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 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?

Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...

Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that question depends on how bad of a problem slow play really is, which is something we don't have much data for.

Based on my experience at NOVA, watching for slow play on the tables around me (because I find watching armies and games in general very fun) as well as my own games, I would say it's fairly uncommon, and when it does happen, it's painfully obvious.

One would see things like someone rolling 5+ invuln saves for a terminator squad 1 at a time after suffering like 8 wounds from a Baneblade Cannon, or making sure their conscripts were exactly 2" apart in a game without templates.

The largest issue is opponents not having a problem with this (and I understand why) and not calling a judge, and the second largest issue is that apparently the TOs/judges don't care anyways.

If slowplaying is really such a huge issue that it has to be micromanaged at every table by the judges, then clocks are probably the best solution. But in my experience, it's not nearly that bad.

We don't need data on slow playing. We know it occurs and that is enough to do something about it. Really - the majority of slow play is probably unintentional or subconscious bias - clocks would really help in this case because if you change the parameters to actually punish slow play ergo (you lose if you run out of time) - it forces you to play faster. It will make everyone play faster - maybe we will see turn 4 sometimes in a GD tournament. Maybe people will start learning their rules and the rules of other players armies if they know it's going to cost THEIR game time to suffer for having to look stuff up during the game.

I just don't see any reason to oppose the chess clock proposal unless you are:
- A slow player because it's hard for you to play fast (you need to get good)
- You play slow on purpose to give yourself an advantage (you won't be able to do this anymore with chess clocks) or subconsciously you do it (your subconscious bias will change when you are hurting yourself by slow playing).
- You trust in the good nature of human beings (you are a naive person.)
- You just don't want to be bothered with it (your laziness is interfering with progress - please step aside and redirect your efforts to something else)

How about:
- You have been to a major tournament (unlike yourself) and know the fatigue and exhaustion that can happen after three days of drinking and gaming and know that adding yet another burden to the shoulders of a regular player for no benefit is silly.

That is also an irrelevant stance. You wont be able to push a button a few times a game because you are too drunk? or hung over? Holy crap man. Tell me you have something else.

"A few times in a game" means:

1) Every time your opponent rolls a save, or more than one save.
2) Every time your opponent uses a stratagem on your turn.
3) Every time your opponent fires overwatch.
4) Every time your opponent chooses a unit to fight with in the Fight phase.
5) Every time your opponent has a minor rules question or disputes a measurement.
6) Every time your opponent resumes his turn after you did one of the above.
7) Every time your opponent denies the witch.
8) Every time your opponent takes a moment to think about denying the witch/using a stratagem / firing overwatch.
9) Every time your opponent stops the clock to argue about the clock with you because of something.
10) Every time you need to look up rules, or call a judge, or go to the bathroom, or any number of out-of-game sequencing issues.

More like "A few times a phase, for six phases in a player turn, for twelve phases in a battle round, for six battle rounds in a game". So... lets be REALLY conservative and say that you swap the clock 4 times in a phase (that's too many for movement and way too few for shooting and assault, but we'll roll with it).

That's ~ 24 clock swaps in a player turn, 48 in a battle round, and 288 in a six-turn game. And if you skip even 1, it could royally feth things up, depending on which one it was, what the situation was, and whether your opponent is going to take advantage of it or not. If he is like Tony, he probably will.

you don't need to do it that way. At the start of the game you ask your opponent - "I don't really want to switch the clock every-time we have to roll - can we agree to roll quickly? and just switch to clocking the turns? " "yeah sure"

As long as you are true to your words it will balance out for both players. If you see them trying to game you - you tell them. "You are taking too much time now so I am going to start switching the clock"

 Xenomancers wrote:
you don't need to do it that way. At the start of the game you ask your opponent - "I don't really want to switch the clock every-time we have to roll - can we agree to roll quickly? and just switch to clocking the turns? " "yeah sure"

As long as you are true to your words it will balance out for both players. If you see them trying to game you - you tell them. "You are taking too much time now so I am going to start switching the clock"

And then you start an argument, just like how Alex said "Let's play by intent and less strictly" or whatever he said, and Tony's grunt in reply.

Anything that depends on your opponent to play by some gentlemanly agreement is something that people (read: TFGs) will feth with at a tournament.

You are worried about it taking over games between non TFG people though. Just pointing out it doesn't need to be that way. Most people will just want to trade off turns with the timer anyways - against TFG though - who cares - the clock is the boss now. Want to waste time? You lose.

 Xenomancers wrote:
You are worried about it taking over games between non TFG people though. Just pointing out it doesn't need to be that way. Most people will just want to trade off turns with the timer anyways - against TFG though - who cares - the clock is the boss now. Want to waste time? You lose.

Right, so you haven't changed anything for the better. Here's what will happen:

1) Non TFG games go essentially the same, with the added potential for more arguments/strife/headaches.
2) TFGs go from slowplaying to clock manipulation and still suffer no penalty for breaking the tournament rules anyways.
3) Rounds still go over time because of Point 2.
4) Honest players feel like they can't bring horde armies since the time is divided evenly in half.

Is this thread sponsored by Casio?

I was really impressed with Ynarri Shinning Spears. If they aren’t OP, they are definitely the unsung heroes of the Eldar/Ynarri lists.

Or it goes like this:

1) Non TFG games go essentially the same, with the added potential for quicker games and more balanced turn times.
2) TFGs go from slowplaying to being clocked out and lose the game. Or they figure it out!
4) Honest players figure out how to play horde armies faster or find a new solution.
5) Profit

 mugginns wrote:
Or it goes like this:

1) Non TFG games go essentially the same, with the added potential for quicker games and more balanced turn times.
2) TFGs go from slowplaying to being clocked out and lose the game. Or they figure it out!
4) Honest players figure out how to play horde armies faster or find a new solution.
5) Profit

What makes you think that your point 2 is more likely than TFGs learning clock manipulation?

Median Trace wrote:
Is this thread sponsored by Casio?

I was really impressed with Ynarri Shinning Spears. If they aren’t OP, they are definitely the unsung heroes of the Eldar/Ynarri lists.

Eldar surely have a good bunch of very good units. But I think making Ynnari not benefit from Craftworld stratagems is the first step to balance them, even more important than balancing specific units (Ok thats important too)

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Or it goes like this:

1) Non TFG games go essentially the same, with the added potential for quicker games and more balanced turn times.
2) TFGs go from slowplaying to being clocked out and lose the game. Or they figure it out!
4) Honest players figure out how to play horde armies faster or find a new solution.
5) Profit

What makes you think that your point 2 is more likely than TFGs learning clock manipulation?

Prior experience with clocks in other games.

 mugginns wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Or it goes like this:

1) Non TFG games go essentially the same, with the added potential for quicker games and more balanced turn times.
2) TFGs go from slowplaying to being clocked out and lose the game. Or they figure it out!
4) Honest players figure out how to play horde armies faster or find a new solution.
5) Profit

What makes you think that your point 2 is more likely than TFGs learning clock manipulation?

Prior experience with clocks in other games.

So you really are telling me that absolutely 0 clock manipulation goes on in other games. No one games the system, or otherwise feths with the clock.

Alternatively, you're telling me that those systems have foolproof clock rules, which may or may not be true of a hypothetical 40k clock rulesset.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(because I've played timed games before too and people actually do fethed up gak all the time with the timer, whether it's a clock or an hourglass or whatever.)

Is Dakka replacing your words with all those nonsense words? It makes it hard to read man

So you really are telling me that absolutely 0 clock manipulation goes on in other games. No one games the system, or otherwise feths with the clock.

Alternatively, you're telling me that those systems have foolproof clock rules, which may or may not be true of a hypothetical 40k clock rulesset.

Yes

 mugginns wrote:
Is Dakka replacing your words with all those nonsense words? It makes it hard to read man

So you really are telling me that absolutely 0 clock manipulation goes on in other games. No one games the system, or otherwise feths with the clock.

Alternatively, you're telling me that those systems have foolproof clock rules, which may or may not be true of a hypothetical 40k clock rulesset.

Yes

Okay. I don't believe you.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?

Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...

Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.

There's a difference between "OP" and "top 5 OP in the game" though.

What is the difference?

Balance is never perfect and going in with a goal of perfect balance is generally less viable than aiming for the largest competitive pool possible. If you have a thousand options and 499 of them are OP, you still probably have a very large and varied competitive environment. If 5 options are more OP than the other 494 in a notable way, your competitive environment will be defined by 0.5% of your options. The assumption of a competitive environment is that everything is OP. The difference is what's OP among the OP crowd.

Are these games all recorded and aired somewhere? I think a few were, but why wouldn't GW want to help out (camera set ups, recording, etc.)-- it would be good relatively cheap advertising and I think could possibly alleviate a bit of the TFG syndrome if players know they will have to face public scrutiny.

Here's how you effortlessly game the clock.

Your opponent is carefully moving on the other side of the table.

You hit the switch.

GG

 Marmatag wrote:
Here's how you effortlessly game the clock.

Your opponent is carefully moving on the other side of the table.

You hit the switch.

GG

The sounds like the sort of incredibly blatant cheating that gets you punched in the face.

 mugginns wrote:
They could be =) If a tournament made it clear in the tournament rules!

Really though what you're seeing is, and this comes up on any DD thread where someone proposes a change to 40k: you could come up with edge cases for ten days to deny any kind of change.

Again, you really think enforcing 'slow play' restrictions, something that can't be measured at all, would be easier for 500+ people than using chess clocks? C'mon man.

so thats a no right?
that makes your dice argument a false equivalence....

also this topic makes me somewhat wish there was a pro 40k scene like there is for mtg, my limited knowledge for qualifying events was a rule knowledge assumption as well as judges for each game.

One thing to remember is that in Warmahordes "making your opponent clock out" is (was?) a viable list building strategy. It was a keystone of attrition-focused lists, to make it so your opponent spent so much time trying to kill them that they would run out their Deathclock and lose the game.

 soundwave591 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
They could be =) If a tournament made it clear in the tournament rules!

Really though what you're seeing is, and this comes up on any DD thread where someone proposes a change to 40k: you could come up with edge cases for ten days to deny any kind of change.

Again, you really think enforcing 'slow play' restrictions, something that can't be measured at all, would be easier for 500+ people than using chess clocks? C'mon man.

so thats a no right?
that makes your dice argument a false equivalence....

What?

 mugginns wrote:

 soundwave591 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
They could be =) If a tournament made it clear in the tournament rules!

Really though what you're seeing is, and this comes up on any DD thread where someone proposes a change to 40k: you could come up with edge cases for ten days to deny any kind of change.

Again, you really think enforcing 'slow play' restrictions, something that can't be measured at all, would be easier for 500+ people than using chess clocks? C'mon man.

so thats a no right?
that makes your dice argument a false equivalence....

What?

you were comparing time clocks to dice on necessity, unless I'm mistaken and misread.

Wayniac wrote:
One thing to remember is that in Warmahordes "making your opponent clock out" is (was?) a viable list building strategy. It was a keystone of attrition-focused lists, to make it so your opponent spent so much time trying to kill them that they would run out their Deathclock and lose the game.

Wait, clock manipulation does happen?

Say it ain't so!

Mugginns swore up and down that it never happened!

That's not clock manipulation. What you were talking about was essentially cheating - rolling dice willy nilly, requesting rules etc to cause the other player to use their own time when it was unnecessary.

Here's how you effortlessly game the clock.

Your opponent is carefully moving on the other side of the table.

You hit the switch.

GG

= cheating

'Clocking someone' by making it intensely hard to kill your army (that is holding objectives) is good play. If you want to hold that up as your corner case, go ahead. It is essentially almost as bad as using a horde army that takes two or three times as long to do a turn as your opponent in current 40k, which you've stated is fine and good.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?

Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...

Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.

There's a difference between "OP" and "top 5 OP in the game" though.

What is the difference?

The difference in this case is that only about 1% of the voters in the top 5 thread consider SS to be OP enough to be top 5 in the game. I think it goes without saying that a lot more would say they're OP, but below top 5. There's stiff competition at the top.

 mugginns wrote:

'Clocking someone' by making it intensely hard to kill your army (that is holding objectives) is good play. If you want to hold that up as your corner case, go ahead. It is essentially almost as bad as using a horde army that takes two or three times as long to do a turn as your opponent in current 40k, which you've stated is fine and good.

Even this isn't really a thing anymore since they introduced turn limits (which 40k already has). It's basically a gear check strategy that only works if your opponent hasn't learned to manage their time well, which.... there's a lot easier ways to win against that caliber of opponent.

 mugginns wrote:
That's not clock manipulation. What you were talking about was essentially cheating - rolling dice willy nilly, requesting rules etc to cause the other player to use their own time when it was unnecessary.

Here's how you effortlessly game the clock.

Your opponent is carefully moving on the other side of the table.

You hit the switch.

GG

= cheating

'Clocking someone' by making it intensely hard to kill your army (that is holding objectives) is good play. If you want to hold that up as your corner case, go ahead. It is essentially almost as bad as using a horde army that takes two or three times as long to do a turn as your opponent in current 40k, which you've stated is fine and good.

Slowplaying as it currently exists is cheating by the tournament. Nothing is done when it was captured live in front of hundreds of people, which is the real problem here. If you are trying to show that clocks stop slowplay-style cheating, then you have to explain why having clock-tapping cheating is better.

as for your "good play" - it's literally as unengaging as possible, at least in warhammer. An army of 360 guardsmen, 9 commanders, 9 acolytes, 9 cyberwolves, and 9 Mortar Squads is like, 1850 points and 400-odd wounds, and sounds atrocious to play with and against. It will run out the clock, that's for sure.

Sounds like a fun meta.

Which do you think is easier to prevent and identify? Slow playing or someone physically cheating someone else's clock?

 mugginns wrote:
Which do you think is easier to prevent and identify? Slow playing or someone physically cheating someone else's clock?

It's completely irrelevant if the judges won't enforce the rules either way.

But if you ask me, it's easier to prevent and identify physical cheating, sure.

But I don't think it's worth the effort. I'll offer to play games against the next few players I play with the clocks on our phones and we'll see how smoothly it goes.

Hitting the clock for whatever reason is no problem even at 288 times for 6 turns. Tell the guy he has 10 wounds ap-2 and hit the clock and let he take his time rolling saves, FNPs and removing models.

Hitting the thing is pure muscle memory after the first 2 times you try it. Just look at chess tournaments.

For rules discussions or things not related to moving models and rolling dice,just stop both clocks and duke it out.

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?

Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...

Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.

There's a difference between "OP" and "top 5 OP in the game" though.

What is the difference?

The difference in this case is that only about 1% of the voters in the top 5 thread consider SS to be OP enough to be top 5 in the game. I think it goes without saying that a lot more would say they're OP, but below top 5. There's stiff competition at the top.

Every Person at my local, all the CWE players online i talked to, and even DE/Quin players all thought that Shiny Spears were good... but for sure not OP, taking 1 unit of something that is good doesnt make them OP. You didnt see 3-4 units of them in armies, you saw.. 1 Just b..c a unit is in the op doesnt make it op either lol.

FFS, There were KABAL WARRIORS than Shiny Spears in the number 1 list, does that make Kabals OP? Please tell me Kabals are op and you plan on doing an army with 100 of them.