Those pesky Minbari

[Wulf Corbett]

Just rewatched that scene to check, it takes 2 nukes to completely obliterste the Minbari vessel in ITB, the first one just wipes a fin off mainly.

Good job they didn't get their nukes from Shadow Clouds, with those 2AD jobs you would need a dozen...

Wulf

 

[Xorrandor]

Now there, you see, you lose my interest immediately. I'm a wargamer and a roleplayer, I have no interest whatsoever in tournament play. I play ACtA as simulation, as tactical exercise, as roleplay, but never purely as game.

So, should I temper my arguments to allow for the other man's point of view? No, of course not, never. I will fight from my corner, you fight from yours. Why start with a position of compromise? That just ends up with the result further away from my own ideal.

If you have no interest in tournament play, why do you care about priority levels at all? Or the published ship stats? Use the game engine, modify the ships to match your roleplaying/simulation expectations, and set up the scenario. No need to argue or compromise with anyone.

Note that tournament players don't have this option. Without an agreed-upon framework (usually directly from the publisher) that at least comes close to balanced, there cannot be tournament players. Now, if Mongoose wants to purposely snub tournament players and remove them from the ACtA consumer base, they can do so. Other game companies have, with varying levels of success. I personally never see the percentage in it, and am always confused when roleplayers call on them to do so.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Now there, you see, you lose my interest immediately. I'm a wargamer and a roleplayer, I have no interest whatsoever in tournament play. I play ACtA as simulation, as tactical exercise, as roleplay, but never purely as game.

If you have no interest in tournament play, why do you care about priority levels at all? Or the published ship stats? Use the game engine, modify the ships to match your roleplaying/simulation expectations, and set up the scenario. No need to argue or compromise with anyone.

Priority levels are a good guide to creating a fleet. Even as a simulation, beginning with equal fleets is a good guide to expectations if you don't have predefined goals. Actually, virtually every game I've played has been as part of a campaign, and as such every fleet choice has been a challenge and a compromise. Even simulations and tactical exercises have to have some concept of balance, even if it's not a FAIR one.

Now, if Mongoose wants to purposely snub tournament players and remove them from the ACtA consumer base, they can do so.

Like I've said, I expect - in fact, I KNOW - that I will not get the game I want. I don't, however, simply howl in terror whenever someone points that out - I accept it, and argue as best I can why I should get something CLOSE to the game I want.

Wulf

 

[Tredrick]

What you are missing, Wulf, is that there are two types of games: tournament and scenario.

Now there, you see, you lose my interest immediately. I'm a wargamer and a roleplayer, I have no interest whatsoever in tournament play. I play ACtA as simulation, as tactical exercise, as roleplay, but never purely as game.

So, should I temper my arguments to allow for the other man's point of view? No, of course not, never. I will fight from my corner, you fight from yours. Why start with a position of compromise? That just ends up with the result further away from my own ideal.

Wulf

So, your position seems to be, make ACTA what you want, and only what you want.

Many, many people do have an interest in tournament play. If you don't great, but don't try to ignore or denegrate the other position.

I think it is a terrible shame that you have the ear of the Mongeese, enough to get your name in SFOS, when you clearly have such a narrow minded viewpoint. Clearly you do not have what is best for them or the game in mind, solely what is best for you.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

So, your position seems to be, make ACTA what you want, and only what you want.

Many, many people do have an interest in tournament play. If you don't great, but don't try to ignore or denegrate the other position.

You just haven't actually read anything you quoted, have you? let me explain. I argue my case, and my case only. You, if you have any sense, argue your case. We end up in a compromise, neither entirely happy, neither entirely unhappy. But, and here's the important bit, the more you compromise at the start, the further from your own ideal you will end up. The secret is, knowing when you have reached that compromise, and quitting.

I think it is a terrible shame that you have the ear of the Mongeese

I don't have their ear, nor indeed any other bit of their anatomy (and the plural of Mongoose is Mongooses).

Wulf

 

[Morpheus1975]

Talk about a pissing contest.

I honestly think that priority levels are a waste UNLESS you have 8+ of them because ships of the same priority level should be comaprable to each other in usefulness, power, speed, and whatever else that you can think of. Some may be slower but have better weapons and so on..

Existing system is too limiting. If I take a battle level ship and you take a battle level ship we should be comparable.

To date I think this is one of the only games that does not use a point system.

Even if it did people would argue on the number of points that a ship is worth.

This just makes sense. Why do you think battletech came out with their BV system that is used today?

Not all 50 ton mechs are equal.

I just think that eventually Mongoose will figure it out and that it will help sales at conventions and change their system.

After all when everything is said and done what counts is how much $$$$ they make and how they can make more.

 

[Chernobyl]

What about a VP multiplier for ships with stealth in tournament play, could maybe also be used for XP in campaign play...


2+, 3+ stealth - x1.30
4+, 5+ stealth - x1.60
6+ stealth - x2.00

Chern

 

[Scimitar]

Where in the TV Show is mention that Minbarys have an Stealth that works after the building of B5? Answer in no episode.

I can think of at least 2 occassions:

1) The Season 2 opener, Sheridan is surprised that the Minbari can be detected by the station's sensors whern they have the same tracking units as during the war, he obviously expects the Minbari stealth to defeat their trackers, this is how he figures out what they are up to.

LBH

Actually in 1) he asked what system they used. When he found out it was the pre-war tracking system, then he was surprised that they were tracking them. This implies post war systems had the capability, or were at least better at it.

I actually like the idea of Minbari stealth, I'm just being picky.

 

[Tredrick]

So, your position seems to be, make ACTA what you want, and only what you want.

Many, many people do have an interest in tournament play. If you don't great, but don't try to ignore or denegrate the other position.

You just haven't actually read anything you quoted, have you? let me explain. I argue my case, and my case only. You, if you have any sense, argue your case. We end up in a compromise, neither entirely happy, neither entirely unhappy. But, and here's the important bit, the more you compromise at the start, the further from your own ideal you will end up. The secret is, knowing when you have reached that compromise, and quitting.

I think it is a terrible shame that you have the ear of the Mongeese

I don't have their ear, nor indeed any other bit of their anatomy (and the plural of Mongoose is Mongooses).

Wulf

My case is to make the game appeal to as many people as possible, allowing the greatest number of people have fun with the product, but the product and help the line grow and prosper. Sadly, this means accepting your position as valid, even though the more the game resembles your position the smaller the audience is.

I'm sorry that you see this as some sort of contest of wills between two diametrically opposed position. It doesn't have to be. I believe a game system can satisfy what many people want and does not need to just be for the roleplayers, tournamenters, clubs or reenactors.

 

[B5freak]

I would just like to congratulate everyone on managing to get this thread all the way to 20 pages while still maintaining enough of a gentlemanly demeanor to keep the thread from being locked out. This can be a pretty heated subject, and I think the fact that we've gotten this far says volumes about the quality of B5 players.

Now if msprange would just step in, wave his magic god-wand, and fix the fleet lists, we'll be able to get back to playing. :lol:

 

[Chernobyl]

Scimitar, that's really a VERY good point...something to bear in mind is the timeline when talking about stealth. Of course, it wasn't mentioned much after the war in a combat reference except for maybe once or twice...something to think about.

And Matt will need a magic wand and pixie dust...

Chern

 

[Xorrandor]

You just haven't actually read anything you quoted, have you? let me explain. I argue my case, and my case only. You, if you have any sense, argue your case. We end up in a compromise, neither entirely happy, neither entirely unhappy. But, and here's the important bit, the more you compromise at the start, the further from your own ideal you will end up. The secret is, knowing when you have reached that compromise, and quitting.

Compromising at the start would have been page 1. This is now page 20. I don't know that some compromise wouldn't be reasonable at this point. Even if it were not, your position requires that tournament players leave this game, or spend several man-months designing a balancing system independent of Mongoose. The counter position requires that you spend 5 minutes changing statistics to suit your roleplaying needs. You've already wasted more time than that responding to this thread...

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Compromising at the start would have been page 1. This is now page 20. I don't know that some compromise wouldn't be reasonable at this point.

I have no control over any compromise, only Mongoose can actually decide on how the game changes, if at all. I have accepted changes that I disagree with on a number of occasions. It is, of course, a gross simplification for me to present this as my ideas against 'yours', actually there are a great number of ideas and opinions here, and, at the end, Mongoose may simply ignore all of them. How many SFoS playtesters actually wanted a 1AD Beam on the Whitestar?

Mongoose are a successful company who know far better than to alienate their potential customer base, but if we all offer compromises on our opinions, and Mongoose uses them to judge opinions (and they HAVE been seen to respond to opinions here), we will end up with a compromise of compromises, and get even less of what we all want! If we want to end up with a middle ground, we have to define that middle ground, and to do that, we have to define the outer edge.

Wulf

 

[LaranosTZ]

Ok, tonight I managed to get in two games with my minbari using the +1 against stealth within 10" rules.

Game one was against shadows in a 5 point War scenario, while setting up 12" inwards.

Fleets were -

Shadows: 3 Cruisers, 5 Scouts, 2 wings of fighters.

Minbari: 1 Sharlin, 1 Neshatan , 2 Morshin, 2 Tinashi, 3 Tigara

Observations: My opponent made the comment that the change in stealth rule really didn't help him too much, since he had a tendency to either roll 1s or 6s for stealth rolls. He did get a few close in blows that helped him, usually crippling or destroying my ships in that one instance. In return I definately saw an effect in engaging shadow scouts in close.

Result: Minbari win with a remaining 1 Neshatan, 1 Morshin, 1 Tigara, and about 1/2 of my fighters remaining. Shadows wiped to a man, err, bug, err, whatever. Looking at my record sheets, my shadow opponent 1 shotted 3 ships, and two shotted two more (including my sharlin.)


Game 2 was Narn vs Minbari in a 5 point raid

Narn: 1 G'Quan, 1 T'loth, 1 Rongoth, 2 Tenthus

Minbari: 3 Tigara, 1 Tinashi

Observations: This game gave a much better view of what this new rule can do to effect a battle. I became -extremely- cautious of getting in close after quite a few 3+ hits that made me think about my defences. Overall the stealth ended up not being the deciding factor in this game, since he failed I think 2 rolls the entire game against my ships, quite a few of them were 3+s though due to the shortened range. It was rather my superior firepower and maneuverability that carried the day. Basically, I got behind him, stayed out of 8 inches, and ran circles around him.

Result: Enemy wiped, 1 Tigara Crippled, others carried minor damage.


I'm going to see if I can get in one or two more games this weekend before I make any conclusions.

 

[Howarth]

My favorite tactic for dealing with those Minbari is to fly dead straight at them and catch all the incoming fire.
Yes this is a costly tactic but after you have done this a number of times the Minbari will get complaicent which is when you can unlease your most cunning of plans.

You do exactly what they wouldnt expect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After 14 or 15 battles using the above tactic you then fly directly at them catching all incoming fire and destroy them.
Well they're not going to fall for the same trick a 16th time are they

 

[Wulf Corbett]

I'm sorry that you see this as some sort of contest of wills between two diametrically opposed position. It doesn't have to be. I believe a game system can satisfy what many people want and does not need to just be for the roleplayers, tournamenters, clubs or reenactors.

In my experience, there are two broad groups of table-top combat gamers. For sake of reference, I'll call them Wargamers and Figure Gamers (even though both use figures, and both usually play games of war...).

Wargamers are primarily, though not exclusively, players of historical or quasi-historical games. Most of them play with limited, sometimes severely restricted, variety of unit types (DBA, for instance). The game is about applying tactics and unit mix to outperform your opponent, or to achieve a 'better' result than the historical one. There are still arguments over balance and unit capability (any HOTT players here? How do YOU use Shooters?), but the limited number of unit types makes balance much easier. True historical games, of course, have a different problem. We have, in general terms, a good idea of how powerful King Tigers were compared to Shermans, and there's no point in complaining they are imbalanced - of course thay are, no commander in his right mind fights a balanced combat unless he has no choice! What you can argue about is the proper forces available for any given period and conflict, and how to create a game with reasonable forces and goals to make it playable.

Figures Gamers, however, are primarily Tournament gamers. They deligt in an ever-expanding roster of forces, variants, developments, expansions, whole new armies, and the testing of one force against another. Being more competitive, balance is far more important here - but by the nature of expanding forces, that becomes an ever-more-difficult task, made all the worse as the units and forces they use usually have no historical basis to judge by.

Neither type of gamer is any less likely to argue about the rules, the units, the forces, the gameplay. But at least Wargamers can point to source material and say whether the results fit expectations. That's what I want. The seemingly inevitable escalation of complexity and variety that comes with tournament/competition play holds no interest to me, and in fact interferes with my enjoyment, since potential opponents may well be using some of the less likely and less balanced units. Limit the number of units, balance them to fit the source material, and play the game with what you have, that way you can at least say YOU won or lost, not the R&D department. That's incompatable with the expansive style of tournament play, so any compromise I may be forced to accept will mean the game is less and less suited to my requirements.

Wulf

 

[Matt]

you can actually have a balanced fleet and a power strucktur prox to like in the show

just make the more powerfull ship expensive to field

that way mimb ships can be more powerfull do you can only field a few o em

and in secnarios you can drop balancing the game after points butt just run the forces you woude like to play against each oter

 

[Wulf Corbett]

you can actually have a balanced fleet and a power strucktur prox to like in the show

just make the more powerfull ship expensive to field

I wouldn't object to that in principal, but it is the start of a more involved points system.

Wulf

 

[Celisasu]

you can actually have a balanced fleet and a power strucktur prox to like in the show

just make the more powerfull ship expensive to field

I wouldn't object to that in principal, but it is the start of a more involved points system.

Wulf

I wouldn't mind a more involved point system if it allows both balance and fluff. The problem with the priority system is that we give up one or the other. If we choose fluff then a Shadow Vessel should be able to engage with at least four or five to one odds against G'Quans. If we do balance you get odd stuff where a Shadow Vessel can be taken down by a single Bin'Tac which doesn't feel right for the B5 universe. A point system allows both though.


But for the priority level system I favor balance over fluff because I want to be able to play my Narn and go against any race and have my victory or defeat be based soley on my skills rather than my ships being stronger or weaker on a one to one basis against the other race. I haven't purchased SFOS yet so can't comment on the Minbari but if they really have become as powerful as this thread implies I'm concerned. It's hard to get new players when one fleet seriously overpowers the remainder.

 

[Right Hand of God]

:shock: Wow, one disapears for a couple of days and all hell breaks loose.

Mr Wulf, Sir, I take my hat off to you, you have more patience and composure than me.

Anybody noticed that the polling numbers at the top of the thread are showing that less players now think Minbari are too hard?

One conspicuous point that appears throughout this thread is that Centauri, Narn, Vorlon and Shadow players don't appear to be ranting about an overly hard Minbari fleet. Just those who play EA. To me that shows two things, either of which could be correct.

Firstly, the Minbari are the EA boogeyman fleet. Every fleet has an oposing fleet they do less well against. Here it's EA suffering at the hands of the minbari. Pick your fleet with more care and find some tactics. My regular EA opponent matches me win for win when he plays against my most of my other fleets but he loses around 2:1 against my minbari. When his EA fight my Vorlons I regularly suffer slow agonising fighter death. But I work through it without the need for counselling and try out different options with each game. It's a learning experience.

On the other hand my centauri deal out wanton death and destruction to his drazi fleet time after time. It has developed into something of a grudge match between us with certain fleets, whole narratives have developed that become part of a campaign.

The closest games we have involving Minbari are my Minbari against his Centauri. Whatever the points and priority level it turns into an absolute slugfest with both sides giving as good as they get.

Maybe it's because we play other games systems that see King Tigers against shermans or French Infantry in column against British redcoats in line, that allow us to see this as just part of the game. It certainly means more to my mate when he beats my minbari with his EA fleet than any other victory does. But why shouldn't it? Surely that is part of the game.

Right now for the second option in my thoughts about all this. Maybe it's not the Minbari who are broken at all! (What? Burn this heretic now! How dare he!) Yes yes yes but just consider what has gone before. Even those most virulently in favour of weakening the perfectly fine and upstanding Minbari fleet have noted that other fleets don't have the same problem facing Minbari that EA do. That surely suggests that the Minbari fleet, tough as it is, although encumbered with its own weaknesses, isn't the fleet that's broken, the EA are the fleet that need to be overhauled. Or tweaked to give them more of a chance against the boneheads. I haven't heard EA players complaining that other fleets are too hard, so maybe just a slight tweak in the right direction to counter the dread nemesis?

Or maybe everybody just wants to win regardless and won't be satisfied until every ship has exactly the same stats and traits, as long as they win of course, because if they don't win at that point then obviously it's just unfair playing somebody better! :wink:

I await the buckets of abuse with a level of apathy that boarders on comatose