Have points costs for ships.

[sidewinder]

I'm starting to think the only way this game is ever really going to be balanced is to make it point based. Mongoose had a nice idea with the PL system but it just doesnt work. Its quick and simple but look at how many people complain about ship balance issues or the, why would I take one ship over another, argument. And you'll never get away from that because your trying to cram a bunch of stuff into the same 6 levels of points essentialy.

 

[Ripple]

Yup

Ripple

 

[Silvereye]

But if your Maximus costs 12 points apeice, and your Kutai costs 10 points apeice; you will still likely take 2 Maximus over 2 Kutais and "something else for 4 points".

I like the PL system, as it just as easy to build a fleet for a 6 point War game as it is for a 3 point Skirmish. Points means you will likely use less models, as you will have "the 200 point fleet of doom (TM)", which is actually 193 points, and you will prefer to play at that level rather then fiddle about for 35 minutes while you try and balance it to 400 points.

Baing able to put a fleet together, for any PL, in less than 5 minutes is great.

 

[Target]

I'd say the Kutai wouldn't be worth the 10pts if a Maximus is 12pts. We could have the same problems if we don't get the points right but far easier adjust the points instead of the ship. Priority lvls just ain't working for the amount of ships we have.

 

[LaranosTZ]

Ahhh yes, the bi-monthly debate over priority vs points.

Yes Points are more accurate,

Yes Priorty is easier.

If you could come up with an actually reasonable way of assigning points that won't cause a massive months long debate, I'd love to see it.

Priority has much fewer problems in that regard, with maybe the exception of Armaggeddon priority.

 

[emperorpenguin]

Baing able to put a fleet together, for any PL, in less than 5 minutes is great.

Completely agree


Why do so many people think points are the answer!? :shock: :roll:

GW gets constant stick (rightly or wrongly) about points values not being right. If ACTA was points based we'd simply see bitching about which ships aren't pointed correctly and arguments as to whether or not shaving 5 pts off a ship's value actually makes any difference

As Matt said before look at BFG and see how many cruisers in that game are within the 190-210 point envelope, do those few points of variation really make that big a deal? :?:

 

[Sulfurdown]

Both systems have the same basic flaw. In this case there is no baseline to work on ships. There is no source to define a value for a 6AD, Beam, Double Damage, Super AP or a 12AD, Twin-Linked or Interceptor 3 or Advanced Jump Point or Crew 12/3. The ships are jimmied into whatever fits the level without a ground up formula to define what the end result is.

The difference between building a house from the blueprint versus building a house from a picture. Mongoose is at a disadvantage from the beginning because they are selling to a fan base that expects certain things and are working from a few pieces of the jig saw puzzle and are trying to build a world that fits it for us.

My two cents - there needs to be a formula built to define ships. Something independant of the current ships just to define the impact of characteristics and traits. Use it as a baseline and set certain ranges to be acceptable to a priority level (yes this invites point basis). Anything that falls *glaringly* outside of a priority level range would need adjustment.

 

[CodeofArms]

I don't really understand the obsession with points; I hate having to wade through source after source to find the best point build - its not fun at all its just boring. Its what stopped me ever getting into B5 Wars. I won't of course reject to such a change; Its in the rights of Mongoose to do so, I just don't see points as the way forward.

The game, to me at least, looses its appeal with a points system. What intoxicated me and my gaming hall the most about Acta is that rather than having one long winded game with a wind up time of number crunching (Ala B5 Wars or "GW" franchise ) we can quickly forge any type of game from small skirmishes to super-scale mega campaigns in a fraction of the time simply by the quick refrence of priority levels.

On top of that the game just looses its flavour and feel in the inevitable change of language; e.g. "Oh its Skirmish level ship." sets the scene alot better than "Its a 21 point ship"

As for the PL system i'd never come across it before I played ACTA and certainly prefer it to. Its not without its own problems, but to scrap it because "people complain" seems counter productive. I'm complainning about the points system right now but it doesn't validate a change to points based games. I for one can certainly cope with a few tweaks here and there; but in my opinion the PL system is, in an oxymoron; faulty but not flawed. I'd say that if people complain so much that a ship is too powerful or weak for its level (I've had my fair share) just bump up the number of priority levels to accomodate these types of vessles. For example;

Auxillary Craft, Patrol, Skirmish, Raid, Battle, Conflict, War, Armageddon.

I mean using a D8 or 2d6 cant be that hard to determine the level. I know that the points system can do just the same (which is the counter argument) but i just feel that its unfair to seemingly thrash this system into one camp or the other.

Gah now i'm ranting so; does any one have any suggestions to a compromise on the Points vs Priority topic?

 

[sidewinder]

Dont you realize that adding levels is essentially the same as using points. If you add levels untill every ship ( or 2) fits into its own level you might as well just assign points, theres no difference. And a simplified version of B5 Wars probably would have worked better then starting from scratch with Acta.
And why does everyone use GW products as an argument? I have friends that play warmachine and I have yet to hear them complain once, and it uses points. Not every points based game is bad, just the company that makes it.

 

[Ripple]

A lot of the arguements that folks have against points can be summed up quickly enough...

a- priority is quick - I personally do not agree that it is any quicker than any points system I am familiar with, a system where I do not know the points, sure. And having just had my fifteenth rendition of this is how you split points in Armeggedon, I do not feel that folks unfamilar with the system can do this quicker than a point based system.

b- not as fiddly - Again here I disagree with the basic idea that points will be less fiddly. If you allow lots of 'options' that cost just a point or two and each ship can be customized then I agree, but a basic point value per ship does not cause undue fiddliness.

c - a point system will cause arguements - Here I just have to laugh as we have these now anyway. What is the Prefect worth, how about the Warlock? The difference a point system makes is we are saying something needs a bump, in the priority system we are argueing a complete redesign. A fleet adjustment could easily be printed cheap with just a point cost list under a points system, under priority we are having to wait for a new book so we can see the whole stat blocks.

The evocativeness of calling a ship a 'Warship' rather than a 400 point ship is a newer angle but if we just named our point bands I would not expect that to change too much. I am also surprised that folks think using the priority system reduces the number of ships folks use. I find that it increases the number of ships, especially under Arm.

Ripple

 

[TenaciousB]

The problem with the priority system is that there are ships that hit towards the top of their level, but they are also grouped with ships that hit at the very bottom of that level.

A ship that is deemed too big a hitter at Skirmish level may end up at the bottom of the Raid ladder, but other raid level ships that are more powerful at that level will monkey it everytime. This isn't balance.

Its a question of the boundaries of the priority levels - each level has to stop somewhere, and unfortunately, because of the nature of the groupings, some ships lose out.

A points system may make fleet selection longer, but it would certainly help towards balancing, as long as it was done right.

The problem then is working out the points system :lol:

 

[Locutus9956]

It may look small on the surface but the difference in points DOES make a bigger difference than you might think.

Taking BFG as an example again say you have 400 pts to play with, now you COULD take 2 200 pt cruisers, or you could instead take 2 190pt cruisers and a 20pt torpedo boat, or 2 180pt cruisers and 2 of those torpedo boats.

Now for that little point difference and effectiveness of ship I can guarentee that within ACTAs PL system all three types of cruisers would probably fall into the 'raid' PL and the esocrts in the patrol PL. (though it should be noted, BFG escorts punch more like ACTA skirmish ships...).

The point is those tiny little point differences may not LOOK like much on the surface and indeed when your talking individual ships it doesnt generally make a big difference but over a fleet it can make a much bigger difference.

Don't get me wrong, I personally LIKE the PL system but I have to reluctantly agree that ACTA has reached the point that there are now so MANY ships and varients that just dont really sit right within the PLs that could so easily be balanced by assigning them a relative points value:

For example: The Tertius is clearly superior to most Battle level ships but it will still get its ass handed to it by nearly all War level ships.

On the other hand the Command Omega is clearly better than a battle level ship but it comes off very badly indeed when compared to other War level choices. Now if you made the Command Omega and the Tertius both cost about 1.5 Battle and 1.3 Battle respectively on the other hand.....

 

[tneva82]

GW gets constant stick (rightly or wrongly) about points values not being right. If ACTA was points based we'd simply see bitching about which ships aren't pointed correctly and arguments as to whether or not shaving 5 pts off a ship's value actually makes any difference

Precisely. Priority also accomplish something that point systems cannot archieve...Ie make big ships more viable the bigger priority level it is(ie war level ship is more viable in war level game than in raid. In raid you need 4 raid FAP's to buy one, in war you get 3 raids...).

 

[tneva82]

There is no source to define a value for a 6AD, Beam, Double Damage, Super AP or a 12AD, Twin-Linked or Interceptor 3 or Advanced Jump Point or Crew 12/3. The ships are jimmied into whatever fits the level without a ground up formula to define what the end result is.

Problem with point cost systems is of course value of those changes when you concider rest of ships stats, scenario, terrain, other ships...

There is no point cost formula that COULD even work and give accurate point values...

 

[Alexb83]

Points systems can be nightmarish.

I play a Kra'Vak fleet in full thrust, and never has a fleet been more completely boned by a supposedly fair and rational points costing system.

To get a frigate, you pay what humans would pay for a destroyer, because Kra'Vak engines cost 1.5 times as much as humans, as do their weapons.

On paper the points system looks rational, since Kra'vak engines are really good, and their weapons potentially do more damage per hit.

But when you're faced with a 2:1 no.s disadvantage, weaker ships, fewer weapons per ship in the first instance, shorter range and so on... it simply doesn't balance.

Mongoose seem to have trouble balancing the give/take on hull variants at equal PLs (see my discussion on Neshetan vs. Sharlin, or Shantavi vs. Tinashi)... please don't ask them to try and assign values to every AD worth of the umpteed different weapon systems in ACTA (There are so many!). Full thrust can't even do it when there are only 3 basic weapons and 2 basic drive types.

 

[tneva82]

Dont you realize that adding levels is essentially the same as using points.

No it isn't. Priority level has it's own advantage to point level system that points cannot unless you want to give own point value for each priority level(ie ship A has point cost of X/Y/Z/T/G/H...). Want to go that way? Each ship having 6 point values depending on level of battle you want to play...

 

[TenaciousB]

So, basically option 1 is that we leave the game as it is, and throw all concept of balance out the window.

Or, get Mongoose to bring in a points system, which will make the PL fanbois angry.

There are good arguments on both sides to go either way, and just because GW did it that way and failed miserably, isn't really a good reason not to go to a points system.

 

[Locutus9956]

yep you cant really say 'points dont work cos GW are idiots'

Look at Full thrust for example, or B5Wars, (or BFG still, frankly I never found any problems with the pointing in that game).

Sure they werent perfect, but they were alot more finely balanced than ACTA!

 

[DrSeltsam]

I do not understand why people take a system ( for example 40k or WFB ) that is known for it's inbalance to explain that a point system is not working ... i can not remember any system that GW has produced that was balanced at all. And i will not mentioned their campaign systems at all ... arrgh.

Take a look at a system were the point system is working very good - Classic Battletech and its combat value system. Even in really big battles the system works and guarantees a fair match.

Only my 2cents ...

Regards
DrSeltsam

 

[Burger]

The problem with points, is that a ship's value is subjective. Just look at the Minbari variants thread... I prefer Shantavi but Alexb prefers Tinashi. So which should be worth more points? It's down to personal preference. Whose preference should be used to decide the final points value?