Is the game getting too complex?

That's a hyperbole that's always used as a counterargument. When in reality premeasuring wouldn't be nearly as bad unless you were taking the piss and prolonging the game artificially.
It would definitely make decision making faster in those situations where something is 8.5" away from your hacker, but there's buildings in between skewing your perception or measuring closest troop for Impetuous Orders. And kill all that arguing about Intent nonsense.

 

My personal experience is that premeasure games always take longer to resolve than non-premeasure games. Your Mileage May Vary.

 

Exactly. I've seen it both ways, and generally it's an even trade-off in time requirements. It would also settle the intention debate, since it would make everything as intended because you could declare something by intention.

Source? I haven't played in a while now, but I've been trying to keep up passively. Haven't heard a thing about this in the groups I follow, or with the people I played with.

 

The standard tournament rules. You're not allowed to physically mark more than two distances at a time, even to the extent that you're not allowed to leave a tape measure or ruler on the table unless it's marking one of those distances.

 

I Find that it lets newer players have an easier learning curve, as they don't have to memorize the measurements of all the local terrain to get on the same level as the more experienced players who have already done so. They have a hard enough time remembering what a red fury is [that's that big flamethrower template gun, right? ...No, thats the chain rifle, a red fury is a light machine gun with shock ammo].

I don't have a source, but I heard this. They had an issue where people were bringing extra bases for their whole army, so you would have like, 6 rulers and 150 bases on the table (In addition to the 70 models for your army), which lead to lots of "accidental" model knocking. Since Infinity is limited on the number of models and number of actions, I don't think it will be as much of a problem. You can also do the whole "only one measurement tool" thing, which is super easy to enforce and takes away from the time suck. This is used in the FFG mini games too.

However, this whole discussion would mean that CB would have to take a stance on "intentional slow play" as pre-measuring would provide another avenue for it.

 

Re: Pre Measuring, the only reason I'm in support of keeping it is because of ZoC shenanigans. It becomes possible to land a small template from out of ZoC (it's like a quarter inch margin) if premeasuring is allowed, which is fine, but it also makes things like skirting people's ZoC really easy which minimizes risk.

For longer distances I would have no issue with it, but it wouldn't make sense to mix when you can and can't premeasure.

It would be nice if each player could make a few measurements before the game started without getting dirty looks.

 

It varies significantly between players. Some people let it make their analysis paralysis worse by trying to over-optimize every interaction by measuring every possible distance in advance. Others find that it speeds up play, because they can take whatever idea they already had, and just do a quick double-check to make sure they didn't eyeball the distances wrong.

For example, I personally sometimes drag out an order because I'm not sure which of two models is in the best position and the distances are close enough that I can't estimate it with certainty. If I could premeasure, I'd be able to act more quickly and decisively.

 

Thanks hadn't noticed that before.

FWIW, Flames of War has always had premeasuring, never saw this issue. Generally it was useful since you could figure out where you wanted to be, and then just move stuff up. I find that without it @toadchild is correct, and I and others spend a lot of time guessing.

Also, in addition to ZoC control issues, it would also resolve arguments about Impetus movement. Often times it's just obvious, but others we get into discussions about moving one way or another, which is just compounded by models with Super-jump, Climbing+, or other movement tricks.

 

@RogueJello I didn't even think about Impetuous; I've seen games come to a standstill because people can't agree if the model is going to go left or right around a building (where each player has a vested interest in things being resolved in a particular way).

 

If you want something that really speaks about the tournament culture that a game develops around itself...

Because in contrast to that you have games like Malifaux where pre-measuring is so encouraged that they go out and get table mats with the various standard areas pre-marked (just subtly enough that it's not distracting).

 

On the pre-measuring thing, I think the best answer is the old WarmaHordes rule: You can measure ZOC at any time, but that's all you can ever pre-measure.

We could make an argument for allowing pre-measuring in the impetuous phase, just because that would settle a lot of arguments about where an impetuous model had to go.

 

Heh. I think ZoC measuring is the one thing that's under most contest. For any other measurement between two points, it's mostly just useful info. For ZoC it's critical info for so many things.

 

Started a thread in a popular Warmachine forum, and got one response, so it appears to be mostly a non-issue, rather than a big hole they needed to fix.

https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/8557/2018-steamroller-table-marker-restrictions

 

I won't get into details because I lack the knowledge in rule writing to have a proper opinion, but judging by the general perception of the players around me and myself I think yes, it is getting too complex.

My local group has been bleeding out players more than gaining new ones, and it's usually because they don't have the time to keep up with the complexity of it. Every time they get to it they feel like they have to try to remember everything again (me too). I'm actually worried that I have to stop playing it because I can't get to play except with the same 2-3 friends and the occasional tournament in other cities.

On the other hand, something called Shadespire comes, and my local store suddenly has tournaments every other weekend, and some of the players are the ones who stopped playing Infinity.

Don't get me wrong, I'd hate to see Infinity become something as simplistic as that game with hexes, but I really think CB should stop and evaluate what direction they are getting with their rules. Make it more attractive for new players and easier to pick up for non-hardcore ones, even if they play only once every several weeks. In the end, the game needs its players to be alive, and the more it has the better.

 

That's a very good point.

It's been so long since I've played that I know I'm going to screw up ALL the rules and spend 3/4 the game looking up rules (and then still getting them wrong! )

I quit WarmaHordes because I'd need to play multiple games per week and spend as much time on their forums as I do here, just to stay on top of the new models rules-and-abilities. Before I went to Japan in 2011, I was playing Infinity about that much. Potentially 6 games a week, usually at least 3. But while I was in Japan, most of my gaming group went elsewhere.

 

It kind of annoys me when playing with experienced people we still find ourselves looking for this or that rule in the middle of the game. Sometimes because we are not that familiar with it, sometimes because we just don't know a very basic/well known rule in a certain situation, or kind of forgot about it already.

It's even more annoying when you play with someone who doesn't have a good grasp of the rules after long time playing, and you have to remind him how everything works everytime.

Also, I felt very disappointed when people close to me had an interest about the game. They were amazed by the miniatures and after few demo games and explaining rules they went in right away with Red Veil. When starting playing real games with full rules, they just felt the game was just too much rule struggle to end up throwing few dies and comparing results. Never played again.

 

No.
Too many games became too simple

 

I believe it's a matter of taste.
I was attracted to Infinity specifically because its units had enough special abilities to do crazy shit that highlights their individuality. You can't do that with a game that is boiled down to figurative five stats, albeit vastly variable (unlike Infinity where BS11 and BS14 are like opposite ends of the spectrum).

Perhaps an improvement could be made with how rules are conveyed (although this is not the direction CB cares about, evidently), but I'm happy about what they are.