Why is everyone so afraid of hazardous terrain?

[50 SS Enforcer]

So I’ve noticed over the last 7 years of malifaux that nobody and I mean nobody (except my local meta after years of imposing this) likes to declare stuff hazardous. Why isn’t there a ruling where there has to be a certain number of hazardous pieces of terrain on the board? Or when going over terrain, defender chooses a suit and when declaring terrain traits, if they flip that suit it’s hazardous? I’ve declared forests as having itchy leaves and are hazardous distracted +1, I’ve put poison gas clouds on lava boards, I’ve made some super fun boards, but 99% of other boards I’ve seen are so bland. Having the option to declare whatever you want as the hazardous is an absolute joy this edition and nobody goes that route at all. I’ve also started giving terrain the trails cannot be ignored so that it’s a problem for any model regardless of front of the card abilities. Why are the rules clear as mud on what needs to be on the table when declaring terrain?  

[santaclaws01]

I can understand wanting more hazardous terrain than most people use, but going so far as to say that Hazardous terrain should be forced to be on tables is definitely a spicy take.

[50 SS Enforcer]

If more hazardous was in the game, instead of things just flat ignoring hazardous, you could make things ignore the damage from hazardous making the condition based ones a more common take. Then you can add things that can’t be distracted, poisoned, burnt, injured instead of a blanket ignore.  

[Adran]

EI like hazardous terrain, and have used it occasionally for the last 12 years. This edition has a much less harsh hazardous than the previous2. First edition did have rules for putting strange terrain into every game, but most players ignored them. I don't think you'll find that many players that would follow set up rules in full if they didn't think they were worthwhile, 

Whilst I do think more hazardous terrain should be used, I think it would get boring to have to have it on every table. And forcing it on every table would put up the power of several crews. 

The game has added a lot of hazardous markers so it's relatively common for games to have some form of hazardous terrain. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

The other thing about setup rules (which we already have in Gaining Grounds) is that everyone ignores them in favour of the terrain they actually own.

But also players often don't like terrain that severely impacts the game, which hazardous does.

Of course, the entire point of terrain is to severely impact the game and force you to play around it, so including some (mild) hazardous can be good.  I find hazardous 1 starts to be incredibly powerful (to the point it just makes an area of the board a deadzone unless you have tech), and hazardous1 + condition can be game-breaking. Hazardous (condition) is really awesome and I'd like to see more of.

[SEV]

It heavily skew the game in favor of a small subset of keyword (and even faction), way more than severe or concealing terrain will. 

As a Pandora player, I'm so happy to see hazardous terrain, especially hazardous conditions +... I don't think guild or TT player share my joy tough. 

Still, I like to see some hazardous features here and there but not on every game and on every map.

[Azahul]

I try to have at least some hazardous terrain on about half the tables at local events. Sometimes these are spiked fences that do damage as you climb over them, sometimes it's as simple as ruling a patch of swamp is Hazardous (Staggered) instead of Severe terrain as it bogs you down, and sometimes it's very silly stuff like a sacrificial stone where you perform Blasphemous Rituals so is Hazardous 1 Focussed 1. I think making the hazardous pieces relatively small, and hazardous blocking terrain is a bit less impactful than hazardous terrain you can walk on, so they're good ways to encourage acceptance with your community.

 

I have been wondering if I could get away with a healing pool or fountain at my next event that was Hazardous -1 😅

[50 SS Enforcer]

One of the biggest complaints I see is people pushing for chess clocks and to get game times down, wouldn’t an increase of hazardous terrain decrease the game time? 

[50 SS Enforcer]

16 minutes ago, Azahul said:

I try to have at least some hazardous terrain on about half the tables at local events. Sometimes these are spiked fences that do damage as you climb over them, sometimes it's as simple as ruling a patch of swamp is Hazardous (Staggered) instead of Severe terrain as it bogs you down, and sometimes it's very silly stuff like a sacrificial stone where you perform Blasphemous Rituals so is Hazardous 1 Focussed 1. I think making the hazardous pieces relatively small, and hazardous blocking terrain is a bit less impactful than hazardous terrain you can walk on, so they're good ways to encourage acceptance with your community.

 

I have been wondering if I could get away with a healing pool or fountain at my next event that was Hazardous -1 😅

I would add both positive and negative traits to hazardous things like this so the go to abilities that ignore terrain wouldn’t be considered. If a piece of terrain did hazardous 1 focus 1, would you want to ignore it or not? 

[50 SS Enforcer]

On the other foot would hazardous -1 (a heal) and distracted +1 be worth it? 

[Azahul]

4 minutes ago, 50 SS Enforcer said:

I would add both positive and negative traits to hazardous things like this so the go to abilities that ignore terrain wouldn’t be considered. If a piece of terrain did hazardous 1 focus 1, would you want to ignore it or not? 

Based on what I've seen from using Hazardous Damage 1 Focus 1, some players will absolutely want to capitalise on it and sit a shooty model next to it all game. 

[Regelridderen]

Hazardous is definitely an aspect that should be in the game, whether it’s healing fountains, toxic puddles or lava streams. Of course, it can get to be too impactful - I doubt any non-arcanist would have fun facing Kaeris on a table full of bonfires and lava pools 😉

-

My input is that not every table need hazardous terrain. The best mini tournaments is often defined by having very different tables, so players are presented with more than just different objectives, but also circumstances. One of my best tournament experiences was an Infinity tournament; one table was a desert environment with extreme fire corridors allowing snipers to rule the day, another was a CQB shanty town, where shotguns and flamethrowers made all the difference, a jungle and harbour table allowed models that could exploit difficult/water terrain to have an advantage. 

[50 SS Enforcer]

What I’m looking for is a step in placing terrain on the board, if a ram or mask is flipped hazardous terrain is generated within 10 inches of the center point. I think it shouldn’t be up to the players whether hazardous is there or not when building a board. One player is always going to want it more than the other player based on what faction they play. It’s up to both players what that hazardous will do, it could be a distracted healing fountain, an itchy distracted forest, lava pool, barbed wire, poison gas cloud, whatever, all that matters is that it’s generated roughly 50% of games. 

[Adran]

8 minutes ago, 50 SS Enforcer said:

What I’m looking for is a step in placing terrain on the board, if a ram or mask is flipped hazardous terrain is generated within 10 inches of the center point. I think it shouldn’t be up to the players whether hazardous is there or not when building a board. One player is always going to want it more than the other player based on what faction they play. It’s up to both players what that hazardous will do, it could be a distracted healing fountain, an itchy distracted forest, lava pool, barbed wire, poison gas cloud, whatever, all that matters is that it’s generated roughly 50% of games. 

That doesn't really work. If I don't want hazardous then I just see that flip, quit the game and re rack until we get a flip that doesn't have hazardous. 

 

[50 SS Enforcer]

 

16 minutes ago, Adran said:

That doesn't really work. If I don't want hazardous then I just see that flip, quit the game and re rack until we get a flip that doesn't have hazardous. 

 

Good luck at tournaments then when half the boards are not the way you are used to playing. 

[Adran]

6 minutes ago, 50 SS Enforcer said:

 

Good luck at tournaments then when half the boards are not the way you are used to playing. 

That is another problem with your suggestions, if you are at a tournament then generally they have pre set all the boards, and most events don't predefine the terrain (so terrain pieces are on the table but it's up to both players to define what they are) so you and your opponent have to sort them. I know I've had games where I've suggested the train tracks are severe and my opponent has gone '' that's too much hassle to measure, let's not." 

I'm assuming you have similar problems when you try and define hazardous terrain in your games. 

I'm just saying a rule in the rule book won't solve it as a problem. 

[solkan]

55 minutes ago, 50 SS Enforcer said:

What I’m looking for is a step in placing terrain on the board, if a ram or mask is flipped hazardous terrain is generated within 10 inches of the center point. I think it shouldn’t be up to the players whether hazardous is there or not when building a board. One player is always going to want it more than the other player based on what faction they play. It’s up to both players what that hazardous will do, it could be a distracted healing fountain, an itchy distracted forest, lava pool, barbed wire, poison gas cloud, whatever, all that matters is that it’s generated roughly 50% of games. 

This doesn’t work for the simple reason that you can’t tell people what terrain to put on the table.  If they don’t have something suitable, or they don’t like the result, it’s just going to get ignored.

The closest you can get, I think, is “Assign the hazardous trait to a piece of terrain (either place a marker on the terrain piece to remind both players, or substitute a mutually agreed replacement piece.)”

 

[muraki]

1 hour ago, 50 SS Enforcer said:

What I’m looking for is a step in placing terrain on the board, if a ram or mask is flipped hazardous terrain is generated within 10 inches of the center point. I think it shouldn’t be up to the players whether hazardous is there or not when building a board. One player is always going to want it more than the other player based on what faction they play. It’s up to both players what that hazardous will do, it could be a distracted healing fountain, an itchy distracted forest, lava pool, barbed wire, poison gas cloud, whatever, all that matters is that it’s generated roughly 50% of games. 

I dont like this idea as (as far as i know) wyrd has never had terrain placement as a step in the game build process.  Requiring certain terrain types to be added to a board when you flip an encounter just seems time consuming / expensive for people getting into the game who don't have things to proxy everything.  It also opens up the 'if we're singling out hazardous, why not other terrain types?'

In general I think people should be more open to different terrain type declarations in general.  I know people locally get into a habit of declaring things a certain way to the point that its hard to change the declarations later, as they've mentally determined that barrels are 'ht2 blocking destructible' and changing it throws them off.  The more people are used to remembering the terrain declarations at the start of the game the easier changing a table to try a different thing is.

While I like the concept of 'better' tables, I like it to be more of a down up rather than top down process.  If you build better tables, and people enjoy playing on them, then they will build more tables that match what you consider to be 'good'.  Similarily as we keep getting new keywords that interact with the board more, the concept of what is 'good' changes.  Starting out good was 'i can hide from a gun' but now it may mean my terrain pieces aren't too big, or concealing doesnt give my enemies positives most of the game, or markers can't block my paths.  It takes practice and experience and everyone prolly has a slightly different take.

Setting a strict structure on what is 'valid / invalid' may force people to get things that pass as 'good' but it will also have a lot of people either ignoring the rules, or playing on things that they dont like / arent that great cause they no longer have as much agency to say 'wow ok, that'll mess up everything i want, can we readjust?'  As we've all built a table with some cool things (center of the board / edges / etc) and then realized 'oh crap we need that spot for the pool... time to move/remove/etc some stuff'

[muraki]

I do think its funny (looking at LVO tables) that I dont think any 2 people have looked at a table and agreed it looked good haha.

[SEV]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

That doesn't really work. If I don't want hazardous then I just see that flip, quit the game and re rack until we get a flip that doesn't have hazardous. 

 

You'll get expelled of some playgroup with that kind of attitude! Honestly for me it's the same as saying to your oponent: well I didn't want to play against Zoraida, since you declared her I concede...

I like @50 SS Enforcer idea of a random terrain generator base on the flip. You and your oponent flip back and forth cards from the deck.  Each card represents a specific.type of terrain. You choose one of the available terrain to represent it. You stop flipping as soon as 50% of the board is cover. We could add size restrictions (to avoid large hazardous terrain for example), like weak = small; moderate = medium ; severe = large. Each suit could also represent a quadrant of the board so you have to place the peace in the specific quadrant (this could lead to heavily Unbalanced board though... RJ whatever you want; BJ whatever your oponent want. 

[Adran]

51 minutes ago, muraki said:

I dont like this idea as (as far as i know) wyrd has never had terrain placement as a step in the game build process.  Requiring certain terrain types to be added to a board when you flip an encounter just seems time consuming / expensive for people getting into the game who don't have things to proxy everything.  

I don't know if the first edition rules ever made it to an electronic format, but they had this step. You were supposed to randomly determine what location you played in ( ranging from bayou village to arcanist laboratory) and then randomly determine either some sort of special terrain or event. 

24 minutes ago, SEV said:

You'll get expelled of some playgroup with that kind of attitude! Honestly for me it's the same as saying to your oponent: well I didn't want to play against Zoraida, since you declared her I concede...

I've known a few people that have done this, if you played them and announced certain masters, they would just quit, giving you a win. They would offer a friendly game as long as you changed masters, but they didn't want to spend2 hours facing a master they hated the play style of. 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

One thing to note about hazardous is you can already play with as much hazardous as you want by agreement (or by TO fiat), although of course there are some guidelines in GGs.

Adding a rule just seems like a mechanic for forcing people to agree to let you play with hazardous. But something like that is probably better done by agreement with a group IMO (for instance you might take turns setting up the table).

[SEV]

41 minutes ago, Adran said:

I've known a few people that have done this, if you played them and announced certain masters, they would just quit, giving you a win. They would offer a friendly game as long as you changed masters, but they didn't want to spend2 hours facing a master they hated the play style of. 

This is no acceptable behavior in my book! Anyway I don't want to derailed this thread to much, but I'm happy we don't have the same Faux community! 

* * *

Back on track.

The first edition rules seems awesome! I really like thematic game and/or rules that put special contrain  so have to think outside of the box to play with them...

As @Maniacal_cacklesaid, I do think that kind of rules (or something like a random terrain generator) should always be optional... But when you agree to use it there's no backing off because your opponent flipped triple hazardous pieces 😀.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also something to highlight in any discussion of terrain with your group:

By the rules, you set up terrain BEFORE picking crews, so it is fine for them to want to see the board and then pick the best crew for it.

This can be a bit tricky in real life (people only own so many crews, and also don't always pack all of them for game day), but if people get used to playing the game by the rules and picking their crews after they see the table, weird table setups become a LOT more palatable.

[Paddywhack]

5 hours ago, muraki said:

wyrd has never had terrain placement as a step in the game build process

Well, we do have strat markers that have terrain features.  But I agree I'm not sure forcing it is the right way to go.