|
So it looks like the Age of Cygnar has neither factions nor miniatures
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 13:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:01 |
|
|
Hipster Occultist posted:I'm curious, how many gonns here think that PP can/will pull this off and return Warmachine to at least a fairly-popular game? Maybe not the heights of Mk2 popular, but a game that has its own fairly healthy ecosystem and competitive circut. I enjoy the game as a game but like 90% of my play time has been by virtual tabletop, so I'm basically "unaffected" if old models become impossible to find apart from losing out on getting to paint them. I do wonder if I'll still be able to find people to play MK3 with or if everyone who does stick around is going to migrate, but I also haven't really played any MK4 yet; maybe when my faction actually exists it'll be fun. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 13:47
|
|
|
I also think it's pretty clear at this point that GW making GBS threads its pants for a while created the opening they needed to flourish, and that doesn't seem likely to happen again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 14:02
|
|
|
koreban posted:The best thing they could have done was probably to simplify the game, kick the timeline forward 20 years to divorce people’s emotional attachments to characters, consolidate factions into a dozen or so units to choose between, and try to recapture lost attention. They’d have to be able to manufacture those units… Honestly I thought that this was the plan for Warcaster but then it wasn't. They should have just shuttered Warmahordes, left the rules and unit information accessible for people still playing, and continued to sell any existing stock until it was gone, but explicitly moving all new attention and development to Warcaster. Leaving their original game behind would be tough, but honestly I can't see it as any worse than whatever this thing is they are doing now. Hipster Occultist posted:I'm curious, how many gonns here think that PP can/will pull this off and return Warmachine to at least a fairly-popular game? Maybe not the heights of Mk2 popular, but a game that has its own fairly healthy ecosystem and competitive circut. Now GW is in a much heathier place, and has diversified its games into a lot of different formats. But even beyond that, there are a lot more alternatives as well. When Warmachine arrived I was practically living in a game store (I was in college and literally around the block from a store, my friend worked there, so we spent a ridiculous amount of time there) and the games people played were basically 40k, Warmachine, or Confrontation (Rackham's now deceased game that had a shorter lifespan). Now I go to a store and people are playing 40k, AOS, Kill Team, sure, but they're also playing Star Wars Legion, Marvel Crisis Protocol, Song of Ice and Fire, and a smattering of other games I don't even know about (Bolt Action? Conquest?) Even if PP can get their poo poo together, they are looking at a much more crowded and diverse market where there are plenty of other offerings that people can look to. I don't see any reason to think they're going to be able to pull ahead of the crowd.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 14:07
|
|
|
Don't forget Battletech, it's back people.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 14:26
|
|
|
My city has also active infinity and Malifaux scenes. I mean as far as games to pick from at this point sky is the limit
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 14:32
|
|
|
rantmo posted:As a separate game, yeah, it's all Warmachine now but the way Warlocks and Warbeasts work is the same. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if we never see a Hordes faction again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 14:52
|
|
|
Iron Crowned posted:At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if we never see a Hordes faction again. That would be unfortunate as it's definitely the more interesting of the two mechanics
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:00
|
|
|
Iron Crowned posted:At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if we never see a Hordes faction again. I wouldn't be surprised if we never see another Warmachine faction again either at this rate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:05
|
|
|
I think it's possible for them to avoid a total death of Warmachine. They won't do it, though, and even if they did they won't get back to where they were.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:09
|
|
|
smug jeebus posted:Don't forget Battletech, it's back people. People also play this at the store, but I wasn't sure if it was 'new' or just some greybeards breaking out the old toys, like the historical dudes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:10
|
|
|
so what's the most suitable game for me to turn my cool dwarven mining mechs into proxies for
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:15
|
|
|
Davedave24 posted:so what's the most suitable game for me to turn my cool dwarven mining mechs into proxies for There's a ton of little rulesets out there made for using whatever you have around. Unfortunately I've been in the process of moving for a while now, and haven't had a chance to just pull out some of my models and give them a try. I really like the Old Hammered YouTube channel, this guy does some LPs of some of indie rulesets Space Weirdos is one that I'm interested in, that might be a bit more flexible for small Warmahordes skirmishes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST8q5ALjLTo
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:19
|
|
|
I mean, by choosing to go with a technology that doesn't really scale as well as even metal models, PP has pretty much announced they don't expect it to succeed, so I don't see why I should disagree with them. Also, I am glad the got it down to one name.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:31
|
|
|
Hipster Occultist posted:I'm curious, how many gonns here think that PP can/will pull this off and return Warmachine to at least a fairly-popular game? Maybe not the heights of Mk2 popular, but a game that has its own fairly healthy ecosystem and competitive circut. I'd be very surprised. Where I live there was once a fairly healthy WMH community, to the point where when we'd do Steamrollers if you didn't register quickly you might not get a spot. I've been out for a while but I'm still in the local FB group and now when they do an event it's like 'can we get one more person so we have 4?'. Obviously a lot of that is COVID linked as well as other factors, but I think Mk 4 would really need to be a whizbang, exciting, looks great out of the gate success to reenergize current and former players and attract new ones. Instead it looks like it will be pretty hard for a lot of existing players to take part, at least some of the rules changes are controversial, and the new product launch is botched. It's hard to see why lapsed former players would want to try to get back in (I am currently not tempted) and I cannot imagine trying to sell this game to a new player right now. It's expensive to get into, it's 'launching' incomplete, and it seems at least a mixed bag whether you can fall back on 'the models, however, are awesome' these days. When I think about 'yeah, maybe I'd like to play a minis game again' I'm thinking much more like MCP where the game seems fun and the barrier to entry appears to be a lot less.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:35
|
|
|
smug jeebus posted:Don't forget Battletech, it's back people. Me and my bros been playing this. It owns. And we've spent so little money by 3d printing too Saalkin fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Oct 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 15:46
|
|
|
Hipster Occultist posted:I'm curious, how many gonns here think that PP can/will pull this off and return Warmachine to at least a fairly-popular game? Maybe not the heights of Mk2 popular, but a game that has its own fairly healthy ecosystem and competitive circut. I think they suffered more profoundly from talent drain due to Atomic Mass Games pulling in their core development people than from losing the master molds. I’d be willing to bet you could draw a straight line correlation between losing the talented folks behind WMH > to loss of profits > to nonpayment to the caster > to caster seizing the molds and making gas station toys from them. I doubt they return to anything even resembling popular. I’d put stakes on them being at or around Frostgrave, or Kings of War, or Deadzone, with a genuinely enthusiastic core of players in tiny little pocket locations. I think people interested in skirmish level miniature wargames have moved on to MCP, Infinity, Kill Team, Battletech, etc. and the ones interested in larger scale wargames are in 40k, Middle Earth, or AoS. Malifaux fits somewhere in there as well. I was interested in seeing where the D&D 5e rewrite on the Alexia stuff went and whether it was picked up and run by anyone, but I haven’t heard a peep about it in probably over a year. I haven’t gone actively looking for it, but based Monday my interests and search history, I would have thought it might pop up on a YouTube recommended, or Reddit, or *something, and it’s come up crickets, so I can’t imagine there’s a huge market for even the setting. Hell, I still get 7 year old WMH battle reports popping up in I scroll more than a couple of pages down on YouTube these days. There’s just nothing new coming out of PP that seems to be clicking with people. MonPoc was fun and might be popular, but not in any shops near where I am. No one locally is even talking about it, so maybe that’s just a proximity bias, but given how close to Seattle I am and the popularity of WMH in its prime around here, I’d have thought there would be some lingering love for their games. Not the case.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 17:34
|
|
|
Any of the people that I know that still have their stuff or even any interest are far more willing to play OG Prime Mk I than any other iteration right now. Smaller model count and all the wacky poo poo like arm and head locks and slam attacks go a lot farther than whatever Mk IV is.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 19:14
|
|
|
koreban posted:There’s just nothing new coming out of PP that seems to be clicking with people. MonPoc was fun and might be popular, but not in any shops near where I am. No one locally is even talking about it, so maybe that’s just a proximity bias, but given how close to Seattle I am and the popularity of WMH in its prime around here, I’d have thought there would be some lingering love for their games. Not the case. I think there'll be a small resurgence in MonPoc once the KS sets ship out, but by that point who knows where PP might be with their other games. I think, how Mk IV seems to be launching, they don't really have a chance at popularity past small niche communities. If they were hoping to breathe new life into the game, they would have to make drastic changes, not just to the game itself but to the management handling everything, to make the game appealing to new players. Like others have said, there are SO many skirmish games nowadays, ranging from super popular to very niche; I can't imagine how hard it must be to try and cut through, not just the amount of games, but especially GW's shadow over the tabletop wargame sphere at the moment. The one leg-up WMH has over an actual new game is that it does have a recognizable name & legacy to a good amount of veteran gamers. But with how the new launch is slowly being bungled and legacy armies are being handled, I think most veterans are more likely to tell newbies to avoid the game until things turn around. Honestly, I thought those Gen-Con starter boxes would have been a great way to launch, but they were just a convention exclusive teaser? (and also $75 for 3 models...) They need something where a newcomer can just walk into a store, buy a box with X models, and start playing the game. Anything short of that, where someone has to lead them and show which models they need from a rack of boxes, is more and more barriers to entry. Desfore fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Oct 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 20:24
|
|
|
The Warcaster starter sets are $70, you get a Warcaster, a robot, a solo, and a squad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
Covermeinsunshine posted:So it looks like the Age of Cygnar has neither factions nor miniatures Lmao
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:01
|
|
|
Its amazing how bad their social media admins are. Just single line "You're wrong" posts with the tone of a shitposter.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:17
|
|
|
A thing a lot of people don't seem to realise, is that with like MOBA games, they bring out a patch every month that addresses balance issues as well as fixing bugs. This means that, the meta is constantly shifting. People say, "it's so easy to fix just stop doing X", but the constant patches and shifts in what's OP is a feature, not a bug. Constantly adjusting to the new meta is interesting. Having a dumpster tier army is kinda annoying, but when stuff randomly gets too buffed and becomes OP, having a dumpster tier army can be really exciting instead! I feel like PP kinda missed that with mk3, and tried to 'finish' balancing. It made everything feel very stale, to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:32
|
|
|
!Klams posted:A thing a lot of people don't seem to realise, is that with like MOBA games, they bring out a patch every month that addresses balance issues as well as fixing bugs. This means that, the meta is constantly shifting. People say, "it's so easy to fix just stop doing X", but the constant patches and shifts in what's OP is a feature, not a bug. Constantly adjusting to the new meta is interesting. Having a dumpster tier army is kinda annoying, but when stuff randomly gets too buffed and becomes OP, having a dumpster tier army can be really exciting instead! There’s a huge difference between balance patches in a video game, where the changes are applied instantly and seamlessly behind the scenes and apply to everyone without further effort, and balance patches in a physical game where the rules have to printed on something and read. Most games have apps with the rules; most apps are bad. Warmachine has books and cards. Warhammer doesn’t even have cards! Malifaux has a very aggressive errata/balance cycle but even there players complain it’s not enough. But there’s a real cost to changing rules in a game like this, especially because the majority of players are not enfranchised enough to be posting on forums about the game. They’re reasonably likely to miss errata cycles. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, but it’s not free. There’s friction involved. Every game has to figure out how much friction it can tolerate and whether the cost of leaving stuff broken is too high. A good and widely used app helps a lot, but there’s no panacea.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:49
|
|
|
if a game isn't deep enough to remain interesting without constant external loving around with balance, it's a bad game. if a game is deep enough to remain interesting without that (and relatively fair, perfect parity not really needed or expected) then all that stuff is doing is introducing false feedback that makes the game harder to master like it's not a feature, it's an ugly side effect of the game(s) being endless content mills so you'll keep buying minis
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:49
|
|
|
I think the SKU bloat directly ties to the update flow. Constant updates work when you're only functionally addressing five colors of MtG cards. You can have seventeen thousand Battlemechs in a game when your fundamental rules haven't changed since the 80's. But if Battletech tried to rebalance two hundred mechs quarterly, they'd end up pretty much where WmH did. E: clarity. Also: DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, but it’s not free. There’s friction involved. Every game has to figure out how much friction it can tolerate and whether the cost of leaving stuff broken is too high. A good and widely used app helps a lot, but there’s no panacea. i think there's a very specific type of player who loves keeping up with the updates, takes pride in being on top of the meta, and relishes the consistent challenge of a shifting landscape. I'm not that guy but I've met him, and he owns a lot more WMH than I do. He's being rewarded for doing his homework. It's a good feeling for a handful of people, but it's just homework for everybody else. moths fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Oct 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 21:51
|
|
|
The CID churn was definitely part of what pushed me out of the game. I felt like I had no idea what anything in the game did anymore, and that I could never catch up on it, because stuff kept changing. I just didn't have time to be constantly studying the new rules updates for every faction so that I would know what the things across the table did, which you kind of had to do because of how much WMH is/was a 'if you don't understand this model's rules, it will win the game by itself turn 2' game. I don't entirely know what the answer is, because having models that are always junk, never see play, and are traps for new players isn't good *either*, but it was really not ideal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 22:00
|
|
|
evenworse username posted:The CID churn was definitely part of what pushed me out of the game. I felt like I had no idea what anything in the game did anymore, and that I could never catch up on it, because stuff kept changing. I just didn't have time to be constantly studying the new rules updates for every faction so that I would know what the things across the table did, which you kind of had to do because of how much WMH is/was a 'if you don't understand this model's rules, it will win the game by itself turn 2' game. Very same. Sometimes I feel like I hardly ever played MK3 because of it. Skorne launched with an IOU for faction rules so I waited on them. Mercs and Minions got the CID treatment pretty early, so I was on the fence with those factions as it played out. Once Mercs got finished in CID, the Gators got a giant set of new support solos and stuff so I was waiting on them. By the time Skorne got into CID, it felt like everyone was either playing the most recently buffed faction or were just waiting for their turn in the CID spotlight. I remember hearing more than one person saying they were taking a break till their faction got the CID treatment or the entire patch cycle thing was finished. Welp... It seemed like a good idea at the start. Take care of some the more pressing issues and buff the weakest units in the factions on a regular cycle. In the end, I think it did more harm than good to the community. I don't like that my Imperial Guard army is now 5 years into its Codex, though a new one is around the corner, but the churn is definitely something to avoid.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2022 22:29
|
|
|
People were desperate for power level errata in mk2 because gaspy2 and haley2 were so far above the power curve that they were actively destructive to the competitive metagame right up until the end of the edition. But rather than use CID to curb outliers, it became… CID
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 01:04
|
|
|
Desfore posted:Honestly, I thought those Gen-Con starter boxes would have been a great way to launch, but they were just a convention exclusive teaser? (and also $75 for 3 models...) They need something where a newcomer can just walk into a store, buy a box with X models, and start playing the game. Of all the mistakes they're making with Mk 4, I think this is the one that will prove truly fatal. The messy release timing and cadence of new models and the absurdity of taking a year to have rules for all legacy models is obviously extremely bad, but I think that those combined with that are going to be what really causes them to poo poo the bed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 01:59
|
|
|
Someone examined the timeline from the new perspective that the MkIV announcement was rushed due to leaks. ...and realized that if it wasn't for the "premature" MkIV announcement, Privateer wouldn't have had anything for Gencon. What a lucky break!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 04:34
|
|
|
I will purchase the Warmachine IP at the price it is worth, 12 dollars and an energy drink.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 05:16
|
|
|
miniscule12 posted:I will purchase the Warmachine IP at the price it is worth, 12 dollars and an energy drink. Page 5 is a redbull ad
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 05:52
|
|
|
Play like you have a pair of wings?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 10:45
|
|
|
FrostyPox posted:Of all the mistakes they're making with Mk 4, I think this is the one that will prove truly fatal. The messy release timing and cadence of new models and the absurdity of taking a year to have rules for all legacy models is obviously extremely bad, but I think that those combined with that are going to be what really causes them to poo poo the bed. It feels like they see it as, you're only really playing 'properly' once you have the full army, (or, whatever they're calling them? Themes anyway) and that's how they're balancing everything, and that's what they're envisioning. Like you're not really playing until you have the, admittedly smaller now, full number of models for your theme list. And so they're thinking like, "Well ok, you're gonna get that full list eventually, because that's the base way to play, so probably you'll just wanna buy it all and once, and that solves SKU problems, ok, great this is good". But they're just totally ignoring anyone that 'fancies painting some cool looking dudes' or 'wants to mod some of that unit for a bloodbowl army' or whatever. Like there are SO many reasons people buy models other than "To have the entire army".
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 11:57
|
|
|
Part of the issue is that a lot of the competitive players were buying the entire new list after each CID. Must have been addictive for sales.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 12:16
|
|
|
GW has the same marketing focus, the difference is that GW can (mostly) bring kits to market. The limited releases are FOMO inducing for sales purposes, and their manufacturing is (mostly) in house, so they can and will (mostly) keep up. And they have popularity inertia. Maybe that’s waning a bit with the end of 9th, but throw down a new edition and new limited release kits and the nerds will all flock back. PP doesn’t have kits to bring to market, their production is all in house now, but inadequate to meet even basic demand for launch. They have zero inertia leading into their new edition and their limited release was fraught with controversy and drama, whether deservedly or not. Their one upside is not having to worry about splitting any profits off for quarterly dividends.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 12:42
|
|
|
!Klams posted:It feels like they see it as, you're only really playing 'properly' once you have the full army, (or, whatever they're calling them? Themes anyway) and that's how they're balancing everything, and that's what they're envisioning. Like you're not really playing until you have the, admittedly smaller now, full number of models for your theme list. I really don't have a lot to add to this, other than the fact that, all armies ending up with the exact same models in them will make this game really dull. One thing about being able to buy things ala cart is that armies can be customized to whatever the owner wants them to be. Not everyone wants to be competitive. Back in my 20's my friend and I would watch horror movies and play games on Friday nights. We would play Magic, and every week we pretty much built a new deck to annoy the poo poo out of the other person. If every army is the same, you can't tweak it, experiment, or simply gently caress around for the hell of it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 13:28
|
|
|
koreban posted:
Well you can't split profits if you don't have any
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 13:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:01 |
|
|
!Klams posted:It feels like they see it as, you're only really playing 'properly' once you have the full army, (or, whatever they're calling them? Themes anyway) and that's how they're balancing everything, and that's what they're envisioning. Like you're not really playing until you have the, admittedly smaller now, full number of models for your theme list. I spoke to a PP rep at GenCon and this is 100% it. To exaggerate and simplify his point slightly, the old starters were a bait and switch. "Oh, I can get into this game for $50? That's a bargain!" Then it turns out 3/4 of those models are unplayable trash and you need to spend $200 more to have a legal list at the point size everyone plays, and $500 more to have a chance at ever winning a game."
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2022 14:19
|
|
