audrisampson wrote:
So with all things considered why would I play Mandos??? Not a good question to have to ask in game where the design team is out to make every faction playable.
at the moment you play mando's because you like them, not because they will win you anything. The Vong and Mando's are generally considered the 2 weakest factions at the moment by anyone who is actually looking at the game objectively and has been trying to make T1 squads from each factions regardless of how Eric Larson did with the vong in the champs or whether they won any regionals.
Why is that? Well the honest answer is the designs for them haven't really payed off like we intended. Take a look at Vengeance, try and spot the figures in the mandos that were designed to combat mouse screens. There are at least 2 or 3 that work either by lowering defenses (saboteur) or by causing a clustered 10-60 dmg hit (Fett, who actually won a regional) or by splashing (crusader). Fetts CE at present is too difficult to set up in a faction lacking a form of mid round movement breaking.
The saboteur is actually a low cost effective solution for Mando's when facing high defenses and should almost be a staple for the squads.
In the champs i lost to a Mando squad run by Bill Hazel. He used cloaked, HK mouse screens, saboteurs and death shots to basically nerf my accurate shot and out gun my swiss army knife Han/Corran JM NR squad (I incorrectly took a TBSV instead of Mowman as a counter to his 28d cover mice). So its not like either of these factions are that weak, they are just missing a trick or two.
And they both are getting some big tricks in set 4 and 5.
I can sense your frustration in every post Audri and I sympathize but bear in mind that all these NPEs are in the minds of designers when we design and we try and combat them when we can. Designers create tools for players to use in the hope that people find the combinations that allows them to play a particular playstyle and faction with close to equal chances to win.
However, the whole game is now a MASSIVE puzzle for anyone to try and figure out. Even those trying to guide this puzzle in the right direction don't have any certainty in the knowledge that what is added is going to result in a positive affect. We attempt to play test this stuff but the amount of hours in testing is paltry to the amount of hours and thought the community puts in once the stats are released and so some designs come out a bit over powered/underpowered as a result.
There are also several designs that probably weren't best thought out. HKs +4 to droid followers is a great example of something that was intended to help certain figures (namely low defense fringe and separatist droids) but inadvertently exacerbated a significant NPE (mice screens). Designs have been and are usually adjusted to what Boris terms "mouse droid syndrome" it appears HK wasn't subjected to that, or perhaps he was and this was one of the intended builds, I'm not sure because i wasn't involved with set 2 (1st child was born around the time of its design).
So whereas I sympathize with your frustration I have to implore you to understand that no-one is constructing the game so that you are forced to play pieces and factions you don't want to play. The intent is to make every faction as powerful as each other so people can play what they want but with so much variety and unforseen synergies its nigh on impossible to get the game to a spot where every faction has the same chance of winning.
I reiterate that this game is a puzzle. If you want to take home a big prize (regional or GC championship) then you have to figure out what floats to the top and put aside what you WANT to play. In a casual setting is where you play for fun and its in that environment you can house rule no mice, or no Gha or come to some understanding of what figs to play.
In a tournament you can't have allegiances to factions, you pick what you consider is the best squad, in the best faction, on the best map regardless of whether its the faction you want or not.
This year, Trevor figured out the puzzle the best. It will most likely be someone different in future years but NO-ONE is designing this game so that only an elite bunch of players get to reap the benefits of the sets.
Once stats get released, everyone is on the same field. Everyone has access to the same stats and abilities should you choose to field them. I'm pretty sure there are squad variations that people haven't played or even thought of because the game is now so vast.
Lastly i want to mention this point because i think its very, very important to understand
audrisampson wrote:
The problem becomes really apparent when you go away from the top squads.
But there are so many abilities and commander effects that are game breaking when you step away from the top squads. The gimmicks such as superstealth, levitate, swap, activation control, tow, mice screens etc create huge problems for squads that are not built to deal with them.
Over 4 years ago i remember noting the huge variation of strength between certain squad builds and others, namely tourney squad v fun squads. Often, i would plop down a theme squad and my opponent would build a t1.5 or 2 squad and just by looking at the two squad i KNEW there was no point playing against it, and this wasn't even two tourney squads, this was just a theme BH squad against a vong SS swarm.
But that is just the reality of the game. If i built a squad based around RS to universe pieces and my opponent plays something top including vset pieces there is likely no build that can make this a fair match.
If you want to compete you must build ruthlessly, there is no way to design this game where less than optimal builds perform in tournaments because the gap between t1 and t2 squads increases with each set regardless of figure design.
Implementing a sweeping change to try and offset the problems of something annoying like mouse screens will most likely open the door for some other abusive NPE we hadn't even thought about such is the complexity of the game.
Yes, this game can be frustrating but its frustrating because of its huge complexity and the difficulty in the puzzle of balancing it is just as frustrating as trying to build a squad that won't auto lose to some of the behemoth squads that are out there.
Why do you think Magic rotates its sets? Its because the puzzle gets to large to design around.
Why do you think that CCGs and CMGs have limited shelf lives?
One reason is because at some point the game becomes so big that designing effectively is a whole hell of a lot of effort and more effort than profitable companies care to invest. SWM exceeded this size long before V sets which, IMO, was why we ended up with such a restrictive meta for the last 2-3 years before WotC canned it.