The titles are a home run.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Let's not forget the random pairings.

"Well, all we have left is Wong and Nellie. Guess they're going together?"

[MajorUndead]

15 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

Dreamer and Asami shows it won't be purely story based. Probably going to be a mix of both story and mechanics/thematics.

There might not be stories for now, but I would expect the book with all the masters titles to have a few stories.
It won't explain all pairings I'm sure, but some might be explained there. Or it could have some small explanation in the new model's lore

[Math Mathonwy]

On 8/2/2021 at 6:13 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

You'd think designing a second title for a master with a fixed totem and keyword would be severely limited design space, but they're knocking it out of the park with basically all the titles so far.

I'm so impressed! Going to be a very fun season when they launch!

I kind of agree. The new Masters have been very imaginative and breaking new ground for the most part.

On the other hand, I can't help but be worried about the game becoming even more difficult to start. We have 49 Masters which was already a crazy amount of complexity considering that you kinda need to have a good grasp on what the opposing Master is capable of to have a fair chance against them. Doubling that to 98 seems very scary, to be honest.

And since these are very imaginative and pushing the envelope it makes the barrier to entry pretty huge.

Guild Ball died a year ago and the developers kinda partly blamed the community in that it was too competitive. Now, it was criticized a lot and quite rightly so, but Guild Ball was a very, very skill-intensive game. And they decided to double the amount of teams they had through the minor Guilds which certainly didn't help things. I also hear that WM/H kinda had the same fate in that it became too complex to handle and very unfriendly to noobs (but this is complete hearsay - I might be entirely wrong).

Now, there is always the beer and pretzels world and Malifaux can be picked up like that but when you get to the wider world and get integrated into the gaming community you're going to get your backside handed to you time and again. And with about a hundred Masters to master? That's going to be a very long acclimation period.

I'm also worried about how balanced the 49 new Masters will be, of course.

I dunno, hopefully my pessimism is unfounded.

[Gheist]

16 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

On the other hand, I can't help but be worried about the game becoming even more difficult to start. We have 49 Masters which was already a crazy amount of complexity considering that you kinda need to have a good grasp on what the opposing Master is capable of to have a fair chance against them. Doubling that to 98 seems very scary, to be honest.

 

Still, Malifaux is the game into which i could introduce the most persons, mainly because of the diversity and complexity. It's that everybody can find something they like in the World of Malifaux and because the fluff is very good in my opinion.

On a gaming level, the two of us who played tabletop for a longer time had to hardcore limit ourselves in crew selection and list composition to keep it engaging and still kinda fun for the other players.  So in that regard, Malifaux is well over the too much Information threshhold to begin with (which i personally love because it gives me information to tackle).

Question i ask is: what would be the other option at this point for a miniature Company ?

a) bringing out the next edition to sell everything all over again - i personally would like to stay here longer

b) Letting everything come to a standstill, so everyone has two years to catch up on the rules. Got to be honest, i don't know any players who would be happy with a tabletop game that did that

c) releasing more models for the existing masters.... which would blow up the game and complexity at the other end of the scale.

I think bringing up the number of master versions is brilliant, because it changes the key feature around which everything else revolves.  It will just mean, that when i go to a tournament, i will have to read up some things on the spot because i can't memorize everything anymore. Which more or less fits in with the crisis management  / response way you have to build your crew anyway.

But then, i see my games and Tournaments as a learning experience i don't really crave the Podium

 

 

[Trample]

I'm not too worried about the balancing factor of the new master titles. Wyrd has done a pretty good job of keeping things in decent balance. There will likely be some at various ends of the spectrum. 

The introduction of titles certainly rewards knowledge of the game and its matchups even more so than it does today. Already that is a pretty big factor in outcomes, although not nearly so much as it was in M2E. In the previous edition there were many more gotchas than there are in M3E and knowledge of your own crew and its capabilities is likely the biggest factor in most wins. The titles are likely going to stratify the player base a bit more. The gap between highly-competitive, semi-competitive, and casual players will likely increase. 

Having said that, the casual player does now have the chance to invest his or her time in a couple of different playstyles using alternate titles of the same master and a similar crew. That could perhaps make up for the increased knowledge requirement.  

It is a game that requires a decent investment in knowledge accumulation anyway, so it likely isn't that big of deal. 

Overall I am really liking everything so far and looking forward to seeing what TFW reveals tonight! 

[Math Mathonwy]

20 minutes ago, Gheist said:

Question i ask is: what would be the other option at this point for a miniature Company ?

Yeah, that's always a good question and I don't think that any company has a definite answer.

I wonder what they'll do next year, though. I kinda feel that the alternative titles could've been staggered somehow though I do understand that it would've been frustrating to not get the title for your favourite Masters so I do understand why they did it like this. I suppose you could've done half of the Masters and then given the other half a keyword model or two. Coupled with the new starters with Versatile Henchman, Enforcer and Minion I feel that would've been enough excitement for one year.

20 minutes ago, Gheist said:

But then, i see my games and Tournaments as a learning experience i don't really crave the Podium

I just dislike the frustrating first game against an unknown Master in a competitive environment. And I did feel that keeping on top of 49 Masters was already quite daunting. But I fully admit that I am quite competitive in tournaments.

[Rufess]

33 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

On the other hand, I can't help but be worried about the game becoming even more difficult to start. We have 49 Masters which was already a crazy amount of complexity considering that you kinda need to have a good grasp on what the opposing Master is capable of to have a fair chance against them. Doubling that to 98 seems very scary, to be honest.

I believe we now have 54 masters discounting DMH, hence we will have 108 after all title released.

I mean I do share you worrisome on Malifaux being the next Guild Ball, but I think it is less worse than you would imagined. Here is not the right place for this kind of discussion so I would just skip to the conclusion, but the main issue of the Guild Ball (and WM/HD as well) is the design space being limited by the single and monotonous objective. Malifaux has a much wider design space with all the combinations of different types of Strategies and Schemes.

Learning curve is another difference story though.

[Mycellanious]

4 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I kind of agree. The new Masters have been very imaginative and breaking new ground for the most part.

On the other hand, I can't help but be worried about the game becoming even more difficult to start. We have 49 Masters which was already a crazy amount of complexity considering that you kinda need to have a good grasp on what the opposing Master is capable of to have a fair chance against them. Doubling that to 98 seems very scary, to be honest.

And since these are very imaginative and pushing the envelope it makes the barrier to entry pretty huge.

Guild Ball died a year ago and the developers kinda partly blamed the community in that it was too competitive. Now, it was criticized a lot and quite rightly so, but Guild Ball was a very, very skill-intensive game. And they decided to double the amount of teams they had through the minor Guilds which certainly didn't help things. I also hear that WM/H kinda had the same fate in that it became too complex to handle and very unfriendly to noobs (but this is complete hearsay - I might be entirely wrong).

Now, there is always the beer and pretzels world and Malifaux can be picked up like that but when you get to the wider world and get integrated into the gaming community you're going to get your backside handed to you time and again. And with about a hundred Masters to master? That's going to be a very long acclimation period.

I'm also worried about how balanced the 49 new Masters will be, of course.

I dunno, hopefully my pessimism is unfounded.

I think adding master titles is Wyrd's way of reintroducing the Upgrades system from 2E in a much more user friendly way. In short, Titles are going to make M3E more complicated, but still not nearly as complicated as M2E, and I mean the game survived M2E. 

[Mycellanious]

For me, I really want to see Seamus paired up with Leveticus. And the thing they share in common is Dead Man's Hand. Would really make my day!

[MrPieChee]

There's definitely already a lot to learn with Malifaux, so it could become a blocker for casual/new players: BUT, when playing at a local gaming club, there will likely be a limited number of master's you'll see, so until you go to tournaments you won't have to learn every master to be competitive.

But, tournament organiser could make you pick masters for each round up front and then a week before the event let you know what the ladder looks like. It would stop counter picking, but would be beginner friendly. Not really sure if that's a solution or another problem...

[Alcathous]

I think Fixed Leaders is going to become an appealing way to have events with a competitive bend that aren't unapproachable to new players. Titles will allow most masters to be able to compete across a full event, and provides a more approachable stepping stop for new players (a keyword + two both versions of the master).

I think this will encourage "learn your crew" style play, which is a great foundation for new players to start with before they start exploring new factions or keywords.

While the titles are definitely increasing the complexity of the game overall, especially at the highest levels of play, I think titles are also creating a relatively accessible platform for new players to learn the principles of the game by broadening the strategic range of each keyword.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just now, Alcathous said:

I think Fixed Leaders is going to become an appealing way to have events with a competitive bend that aren't unapproachable to new players. Titles will allow most masters to be able to compete across a full event, and provides a more approachable stepping stop for new players (a keyword + two both versions of the master).

I think this will encourage "learn your crew" style play, which is a great foundation for new players to start with before they start exploring new factions or keywords.

While the titles are definitely increasing the complexity of the game overall, especially at the highest levels of play, I think titles are also creating a relatively accessible platform for new players to learn the principles of the game by broadening the strategic range of each keyword.

To some degree, it may even work to make the new default format "pick a double master box, you can declare either of those leaders".

Although then opens up a lot of versatile/OOK shenanigan.

[Alcathous]

5 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

To some degree, it may even work to make the new default format "pick a double master box, you can declare either of those leaders".

Although then opens up a lot of versatile/OOK shenanigan.

Lol. It would be interesting. But I think that style event would ultimately work counter to my argument since you'd be buying/learning 2 keywords each with a different master. As opposed to learning one keyword and being able to play it two ways. 

But also, I'm pretty biased. I'm not a fan at all of the mixed faction play or the master draft stuff that has been popularized.

EDIT: which is to say, I think your idea is cool for established players, but doesn't help newcomers.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Alcathous said:

Lol. It would be interesting. But I think that style event would ultimately work counter to my argument since you'd be buying/learning 2 keywords each with a different master. As opposed to learning one keyword and being able to play it two ways. 

But also, I'm pretty biased. I'm not a fan at all of the mixed faction play or the master draft stuff that has been popularized.

EDIT: which is to say, I think your idea is cool for established players, but doesn't help newcomers.

True, although I think having 4 masters (2 keywords) is still wayyyyy simpler than the current 8 masters, 8 keywords.

But yeah, just a single fixed master may be the way to go for beginner-friendly tournaments. There'll have to be lots of experimenting!

Trying to figure out master declaration into 16 possible titles is going to be a real challenge xD And what do you do if you're like Marcus and have to go "Well, there's one Von Schtook that I lose to... Do I just risk it?" xD

[Alcathous]

3 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Trying to figure out master declaration into 16 possible titles is going to be a real challenge xD And what do you do if you're like Marcus and have to go "Well, there's one Von Schtook that I lose to... Do I just risk it?" xD

Totally. But at the same time, 2 or 3 keywords will get you a lot farther! Developing a competitive lineup is going to be very interesting. I think it will favor players who are bringing fewer keywords or soloing strong masters. Not that anyone around here would do such a thing...

[Mangod]

On 8/5/2021 at 11:07 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Let's not forget the random pairings.

"Well, all we have left is Wong and Nellie. Guess they're going together?"

Speaking of, was anyone expecting Molly - Nekima? C'mon, I need to collect from a bookie on this.

Quote

On the other hand, I can't help but be worried about the game becoming even more difficult to start. We have 49 Masters which was already a crazy amount of complexity considering that you kinda need to have a good grasp on what the opposing Master is capable of to have a fair chance against them. Doubling that to 98 seems very scary, to be honest.

 

[...]

 

I'm also worried about how balanced the 49 new Masters will be, of course.

We actually had a similar discussion back in february, where WM/H was brought up as well. To wit Cygnar, one of the 7 non-mercenary factions in Warmachine, has 20 different Warcasters (the Warmachine equivalent of a Master) available. That's one faction, and Khador, Protectorate of Menoth and Cryx all have just as many each. Add Retribution of Scyrah, Convergence of Cyriss, Crucible Guard, Mercenaries, and all the factions from Warmachine's sistergame Hordes, and you're probably looking at close to- or even over 200 Warcasters. And Mercenaries Warcasters can be taken in main factions on top of that.

By comparison, even if we've doubled the number of Masters, we're still looking at half of that, and Keywords are still a thing as well. While Molly, Chaotic Conductor plays differently from regular Molly, Forgotten are still gonna play like Forgotten, right? Crooligans aren't going to transform into Mature Nephilim just because of Molly getting a sidegrade, right?

[Greatfrito]

On 8/6/2021 at 5:38 AM, Trample said:

Having said that, the casual player does now have the chance to invest his or her time in a couple of different playstyles using alternate titles of the same master and a similar crew.

I'm pretty excited about adding variety to the keywords I like, especially since I've just about hit my limit of "characters I'm excited to play", and have so incredibly little interest in buying keywords I'm not thematically interested in just to be "more competitive".

I haven't personally been terribly excited about the titled versions of "my" masters, but it's an undeniably neat idea and I'm willing to try them out (and hopeful some of "my" other masters get titles that are more exciting to me).

Edited August 9, 2021 by Greatfrito
Clarity

[Thatguy]

The title system does have a major drawback, to me. 

And that's that DMH stuff won't get titles. My boy Nico is going to see even less play.

[SEV]

2 hours ago, Thatguy said:

The title system does have a major drawback, to me. 

And that's that DMH stuff won't get titles. My boy Nico is going to see even less play.

Maybe he'll raise from the dead somehow. Keep fate, good villain always comeback.

[Rufess]

Changing the subject, how do you calling different versions of masters now? I found that there are mainly 3 patterns:

1. [name] 1 vs [name] 2
2. origin/vanilla [name] vs titled [name]
3. using a single word to describe the version (eg. Summoner Dreamer vs Bury Dreamer, Undying Jedza vs Beater Jedza)

Method 1 and 2 are more straightforward and easy to follow but boring and tasteless. And these options would become invalid if there were 3 or more versions of that master (not happening in near future though).

Method 3 OTOH is more interesting option. It is also more understandable to new player by saying Obey Zoraida and Effigy Zoraida rather than Zoraida 1 and Zoraida 2. This way, however, is almost impossible to have a consensus among all players. We would end up using Unmasked Sonnia, ToS Sonnia, Pyre Sonnia and other hundred names to describe the same model, which could bring misunderstanding in a conversation if the word was not precise enough.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Rufess said:

Changing the subject, how do you calling different versions of masters now? I found that there are mainly 3 patterns:

1. [name] 1 vs [name] 2
2. origin/vanilla [name] vs titled [name]
3. using a single word to describe the version (eg. Summoner Dreamer vs Bury Dreamer, Undying Jedza vs Beater Jedza)

Method 1 and 2 are more straightforward and easy to follow but boring and tasteless. And these options would become invalid if there were 3 or more versions of that master (not happening in near future though).

Method 3 OTOH is more interesting option. It is also more understandable to new player by saying Obey Zoraida and Effigy Zoraida rather than Zoraida 1 and Zoraida 2. This way, however, is almost impossible to have a consensus among all players. We would end up using Unmasked Sonnia, ToS Sonnia, Pyre Sonnia and other hundred names to describe the same model, which could bring misunderstanding in a conversation if the word was not precise enough.

Maybe just use the titles for the new ones.

• Hag Zoraida
• Everlasting Jedza
• Broodmother Nekima
• Chaotic Molly
• Twin Viktoria (doesn't quite work)
• Spirit Yan
• Stargazer Schtook
• President Ironsides
• Magnate Anya
• Insomniac Dreamer
• Takusen Asami
• Envoy Kirai
• Unmasked Sonnia

Pretty clear-cut if it used their actual titles, and I think it is very flavourful.

But yeah, need something for the originals.

[Pallas4]

When I need to do the difference... sometime I use "the new XXX" (in French of course). But more and more often I use XXX1 and XXX2... Or even only the Number.

For example in the French Discord.

Ok, you don't understand (mostly of you ) but you can see... easier to write than the title. ^^

[Da Git]

I'd love for the original forms of the masters to be given official titles at some stage

[Starrius]

i was really excited for some of these as it could give a lot of options. but i will admit after today's reveal my excitement how now gone lukewarm.

having 2 masters in a box with their henchmen seems a good idea except this will mean i won't get them because i don't want the other master in the box. due to none of the masters being combined within the factions i do play this is a massive turn off for me.

[SEV]

1 hour ago, Starrius said:

i was really excited for some of these as it could give a lot of options. but i will admit after today's reveal my excitement how now gone lukewarm.

having 2 masters in a box with their henchmen seems a good idea except this will mean i won't get them because i don't want the other master in the box. due to none of the masters being combined within the factions i do play this is a massive turn off for me.

Trade with your friends!  Or even better, start a new faction 😀