A Serious Discussion...

[PeregrineFalcon]

I don't often start threads, but this is something I'd like to get a general consensus on from my fellow Malifaux-ers!

40ss tournmanent games seem to be popping up for M2E across the New England area. I mean no disrespect to the intent of the events and what they are trying to accomplish, so please don't take offense. Simply, I want to understand the reasoning behind this train of thought, beyond the typical response...

"This is a a beginner event, we want it to be light and fun".

Again this is no slight to those events, as I can completely understand that statement above as a valid reason. What I am more interested in is will this be the norm? Now, we all (most) have heard the podcasts, announcements, spoken to fellow henchman, spoken to Wyrd employees, etc, and it has been stated on numerous occasions that M2E is most balanced at 50ss. Regardless of your involvement in any Alpha and Beta testing, what is the general feeling on this?

In our local area, us veteran players have been playing regularly at 50ss, and telling most new players that this is where they should work towards. So, should we change our course. If so, that is fine, but our gaming group is pretty invested, and if 40ss is going to be the new norm for competitive play that most are looking for, then so be it.

I guess to be clear, here are my questions:

1. Are you playing regularly 50ss games or 40ss games?

2. Based on what you've been playing regularly, what ss totals do you think are best for competitive play? (50ss or 40ss)?

3. Why do you think your answer to #2 is valid, please provide examples.

4. Do you think 50ss or 40ss is more balanced towards beginners?

I can think of reasons why both are better for beginners, and both are better for veterans, but I want to know the communities thoughts. With 2013's cons (mostly) out of the way, I think this is a topic that needs to be tested over the next 6 months in prep for events like Templecon, Adepticon, Gencon, and 2014 Warstore Weekend.

Finally, let me state my intention for this post...

My belief for M2E is that it actually can be better than M1E in a tournament format, this post is to ensure that our community has had a healthy discussion on the topic while we prep for the 2014 events. To me a healthy tournament scene caters both to beginners and veterans playing each other at the same events.

Please only well thought out posts here, I really want this to be a serious discussion.

Cheers!

[Ausplosions]

I have felt that 50ss can be a little "high" for my liking, bit YMMV.

I think a game is much more challenging, certainly in the crew building phase, at 45ss.

I do think that 40ss is too low for tournament play, yes.

[dgraz]

We're not big competitive players in my area, but we've been playing 50ss and teaching 50ss. We plan on running a beginners league starting the end of the month at 50ss.

I agree with Barney that you are spoiled at that level......reducing points make for more difficult crew building. 50ss feels like the old 35 or maybe even 40 on a good day.......M2E 40 is probably equivalent to the old 30....where crew building is much harder.

[hypoking]

I like 50 stones. I think it hits the sweat spot where you can bring some fun toys into play without over saturating the board. It's enough that you can bring most of what you want while still leaving room to try things differently in the next game.

That said, I do think it puts the entry point a wee bit higher than it should be. Back before the beta put my local meta on life support we had a lot of people who were essentially messing around with starter boxes + the odd frill. Now, if I try get people interested in 50ss games and their eyes tend to glaze over as they think about their collection and try to imagine how far they can stretch it. There are maybe two other people who frequent the store who can comfortably field 50ss and that makes the game a little more exclusive than I think it needs to be.

[Sevorin]

Yeah, 50ss is what we have been playing here as well.

I do think going lower does make it more challenging (because of the AP you will normally need to get your schemes/strats done). The lower the point total, the less schemes you should play with imo.

But, thats just my opinion.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I haven't gotten too many games in, but we've been playing at 45ss.

[wrabbit37]

We tend to play most at 45 locally, but I like 40 stone games. It's a funny balance - locally we teach beginners at lower stone values (around 40), then as people get a little better, we raise up to 45-50, and then when people get good, we're lowing back to 40-45. When learning how to play the game, I think 40 stones limits you from making too many choices. Once you're good, playing 40 stones forces you to be economical and tight with your choices. You can't simply take an extra model because you have the stones, or add another upgrade because you'll lose a couple stones otherwise. You have to make sure everything in your list pulls its weight.

I always advocated 30SS games in v1 - they were much harder than 35SS games. I think 40 is the same way in v2. Far less forgiving.

[Spifferson]

I played both 40 & 50 stone games in the beta. I found that the scores were generaly higher in the larger games, for both players.

We were not playing in a competitive environment but the choice was typically to play a 50 ss match or spend a little more time and play two 40 ss games.

[Hagisman]

I found it a bit odd when the rulebook stated that the high point matches were considered the "standard game size". For the most part I usually thought games would generally try to aim for a happy medium with a low scale and a high scale of play.

[Fenton Crack]

I feel like 50 ss can be more "comfortable," as I can take more of what I have for the crew and take the upgrades I think are fun with less sacrifice. That being said, we have been playing low stone games (35ss) recently to make the intro games go faster, and insure that a crew box can get you where you need to be. Once people in the group get more models (and hopefully more painted) we will slide the stone count up pretty quick I feel, unless its a demo or a first or second game for someone new.

[Rathnard]

I played a 40SS game last Friday with Pandora, and after taking some upgrades and a few extra SS it worked out as her current boxed set (Pandy, Candy, Kade, 3x Sorrows). Generally though, 40SS seems to roughly work out as a starter box plus 1-2 extra models, depending on upgrades and initial starter size.

As for tournament play, I suspect 40SS will be the size of choice for "beginner" events (unless they go for 25SS henchmen led - something I wouldn't mind trying out) while 45-50SS will become the more "standard" touramnent size.

Mind you, it's worth noting that as per the Designers Note on pg 62, 50 SS is quoted as the recommended size for organised play.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I prefer 41 stone games, as for some reason the mathematics of crew construction works out better, and you are forced to make some tough choices, but it feels more acceptable than 30 did last edition as I feel there was a higher percentage of masters that didn't do well at that level because if crew design and initial cache. It's much better now. At fifty ss I always feel like I have too many ss and I'm looking just for what I. Can toss in a list to make my points as opposed to really pick a right team.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Fetid Strumpet

[Shadowopal]

As the head organizer for this year's AdeptiCon, I can say this will be tested a lot before we put the rules out. I am getting together with Nilus to discuss AdeptiCon in the next week or so and then I will start planning events often to make sure we get it figured out soon.

[dgraz]

That said, I do think it puts the entry point a wee bit higher than it should be. Back before the beta put my local meta on life support we had a lot of people who were essentially messing around with starter boxes + the odd frill. Now, if I try get people interested in 50ss games and their eyes tend to glaze over as they think about their collection and try to imagine how far they can stretch it. There are maybe two other people who frequent the store who can comfortably field 50ss and that makes the game a little more exclusive than I think it needs to be.

Wow. For 4 years you could say the entry point was $100.....and it was actually misleading...because if you wanted to actually be competitive, you needed to get at least most of your chosen faction. Hell, even then....you could buy the entire freakin' faction for less than one GW army....or a PP army.

Now, you can say the entry point is about $150......and you're playing Malifaux competitively. Sure you could go on and get more stuff and be more competitive.......but you don't need to.

Compare that to just about any other game out there. It's still one of the cheapest games there is.......and frankly, it's got far more depth than any of the others. So you get more bang for your buck here.

More exclusive than it needs to be? Please.

[Helm]

I sadly don't have a link, but i do recall Nix making the comment in his M2E podcast review that it was strange to have 50SS as a "more balanced" size, and that 1.5 may be the superior game since it didn't break at smaller point values.

The designers later responded on the forums saying that their intent wasn't to say that the game was specifically balanced for 50SS, but rather that they felt that it was the closest to the old 35 SS standard in 1.5.

Playing at 40-odd SS doesn't break the game. It's not a hugely serious matter that requires validation. The balance of the game may differ (Viks for example get stronger in themselves and taking Upgrades is suddenly a big decision), but the game itself still works just fine.

Personally, I like playing 30-45 SS games because it makes me think really hard about AP use and Crew composition; in 50SS I can pretty much take the toys and Upgrades I want with little thought.

Also, I really like the thought of Crew boxes as a standalone product that you can play full games with, perhaps adding a blister or two. When I say "full game", I don't mean "take everything, max out SS and slap on all the Upgrades"; crew composition in Malifaux is an important stage and building the Crew to fit the objectives is one of the unique points of the game. At 30-40 SS, a player will still have to make decisions as to their Upgrades and SS size when playing out of a box; at 50SS a new player will be stretching by taking every Upgrade and a whole sack o' Soulstone.

[Malicte]

1. We've been regularly playing 50ss, as it was the supposed "balance point".

2. Having said that, I would prefer something like 40/41/45 stones for a competitive game. My finding at 50 is that, more or less regardless of crew and strategy, I get everything I want. No real hard decisions to be made.

3. As to why that lower soulstone size, I find that at 50, as Tara (who I've been primarily playing since gencon), I can easily fit Tara, the upgrades I want, two death marshalls, two hittes, and 2-3 objective grabbers. This leaves me with "extra" units, usually those objective grabbers, that are just kind of "thrown in" without necessity, but just to fill out points and make things a little easier. If we toned that number down 5-10 stones, those units would have to be left out, meaning my units in game would have to make tougher decisions during play to cover multiple bases, not just before play when hiring. I think this makes the game more interesting competitively.

4. I think after 25 stone demos, 50 is the best point for new players. It lets them not have to worry about making those tough decisions at first, and instead work with every tool they might want at their disposal.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Thanks all for the input. This was the type of stuff I'm looking for as reasons to lean one way or the other.

Mind you, it's worth noting that as per the Designers Note on pg 62, 50 SS is quoted as the recommended size for organised play.

This note is in part why I sparked this discussion. As the designers have stated 50ss is best for organized play. Now I suspect this is both for beginner and veteran style tournaments.

Sounds like the summary of most posts here is:

* 25-30ss to 'teach someone the game' - As in not going to be the normal game size for some of the larger cons, but smaller local events could/should run these and the game allows for it. Very beginner friendly.

* 40ss for beginner tourneys - With the main reason to 'limit' choices and not over saturate players with options

* 41ss - 45ss for more advanced play - Reasoning that it forces hard choices. Now beginners will be fine, but probably going to have a hard time knowing what to bring to really execute strat/schemes based on current flipped situation.

* 50ss for beginner and/or advanced tourneys - Allowing you to come with a lot of toys, play with a good amount of them and options to put a few upgrades on models that can take them.

Now the only one I sort of disagree with is that at 40ss it is for beginners. If EVERYONE was brand new to the game, then yes 40ss is probably good for beginners. However, I think that at 40ss beginners will come with just a crew box and be out matched by anyone that has a few more models to choose from during crew creation.

I would love to see a 35ss tourney for beginners. Another option, and this is obviously something I'm putting out for debate, is to define a beginner tourney not on #ss used, but say its a max 35ss (or 40ss whatever), but make the constraints be something like you get your 1 leader, 1 henchman, 1 enforcer, and then 2 upgrades allowed. Rest can be filled in with minions/peons. I dunno that ones just a thought, and would need to be better thought out.

So I guess this boils down to a crew box tourney. If we run beginner tournaments, state that it is "Crew starter box" only rather than lowering the SS?

[hypoking]

More exclusive than it needs to be? Please.

The game was advertised to me as sort of 'buy a box and your set.' Now it wasn't Wyrd that did the evangelizing and I don't expect them to be bound by it but that was one of things I enjoyed about the game. It felt like it had an entry point so low you could stroll through it and be on the table before you knew what happened. I'm not talking about playing competitively just getting to the point where you could put your toys on the table in the same fashion as everybody else. That's all I'm trying to say.

[Fetid Strumpet]

New player tourneys depends on how new. I'm very interested in seeing what level of stones is acceptable for a new player, where no upgrades are allowed. I think focusing on how the game itself plays more than anything else, and less focusing on all the abilities to remember will go a long way to giving the players a better grounding in the game itself. As soon as I get a little more time free from this project at work I'm on then I think I might explore this in growing the environment.

[Mason]

We've been using 35ss for demo games, and it's been working pretty well. It more or less comes down to either a starter box or a starter box + 1 model, and it plays just fine as a game of Malifaux. I think that a beginner tournament/game at 35ss is very doable and quite a bit of fun.

[mattbird]

I've been playing 40ss, and been pretty happy with games at that level.

[PierceSternum]

I have liked fixed list 30SS with premade lists that were written prior, and then chosen from, similar to magic pre-constructed decks.

I have also liked some game-time constructed games up to 40SS.

50SS is much larger than I like playing.

Clearly there is diversity in what people like and think plays well.

[dgraz]

Clearly there is diversity in what people like and think plays well.

par for the course.

[Forar]

I've always liked playing smaller SS games, even back in 1.5. As some others above have noted, I like having to make the hard choices, to pick exactly what I feel I'll need, and where every stone in my cache that could go towards another figure or a better figure than one I'm picking.

At certain higher numbers, even if it's not factually true, I just end up feeling like I'm rounding out the numbers with things. Got all my upgrades, a healthy cache even on a master with a low starting pool, my heavy hitter or two, some objective grabbers, maybe a support piece, etc.

In my experience, one advantage to slightly larger games can be that each stone and figure is slightly less valuable than in smaller cases (a 5ss figure in a 25ss game is much more valuable in and of itself than that same figure in a 50ss game, generally, and losing it hurts a lot more in the former than the latter), so it did seem to make recovering from the loss of a figure or two a bit easier, instead of being a devastating blow (not to say recoveries weren't made in small scale games, but by raw proportions, losing 20% of a crew generally hurts more than losing 10%).

I don't have enough experience with M2E at this point to agree or disagree that it plays 'best' at any given level, or if there are balance issues at higher or lower levels. For raw 'competitive' (tournament or throwing down for a game with intent to kick ass), I generally side for slightly smaller games innately, simply to help keep the risk of going over a time limit down, be it an imposed round time, or simply not wanting the game to run too long into the day/night.

[Spifferson]

From the response so far it would be worth trying deescalation format strating at 50 ss and working downwards each round.