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Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn

 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:51 am 
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500 points pretty much bones certain factions though. space marines for instance, will not be keen on it. a better solution would be something like "every army gets X activations per 1000 points" those that havent activated when this runs out may only marshal? (or even harsher, can do diddly squat)
you'd also be able to tailor X to various factions, so eldar, who theoretically rely on out-activating the enemy more than say, IG do, will be free to do so
you could also make it a flat X activations, and let formations activate multiple times in a turn (so long as everything else has activated first) but i dont think thats a good idea...
alternately, make it so that once one side has finished activating, the other side can continue to activate as normal, but suffers a -1 for retaining. perhaps even cutting it off once they fail an activation test (but otherwise allowing infinite retains until they do)

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 5:04 am 
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Activation restrictions feel unpleasantly artificial to me, honestly.

Ending the turn if you fail an activation test after the enemy has no activations left might work...

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 6:27 am 
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How would requiring 3 500pt formations (in a 3000pt list) have a greater effect on a marine list than it would on any other given army? 1 tactical detachment with some upgrades, a reaver titan (or 2 warhounds), plus an upsized predator detachment.

In any case, 500pts was just a rough estimate. 450pt might be more convenient in the end.


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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 11:01 am 
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The thing is, the activation system has had a very strong influence on list design. Many small formations exists in lists because the lists need activations, or taking certain options would have been too restricting if they weren't provided in small cheap formations.

Of course such a ruling (I'm thinking of offering passes to the army which has the less activations left) would offset balance; actually, that's the point.

It would, as pointed, probably affect it more for lists that are themed around large chunks of points in single formations, like titan lists, that were then designed to overcome the problem. Actually, for lists like the OGBM or the AMTL, a lots of the hard work in designing them was balancing the large stuff against the activation-centric aspects of tactics in E:A. It is my belief however that a few point hike and a few formation changes would probably be sufficient to rebalance such lists.

For example, during initial development, thunderbolts and marauders were originally in a formation of 3, which were felt to be good for their points (I don't remember the price ATM), but would cause many player to forego air options because it would eat too much activations. They were therefore cut to a formation of two. They could return as a formation of three for a substantial price hike, and still be useful. If titans and other large stuff get too good, a price hike could help balance them. Perhaps warlords would need adjustments in price in the AMTL list but be more balanced as-is in marine and IG armies. Maybe a pair of Warhounds would be worth two Warhounds.

Keep in mind that with the system Ginger proposed lastly, in the example of a low activation count AMTL vs high activation marine example, some measure of balance would be provided by the fact that the one allowed to pass is the one that currently has less activations.
It means that the marine can retain a lot without losing as much activation wise, and it may also help make combined assault with commanders more attractive (although compared with the fire, then support mechanism, it would still need work). I agree this might not be sufficient to keep a Titan list balanced, specially as they were designed from the beginning to be able to overcome the activation problems, but the mechanism in itself is I think quite interesting.

Some formations that are emblematic but too much of an "activation sink" under the current system, like tank companies and large artillery formations for the IG, (but huge kitted out Warbands or bug swarms could go there too) would probably be more workable and easier to balance. If they need to cost a bit more than they do ATM, quite often after having received some point decrease over the year to help make them more attractive despite the activation sink they were, so be it.

Formations of super heavies (SHT, engines of Vaul) would also be more attractive, compared to the strong incentive to take single units at the moment.

The importance of the activation count makes pricing strongly non-linear; this directly imply a very hard work to balance individual units that fall outside of the 250-350 points bracket to make them interesting against those; it also makes whole lists hard to balance and severely restrain the possibilities of army building as you have to keep that number very clearly in your mind if you want a competitive list, some might say first and foremost. Actually, most advices and debates in all the "list building advice needed" threads on this very forum revolve around the activation count. It might be inspiring for list designers to be able to make cumbersome large formations armies that can actually work with the rules, and widen the scope and variety of the themes available.


Now, I understand that the prospect of having a good look in many lists that are more or less stable under the current system to rebalance some of their bits might be daunting (this is, I think, the real core of the debate), but :

1) I actually think the current lists could possibly work much better as they are than one might think. The meta game would certainly change, and players would probably modify their army, but the balance would not need that much adjustments I think, in most lists anyway.

2) E:A is about 8 years old now; we have to accept that with that experience, some flaw of the system are showing, and should possibly be addressed. Kind of a new development cycle.

I actually think a set of optional rules to be playtested (by those who want to, obviously) with the lists as they are could be a very nice thing to make.
That would make a sort of an E:A 1.5. Some other good candidates for a possible revision would be the Aircraft rules (some of us have strong feeling about flak rushes and AA fortress building with planes), and some rationalising of the unit/weapons special rules, to get some of the most interesting/most useful ones out of the lists and into the rulebook.

Developing it as a set of optional rules/rewrites would allow tournaments and such to proceed as they want, list development to continue as normal (with possible development forks or notes if different pricing/formation size depending on the set of rule are really needed).

Of course some other, minor items could be considered as well, like for example the commander ability possibly not being as worthy as it should; but for relatively minor issues like this one, I think the current development process can handle them if needed, albeit probably in a slower fashion - but conservativeness is to be expected from people who try to achieve balance in a scene with many tournaments.

The status of the FAQs, army books, etc, are already pointing to it; ideally we would need a new rulebook, with consolidated FAQs and erratas at least. If we were to do it (I know, I'm getting into wishful thinking territory), even in a numeric LRB form, it would be the right time for some part of the rules to be overhauled if needed.


Does anyone think such a set of optional experimental rules, as a "1.5" package in development, would be an interesting idea ?


Last edited by Athmospheric on Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:36 am 
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IMO going down this route would be a disaster for EA. At the moment I don't think actual numbers of players is actually decreasing but about constant however the number of people willing to be involved in list+rules development has drastically reduced - in large part due to the inability of the community to deliver finished lists in a timely fashion. If this small pool of people still involved is further split by people playing different rules then I cna't see how any list development would be possible.

In regard to the mechanics of doing 1.5 I think you are glossing over the difficulties of such a process as IMO all units would need repricing as a result

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:47 am 
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At the moment I don't think actual numbers of players is actually decreasing

From my personal experience I'd say that I reckon the numbers of Epic players in the world are actually slowly going up, even as participation in online list development has declined.

I really don't see a need for any great modifications to the core rules system that will split the Epic online community further than it already has (NetEA / EUK / FRERC).

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:30 am 
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Well I think the community is more split by the scores of lists, than it would be by a centralised, and relatively concise experimental rule set.
We're speaking about a single mechanisms at the moment (the "activation pass") and I suggested a look into the air rules as a second point.

I certainly don't want to get more involved in lists. In hindsight it feels quite pointless; you spend lots of time arguing, trying to make stuff that work, then you blink, and suddenly there are 3 different lists looking back at you. I am aware of the vast quantity of work list requires to have proper balance, and that's one of the reason why I can't fathom why the "community" feel the need for 4 different lists for each marine chapter in the first place.

I would argue that the current process and stance about development and support (ie game support = MOAR lists !) is creating both more confusion for new players and more "splits in the community" than any experimental rule-set could ever dream of creating.

Specially if it doesn't even care about lists balance at first.


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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:04 pm 
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I am only suggesting that we change a few stuff and see how it plays with current list. It is quite possible that the same army will be competitive with both the stable "tournament" rule set and the experimental one, but that you could design competitive and balanced army for both rule set with the same list.

Than again, since I think Simulated Knave (it was you, wasn't it ?) got me thinking about the way the marine lists is priced, indeed pricing the infantry with the assumption that it will get air delivered rather than charging that on the TH, I have come to the opinion that the design stance on lists in E:A is flawed. It is not the subject here however (but I can explain why I think so in another thread if you'd like to hear about that).

The point is, so much revolve around army lists as a focus (as THE focus one might say), and there are so many lists around in half finished state -quite often competing against each others- that the argument going "but if we do that the community will never be able to finish what it started" is moot. Lists published at game release time 6 years (or is it 7 years ?) ago are still evolving - and I think it's a good thing- we really shouldn't let that detract us from doing other thing for the game.

Now, if you had arguments going "Activations are really fine, and here's why this or that change would actually not make better rules or add anything significant", THAT would relevant to the discussion.
But as it is, many people have made points about some flaws the system has in its current state* and some possible ways to fix it or make it better, and I think what this thread needs now is to settle on an experimental rules that volunteer may decide to playtest or not, or discussion about the pertinence of a limited rule overhaul, but please not based on the status of army lists. Army lists development is the quagmire that is making the game less and less accessible, and the community so split. Most of the rules committees work and what split them is really mostly which lists are official or not anyway, and not about the rules. The rules are not what split the Epic community, online or not, English-speaking, or not.

A quick survey of the stuff most often house-ruled by people and for what reason might be nice, on the other hand. As I already said, I think the air-rules are a likely candidate.


* which, again, is not a harsh critic. It is on the contrary remarkable that we found so few problems in the rule set in 8 years that couldn't be solved by a FAQ entry.


edited for spelling


Last edited by Athmospheric on Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:17 pm 
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I would argue that the current process and stance about development and support (ie game support = MOAR lists !)

As far as I'm concerned the best way to support the community is through the production of more Supplements.
The armies book qualifies as a Supplement, but also so does Epic:Raiders, Epic:Siege, and my own in-progress Epic:TitansVSGargantsMegaRumble (Name subject to change).

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:35 pm 
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I would agree, at least in that the supplement produced in paper so far are probably the best things that happened to epic since the making of E:A. Yes, you can take that as a direct compliment and expression of gratitude, Ben :)

I'll also admit that the equation formulation is a bit crude :); I think it still convey my general feeling about this adequately.

My issue is that even supplements tend to focus on lists, at least for a large part of the community work involved. And lists are designed for tournament.

I'd rather have the supplements and their nice story developing in interesting scenarios, narrative campaigns, maybe experimental/fun list (which have the very great merit of taking much less time to playtest and might still be fun to play), a nice hobby section with ideas on how to make a themed army with an existing list, etc...

As I told you, I have ideas and quite some work done for such a supplement myself (this is the first public announcement about it, tho).

Note that I'm not saying that there are only lists in supplement or that they don't already contain much more than that !
I'm saying that lists are the bit that involve the most work of the community : it is much harder to be 10 at writing a story or drawing an illustration than arguing about a weapon stats, admittedly. So I don't think that the "community", which is made of people with free will, should be treated as a resource that will be found lacking to "support" the game if some of its member decide to argue in a few threads they're interested in about a set of optional rule changes - even if it comes at the cost of having less participation in a debate over the inclusion of an obscure Land raider pattern in a chapter specific list.

Well, I will try to start a thread about list design and the way much of the (active & on-line) community work currently revolve around the lists as if it was the only way to add to the game.


Last edited by Athmospheric on Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:36 pm 
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Variant lists are cool, in that they aren't needed but can give lots of flavor and variety, and shouldn't be that hard to balance. Compare writing variant lists like Krieg or Cadians vs making the Nids playable.

What I think Epic needs is the army book this year, and next year an army book containing Nids and Squats. Add a website to point newbies too and Epic is in good shape.


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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:38 pm 
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Let's face it : variant lists are cool because anyone can make his own and have it listed in a document available to the whole community.


Last edited by Athmospheric on Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:42 pm 
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Compare writing variant lists like Krieg or Cadians vs making the Nids playable.

A dedicated champion could give you a fully balanced Nid list in six months.

We don't really have one, though.

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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:48 pm 
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Evil and Chaos wrote:
Quote:
Compare writing variant lists like Krieg or Cadians vs making the Nids playable.

A dedicated champion could give you a fully balanced Nid list in six months.

We don't really have one, though.


So the list is back on ice again? To me it seemed like Jaldon ran his head into the Spawning wall, but I don't know if that's why he disappeared. Will the ERC name another champion or will we wait until he shows up again?


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 Post subject: Re: Rule variation - setting a limit on activations per turn
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:50 pm 
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I've asked a question about what's going on with the Tyranids in the Army Champions' private discussion area.

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