ME4 (ME3.5), your expectations

[korgal]

I tell myself that it would be a good thing to start talking about it and to see if there are ideas / desires that emerges.

Personally I would like the game to be simplified a little more because it often happens to have to check the rules or ask questions from experienced players to explain a specific case.

The double profiles of Master is perhaps a false good idea because on the one hand it brings adaptability but on the other it makes the game less accessible to new players and beginners and it makes the game even more complex. For tournaments, it further widens the gap between beginners and experts.

Simplify Profiles
Reduce the number of different capacities
Simplify the triggers
This could allow for a complete but not complex system

[Doc Lead]

Sorry, but why?

There are plenty of other games with simpler rules that can satisfy your needs for simplicity.

I love Malifaux exactly for the complexity it has. It's not exactly rocket science. Your argument that you often have to check rules or ask questions applies to any game out there. Unless you know your rulebook by heart, this is something that is going to happen, even to experienced players.

There should be a gap between experts and beginners, especially for tournaments, not sure i understand this need to make things accessible to everyone, no matter their level of skill or involvement. By accessible I mean newb friendly.

EVERYTHING in life, if you want to get good/better at it requires time and involvement.

 

 

[Ozzac]

M3e is already simplified from M2e. Another simplification can take away what is unique here.

And regarding the difference between beginners and experts, there is a game where there isn't one?

[Fingalen]

I actually believe, this will probably be one of the most difficult challenges for the designers. Finding the delicate balance to keep the complexity while making the game more accessible to new players. Complexity, balance and the need of proper brainstretching is definitely one of the main strengths of the game for a lot of hard core players (for me as well!). However in smaller gaming communities, it tends to drive away of lot of players, that are not willing to invest too much into the game (in regard of their time and energy). In our (central EU) area, we mostly see local groups of ca 5-15 active players in most bigger cities (connected with the tournament scene). Most of the groups here struggle to expand and keep the new and casual players (that constantly lose against active players). Tournaments are attended by more-less the same core of people, most of the newcomers appear 2-3 times there and then withdraw from the scene.

I personally (as well as some other players around) would definitely be very disappointed if Malifaux loses much of its complexity and if it becomes beer-and-pretzel easy game, I would probably leave it. But a person, who run most of the demos around and try to keep the community alive, I see the current state as a problem, too.

TBH, it changed quite a lot since the beginning of M3E, eventhough the system has not changed much. Differences between new players and veterans were much smaller then (because the game was kind of new for all of us). But since then the difference just grows, because old (and competitively active) players just keep getting more experienced and the immense bloat of new stuff just adds to this. There is rougly 1-2 player a year  (max.) in our broader area, that is competent and enthusiastic enough to fight their way among the podium players. Even the competitive veterans coming back after years have serious problems jumping in.

The game just has quite insane entry barrier, players playing 1-2 games a month are just overwelmed by it, unless they are very dedicated a/or experienced competitive wargamers. Even I (with Malifaux being my main free time activity) often have problems giving advice to new players, that picked something new. And listening to our content creators, it seems this problem is quite widespread (maybe with the exception of some big/competitive player groups).

I am really curious how the gamedevs will handle this, but after the excellent transition from 2ed to 3ed, I absolutely trust them with this. Even if it disappoints lot of players (maybe even me), I believe it will be good for the overall health of the game.

 

And to add to the topic, from practical side I really believe, they will keep the current deployments the same and not make all our mats obsolete. 😄

[Adran]

There is a big difference between a complex game, and an information dense game. M3 is a much less complex game than M1, but there are now more than twice the  number of profiles in the game than there where during M1. This means that its easier to pick up the rules now, but its then a much steeper curve to learn all the options, where as it used to be much harder to learn, but once you had learnt, there was a less steep curve to learn all the options.  Both routes have the risk of putting off new players.

I very much doubt that Wyrd will wholesale invalidate existing models, so a new edition is likely to contain as many profiles as the current edition. There maybe some more simplification that could be done, but they have already done quite a lot of simplification of the profiles and the stats. 

Games of this sort have 2 ways to grow, they can grow wider, by things like the introduction of new factions, or deeper, by things like the introduction of new titles, but both ways increase the information of the game, and can seem very daunting for new people. And if they don't grow they don't create money and get stopped by the company. 

 

 

[Brad Maynes]

I think  @Adran really has the right of this. The virtue of a wide game like Malifaux is that you can agree with other players to limit the "universe" of the game while you are learning to the same couple of masters/keywords. By doing this, you can learn the rules without exposing yourself immediately to ALL of the complexity of the game. In this way, you have a game which is deep, but can be accessible without actually shaving off chunks of the core rules.

[DuBlanck]

Rules consistency and clarity, with a timing chart that actually works unambiguously with the models and abilities.

I feel like the game's reputation as "too dense/complex to learn" would go away if the first time you read an ability interaction, you could work out how to use it from the rulebook's sequencing guide instead of an unofficial Discord's council of law technicians.

I want a shedload of deep crunchy complexity, but Malifaux having an overly technical rules language grammar that isn't always the same as real world grammar is incredibly tiresome.

Edited May 18, 2023 by DuBlanck

[SEV]

Agreed. Malifaux is a great game with horribly written rules. They need to consolidate their ruling asap... At the moment they're so bad that triggers with the same name will do different things on two different cards. 

 

[Fingalen]

20 hours ago, Adran said:

There is a big difference between a complex game, and an information dense game. M3 is a much less complex game than M1, but there are now more than twice the  number of profiles in the game than there where during M1. This means that its easier to pick up the rules now, but its then a much steeper curve to learn all the options, where as it used to be much harder to learn, but once you had learnt, there was a less steep curve to learn all the options.  Both routes have the risk of putting off new players.

I very much doubt that Wyrd will wholesale invalidate existing models, so a new edition is likely to contain as many profiles as the current edition. There maybe some more simplification that could be done, but they have already done quite a lot of simplification of the profiles and the stats. 

Games of this sort have 2 ways to grow, they can grow wider, by things like the introduction of new factions, or deeper, by things like the introduction of new titles, but both ways increase the information of the game, and can seem very daunting for new people. And if they don't grow they don't create money and get stopped by the company.

Okay, I meant the information density in that case. Rules could just be easily(?) fixed as suggested above to be more clear, but the information density would still overwhelm new and casual players, which can still be a problem that needs to be addressed somehow. IMO the transition between the 2ed and 3ed was excelent in this case. Unifying conditions, actions, triggers and abilities was good move, but I believe there is much more to do in this way. E.g. unifying some model profiles (in a way dogs across their factions are currently done), but I guess there might be also some other ways I can't think of.

Regarding  the growth of the game, I can totally understand the business aspect, but I believe, there might be a way to encourage people to buy existing stuff more without the need of releasing new profiles in such amounts (or just releasing new sculpts for older models). But I do not know the sales numbers, if the game is thiriving business wide, these community concerns with the bloat might not be universal.

[Cats Laughing]

21 hours ago, SEV said:

Agreed. Malifaux is a great game with horribly written rules. They need to consolidate their ruling asap... At the moment they're so bad that triggers with the same name will do different things on two different cards. 

I am curious, do we have multiple examples of this (same named triggers with different effects)?  Is this widespread or more isolated?

 

This is something that Wyrd should clean up, but not something that needs a new edition.

 

Regarding the consolidation of rulings, has Wyrd made official rulings outside of the FAQ?

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Cats Laughing said:

I am curious, do we have multiple examples of this (same named triggers with different effects)?  Is this widespread or more isolated?

 

This is something that Wyrd should clean up, but not something that needs a new edition.

 

Regarding the consolidation of rulings, has Wyrd made official rulings outside of the FAQ?

I think there are one or two instances of the abilities with the same name but different effects, and there were a few triggers in the latest book which had a different suit to previous triggers with the same name. 

 

 

 

Wyrd has 5 sources of official rules - the rule books, the cards, the latest errata, the latest FAQ, and Gaining grounds document.  

There are very few rules, outside new profiles, in the books, but occasionally they do show up, such as the new types of upgrades in Madness (which has now been added to the main rule book as an errata). 

The online rules and cards should contain all the current errata.  

 

[DamnDaemon]

I'd be interested in seeing three changes: 

1. Everyone has 100 Points for list building, but everything becomes around twice as expensive. This way, the cost of a model can be way more granular.

2. Remove summoning for the most part. Give former summoners more support abilities for their crew and let them summon only really cheap models once per turn as a Trigger, so it doesn't feel like you have to do it every turn. 

3. Make sure every Master in the game actually cares about their keyword. 

[Cats Laughing]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:19 AM, Adran said:

I think there are one or two instances of the abilities with the same name but different effects, and there were a few triggers in the latest book which had a different suit to previous triggers with the same name. 

TBH, same named triggers using different suits but retaining the same effect is better consolidation of rules than having the same effect with X different names just because the suit(s) required to trigger it are different.  Having an ability only triggered by a specific suit across all models with that ability might be even simpler, but takes away a potential balancing lever so I'm not sure that sort of simplification is worthwhile.

 

23 hours ago, DamnDaemon said:

I'd be interested in seeing three changes: 

1. Everyone has 100 Points for list building, but everything becomes around twice as expensive. This way, the cost of a model can be way more granular.

2. Remove summoning for the most part. Give former summoners more support abilities for their crew and let them summon only really cheap models once per turn as a Trigger, so it doesn't feel like you have to do it every turn. 

3. Make sure every Master in the game actually cares about their keyword. 

 

IMHO:

3: I strongly agree with this one a lot and wish more masters had their major abilities keyword locked and similarly some stronger non-master models should also have their major abilities keyword locked. Not everything needs to be keyword locked, but more could be to incentivize playing more in keyword.  TBF, Wyrd does seem to be doing this with more recently releases, but those releases also have their in-keyword power pushed to make up for their weaker ability to work with OOK models, and that's apparently leading to some/much of the newer stuff feeling/being OP.

 

2: Summoning feels like such an integral part of the game and world background that wholesale removal would also likely result in a wholesale loss of players. Even though I currently focus on the non-summoner title of a summoning master,  I would struggle with the idea that a core feature of the game had been ripped out.  I think the current restrictions on scheming/strategizing with summoned models works really well in limiting the power of summons and for those summoners that are still above the curve, specific changes to those models would be better than wholesale removal.

 

1: Hard dislike. I get the idea of granularity, but larger numbers inherently get harder to work with and it feels like the trend of successful games is to use smaller numbers for model/unit costs (or to not have costs at all). Doubling costs also has the issue that using cost for in-game effects would not work as well with the Card system.  Currently model cost range from ~1 to ~14 (excluding masters) which can correspond to card values directly.  Doubling costs would change that model cost range to ~2 to ~28 which doesn't correspond to the card value range and effectively removes that option from the game.

[unti]

My biggest hope would be to really be able to play the game in (under) 2h. We played with clock and all, but we as engaged casual players (we played nearly every week for the last few years) aren't able to finish the game in that time. It most often takes us over 3h. Was

I enjoy the 40ss games because it reduces the gaming time but still has the brain aching that I like so much of this game. 

[Math Mathonwy]

Balancing all of the current stuff to a new system will be an absolutely monumental task.

I wonder if balancing a smaller set of Keywords at first and leaving the rest into a "wild" format would be the way to go. Then they could balance the wild keywords and slowly add them to the standard format or even have a rotating cast of standard keywords. I dunno, it seems an utterly massive undertaking (especially since the balance of Madness is suspect and there's only a handful of models there).

The switch from M2e to M3e with they keyword shuffle and Deadman's Hand very nearly killed the game in my neck of the woods and the meta never recovered so I would very much hope that they could avoid it but there's been so much added to the game that I dunno.

[zeno]

I agree with a lot of things that have been written here, good stuff!

1. Less complex profiles. One person I introduced the game to said after a couple of games that it was like playing a whole D&D party by himself and then left for another game.
And I think he was quite spot on.

2. Less triggers. One person I introduced the game to said after a couple of games that this game had way too many gotchas for him to be interested, so he left for another game.
And I think he was quite spot on.

3. Remove the dual faction stuff. Its a mess.

I also think with these changes the game would be easier for the developers to balance, and would give some more models reasons to exist.
Also this would make for faster game play.

[Doc Lead]

35 minutes ago, zeno said:

I agree with a lot of things that have been written here, good stuff!

1. Less complex profiles. One person I introduced the game to said after a couple of games that it was like playing a whole D&D party by himself and then left for another game.
And I think he was quite spot on.

2. Less triggers. One person I introduced the game to said after a couple of games that this game had way too many gotchas for him to be interested, so he left for another game.
And I think he was quite spot on.

3. Remove the dual faction stuff. Its a mess.

I also think with these changes the game would be easier for the developers to balance, and would give some more models reasons to exist.
Also this would make for faster game play.

1. Then that player has that other game he can play and not feel overwhelmed. Can we have a bit more text heavy game among all others?

You start out light. Henchman hardcore. Like 8 cards to read and keep track of. 8

2. That is entirely up to you. You could either be a teacher saying "well, if you do this, then I can do that, so it would be more prudent to do this and that". That's how people learn.

Yes, there is a ton of information in this game, I don't see how people expect to know and understand everything after a couple of games.

Both your examples include new people "after a couple of games". They don't sound really persistent. I feel like everyone is asking for instant gratification these days.

3. Not really an argument.

 

[korgal]

we must take this subject as a positive thing. Malifaux is not perfect, it will never be and it does indeed take that into account, but it's a great game and the people who make proposals/ideas, do so with a goal (in my opinion), to improve the game, make it more popular! let's continue to discuss together and avoid the "he just has to play another game if he doesn't like it"

[zeno]

48 minutes ago, korgal said:

we must take this subject as a positive thing. Malifaux is not perfect, it will never be and it does indeed take that into account, but it's a great game and the people who make proposals/ideas, do so with a goal (in my opinion), to improve the game, make it more popular! let's continue to discuss together and avoid the "he just has to play another game if he doesn't like it"

Spot on!

I like the game. But I want it to be better, I want more people to enjoy it as well.
No it won't be perfect, that game doesn't exist. But there certainly is room for improvement.

[Ozzac]

Re: summoning. Even with the restrictions on schemes and strategies it can be devastating, since a good summoner can stil wreck havok on the enemy crew and use their other models for points. In my group we have an unwritter rule that if somebody wants to use a summoner they have to declare it first, so the other player can make plans.

[jshley]

Rather than a larger change in the game design for 3.5/4 it would seem more likely to have a rules refresh and cleanup of language, harmonising some effects and triggers and incorporating the errata. Some of the keywords need some modernising and with expanded rosters a bit of review as a functioning unit.

Essentially, more a soft relaunch than more extensive change to underlying systems. Including of all the cards as Faction packs would probably be required to satisfy playerbase though.

I do think that the Henchman - Enforcer - Minion is probably the only thing I think needs a larger rethink. Maybe higher HP than present but same or lower defenses, so they're less easy to just delete with focused attacks from beater of choice. 

[esqulax]

I hope they will not simplify it too much, I think the game is in a really healthy state right now and would be sad to see it ruined. 

Rather than an overhaul of the rules I hope they would streamline some things. Have strategy markers function the same, have slam and assist be the same range. Stuff like that. 

A couple of things I would like to see changed rulewise though. 

Cheap minions focused on fighting very rarely work. Usually you prefer 1 big one over 2 small. 

Less masters that fiddle around with themselves for the entire first round. That is not fun for either player and some masters can be quite terrible with it.