Slumming it: Calmdown's Rezzers 2012 Diary

[Calmdown]

I look it as "You fought weaker/new players and got a high VP yield for it" =3

Don't push it

Two of the top 10 ranked players in the UK is hardly easy players, tbh.

If people would listen to me regarding tournament formats rather than sticking doggedly to VP difference as a differentiator, the "noobapult" (as mythicFOX calls it) wouldn't happen.

[rancor709]

What you should ask yourself, is if I was playing a master that was higher tier, would I have won the tournament instead of coming second?

I havent posted the final report yet, but the answer is almost certainly yes. Nicodem with bad luck could only manage a draw. Had I been playing Kirai and had a bit of bad luck, I still would have likely not lost her because she has a proper defense mechanism and the main resason I lost is that Nicodem can't take a hit.

So you can look at it as "Tier 5 managed second, that is great!" or you can look at it as "Only managed to get second thanks to master being Tier 5". I look at it the second way, personally.

And I think that last sentence is where a lot of disconnect comes from. I love nicodem favorite master to play and one I do best with personally. Doesn't mask the fact he has some flaws that keep him from being consistant. My argument is more those flaws can be mitigated however purely vaccum objective master on master all else being equal nicodem is below the power curve. Doesn't mean yiou can't win with nicode I do it a lot and have a ton of fun with him. What it means is nicodem needs a lot to go right every turn in order to pull those wins and he is very hard to get a large point differential with. Because the universal truth of nicodem is his crew is lightyears better when he can get the buffs up and he can't take a punch. So your opponent will focus on killing nicodem and playing cleanup. Again mitagable but hardly constant. The truth is once nico goes down your fundamentally at a disadvantage of greater proporton than if you kill off your opponents master. The difference is I love the challenge of playing the defensive game and keeping nicodem safe and he just works with my brain more than any other master. But doesn't change the fact nicodem in a fixed master environment is difficult to win constantly with. The "luck factor" with nicodem is high and for many competitive players that much "luck factor" will neverbe constant. Its why when badluck happens draw is a great result where a more consistant master is less affected by luck thus could still pull a win with player skill where nico will be fighting for a draw.

[Calmdown]

And I think that last sentence is where a lot of disconnect comes from. I love nicodem favorite master to play and one I do best with personally. Doesn't mask the fact he has some flaws that keep him from being consistant. My argument is more those flaws can be mitigated however purely vaccum objective master on master all else being equal nicodem is below the power curve. Doesn't mean yiou can't win with nicode I do it a lot and have a ton of fun with him. What it means is nicodem needs a lot to go right every turn in order to pull those wins and he is very hard to get a large point differential with. Because the universal truth of nicodem is his crew is lightyears better when he can get the buffs up and he can't take a punch. So your opponent will focus on killing nicodem and playing cleanup. Again mitagable but hardly constant. The truth is once nico goes down your fundamentally at a disadvantage of greater proporton than if you kill off your opponents master. The difference is I love the challenge of playing the defensive game and keeping nicodem safe and he just works with my brain more than any other master. But doesn't change the fact nicodem in a fixed master environment is difficult to win constantly with. The "luck factor" with nicodem is high and for many competitive players that much "luck factor" will neverbe constant. Its why when badluck happens draw is a great result where a more consistant master is less affected by luck thus could still pull a win with player skill where nico will be fighting for a draw.

Exactly. Some people confuse "can be made to win via skill/luck" with a master being good in actuality. And that's why they get upset when you put Nico in tier 5

[Math Mathonwy]

Answering for Kadeton here, but at best this is an indirect contradiction.

The posters pointing out the Calmdown's tiers suggest some clear power-level difference between masters, which isn't all that apparent in Malifaux, were right. That's exactly what the tiers suggest and that's exactly what doesn't come out in practical experience of many players.

The tiers suggest not only problems with particular rules or synergies, but systemic imbalance in the game. That's why I've said on the side that I see only two tiers in Malifaux - "quite balanced" and "needs some more work". Dreamer and Hamelin may need some more work and so may Molly, but it doesn't make systemic imbalance and it doesn't mean the masters can be divided into tiers clearly.

To sum up, saying Molly is weaker and needs some more work is not the same thing as saying she is systemically condemned to some lowest tier, which cannot be helped without fixing the entire game.

You have a very different idea of tiering than what is usually meant with the term. It doesn't mean that a lower tier choice always loses to a higher tier choice. It just means that, all other stuff being equal, the higher tier choice has an advantage - in other words, things won't end up with a 50-50 spread of wins over a large number of games. If the choices are on the same tier, an approximately 50-50 spread is to be expected.

If, OTOH, "all other things" are not equal, then these other things can end up making the results whatever depending on their power. Skill is most obvious, but terrain, strategy and so on can also play a big part. In a single tournament, these "other things" are never equal.

[SoulG]

What you should ask yourself, is if I was playing a master that was higher tier, would I have won the tournament instead of coming second?

I havent posted the final report yet, but the answer is almost certainly yes. Nicodem with bad luck could only manage a draw. Had I been playing Kirai and had a bit of bad luck, I still would have likely not lost her because she has a proper defense mechanism and the main resason I lost is that Nicodem can't take a hit.

So you can look at it as "Tier 5 managed second, that is great!" or you can look at it as "Only managed to get second thanks to master being Tier 5". I look at it the second way, personally.

Eh, I'm not sure that's the best question to ask. That takes into account your personal skill as a variable as well. For instance, if this were the objective measure Hamelin and Colette would near the bottom for me, because I never play them. and they have a steep learning curve.

I feel that the issue with tiers is that so much of Malifaux is (supposed to be?) contextual, causing large fluctuations in people's experiences and allowing people to have different observations. The alternative for such confusion on tiers is bias and/or maliciousness. I don't think anyone is malicious, and bias requires we accept that people on a wide scale favor masters they constantly lose with while maintaining a delusional amount of self-confidence. The other issue is that when you tier something like this you wind up with a Rank-Ordinal number system, where the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 and the difference between Tier 2 and Tier 3 are not the same thing,

So you (should) wind up with the phenomena that different faction declarations, strategies, and terrain impact the objective tiers of masters in some fashion. Masters may move up and down tiers, -and- the difference between tiers should change based on that information. The hard part is that different masters would change different amounts.

The other issue is that non-Book 2 masters change WIDELY based on what minions you take with them. McMourning with 3 Night Terrors is much better at running objectives than McMourning with anything else. You can assume "optimal list for the strategy" but then you have another variable.

[ravenborne]

What it means is nicodem needs a lot to go right every turn in order to pull those wins and he is very hard to get a large point differential with.

This I think is a critical point. Trying to get a full 8 points with him is extremely difficult in a competitive Malifaux environment.

---------- Post added at 11:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

And to state further, its part of what makes a weaker Master. My goal here by the way is not to taunt or defend any one Master, its to get people thinking about the exact qualities a Master needs to make it more competitive, and the qualities of Master's that make them a little too good. Only with that type of analysis will future changes bring the game into better tournament balance. Sorry to derail the thread...

[Calmdown]

This I think is a critical point. Trying to get a full 8 points with him is extremely difficult in a competitive Malifaux environment.

---------- Post added at 11:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

And to state further, its part of what makes a weaker Master. My goal here by the way is not to taunt or defend any one Master, its to get people thinking about the exact qualities a Master needs to make it more competitive, and the qualities of Master's that make them a little too good. Only with that type of analysis will future changes bring the game into better tournament balance. Sorry to derail the thread...

Actually, the conditions for a good master - and model - in Malifaux are pretty simple:

Maneuverability.

No matter what else your model does, if it can't maneuver effectively, it has to be very good in some other area to be viable. A model can be weak in any number of areas but if it is weak in maneuverability, it is pretty much instantly relegated to the naughty corner.

That's maybe a bit more specific than the scope of this thread, but it is pretty much the main thing that holds Rezzers (and Guild) back from being better factions.

[Fetid Strumpet]

But being purely mobile doesn't really seal the deal however. If all your crew is is mobile you run into the issue that if you have no threat the other crew will still take you apart.
It is one of the best features in the game however, I definitely agree with you there Calmdown.

[Jewomie]

But being purely mobile doesn't really seal the deal however. If all your crew is is mobile you run into the issue that if you have no threat the other crew will still take you apart.
It is one of the best features in the game however, I definitely agree with you there Calmdown.

I agree with you Strumpet. I learned this last night with my frist game using Collodi... he can haul ass across a table... but aside from that, i found him lacking. Nothing to soak up damage, nothing to *really* dish it out. Granted he's only a henchman, but Calmdown did extend the comment towards all models.

I also agree that without the modility, models need to have something going for them... and in a big way. I do feel like the guild and Resurrectionists are coming around though. Hoffman and lucius added some movement for sure, and rogue necro mcMourning, and things like the night terrors added some mobility.

[Hatchethead]

I've always contended that movement shenanigans separate the good for the bad and the great from the good. If you look at the masters widely considered to be bent, the point of contention is often (not always, but quite often) traced back to extreme maneuverability. The reverse is also true. Masters often lumped into "the bottom tier" usually suffer from limited mobility. With so many of Malifaux's strategies and schemes reliant on speed and placement, it's not a shocking revelation, really.