Seriously stupid question... but I need to ask...
- Thread starter Abraxas
- Start date
Geekybiker
Mongoose
The biggest advantage of points is that you dont have to change ship stats when you need to rebalance something, either in playtesting or later on.
Stat changes require extensive testing to verify balance while a small point change is much easier to ballpark ('cause you arent changing how the ship works, just what it costs.)
I really think the game would be better with a points system.
Stat changes require extensive testing to verify balance while a small point change is much easier to ballpark ('cause you arent changing how the ship works, just what it costs.)
I really think the game would be better with a points system.
Del Putani
Mongoose
Just make some ships uncommon and some rare......there ya go, presto
Del
Del
Mr. Neutron
Mongoose
My thought was to combine the Points and Priority systems.
Each ship has both a point cost and a PL. Once the PL of the battle has been determined, then the cost for ships that are of Lower PL would be reduced by some # for each level, and ships of a higher PL would have their points cost increased. This is very similer to what is happening now, but you could then set differences between the ships of the same PL that are very obviously not equal.
Each ship has both a point cost and a PL. Once the PL of the battle has been determined, then the cost for ships that are of Lower PL would be reduced by some # for each level, and ships of a higher PL would have their points cost increased. This is very similer to what is happening now, but you could then set differences between the ships of the same PL that are very obviously not equal.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
As Voronesh said, the PL system is a points system
And remember no one system will keep everyone happy all the time.
LBH
And remember no one system will keep everyone happy all the time.
LBH
lastbesthope said:
I don't see any reason why a priority level system is better than a points system. I really see no advantage. It really isn't even all that much faster, as I said in an earlier post because you have to discern which ship in which category you want... then you make sure your PL isn't too high...
Plus, a priority level "restricts" in a way what ships you can take. For each raid point I only get 2 skirmish. Well, I wanted 3 skirmish... so that means I need to break another point up... which means I have 4 skirmish points but I only wanted 3 ships... so now I effectively waste a skirmish point on a ship that may not have any tactical bearing on my strategy.
I just don't see the point.
I really think MP was afraid of looking like BFG and B5W... but they should have stuck with convention on this one. They could have changed the points, maybe by a degree of 10... but then it would look like BFG. They saw no way of doing a points system without looking like another existing game.
I just wish they had used a points system from the beginning.
Also, those that think making some ships rare and some uncommon aren't considering what happens as your fleets get bigger. Can I still only have 1 or 2 ships at 10 war points? Games get big and you need to ask yourself if the limited availiabilty would actually solve the problem without creating a new one.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
3rd Mate (Abraxas) said:
I refer you to my first point in my above post :lol:
LBH
this all said, the priority level was one of two things that brought me into the game. the otehr being the universe
I didn't have to worry about upgrades and tweaking every last point to make the list as "effective" as possible. I am utterly SICK of power gamers minmaxing points to squeak out a force. Hence a reason I no longer play many EE games.
I chose this game for a streamlined way to pick a fleet (NO upgrades, etc) and the ability to recreate stuff from the shows/movies. forget about balance, I'm in it for the story...
All I see from this thread is yet another group concerned about nothing but winning. I play the game to have a good time and see what you can do given the scenario/fleet. No matter the odds, theres always a tactic, manuver, combo that will win any game. Trying to do that with B5 ships that everyone thinks are ass is a great time for me. What happened to just having fun?
Now I dont want any arguements or people getting defensive and turning this into some rant. This is just my point of view.
Oh and I do see the flaws of the priority system, I am all for some basic restrictions like 0-2 or 0-4 etc
FYI - I love this site!
I didn't have to worry about upgrades and tweaking every last point to make the list as "effective" as possible. I am utterly SICK of power gamers minmaxing points to squeak out a force. Hence a reason I no longer play many EE games.
I chose this game for a streamlined way to pick a fleet (NO upgrades, etc) and the ability to recreate stuff from the shows/movies. forget about balance, I'm in it for the story...
All I see from this thread is yet another group concerned about nothing but winning. I play the game to have a good time and see what you can do given the scenario/fleet. No matter the odds, theres always a tactic, manuver, combo that will win any game. Trying to do that with B5 ships that everyone thinks are ass is a great time for me. What happened to just having fun?
Now I dont want any arguements or people getting defensive and turning this into some rant. This is just my point of view.
Oh and I do see the flaws of the priority system, I am all for some basic restrictions like 0-2 or 0-4 etc
FYI - I love this site!
prelude_to_war
Mongoose
I totally agree with that statement - one of the reasons I don't miss Warhammer too much. OTOH Armageddon's new Fleet Allocation can be potentially ludicrous.Farseer said:
I have to dispute the claim that Farseer makes about people just concerned about winning. I mean you accuse us of that reasoning and then yourself comment that some change might be a good idea.
For me, I don't care if I win or loose - and I probably loose more than I win.
My issue is mainly about utility. When I take my Narn fleet against Centauri for example, will I ever face a Kutai? Not yet I haven't. The most common reason for this I would guess is that the Kutai offers nothing that something else can't do better. Same can be said for a number of other ships.
What I wish is that there was a reason to use every ship. Whether that's because of a rarity scale, a point based system, or something unique that ship brings to the fleet that is an asset in the battle at hand.
For me, I don't care if I win or loose - and I probably loose more than I win.
My issue is mainly about utility. When I take my Narn fleet against Centauri for example, will I ever face a Kutai? Not yet I haven't. The most common reason for this I would guess is that the Kutai offers nothing that something else can't do better. Same can be said for a number of other ships.
What I wish is that there was a reason to use every ship. Whether that's because of a rarity scale, a point based system, or something unique that ship brings to the fleet that is an asset in the battle at hand.
I think most people play to win hence playin, doesn't worry me if i don't much but the priority system is unbalanced. I would love to use different ships but just watching them die horribly without any chance to win is rubbish. I love this game but not giving you a reason to use the ship annoys me greatly.
Why does maximising your force annoy some people? Ok taking 10 Sags is kinda bit much but taking Centauri beam team instead of Vorchans is Powergaming.
If you have 2000 pts to spend why not spend them to make your force effective as possible. If you can't be bothered making it up to 2000 pts don't, a few points doesn't make i lot of difference. My High Elves regulary went into battle shy a few points, losing wasn't that i didn't spend all my points, it was my Tactics and shoddy rolling, Damn Dragon Princes never charge when they could win the game, Leadership 10 rubbish elves always run i tell you.
If the points are balanced then it comes down to Tactics and Dice.
As someone pointed out earlier priority system is a points system just a very simple one, which causes problems because all the ships aren't equal but have the same point value.
Why does maximising your force annoy some people? Ok taking 10 Sags is kinda bit much but taking Centauri beam team instead of Vorchans is Powergaming.
If you have 2000 pts to spend why not spend them to make your force effective as possible. If you can't be bothered making it up to 2000 pts don't, a few points doesn't make i lot of difference. My High Elves regulary went into battle shy a few points, losing wasn't that i didn't spend all my points, it was my Tactics and shoddy rolling, Damn Dragon Princes never charge when they could win the game, Leadership 10 rubbish elves always run i tell you.
If the points are balanced then it comes down to Tactics and Dice.
As someone pointed out earlier priority system is a points system just a very simple one, which causes problems because all the ships aren't equal but have the same point value.
Ok, please remeber, a points system doesnt mean that there are actually upgrades of any kind.
Warmachine is a prime example, you only get to increase squad size a bit, thats it.
The real advantage of a true points system is that you can design a ship any way you want, as befitting to mission, background fluff, whatever. And then simply assign a fitting points cost to it. Tadaa balanced in theory, but that is what playtesting and a loving gaming community is for, just like the WS change.
If you want to balance in the current priority system, you have to balance up weapons vs speed vs armor vs mission vs background fluff. In the end we have some ships that are a tad too strong, and a slew of underused ships that dont see the table. Oh yes i used a Demos once, because it was a free upgrade on a Vorchan (Point split from battle lvl), and i didnt want another Sullust......(Those i played so bad they went pop second turn).
Also a priority system is a points system, only you have a set number of points that a ship has to fit in. Like a battle lvl ship is always 100 point spot on (Fraggin theory, some are worth alot more, others would barely make 90). Anyone who says different is deceiving himself. And Yes then you get that funny cost increase of ships, when you buy small stuff.
Patrol lvl ship at skirmish 1 point. At Raid 1.33 points.......
Warmachine is a prime example, you only get to increase squad size a bit, thats it.
The real advantage of a true points system is that you can design a ship any way you want, as befitting to mission, background fluff, whatever. And then simply assign a fitting points cost to it. Tadaa balanced in theory, but that is what playtesting and a loving gaming community is for, just like the WS change.
If you want to balance in the current priority system, you have to balance up weapons vs speed vs armor vs mission vs background fluff. In the end we have some ships that are a tad too strong, and a slew of underused ships that dont see the table. Oh yes i used a Demos once, because it was a free upgrade on a Vorchan (Point split from battle lvl), and i didnt want another Sullust......(Those i played so bad they went pop second turn).
Also a priority system is a points system, only you have a set number of points that a ship has to fit in. Like a battle lvl ship is always 100 point spot on (Fraggin theory, some are worth alot more, others would barely make 90). Anyone who says different is deceiving himself. And Yes then you get that funny cost increase of ships, when you buy small stuff.
Patrol lvl ship at skirmish 1 point. At Raid 1.33 points.......
While the priority system works well for friendly or narrative games, that's because it functions as a 'loose' point system at the level you'd use for such games anyways - IE, 'bring something like 2000 points of fun, fluffy ships/troops/whatever' without worrying too much about exact point costs or min/maxing. If you're just playing a random game for fun, and using even 'underpowered' ships, then all you need is a basic guideline as to how powerful a ship is. It really does break down in a competitive selection setting though, and makes it much harder to 'fine tune' balance, not to mention restricting ship diversity by forcing them to either conform to one of a few specific power levels or be unbalanced one way or another. The command variants, for instance, are just unavoidably unworkable with the current PL system. They aren't going to be worth 2 of their unmodified brethren, nor can they be the same level or there would be no point in taking the regular type.
Someone (I think it was chern) mentioned the idea of ships having a "PL +" or "PL -", which is a reasonble half way option. Before I stopped doing anything game related for months, I was working on a sort of unofficial supplement with a bunch of hypothetical or Crusade-era ships (once I see Armageddon & get back into the game I might finish it, especially as all the ships there sound like they're huge, terrifying monsters, while my supplement was more based around new generations of smaller ships or just fresh designs. But I digress.) Since I was both unsure of my ability to balance things perfectly and I thought it gave more flexibility in designing, I was qualifying PLs with a "+", "++", "-" or "--" to give an impression of how powerful a ship was in comparison to others of that PL. I never came up with specific rules for limiting selection based on that, but it doesn't seem like it would be too hard for Mongoose to publish such rules and just slap on +s or -s to new ships or old ones via a download.
I'd as soon just see a points system, but that would be such a giant overhaul that it would be tough to just do via an online addendum. A + and - system seems workable without a whole new rulebook.
Someone (I think it was chern) mentioned the idea of ships having a "PL +" or "PL -", which is a reasonble half way option. Before I stopped doing anything game related for months, I was working on a sort of unofficial supplement with a bunch of hypothetical or Crusade-era ships (once I see Armageddon & get back into the game I might finish it, especially as all the ships there sound like they're huge, terrifying monsters, while my supplement was more based around new generations of smaller ships or just fresh designs. But I digress.) Since I was both unsure of my ability to balance things perfectly and I thought it gave more flexibility in designing, I was qualifying PLs with a "+", "++", "-" or "--" to give an impression of how powerful a ship was in comparison to others of that PL. I never came up with specific rules for limiting selection based on that, but it doesn't seem like it would be too hard for Mongoose to publish such rules and just slap on +s or -s to new ships or old ones via a download.
I'd as soon just see a points system, but that would be such a giant overhaul that it would be tough to just do via an online addendum. A + and - system seems workable without a whole new rulebook.
angelus2000
Mongoose
Actually with the new armageddon level, I think MP is recoginizing the fact there needs to be more PL levels. But in my opinion I'm also inclined to the + or - deal
Command ships are a perfect example War level command omega currently is worth 2 normal omegas? If a ship with has a PL+, then lose one choice in the correspondingly lower PL.
say you have 3 war points. 1 point on an omega(PL standard), and 1 point on the command omega( PL +). Normally, the 3rd war point would translate down to 2 raids. However since a PL + was taken, that one war point would only be counted as 1 war point. The remainder was eaten up by the command omega
Thats how it would work going down in PL. Now lets go up
If its a 5 point raid game, 2 points could be spent on a G'uan. Now in order to ge a G'Tal, the last 3 raid points could be spent on one.
The whole point to this is essentially creating new PL levels Frankly, given the wide variety of ships, like around 10 are actually needed, just give an accurate sort of balance to the deals.
Many ships would get a bump up to the new PL(tertius, sag, command variants, corvans) basically anythign considered overpowered within its PL. Demos would fall into the lower tier of the new PL Raids, vorchans would fall into the new PL. etc.
The main point i see to all of these arguments abotu PL's is not that they exist, but there are too few to accurately rate a ship
Command ships are a perfect example War level command omega currently is worth 2 normal omegas? If a ship with has a PL+, then lose one choice in the correspondingly lower PL.
say you have 3 war points. 1 point on an omega(PL standard), and 1 point on the command omega( PL +). Normally, the 3rd war point would translate down to 2 raids. However since a PL + was taken, that one war point would only be counted as 1 war point. The remainder was eaten up by the command omega
Thats how it would work going down in PL. Now lets go up
If its a 5 point raid game, 2 points could be spent on a G'uan. Now in order to ge a G'Tal, the last 3 raid points could be spent on one.
The whole point to this is essentially creating new PL levels Frankly, given the wide variety of ships, like around 10 are actually needed, just give an accurate sort of balance to the deals.
Many ships would get a bump up to the new PL(tertius, sag, command variants, corvans) basically anythign considered overpowered within its PL. Demos would fall into the lower tier of the new PL Raids, vorchans would fall into the new PL. etc.
The main point i see to all of these arguments abotu PL's is not that they exist, but there are too few to accurately rate a ship
angelus2000 said:
I think as long as you don't have a granular system you're going to have to either artificially balance and tweak ship stats (ick) or live with people complaining that ship X is a little better than ship Y. You'd still need a lot of PLs just to fit in the occasional ship that's otherwise "a little better" than everything else in the same PL.
I think the PL system is great for those players that want a fun game, but for those looking for a B5 space battle simulation it just doesn't work.
Furious Jedi
Mongoose
Farseer
"I didn't have to worry about upgrades and tweaking every last point to make the list as "effective" as possible. I am utterly SICK of power gamers minmaxing points to squeak out a force. Hence a reason I no longer play many EE games."
Farseer, this may come as a shock to you, but this game is actually a powergamers dream come true. Name a game where I have absolutly no restrictions on the units I take other than the size of the game ( some senarios not with standing ) that my opponent and I agree upon. In this game I can take the best, most powerfull units from all catagories and field them as long as I stay within the game size limit (In an EE game sure wish I could bring nothing but 1850 points of Terminators and every Termy had an assualt cannon). I will never have to field a Vorchan (because it sucks ). It doesn't matter that it is the most common ship in the Centari fleet, my opponents will never face one.
Farseer
"I chose this game for a streamlined way to pick a fleet (NO upgrades, etc) and the ability to recreate stuff from the shows/movies. forget about balance, I'm in it for the story.."
Forget about balance?! A game that is not balanced is not fun, and there really is no point in even playing a game that is severly unbalanced. I don't want to reinvent someones game in order to make it playable.
Farseer
"All I see from this thread is yet another group concerned about nothing but winning. I play the game to have a good time and see what you can do given the scenario/fleet. No matter the odds, theres always a tactic, manuver, combo that will win any game. Trying to do that with B5 ships that everyone thinks are ass is a great time for me. What happened to just having fun?"
I don't see that at all. I see a group that would like to have a reason to bring a Vorchan, but also ( because we are all tring to have fun ) would like to have a reasonable chance of winning. Losing all the time isn't fun either. Accusing everyone of being only concerned with winning and the implication that we are powergamers is unfair and unnessecary.
I personally do not have a problem with powergaming. I think there is a time and place for everything. A good gamer knows when and where.
"I didn't have to worry about upgrades and tweaking every last point to make the list as "effective" as possible. I am utterly SICK of power gamers minmaxing points to squeak out a force. Hence a reason I no longer play many EE games."
Farseer, this may come as a shock to you, but this game is actually a powergamers dream come true. Name a game where I have absolutly no restrictions on the units I take other than the size of the game ( some senarios not with standing ) that my opponent and I agree upon. In this game I can take the best, most powerfull units from all catagories and field them as long as I stay within the game size limit (In an EE game sure wish I could bring nothing but 1850 points of Terminators and every Termy had an assualt cannon). I will never have to field a Vorchan (because it sucks ). It doesn't matter that it is the most common ship in the Centari fleet, my opponents will never face one.
Farseer
"I chose this game for a streamlined way to pick a fleet (NO upgrades, etc) and the ability to recreate stuff from the shows/movies. forget about balance, I'm in it for the story.."
Forget about balance?! A game that is not balanced is not fun, and there really is no point in even playing a game that is severly unbalanced. I don't want to reinvent someones game in order to make it playable.
Farseer
"All I see from this thread is yet another group concerned about nothing but winning. I play the game to have a good time and see what you can do given the scenario/fleet. No matter the odds, theres always a tactic, manuver, combo that will win any game. Trying to do that with B5 ships that everyone thinks are ass is a great time for me. What happened to just having fun?"
I don't see that at all. I see a group that would like to have a reason to bring a Vorchan, but also ( because we are all tring to have fun ) would like to have a reasonable chance of winning. Losing all the time isn't fun either. Accusing everyone of being only concerned with winning and the implication that we are powergamers is unfair and unnessecary.
I personally do not have a problem with powergaming. I think there is a time and place for everything. A good gamer knows when and where.
Furious Jedi said:
A lot of historical wargamers would argue with that. Some people enjoy playing an "unwinnable" scenario rather than facing off with two even forces - for example trying to refight scenarios from the Earth-Minbari war (the fictional one, not the scenarios in the Mongoose rulebook of the same name). Some of us don't play a game to try and beat our opponent, we play it because recreating a battle accurately is how we have fun, seeing if we can do better than the "expected" result. I'd happily play a scenario from the Earth-Minbari war where the aim was just to make the Earth ships survive longer than the expected three turns (which is a pretty accurate representation of the E-M war, the Earth forces shouldn't have a chance). I like my Vorlons and Shadows unbeatable. That's the whole point of a B5 wargame to me - otherwise its just a bunch of playing pieces shaped like and named after the ships seen on TV.
Personally, I find unbalanced games more fun than balanced ones. I know not everyone feels the same, but it'd be nice if those of us that had the preference for an accurate simulation could play in the B5 universe too
I'd rather use the ACTA mechanics than B5W, but just see the ships tweaked to more accurate stats - not tweaked for everyone, just a seperate set of stats we can use for simulation purposes. I see an easy solution - just give us a seperate rulebook with alternative stats (in much the same way as with SST people will have a choice of the old and new rules using the same minis)Similar threads
