My depressing growing opinion of 5 turns

[Fetid Strumpet]

What did they do at the end of the 6th turn last edition? Games are always abstract in some way.

[Justin]

OK, so you are having a tantrum, gotcha.

Please keep it civil.

Consider this a warning.

[DeleteAccount]

Which is why, in my experience, games that go an extra due to a flipped card can become very swingy. You can't count on it happening, and thus have to play like it won't happen (aiming to win on turn 7 is unwise if you can't guarantee it'll even happen), thus if it does happen it messes with everyone's plans.

Very true, had a game where I was literally banking on ending at 5, had there been an extra turn, I would have been toast, same way I lost a game for the same exact same reason. Though to be fair, this was no different in 6 turn matches (supposing you had a crew).

[Duck21]

What did they do at the end of the 6th turn last edition? Games are always abstract in some way.

Ok what are two opposing crews (who were at each other’s throats seconds ago) do after the end of turn 6. (5 in M2E) Dust themselves off and leave opposite directions.

[ttsgosadow]

Shake hands and call 'GG' I guess, just like in e-sports

[rancor709]

I do not care how many turns the game is. I am not arguing for a different length.

I am not "making an argument" for anything.

I am stating what the game feels like to me. Five turns feels constraining and it feels like in the games I am in, one crew would clearly win, sometimes by a LOT, but they just do not have time to make the margin as large as it would because the game is shorter now.

Eventually, I happen to believe that we will get better and THEN we will start discovering how to speed things up.

Then the "illusion of balance" that I feel that shortening the game has created will be dispelled.

I get that I have not been overly clear about my concern.

I do not believe that the game is as balanced as others seem to, and that's with the limited palette of models currently available.

I think that once swarm lists get MORE variety that their speed and margin of victory will increase.

I think that by decreasing the turns to 5, that the developers have hidden imbalances temporarily behind better crews not yet knowing how to, or having all the tools yet, to go fast enough to make it obvious how much better they are.

That's define some terms and create some ground on which to discuss.

Balance to me does not mean small margins of victory. A game can be very balanced and I can be nilled or I can nill my opponent the margin of victory has nothing to do with balance. The ease with which my opponent or myself can select models and achieve said points in the game and prevent our opponents from doing so. If both sides have equal ability to do those elements mechanically than it comes down to player skill which should be the largest reason for margin of victory aside from card luck.

If I have a crew that is specifically built to as you say disrupt models who's entire point is to engage. I would then look to see if I have tools available to clear out large volumes of weak models. Those exist in every faction, be it large area pulse abilities for damage blasts or just nasty things to run towards. Additionally there are a lot of models that have scheme marker removal abilities those are positively huge and are another factor that when used will limit the strength of the horde.

Personally I think there should just be a natural rare 3 of any model that is significant with a cap of 6 or so gremlins cause well there built to be in mass hence. The turn has very little to do with my though on that. Its 2 fold 1, people know how much they need to buy and prevents odd imbalances from potentially occurring because you brought 15 3 stone models in a 50 pt game. The counter argument would be there should be no 3 stone models. Mine is less of a balance issue and more getting different things on the table and preventing even a perception of an issue.

Again the relative skill of players in this edition is equal at this point no one even those testing for significant periods of time have had enough time with the system yet. That only comes from lots more games against lots more people and we can really start stress testing the competitive aspects as tournaments and tournament data becomes available.

The 5 turns I have no issue with and don't feel it artificials anything what it does do is force you to commit to earning victory points at an early point than the previous 6 turn structure. I.e. I have to prioritize what I'm doing and killing x model may not be in my best interest. We may actually start seeing disengaging strikes occuring, as It may make more sense for me to walk away from your cb4 minion with my df6 model to achieve an objective rather than spend my ap killing your blocker. You know tactics are a thing as mind blowing as that is sometimes we don't always have to do things the same way.

Is the horde a problem maybe, but I've not gotten one to work out better than a more traditional list. The closest I came was in a lilith crew as if you push something into enough tots they tend to die slowly but they do die. When designing a list for scenarios and schemes now there are a lot of factors to consider and anti-horde is probably not a bad thing to include.

At this point there are tools present that allow the stopping of the horde and I the horde being able to get an early vp lead but not being able to sustain it. The more interesting bit is looking at the viablity of the micro swarm. This concept is what is really dangerous where you take a large beater along with an aggressive master and the rest is cheap significant filler. If your filler is cheap enough and your beater strong enough, the beat can activate after your chaff and start eating the opponents ability to harm you. Its a style that will be initiative heavy but I see it occurring. Its would be viable regardless of turns in the game.

The skill being relatively flat right now as its the dawn of a new edition is what's dictating these scores not the turn 5 mechanic.

Most highly competitive games of 1.5 were actually over in the 3rd/4 turn, one side would have broken the other at that point and started to amass vps. What the 5 turn structure does is force if you are going the decisive combat route that turn occurs in turn 2 and must finish by turn 3. At the end of turn 3 if you have any objective style play you have to shift from kill to amass vps at that point in 2.0.

What I see are a lot of viable play-styles and builds with tools to counter each of those styles. Its a matter of time before we start seeing player skill becoming a factor more and more.

I think it will be a very dynamic meta and that is because all the factions have really good tool boxes spread out across both there masters and minions and I don't at this point see large scale imbalances and I doubt we will. What we might see is some find a really neat horde list, and a month later find some built something that makes that horde unplayable and someone else finds what makes the anti-horde difficult..

Again its far to early on either side to be having any absolutes that why I find these discussions fascinating. And its actually nice to have tactical discussions on malifaux as opposed to rules queries.

---------- Post added at 08:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 AM ----------

Additionaly thoughts on what your seeing.

Most people arent' used to turn being the end point yet. Let that sink in, this means we are scheming and manuevering like we still have 6 turns. We haven't' trained ourselves to think the game ends on turn 5 with the option for 6. This means that likely yes players used to playing a 6 turn game are going to look like they will win massively in the 6th turn because they are setting up to do that as they haven't trained and learn how to do that a turn earlier. Once 5 becomes more of the norm to players and they start thinking in those terms turn 6 will seem like turn 7 did an 1.5. Its a perceptional and practice difference.

[nix]

Also even if swarms have an advantage, which is something I'm still very far from allowing, how is that different from 1.0 where better models were the advantage?

In response to this section of your comments.

Swarms have a greater impact on the game of M2E than they did to Malifaux for a number of reasons. M2E has an overall decrease in AP due the overarching removal of "extra AP" abilities. In combination with that, the addition of scheme markers combined with the change to the distribution of schemes requiring AP dedicated to non-movement abilities makes AP more valuable in general*. This is combined with a reduction in the overall choice when it comes to schemes and strategies increasing the overall importance of AP in relation to winning the game. Then there is a further component of the SS change that is harder to quantify. Previously Master's did not need to hold high cards in hand "as much" due to being able to cover with the SS resource. Now your Master becomes a bit more important in many cases and needs to hold high cards in order to cover the weakening of SS in M2E. This means those high cards are no longer available to minions requiring more AP for fighting/defense/killing than in Malifaux.

*As reference from above

Malifaux

5 of 13 strategies requiring interact AP

5 of 46 schemes requiring interact/non-combat AP

M2E (per the last set of beta rules)

2 of 5 strategies require interact AP

10 of 19 schemes require interact/non-combat AP

[Joel]

That might be a good reason for trying to add an extra model, or maybe two, into a crew, but not necessarily for creating a swarm of chaff - being easy to kill can limit their usefulness. The increase in the number of 3" melee ranges alone can do this. In addition, your own reasoning on having to hold cards is further strained when spamming - too many models and too few cards - making them even more vulnerable to mid-range minions.

[DeleteAccount]

5 of 46 schemes requiring interact/non-combat AP

From my experience "46 schemes" is a pretty misleading number since in reality it was a lot closer to 8-12 depending on faction unless you planned to horse around, give yourself a handicap or where forced because of no repeat to go into others.

That aside, again, a jamboree of AP is meaningless if they can't be applied where needed. A Silurid and a necropunk can reach places that 2-3 bayou gremlins simply can't.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I agree with Joel. Again on paper it might seem like swarms have it all their own way, but I haven't found that to be the Case. Taelor as an elite minion example, has a large Melee range, a good Ml, and solid dmg. Just by existing she is blocking a large portion of the board from scheme markers being placed, she is most likely preventing your models from getting away from her to do interacts later in the turn via disengaging strikes, and she is going to be killing your chaff pretty steadily while doing this. Coupled with the inability to interact to place schemes within 4" of each other, and the fact that in most of the interact schemes they have to be in certain areas of the board means that just having the AP to out activate doesn't give you a decisive edge.

Your statistics also don't have much relevance in determining actual game advantage of swarms. It would be like looking at the total number of Extra AP available to a faction and then averaging out the total Cb Values for models in a faction and comparing it to others and saying "This faction can never lose because they will almost always hit, and they have more AP to do it with than anyone else", a statement whose generality and fixed focus view you yourself argued with most vociferously last edition.

[Helm]

It's been said for some time that hordes are going to be a problem in 2E, but it seems to me that there's plenty to balance them out. Like Sonnia (full stop), the Viks, Huggy... and that's just a quick list of Master-level choices rather than individual models (Taelor in particular is available as a Mercenary). And that's just a matter of killing them; on a board in a real game you can funnel your opponent, assuming that a crowd could all reach where they needed to be in the first place.

As to five turns leading to "artificially close" scores, the closeness only comes about if you compare the numbers to 1.5's scores. Which were gained in different ways with different models and so are basically incompatible. Firstly, there's no need to hammer in the point of who has won; massive gradients are offputting to new players and give no indication of how to improve. You could make the point that the 1.5 system made it more clear who had won by how much, but if the game kept hitting the 8-0 ceiling (and it did this often for my housemate and I, both fairly even players) then the scoring wasn't very good for that either.

[dgraz]

I was on the side of Swarms winning every game at the start of the beta. I truly believed that the extra AP and Activations would be game-winning........that higher cost models just couldn't do enough to counteract that.............

I haven't seen any evidence of it and I've been watching very closely. This would be a game-breaker for me........it just isn't there.

[TekDekay]

Its great that it hasn't been a problem yet but:

All the models haven't been re-released under the new framework of rules yet and many more players that didn't participate in the closed or open Beta aren't likely comfortable with the rules yet to be able to play such a strategy during a game.

I for one will feel better after all the models are released and we have 6-9 months worth of tournaments under M2Es belt.

Until then, I think it is something to keep an eye on.

Of course we are now talking about 2 different topics that are albeit somewhat connected. 1) swarm lists and 2) misleading sense of balance by descreasing the number of turns in a game.

I like the bolt reference actually. If you look at the first 50 meters of his races there are a lot of sprinters who can match or even beat him. It isn't until the last half to third of a race that his body type allows him to pull ahead of other mere mortal sprinters.

Even if shortening the game by a turn was a "quick fix" for balancing the game out a bit more I think it will be interesting to see, especially when the game expands beyond the intial models already released thru 1.5, whether the fix, if indeed that is what it is, holds up or not.

[Duck21]

Shake hands and call 'GG' I guess, just like in e-sports

So Malifaux is a bit like a game show. It would be interesting to see Lady J and Nicodem shaking hands. Do you think it will ever happen.

[Tuttleboy]

I really feel I can't jump on either side of this argument until we have the next wave released. Gripe about the game being incomplete upon its initial release or say the game is too long/short, in 6 months all sides may be wrong.

If you want 6 turns make arrangements before the game starts for a 6 turn game. Better yet, organize an event and provide data that 6 turns are better or more fun.

What it really comes down to is playing the game in a way that's fun for both players, because that's the reason we should all be playing. Talk to your opponent and experiment a bit, possibly by making the game end flip more of a 50/50 to end on turn 5 or even 25/75.

Go, have fun.

[Mack.Martin]

Just as a side note.

Despite having to do a little post pruning, I wanted to acknowledge that this is exactly the sort of thing we find very helpful from a Dev standpoint. The OP's impression is certainly valid, and while the 5 turn limit might not have been for the reasons everyone may think (or for additional reasons not yet noted), it is important for us to understand what the perception is.

The usefulness of being told that perception would be very limited, however, if it weren't for continued discussion from all fronts. This thread is full of good impression/theory/discussion, and if we can keep it civil, this will be the sort of thing in Beta Wave 2 that really helps us avoid some of the potential pitfalls (like swarms being to strong).

Edited August 19, 2013 by Mack.Martin

[PierceSternum]

If you want 6 turns make arrangements before the game starts for a 6 turn game. Better yet, organize an event and provide data that 6 turns are better or more fun.

I think you didn't understand what I meant. But thats ok. Enjoy yourself.

[dgraz]

I'm sensing some bad feelings on the part of the OP.......apologies if I'm incorrect.

But I seriously think this is just another example of hating something for hate's sake. People have been playing swarms, people have discussed this very issue numerous times.......it just doesn't exist.......there is no problem.

And saying that it 'may' be a problem when the rest of the models come out is just putting the cart before the horse.

Of course it is valid to voice these kinds of concerns......it's certainly something for the devs and the testers to be aware of and watch for......but preaching "DOOOOM" before it happens is just silly.

[Mack.Martin]

Of course it is valid to voice these kinds of concerns......it's certainly something for the devs and the testers to be aware of and watch for......but preaching "DOOOOM" before it happens is just silly.

I don't get the sense that this is happening. I think we are letting ourselves give the wrong inflection to each others posts. It's something that happens a lot on the internet. Inflection is really important to human communication, and it just doesn't exist online.

To rectify this, do what I do. Read everyone's post in the voice of a different famous person. You'd be amazed how much this helps. On the downside Dgraz, you're Nick Cage in my head. So I'm usually pretty worried that you'll try to steal a national artifact.

I find this discussion very useful. There are possible pitfalls that are out there. I may be a devilishly handsome super genius, but I won't see them all. Discussing them now will help me avoid them even earlier in the design.

We all just need to keep things civil and open minded. Remember that just because someone doesn't like an aspect, it doesn't mean they hate the whole game. If we can all approach this assuming that the other guy is also wanting to help make a better game, it will be fine.

I got to sit down and have drinks with guys who I really only know online this weekend. I think it really helped us all, and if we can, as a forum, move to a "brandy sniffing and academic discussion" mood, we're going to be doing great.

[dgraz]

I don't get the sense that this is happening. I think we are letting ourselves give the wrong inflection to each others posts. It's something that happens a lot on the internet. Inflection is really important to human communication, and it just doesn't exist online.

Fair enough. And I freely admit I could be doing that....which is why I apologized in the first line of my post.

To rectify this, do what I do. Read everyone's post in the voice of a different famous person. You'd be amazed how much this helps. On the downside Dgraz, you're Nick Cage in my head. So I'm usually pretty worried that you'll try to steal a national artifact.

Ugh.........as long as he isn't using the accent from ConAir I suppose it could be worse.

[PierceSternum]

As I've said, I do not have BAD feelings, I have SAD feelings. I am not preaching anything.

I related my experiences and opinion based on them.

What has been said back to me was that my "argument" was invalid and that I preach "DOOM".

I do not preach and I am not arguing about anything.

If anyone is doing anything in this thread, IMO, its that people OTHER THAN the developers are getting defensive (AGAIN) and attacking ANYTHING they perceive as critical of M2E.

I'll not force some of you to come riding to M2E's constant defense any longer by saying anything critical.

I like the new nurses. Discuss...

[dgraz]

Relax.

[PierceSternum]

says you. lol

[dgraz]

says you. lol

I'm at my calmest when I'm antagonizing others. Sorry if I offended you.

[PierceSternum]

I do not get offended by internet words.

I do get tired of certain things though...