciation for that fact, future changes will likely increase model wound counts or proliferate things like HTW in order to make them live as long as expected.

Removing the  to opposed duels and damage helps address this issue.

However, if you then expand Focus's use beyond opposed duels, all of a sudden it acquires a lot more flexibility.  Focus on Terrifying.  Focus on tactical actions.  Even summoning.   to heals.  None of these uses seem broken to me, and a give-and-take solution to Focus is preferable to a straight nerf.

Our metas should be so different... your opinions and mine are the exact opposite 😂.

The change to any duel and flip would make sense if Focused would be a very niche thing, but that's hardly the case; it's a widely used combat buff and there is no need to make it more than that. Specially because as it is, Focused is indirectly helping on those. A Focused model will have a better flip and will have an higher chance to cheat after the other player, which means less cheating in combat and more cards for those other things (healing, terrifying, tactical actions, summoning...).  However making it apply to every duel could unbalance some things, for example pulsing focused will become a powerful defensive tech versus crews based on shockwaves and the few damaging tactical actions that already ignore a lot of defensive tech will become even better.

I don't think the game is balanced around min damage, if that were the case models with damage reduction would be almost untouchable. The game is balanced around the idea of objectives and that not every crew has to be equally good at killing things as different crews can approach problems with different strategies; but killing things and doing it efficiently is an important part of the game: Half of the strategies are around that and a lot of schemes require killing things to score or deny it; so every crew need something when they need to to score these.

In fact there are several ways to make combat crews without Focused; and there are models that doesn't benefice from focused as much as others (Take Hinamatsu and Seamus as the 2 extremes for example), removing Focused will only make crews shift to those models relying less on Focused and would make models with defensives mainly vulnerable to Focused very hard to handle. And Focused is also way to make your oponent think twice before throwing that expensive model into your crew.

I'm not sold XD

[LeperColony]

6 hours ago, Ogid said:

I don't think the game is balanced around min damage,

It's a function of math.  Any game is going to be focused around the most likely outcome.  How else do you decide how valuable wounds are, unless you ascribe their value at a baseline that begins at the most likely result?  In fact, we see on the forums during model evaluation people talk about how many hits something can survive based at min values (usually min 3, looking at how efficient a topline beater will kill).

6 hours ago, Ogid said:

However making it apply to every duel could unbalance some things, for example pulsing focused will become a powerful defensive tech versus crews based on shockwaves and the few damaging tactical actions that already ignore a lot of defensive tech will become even better.

Improving defensive tech is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since otherwise the answer to a lot of defenses are binary counters.    Focus can already be used defensively in most instances anyway.  Allowing it to extend to the few it can't is much less powerful than having focus give  to attack and damage.

6 hours ago, Ogid said:

In fact there are several ways to make combat crews without Focused; and there are models that doesn't benefice from focused as much as others

Models that currently don't benefit as much from Focus would then get more value from it, as they can use it in ways they couldn't before.  

Fundamentally, if you believe Focus is currently balanced, then no change is going to seem sensible to you.  And that's fine if that's your opinion.  But if you believe Focus is problematic, then that's when it becomes useful to look at some of the available options.

[solkan]

Doesn’t anyone use focus for defensive flips any more?  🤕

To be honest, unless there’s going to be a corresponding to damage when Focused gets reduced by the defender, the to damage for the attacker when reducing focus does seem like a relic of the previous edition.

 

[ShinChan]

1 minute ago, solkan said:

Doesn’t anyone use focus for defensive flips any more?  🤕

To be honest, unless there’s going to be a corresponding to damage when Focused gets reduced by the defender, the to damage for the attacker when reducing focus does seem like a relic of the previous edition.

 

I do use focus defensively, a lot actually. If you don't get hit, you don't take the damage Also, if I'm going to be winning the duel, I'll be also forcing my opponent to cheat first, and most likely he will have to use that sweet severe he was keeping for the straight damage flip.

[Maniacal_cackle]

24 minutes ago, solkan said:

Doesn’t anyone use focus for defensive flips any more?  🤕

To be honest, unless there’s going to be a corresponding to damage when Focused gets reduced by the defender, the to damage for the attacker when reducing focus does seem like a relic of the previous edition.

 

I actually like that M3E is balanced towards killing models rather than board states where neither side can kill each other. Makes the game more lively IMO. I think there's lots of things slanted this way (focus favours attacking, attack stats seem to be higher on average, etc).

[LeperColony]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I actually like that M3E is balanced towards killing models rather than board states where neither side can kill each other.

I agree with this 100%.  The game needs offense to be more efficient than defense as a rule.  Otherwise it'd be too hard to make progress.

But the issue with Focus as it currently stands is that it is too efficient, too easily stackable, and it reduces the effectiveness of moderate cost minions.  If you look at the best 4-6 stone models, many of them are well regarded precisely because of how hard it is to take them down.  By making Focus less efficient, it'd increase the utility of those minions that don't have so many native defenses.

My most common uses of Focus defensively is when I expect the model will die if I fail, sort of a use-it-or-lose-it.  Defensive triggers, particularly ones that go off whether I win or lose the duel, are another instance where I consider it.  But otherwise, I much prefer to save it for offensive use because it is so much more efficient.

[Ogid]

7 hours ago, LeperColony said:

It's a function of math.  Any game is going to be focused around the most likely outcome.  How else do you decide how valuable wounds are, unless you ascribe their value at a baseline that begins at the most likely result?  In fact, we see on the forums during model evaluation people talk about how many hits something can survive based at min values (usually min 3, looking at how efficient a topline beater will kill).

But the most likely doesn't have to be the best for the player. Doing min attacks willy-nilly may be counterproductive in a lot of situations; specially around defensive tech: Armor+2/Armor or Incorporeal + Shielded? = Waste half of your team's AP and then that model is healed to full very easily or the other player just demolish you. Terrifying? See you next turn dear hand! Black Blood/Vengeance = OMG OP BS, [add some more cursing here]... you get the idea

The base power of the average model has to be low to avoid models dying like flies, but when the time to kill something come, then the player need the resources to make that happen; and that's both picking the right models and bringing the right buffs (like this one). Very good defensive tech and also several of those in the same model asumes the other player will find ways to go around it.

7 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Fundamentally, if you believe Focus is currently balanced, then no change is going to seem sensible to you.  And that's fine if that's your opinion.  But if you believe Focus is problematic, then that's when it becomes useful to look at some of the available options.

My point is more that the game was balanced (Ok, not perfectly but good enough) with this iteration of Focused; changing how Focused works is going to affect the power level of a lot of things and that's chaos for the sake of it. There are good ideas in this thread, but not for this stage of the game imho. I could see a radical change in a model, in a master or even in a full Keyword that doesn't work well because those are easier to balance within the context of a faction; but a condition is a very different animal.

Also there are balance around Focused, not everyone has access to the same kind of buffs or can stack it as easy as others, there are defensive tech and models that works well versus it that can be picked when a lot of Focused is coming your way; there are top table lists using it and other don't. It's good, but I don't see it being opressive right now.

As said above, I'd be up to change any focused support or ability overperforming; but not how Focused fundamentally works.

[Math Mathonwy]

1 minute ago, Ogid said:

My point is more that the game was balanced (Ok, not perfectly but good enough) with this iteration of Focused; changing how Focused works is going to affect the power level of a lot of things and that's chaos for the sake of it.

It is balanced in a way where a huge amount of profiles never hit the table and one reason for that is that they are so trivially one-shot by Focused attacks. So no, not "chaos for the sake of it" and describing it as such is, frankly, a bit offensive. As has been noted many times before, you prefer the current state of the game and some others don't and the change suggested is to try to remedy the concerns that other people have with the game. Calling it chaos for the sake of it is just rude.

Now, changing Focus on Attack to provide a  only on the duel or the damage is not a huge change and it might not help enough and we still wouldn't see any Hounds anywhere. That would be a valid criticism. Or that models relying on  as their defense would be better but I dunno, I can't think of any that would seem likely to become OP. I mean, Youko isn't exactly ripping apart the tournament scene. 

I am not a fan of the suggestion of letting a model use Focus on simple duels. I don't see that as needed and, e.g., Summoning is plenty powerful already.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I agree a lot of models are kind of 'pushed out' by the existence of focus (it is one of the most common arguments for Sorrow being junk models: one focused attack can kill them), but nerfing focus would hit some crews pretty darn hard.

Shooting crews with 2/4/5 damage tracks for instance are going to be pretty hard to handle - they're meant to focus to get past concealment/friendly fire, and that also unlocks their damage tracks at the same time. If focus can only do one thing, what do shooting crews do against concealment? Focus and shoot for 2 damage over 2 actions?

[Mycellanious]

30 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

It is balanced in a way where a huge amount of profiles never hit the table and one reason for that is that they are so trivially one-shot by Focused attacks. 

I think this is a gross exaggeration. But even at the best interpretation of it, the purpose of a 5,6, or 7 stone model IS to die. Cheap minions should not be reliably living through turns 4 and 5, the game just mechanically isnt designed for that nor is agreeable to the fluff. Absolutely everyone in Malifaux is expendable, that's kind of Mei Feng's whole character arc. Why on earth would we care about some random unnamed minion. Yes, it absolutely makes sense that the girl in an nightgown is killed in a single hit from the 15foot robotic monstrosity with a harpoon twice as big as she is. 

If what you guys are saying is that focus is a NPE, then I gotta say that hasnt been my experience. When I've pitted Elitie or Swarmy crews against each other, most games between even players that I have personally witnessed have shaken out to having about the same number of models around turn 4 or 5.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Probably a far greater impact on crew sizes is hand size, tbh (which I think someone else mentioned). When you've got six cards to cover 7 models vs. 12 models, there's a big difference. Especially if those models have target numbers, and just passing your target numbers requires an average of 3+ cards.

If you wanted to tackle that angle, could do something like a crew gets 2 cards +1/2 card for every model in the crew.

Something to consider for 4th edition I guess xD

[Ogid]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

It is balanced in a way where a huge amount of profiles never hit the table and one reason for that is that they are so trivially one-shot by Focused attacks. So no, not "chaos for the sake of it" and describing it as such is, frankly, a bit offensive. As has been noted many times before, you prefer the current state of the game and some others don't and the change suggested is to try to remedy the concerns that other people have with the game. Calling it chaos for the sake of it is just rude.

Whoa! Chill man, no ofense intended. You are right, I'm in general conservative with changes unless we are talking about new editions; but changing something that will affect every single faction it's going to be more chaotic and hard to balance than some surgical changes to problematic abilities or models; that's a fact not a veiled insult.

Also weaking focused stacking will still make all those profiles one shoteable by a focused attack anyway if one focused attack is the only thing needed to take them down. I also think that "huge amount of profiles" is a bit of an overstatement... there are models in dire need of buffs and other needing more AP intensive strategies/schemes or the right master/pool to shine; both low cost and high cost models make into my lists. Also time is a factor, it's quicker to play with 6-7 models than with 9-12.

21 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Probably a far greater impact on crew sizes is hand size, tbh (which I think someone else mentioned). When you've got six cards to cover 7 models vs. 12 models, there's a big difference. Especially if those models have target numbers, and just passing your target numbers requires an average of 3+ cards.

If you wanted to tackle that angle, could do something like a crew gets 2 cards +1/2 card for every model in the crew.

Actually cards limits how many big models are worth including. Those big beaters are an huge resource sink, I don't have resources to use 2-3 good beaters to their full potential; specially if the crew has also important abilities with high TNs or a high card is needed to something. Less expensive and more efficient models are good to have among those.

I do like your extra cards for high count model list idea, but with a twist. Base 2 is too low and will make crews that lose models fast also less able to recover; creating an snowball effect if a crew has a bad start. I'd like base of 5 and then +1/2 card for each model in the crew over 6 models (and not counting models with a summoning upgrade) or something like that. And there are cases to see how that would work like Hamelin.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Ogid said:

I do like your extra cards for high count model list idea, but with a twist. Base 2 is too low and will make crews that lose models fast also less able to recover; creating an snowball effect if a crew has a bad start. I'd like base of 5 and then +1/2 card for each model in the crew over 6 models (and not counting models with a summoning upgrade) or something like that. And there are cases to see how that would work like Hamelin.

If it was coupled with an edition change, it'd probably have something like "Tied to fate: This model does not count for calculating hand size."

But is just a silly idea. They could play with all sorts of things for next edition (which hopefully is years and years away 😜 )

[solkan]

“How come all of the summoners are using horde crews now?” — What happens when you base hand size on crew size.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just now, solkan said:

“How come all of the summoners are using horde crews now?” — What happens when you base hand size on crew size.

I was also thinking tying it to initial crew size, not current crew size, to offset the death issue.

But that'd be funky too xD

[LeperColony]

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I am not a fan of the suggestion of letting a model use Focus on simple duels. I don't see that as needed and, e.g., Summoning is plenty powerful already.

It wouldn't have much, if any, appreciable impact on summoning or any other Once Per Activation simple duel that was critical, for the plain reason that those duels are already taken only when the player can be virtually (or, when the BJ is in hand, actually) guaranteed.  

Who summons hoping they top deck the suited high card, with no other plan for cheating or stoning?  

3 hours ago, Ogid said:

But the most likely doesn't have to be the best for the player.

I honestly do not understand what this means or its significance, so maybe you could clarify.

My point is that the game assumes the most likely outcome for an attack is min damage.  This is a mathematically derived consequence of the rules.  And since it is the most likely outcome, the resilience of models is (or at least should be) plotted against their performance against this baseline.  

Do other results happen?  Yes.  Do they matter?  Yes.  Should they be taken into consideration?  Of course.  But any starting point has to be the expected outcomes, not the outliers.

What the current iteration of focus does, along with ways to easily and efficiently proliferate it, is increase the frequency with which defending models will face higher-than-expected damage values.  

[Math Mathonwy]

3 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

I think this is a gross exaggeration. But even at the best interpretation of it, the purpose of a 5,6, or 7 stone model IS to die. Cheap minions should not be reliably living through turns 4 and 5, the game just mechanically isnt designed for that nor is agreeable to the fluff. Absolutely everyone in Malifaux is expendable, that's kind of Mei Feng's whole character arc. Why on earth would we care about some random unnamed minion. Yes, it absolutely makes sense that the girl in an nightgown is killed in a single hit from the 15foot robotic monstrosity with a harpoon twice as big as she is. 

I agree that it is a gross exaggeration that changing Focus a bit would mean that cheap models wouldn't die anymore . In fact, the suggested change wouldn't change anything about one-shottability since you could still apply the Focus to the damage and do your Severe and remove cheap units with one attack. The change also most likely wouldn't invalidate Mei Feng's character arc  

In all seriousness, I don't think that anyone wants every model to take at least two hits to kill no matter what is hitting them. The problem is the ease with which the cheaper models can be killed rather than the fact that they can.

3 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

If what you guys are saying is that focus is a NPE, then I gotta say that hasnt been my experience. When I've pitted Elitie or Swarmy crews against each other, most games between even players that I have personally witnessed have shaken out to having about the same number of models around turn 4 or 5.

The lists that are at the top of the tournaments seem to tend towards elite from what I've seen. Also, in my own games, I have come to the conclusion that two cheap models tend to be less good than a single heavy (due to lots of things that have been discussed in this very thread like buffs, healing, card efficiency, damage, durability, and so on). @Ogid even says that they believe it is on purpose since smaller crews take less time to play. Now, I think that it is unlikely that the designers made Hounds extinct from competitive games on purpose but I'm not a designer so who knows.

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, LeperColony said:

It wouldn't have much, if any, appreciable impact on summoning or any other Once Per Activation simple duel that was critical, for the plain reason that those duels are already taken only when the player can be virtually (or, when the BJ is in hand, actually) guaranteed.  

Depends a bit on the situation (I could see, for example, Hog Whisperers and Slop Haulers liking Focus on a Summon) but yeah, you are correct that it likely wouldn't be used for that much (using a Master's Focus is kind of a hefty price in itself). But still, I don't think that Focus needs any help remaining relevant even if you took away the double utility when attacking.

Quote

Who summons hoping they top deck the suited high card, with no other plan for cheating or stoning?  

This reminds me of a funny story:

A friend of mine was playing against a Nicodem player back in M2e. The Nicodem player says that they'll try Summoning a Hanged (needing a 13 of Crows) and he topdecks a 13 of Crows. My friend is like, OK, that happened.

Then later in the turn the Nicodem player hits with a cheatable damage flip and my friend is like, "yeah, just cheat the Red Joker in and that's probably game."

"I don't have a Red Joker."

"What? Why on earth did you try Summoning a Hanged then?"

"There was always a chance it would work!"

"But that's just completely stupid!"

"It worked, though."

"..."

(Oh, and it is extremely unlikely that the guy would've somehow cheated and known it was a 13 of Crows on top as he was a noob and was in fact using one of my friend's decks)