It gets mentioned a lot, and discussed endlessly. How balanced (or not) 40k is. How internally and externally balanced the codexes are. But a lot of the time it seems like people just talk past each other, and it seems that there is basic disagreement on what actually constitutes balance. Is the balance meant to be "balance between take-all-comers lists" or "balance between tailored lists"? Is it balance between death star units, ie everyone gets one? Or does it mean something else?
I get that the basic idea is that no army should be inherently stronger than any other, and that victory should come down to player skill and the luck of the dice. But how exactly is this to be achieved in practice? And how much diversity are we willing to sacrifice to achieve it? Is it down to the players to choose an army that won't be unreasonable, or should they be rewarded for finding a powerful build? And if they do, is it bad design that such a thing is possible? How much do we want list-building to be a strategic endeavor that is part of the game and how much should this possibility be curtailed in the name of balance?
In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.
Swastakowey wrote: In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.
I think.
That is what I would call balance.
Seems reasonable. I think when most people complain about the lack of balance in 40k they are referring to some units being completely unplayable if you want to have a chance of winning (Which is why the current meta encourages spamming of your army's most powerful units).
A TAC list, a fluffy list, and a good list should be very much the same thing. Armies with fluff based around being brutal in close combat, even to go as far to forgo shooting to do so, should offer the same enjoyment and tactical capabilities as armies that are the inverse (shooting so well, forgoing any want or ability to punch back).
Even from a pure fluff perspective, fluffy lists like Samm Hain Eldar, Draigowings, White Scars biker armies and the like are extremely powerful compared to an a mono-god non-nurgle Chaos anything list.
And dice should be nothing but random number generators based upon weighted probability. Every other game, when rolling dice, uses it as a modifier to a success; meaning my stat + dice is >= your defense, I hit. It's much easier to look at something and figure out odds of sucess by doing so. What Games Workshop has done is to forgo this with obtuse tables like BS and WS, the latter being so marginalized it's silly, and added in a lot more random elements that have no weighted probability what-so-ever, such as charge distances. Games Worshop has incorporated a lot of bad game design into their products, what people accept as forced narrative elements, that it makes attempting any further balance a poor showing and why you get such hard swings with codex or edition releases. Obviously a game cannot be balanced if your able to bring a bunch of elements and have random outcomes of spells, warlord traits, and other things involving the multitude of tables and random elements. Random might be wacky fun for some, but in terms of game design, it's abhorred.
The game only performs well with a ton of either informal or formal (tacit or stated) house rules between mutually minded players (tournaments, narrative events, like minded people who've played together for a long time) and breaks down everywhere else.
office_waaagh wrote:I get that the basic idea is that no army should be inherently stronger than any other, and that victory should come down to player skill and the luck of the dice.
That is one point of view in a nutshell. It's certainly not the only (nor, I'd easily argue, the most popular).
Most people want what they choose to field to have real meaning. They want to be able to improve their chances of winning (or their chances of something else) by being able to apply skill to list building. What you bring to the table should matter, rather than it being nothing more than a choice of aesthetic.
Also, it would make 40k an even shallower strategy game than it already is if you had the same chance of winning whatever you brought.
office_waaagh wrote:But how exactly is this to be achieved in practice?
Symmetry.
The idea of "asymetric balance" is a complete fairy tale. There's just imbalance you like more and imbalance you like less. Unless you're playing with the same pieces or have the same options, there's no real balance.
office_waaagh wrote:And how much diversity are we willing to sacrifice to achieve it?
Personally, I'd argue no amount of diversity. We already have lightweight, balanced strategy games, which 40k will never be, even if we try. What makes 40k good is the ways that 40k does its own unique blend of imbalance. Were it a small, lightweight, balanced game, it would just be a reskinned version of a game that already exists.
Also, it would make 40k an even shallower strategy game than it already is if you had the same chance of winning whatever you brought.
I would argue that there are plenty of deep strategy wargames that specifically market the ability to bring what you want and win with effective play. There will always be a list building element and fluff should actually be a guide to building a competent and able force should you understand it's strengths and deficits.
Also, that behemoth .pdf that you continuously link is not worth the time I spent reading, more so going off in crazy things like bashing gunline armies, of which there are plenty of fluffy reasons as to why you'd want one. I see you've broken it up in to at least digestible chunks, but there's no value in them as you routinely ignore components of game design. In fact, the entire piece of balance, or rather perfect imbalance, has been better summed up in a much more informative and entertaining video that frequents the discussions on balance:
I dont want perfect imbalance. That means the game will constantly be changed up. It talks about how one thing would be powerful, so to stop it being powerful they make something that can beat it, only to repeat the cycle.
I do not want that. May work for video games, not for models.
To be fair I watched the video a long time ago now, dont fully remember it. But I do remember that being part of it.
So, to fix the riptide being powerful, they add a unit to beat it. That sounds like an awful way of making money. Why should I have to buy a unit to take on a unit thats powerful? Thats not balance, thats what we have now.
Correct me if im wrong, at work so cant re watch the video.
Swastakowey wrote: I dont want perfect imbalance. That means the game will constantly be changed up. It talks about how one thing would be powerful, so to stop it being powerful they make something that can beat it, only to repeat the cycle.
I do not want that. May work for video games, not for models.
To be fair I watched the video a long time ago now, dont fully remember it. But I do remember that being part of it.
So, to fix the riptide being powerful, they add a unit to beat it. That sounds like an awful way of making money. Why should I have to buy a unit to take on a unit thats powerful? Thats not balance, thats what we have now.
Correct me if im wrong, at work so cant re watch the video.
The process would be a lot slower for a game that has a much higher investment cost and we can see that in games that manage their games this way; Privateer Press is a prime example of perfect imbalance within the miniature gaming community (whether you agree or table flip on the notion is another story, but this strongly appears to be what they are striving for). You have casters that are good. A new caster is put out that is perceived as better (but really just beats up on previous good), changing an army play style with just a single $15~$50 purchase. This then makes other casters, usually not fielded, a chance to shine to counter the new hotness. All while still using your same basic allotment of models. This also doesn't really require new releases, but rather a close enough imbalance that makes this rotation happen naturally over time. Malifaux does this, as well, to a great extent.
The problem with Games Workshop in this regard, is instead of balancing the units already released, they simply invalidate previous strategies through either removing units, deleting rules, or changing the ability for the army to be played and then releasing something else (be it rules or models) to make that the new hotness. Games Workshop is imbalanced imperfectly; you still have that revolving door of power builds like found in perfect imbalance, however you lack any of the intelligent subtlety that perfect imbalance implies.
So the idea isn't "OP units" but you should have a unit be good at what they say it's good at and with known deficits. And I posit that while the game still continues very hard random elements and not enough granularity for things like weapon skill to matter, you'll never achieve it. The core rules first need corrected and then each army addressed in one fell swoop. You could then say Farsight gives a bonus to crisis suits (like objective secured), but makes them more expensive or makes it so you cannot take other special characters or ethereals. Hey, that's them being on the right track! The Tau book is very nearly spot on to a well, internally balanced book that exemplifies this balance structure and the supplement, minus a named Riptide, makes the right ideas and building blocks for this notion.
I still think, instead of making units to counter units, regardless of speed or price, isnt my ideal idea of good balance. The only benefit I see is an evolving game may come from it.
I would rather they made models to match the others in play, instead of making them to need a new counter (however minor).
So instead of releasing some megalonian infantry (example) who prove to be a powerful shooting unit over most other shooting unit, then releasing shield rabbitins for other races to act as shot shields to balance out the power of the megalonian infantry, they should instead have released the megalonian infantry, to be moderate shooters, so that they shine in shooting, but not enough to need a a new unit of shield rabbitins.
Or, butloonies suck, at the moment. Lets make bananalumpi units that give people a reason to use butloonies in their armies. Instead of making people pay for balance, it should be striven so that the unit that sucks is made well to begin with.
Units should be made to fit into the existing game, not give reason to expand the game.
Maybe im not getting it, but I dont think perfect imbalance is desirable for a table top wargame. The only time this should be applicable, is if they screw up a unit and its better than they expected.
(whether you agree or table flip on the notion is another story, but this strongly appears to be what they are striving for)
Also, saying stuff like this doesnt sound inviting to new people. The models for the game you are talking about, along with the militant attitude of some of you really put me off the game to the point were I wont try it. I came close to trying it too.
I'm not as interested in every codex being totally balanced with one another as I am every codex having the chance to compete at a high level, so I voted for "Two players that tailor their lists against one another should have even odds of winning regardless of what codex each of them uses."
It's not exactly what I think of when I think of 40k balance, but it gets the job done. If 2 people are going to tailor lists against one another, and one person's codex has no chance to compete or even defend itself....bad times.
Swastakowey wrote: I still think, instead of making units to counter units, regardless of speed or price, isnt my ideal idea of good balance. The only benefit I see is an evolving game may come from it.
I would rather they made models to match the others in play, instead of making them to need a new counter (however minor).
So instead of releasing some megalonian infantry (example) who prove to be a powerful shooting unit over most other shooting unit, then releasing shield rabbitins for other races to act as shot shields to balance out the power of the megalonian infantry, they should instead have released the megalonian infantry, to be moderate shooters, so that they shine in shooting, but not enough to need a a new unit of shield rabbitins.
Units should be made to fit into the existing game, not give reason to expand the game.
Maybe im not getting it, but I dont think perfect imbalance is desirable for a table top wargame. The only time this should be applicable, is if they screw up a unit and its better than they expected.
You are but you aren't. It's that the shooting you unit, if new, can excel at shooting but have a deficit and that your army already has a unit to take advantage of that deficit. Tau suck at close combat. Khorne Bezerkers are AMAZING at blending hordes of infantry, more so wimpy Tau. However, due to the poor core rules of the game like random charge distances and the constant mucking with using transports, you make it so those poor Bezerkers cannot effectively do their job. Again, you're already on the imbalance treadmill, it's just that it's an imperfect imbalance treadmill, such that Bezerkers have been bad for awhile now, across several books, while Tau get a new book that super buff fire warriors from good shooting, poor defense, to really good shooting, and even more defensive shooting!
(whether you agree or table flip on the notion is another story, but this strongly appears to be what they are striving for)
Also, saying stuff like this doesnt sound inviting to new people. The models for the game you are talking about, along with the militant attitude of some of you really put me off the game to the point were I wont try it. I came close to trying it too.
That's not the point of the statement. The point is to say that some people will rage that Warmachine isn't balanced, to which I use the internet rage hyperbole of table flipping. It's not a militant attitude or any statement of attitude on Warmachine players or the game. However, it is a much better balanced and groomed game over Warhammer 40k wholly. The game is also incredibly inviting having individuals highlighted by the company to do so, frequent sponsored growth leagues, and a business strategy that revolves around this notion that one or two new models can unlock new strategies without invalidating any of your previous builds; growth through options and choice, not flavor of the month power creep. I am currently befuddled on where to take my Cryx next as I have too many options that result in viable army lists where as my Circle army sticks to a thematic force for a caster, thus I am fairly happy with the models I own. So I can both branch out and be successful, but stick to the games fluff and be successful. I call that a win-win.
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Voidwraith wrote: I'm not as interested in every codex being totally balanced with one another as I am every codex having the chance to compete at a high level, so I voted for "Two players that tailor their lists against one another should have even odds of winning regardless of what codex each of them uses."
It's not exactly what I think of when I think of 40k balance, but it gets the job done. If 2 people are going to tailor lists against one another, and one person's codex has no chance to compete or even defend itself....bad times.
Malifaux does exactly this, but actually built it into the rules. After finding out what your objectives are, both shared and (potentially secret) personal ones, you then list build to maximize your effectiveness choosing a leader and minions plus upgrades to play to the desired strength of your playstyle and the goals at hand. Warhammer 40k could actually benefit from this, but it would require a lot of game structure changes and, again, the removal of random stuff like psychic powers, warlord traits, etc. to make it effective. It's why I chuckle at the notion that people think Maelstrom of War, another random element, is good asymmetrical mission design when a small upstart is doing it better. They've turned list tailor, which in 40k can be absolutely game breaking, into an every game occurrence and makes it enjoyable.
Swastakowey wrote: I still think, instead of making units to counter units, regardless of speed or price, isnt my ideal idea of good balance. The only benefit I see is an evolving game may come from it.
I would rather they made models to match the others in play, instead of making them to need a new counter (however minor).
So instead of releasing some megalonian infantry (example) who prove to be a powerful shooting unit over most other shooting unit, then releasing shield rabbitins for other races to act as shot shields to balance out the power of the megalonian infantry, they should instead have released the megalonian infantry, to be moderate shooters, so that they shine in shooting, but not enough to need a a new unit of shield rabbitins.
Units should be made to fit into the existing game, not give reason to expand the game.
Maybe im not getting it, but I dont think perfect imbalance is desirable for a table top wargame. The only time this should be applicable, is if they screw up a unit and its better than they expected.
You are but you aren't. It's that the shooting you unit, if new, can excel at shooting but have a deficit and that you army already has a unit to take advantage of that deficit. Tau suck at close combat. Khorne Bezerkers are AMAZING at blending hordes of infantry, more so wimpy Tau. However, due to the poor core rules of the game like random charge distances and the constant mucking with using transports, you make it so those poor Bezerkers cannot effectively do their job. Again, you're already on the imbalance treadmill, it's just that it's an imperfect imbalance treadmill, such that Bezerkers have been bad for awhile now, across several books, while Tau get a new book that super buff fire warriors from good shooting, poor defense, to really good shooting, and even more defensive shooting!
(whether you agree or table flip on the notion is another story, but this strongly appears to be what they are striving for)
Also, saying stuff like this doesnt sound inviting to new people. The models for the game you are talking about, along with the militant attitude of some of you really put me off the game to the point were I wont try it. I came close to trying it too.
That's not the point of the statement. The point is to say that some people will rage that Warmachine isn't balance, to which I use the internet rage hyperbole of table flipping. It's not a militant attitude or any statement of attitude on Warmachine players or the game. However, it is a much better balanced and groomed game over Warhammer 40k wholly. The game is also incredibly inviting having individuals highlighted by the company to do so, frequent sponsored growth leagues, and a business strategy that revolves around this notion that one or two new models can unlock new strategies without invalidating any of your previous builds; growth through options and choice, not flavor of the month power creep.
I will rewatch the video (many details are still blurry), but im still not convinced. I would prefer FoW style balance where its just balanced from the start. On the odd occasion things arent (I think some late war american lists werent) they simply release free rules to replace it. Thats better balance and means that very few models dont see action for rules reasons, so new models dont have to be added to keep up the balance and cycles. They simply release themes and settings to expand their models as they tend to be balanced without needing imbalance at all. Popular models are there for the looks and theme, not rules etc. Rather than people using things as simply counters to the new units to keep the cycle going. But, as siad, maybe I just need to watch the video again because I may just be remembering the gist of it wrong.
As to your second paragraph, the way the players act in regards to supporting a game, is a reflection of the attitudes, and saying it isnt changes nothing. Just ask why "Sing Your Life" is having no luck in the crusade against FoW in that area of the forum. That kind of attitude gives a bad name, and solely the reason I dont actually give the game a try. Hyperboles can be effective when used right, just not to target people who dont share your opinion. (well, in my opinion). You pretty much said anyone who doesnt share your view is a raging individual, in a place, where nobody even mentioned the game you are promoting. Thats all.
I will rewatch the video (many details are still blurry), but im still not convinced. I would prefer FoW style balance where its just balanced from the start. On the odd occasion things arent (I think some late war american lists werent) they simply release free rules to replace it. Thats better balance and means that very few models dont see action for rules reasons, so new models dont have to be added to keep up the balance and cycles. They simply release themes and settings to expand their models as they tend to be balanced without needing imbalance at all. Popular models are there for the looks and theme, not rules etc. Rather than people using things as simply counters to the new units to keep the cycle going. But, as siad, maybe I just need to watch the video again because I may just be remembering the gist of it wrong.
As to your second paragraph, the way the players act in regards to supporting a game, is a reflection of the attitudes, and saying it isnt changes nothing. Just ask why "Sing Your Life" is having no luck in the crusade against FoW in that area of the forum. That kind of attitude gives a bad name, and solely the reason I dont actually give the game a try. Hyperboles can be effective when used right, just not to target people who dont share your opinion. (well, in my opinion). You pretty much said anyone who doesnt share your view is a raging individual, in a place, where nobody even mentioned the game you are promoting. Thats all.
I cannot speak to Flames of War, but the idea of using perfect imbalance is that it's also a marketable strategy that works for a company in the business of selling you plastic McGuffin's and characters of epic proportions. You sound like you prefer a historical setting. You cannot exactly make up new models for such a game and you really cannot bend the idea of what a certain tank or infantry platoon used or did in those settings, so perfect imbalance does not work there. I imagine the creators of Flames of War branch out into various campaigns to flesh out the war versus introduction of new game elements. Historical games fall more into simulation, but I know FoW and Bolt Action are far more "gamey". Everything you are saying is a different road of game design constrained specifically by the setting. Such a game would probably want to err closer to perfect balance and complete product in which the gamers can recreate the narrative of the setting. That tank should pretty much always beat this tank because the former is of a latter time period and reaps benefits of greater technology versus the latter and so on. But said tank is always "asploded" by that air strike no matter if it's 1930s tech or 1940s tech.
And don't take my statement as that, again, not a reflection to Warmachine, but my reflection of the crowd that gets mad any time you compare said game to their "special snowflake" that is Warhammer 40k. That a company could be producing a better game, be it one they do or do not like being another story, is not a criticism they want to hear. I support Warmachine because Privateer Press is not hostile towards me as a player and ensures their game is well maintained on many fronts. These are factual and marked differences between Games Workshop and the "which is better" is fairly obvious with little dispute. I play the game because I like the models and the rules. The marriage of both makes me use it as an example in comparisons.
1) Each major strategy archetype has a roughly 50/50 win rate against a field consisting of an equal number of opponents from each major strategy archetype. So, for example, it's ok if a list is 60/40 against one particular opponent as long as it's 40/60 against something else. In short form, what this means is that if you bring a well-designed list against an unknown opponent you can expect a fairly competitive game.
2) Each option in a codex has a viable use in at least one major strategy archetype, preferably multiple archetypes. If you really want to use unit/upgrade/etc X you should be able to come up with an effective list that uses it. There should not be any options that are so terrible that you only take them if you don't care about winning.
3) No option should be so obviously strong that it is an auto-include, or even close to automatic. You should never be forced to take a unit that you don't like just because not taking it cripples your chances of winning.
And no matter how many pages Ailaros spends trying to defend his absurd beliefs about game balance this does NOT mean that all armies are the same, or that the choices you make in building your army do not matter.
And no matter how many pages Ailaros spends trying to defend his absurd beliefs about game balance this does NOT mean that all armies are the same, or that the choices you make in building your army do not matter.
QFT, not for a response to Ailaros, but for the notion that striving for such makes for bland games.
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Yonan wrote: Nice poll, the two I also chose are the stand-out leads in what people want from balance.
Stop saying everything I want to say, only sooner and better.
I'm fairly curt and short when posting on my phone and more verbose when posting on my PC. I'm perceived as very unfriendly when posting from my phone as "ain't nobody got time for that." Also, typos abound...
It's funny because 40k is literally the paragon of perfect imbalance. It's a game that's imbalanced with clear strong and weak stuff, and what's strong and weak changes over time, and so develops a meta, preventing the game from becoming stale.
Which is why 40k is still around after a few decades while most other games of its type have failed over time - exactly because everyone figures them out, and all the challenge is lost. This is especially true in games with a strong random element to them as once armylists and player skill become controlled variables, there's literally nothing else but luck (compare, say, two basically equal players forced to play with the same army list), and it becomes nothing more than a dice rolling game.
Which is, ironically, what people who want to be able to take more or less anything and have an even chance of winning are ultimately advocating.
There's a good reason why warmahordes is one of the very few counters to the endless parade of failed minis games - they figured out how to do things exactly the way GW does.
Swastakowey wrote:I would rather they made models to match the others in play, instead of making them to need a new counter (however minor).
Do you really want 40k to be just a more complicated version of rock-paper-scissors, though? That also cheapens things a great deal.
I will rewatch the video (many details are still blurry), but im still not convinced. I would prefer FoW style balance where its just balanced from the start. On the odd occasion things arent (I think some late war american lists werent) they simply release free rules to replace it. Thats better balance and means that very few models dont see action for rules reasons, so new models dont have to be added to keep up the balance and cycles. They simply release themes and settings to expand their models as they tend to be balanced without needing imbalance at all. Popular models are there for the looks and theme, not rules etc. Rather than people using things as simply counters to the new units to keep the cycle going. But, as siad, maybe I just need to watch the video again because I may just be remembering the gist of it wrong.
As to your second paragraph, the way the players act in regards to supporting a game, is a reflection of the attitudes, and saying it isnt changes nothing. Just ask why "Sing Your Life" is having no luck in the crusade against FoW in that area of the forum. That kind of attitude gives a bad name, and solely the reason I dont actually give the game a try. Hyperboles can be effective when used right, just not to target people who dont share your opinion. (well, in my opinion). You pretty much said anyone who doesnt share your view is a raging individual, in a place, where nobody even mentioned the game you are promoting. Thats all.
I cannot speak to Flames of War, but the idea of using perfect imbalance is that it's also a marketable strategy that works for a company in the business of selling you plastic McGuffin's and characters of epic proportions. You sound like you prefer a historical setting. You cannot exactly make up new models for such a game and you really cannot bend the idea of what a certain tank or infantry platoon used or did in those settings, so perfect imbalance does not work there. I imagine the creators of Flames of War branch out into various campaigns to flesh out the war versus introduction of new game elements. Historical games fall more into simulation, but I know FoW and Bolt Action are far more "gamey". Everything you are saying is a different road of game design constrained specifically by the setting. Such a game would probably want to err closer to perfect balance and complete product in which the gamers can recreate the narrative of the setting. That tank should pretty much always beat this tank because the former is of a latter time period and reaps benefits of greater technology versus the latter and so on. But said tank is always "asploded" by that air strike no matter if it's 1930s tech or 1940s tech.
And don't take my statement as that, again, not a reflection to Warmachine, but my reflection of the crowd that gets mad any time you compare said game to their "special snowflake" that is Warhammer 40k. That a company could be producing a better game, be it one they do or do not like being another story, is not a criticism they want to hear. I support Warmachine because Privateer Press is not hostile towards me as a player and ensures their game is well maintained on many fronts. These are factual and marked differences between Games Workshop and the "which is better" is fairly obvious with little dispute. I play the game because I like the models and the rules. The marriage of both makes me use it as an example in comparisons.
I agree on the first paragraph. Maybe my idea of balance only works in a historical setting. But that doesnt mean a company could create their own setting then make the models fit in the same way historical games do. In my opinion, thats the way to go for balance. Which essentially is, make the unit work for the setting/current stuff. Expand the setting to get more sales if needed.
I like flames of war for its rules and models (which is undeniably better than 40k also), they also treat me like a customer etc and provide/do everything I need and want as a wargamer. But I recognise that the models/rules are not everyone's cup of tea regardless of how much better they are. As a result, I dont bother dismissing those who enjoy a game seen as bad in many ways as "table flippers" and so on. Its bad advertising regardless of the intention or truth behind it. Anyways, you have heard it hundreds of times im sure.
It's funny because 40k is literally the paragon of perfect imbalance. It's a game that's imbalanced with clear strong and weak stuff, and what's strong and weak changes over time, and so develops a meta, preventing the game from becoming stale.
Which is why 40k is still around after a few decades while most other games of its type have failed over time - exactly because everyone figures them out, and all the challenge is lost. This is especially true in games with a strong random element to them as once armylists and player skill become controlled variables, there's literally nothing else but luck (compare, say, two basically equal players forced to play with the same army list), and it becomes nothing more than a dice rolling game.
Which is, ironically, what people who want to be able to take more or less anything and have an even chance of winning are ultimately advocating.
There's a good reason why warmahordes is one of the very few counters to the endless parade of failed minis games - they figured out how to do things exactly the way GW does.
Swastakowey wrote:I would rather they made models to match the others in play, instead of making them to need a new counter (however minor).
Do you really want 40k to be just a more complicated version of rock-paper-scissors, though? That also cheapens things a great deal.
I ish agree on your first one, expect I think GW does a bad version of imbalance so its not perfect imbalance. If it were more subtle and less pricey, and it properly cycled between units, then nobody would notice. So its a bad version of imbalance yes. I guess.
Second point, flames of war is not a rock paper scissors, nor is any other historical game. Anti tank guns work better against tanks, but can also kill infantry or blow through cover etc. Nothing simnply beats one thing and looses to another. Which I think is balance. When something is useful without eliminating someone else stuff entirely.
Ailaros wrote: It's funny because 40k is literally the paragon of perfect imbalance. It's a game that's imbalanced with clear strong and weak stuff, and what's strong and weak changes over time, and so develops a meta, preventing the game from becoming stale.
No, you just don't understand balance at all. Perfect imbalance is a concept where you use deliberate and subtle variations in power level to drive the metagame. 40k's balance issues aren't a carefully-crafted metagame, they're just GW being hopelessly incompetent at writing good rules.
Which is why 40k is still around after a few decades while most other games of its type have failed over time - exactly because everyone figures them out, and all the challenge is lost.
Lol, no. 40k isn't around because of its (garbage) rules, it's around because of the amazing fluff and models combined with GW's past business successes. If 40k was a new game that had to sell based on its rules and gameplay it would be forgotten almost immediately.
Do you really want 40k to be just a more complicated version of rock-paper-scissors, though? That also cheapens things a great deal.
That's better than the current game of rock/paper/auto-win. Your entire argument against balance seems to be based around this ridiculous assumption that 40k's poor balance is difficult to "solve" as a player, when in reality this is the opposite of the truth. The overpowered options and combinations are usually pretty obvious, so what you're so-called "perfect imbalance" really means is that most of the models you can buy have no purpose besides sitting on your shelf unless you really enjoy losing. You can make "choices" in building your army, but the choices are all extremely obvious and you end up with the same cookie-cutter netlists over and over again. I fail to see how this is better than a game where there are more options that are capable of winning, and the gap in power level between the best units/upgrades and the worst units/upgrades is much smaller.
That's better than the current game of rock/paper/auto-win. Your entire argument against balance seems to be based around this ridiculous assumption that 40k's poor balance is difficult to "solve" as a player, when in reality this is the opposite of the truth. The overpowered options and combinations are usually pretty obvious, so what you're so-called "perfect imbalance" really means is that most of the models you can buy have no purpose besides sitting on your shelf unless you really enjoy losing. You can make "choices" in building your army, but the choices are all extremely obvious and you end up with the same cookie-cutter netlists over and over again. I fail to see how this is better than a game where there are more options that are capable of winning, and the gap in power level between the best units/upgrades and the worst units/upgrades is much smaller.
I believe he has yet to answer another user on a very specific question: What, then, is the purpose of completely ineffective units, such as the Penitent Engine, in the perfect imbalance of Warhammer 40k?
The question is dodged because there is no answer. Poor to out-and-out ineffective units exist in a great amount within Games Workshop games. Units that you know "hey, I've never actually seen that played." Other games have the same problem before I pretend to be casting the first stone. I wish the Woldwrath was a more viable piece. However, there is a new caster for Circle of Orboros who specializes in Wolds, so he may yet make good on that $135(!) model. Sames goes for the Archangel or Mountain King. Massive, awesome models which are routinely stated as large ineffective with any list. However, I have faith that Privateer Press notices this and wishes to sell more of them, thus will introduce some caster, solo, or other element to make them more effective.
It could then be argued, but "Hey!, what about just fixing that one unit that's already out?! I spent good money on it!" I'm sure they've noticed that always tweaking units starts you down a dark path of what Games Workshop does. Constant buffing and debuffing of the same tired units, like Eldar Grav Tanks, on a circle of is it good or isn't it. And most of the time, it's points values that get dropped for these models that result in "spam" builds. Would the Woldwrath be amazing for 5 points versus 20 points ( I think it's that..)? YES! Oh, My God yes! But would that promote game balance? No, it just makes power creep. Instead, I suspect a new unit, like this caster, will come out and help make it more viable. Is it all "Just As Planned!" by PP? I doubt it, they make mistakes and botch models. They issue FAQs, too. But I know they are good on fixing those mistakes at some point.
I'd also like to add that not tweaking units on end is better for the players. A player can always look at a Woldwrath and know what it does. A player can then remember what a Woldwrath + Brad does, if the new caster (Bradigus), makes him baller. Compare that to Warhammer 40k with the all too often statement heard by the grognards of ages past "Wait, doesn't X do Y? No, wait, that was the 3E codex in 4E that it worked like that." Units, and the rules that dictate said units, have changed so dramatically in 40k that it makes the very idea that they are striving for perfect imbalance an asinine one. After SEVEN editions of a game, we still have drastic rules changes. Many of their competition hits a major stride in their second, maybe third edition. And players who've stuck it out that long will have to remember (or can accurately recall) what state line which model has over which edition of the core rules and codex. While the Woldwrath will continue being the Woldwrath, for better or for worse. Hopefully, with Brad, it's for the better. Magic Monkey Smash!
TheKbob wrote: I believe he has yet to answer another user on a very specific question: What, then, is the purpose of completely ineffective units, such as the Penitent Engine, in the perfect imbalance of Warhammer 40k?
He's answered this before elsewhere: the purpose of those units is to allow you to deliberately weaken your list to give yourself a bigger challenge or to go easy on a less-skilled opponent. It's just too bad if you happen to like the fluff or model and don't want to participate in this masochistic self-nerfing, but that's the price of having options. And of course he'll never accept the fact that the easiest way to nerf your own list is to just take fewer points than your opponent.
TheKbob wrote: I believe he has yet to answer another user on a very specific question: What, then, is the purpose of completely ineffective units, such as the Penitent Engine, in the perfect imbalance of Warhammer 40k?
He's answered this before elsewhere: the purpose of those units is to allow you to deliberately weaken your list to give yourself a bigger challenge or to go easy on a less-skilled opponent. It's just too bad if you happen to like the fluff or model and don't want to participate in this masochistic self-nerfing, but that's the price of having options. And of course he'll never accept the fact that the easiest way to nerf your own list is to just take fewer points than your opponent.
Yep, if you're a better player you give the other guy extra points to fight you in a a balanced game. Voila, you give them an advantage and all units remain usable in general play and they get the awesome feeling of having more stuff to play with rather than facing rarely seen weak units. Starcraft 2 handles handicaps by reducing the HP of units and buildings byu the handicap amount, so setting it at 90% means that a 150 HP unit will become a 135 HP unit (10% less). Setting it at 50% on a probe means that probe will have 10 HP and 10 shields. This works great with friends who are less skilled or knowledgeable about the game than you in still allowing them to compete at an equal level. When working from a balanced base, you can find the exact handicap needed for equal play, then adjust it as they get better.
I see. That's not actually imperfect imbalance. That's just a bad unit, as I suggested with Mr. Woldwrath. And one I know will be fixed in a deliberate fashion rather than "Baby + Bath Water = Sucess!" approach that's quite fond with Games Workshop rules changes.
I played a great board game that was "passive aggressive" multiplayer, the best I can put it, called Nations that had a player difficulty setting that regulated the amount of resources a player got while everyone still played the same game. One good player was on hard while the rest of us poor plebians were on normal. It changed nothing about the game dynamic or required "pulled punches" to allow all players to enjoy the many hours we put into it. The same idea could be baked into a wargame.
I gave a demo of Malifaux recently to a new player and, by accident ("bad things happen" after all), I one shot his master on a riposte which is super rare. But, being a good player, he still kept the game close and scored enough, given just a few more tricks, he'd have bested me. On his first game! Now, granted, he seemed very talented at war games to recover from that nasty turn of events, more so with just the basic explanation of rules and reading the character cards once, but I've found the better a game, the easier it is for a player to simple just "get it" and play.
Swastakowey wrote:I ish agree on your first one, expect I think GW does a bad version of imbalance so its not perfect imbalance.
"Perfect" in this case doesn't mean "the way I like", it refers to something more specific.
In this case, you can have perfect imbalance that some people don't like, just as you can use the perfect imbalance model to create a version of imbalance that some people like more.
Furthermore, the idea of perfect imbalance, even by its very name defies the idea of balance. It exists for some units to be stronger and others to be weaker, and for that to change over time. That's literally what it is. Imbalance.
If you don't have weaker units you necessarily don't have stronger units, and if all units are roughly equal in power, then you've taken all skill and meaningfulness out of the decisions you make when you choose what to bring to the table. There's no real strategy to it anymore if everything is functionally the same with regards to the outcome of the game.
Swastakowey wrote: If it were more subtle and less pricey
Well, of course, if you're GW the pricey makes a lot more sense.
In any case, I think one of the things that people greatly overplay is the unsubtlety of 40k, as you'd say. The strongest guard list, for example, isn't THAT much stronger or weaker than any other army list, for example.
I think it's easy to look at the extremely vocal minority who decry bad game balance and then completely fail comprehensively to come up with balance. Put a tau player and someone who's lost a game against tau once in a room and have them decide what true, objective balance should look like and the two would likely starve to death before coming up with an agreement.
Because there isn't such a thing as objective balance outside of symmetry, and there never will be. The only way to get around this, price-wise is to play a cheaper game (like MTG), or to approach 40k with a different attitude other than to only win all the time slightly more easily than some other way.
So long as you're not a powergamer who must play with the absolute strongest possible list at any given moment, there's no real problem here.
Swastakowey wrote: Which I think is balance. When something is useful without eliminating someone else stuff entirely.
Why?
That doesn't sound like a balance of strength, but rather seems to be a choice regarding the difference between specialization and versatility.
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One of the things I always find interesting about discussion of balance as well is that 40k can be 100% perfectly balanced with no changes whatsoever in the rules. Just show up to the game with the exact same list as your opponent, and voila, instant balance. Just like chess.
But nobody seems to do this. Most people would rather the game be imbalanced so that they could think about things and take different units to be able to have an edge on their opponents. Plenty of people also decry balance openly - you don't need to go any further than "at that tournament, it was just everybody playing X" to see how much people don't really want balance, but would rather have meaningful imbalance in the game.
If you do want balance, though, then seriously, only ever play mirror matches. All your problems are solved. It's only a matter of time before you get bored with balance and want to have meaningful decisions about what you bring to the table again. Just like everybody else.
MTG is cheaper than 40k? I spent more on 1 modern deck than I did on 5k points of a 40k army and most of my army was purchased new at full retail price. I won't even get into legacy where you could easily drop $3k on a deck to be competitive. Sorry for the OT post but I see that thrown around quite a bit and it simply isn't true. MTG is no more balanced than 40k either. Buy a booster box and make a deck using only those cards and play against someone with an optimized tournament deck. You will get demolished. Funny how there aren't nearly as many complaints about a lack of balance in that game.
Swastakowey wrote:I ish agree on your first one, expect I think GW does a bad version of imbalance so its not perfect imbalance.
"Perfect" in this case doesn't mean "the way I like", it refers to something more specific.
In this case, you can have perfect imbalance that some people don't like, just as you can use the perfect imbalance model to create a version of imbalance that some people like more.
Furthermore, the idea of perfect imbalance, even by its very name defies the idea of balance. It exists for some units to be stronger and others to be weaker, and for that to change over time. That's literally what it is. Imbalance.
If you don't have weaker units you necessarily don't have stronger units, and if all units are roughly equal in power, then you've taken all skill and meaningfulness out of the decisions you make when you choose what to bring to the table. There's no real strategy to it anymore if everything is functionally the same with regards to the outcome of the game.
Swastakowey wrote: If it were more subtle and less pricey
Well, of course, if you're GW the pricey makes a lot more sense.
In any case, I think one of the things that people greatly overplay is the unsubtlety of 40k, as you'd say. The strongest guard list, for example, isn't THAT much stronger or weaker than any other army list, for example.
I think it's easy to look at the extremely vocal minority who decry bad game balance and then completely fail comprehensively to come up with balance. Put a tau player and someone who's lost a game against tau once in a room and have them decide what true, objective balance should look like and the two would likely starve to death before coming up with an agreement.
Because there isn't such a thing as objective balance outside of symmetry, and there never will be. The only way to get around this, price-wise is to play a cheaper game (like MTG), or to approach 40k with a different attitude other than to only win all the time slightly more easily than some other way.
So long as you're not a powergamer who must play with the absolute strongest possible list at any given moment, there's no real problem here.
Swastakowey wrote: Which I think is balance. When something is useful without eliminating someone else stuff entirely.
Why?
That doesn't sound like a balance of strength, but rather seems to be a choice regarding the difference between specialization and versatility.
Im gonna answer roughly in the order of your answer...
Well. I agree that not everyone will like perfect imbalance (like me). There is nearly nothing that everyone will agree on anyway.
I hate Imperfect Balance. As I said earlier, its not balance. Its just not letting a game go stale and driving sales (subsequently expanding the game). Nothing more.
The problem with having weaker units, is those units might be what someone enjoys. Which defeats the purpose of a lot of the hobby. But the key wording you have wrong there, is the functionality of the units being the same. That is wrong, in a balanced game as I see it, is every model has a purpose, without rendering other units useless. An anti tank gun, has a purpose and does its job. In a balanced game, an anti tank gun is not just as good as a rifle. They both serve a different purpose and in a balanced game each one will do their job without making units that are redundant or useless as a result. Equal in USEFULNESS and equal in ROLE FULFILLMENT not equal in power. Balanced to the point where how you use a unit defines that unit.
I agree, the minority greatly over play the unbalance. But I do agree that bad match ups are frequent in certain situations. What you are trying to tell me, is paying 60 points for 3 mortars is balanced when I can get a wyvern for 65, or when an Eldar Weapon platform is equal to the cost of a heavy weapons team, yet can move, shoot, has its own superior profile and superior weapons plus run shoot run etc etc, is all balance and that the skill involved is simply choosing the best units which are a result of the imbalance. So, to be a good player, you think I should go unbound, buy the best units in the game, and use them together, and that would make me one of the best players in the game? (im just not sure where you are going with this bit). Or, am I a better player, for using the chimeras in the Inquisitor codex in an unbound army to fight the chimeras in the current AM codex? Because the inquisitor ones are 10 points cheaper?
The most perfect balance WITHOUT VARIATION is symmetry yes. But when variation is added and a value is given to each variation in accordance to its usefulness, changes can be made while keeping the balance. Like buying water melons by the KG. For example, buying a water melon from GW, one may be smaller than the other, but you may pay MORE for it (which it seems you are calling balance). In a desired wargaming balance world, you pay less for the smaller watermelon, and pay more for the bigger watermelon. In short, in a decently balanced world, things are priced according to their differences, like melons are priced according to their weight. Which is seen as a fair system by most of the world
I am not a power gamer. I feel I have less issues with the game than most. But I still, feel the pain when up against power gaming lists. So I do see a problem. I would like you to make a list right now, knowing nothing about your enemy. THEN take that list, and put it up against a list which contains an eldar revenant titan. Do you feel like, the revenant titan player is superior to you because he can wipe out at least 2 units a turn and tank more hits than it gives out? What if he went unbound and had a revenant titan, backed up by an army of nightwings flying around? I would not call that balance and nor would I call it skill on the other players part.
Now I think about it, that should be the choice. Specialization and versatility. Choices should be be designed and created to do a certain role within the army within the game. The strength should be equal, so how you use them in accordance to their role enhances the strength. So if used properly, will eliminate tanks. But, what stops it from being paper scissors rock, is the tank can be used to its full efficiency too, so the tank isnt negated by the anti tank guns, from things such as placement, movement and a bit of dice luck. So the factors in play, arent just strength, but how they are used and how the player can bring out their full strength. Which is something I dont see in 40k, well, its not important in 40k.
If this makes no sense, tell me, I am still learning to articulate my thoughts on the internet
The only reason, I dont think 40k is horrible, is because I believe in list tailoring and pre game planning. Which gets rid of many issues. I actively go out of my way to make the game balanced and fair. Because of that, the games are awesome and the narratives are enjoyable. But I will not kid myself that it is a strategy game, or a balanced game. As many know, I try limit my complaints, as I feel the many issues with 40k can be solved if you have the right mindset, but I wont say its balanced. A good game, but at the same time, a terrible one.
Toofast wrote: MTG is cheaper than 40k? I spent more on 1 modern deck than I did on 5k points of a 40k army and most of my army was purchased new at full retail price. I won't even get into legacy where you could easily drop $3k on a deck to be competitive. Sorry for the OT post but I see that thrown around quite a bit and it simply isn't true. MTG is no more balanced than 40k either. Buy a booster box and make a deck using only those cards and play against someone with an optimized tournament deck. You will get demolished. Funny how there aren't nearly as many complaints about a lack of balance in that game.
Red Deck Wins, Eggs, Goblins, Elves, and Storm all disagree with you on that. Several of those Legacy Decks are under $50. My own 2 Legacy Decks (Reanimator and Stax) each sit around $350, and do very well. The notion that being able to figure out good combinations, but also knowing how to play what you have well is what makes the game semi balanced.
It's one reason why I like my Necron Codex. There are a number of options to make a nice TAC list that allows me to play a combined arms style army, where models can provide support for each other. Having a GA with a squad of Destructeks inside babysitting a Warrior unit with a Triarch Stalker walking next to them allows for a good deal of adaptability. Is that an uber optimized use of 600 points? No, but it gives me good results and in a wide variety of situations and can be just a single part of an army.
Ideally, balance should come down to being 25% list building and finding combinations that work, 50% tactical decisions made in game, and the last 25% of dice luck.
I'm enjoying this discussion as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.
I think a truly balanced game should be, as said before, about 20% list building, 70% gameplay/tactics, and 10% dice.
Warmachine/Hordes does a pretty good job of this. My evidence would be to point to all the prime version of warlocks and warcasters that came out over a decade ago and are still used and relevant in the game.
On the flip side, there are horribly unbalanced models and rules. Easy example, there is a 2 point solo who can completely incapacitate just about anything it gets in range of up to and including 19 or 20 point models (Gorman vs. a colossal). But that actually does stay balanced in the game, as they provide counters against those 19 or 20 point models for armies or lists that might not be available otherwise. This is also because things like that (that are individually unbalanced) are not spammable and with just a bit of tactics, any TAC list can counter.
The other reason I think Warmachine is really balanced is because of the way they set up their tournaments. All tournament games can be won by scenario or assassination. You're encouraged (or required) to take 2 or 3 different lists, allowing you to counter or cover different skews and situations. I say this balances the game more because you can have an all melee army vs. an all ranged army and force players to move around and fight where it might not be to the strength of their army.
I also think the lack of deathstars shows balance. There are units and combos that synergies amazingly well, but everything is counterable. And the counter isn't just "force saves". You can even build a list that is fluffy and be rewarded, via theme lists, where you get bonuses for only taking or using certain units.
On the other end, with Malifaux, as mentioned you pick the schemes you want to play and then build your list. Some games having fast units or ones that can trip up the enemy do way more for you then an army of beat sticks.
One thing both systems have in common is allowing you to have a pretty good idea of the chances of success, and to modify them in some way. Whether it's putting fixed buffs on, adding a die to a roll, or generally increasing or decreasing the potential result, you give players a chance to plan an action, while still retaining a chance for a longshot success or crazy stupid miss.
40k's answer for balance is to add more randomness that the player can't control (charge distance, powers, warlord traits) and to mix and match armies (allies and unbound) to fill in the holes that they're unwilling or unable to fix in a codex. I really feel like every codex should be able to stand on its own merits and not require or be broken by adding stuff from other codexes.
Ailaros wrote: If you don't have weaker units you necessarily don't have stronger units, and if all units are roughly equal in power, then you've taken all skill and meaningfulness out of the decisions you make when you choose what to bring to the table. There's no real strategy to it anymore if everything is functionally the same with regards to the outcome of the game.
Oh FFS, how many times do people need to tell you that this is wrong? Making all units equal in power doesn't remove the importance of list-building decisions because units can vary in power in different situations. Unit A is better in dense terrain, unit B is better when you're also using unit C, etc. Even if A and B are both equally powerful on some abstract power scale you still have to make intelligent choices about which one of them will be more effective in your strategy.
And the other half of this is that 40k-style imbalance where unit A is just plain better than unit B doesn't produce meaningful choices, it removes choices. A game where unit A is simply better than unit B is really a game in which unit A is the only option and unit B doesn't exist. Your version of 40k is still a game in which everything is equal in power, it just has a lot fewer choices available.
The strongest guard list, for example, isn't THAT much stronger or weaker than any other army list, for example.
And that completely ignores the importance of internal balance. The strongest IG list might be competitive with all the other best lists, but the strongest IG list is going to absolutely dominate a lot of other IG lists, and not just ones that are deliberately badly designed. Half (or more!) of the options in each codex might as well not exist because they're so terrible, and that's incredibly bad game design.
I think it's easy to look at the extremely vocal minority who decry bad game balance and then completely fail comprehensively to come up with balance. Put a tau player and someone who's lost a game against tau once in a room and have them decide what true, objective balance should look like and the two would likely starve to death before coming up with an agreement.
You're right, balance is hard, and it's not really surprising that random players don't do a very good job of it. But random players aren't getting paid to design games. We have every right to expect better from so-called professional game designers, and GW doesn't even come close to meeting those expectations.
So long as you're not a powergamer who must play with the absolute strongest possible list at any given moment, there's no real problem here.
Yeah, no problem at all if the units and strategies you want to use have no hope of winning unless your opponent generously weakens their own army to play at your level...
One of the things I always find interesting about discussion of balance as well is that 40k can be 100% perfectly balanced with no changes whatsoever in the rules. Just show up to the game with the exact same list as your opponent, and voila, instant balance. Just like chess.
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Seriously? We don't want to arrange symmetrical games in advance because we want to be able to build our own armies. We want to be able to use a model that we like, or a unit that we think might be an interesting addition to our strategies and not have to make sure that our opponent also brings the same unit, or have to feel like we're hurting our chances of winning by taking something other than the clear best list. Balance is about increasing the number of options in list building, not removing them!
But nobody seems to do this. Most people would rather the game be imbalanced so that they could think about things and take different units to be able to have an edge on their opponents. Plenty of people also decry balance openly - you don't need to go any further than "at that tournament, it was just everybody playing X" to see how much people don't really want balance, but would rather have meaningful imbalance in the game.
Holy you have no idea what you're talking about. "Everyone is playing X" isn't balance, it's the result of a completely unbalanced game where X is the obvious dominant option and if you don't play X you have very little chance of winning. A balanced game would have lots of different armies because there would be a wide range of viable options and different players would have different opinions about the best way to gain an advantage over their opponents.
If you do want balance, though, then seriously, only ever play mirror matches. All your problems are solved. It's only a matter of time before you get bored with balance and want to have meaningful decisions about what you bring to the table again. Just like everybody else.
BALANCE IS NOT SYMMETRY.
Balance is about having A, B and C be viable options, not having a game where A is the only "choice" and B and C don't exist at all.
Balance is about having A, B and C be viable options, not having a game where A is the only "choice" and B and C don't exist at all.
It shouldn't be that hard to understand.
Direct example from starcraft: Each race has a "tier 1" unit. Zerg have zerglings, 25 minerals each, Terran has marines, 50 minerals each and Protoss have zealots at 100 minerals each.
4 unupgraded zerglings will trash an unupgraded zealot in the open. One zealot will hold a choke against 8 zerglings when they come at him one at a time. Marines need to be stutter stepped to make up for their squishiness but get the ability to shoot air units and in general have range which is nice. All 3 fulfill the roll of a "mineral dump" but vary in use depending on stage of the game and your build vs your opponents build. Zerglings are useless engaging headon against a protoss death ball, but their speed still lets them be used for hit and run on reinforcements or to do economic damage. Marines likewise get eaten by AoE but they're good all rounders and can be brutal with drop play. Zealots are great tanks for protoss to absorb damage but you need to be careful with them as they're relatively expensive and can be easily wasted.
3 completely different units which need to be played differently but are all worth using, more or less depending on builds and stage of the game.
The same can be said for raven/infestor/templar or marauder/stalker/roach, phoenix/viking/muta. All have different playstyles individually and overall result in different playstyles and priorities for the factions. Zerg often need to trade inefficiently repeatedly in order to keep the 'toss death ball from happening, 'toss likewise can generally get by a lot better on two bases compared to zergs 3-4 which is good because they can find extra bases harder to defend. I could go on but hopefully the idea of balance = symmetry being silly should be obvious. SC2 isn't perfectly balanced, but it's very close - so much closer than 40k it's not funny, and imo it does a better job of asymmetry too.
novaspike wrote: I'm enjoying this discussion as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.
I think a truly balanced game should be, as said before, about 20% list building, 70% gameplay/tactics, and 10% dice.
Warmachine/Hordes does a pretty good job of this. My evidence would be to point to all the prime version of warlocks and warcasters that came out over a decade ago and are still used and relevant in the game.
On the flip side, there are horribly unbalanced models and rules. Easy example, there is a 2 point solo who can completely incapacitate just about anything it gets in range of up to and including 19 or 20 point models (Gorman vs. a colossal). But that actually does stay balanced in the game, as they provide counters against those 19 or 20 point models for armies or lists that might not be available otherwise. This is also because things like that (that are individually unbalanced) are not spammable and with just a bit of tactics, any TAC list can counter.
The other reason I think Warmachine is really balanced is because of the way they set up their tournaments. All tournament games can be won by scenario or assassination. You're encouraged (or required) to take 2 or 3 different lists, allowing you to counter or cover different skews and situations. I say this balances the game more because you can have an all melee army vs. an all ranged army and force players to move around and fight where it might not be to the strength of their army.
I also think the lack of deathstars shows balance. There are units and combos that synergies amazingly well, but everything is counterable. And the counter isn't just "force saves". You can even build a list that is fluffy and be rewarded, via theme lists, where you get bonuses for only taking or using certain units.
On the other end, with Malifaux, as mentioned you pick the schemes you want to play and then build your list. Some games having fast units or ones that can trip up the enemy do way more for you then an army of beat sticks.
One thing both systems have in common is allowing you to have a pretty good idea of the chances of success, and to modify them in some way. Whether it's putting fixed buffs on, adding a die to a roll, or generally increasing or decreasing the potential result, you give players a chance to plan an action, while still retaining a chance for a longshot success or crazy stupid miss.
40k's answer for balance is to add more randomness that the player can't control (charge distance, powers, warlord traits) and to mix and match armies (allies and unbound) to fill in the holes that they're unwilling or unable to fix in a codex. I really feel like every codex should be able to stand on its own merits and not require or be broken by adding stuff from other codexes.
This, minus a few key points. I think these are all great examples of balance except the bolded part. I feel that charge distance, powers, and warlord traits allow enough randomness to account for great battles. Powers, do you roll several dominions or go with Primarus powers? Same with Warlord traits, what table do you choose? They're not meant to be game changing, but to add an edge to an army. Charge distance especially, as it is just as important as rolling to hit or to shoot.
Other than that, I absolutely agree with you that each codex should stand on its own merits, without being absolutely broken. I feel this could be accomplished by rolling several chapters into existing codices (daemons and CSM into one, I would even take BA, SW, and DA rolled into SM if it gave the overall game better balance.)
I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.
As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?
One thing I think that's missing from 40k and is very importent to a successful game balance is having evry faction(codex/ army) be designed to play the games design.
If the game wants to be shooting then all the army's need to be designed to play that sort of game, with there own differences to it thrown in.
If objectives are are being pushed then evry army has to be able to play that efetcively.
A fluffy army should always be taking what that army would take into that situation.
If the design is good you should be able to change up your army quick to suit a mission with a bit of gear change and maybe a few units changed.
Another thing that this should be used is that an army should be able to play the game without causing unneeded stress and frustraition in both players.
The fact that people feal they need to say no to certen game eliements to play in some cases is a design failure to balance I feal.
novaspike wrote: I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.
As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?
Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?
Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.
In general, I like to think that it should fall under "A typical "take all comers" list another from any codex should have an even chance to beat a similar list from any other codex." with the caveat that every unit in a codex should have a viable place in any take all comers list.
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
But nobody seems to do this. Most people would rather the game be imbalanced so that they could think about things and take different units to be able to have an edge on their opponents. Plenty of people also decry balance openly - you don't need to go any further than "at that tournament, it was just everybody playing X" to see how much people don't really want balance, but would rather have meaningful imbalance in the game.
Holy you have no idea what you're talking about. "Everyone is playing X" isn't balance, it's the result of a completely unbalanced game where X is the obvious dominant option and if you don't play X you have very little chance of winning. A balanced game would have lots of different armies because there would be a wide range of viable options and different players would have different opinions about the best way to gain an advantage over their opponents.
I did a double-take when I read that as well. There's no skill involved in simply checking a forum and duplicating a netlist that can autopilot itself to victory, unless you lose by pure chance. It's a sign the game has degenerated and been "solved", and that a big chunk of the options (or even factions!) might as well not exist.
In a balanced game, I consider "What do I want this army to be good at, and what weaknesses do I have to cover for? Do I have a counter for this locally popular option, and is it still useful if I don't run into that option? Would X be better for a certain role, or would it be worth paying more points for Y, and cutting Z out to make room?" In an unbalanced game, I take the obvious best choice as much as I can, and the only limiter is "How likely is my opponent to think less of me if I spam, and does that matter?" "Fluffy" lists are also more viable in a balanced game, because you don't have to worry about the units that fit your theme being too weak (or strong).
Going back to Warmachine for a moment, one thing that's often fascinating is how top-flight tournament players both play a wide variety of lists, but often take options (Mountain King, Assault Kommandos or Dahlia & Skarath), that are traditionally considered weak or overlooked. It suggests it's much more about how you can use what you have vs letting the army play itself.
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jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
I think it's a red herring to say you need perfect balance. You don't, you just need "good enough" balance, that skill is always the determining factor.
Also, getting the first turn isn't always that important. Its importance in 40K is disproportionate because of the wide variety of things that can do massive damage to the other side of the table before they eyen get to move a model. Other systems either limit the turn 1 alpha strike through low weapon ranges, heavy terrain being explicitly enshrined in the rules, or from having an alternating unit activation rather than "one army goes, then whatever's left of the other goes".
novaspike wrote: I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.
As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?
Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?
Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.
Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.
So going back, a good melee unit should in a vacuum, destroy a good ranged unit in assault (baring crazy rolls). The counter is that the ranged unit gets more chances to destroy the melee one while trying to close distence. Arms race wise, transports become a concern for both sides, but that's the nature of a wargame.
It's also doable to add more ways for a ranged unit to extract themselves from melee, allowing survivors more chances to shoot.
Anyway, I really don't mind random rolls for terrain, objectives and things not having to do with my army, since that can represent the fog and unknowns of war. But I should have a good idea of baseline stats important to how my models will play. Sorry if I missed anything, using my phone at the moment.
It's supercool to have some OP stuff floating around the codexes as long as it doesn't break the game or spoil somebody's party.
An optimized TAC army constructed from each codex should have some favorable matchups, some unfavorable matchups, and no unwinnable matchups.
The top tier should not be a god tier and the bottom tier should not be a dog tier. An overall meta of Tier 1 to Tier 2.5 is okay. Any metas with a Tier 0 and/or a Tier 3 are not okay.
Occasionally, the rules should jostle things around (e.g by buffing assault) so that the codexes that are hugging the bottom swap places with the codexes that dominate the top. Each codex should have its day in the sun.
To me, balance simply means that any unit when used in its proper role is as equally useful for it's points as any other unit.
That doesn't mean take whatever you like and you'll have equal chance of beating whatever other army your opponent brings... you still have to construct your list carefully to weigh the pros and cons of each unit in the context of your battle plan.
Unfortunately, even in a balanced game, there will be some problems with fluffy lists or spammy lists vs TAC lists. This is because 40k is still, at its core, a rock/paper/scissors game. Currently it's an unbalanced rock/paper/scissors, but even if it were balanced it would still be rock/paper/scissors.
This means if you have a fluffy and/or spammy list, you're beefing up on only one aspect of the rock/paper/scissors, so you're naturally going to have issues if you picked an army that revolves around rock and you come up against an opponent that revolves around paper and you'll dominate a game where your opponent brought mostly scissors.
Unfortunately this is made even worse by the fact 40k is expanding the rock/paper/scissors game to, IMO, have far too many facets.
So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.
To do that, you'd need to rewrite the rules to be less rock/paper/scissors. At least IMO. WHFB, again IMO, is a less rock/paper/scissors game (it still has large elements of it, but no where near as much as 40k), so you do have more flexibility in what you can take and still be competitive.
So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.
That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.
So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.
That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.
To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.
In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.
To me balanced should mean that if you have a 100 pt tank I should be able to buy 5 20 point tankbusters to beat it from any army as an example. If I spend those 100 pts on riflemen than I get ran over. Every list does not need to be balanced with every other list. There just needs to be no list from one army that doesn't have a list from every other army that is equal to it. Part of the game is dreaming up the list that beat what the other guy keeps bringing.
So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.
That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.
To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.
In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.
All viable design options. Establishing balance in 40K is going to require a complete re-write of the rules, it will not be something that can be done quickly or easily by fans.
So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.
That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.
To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.
In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.
All viable design options. Establishing balance in 40K is going to require a complete re-write of the rules, it will not be something that can be done quickly or easily by fans.
I agree with that. I don't think what people consider balance in 40k is even possible with the current rules.
Imbalance is written in to the very nature of the game and GW haven't done themselves any favours on the balance front by completely opening up the game with multiple FOCs, allies, unbound and the ability to have such a huge slab of your points tied up in a single model/unit. On top of that, IMO at least, things like the AP system and cover system are naturally unbalancing. In general, a game with modifiers is easier to balance than a game with all-or-nothing systems (and I know some people disagree with me on that one).
One possible idea that might help balance (or maybe not, I only just considered it) is having a fixed portion of your army list that you create not knowing what your opponent will bring and then a flexible portion that you tailor upon knowing your opponent's list. The would keep the rock-paper-scissors element on the table itself, but reduce it in the list building stage, which might get closer to what many people hold as an ideal for balance. Just a thought... maybe not useful at all
One possible idea that might help balance (or maybe not, I only just considered it) is having a fixed portion of your army list that you create not knowing what your opponent will bring and then a flexible portion that you tailor upon knowing your opponent's list. The would keep the rock-paper-scissors element on the table itself, but reduce it in the list building stage, which might get closer to what many people hold as an ideal for balance. Just a thought... maybe not useful at al
That, though, does not address the "PUG" style of play that is common to people in stores, or people who travel (to, say, gaming conventions).
You guys have been great provoking some thought.
The StarCraft examples are VERY good since when playing the game the balance "feels" right (economics vs. capabilities).
I think the path is correct where the "auto-include" and the "put on the shelf" is the symptoms of balance problems with a given model / unit.
"Auto-Include" is a combination of too cheap in points vs a take on all comers capability. If the unit fits all rolls on the cheap, why take anything else? Riptides and Necron croissants spring to mind.
"On the shelf" is points too high vs limited capability. It may be so limited in its specialty, usefulness is hampered. The IG/AM new Hydra, CSM Helbrute and Sisters Penitent Engine (as previously mentioned) have some issues.
Every unit should have some trade-off for the style of play, some classic stereotypes I can think of:
1) Artillery = Pro: Hard hitting from a distance Con: Too weak in armor for return fire and not maneuverable.
2) Fast Attack / Cavalry = Pro: Fast Moving, Hits hard up close (or on the charge) Con: Weak in durability, cannot survive when bogged down, mobility is key.
3) Heavy Mobile Armor = Pro: Highly Durable, Hits hard in mid-range combat, Con: Slow and could be overrun, usually expensive / limited in number.
4) "Standard units" = Pro: Least Expensive, Plentiful, holds objectives Con: Not durable, limited capability dealing with heavy armor and little or none for artillery.
5) Aircraft = Pro: Harder to hit, devastating firepower Con: usually more specialized in role: fast = less sustained attack, harder to hit, fragile Slow/hover = sustained attack, easier to hit, better armor.
6) Naval (Space/Water, assuming in off-table artillery role) = Pro: Devastating firepower, Expensive, Con: Inaccurate, chance of friendly fire.
But every single thing listed above could be made auto-include or shelf if the balancing of cost is not achieved.
I would expect the equal cost of Artillery VS fast or heavy to have similar odds of success.
I would expect an equal points value of heavy armor vs fast attack to have an equal chance of success against each other.
I would expect an equal points value of infantry to be sufficient against Artillery (enough to weather getting there), Fast Attack (lucky shots as they charge-in or snipe within range) and Heavy Armor (standard guys ground down as the supplemental weapons get "lucky" shots to cripple the armor).
Yes, a wee bit of "rock, paper, scissors" is perfectly fine if you get to choose the right target and moment to deploy them on a unit by unit basis.
An entire army dependent on RPS is just silly and promotes rage-quits (rather than face a 2 hour game of being pummeled).
Am I speaking madness? Or maybe too much old school Napoleonics?
"Perfect Imbalance" is just shifting the goal posts, "hey I get to win with style until they change things again! we all get a turn! we all get to be winners!!".
No, no, I cannot, shall not, believe in it or support it.
I really like that observation of make a model / unit and it remains un-changed, new synergies are developed as the "upgrade" but the essential essence of the unit / model does not.
That would also REALLY help with the observed "Which rules change / codex did it do what again???". That would be so full of win for GW.
To me balance is when I can take my favourite list and my opponent can take his favourite list and it's about skill and not about being lucky with your Codex.
The obvious things should be kept in mind:
If I take a list without any synergy, I should lose.
If I refuse to take anti-Vehicle weaponry, I should lose if the opponent plays vehicles.
But that was external balance.
Internal balance is when I can pick a unit of Sanguinary Guard without feeling bad about it because I know they will suck.
I don't want to expect to win tournaments with them, because I understand that not every unit can be tournament-level material.
Seems it's quite hard to describe balance.
But what it comes down to is that when I love a tactic or unit, I want to build a list around that and I want to have a roughly 50/50 chance of winning against an equally skilled opponent.
True balance is hard outside of symmetry, now some of us have a fetish for screaming "SYMMETRY ISNT BALANCE" however symmetry is the easiest way to achieve balance. For example, look at dzc or chess.
Swastakowey wrote: In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.
I think.
That is what I would call balance.
Of course, there would also be units that have no function until they are put with a related unit (tech priest with a tank, CCS with IG squads, etc), but that fits under correct usage.
Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.
Quick small tangent. Random charges is so you can't keep walking back and staying outside 12" (which was the standard distance a unit could engage in combat with move + assault) and shooting. 6th brought this in because you could premeasure now, guaranteeing this distance between units, and guns generally got more mobile, allowing them to still shoot to almost full effect.
I'll grant that maybe they should rethink how random charge works to make it less all or nothing, but having it be random is important.
OT:
The principle of balance I would like to see is mostly internal. Units within a codex should be choices that I make based on what I like and what I plan to do, not 'I'm playing Chaos therefore I need Plaguemarines and a Heldrake, maybe some Spawn to run with my Nurgle Biker Lord.' Some of this is points cost of the units, the rest would seem to me to be really thinking through the role the unit is supposed to fulfill and not giving it too many shiny rules. Making Raptors and Bikers have specfic tasks they can complete that the other can't. At the moment, it's very seldom that people want to take Raptors, let alone Warp Talons. How can they be tweaked to make them an alternative to Bikes?
There is a between codex balance as well, but I have to say that I think GW is doing alright with this overall. Though I've seen plenty of vocal complaints, on the whole the battle reports and tactics conversations seem to show most armies since the arrival of 6th are doing okay.
jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.
I think the second part, while not mandatory for game balance, would be a good Beta testing statistic for game designers.
novaspike wrote: I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.
As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?
Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?
Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.
Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.
So going back, a good melee unit should in a vacuum, destroy a good ranged unit in assault (baring crazy rolls). The counter is that the ranged unit gets more chances to destroy the melee one while trying to close distence. Arms race wise, transports become a concern for both sides, but that's the nature of a wargame.
It's also doable to add more ways for a ranged unit to extract themselves from melee, allowing survivors more chances to shoot.
Anyway, I really don't mind random rolls for terrain, objectives and things not having to do with my army, since that can represent the fog and unknowns of war. But I should have a good idea of baseline stats important to how my models will play. Sorry if I missed anything, using my phone at the moment.
Swastakowey wrote: In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.
I think.
That is what I would call balance.
Of course, there would also be units that have no function until they are put with a related unit (tech priest with a tank, CCS with IG squads, etc), but that fits under correct usage.
Good point, roles dont necessarily mean offensive roles. Support roles need to be taken into account, such a tech priest repairing things etc.
I'm a fan of the Metagame Clock used to describe how Magic Decks are balanced against each other, regardless of format. It works out a lot like Rock Paper Scissors, with the exception that you are able to play multiple parts of the clock at different times, this seems closer to how 40k lists are built than mere RPS. A rock list could run some scissors units to deal with the paper that usually would beat it, aiming to have a favorable matchup against scissors, while not auto-losing to paper.
jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.
If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.
AdeptSister wrote: The fact that 40k uses a point system shows that balance was attempted for the game. What is the purpose of a point system if it is wildly inaccurate?
You need something to make the customers feel like they aren't just little kids going "pew pew pew" with their toy dollies.
The alternative is to turn it in to a genuine narrative game, but that would take effort and stuff and GW aren't really good at that.
I like how 40k has been described as tabletop RPG.
I think that is why scenarios seem to be more successful for a fun game (at least in my experience).
I remember being a "Dungeon Master" and going through the agony of trying to balance hostile NPC's against the gaming group.
The balance of the points system springs to mind a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: " the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."
Before I drive Peregrine completely insane (yes, I do care), this is the mindset I have to make 40k work in it's present state, not to accept it as a good and proper competitive game system with balanced rules and units. I have given up on that a long time ago and play other games to scratch that itch. It has mechanics on how things work, units with various capabilities, all kinds of stories and fluff to set up a "historical" engagement and then try to "balance" the opposing armies with tailored victory/terrain conditions. I find scenarios are like a thinly veiled "house rule" in the hopes to get an even scrap. I should be happy to play either army in a properly balanced scenario.
After all that blah, blah, blah... my internal measure of balance is how hard I have to work for my win or loss for that matter: if it is easy either way, it is not balanced.
Talizvar wrote: I like how 40k has been described as tabletop RPG.
I think that is why scenarios seem to be more successful for a fun game (at least in my experience).
I remember being a "Dungeon Master" and going through the agony of trying to balance hostile NPC's against the gaming group.
The balance of the points system springs to mind a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: " the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."
Before I drive Peregrine completely insane (yes, I do care), this is the mindset I have to make 40k work in it's present state, not to accept it as a good and proper competitive game system with balanced rules and units. I have given up on that a long time ago and play other games to scratch that itch. It has mechanics on how things work, units with various capabilities, all kinds of stories and fluff to set up a "historical" engagement and then try to "balance" the opposing armies with tailored victory/terrain conditions. I find scenarios are like a thinly veiled "house rule" in the hopes to get an even scrap. I should be happy to play either army in a properly balanced scenario.
After all that blah, blah, blah... my internal measure of balance is how hard I have to work for my win or loss for that matter: if it is easy either way, it is not balanced.
But it has no rules to make it a narrative game like an RPG. If you're making up your own narrative way, you could do that with any game so why not use a game with better rules and less ridiculous pricing?
For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well. If you want a less balanced game, use less points. But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.
MWHistorian wrote: For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well.
Understood, but it is mainly the "competitive" games that have good balance which you should use if that is of primary importance.
The background or models may be the primary draw which would allow few options.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
If you want a less balanced game, use less points.
Not sure where you are going with this.
Less points tends to equal less models, some people do not want that.
From my own experience I found less points equals more balance.
But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.
Shouldn't be punished but are.
Due to game mechanics, flavor of the month or the publishing company strategy: punishment comes in many forms.
Never mind dropping a line of models like Squats, my friend has never been the same after that...
MWHistorian wrote: For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well.
Understood, but it is mainly the "competitive" games that have good balance which you should use if that is of primary importance.
The background or models may be the primary draw which would allow few options.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
If you want a less balanced game, use less points.
Not sure where you are going with this.
Less points tends to equal less models, some people do not want that.
From my own experience I found less points equals more balance.
But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.
Shouldn't be punished but are.
Due to game mechanics, flavor of the month or the publishing company strategy: punishment comes in many forms.
Never mind dropping a line of models like Squats, my friend has never been the same after that...
What I meant was, that some people say they like a challenge or they like one army being stronger than the other. in that case, I'd rather have a balanced game and someone use less points for an asymmetrical match up.
List games with better balance? Just look around.
jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.
If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.
IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.
jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.
If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.
IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.
jasper76 wrote: Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.
But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)
How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.
If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.
IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.
I was a nationally ranked junior player. I can attest to the fact that playing white offers a slight advantage.
Yes but the percentage for the eldar player or the guy with a deathstar has way more of an advantage than 5%. Chess and checkers are about as balanced as you can get. Perfect balance will never exist in a traditional game due to turns.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.
To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.
Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.
To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.
Which is part of the problem with 40k.
Being a 10mm game with 28mm models and rules is not a good thing.
If 40k had the rules of a 10mm game with the current models, it'd be workable. If it had the rules of a 28mm skirmish game with the model count reduced, it'd be workable. Trying to do both (large armies with skirmish ruleset) is counter intuitive and clunky.
I get the feeling part of why a lot of people look back at 5th with some fondness is because the rules were distinctly in the direction of a smaller scale rule set; unit by unit resolution instead of model by model, better abstraction, and less micro managing. Indeed, there were flaws to that ruleset as well, but at least it made an attempt at being a set a rules that were vaguely aligned with the scale of the game.
Now, not so much. In an era of Unbound, multiple detachments, and super heavies, the game needs to get rid of silly model by model rules. Less is more in the case of writing rules.
If the core rules were cleaned up, the job of balancing is greatly lessened. It'd simpler and more intuitive to create a basic balance framework with baselines and rough guessing before hitting the table to play test. Not to mention the simplicity in actually play testing.
Simply put, 40k is having an identity crisis. It needs to figure out what it wants to be. Personally, I'd rather 40k be moved to a smaller body count, by about half what the average 2000pts army is fielding, then let a proper 6/10mm Epic game cover the mass battles with super heavies. I understand some people enjoy the giant models of a titan at 28mm scale, but its the most elegant solution for building a proper set of games in a shared universe. Right tools for the right job and all that.
Once you figure that out, balance comes a lot easier.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.
To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.
Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.
How is the balance in Warpath?
But there are games that have just as many unique units moving around, if not more so. Take a squad as a unit. In 40k, let's take my old SOB army. 3 SOB squads, 2 dominions with 2 immolators, 3 Excorcists, 1 HQ squad, 1 St. Celestine. 1 Seraphim. 1 Aegis. So, 14 unique units running around. My Convergence army. 1 Caster, 1 corollary, 1 Conservator, 1 Modulator, 1 Cipher, 1 Monitor, 2 servitors, 1 Infuser, 1 Clockwork angels, 1 unit of Reciprocators, 1 Enigma foundry, and 1 Optifex Directive. That's 13. Only there are no redundent units and each one feels far more unique with their own part to play. And the interplay of synergy and special rules makes it far more complex without being confusing.
My Infinity force has 15 unique units, each with their own varied special rules and complexity.
Maybe you disagree with my method of counting things, but that's how I look at it.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.
To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.
Which is part of the problem with 40k.
Being a 10mm game with 28mm models and rules is not a good thing.
If 40k had the rules of a 10mm game with the current models, it'd be workable. If it had the rules of a 28mm skirmish game with the model count reduced, it'd be workable. Trying to do both (large armies with skirmish ruleset) is counter intuitive and clunky.
I get the feeling part of why a lot of people look back at 5th with some fondness is because the rules were distinctly in the direction of a smaller scale rule set; unit by unit resolution instead of model by model, better abstraction, and less micro managing. Indeed, there were flaws to that ruleset as well, but at least it made an attempt at being a set a rules that were vaguely aligned with the scale of the game.
Now, not so much. In an era of Unbound, multiple detachments, and super heavies, the game needs to get rid of silly model by model rules. Less is more in the case of writing rules.
If the core rules were cleaned up, the job of balancing is greatly lessened. It'd simpler and more intuitive to create a basic balance framework with baselines and rough guessing before hitting the table to play test. Not to mention the simplicity in actually play testing.
Simply put, 40k is having an identity crisis. It needs to figure out what it wants to be. Personally, I'd rather 40k be moved to a smaller body count, by about half what the average 2000pts army is fielding, then let a proper 6/10mm Epic game cover the mass battles with super heavies. I understand some people enjoy the giant models of a titan at 28mm scale, but its the most elegant solution for building a proper set of games in a shared universe. Right tools for the right job and all that.
Once you figure that out, balance comes a lot easier.
Yeah I agree. It's not great mystery why my favourite 40k editions are the ones with either the most abstraction, allowing for larger armies to be played with less model by model rules... and the edition which simply accepted that it was a skirmish game and had skirmish game type rules (2nd edition, which granted didn't have great balance either, but at least it knew what it was).
I think GW have kind of screwed themselves though. If they try and reign it back in to create a better *game* (purely talking about the nuts and bolts of a game not the fluffy stuff), then they are going to screw over a lot of people who have expanded their armies with things that aren't suited to creating good balance.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!
Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.
To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.
Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.
How is the balance in Warpath?
But there are games that have just as many unique units moving around, if not more so. Take a squad as a unit. In 40k, let's take my old SOB army. 3 SOB squads, 2 dominions with 2 immolators, 3 Excorcists, 1 HQ squad, 1 St. Celestine. 1 Seraphim. 1 Aegis. So, 14 unique units running around. My Convergence army. 1 Caster, 1 corollary, 1 Conservator, 1 Modulator, 1 Cipher, 1 Monitor, 2 servitors, 1 Infuser, 1 Clockwork angels, 1 unit of Reciprocators, 1 Enigma foundry, and 1 Optifex Directive. That's 13. Only there are no redundent units and each one feels far more unique with their own part to play. And the interplay of synergy and special rules makes it far more complex without being confusing.
My Infinity force has 15 unique units, each with their own varied special rules and complexity.
Maybe you disagree with my method of counting things, but that's how I look at it.
Yes, but note I said scale in 3 different senses, number of units/factions (number of unique units), the size of the battle taking place (number of models taking part) and the scope of the battle taking place (the difference between the least significant model/unit and the most significant model/unit).
Those 3 aspects of scale all complicate the balancing process, and I'm not aware of any other game that tries to tackle such a giant scope as 40k.
Even there you mentioned the unique units you use in a game, but does it actually have as many unique units when you consider all factions and all the things you can possibly take? (genuine question, not rhetorical, I've never tried comparing).
Though even if it is similar, it still doesn't have the other scale issues I mentioned about 40k.
Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.
Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.
MWHistorian wrote: Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about.
What I meant on that point is that 40k is a game where you have 3pt conscripts and 170pt Manticores in the same army. If you include LoW, you have the Baneblade and it's variants weighing it at up to 650pts, that's over 200 times difference in point value. It's quite a large difference in scales without even getting in to Titans and such.
You can think it in terms of the unit cost rather than the model cost (depends on the rules though I guess), but I still feel 40k has an epic difference in scales that it is trying to capture that other games don't attempt (and 40k didn't attempt up until a couple of editions ago).
MWHistorian wrote: Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.
Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.
I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.
My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.
MWHistorian wrote: Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about.
What I meant on that point is that 40k is a game where you have 3pt conscripts and 170pt Manticores in the same army. If you include LoW, you have the Baneblade and it's variants weighing it at up to 650pts, that's over 200 times difference in point value. It's quite a large difference in scales without even getting in to Titans and such.
You can think it in terms of the unit cost rather than the model cost (depends on the rules though I guess), but I still feel 40k has an epic difference in scales that it is trying to capture that other games don't attempt (and 40k didn't attempt up until a couple of editions ago).
MWHistorian wrote: Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.
Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.
I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.
My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.
And my point was that the other games are just as complex if not more so and they manage it.
I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.
My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.
When has GW not pissed off most of their customers within living memory?
The scope of their game is poorly matched to the intent of their rules. We're playing an armies game (100+ models on the table) with rules designed for skirmish-level play (~50 models on the table).
Their "forge the narrative!" chant only applies to a very, very small subset of their players and, also, provides no real guidelines in how to do so. When I hear "forge the narrative!" that tells me that a battle need to be run by a neutral GM (or one of the players as the GM, who has no interest in winning the battle, simply in telling a story... which is rare) who assigns a difficulty to the encounter and adjusts points for each side.
So if it's a Space Marine vs Tau campaign, then the GM says that the SM (if they are the PCs of the narrative) get 1500 points in a battle vs half that number of points of Tau, because very few RPGs work well if you wipe out your PCs in every battle they get involved with.
40K isn't designed around this playstyle, however, and very, very few people want to play that way.
I agree that the skirmish rules have made it extremely clunky with the higher model count.
A big YES to the less "model by model" rules the better, having to specially position specific models so they are not "closest" to a squad that may fire on them is irritating. My IG army is my first hoard army and am trying to figure out how to move quick.
I had always hoped they would streamline Apocalypse to use some subset of the "Epic" rules, something different to make the games take a few hours not the potential days of gaming.
Talizvar wrote: I agree that the skirmish rules have made it extremely clunky with the higher model count.
A big YES to the less "model by model" rules the better, having to specially position specific models so they are not "closest" to a squad that may fire on them is irritating. My IG army is my first hoard army and am trying to figure out how to move quick.
The trick is not so much in moving the models faster (though the use of two hands always helps), but it is to memorize the relevant rules for the army, and while you move do all your thinking for the turn, and plan how the shooting phase / assaulting phase is going to pan out.
Getting those two phases done in under 10 mins combined is much easier than speeding up the movement phase.
Sometimes I think GW wants us not to play a table top game. But some sort of historical pre made games, that few guys some people play with hundreds of models per side and tables the size of gyms.
As 40K was designed as a skirmish game, it would work best as one, and thus the optimal solution would be to scale back the game. Increases the points costs of the units, remove most of the "by-unit" measurements or replace them with "by-model" measurements, and give units more options and abilities to use in combat, such as making overwatch an actual thing you can set your guys to rather than having it be a reactionary ability, etc. Make it less Dawn of War 1 and more Dawn of War 2.
The problem is that that it isn't in Games Workshop's financial interests to downgrade the game into a skirmish-level system. Games Workshop makes most of their money off of models. They don't really care if you play the game, in fact they don't even care if you take the models out of the box, as mentioned above. While GW makes money off of the game by selling rules and codices, the real cash comes from selling the models- the game is just a means to that end. Thus it's in GW's financial interests to try to cram as many models into a single game as possible.
The average person may own one to two armies, and maybe like 500 points of a third army. So if you could play a 1500 point game using only like 40 models, what would be your incentive to buy more models? GW's reasoning is that if they lower the points cost of everything so that you could fit, say, 80 models in a 1500 point game, well now you suddenly have incentive to go out and buy 40 more models. That's not even counting the "new hotness" units- the RIptides, etc.
That's more or less the paradigm we're dealing with here. With that being the case, what GW should then do is model the system to be an army-level wargame. That'd piss people off, but, eh. Every change pisses people off. It'd really be for the best.
Maybe, but the way the make the rules or rather make us house rule everything points at historical gaming roots. Now here we don't play apocalyps at all, but there are some people who play historical at a military school. I seen those games and I noticed that when your moving around 500+models for 8 hours no one asks, if those rifles kill 8 or 9 dudes and if there was cover of some sorts. People just try to play as fast as the can, because any rules querry would mean they wouldn't be able to finish the game in a single day.
Also am sure they would rather have us own multiple 3k armies, then normal 1500 ones.
BlaxicanX wrote: As 40K was designed as a skirmish game, it would work best as one, and thus the optimal solution would be to scale back the game.
IMO this is the wrong direction. The game was designed as a hybrid skirmish game/WHFB-in-space, but 40k's awkward core rules are one of its biggest problems. GW needs to scrap the entire structure of the current game and start over from the beginning, and that means asking what 40kshould be. And the answer is a large-scale game, not a skirmish game. The market is already full of skirmish games, and GW's biggest advantage (other than the fluff) is that they have a full range of models with tanks/aircraft/etc, not just infantry. A proper 40k game needs to take advantage of that, not scale everything back and abandon it.
So if you could play a 1500 point game using only like 40 models, what would be your incentive to buy more models?
I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.
My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.
When has GW not pissed off most of their customers within living memory?
The scope of their game is poorly matched to the intent of their rules. We're playing an armies game (100+ models on the table) with rules designed for skirmish-level play (~50 models on the table).
Scaling down the game would piss people off on a level not seen since squats, but probably even on a larger scale and I don't think GW are prepared to do that. It's also pissing people off for the benefit of the game rather than the benefit of immediate sales, something I don't see them ever doing.
"Oh, you know all those things you bought over the past few years that we've been pushing so hard but are only suited to large scale games? Yeah, you can't use those in a standard game anymore. Have fun!"
I would agree in the fact I don’t want the game scaled into a skirmish, and In fact I don’t think the current rules cater to skirmish at all. There was a thread a short while ago, can’t remember if on General or Proposed rules someone suggested they modify/remove/add rules to attempt to create 40k base rules as both skirmish (lower points level uses slight different rules), and while the suggestions were reasonable a lot created immediate noticeable counter balance issues with specific armies, types or counter rules, what is noticeable at lower points level is some items seem very under priced for the utility, or some armies pay more for the counter measure as that’s not their thing. While this is less noticeable to nonexistent in higher points games, as the list making player pays the tax to add utility as does the opposing player to add what he is not good at, at lower points it’s quite easy for someone to run a AV13 vehicle against someone who didn’t think to bring anything heavy (or it was just not economical for them to do so).
I don’t mind economical imbalance at all, the *idea* is it evens out at some points, but armies will still come to the table with a higher chance depending on specialty, it’s hard to measure exactly how much is good, and how much it is at the moment really. It costs more for some armies to provide X utility than it does others. Space marines should be a baseline not particularly good or particularly bad, a slightly inflated baseline due to ATSKNF being a pretty powerful default rule. I personally don’t think it’s that bad for most units at the moment, normal problems or comparisons people present often lack including other rules which inflate the price or lack of, the ability and versatility of the unit type and the army its hailing from.
Complexity with the rules and the scale is an issue in balance, other games are complex, I am not saying other games are dumb, but they do not reach the variation of rules and the masses of options available (Also known as bloat), with that I agree that balancing 40k is nothing like trying to balance a skirmish game.
Next issue is people don’t like adding options (Allies), and people don’t like taking things away (Removing the bloat (Unique special rules to the army)) both of which naturally ‘balance’ the game in some way, regardless of the intent of the additions / removals (which we would only be guessing at).
I felt recently about posting around the balance of 'army wide special rules' and how some (Tyranids, Orks) are much worse than others (Mahreeeeeeens), and don't even follow the same thought process or structure. But commenting on this alone is pointless without accounting for every unit, each rules on everything, points cost and then the same from all other codex's. Basically you don't balance on a individual bases, you balance against every unit and every mechanic, every possibility and every outcome, every type of save, every counter the number of counters the cost of the counters etc etc. In 40k, this is extensive, obvious loop holes aside - no, it is not easy to balance at all, new codex's could be so much worse, I'm pretty sure 'no play testing' is a myth because if they really don't they are amazing writers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A example of such,
A aegis defense line and possible options has varying usefulness in different armies, as such it's imbalanced at a fixed points cost when economically it's worth more to some than others, should we....
-Remove it
-Cost different points for different armies.
-There should be more defense lines, that cater to the armies at appropriate cost.
3 possible options, 2 of which cause more bloat, the first I can't see many people who use it to liking losing it.
Just choosing one of the 3 isn't so easy, each will counter balance and cause other issues with balance while trying to fix the issue..
I would say that there are three things which make the game balanced/unbalanced.
1) Internal balance of the army codex
2) External balance between codex
3) Balance relating to the core rules.
1) Every unit in the book must have it's role, and how effective this is depends on it's points costs and how many you can have. This means the troop type and FOC, and WHAT ELSE YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE FROM THE SAME SECTION has a big effect. Under 6th rules, no matter how much I liked them, there was never any reason for me to play with Nurglings. Yes they were cheaper than Plaguebearers, but not a tough, and the swarm rule meant they had NO battelfield use. Now that swarms can hold objectives, they have a use, as a cheap but weak objective holder, and there is now a reason to field them.
So, if there is any unit in a book which you would NEVER use, due to them either having no battlefield use, or having a better unit being avaliable for the same points, this means the book does not have internal balance.
Now the new Ork book, I can see a reason to take every model in the army (but not every upgrade) it may not be the 'best' but it can do it's job for the points.
You can also go the other way, and ask 'is there any point in NOT taking a wave serpernt'? as for their points, there is nothing better in the book, nor any reason to not have them.
So, Auto-includes and never includes make a Codex unbalanced.
2) Between codex. this is more tricky, as one army can do very well against another, but not another. My own nurgle army does very well against my friends Necrons, but I cannot beat anothers Eldar, but the Eldar struggle against the Necrons. This I don't mind, as it all depends in a points based game, how you spend them points compared to another and which match up wins, the problem is where some books have the ability to always win, no matter what the set-up.
I think this is about weakness, and as long as your army has one, it should be fair. Daemons are very weak at shooting, guard in combat and saves, Tau in Combat and psykic, orks in quality and saves, marines in bodies on the ground (maybe!), and eldar in...... (shoot well, move well, average armour, poor toughness..... but they can sit inside vehicles with good armour which are also cheap).
3) Basic rule interaction. Here is where things realy matter, in 2 above it shows that Daemons are not good shooters and Tau can't handle combat, so the rules should make it even between getting into combat to maybe win, or getting shot. Here is a major problem, as to get into combat you use either Deep strike to get close, cover to hide behind while advancing, being very fast or using vehicles to advance in. If the shooty armies can EASILY deal with these, it's not a balanced game. If it requires skill and a bit of luck to deal with them, it's a fair game.
Overall I see nothing wrong with a unit costing 200 points (anti tank troops) being able to take out one costing 400 (tank), but at the same time being able to be killed by a 100 point anti-troop unit.
The problem I see is when the 200 point anti tank unit, can take out the 400 points tank, and the 100 points of anti-troops, and another 100 points of anti-troop units and it performs like that in 9 out of 10 battles. 1 in 10 is lucky, 9 in 10 is unbalanced.
Peregrine wrote: IMO this is the wrong direction. The game was designed as a hybrid skirmish game/WHFB-in-space, but 40k's awkward core rules are one of its biggest problems. GW needs to scrap the entire structure of the current game and start over from the beginning, and that means asking what 40kshould be. And the answer is a large-scale game, not a skirmish game. The market is already full of skirmish games, and GW's biggest advantage (other than the fluff) is that they have a full range of models with tanks/aircraft/etc, not just infantry. A proper 40k game needs to take advantage of that, not scale everything back and abandon it.
Sure, but a complete overhaul of the game to the point where it barely resembles the current game is a bit beyond the scope of this discussion.
Multiple armies.
Isn't an incentive. There has to be an intrinsic value to something in order for it to be an incentive.
The possibility of owning multiple armies only appeals to people... who want multiple armies.
I mean hell. I play Guard, SM, CSM/Daemons and maybe some Tyranids- I have no desire to use any other armies, despite the fact that I have access to every army for free.
BlaxicanX wrote: As 40K was designed as a skirmish game, it would work best as one, and thus the optimal solution would be to scale back the game.
IMO this is the wrong direction. The game was designed as a hybrid skirmish game/WHFB-in-space, but 40k's awkward core rules are one of its biggest problems. GW needs to scrap the entire structure of the current game and start over from the beginning, and that means asking what 40kshould be. And the answer is a large-scale game, not a skirmish game. The market is already full of skirmish games, and GW's biggest advantage (other than the fluff) is that they have a full range of models with tanks/aircraft/etc, not just infantry. A proper 40k game needs to take advantage of that, not scale everything back and abandon it.
The main problem I see with embiggening 40k is that 28mm scale just doesn't work well for it.
28mm scale wouldn't be too bad at large quantities of models if it included optional movement trays. I can see that working well to increase the scale without dragging down gameplay, especially if things like mitigation of AoE were included to make it worthwhile. Horde armies could use them to field 100+ models, smaller elite armies could still avoid them. The position of each individual guardsmen really doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things ; p
Yonan wrote: 28mm scale wouldn't be too bad at large quantities of models if it included optional movement trays. I can see that working well to increase the scale without dragging down gameplay, especially if things like mitigation of AoE were included to make it worthwhile. Horde armies could use them to field 100+ models, smaller elite armies could still avoid them. The position of each individual guardsmen really doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things ; p
I've been thinking for a long while now 40k would play so much better if individual models positions meant nothing and everything was based off the unit leader. Measure ranges from him, measure movement distance for him and just place the rest around him, if he is in cover or has LOS everyone is/does, etc.
Video games will often basically do things like that to simplify things on the processing end too. If you ever get AI followers, they're heavily leashed to your character and it works well. Tabletop wargaming is an abstraction, even more-so at higher model counts. If it speeds up gameplay and makes for a more fun game I'm deffo willing to accept compromises like that. I *do* like large model counts, but there has to be a trade off to keep it from being 3 hours of zzzz.
Yonan wrote: 28mm scale wouldn't be too bad at large quantities of models if it included optional movement trays. I can see that working well to increase the scale without dragging down gameplay, especially if things like mitigation of AoE were included to make it worthwhile. Horde armies could use them to field 100+ models, smaller elite armies could still avoid them. The position of each individual guardsmen really doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things ; p
I already use movement trays for my 'nids
But still 28 mm scale I don't think is well suited to large battles. 2 wraithknight sized models sitting in their deployment zones looks like 2 dudes standing in my lounge room (ie. a 4 x whatever table is too small for such large toys... I mean miniatures ).
Also, people already complain that WHFB is just like a front rank with a bunch of wound counters, I think many people would be sad to lose the significance of all their expensive and hard painted troops.
That's why 10mm, 15mm, 1/72, etc are better scales for a larger battle. The battlefield is more reasonably sized and since the models are faster to paint, it doesn't feel like a travesty when they amount to nothing more than wound counters.
My guardsmen are already just wound counters for their heavy weapon so there's not much difference there ; p 40k has moved even further into the "irrelevant troops" area with them being unable to do much of anything in this high str/ap/ignores cover/large blast environment, though that's a problem imo and should be changed in the complete re-write of the rules we all want ; p
When you get to large numbers of a certain type of model they lose all significance anyway imo and with movement trays being optional you can decide yourself where the cutoff would be. If I could put my guardsmen into trays without subjecting them to more wounds from blasts I would, and it would speed games up a lot as I like to run a lot of guard ; p My SMs though, even though I like a lot of bodies, are still much lower body count than IG and so I wouldn't use trays unless we start talking about company level operations (yes I can field more than a company when I finish assembling them -_-)
I do agree that smaller scale models are great for that and I'm *this* close to getting into DZC, but 28mm gives a lot of model detail that's lacking at those sizes so if it can be done... I'd be keen on it ; p
Yonan wrote: You already own 5 armies, that's not much of an argument against people owning multiple armies ; p
Heh, I own every army, is my point. I play the game online, via hand-drawn sprites, and I've aquired all of the codices as well, so technically I have access to every single army already. With a few clicks I can choose to play with any faction in the game pretty much. That said, I've never played with Necrons, Sisters etc, and I have zero desire to ever really do so.
So if someone who basically already owns every army can't be bothered to play as most of them, an individual who has to spend actual money to play other armies has very little incentive to branch out to other armies.
Yonan wrote: My guardsmen are already just wound counters for their heavy weapon so there's not much difference there ; p 40k has moved even further into the "irrelevant troops" area with them being unable to do much of anything in this high str/ap/ignores cover/large blast environment, though that's a problem imo and should be changed in the complete re-write of the rules we all want ; p
When you get to large numbers of a certain type of model they lose all significance anyway imo and with movement trays being optional you can decide yourself where the cutoff would be. If I could put my guardsmen into trays without subjecting them to more wounds from blasts I would, and it would speed games up a lot as I like to run a lot of guard ; p My SMs though, even though I like a lot of bodies, are still much lower body count than IG and so I wouldn't use trays unless we start talking about company level operations (yes I can field more than a company when I finish assembling them -_-)
I do agree that smaller scale models are great for that and I'm *this* close to getting into DZC, but 28mm gives a lot of model detail that's lacking at those sizes so if it can be done... I'd be keen on it ; p
Well, yeah, I consider my IG platoons wound counters as well, but that's kind of the point of them. They are probably the epitome of wound counters
They are probably close to the least significant and least individualistic troops in the game alongside Tyranid Gaunts. Not really a great troop to base an argument of turning all infantry in to wound counters
BlaxicanX wrote: Sure, but a complete overhaul of the game to the point where it barely resembles the current game is a bit beyond the scope of this discussion.
Making 40k balanced would already require a major overhaul. TBH it would probably be easier to just scrap everything and start over than to try to salvage the ugly mess of the current game.
The possibility of owning multiple armies only appeals to people... who want multiple armies.
Yes, and the point is that the huge cost of starting a new army means that many people who do want multiple armies can't afford to have them. If they can afford 1500 points of models then they wouldn't stop at a single 500 point army, they'd buy those other two armies they've been thinking about. And GW should be perfectly happy with this situation, as the customer is still spending the same total amount of money on GW products.
BlaxicanX wrote: Heh, I own every army, is my point. I play the game online, via hand-drawn sprites, and I've aquired all of the codices as well, so technically I have access to every single army already. With a few clicks I can choose to play with any faction in the game pretty much. That said, I've never played with Necrons, Sisters etc, and I have zero desire to ever really do so.
So if someone who basically already owns every army can't be bothered to play as most of them, an individual who has to spend actual money to play other armies has very little incentive to branch out to other armies.
The key difference here is that you aren't playing 40k, you're playing a weird online-only variant game in the 40k universe. If you consider the modeling and fluff aspects of the hobby instead of just the gameplay then you'll see a lot more reasons to get a second army.
And of course this also brings up the question of why you'd play 40k without the models. If all you're doing is moving sprites around on a digital map then why not play a game with much better rules instead?
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: They are probably close to the least significant and least individualistic troops in the game alongside Tyranid Gaunts. Not really a great troop to base an argument of turning all infantry in to wound counters
Even "good" troops are still just wound counters. If you have a standard 10-man tactical squad exactly three of those models matter: the sergeant, the heavy weapon, and the special weapon. The seven bolter marines are just extra wound counters that contribute a few bolter shots or chainsword swings. If you abstract them away and just have the sergeant fire X bolter shots where X is twice the number of wounds left on the unit the only thing that would be lost is the occasional situation where some models are out of range and/or LOS. Yes, that would be a sacrifice, but IMO it would be justified by the massive reduction in complexity.
BlaxicanX wrote: Heh, I own every army, is my point. I play the game online, via hand-drawn sprites, and I've aquired all of the codices as well, so technically I have access to every single army already. With a few clicks I can choose to play with any faction in the game pretty much. That said, I've never played with Necrons, Sisters etc, and I have zero desire to ever really do so.
So if someone who basically already owns every army can't be bothered to play as most of them, an individual who has to spend actual money to play other armies has very little incentive to branch out to other armies.
The key difference here is that you aren't playing 40k, you're playing a weird online-only variant game in the 40k universe. If you consider the modeling and fluff aspects of the hobby instead of just the gameplay then you'll see a lot more reasons to get a second army.
And of course this also brings up the question of why you'd play 40k without the models. If all you're doing is moving sprites around on a digital map then why not play a game with much better rules instead?
If the only reason to play 40k were the rules, playing with sprites and what not, I can safely say I would have quit after a couple of years (that is, I probably would have quit when I was 12 ).
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: They are probably close to the least significant and least individualistic troops in the game alongside Tyranid Gaunts. Not really a great troop to base an argument of turning all infantry in to wound counters
Even "good" troops are still just wound counters. If you have a standard 10-man tactical squad exactly three of those models matter: the sergeant, the heavy weapon, and the special weapon. The seven bolter marines are just extra wound counters that contribute a few bolter shots or chainsword swings. If you abstract them away and just have the sergeant fire X bolter shots where X is twice the number of wounds left on the unit the only thing that would be lost is the occasional situation where some models are out of range and/or LOS. Yes, that would be a sacrifice, but IMO it would be justified by the massive reduction in complexity.
I don't disagree you could turn 40k in to a larger scale game (which it is becoming anyway with all the lord of war, fliers, fortifications, etc)... I just tend to think if you further abstracted the 40k rules to infantry being meaningless, the game would not be appealing, at least not to me.
I don't really want to pay the amount GW charge for models (or even from discounters) then spend a couple of hours painting each wound counter to then play a game which is inappropriately scaled anyway (playing a large scale battle on a 6x4 board with 28mm models).
Just doesn't appeal to me, I'd rather GW brought back Epic or just create a 15mm game a million times over than have 40k turn in to 28mm scale Epic.
Peregrine wrote: The key difference here is that you aren't playing 40k, you're playing a weird online-only variant game in the 40k universe. If you consider the modeling and fluff aspects of the hobby instead of just the gameplay then you'll see a lot more reasons to get a second army.
And of course this also brings up the question of why you'd play 40k without the models. If all you're doing is moving sprites around on a digital map then why not play a game with much better rules instead?
That's not a key difference, those are two different things. The "hobbyist" and the "wargamer" are not mutual- you can be both or you can be either one.
Don't waste my time with that elitist "real 40K" nonsense. I'm playing "real 40K" just as much as you or anyone else. There's absolutely nothing about the game that requires me to use combat barbie-dolls in order for the experience to be "authentic"- that's an arbitrary distinction made by betas.
As for why I play? Because it's fun. I don't need a game to be objectively good in order to enjoy it.
BlaxicanX wrote: That's not a key difference, those are two different things. The "hobbyist" and the "wargamer" are not mutual- you can be both or you can be either one.
Yes, but pure gamers aren't GW's target market (which is probably a good thing, because if GW was depending on pure gamers playing their shameful trainwreck of a game they'd be out of business by now), and pure gamers who are only interested in playing a single army are even less relevant. GW might lose a handful of sales from pure gamers who would never expand their single 500 point army, but most of their customers would buy at least 1500-2000 points in the long run.
And remember, this was the whole point of adding allies to the game: lower the barrier to entry for a second army to encourage people to start them.
Don't waste my time with that elitist "real 40K" nonsense. I'm playing "real 40K" just as much as you or anyone else. There's absolutely nothing about the game that requires me to use combat barbie-dolls in order for the experience to be "authentic"- that's an arbitrary distinction made by betas.
How exactly are you playing with TLOS in a top-down sprite game? You aren't? I'd say that's a pretty good sign that you aren't playing 40k.
As for why I play? Because it's fun. I don't need a game to be objectively good in order to enjoy it.
GW by admission does zero market research and their target audience by admission is "whoever gives us money"- ergo what they think is entirely irrelevant.
How exactly are you playing with TLOS in a top-down sprite game? You aren't? I'd say that's a pretty good sign that you aren't playing 40k.
We use TLOS with our programs- it takes more abstraction and pre-game agreement on what can be seen through and what can't, but it still works.
Your argument's subjective nonsense anyway, even if we didn't use TLOS in our games. What objective metric are you using to define what's considered "real 40K"? Humor me and list all your silly statutes. This'll be funny to see, considering we're talking about a game where the rules as written actively encourage you to house rule gak for convenience.
*shrugs*
Some people are just masochists I guess.
Much like you. Why are you wasting your life playing wargames and getting destroyed by strangers in debates on the internet? There's always something better that a person could be doing. I guess everyone's a masochist then.
GW's target audience by their own admission is "whoever buys our stuff"- ergo what they think is irrelevant.
You have to understand that there is a difference between what GW thinks and the idiotic propaganda comments they make to their shareholders. If GW genuinely believed that they have no target audience beyond "whoever is currently buying what we produce" then they would have gone out of business a long time ago. The truth is that GW does have a target market in mind, and it's a target market that emphasizes the collecting and modeling aspects of the hobby and neglects the actual game and its rules. This is incredibly obvious in how they run the company, they put a lot of effort into making things to collect and paint, and very little effort into making rules.
We use TLOS with our programs- it takes more abstraction and pre-game agreement on what can be seen through and what can't, but it still works.
TLOS =/= abstraction, by definition.
Your argument sucks anyway, even if we didn't use TLOS. What objective metric are you using to define what's considered "real 40K"? Humor me and list the full metric.
The game as published by GW. If you're playing a modified version with your own LOS rules then you aren't playing 40k. This isn't some trivial thing like arguing over which units are "cheesy" and should be banned, TLOS is a fundamental game mechanic. If you remove it then you've significantly altered how the game works.
There's always something better that a person could be doing.
There really isn't. If I enjoy playing wargames then I'm going to play wargames even if someone else considers it a waste. And I'm not disputing that you enjoy playing a digital game, I just don't understand why you picked such an utterly broken game to play in digital form. 40k's rules are that horrible thing you put up with because you love the models, I can't imagine how it would be at all appealing without the models to make up for the bad rules.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: They are probably close to the least significant and least individualistic troops in the game alongside Tyranid Gaunts. Not really a great troop to base an argument of turning all infantry in to wound counters
Guard, 'nids, Orks all run horde armies. Those armies would benefit from optional movement trays. The fewer model count ones like SM for example wouldn't want to use them as each basic troop is 3x as capable as the horde armies troops so you get more benefit to micro managing them. I'm not arguing that all should be treated as wound counters - but when some already basically are then they really don't need as much control as something 5x their cost.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: They are probably close to the least significant and least individualistic troops in the game alongside Tyranid Gaunts. Not really a great troop to base an argument of turning all infantry in to wound counters
Guard, 'nids, Orks all run horde armies. Those armies would benefit from optional movement trays. The fewer model count ones like SM for example wouldn't want to use them as each basic troop is 3x as capable as the horde armies troops so you get more benefit to micro managing them. I'm not arguing that all should be treated as wound counters - but when some already basically are then they really don't need as much control as something 5x their cost.
Movement trays are one thing, I don't really have a problem with movement trays for anything, be they expensive elites or cheap pawns, I for one hate moving my models 1 by 1 regardless of which army I'm playing. I thought we were talking about unit rules that treat units more abstract as a single entity which is more appropriate to games of a scale where titans and such are walking around.
Peregrine wrote: You have to understand that there is a difference between what GW thinks and the idiotic propaganda comments they make to their shareholders. If GW genuinely believed that they have no target audience beyond "whoever is currently buying what we produce" then they would have gone out of business a long time ago. The truth is that GW does have a target market in mind, and it's a target market that emphasizes the collecting and modeling aspects of the hobby and neglects the actual game and its rules. This is incredibly obvious in how they run the company, they put a lot of effort into making things to collect and paint, and very little effort into making rules.
That's basically what I'm saying. But the point is that what GW considers to be their target customer is irrelevant to defining who can be considered "real" customers. Games Workshop might cater to hobbyists, but that doesn't mean that the only people who play the game are hobbyists.
And frankly I'd argue that they don't cater to hobbyists either. The same way that they alienate people who enjoy a well-made game with their gakky rules, they also alienate hobbyists with their overpriced models. The value you get from GW minis is vastly disproportionate to what you're paying for them.
TLOS =/= abstraction, by definition.
It's absolutely an abstraction, though a dumb one. That 20 guys can shoot a unit of 10 soldiers because the 20 guys have line-of-sight to half of one of the soldier's heads through a window from the other side of a map is a massive of abstraction.
The game as published by GW. If you're playing a modified version with your own LOS rules then you aren't playing 40k. This isn't some trivial thing like arguing over which units are "cheesy" and should be banned, TLOS is a fundamental game mechanic. If you remove it then you've significantly altered how the game works.
A house rule is a house rule. Saying "feth TLOS" is objectively not any different from saying "an IC can bestow Infiltrate to a squad" like the BAO does, or "you're not allowed to use Riptides." Games Workshop encourages you in their 40K rules to make any of those changes. They shouldn't encourage you to do that, they should instead have rules that aren't gak, but they do.
There really isn't. If I enjoy playing wargames then I'm going to play wargames even if someone else considers it a waste.
Exactly- if you're enjoying yourself then how it's not "masochism". I play 40K because I enjoy the aesthetic and the fluff- there are better games out there, like Warmachine, but after having played ~10 or so games of it I realized that it's just... not very interesting to me. I don't care about the setting, I don't care for the aesthetic (though Khador are pretty badass looking), and the gameplay, though objectively more balanced than 40K's, lacks its charm imo.
Peregrine wrote: You have to understand that there is a difference between what GW thinks and the idiotic propaganda comments they make to their shareholders. If GW genuinely believed that they have no target audience beyond "whoever is currently buying what we produce" then they would have gone out of business a long time ago. The truth is that GW does have a target market in mind, and it's a target market that emphasizes the collecting and modeling aspects of the hobby and neglects the actual game and its rules. This is incredibly obvious in how they run the company, they put a lot of effort into making things to collect and paint, and very little effort into making rules.
That's basically what I'm saying. But the point is that what GW considers to be their target customer is irrelevant to defining who can be considered "real" customers. Games Workshop might cater to hobbyists, but that doesn't mean that the only people who play the game are hobbyists.
And frankly I'd argue that they don't cater to hobbyists either. The same way that they alienate people who enjoy a well-made game with their gakky rules, they also alienate hobbyists with their overpriced models. The value you get from GW minis is vastly disproportionate to what you're paying for them.
TLOS =/= abstraction, by definition.
It's absolutely an abstraction, though a dumb one. That 20 guys can shoot a unit of 10 soldiers because the 20 guys have line-of-sight to half of one of the soldier's heads through a window from the other side of a map is a massive of abstraction.
The game as published by GW. If you're playing a modified version with your own LOS rules then you aren't playing 40k. This isn't some trivial thing like arguing over which units are "cheesy" and should be banned, TLOS is a fundamental game mechanic. If you remove it then you've significantly altered how the game works.
A house rule is a house rule. Saying "feth TLOS" is objectively not any different from saying "an IC can bestow Infiltrate to a squad" like the BAO does, or "you're not allowed to use Riptides." Games Workshop encourages you in their 40K rules to make any of those changes. They shouldn't encourage you to do that, they should instead have rules that aren't gak, but they do.
There really isn't. If I enjoy playing wargames then I'm going to play wargames even if someone else considers it a waste.
Exactly- if you're enjoying yourself then how it's not "masochism". I play 40K because I enjoy the aesthetic and the fluff- there are better games out there, like Warmachine, but after having played ~10 or so games of it I realized that it's just... not very interesting to me. I don't care about the setting, I don't care for the aesthetic (though Khador are pretty badass looking), and the gameplay, though objectively more balanced than 40K's, lacks its charm imo.
Check out the Iron Kingdoms RPG book. The fluff of Warmachine is actually pretty in depth and epic.
Balance has never been important for me, some of the best games I have had are games where I am "supposedly" outnumbered and out gunned.
I like to see a wide variety of armies and units, for me its not really important that some are weak against others and some are not, its this variety that has kept me interested all these years.
I can see why people would like to see it more balanced for competitive purposes, It would certainly make for more interesting tourneys when everyone is not rocking the recent meta, but as far as I am concerned, 40k has never really been about an equal fight between two equal armies and the balance does not bother me one iota.
This is coming from someone with a halfling bloodbowl team as well !!!
Rayvon wrote: Balance has never been important for me, some of the best games I have had are games where I am "supposedly" outnumbered and out gunned.
I like to see a wide variety of armies and units, for me its not really important that some are weak against others and some are not, its this variety that has kept me interested all these years.
I can see why people would like to see it more balanced for competitive purposes, It would certainly make for more interesting tourneys when everyone is not rocking the recent meta, but as far as I am concerned, 40k has never really been about an equal fight between two equal armies and the balance does not bother me one iota.
This is coming from someone with a halfling bloodbowl team as well !!!
I was a fluff player and I wanted balance because I didn't want to be the guy behind the 8-ball just because I happened to like a certain army. That's ridiculous. If you want an asymmetrical battle, do it with points, not by shafting someone because he likes Blood Angels or whatever.
Rayvon wrote: Balance has never been important for me, some of the best games I have had are games where I am "supposedly" outnumbered and out gunned.
I like to see a wide variety of armies and units, for me its not really important that some are weak against others and some are not, its this variety that has kept me interested all these years.
I can see why people would like to see it more balanced for competitive purposes, It would certainly make for more interesting tourneys when everyone is not rocking the recent meta, but as far as I am concerned, 40k has never really been about an equal fight between two equal armies and the balance does not bother me one iota.
This is coming from someone with a halfling bloodbowl team as well !!!
I would say that the only balance that really matters is that either side has a chance at winning, and are both able to have fun.
I don't mind playing a game of 400 IG infantry vs a Baneblade as a one-off for some fun, just to see how long it takes for the men to die, or for one lucky Sgt to get a meltabomb on the tank, but when all games turn into a case of "Either I win or you lose", it's not very fun.
Players not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone. It's a big game that allows plenty of scope so some reason must come in if you want a balanced game. Sometimes though it's fun to let rip!
The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone.
Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in.
And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Lanrak wrote: The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone. Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in. And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Except that, having played in 4th and 5th edition 40k, that isn't how it works.
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
The issue here is that 40k isn't balanced at all. Units within a single faction range from outright garbage to insanely good. Factions themselves range from lackluster to OP. The rules are convoluted and bogged down with special rules that don't even need to be there, and the proliferation of random charts and objectives to replace meaningful choices.
Lanrak wrote: The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone.
Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in.
And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Except that, having played in 4th and 5th edition 40k, that isn't how it works.
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
When its said that both casual and competitive players would benefit from a balanced game it means that a casual player won't be punished for bringing a fluffy list. If Casual player A brings a Blood Angels assault army, he stands a good chance of winning as opposed to the game being decided before the first dice throw. It also keeps competitive player B from bringing a super OP list that stomps A's list flat. It brings them both into a relative similar area where the power difference isn't so great.
It's not impossible and in fact, other games do it rather well. Yes, list building is still important, but what should be more important is how one uses them and not "I bring wave serpents and/or riptides, therefore I win." It should be I bring Waveserpents and/or Riptides, but I better use them as effectively as I can or I lose.
In fact, some games actually give the player bonuses for playing fluffy lists.
Lanrak wrote: The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone.
Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in.
And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Except that, having played in 4th and 5th edition 40k, that isn't how it works.
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
When its said that both casual and competitive players would benefit from a balanced game it means that a casual player won't be punished for bringing a fluffy list. If Casual player A brings a Blood Angels assault army, he stands a good chance of winning as opposed to the game being decided before the first dice throw. It also keeps competitive player B from bringing a super OP list that stomps A's list flat. It brings them both into a relative similar area where the power difference isn't so great.
It's not impossible and in fact, other games do it rather well. Yes, list building is still important, but what should be more important is how one uses them and not "I bring wave serpents and/or riptides, therefore I win." It should be I bring Waveserpents and/or Riptides, but I better use them as effectively as I can or I lose.
In fact, some games actually give the player bonuses for playing fluffy lists.
The problem in 40k, though, is that everything is fluffy. If I want to bring 10 Leman Russ tanks, that's fluffy. Of I want to bring 500 screaming conscripts with no upgrades, that's fluffy. How do you make a game in which the tanks have a chance to lose against the conscripts without making dumb artificial rules like Combined Ranged Attack?
Lanrak wrote: The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone.
Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in.
And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Except that, having played in 4th and 5th edition 40k, that isn't how it works.
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
When its said that both casual and competitive players would benefit from a balanced game it means that a casual player won't be punished for bringing a fluffy list. If Casual player A brings a Blood Angels assault army, he stands a good chance of winning as opposed to the game being decided before the first dice throw. It also keeps competitive player B from bringing a super OP list that stomps A's list flat. It brings them both into a relative similar area where the power difference isn't so great.
It's not impossible and in fact, other games do it rather well. Yes, list building is still important, but what should be more important is how one uses them and not "I bring wave serpents and/or riptides, therefore I win." It should be I bring Waveserpents and/or Riptides, but I better use them as effectively as I can or I lose.
In fact, some games actually give the player bonuses for playing fluffy lists.
The problem in 40k, though, is that everything is fluffy. If I want to bring 10 Leman Russ tanks, that's fluffy. Of I want to bring 500 screaming conscripts with no upgrades, that's fluffy. How do you make a game in which the tanks have a chance to lose against the conscripts without making dumb artificial rules like Combined Ranged Attack?
Like I said, list building is still important. You make an all anti armor army and go against an armored list, you're going to lose. This in turn actually encourages well rounded lists and within those lists it can specialize, but it should still have the basics covered. Spam lists are thus discouraged because with rare exceptions they're not really fun to play against anyway. (for me at least.) Also, play the scenario instead of straight meat grinder?
Lanrak wrote: The game developers not being idiots really should regulate the game enough for anyone.
Players imagination and creativity allow them far more freedom to let rip, than poorly defined and implemented sales pamphlets.
ftfy.
Ask 1000 40k players to develop a cool new unit for their army, and a fun scenario or two to use them in.
And you get 100 s of cool new units, and 100 s of cool new scenarios to try out.(Subjectively speaking.)
Ask 1000 40k players to write a clearly defined intuitive and engaging rule set for 40k, and you get 100s of arguments about what a 40k rule set should be.
Any group of competent gamers can make up stuff,(rules and unit profiles,) and play fun narrative games.
Players that rely on random pick up games need a decent level of game balance, that 40k fails to provide.
This is what PV and FOC are supposed to support in 40k.Enough balance to facilitate fun pick up games.
Except that, having played in 4th and 5th edition 40k, that isn't how it works.
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
When its said that both casual and competitive players would benefit from a balanced game it means that a casual player won't be punished for bringing a fluffy list. If Casual player A brings a Blood Angels assault army, he stands a good chance of winning as opposed to the game being decided before the first dice throw. It also keeps competitive player B from bringing a super OP list that stomps A's list flat. It brings them both into a relative similar area where the power difference isn't so great.
It's not impossible and in fact, other games do it rather well. Yes, list building is still important, but what should be more important is how one uses them and not "I bring wave serpents and/or riptides, therefore I win." It should be I bring Waveserpents and/or Riptides, but I better use them as effectively as I can or I lose.
In fact, some games actually give the player bonuses for playing fluffy lists.
The problem in 40k, though, is that everything is fluffy. If I want to bring 10 Leman Russ tanks, that's fluffy. Of I want to bring 500 screaming conscripts with no upgrades, that's fluffy. How do you make a game in which the tanks have a chance to lose against the conscripts without making dumb artificial rules like Combined Ranged Attack?
To me it is more than one thing. I would have selected at least two of the options in the list. Balance would involve all of the following:
1. Most units in any given codex could be fielded and effective in most games, and no option in the codex is so powerful that it is an auto take. (I am fine with a few quirky units that aren't worth their value but are fun to take in fluffy, casual games)
2. Shooting and assault based armies have roughly equal chances of winning any given game.
3. In a game involving evenly matched players, any codex can be used and have a chance of success no worse than 33%. (I don't mind having some weaker armies as some like the challenge, but if you can't win around 1 out of 3 games against an equal player, balance is lacking.
4. TAC lists can be expected to beat focused lists about 50% of the time, i.e. a list with balance between anti-infantry/anti-armor capabilities shoould be able to beat tank or infantry spam.
MWHistorian wrote:
Like I said, list building is still important. You make an all anti armor army and go against an armored list, you're going to lose. This in turn actually encourages well rounded lists and within those lists it can specialize, but it should still have the basics covered. Spam lists are thus discouraged because with rare exceptions they're not really fun to play against anyway. (for me at least.) Also, play the scenario instead of straight meat grinder?
So why can't that be said now? Why can't you just say "if you make an all Ork Boy list and go against a Titan, you're going to lose?" It's the same argument - the good stuff is still good, and if you can't deal with it, it wrecks you. And Spam lists are fluffy - why would you want to discourage them? And sometimes the scenario IS straight meatgrinder.
Selym wrote:
Give 'em fething meltabombs.
There. Meatgrinder. Chance to win.
Conscripts can't have meltabombs. I mean, I guess you could ignore the rules, and that'd be fine with me, but competitive players wouldn't like that much.
Because there are very clear and obvious under and over performers.
Just like there would be in a game of 500 conscripts vs anything. The conscripts would clearly lose to almost anything at the same points level. Except, perhaps, more conscripts.
MWHistorian wrote:
Like I said, list building is still important. You make an all anti armor army and go against an armored list, you're going to lose. This in turn actually encourages well rounded lists and within those lists it can specialize, but it should still have the basics covered. Spam lists are thus discouraged because with rare exceptions they're not really fun to play against anyway. (for me at least.) Also, play the scenario instead of straight meat grinder?
So why can't that be said now? Why can't you just say "if you make an all Ork Boy list and go against a Titan, you're going to lose?" It's the same argument - the good stuff is still good, and if you can't deal with it, it wrecks you. And Spam lists are fluffy - why would you want to discourage them? And sometimes the scenario IS straight meatgrinder.
Selym wrote:
Give 'em fething meltabombs.
There. Meatgrinder. Chance to win.
Conscripts can't have meltabombs. I mean, I guess you could ignore the rules, and that'd be fine with me, but competitive players wouldn't like that much.
Conscripts need 130 pts of platoon before they can be taken. Can't really make an army full of naught but conscripts.
Just like there would be in a game of 500 conscripts vs anything. The conscripts would clearly lose to almost anything at the same points level. Except, perhaps, more conscripts.
I don't think anyone is seriously advocating a game where anything can kill anything without any thought on list construction.
MWHistorian wrote:
Like I said, list building is still important. You make an all anti armor army and go against an armored list, you're going to lose. This in turn actually encourages well rounded lists and within those lists it can specialize, but it should still have the basics covered. Spam lists are thus discouraged because with rare exceptions they're not really fun to play against anyway. (for me at least.) Also, play the scenario instead of straight meat grinder?
So why can't that be said now? Why can't you just say "if you make an all Ork Boy list and go against a Titan, you're going to lose?" It's the same argument - the good stuff is still good, and if you can't deal with it, it wrecks you. And Spam lists are fluffy - why would you want to discourage them? And sometimes the scenario IS straight meatgrinder.
Selym wrote:
Give 'em fething meltabombs.
There. Meatgrinder. Chance to win.
Conscripts can't have meltabombs. I mean, I guess you could ignore the rules, and that'd be fine with me, but competitive players wouldn't like that much.
Conscripts need 130 pts of platoon before they can be taken. Can't really make an army full of naught but conscripts.
Just like there would be in a game of 500 conscripts vs anything. The conscripts would clearly lose to almost anything at the same points level. Except, perhaps, more conscripts.
I don't think anyone is seriously advocating a game where anything can kill anything without any thought on list construction.
Then how will it be different from now? List construction determines games now as well.
Then how will it be different from now? List construction determines games now as well.
Because there are very clear under and over performers, as I just said earlier.
To expand on that, look at a unit and determine its role. If another unit can do the same role better, for cheaper, or more roles, there's an issue.
I think we're arguing at cross purposes. I'm trying to demonstrate that variety in lists will not increase as balance increase (as some have claimed) because unless you achieve a balance where every unit is equal individually, then there will always be 'better lists' and 'worse llsts' and in the competitive environment, the 'better lists' will be ubiquitous and the worse lists will remain unplayed.
I think we're arguing at cross purposes. I'm trying to demonstrate that variety in lists will not increase as balance increase (as some have claimed) because unless you achieve a balance where every unit is equal individually, then there will always be 'better lists' and 'worse llsts' and in the competitive environment, the 'better lists' will be ubiquitous and the worse lists will remain unplayed.
In black and white terms of better and worse, sure, but that gap in a balanced game would be much, much smaller than it currently is.
If I throw down a platoon of rough riders, I shouldn't be immediately at a disadvantage.
Better balance would promote more variety, as players would be more inclined to play with a certain style or set of models to achieve the same list balance.
Then how will it be different from now? List construction determines games now as well.
Because there are very clear under and over performers, as I just said earlier.
To expand on that, look at a unit and determine its role. If another unit can do the same role better, for cheaper, or more roles, there's an issue.
I think we're arguing at cross purposes. I'm trying to demonstrate that variety in lists will not increase as balance increase (as some have claimed) because unless you achieve a balance where every unit is equal individually, then there will always be 'better lists' and 'worse llsts' and in the competitive environment, the 'better lists' will be ubiquitous and the worse lists will remain unplayed.
Ideally, every unit would have a job to do. Some units may have only one job that lends its self to a limited type of list, but still, it does it. Unit A may not be chosen very much, but not because it's job is performed by much better units, but becuase its role doesn't come up very often.
Example: Chaos codex. Mutilators are cc only, but they stink at it. They're slow, can't shoot, don't have grenades, etc. Their job can be done better by several other units and usually for a lot cheaper. Warp Talons, same thing. They're CC but are way over priced for what you get, so no on fields them. 1KSons are very limited with what they can do but cost as much as terminators. Unless someone's a masochist, they're not going to see a lot of play.
Look around. Most of what you see from chaos armies are plague marines, Obliterators and Heldrakes. It's become predictable and boring. Why? Because those are the best units and if you want to win you kind of have to take them or you're putting yourself behind the 8-ball. If the internal balance was better and everything was worth taking even if only in certain circumstances, you'd see a much greater variety of Chaos marine armies.
MWHistorian wrote:
Like I said, list building is still important. You make an all anti armor army and go against an armored list, you're going to lose. This in turn actually encourages well rounded lists and within those lists it can specialize, but it should still have the basics covered. Spam lists are thus discouraged because with rare exceptions they're not really fun to play against anyway. (for me at least.) Also, play the scenario instead of straight meat grinder?
So why can't that be said now? Why can't you just say "if you make an all Ork Boy list and go against a Titan, you're going to lose?" It's the same argument - the good stuff is still good, and if you can't deal with it, it wrecks you. And Spam lists are fluffy - why would you want to discourage them? And sometimes the scenario IS straight meatgrinder.
Selym wrote:
Give 'em fething meltabombs.
There. Meatgrinder. Chance to win.
Conscripts can't have meltabombs. I mean, I guess you could ignore the rules, and that'd be fine with me, but competitive players wouldn't like that much.
Conscripts need 130 pts of platoon before they can be taken. Can't really make an army full of naught but conscripts.
Just like there would be in a game of 500 conscripts vs anything. The conscripts would clearly lose to almost anything at the same points level. Except, perhaps, more conscripts.
I don't think anyone is seriously advocating a game where anything can kill anything without any thought on list construction.
Then how will it be different from now? List construction determines games now as well.
Except that conscripts are not a separate unit choice. THey're like dedicated transports, you need the main unit to take the extra one.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think we're arguing at cross purposes. I'm trying to demonstrate that variety in lists will not increase as balance increase (as some have claimed) because unless you achieve a balance where every unit is equal individually, then there will always be 'better lists' and 'worse llsts' and in the competitive environment, the 'better lists' will be ubiquitous and the worse lists will remain unplayed.
Except you're missing two important things here:
1) Balance doesn't mean that deliberate bad lists are viable. There will always be bad combinations (like taking a list with no anti-tank weapons in a game where tanks exist), and that's fine. Balance means that individual options are all viable in the right situations and all major archetypes have a roughly equal chance of winning, not that you can't make stupid decisions. Improving balance will never make the all-conscripts list viable because it's a stupid list, but it can increase the number of top-tier lists. And list diversity will be greatly improved if you can succeed with any reasonable strategy, not just a small number of strategies that exploit blatantly overpowered rules.
2) Diversity improves when the gap between list tiers is smaller. If list A is the clear dominant list (because it abuses overpowered rules) and list B is significantly weaker then obviously you play A, there's no reason to play B. But if the gap between them is much smaller you're giving up a lot less by taking the "weaker" list and you might even find some advantages. You might prefer its fluff, you might think it's a good choice against the current metagame even if its theoretical power is less, you might hope to exploit the fact that opponents aren't as familiar with it, etc. Or you might even decide that the community is wrong, and list B is actually better than list A. And of course in reality you have a lot more than just two lists to compare. Improving balance means replacing a metagame dominated by a few overpowered lists with a metagame where there are a lot more options for the "better list".
I think a contributing factor in the poor game balance in 40k is its near complete focus on physical damage at the exclusion of everything else.
Most players view units along the lines of 'what can they kill, what do they cost.'
Where as other games , include suppression, recon, digging in /hull down, smoke (LOS blocking,)etc .
So units can have more diverse tactical in game functions.
I agree that in the current game play some units are 'useless' .However if the depth of game play /tactical options were increased this could mitigate this .
As Peregrine pointed out , all permissible lists vs all other permissible lists , should have a reasonable chance of winning .(Between 40% and 60% of the time.)
IF the game developers are doing their job properly, in reguard to PV allocation and force composition.
(The current F.O.C is not really optimum for achieving game balance, but it is a good sales tool.)
The point I was trying to make in my last post was if the game developers define what a balanced game is,then those that want to play random pick up games can simply use this .
But those wanting to 'game in the gaps' 'make stuff up because its cool' have a solid base to work from to develop their own narrative games.
GW plc could support narrative play with 'Campaign Books' full of scenarios and 'special units for narrative play.'
You don't get to make up 'cool, new units and scenarios.' You get to play what's in the rulebook, because it's 'balanced.' So if your faction's precious superheavy tank isn't in the rulebook, then sorry, no go.
EDIT: The idea the competitive players will be happy AND casuals will be happy in a balanced rules-set is bollocks. Casual players get shouted down by the competitive players when they try to develop narrative elements. For example, if you say "In this campaign game, the tau have 2000 points attacking from all sides against 1000 points of fortified Space Marines because of an ambush," then you've made a cool scenario. However, if the Space Marine player is less casual, he will say "No, thanks. I prefer to have a chance of winning." and turn the game down.
I think you’re misrepresenting the facts on the ground. Your example above is less about “casual versus competitive (and casual losing)” and more about one player wanting a PUG (pick-up game) and the other wanting a narrative home brew scenario. I don’t see casual or competitive as being a feature, since casual players also want PUGs and competitive players are not adverse to narrative scenarios. In any case, your scenario can be fixed with proper communication between the two players.
Firstly, PUGs require a “common ground” approach, and a universal set of instructions and defined principles in order to function. Its less about “competitive” players wanting it, and more about PUG games needing it in order to function. Your example here doesn’t offer that because you essentially made up the mission because of reasons. Cool scenarios can work. You just have to build them right.
In any case, balanced rules won’t necessarily affect either approach. Whereas now, with the situation we have at the moment, the ambushed army is bound to lose because their codex is horribly out dated, whilst the ambushing party brought a dozen riptides and a knight, and blew everything apart on turn 1. Shake hands good game. the marine player is right in principle – it wont be fun for him to get blown apart in a single turn. His role in the game should amount to more than being just shot off the board for your amusement. He should be a participant as well. If he has win conditions that he can strive for though, and balanced rules that allow him a decent chance of achieving them, then I’m sure he’s fair game for playing a “scenario” mission type as opposed to a “PUG” mission type.
What we have in the above scenario is a poorly thought through, and functionally clunky rules set that really only caters to one group of players out of three. And i use that term "caters" only loosely. the narrative players will be happy to discuss what to put on the board, and regulate via self policing. This is fine for a small group of friends by the way. The same set of rules is extremely unwieldy for PUG players and also for tournament players. thats a significant portion of the playerbase. A balanced set of rules will cater for all three groups, at the same time. there is no reason that one set of well-written rules can't be applied to multiple functions. If anything, i would even argue it may be possible to break down the artificial "walls" that GW and its playing community have created with their defined tribes of players.
At the end of the day, I don’t see any reason why balanced, clearly written rules are incompatible with scenario play, narrative play, or campaign play. Define the principles in the rulebook, just as they do with Deadzone, and have rules for having a set “strike force” of (say) 3,000+ pts, from which a “strike team” is launched. Apply rules for experience, casualties, re-inforcements, repairs and maintenance etc. Done. Clearly define things. Campaigns are not favoured by a lot of people, not because they’re not competitive, but because so many are poorly made and poorly designed and thought through. They’re also extremely arbitrary, and again, lack any kind of common structure necessary to make them work as a project. It doesn’t have to be this way though. Some discipline in the design process, with clear goals and objectives, and a proper well designed structure, and you’ve got everyone on board.
So really, casual players get stuck in a corner, were 'you and your little casual friends go to play toy soldiers, while we real men play real 40k real competitive-like!' I do not wish to return to that environment.
Not really. See above. 40k is the only game that divides players into these artificial camps.
The problem in 40k, though, is that everything is fluffy. If I want to bring 10 Leman Russ tanks, that's fluffy. Of I want to bring 500 screaming conscripts with no upgrades, that's fluffy. How do you make a game in which the tanks have a chance to lose against the conscripts without making dumb artificial rules like Combined Ranged Attack?
Combined ranged attack is far from “dumb”. Its an in-game mechanic to represent a number of soldiers co-ordinating their actions rather than fighting as individuals. GW would have you roll leadership tests, and have each participant roll on a dozen “minor assist” and “major assist” tables to represent the same thing.
So why can't that be said now? Why can't you just say "if you make an all Ork Boy list and go against a Titan, you're going to lose?" It's the same argument - the good stuff is still good, and if you can't deal with it, it wrecks you. And Spam lists are fluffy - why would you want to discourage them? And sometimes the scenario IS straight meatgrinder.
Incorrect. “good stuff is still good, and if you cant deal with it, it wrecks face”. Don’t mistake this for being OP/UP. There is a difference between things being unbalanced and “poor tactical planning”. you seem to be making the mistake in thinking units can only be "good" or "bad", and that means balanced cant be acheived. I disagree. I would argue you should have well designed units from the very start. And its less of a case of "good" units or "bad" units and more of a case of them being used right.
Secondly, with regard to your example, currently, not all things are equally “good”. Some shooting options are clearly superior to other shooting options. So why take the latter?
And again, you are misrepresenting the facts on the ground. Think less “everything should be useful against everything”, and more “everything has a role to play, and can be factored into a strategy”. Even in warmachine, not everything is good against everything else. Everything has a role to play though. Its not about 500 conscripts beating down everything from bloodthirsters to titans, its about those 500 conscripts being an awesome tarpit, and being as obnoxious to remove as a phalanx of terminators, for example. Its about having a lot of “viable options”. Its about your faction having access to a variety of “questions” with which to ask your opponent, whilst also having a variety of different “answers” available to your opponents “questions”. Not all questions need have the same answers when asked. You should be able to tackle a problem by asking a variety of different “questions”, and similarly, you should be able to answer a question with a variety of different “answers”. Not all need to be identical. Do you clear out a tarpit with melee options, or ranged options? Its about not having one single list “that rules them all”.
In your case, with your 500 conscripts. In a balanced game, i can ask myself "what questions do they ask of my opponent?". I can also ask "what answers do they bring to the table"? And i can build those questions and answers into a coherent strategy. there is no reason why they cannot be part of a greater plan. there is no reason they should be better or worse than another option, merely different. best thing is that different options, and different set ups completely change what is asked and answered. It becomes a case of "how do i solve the puzzle". And everyone can do it a different way. thats variety. and thats what balance brings to the table.
Conscripts can't have meltabombs. I mean, I guess you could ignore the rules, and that'd be fine with me, but competitive players wouldn't like that much.
I think we're arguing at cross purposes. I'm trying to demonstrate that variety in lists will not increase as balance increase (as some have claimed) because unless you achieve a balance where every unit is equal individually, then there will always be 'better lists' and 'worse llsts' and in the competitive environment, the 'better lists' will be ubiquitous and the worse lists will remain unplayed
Not really. Not everything needs to be “equal individually” to be balanced. Just viable. If option A is used for function X, and option B is also used for X, but costs half as much, with added ability to do function Y, why would you use A?
It goes back to your “better” or “worse” list. Surely its fairly to look at it in the sense of having a tactical application? A unit has to be effective at its role. Fine. Its OK for a dedicated anti-tank unit (lets call it a Bear) to not be great against infantry, for example (just as its OK for 500 conscripts to come up short (ha!) against a titan)-that doesn’t make it bad. So what happens when my Bear comes up against infantry, and fails to perform? Is it an example of a “better” or “worse” list? Is the Bear “underpowered”, or is it merely “poor tactical planning” on your part? Personally, I think it’s a lot less about “better” and “worse” lists, and a lot more on “poorly utilised”. That’s a thing too. Would the Bear have been better being deployed in another position? What makes it balanced as an option is when its not far and away superior to other anti tank options, and the meta then devolves into lines of Bears facing off against each other. This is the state of play with 40k – each edition comes down to a handful of builds spamming a handful of units that are head and shoulders above the rest. No thanks.
I’d argue further that your conscript example, in an army that is “just” a human wave, is a skew build. Skew builds are outliers, and are by their nature self- limiting, as they’re extremely prone to hard counters. And while they do one thing extremely well, by definition, they’ll be extremely limited in other tactical endeavours. As such, a system will naturally self-balance towards the middle and away from them in terms of planning for tactical flexibility. TAC in 40k, DASH in WMH. A balanced game, however would allow both for the presence of those skew builds, but also have a built in flexibility that they don’t either unfairly dominate, or unfairly suffer. For example, privateer press’s two-list format allows me to run my all melee screaming horde of doom reavers (epic butcher: mad dogs of war tier list). This list has severe match up issues however, and whilst its brilliant fun, its foolish to field it against some lists. I have my other list available should my opponent have something that hard-counters it. As such, I get to play my favourite skew list, but at the same time, I’m not necessarily penalised or suffer for taking it. Same with your 500 conscripts. Take that list when there isn’t a hard counter.
Its not possible to ever balance anything, there are too many variables like the llayers experience, codex configuration and dice for example. Thats the fun, its who can shift the balancing to their use so they can beat the other person.
I think you're missing the point of balance. If you give the same player a chaos space marine army or an eldar army and he has average dice rolls, they should have about the same chance of winning. If I played 10 games with a good eldar list against various armies I would win 8 or 9 games. If I played 10 games with a good CSM list against those same armies I would win 2 or 3 games. Dice luck and player skill can't be accounted for when balancing a game. The problem is even when you take away the variables you mention, the game is horribly imbalanced almost to the point of being completely broken. It's imbalanced to the point where a weaker list from 2 or 3 books can still stomp the best lists possible from several other books. That's bad external balance. It's also imbalanced internally when the majority of books have auto include units and other units that no player with half a brain would ever take in a competitive setting. The new 7th edition codexes have improved this greatly, and hopefully the trend continues. However, I don't see how taking 6 riptides or wraithknights with minimum troops and HQ to "shift the balance in your favor" can be considered fun by anyone. That's not fun, it's repetitive and boring. I also don't see how it's "fun" to have 75% of the armies at top tables in GTs come from 2 books.
acidlemon wrote: Its not possible to ever balance anything, there are too many variables like the llayers experience, codex configuration and dice for example. Thats the fun, its who can shift the balancing to their use so they can beat the other person.
You do not understand the argument. You're referring to perfect balance, which everyone knows is basically impossible. What is very much possible however is close balance that still allows asymmetric gameplay. That is where the fun is - being able to take one of a number of factions each with multiple different viable builds and have winning being based mostly on skill and partially on luck, NOT due to which army you brought.
Not really. Not everything needs to be “equal individually” to be balanced. Just viable. If option A is used for function X, and option B is also used for X, but costs half as much, with added ability to do function Y, why would you use A?
It goes back to your “better” or “worse” list. Surely its fairly to look at it in the sense of having a tactical application? A unit has to be effective at its role. Fine. Its OK for a dedicated anti-tank unit (lets call it a Bear) to not be great against infantry, for example (just as its OK for 500 conscripts to come up short (ha!) against a titan)-that doesn’t make it bad. So what happens when my Bear comes up against infantry, and fails to perform? Is it an example of a “better” or “worse” list? Is the Bear “underpowered”, or is it merely “poor tactical planning” on your part? Personally, I think it’s a lot less about “better” and “worse” lists, and a lot more on “poorly utilised”. That’s a thing too. Would the Bear have been better being deployed in another position? What makes it balanced as an option is when its not far and away superior to other anti tank options, and the meta then devolves into lines of Bears facing off against each other. This is the state of play with 40k – each edition comes down to a handful of builds spamming a handful of units that are head and shoulders above the rest. No thanks.
This is a really good point, and one that's not really reflected in the original poll because I honestly didn't think of it at the time (or at least, didn't think of it in quite the right way). Balance in this sense means that every unit has a role to play within a list, at least theoretically. That there are no "auto-includes" or "auto-excludes", and that units are balanced power-to-points against other codices and against other units within the same codex. In some ways this ties in with list-tailoring (a unit might not have a place in a TAC list but might be a good hard-counter to something in the other codices that also rarely features in a TAC list but might show up in a tailored list, and so on). In that sense, I don't think there are any completely useless units; just units that aren't flexible enough for their points to feature in a TAC list.
I've been fascinated by the discussion, which has almost universally been constructive and interesting. What I find surprising is that, with nearly 600 votes cast, there is no clear winner among the balance options; the highest score is less than a third, and it goes to "balance between take-all-comers lists". It has easily the highest vote tally, but nowhere near majority support. If this were a parliament, we'd be trying to form a coalition government. There is clearly no real consensus on what exactly constitutes "balance" within our gaming system. Most of the options have a fair amount of support (except for deathstars, everybody hates deathstars).
A few people continue to insist that balance isn't possible, which leads me to believe that they may not have understood the purpose of the thread. They are defining balance in a narrow way, declaring impossible something that nobody else is asking for. People's definitions of balance are achievable, but maybe not all at the same time. I think this goes a long way to showing the divide within the community, and that the best you can really hope for with balance is to make 31% of people happy. I'm content to let there be no consensus on this issue, diversity of opinion makes the community richer after all, but it does give the lie somewhat to those who claim that they speak for the silent majority when they expound on the balance problems in 40k and how to fix them.
I think it is a mistake to narrow the concept of balance to one thing. Balance should involve several of the things you have listed. I would have voted for multiple options if I could and wouldn't consider the game balanced if the option I voted for had balance while the other important factors didn't.
Gwaihirsbrother wrote: I think it is a mistake to narrow the concept of balance to one thing. Balance should involve several of the things you have listed. I would have voted for multiple options if I could and wouldn't consider the game balanced if the option I voted for had balance while the other important factors didn't.
Agreed, I think the polling results come more from a confusing poll that doesn't quite cover the subject. I think office_waaagh has the right of it in his definition.
For me personally, balance is for units to be relatively close to each other in power level, so picking Unit A over Unit B is an interesting tactical option (e.g. maybe I like how Unit A looks or the fluff of Unit B fits better with my army concept) without giving up effectiveness. You should never be penalized simply for picking Unit B instead of Unit A, because Unit A is better in every way.
For me that's one of the major issues with 40k; if you pick the wrong unit choice you are basically screwed right out of the gate because you made the wrong choice, your army concept or fluff be damned. That's wrong. If I want to play let's say a fluffy Iron Warriors CSM army, I shouldn't be punished for not playing Nurgle or be told creative ways to take the Mark of Nurgle and make it apply; I should be able to field the units I want that fit my fluff and do just as well as an all-Nurgle army, albeit likely with different tactical applications.
By the same token while there will always be "superior" choices due to probability and math, there doesn't need to be a huge gap between units. There shouldn't be a "one true way" to play a particular army (e.g. all bike SM being better than most every other choice, and a fluffy Battle Company being ineffective), there should be several options that are viable with a handful of course being the "most competitive" option.
This is where a game like Warmachine (which is what I currently play) stands head and shoulders above 40k in regards to unit and faction balance; for example, the Man-o-War Shocktroopers are a largely lackluster unit compared to other choices, but they aren't bad, there are ways to make them work effectively on the table and other than high-end tournament lists (and even then sometimes a great player will take "bad" units) you will never be told when asking about them "That unit sucks, pick <Unit X> instead it's better".
Another example would be a game like Bolt Action, where you aren't penalized for taking say regular infantry versus elite paratroopers; both choices are viable based on the kind of army that you want to do.
Gwaihirsbrother wrote: I think it is a mistake to narrow the concept of balance to one thing. Balance should involve several of the things you have listed. I would have voted for multiple options if I could and wouldn't consider the game balanced if the option I voted for had balance while the other important factors didn't.
You can actually pick multiple options. I agree; balance for most people probably includes several of the features listed in the poll, which is why you can select as many as you like. For that reason, it's not accurate of me to say that less than a third of people picked "balance between TAC lists" since it's actually a third of the votes cast; maybe everyone picked that one and two others, and unanimity is closer to reality. I don't think this is the case based on the discussion, though. I do think that this demonstrates that when people say they want balance, what they're actually asking for in practical terms varies considerably from person to person.
The most powerful builds from each codex should have equal chances of beating one another.
Don't really like this because it implies poor internal balance in a codex, or that you only have one or very few options within the codex that work.
A typical "take all comers" list another from any codex should have an even chance to beat a similar list from any other codex.
This is important.
Each codex should have a "death star" unit of equal power.
Don't care about this at all.
Every codex should have a unit that provides a counter to anything you can find in another codex.
Hmm, not exactly sure about his. Every codex should have some way to counter whatever is in another codex. Whether the counter is a single unit or a combination of units doesn't matter to me.
An army that contains a balance of infantry, armour, characters, and flyers, should be the most viable build in any given codex.
Don't really agree with this one being important exactly as written. You shouldn't be forced to take flyers if you don't like them, or armor or whatever. I would phrase this in almost the opposite way. You shouldn't be overpowered by focusing on one of these options to the exclusion of others. Moderately competitive when doing so, but not dominate.
Two players that tailor their lists against one another should have even odds of winning regardless of what codex each of them uses.
I more or less agree with this, but not necessarily so. I tailor against ork foot swarm, then have nothing to deal with his vehicles and battlewagons is my problem for not being adequately prepared, not a balance problem.
An army geared for shooting and an army geared for close combat should have equal chances against one another.
Absolutely! Both aspects of the game should be able to succeed as well as a good mix of both abilities. One caveat is I don't think simple, static gunlines should be anything more than marginally competitive. Game should force some sort of movement even if nothing more than get away from that uber cc unit so it doesn't engage us immediately after destroying the other dudes, or sorry lads you need to run out there and die so that cc monster unit doesn't get to the main lines as quickly.
It was meant to be more of a "what is sufficient for the game to be considered balanced". Not necessarily what the definition of balance is in general so much as what exactly are people asking for. Is it enough that each codex can theoretically compete against every other, or should it go further and require TAC lists to be balanced against each other? If it is enough for each codex to be able to beat the others, should it require some foreknowledge of what your opponent is likely to take or should it be enough to just know what codex s/he's using? How important is internal balance vs external balance?
The point of the poll was to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions, the minimum, that people want when they ask for balance. I hope that it's at least stimulated some discussion on the matter, even if it hasn't provided a resolution. Obviously, I don't consider the poll exhaustive. It was supposed to be the starting point for discussion, not the end.
you have no idea what you're talking about. "Everyone is playing X" isn't balance, it's the result of a completely unbalanced game where X is the obvious dominant option and if you don't play X you have very little chance of winning. A balanced game would have lots of different armies because there would be a wide range of viable options and different players would have different opinions about the best way to gain an advantage over their opponents.
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