Exorcist - one too many anti-resurrectionists?

[nilus]

I am also loving that a conversation about Exorcist Hate turned into a NB is overpowered bash... I love the Wyrd boards.

To be fair Nix, its your fault. You and your Northern VA Thugs keep breaking the game

[ukrocky]

(and if you think that you, Craig, whoever else playing Neverborn clouds it because you think you would have won with whatever you're playing, please say so, because I assumed that argument would appear at some point...).

LOL. Just lol. I love you calmdown!

[Buhallin]

I am also loving that a conversation about Exorcist Hate turned into a NB is overpowered bash... I love the Wyrd boards.

A conversation about preferred flavor of Jell-O could turn into a "Neverborn is overpowered" bash.

"I like organge."

"Well, lime is classic."

"Do they even make a grape flavor?"

"Purple! ZOMG Neverborn are so broken!!"

FWIW, our tournament this weekend saw the top two spots taken by the Guild (Hoffman and Perdita). Third was Collodi, who mostly caught people off guard. Our other Neverborn players filled the last two spots, both with Lilith/Nephilim. Tournament was fixed crew.

<shrug> Neverborn are probably the most challenging faction to face right now, overall. But that doesn't mean they're broken or completely out of balance. They're very beatable, but it's rarely going to be a cakewalk game.

On the "self-fulfilling prophecy" front I think it works on the bottom end, too. Certain people run around telling everyone how unbalanced or wrong or underpowered X is compared to Y, and people figure they can't deal with it. Our top tourney game this past weekend was a great example. Hoffman's opponent got wrapped around how unbeatable the Protect chain was, forgot to play to the strategy (which he could have easily won), and lost the game. Even then, it was a close loss.

Especially in a game like this where abilities can seem to fly at you like a freight train, you have to be able to keep your head and adapt. "This is useless" and "This is unbeatable" and "Balance is so broken" sticks in people's heads, and the predicted doom becomes reality because people throw up their hands and surrender, and then they go complain about how they got rolled - which is ALWAYS because of balance problems, never bad play.

[Calmdown]

LOL. Just lol. I love you calmdown!

Well, when you're talking about a sample size of just 10 tournaments with a finite number of total players, it's not a completely invalid argument that a few players' skill becomes more relevant than the numbers and reading between the lines I think that's what James believes. I'm saying that whilst he may be right to a greater or lesser extent I don't think it means that the numbers are irrelevent, given the numbers of *other* Neverborn and Outcast players who also managed top 4 places.

[pgbsamurai]

@ Calmdown

I think the point that mythicFOX is trying to make is that the raw numbers don't show a lot of variables. Are the Neverborn players more skilled, did they get matched up against lower skilled players in early rounds. Does the fact that there are more Neverborn players sway the results. etc.

I'm not saying the numbers are not valid, just that there are a lot of questions they don't answer.

For example, the stats you have in your sig show that you have an 82.5% win ratio with your Ressur crews. I could use that to say that Ressurs are doing just fine and are maybe overpowered, but that is not taking into account the skill of you or your opponents, the masters you played against, the strats and schemes you had, etc. They are numbers in a vacuum and I can't accurately use them to draw conclusions.

[ispep]

well, i play with Nico very well, and i can always summon an extra counter.

guild has only 2 anti rezzers atm, justice and exorcist,

guild crews drop a lot of counters, and you can create them with some minions (mortimer, sebastian) or spam them with dogs to create something bigger when they die.

i understand why guild crews get these extra minions vs rezzers and arcanists, they are they elite to hunt them down. fluff wise its only normal they get stuff like this.

try to play against a collidi crew with nicodem, no counters what so ever. but who says you are going to lose?

why do some people always have to make these criticism before they even played a game with it? it all depends from your oponent, and even then, there are only 4-6 crews that will never drop a corpse counter. kirai dreamer, ramos, hoffman, hamelin and levi perhaps.

there will be moments that your crew will not work at full potential, that's what makes these games so funny, you never know what will happen.

if i could summon a rouge necromancy at turn 2 because i killed this many enemies, the game would be boring.

the balance in the game is that there isn't a supperior crew,

If it doesn't work on paper, how are you supposed to know if it will work in game? How are you supposed to make choices and theorycraft if things aren't balanced in 1000s of iterations of the same encounter? The balance should come from all crews having an equal chance against all crews based on the raw stats.

I'm sorry to make you sad, but in my opinion it makes me sad that other people only play to win, and sometimes forget to have some fun. an please explain where my fundamental lack of understanding of the game would be.

and ratty, who is right? me or Calmdown?

Why play if you aren't playing to win? How is playing to lose fun?If you spend the time and money to gather and build a crew, it should have a fair chance against any other crew, no matter what choices the pother player has made.. The fun in Magic doesn't come from keeping 2 mana for a counter spell, or 3 mana to stop your opponents mana leak, but from the knowledge that you made the right play and won.

[Hatchethead]

You swap out "Neverborn" for "Cryx" and the majority of this thread could be cut-and-pasted to the PP forum.

Cryx get dumped on in WM because they have the most Tryx. It falls on the opponent to really understand how they function, moreso than any other other faction. "You win versus Cryx by knowing your own army. You lose versus Cryx by not knowing your opponent's."

I feel it's very much the same with Neverborn. They have an additional, built-in win condition simply by having the most convoluted crews, tons of inherent synergy, difficult to master and hard to play against until you have a high-level understanding of their function. Add to that the complexity of each piece in a game of Malifaux and a Cryx-like army becomes difficult to decipher.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Hatchethead

[nilus]

Why play if you aren't playing to win? How is playing to lose fun?

What about playing just to play? Playing to have fun? Have you ever came up with just a crazy idea for a list and played it with your friends to see how wacky things go.

The fun is in the journey not the destination. I'd rather play 1000 games where I lose and have fun then 1 game where I beat my opponent but neither of us enjoyed it.

[pgbsamurai]

The balance in Malifaux doesn't come from crew vs. crew. It comes from faction vs. faction. Malifaux is a lot different from other miniatures games in that it is based on strategies and schemes and not just killing the other player's minis before he kills yours. Some masters are better at some strats vs. others, but the faction as a whole can handle them all. That is the beauty in Malifaux is that you find out what you have to do before you pick your crew. Then you find out what your opponent is bringing before you have to pick your schemes. It allows for a lot of variability and encourages you to think on your feet vs. following formula xyz to win.

Edit: I also second nilus. The most fun games for me are when both players are challenged, win or loose. It is no fun when either player gets steamrolled.

Edited August 22, 2011 by pgbsamurai

[Calmdown]

The balance in Malifaux doesn't come from crew vs. crew. It comes from faction vs. faction. Malifaux is a lot different from other miniatures games in that it is based on strategies and schemes and not just killing the other player's minis before he kills yours. Some masters are better at some strats vs. others, but the faction as a whole can handle them all. That is the beauty in Malifaux is that you find out what you have to do before you pick your crew. Then you find out what your opponent is bringing before you have to pick your schemes. It allows for a lot of variability and encourages you to think on your feet vs. following formula xyz to win.

Hey look, this line again.

Factions in Malifaux are not equal. They may be more equal than some people (eg, me) would argue, but saying that every faction is equal is frankly complete nonsense.

You swap out "Neverborn" for "Cryx" and the majority of this thread could be cut-and-pasted to the PP forum.

Every competitive games has good lists/decks/whatever, and mediocre ones, and bad ones. The difference is, in WM, each faction has multiple Warcasters of each tier. Cryx just have more, but it's not really so much of an issue because everyone has plenty of very strong lists to choose from. In Malifaux, the balance of that isn't there. Outcasts/Arcanists/Rezzers each have 1 seriously competitive master, and then a few more varying from good-bad. Guild has no seriously competitive masters. Neverborn have 4 or 5 and 0 bad ones. Also as far as minions go, Neverborn are spoilt for choice with amazing models and the most broken model in the game (Stitched) whereas other factions have a good variety of good-bad minions.

So no, you cant really compare WM and Malifaux here. The level of imbalance is not so great as to be a big issue in WM (and that's why WM is, and always will be, bigger than Malifaux).

Edited August 22, 2011 by Calmdown

[ispep]

What about playing just to play? Playing to have fun? Have you ever came up with just a crazy idea for a list and played it with your friends to see how wacky things go.

The fun is in the journey not the destination. I'd rather play 1000 games where I lose and have fun then 1 game where I beat my opponent but neither of us enjoyed it.

There is nothing fun about losing. It sucks. It is the epitome of not fun. I can not think of a single game of anything I have played where I lost and thought it was more fun than any number of things I could have done that wouldn't have resulted in losing.

[Buhallin]

Hey look, this line again.

Amazing how people keep insisting on dragging out how the game was actually designed. The temerity!

Factions in Malifaux are not equal. They may be more equal than some people (eg, me) would argue, but saying that every faction is equal is frankly complete nonsense.

"Equal" is a strong word, especially given the utter impossibility of quantifying something as complex as Malifaux. Are they close enough that the game is decided more on player skill and knowledge than on the models themselves? Certainly, and I think that's what people mean when they say the factions are equal.

So no, it's not complete nonsense. Even if you happen to disagree with it it's not complete nonsense.

[Buhallin]

There is nothing fun about losing. It sucks. It is the epitome of not fun. I can not think of a single game of anything I have played where I lost and thought it was more fun than any number of things I could have done that wouldn't have resulted in losing.

That's a shame. Some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played have been close, hard-fought losses.

[Dolomyte]

Some people have made the arguement in this thread that.

1. Tournament players want to play to win

2. They read on the forums that neverborn are the best

3.Tournament players therefor pick neverborn because they THINK its the best chance to win.

4. So many people end up playing neverborn at events, especially those playing cut throat, that neverborn invariably do well.

I think that could be more accurately stated as

1. Neverborn are the most competetive faction all around, so the best players play them if they want to win.

[Calmdown]

Amazing how people keep insisting on dragging out how the game was actually designed. The temerity!

"Equal" is a strong word, especially given the utter impossibility of quantifying something as complex as Malifaux. Are they close enough that the game is decided more on player skill and knowledge than on the models themselves? Certainly, and I think that's what people mean when they say the factions are equal.

So no, it's not complete nonsense. Even if you happen to disagree with it it's not complete nonsense.

What amazes me the most is the level of denial some people are capable of when defending something that they love.

Is it possible to perfectly quantify 'equal', or 'balance'? Of course not. Is it possible, using empyrical evidence and that fact that we're all generally intelligent people that can analyse model stats, synergies, and other criteria, to see that something is not balanced? Absolutely.

[Hatchethead]

The level of imbalance is not so great as to be a big issue in WM (and that's why WM is, and always will be, bigger than Malifaux).

Mmm. Broad and sweeping, just like any good semi-factualized opinion-based statement of opinio-facts!

I will agree that Neverborn currently enjoys the lion's share of Book 2 models that need to be "looked at". That is all.

*Leaps through a plate glass window and is gone.*

[ProdigalPunk]

There are so many things I want to post it is not even funny.

First, there is was an increase in the percentage of non-living models in Book 2, and even more so of models that do not drop counters. This could be just a temporary thing or it could be a trend. Guild went construct happy, rezzers went spirit happy, arcanists got a show girl army and still managed to fill it up half way with constructs, and 90% of the Neverborn are nightmares or constructs or both ( a trend that will continue to keep Dreamer from being left out). Nightmares being no-living was a huge mistake in my opinion. Rezzers whole schtick is sort of being neutered. They can still win, but they are losing their identity.

Second, there is clear Neverborn bias in the game design. I can not say if the designers have a special place in their hearts for Neverborn, but I can say that it comes off that way (as it does for Cryx in PP). This is not to say that the Neverborn are unbeatable, but they are on the better side of the curve. As a faction as a whole, they are even farther down that better side.

Lastly, people are trying to explain away the numbers instead of trying to explain them. I will assume that the people who won the those tournaments did so because they were the best players (seems only fair to them). Why anyone thinks that is an argument for Neverborn are not unbalanced is beyond me. Competitive people who want to win are going to play competitive lists. If most of those people are playing Neverborn, then clearly the Neverborn are the most competitive faction. Malifaux like M:tG is half about crew selection, picking Neverborn seems to be the first step to winning. It is not a self-fulfilling prophesy it is an observation of fact. People are not mindless drones, and even less so the people who win tournaments. They are not going to spam Neverborn because the internet told them too.

I think I can win with any faction, but that does not mean that it is a balanced game. It will also take awhile to get it balanced, so Calmdown is right.

[sephiroa]

There is nothing fun about losing. It sucks. It is the epitome of not fun. I can not think of a single game of anything I have played where I lost and thought it was more fun than any number of things I could have done that wouldn't have resulted in losing.

i played against someone, he lost, big time, but he had so much fun, i played with marcus and he with nicodem, and he kept summoning creatures, after he summoned his 8th punk zombie he said the look on my face was priceless. he didn't care he lost, ha had a fun game.

on tournaments, you want to win, that's something different, but when i play against my girlfriend or my brother, we just play to have some fun

[nix]

To be fair Nix, its your fault. You and your Northern VA Thugs keep breaking the game

Wait till I decide to start playing the Eorcist (probably when he releases) and you see the tricks I have planned for him!!!

Personally I do not think he is that bad. He hates Ressers, yup. He has crap movement, check! He nearly kills himself to get into position to do anything to anyone, check!

He loves him some belle though! Lure, choose to fail. Lure, choose to fail.

I gots' me some idea though. Just need to play around to see if I can make the worries about him worth while.

[ProdigalPunk]

i played against someone, he lost, big time, but he had so much fun, i played with marcus and he with nicodem, and he kept summoning creatures, after he summoned his 8th punk zombie he said the look on my face was priceless. he didn't care he lost, ha had a fun game.

on tournaments, you want to win, that's something different, but when i play against my girlfriend or my brother, we just play to have some fun

Having fun is always important, but when it comes to game balance it is sort of irrelevant. People can have fun with an unbalanced game, but more people will have fun with a balanced one.

[Sliver Chocobo]

I the topic of the Neverborn being OP

I know LCB is

But I don't think pandora, Lilith and Zoradia are, they all have weakness, attacking that weakness is key to beating them

[sephiroa]

Having fun is always important, but when it comes to game balance it is sort of irrelevant. People can have fun with an unbalanced game, but more people will have fun with a balanced one.

agreed, and i agree that book 2 made a big extra for neverborn, maybe that's why they now have book 3, extra models to get a bit more balance,

and still, are you going to claim that GW has balanced games?? and they sell most miniatures than anyone, so talking about more people because you have a balanced game, is the same as talking that the world will be better if you have world peace, there will always be a slightest advantage of some armies/factions/crews/,,, and Malifaux is trying to settle this with there different strategies.

i said this a hundred times and probably will do this a hundred times again.

the "balance" is that you pick your crew, and THAN pick your strategies and scheme's, there is no crew that is good at EVERY strategy. no crew.

[Talos]

As this is about the Exorcist can anyone post some of his ablities that make him anti-resser. I am a bit worried as he is walk 3 which means in a game the maxium he can move on his own is 36" but does he have some powers to move more? what is the range on his crossbow ?

I also heard there are some anti nightmare models in book 3 can anybody shed some light on that.

[Calmdown]

agreed, and i agree that book 2 made a big extra for neverborn, maybe that's why they now have book 3, extra models to get a bit more balance,

and still, are you going to claim that GW has balanced games?? and they sell most miniatures than anyone, so talking about more people because you have a balanced game, is the same as talking that the world will be better if you have world peace, there will always be a slightest advantage of some armies/factions/crews/,,, and Malifaux is trying to settle this with there different strategies.

i said this a hundred times and probably will do this a hundred times again.

the "balance" is that you pick your crew, and THAN pick your strategies and scheme's, there is no crew that is good at EVERY strategy. no crew.

But you are so far over the line into believing your own hype that strategies are ALL that matters, you are forgetting that combat and raw power does play its part too.

The fact is that every faction can put out a crew that can complete certain schemes. However, some factions can put out multiple crews that can complete multiple strats/schemes, and also effectively deny opposing strats/schemes whilst doing it, and/or also be capable of holding their own in serious combat whilst doing so.

The game isn't just about completing your scheme. It's about stopping your opponent completing his, and making sure he can't stop you doing yours. No matter how much you deny it, combat is as big a part of this game as anything else.

And let's drop in here the fact that Neverborn also get a hidden 2vp scheme, the only one of its kind in the game, which just happens to be essentially an autocomplete.

[sephiroa]

But you are so far over the line into believing your own hype that strategies are ALL that matters, you are forgetting that combat and raw power does play its part too.

The fact is that every faction can put out a crew that can complete certain schemes. However, some factions can put out multiple crews that can complete multiple strats/schemes, and also effectively deny opposing strats/schemes whilst doing it, and/or also be capable of holding their own in serious combat whilst doing so.

The game isn't just about completing your scheme. It's about stopping your opponent completing his, and making sure he can't stop you doing yours. No matter how much you deny it, combat is as big a part of this game as anything else.

And let's drop in here the fact that Neverborn also get a hidden 2vp scheme, the only one of its kind in the game, which just happens to be essentially an autocomplete.

now you are talking about the neverborn again, when you play tournaments, i agree, and still, on tourneys you can take that autocomplete only 1 time.

combat matters, sure, but you can perfectly win against neverborn, by picking the right scheme's,

when you play tournemants you always have people who found an overpowerd crew, and he/she has a perfect strategy

now you are saying that neverborn are supperior in completing everything and preventing that from his/her opponent, combat matters, strategies matter, schemes matter, but knowing your crew, knowing your opponents crew they count as much.

don't take me wrong, I'm not picking a fight or anything if i sound angry or if you think i try to insult you, i respect your opinion, but i think that you see things black and white,

like i said, you always have some strong crews, but to learn how to block them, is part of the game, to learn how to stop them, and make that strong list, like a normal one by making the right choices.